Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness

The next few weeks passed relatively uneventfully. Snape was enraged by the leaflets, but his efforts to trace even a single one of them to their source met with complete failure. In his fury, he even confiscated Neville's wand, along with a dozen others, but the charms had been in the leaflets themselves, and Priori Incantatem revealed nothing, forcing him to return the wands to their owners in defeat.

He had retaliated by reinstating Umbridge's ban on teams, societies, and clubs, but that had done nothing other than bring howls of outrage from the members of the now-disbanded Quidditch teams. The D.A. continued to meet a few times a week in the Room of Requirement, practicing spellwork and preparing their plans for the raid on Snape's office to retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor. As Colin had defiantly pointed out, they were a military force now, not a homework club, and so he had been able to look the Carrows in the eye and swear without a moment's guilt that he belonged to no such organizations, nor did he know anything about them.

Neville and Ernie had recovered fully from their punishment, and he had even joked about it with the Lieutenant, who insisted that the network of thin white scars that now crossed their backs would only prove their bravery and therefore be extremely attractive to witches. Susan Bones certainly seemed to agree with this theory. She and Ernie had finally gotten together, and were taking every opportunity to make Ron and Lavender's antics from the previous year look subtle. Neville had only barely convinced his friend that sending a thank-you note to Filch might not be an altogether good idea.

Their ordeal had also, Neville discovered, stripped away the last few pounds of lingering baby fat, and he was beginning to look forward to the training sessions with Bagman. They still left him sore for days afterwards, but it was a different kind of pain, and it was more than countered by the feeling of accomplishment as he watched himself and the other young men of the D.A. push their limits further and further, achieving levels of strength and endurance he would never have imagined himself capable of. Watching them, he felt a tremendous sense of pride, as well as a vindictive pleasure at the very unpleasant surprise they were preparing for You-Know-Who and his followers.

Six days before Halloween, the Saturday of their first Hogsmeade weekend dawned crisp and clear. The trees surrounding the grounds had erupted into a riot of color, and Neville smiled as he made his way down the stairs to join the cluster of students waiting to go into the wizarding village. He fingered the handful of money in his pocket that he had saved up from the allowance his grandmother sent him, deciding that he would probably grab a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks before embarking upon proper shopping.

Greengages had recently gotten in a shipment of Egyptian Moon Lilac seedlings, according to their advertisement in the Daily Prophet, and he figured he might drop a few Sickles on those. A new quill and a few fresh bottles of ink were a necessity, as his N.E.W.T. year was proving to involve an alarming amount of homework, and the rest of it, he knew, would almost certainly be left at Gladrags Wizardwear, considering the dwindling amount of clothing he had that still fit him properly. He shook his head as he added up Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. Maybe no butterbeer after all. It was a marvel that adult wizards ever had two Knuts to rub together, given how quickly it spent.

"Neville!" Luna bounced up on the tips of her toes, waving to him above the crowd. Beneath her winter cloak, she was wearing a very fuzzy sweater almost the exact same shade of pale blue as her eyes, and an enormous tam of the same wooly knit was perched atop her blonde hair, threatening to slip down and obscure most of her face. In place of her usual necklace of butterbeer corks, a large amulet shaped almost like a Snitch hung from a chain around her neck, and he peered at it curiously as she darted over to him.

"What's that?" He motioned at the necklace, and she fingered it, smiling dreamily.

"Daddy sent it. It's a billywig. Helps me maintain an elevated frame of mind even in the worst situations. I've been thinking that we should get them for everyone, what do you think?"

Neville cleared his throat, trying not to make eye contact as he searched for a gentle way to tell her that most of the students at Hogwarts would not be caught dead wearing such a ridiculous charm, but he was thankfully saved by the arrival of Hannah Abbott. "So, are you two going to Hogsmeade together today, or can I tag along?"

He was staring, he knew, but he couldn't help it, and he felt his cheeks beginning to flush in the kind of sheepish embarrassment he hadn't felt for weeks. Hannah was wearing a simple heather-gray sweater and blue jeans, her sandy hair loose rather than tied back in its usual pigtails, but she was practically unrecognizable. In her robes, she seemed quite plain, even a little dumpy, but he now realized that the loose black garments were simply extremely unflattering to the rather extraordinary figure they had been concealing. With a great effort, Neville tore his eyes upward to hers. "Um ..." To his horror, he found that he was completely unable to remember what she had asked.

The knowing glitter in Hannah's eyes told him that she had not in fact missed where his attention had drifted, and she giggled. "I said, can I tag along?"

"Sure." He wanted to say more, but his brain seemed to be malfunctioning due to the Confundus Charm that had clearly been placed on Hannah's sweater.

Filch had to tell him twice to empty his pockets, and he turned the wrong way under the Secrecy Sensor three times before he finally made it through the heavy oak doors and down towards the winged boars that stood sentry at the gates of the school. Some part of him was, he knew, making completely empty-headed noises of acknowledgement at the conversation the two girls were attempting to have with him, but the majority of his attention was focused on the argument that had erupted in his own head.

Hannah's PRETTY.

She's my friend, I've known her since we were eleven.

But look at her!

She doesn't know me as the hero of the D.A.. She knows me as the guy who's barely been able to keep from jinxing himself into the hospital wing for most of the last six years. I'm the sweet, kind of stupid, kind of chubby little kid who can't remember anything for more than two minutes, partners with her in Herbology, and barely belongs in the same house as the Almighty Harry Potter.

She kissed you.

She was grateful that I'd saved her from the Carrows. That's all. Besides, she didn't kiss me the way Parvati did. There's no way she'd be into me like that. She knows too much.

"So shut up!" There was a stunned silence as Hannah and Luna stopped talking abruptly and turned to look at him, matching expressions of confusion on their faces, and Neville was horrified to realize that he'd said the last bit out loud. Feeling as though his face was about to burst into flame at any moment, he ducked his head, avoiding their eyes. "Just ... thinking about ... Snape," he mumbled.

He received a long, hard stare, but then Luna shrugged, and they resumed talking about the best way to combat Lacewing Flies on Dirigible Plums. Apparently, Luna's father grew quite a large patch of them at their house, and she was eager to glean tips from his fellow star Herbology student.

As soon as they reached the village, Neville made a hasty, muttered excuse about needing to see to a few things alone and maybe meeting them later at the Three Broomsticks or something. He tried not to notice the look Hannah gave him as he dashed away, or how very much it seemed to resemble disappointment. Staying with them was simply not an option. It made his brain hurt too much.

Then he collided with someone, hard, and staggered back, the breath half knocked out of him. "I'm sorry!" he gasped. "I wasn't watching where I was - Ernie?"

"Neville! Just the man I was looking for!" Ernie was utterly unfazed at having been nearly knocked over, and slung one thick arm jovially over Neville's shoulders. "Join me in the Broomsticks, my good lad? There is a matter of the utmost importance before us!"

"Of course." He fell into step beside his friend, turning down the cobblestone alley towards the main road that led to the little pub.

Hogsmeade had changed, Neville noticed now. More of the stores were boarded up, posters of 'Undesirables' hung everywhere, offering reward money for information or capture, and he was both dismayed and rather proud to see that at least half of these bore Harry's familiar bespectacled face with the dour caption "Undesirable Number One."

The people had also changed. The locals he recognized seemed subdued - even frightened - and he spotted half a dozen witches and wizards unashamedly clad in Death Eater robes striding down the street as though they were the Lords and Ladies of a feudal kingdom. His jaw clenched as he watched them pass. Enjoy your little power trip while you can, he thought with bitter satisfaction, because your days are numbered.

