Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness

"Are you sure they're down, Dobby?"

The little elf nodded enthusiastically, his large ears flapping. "Yes, sir. We put the potion in their drinks just like you told us to, and they're all sleeping most soundly. Professor Snape fell asleep right on his desk!"

"I still wish we had Harry's map," Ginny muttered.

Neville shrugged dismissively. "We all wish a lot of things, but we're going to have to make do. Now, let's go over things one more time." He looked around at the circle of faces, then tapped his wand against the map of the school spread out on the table in front of him. "Does everyone know what names and classrooms they're taking?"

There were nods all around, and Neville made a small, satisfied noise, then held up his fake Galleon. "Something goes wrong, don't try to solve it. Squeeze it twice and get out of there. It'll turn cold for the rest of us, and that means one team has aborted and we have to be on alert. If something goes really wrong and you get caught or are about to, squeeze it four times, and it'll heat up for the rest of us --"

"-- And that means we all run back to our common rooms like we had a herd of dragons on our heels," finished Lavender.

"Exactly. Now, there's fourteen pairs of us, and only the two Carrows and Snape. Even if you count in Filch on their side, that means no matter what, twenty of us will get away. Those are good numbers, so please," he cast an imploring look at his fellow Gryffindors in particular, "no one get any ideas about trying to rescue each other if you feel the Galleon heat up. Just run. Hopefully, nothing goes wrong, but if it does, we need to save as many people as possible to keep fighting them. Please."

After a reluctant pause, a murmured chorus of 'yes' and 'all right' broke out, and he took a deep breath as he stood up from his chair, reaching into the pocket of his robes for his scarf, no longer striped with the crimson and gold of Gryffindor, but solid black. "Everyone remember to cover your faces, just in case. And take your time with the Flagrate ... we want those names carved in good and deep. These last ten days have really taken a toll on morale, and we don't want them to be able to erase what we've done before everyone's had a chance to remember what's really at stake. Ginny, do you have the Garbling Gum?"

Ginny dug into her pocket and dumped a large fistful of brightly wrapped sweets onto the table, each emblazoned with the bold "W" of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. "It'll last about an hour," she informed them, "but if you spit it out, your voice goes back to normal instantly. It doesn't taste all that bad, either. Sort of a cinnamon-minty flavor."

They each took a piece, and as he popped it into his mouth, there was a bizarre fizzing sensation, as though he had just sucked the foam off a flagon of butterbeer. When he spoke again, his voice sounded as if he were talking through a mouth organ; tinny and unnatural, neither male nor female and utterly unrecognizable. "Let's get ready, then." He checked his watch. "We move out in five minutes."

There was a flurry of activity as all around him, people made last-second checks of wands, belts, and shoelaces, wrapping scarves around their faces and unwrapping gum. Neville was pleased to see that no one looked afraid, and although his own heart was pounding, it really seemed more out of excitement than fear. It felt good to be doing this, striking out and taking a real action after almost three weeks of this new, sick parody of the school they all loved. He grinned as he imagined the looks on the faces of Snape and the Carrows in the morning when they discovered that every single classroom and the Great Hall had been emblazoned with the names of the missing, the banished, the 'undesirable' and 'impure' that they all missed so much.

He wrapped the scarf around his face, checking in the large full-length mirrors that the Room of Requirement had sprouted for the occasion to ensure that nothing but his eyes were visible. Neville made sure the knot was tight so that it wouldn't slip down if he had to move quickly, then double-checked his partner, Ernie Macmillan, before submitting to the same scrutiny. There was no room for error here. They all knew that with the Cruciatus Curse being used so freely - a dozen times in ten days, and twice on helpless little first-years! - the penalty for getting caught at something like this did not bear thinking about.

At last, with a minute to go, they were all ready. Neville shivered as he surveyed the two neat lines. They no longer bore any resemblance to the underground study group they had once been. A Chromomorphus Charm had turned their uniforms solid black, erasing any sign of house allegiance, and their faces and hair were completely hidden by scarves and the hoods of their robes. The eyes that burned out at him were hard and fiercely determined, and he nodded in satisfaction before jabbing his wand towards the ceiling. "Dumbledore's Army!"

