Neville and Goyle were alone at the Greenhouse, a tertiary entrance to the castle. Students were really supposed to go through the main doors, but it made little sense not to have a door connecting the glass gardens and the school's grounds. Despite being entirely transparent, the Herbology classroom was just as secured as the rest of the castle. It's not the stone that makes the walls strong, it's the enchantments. Well, that and the warding.
As he had learned, even the soil was magical, and Helga Hufflepuff had understood the benefits of magical soil in the prevention of undermining. Wards beneath the surface were strengthened by the magic seeping into the earth, making subterranean invasion nearly impossible. Magical soil allowed for magical plants to grow, and the plants would die and decay into fertilizer for more soil. The Forbidden Forest could theoretically be used by a clever wandmaker, but he had no idea whether or not that was taking place.
"What are we doing here, Longbottom?"
"I don't remember. I know we need to do something to get our friends out." Goyle sighed at this explanation.
"They're your friends. They were useful to us in first year, now they're not. Malfoy says they're a 'hindrance'. Everyone else agrees."
"I do remember one thing from first year, apart from some conversation about magical wand wood," Neville started back, entering the school proper as he passed his wand over one of his own plants, having neglected to water it. "We were talking about the other Hufflepuffs, including Ernie, the one who was a bit interested in wandlore. You asked me 'what if you're right, and they're wrong', or something like that."
"That was about the conspirators," Goyle muttered, following. "We didn't even know what they were called."
"Officially, they're not called anything, they're just Hufflepuffs and they don't recognize the existence of any Hufflepuff who doesn't join them. They don't even like the word join; you're either on their side or you're not."
"They wouldn't have let you in even if you had nothing to do with us," Goyle muttered. A wizard their age was running toward them. His name might have been Hopkins. He looks like a Hopkins.
"They know I'm a pure blood, so I would have had to work harder for it, but they'd have gotten over that, at least I think they would." He thought for a moment. "Hopkins, you're a pure blood, right?" he called.
"Why...?" the breathless student managed, hands on his knees. "Introducing me... to your purist friends...?" If there was any venom in his voice, it was easily masked by exhaustion. Neville had some idea this particular conspirator was really only a coward looking to be on the winning side. He cared nothing at all for the ideals at stake.
"No, we're just wondering if they accept pure bloods or if they're still suspicious of you." he answered.
"We'd never be suspicious of you," Goyle offered. "Being a pure blood gives you a stake in the future of the magical world." he explained, recycling a line from Malfoy. "There are exceptions, like the Weasleys, but we would at least hear them out if they offered to join."
I wonder if he's lying. I can't ever tell.
"I don't want anything to do with you anyway." Hopkins muttered, catching his breath. "At least eight students in ten are really in support of us."
"Who told you that?" the Slytherin asked.
"It's not important," Neville interrupted. "What's going on in here?"
"They attacked us. We were only trying to help the Auror, and they attacked us- more of them than we expected. I've been trying to see how the others got in, because I thought we had every entrance covered. "
"What happened to them?"
"I left them with Justin and Boris's sister. If someone kills them it's no skin off my nose. They wouldn't come with me. I had to run to the seventh floor myself to get some sense of protection against Death Eaters, and as I was removing curses, Justin shows up, which was odd as I thought he meant to guard the prisoners."
"The seventh floor was where you had to fight them?"
"Yeah. Might be they figured it was the last place we'd expect, but Ernie disappeared after we sent him that way." The Longbottom heir frowned to himself. Over the past week or so, the first-years they had tasked to scouting told them it seemed like the enemy secret base was on the seventh floor. "Anyway, he told me he needed the prisoner's wands. Said the Department wanted to use the prior enchantments trick."
I don't really need to recover their wands. If the worst comes to it and we don't get them back, I'm sure Gran would be happy to buy new.
"Where did you put the prisoners?"
"Fifth floor. It was Justin's idea, sort of. I don't know what's gotten into him; it's the most he's spoken in weeks. What was really weird, though, was he just kind of got up after the battle. I couldn't see when he got knocked out, so I suppose it didn't stand out to me at the time. I could hardly focus on anything except taking them down." Well, with you that probably involved way too much force.
"We'll be happy to help watch them," Goyle offered.
"Like I'd leave them to you."
"You might as well have, not guarding them yourself," Neville argued, walking off after the other wizard. I really hope he's going for the stairs.
"Did I hear an explosion earlier?" the Slytherin asked.
"Well, I figured the only way they could have gotten in was through the Chamber. I decided to go ahead and seal off their escape."
He's been running himself to the ground.
It took the three of them little enough time to get to the fifth floor, but the prisoners were not there, as perhaps they might have expected. As the Longbottom heir led the way, the other two had been talking behind him, their distaste for each other perfectly transparent. Somewhere in there Hopkins mentioned that what he meant by 'sealing off the escape' had been sealing off the Chamber entirely. Goyle had been less than concerned about the prisoners he was condemning to starvation, since they were regular criminals, but he had been at least interested in the effect a blasting curse in the lower levels would have on the structural integrity of the castle. He admitted to using the same spell on the ceiling earlier to get around the enemy's shields, and was surprised that it actually worked.