The Three Broomsticks was still as bustling and packed as ever, though conversations were more cautious, and there were a greater number of rather unsavory-looking individuals scattered among the usual crowd. Ernie slipped away towards the bar to order for them, and Neville managed to find a single small table crammed into a corner that was unoccupied, unclasping his cloak and tossing it over the back of the chair before he sat.

Ernie was back shortly, and Neville blinked in surprise as he looked at the two tall pewter tankards that he set on the table in front of them. "What's this?"

"Don't worry about the gold, it's on me." He made a dismissive gesture, then lifted his tankard, taking a sip and smiling in satisfaction. "Hot oak-matured mead with a goodly toss of the best aged Firewhisky in it to give it a nip."

As he stared at the drink, Neville realized abruptly that he had come of age since the last time he had visited Hogsmeade, and that Ernie had actually turned eighteen only a few days before. Not wanting to seem naïve, he tried to appear simply surprised at the indulgence as he raised his own tankard to his lips. "Uh, thanks, that's really nice of you."

He took a swig, then coughed as the liquid scorched down his throat with alarming violence. Tears came to his eyes against his will, and his breath burned as he gasped for air. Ernie looked at him with confusion at first, then laughed. "Galloping Gargoyles, Neville, have you never -"

"If you would keep your voice down," Neville hissed through clenched teeth, "I happen to live with my Gran, who happens to be a bit of a teetotaler, and I also happen to be almost a year younger than you. I didn't turn seventeen until the very end of July ... so no, as a matter of fact, I have never."

"Blimey, I'm sorry. Would have ordered you something a bit gentler." Neville shot him a filthy look, and Ernie grinned, showing off a little as he took another deep draught of his own. "Just take it careful," he advised sagely, "if you don't know what kind of a tolerance you have for the stuff yet. I don't want to be holding your head over the gutter."

"That's nine months between us, not nine years." Steeling himself, Neville picked up the tankard again and took a hefty swallow himself. It was easier this time, both because he was ready for it and also because his throat seemed to have gone slightly numb. A warmth was beginning to spread through him, rather like Pepper-Up Potion, and the tips of his fingers and toes had begun to tingle pleasantly. "So," he asked, "what's this big important thing you had to tell me?"

Ernie fished in the pocket of his robes a moment, then pulled out a small crystal box. Setting it on the table in front of him, he tapped it with his wand. The crystal shimmered and flushed to a lovely rose shade, unfolding like the petals of a flower to reveal a ring nestled on a tiny cushion of white satin, a rather impressive diamond glimmering brightly even in the dim light. "Goblin made, cost enough that even I felt a bit of a pinch. What do you think?"

Neville stared in amazement at the ring, then looked up at his friend, eyes wide. "Susan?"

"Who the bleeding hell else?" Ernie seemed rather offended at the question.

"But you're ... I mean, really, Ernie, don't you think you're a little young? And you've been seeing her less than a month!"

"Yeah, I know." He tapped the box with his wand again, and it folded back in on itself as he picked it up and returned it to his pocket before leaning in across the table, his face intent. "But it's there. I mean, I've certainly had my share of dalliances in the past, but this is different, and I do not refer merely to the vast improvement in the quality of the snogging. There's something real between us, and I'm going to marry her over Christmas if she says yes. That's why I asked you here. I want you to be Best Man."

Neville shook his head slowly, taking another pull of the mead to buy himself time. Whether or not he had ever had something like this before, he knew that he hadn't drunk nearly enough to account alone for the sense of disorientation he felt. "You're still taking this way too fast if you ask me."

Ernie's expression darkened, and he tugged the collar of his robes, pulling them away enough to expose a few tendrils of scar tissue that had curled onto the top of his shoulder. "I thought you would understand better than anyone that we might not have the luxury of years to wait." He let go and took a drink before continuing. "Odds are she'll be my widow within a few months of being my wife anyway."

"Are you coming back to school?"

"Of course. I made a promise to the D.A., and I intend to keep it. It won't be easy, I know, but we're in the same house at least, and I'm going to want to keep it a secret from the Carrows that we're married."

There was something in Ernie's tone, a deep certainty, and Neville knew without quite knowing how that this whole thing had been thought out a lot more than it had first seemed. He nodded, extending his hand across the table and grasping his Lieutenant's firmly. "Congratulations, then. Best of luck to the both of you, and I'd be honored."

"Grand. Of course, it will all be a moot point if she says no." He shuddered a little at the thought, fingering the box in his pocket.

Neville thought of what Parvati had said the previous month, and he shook his head. "I'm pretty sure you won't have to worry about that. She went half-mad when we were ... you know. According to Parvati, she's been in love with you for ages."

"Then here's to hope, and here's to love, and damned if You-Know-Who can stop us in either." Ernie raised his tankard, and Neville clanked his own against it.

"To hope and love." As he drank, Hannah seemed to appear out of nowhere in his mind's eye, glowing and laughing, her sandy hair framing her pretty face in shining waves, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to dismiss the image with another gulp of mead. He'd gotten her out of his mind once, it was no good getting stupid again.

By the time they left the Three Broomsticks, sunset had turned the sky to the west to a vivid orange. The two young men had discovered that they both favored Puddlemere United, and they were singing the fight song together at the top of their lungs, their arms across one another's shoulders as much for support as for camaraderie.

The world didn't seem to be particularly inclined to remain level or steady to Neville, but it also seemed like a much better place overall than when he had gone in. A second tankard of spiked mead had gone down so much easier than the first, and everything had taken on an immensely friendly appearance, if also somewhat blurry. Vaguely, he was aware that he had once intended to do things, and that he was also more than probably drunk, but it didn't really seem to matter. Shopping could be tomorrow. Today, there was friendship, there was the prospect of said friend getting married with himself as the Best Man, and the entire world was grand and worth celebrating.

They were just launching into the second chorus when a hand plucked at his robes. Grinning, Neville looked down to see a hunched figure wrapped in a ragged cloak reaching for him out of the doorway of a boarded-up shop. These unfortunates had become a not-uncommon sight that summer since the Ministry crackdown on Muggle-Borns had begun, and Neville gave the beggar a sympathetic look as he dug in his pocket. "Poor bloke." His voice sounded slightly slurred as he pulled out a Galleon, barely remembering to give it a second look to ensure it was genuine. "Here. Best luck t'ya. Things'll be better soon 'nuff."

"Why, Neville Longbottom, I do suspect that you are intoxicated." The hooded face raised, and Neville was shocked to see the familiar dark eyes of Lee Jordan sparkling up at him in amusement.

"Lee!" Ernie yelped.

Lee pulled back further into the doorway, glancing around in alarm as he waved a hand furiously at the two. "Shhh! You idiot, don't yell my blasted name unless you want every Death Eater in Hogsmeade down on us!"

Casting a quick look around himself to ensure that they were still alone in the alley, Neville crouched, frowning. "Whatcha doin' here if they're lookin' for you?"

"Hoping to find someone like you. The twins and I have started an underground wireless thing, we're calling it Potterwatch." His voice was barely above a whisper, and Neville had to strain to hear him over the noise from the nearby pub. "They nearly got us last time - we managed to Apparate just as they blasted the door in, but I splinched myself something wicked, and I've got to find somewhere to lie low for a while." He drew back the filthy, ragged robes, and Neville recoiled when he saw that Lee's entire calf was gone, the unnaturally narrow remains of his leg wrapped in a makeshift bandage that was dark with dried blood.

"Can you walk?" Ernie seemed to have entirely shaken off the effects of the mead, and his voice was steady, if deeply concerned as he drew his wand and looked around them.

