Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness

The day passed in a haze of triumph. Snape had recovered as best as he could, his eyes burning resentment even as he was forced to declare himself relieved at their miraculous survival. He had taken his revenge after returning their wands by stripping Hagrid of his keys, meaning that the gamekeeper would now have to come to him a half-dozen times a day to ask permission for access where he had once moved freely, but that was a small and petty thing, and even Hagrid knew it.

Snape had also insisted that they return to classes immediately, giving them no time to change, wash, or even eat breakfast. He had been assigned the entire two week's backlog of homework from a livid Professor Carrow in Muggle Studies, but Professor Flitwick had not only excused him from it, but given him full marks for all the missing work, and Professor Binns seemed not to have noticed he was ever missing at all, nor that he looked as though he had been through a meat grinder.

All throughout, in notes passed in classes, stolen encounters in hallways, and giddy smiles under Snape's disapproving glare at the Gryffindor table, his fellow students and D.A. members had found ways to make clear their excitement and relief at having him back. He felt for the first time the good side of his unwilling celebrity, seeing it in every glowing face, every mouthed "Way to go!", even in the back-pounding embrace from Bagman in the corridor outside Charms that had left him rather bruised. He had seen Ginny only once since that morning, and Luna not at all, but the dizzy grin she had shot him from the middle of a knot of sixth-year girls told him that she was experiencing much the same.

Even still, it was a relief to have his final class behind him. He had bolted his way through dinner and hurried up the stairs ahead of the other Gryffindors to avoid a scene in the common room, heading instead directly for the showers. As much as he appreciated their adulation, he was utterly exhausted, and all he wanted at that point was just to rest and finally get out of the reeking uniform he had been wearing for more than two weeks.

The remains of his old clothes had been whisked away while he was luxuriating under the bliss of the steaming water -- undoubtedly by a house-elf who was even now wondering how garments could wind up in such a condition -- and he was newly dressed in a pair of wonderfully clean and soft pajama bottoms and his old but comfortable bathrobe. He had taken the time to shave, managing to nick himself only once despite having a little trouble dealing with what had at some point crossed the line from stubble to a short beard, and as he rubbed at his hair with a towel and stepped out into the tower dormitory, he felt like a new person.

There was a girl on his bed. Neville stopped short, the towel falling from his hands as he blinked in disbelief. "What --?"

Before he could finish, the figure had crossed the room at a sprint, but even as he braced himself for the impact, she stopped, her hands reaching out to hover a few inches from the open front of his robe. He saw now that it was Hannah Abbott, still dressed in her own yellow-trimmed uniform, though he had not recognized her at once without the distinct outline of her signature pigtails. Her normally rosy face was pale, and she had lost weight, her cheekbones standing out more strongly beneath the wide green eyes as she stared at him with a strangely haunted look.

Worried, he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she flinched back, and he stopped, confused as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly. "I really thought ..." Her voice was hollow, strained. "Oh, Neville ... I ... I thought I'd lost you." Her eyes had closed, and her arms clutched tighter as she began to shiver.

"I fought as hard as I could. I took down Amycus, but Snape was better. We had to run. I left you. I can't forgive myself. I left you, and he caught you, and they said they were locking you up for a month. Didn't know if it was true. Didn't know if they had just locked you up, or if it was like before. If they'd hurt you. I left you. I left you, and I lost you. I left you, and I lost you. I lost you. I lost you." There was a horrible, dead rhythm to the words as she repeated them, her lips having faded to a sickly pallor, her eyes still closed as she rocked back and forth in time to her own drumbeat of regret.

"It's all right. I'm here. You didn't lose me." He spoke as gently as he could, wrapping his arms around her trembling body and pulling her in, one hand stroking her hair. "There's nothing to forgive, Hannah. It wasn't your fault."

He had expected her to cry, to burst into tears, but instead, she pushed away from him, and a flush had risen high on the pale cheeks, an almost fevered ruddiness as she tore the robe away from his shoulders with a wild look in her eyes. Neville froze, too stunned to protest as she ran her hands over every inch of exposed skin on his arms and torso, lingering over and tracing the outline of every bruise, every cut, even the thinnest scrapes and scratches. At last she came to his hands, and there she stopped, raising the punctured palms to her own face and cupping them together to bury her lips against the wounds.

Now she did look up at him, and the expression in her eyes as she kissed the places the thorns had stabbed him made his heart stop. Another kiss, deeper and without any sense of hysteria, and then he felt her warm breath on his palms as she spoke, her voice still shaking at the edges but utterly composed. "I thought I'd lost you forever."

"I know." It was stupid, he knew, and he hated himself for having nothing else to say, but his brain seemed to have stopped working, and he felt his cheeks heat, not with the familiar flush of embarrassment, but something deeper. His heart was beating fast now, and it was becoming harder to breathe as he stared into those jade-colored eyes he had known for six years without somehow ever knowing at all.

Hannah let go of his hands, but rather than letting them fall to his sides again, he found them following the line of her body to slip around her waist. Her eyes never left his, and he felt dizzy as he stared into them, noticing whirling little flecks of gold and turquoise among the green that he had never seen before. They were mesmerizing, beautiful. Her lips parted, and her voice was low but steady. "If I'm going to lose you again, I want to know why."

She kissed him. The kiss was soft and deep, filled with hunger, but completely different from anything he had ever felt with Parvati. It seemed to go beyond his mouth and his skin, gathering something deep in his chest that had been growing in a way that he hadn't even been fully aware of, and now his arms were around her, their bodies pressed together as they swayed slightly in place, her fingers sliding up the line of his shoulders to tangle in his over-long hair and pull their mouths even tighter onto one another.