Twenty-seven wands joined him, and the echo of the battle cry, eerie and inhuman from more than two dozen voices disguised by the magical cunning of the Weasley twins, rang through the secret room as silver sparks shot into the air. They all met in the center of the ceiling in a single, vivid burst of light that was dazzling, even blinding in its intensity.

When the last of the glare had finally faded away, the room was empty. They had vanished like ghosts into the darkness. The mission had begun. Dumbledore's Army was on the move.

OOO

Neville had never been out in the corridors this late at night before. He and Ernie didn't dare light their wands, afraid of waking unfriendly portraits or alerting some patrol that Dobby hadn't known to warn them of. In the near-total darkness, the only light spilling thinly from the crescent moon in occasional windows they passed, the familiar halls became utterly alien. Everything seemed to echo horribly, every breath, every cautious footfall impossibly loud, and he was certain that they must be making enough noise to rouse the entire castle, even though he knew otherwise.

By the time they reached the doors of the Great Hall, he could feel sweat running down the back of his neck inside his robes. It itched, but he refused to stop and remove his hood to scratch. Even with the scarf still wrapped snugly around his face, it felt like bad luck. They paused at the doors, and Neville made eye contact with Ernie, motioning silently at the hinges.

His Lieutenant nodded in understanding, and Neville raised three fingers, counting down and then flicking his wand at the huge brass hinges, concentrating with all his might on the silencing charm. He had never been great with non-verbal spells, and he crossed his fingers as they each took hold of a handle. Holding his breath, Neville pulled, and he had to stop himself from letting out a sigh of relief as the huge doors gave way without the slightest squeak or groan.

They opened the doors just enough to allow themselves to slip inside, closing them again the moment they were through. Ernie tilted his head at the bolt, a question in his eyes, but Neville shook his head. If they had to run, he didn't want to have to remember to unlock their only escape route.

The Great Hall was usually the center of activity at Hogwarts. In addition to being packed with students and staff three times a day for meals, people could always be found at the four long tables, gathering to study, read their mail, or simply socialize and exchange gossip with friends from other houses. It was like one big common room, sunlit or glowing with the warm flicker of candles bobbing above the tables, flagons of pumpkin juice and trays of tea and coffee always at hand along with whatever snacks the house elves had cooked up for the day.

Now, however, the room was utterly deserted, the tables bare; heavy and medieval-looking rather than sturdy and welcoming. The charmed ceiling was dark, forbidding, the slivered moon sliding in and out behind thick clouds that hid the stars completely. At the end of the Hall, seemingly miles away, the staff table stood like a judge's bench, staring down at them across the huge, terribly exposed expanse of stone floor.

Taking a deep breath, Neville motioned to Ernie, and the two boys split up, crouching low and scurrying almost on hands and knees along the edges of the room beneath the tall windows. When they finally met at the far end of the Hall behind the staff table, he felt as though they had been reunited after a long and perilous journey, and by the wild relief in Ernie's eyes, he knew that he was not the only one.

Even when he had broken into the Department of Mysteries with Harry, Neville had never felt this on edge. Then, for all the fear, it had been easy simply to trust that Harry knew best, and by the time that was proven to be terribly wrong, they were in a fight for their lives. The strange thing was, he couldn't decide if he hated the sensation or loved it, this hyper-extended world where every breath seemed to have weight, every moment a palpable potential for so much to go right or unspeakably wrong.

Standing, he switched his wand to his left hand so that his handwriting would not be recognized, then pointed it at the stone wall directly above the Headmaster's chair. Flagrate, he thought, and a jet of orange light shot out of the end of his wand, shockingly vivid in the near-total darkness. At almost the same moment, Ernie did the same, aiming a few feet lower. Slowly, the fiery jets traced a path along the stones, leaving letters in their wake that burned like embedded embers, spelling out first letters, then words.

Long Live Harry Potter

Remember Cedric Diggory

At last, their task was done, and they stood back. Their mouths were completely hidden, but he could see the grin in Ernie's eyes and knew it was mirrored in his own as they admired their handiwork. Emblazoned above Snape's ill-gotten seat of power for all to see were a mere seven words that they knew would be more than enough to cause a reaction in everyone who would fill the Hall in only a few hours.

Then the smile froze on Neville's face, and his heart seemed to stop, the blood turning to ice in his veins as a sound echoed through the still night air like the crash of a gallows' trap door. The slow, deliberate, mocking clap of hands.

