Neville had been confused about what Hermione had wanted for him and Silver, but he never let it bother him. Checking his Remembrall, he decided he had forgotten to go to class entirely and would do well to be on his way. He sat down in History of Magic, noting that Professor Binns had already started, possibly around five minutes early. He could not remember if the classes had ever been earlier and the instructor was just showing up and starting at the usual time, or if it had been for some other reason entirely.

Either way, he set himself to his notes, knowing that he would recall none of what had been said five minutes after he left the room. It was tedious busywork, but he was happy he was at least understanding it. His grandmother had informed him that History of Magic would be his worst subject beyond a shadow of a doubt, though he was better off with something other than Charms when he got the choice. He noticed the instructor was droning on about something that was already covered, the previous day, for that matter, and he took the mysterious book from his bag. As per Silver's recommendation, he had begun to read it, but it was an upper-level or possibly even graduate text and the only way it made any sense was by starting from the beginning and reading through. As a result, combing it for bits of information that would interest his friend was nearly impossible.

Already he had a nearly insurmountable deficit in interesting stories to where he suspected Slytherins were simply as naturally adept as they claimed in controlling all the gossip in the school. Spotted on the Astronomy Tower, there was a secret pickup on broomsticks at the dead of night, not eleven days ago an acquaintance of an acquaintance caught Professor Binns on an empty corridor repeating the same madman's talk every time he reappeared at the other end of the corridor, and there was a famous Malfoy relative at Beauxbaton's who could travel between the land of the living and that of the dead.

The book was dense, and mostly about soil as it related to magical plants, but as far as he could understand it was interesting to him, though not to Silver. He expected it would help some in Herbology, but there was no way to know for sure.

Ron was in an argument with his other friend at lunch. I guess it's a good thing they're talking to each other.

"We know we're poor, Malfoy, what's your point? What do you even do?"

"Do? The nobility require no profession, we do as we please. Should I desire to take up professional Quidditch, my father would simply make the arrangements. You will do only what you can, Weasley, and that's not much, now is it?"

"My brothers are in Egypt and Romania with some of the most exciting careers- you couldn't play Quidditch, you'd be too busy looking at yourself in the mirror. You're like the bad man in a book Ginny would read." Neville guessed he was referring to the series by Cassiopeia something. From having the Weasleys over every now and then, he remembered the little witch always having her nose in one of those books. According to Hannah Abbott, they were light romance novels with a quaint setting and classic characters who dealt with the requisite challenges of high society. According to his grandmother, they were rubbish.

Silver was unamused by the comparison, but responded in kind.

"Truly? I imagine you see yourself to be the hero- too poor to provide, but with the redeeming charm of a court fool." Neville was surprised. He knew Ron and his friend were no friends of each other, but this level of cruelty was unexpected. "Or perhaps you are only the hero's friend- and you end up with the heroine's friend, the one with the bushy hair and beaver's maw." Ron was red with rage, but he did not but raise his voice.

"You're a worm, Malfoy." he growled, keeping his voice below what others could hear. I guess there are worse things than the two of them not talking to each other. "If you were a proper snake, you'd have friends in high places. The Slytherins won't even look at you."

All at once Neville realized what they were doing- both of them were one offense away from being expelled.

"Stop- provoking each other..." he started. "You both might get tossed out, you don't know for sure!"

"I'm not afraid." Ron challenged.

"It's a calculated risk I'm willing to take." Silver answered.

"Wait! Wait- why don't you have a contest?" Neville asked. "You've already dueled- why not something that's not against any rules?" I don't want either of you to be expelled.

"Not really a test of Weasley's all important courage if there's no risk involved, is it? What would you have us do? Race to the end of the hall?"

"No." Ron interrupted. " 's a great idea. We're going after whoever was behind the bloody troll. Something tells me the secret's in the Third Floor Corridor. We race to find out- if you dare." It was possible the Gryffindor had been considering this for a long time; it was possible he just thought it up on the spot. Either way, Neville was no less scared.

"Wait a tick, that's still against the rules!" he objected in futility. It appeared, however, that they had already decided and nothing at all would change their minds.

Resigning himself to the inevitable as he went on with classes, his thoughts drifted to Ernie, who would probably assume the unhappy title of his only friend, as Hermione would probably get roped into their plans and expelled all the same. I've got to prepare. I'm not good at remembering things, so I've got to be ready for anything. I need more Shrinking Solution for the Devil's Snare. The potion Ron had given him had been enough for two uses- shrinking the plant once, then keeping it down at size after putting the central bulb into a potion bottle Silver had given him. And the only thing I've been able to do for him recently is tell him about a few of the older Hufflepuffs.