"No. I Apparated to the Lupins' place at first. They bandaged me up, stopped the bleeding, and Remus let me borrow these so I could seem like just another beggar, but I couldn't stay there. They're gonna be having a baby, and I'd never forgive myself if I brought Death Eaters to their door. But I'm ..." He hesitated, swallowing back his pride as he looked up at them again. "I'm in pretty bad shape. I've been here since Thursday. I knew it was a Hogsmeade weekend, so I took my chances, but I've been sleeping here in the doorway, and Madame Rosmerta gives me something after they close, but that means one meal a day and freezing my bum off at night. I could eat a Hippogriff."

Neville noticed for the first time the ashen tinge to the older youth's dark skin, how sunken his eyes and cheeks looked, and the warm, giddy feeling seemed to retreat into a vague dizziness and a certain amount of uncoordination in the way his limbs responded. "Don't worry. We'll help you." Even as he said it, he wasn't sure how, but he knew that leaving their old friend and fellow resistance fighter lying wounded in a doorway was not an option.

The door to the Three Broomsticks opened, and all three froze. A tall, blonde man in Death Eater's robes was standing in the doorway, silhouetted in the warm light that spilled out into the rapidly darkening evening as he ogled one of the pretty witches who helped Madame Rosmerta serve drinks. "C'mon, darlin'," he leered, "get yerself in good with the folks whats got power these days ... jes askin' ye ta come fer a little walk...lovely night 'n all...."

Lee seemed to have vanished entirely into the shadows, and before Neville knew what was happening, Ernie had kicked him in the back of the knees, knocking him forward onto all fours on the cobblestones. Neville's head reeled, he tried to regain his bearings, but then Ernie had one arm wrapped around his shoulders, his wand poking into Neville's neck. "Emeticus!"

Neville threw up. Spectacularly. He had never been so violently sick in his life, his entire body convulsing in great heaves as he splattered sick across half the alley. The Death Eater looked over at the sound, and as he continued to vomit uncontrollably, he could hear Ernie's voice call out apologetically from over him. "Sorry about this, my dear sir, but my companion has overindulged a bit. You might wish to take your constitutional in another direction."

"T'hell, you say?" The blonde Death Eater frowned in confusion.

"My mate got pissed, now he's sick as a dog. Best walk the other way."

With a disgusted grimace, the Death Eater closed the door, and the wand jabbed into his neck again. "Finite Incantatem."

Shaking, Neville got to his feet, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his robes as he gave Ernie the filthiest glare he could manage. "That" -- he stepped carefully around a puddle of sick and poked his friend harshly in the chest -- "was not very nice."

Ernie shrugged and gave an embarrassed little smile. "Best I could think of at the moment's notice, old chum."

Lee slid forward again from the shadow of the doorway, pushing away a long dreadlock that had fallen over his face under the hood. "You guys are going to get in trouble. I never should have -"

"I meant it that we're going to help you. I've got a plan, and it doesn't" -- he shot another pointed glare at the burly Hufflepuff -- "involve making anyone puke." Casting another quick glance at the door of the Three Broomsticks to ensure it was still closed, Neville turned towards the empty alley and called out towards what appeared to his companions to be thin air. "Mimsy!"

There was only a moment's hesitation, then with a loud crack, a house-elf stood in the little alley in front of them. She was as tiny as most of her race, plump and prim-looking, with a little web of wrinkles around her large hazel eyes and a doily of elaborately tatted lace wrapped around her like a toga, fastened at one shoulder with an immense brooch of paste gems. She curtsied deeply, not apparently fazed by finding herself in a sick-spattered alley outside a pub in Hogsmeade. "Master called?"

"Mimsy, I want you to meet Ernie Macmillan and Lee Jordan." He gestured to the two baffled-looking young wizards. "Guys, this is Mimsy, my Gran's house-elf."

"Mistress," Mimsy gave a rather disapproving sniff, "wishes Master Neville to know that she has been most worried about him. Letters from his school saying he has been very, very naughty. Mistress says if Master Neville does not write soon, she will begin sending Howlers again, and Mimsy thinks this might be embarrassing now that Master Neville is supposed to be a grown wizard."

Neville blushed and shuffled his feet. The elf, like his grandmother, had an amazing ability to make him feel perpetually as though he were six years old. "Tell Gran I'll write, I promise," he muttered.

"Mistress," the little house-elf addressed his companions with an air of infinite long-suffering patience, "puts up with much from Master Neville, but he tries to be a good boy, Merlin knows."

Lee was trying not entirely successfully to stifle giggles, and Neville felt immensely satisfied when Mimsy silenced him with one of the looks he had spent his entire childhood attempting to avoid. Taking a deep breath, he forced a somber expression onto his own face as he turned back to her. "Mimsy, tell Gran that I will be sending someone to her. His name is Lee Jordan. He looks like a beggar, but he's in disguise. He's a friend of Harry Potter and the Weasley family, and my friend too. Tell her that he's been splinched badly, and he needs help and food and a place to hide until he's strong enough to go on his way. He's being hunted by Death Eaters, so you'll have to be very careful."

Mimsy gave another low curtsy. "Mistress will be happy to help the friends of Harry Potter do anything against those nasty Death Eaters. Lee Jordan will have food and the best care and a nice bed and..." she wrinkled her button-like nose, "most certainly a hot bath as soon as possible, because Master Neville's friend does not smell very good."

Lee shrugged, grinning white in the gathering dark. "Hey, you try living in a doorway for three days wearing something Remus Lupin had consigned to the rag bag."

To his shock, Mimsy swatted him swiftly upside the head, and Neville barely managed to stifle a giggle. "Mistress will not take cheek, and neither will Mimsy! Lee Jordan smells bad, and Lee Jordan will be washed and fed, and he will be grateful!"

"I'm sure he will, Mimsy," Neville said solemnly. "Thank you, and send Gran my love. Tell her I'm fine."

"Yes, Master Neville." With another deep curtsy, Mimsy took the collar of Lee's robes in the very tips of her fingers, then there was another loud crack, and Ernie and Neville were alone in the alley again.

When they finally made it back up to Hogwarts Castle, it was long past full dark, and they knew that they had missed the time they were meant to have returned by several hours. It was therefore no surprise when the double doors opened to reveal the menacing figure of Professor Snape backlit against the warm candlelight in the entry hall behind him.

They exchanged a quick look, and Neville slung an arm around Ernie's shoulders again, leaning into him sloppily. "I think our best bet is to play it like we're still toasted," he whispered, "then at least he won't think we were up to anything else." Ernie nodded, his own gait becoming more unsteady as they approached the castle and the silent, black outline that awaited them there.

"Where," the question was asked with a deadly calm, "have you gentlemen been for the past two hours?"

Neville did not hesitate as he swaggered up the steps directly towards the Headmaster, his arm still around Ernie's shoulders as they stopped on the landing, swaying slightly. He looked up at Snape with complete innocence painted over every feature, slurring his words deliberately. "Cel'bratin'."

"Celebrating what, if I may ask?"

"That whippin' us haff dead don' seem'tve made yer life 'ny eeshyer," Neville replied with a broad, insolent grin.

Two red spots appeared high on Snape's sallow cheeks as his black eyes flashed in fury, and Neville's grin widened as he jabbed his own wand unseen into Ernie's ribs beneath his robes and thought Emeticus!

Ernie's aim was beautiful.

OOO

It was almost midnight by the time Neville climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room, but he had scarcely taken a few steps when a small, redheaded figure leapt up from one of the armchairs near the fireplace and streaked towards him. Ginny hit him at a full sprint, leaping up and flinging her arms around his neck in an enormous hug. "Neville!"

He staggered backwards, hitting the wall as the breath was driven out of him, but she had wrapped herself around him like Devil's Snare, her legs clamped tightly around his waist, and he couldn't help but chuckle as he reached up and tried to pry her hands apart. "Missed me that much?"

