"Neville!" The suit of armor in the fifth-floor corridor seemed to have suddenly developed a girl's voice, and Neville jumped, snatching his wand out of the inside pocket of his robes as his bag hit the floor with a loud thud. "What?! Who?" There was no one there, not even in the dark shadows of the helmet's open faceplate, and he frowned. "Who said that?"

"It's me, Luna." As she spoke again, he recognized the voice, oddly distorted by the armor's tinny echo.

"Where are you?"

"In the Ravenclaw common room. I put a Ventrilocutious Charm on my voice. Can you hear me?"

It was very strange to be talking to an empty suit of armor, but Neville nodded, then paused, unsure if she could see him as well as hear him. He decided to play it safe. "Yes, what's going on?"

"There was something in the Quibbler this morning. The Prophet hasn't said anything, but I think people need to know. Can you call another meeting?"

"Not yet. It's only been three days since the last one, and I don't want to make them too close together."

Luna's soft voice had an edge of excitement to it that Neville had rarely heard before. "It's worth it, really!"

Taking a deep breath, he considered it for a moment. It would be risky, but anything that could get Luna Lovegood so worked up probably was worth the chance. Although, he thought, if it's just that someone has sighted a Blibbering Whatsit or a Crinkle-Horned Thingy, I'll kill her. "All right," he agreed, "watch your coin ... I can't chance another full meeting, but I'll call the Lieutenants."

The faceplate of the helmet clanked shut in answer, and Neville picked up his bag again, breaking into a jog as he continued down the corridor towards the now-renamed Dark Arts classroom. Lateness was not as tolerated as it once had been.

He had thought that the Room of Requirement would seem cavernous and empty with only four people present, but it had proved adaptable as ever. Although it had been vastly proportioned every time he had been in there before, it was now no larger than a modest sitting room, comfortably furnished with four leather chairs surrounding an elegant wooden table in front of a crackling fire. The banners of their three houses hung above the stone mantle, and quills, parchment, and ink had been ready at each place, a shining silver Sneakoscope perched silently in the middle of the table.

Neville looked at the three fellow students sitting around him. Ernie had come directly from Quidditch practice, and his hair was still wet from the showers, a white towel slung around his neck against the canary yellow and black trim of his track suit. Ginny had a quill stuck behind one ear and a splotch of ink on her nose, her sleeves rolled up to reveal a half-dozen notes on spell pronunciation jotted on the back of her hand and forearm. Only Luna seemed to have not been caught in the middle of something else, sitting neatly in her uniform with her usual radish-shaped earrings dangling beneath her long mane of pale blonde hair.

Ernie looked at her with barely-concealed annoyance as he took the towel from around his neck and rubbed at his head vigorously, scattering a few drops of water over the rest of them. "You said it was important, Luna?"

"It's about Harry."

With those words, Luna captured the undivided attention of all three of them, and Neville leaned towards her, propping himself on his elbows. "Is he all right?"

She reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a roll of class notes, but as she spread them on the table in front of them, they transformed into a copy of the Quibbler. The headline seemed to scream up at them:

Harry Potter Defies Ministry with Daring Break-In! Dozens of Muggle-Borns Spirited to Safety!

"It happened a week ago," she explained, "but it was completely hushed up by the Ministry, and Dad didn't start getting reports from witnesses who had escaped until the weekend. He printed a special edition for it."

Neville squinted at the blurry photograph on the front page. It had clearly been taken by someone who had no chance to properly aim the camera, but it seemed to show a large, burly wizard with a thick beard shoving a middle-aged couple into one of the Ministry fireplaces as he fired a spell back over his shoulder. "I don't see Harry anywhere."

"That's him." Luna tapped the photo with her wand, indicating the tall wizard. "It looks like the Death Eater, Runcorn, but witnesses say he broke into the courtrooms where the MBRC was holding those awful trials, Stunned Umbridge and Yaxley, and produced a stag Patronus to get past the Dementors and help about fifty people escape!"

Ginny let out a little gasp. "Polyjuice Potion! It's what we used at the wedding to hide Harry! They must have nicked some!"

Ernie leaned in close to the picture, his eyes searching it hungrily. "That might be Harry's wand, now that I look at it."

"And Mafalda Hopkirk was helping him, and Reginald Cattermole, and they don't even work in the same Department ... and Cattermole himself swears that Mafilda called Runcorn 'Harry,' and that their Patronuses were an otter and a little dog."

Neville jumped to his feet, unable to suppress a cry of triumph as he pumped his fist in the air. "Ron and Hermione, I knew it! I knew they'd fight him!"

"Did they get away?" Ginny's voice was barely more than a whisper, her face pale as she trailed her fingers almost wistfully over the newspaper. Luna nodded, and her eyes closed. Neville thought he saw a glimmer of tears beneath the thick, coppery lashes, and she let out a thin little laugh. "He's alive."

He wondered if she meant Harry or her brother—or if she even knew herself—and he placed one hand on her shoulder, giving it a small, comforting squeeze as he leaned in over the table. "You're right, Luna, that is fantastic news. Do you have any more of these?"

She shook her head. "No, but I'm sure we can figure out a way to smuggle them in. I'll put Ravenclaw on it. If there's a spell out there that will get them in past the new security, we'll find it. I can get this one because my Dad and I have Encrypting Amulets that let him send me the Quibbler as simple letters, but it only works for one copy at a time, and it might look a little suspicious if he started writing me dozens of letters at once."

"Speaking of dozens ..." All eyes turned to Ernie, who was smiling a bit ruefully. "I was going to wait to tell you, old chap, but we may have a wee problem with Hufflepuff."

Neville frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, of course, no one has been able to say anything with the Fidelius in place, but there's been a good amount of guessing, and I've been getting a lot of requests. There are a few more who want to join, it seems."

