The six of them apperated into the place called Hogsmeade, despite Hermione's pleas to stay and create a plan. Dark shop fronts, and the mist line of black mountains beyond the village and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward a huge castle, and light spilling from it happened. When they arrived, Percy saw Harry's face fill with nostalgia and he knew they had come to the right place.
"Is this it?' whispered Annabeth
"Yes," whispered Ron, "Now we just need to-".He was cut off by a loud, horrible scream. It vibrated his heart and tore every nerve in Percy's body, and he knew their appearance had caused it. Lights flickered on from the many shops and people holding wands began to spill out on to the street. Death eaters. Nico raised his sword and Ron took out his wand, but Harry quickly told them to sop.
"There are too many of them" he whispered, "We can't fight all of them, so don't give away our position!"
"Accio Cloak!" said one of the death eaters, pointing his wand in the air. Harry quickly grabbed the cloak, as if he expected it to fly off, but nothing happened. Percy assumed the sell had failed or the cloak had some sort of enchantment on it.
"Not under you're wrapper, are you Potter?" yelled the Death Eater who had tried the charm and then to his fellows. "Spread now. He's here."
Six of the Death Eaters ran toward them: the group backed as quickly as possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters missed them by inches. They waited in the darkness, listening to the footsteps running up and down, beams of light flying along the street from the Death Eaters' searching wands.
"Let's just leave!" Hermione whispered. "Disapparate now!"
"We can't!" said Percy, "We need to get that horcrux before You-Know-Who gets to Hogwarts!"
A Death Eater shouted, "We know you are here, Potter, and there's no getting away! We'll find you!"
"They were ready for us," whispered Harry. "They set up that spell to tell them we'd come. I reckon they've done something to keep us here, trap us."
"What about dementors?" called another Death Eater. "Let 'em have free rein, they'd find him quick enough!"
"The Dark Lord wants Potter dead by no hands but his-"
"An' dementors won't kill him! The Dark Lord wants Potter's life, nor his soul. He'll be easier to kill if he's been Kissed first!"
"Dementors? Kisses?" asked Percy. He didn't know what dementors were, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked terrified.
"We're going to have to try to Disapparate, Harry!" Hermione whispered.
But before they could try,an unnatural cold being spread over the street. Light was sucked from the environment right up to the stars, which vanished. In the pitch blackness, he felt Hermione take hold of his arm and together, they turned on the spot.
The air through which they needed to move, seemed to have become solid: They could not Disapparate; the Death Eaters had cast their charms well. The cold was biting deeper and deeper into Percy's flesh. He heard Annabeth give a little whimper next to him. He took her hand. Then, around the corner, gliding noiselessly, came more than ten huge, cloaked figures. There were hand protruding from the cloak, glistening, grayish, and slimey looking. Percy knew these were dementors, visible because they were of a denser darkness than their surroundings. Every happy thought and memory he held began to fade away, leaving only the worste experiences of his life in his mind. The cold went deeper into his skin, into his very heart. He felt like he was drowning in cold, he couldn't see.
"Expecto Patronum!" he heard Harry whisper. A silver stag burst from his wand and charged: The Dementors scattered and there was a triumphant yell from somewhere out of sight
"It's him, down there, down there, I saw his Patronus, it was a stag!"
The Dementors have retreated, the stars were popping out again and the footsteps of the Death Eaters were becoming louder; but before Harry in his panic could decide what to do, there was a grinding of bolts nearby, a door opened on the left-side of the narrow street, and a rough voice said: "Potter, in here, quick!"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione hurried towards the building, but dazed from the dementors, Nico, Percy, and Annabeth lagged behind.
"Come on guys, hurry!" said Hermione urgently, dragging them inside. The voices of the death eaters sounded very close as they hurried into the shop. It was a small, dusty pub, lit by one, flickering candle.