"You ass, hardly." Her words were muffled against his neck, but the relief in her tone was still clear. "I was worried sick about you. I heard what happened." She sniffed deeply, then planted both hands on his chest and hopped off of him, pushing him to arm's length as she made a face. "I guess it's true, then. You smell like our back shed the first time Lee and the twins got a hold of a bottle of firewhisky."

"Yeah, it's true. Ernie got Snape pretty good." He grinned, savoring the memory. "You should have seen the look on his face, Ginny. I can die happy."

"We thought you might." Her expression had become somber, and her voice softened. "There's nobody here but me, Neville, you don't have to play brave. McGonagall made everyone go to bed at ten like the Carrows ordered, but she knows I'm your second, so she happened to miss me curled up in the chair. What did they do to you?"

He shrugged. "It wasn't that bad, honest. They let Crabbe and Goyle have a go at us with the Cruciatus, and that wasn't a lot of fun, sure, but I don't think Malfoy left them instructions on how to think for themselves, and their hearts weren't really in it because they thought what Ernie did was pretty funny, too. Beyond that...." Neville raised a hand, ticking off the elements of their punishment on his fingers. "Had to clean up the steps without magic, no Halloween feast, notice to all the barkeeps in Hogsmeade that we're banned from drinking for the rest of the academic year, no Hogsmeade at all tomorrow, and Ernie and I aren't allowed to see each other outside of classes any more, but that's not a big deal considering the D.A.."

Ginny seemed to consider it for a moment, then smiled. "You're right, it isn't that bad." She punched him in the ribs, and Neville had to stop himself from wincing. For a girl, she hit pretty hard. "That's for making me worry!"

"If that's for making you worry," he rubbed at the spot with a look of mock agony, "I feel sorry for Harry when he gets back."

"Oh, I've already decided what I'm going to do to him." She nodded.

"And what's that?"

"Kiss him until he can die happy, then kill him."

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Neville took off his outer robe and dropped it in a pile on the floor, settling himself into one of the overstuffed armchairs. "But from what I've heard, I'm not the only one who got in trouble today. Snape said you got yourself banned from Hogsmeade altogether, but he didn't say why."

"I didn't do anything nearly as dramatic as you two." She sprawled out upside-down on the couch across from him, her bare feet dangling over the back. "Actually, they couldn't prove I'd done anything wrong, so that's why I just got the ban."

"So what was it?"

"Travers -- he's one of the Death Eaters -- caught me at the Post Office getting a package. They searched it and didn't find anything illegal. It was a new scarf, a batch of homemade cauldron cakes, a letter from my mother and a couple of underthings ... but they were really suspicious because it was addressed to Virginia Weasley at the Hogsmeade Post Office," Ginny explained.

Neville frowned. "I thought your name was Ginevra."

"It is. He guessed rightly that it was addressed like that to avoid getting to me at Hogwarts where it would be really searched, but everyone in Hogsmeade has just known me as Ginny since I was tiny, so they let me pick it up ... well, for a couple of minutes before Travers confiscated it."

She flipped over and made a truly pathetic face, her lower lip trembling as her large brown eyes welled with tears. "Oh, please, sir, I'm so sorry ... my Mummy thought they weren't letting us get packages any more, and everything's so scary right now, I miss her so much ... I just wanted a few eensy little things from home." Burying her face in her hands, she burst into loud, wailing sobs, then looked up, grinning and abruptly dry-eyed. "Worked like a charm. He gave me back the box as soon as he'd finished searching it. Even apologized. Snape didn't believe it of course, and he confiscated it for good, but I had what I wanted by then."

"Which was?" Neville leaned forward eagerly, then looked away as Ginny reached under her pajama shirt and seemed to be about to remove her bra. "Ginny!"

"Witches leave each other's personal things alone, and a wizard wouldn't know where to look." She squirmed around another moment, then pulled out two small, cloth-wrapped bundles and set them on the low table in front of the fire. They unfolded as she pulled her hand away, revealing several dozen miniscule but brightly colored boxes and parcels, the largest of them no bigger than a postage stamp. Ginny drew her wand and tapped the little pile. "Engorgio."

The pile abruptly expanded to cover the entire table, several parcels that were now easily two feet square tumbling off the sides and onto the floor. Each bore the 'W' of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and she motioned proudly at them. "Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Guaranteed Gripping Gloves, Skiving Snackboxes, Shield Shirts in four sizes, two Deflagration Deluxe packs, Decoy Detonators, Garbling Gum, Daydream Charms, a Portable Portal, Tranquilizing Teacups, U-No-Poo, Edible Dark Marks, Coding Quills, Love Potions in both standard Crush formula and Extra-Strength Infatuation, Imperceptible Ink - oh, yeah, and some Pygmy Puff treats for Arnold."

Neville let out a low whistle and shook his head slowly in amazement. "Remind me never to mess with your family."

"I'd think," she giggled, "you'd have learned that before now. But seriously -" She reached down and scooped the fallen parcels onto the larger heap. "--some of this stuff should help us figure out the last couple of things we were having trouble with for the mission. I figure one more meeting, and we should be ready to go, don't you think?"

"Probably," he nodded. "I'll call it for Monday, and if everything goes right, we should be ready to strike on Wednesday."

"Good." Ginny shuddered. "The waiting's almost worse than the idea of the actual mission at this point. I just want it over with, you know?"

"As long as we don't let ourselves get sloppy," he cautioned.

"Then you'd better make sure your forbidden friend is paying attention." She gave a sigh that was equal parts disgust and exasperation. "If I have to sit through one more meeting watching him and Susan try to crawl down each other's throats, I think I'll throw up."

Neville kicked off his shoes and picked up a box of Guaranteed Gripping Gloves, turning them over slowly to read the information on the side of the label as he spoke, trying to keep his tone casual. "He's planning to ask her to marry him. If she says yes, they're doing it over Christmas break."

"He's WHAT?" Ginny sat bolt upright, her cheeks flushing as bright as her hair. "They're barely of age!"

"I know." He shrugged. "But he's afraid they won't have a lot of time, what with what's coming at the end of the year. He said he'd rather they both live to be able to change their minds than to have one of them survive with the regret. There's kind of a point there, really."

She frowned. "But what will the Carrows -"

"They're not telling the Carrows."

"They might as well tell them the moment they put in to the Ministry for a Marriage License," she pointed out derisively.

Neville gave a sheepish little smile. "Well, that's kind of where your Dad comes in, we're hoping."

Ginny's scowl deepened. "We?"

"I'm his Best Man."

"And the part," she crossed her arms tightly over her chest, "where my Dad has something to do with this?"

"They want it to be a real marriage, but it needs to be secret, so Ernie was kind of intending to get it done in the Muggle world, but, well ... he asked Colin about it. His mom's a Squib and his Dad's straight Muggle, so he was raised in that world completely, and he says they'll need identification."

"But don't they have their birth certificates and wand registries, even if they don't have their Wizarding Licenses yet?" Ginny's glare of disapproval had been replaced with a look of confusion, and Neville, considering this to be progress, pressed on quickly.

"Colin says that's no good. They'll need Muggle identification, and I don't even know what that sort of thing would look like, but we figured your Dad could probably get a hold of some and just, you know, switch around whatever needs to be switched to put their names and birthdays and wand types and whatever else on it." He gave her a hopeful smile, and was relieved to see that she seemed to be giving it genuine consideration.

"A Muggle ID wouldn't have wand type," she said finally, "but I think you have to have a finger on it."

Neville gaped at her. "Like cut it off?"

