Neville walked aimlessly towards the hospital wing, but with a feeling of great purpose. Covering him was Harry's invisibility cloak. For Neville had returned to bed last night in a cloud of despair, finding neither Harry nor Ron there. And as he had sat down upon his bed, deaf to Dean and Seamus' condolences, his only thought had been of what he could possibly do to carry on when everything and everyone had collapsed around him. Neville had looked upon Harry's empty, perfectly made bed, the disintegrated sheets replaced and the charred bed frame repaired just as everything else in the room had been, and made a decision. Once the others had fallen asleep, he had walked over and taken the cloak straight out of Harry's trunk.

This was what found him wandering a sixth floor corridor, undetectable but to the most attentive, or inhuman, of pursuers. If Neville was to take up Harry's mantle, he needed to start somewhere. He had just realised why he was headed towards the hospital wing when he realised what was missing from his toolset. Flicking his wrist out, he caught the wand with an almost comfortable degree of precision. He just needed to be able to fight with it.

The wand was fitting his hand better as the weeks passed, responding more intuitively to his will. Perhaps it was he who was becoming stronger, but Neville doubted it. It was his father's wand, not his. The wand chose the wizard, or so the adage famously went. And if his father's wand was becoming more approving of him, perhaps in some way that meant that his father would have been more approving of him as well…

When Neville shook himself free of his thoughts, he found himself standing in front of the infirmary doors. They were firmly closed. Looking up and down the corridor and seeing not a soul to witness, he uncovered himself with haste, stuffing the cloak into his bag.

Madam Pomfrey came quickly to the door at his knock, her face a mask of distress. "Another attack?"

"No," Neville said quickly. "At least, I hope not. Please, Madam Pomfrey, could I see Harry?"

If it were possible, Madam Pomfrey looked even more pained. "I… He is completely unresponsive, Mr. Longbottom."

"I don't need him to talk," said Neville. "I need him to know I'm here."

Madam Pomfrey sniffed, and let him through, but took him immediately aside.

"His injuries are extensive," she warned. "They will heal, but his ordeal took a great toll on his body."

"Whatever it is, I'll stomach it," said Neville.

Madam Pomfrey took him by the shoulder. "Your seeing him is conditional upon my believing that. I recall you having a strong constitution when it came to your leg last year, but what has happened to your friend goes far beyond a fractured tibia."

Neville wasn't sure what to say to that, so he kept his mouth shut. Madam Pomfrey was looking for something in his eyes, and whatever she found seemed to please her, for she nodded solemnly and released his shoulder.

"Your friend is trapped within his mind," said Madam Pomfrey. "He may be aware of the outside world, and that is why I will allow you to visit him. If there is a chance, no matter how slim, that hearing his friends' voices will encourage him to return to us, I will take it."

That was the moment when Neville realised that Madam Pomfrey might care slightly more than her professional relationship with Harry would dictate. Harry had spoken very little of the resident healer's visits to the Burrow over the summer, and they had respected his privacy on the matter. Looking at her face, rejuvenated with the beauty of her youth but somehow wearier even than before that fateful ritual, Neville wasn't sure whether he was unhappy that the topic had never been broached.

"Just talk as you would normally," said Madam Pomfrey, leading him over to an obscured bed.

Neville thought himself prepared. But when Madam Pomfrey drew back the curtain, he felt acid at the back of his throat, his stomach convulsing in protest. Harry was recognisable, but only because Neville was so familiar with him. Much of his hair was gone, as he had been burned through to the bone, his clothes melted into him in places and every inch of his body blackened and charred.

"He's… still alive?" Neville gasped.

"His heart still beats," said Madam Pomfrey. "His mind is active and magic courses through his soul like a hurricane of energy. And yet the boy will not wake."

The boy Neville had known had been laid out carefully on the bed to aid in his healing correctly. But an extra precaution had been taken in the form of levitation runestones, keeping Harry two inches aloft. For where Neville could see bare flesh, there was no skin to cover it. In fact, a great deal of the flesh on his arms was simply gone. Only magic held some of his charred finger bones in place, with mere sinews of flesh supporting the others, white and slick. It would have been less gruesome were Harry covered in blood. But he had had no chance to bleed, tissue incinerated and vessels cauterised by the sheer heat. The only part of Harry left untouched was something Neville rather wished had been destroyed - the pain and hopelessness in those green eyes were frozen there forever, along with a chilling dose of fear.