It was wonderful, it was right, and he wanted it to go on forever. It seemed impossible that he had ever dismissed her as just a friend, because he knew now that she was so much more than that to him, that there was a reason her face, her voice, her eyes had come to him so many times in the dungeon cell, that he had looked to her table, sought out her face first when he had returned. It was like being drunk, spinning and giddy, but this was real, and the smooth, cool feel of her hair over the backs of his hands and the heat of her mouth and the softness of her skin was all real, and there was something in her kiss that told him that she had loved him for a long time, and that too was amazingly real.

Hannah was kissing him. The boy who partnered with her in Herbology and could barely keep from jinxing himself into the hospital wing, the stuttering, blushing, chubby little boy whom everyone made fun of when they weren't looking at him in tolerant pity. And yet, Neville realized, maybe it wasn't so crazy after all. He wasn't that child any more, and she wasn't the dowdy Hufflepuff with the pigtails who always hung back and chewed her lips when she was nervous. They had both changed, and their friendship had changed, even though he hadn't seen it until now, and somewhere along the line, that thing that had been missing between he and Parvati had appeared for her.

They kissed for what felt like blissful days before they finally broke apart, but he kept his arms around her as she lay her head against his chest, tracing her fingers gently over the lines at his ribs where the brush had snagged his skin. Her voice came in a whisper of warmth. "I love you."

"I love you too." It surprised him a little how easily it came, but it was said now, and he knew it to be true. He did love her, and as he thought about it, he realized that he had loved her for weeks, maybe even longer, though it was far easier to pinpoint when he had noticed her beauty than it was to note when the friendship itself had grown into more, and he knew now that wanting and loving a girl were as different as night and day. He had wanted Parvati. He loved Hannah.

The motion of her fingers had stopped at his words, and she pulled away enough to look up into his eyes, and for the first time, there were tears glimmering in hers. "You do?"

He nodded. "Yes, I really think I do."

"Neville ..." She kissed him again, and this time it was slower, softer, but no less intense, and he wanted to touch her, envied her hands on his skin. He wanted to be closer to her with a desperation that ached and burned almost painfully. Hannah did not protest as he pushed the robes from her shoulders, breaking the kiss only a moment to let him pull the sweater over her head, but as his hands went to the tie at her throat, pulling it loose to reach the buttons beneath, the door opened, and he froze as a stern and familiar voice sounded behind him.

"Mr. Longbottom, as pleased as I am that rumors of your demise were clearly exaggerated, neither my relief nor your new celebrity allows for carnal impropriety in the dormitories."

The two teenagers sprang apart with an audible pop as their mouths separated, and Neville felt not only his cheeks, but his entire face and neck burn with a blush so intense he thought his ears might catch fire. "P-P-Professor McGonagall!" he stammered.

She raised one eyebrow at him in reproach, then turned towards where Hannah had dropped to her knees, scrambling to pull her sweater back on without noticing it was still inside-out. "Miss Abbott, I would assume you were a willing participant, of course?" The answer was mumbled under a scarlet blush, but clearly assenting, and McGonagall nodded crisply as she regarded the two of them. "I will forgo punishment in light of the circumstances, but I am going to have to insist that you take things down to the common area. Having other students watching tends to ensure a certain modesty."

He nodded eagerly, "Yes, Professor. Sorry, Professor. Of course it does ... I mean, we will ... I mean, we won't ..."

The thin lips curved into a faint smile. "Believe it or not, Mr. Longbottom, I was young once upon a time. I know that these are difficult times, and passions run high in difficult times. I am not attempting to be an ogre, but I would caution you against moving too quickly. There are many kinds of regret." Her eyes beneath the square spectacles turned to Hannah, now fully dressed and on her feet again. "Miss Abbott, if you don't mind, I would like a word with your friend in private ... and turn your sweater right-side-out, girl, if you don't want people to talk more than they already will."

Hannah's blush deepened further still, her face now almost purple as she hurried towards the door and down the stairs that led to the common room. There was a moment of silence, then McGonagall closed the door behind her, crossing to take a seat on the foot of the nearest bed. She regarded him sternly. "You are aware, I would assume, that the young lady is in love with you."

Neville shifted nervously, pulling his robe closed and cinching the belt tightly at his waist. "Yes, ma'am."

"And your feelings for her?"

He met her eyes as boldly as he dared. "I love her."

To his surprise, a sadness came into her eyes at this, and she nodded. "I see." There was a long pause, and he felt as though she was looking not merely at him, but through him, those implacable eyes boring through to lay bare his heart and mind. "I have spoken to Miss Weasley," she said finally, "she says you have been told about your ... situation."

Neville faltered, surprised. "You mean, about me and Harry ... about the prophecy?"

She nodded. "Indeed."

"She told me I'm the only one who can kill You-Know-Who if Harry fails. Dumbledore thinks I can do it ...." He trailed off, looking down at his feet. "But I don't know. It seems like ... an awful lot."

"Your grandmother and I were friends. I knew your father quite well. It was a dreadful shame what happened to them." Her voice held a softness and compassion he had never heard before, and he looked up. "I have always believed that there was more to you than Augusta feared, but then, I have the advantage of a bit more distance than a mother who has lost her son and is hoping to get him back in her grandson. You will never be your father, Neville."