He had not known what he was seeing when he first caught them talking, but it became clearer that they were forming a secret society of some sort. His Slytherin friend had pretended to be especially interested to hear the news. Even if he doesn't get expelled, he's going to find a new friend. Hermione pulled him aside in a corridor, appearing out of nowhere.

"Hermione, what? Where did you-" he began as she pulled him into a broom closet.

"There's no time, Neville. Any moment you could run into an Inspector pretending to be myself."

"Well-"

"Neville. From now on, to prove it's the real you, your word is 'heartstring'. Our wands have the same core." Checking his Remembrall, which was as red as it had ever been, he realized he must have forgotten telling her the core of his father's wand.

"Wait, what do you tell me?"

"Vine. It's the wood for mine." she said as she opened the door. "Now go, you don't want to be late for class."

Disobeying did not but cross his mind.

In Herbology, he elected not to tell Hannah anything specific about whatever it was Hermione was investigating. If his grandmother were with him, she would tell him that if his father were with him, he would tell him not to worry her. Neville had little doubt that he would forget most of the important details, and his Remembrall could only help him so much. She would be more worried than he would be faced with a History of Magic test.

"Neville, tell me what's going on." she muttered as they were pruning a Bubotuber. "Neville, I can see something's going on. You're holding your breath because you're worried you might tell me something."

He tried to say he was not holding his breath without opening his mouth, but it went less than well.

"Neville, you're turning blue." she said as she narrowly avoided cutting a whole branch off.

"Hannah, I can't tell you. I don't remember." he held out his favorite magical trinket to prove it.

"That doesn't mean you forgot what you don't want to tell me." the girl said after thinking for a moment. Professor Sprout hushed them. "Now tell me what it is." she demanded as she hit him in the foot with a stinging hex below the table. What is with the witches today? Merlin!

"No! I refuse to tell you!" He had never before used a loud whisper to communicate and was presently unsure he was doing it properly. She hit him with the hex as promised, which smarted right proper.

Hannah tried a few more times, but he held out, earning quite a few stinging hexes, which he continued to feel even as classes ended and he reclined in the Hufflepuff basement, staring at the ceiling. It had occurred to him that his friends wanted to do something about what was going on, but he was not brave like they were, or perhaps paranoid, in Hermione's case. As much as he felt for the boy's classmates, he was not vengeful over the untimely death of Dean Thomas, at least not as vengeful as Silver was about the troll incident. It bothered him, but he was willing to let it go as long as nothing happened to his friends. I guess I could just have been born wrong, like Gran says.

He joined Silver during one of his unsupervised detentions. Neville knew there was no requirement for him to be there, and truly it would be best if he were not, considering the Slytherin was supposed to be solitary as part of his punishment, but he could hardly see the harm in it. Besides, if his friends were all going mad, the least he could do was be there for them.

"Why does no one ever watch you in here?" he asked, thinking about it.

"What am I going to do, Neville? Besides, there's hardly enough teachers to watch every student in solitary detention." Neville chose not to mention that as far as he knew, Silver and Ron Weasley were the only students with more than enough detentions to last the rest of the year. He was not aware how he remembered it, and would have to do better in the future. "Have you heard of any conspiracies between the teachers? Between this and the amount of homework I have received, I'd say there's more than sufficient evidence for an investigation."

"Well, about the teachers- there may be a reason we can't trust them- well, they might be one of those..."

"Inspectors."

"Right, well, Hermione thinks we should have a word so I know it's you."

"Granger? Yes, I've had words with the witch, though really she's the wrong sort. Tell me, how do I know it's you right now?" Silver asked. The question flustered him and he tried to get his Remembrall out of his pocket, but his friend only made an amused expression and continued. "I'm merely having a bit of fun, Neville. Someone trying to trick me would have come with something prepared. Tell you what, I'll use 'fun' in a sentence to remind myself of the other bit of fun I had when we first met."

"I'll try and remember it."

"Don't worry. That trinket you have will reveal that you forgot it, not that you never heard it."

"Good thinking, Silver." They rose from their seats, and Neville resolved to follow him as far as he could to Slytherin Dungeon. "Also, there's something wrong with Hannah."

