A/N:

Sorry for the slight delay in posting this, I've been suffering from an awful migraine over the last few days.

Yikes! Here we are - the battle! Just two more chapters and an epilogue after this one!
This chapter skips between different POVs with page breaks but no section 'name' title as I usually do.
The keen reader may notice that I've tweaked certain bits of canon...but I hope you'll let me off... ;o)


Ch. 49 The Battle of Hogwarts

'The odd thing is, Harry,' [Dumbledore] said softly, 'that it may not have meant you at all. Sybil's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.'

- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.


Parvati stood, anxious but determined, her wand pointing out a window of the first floor of the castle, sending hex after hex at the Death Eaters below, as Theo did the same by her side. Most of the Death Eaters fell to the ground long before they'd got to the entrance of the castle due to the deadly cry of numerous mandrakes that rained down on them from somewhere above their heads.

" Nott!? What the fuck?" came a cry from Parvati's right.

Parvati looked and saw Ginny Weasley rushing towards them, her hair flying behind like a wayward flame, flanked on either side by Colin Creevey, of all people, and a girl Parvati didn't recognise. Ginny came to a halt at the next window along from them and aimed her wand at Theo. "Stupify!" she cried.

To Parvati's relief, Theo managed to shield himself from the curse just in time.

"Ginny!" Parvati yelled. "He's on our side!"

"What?" The seventh child of a seventh child looked defiant. Her stance remained combative but her frown of confusion showed that she was thinking through Parvati's words.

"He has been all along!" Parvati continued.

"Prove it! If you -"

But Ginny's next words were drowned out by the sound of smashing glass. A giant hand burst through the window next to where Ginny was standing. Humongous fat fingers would have easily curled themselves around her slight frame if it hadn't been for Theo, who rushed forward and lunged at her, pushing her out of the way of the huge, grappling digits and careening them both to the ground. Parvati cast one of the nastier stinging jinxes at the enormous hand and it abruptly withdrew from the window, as if it had been burnt.

"Is that proof enough?" Theo asked dryly as he lifted himself off the floor and held out a hand to help Ginny up too.


Neville was aware how ridiculous his ear muffs must look, but he was grateful for them as he threw mandrake after mandrake over the battlements. They flailed through the air and, as they neared the ground, Neville saw the Death Eaters below reach up and push their hands to their ears in an attempt to block out the creature's deadly screams before both human and mandrake collapsed on the cobbles.

Neville tried not to think of what that meant – of how many lives must have ended with each mandrake he hurled off the tower. It was something he couldn't afford to think about at that moment, because it would mean he'd have to pause – to falter – and that could be deadly.

After he'd launched the last of the mandrakes over the parapets, Neville watched as streams of Death Eaters ran over the carpet of littered plants and their fallen comrades, and into the castle. He turned to Hannah. They exchanged a wordless look before turning instinctively and running down the stairs of the tower, their wands brandished in front of them, to help their friends on the floors below.


"What are you doing here, anyway?" Parvati asked, glaring accusingly at Ginny and Colin. "You're both underage. And you as well, no doubt," Parvati nodded at the fair-haired girl with them, who was clutching hands with Colin.

"I couldn't just stay in the ROR whilst all my friends were fighting! And neither could Colin and Izzy. 'The most powerful weapon being the loyalty of friends','" Ginny finished, inexplicably.

A crescendo of roaring and yelling rose up from the Entrance Hall below. Parvati's stomach lurched.

"And I'm sixteen next week!" the girl – Izzy – stated, as if that were a good argument.

Parvati, however, was no longer looking at her but at a group of masked figures beyond her that were racing down the corridor from the opposite direction to the Entrance Hall. They must have infiltrated the castle from another entrance.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"Stupify!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

There was a chaotic tornado of curses and hexes, and amongst it all Parvati saw Colin throw himself in front of Izzy as a jet of green light arced through the air towards her.

The green light landed on Colin's torso.

It happened extraordinarily quickly: Colin's body crumpling to the floor, his face slackening, light fading from his eyes as the life left him.

"Noooo!" The cry was tortured and wretched and came from Izzy. But Parvati and the rest of the group didn't stop – couldn't stop – as they fought the Death Eaters in front of them.