"Upstairs, quickly! And keep the cloak on!" said the man who had invited them in, the bartender. They climbed up the rickety staircase as fast as they could and found themselves in a sitting room with a durable carpet and a small fireplace, above which hung a single large oil painting of a blonde girl who gazed out at the room with a kind of a vacant sweetness. Downstairs, Percy could hear the bartender covering up for them, claiming he had set off the alarm.
"W-what were those things?" asked Nico, his voice trembling.
"Dementors." Said Harry gravely. "They suck out happiness and warmth and leave you with only bad thoughts and memories."
"Yeah, we noticed." Said Percy. He leaned over and gave a small hug to Annabeth, who was very pale. He heard the death eaters leave the entrance of the pub and Hermione cried with relief. Harry pulled the cloak off the five of them as the bartender came upstairs.
"You bloody fools," he said gruffly, looking from one to the other of them. "What were you thinking, coming here?"
"Thank you," said Harry. "You can't thank you enough. You saved our lives!"
The barman grunted. Harry approached him looking up into the face: trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a strangely familiar piercing, brilliant blue.
"It's your eye that was in the mirror." Said Percy suddenly, remembering where he had seen the eyes before. There was a silence in the room. "You sent Dobby." Continued Percy
The barman nodded and looked around for the elf.
"Thought he'd be with you. Where've you left him?"
"He went back to Hogwarts," said Harry, "It's where he works." The barman turned away, lightning lamps with prods of his wand, not looking at any of them.
"Are you Aberforth?" asked Hermione. The barman grunted in reply, and Percy took that for a yes. He heard Ron's stomach give a loud growl.
"I'll get you some food." Said Aberforth, heading down to the kitchens. He returned with a large loaf of bread, some cheese, and a pewter jug of mead, which he set upon a small table in front of the fire. After they had eaten and drank their fill, Aberforth said:
"Right, now we need to get you out of Hogsmeade, you can disapparate from the pub directly-"
"We're not leaving." Said Nico, "We have a job to here, at Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts, eh?' said Aberforth, raising an eyebrow "My dear boy, you do realize going into the castle with you current company is practically suicidal."
"Like Nico just said, we have a job to do, it will help us defeat You-Know-Who, so we aren't leaving" snapped Annabeth, dislike growing in her eyes. Aberforth turned to Harry.
"Who are these friends of yours, Potter? I don't recall seeing them in the Daily Prophet."
"They're helping us on our quest." Said Harry
"You care for them? Do you care for all your friends?"
"Uh, yes." Said Harry, confused.
"Tell him to hide, then!" said Aberforth. "Tell them to take care of themselves! You-Know-Who has won this war! There's no point putting innocent person in danger!"
"Sometimes you've got to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes you've got to think about the greater good! This is war!"
"You're seventeen, boy!"
"I'm of age, and I'm going to keep fighting even if you've given up!"
"Who says I've given up?"
"You-Know-Who has won this war." Harry said, mimicking Aberforth
"I don't say I like it, but it's the truth!"
"No, it isn't." said Harry. "Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to me, it's our responsibility to finish his mission. I'm going to keep going until I succeed, or I die. Don't think I don't know how this might end. I've known it for years."
"And we'll be with him, the whole way.' Said Percy
He waited for Aberforth to jeer or to argue, but he did not. He merely moved.
"We need to get into Hogwarts," said Harry again. "If you can't help us, we'll wait till daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us ¨C well, now would be a great time to mention it."
Aberforth remained fixed in his chair, gazing at the six of them with curiosity. At last he cleared his throat, got to his feet, walked around the little table, and approached the portrait of the blonde girl.
"You know what to do," he said.
She smiled, turned, and walked away. Percy still hadn't adjusted to the moving portraits in the wizarding world, but noticed that she didn't walk out of her frame like most portraits did, but along what seemed to be a long tunnel painted behind her. They watched her slight figure retreating until finally she was swallowed by the darkness.
"Uh, what was that supposed to do? Asked Annabeth.