Once, twice, three, four times. His hand squeezed the Galleon in the pocket of his robes, and as it began to burn, he released it. All over the school now, he knew, the rest of the D.A. would feel the heat of the coin and know that the worst had happened. They had been caught, and all he could do now was buy time, time for his friends and comrades to flee, to get to their common rooms and dormitories, to restore color to robes, change into pajamas, pretend to be sleeping in harmless innocence.

Slowly, he turned, Ernie doing the same, and it was with a horrible absence of surprise that he saw the dark figure standing in the aisle that ran up the center of the room, a smirk twisted into his thin face as he held them at wandpoint. "Out for a little evening vandalism, are we?" Snape asked mockingly.

"Hex yourself!" Ernie spat, the fury and hate in his voice clear even through the distortion of the twins' invention.

Casually, Snape flicked his wand, and they found themselves suddenly under a harsh, spotlit glare. Neville drew back, raising his hand involuntarily to shield his eyes as spots burst and danced in his vision. From somewhere beyond the blinding whiteness, Snape laughed coldly. "Neville Longbottom, I see. Your little costumes are quite effective. I can't say I recognize your friend, but I would know that flinch and cower anywhere."

Fury made the wavering green spots seem to glow red, but Ernie was the first to react, his movements a blur as he jerked his wand towards the center of the light. "Imped--"

The spell was cut off half-formed as a jet of red light struck the Hufflepuff directly in the chest, and he fell backwards, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Neville dove, taking advantage of the split-second opportunity to throw himself to cover behind the tall, heavy wooden shield of the Headmaster's chair. He didn't care what happened to him, but he knew that the longer he kept Snape there, the more chance the others had to escape. Still, he knew he had bought himself seconds at the most. Snape was only toying with him, and could toss away his feeble shelter with the merest twitch of his wand whenever he felt like it.

Desperately, Neville's mind raced through every spell he knew, searching in vain for something that could get him out of this, then suddenly, he noticed a tiny black envelope with silver lettering resting in the open fingers of Ernie's limp hand. As he recognized it, a plan came to him, reckless and half-formed, but all he had. Quickly, he spat the gum into the palm of his hand and pointed his wand at it. "Waddiwassi!"

The little yellow wad shot into the air and flew over the table, and Neville did not waste the time to look as he heard Snape's roar of outrage as the gum shot with violent precision directly up his left nostril. Barely a second later, he shouted, "Expulso!" but Neville didn't care. He had lunged, and now the little packet was in his hand, and in a single motion he tore it open and scattered the contents into the air.

The Great Hall was instantly plunged into utter, inky darkness.

For a moment, there was silence, then Snape's voice rang out, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It didn't just echo or reverberate, it issued directly from the floor beneath him, from the chair against his shoulder, as though the entire Hall were one immense wireless set. "Poor Neville. Always so very close, but always some simple, fatal flaw. Counter-clockwise instead of clockwise. Ten scoops of beetle eyes instead of a tenth of a scoop. Attempting to slip a potion to the Potions Master of fourteen years."

Neville bit his lip, letting his head slump in frustration. The awful truth was that Snape was right. He had been a fool to try and drug his old Potions teacher, and twice a fool to simply accept Dobby's word that they were all sleeping without checking himself, assuring himself that they weren't going to be undone by something as easy as pretending to be asleep. He wanted to try and answer, to defend himself, but he caught himself at the last moment.

No, no more childish errors. He says he recognized how you flinched, but he doesn't know for sure it's you, does he? That's why he's baiting you, because if you get away, he still won't know for sure who it was. He's waiting for you to say something - to defend yourself or to try and defend your friend - because he'd assume something like this would be done by Gryffindor.

He started to edge towards where he thought Ernie lay in the blindness. If he could Ennervate him and they could find a way to get past Snape while the darkness held ....

An incredibly loud groaning and scraping, as if from ten thousand old doors being forced open at once, stopped him cold, and he covered his ears against the awful, spine-shivering noise. Bizarre imaginings of what Snape had done reeled after one another, the most vivid among them the recollection of Professor Flitwick making a table do a jig in Charms. Was he about to be pummeled to death by furniture?

