Chapter 17 - An Example
As bad as the first few weeks of the new term were, there was one upside: the terror was inspiring. Attendance at the DA meetings had never been higher.
Neville still checked the post every day, multiple times a day, and he still wrote letters to everyone he could think of who might know where Luna had ended up, but there was never any news.
So he poured himself, heart and soul, into the DA lessons. He rehearsed pep talks in front of the mirror when no one else was around in the dorm room. He spent hours practicing new spells to teach, and he agonized over how to get through to each and every student who struggled. He even got Ginny and Seamus together between meetings to work on casting the Cruciatus—they got to the point where they could cast it in such a way that it only caused a bit of heat in the skin, and almost no pain at all, but occasionally they also practiced realistic reactions—sometimes, that ended in fits of laughter, which was a welcome escape and a necessary release.
On one of those afternoons, though, Neville stopped laughing abruptly a moment after he had begun. Guilt flooded through him. How dare he feel happiness when Luna was still missing? He could feel the note from his gran in his pocket—would she be proud of him for enjoying himself at a time like this?
Ginny frowned. "Are you okay?"
"Just . . . thinking about Luna."
She nodded slowly. "You know, you can still laugh sometimes."
"She's probably being tortured."
"And you're doing everything you can to find out where she is so that we can rescue her."
Neville squeezed his eyes shut. "I've found out nothing."
"It's okay, mate," Seamus cut in. "We're going to save her when you do. She knows you'd never give up on her."
"And in the meantime?"
Ginny took a deep breath. "You keep living. You go to your classes and set an example for the others, you teach DA classes, you enjoy time with your friends in the moments when you can. That's what Luna would want you to do."
"How do you know?"
"Because Merlin forbid, if anything should happen to me, that's what I would want." She looked Neville deep in the eyes. "If I'm taken, you keep living. And if I die, I never want you to feel like you shouldn't still laugh with your friends after the dust settles. You can wish I was there with you, but never feel guilty for being happy."
Neville nodded slowly, then looked over at Seamus. "Hey. Remember in fourth year, when I accidentally transplanted my ears onto a cactus in transfiguration class?"
A slow grin broke out across Seamus's face, as Ginny cried out, "You did what?"
"You heard me," Neville said.
"That's sick. Did it hurt?"
"Surprisingly, no. Putting them back on my head, though, that was hell."
Ginny burst out laughing, and Neville and Seamus joined her.
But that was a brief, shining moment in the midst of the battle that was the first month of the spring term.
The team of Slytherins that the Carrows had instated as punishers had taken to publicly chaining up first years. Neville personally thought it was a bit of an improvement on their usual punishments, since it caused minimal physical pain, but Ginny pointed out that it scared the life out of them, which, for a first year, was worse than pain.
The DA was as active as ever in their fight. They posted graffiti and propaganda about Luna's disappearance. They also sent teams of students on secret missions to rescue first years who had been chained up.
In the wake of one of the rescue missions, Snape called an emergency assembly. That was a first, and Neville didn't want to think about what it could mean.
He didn't have long to wait. They all gathered at the tables in the Great Hall, but it was an hour after dinner, so the table surfaces were empty. The Hogwarts staff were gathered at the front table. Most of them looked as terrified as Neville felt. Snape sat among them, wearing an expression that Neville had never learned to read.
It was Amycus Carrow at the podium.
"It has come to our attention—" His voice caused the whispers and murmurs in the Great Hall to die down to silence— "that some of you still believe that Hogwarts is a battleground between Light and Dark, and that the Light is winning."
The door burst open, and Alecto Carrow strode into the hall leading her team of Slytherins, who were dragging one student along with them. Michael Corner.
Michael had been the head of the team that had gone to rescue the first years who had been chained up this week. Neville had never heard back from them. They must have been caught—or, at the very least, Michael had been.
Neville didn't know Michael too well. He was in the same year as Neville, but in Ravenclaw, which meant he held his own pretty well in DA meetings, and Neville didn't spend a lot of time working with him like he did for the younger students. Ginny's face was white as a sheet, though—she had dated Michael for a little while. And Neville figured Luna would have been as horrified, since they were in the same house.
"We are gathered here today to put an end to those notions," Amycus Carrow said.
The Carrows stood on either side of Michael, whose muscles cringed even as he stood tall and firm.
"Crucio," they both said, and Michael lasted almost a full second before a shout escaped him.
It was nothing like the other times Neville had seen the Cruciatus performed. His own experiences with it had never lasted more than a few seconds, but this must have been minutes. For a long time, there were no sounds other than Michael's cries, but then Neville heard a soft sob beside him, and turned to see Ginny crying. He took her into his arms, and she buried her face in his shoulder and shook in his arms.
Michael just kept screaming, face coated in tears. He thrashed on the floor, beating his arms and legs against the ground, curling into fetal position, then stretching out of it. It was like he was trying everything in his power to ease the agony, and nothing was helping.
Ginny pushed away from Neville suddenly. "Stop!" Ginny screamed at the Carrows, tears streaming down her cheeks. "STOP!"
Neville's heart nearly stopped—he was sure they were going to turn on her and give her the same treatment, but they merely laughed and continued to cast the spell on Michael.
Neville didn't know how long it was before they let Michael go. He never passed out, but maybe that was part of the Cruciatus—it didn't allow its victims to escape. Michael had screamed himself so hoarse that little more than a whistle escaped his throat in the last few seconds of the curse. He couldn't stand, but the Carrows stood aside and let a few Ravenclaws onto the platform to collect Michael and half-walk, half-carry him back to their table. They were crying as hard as he was.
The Carrows had figured it out. Figured out what wasn't true for them. Watching the pain of a friend was worse than pain itself. And if they knew that, they held all of the cards. There was nothing the DA could do.
They had to stop fighting.
Amycus Carrow returned to the podium, and looked out over the crowd of students. "Let this be an example," he said.
A long silence, punctuated only by a few sobs from the Ravenclaw table and a couple of snickers from the Slytherins.
"To your dormitories," he said, and the tables began to clear.
The traffic of students walking in the corridors moved slower than Neville had ever seen. It wasn't that the space was crowded. It was that they all walked as though they carried the weight of the world with them with each step.
Seamus kept sneaking glances at Neville's face as they walked. When they reached the Gryffindor common room, he turned to Neville and whispered, "What now?"
"What do you think?" Neville almost couldn't hear his own voice, it was so soft, but by the look on Seamus's face, he had understood.
"We're done," Seamus said.
The Carrows had talked about wanting to break them slowly. Neville had thought that that meant they had a chance of making it through unbroken, but he had never been so wrong. They had been broken.
They were finished. The only thing left to do was wait.
"Harry will come," Neville said.
"He's not coming, mate."
"He has to."
"Neville—"
"He'll come, Seamus."
Seamus hung his head and left the common room.
When he was sure no one was looking, Neville let a few tears fall. Harry would save them. He had to. He was the only hope they had left.