Chapter 50: See You In Hell
Neville felt spasms of pain scrape into his side as he was roughly thrown to the floor of the stone cellar deep below Malfoy Manor, Ron at his side. The dark shadows of bars passed over their manhandled forms as the traitorous Wormtail closed the cellar door with a CLANG! The echo of this had barely faded away on the air when a feminine scream wafted down to them.
Hearing the cries of the woman he loved, Ron completely lost his head. "HERMIONE!" He struggled mightily, frantically to his feet, even as Neville scrabbled up after him and resorted to chasing his best mate around and around the room. Ron was now shaking the bars of the door, clawing at the peat, earthen walls, tears of anguish streaming down his face. "HERMIONE!"
Neville briefly debated tackling the distraught redhead, except he feared how a desperate Ron might hurt him as well as himself. Neither of them were any help to Hermione in halting the danger she was in, tortured at the hands of a deranged Bellatrix Lestrange, if they were a danger to themselves. "Shut up, Ron, we need to have a plan!"
Another scream.
"HERMIONE! HERMIONE!"
"Put a picture of her in your head!" Neville tried to coach him. "Be brave for her, understand?!" But listening to Hermione's shouts and wails, he was rapidly starting to become unglued himself. The only thing that could make him more distraught at this point was if Luna herself was being tortured, or worse.
Later, he would wonder if merely thinking of her and her lovely face, her radiant smile, had somehow summoned her to him.
"Ron? Nev? Is that really…?"
"Luna?!"
"Yes, it's me! Is that really you?"
Hermione's screams were echoing now, getting inside of his head. Ron was by now half-sobbing as he pounded the walls with his fists. Suddenly remembering, Neville was tearing off his shoes, and then his socks, jiggling the one frantically until Hermione's beaded bag – stuffed there in a moment of duress – fell out. By the tiny sliver of light that reached this far down, Neville saw Luna's silver eyes glowing back at him.
"That's a curious thing to keep in your sock," she hummed lightly.
"Where did you get it?!" Up above, Bellatrix's voice had risen to such a shriek only dogs and bats would be able to hear it. "Tell me the truth, right now, or I swear, I shall run you through with this knife!"
"We…. we found it….. PLEASE!" Hermione screeched.
There! Neville closed his hand around the little cigarette lighter and he yanked it out of the bag triumphantly; clicking it, he watched as balls of light zoomed into existence, then, with no bulbs to house in, they simply hovered there, flooding the cellar with illumination.
Now able to see much more clearly, Neville's heart shattered as he realized: Ron was at this point trying to Disapparate without a wand.
"You can't get out that way, Ron," Luna chided with gentle sympathy. "We've already tried."
Now that he got a better look at her, Neville felt all the color drain from his face. His Luna was clad in a loose-fitting sweater, the cloth hanging loosely about her frame because she was so thin! Even under the thick layer, Neville thought he could see the beautiful girl's ribs poking out and visible beneath her skin and she wanted to wretch. Just how long had she been here? Unable to stand it any longer, he dashed forward and Luna sank into him with a sigh that might have been relief.
"Are you hurt?" He leaned out of the hug, softly dared to touch her face. "How… how long…? Your father…."
"You saw Daddy?" Luna leaned back, gazing up at him with her arms still around his neck.
"Tried to sell us out, he did!" Ron piped up abruptly, croaking between sobs and whimpers that seemed close in sound to Hermione's name.
"Ron? Not. Now," Neville got out through gritted teeth. If Luna had any further wonders as to how exactly her father had tried to double-cross her friends, she didn't offer up anything, merely biting her lip in thought.
"Lu? Do those voices belong to who I think they belong to…?"
Still at rest in Neville's arms, Luna turned and called back into the shadowed corners of the rear of the cellar. "Yes, Dean, come on out!"
Neville watched as classmate Dean Thomas shuffled into the light, the glow from the floating balls of energy making a slash across his face where part of him still remained in shadow. He seemed to be tugging, coaxing someone behind him, and Neville glanced down at his…. his…. he wasn't sure what to call Luna at the moment as he watched her bite her lip again.
"I've been feeding him," she crooned quietly. "The Headmaster."
Headmaster….? And Neville's jaw dropped as Dean finally managed to coach an aged figure into the light.