"Not so quickly. I can hear you moving, but you may wish to reconsider it." Once again, the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, making it impossible to know where his nemesis was. His heart hammered with the wild certainty that Snape was behind him, right behind him, about to reach down and--no. He closed his eyes, taking a long, deep breath to snuff the burgeoning panic. It made the dark better somehow to shut his eyes, creating the illusion that something would be there if he opened them.

Snape's tone was casually superior, as if he were simply in class again, informing them all of the ingredients and procedures for a potion he considered particularly elementary. "The tables and chairs in the Great Hall are extremely adaptable to the will of the Headmaster. You're a mouse, Longbottom, a mouse among lions, and you've set your own trap. You no longer know where anything is in here, not even me, not even really, I would venture, yourself. You're disoriented, uncertain, hunted. And if you touch anything now - if you so much as brush the hem of your cloak or the tip of one finger against the edge of a table - you will find it's a very ... sticky situation."

His hand tightened on his wand. He was trapped. He wanted to jump to his feet, start firing off the worst hexes and jinxes he knew, go down fighting, but he held himself back. This was cat and mouse, but, Neville thought with a grim smile, this mouse has a few tricks up his sleeve. You think you can hear me? Not anymore. Concentrating hard, he waved his wand. Muffliato!

"Potter!" Snape's voice was harsh with shock, but he quickly recovered. "So, you've come back. Taken a page from Barty Crouch, have you? I commend you. Neville was an inspired choice. But you've given yourself away. Didn't I tell you never to use my own spells against me?"

Neville had no idea what Snape was talking about, but it didn't matter. If Snape thought he was Harry under Polyjuice potion, so be it. He had to get out, and he would worry about that later. With another flick of his wand, he thought Proximitus! The wand began to vibrate in his hand, and he extended it cautiously, feeling as the vibration increased, became faster, harder as he approached something. It didn't matter what it was, touching it would mean he would be stuck there until the Peruvian Darkness Powder wore off, and he backed slowly away, using the wand to replace his eyes as he got carefully to his feet and began to move in tiny, hesitant steps towards what he hoped was the doors. If he could just get beyond the reach of the darkness...but he didn't know how far it extended, it would be so easy to wind up stuck in a corner, trapped in a dead end of tables and chairs ....

For a single regretful moment, he thought of Ernie, stunned and helpless, but he forced himself to dismiss the other boy from his thoughts. Ernie knew the risks. Better one of them escape. He took another step, sweeping the wand back and forth in front of him like a blind man, feeling the subtle changes in vibration ....

Then another voice rang out, distorted and inhuman. "Stupefy!" The red light was swallowed invisibly, but Neville could hear the spell sizzle the air, and he braced himself for the impact, for the nothingness, but there was only the muffled thud of a body hitting the floor, and then the voice again. "Aeolum!"

With the whistling howl of a winter storm, a gale blew through the room, nearly knocking Neville off his feet with its force. The hood was ripped from his head, and he felt his robes snap and ripple as he turned, curling his back to it, his hands clutching the scarf to keep it from being yanked from his face. His eyes were still closed tightly, but as the wind died down, he became aware of an indefinable difference to the quality of the darkness through the lids, and when he opened them, he found that he could see again.

The powder had been dissipated by the magical windstorm, and two figures were standing by the doors, black-robed and hooded, their faces swathed and their wands raised. Relief swelled in Neville's chest at the sight of his fellow D.A. members, even as he felt a twinge of frustration that they had disobeyed his orders. They started forward towards the dizzyingly complex maze of chairs and tables that now divided the Great Hall, and he waved his arms, motioning them back. "Don't touch anything! It's charmed! You'll stick!"

Catching his bearings more completely now, Neville realized that he had barely made it a few paces from the staff table, but more chillingly still, the crumpled, black-robed form of Professor Snape lay less than ten feet away. A bitter, vindictive thrill surged through him as he pointed his own wand at the hated teacher and added his Stunning Spell to the first, smiling as the greasy-hair figure twitched at the impact.

Crossing carefully to Ernie, his robes pulled tight around him so as not to touch anything, he placed one hand restrainingly on the Lieutenant's shoulder before tapping him with the wand. "Ennervate."

