Chapter 4

As ever, thanks to everyone who's reading this, and an extra special thanks to those of you who take the time to review. Words cannot express my gratitude. On with the big chapter four, where we begin to approach some sort of initiative to bring down Voldemort...

Hermione's POV

Neville's room was a proud display of his finest memories, whilst also a perfect representation of his character, something that he probably hadn't intended to do. The smallest and easily most modest room of the Longbottom household, it was tucked away in the corner of the building, neighbouring the master bedroom which his parents had apparently used to occupy. It seemed that he and his grandmother had decided to leave it empty in their honour.

I couldn't help but smile at the messiness around me; clothes which probably went out of fashion before fashion was even invented were sprawled over the floor, the wardrobe's hopeful clothing hangers totally bare. On the wall hung a few colourful posters which seemed to stand out from the rest of the room, a shockingly bad clash. Decorating the windowsill were a few interesting plants which seemed to be cared for with meticulous attention; I knew that one of them was dittany, a plant which took a great deal of skill and precision to grow correctly, but a couple of the others stumped even me.

It was, however, the mantle piece over the fire at the end of the room that naturally commanded the most attention. Proving that he at least had some decorative skills, Neville and proudly mounted his golden DA coin so that it gleamed in the light and naturally drew eyes to it. He, like Luna, had always been particularly attached to Dumbledore's Army, and he had perhaps been the most bitterly disappointed when it had been discontinued in the sixth year. Next to the gleaming galleon lay some cherished photos, on one side a picture of the entire DA assembled and on the other, his parents smiling up at him.

As I said, the room perfectly represented my brave friend's character. Messiness and disorganisation, attempts but ultimate failures at trying to decorate the walls, his love of herbology and his sentimental feels about his parents and the group of friends that he had appreciated so much; all were on display.

"You like it?" Neville asked nervously, not knowing exactly what to think about my inquisitive examination of the room.

The black-haired wizard, the most unlikely of all heroes, was still a little shy and tentative by nature. Although his confidence and self-esteem had grown exponentially throughout the last years, deep down I still fondly saw him as the podgy boy who had lost his frog on the first day of Hogwarts, the most Hufflepuff-like of all Gryffindors who I had grown up knowing. War had forced him to change who he was, an alteration which actually eventually turned our for the best, but he had and never would change in my eyes.

I smiled at him fondly, "It's nice. Is that dittany that you're growing?"

"Yeah," he said more relaxedly, "I figured that with the ministry controlling all distribution of potions, it wouldn't help to have someone on our side growing our own dittany."

I raised my eyebrows at his rather uncharacteristic forethought. "That's clever, Neville. I take it that this means that you want to help?"

"Of course!" The clumsy boy replied, perhaps a little over enthusiastically, "We need to get them back for what happened to Harry."

At the mention of his name, immediately I felt my insides chill like water on a cold Winter's day, an icy hand grabbing my heart and smothering it. I closed my eyes, trying to stop the images from the last time that we'd seen each other from entering my frazzled head. He'd looked so... lost, empty, guilty. I had failed to restore his hope; it was my fault that he'd gone to Voldemort. Everything that I did, I did to try to keep my mind off any thoughts of my friend and yet, I had found that somehow everything seemed to remind me of him in one way or another.

Neville looked at me concernedly, his hand reaching out to softly grip my shoulder. "Are you okay, Hermione?"

Great, I thought bitterly, A fumbling Neville trying to help me is all I need. Immediately, though, I felt guilty for thinking it. He was just being a good friend, surely something that I needed.

"What's happened? Was it something that I said? ...Oh..." Neville blabbered out nervous words before finally realising his mistake. "Do you...uh...do you wanna talk about it?"

Calming myself down, I looked up into his wide eyes. They were so solicitous, the eyes of a caring man who was doing everything he could to understand, but not quite being able. Everything about Neville's face told you that he was a guy you could trust with all your heart, from the slightly chubby cheeks to the large teeth which could've really done with the attention of my parents, a loyal friend who would never let you down if he could help it.

"Yeah, Neville. I actually think that I do."

Harry's POV

Carefully, I slipped the small stone back into my pocket. Sirius had gone, telling me that he couldn't stay any longer without upsetting the laws of life and death. Part of me hated him for going, for leaving me again, but at the same time I knew that he regretted it as much as I did; the apologetic look on his face had said it all. If I knew Sirius at all, although it occurred to me that I didn't particularly, then I guessed that he would probably be suffering from this as much as me, stuck between the desire to give me the company that he knew I desperately needed and the fact that staying could drive me insane.

He was probably right, but that didn't stop me from hating that he'd made the decision that he had. As far as I was concerned, I was going to end up crazy at some point anyway. Why would it matter if that occurred because of either a lack of company or too much conversing with the dead? It was the same outcome.

Already, just a few minutes after he had gone, I was bored. Bored, bored, bored. It seemed that having company for a short while had made me forget that alone was how I lived, in an eternal solitude. It had been months since I'd seen anything over than the faintest of lights; the only things that had brightened the cell had been Voldemort's skin, as pale as bone, and the dimly flickering light of Sirius' projection. At the start of my confinement, I'd often exercised by running around the cell, doing press ups, sit ups and anything I could think of to keep myself fit. Since then, I'd barely moved from my seated position in the corner of the room. I wasn't sure whether I even could move any more.

At least, I knew, I could still talk to my parents at some point. Sirius had warned me that I could only really speak to them once without driving myself insane, so I had already decided to wait until I was at the peak of my despair. When the need for conversation would finally become to strong, I would take the stone from my pocket and use it once again. It was a grim thought that if I really was doomed to stay in my cell for the rest of my years, I would only have one single conversation in all of that time.

