Once again, I'm sorry this took a while to upload. I was without internet for a while, but now we have it again and I should be uploading more frequently :D
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Hope you all enjoy this chapter!
"Got you!" It said. Dudley turned around to find a very evil looking man holding Neville by the t-shirt and grinning maniacally. The man took out his wand with his spare hand and held it to Neville's chest. Dudley froze on the spot, his head was spinning. He didn't have a wand; he had never been in this kind of situation before... All of a sudden, there was a flash of red light. He saw Neville's eyes roll upwards as he went limp. The last thing he managed to do before falling unconscious was slowly mouth one word. 'Carrow'.
It was Amycus Carrow. This was probably the worst situation Dudley could be in. Neville was unconscious on the floor and a Carrow had his wand pointing directly as Dudley's face. "Sneak inside and leave the boy if you know what's good for you" Amycus snarled, his lip curling as he sneered. "You must know by now that I show no mercy."
Dudley nodded slowly, thinking it was the right thing to do. He was still clueless about what he should do. He couldn't leave Neville there with Amycus, but interfering would probably get them both tortured...
"I-I'm n-not le-leaving!" He stuttered out. Amycus laughed and merely flicked his wand, causing a stream of golden light to hit Dudley in the right arm. Suddenly, he couldn't feel it. He looked down at it to find that it had gone floppy, like it had lost all its bones. In fact, Dudley could just remember Harry mentioning a Professor doing a spell like that to him... His train of thought broke as another stream of light hit him in the left leg. Dudley limped off to the side and picked up Neville's wand off the ground. He held it in his left hand and tried waving it around.
Spells shot out everywhere... Neville's wand was definitely not for Dudley. But it was all he had. Dudley remembered the first spell he had ever learnt;
"Expelliarmus!" He yelled, flicking his wand. Much to Dudley's shock, Amycus' wand went flying into his limp hand. Dudley couldn't help but grin. He couldn't believe that he had just done that to a full-grown wizard. Dudley aimed his wand at Amycus' chest, trying his best to look threatening and not at all terrified.
"Revive him" he yelled.
"I can't" Amycus grinned. "He has to wake up when he's ready".
"What do you mean?"
"I only stunned him... stupid boy... Now give me back my wand!"
"No!" Dudley exclaimed. "Wingardium Leviosa!" He lifted Neville's body up and guided it along as he walked. Still keeping the other wand pointed at Amycus, he yelled "Stupefy!" And Amycus fell to the ground. Dudley crept into the grand hall and quietly as he could, walking along the back of the Hall to find a place to put Neville. He found a deserted corner and placed him down gently. Dudley stood on a chair to see over all the students and found Professor McGonagall placing an old hat with a mouth on a very greasy-haired man, who was also dressed in black.
"I now appoint Professor Severus Snape the new headmaster of Hogwarts" McGonagall yelled out, obviously trying hard to sound pleased. But Dudley could see the sadness and terror in her eyes. Students began clapping half-heartedly, except for the ones dressed in green, who Dudley guessed were the Slytherins. They were cheering, whooping and applauding quite loudly.
Professor Snape stood up and silenced the room. "Now" he began, his voice oozing with hatred and power. "I expect you to tell all your little friends to be in this castle by the end of this month in time for the new school year. Any student found elsewhere will suffer. Do I make myself clear?"
There were a few nods, but everyone remained silent. Professor McGonagall was looking very grave.
"Now go!" Students began hurrying out of the hall. Dudley pocketed the two wands he had just been holding and lifted Neville onto his left shoulder. He ran alongside some students he recognised from the room. It was particularly difficult to haul Neville up the stairs, but Dudley saw it as good training for when he planned to help Harry.
As soon as he got through the hole into the room of requirement, he sprinted to his hammock and dropped Neville. He wondered how he was going to fix his arm and leg... and how he would revive Neville. He spotted Cho standing with her friends and ran over towards her.
"Cho" he said hurriedly, "I need your help".
"What's wrong, Dudley?" She asked, looking nervous. Dudley signalled for her to follow, so she did. When they got to Dudley's hammock, Cho gasped.
"What happened to him?!" She exclaimed.
"Amycus Carrow." Dudley explained the whole story to her.
"Wow" Cho breathed when Dudley had finished. "And you've never been to a magic school before?"
"Well, no but I... It was nothing, really... "
Cho giggled. "You have Harry's modesty".
"So what do I do?"
"He will wake up, it just takes time." Cho sighed and turned to Dudley. She suddenly began to frown. "What's happened to your arm? And why is your leg all wobbly?"
"Amycus put some sort of spell on them. It doesn't feel like there are any bones in them." Dudley held up his right arm and let it bend down. Cho made a face.
"That happened to Harry before. This teacher thought he knew everything and tried to fix Harry's broken arm-"
"Yeah, he mentioned that one time" Dudley interrupted, nodding.
"Our school nurse can fix it, but that means sneaking out again".
"Will it heal on its own?" Dudley asked, suddenly hopeful.
"Yes, but bones grow slowly. It should take at least a month or two to heal fully".
"Oh" Dudley replied, disappointed. "I'll wait until Neville wakes up, then we'll decide what to do".
"Ok" Cho agreed. "But if you do decide to go, let me know. I need to see her as well to pick up some more medical supplies for the medical room."