"How is that a problem?" Ginny asked.

Ernie gave a nervous little laugh. "I think it might be noticed if every Hufflepuff in fourth year and up vanished at the same time every week or so."

"All of them?" Neville was dumbstruck.

"All but six, to be exact. And those six are new to Hogwarts this year; they were being taught at home before it became mandatory."

"But ... all of them?"

His disbelief seemed to have rather offended Ernie, and he crossed thick arms over his chest, his chin thrust out as if daring anyone to question him further. "All of us who were there for Cedric Diggory."

Neville blushed, feeling abruptly stupid. "I'm sorry. I should have—"

"You're usually the house that turns out the heroes, no one's going to pretend you're not." Ernie gave a respectful little nod towards Ginny and Neville. "But Cedric was ours, and he was bloody magnificent. Brave, smart, good-looking ... everyone said he was the best Hufflepuff had to offer in fifty years, and that's not saying so little as you lot might think. More Orders of Merlin have gone to Hufflepuff than Gryffindor, you know. You might go leaping to the front when a fight breaks out, but we're the ones who never even think of giving up, no matter what."

Nodding, Nevillle sat down again, looking at Ernie with a touch of shame. "I never meant it like that. I used to wish desperately I was one of you."

Now it was Ernie's turn to look stunned. "But you're a Gryffindor."

"Well," he cast a quick look at Ginny, "I'm willing to try to be one now, but I've never really felt like I fit there. I used to watch you guys during Herbology, or out on the grounds and think that you'd care that I always try, that I always work my hardest, that I'm always loyal, even if I usually fall on my face when I try to do anything heroic. I mean, the greatest glory I've ever brought to Gryffindor before now was getting ten points for being Body-Bound by Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they went off to save the school." He pointed to the yellow and black badger banner hanging over the fire.

"I cried myself half sick when Cedric was killed. Don't ever think I don't respect you."

Ernie seemed as though he had been given a gift that he could not quite comprehend as he dipped his head towards Neville. "Thank you. Truly." Then he smiled. "And good to hear, as you are up to your eyes in us now."

Neville laughed. "I guess I am." He thought about it a moment. "How about you, Hannah, and two more from forth, fifth, and sixth years who are already D.A. come to the official meetings, and then you can have your own meetings inside Hufflepuff for everyone else? I'll get with Colin later tonight to extend the Fidelius Charm over the whole upper years for you."

"Well," Ginny broke in, "now that you boys have finished sorting out whose house has the bigger recruitment, have you given any thought to what this—" she tapped the Quibbler "—really means?"

Luna gave her a quizzical stare. "It means they're alive and fighting, of course, and that they set all those poor Muggle-borns free."

"That's all very nice, don't get me wrong, but they wouldn't have broken into the Ministry itself just for that. It says here that they took a locket from Umbridge, according to Mrs. Cattermole. When I found Harry by Dumbledore's body this spring, he had a locket in his hands. And at Grimmauld Place, there was a locket nobody could open... they had all kinds of weird Dark artifacts." Her eyes flashed vividly, and her small hand curled into a fist, striking against the table for emphasis. "It's too much to be a coincidence ... I bet they're the same one! We have got to know what's so important about that locket, so we can help them!"

"Did you get a chance to see what it looked like?" Neville asked.

She closed her eyes, screwing up her face in concentration before she spoke. "I only saw it clearly at Grimmauld Place. It was silver. Pretty good-sized. With a letter on the front. I think it was 'S'."

Luna's protuberant eyes widened. "Oooh, 'S' for Slytherin, maybe?"

"I doubt Harry wanted it because it stood for Seeker," Ernie said sarcastically.

"Slytherin, Seeker, Snargaluff, whatever ... why was Harry willing to risk everything to get it?" Neville stared at his hands as if he might find that he was accidentally holding the answer. "He's not going to defeat You-Know-Who by waving jewelry at him. It's got to have some magical function or property, or maybe there's something inside the locket he wants. What would be small enough to fit in a locket that could be that important?"

There was a long pause as they all considered this. Luna's mouth opened several times as if she were going to say something, but each time she stopped, shaking her head in dismissal before resuming her stare at the ceiling. Finally, Ginny spoke. Her voice sounded oddly hollow, and even in the warm light from the fire, her face was ashen. "Maybe not what. Maybe who."

Neville's expression of confusion was mirrored in the other two faces at the table. "Ginny?"

"The Chamber of Secrets. Harry never talked about what had happened because he didn't want me to get in trouble. There was a diary. It used to belong to Tom Riddle. That's who You-Know-Who was before he was You-Know-Who, only I didn't know that. I just thought it was a magic diary that had belonged to a really nice boy who wrote back to me when I wrote in it." She hid her face in her hands. "I was so stupid!"

Neville reached out and gently pulled her hands away from her face, taking her chin in his palm and turning her to face him. "You were eleven. Don't beat yourself up over what's past. Whatever happened because of that diary, no one was killed, or even permanently hurt in the whole Chamber business. Now, tell us why you think that the locket has something to do with the Chamber of Secrets ... or, I'm guessing, the Heir of Slytherin."

She took a deep breath, pulling back from his hand and tossing her hair defiantly as she pulled herself together again. "Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin. He... he possessed me. Made me do things. It wasn't just his diary, it had a sort of living memory of him in it. Like a portrait, but stronger."

"And you think," Neville said slowly, "that the locket might have the same kind of memory in it?"

"Exactly. And I think ..." Ginny trailed off a moment, then when she began again, her voice was shaking, barely audible. "... oh, God, I think Harry is trying to get himself possessed."

Ernie swore. "Why would he do something that ..." Clearly at a loss for words, he swore again, and Neville found himself quite agreeing with the sentiment.