He winced at the words, at the quiet fears they seemed to confirm, but she went on. "You are your own man, not Franklin, no more than Harry is James, but both you and Harry have proven yourselves to be strong and brave in your own right. I am going to ask you something now that I have no right to do as your teacher or your Head of House, but I would ask you consider it nonetheless as coming from a friend of the family."

"Of course, Professor."

"You may wish to think about taking the same care with Miss Abbott that Harry has taken with Miss Weasley. I know that at times like these, young people tend to want to cling to each other all the more for fear of loss, and that is a perfectly understandable impulse. Last time You-Know-Who was in power, there were a dozen weddings within a week of each year ending, and you could scarcely see my desk through the birth announcements each time the owls came." He wondered if she knew about Ernie and Susan, but there was no hint of it in her expression. "I was a bit of a war bride myself."

Neville blinked incredulously. "You?"

"He was a Muggle-born. A Gryffindor, like myself, and he chose to join the RAF - that's a branch of the Muggle military - after his brother was killed in the Battle of Britain. I married him less than three hours after we'd finished our N.E.W.T. tests, and I lost him over the North Sea five weeks later." McGonagall's voice was matter-of-fact, but there was something deep in her eyes that hinted at a wound never fully healed. "I have no place to judge such things, but I want you to consider that your situation is rather different from most. Any wizard or witch in this school may lose their lives in the coming months, but you and Harry have chosen to take on an even more dangerous position. Even if it does not come to a showdown with You-Know-Who, you have still made a target of yourself through ... other choices."

"Hannah knows that," he protested. "I mean, she doesn't know about the prophecy, but she knows about the other thing. And if she does love me, it would hurt her no matter what if something happened to me ... besides, I haven't asked her to marry me."

"No matter her feelings now, if you begin a relationship with her, whether or not you decide to marry any time soon, those feelings will become stronger, and the potential loss more painful. Miss Weasley is just beginning to understand this. She knows that if there had been more between them, or if more had been promised, Harry's absence and the danger he is in would be very nearly unbearable. If you love her, by all means do your best to keep yourself in one piece, but if your feelings are real, they should not be entirely for yourself." She stood now, smoothing her robes neatly before making her way to the door.

"That is all I have to say. I hope you will take it under advisement." She placed a hand on the door, then nodded to him, the same thin smile returning to her lips. "And I am very glad to have you back in my house. Things have been distinctly less interesting since you and Miss Weasley left, and Professor Snape has been in a good mood far too often."

OOO

Hannah was waiting for him when he came down to the common room. He had pulled on his pajama top before coming downstairs, but as she looked up from where she had been sitting with Ginny next to the fireplace, he still felt utterly exposed, and he tucked his robe tighter around him as he sat down next to the two girls.

Ginny exchanged a quick, meaningful look with Hannah as she stood. "I think I'll go to bed now," she announced, "it's been a long day."

She left, and Neville slid over on the couch as Hannah curled her knees up to her chest, regarding him with an expression of wry resignation on her pretty face. "You don't look like you've come down here to start snogging again."

"No." He took a deep breath, licking his suddenly-dry lips as he reached out to take her hands. The warm glow of the firelight made her hair shine like molten gold, her eyes sparkle, and he didn't want to do this. He wanted to pull her close, to ignore the few small clusters of students doing homework at the corner tables and just kiss her, lose himself and the sickening reality of what he now knew he was in the softness of her lips, but it was impossible. "Hannah, there's something you need to know."

"Ginny already told me." She smiled ruefully. "I've known you were a hero ever since the Ministry, but it still came as kind of a shock, I'll admit."

"Then you'll understand why we can't ..." Neville trailed off, unable to finish. He didn't want to say it. Something inside him seemed to rebel, to scream out against the idea of pushing away something so wonderful before it had even really begun. It wasn't fair. He loved her, and the idea that the same people who had come to his parents' house sixteen years ago could still hurt him, could still take things from him burned with a bitter resentment that choked his throat and made it impossible to speak.

"Neville ..." Hannah's voice was quiet, but there was a gentle strength there that he had always admired in her. "I know what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it, but it's not the same."

He shook his head. "It is, don't you see? Snape and the Carrows already have me marked, and Bellatrix and the others know what I am. They destroyed my parents, and they won't be afraid to come after anyone else I love to get to me if they have to. I couldn't let them do that to you."

"And that's very noble of you, but I'm not a Gryffindor, Neville." She fingered the golden hem of her sleeve, holding it up in the firelight. "Maybe I won't be as quick to leap into danger beside you as Ginny would be, but I'm also not about to just accept that of course the noble and chivalrous path is the right one. It's worth it for me to risk being hurt a little more to know I've been there for you. What tore me apart these last weeks wasn't that I'd lost you, it was that I'd lost you because I'd left." Her eyes bore into him with an intensity that made his heart nearly stop. "Don't make me leave again."

Neville didn't know what to say. He hadn't been prepared for this, for her to refuse to accept what he was trying to do to spare her own feelings, and he stared at the little strip of yellow satin as if it would somehow explain what he should do next. "But, Hannah," he protested, "it's not the same for us as it is for Ernie and Susan -"

She cut him off with a little laugh. "I'd hope not! If you're asking me to marry you after one kiss, I'm going to have to let you down, whether or not I love you, and whether or not you're a good kisser!"

"No ..." he floundered, "... I'm not ... not to say I won't ... I mean, I might someday ... you know, if we ... I mean, I don't plan on ... not that I don't ..."