"Harry..." said Neville, moving closer. His heart was a block of ice, tight and heavy in his chest. "I... Merlin, what happened to you?"

As expected, there was no response. No flicker of life to give him hope.

"I want you to know that we won't give up," Neville said. "But we need you with us, Harry. Take your time and heal, but for Merlin's sake please... please don't leave me."

Madam Pomfrey placed a calming hand on his shoulder, and he suppressed a sniff before turning to walk away. But even as he turned, an idea struck him.

"Madam Pomfrey?" he said.

She looked up after a few seconds from whatever incantation she had just weaved over Harry.

"You were the only one to see the room before it was rebuilt, weren't you?" said Neville. "Apart from Hermione, I mean."

"Yes, I was," she said. "What of it?"

"Did you notice anything at all?" said Neville. "Something in a strange place, or...?"

Madam Pomfrey seemed to debate whether or not to take him seriously for a moment. But then her frown deepened as she considered. "Everything was curious, but nothing seemed out of place. His trunk and broomstick mainly escaped harm, hidden beneath the bed, as did the... err... Ah, yes!"

Neville started slightly, having been distracted by the question of whether she had been about to bring up the cloak, and why she would have forgotten such a rare item. But he knew from the look on the healer's face that he had something more important on his hands.

"A book..." said Madam Pomfrey. "Somehow, whatever did that to Mr. Potter, that little book was barely touched. It was on what was left of the bedside table, with a couple of charred fragments of quill and a melted ink bottle."

Neville started. A cursed book? That made no sense, especially if there was a connection with the chamber. They weren't unheard of, but the power and sophistication to find and open a hidden chamber in Hogwarts and cause some sort of firestorm in the boys' dormitory would be beyond the realm of reason. And yet there had to be some sort of explanation...

"Thank you, Madam Pomfrey," Neville said, distracted. His mind was entirely occupied with trying to remember Harry having spent any time with a small book that wasn't on their set list.

"Mr. Longbottom, I realise that you want to find out who or what did this to him," said Madam Pomfrey. "You are not alone in that. But in the current climate, I fear that..."

"I'll end up in the bed next to him?" said Neville. "I understand, Madam Pomfrey. But if nothing meaningful is done, you might find yourself short of beds this year."

Madam Pomfrey seemed ready to reprimand him, but hesitated, and the boy wizard turned on his heel.

As he left the infirmary, Neville went straight to the window, resting his arms on the sill and breathing deeply. Wave after wave of nausea crashed over him like the icy touch of a ghost flying right through him. Feeling the bile rise in his throat, his stomach bracing to heave, Neville clenched his fists desperately in an attempt to stave off his body's reaction. He was getting rather weary of seeing Harry turned nearly to a corpse by Hogwarts school. But the sight that had met him on that hospital bed was something entirely different.

Once his legs had stopped trembling, Neville turned away from the window to check that the corridor was empty. Deserted as it was, he still chose to slip into a nearby classroom to get under the invisibility cloak. There was something about seeing his best friend mangled and burned to a crisp that had set him rather on edge. And when he set off towards the library, it was with his father's wand humming eagerly in his hand, warm and ready.

Ronald Weasley wiped his brow with the back of a forearm, feeling the weariness and the building headache start to take over. He could not recall a single day when he had spent so much time reading.

On his sister's attempt to burn all of Gryffindor House alive, Ron had fled to a place he had not yet visited on his own - the library. The librarian herself, Madam Pince, had given him a suspicious look as he arrived, as though he were likely to be here for vandalism rather than research. Looking around him at the pile of texts he had hidden behind, a small part of him wished that he was.

Searching for the beast had been a dead end, but with a regular Dueling Club in place, there was at least facility to practise combat spells. The chance of learning any useful magic from Lockhart was approximately the same as of Slytherin's monster being a hyper-violent chocolate frog, and so he had come to the only logical conclusion.