Ginny's eyes seemed to have gone utterly dead now, her voice toneless. "When his scar hurts him, he can see into You-Know-Who's mind. Luna, Neville, you remember: that's why he thought Sirius was at the Ministry. But it wasn't trustworthy. He tricked Harry. I think that Harry wants to get himself possessed to make the connection complete. Because with Dumbledore gone, the only wizard as strong as You-Know-Who is You-Know-Who. Harry is going to become him to stop him. If he has the locket, maybe he's already done it."

"I don't think so." Luna seemed amazingly calm in light of what Ginny had just said, even though Neville felt as though he'd been struck full in the face with a particularly well-hit Bludger. "I think you're right about the locket being some kind of memory-keeper, like the diary, but if Harry had already used it, he'd either have killed You-Know-Who or lost himself and joined him by now." "Unless," Ernie said quietly, "he did lose himself and Ron and Hermione had to kill him."

Neville shook his head quickly, forcing his voice to be strong and confident as he stood up. "No! We can't let ourselves start thinking that way ... there's too many 'ifs' there. If the locket is Slytherin's. If it's got a memory-thing in it. If Harry got possessed. If he couldn't handle that. There's at least four ifs before we get to Harry being dead, and I'm not going to believe that."

He looked at Ginny, who had pulled her knees up to her chest and sat huddled in her chair, looking very tiny indeed. "I'm with Luna as far as I think you're right about what the locket is, but I don't think Harry would take any chances of letting it possess him. If it's like a portrait of You-Know-Who, I think he would question it any way he could, that he'd want information from it, and then he'd destroy it. I don't think he's done it yet because we have what he needs to destroy it, and he doesn't want to let it out until he can."

"The Room of Requirement?" Luna asked.

"No. Ginny, how did he stop the Heir of Slytherin last time?" He looked around, his eyes gleaming wildly with the thrill of having, for once, put the pieces together himself. "Remember, he told us all the very first time the D.A. ever met. The Sword of Gryffindor! Harry needs the sword, and we have it here at Hogwarts!"

Ginny uncurled, leaning forward, hope flooding into her eyes even as the color returned to her cheeks. "You're right, Neville! It's the Sword! If he gets the Sword ... oh, and I bet that's what he has to have to kill him, too! Only the Sword of Gryffindor can defeat the Heir of Slytherin ... and You-Know-Who is the Heir!"

Ernie frowned. "But if Dumbledore had the Sword all those years, why not just take out You-Know- Who himself?"

"Only a true Gryffindor can wield the Sword," Luna informed them.

"Dumbledore told Professor Flitwick that he always considered himself very nearly a Ravenclaw. It's something Professor Flitwick's always felt proud about and reminded us. Maybe it kept him from being able to use the Sword, though."

"Maybe." Neville agreed. "But it means that sooner or later, Harry is going to come back to Hogwarts for the Sword, and that's when we're going to have to fight. I mean, even if Harry takes out You-Know-Who himself, I don't intend to just let Snape and the Carrows and—" Bellatrix Lestrange, he thought. "And all the Death Eaters walk free, or just assume they'll let Harry walk up to You-Know-Who and say 'Hey, I have something here, let's see if it'll kill you.' "

"I wonder," mused Luna, "how he's going to get in? Polyjuice Potion won't get him through all the security into Hogwarts. All the secret passages are sealed. The Death Eaters know all about the Vanishing Cabinets. And I bet there's extra security on the Headmaster's office."

"Blimey—" Neville let out a low groan, sinking back into his chair.

"That's lovely. It's in Snape's office."

"So?" asked Ernie stubbornly.

"Well, it's not going to be a cakewalk for him to get in there," Ginny said.

"Then we help. That's what we're here for, if I'm not mistaken." The Hufflepuff had crossed his arms again, planting himself in the chair as though someone were going to try and physically force him to back down.

"But," Ginny protested, "breaking into Snape's office? That'll take weeks of planning if we want half a chance of pulling it off!"

"So it takes weeks. Or months." Ernie shrugged. "We work from the inside, he works from the outside, and whoever gets to the Sword first, it's all for the better. Either Harry already has a plan, or we have a rather lovely present for him when he shows up thinking he'll still have half the job ahead of him." He glanced across the table. "Neville, you're our leader, the final word is yours. What shall we do about the Sword?"

Neville did not hesitate. "We get it. You're right, we take as long as we need to, and we use that time to train ourselves into fighters, because Harry could show up any day now, and this isn't just about defensive magic any more. I'm going to ask Dobby to find out everything he can about the security on Snape's office, that's a start." He reached for the quill and started to make notes on the parchment in front of him. "Luna, I want you to get the Ravenclaws on two things: first, every spell you can find that we could use on the Death Eaters that they'll have never heard of. Arcane, foreign, outright bizarre, whatever ... as long as they're workable. If you want us to attack them with Crinkly-Horned Snorkles—"

"Crumple-Horned Snorkacks," Luna corrected him, a bit snippily.

"Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. That's fine with me as long as you can produce one and show us how to aim the blasted thing. Second, anything you can get about Slytherin having a locket." He turned to Ginny. "I want anything we can get to try and sort out what Harry's up to. This has been his

house, and he's been a celebrity since before he got here. You're a girl, so you should be even more suited to this. I want every rumor, every piece of gossip, every hint of anything that has gone around about him for the last six years. Anything people have seen, heard, read, or been told. And I want you to sift through that as someone who actually knows him and see if you can filter out anything that could help us get inside that scarred head of his and help him."

Ginny grinned rather wolfishly, and he had the feeling his orders were going to be used to settle a few private scores. "With pleasure."

Neville paused, noting the assignments on the parchment, then turned to his last Lieutenant. "Ernie, I'm going to be honest with you ... the only reason Slytherin had the Quidditch Cup all those years before we had Harry as Seeker is because they play dirty. You guys always turn out the best athletes."