Ernie's eyes blinked open, and he started to sit up, but Neville held him back. "Snape's down. We've got to move fast, but don't touch anything. Questions later. Just run." Ernie gave a nod of understanding, and he released his hold, letting the other boy to his feet.

The sprint through the jumble of furniture was like running a minefield. Tight corners, nearly impossible angles, dead ends ... and then they were trapped again. There was no way out. Neville swore. The chairs had formed an absolute barrier, and not even Luna or Dennis could have squeezed their way past without touching anything, much less two good-sized young men. He paused a moment, certain he could hear Snape breathing behind them, that he would wake at any second.

A hand grasped his shoulder, and he turned. Ernie's eyes were gleaming with the triumph of an idea, and he made a flipping motion with his hand. "Levicorpus?"

Neville nodded, bracing himself, and the next thing he knew, it felt as though he had stepped into a snare. An invisible rope tightened around his ankle, and he was jerked bodily into the air, flying up fifteen feet above the stone floor. Ernie moved his wand carefully, and Neville floated across the barrier of chairs as if dangling improbably from a broomstick, then, with a twitch of the wand, he fell. Remembering at the last possible moment what Bagman had taught them about taking a fall, he twisted in mid air, the breath driving from him in a gasp of pain as he hit the floor shoulder-first, rolling with the impact and swaying to his knees at the feet of their two rescuers.

The taller of them had already hoisted Ernie into the air with the same spell, but he was spared the pain of such an undignified landing, rather lowered gently to fall less than a foot. Neville was already standing, but his right arm was not responding correctly, and somewhere through the adrenaline, he had a suspicion that he was probably hurt, that there was pain to come in the near future, but right now, it didn't matter. Switching his wand to his uninjured left hand, he broke into a sprint.

There was no stealth now. They crashed through the doors of the Great Hall and out into the entry way, then paused. Three sets of eyes turned to him, and he made the decision instantly, gesturing to Ernie. "Down. Common room." By the light of their wands he finally recognized the protuberant, pale eyes of Luna Lovegood, and he knew that the cobalt blue of her taller companion would belong to her partner, Terry Boot. He jerked his head towards the stairs. "Your tower. Run!"

Scarcely waiting long enough to see the three of them scatter, he flew up the stairs towards Gryffindor tower, taking them three at a time. By the time he had reached the seventh floor, he was out of breath, his head reeling, but Ginny was there, dressed in Ron's oversized pajamas as she reached out for him through the portrait hole, and then he was inside and he was on the floor and someone was ripping the scarf from his face, the robes from his shoulders.

It was Seamus, and Colin was there with Neville's pajamas in his hand. His injured shoulder screamed in protest, but Neville didn't care. Without a thought for who might be in the common room or who might see, he stripped down, grabbing the pajamas and pulling them on as he followed Seamus up to their dormitory. The covers of his four-poster were already turned back, and he jumped in, yanking them up to his chin and throwing himself down on the pillow.

He was gasping for air, his heart pounding so loud he was surprised it didn't wake students in other houses, his cheeks flushed, his entire body shaking and his shoulder throbbing with deep, burning pulses, but he was laughing. The mission was a success. Snape had no idea who he had caught after all, and they had gotten away.

He had done it. They had done it. And tomorrow ... well, that was tomorrow.

OOO

Parvati's fingers were gentle as she prodded his shoulder, but it seemed to scream at the slightest touch, and Neville pulled back, screwing up his face as he hissed in protest. She rolled her eyes, swatting him on the chest. "Oh, stop it. How am I supposed to be impressed by my brave warrior's heroic injuries if he's such a baby about them?"

Neville smiled ruefully. "You're not supposed to poke them. You're supposed to look at them and make sympathetic noises."

"Sympathetic noises won't help that sprain." She took hold of his shoulder again in an iron grip, and he gasped out loud, biting back a swear word as she aimed her wand. "Now hold still, and I'll kiss it better after."

"Kiss my mouth, not my shoulder, and we have a deal," he managed through gritted teeth.

Parvati waved her wand, then tapped it against the swollen, discolored skin, but the itching sensation of healing had barely begun when there was a knock at the door. They both froze, breathless, as Seamus climbed down from where he had been sitting on the end of his bed and answered it.