"There's only one way in now," said Aberforth. "You must know they've got all the old secret passageways covered at both ends, dementors all around the boundary walls, regular patrols inside the school from what my sources tell me. The place has never been so heavily guarded."
"But what...?" began Hermione, frowning at the picture. She stopped as a tiny white dot reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel. The girl was walking back toward them, growing bigger and bigger as she came. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than she was who was limping along, looking excited. His hair was longer than Harry had ever seen. He appeared and torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait.
Then the whole thing swung forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed. And out of it, his hair overgrown, his face cut, his robes ripped, clambered the real Neville Longbottom, who gave a roar of delight, leapt down from the mantelpiece and yelled.
"I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"
"Neville, what-how-?" Harry stuttered, but Neville had spotted Ron and Hermione, and with yells of delight was hugging them too. The longer Harry looked at Neville, the worse he appeared: One of his eyes was swollen yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of unkemptness suggested that he had been living enough. Nevertheless, his battered visage shone with happiness as he let go of Hermione and said again,
"I knew you'd come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!" then, he saw ercy, Annabeth, and Nico, and his face went from positively beaming to suspicious and wary. "Who are they?" he asked Harry quietly.
"Oh, this is Percy, Annabeth, and Nico, they're wizards from America!" said Hermione. "They've been helping us on our mission." Neville's face became slightly less distrustful.
"Neville Longbottom." He said, shaking the trio's hands.
"Neville, what's happened to you?" asked Harry, gaping at his many cuts and bruises.
"What? This?" Neville dismissed his injuries with a shake of the head. "This is nothing, Seamus is worse. You'll see."
"Who's Seamus?" muttered Annabeth.
"Another student at Hogwarts" said Ron
"Shall we get going then? Oh," asked Neville, he turned to Aberforth, "Ab, there might be a couple more people to the way."
"Couple more?" repeated Aberforth ominously. "What d'you mean, a couple more, Longbottom? There's a curfew and a Camwaulding Charm on the whole village!"
"I know, that's why they'll be apparating directly into the bar," said Neville. "Just send them down the passage when they get here, will you? Thanks a lot."
Neville held out his hand to Hermione and helped her to climb up onto the mantelpiece and into the tunnel; Ron, Percy, Nico, and Annabeth followed, then Neville. Harry addressed Aberforth.
"I don't know how to thank you. You've saved our lives twice."
"Look after 'em, then," said Aberforth gruffly. "I might not be able to save 'em a third time."
Harry chambered up onto the mantelpiece and through the hole behind the portrait. There were smooth stone steps on the other side: It looked as though the passageway had been there for years. Brass lamps hung from the walls and the earthy floor was worn and smooth; as they walked, their shadows rippled, fanlike, across the wall.
"How long's this been here?" Ron asked as they set off. "It isn't on the Marauder's Map, is it Harry? I thought there were only seven passages in and out of school?"
"I've never been to a school with secret passages." Remarked Percy.
"Then you obviously haven't been to Hogwarts." Said Neville, smiling "They sealed off all the other passages before the start of the year. There's no chance of getting through any of them now, not with the curses over the entrances and Death Eaters and dementors waiting at the exits." He started walking backward, beaming, drinking them in. "Never mind that stuff ... Is it true? Did you break into Gringotts? Did you escape on a dragon? It's everywhere, everyone's talking about it, Terry Boot got beaten up by Carrow for yelling about it in the Great Hall at dinner!"
"Yeah, it's true," said Harry.
"It was awesome." Said Nico. Neville laughed gleefully, then asked, "But what have you been doing? People have been saying you've just been on the run, Harry, but I don't think so. I think you've been up to something."
"You're right," said Harry, he quickly changed the subject, "Tell us about Hogwarts, Neville, we haven't heard anything."
"It's been ... Well, it's not really like Hogwarts anymore," said Neville, the smile fading from his face as he spoke. "Do you know about the Carrows?"