"There is nothing," Ernie pointed out, "glorious, cunning, or particularly learned about a pushup."

"Exactly. And fighting is about just as much running and ducking as it is Hexing and Charms." Neville swallowed his pride with some difficulty and took a pinch of his own waist to demonstrate his point to the other boy. "I'm not the chubby little kid I used to be, but I'm not in that great of shape either. A lot of us aren't. I want Hufflepuff to whip us into fighting trim. No one needs to die because they were too out of breath to cast a Shield Charm."

Ernie leaned back, stretching his own brawny arms in front of him and cracking his knuckles. "I hope you're prepared to be rather sore, dear chum."

Neville looked down at the list in front of him. At the top, the words Get Gryffindor's Sword seemed to mock him. It seemed so easy just written there. He looked up again, meeting Ernie's eyes as a great wave of exhaustion seemed to crash over him. "Ernie, being sore is the least of my problems now."

"She's not human, I swear. Absolute heart of stone." Lavender Brown gave the chocolate gateau in the center of the table a look of the deepest longing, then sighed, staring down at the apple that sat forlornly in the middle of her plate. "I mean, maybe I'm not going out for the Holier-than-thou- head Harpies any time soon like some people think they are, but there's nothing wrong with me, either."

Parvati nodded, slicing her own apple in half with unnecessary violence. "Neville, she's a monster. She made us do situps and jumping jacks until I thought I was going to die. I was dripping sweat. Harry never made us do anything like that!"

Neville glanced around, then gave the two of them a warning look as he pulled out his wand beneath the table. "Muffliato." Satisfied that the charm was in place, he leaned forward. "Could you please keep the whinging down? Harry was teaching us what to do if we found ourselves in a bad situation. That's not the same as being at war. We're not trying to get out of a fight alive, we're planning to start one and last as long as we can in it. And I'm not sympathetic. Rowan Glynnis is taking it easy on you."

"You weren't there," Lavender announced in a martyred tone.

"No, I was with Bagman and the rest of the blokes. I'd be happy to switch. Look—" He held up his goblet in one hand, and the pumpkin juice almost sloshed over the edge. "—I'm still shaking. Did either of you need to tie your shoes with magic this morning because you were too sore to bend over?"

Neither girl answered, though he was quite sure he heard Parvati mutter something under her breath that involved what she would like to do if he bent over. Ignoring her, Neville sat back, being sure to not even glance at the pyramid of cream puffs heaped tantalizingly in front of him as he reached past them for an orange. He was their leader, and it wouldn't do to show that he was having second, third, and even fourth thoughts of his own. There was something insult to injury about laying your life on the line in noble resistance also meaning that you had to turn down custard tarts and toffee pudding.

His bitter musings were interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing at the staff table. Neville looked up as the entire room fell stonily silent. Professor Snape got to his feet, sweeping his black robe around him like a regal mantle. Neville's hands clenched into fists, and he felt a vein begin to pulse in his temple. The sight of Snape at the throne-like Headmaster's chair—Dumbledore's chair— still filled him with a choking rage.

He took what comfort he could in the rigid postures and disapproving glares of the other teachers. Only the Carrows, themselves seeming thuggishly out of place at the staff table, looked anything other than incensed, and Neville allowed the tiniest of bitter smiles. It's not just us. They know what you are, you filthy traitor. They know, and one of these days, we'll all make you pay. They're not afraid of you, it's You-Know-Who that scares them. Even I'm not afraid of you any more, because I've realized you're a coward. You'll terrorize kids and murder a defenseless old man in cold blood, but you ran when you had to confront what you'd done. You ran and hid behind your Master, and now you'll only face us because he's got your back.

"Silence." The order was unneeded. Although the waves of hate rolling up from the students were almost palpable, no one seemed to have even breathed since Snape stood. He looked down his hooked nose at the assemblage, his lip curling into a familiar sneer. "Well, apparently, it does not take long for gratitude to wear thin. Only a little more than one week into the school year, and already the Carrows and Mr. Filch tell such tales. Tsk tsk. The Dark Lord values your education more highly than you do, it would seem."

His black eyes swept over their faces, settling at the Gryffindor table. For one horrible moment, Neville thought that they were staring directly at him, that he somehow knew, but then he realized that they were focused on Seamus, only two places to his left.

"Mr. Finnigan showed profound disrespect in Muggle Studies. Miss Lovegood"—the dark gaze turned to the Ravenclaw table—"thought she would favor her classmates with a very unflattering artistic rendition of her Dark Arts teacher, which was intercepted and destroyed. And the younger Mr. Creevey"—Dennis shrunk down on his seat as Snape found him—"seems to think that he has a talent for mimicking me in the corridors. And this does not even begin to address the overall lax attitude that the Carrows report being shown toward the subjects that the Dark Lord himself has personally chosen for you to study."

Snape strode around the staff table to stand in front, one long, sallow hand tapping his wand into his other palm. "Your Heads of House have assured me that they will address these matters, but in my years here as a teacher, I have observed a certain ..." he cast a distinctly nasty look at Professor McGonagall, who bristled, her lips vanishing in a thin line of fury, "inability on their part to control those students who are determined to misbehave. Professors Alecto and Amycus Carrow will therefore be handling all matters of discipline here at Hogwarts from now on. I believe you will find them far more ..." He paused, then smiled humorlessly. "Motivating."

Behind him, the Carrows stood, and Neville shivered at the toothy leers they gave. There was pain in those smiles. "All of you," Snape went on, "are here because you carry true magical blood. This school may have been allowed to run riot in the past, but the Dark Lord has higher expectations. I suggest you live up to them."

