Harry paced up and down, worry gnawing at his stomach. Neville had been missing for fifteen hours or more now. He had heard him leave the dormitory a little before midnight, and in response to his queries Neville had only said that he had to finish a bit of homework and was heading to the library. Sleep-deprived as he was, Harry had not questioned the suspicious excuse but had only turned over and gone back to sleep and now he could not chastise himself enough over his foolish mistake.

"Woah calm down Harry. You look positively crazy." Harry hadn't noticed Dean enter the room.

"How can I calm down? Neville's missing and here I am doing nothing!"

"Well i wouldn't say nothing. You are giving the carpet a pretty good workout." Dean's jibe was quelled by the look Harry threw him.

"Look I'm worried too but there's no point hanging around here blaming yourself. Now come on, we're going to be late for Hagrid's class."

Harry sighed, depressed. Even Hagrid and the Hinkypunks had failed to cheer him up.

The will o' the wisp-like creatures floated around idly, the light surrounding them throbbing gently.

The fact that they had the lessons together with the Slytherins, did nothing to lighten his mood. He could hear Draco laughing over something even from across the forest clearing. Apparently whatever it was, was pretty hilarious. Harry had a feeling it was him.

Luna drifted over towards him and Harry's irritation peaked. He couldn't handle a harangue on the defining qualities of a Crumple Horned Snorkack right now. He didn't even know what she was doing here. Wasn't she in Ravenclaw?

"Hello Harry." She greeted solemnly. "Terrible about Neville isn't it?"

"Yes, terrible"

"Hmm. The clouds look lovely today." Luna hummed absentmindedly for a few seconds before turning back to him and saying, rather unexpectedly, "Everything happens for a reason you know Harry. And it's usually a good one."

She smiled and reverted suddenly to a discussion about the Crumple horned snorkack, but Harry found that somehow he didn't really mind it.

Neville was confused. He had absolutely no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered was drifting off to sleep in the room where he had woken up before, and now he was in a highly claustrophobic room that resembled a dungeon. The only thing in the room was a wobbly table that looked like it had seen better days. There was a metal door, and that was it. He was, surprisingly, untied.

He could dear the sounds of drunken laughter and fragments of conversation drifting down from the ceiling.

"…So I says to her, whats a pretty thing like you doing…..and then she takes her hood off, she does…..was a hag! I got the fright of me life! Scarpered outta there before she realized what was what….."

Neville guessed he was in the cellar of a bar. There was of course no way of knowing which bar it could be. The Hog's Head was too public a place and it's cellar would most definitely not have been empty. With nothing else to do, he sat back down and waited for somebody to enter the room.

At the end of the uneventful, and yet highly tense day, Harry returned to his bed with a feeling of relief at finally being able to sleep and not have to think about Neville and the piles of homework waiting to be tended to. He drifted off to sleep, falling into a dream almost at once.

He was walking along minding his own business, when from nowhere Neville rushed towards him screaming his name. He was being chased by a giant suit of armour that transfigured itself into a bunch of tomatoes that started hurling themselves at Harry and Neville. They ran in the opposite direction when the tomatoes suddenly turned into a whirl of red hair that reminded him of Ginny Weasley…he looked back at Neville and was shocked to see him white faced and hunched over. He was kneeling next to a hooded figure that was all too familiar. Death eaters. The room was bare and the walls were brick. There was absolutely nothing interesting about the room aside from the three death eaters and Neville who looked like he'd been tortured. One of them put his hood down and Harry realized with a jolt, that it was not a death eater but Voldemort. He pointed his wand at Neville and said in a high, cold voice, "Scream for your friend Neville. Let him hear your pitiful whelps as he knows there is nothing he can do to save you." And scream Neville did, as the Cruciatus curse ripped through him.

Harry woke up sweating on the floor next to his bed. He pushed his glasses on and he and a bleary eyed Ron, who had been woken up by Harry's fall, ran all the way to Dumbledore's office. But not before Harry had pulled open the Marauder's map and confirmed that Neville's dot was nowhere in the school grounds. He was amazed he hadn't thought about it before.

They paused, panting, in front of the gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore's office. Harry racked his brains for the password and blurted out "Firewhisky."

The gargoyle quirked an eyebrow at him, looking like he wanted to make a snarky comment about their disheveled appearance but he merely shifted aside and Harry ran up the spiraling stairs followed by a confused Ron who had not yet been clued in about the dream.

He pounded on Dumbledore's door, but there was no reply and the unlocking charm didn't work. He unfolded the map and stared at it confused. Only minutes ago, Dumbledore's dot had been in this office and yet, now it was gone. How had Dumbledore left so quickly and why?

Back in the common room, Ron converged on Harry. "What the hell are you doing? What did you see?"

"Neville. Being tortured by Voldemort in a dungeon. He's in trouble, I knew it! We have to do something!"

Ron turned pale. "W-what about telling Mcgonagall?"

"No, she'll just tell us to inform Dumbledore and he's not here right now. We can't wait Ron. Neville is being tortured right now!"

"WHAT?" Ron and Harry turned to find a bushy haired Hermione striding towards them. There were a couple of curious faces peeking from the rooms on the landing.

Ron brought her upto date while Harry fidgeted impatiently, waiting for him to finish.

"We have to go to the ministry."

"The ministry? Are you insane? Just how do you propose we do that? We're a bunch of underage wizards Harry. They're not going to be too understanding if we use magic you know." Hermione said scathingly.

"Well, what else?" Harry exploded. "Look I'm going and you can't stop me. If you want to join me then fine and if not, then goodbye."

Hermione bit her lip. That didn't leave them much choice. Or any choice at all, for that matter. "I'll go get dressed."

Ten minutes later they were assembled in the common room again, wands ready. They left the common room as discreetly as possible, and were walking past the Charms room concealed under Harry's invisibility cloak when they saw Luna up ahead.

"Blimey. What is she upto?" Ron whispered.

"Dunno."

Luna turned suddenly, and blinked in their direction.

"Harry? Ron? Hermione?"

Harry pulled off the cloak. "How'd you know?"

Luna smiled. "Who else owns an invisibility cloak and sneaks about at odd hours of the night? I'm not in Ravenclaw for nothing you know."

Ron wanted to ask what she was doing sneaking around at odd hours of the night but thought better of it.

"Look Luna, we've got to run okay?"

"Are you going to save Neville? I'm coming too." She said eagerly.

The three of them stared, dumbfounded, at her.

Another ten minutes later, they were standing at the edge of the forbidden forest. Luna whistled once and two large thestrals landed lightly in front of them.

"Let's go." She said, surprisingly energetic considering it was 2 am.

"Wait!" Hermione said. She pointed at each of them in turn with her wand and whispered a string of complex words under her breath.

"What..?"

"Concealment charm. There's no way to get rid of the trace but if we use magic outside of Hogwarts now, the ministry won't be able to tell exactly where we are even though they'll know when we're using spells. Plus that way, with some luck, they won't know its us."

"Hermione, you're a genius." Ron said, awestruck.

Wasting no more time, they clambered on, two to a thestral.

Hold on Neville, we're coming was Harry's last thought as the Thestrals spread their wings and swept into the air.

A/N: Don't forget to review! It means a lot