CHAPTER FOUR: REBELLION
And he hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurting
My mouth wide open
Jeremy has spoken in class today
-Pearl Jam-
When Neville woke up the next morning he felt sick.
The night had not offered many hours of sleep and as soon as he opened his eyes the heavy, burning feeling in his stomach returned. He decided to stay in bed while Ron and Harry rumbled around the room, making ready for breakfast. They were joking and laughing cheerfully, adding to the sting of bitterness aching in Neville. Not until they were fully dressed, Harry took notice of him and walked over.
"Hey, Neville! You're missing breakfast!"
"You'll need it." Ron muttered in the background. "Double potions and then the sodding Divinations..."
Neville drew the covers further over his head.
"I'm not hungry." he murmured.
But Harry made no hint about dropping the subject. He sat down on the side of the bed and put his hand on Neville's shoulder.
"What's up, Neville?"
Neville actually felt a spark of annoyance towards Harry, but he knew Harry's intentions was good and decided to rise on his elbow to face him.
"Don't know, it's the stomach. I'll stay in bed for a...what is it?"
Harry and Ron were staring at him, Harry at his face and Ron seemingly at the covers.
"What happened to your cheeks, Neville?" Harry looked very alerted.
"Cheeks?" replied Ron. "What happened to your wrists?"
Neville's eyes instantly scanned his hands. To his complete horror, there were bruises and small red marks from nails revealing where Draco's hands had held him. Neville shot out of bed like a rocket on fire and by the time he reached the mirror, his panick was fueled.
A blue spot on his cheek lay imprinted as a silent reminder of the cool fingers that had caught him for the kiss.
Harry was getting worked up very quickly.
"Who did this?" he demanded, his eyes growing dark and sharp as daggers.
But Neville didn't listen to him. He had to get out of the room now, before he exploded, dropped dead or whatever.
"Was it Snape, Neville?" Neville turned to meet Harry's gaze, his eyes shooting poison that made even the-boy-who-lived jump.
"EVERYTHING is not about SNAPE, Harry!"
Leaving a stunned Harry and Ron behind, Neville stormed out of the room and took shelter inside a deserted toilet.
Neville dealt the bathroom doors several heavy blows before the tears started to spill. He sank down on the floor, much in the fashion Draco had done last night, and cursed his miserable life like a thousand times before. The thing being different this year was that a lot of his fear had been replaced by anger, giving him just the amount of courage he was waiting for. But why was it, that as soon as this strength had come and made him ready to face anything, it had to be stolen by a default on his own accord?
How could he possibly have known that the hatred he felt for Draco whenever he saw him, the stinging blow of the Slytherin's every word, the craving for vengeance towards the Malfoys, would have ended up in such a merciless revelation?
He rose from the floor and started to wash his tears away, letting the water stream from the tap while meeting his own darkened eyes in the mirror. He felt a hundred years old at the sight, but rekindled the fury against the Malfoys by the memory of what happened last night. They had taken his family away from him, they and this potions master who had escaped justice and was free to roam the halls of Hogwarts, turning innocent people's lives into purgatory.
So he had tried forcing an apology out from Draco last night, having him all alone in the library, for the unforgivable jest about mom and dad. Soon enough it had become clear what a miscalculation he had made about Malfoy junior.
His feet had turned cold when his enemy had closed in on him, but he had proudly refused to back away from any physical threat. And then Malfoy had found a weak spot only known to Neville and pushed it!
Imagine the sudden fling from heaven to hell, when this frightful weakness lay exposed in front of Snape all of a sudden!
Death eater Snape, whose mere presence recalled horrifying memories of childhood tragedies he wanted to forget. And the thirty-minute eternity spent in the library before Snape let him go, forced into fixing the mess Draco had caused.
The frustration of being pushed around by his parents' torturers rose again. So Draco had made a cruel joke out of his secret.
But how could he have known?