"Neville -" she had leaned in close now, and their faces were only inches apart, "-- shut up."

He did. What they had to say to each other now really didn't need words anyway.

OOO

November rolled on, and snow fell over the grounds of Hogwarts, softening the bare earth and stringing sparkling icicles to hang from the leafless branches of the trees. To an outsider, the castle appeared unchanged, but students now scurried to Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures in silent lines of steaming breath, no longer dallying or laughing, and there were no clusters of snowball fights, no snow wizards or witches with bright scarves wrapped at their necks. The reign of Snape and the Carrows had placed a heavy pall over the once-lively school, but sparks of resistance continued to flare in the darkness, and glints of defiance could be seen in even the downcast eyes.

Every restriction Umbridge had ever laid on them had been returned, and more. Students were now forbidden to speak to one another in hallways or at meals. The houses had been strictly segregated, visits between them banned, and a curfew of nine o'clock had been laid, requiring all years to be in bed with lights out by that time each night. Classes that had once been shared between two or more houses were now divided. Not only had clubs been disbanded, but all extracurricular activities had been stopped, and even bathroom visits had been limited to no more than five minutes in an attempt to prevent them from using that meager time to communicate.

Yet to Snape's fury and frustration, all the rules and regulations did nothing to stop the constant level of rebellion. He knew where it was coming from, but despite having all but attached Crabbe and Goyle to the hem of Neville's robes, he was unable to catch any sign of he, or any of the suspected D.A. members actively engaged in wrongdoing. The two additional batches of leaflets, the graffiti in the hallways announcing that Kingsley Shacklebolt had taken down three Death Eaters, the charming of the suits of armor to broadcast Potterwatch at ear-splitting volume ... it all seemed to happen entirely on its own.

Once, he had even caught Neville with a smear of lipstick down his neck and a hair ribbon of Hufflepuff yellow in his pocket on the way down for breakfast, but an interrogation of the Fat Lady had revealed no breach in security of Gryffindor tower. Snape was beginning to stalk the hallways himself, patrolling the corridors at night, his sallow face growing paler from the stress and lack of sleep, but this only seemed to fuel the rebels, and he received an anonymous gift: a Sleeping Draught, some chamomile tea, a copy of the latest Easy Listening music from the Chesterfield Charmers, and a note cheerily suggesting that these things might be useful if some remains of a conscience were giving him trouble at night and signed "You-Don't-Know-Who."

The Room of Requirement had proven to be more versatile and useful than any of them had initially expected. Neville had discovered that the trick lay in asking it for exactly what was needed, down to the tiniest detail if at all possible. The most valuable thing so far had been the ability for the door to open again into any part of the school, which had made their efforts possible now even under the new, tighter security.

As long as someone could get into the room -- usually a Ravenclaw or Gryffindor due to their closer proximity to the seventh-floor entry, and usually aided by a Disillusionment Charm or Susan's old cloak - they could open it into each common room in turn, allowing the D.A. to gather without anyone having apparently left their approved areas. Only the two Slytherins faced greater problems in joining them, but their house was not being as closely monitored as the others, and so far, though Braddock had missed several meetings, Runcorn had found a place to meet up with the magical doorway every time.

By the end of the first week in December, the disappointment of finding out that Snape had sent the Sword of Gryffindor to Gringotts for safekeeping had been entirely overshadowed by their subsequent victories, and they were beginning to feel like they might even be winning; one small, nagging step at a time.

Decorations had been banned from the rest of the school, but the Room of Requirement looked like the holiday displays of Diagon Alley had exploded, garlands and tinsel hanging from every available surface; and Neville sipped at a cup of warm eggnog Dobby had provided as he sat casually draped over one of the large couches in the Room of Requirement, Hannah's head on his lap. At the front of the room, Michael Corner and Terry Boot were giving a spirited performance of some of the unique Christmas carols they had written to be sung by the armor over the holiday season.

"Carrows roasting on an open fire,

Doxies biting at their toes.

You-Know-Who is feeling quite blue,

'Cause he knows his reign is at a close

They say that Harry Potter's on his way

Bringing Aurors here to help the D.A.

And every mother's child is gonna spy

To watch him making Amycus cry...."

Something began to heat up against Neville's thigh, and he shifted, fishing the charmed Galleon from the pocket of his trousers. The numbers along the rim had turned to letters, and he frowned as he read the message. They got me. T.R. Nudging Hannah off his lap, he sat up straight, looking around the room. Sure enough, the young Slytherin was missing, and his frown deepened.

Drawing his wand, he tapped the Galleon, and the letters glowed briefly as he sent his own message in return. Where are you?

He had to wait less than a minute before the coin heated again, and he had his answer. Hosp. wing.

Reaching down to Ernie, who was sitting on the floor with Susan in front of them, he tapped the Lieutenant on the shoulder. "Renny's in trouble," he whispered, "I need your help." He nodded his head towards an empty corner, and Ernie got to his feet, joining him away from the others, who were still absorbed in "Carrows Roasting on an Open Fire", now into the final verse with great gusto.

"What's going on?" Ernie asked.

"I don't know, exactly." He held up the Galleon. "I got a message from Renny saying 'they' had gotten him, and that he was in the hospital wing. I need to find out what's happened."

Ernie nodded in understanding, but his tone was skeptical. "Problem is, mate, they're not going to let you just casually fraternize with Slytherins, especially ones who've gotten in trouble for some reason. You're tops on Snape's list, but it's not the good one."

"I know," Neville agreed. "That's why you're going to punch me."