"Bombarda Maxima!"

Parvati wasn't sure who cast the curse, but suddenly the wall to her right exploded and a cascade of bricks and debris fell down on them. Ginny grabbed Izzy and, in an effort to avoid a huge falling boulder, launched them both out of the nearest window.

The Death Eaters they'd been fighting were felled now – one bound in a strong incarcerous, two Petrified and the other writhing on the ground with purple pustules erupting all over him. Parvati leaned out the window and saw that Ginny and Izzy must have cushioned their falls because they were scrambling up from the cobbles on which they'd landed, apparently unharmed. Parvati lost sight of them as they ran into the smoke of fire and remnants of magic that filled the courtyard below.

"They're okay!" she called at Theo.

As she looked back at him, she saw two people running towards them from the direction of the Entrance Hall and felt a wave of relief as Remus Lupin and a woman with electric blue hair reached them. Then, another group of Death Eaters, led by a tall, stooped figure, charged down the corridor towards them, and Parvati raised her wand to defend herself against another round of curses.


Neville had spent many solitary moments, in the stifling quiet of the Room of Requirement, wondering about what being in a battle would be like, about what kind of fighter he would be.

He realised now that his actions in battle were not choices, they were instinctive and automatic. The lack of time – having only split seconds between casting curses – worked in Neville's favour because it meant he didn't have time to think. Not thinking, and only being able to rely on his impulses, somehow made his movements graceful , his curses accurate and stealth.

He didn't know what it was – this quality that enabled these reflexes – maybe it was a mixture of pure, unadulterated adrenaline and what the Sorting Hat had seen in him, that first day of the school year: 'There's a fire brewing in you, Mr Longbottom,' the Hat had said. 'The courage – it's buried so deep you cannot see it yourself. Yet. But one day…'

Maybe it was what he'd learnt in that hidden room of the DA, what he'd practised at the Ministry, and on the Astronomy Tower. They were all coming together in a succession of well-timed hexes and accurately aimed curses that Neville hadn't even known he could make. Whatever it was, he welcomed it; he was certainly in no position to question it.

All the while, he ensured Hannah was always him – that he was always able to see a flash of gold out of the corner of his eye.

During long winter evenings in the Gryffindor Common Room, Dean had told them about Muggle action films. He'd acted out scenes with Seamus, both of them reciting the fight banter of Hollywood heroes. But Neville knew now that that was all dragonshite. He knew that war was messy and confusing and terrifying, and there were no exclamations, like 'Bring it on!' or 'Yippee ki yay motherfuckers!', because there wasn't time. Once one Death Eater had fallen, Neville had to turn and defend himself against the ones that had appeared behind him. He couldn't waste time thinking about witty one-liners. The fight banter he exchanged with his adversaries consisted only of grunts of frustration and yells of pain.

It seemed different for the Weasley siblings, however, as Neville discovered when he found himself in a corridor with Fred, Percy, Ron, Hermione and Harry. As Pius Thickness lowered his hood, revealing himself, Percy, of all people, decided to get a smart mouth.

"Hello Minister!" he yelled. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"

"You're joking, Perce!" Fred called back, as Neville fired one of three stunning spells at an advancing Death Eater and Thicknesse fell to the ground, disfigured from an unknown hex of Percy's. "You actually are joking Perce… I don't think I've heard you joke since you were–"

The ground shook. Walls imploded and it was as if the castle itself were falling inwards. Inwards and on top of Neville and Fred, as they found themselves being buried under a relentless cascade of falling bricks and debris.


The woman with electric blue hair must be Lupin's young wife, Parvati surmised, as she dodged curses and fired hexes alongside them.

She – Tonks, was it? – lunged in front of Lupin just as the tall, stooped Death Eater blasted a shock of emerald light from his wand.

It hit the woman right in the heart.

Parvati had seen a lot of anguish by this point in her life, but she hadn't seen anything like the look of contorted torment on Lupin's face as Tonks fell to the floor. It was that which killed him – the hesitation – as he looked down at his fallen mate, whose hair had turned from blue to an ashen grey – because it was enough time for the Death Eater to expel another killing curse from his wand.