To Neville's relief, but also to his confusion, it was Professor McGonagall who entered. He could count on one hand the times their Head of House had been up to visit the tower dormitory, and he felt himself flush scarlet as he realized the position he had been caught in. It did not look good to be found awake at half-five in the morning with your shirt off and a girl sitting on your lap.

Seeming to come to the same conclusion, Parvati gave a strangled little squeak and jumped to her feet, smoothing her hair and robes awkwardly. "Professor!"

McGonagall raised an eyebrow, but did not appear in the least bit scandalized. If anything, she seemed a bit annoyed as she swept into the room and crossed to the window seat where Neville sat. "Settle down, girl. These rooms have more charms on them than Gringotts. If you'd been doing anything untoward, I'd know well enough. Still --" She paused, and what almost seemed like a sort of smile quirked her lips. "I suppose that it does mean the rumors are true."

The idea that someone might consider him to be a worthy subject of rumor had never occurred to Neville, and he gaped at her, fighting back the surge of curiosity about the gossip that had apparently been surrounding himself and Parvati. He would ask Ginny later. It didn't seem possible, however, that McGonagall had come up just to confirm schoolyard tales, and his brows drew together in curiosity. "Professor?"

She did not look at him directly, but rather past him, out the window and over the Hogwarts grounds, where the first blue light of dawn was just beginning to show, and her voice was deliberately, even excessively casual when she spoke. "Argus Filch came to see me this morning at just past four. I do not like to be awakened so early, and even less so when it is to tell me my classroom has been vandalized. Apparently, someone had carved the names 'Ronald Weasley' and 'Justin Finch-Fletchley' rather deeply into the walls. Nor was mine the only classroom so affected."

Neville tried to force an expression of innocent shock onto his face. "Really?!"

Her gaze remained steady through the window. "Indeed. Each and every one, and the Great Hall besides, and all with the names of students who are not with us this year. Professor Snape claims he came very close to catching the culprits last night, and he says he has his suspicions of who is at fault. He plans to do something about it later today."

"And do you know what he's going to do to them?" Neville tried in vain to keep his voice as casual as hers.

"I do not think it will be very pleasant, but the specifics, no." Now she did look down, seeming to notice his state of undress for the first time. He reached for his pajama top, suddenly self-conscious, but the movement caught his injured shoulder, and he stopped, grabbing at it instinctively with his other hand. She watched him silently, and he felt utterly exposed under that flinty stare. "Have you lost some weight, Mr. Longbottom?"

The question baffled him a moment, and he looked down at himself, then up at her again. "A few pounds, I guess ... not much."

"The quality of our food remains excellent, so I would assume you have taken up some sort of strenuous extra-curricular activity. Perhaps the kind that would also have injured your shoulder? Are you considering going out for Quidditch? I have never understood why so many students feel they must prepare for that in secret." Neville's eyes widened. She's offering me an alibi!

He nodded quickly. "Um ... yeah."

"I will be sure to make a note of it. And Miss Patil -"

Parvati's voice was unnaturally high-pitched, and she had blushed from her collar to her hairline. "Yes, Professor?"

"I hope you understand that if Professor Snape questions me about Mr. Longbottom's whereabouts in the early hours of this morning, I will not be able to protect your reputation."

With an immense sigh of relief, Parvati nodded, smiling as her eyes shone with understanding. "Of course, Professor."

"Very well." Professor McGonagall swept her long robes around her and crossed back to the door, but at the last moment, she stopped. As she turned back, Neville caught the briefest glimpse of what she must have looked like as a very young girl as she cast them a rare, mischievous smile. "One last thing. The next time you're planning an adventure, please inform whichever of your little friends is appropriate that Mr. Finch-Fletchley hyphenates his name. I had to correct that myself."

OOO

By the time they went to breakfast, Neville's shoulder was healed well enough that he could sling his schoolbag over it with only a slight wince, but there was still a vivid yellow and green discoloration to the skin beneath his robes, and they had decided it was best to leave it that way in light of Professor McGonagall's suggestion. None of the Gryffindors in the D.A. had been able to sleep properly, and he noticed a lot of dark circles and growling stomachs as they made their way downstairs.