"Wait a second ..."

"I need to get into the hospital wing. I'll tell Madam Pomfrey I had an accident with my Charms homework, that I put a Jumping Jinx on a book and didn't get out of the way in time. I've been in there enough with backfiring homework that there won't be any problems believing me." He gave Ernie a pleading look. "Come on, we owe it to the kid."

Ernie sighed deeply, then before Neville quite knew what happened, he had cocked back one massive fist and let fly. Pain exploded through Neville's head, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his face in both hands as he gasped for air, blood pouring through his fingers to spatter the stone floor in fat, scarlet drops. "Dabbid, Erdie!" His mouth had filled with bittersweet copper, and he spat, another thick gob of red joining the growing mess on the floor. "I dik you broke by dode!"

The Hufflepuff looked at him in widely exaggerated innocence. "Dreadful thing, those homework accidents. I reckon you should get yourself to the hospital wing, old chum. That looks rather nasty."

Shooting a filthy look at his friend, Neville pulled out his handkerchief and balled it up against his gushing nose in an effort to stem the worst of the bleeding as he approached the blank wall. "I deed do go do de 'allway by Gryffiddor Dower!" he announced. Thankfully, the room seemed to understand him well enough, and when the door opened, he was standing only a few feet from the Fat Lady, who began humming rather loudly as she made an elaborate show of looking away and seeing nothing.

By the time he had made his way down to the hospital wing, the handkerchief was sodden, and he had begun to silently curse his friend for hitting him quite so hard. His entire face had begun to swell, his nose was unquestionably broken rather spectacularly, and it had begun to throb with deep, painful pulses that stabbed through his entire head. When he pushed open the door to the hospital wing, he found Madam Pomfrey bent over a single occupied bed at the far end.

She looked up as he entered, her eyes widening. "Mr. Longbottom! Good heavens, what in the name of Merlin has happened to your face?"

"Jubig Jix wed bad. 'obework." He tried to manage a sheepish smile as she pulled his hand away from his nose and surveyed the damage, clucking her tongue fussily.

"Well, it's certainly broken." She shook her head and sighed. "Nothing I haven't fixed before ... no different than what a Bludger will do to you, really -- not that you want to get me started on letting children play such a dangerous sport." Motioning him towards the opposite bed, she turned and started towards the dispensary. "You just wait here a moment. You can take the bed next to him as long as you promise not to get into some silly house nonsense."

He nodded solemnly. "I brobise."

With a satisfied little sniff, Madam Pomfrey bustled into the other room, and he hurried across to where Runcorn lay. The young Slytherin looked as if he had taken several solid hits with a Bludger himself. His entire face was swollen and discolored, his arm splinted, his ribs bandaged, and a bottle of Skele-Gro sat on the bedside table. Neville reached out a hand and gently shook the boy's shoulder. "Reddy, whad habbed?"

Runcorn rolled over gingerly, clearly in a great deal of pain as his face paled beneath the bruises and he clutched at the bandaged ribs. "They noticed I kept going missing." When he spoke, his mouth was bloody, and Neville recognized the slightly too-white shine of newly repaired teeth. "Searched my bag. Must have missed a grain, because they found a flyer." He grimaced. "Decided to teach me a lesson about house loyalty. Their teaching methods involve a lot of hitting."

"I cab see dad." Neville said. "Who wad id?"

"Crabbe and Goyle. We've all really started missing Malfoy. He kept a leash on them, but now they think they're practically Prefects ... which is a problem, because thinking is not their strong suit." Runcorn gasped as he accidentally shifted the broken arm, then gritted his teeth, bitter resentment flaring in his dark eyes. "Why couldn't they have left with him? You're not supposed to leave your pets behind at school."

Neville gave a brief chuckle, then his expression turned serious again. "Do de Carrows dow?"

Runcorn nodded. "Slughorn wasn't going to say anything. He took me up here ... I think he's sympathetic, but don't trust him. He's just a fussy old socialite in wizard robes. But Crabbe and Goyle told the Carrows, and they told my father, and ..." He hesitated, and the bravado cracked, the pain and fear leaking through at the edges of his eyes and voice. "... They're coming for me."

Before he could say anything more, Madam Pomfrey came back into the room, a goblet of potion in her hand that was sending up faint blue tendrils of steam. The boys sprang apart at the first sign of a creak from the door, and she showed no sign of having noticed anything out of the ordinary as she handed the goblet to Neville and waved her wand at his nose. "Episkey!"

Instantly, the worst of the pain subsided, and she motioned to the goblet. "This will take care of the rest of the pain, as well as the swelling and the blood in your throat and sinuses. The blood on your robes, I'm afraid, is another matter."

"How touching: you're afraid for stains on a known Blood-Traitor's robes, but you'll let the son of a Death Eater lay here in agony when his father's on the way? Father will love to hear that, I'm sure. God, I should be grateful they're pulling me out of school ... it really is still going downhill here, isn't it?" Neville's eyes widened as he drank the potion, but Madam Pomfrey had turned pale with both anger and fear, and she gave a resentful little curtsey.

"I'll get you some more Painkilling Potions then, sir. I didn't realize you were still in pain."

His face twisted into an exaggerated look of terrible suffering. "Agony."

She disappeared back into the dispensary, and the moment the door shut behind her, Runcorn actually giggled. "I think Malfoy had the whole school trained. Just imitating him still makes people jump."