He waved his wand, and the plates and goblets disappeared, leaving the tables bare. A few first- years who had not yet finished let out cries of dismay, but they were quickly hushed by the older students at their tables, and Neville thought he saw a flicker of triumph cross Snape's face as he resumed his seat. "You may go back to your dormitories now. Some of you have Dark Arts tomorrow. I recommend you take the time to study."

There was no sound but the scraping of benches and the shuffling of hundreds of feet as the students made their way out of the Great Hall, but the moment they crossed the threshold, whispered conversations broke out so furiously that it sounded as though a swarm of bees had been waiting for them. Seamus was at Neville's side in an instant. "The Carrows handle discipline? Is he mad? They'll make Umbridge look like a fairy princess!"

Neville nodded gravely. "If we're lucky."

"What do we do?" Colin had pushed his way through the crowd, one arm wrapped protectively around his younger brother's shoulders. Dennis was trembling and looked as though he might be sick at any moment. "We can't let him get away with this!"

"There's no choice. He's the Headmaster; if he thinks that discipline needs to be tightened, he can choose whoever he wants to do it. It's his right, whether or not we like it. I mean, we're just kids." Colin gaped at him as though he had uttered a terrible obscenity, but Neville jerked his head slightly towards a handful of green-robed fifth-years that had clustered by the staircase only a few paces away. Slytherins, he mouthed, and was relieved to see understanding dawn on his friends' faces as he continued loudly. "We'll simply have to behave ourselves."

"I'll practice my puckering up," said Seamus wryly.

"Just be careful." Ginny had joined them, and she kept her voice low as they moved up the stairs past the lingering Slytherins. "If you're planning to kiss Alecto's arse, you'll have to look twice to make sure you're not aiming for her face."

Neville started to laugh, then clamped his hand over his mouth, his body shaking as he held it back, every sore muscle aching with the effort. Finally, shaking his head, he managed to gasp out, "Ginny, I think I know why Harry fell for you."

She gave a cheeky grin, tossing her hair and pretending to preen her reflection as they passed a window. "Oh, I don't know. I think he just likes living dangerously."

Seamus grinned back at her. "You mean the six overprotective twits you call brothers, or just yourself?"

"I'm more than you can handle, Finnigan," she shot back.

He raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Love, I may mouth off at the Carrows, but I don't fancy myself brave enough to argue with you."

Neville allowed the laugh this time, and it almost seemed like old times again as he listened to them banter back and forth while they climbed the stairs to the familiar portrait that covered the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. The Fat Lady looked as nervous as she had since school began, and the moment she saw them coming, she shooed away the pinch-faced witch in medieval robes whom she had been whispering with. "Password?" she asked with stiff-backed propriety.

"Blood Status," Neville said, exchanging a distasteful little glance with her as she swung open and revealed the entry.

As soon as the portrait hole had shut behind them, Gryffindors seemed to materialize from everywhere at once, and Neville found himself surrounded, the babble of fifty voices rendering any individual question, outburst, or demand utterly meaningless. He spread his hands desperately, shouting to make himself heard. "Whoa! Everybody calm down! Back off! I can't listen to all of you at the same time!"

The outcry faded away, and he took a step forward away from the portrait hole, grabbing a chair and dropping into it backwards, his elbows resting on the back as he ran his fingers through his hair. "I know what's going on. We all heard it. I just have to think."

He closed his eyes, feeling once again like he had never given Harry enough credit for how hard it was to simply have so many people looking at you. They expected him to have answers instantly, and for everything, as if the past six years of utterly dismissing him had never happened. Everything's changed so much, he thought bemusedly, I guess it's not that big a deal to have the house loser suddenly in charge.

Finally, he opened his eyes again and looked up, taking a deep breath as he saw that everyone had formed a circle around him, waiting as if for some grand revelation. The idea that had formed seemed pathetically feeble in the face of all their expectations, but it was all he had. "I'm going to have to find out for myself what this really means."

Ginny frowned, two thin vertical lines of worry appearing between her brows. "Neville, I really hope you aren't planning to get in trouble on purpose."

"It's the only way." He shrugged, but his voice was firm. "We can sit here and speculate all we want, but we can't really decide what to do about this until we know what it actually means that the Carrows are going to be handling discipline. I mean, who could have guessed what Umbridge was going to do? We know what happens when Alecto loses her temper," he gestured at Seamus, "but not when they're planning it. It could just be awful detentions like Snape gives, or it could be

getting horsewhipped by Filch, or anything, really. We can't know until it happens to someone, and we can't decide what to do about it until we know."

The younger students gazed at him with a mixture of horror and awe, but it was the uncomfortable looks exchanged among the sixth- and seventh-years that told Neville he was right. Finally, Lavender shook her head. "I don't know. What if it's something terrible?"

"I don't expect it to be a hundred lines of 'I will be a good little minion' and then tea and biscuits," he retorted.

"You can't." It was Parvati who spoke, and although her voice was soft, there was a finality to it that carried across the outbreak of muttering that had come behind his last statement. She took a step forward, and Neville felt a chill as he saw that everything in her bearing had changed. Her head was held high, the firelight shining off her skin like a bronze statue as she seemed to glide into the center of the ring of Gryffindors to stand next to him.

"If you do it, Neville, we won't really know what the Carrows will do to the rest of us. You were at the Ministry, you were at the tower, your parents were Aurors. They'll come down on you hard, no matter what. It has to be someone who's never been in trouble with them before." Each syllable was clearly enunciated with a sickening decisiveness. "Like me."

Neville shook his head. "No, I won't let you."

She turned on him, her eyes flashing with sudden ferocity. "Why?"

He floundered, trying to explain what seemed so obvious that he couldn't find the words. "Well, you're—"

"If you're going to say 'a girl', then why don't you go fetch Hermione from wherever you've been keeping her safe?" Parvati spat. "Or for that matter, tell Alecto Carrow or Bellatrix LeStrange that they're supposed to be sheltered and dainty."