"Who?" asked Annabeth
"Two Death Eaters who teach there." Said Ron
"They do more than teach," said Neville grimly. "They're in charge of all discipline. They like punishment, the Carrows."
"Like Umbridge?" asked Harry
"You know, at this point, there are so many names I'm not gonna' ask who they all are." Said Percy. Neville chuckled
"That's good, 'cause each name would take a lot of explaining. As for Umbridge, nah, they make her look tame. The other teachers are all supposed to refer us to the Carrows if we do anything wrong. They don't, though, if they can avoid it. You can tell they all hate them as much as we do." Said Neville, he began to talk about the punishments they gave out and the rebellion from the students.
"We've been rebuilding Dumbledore's army," said Neville, "And revolting against Snape and the Carrows, they used to be great."
"You used to?" said Harry, who had noticed the past tense.
"Well, it got more difficult as time went on." said Neville. "We lost Luna at Christmas, and Ginny never came back after Easter, and the three of us were sort of the leaders. The Carrows seemed to know I was behind a lot of it, so they started coming down on me hard, and then Michael Corner went and got caught releasing a first-year they'd chained up, and they tortured him pretty badly. That scared people off."
"No kidding," muttered Ron, as the passage began to slope upward.
"Yeah, well, I couldn't ask people to go through what Michael did, so we dropped those kinds of stunts. But we were still fighting, doing underground stuff, right up until a couple of weeks ago. That's when they decided there was only one way to stop me, I suppose, and they went for Gran."
"They what?" said Harry, Ron, and Hermione together. Percy, Annabeth, and Nico gave sideways glances at each other.
"Yeah," said Neville, panting a little now, because the passage was climbing so steeply, "Well, you can see their thinking. It had worked really well, kidnapping kids to force their relatives to behave. I s'pose it was only a matter of time before they did it the other way around. Thing was," he faced them, and Harry was astonished to see that he was grinning, "They bit off a bit more than they could chew with Gran. Little old witch living alone, they probably thought they didn't need to send anyone particularly powerful. Anyway," Neville laughed, "Dawlish is still in St. Mungo's and Gran's on the run. She sent me a letter," he clapped a hand to the breast pocket of his robes, "telling me she was proud of me, that I'm my parent's son, and to keep it up."
"Cool," said Ron.
"You've a pretty awesome Gran." Said Percy
"Yea," said Neville happily. "Only thing was, once they realized they had no hold over me, they decided Hogwarts could do without me after all. I don't know whether they were planning to kill me or send me to Azkaban, either way, I knew it was time to disappear."
"Where did you go?" asked Annabeth, intregued.
"Aren't ¨C aren't we heading straight back for Hogwarts?" Asked Ron, looking thoroughly confused,
"'Course," said Neville. "You'll see. We're here."
They turned a corner and there ahead of them was the end of the passage. Another short flight of steps led to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana's portrait. Neville pushed it open and climbed through. As Harry followed, he heard Neville call out for unseen people:
"Look who it is! Didn't I tell you?"
As Harry emerged into the room behind the passage, there were several screams and yells: "HARRY!"
"It's Potter, it's POTTER!"
"Ron!"
"Hermione!"
He had a confused impression of colored hangings, of lamps and many faces. The next moment, he, Ron, and Hermione were engulfed, hugged, pounded on the back, their hair ruffled, their hands shaken, by what seemed to be more than twenty people. They might have just won a Quidditch final. Nico, Annabeth, and Percy all looked completely bewildered as old school friend and admirers surrounded the six of them.
Okay, okay, calm down!" Neville called, and as the crowd backed away, Harry was able to take in their surroundings.
He did not recognize the dorm at all. It was enormous, and looked rather like the interior of a particularly sumptuous tree house, or perhaps a gigantic ship's cabin. Multicolored hammocks were strung from the ceiling and from the balcony that ran around the dark wood-paneled and windowless walls, which were covered in bright tapestry hangings. Harry saw the gold Gryffindor lion, emblazoned on scarlet; the black badger of Hufflepuff, set against yellow; and the bronze eagle of Ravenclaw, on blue. The silver and green of Slytherin alone were absent. There were bulging bookcases, a few broomsticks propped against the walls, and in the corner, a large wood-cased wireless.