"Oh, ok" Dudley nodded.
"But for now let me bandage you up. You don't want to hurt your bones even more."
"It's ok, really..."
"No, I insist. Let's go."
Cho led Dudley towards the medical room. "I volunteer at the medical room here sometimes. I did a medical class with our school nurse, Madam Pomfrey. Cho opened the door and let Dudley in. "Go and have a seat" she said. She rummaged through the cupboards and found the bandages. She took them out, and flicked her wand, but nothing happened. She sighed.
"Looks like the spell Amycus put on you won't allow magic to help heal it. I'll have to put them on manually." Cho took the bandages out and wrapped them around Dudley's arm and leg. After she had finished she stood back to admire her own handiwork. "No we just need the supports..." her voice trailed off as she hurried back over to the cupboards.
Wow, Dudley thought. No one had ever fussed over him like Cho was, which made him feel flattered... Yet a little bit uncomfortable. Cho walked back over to Dudley and attached some weird looking clips to his bandages, which made his arm and leg tingle as she put them on.
"There" she said, stepping back again. "Those will make sure your arm doesn't bend any further forward or backwards than it should."
Dudley used his left arm to try and bend his right arm back. It still looked like jelly, but I wouldn't bend back any further than it would have normally. He smiled up at Cho.
"This is brilliant" he said, "thank you."
Cho smiled back. "No problem" she said as she put the bandages away. The pair walked back to Dudley's hammock to find Neville sitting up looking rather exhausted.
"What happened?" He groaned, rubbing his head. "Last thing I remember was sneaking down the stairs..."
Dudley explained to Neville what had happened after he was knocked unconscious.
"Wait, what?!" Neville exclaimed. "Snape's headmaster?!"
"Yeah" Dudley replied. "He doesn't seem like a nice guy either-"
"He killed our last headmaster, Albus Dumbledore! The greatest wizard of our age!"
"Well," Cho joined in, "he did force McGonagall to do it..."
"And Dudley..." Neville continued, "you took out Amycus and stole his wand!"
Dudley nodded. "Yeah" he said, "and here's your wand." He passed Neville his wand."What do we do with Amycus' wand?" Dudley held up a shiny black wand.
"It seemed to work well for you since you disarmed Amycus" Neville said, "you deserve to keep it, mate."
Dudley examined the wand carefully. "Thanks." He said. He turned to Cho and remembered his question. "Oh yeah, do you reckon we could sneak into the school's hospital? I think Cho and I need to go..."
"Well," Neville began, "it is dangerous, but I think we could give it a go. Cho, are you available tomorrow night?"
"Yeah, that's perfect" Cho nodded, smiling.
"Great" Neville replied, "I'll sort out a plan. Dudley, you need to rest."
Dudley nodded and sat down on his hammock. He waved goodbye to Neville and Cho then rolled over and fell asleep.
Dudley's eyes snapped open as he felt someone shake him.
"Dudley" he heard someone say. "Dudley." It was Neville. Dudley rolled over and sat up.
"What is it?" Dudley yawned.
"Dinner's here, I thought you'd like to eat something seeing as you missed lunch."
Dudley nodded, stood up and followed Neville to the centre, where there was a huge amount of food laid out on the tables. It took them a while to find a seat, but as soon as they did, Dudley immediately went for the roast potatoes and beef. He hadn't realised how hungry he actually was until then.
"So" Dudley began, swallowing his gigantic mouthful of food. "Have you come up with a plan for tomorrow night?"
"Not yet," Neville replied. "Except for when assemblies are called, all day every day the hallways are patrolled. It'll be hard to avoid the guards."
"Is there some way we can make ourselves invisible or something?" Dudley asked.
"Well... Unless you're one of the most powerful wizards of all time, no."
"Doesn't Harry have an invisibility cloak?"
"Yes, but it's the only one in existence."
"Is there any way at all that we could blend in?"
Neville paused for a moment and thought about it. "There is one way, but it'll be nearly impossible to carry it out."
"What is it?" Dudley asked, eager to find out what Neville had in mind.
"There's a potion called the polyjuice potion. It lets you transform into another person. The tricky part is that we need to collect hairs from the people we want to transform into... And for extra security, we also might want to hide the original wizards in case someone realises that there's two of them wandering the corridors."
"How long will it take to make it?"
"One month for the actual potion, but I think we have some in the medical room... And once you add the hairs it's ready to drink."
"Why don't we do it then?"
Neville snorted. "We'd be better off sneaking through the halls and hoping for the best. Taking out a death eater and stealing one of their hairs while attempting to keep quiet so we don't attract attention... It may be a bit of a mission."
Dudley nodded in disappointment. He was about to give up when he was suddenly struck with an idea. "Hey Neville, why don't we ask a house elf to teleport us to the nurse?"
"That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that before? It means we need to get up really early in order to catch a house elf when they're delivering the food. I'll set my wand so it goes off at six in the morning."
"Set your wand?" Dudley asked in confusion.
"Yeah, muggle technology doesn't work in the castle, remember?"
Dudley just shrugged.
"Right" Neville said, standing up. "I think I'm going to head off to bed."
"Yeah, me too" Dudley agreed, also standing up. "See you tomorrow morning."
"I'll come wake you" Neville told him as they went their separate ways.