If I had Hannah's imagination, I still wouldn't know why the spell was so effective, but at least I'd have a guess. From what little he actually knew, it seemed the earth around the castle had grown more magical over time, though that could be attributed to a variety of causes. I need to focus on what I can do, not on everything else.
"So if they got out, where did they go?" Neville asked. "Would they try to get out of the school?"
"They're not my problem," Hopkins defended. "I don't know how they'd get out without some kind of distraction. The Aurors are watching this place from every angle, if they're not dealing with Death Eaters." A distraction... we can manage that.
"You know what, I agree," he said at length. "We shouldn't be worried about where they ended up, not with Aurors and Death Eaters running about." The Slytherin appeared grateful enough at the decision he voiced. "Now that I think on it, the three of us might be the least qualified of all to handle this sort of thing, at least in our year."
"What of it?"
"Well, where do you think the Death Eaters are likely to be?"
"They'll know about the prisoners down in the Chamber," Hopkins speculated. "It was in the Prophet. Why don't you ask your friend?"
"It's not like they tell me anything," Goyle muttered. "Are we going down there?"
"We're going down there before the Death Eaters get there. We need to collapse more of the girls' toilet to make it harder for them to find the entrance."
"Your blood purist friends would never allow you to do something that might inconvenience their parents," the other Hufflepuff argued.
"Well, say the Aurors start losing- unleashing the prisoners might be the distraction they need," he offered. "This way, no one gets to go down there and release them, and no one has any secret ways to escape. Everyone wins. Well, maybe everyone loses."
If the plan convinced either one of them, neither of them showed it. More than anything, they both looked like each would sooner see what was going on than leave the other alone.
The Chamber isn't a real way out. It's almost entirely sealed on the other side. I can't remember if trying to go through there will set off the warding, but I'd rather not find out.
It occurred to him that he would be burying the prisoners, further reducing their chances of survival, but he could think of no other way of causing a distraction that would not clue in either of his companions. Goyle would be happy to have them taken prisoner- he's probably the least interested in having a third side out of anyone.
As soon as they reached the second floor toilet, however, the three of them were stopped by a pair of elves who looked to be cleaning up wreckage with magic.
"What are you doing?" Hopkins asked, somewhat upset that they were ruining his work.
"We must serve the school, see, we can't allow it, no, not at all..." one of them started. What was her name again? The other one was easier to remember. He was called Twelvsies for his unusual number of toes, though he never spoke for some reason.
"Well, put it back straight away." Goyle ordered. "We're trying to protect the school."
The servants did not respond.
"Forget the school, we're trying to put Death Eaters out of potential help." the Hufflepuff wizard explained, with the same success.
"They can't just listen to any given student." Neville said. "They think of themselves as agents of the school." He actually might not know how elvish servitude works. I've probably forgotten more times than he's heard.
"Well, that's not helping anyone at the moment." Hopkins muttered angrily, taking out his wand. The house-elf vanished rather than enter a confrontation. That's right.. they can apparate inside of Hogwarts!
"Don't hex them. They're expensive." Goyle ordered.
"I'm not listening to blood purists like you." The blood purist took out his wand.
"There's no need- what does this have to do with-" the Longbottom heir started weakly. Wait- this might be my chance. "Twelve!" he called out, not seeing the elf anywhere. "If you're still listening to us, get away. We don't need your help here, but another group of students might."
He had thought his words were transparent even as he spoke them, but his companions were focused more on deflecting curses and shielding. Three explosions hit the walls by the time he was sure the house-elves were gone. He stood there staring as the two wizards fought, not knowing which to help. Goyle would have helped me, but only because I'm a pure blood.
Neville reminded himself that the distraction had been his first plan. I can't get distracted myself. It'll probably be the Aurors that swarm their position- I haven't seen any Death Eaters in here, and I have to be suspicious when the Aurors are saying there are Death Eaters. Acting as if he meant to chase the servants and shouting something ambiguous, he remembered the enchanted boxes he had pocketed after figuring out how to shrink them back down, after releasing Malfoy and his friends. He had an idea of smuggling his friends out of the school, but it seemed unlikely he would find them, if they were even still in the castle. By contrast, he would have no difficulty at all finding some of the projects he had going down in the greenhouses, and he was not too far from them, with such a large castle to be considered. If Crouch's people take over the school, I'll be one of the first to get kicked out. I need to take what I can with me and start thinking about my next move. Well, that's what my father would do. I'll probably end up forgetting something and asking Gran for help.
He had invited his friends to the manor at the beginning of the year, and he found the specifics general to place, but his grandmother at least seemed to remember the previous war and the escalation of tensions. However quickly or slowly it went, the path to war seemed to be following some of the same patterns as last time. If one thing's certain, people will be saying we could have predicted the final few steps before wands are drawn, but that's not how it works. In History of Magic he had to compensate for a poor memory with note taking and using wards to cheat, by one definition or another, but if he had learned anything, it was never so simple as people thought.