Albus Dumbledore looked withered; there were even deeper lines set into his face. He was cradling one hand against his body, and the light allowed for a flash of darkened, disfigured skin. It had burnt when Dumbledore had risked himself to destroy another Horcrux, almost two years ago. The Headmaster's hair was whiter than Neville had ever remembered it. The one encouraging sign was that he didn't appear to be as starved as the others.
Finally stepping out of Luna's arms, releasing her, Neville gazed down at her almost in wonder. "You mean you've been….?" If what he was hearing was correct, Luna had been intentionally starving herself of what little food she and the prisoners were being rationed anyway to keep the Headmaster alive. "It's a miracle he's not dead yet!"
"We're pretty sure the Death Eaters want to dispose of him," Dean offered up. "But none of them are willing to move without His explicit order. They've been subject to a lot of infighting…."
"So they've had him all this time, but don't know what to do with him?" Neville found that astonishing, if also a bit like another miracle.
Luna nibbled on her bottom lip. "I think for a time, they thought Dumbledore would know where you were…."
Hermione let out another blood-curdling scream, causing Ron to wretch and heave into coughing fits; Luna stepped in to rub along his back.
"We've….. gotta get her out of here," Ron choked, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Except how can we, without wands or magic?" Dean wondered.
Neville's brain whirred as he thought fast. "One step at a time. First, we need to get our hands on a wand… But that will require us to break out of this cellar! Dean:" and he rounded on the dark-skinned boy. "How good of an actor are you?"
Dean frowned. "I did a bit of summer stock during breaks from the castle. Why?"
"Because I'm gonna need you to fight me!" Neville explained.
In staging a fight, Neville and Dean were resolved to keep it as realistic as possible.
"OI! PRAT! I WARNED YOU – KEEP YOUR PAWS OFF MY GIRL!" Neville hollered, selling it.
"Try and take her from me, then, Chosen One!" Dean shouted back, even as he was fighting off a grin to stay in character. The two boys then collided and began to wrestle as realistically as possible on the ground.
Luna watched the entire display with mild interest. "I've never had two boys fighting over me before…"
"… and odds are you never will again…." Ron muttered darkly under his breath. Observing the scuffle that in some ways still looked just a little too fake, he sighed, wincing at the piercing shout of Hermione being tortured again. "Balls, this would be so much more believable if he was, say, fighting over you with Krum…"
"What was that, Ronald?" Luna murmured sincerely.
"Nothing!"
Neville and Dean kept grunting and kicking and yelling until a male's voice floated down from upstairs: "Is there something? A fight?" Murmurings of an argument, followed by: "No, send Wormtail, make him go and check!"
"Places everyone…." Ron breathed in deeply and he huddled by the wall closest to the door.
From under the tangle of Dean's limbs, Neville locked eyes with Luna. "Luna, love, get away from the door with the Headmaster!" Luna and Dumbledore melted back into the shadows of the corners.
Footsteps on the stair. Neville and Dean wrestled as ardently as before. Then, upon hearing the door creak open….
Both boys suddenly halted battling each other and turned on Wormtail as one, launching themselves upon him. The three tumbled to the ground, and then Neville felt a weight slam in above them; Ron had joined the fray. Wormtail was squeaking for a moment, and then he groaned as he was pummeled from all sides. A sharp blow to the head from Ron's fist and the stout little man suddenly crumpled down and lay still. Neville knelt on the stone and felt for a pulse: he found none.
"Did you have to hit him so hard?" he asked of Ron as the redhead fished for and quickly found a wand on the mouse of a man's person.
Ron shrugged.
Neville beckoned for Luna and Dumbledore. "Come on!" Taking his hand trustingly, Luna permitted Neville to guide her deliberately up and out of the cellar.
"OK: once we have Hermione, we'll have to Disapparate…"
"We can't, Nev; no one can from inside the Manor!" Luna hissed fretfully.
Neville's brain whirred again. "Well…. what if we were outside of it?"
"Mate…" Ron's voice was a warning, his expression leery.
"After we grab for Hermione, run for the window. We'll have to try a Disapparation in mid-air!" It was just a guess, a longshot that might not work, but at this point, Neville was willing to try anything to rescue Hermione, or die in the attempt. From the hard set to the man's jaw, he knew Ron felt the same way.
"Shell Cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth, then! Trust me," Ron rumbled when Neville sent him a perplexed look.
The group of five now crept up a low flight of steps leading into the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. Neville heard Ron hold in a sob behind him at the sight of his Hermione lying swooned and terrifyingly still on the floor. Her one arm was extended out, and there appeared to be what might have been blood trickling from her porcelain skin.