The mention of Bellatrix sent a hot flush into Neville's cheeks, but he bit his lip, looking down at the carpet to avoid the intensity of Parvati's stare. Feeling cornered, he glanced around the faces of his classmates, but it only made the growing certainty that she was right intensify. The thought of using one of the younger kids was too repellant to contemplate, and all of the seventh-year Gryffindors that remained had, as she had pointed out, reasons to draw unusual fury down on themselves. The only other possibility that he could see was Lavender, and she had not volunteered. Slowly, reluctantly, he nodded, and his voice was a rough whisper when he finally spoke. "All right."

"Good." Parvati gave a grim smile. "But everyone had better behave themselves tomorrow. I want to stand out."

The Dark Arts class had been in session for ten minutes with no sign of Parvati, and Neville had not heard a word that Carrow had told them about creating Inferi. Normally, no matter his distaste for the subject, the sight of a corpse on the teacher's desk would have been more than enough to hold

his attention, but he was utterly preoccupied with a growing hope that she would not show up. He didn't think she would have chickened out, but maybe something at breakfast had made her sick? Maybe she had sprained an ankle on a trick step?

He had just made up his mind to pay attention enough to think of something infuriating to say when the door burst open. Parvati breezed in as though she hadn't a care in the world, plopping her bag onto the desk and taking her customary seat next to Lavender Brown.

She swept a stray tendril of hair out of her eyes and looked up at Carrow with wide-eyed innocence. "Sorry I'm late, Professor," she said airily, "I have all my important classes written down, but I just forgot about Dark Whatsits."

Amycus Carrow seemed to inflate with fury for a moment, then the redness that had begun to creep up from his collar receded, and he fingered his wand almost lovingly. "No, Miss Patil, I oughta thank you," he sneered. "Fer lettin' me demonstrate to the class jes' how serious Professor Snape is about maintainin' order in his school."

For the first time, Parvati noticed the dead body at the head of the classroom, and her eyes flickered to the pictures still on the wall from Professor Snape's tenure the year before. The bloody mass that he had indicated as the wrath of the Inferi writhed pathetically in its frame, and she turned a sickly greenish shade, genuine fear reflected in her eyes as Carrow advanced across the room.

Neville wanted to look away, but he couldn't, fixated by the terror that he felt radiating from every other Gryffindor there. What have I done? he thought desperately. I should never have let her ... what have I DONE?

After what seemed like an age, Carrow reached the petrified witch and extended his wand. She closed her eyes, her hands tightening on the edge of the desk, but he only placed it beneath her chin obscenely gently as he raised her face to him. "Let's see ..." His coarse voice was a terrible purr. "Mister ... Nott."

Parvati's eyes opened, staring up at Carrow in confusion as the Slytherin stood, bowing obsequiously. "Yes, sir?"

"I don't like wastin' the chance ta teach." He didn't break eye contact with Parvati as he raised the wand to caress her cheek. "Miss Patil can learn 'bout punctuality, and you can practice one of the three Primary Curses. I don't reckon Imperio's what we need here, Avada Kedavra might be a bit extreme, but I think Crucio's 'zactly what she needs to help her remember 'Dark Whatsits.' "

Nott's thin face gleamed with sadistic pleasure as he pushed up the sleeves of his robe and drew his wand. "Yes, sir!"

Everything had taken on a horrible air of unreality. As if in a dream, Neville watched helplessly as Nott advanced on Parvati, still held frozen in place at the tip of Carrow's wand. Then the Slytherin snapped his wand at her and shouted the curse, and he closed his eyes. Parvati screamed. It was the worst sound Neville had ever heard in his life. High and shrill, it cut into him as though the pain were his own. It went on and on. Each shriek crested like a scarlet wave before spending itself into thin, razored gasps of agony, and then the screams rasped away as her voice broke, and now there

were other sounds: hisses and anguished breaths punctuated by the dull clatter of flesh flailing uselessly against wood and stone.

He couldn't look. Already, he felt as though he were teetering on the edge of losing his mind. It hadn't been this bad when Seamus was being tortured. He too had gone into it knowingly, but there had been a difference there, and it wasn't just the difference between boy and girl. Seamus had approached it out of his own bravado. Parvati was their sacrificial lamb, and each scream was an accusation, a condemnation of his failure as a leader to find another way, any other way.

The sounds faded to a silence so thick it felt like a tangible thing, oily and dirty against his skin. Then Carrow laughed, and it was too much. Neville leaned over, barely managing to clear the edge of his desk as he was violently, brutally sick.

"Calm down, mate. A person'd think Parvati was up there havin' your baby to look at you." Seamus spoke soothingly, but his only reward was a dirty glare as Neville continued to pace the Gryffindor common room in long, rapid strides, running his hands through his hair every few passes as if he could push the sounds of Parvati's screams out of his memory.

"It'd be less my fault if she was." He cast another longing look at the entrance to the girls' dormitory, hating the charm that kept him locked out. "Isn't there any way I can get up there?"

"Guys have been tryin' for centuries." The other boy shook his head regretfully. "Not a chance."

"Why did they have to hide her away like that?" Neville made no attempt to hide the anguish in his voice. "I just want to know if she's all right!"

"It was no big deal strippin' me down to my shorts to check me over," Seamus pointed out gently, "but girls are a bit touchier about things.

She pounded against that chair something wicked, and Ginny and them'll have to take her to what she was born with or at least to knickers to make sure they've got her properly taken care of."

Neville stopped his pacing at the closed door, staring at it as though he could discover what was happening on the other side by sheer force of will. The door remained mockingly opaque, and he slammed his fists against it, rattling the hinges and sending a small cluster of first and second-years scurrying for cover. "It's my fault! It's all my fault!" He struck the door again, reveling in the pain that shot through his arms and shoulders at the impact.