"Only the tip, the swirly part of the skin. That heals up, you know, like when you burn it bad enough to blister and the skin all peels off." She held up her own hand, extending one finger and indicating the fleshy pad at the end. "It's different for everyone, see ... yours and mine don't have the same swirls; it's how Muggles tell each other apart when they have to be sure."

He stared at his own fingertip, surprised to find that the little pattern of ridges was indeed quite different, then shivered. "I still say cutting off your fingertip for an ID is medieval."

"Don't be judgmental. Besides, I think you only have to do it the once, and then they just match it or something." Ginny gave a little shrug and took the box of gloves from his other hand, adding it back onto the pile and tapping it with her wand again. "Reducio!" The heap shimmered a moment, then shrank back down to fit easily within the two squares of cloth which she quickly bundled again, shoving them down the front of her shirt. "Anyway, it's late. I'll talk to my dad about getting Muggle ID the next time I have a chance, but we should be getting to bed before McGonagall comes in here and throws a fit at us."

Nodding, Neville got to his feet, picking up his shoes and giving her a quick, one-armed hug. "See you tomorrow, then ... since we're both banned, maybe we can get some homework done before Monday."

"Sure, I've got a mountain of it. Oh, and Neville ..." She stopped in the doorway of the girls' dormitory, looking back over her shoulder with a smile that gleamed brightly in the dying light of the fire.

"Yeah?"

"Tell Ernie I'm not helping him because I think he should get married. I'm helping him because he puked on Snape."

OOO

"Parvati, you and Padma will be here, at this end of the hall. Hannah, you and Susan at the other end. Terry, Mike; you guys in the middle, right at the foot of the stairs going up to the office." Neville turned, looking away from the schematic drawn out on the blackboard to scan over the faces of the D.A.. "Now, this is a smaller mission than last time, just the four Command Staff for the actual break-in and the six I just named guards, but I don't want anyone thinking they've been left out because I don't like them or they're not good enough."

He took a deep breath, waving a hand at the board. "This is the riskiest thing we've ever done, or ever will do until the final battle, and the Lieutenants and I don't feel right asking anyone else to take that on. As for the others, they've been chosen off two criteria. The first is that you've probably noticed they're all seventh-years. No offense - Ginny and Luna are both six, so's Colin, so I obviously trust out of my own year - but they just know the most spells. Second, we're using two pairs of long-term best friends and a set of twins. They'll be under Disillusionment Charms and Garbling Gum, so we need people who can work together under pressure with minimal communication. Any questions so far?

Lavender raised her hand, a worried look on her face. "Why all four of you? If you get caught, we lose everyone."

"Each of us has chosen a second. Seamus, Parvati, Hannah, and Terry are ready to take over if something happens to us." Neville nodded to the four, who stood, Seamus taking a little bow, even as the others looked rather intimidated by the prospect. "As for why all four, that'll make sense in a minute. We could technically do it with two, but my Gran taught me if you absolutely need something, make sure you have more than one in case the first fails. If I wouldn't go into a test without a backup quill, I'm not going into this with just Ginny. Ernie and Luna are our backup."

Camellia Parkinson was the next to raise her hand. "So how are you getting in?"

"The weakest point of the defense is from the outside." Ginny stepped forward to stand beside him, motioning at the blackboard with her wand. The schematic of the hallway vanished, to be replaced by a floor plan of the Headmaster's office shown from above, each item clearly labeled, and vaguely glowing, multicolored auras indicating spells surrounding many of them.

"Because it's seven stories up." Camellia appeared less than pleased with Ginny's explanation, and her scowl deepened.

"With an Anti-Levitation jinx so you can't use brooms or anything like that, and the window is charmed to seal shut if anything larger than a bird touches the outside." Luna pointed to the purple glow that surrounded the cross-section of the wall, her voice utterly casual.

Colin leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "A bird! You've all become Animagi, is that it?"

Neville laughed. "Hardly. We're climbing."

"You're mental!" Romilda blurted, and a dozen heads nodded in agreement.

"Probably," Neville shrugged, smiling, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of thin black gloves, the palms of which were covered with tiny hooks like a cockleburr. "But we've got the Guaranteed Gripping Gloves from the twins, and the walls should actually give pretty good handholds."

"But the window, you said it's charmed." Camellia's hand was still in the air, utterly unconvinced.

"Portable Portal." Picking up a small box on the table, Neville opened it and pulled out what looked like a folded square of black cloth. As he shook it out, however, it was revealed to be a circle about a foot wide, paper-thin, transparent and shadowy. He placed it against the wall of the Room of Requirement, and it clung there, then expanded to about four times its size, offering them all a brief glimpse into the hallway outside, as if a door had suddenly been cut through the stone. He left it there only a few seconds, then peeled it away, folding it into its box as it shrank back down. "It's meant for interior walls, so it won't expand very far through two feet of solid stone, but it'll be just big enough for the girls to squeeze through. Thankfully, they're tiny little things, even if I wouldn't want to cross either of them in a duel. They can open the window from the inside and let me and Ernie in."

"Then what?" He was rather pleased to see that Camellia's expression of doubt had been replaced by a look of distinctly impressed curiosity.

"That's where the lovely ladies do need a touch of brawn." Ernie stepped forward, flexing his heavily muscled arms with a half-joking grin. "The case is protected against every spell in the book, and it's about an inch and a half thick, but it should give in to brute strength. We smash the case, grab the Sword, toss it out the window, and get out of there."

"It'll probably set off an alarm of some kind when we break the case," Luna acknowledged, "so we aren't taking the time to climb back down. We're using Featherlight Charms and jumping. We should float down as lightly as a sheet of parchment. After that, we'll have brooms waiting to get me, Ginny, and Neville to our towers, and Ernie is going to make a run for the kitchen door, where Dobby will be waiting to let him into his common room. Ernie's also going to give Dobby the Sword, which he's taking in here where Snape can't get it back."

Bagman let out a low, impressed whistle. "You guys have thought of everything."

"No, they haven't." Runcorn stood, casting a glance around as if ready to be attacked for daring to say such a thing, then continuing, chin thrust out pugnaciously. "What exactly do you think Snape's going to do when he finds the case smashed and the Sword missing? File a report with the Ministry and wait for the Enforcers to come take a statement and examine the scene?"

"We think he's going to go off like we've never seen before," admitted Neville. "But if we do it right, it'll be like the leaflets. He can't level anything too harsh against the entire school, nothing more than those stupid decrees Umbridge did in fifth year. But the leaflets also taught us that if we don't use wands, we can't be traced if we aren't caught. You'll notice the only wandwork is the Featherlight, which will only be on Ginny's wand, and isn't at all incriminating."

Runcorn sat back down, and Neville was rather touched to see that the scowl on the boy's features had dissolved into lines of worry. "You guys had better really hope you do it right, then."

Neville exchanged a look with his Lieutenants, then nodded, no trace of humor in his smile. "For all our sakes."

OOO

His hands were shaking. Whether it was from fear or excitement, Neville couldn't tell, but he pulled the thin black gloves over them anyway, clasping them tightly at his wrists. His heart was pounding, he felt almost light-headed, but he held his features in an expression of stony determination, knowing that he did not have the luxury of anything less. He was their leader, and tonight of all nights, he had to live up to it.

Looking around, he allowed himself to watch his fellow students turned fighters as they took their own last moments to prepare. Only Ginny, Luna, and Ernie, like himself, looked as though they were actually dressed for battle. Despite the bitter chill of the late October night, they had stripped off their loose outer robes as far too easy to become entangled in on their long climb, and their uniforms had been charmed to the same featureless black as on their first mission, scarves ready to swathe their faces, hands gloved. The guards were all dressed in sleepwear - pajamas, nightdresses, and dressing gowns - but they would be using Disillusionment Charms for concealment, and the casual clothing would be easier to explain if they were caught and needed an alibi for being out so late at night. Nonetheless, the air of something impending hung over all of them, a near physical weight suspended from a thinning thread.