Neville grinned back, fingering his now-repaired nose cautiously. "I thought I recognized that god-awful little drawl. Quick, though, I'll send word to the D.A., we'll hide you in the Room of ..."

Runcorn shook his head, his face now ashen. "They'll kill my dad if you do that, Neville. I just wanted to give you this." He held out the Galleon. "So they don't find it when they search me. I'm sorry I never managed to do anything much for you guys."

There was a terrible finality in his tone that sounded utterly wrong coming from the lips of a boy of fourteen, and Neville nodded, his voice low with saddened understanding. "You're not coming back, are you, Renny?"

The response was a slow, wordless shake of the head as the Galleon was pressed deep into Neville's palm, but the look of fear and loss and betrayal in his eyes said it all. He wasn't just being pulled from school, he was going to be punished, or his father was, and it was going to be a lot worse than anything the Carrows or Snape dished out on their worst days. He reached down and carefully squeezed the younger boy's shoulder. "Well, you did manage to make history before you left ... I think this is the first time a Gryffindor is going to be sorry to see a Slytherin go."

The tiniest ghost of a smile crossed Runcorn's swollen lips. "Don't get sentimental, Longbottom. I was fighting for the right to hate you."

"And you're nasty, conniving, Muggle-hating slime. But you've got guts," Neville replied. "Hang in there as best you can, okay?"

Runcorn nodded, and Neville took the charmed coin, slipping out of the hospital wing and turning back towards the stairs with a look of sadness on his face. Up in the Room of Requirement, he knew, the rest of the D.A. would be laughing at carols and preparing for further adventures, and he wasn't looking forward to the news he would have to bring them. They had lost their first.

OOO

"'... they just drop dead.' The Healer thinks about it a minute, and suggests she try Silencio the next time things are gettin' to that point. Well, the Banshee comes back the next day, and he asks how it worked. 'Not half bad,' she answers, 'they don't make near so much noise when they're fallin' off the bed.'"

Neville barely caught himself in time, burying his face in the pillow until he got himself under control again, then raised his head as he wiped the tears from his eyes and turned back towards Seamus in the darkness of the tower dormitory. "I've got one, I've got one ..." he whispered eagerly. "So this wizard goes to the Ministry of Magic and offers ten Galleons to any Auror who'll watch his house while he's at work in the morning. 'I think my wife is having an affair with the milkman,' he says. 'Every time I open the door to get the milk, my Kneazle goes mental.' One of the Aurors agrees to watch, and the next day the wizard asks what happened. 'I have good news and bad news,' the Auror answers. 'Your wife is faithful, but you don't want to know what the milkman is doing to your Kneazle.'"

Seamus let out a tremendous snort of laughter, and Neville grabbed at his pillow, flinging it at the vague outline that was all he could see of the other boy. "Idiot! It's past ten! We're supposed to be asleep!"

"Sorry!" He did not sound the least bit sorry, but the last of the giggles were suitably muffled behind his hands, and at last he drew a great, shuddering breath. "Anyway, I've got another. There were these three witches who decided they wanted to go out and buy new broomsticks, see? And so the first one goes into the store, and the salesman shows her the latest -"

Seamus' joke was interrupted by a sudden crash against the window, and Neville heard the bedclothes rustle as they both sat instantly bolt upright. He snatched his wand off the bedside table, leveling it at the curtains as he reached out and parted them cautiously. The light of the half-moon through the blowing snow outside cast crazed shadows on the stone floor, and he hardly dared breathe, unable to tell if any of the wavering figures belonged to more than snowflakes.

There was the sound of bedsprings creaking, then bare feet hitting the floor, and then Seamus cried out. "It's an owl!"

Neville blinked, slipping out of his own bed and hurrying across to join his friend at the window. "At this time of night?"

But sure enough, it was an owl. A large tawny owl lay on the windowsill outside, a heavy-looking bundle tied to one leg as it lay motionless against the glass in a deep drift of snow. Neville's initial fear and confusion vanished, and he cast Seamus a stricken look. "It's hurt! It's going to freeze out there!" Without a moment's hesitation, he tapped his wand against the window latch, barely even feeling the icy blast that tore into the cozy room as he opened the window and gathered the owl gently into his arms.

It barely stirred as he carried it back to his bed, laying it carefully on the soft comforter as Seamus re-latched the window behind him. The owl looked to be on its very last legs. It was more than half-frozen, its beak and legs blue, its feathers caked with ice, and someone had clearly tried to stop it from reaching its destination, because its entire tail had been reduced to a charred mess of scorched feathers, and it was trembling with exhaustion, cold, and pain as he stroked it. "You poor thing," Neville murmured, "you shouldn't have tried to fly like that, not in this weather."

"Neville, look." Seamus was at his shoulder, and he was pointing to the bird's leg where the package was still attached. "It's Banded." Sure enough, a glossy black band was sealed magically around the bird's leg, unmistakably printed with the horribly familiar sign of the skull and serpent. The sandy brows above the blue eyes creased in worry. "Why would a Death Eater be sendin' an owl to Gryffindor tower?"

"We don't know for sure it's a Death Eater," Neville protested. "Maybe someone just used it to get past the security because they don't get checked?"

"Aye, of course. Because Banded owls are so easy to come by." Seamus' voice was rich with sarcasm as he used his wand to sever the strings that held the package to the battered bird. As he pulled it free, a small piece of parchment that had been tightly rolled beneath the strings fell loose and fluttered to the bed. He picked it up, and his ruddy face went pale beneath the freckles. "Oh, no ..."

