HOGWARTIAN HELL
Chapter Three
The return of Dumbledore's army
The weather became colder as the month of September grew older. The dungeons were so freezing that one of Theodore Nott's punishments (that the Carrows had been fond of) was for students to be tortured and then forced to remove their clothing so that they were chained in the coldest part of Hogwarts, wearing nothing but their underwear.
Neville began sending messages to the old D.A members using the enchanted coins Hermione Granger had created about two and a half years ago. Surprisingly, every single person who had been in Dumbledore's Army before, signed up to rejoin. Some were uneasy about going against the Carrows instead of Umbridge, who they had heard had just been recently murdered by Chad's older brother when he, Ron, Hermione, and Harry had broken into the Ministry of Magic.
"Good riddance," Seamus said at breakfast one Saturday morning, the day of their first D.A meeting. "He did us a favor, Jacob did. Umbridge was nothing but a little hag. She deserved what she got."
"Yeah, but now we need to get rid of the Carrows," Neville reminded him. "Focus."
The day went by increasingly tense as the Gryffindors to the direct route to the seventh floor corridor along with the Ravenclaws as the Hufflepuffs took a secret passageway hidden behind an Astronomer portrait.
Chad, Neville, and the others stood in front of the bare wall on the seventh floor. They all closed their eyes and concentrated hard on how much they needed to get into the room of requirement, how much they needed to have the old D.A courters back. When they opened their eyes, a pair of double doors had appeared in front of them. Chad and Martin gasped in impressment and Neville smiled.
"Wait 'till you see the inside," he told them.
Lavender and Pavarti pushed open the doors and entered, followed by the others. The room of requirement was fairly small, but still a decent size. It was perhaps the size of McGonagall's classroom, though it wasn't as brightly lit.
There were shelves that held books on defensive magic, cushions to practice stunning, fake Death Eaters that were life sized and easy to practice defensive spells on. The Hogwartians smiled. They had returned.
There were also many new things as well. It was like the room had missed the D.A members so much that it was delighted to supply them with everything they ever needed. There were even tables full of sneakascopes and other dark arts defense objects. Neville couldn't wipe the grin off his face.
"This is brilliant," he exclaimed. "Absolutely brilliant. Good God, it's even better than it was two years ago! Wow."
Pavarti and Lavender flopped onto the mattresses as if they thought it would bring back old memories. Seamus sat down, smiling slightly but also looking rather saddened.
He's probably thinking about Dean, Chad thought.
About twenty-five minutes later, the entire group of D.A members had arrived, some new but majority from the old crowd. Nobody was missing, not even Zacharias Smith.
Michael Corner laughed with joy as he looked around at all the new parts of the room, Ginny and Luna drew their wands, as if ready to begin practicing.
Finally, when everything had calmed down slightly, the students all sat down on the floor, looking up at Neville.
"Okay," Neville started. "Now, you all know why you're here. The Death Eaters have taken over Hogwarts."
"Really?" Smith said in mock surprise. "I didn't even notice."
He lifted his shirt to show a large slash across his chest.
"Oh, shut it, Smith!" Eric Spellbound snapped. "We don't need you to be an ass like you were two and a half years ago. Let's just try and be positive here."
Before Smith could reply, Neville started up again.
"We are here because we need a resistance. Umbridge was one thing…the Carrows…they're a whole 'nother story. If we don't be careful, they'll eventually kill a student."
"How is re-starting Dumbledore's Army being careful?" Smith grumbled.
"Jesus, listen Zach-," Ernie began. "We need to get rid of the Carrows, don't we? They're bloody ruining the school! I think I'd rather be going to that American school, whatchamacallit? Puckstin! At least they don't have Death Eaters running the place!"
There were noises of agreement until Eric said
"This is a learning institution and I personally want it back. I'd rather fight for it than abandon it."
"I agree," Ernie stated. "I'm just saying, with You-Know-Who in control of Britain, who's to say that he won't send the Carrows help?"
"It will be a long time before we can actually chase the bastards out of Hogwarts," Neville alleged. "But now is the time to act. We have to get back at them. I say that if a student is in detention, we save them. We get into disguise, attack the Carrows, and bring the kids back here."
The others nodded and Eric said
"Okay then. But first, we need to establish some rules."
"Agreed," said Tarry Boot. "We can't have the Gryffindors having all the fun, now can we?"
…
It was their first night and darkness in the castle had already reached an almost pitch black level. They had been planning this moment ever since the first D.A meeting had taken place nearly two weeks ago. Chad and Eric crouched behind a veil in the corridor, obscured from view by anyone who might be passing. Anyone, especially their target.
Eric had his wand at the ready should an emergency occur. If they weren't caught, it wouldn't matter. They had been given masks that were colored red on the top left side, yellow bellow that, and a larger portion was colored blue next to both of those colors. It was made to look like the colors of the Hogwarts badge with the Slytherin cut out of it. It had been Chad's idea.
Eric had generated the indication that they needed to be disguised should the worse happen and they were to run into some Slytherins, or God forbid, the Carrows.
It seemed that it was Ravenclaw who were the ones to mix logic with the plans the Gryffindors conjured while the Hufflepuffs mainly edited the work of both the houses, putting in their ideas and creating one admirable plan. It was indeed a shrewd and well-made resistance, one that Chad was particularly proud of.
Another half an hour of crouching, then an hour. Then an hour and a half.
"How much bloody longer before they come, already?" Chad whispered to Eric.