"More Hufflepuff news?"

"Not exactly- it might not have to do with the secret society. Well, it probably doesn't. She was just acting weird."

"She's a witch, Neville."

"She hexed me- maybe eleven times! All because I wouldn't answer her questions." Silver seemed to take notice of it. "She might be someone else in disguise."

"That, or she might be imperiused, but she seems too spirited from what you're saying. Father was listless- going through the motions." They were nearing the dungeons. "Never mind, that, though. Did she look any different?"

"She might have. I don't remember. I can't say well enough what she looked like before to know how it might be any different."

"Quite alright. Just find her again tomorrow and see if she remembers anything." Silver said as he took a turn, leaving.

"Good thinking." But how can I know if she's not the same impostor?

Neville walked off, wondering how he could possibly escape his predicament. It seemed even if he did have friends, there was still a chance they were impostors. What if everyone's an Inspector? He dismissed the mad thought at length, deciding there was no way the Ministry even had that many, and would have better things to do with them than devote their attentions to watching him, of all people. I don't think there's a soul who thinks I'm a dark wizard. They're supposed to be smart, or at least competent. Even if I were a dark wizard, I'd still be harmless. Neville couldn't even be moved to care about what was behind the door on the Third Floor Corridor; he knew it was important, but simply couldn't imagine what it had to do with him. He had every expectation his grandmother would criticize him for lack of courage if he went the whole year without looking into it, but it would be worse if he let it distract him from his studies.

His reading of the mysterious book made him wonder about the soil content in the Forbidden Forest, and whether or not that was making the trees magical, or at least more attractive to magical creatures. Ernie said he knew someone who knew someone who said Ollivander could be seen sometimes.

"So it's not just any wood." Neville supposed over his studies that night. He knew he lacked the talent for most things that required it, so wandlore had a chance of interesting him. It seemed to be mostly patience and study.

"No, tree species have different magical properties." Ernie explained.

"Might have to do with the magical soil." he supposed. "I've been reading the subject somewhat." Neville imagined any non-Hufflepuff would be bored to a sobbing fit by this conversation. "Of course, what makes the soil magical is the decomposition of magical plant stuff."

All of a sudden he wondered just how aggressive Ollivander usually was in obtaining unicorn hair.

No, there would be no need to kill it. Maybe whoever's killing them has been using his face as a disguise.

"Say, Ernie, what's your wand core?"

"Unicorn hair, same as Justin. He believes there were a lot of those this year for some reason." As unpleasant as it was, Neville recalled Ron's story perfectly, and there was little doubt as to why Ollivander had plenty of unicorn hair. Whoever killed them was selling parts of the corpses that others could use. Wherever Ollivander was buying wand parts, unicorn hair was probably cheaper. He briefly considered that the wizard was simply an eccentric craftsman who would not respond to price, insisting that each student gets the correct wand and everything else could sod off, but he had been maintaining the wand shop since longer than Augusta Longbottom could remember, so managing expenses had to at least register for him. Neville was happy that he had a friend like Silver to explain economics to him, which was in his words much simpler than the dreaded Muggle economics with graphs and arithmancy and empirical evidence.

"Do you think you could see him over Christmas Holiday? He may know something, and I don't think there's any safer way to be of use." he asked at length, thinking it over.

"I might be able to swing it if I have Justin corroborate a false story." Ernie answered thoughtfully. "This would have to be an approved lie, though, since I would tell the older Hufflepuffs. We would have to vote on its moral validity."

"I think I get it." Neville's thoughts drifted to what he had been feeding Silver as he spoke. Having to report on what he saw made it somewhat easier to remember, but even between the two of them, they truly had no idea what sort of secret society was being formed, or what its purpose was. He had been under the impression that Hufflepuffs were generally open, but what he was seeing seemed to contradict that. Might be I'm overthinking it. That's what Ernie and Silver say all the time.

Deciding to head to bed at last, he realized he was ahead in his homework by some miracle. To make matters worse, Hermione seemed to have some reason to trust not just him but Silver of all people, to the extent that she was setting up a code system. Whatever it was she was trying to investigate had already killed a student, despite the subsequent announcement that the boy had never died. Still worse, he had some idea that Ollivander might know something. Neville groaned.

He was running out of excuses not to be involved.

Suppose there's always Gran telling me I'll fail. He shook his head, putting the Remembrall on the end table. The excuse did not even work in his own mind.