There was no time for Lupin to shield himself from it.

In the end, perversely, it was not lack of defensive skill that killed Remus Lupin – of course it wasn't. It was the time he'd taken to grieve. To love.

Parvati thought fleetingly, in an effort to console herself, that at least the last thing Lupin saw before he'd died was Tonks' face.

So when the Death Eater turned to her and Theo, Parvati knew he was one of the more ruthless and heartless of his kind. And it was why she was initially confused when she saw that Theo, instead of cursing the man, had lowered his wand and started backing away from him until he'd come up against a huge pile of debris that was blocking the corridor.

It was the first time Parvati had seen naked, pure, unadulterated fear on Theo's face, and when she turned back to the Death Eater in front of them, she understood why. He'd lowered his mask and she could see his features. Features that reminded her, with an ominous dread, of the boy she'd grown to love with a burning passion and unique fervour, who was now standing trembling by her side.

When the man raised his wand at them, Parvati didn't hesitate. She had seen what he was capable of. She'd seen it in the fallen bodies of Lupin and Tonks, had heard it in the hollowness of Theo's voice as he'd spoken of his childhood, had seen it reflected in the tears he'd cried.

Later, Parvati thought about all the other hexes and curses she could have cast, but none of them would have stopped Nott senior. He would have risen from the red and white lights of those curses to hurt and kill again. It was this knowledge that made the lion in her roar and which drove her to do what she did.

"Avada Kedavra!"

She cast the killing curse exactly as Amycus had taught her; green light erupted from her wand, expertly aimed at the father of the boy she loved.

'You have to really mean it' she'd been told countless times, and it seemed she had on this occasion because Nott senior's body went slack, his wand dropped from his hand and he fell backwards, limp and lifeless, onto the floor behind him.

Parvati turned to Theo, her movements slow and stiff, because something like ice was rippling through her body. She knew what this was – that her magic was reacting to the darkness she'd let into her soul.

When she saw the expression on Theo's face, she realised why these curses were called 'Unforgivables'. Because Theo was looking at her with such shock and confusion it was as if he didn't recognise her, and it made her wonder if he would ever forgive her for what she'd just done.


Neville was lying flat on his back, and there was nothing but darkness and pain. Excruciating pain that radiated from his right ankle. He lifted his head, only for it to strike something inches above him. He realised he was in a small, confined space – he couldn't move except to turn his head to either side – and remembered that the castle had seemed to have fallen on top of him.

He wondered if the entire school had collapsed, and that this was it now – he was lying in a ready-made grave. But he wasn't prepared to give up that easily.

He grappled around desperately with his left hand and relief swept over him as he grasped hold of his wand. But he couldn't angle it to cast anything useful like a levitation charm. Maybe a little lumos - yes, that was something - at least there was light. There was someone lying next to him, and Neville managed to turn his head to the side and make out, through a cushion of dust and debris, a flash of red hair. Fred. At least he wasn't alone.

Neville went to open his mouth to speak but realised it was covered with dirt and grit from the rubble. He couldn't move his arms to brush the rubble away and daren't open his mouth because he was worried that the fragments of Hogwarts would fall into it, choking him. Would that be how he'd die, after all this, suffocated by the remnants of the school he'd fought to protect?

But Neville realised he was being ridiculous, quelled his rising panic and opened his mouth, spat the grit and dirt out, and yelled up into the carpet of fallen masonry above him. " Hello?! Help! " Then, more quietly, he asked, "Fred?"

There was no answer and so he assumed that Fred had been rendered unconscious, but Neville carried on speaking anyway, because maybe he was just finding it hard to move and talk. "It's okay Fred, we'll get out of here – I've got my wand. Help !"

"Neville!? Oh thank God!" Neville heard a muffled voice, possibly Hermione's, through the fallen stones. "Here! Over here!"

"Neville?" another voice cried.

"Yes! Harry!?"

The rubble suddenly shifted, pressing down on his ankle, and an agonising pain rocketed through him. He cried out involuntarily.

"Oh Merlin, sorry! Are you okay?" Hannah's voice reached him, apologetic and anxious, and Neville's heart soared at the sound of it.

"Yes, fine, don't worry about me! Do what you need to do to move the debris!"