"They're coming," Eric replied quickly, as he shoved Chad to be quiet. "I can hear them. "
Footsteps were becoming louder as two people walked across the corridor, talking to each other with almost amusement.
"Yeah," said Crabbe's voice, deep and senseless. "I didn't just Crucioed 'im, I beat the shit outta 'im!"
"Oh, good for you," Theodore answered back as if he were hardly listening. He sounded livelier when he continued
"The Mudbloods finally are getting the treatment they deserve."
Chad cracked his knuckles as Eric put a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on," he said. "We have to follow them. Quiet now."
The both slipped from behind the veil, almost blending into the darkness thanks to their black suits and masks. The saw two people ahead of them slightly, walking to the dungeons. Chad smiled from behind his mask and led on.
They followed the Slytherins down the steps leading down to the dungeons before they were walking through the freezing, dimly lit corridors. There was another small flight of stairs that the two Slytherins took down to a large blank spot of stone wall. Chad and Eric stopped and hid at the top of the stairs behind the wall, knowing this was what they had been waiting for all evening.
"Dangerous Mudbloods," Theodore spoke and the wall slid open, admitting them to the Slytherin common room. After the wall had concealed the room once again, Chad and Eric both almost laughed.
"Looks like we got the password," Chad said.
"Yeah," Eric agreed. "Come on, let's start heading ba-,"
"FLIPPENDO!" Amycus Carrow shouted, coming from behind another wall and running at the two disguised D.A members.
The spell missed Eric by inches and Amycus was readying another spell when the two boys both screamed
"RUN!"
They turned and ran as fast as their legs would allow back up the stairs, through the entrance hall, and up the spiral staircase.
Amycus shot spell after spell after them. They deflected the attacks and continued running. All of a sudden, Amycus waved his wand downward and Chad's feet were pulled straight up into the air. He let out a scream as he fell down the stairs, Amycus laughing like a maniac.
"No!" Eric yelled.
He ripped off his mask, revealing himself and tossed it on the floor.
"YOU!" Amycus screeched.
Eric leaped into the air and slammed Amycus to the floor. As he wrestled with the Death Eater, he cried
"Run! RUN!"
Tears in his eyes, Chad turned and charged up the stairs as fast as he could, all the way to Gryffindor tower.
...
He flew himself into Neville's arms, sobbing in spite of himself.
"What happened?" Neville questioned, worriedly.
"He got him," Chad stuttered between his sobs. "Amycus Carrow got Eric."
The others looked at Chad, their eyes full of fear. Ginny Weasley clenched her fists and grinded her teeth as she thought of what they would be doing to Eric. It just wasn't fair.
Finally, after two and a half hours of waiting in the suspense filled Room of Requirement, Eric entered. The others all looked at him in shock, Terry Boot, Michael Corner, and Anthony Goldstein all ran to their friend.
His nose had a large cut sliced across it, traveling down to the middle of his cheek, the blood mixing with furious tears.
The skin on his knuckles had been ripped away and had spilled blood all the way down his broken right arm.
There was silence before Eric mumbled
"Somebody cast a spell on this arm."
At first, nobody moved and then
"I said…somebody cast a spell on this fucking arm!"
Michael was taken out of a kind of shocked trance and he magically repaired the arm of his torn friend.
"Eric, I'm sorry," Chad finally managed.
"Don't blame yourself kid, you did alright," Eric grumbled. "I'm just filled with hatred at those Carrows. You can tell, because I'm not exactly speaking in the proper manner I usually use."
"Did they question you?" Pavarti asked.
"No," Eric answered. "They merely thought I was down there to piss them off, which I guess is true in a manner of speaking, and then they promptly chained me up to a stone wall, broke my right arm, used slashing curses on my skin, beat me with their bare hands, and used the Cruciatus Curse on me until they had me screaming bloody fuck over and over again. By the time it was all over, I was sobbing. This made them decide they had broken me enough and they sent me off with a good old kick in the ass, latterly. And that was I spent my evening, how was yours?" he finished.
Terry smiled.
"Always the joker, aren't you, Eric?"
He shrugged.
"I guess that when you've hung out with a ludicrous Gryffindor like Chad's older brother for five years, like I did, then you sort of grow an interesting sense of sarcastic humor."
"Sarcasm has been a Ravenclaw favorite for generations," Anthony retorted. "It's the smartest type of humor in the world and is always at the expense of the other person by making them look dimwitted. That's why we're so fucking popular."
Seamus laughed.
"Yeah, not as popular as Slytherin though, are ya?"
The group exchanged laughs and jokes for the rest of the evening, in which Chad soon realized something he should have known all along. Even if his older brother was on the run with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, looking for only God knows what, he would still always have protection. The older students; Neville, Seamus, Terry, Michael, Anthony, the other members of the D.A, especially Eric, would always be there to help him in a time of need just like they would any other student who simply asked for it.
And with that comforting thought, he accompanied Martin back to Gryffindor tower, alone.
Martin had his arm around Chad and he soon spoke the words
"You're brave…you know that, right?"
"Of course I am," Chad replied, resting his head on his friend's shoulder. "I'm a Gryffindor, aren't I?"
Martin stopped them, looked down at his best friend, and kissed him.
Chad returned this kiss and whispered
"We'll always be there for each other, right?"
"Always."
"Forever and ever?"
"Yes, Chad. Forever and ever."
Unfortunately, because of the disastrous events that would follow, the boys would not be there for each other forever and ever. Soon, one would meet a terribly early death and the other one would be left alone, his best friend gone.