Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Thank for putting this story in your favourites or your alerts and for reviewing. I really appreciate your support! :)

Boblove321: Then you'll like chapter 28 ;)

FanFictionLover: Don't you think I create some...anticipation by announcing a slash in advance? I'm afraid I won't take you up on your suggestion this time, but maybe the next I will ;) And I laughed when I read your "Thank Heavens Het is still at least slightly interesting". I feel exactly the same :P

Andddd, on with the show!

Chapter 27: 23rd of September 1997: A Rebellious Interlude

Neville was busy preparing his garden for the winter. Well, he said 'his garden' but it belonged to the whole Rebel camp, really. It produced food for all of them and Neville was particularly proud of being able to provide for these people who had taken him in after the loss of his parents and the death of his Grandmother. The latter had joined the war effort on Dumbledore's side when the Dark Lord came back to life, but she hadn't lasted long in the bloody battles that followed. She had been a Pureblood lady, after all: an administrator of the Longbottom's wealth and the perfect party host, not a fighter. He carried a picture of her and his parents with him everyday in the pocket of his robes.

He sighted tiredly, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand.

Ever since Harry left the village, a lot of things had changed. The rest of the Rebels had been furious. They saw all the time and effort they invested in making him a powerful fighter as a complete loss, or a gain for the other side.

Neville didn't think Harry had joined the other side. The Dark Lord had killed his parents, after all, and this was the kind of things you could never forget or forgive. He knew this better than anyone else, since they nearly did the same thing to his parents.

He thought Harry just got tired of the pressure. He could understand that better than anyone else as well: Ever since Harry left, Moody had come out with his theory of the 'alternate Chosen One' to the rest of the camp and suddenly everyone's attention was focused on him.

Now, everything he did was analysed and every minute of his time was calculated to fit in a maximum of training. The only time where he could relax was when he was working on his garden, but, most of the time, he was too tired even for that. The pressure they put on him was stifling, especially since he was far from the level of proficiency Harry had shown in magical combat.

He now understood why Harry had felt the need to escape. He longed to as well. To just get out of here, even for just a stroll like he used to. Before, nobody had cared if he wanted to go walk around in the Muggle World. They'd shout to him a nice 'be careful' whenever he'd head out and welcome him back with a good-natured quip about how he went to visit a hypothetical Muggle girlfriend out of the wards. Now, when he wanted to get out, he was interrogated and firmly dissuaded.

He had suddenly become 'too precious to loose'. He hated his new status and he hated Moody for 'outing' him to the rest of the Rebels. But he was also scared of Moody. The artificial eye had always given him nightmares, but now it was his barking commands that made him jerk awake in cold sweat at night.

This whole thing was so hopeless. He had told Moody about the oath he made to the Dark Lord, but Moody felt it wasn't absolute enough to really prevent him from facing the Leader of the British Wizarding World. Neville rather thought that Moody would have said that even if he had sworn an Unbreakable Vow. He could feel that Moody's patience with him was dwindling down. Soon he'd probably get tired of his second failed Saviour and take the matter in his own hands. He had already upped the amount of raids and the recruiting efforts. There was also something huge being planned. Apparently, some of their new allies brought some interesting new weapons on the table and it opened new realms of possibilities. Neville tried not to think too much about it. It gave him the hibbie jibbies.

His attention was thankfully drawn away from the topic by the arrival of an owl. They rarely came to the Rebel's camp and never to him. He didn't know anybody outside who could have sent him something. Apart from Harry. The thought flashed in his mind and he quickly took the letter from the owl's leg, ripping it open. Moody would have his head if he knew that he opened the letter without sending scanning it beforehand. He would also be furious and demand to be shown the letter first 'for his own good', of course. Neville didn't care. If Harry sent him something, he'd read it first, and Merlin, the other Rebels be damned!

He recognised Harry's scrawling calligraphy. It hadn't improved. And neither had his grammar, apparently, he thought with a wince. That was another consequence of Harry's focused combat training. He didn't get to go to Muggle school like Neville had and learn about basic things like English and Maths...Anyway, the note was pretty short. It read:

Nevile

I hope you get this leter. The Rebel wards sometime block leters, I think.

Im wirting this because I discovered something hear about your Parents. I got a deal to place them in a mental institution were you can go to visit them. You wont get trouble for it, I made sure of it, dont wory.

The place name is called Yannus Tikey's mental ward, or something like that. It's in the out skirt of Manchester. I cheked a bit, you can take the mugle coatch number 341 from the central cotch station (you remember we went their at some point to look at the locs because sirius in a faze were he liked muggle boats) to get there and it will take you about hour. The bus stop is called 'Museum', you go down and you walk around the museum until you see a flower boot and then you go rigth and down a ally until you see a broken window and then you go in it. It looks bad but inside its suposed to be nice and confortable. You just ask for the Widebukle, we changed there name so that nobody know exept from you and us. Ok?

Then you can aparrate home.

Its not a trap, please beleive me, I swear. You know I wouldnt do that. Its not like me to trap, Im too direct for that.

Sorry about the nose. I hope its fine by now.

Not sorry about leaving thouw.

I hope you go to see them,

HP

PS: Padfoot

Neville let the parchment roll on itself while he thought. It clearly was Harry. The bad calligraphy and the mistakes were all his and it's not as if they were really apparent when he spoke, so someone would really have to know him well to imitate his style so perfectly. He had often wondered if Harry wasn't dyslexic, but nobody could answer him now. The lack of formal education was blatant, however.