Ginny had taken out the contents of the little bag she would be wearing at her waist, checking and repacking the Portable Portal, a bottle of water, an extra pair of gloves, and the handful of fireworks they had decided to bring as an emergency distraction. He had seen her do this three times already, but he said nothing. There was no need to ask her why. He had checked his own wand at least fifty times.

Luna was sitting alone, writing a letter to her father, and he wondered what his most enigmatic of friends would write at such a time. Would she be going over all the final words and loose ends like most people, or would it just be a casual note mentioned between complaints about homework and amusing class anecdotes? P.P.S. By the way, Daddy, I'm taking a terrible risk tonight, and Hannah says try Durwidge's Deterrent Spray on the plums.

Michael and Terry were reviewing spells, their faces set in expressions as forcibly defiant as he knew his own must be; the Patil twins sitting with their palms touching one another's in the motionless meditation that they had said strengthened the natural connection between them in times of great stress.

Ernie and Susan had moved off to a corner together, but it did not seem to be, as he had first suspected, a passionate last-moment snogging session. Susan was wearing the ring on her left hand now, pressing the tips of her fingers against Ernie's lips as he held her hand in his, clutching her so closely to him that it seemed as though someone were going to try and tear them apart at any moment. His lips were moving, whispering something that made tears glitter on her cheeks, or perhaps was meant to soothe them. As his head tilted, Neville caught sight of his face, and it was an expression so intimately loving and tender that he looked away, flushing as though he had committed some shameful intrusion.

His eyes scanned the room, seeking somewhere else to look, and his breath caught as they fell on Hannah. She was staring at the young couple in the corner, and her shoulders were shaking, her fists balled at her sides as if in rage, but her face bore nothing but naked pain. It confused him at first, but then he remembered that he had paired her with Susan because of the closeness of their friendship, and he knew that she must be fearing for Ernie's safety now just as much as the other girl. Without thinking, he took a step towards her, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Hannah?"

She jumped and gasped, and as she whirled to face him, something indefinable flashed through her wide green eyes in the split second before all emotion was forced out of them. "Yes?" Her voice was flat, unreadable.

"I swear I'll do everything I can to see that he's okay." He squeezed her shoulder, trying to infuse his voice with confidence that would ease her fear, but she looked away, and her body stiffened under his hand for a moment before she shrugged him off.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah." Hannah's tone remained stiff, flat, and he could think of nothing more to say. The silence hung awkwardly between them, and he slowly returned his hand to his side, not wanting to keep it hovering over her shoulder, but not really wanting to draw it back, either. He took a breath, searching for something to say, but the words stuck so far back in his throat that he didn't even know what they had wanted to be.

It was only then, as he stared uselessly at her, that Neville noticed that she was wearing the same nightgown that she had been when Snape had held her prisoner in the Great Hall. It was loose and white, with little flowers embroidered on the neckline, and a smile quirked his lips despite the darkness of the memory that followed the last time he had seen her in it. There was something ethereally feminine about it, but not at all girlish or innocent, though it rightfully should have been. "If you let your hair down, you'd look like a wingless angel."

She blushed fiercely, looking down at the floor, and Neville was shocked to find that for the second time in as many days, words had slipped out of his mouth that he had thought were only in his head. "I ... I'm ... I'm sorry," he stammered.

"It's okay." Hannah's eyes never left the floor, but her hand came up and pulled away the two ribbons that held her hair in the pigtails, and she shook her head, letting the long waves come loose over her shoulders. There was a long pause, and then she muttered, clearly embarrassed, "It's so thick, I just keep it up all the time. I didn't know you liked it down."

"It's not a big deal, really." He didn't understand why his heart was pounding so hard, why it seemed as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Neville had never felt anything like it before, and now, on the edge of a mission, was not the time for something clawing and wanting and needing that didn't even seem to know what it so desperately demanded to have begin to tear at his throat. "You're pretty either way."

She let out a little gasp, almost as if he'd hurt her, and he felt abruptly sick. He'd done something wrong, said something stupid, and now their friendship would be over, and not only that, but she'd never ... but she didn't ... and he didn't even know what, really ....

The large grandfather clock in the corner began to chime, and the entire room jumped, wands drawn from every corner. There was cry, a burst of light, and the clock blew apart, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces with a tremendous blast that rattled the walls of the Room of Requirement before the echo of the first chime had even faded. All eyes turned to Ginny, who was poised like a cat on the tips of her toes, her face stark white and her wand still held high where she had lashed it back after casting the hex. "That," she gasped, "scared me!"

There was a long pause, then Michael finally spoke, his voice still rather higher than usual despite his obvious efforts to keep it casual. "Terry, make a note: never startle Weasley."

"So." Neville took a deep breath, striding just a little too quickly to the front of the room as they all gathered. "That would mean it's eleven, and so it's time to get moving. Is everyone ready?"

Nine heads nodded in response, and he drew his wand, sending the now-familiar stream of silver sparks towards the ceiling and willing his voice to remain strong, not to crack, not to tremble as he signaled the beginning of their mission.

"Dumbledore's Army!"

OOO

"I don't think ... this was such ... a good idea ... after all." Luna's voice was as composed as always, even as she panted for air, each breath coming in a smoky puff against the cold night.

Neville couldn't help but smile, though he was breathing pretty hard himself, and he was praying for his shoulders and legs to cross the line from screaming to numb, the sweat so cold on the exposed skin at his eyes and the back of his neck that he wondered honestly if ice had begun to form. "As always, Luna, you have ... an amazing talent ... for stating the obvious."

The climb up the side of the castle had been far more difficult than they had imagined. The rough-hewn stones that had seemed like they would offer such accommodating hand and footholds actually proved a treacherous collection of tiny slides and angles; not quite enough to grab, but enough to make a foot slide down a few inches, a grip be not quite solid. There was also a flourishing crop of lichens, mosses, and slime molds that slipped and crumbled at every opportunity, and after an hour and a half of hard effort, they were only at the sixth floor, already forty-five minutes behind schedule and becoming dangerously exhausted, cold numbing their wearied fingers even further.

There had been a few close calls, and Neville had resolved to send the twins a thank-you note of epic proportions. He knew that the Gripping Gloves were the only thing that made the climb possible at all, and that they had saved his life at least three times already, clamping on to the wall as if glued there and releasing again at mere force of will. Pausing a moment, he glanced down and to his right a few feet to the second of the two smaller figures as he tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes against his shoulder. "Doing okay?"

Ginny's eyes glinted stubbornly up at him, but he could see the pain and exhaustion in the lines between her ginger brows. "I'm fine. Castle's a skrewt-faced son of a poxy hag ... but I'm fine."

"Not far now, kids. Fifteen feet, and we get to be in a nice, warm, cozy little office. I wonder if Snape's redecorated? Umbridge had that appalling fancy for fluffy kittens and chintz, but I don't know, I see him leaning more towards pickled students in jars, though he might have a charmingly framed signed photo of You-Know-Who on the desk." Ernie's words came with maddening ease, and Neville tried to force down the very-unleaderlike resentment. He knew the other youth wasn't showing off, but it was obvious that the climb had barely begun to tap his strength.

Gritting his teeth, Neville closed his eyes, forcing himself to hear Parvati and Luna's screams, to see the sick look on Dennis Creevey's face, Snape's smug smile of triumph, blood running over Ernie's shoulders, the terror in Hannah's eyes, the shattered remains of Seamus' mouth. The pain dulled, driven back by anger, determination, a desire to strike back that pushed away the cold and fatigue. His shoulders tensed, and he reached out, grabbing the ledge that separated the sixth and seventh floors and hauling himself upward.