He passed the parchment to Neville, who had knelt to rummage in his trunk for the flask of Pepper-Up Potion he knew he had saved from Herbology homework earlier that year. Neville tried to wave it away, but Seamus leaned down and held it directly in his face, and he stopped as his eyes caught the jagged, thick, ink-blotted handwriting, the dark red finger-marks on the edges that could only be blood. Rocking back on his heels, he took the scrap and tilted it to the moonlight.

The handwriting was a rude scrawl at best, so blotted with ink that he had to squint to make out some of the words, blurred further still by the wide stains at the edges, but as he deciphered the hurried, desperate missive, his hands begin to shake, and he felt his face go pale.

Hurt me dad stoppd them but theyre killing him will get me next I know take thes maybe you can use them make him pay long live HP

T R

PS unband mercury theyll kill him too

He looked up, feeling dazed and heartsick, and he saw that Seamus had the package in his hands now, the brown paper wrapping torn open as he stared inside in stark disbelief. "Neville ..." He knelt, holding out the bundle as he shook his head slowly. "Are these what I think they are?"

Carefully, Neville reached into the parcel and lifted out a heavy, wrinkled bundle of luxurious black cloth. As it unfolded, something clattered from within, something that gleamed a bright and terrible silver in the squares of moonlight on the floor. "Death Eater's robes," Neville whispered, awestruck, "and ... one of their masks. They're ... they're real. Blimey, they're thick." He fingered the embroidered Dark Mark that lay almost invisibly on the left sleeve, ebony thread on black; a detail he had never noticed before. "Do you think they were his Dad's?"

"Well, you can't buy those at Madame Malkin's!" Seamus retorted.

The owl on the bed gave a feeble hoot, and Neville shook himself, scooping the robes and mask into his trunk and burying them deeply as he snatched up the little flask and hurried to the injured bird. Carefully cradling the head in his hand, he raised the mouth of the flask to the beak. "Here you go ... so you're Mercury, huh? Well, Mercury, let's get you warmed up a little, then we'll see what we can do about your tail and that nasty thing on your leg, okay?

"What are we goin' to do with the owl, Neville?" asked Seamus. "It's not gonna be easy explainin' where we got him, especially if they're lookin' for him, and those bands don't just come off. I don't think the poor little bloke knew that."

"We take him to the Room of Requirement, and we take care of him until he gets better," Neville declared fiercely. "Then if we can't get the band off his leg, we transfigure him a little, and Renny's given us an owl that won't be searched as well as the robes and mask."

"And what, pray tell, are we doin' with those?"

"I haven't really decided yet." The owl had managed a few swallows of the Potion, and steam was beginning to seep from the feathers where his ears were hidden as the ice on his wings began to melt and he slowly took on a slightly less frigid color. "But he sent us those as his last request, and I don't intend to take that lightly."

The blue eyes widened. "So you really think they killed him, then?"

"He wasn't the kind of kid to panic if it had just been a bunch of noise." Neville's jaw was set in determination, and though no tears came to his eyes, his heart ached for the young Slytherin. As much as he hated everything the boy had believed in, he had been brave and true to his own beliefs, even as he had done what most would have considered a betrayal of them, and he had paid the price willingly and courageously and far, far too soon. "I'm going to do what he asked. I'm going to find a way to make them pay."

OOO

Xenophilius Lovegood surpassed himself, getting out a special one-sheet edition of the Quibbler within twenty-four hours, and within a few hours more, the charmed grains were ready. Neville scooped them into the hands of each of the D.A. members in turn, his face solemn. "Make sure you get rid of every last one of these before they go off, but don't be careless about it. You can't let yourselves get caught. Whatever you might have thought of Runcorn as a person, or as a Slytherin, he was one of us, and we won't just let this go.

"He's the first the D.A. has lost, but he's not the first who's paid with their life. Susan, your aunt. Hannah, your Mum. Mike, your Dad. Cormac McLaggen, Cedric Diggory, Lynn Fawcett - not to mention half the Auror Department now - and we don't even know how many more of the ones who are out there running and hiding. This is the first strike, and the first strike only. The Lieutenants and I know that he gave us more than just that owl. We're still working out how to use the second gift, but the biggest thing he gave us was his life. Let's make sure people know that."

As the last of the grains were dolled out, Neville pocketed his own fistful and raised his wand to signal the start of the mission. The sparks that shot into the air were not solid silver this time, but a mixture of silver and the emerald green of Slytherin, and today, the rallying cry was different. "For the Fallen!"

OOO

By dinner they were everywhere. Charmed sheets of parchment bearing the banner of the Quibbler, and beneath it, a picture of Runcorn that Camellia had gotten for them. It showed him in the Slytherin common room, dressed in green pajamas with a silver snake on the pocket as he lay sprawled upside down in a chair, playing Exploding Snap with a handful of other boys who had their backs to the camera, then laughing so hard when the cards erupted that he fell head-first into the remains of the game.

It was the only picture Camellia could find - most of Pansy's photo album was of her own year, most notably Draco, on whom she had a crush of epic proportions - and there had been a great deal of concern over whether it was heroic enough to be a fitting tribute to a fallen soldier. Neville thought it was perfect. He wasn't supposed to have been a soldier, none of them were, and it showed him as a boy, his house affiliation clear and unashamed, but in a picture that could have been taken in any common room in the school.