He looked at the Post Scriptum again. He knew that Sirius's nickname was Padfoot, but why write that there? It didn't make any sense! It made him think of the games they had played together when they were younger. The entertainment possibilities in the Rebel camp had always been very limited for children and Harry didn't know much outside of his training, so they couldn't talk about the Muggles things Neville learnt at school. He had tried to teach it to Harry, but he was struggling to understand it well in the first place so he couldn't really explain it. It was just confusing Harry more.

At some point, Harry came back from a special day of training with Remus, who was still there at that point. He said that they had learnt about secret messages and passwords. Apparently, Remus had developed a certain expertise in it while he was working on a magical map of Hogwarts with Harry's father and the other Marauders.

Harry and he had amused themselves for hours just thinking up passwords and coding their messages. Remus even gave them the Marauder's Map and challenged them to discover the password. They had tried everything, every sentences that passed through their heads at the time, but without finding it.

Weeks later, painfully, bits of magic after and another, Harry had managed to piece it back together. He never got the activation sentence, but had managed to crack the magic beneath it. How he did it, Neville had no idea, but then again, Harry had always had this intuitive connection with his magic. When they learnt about wards, for instance, he took up very quickly to them and was soon playing and creating his own combinations of wards and testing their strengths. It was just...typical Harry.

Anyway, after he cracked the Map, they went to see his godfather and Remus and they were both flabbergasted. They took the Map from him and did the activation process in front of us to make sure that Harry hadn't broken anything while fiddling with it. In the process, they gave us the password.

At that moment, Harry had turned to him and just winked. Neville had never asked him if he was winking because he didn't really know the activation code and had just made them believe he cracked the Map to get them to tell him, or if he had really managed it on his own. Whichever of the two it was, Neville would probably never know, but he would always remember the code for which they had worked so hard and that meaningful wink Harry had sent him when he heard it.

He decided to test the sequence on Harry's letter. He took his wand out and pressed the tip to the paper. "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good." The ink of the message vanished, only to reveal two new lines.

Neville, if you change you're mind about what we discused last time, don't hesitate to tell me. I'll help you out as best as I can, I promiss. You don't have to be stuck like I was.

Neville sighed; thinking of this new dilemma Harry had given him. He believed the other boy when he said that it wasn't a trap. Like Harry had said in the original letter, it just wasn't his style. That left the question of where Harry met his parents and how he had managed to negotiate a 'deal' with their minders.

Nobody in the camp had heard anything about him since he left. They all thought they would get a newspaper just days after his departure with a catchy headline like "The Rebel Rebels" or even "Scum Rebel Dies Trying to Assassinate our Beloved Leader", but nothing of the sort had appeared, even months after. The Rebels assumed that he flew out of the country right after he freed Malfoy. They called him a coward and a traitor. With this letter, it appeared that Harry was still in Britain and was in fact in contact with their enemy. Had he betrayed them completely? Was he attempting to help them in his own way? There wasn't enough in this letter to determine the answer to these questions.

One thing was clear, however, it was that Harry wasn't dead, and that he wasn't powerless either. And that gave him hope, because if Harry could still kill the Dark Lord, maybe Neville wouldn't have to do it. It was a cowardly way of thinking, but he had never been really brave before either.

The only moment where he stood up for himself was when he had tried to stop Harry and Malfoy from leaving. And he couldn't help but think he chose the worst time possible to step up. Harry's words from that day still rang in his head hours after he left and Neville had concluded that he indeed didn't have all the facts when he took the hasty decision to oppose them. And as to whether Moody was manipulating him, or if he chose to voluntarily believe the man's unrealistic promises of a brighter future, that remained to be seen...

But did he really want to leave the Camp altogether? This was his home, the place where he grew up. He didn't know what to do about the second part of Harry's message.

In the meanwhile, he decided with hope blooming in his chest, I'll go see my parents.

He knew that they probably wouldn't recognise him, but he needed to see them, to remind himself of the horror he was fighting against. Because as it was, he couldn't exactly say why he was opposing the current regime.

He just felt so tired of it all.

.

o0o0o

That evening, in a deserted warehouse in Liverpool, two twins were standing shock still in front of opened crates.

"What will they be used for?" asked one of them.

A shabbily dressed silhouette stood next to them, a mad eye whizzing about and scrutinising them in detail.

"It doesn't matter what they will be used for, boys. You said you wanted in, you got in the network, now it's time for your contribution," the man growled out.

"But...those...things could really be dangerous..." continued the twin which had spoken up before.

"You said you wanted revenge for your brother's death. This is the way. Unless you prefer to let his soul wander aimlessly on this plane just because you're too scared to avenge his memory?" bit out the scruffy man.

"No, no, we want revenge...it's just that we don't want innocent people to be implicated in anything..." specified the other twin which hadn't spoken up for a while.

"They won't be. They'll be out of the way. Trust me, I don't want civilian deaths any more than you do." added the older man.

The twins exchanged a glance. They weren't sure if they should take his word for it. But what other choice did they have? They had to take concrete steps for a better world. The passive opposition that their peers conducted toward the Dark Lord's regime wasn't enough for them. They wanted to take concrete and active actions against it. They had sought retribution elsewhere. And this is where it had led them: In a warehouse with the very leader of the Rebellion...and crates full of components of Muggle explosives.

They exchanged another glance. They had a bad feeling about this.

.

Next chapter will be a Dark Lord's POV. And there will be a more serious slash scene.

Thank you in advance for reviewing! :)