A crack, loud and sudden as a lightning strike, shot through the still night air.

For a moment, Neville froze, certain that someone had Apparated nearby, but at almost the same instant, he knew the sound for what it was. Breaking stone.

"Don't move, either of you!" Ginny's voice was tight with terror. "Let me get to my wand. I'll repair it."

He obeyed, holding perfectly still, not even daring to breath, then Ernie's voice came from only a few feet to his left, no longer above, but directly beside him. It wasn't a warning, a plea, or even a cry of fear. Instead, it seemed almost a prayer, whispered so quietly that if he had been a foot farther away, he knew he would have heard nothing. "I'm sorry, love ..."

Another crack, not as loud but twice as ominous, and the ledge gave way. The combined weight of the two young men had been too much for the ancient stone, and it shattered under them, casting them mercilessly into the empty night.

"Microgravitas!" Luna shot the spell towards them, her own wand yanked from behind her ear, and the jet missed Neville by inches. He twisted in the air, flailing out as blind, panicking instinct erased all thoughts of technique or training.

Then he stopped, yanked to a halt with a jerk so abrupt that he thought his arm had been ripped from the socket. It was the glove. It had struck against a window sill only thirty feet below where he had fallen, and he was now dangling three stories above the ground, watching Ernie float gently to earth below him, Luna's spell having hit its mark on one of them at least. The glove was beginning to slip, his shoulder threatening to tear apart, and he reached out with his other hand, anchoring it beside the first and hauling himself up to plant his feet on the lower sill.

The perch was precarious, but it offered him a chance to rub at his burning shoulder and assess that no real damage had taken place. He looked up as he heard Ginny hiss down to them. "Stay there, we're coming!"

"No!" Neville waved her back, signaling both the girls to stop their downward climb. "Keep going, rest on the seventh-floor ledge - just strengthen it first - and wait for me. I'll be back up."

"Me too." Ernie had gotten to his feet on the grass, planting both hands on the wall as he searched for a first foothold.

"You're scrubbed." He looked down, shaking his head at his friend. "We've gone way over already. We can't wait for you to climb an extra thirty feet. I'm sorry, but this is why there were two of us. Abort and go back. That's an order, Lieutenant."

It was painful to watch the warring loyalties of a friend and soldier tear over Ernie's normally good-natured features, but finally, they resolved into a stoic acceptance, and he nodded crisply. "Yes, sir."

Sparing only a second to watch Ernie turn and disappear towards the kitchen doors, Neville looked up again along the endless towering stretch of stone that separated him once again from the seventh-floor window. There was only one way to do this, and that was, as his Gran used to say, to simply do it.

He began to climb, the stone hard and rough beneath the gloves, and his shoulder was aching ... pulsing ... throbbing. Cold air and stone against his skin. The wall against his skin. The wall. The damned stone wall. It hurt. It throbbed and ached, and he was back on the wall.

Hazel eyes, holding his, an unspoken oath not to scream, not to beg, not to cry out for mercy, because that would just make it so much worse, and there wouldn't be any mercy, they knew it. No mercy as the whip came down, again and again, tearing into wounds it had already opened, flesh already violated, raw and bleeding. Bucking against the blows, unable to stop himself, even though it made the manacles cut into his wrists, yank his legs until they trembled, barely able to support him, but the chains did that, holding him up against the unforgiving wall that scraped his face, his chest with every movement.

And then the hours, the days, the cramps that seized his muscles, the screaming agony of the stretched and tortured joints, the burning, the awful burning in his back, and those eyes still there, sharing the pain, making it bearable by knowing it, knowing the pain and the hunger and the thirst, and how they faded until you just didn't care, and all you could do was keep going, hanging against the wall, and after a while you didn't care, and old memories swam against reality, and reality itself came apart, and you didn't care, because this was just how things were, the pain and the numbness and the burning and the hollowness and the retching and don't say a word, because there's nothing to say and nothing that will matter and you don't need to say anything, because there's someone else who knows, knows what it's like to lick your own blood that runs down your wrists because it's liquid, and then to heave because your body has lost its mind from the torment and rejects what it needs so desperately.

It was just the pain and the eyes and the wall, always the wall, stone against skin, shoulder throbbing, joints aching, muscles cramping ... and then there was a hand. A girl's hand, delicate yet strong, closed around Neville's wrist, and suddenly he was back on another wall, and Luna had reached down for him, and he was there, he'd made it. They were seven stories above the grounds, outside the office window, and he pulled himself up to sit on the newly-strengthened ledge, gasping for breath as he trembled with the exertion and the throbbing ache from every muscle in his body.

His head swam, and Neville forced his eyes to remain open. He didn't remember the second climb, but he was here, and he forced himself to be utterly aware of it. A cold sweat soaked his uniform, making it cling to him like a second skin, but it was the cold of late October, and he had a mission. They had a mission, and he couldn't let them down.

"Thirsty." Neville's voice was hoarse, and he wondered if they could tell what had happened, how he'd - he wasn't sure, really - but Ginny's eyes held no sign of suspicion that he'd lost his mind as she handed over the water bottle from her bag. He took a long swallow, then passed it back, grateful to feel the thirst simply retreat like a normal thing.

"We should get moving. It's almost two," Ginny said nervously. "Are you ... do you think you're ready?"

He nodded, forcing himself to his feet again. "Get the Portal in place, and I'll help you through."

She reached into the bag and pulled out the flimsy disc, then, taking a deep breath, she smoothed it against the lichen-encrusted stone. It quavered as if struggling, then slowly stretched a few inches, finally shuddering and stopping altogether. The resultant hole - or tunnel, rather - was only about eighteen inches wide, but it bored all the way through the heavy tower, letting out a wave of warm air that smelled of candles and woodsmoke into the night.

Ginny went first, wriggling in as she angled her shoulders through the tiny opening like a snake into a drainpipe. She stopped partway, and for a heart-stopping moment Neville thought she might be stuck, then her waist vanished, her hips, and finally her legs slid smoothly through, and she was in. He let out a huge sigh of relief, fogging the air with his breath as she bounced to her feet neatly on the other side of the window and gave him a jaunty little wave. Her voice echoed oddly through the hole. "Easy as pie."

Luna started to make her way towards the Portal, but she had barely braced her hands against the sides when the window opened, and Ginny leaned out, propping her chin in her hands as if it were her own bedroom window at the Burrow. "You can both come in this way, you know."

He smiled, and it felt wonderful. Peeling the Portal from the wall, he gave Luna a boost over the windowsill, following a moment later and climbing through himself, then dropping lightly into the office before shutting it behind him.

Neville had never actually been in the Headmaster's office before. It was a large room, perfectly circular, with portraits almost completely covering the walls. Witches and wizards in various styles of robes from old-fashioned to positively ancient slumbered against their frames, while dozens of tiny, spindle-legged tables were arrayed around the room, delicate silver instruments whirring and spinning quietly, some emitting rhythmic puffs of sweetly scented smoke. And above the heavy wooden desk, over the chair, the largest portrait was of -

"Dumbledore!" Ginny almost shouted the name, dashing forward to lean against the desk as a dozen portraits startled awake. Luna spun, casting a Silencing Charm before there had been a single sleepy moan, and they looked horribly offended, waving canes and in one case an ear trumpet in indignation at her impertinence. Within his frame, their beloved old Headmaster sat up, blinking blearily and adjusting the half-moon spectacles that had been sitting awry on his crooked nose. The familiar bright blue gaze looked down at them, and his eyebrows raised as if they had simply presented him with an unexpected box of sweets rather than broken in at two in the morning.