Below the photo, the headline blared in bold, black type, and below that, an article that had been written in combination between several of the Ravenclaws and Malcolm Braddock, who made it his own last act before tearfully confessing to Neville that he was leaving the D.A., too frightened for his own safety and family to continue. Neville had expected the move, but he discovered that as strange as it had been to have Slytherins in the D.A., it seemed even more so when the green banners disappeared from the hangings in the Room of Requirement, leaving red, yellow, and blue to stand alone.

The flyers were strictly banned, of course, but Neville didn't need to see them again to know what they said as he watched Filch laboriously piling them into the fireplaces of the Great Hall from under benches and tables, where they had to be burned by hand one at a time.

NO ONE SAFE! YOU-KNOW-WHO MURDERS OWN!

On Tuesday, during the evening of December 9th, Terrance Quincy Runcorn, 14, of Slytherin house, and his father, noted Death Eater and former member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Albert Runcorn, were murdered in their home by the followers of You-Know-Who.

Terrance, known as Renny to his many friends, had been selected to play Keeper on the Slytherin Quidditch team before their disbanding earlier this year, and was well-known for his athletic prowess. "I could see him having gone professional, certainly," says Professor Horace Slughorn, "he had a great deal of drive in everything he pursued. Excellent in Potions, always followed the instructions to the letter."

Following instructions, however, proved of little help in the face of You-Know-Who's increasingly deranged and paranoid anger. Renny was a Pureblood wizard for thirteen documented generations, from an unbroken line of Slytherins, with a family tradition of service as Enforcers that had been passed from father to son for seven. Albert was twice commended for service to the Ministry, distinguishing himself particularly in the capture of infamous forger Mortimer Luggfetter six years ago, and boasted a spotless record which his son had intended to emulate. The Runcorn family was also very vocal in their support of Pureblood Superiority, and Albert joined the Death Eaters within a few months of You-Know-Who's return, earning a name for himself there as well by reporting Muggle-borns who had attempted to protect themselves by falsifying family documents.

All of this loyalty should have offered some protection to father and son, but You-Know-Who does not show such reasonable behavior. The public claims put out by the Ministry and by You-Know-Who directly say that anyone who is willing to cooperate with his efforts to oppress and attack Muggle-borns and his violent reign over the wizarding world will be granted safety and protection, but he has proven with the horrific murders of the Runcorns that this is yet another lie!

If the Daily Prophet dares to print anything about this double homicide, they will undoubtedly try to paint it as an accident, or as the execution of traitors, but the public deserves to know the real truth! Here at the Quibbler, we have never been afraid of printing the unpopular, and we will now bring you the real, exclusive reason that You-Know-Who ordered their execution.

On September 2nd, Harry Potter - known to the Ministry as Undesirable #1, but to faithful thousands as The Chosen One or The Boy Who Lived - broke into the Ministry of Magic and freed dozens of Muggle-borns who were awaiting mock 'trials' at the hands of the Muggle-born Registration Commission, as was previously reported in a Special Edition of the Quibbler. Polyjuice Potion was used in this brave infiltration, and Albert Runcorn was the unwilling provider of Potter's disguise, having been sent to St. Mungo's by a Nosebleed Nougat dropped surreptitiously into his morning coffee by an accomplice of Potter already disguised as a fellow Ministry employee. For nothing more than talking to a co-worker, Albert Runcorn was tortured extensively by his fellow Death Eaters.

This action showed young Renny the true nature of You-Know-Who, and he participated in efforts at Hogwarts School to open the eyes of the wizarding world. At no time did he in any way abandon his beliefs about Pureblood Superiority, or betray any member of his house, nor any of You-Know-Who's followers. He merely exercised what should have been his rights in any free society to express an opinion about his leaders. Nor was he caught in these actions. A copy of one of the leaflets like you now hold in your hand was simply found on his person during an unauthorized search, and for this alone, without recourse or trial, he was severely beaten, pulled from school the same day, and the following night, he and his father were murdered in cold blood.

No matter what your stance on Muggle Rights vs. Pureblood Superiority, let this stand as a lesson and a warning! If You-Know-Who is willing to wipe out an entire line of the pure wizarding blood he claims to hold so dear, and on such meager evidence, can anyone count themselves safe? Reliable sources tell us that the Malfoy family, among the most highly-esteemed and prominent of You-Know-Who's inner circle, are now living as prisoners on their family estate, Malfoy Manor, under frequent torture and constant threat of death at You-Know-Who's slightest whim, and Peter Pettigrew, the traitor who turned over the Potters sixteen years ago and who facilitated You-Know-Who's return to corporeal form by cutting off his own hand in a show of loyalty, is now being used as little more than a house-elf.

Are these the glorious rewards he promises his faithful? Is this why we are supposed to turn in our friends, betray our families, and turn against one another? Are murder, torture, slavery, and imprisonment what we are supposed to consider the benefits of his rule? Witches and wizards, consider your choices carefully, and remember the Runcorn family and all the other victims of You-Know-Who's bloody regime by joining the Quibbler in supporting Harry Potter at every opportunity!

Long live Harry Potter!

At the staff table, Snape's thin features showed all the rage Neville had come to expect after such acts of defiance, but gradually, he began to realize that the black eyes were not fixed on Gryffindor as usual. Instead, they were turned to the Ravenclaw table as he leaned towards the Carrows and exchanged a whispered conversation, gesturing at a copy of the flyer that lay on the table in front of them. Slowly, a pair of hideous smiles spread across the two doughy faces, mirrored in Snape's own satisfied smirk, and Neville felt his blood turn cold as he saw where the three sets of eyes had fallen.

Luna.