"Where are we?" asked Harry.
"The Room of Requirement, of course!" said Neville.
"The Room of what now?" asked Nico, and murmers broke out among the students. They all knew Harry, Ron and Hermione, but these new people were strangers.
"Surpassed itself, hasn't it?" continued Neville happily, oblivious to the tension. "The Carrows were chasing me, and I knew I had just one chance for a hideout: I managed to get through the door and this is what I found! Well, it wasn't exactly like this when I arrived, it was a load smaller, there was only one hammock and just Gryffindor hangings. But it's expanded as more and more of the D.A. arrived."
"And the Carrows can't get in?" asked Harry, looking around for the door.
"No," said Seamus Finnigan, whom Harry had not recognized until he spoke: Seamus's face was bruised and puffy. "It's a proper hideout, as long as one of us stays in here, they can't get at us, the door won't open. It's all down to Neville. He really gets this room. You've got to ask for exactly what you need; like, 'I don't want any Carrow supporters to be able to get in', and it'll do it for you! You've just got to make sure you close the loopholes. Neville's the man!"
"It's quite straightforward, really," said Neville modestly. "I'd been in here about a day and a half, and getting really hungry, and wishing I could get something to eat, and that's when the passage to Hog's Head opened up. I went through it and met Aberforth. He's been providing us with food, because for some reason, that's the one thing the room doesn't really do."
"Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," said Ron to general astonishment.
"So we've been hiding out here for nearly two weeks," said Seamus, "and it just makes more hammocks every time we need room, and it even sprouted a pretty good bathroom once girls started turning up-"
"And thought they'd quite like to wash, yes," supplied Lavender Brown, whom Harry had not noticed until that point. Annabeth chuckled. Now that Harry looked around properly, he recognized many familiar faces. Both Patil twins were there, as were Terry Boot, Ernie Macmillan, Anthony Goldstein, and Michael Corner.
"Tell us what you've been up to, though," said Ernie. "There've been so many rumors, we've been trying to keep up with you on Potterwatch." He pointed at the wireless. "You didn't break into Gringotts?"
"They did!" said Neville. "And the dragon's true too!"
There was a smattering of applause and a few whoops; Ron took a bow.
"What were you after?" asked Seamus eagerly.
Before any of them could parry the question with one of their own, Harry felt a terrible, scorching pain in the lightning scar. As he turned his back hastily on the curious and delighted faces, the Room of Requirement vanished, and he was standing inside a ruined stone shack, and the rotting floorboards were ripped apart at his feet, a disinterred golden box lay open and empty beside the hole, and Voldemort's scream of fury vibrated inside his head.
With an enormous effort he pulled out of Voldemort's mind again, back to where he stood, swaying, in the Room of Requirement, sweat pouring from his face and Annabeth holding him up.
"Are you all right, Harry?" Neville was saying. "What to sit down? I expect you're tired, aren't -?"
"No," said Harry. He tried to look at Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Ron, and Hermione, all at once trying to tell them without words that Voldemort had just discovered the loss of one of the other Horcruxes. Time was running out fast: If Voldemort chose to visit Hogwarts next, they would miss their chance.
"We need to get going," he said, and their expressions told him that they understood.
"What are we going to do, then, Harry?" asked Seamus. "What's the plan?"
"Plan?" repeated Harry. He was exercising all his willpower to prevent himself succumbing again to Voldemort's rage: His scar was still burning. "Well, there's something we, need to do, and then we'll get out of here."
Nobody was laughing or whooping anymore. Neville looked confused.
"What d'you mean, 'get out of here'?" someone asked.