"Fred?"

"Can you see Fred?"

The cries, distraught and urgent, came from Ron and Percy.

"Yes, he's here with me!" Neville called back.

They didn't ask if their brother was okay, which Neville was grateful for, because he didn't know what he'd say in reply; he'd been desperately trying not to think about how unnaturally quiet and still Fred Weasley had been whilst he'd been lying beside him.


"Theo – I'm sorry! I'm so sorry," Parvati was half sobbing, half yelling as they continued to fight yet more hooded figures.

They were slowly being backed onto the landing where Lavender and Trelawney were still making use of their supply of crystal balls. Theo was grimacing, but it was hard to tell if this was because of the masked men in front of them, or at the fact that the girl he'd finally allowed himself to trust had just killed his father.

Parvati's distress meant she wasn't focused on the fighting and didn't see a Death Eater cast a jet of purple light at her. Her left leg suddenly felt like it was on fire, and her knees buckled as she collapsed to the floor. She saw with relief that her leg was not actually on fire, but that blood was pouring from a wound on her calf.

Theo dived down next to her, and in an urgent succession of spells, cut her tights from her leg and started mumbling a healing charm. But a figure was scurrying towards them, with greasy hair tired in a ponytail and baring yellow teeth – large, pointy yellow teeth that did not belong to a human. He – it – made to pounce on Theo–

" Impedimenta !"

Parvati would have recognised the yell of Lavender's voice anywhere. Her hex sent the man flying through the air and, mercifully, away from Theo.

"Greyback!" Theo exclaimed, as the man rose to his feet and looked with dark, intent eyes at Lavender.

"You little bitch!" Greyback snarled. "Revenge will be mine – and it will be sweet. I can smell your blood from here!"

And in one terrifyingly swift movement, he scampered forwards and pounced on Lavender with such power that the force of it propelled them both over the bannisters and down into the chaos of battle below.


Neville wasn't sure how Ginny had got there, just after they'd managed to pull Fred's body from the wreckage. The fallen Weasley's eyes stared skyward, unseeing, as Percy leant over his brother's body, sobbing desperately. Ginny stood frozen beside Neville, her normally flushed cheeks pale. Then she was spoke, calmly and quietly, but the words she uttered didn't make sense to him.

"Her Boggart. It's mum's Boggart, Neville. It's here."


Lavender's body fell like a rag doll's.

Parvati watched, helpless, as her friend hit the ground like a sack of stones. Lavender stayed ominously still as Greyback scurried towards her, bent down and sank his teeth into her neck. Parvati made to move – to stop the werewolf – but pain from her injured calf seared through her body and caused her legs to buckle beneath her.

Suddenly there was a cry, seemingly from thin air : " No !" – and Greyback was flung back and away from Lavender. He hit the wall a few feet away and sank, unconscious, to the ground.

Parvati looked in the direction of the cry but couldn't see anyone, except...maybe...she blinked, attempting to clear her vision, thinking she'd started to hallucinate. But no, she was certain she saw them: three pairs of disembodied trainers running out of the entrance of the castle.


When Voldemort's voice reverberated around the castle for a second time, Neville was grasping hold of a huge Venomous Tentacula, which had started to weave itself around several Death Eaters at once, imprisoning them in a cage of it's branches. The cries of terror and the cracks of curses quickly fell silent at the chilling sound of the dark wizard's voice.

"You have fought," people stood still, as if the words themselves had the power to freeze them, "Valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery.

"Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a waste.

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat, immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.

"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then the battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself. Harry Potter, I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman and child who had tried to conceal you from me. One hour."

The Death Eaters around Neville, those that hadn't succumbed to the encroaching vines of the Tentacular, Disapparated in swirls of black clouds.

Neville dropped the plant to the floor, took a deep breath in order to steady his breathing, and lowered his wand as he looked around him, taking in the destruction the battle had wrought and the numerous bodies that now littered the halls of Hogwarts.


As the Death Eaters Disapparated around them and the sounds of battle quieted, Parvati turned to Theo and grasped at his shoulders. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I I killed your father," she sobbed.