As the crowd grew thicker and it became clear that the students were buzzing with the excited hum of officially-suppressed news, he caught Ginny's eye, and she grinned at him. He grinned back. Whatever was waiting for him from Snape, it would definitely be worth it. The feeling of despair that had been settling over the school had vanished like a fleeting morning mist, and in its place, they seemed to have charged the very air itself with hope and defiance. All around him, the names were being murmured, but he stopped short as he heard his own name muttered in the same breath as Harry's from a Gryffindor first-year.

The child glanced up at him as she noticed, and Neville saw to his surprise the same worshipful look that he was accustomed to seeing the likes of the Creevey brothers give to Harry. As he looked around, he caught half a dozen more of the same, and not just from young Gryffindors, but from older students who weren't even in the D.A.. The Slytherins, however, were regarding him with expressions of open hate, and Blaise Zabini bumped into him rather too hard for accident, deliberately ignoring the collision, but raising his voice so that Neville clearly heard "--know we aren't responsible for such childish prank. Some people understand the value of keeping their skins intact."

It seemed that somehow, the insightful spotlight of gossip had picked him out as having had something to do with it all, and the familiar desire to duck his head and blush fought with his new instincts as a leader, and he settled for something in the middle, raising his head proudly and continuing into the Great Hall with his cheeks burning.

The moment he crossed the threshold, however, his heart stopped, and all color drained from his face. All around him, as though a Silencing Charm had been cast, conversations were trailing to a halt, and only the Slytherins seemed able to continue talking as they took their places at the tables and chairs which, he noticed vaguely, had been restored to their customary places.

Snape sat in the Headmaster's chair as they had all come to expect, his black robes spread around him, his face looking even more sallow in the golden light of the autumn morning, but there was a horrible smile on his thin lips. On the wall behind him, a newly-hung Hogwarts banner looked awkward and out of place, the fiery letters still half-visible through the thick tapestry, but that was the source of the scowls on the faces of the Carrows and the downright murderous look on Filch's cadaverous face. The source of Snape's smile stood on either side of his chair.

Luna Lovegood and Hannah Abbott.

The two girls stood at rigid attention, still in their nightgowns, gagged and immobilized by thin, magical silver ropes to a pair of gleaming stakes that had been sunk deep into the stone. They looked horribly like the etchings of witch burnings from their History textbooks, only a pile of kindling at their feet needed to complete the image. Luna seemed completely unaffected by her situation, even on the verge of dozing off, but Hannah was terrified; her eyes huge, her cheeks gleaming with tears.

You sick bastard, Neville thought fiercely, you know it was two boys, no matter what, you know it wasn't.... Then across the long room, Neville's eyes met Snape's black gaze, and he knew. If Snape had taken his victims from Gryffindor, the surprise would have been lost, but in all the rest of the school, he could have chosen no two people who would have torn into Neville's heart as deeply, no two dearer friends. Now, he would have to watch them suffer punishment he knew to be his, or come forward freely, and either way, Snape would have won. It was checkmate.

Ginny grabbed the sleeve of his robes, and Neville felt himself pulled down onto the bench, shaking in helpless anger as they all took their seats. He tried to catch McGonagall's eye, but she too appeared to be holding back more anger than he had ever seen in her, clutching her wand in her fist as she stared down at her plate as though vividly imagining Snape transfigured into something small, writhing, and very stabbable.

Food appeared in front of them, but no one moved towards it, waiting breathlessly as Snape got slowly to his feet, leaning forward and spreading his hands on the staff table as he looked out over them. "Last night," his words echoed through the silence as though he had used a Sonorus Spell, "I caught two students in this Hall committing a most ill-advised act of vandalism. They managed to escape, but they have been apprehended since."

He turned towards Hannah, and she began to struggle wildly against her bonds, a thin trickle of blood appearing on her chin as the fragile skin of her lips split under the chafing of the gag. Snape was utterly unmoved by her terror. If anything, it seemed to feed his overall attitude of satisfaction as he continued. "Miss Lovegood and Miss Abbott will be demonstrating for all of you the extreme foolishness of such actions. The Cruciatus Curse would not seem to have been enough of a deterrent, but the Carrows assure me that they have many other means of enforcing discipline which they are eager to show you."

The two squat siblings stood, tiny eyes shining with malice in their pale, doughy faces as they pushed up the sleeves of their robes and approached the bound girls, wands in hand. Alecto reached Luna first and stood only inches behind her, leaning forward and running her wand along the white cheek like a lover's caress. Their eyes met, and something in Alecto's gaze made Luna scream.