And this...feeling when Draco touched him. No, it couldn't be. His life couldn't be that miserable. But inside he knew it was, and he had to take a decision right there and then if he was to survive his fifth year at Hogwarts. After all, the mirror proved that he was both taller and stronger. And he had thrown an infuriated Harry Potter to the ground the other day.
No more Mr Passive Resistance. He could do this.
Down in the potions classroom, there wasn't a student who didn't wish they were somewhere else, except maybe for Hermione. Even Draco found it hard to concentrate on the merciless instructions on the black board. Snape had obviously decided to shock them into discipline on the term's first lesson.
As if Draco didn't have enough to think about!
Neville hadn't been down for breakfast and they were ten minutes into the potions lesson without him. Snape did not comment his absence and Draco was grateful that his teacher didn't give him even one glance. Draco had a miserable time failing at convincing himself about his view of Neville. He sighed and growled angrily at the mixture in his cauldron. Crabbe and Goyle who tried to imitate his potion, had created a green glowing smoke leaking out along the floor. Snape had his back conveniently to the scene, standing over Harry Potter as usual, making snide remarks.
"Tell me, Mr Potter, are you hiding the fact that you cannot read? The board clearly states that..."
Suddenly the door to the dungeon creeked open and Neville strode down the stairs, ignoring Snape completely as he took his seat. If the classroom was quiet before, it rested in dead silence now.
Snape turned slowly to face Neville, one eyebrow raised to frame his murderous glare.
Draco thought Snape made groundbreaking progress in producing icy spikes in his voice. "Thirty points from Gryffindor for failing to respect the schedule."
Nobody dared to protest the withdrawal. It was unthinkable showing up late for Snape's lessons.
Instead of crouching in his seat as everybody expected, Neville simply pulled out his parchments and quill from the bag, averting Snape's eyes. His cheeks were burning a little and now Draco saw the bruise, getting a shocking reminder that last night wasn't a dream. Snape walked up to Neville, hoovering over him in a threatening way with arms crossed, as only Snape could.
"We all know your mind is a bit fickle for making an understatement, but surely you must have a very satisfactory explanation to your behaviour?" Snape's voice was now a low but very audiable hiss.
Neville kept his eyes on the parchment, his voice uncannily clear as he spoke.
"At least I haven't turned traitor on everyone who trusted me."
It was as if lightning had struck in the classroom. Everybody stared at Neville with mouths wide open.
Draco thought he would die from the shock. Not even his father would have dared to make the offence! Snape's reaction came quite fast, as he grabbed hold of Neville's arm and jerked him up from the seat, letting the chair crash into the floor with a sharp noice that made everyone jump. Nobody dared to move an inch, as Snape pulled a struggling Neville harshly to the door while ordering the class what to do in his absence in a voice that was not to be denied.
"Read chapter three carefully while your potions are fermenting and follow the instructions to perfection."
Neville obviously wasn't finished, his voice boiling with surpressed anger.
"I won't do what a murderer tells me to do!"
Hermione clatched her hand to her mouth and several gasps were heard, but Snape continued in the same voice.
"Failure to carry out the instructions properly, might cause...serious accidents."
With this, the door to the dungeon was slammed shut with a fateful bang.
Several seconds floated by before anyone dared to make a sound. Then the frantic buzz of conversation rose around the room. Naturally, Potter made himself heard over all the others, getting on his feet with a dramatic line.
"He's going to kill Neville!"
"Settle down, Harry! Of course he won't!"
That was Granger putting some reason into the conversation, but Draco felt horribly uncertain about denying Potter's assertion. For once, he sat in a painful silence while the other Slytherins discussed how many points were to be taken from Gryffindor for those last remarks. Was he the only one who had seen what had really happened?
Only when Pansy Parkinson made a crude joke about Neville getting expelled, did he force himself to laugh with the others and top her clever remark with something worse. He couldn't make them think that he had anything to hide, because he really hadn't!
Had he?