Discreetly drawing his wand, Ron mapped the described motion, diagonally down, across and then a small flick up. He clamped down on his urge to mutter the incantation 'expulso', but even still he could feel the unicorn tail hair turning hot with power. It would not help his standing with the librarian if he blew up the defensive magic section. Then again, it probably wouldn't be the first time.

A flicker caught his eye.

Ron felt his heart leap as he watched another slight refraction warp the air by elemental curses. That was surely Harry's invisibility cloak. He had seen that shimmer a million times. Could Harry have faked his death? Recovered? Escaped?

Ron was considering all the possibilities when Neville sat down next to him. The redhead had just opened his mouth to greet his friend when he noticed the impossible cloth glimmering in the boy's bag.

"You bastard," said Ron.

Neville frowned. "What now?"

Ron snarled at him, his vision tunneling. "His body isn't even cold, and you go nabbing his family heirlooms?"

"I'm not 'nabbing' it," said Neville. "Because he isn't dead."

Still apoplectic, Ron realised only then that he had turned his wand on his own friend. And Neville was calmly watching him.

"I'm sorry," said Ron, feeling his ears burning as he stowed the weapon. "But you didn't react at all?"

"I haven't got much left to lose," said Neville.

Ron's jaw dropped. "Nev, I..."

"Look, we've got an awful lot of work to do if we're going to solve this before someone actually does die," Neville asserted. "The cloak could be very useful, so yes I'm borrowing it. I'm sure he won't mind when we tell him about this year."

"Right," Ron said, his voice coming out strained. From what he had heard about Harry, he didn't want to get his hopes up that he might ever talk to him again.

Neville paid no heed to that, simply perusing the texts Ron had chosen. There were eleven combat-related texts, ranging from The Art of Duelling to Combat: Principia Vivis. Ron was currently looking through Offensive Charms and their Applications, and was apparently in the middle of explosive curses.

If the dark-haired boy didn't look happy, he at least seemed content.

"At least you haven't gone completely off the rails," Neville sighed. "With your sister destroying everything in her way and Hermione... Well, I couldn't bear you losing it too."

"What's happened with Ginny?" said Ron, his heart turning cold.

"Nothing much worse than what you saw," said Neville. "She somehow destroyed a good part of her dorm without a trace. A couple of the girls had to sleep in other rooms, and Hermione isn't in great shape."

Ron put down his book with a thud. "What are we doing, Neville? We're kids. Bloody hell, we only won last year cos Ginny was on our side and Harry still nearly died. Now we're there already and Ginny's gone bloody arse before face."

"We're fighting," Neville said calmly.

And that single sentiment broke through the haze of Ron's anger and despair. If they were too cowardly to fight for the chance of survival, for themselves, Harry and everyone else in Hogwarts, what did that make them? Freedom was not a right freely given. It needed to be earned.

"This is the Blasting Curse," said Ron.

They watched the rest of the school leave with both anticipation and no small measure of concern. Things were moving rapidly forward — too rapidly. With the Polyjuice Potion nearing completion and Hermione still intolerant even of the mention of Harry, their plans for the holiday looked far from secure. If another attack occurred they would have a vastly narrowed list of suspects. However, the chance that one of them would be on the receiving end seemed quite terrifyingly large.

To that end, Ron and Neville closed their first Christmas holiday breakfast not by walking back towards the Gryffindor Common Room, but in the other direction to the Head Table. There, they stopped a respectful distance from Headmaster Dumbledore in front of an almost empty Great Hall, all their classmates having already left for the train back to London. Neville could feel Hermione's eyes on his back all the way.

"Boys?" said Dumbledore amenably, steepling his fingers.

"Sir," said Ron. "We were wondering what will happen to the Duelling Club over the holiday."

"I am afraid that Professor Lockhart has other business that he must attend to over the holiday period," said Professor Dumbledore. "However, I am sure that if there were sufficient interest, Professors Flitwick or Snape might be persuaded to run the club in his stead."

"How many students would we need, sir?" said Neville, his stomach seizing at the idea of putting his safety in Snape's hands.