"Hey, now." Hands had grabbed him by the upper arms now, pulling him back, and Neville twisted in his friend's grasp, infuriated to find that Seamus was much stronger than he had imagined from someone half a head shorter and a good thirty pounds lighter than himself.

"Let go! Let go before I—"

"Do somethin' really stupid, I know." Neville twisted to reach his wand, but his arms were pinned behind him now, and he could only thrash uselessly.

"Now, don't make me take you down." The voice in his ear was all the more enraging for its calm, and Neville let out a roar of fury and summoned all his strength, throwing off the restraining hold and whirling around, wand at the ready.

He had not even steadied his aim before the jet of light hit him full in the chest. "Petrificus Totalus!"

The all-too-familiar sensation of complete immobility seized him, and Neville crashed to the ground, unable to so much as twitch a finger as Seamus leaned over him. "I didn't want to do that, mate, but you'd bloody lost it, and I couldn't have you raisin' enough ruckus to bring the Carrows in."

Neville hoped that his eyes could convey the filthy names running through his head, but Seamus seemed to guess them well enough. "I'm goin' to take this," he felt his wand slip from his stiffened fingers, "and then I'm goin' to count ten and release the Body Bind, and we're goin' to deal with this like grown men and wizards, not Bludger-headed giants. The last thing Parvati needs is to hear you carryin' on down here. She's liable to think the battle's started without her. All right? One ... two ..."

At ten, Seamus waved the two wands together, and Neville felt a sense of freedom return to his body. He flexed his fingers, satisfied to feel them responding to his command again, and then pushed himself to a sitting position. He had expected to want to throttle Seamus, but it seemed as though all the fight had drained out of him as the ability to move had poured back in, and all it had left behind was a horrible void like a gaping, bleeding wound. Shaking, he ran a hand over his face, startled to feel that it was slick with sweat. "I ... I'm sorry," he managed.

"No worries." The sandy head tilted curiously. "Did you go that nuts when I was down? I might be flattered."

"You did it to yourself, you moron." Neville allowed himself the faintest ghost of a smile. "Why would I feel bad about that?"

"True enough."

He got up, contemplating resuming pacing again for a long moment before simply dropping onto the nearest couch in defeat. "I don't get it."

"What?"

"How you can be so calm." Neville motioned towards the closed door. "You were there too. You saw, you heard ..." He couldn't finish.

"Dean." Seamus sat down on the arm of the couch and handed back the confiscated wand as he explained. "Dean's my best mate, and he's always been the one in our year with the most plain horse sense, as Mum called it. I was ready to go flyin' off at Carrow myself, but then you sicked all over, and it was like I could hear him in my head. 'Seamus,' he said, 'Neville's not takin' this well, and he's the best hope all of you've got. What's done to Parvati's done, but you'd better watch out for him, or you're all as good as wandless.' That helped, odd enough. Gave me somethin' to do, and

the helpless bit is always the worst. So Ginny and the girls are seein' to Parvati, and I'm here preventin' our fearless leader from tearin' down the castle."

"I'm not your leader anymore. I'm disbanding the D.A.." He sat up and fished in his pocket for the fake Galleon, flinging it across the room without looking at it.

"You can't!" The shock in the other boy's voice gave Neville a dark pleasure, and he felt guiltily pleased that he had finally broken the maddening composure. "This time last week, you're sayin' we've got to be ready to die, and now you're givin' up because one person got punished?!"

"He had her Cruciated." Neville turned, gesturing fiercely towards the girl's dorm. "Cruciated for something that Snape would have taken fifty points for on his worst days. I can't make you all go through that!"

Seamus' cheeks were flushed, and his blue eyes glinted defiantly. "Speak for yourself; I've had it done, and I'll take it again if need be!"

"I've had it too! And I know what it can do better than you! There's things worse than death, Finnigan! There's things you don't even—"

He broke off, and a long silence lingered between them before he could force himself to speak again as he stared into the common room fire. They had the room to themselves now, the few other students having long fled, but he still kept his voice low, barely above a whisper. "I wasn't raised by my Gran because my parents are dead. I've just let people think that."

"I don't—"

"They were tortured by Death Eaters. Cruciated until they lost their minds. They've been in St. Mungo's for sixteen years now. They don't even know who they are. They don't even know who I am. I'm not going to see that happen to any of my friends because I have to prove I'm a great, heroic Gryffindor after all."

"Bloody hell." Seamus slid off the arm of the couch to sit closer to Neville, placing one hand gingerly on his friend's back. "That's ..."

"That's why I'm disbanding the D.A.," Neville said firmly. "I couldn't live with that."

"Fair enough." There was a long pause, and then Seamus spoke again. "But if we're comin' clean about things, I'd ask you to listen to why I'm going to keep fightin', whether or not you disband Dumbledore's Army."

Neville nodded, not sure if he was unable or just unwilling to say anything more.

"When you go home, you go home to two parents who don't know you, and that's a terrible thing. But they're at peace in whatever place they've gone to inside their heads, sure as if they were dead. I don't go home to peace. I go home to Belfast. Pipe bombs and assassins in the night. You- Know-Who is full of hate, and I know what hate does." Seamus' voice choked, and when he continued, there was a desperation in his words, almost a pleading.

"If we let this keep on, as soon as he's done with the Muggle-borns, he'll move on to the Muggle world in whole, and when he's done with that, it'll be Half-Bloods, and then he'll find somethin' else to hate, and somethin' after that. People who're driven by hate never have peace, and they never allow it. I know. I'm Irish, and that means I root for a Quidditch team with leprechaun mascots, but it also means that for me, this isn't the world going to war, it's just war coming into the part of my life I thought knew better. You say there are worse things than death, and I couldn't agree with you more. I just don't agree about what they are."