They hadn't had a chance to talk about it since she'd cast the killing curse, and she felt a strange sense of relief at saying the words again, as if she were confessing. Which, in a way, she supposed she was.

"Hey, hey, hey," Theo said gently, placing one hand on her waist and softly cupping her jaw with the other. She noticed, as he did so, that the red criss-cross marks of the Unbreakable Vow had disappeared. "Listen to me: he was my father in name only. I grieved having a real father years ago "

"I can't it feels so cold " Now that the adrenaline of fighting a battle was dissipating, Parvati was starting to feel an icy chill travel through her veins.

"That feeling will go with time. Listen: don't start hating yourself for this. Don't start thinking you're bad or wrong or corrupted in some way. I spent years doing that and it will only eat you up inside. What you did you were protecting me and protecting all those people he would no doubt have gone on to hurt that was a good thing."

Parvati brushed the tears away from her cheeks and looked into Theo's earnest eyes. The tight knot of guilt and anguish she'd been feeling was starting to unwind. She took a deep breath.

"I love you. You know that, right?" Theo said quietly.

It was the first time he'd said the words out loud. He'd told her in so many other ways with the spark of his eyes, the touch of his lips, the way he moved inside her but he'd never said the words. She felt them warming the ice in her blood. She nodded and found herself smiling.

"And I love you," she replied.

All manner of emotions seemed to cross Theo's face, so fast that Parvati couldn't read them. He nodded shortly and, noticing the glisten of his eyes, Parvati realised that he couldn't talk, or he'd cry too. So instead, she leaned towards him and pressed her lips to his in a slow, lingering kiss.

When she pulled away, the reality of their situation came crashing back into her awareness.

"Will you help me find Lavender?" she asked.

"Of course."

Theo took her hand, and together they gingerly descended the partly-demolished stairs to the ground floor.


It was too much for Neville in the Great Hall. There was too much opportunity in that great, ancient room to think. When he saw the Weasley family, united but at the same time irrevocably torn apart with grief, something in him seemed to fracture, and he worried that he would finally break.

"Neville! Oh Neville dear!" a familiar voice cried, and the smell of elderflower and musk engulfed his nostrils as his gran pulled him to her in a tight hug. He instinctively reciprocated it, quickly processing the fact she was here – of course she would be – and had been fighting – of course she would have been. His gran clasped his jaw, tilting his head up so she could look down on him with intense eyes.

"Neville, I'm so, so proud of you!" she declared earnestly. Neville had never heard her say those words to him with such fervour. "You've been so brave! You are such a great wizard, so much like your father!"

The words seemed to travel inside him, sealing the fractures that had formed in the last hours of the battle, that had been threatening to break him apart like cracked earth in a drought. He nodded, for he had no words in that moment, and his gran seemed to understand.

"Nev," Ginny had approached them, her eyes bloodshot and cheeks damp. "I can't stay in here – I need to keep doing something. They need people to search for – for people that might be hurt."

Neville nodded. "I'll come too," and he followed Ginny out the hall to try and rescue the injured, and recover the bodies of those that were beyond help.

As they walked through the wreckage in the main courtyard outside, Ginny spotted something lying on the ground and half-ran to it, crouching down by a girl with fair hair who was half buried in the rubble.

"I want my mum. Please..." the girl was whimpering.

"It's okay, Izzy, we'll get you inside soon," Ginny reassured.

"But I want to go home. I don't want to fight anymore."

"Neville," Oliver Wood was standing by Neville's side, with his face streaked with dirt and a bloody gash to his forehead. "Will you give me a hand on the first floor?"

They found Colin Creevey's body not far from the first floor landing. His face was pale but looked strangely peaceful. A jolt of anger surged through Neville, because Colin should not have been here – a child should not have been here. Wordlessly, Oliver and Neville picked him up and started to carry him to the Great Hall. At the Entrance Hall, Neville stumbled.

"You know what?" Oliver said gently, seeming to sense Neville's exhaustion. "I can manage alone, Neville."

Oliver effortlessly hauled Colin's tiny body up over his shoulder and carried him into the hall. Neville leaned against the doorframe, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, allowing himself a moment's reprieve before heading back outside into the courtyard.

As he bent over another body, he heard someone say his name, literally out of thin air.