"… I think we can dispose of this one," Bellatrix was saying.
"Like hell you will!" And Ron dashed forward before Neville could stop him, brandishing Wormtail's wand, the only one they had between the five of them. "Expelliarmus!"
Someone's wand flew out of someone's hand as Neville sprinted forward, catching it and pointing it at Draco was standing flush against the wall and looking oddly terrified. "Expelliarmus!"
Draco's wand came sailing towards him and he caught it, tossing the first one he had caught to Dean Thomas, who immediately began to engage Greyback and the other Malfoys. Luna scuttled low against the side wall, using her own body as a kind of human shield to guard the Headmaster.
"DROP YOUR WANDS!"
A desperate Bellatrix was now holding Hermione upright and hostage, a silver knife to her neck. A vein throbbed in Ron's neck, thick as a tree trunk.
"I said drop them!" Bellatrix screeched, pressing the blade into Hermione's throat so that a bead of red blood appeared. "Or we'll see how filthy her blood really is!"
"All right!" Neville shouted, flinging Draco's wand to the floor and raising his hands to shoulder-height. Dean and Ron followed his example, the latter grudgingly, looking murderous.
Huddled up against the wall, Dumbledore's eyes quietly scanned until he spotted a large fixture suspended from the ceiling. Just as Draco was finishing picking up the confiscated wands, the Headmaster raised his one remaining good hand and spoke a spell in his head.
The bit of nonverbal magic, cast without the use of a wand, caused the chandelier to come crashing down nearly on the evil witch. Bellatrix Lestrange threw her prisoner directly into the falling fixture's path with a scream; Hermione staggered across the expanse and into Ron's arms, barely missing the shattering of glass. In the confusion, Neville dashed forward and wrestled a bit with Draco for the wands; it was only a moment before Draco seemed to all but pass them to him.
"GO!"
The group of six now lunged for the window. Ron was first, hurling his body into the glassy panes so that he crashed through it, curling his body firmly around Hermione to shield her from much of the impact.
Time slowed down. Neville watched as Dumbledore and Dean fell through the opening, the dark skinned boy reaching and catching the back of Hermione's sweater. He caught sight of Luna, her blonde hair whirling behind her like a banner as she glanced to him in urgency. Hurling himself forward, Neville saw Bellatrix chuck something out of the corner of his eye in the moment that his body collided with Luna's and he held her close as they fell through the window and into space.
Neville squeezed his eyes shut and thought frantically of Shell Cottage, and right after he felt his body reach terminal velocity so that it slammed into Dumbledore's falling form below them, he grasped his free hand into the man's robes in the second before their human chain of falling bodies vanished into mid-air.
Behind them, a thrown silver knife missed the escapees completely and clattered lamely to the floor of the drawing room.
They were standing together, he and Luna, on the beach just beyond Shell Cottage. Color seemed to be returning to her dimpled cheeks, she appeared at least healthier than when he had found her at Malfoy Manor a few weeks ago. She had her suitcase packed, her blonde hair cascading like a waterfall of sunlight down her back. She was wearing a leaving smile. Dean and a recovering Dumbledore had already departed, to parts unknown.
Cheeks turning red, Neville gestured impotently to the luggage. "Hogwarts?" he rasped. At her nod, he warned her with an imploring wince, "It's not the place you left, you know. It's not the same."
Backlit against the mid-morning sun, Luna raised her head high with a dignity that Neville found breathtaking. "Neither am I," she stated, her voice solemn and brave and also somewhat sad all at once. Neville feared that some of the brightness that made Luna…. Luna had been snuffed out. He was only marginally heartened when he watched Luna step into him, cup his face in her hand. Her silver eyes were wide and serious and for one mad moment, as she perched daintily onto her tiptoes, Neville thought that she would…
Her lips ghosted along his cheek, just missing the corner of his mouth. Swaying back onto her feet, Luna offered Neville a small smile and then turned for the horizon, glancing over her shoulder once to give him a cheery little wave.
Neville sensed Ron's presence sidle up to him, watching her go wistfully. "Always good value. I'll miss her…." The best friends locked gazes, Ron's far too knowing. "So: what do we do next?"
Neville gave a jerk of his head in the direction of the cabin. "Come on." And they went striding up the beach towards the house of Ron's brother and sister-in-law.