"That would be up to the professors in question," Professor Dumbledore smiled. "But I am sure that if you had a group of ten students they would consider it worth their while."

Neville immediately started doing a head count. The Weasleys provided five bodies all on their own, and if Hermione came they had seven…

Ron meanwhile had turned to look expectantly at Professor Flitwick, who sighed, putting aside his knife and fork.

"It has been a long time since I did any duelling myself," he said, "but if you are keen on the idea then I will do what I can to help you."

Neville's spirits soared. Being taught to fight by Professor Flitwick was more than he had even dared to dream.

They thanked the professors and headed back down into the nearly empty hall. There had been a massive rush to check out for the holiday after the attack on Justin, not so much because of there having been another attack as for Nick having been Petrified as well. Necromancy was hardly a common art, and the thought of a beast with magic that could affect the dead was hardly a welcome one. The only house whose members hadn't fled in blind panic was, predictably enough, Slytherin, although its younger members and some of the less pure-blooded among them still saw fit to take some time away from the threat of their patron's monster.

"Hey Hermione," said Neville.

Hermione looked up at him with bloodshot eyes that clearly hadn't seen much sleep recently. "Hi."

"How are you holding up?" Neville said, perching on the bench next to her.

Ron had attempted to engage Ginny in the meantime, but she was apparently unresponsive.

The response Hermione gave him was nothing more than a look.

"Look…"

"I know," said Hermione. "I don't mean to be rude, I just…"

Neville sighed. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Thanks. I guess… I'm not doing great, Neville."

"Yeah," Neville said, almost snarling. "The only ones who are ran off home to enjoy Christmas with mummy and daddy."

"Harry wasn't the first to…" Hermione croaked. "Plenty of them are suffering too."

"Yeah," said Neville, swallowing his contempt for their gawking peers. "Have you been eating at least?"

The brunette nodded shakily. "It's easier if I just… stick to my routine, you know?"

"That's good," said Neville, smiling encouragingly.

"Neville, I can't sleep," Hermione whispered. "Every time I close my eyes I just hear screaming, and I see…"

Neville put a hand on her back, and she shuddered under his touch. It was as though she were suppressing tears.

"Have you tried talking to Madam Pomfrey?" said Neville.

There was fear in those chocolate brown eyes when she looked up at him. "I can't go..."

"I'll ask her to meet you somewhere," Neville assured her.

"I can just find a charm or something," Hermione muttered.

Neville didn't particularly want to push her on anything considering her recent mental state, so he decided to shelve the plan for later.

"Whatever you say... Look, Hermione, there's something else I came to talk about. Flitwick's running the Duelling Club over Christmas, twice a week. Do you want to come along, to clear your head?"

Though her eyes had initially widened with surprise, she rapidly began to look hesitant.

"We're all finding our own ways of coping," Neville murmured. "Please."

Her face might have been pained, but Neville knew she would be there. In the end, she always was.

"Stay where you are."

The words were as ripples on a pond, echoing through the void. Where did they come from? Who spoke? Was the man talking to Harry, or someone yet unseen?

Harry did not know how long he had been adrift. Earth was barely a speck now amidst the vast darkness of space, but he could see it as clearly as if he were still floating amidst the satellites. Wherever he was, the cries of those long gone were no quieter here. In fact, they seemed to be getting steadily louder.

Why was he here? The longer he spent in this emptiness the more he knew there was something he had to do, and yet he had no idea what that might be. Looking at his hands, now unmarred by burns and broken bones, he knew what he wanted to do. But he was too far away now — too late. And Riddle had already proven to be Harry's better.

"You'll be safe there…"

If he could only figure out where the voice was coming from! Was this some deeper ploy by Dobby to keep him from Tom Riddle's clutches? Locking him away safely in some bubble of space-time, or another dimension?

Wherever the answers were, he did not think they could be found on Earth. Something yet called to him from across the cosmos — a voice that had no words. It was more than a sense of purpose, he now realised. It was comfort, and belonging. This was the sensation he had first encountered in the Gryffindor dormitory, surrounded by friends who appreciated him, in a world where he was free from cupboards and belts and boots.

Harry smiled, even as his view of Earth gently faded behind him.