"We haven't come back to stay," said Harry, rubbing his scar, trying to soothe the pain. "There's something important we need to do- "
"What is it?"
"We can't tell you." Said Annabeth firmly.
There was a ripple of muttering at this: Neville's brows contracted.
Why can't you tell us? It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?"
"Well, yeah -" began Harry,
"Then we'll help you." Said Neville.
The other members of Dumbledore's Army were nodding, some enthusiastically, others solemnly. A couple of them rose from their chairs to demonstrate their willingness for immediate action.
"You don't understand," Harry seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours. "We ¨C we can't tell you. We've got to do it ¨C alone."
"Why?" asked Neville. 'Besides," he lowered his voice a bit, 'Why did you tell these strangers what your doing and not us? We've known you for years, you can trust us!"
"Because ..." In his desperation to start looking for the missing Horcrux, or at least have a private discussion with Percy, Nico, Annabeth, Ron and Hermione about where they might commence their search. Harry found it difficult to gather his thoughts. His scar was still searing. "Dumbledore left the three of us a job," he said carefully, "and we weren't supposed to tell - I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the three of us. These three," he gestured to Nico, Percy, and Annabeth, "got thrown into the mix involuntarily."
"We're his army," said Neville. "Dumbledore's Army. We were all in it together, we've been keeping it going while you three have been off on your own -"
"It hasn't exactly been a picnic, mate," said Ron.
"I never said it had, but I don't see why you can't trust us. Everyone in this room's been fighting and they've been driven in here because the Carrows were hunting them down. Everyone in here's proven they're loyal to Dumbledore, loyal to you."
"Wow, they really like you Harry.' Muttered Percy.
"Look," Harry began, without knowing what he was going to say, but it did not matter. The tunnel door had just opened behind him.
"We got your message, Neville! Hello you three, I thought you must be here!"
It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to hug his best friend.
"Hi, everyone!" said Luna happily. "Oh, it's great to be back! Oh, Percy, Nico, Annabeth, you're here too!"
"Luna," said Harry distractedly, "what are you doing here? How did you-?"
"I sent for her," said Neville, holding up the fake Galleon. "I promised her and Ginny that if you turned up I'd let them know. We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution. That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows."
"Of course that's what it means," said Luna brightly. "Isn't it, guys? We're going to fight them out of Hogwarts?"
"Listen," said Harry with a rising sense of panic, "I'm sorry, but that's not what we came back for. There's something we've got to do, and then -"
"You're going to leave us in this mess?" demanded Michael Cornet.
"No!" said Ron. "What we're doing will benefit everyone in the end, it's all about trying to get rid of You-Know-Who -"
"Then let us help!" said Neville angrily. "We want to be a part of it!"
There was another noise behind them, and Harry turned. His heart seemed to fall: Ginny was now climbing through the hole in the wall, closely followed by Fred, George, and Lee Jordan. Ginny gave Harry a radiant smile: He had forgotten, he had never fully appreciated, how beautiful she was, but he had never been less pleased to see her.
"I think I just saw the wizard version Connor and Travis." Murmered Percy, eyeing the wealey twins, who cracked identical, devilish grins.
"Aberforth's getting a bit annoyed," said Fred, raising his hand in answer to several cries of greeting. "He wants a kip, and his bar's turned into a railway station."
Harry's mouth fell open. Right behind Lee Jordan came Harry's old girlfriend, Cho Chang. She smiled at him.
"I got the message," she said, holding up her own fake Galleon and she walked over to sit beside Michael Corner.
"So what's the plan, Harry?" said George.
"There isn't one," said Harry, still disoriented by the sudden appearance of all these people, unable to take everything in while his scar was still burning so fiercely.
"Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favorite kind," said Fred.
"You've got to stop this!" Percy told Neville. "Why did you call all these people here? This is insane-"
"We're fighting, aren't we?" said Dean, taking out his fake Galleon. "The message said Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I'll have to get a wand, though-"
"You haven't got a wand¨C?" began Seamus.