It was the final straw. Never, in all their time as friends, had he ever seen Luna Lovegood frightened. Even when they had faced certain death in the Ministry, she had been like a rock to them. No matter what she wore or what strange things she believed in, he could always count on her to face the worst with a calm detachment that made it easier for everyone around her to find their own bravery. Now she was screaming, screaming silently beneath the gag, her blue eyes impossibly huge and pleading.

Neville stood.

"No!" Parvati was yanking at his robes now, pleading with him to sit back down, but it was too late, and he would not have taken it back if he could. He shook her off and stepped into the aisle, pulling himself up to his full height as he stared unflinchingly at the man he hated more than anything else in the world. Triumph gleamed in Snape's eyes, but he did not care as he began to walk forward. He knew that the Fidelius Charm would prevent him from being able to betray the D.A., but it would not prevent him from taking what was rightfully his.

Snape tilted his head, one eyebrow raising in mock surprise. "Mr. Longbottom? Do you object to my authority as Headmaster of this school to punish troublemakers?"

"They didn't do it."

"And do you know," he sneered, "who did?"

Neville took a deep breath. "Take me. Punish me instead."

"Very noble, but there were two." Snape turned back to the Carrows, who were all but drooling over their would-be victims; human attack dogs on the thinnest of leashes. He raised his hand, but stopped as a second voice called out.

"Then take me as well. I shall be the other." Neville felt a swell of pride as Ernie Macmillan rose to his feet and joined him in the aisle.

There was a long, torturous pause, and Neville wondered suddenly if this was the punishment. To draw them out, make them admit themselves, and then go ahead and brutalize the girls anyway. Then Snape gave a wave of his wand, and the Carrows were unceremoniously pushed back from their victims. The silver bonds and stakes faded like smoke, and Hannah broke away instantly, flinging herself into Professor Sprout's open arms as she burst into tears of relief.

To everyone's surprise, Luna did not move so quickly. For a long moment, she stood there, staring at Alecto, and then she spoke, her dreamy voice unusually clear. "I do not think," she said simply, "you are a very nice person, even on the inside." Then, with a toss of her head, she joined the Ravenclaw table as though nothing had happened, reaching for a slice of toast and beginning to spread tomato sauce on it before Alecto had even finished processing what she had said.

Now Ernie and Neville stood alone, and he could feel every eye in the school upon them as Snape crossed his arms and tapped the end of his wand against his chin. "Ah, yes. The brave, chivalrous Gryffindor and the strong, loyal Hufflepuff. You must feel so proud, flinging yourselves into harm's way to save the fair maidens from a fate worse than death. But, if you are determined to make examples of yourselves, I can accommodate you."

Snape gave a twitch of his wand, and thick iron chains burst like snakes from the wall behind him, shooting forward to clamp around their wrists and ankles before either boy had a chance to react. Neville dug in his heels, struggling with all his strength, but it was utterly useless as the chains began to retract, dragging him forward until he was pressed against the cold wall beneath the words they had carved the night before. His face twisted, and he started to speak, but before the words could leave his lips, a gag had tightened around his mouth, all but choking him.

"You will remain there," Snape said smoothly, "without food or water until the damage has faded. I believe you will find that it was done quite thoroughly. It should take two or three days at least before the last has gone." Neville could hear the chains rattling as Ernie fought against his own restraints, and then he gasped beneath the gag as a sharp, burning sensation like the blade of a hot dagger ran swiftly down his back, and he was stripped naked to the waist, his torn clothing falling in a heap at his feet.

Somewhere behind him, there were muffled sobs as a few of the younger students began to cry. Then there were gasps, a few moans, and Snape's voice again. "Mr. Filch, I believe you have waited for this for a very long time."

The gag vanished, and Neville turned his head with difficulty, his cheek scraping against the rough stone as he caught Ernie's eyes in a silent pact. Then he closed his eyes, clenching his teeth and opening his hands to brace his palms against the wall.

There was a swish, a crack, a slap. Once. Twice. Three times. Again and again. A dozen times now. Two dozen. Three. Forty times in all. More were crying, older students now, and a few of the little ones were in complete hysterics. Then again. Once. Twice. Forty again.

Neither boy made a sound.