"My goodness!" He looked around at each of them in turn. "Miss Weasley, Miss Lovegood ... and dear me, could that be little Neville Longbottom?"

No longer caring about anything but the prospect of getting the chance to talk to the teacher they all so desperately missed, Neville stripped the scarf from his face and nodded eagerly. "Yes, Professor, it's me! I've ... we've ... I mean, we've kept it up, Professor. Harry's had to go ... well, wherever you sent him, I guess, and Ron and Hermione, too, but we're not letting them have your school!"

"And you broke in here at this time of morning just to tell me that?" He sounded rather bemused, and Neville blushed.

"Um ... actually, we came in here to get the Sword of Gryffindor for Harry. You wouldn't be able to help us with that, would you?" he asked hopefully.

"Very ambitious, and extraordinarily clever of you if you've figured out what he needs it for, but alas, no. I am only a portrait, and this," he drew his wand from within one loose, flowing sleeve, "is little more than a brushstroke, rather than little more than a stick, no matter how many people may want to believe otherwise." There was something odd in his tone, but Neville had often overheard Harry complaining about Dumbledore's cryptic sayings, and he began to understand what the other boy had meant.

"How do we get it out of the case?" Luna queried. "Our original plan was to smash it."

"That will do well enough, although, I would appreciate a word with Miss Weasley while you proceed." He motioned to Ginny, and she stepped around the desk, stopping right beside the large, high-backed chair, but he beckoned her in closer, until she was finally mere inches away.

Neville wanted desperately to know what Dumbledore was whispering to her that was making such a wide array of emotions play across her face, but he knew that they were almost certainly private things that she deserved to know as Harry's girlfriend and Ron's sister, and being neither, he had no right to be nosy. Besides, as Dumbledore had pointed out, they had come for something else entirely. Looking around, he picked up a heavy iron poker from the fireplace and assessed the glass case standing on a marble pedestal next to the desk.

The Sword was larger than he had thought it would be. He had never seen it before, and somehow, his mind's eye had always pictured it as fitting neatly and heroically in the hands of a twelve-year old, really a long dagger at most. This was a proper medieval broadsword, easily almost as long as a twelve-year old, with a heavy, beautifully worked hilt encrusted with several large rubies and the name Godric Gryffindor etched down the blade itself in gold. It stood without stand or support, perfectly on end behind the thick, transparent barrier, waiting for them.

Flexing his fingers around the handle of the poker, Neville took a deep breath and planted his feet, choosing a spot in the center of the pane where he thought the case might be weaker than at the corners. He had wondered if he would still be able to do it, but being inside in the warmth with a sturdy floor beneath him and the thrill of seeing Dumbledore again - even in a portrait - was enough to charge him with a vivid new strength.

He swung the poker, swiveling to put his entire body behind the blow as he slammed the metal barb into the case. A spiderweb of cracks radiated from where he had hit, the barb now sunken deep into the once-shining surface, and he wrenched it out, striking once, twice more until the entire surface of the case was thickly networked with silvery lines and three small holes bored through. Putting the poker down now, he ducked his head and lunged into the weakened case shoulder-first, and it nearly exploded, dissolving into a glittering crash of crystalline shards that covered the floor.

Luna lunged and grabbed the Sword before it fell, its magical support gone, but before she could make another move, it happened. There was no alarm as they had assumed, but a woman's voice, cool and melodic yet utterly unfamiliar sounded from the walls themselves, "Thou beist non trewe." Luna let out a yelp of pain, dropping the Sword and yanking her hands away as if burned.

"Only a Gryffindor!" Ginny yelled, sprinting around the corner of the desk, and Neville nodded, crouching and scooping up the heavy blade as he swiveled to the window and flung it like a javelin towards the opening.

It bounced off. The window was gone, the rough-hewn walls suddenly smooth and featureless as glass, and the tables had vanished, the portraits, the instruments, everything. The office was no more, and they were trapped in a room that had become as blank and glossily black as the Department of Mysteries, only the single door that led to the staircase still remaining. It was over, Neville knew with a sick, sinking feeling, but they couldn't give up, and he grabbed the Sword from the shining floor, waving his arm at the door. "Run!"

But when they threw open the door, the steps had also changed. The stairwell was narrow and circular, but where there had clearly once been a spiral staircase, now a thousand stone hands writhed and twisted like living statues. Ginny recoiled, but Neville lowered his head and jumped into the middle of them, stomping and kicking at the fingers that snatched for his feet. "Come on, it's the only way out!"

It was too late to worry about wandwork, and he drew his wand, switching the sword to his left hand and raining jinxes and hexes down onto the hands. For a few seconds, it seemed to be working. Fingers blew away from palms, spiraling crazily through the air. Hands shriveled, shrank, froze, and twisted as the two girls added their spells to his own, but now the hands were sprouting from the walls as well, their arms growing longer, and for every one they stopped or destroyed, ten more seemed to sprout from the floor in its place.

Fingers plucked at him everywhere, and he twisted, feeling clumps of hair yanked away and clothing tear as the air filled with the sizzle and snap of spell after spell. Then Ginny screamed, and he saw that the hands had her, holding her in a grip that had frozen back to solid stone as hundreds of fingers sealed her helplessly against the wall.

He turned, but the moment had cost him, and now the hands had him as well, locking around his feet and legs, crawling their way over his back, grabbing more of his hair until the wand was ripped from his fingers, and they had closed over every inch of him, even wrapping bloodlessly around the blade of the Sword itself.

Luna lasted only seconds longer, the lightest and quickest among them, shooting hexes and curses in a dozen languages, but they pulled her feet from under her, and then she too was the prisoner of the hands.

Somewhere below, there was a battle going on, he could hear it faintly over his own pounding heartbeat and the terrible rasping and grating of the writhing stone fingers. Voices, mangled by the Garbling Gum, shouting spells he could not make out, cracks and bangs as spells struck and ricocheted, and other voices, faint but horribly familiar. He struggled harder against the entrapping hands, the Galleon in his pocket burned a hot, useless warning against his thigh, but the hands refused to yield.

He wrenched his head to the side, gasping as more hair tore away. "They're coming!"

Somehow, Ginny had kept her wand, and she twitched her fingers, the hands around her wrists preventing her any more freedom as she aimed the spell first at herself, then down the wall at her two companions turned fellow prisoners. "Disillusiory!"

A tingle went through him, then a sensation as if she had thrown an egg against his chest, cool, almost wet trickles spreading from the point the spell had hit him over his entire body, and he watched Luna and Ginny vanish as if paint had been poured over them, pale skin and black cloth now flawlessly matching the cursed hands in both color and texture.

The door opened below, and within a few seconds, a figure in black robes swept past them, his wand held lit in front of him, the hands not attacking, but lacing open palms together to provide him stairs as solid and friendly as they ever had been. Snape swept into the empty office, his black eyes narrowing as he turned, surveying the empty room. Then, with a cold, predatory look on his sallow face, he returned to the stairs.

Neville didn't dare move. He held his breath, pressing himself back into the hands deeper now, willing, hoping with a last, crazily desperate spark of possibility that Snape might not see them, might think they had escaped, that there might be any sort of chance remaining. But the Disillusionment Charm could not protect them from the fact that the hands all along the walls and floor had formed a perfectly flat interlock of fingers and palms, except in three places, where they jutted out, grasping, holding, confining their invisible prey.

Snape strode forward, a look of terrible triumph gleaming in a cold, cruel smile as he flicked his wand. Something hot seemed to spread over Neville in the same trickling sensation he had experienced a moment before, and he knew the charm had been lifted as Snape leaned in, his breath sour as he slipped the Sword from Neville's helpless grasp. "I think this is mine. As are you."