"Neville."

He jumped and turned, startled to see that Harry had appeared by his side. His friend looked different from even just a few hours earlier – older somehow, resigned, and wiser – as if he had a knowledge weighing on him as heavy as a Hippogriff.

"Blimey Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure!" And then Neville thought of how he hadn't seen Harry since the start of the ceasefire and the chilling words of Voldemort came back to him: I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you... I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then the battle recommences. A suspicion grew in Neville like a stubborn weed. "Where are you going, alone?"

"It's all part of the plan. There's something I've got to do. Listen – Neville–"

His friend's dismissive words only fed Neville's suspicions. Neville knew that if there was one thing Harry Potter hated, it was his loved ones suffering on his behalf. But couldn't Harry see that Voldemort knew this too, and was trying to use it to his advantage?

"Harry! Harry, you're not thinking of handing yourself over?"

"No. 'Course not…this is something else. But I might be out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort's snake, Neville? He's got a huge snake...calls it Nagini…"

"I've heard, yeah...what about it?"

"It's got to be killed. Ron and Hermione know that, but just in case they–" Harry faltered as his voice broke, but then he seemed to gather himself again. "Just in case they're – busy – and you get the chance–"

Neville sensed the desperate importance in Harry's request.

"Kill the snake?"

"Kill the snake," Harry repeated. Then he fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small vial filled with clear liquid. "You should take this too."

"What is it?" Neville asked, taking the vial and frowning at it quizzically.

"Memories," Harry replied. "You can view them in the Pensieve in the headmaster's office. You can get in there easily – the gargoyles are as good as dust."

"All right, Harry," But Neville's suspensions about where Harry was going hadn't died. "You're okay, are you?"

"I'm fine. Thanks, Neville." Harry's words were far from convincing.

As Harry turned to go, Neville reached out and instinctively grasped his wrist.

"We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?"

"Yeah, I–" But Harry's voice broke again and Neville understood full well the emotions that his friend was trying to hold back. He reached out and patted Harry on the shoulder before the Boy-Who-Lived turned and made himself invisible once more.


Harry was right – the gargoyles lay fallen, cracked and ultimately redundant, leaving Neville free to ascend to the headmaster's office unencumbered.

The Pensieve stood in the centre of the room, as if waiting for him. Neville undid the clasp of the vial and poured the tears into the bowl, wondering with an intense curiosity who had cried them. He hadn't used a Pensieve before, but they'd studied them, and the process didn't sound particularly complicated.

He took a deep breath, leant down and plunged his head into the magical swirls of liquid that made up the contents of the bowl. He suddenly felt like he was falling through space and landed clumsily on the floor of the headmaster's office. Disappointed, Neville initially thought it hadn't worked.

But as he got to his feet, he noticed that the sun was streaming through the windows of the room, and the leaves of the Forbidden Forest in the distance were green and full; it looked like it was the end of summer. Neville flinched as he saw Snape standing by his desk, looking up at the portrait of Dumbledore, and had to remind himself that this was a mere memory, and Snape could not hurt him.

"So there was no getting around this? The Carrows will be teaching at the school this year?" Dumbledore was asking solemnly.

"Yes, they will be," Snape replied gravely. "I tried to discourage the Dark Lord of it, but there was only so much I could do without arousing his suspicions."

"And you must not arouse suspicion, Severus. Especially not now. He must continue to think you are loyal to him."

"Yes, I am fully aware of that," Snape bit out, sitting down in his chair in a sullen, impatient movement.

"You remember what you promised me, Snape?" Dumbledore asked, a hint of urgency in his voice.

"To protect the students of this school," Snape replied. Neville's stomach flipped confusingly, as Snape looked boldly up at Dumbledore's portrait, and continued clearly, "and I have every intention of honouring that promise."

Neville's heart plummeted to somewhere near his feet as the realisation of what he was hearing hit him. Snape. Snape had been loyal to Dumbledore the whole time - he had been protecting the students of Hogwarts.

Neville stood stock still as he waited for the next scene to unfold and to watch the last, terrible year of his schooling through the eyes of the teacher he'd always hated.


Notes: As always, I'd love to know what you think! Your comments are loved and treasured.