"I'll need these," he said to himself as he levitated a breeding pair of Tentacula into the chest, soil and all. "I don't know why, but this might come in useful." He had a Tanzanian Singing Tongue in an enchanted pot, touching a hand to his Remembrall before remembering that it needed a natural light charm. "Lux Africana. Damn, now I need more tropical plants for that chest."
Deciding he was almost having too much fun setting them in order, he squared the rest of his projects away while having the least fun possible. Can't be up to anything like that, not when I haven't a clue where my friends are.
Being honest with himself, which came naturally with low self-esteem, he knew not who his friends were, their locations notwithstanding. It was annoying, to be sure, but he still wanted to stick with the philosophy of being friends with everyone he liked, assuming they liked him. Hestia bothered him about it more than Malfoy or any of the conspirators, perhaps out of something like genuine concern, but she did not seem to understand him in the first place.
She was supposed to be teaching me all sorts of things, but I couldn't get her off combative magic for more than an hour. It felt like I had to justify learning things I really wanted to learn.
As he finished getting his things together and shrinking the boxes again, he remembered not a specific point, but a general time frame when she gave up arguing that his life was on the line and there were some things he just had to learn. It seemed the argument did not motivate him, so there was no point to making it. He had this vaguely negative feeling about making everyone else care about him, when he cared little about himself, but he could hardly see a way around it. His entire life, short though it might have been on any sort of scale, he had dealt with a lack of confidence that built upon itself by never putting himself in situations where he could develop anything resembling self-esteem, or at least that was what he had pieced together from Hestia's thinly veiled insults. At some level, like an academic, idealized understanding, someone with a lack of confidence was a normal person with a problem, whatever his character might be. In what he called the real world, however, it was an insult. The word 'delusional' was an insult; it was something you could directly or near enough attribute to a weakness of character. The language of terms gave people the opportunity to act like they were speaking an objective fact, when really it was an opinion, an uninformed one, and a deliberate attempt to hurt that could easily be justified as helping.
To make matters worse, the term 'delusion' only applied to unpopular beliefs. If he said that Merlin put a sword in a stone for a Squib named Arthur to pull out, that would basically be fine- some would think less of him, as it was apocryphal, but it was something people had been saying for centuries. If, however, he stated some cultist belief that Squibs could gain magical ability through enchanted artefacts, he would be institutionalized, or at least the academics would think that he should be.
I have to be confident that Hermione and the others can get out. There's probably nothing more I can do for them.
It was a distracting experience, and a painful one, to trust in his friends, but it was something he learned from Malfoy of all people. As far as Neville knew, he had never once lied to his closest associates. Others he drew into his circle for their abilities, but he knew they had their own agendas, while Crabbe and Goyle would maintain their fealty forever. It's better to have them on your side than no one, and he knows there will come yet another day when loyalties are tested in Slytherin House. That's what he said, anyway, or most of it.
Going back outside to see where Hannah had been taken, he had some idea Goyle would probably win against Hopkins and rejoin him or Malfoy, but his failure to do so thus far was moderately concerning. Hannah's in more trouble than he is. At the very least I need to see where she's going, since they can't take her to Azkaban. He knew he could not promise her he would get her out of it, but it would be a start.
The situation outside had the appearance of being under control, with Aurors flying everywhere now, but that usually indicated a lack of control leading up to their current point. I suppose that's what they were complaining about, after all. They wanted control, now they have it.
His grandmother had been speaking with people from a few different magical societies and it was a wonder how no one saw the loss of Hogwarts coming. People voted, to be sure, but the only way of getting them to pay wizarding taxes was by continually increasing the perception of the Death Eater menace. Unlike muggle governments, which Hermione had explained to him at least thrice, the Ministry provided basically no services; witches and wizards had no need for people to put out fires or build roads. All they had was Azkaban, which was really funded about as cheaply as possible and filled up quickly, resulting in people getting out of prison time, which gave the Hit Wizards a regular job to do catching them all over again. Regulatory offices were even better about making work for themselves, but they employed a subtler sense of fear-mongering.
Talking to the Aurors yielded little information. Enough of them could easily take out a fully transformed werewolf, it went without saying Hannah presented no particular challenge. He tried to make small talk about prisoners and where to put them, acting the unsuspecting Hufflepuff, but they deflected his questions. At long last they said the prisoner was ultimately up to the Department's discretion, though it was possible vacant parts of Hogwarts would be used. That's perfect- they can't trap her here, only we know the ins and outs of this place- it'll be just like Umbridge, we'll get rid of anyone they send before the year's out.
As he started to formulate plans, deciding he need to write them somewhere, he heard a few of the Aurors who were still standing around start talking in hushed tones. What are they saying? They made signals of some sort to the Aurors flying overhead and around the castle as they marched to the castle, spread out to avoid being taken out in a few spells. Is it the Death Eaters? What are they doing?
It was only then that he realized he had been stunned, and if there were any point to his returning to the castle, he would not discover what it was.