Ron turned suddenly to Harry.
"Why can't they help?"
"Because this mission isn't meant for anyone other than us." Said Hermione.
"They can help." He dropped his voice and said, so that none of them could hear but Hermione, who stood between them, "We don't know where it is. We've got to find it fast. We don't have to tell them it's a Horcrux."
Harry looked from Ron to the resy of their group,
"I think Ron's right. We don't even know what we're looking for, we need them." Whispered Annabeth.
"You don't have to do everything alone, Harry." Said Nico.
"Yes!" said Ron, "These people joined the quest, and look how much they've helped us!" said Ron, gesturing to Percy, Annabeth and Nico. "I mean, if Percy hadn't healed Dobby with the water, Dobby'd be dead! And without Nico, the cup horcrux would still be alive!"
Harry thought fast, his scar still prickling, his head threatening to split again. Dumbledore had warned him against telling anyone but Ron and Hermione about the Horcruxes. But did want to become like Voldemort, untrusting to anyone?
"All right," he said quietly to the other five. "Okay," he called to the room at large, and all noise ceased: Fred and George, who had been cracking jokes for the benefit of those nearest, fell silent, and all of the looked alert, excited.
"There's something we need to find," Harry said. "Something ¨C something that'll help us overthrow You-Know-Who. It's here at Hogwarts, but we don't know where.
"It might have belonged to Ravenclaw." Annabeth put in, "Has anyone heard of an object like that? Has anyone come across something with her eagle on it, for instance?"
Harry looked hopefully toward the little group of Ravenclaws, to Padma, Michael, Terry, and Cho, but it was Luna who answered, perched on the arm of Ginny's chair.
"Well, there's her lost diadem. I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw? Daddy's trying to duplicate it."
"Yeah, but the lost diadem," said Michael Corner, rolling his eyes, "is lost, Luna. That's sort of the point."
"When was it lost?" asked Annabeth.
"Centuries ago, they say," said Cho, and Harry's heart sank. "Professor Flitwick says the diadem vanished with Ravenclaw herself. People have looked, but," she appealed to her fellow Ravenclaws. "Nobody's ever found a trace of it, have they?"
They all shook their heads. "This could actually be it!" whispered Annabeth excitedly. "It could be lost because Tom Riddle stole it, and used it as a horcrux."
"Your right!" said Harry, he turned to the students. 'Is there any way to know what it looks like?" he asked.
"There's a model of it in the Ravenclaw common room." Luna piped up, I could take you there."
"That would be great." Said Harry, "Nico, come with me, if we get close to finding the thing, I'll need you to help destroy it." Nico nodded curtly.
"Are you sure you're up to destroying another one?" asked Ron. Nico shrugged.
"I might be able to."
"Alright, Percy come with me," said Ron, "The basilisk in the school has venom that can destroy a horcrux. If we can get a few fangs, Nico won't have to destroy the horcrux by himself."
"Great idea." Said Percy, "One question, how in Hades are you going to get a basilisk fang?"
"We go to the girls bathroom-"
"What?"
"I'll explain on the way." Said Ron, they began to hurry out of the Room of requirement.
"Wait, what are we supposed to be doing while you four are gone, brushing our hair?" asked Annabeth crossly.
"Just…stay here, look after Dumbledore's army." Said Ron.
"Excuse me, we don't need to be 'looked after" said Neville.
"That's right; we're coming with you two." Said Annabeth.
"Annabeth, please stay here, I don't want you getting hurt." Implored Percy.
"Hmph, fine." Said Annabeth, still looking angry.
"Thank you, now can we go?" said Ron, and he and Percy hurried out of the room.
Okay, I know there wasn't much action in the last two chapters, but I can promise you a lot more in the next chapter. Also, I know in the Hogs Head Aberforth and Harry were supposed to have a big discussion on Dumbledore, but since I never really mentioned him in my writing, I sort of just left that bit out.