"Harry's going to stop him." Neville waved a hand towards the window. "He's out there now, following some kind of plan that he and Dumbledore had. They were locked up together half of last year. He knows what he's doing, and he doesn't need us."

"Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't." Seamus shrugged. "But I know that I need to be able to look myself in the mirror when all this is said and done, and I don't reckon I could do that if I just sat on my thumbs ... and I've known you for nearly seven years, whether or not I knew about your parents, and I don't think you could, either."

Neville opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say anything, there was the sound of a door opening behind him, and both wizards jumped to their feet, turning just in time to see Ginny step into the common room. She looked tired, and several strands of red hair dangled limply in her face, but she was smiling. "It's okay."

"Parvati—" The two boys spoke at the same time, and she raised a hand, cutting them off.

"Parvati's going to be just fine. She's much better off than you were, Seamus. Alecto got a lot more creative than just Crucio, but this was just some bad bruising from when she was thrashing around. That awful smelly green goop Neville made cleared it all up like it had never happened. She'll be down in a few minutes. I tried to tell her to rest, but she wants everyone to see that there was no serious harm done."

His knees felt as though she had hit him with a Jelly-Legs Jinx, and Neville sank to the floor, bracing himself with one hand. "She's not ..."

Ginny's brown eyes were soft with deep understanding. "No. She's not. And she's not mad at you, either. I think she's actually going to be a little insufferable for a while. Really feels like she's proven her own, you know?"

"Yeah." The word came out weakly, and he shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around the idea that Parvati was all right. Ginny's words and the truth in her expression fought bitterly with the echoes of the screams from only hours before.

"What do you say, Neville?" Seamus turned to him, a challenge gleaming in the blue eyes. "Does she get a medal at the next D.A. meetin'?"

He paused for what seemed like years before answering, his eyes fixed on the warm yellow glint of the Galleon that lay in the corner of the room where he had thrown it. At last he answered, though he was unable to meet either pair of eyes that he could feel looking at him. "No. Don't want everyone else doing it ... I'll let her out of training for a few days, though."

"That's the least you can do." Parvati sounded raw, as though she was getting over a bad bout of laryngitis, but there was a smile on her face as she came down the stairs. Her steps were a little hesitant, she leaned on the railing a little more than usual, but otherwise, she seemed to have just woken up from a nap, her dark hair cascading loosely over her shoulders and her arms revealing not so much as a single bruise in her sleeveless nightgown.

"Parvati!" Neville dashed across the room, unable to help himself as he swept her up in an enormous hug that lifted her completely off her feet. He spun her around, and she laughed like a child, clinging to his neck in a grip that was wonderfully, giddily sure and real and healthy and sane and whole and alive. Setting her down, he felt his breath catch in his throat as he looked at her, just looked at her, drinking her in as though the reality of her being there could drown the memory of her torture.

He hadn't destroyed her after all. She was looking at him now through bright, clear eyes, and she was fine, more than fine. She was beautiful.

Neville felt a strange clutching sensation in his chest, and he was suddenly aware that he was holding a girl in his arms, her small, delicate body close against his, her skin warm and soft beneath his hands. He had never particularly noticed girls before, had even wondered occasionally if there was something wrong with him as every other boy in his year had lost his mind over them to various degrees, but he abruptly understood what all the fuss was about. Parvati was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on, and it was the most natural thing in the world to tighten his arms around her, bringing her in and lowering his head to catch her lips with his.

The kiss was awkward at first, his nose bumping up against hers, but she seemed to know what she was doing more than he did, and she tilted her head, bringing her hand up to slide her fingers through his hair and pull his mouth onto hers. Then it became deeper, more passionate, and Neville's head seemed to spin with the wonderful insanity of it all. His mind and heart and body were flying apart at the seams with more new sensations than he could even begin to deal with. When they finally broke apart, he gasped, his eyes wide. "Parvati ..."

She smiled, and placed a single finger over his mouth. "Thank you."

He blinked, aware that he was grinning stupidly and that he shouldn't be. "For what? You were tortured."

"You let me prove I can take it. I've been afraid I couldn't. My parents have always protected me, and I've been afraid that when it came time to fight, I would break. I know I won't now, and you let me do that. It must have been so hard for you ... I could hear you down here yelling."

He nodded dumbly. "I couldn't forgive myself for letting them hurt you."

"There's nothing to forgive." Her hand traced down and settled on his chest over his heart. "I know I have courage now, but it took courage for you to send me, too. You're going to be a great leader, I think."

Neville thought of the Galleon, abandoned in despair. He thought of how he had wanted to let it all go, of how he had wanted to give up, to leave the fight to others, and he dropped his eyes in shame. "No ..."

Then she kissed him again, and again everything else melted away. His skin had taken on a life of its own, a pulsing, hungry thing, and he had never really realized how much he had changed, how much they all had changed over the years since coming to Hogwarts. It was a man's body he wore now, tall and broad-shouldered, his stubbled chin scraping lightly against her face as they kissed, and somehow he had missed that she was no longer a little girl, but a woman whose body was made of endless curves that his hands now traced through the thin nightgown.

They were adults now, adults and soldiers who still had to be children and students, and this was war, and this was hell, and this was heaven, and he was a victim and a leader and terrified and fearless and everything—everything was different than it ever had been before. Neville knew that he had turned some kind of corner in that moment, and whatever happened from now on, none of the old rules about how he thought things were or who he thought he was were going to matter. He would have to find out from scratch, and somehow, that didn't seem as terrifying as he thought it should have been.

Everything was different now. He was different. The worst had happened, he had sent someone to suffer the Cruciatus Curse, and the world had not ended. Instead, it had begun. He had grown up.