The familiar scraping of the key against the lock sounded; it was strange, it seemed too soon for Voldemort to be coming to enjoy his daily session with me. The door swung open, and in strode a recognisable man.

He was tall, probably towering a few inches over me, and slender, even unnaturally thin, with long fingers, each capped with a carefully manicured nail. His sleek hair was a mixture of bone white and blonde, only a shade more colourful than the paleness of the rest of his complexion. Narrow on his face were his cold grey eyes, under which dark shadows of fatigue loomed.

The man was dressed smartly in a purely dark suit, blending in with the blackness around me to an extent that it was barely visible. Shining brightly on his wrists were snake cuff links; this was a man who was proud of his Slytherin heritage. Disdainfully, his eyes travelled around the rancid room and it was clear that he would rather be anywhere than there. A wretch at the foul odour that I was forced to live in every single day soon followed, proving that he was a man used to the high life.

I knew exactly who he was. The single word was spat from my mouth as if I was uttering the name of a deadly disease. "Malfoy."

Fleur's POV

It was the same ritual every day. Around midday, I would sit on one of the antique sofa's that our living room had to offer, a book clutched lightly in my hands as I waited for the flames to turn emerald and for my mother's face to appear. This was how we kept in touch daily, and although my father could rarely make an appearance because of his work, occasionally I would get to talk to him.

The others were all out hunting for people to join our cause: Bill was meeting the goblins and Hermione and Ron had gone to meet their school friends. Alone in the house, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to discuss the doubts I was having about my marriage with Bill with my mother, although of course I would have to talk to her about Order business first.

Interrupting me from my thoughts, the fire roared and spat up emerald flames, signifying the start of the floo call. Carefully putting my book down onto the table, I rolled off the sofa to lie on my stomach in front of the fireplace. In amongst the flames, the image of my dear mother began to form and soon we were looking into each other's eyes.

"Maman! I exclaimed joyfully, wishing that I could give her a warm hug.

I received a motherly smile as she started to speak to me in French. "Hello, my dear. How are you?"

We exchanged the necessary pleasantries, each of us informing the other that we were doing fine, maybe telling a few stories about what had happened in the last week. Maman would tell me about how Papa and Gabrielle were, reassuring me that they were doing well as well. When all of these were said and done, I continued onto one of the things that I actually wanted to talk about.

"We received some fearful news recently, maman." I told her seriously, the smiles wiping off both of our faces as we got down to business. "I can't say it very clearly in case somebody we don't like is listening, but you all might be in more danger than you think. The, uh, problem that we have might affect you quite soon because it is getting worse. I hope that you know what I mean."

My mother, Apolline, nodded her understanding; she was a smart woman, and I doubted that my words hadn't been too cryptic. "I think so, yes. I take it that your information is reliable, that this isn't a guess?"

I shook my head. "We have somebody who knows a great, great deal about the problem."

Again, I just had to hope that my mother would read between the lines enough to understand that I was talking about a spy. It was very difficult to make myself clear enough that my mother understood, but also ambiguous enough that if a ministry official on Voldemort's side was listening in, they wouldn't know that we had a spy. You just couldn't be too careful; there we were talking in French in only one of the thousands of floo networks in the country, and we were scared that somebody was listening and understanding us.

"I will tell your father so that he can make sure that everyone knows about the problem." Maman told me. "Do you think that it might be helpful for us to help the problem where you are?"

The conversation was getting dangerous now; whilst anyone listening it might have just thought that we were referring to a problem such as a rusty gate, if they were able to read between the lines then they could inform Voldemort of the fact that an invasion against him was being planned. The problem was that this was the only way that I could communicate with anyone back in France. Apparating such a long distance always made me feel unwell, the floo network couldn't be trusted whilst under the control of the ministry and it was definitely too far to fly.

"That could be helpful, yes. There are not enough of us here to deal with a problem as big as this one; nobody knows how to deal this damned rusty gate." I told her, trying to imply to any listener that the problem was indeed a rusty gate. It didn't make much sense, but hopefully they wouldn't notice that.

"I will talk to your father about it." Mother replied with a small smile on her face, perhaps amused that we our euphemism for Voldemort was a 'rusty gate'. "It must be very difficult to live with the rusty gate, and we are very lucky to not have a rusty gate ourselves."

I let out a small laugh, delighted that my mother could manage to lighten up such an obviously dark and serious matter. It was just one of the reasons that I loved her with all of my heart, and that not a single day went by when I missed being cosy in one of her hugs.

"There is only one more thing that I want to talk about." I sighed, touching on the subject that I really didn't want to talk about, even with maman. "It's about Bill."

Hermione's POV

"I just can't work it out." I told Neville Longbottom, the most unlikely person to act of a psychiatrist, which was perhaps one of the reasons why I'd chosen him for the task. "Part of me is just so angry at him for giving up and leaving us when he we could have solved the problem that he had. At the same time, though, I blame myself for letting him go. I knew that he felt guilty about everyone who had died and I knew about the nature of his problem, so therefore it was obvious to me that he would do what he did. But I didn't stop him. I didn't stop him, Neville. What's worst of all is how we've disrespected his sacrifice, though. He died so that we could defeat You-Know-Who at last, so that we could live in a better world, but look at us all! The Order is useless, we've just been hiding away since the battle and letting You-Know-Who get on with everything. We didn't even find Harry's body, Neville! To think what horrors that Vold- You-Know-Who will have inflicted on it, I don't want to think about it."

"I wish that you'd let me know what Harry's 'problem' was, but I can tell you're not going to." Neville replied a little grumpily, annoyed that he'd been left out as if he wasn't trustworthy enough to know the information. "I don't really know, but I'd suggest that you just try to bring down You-Know-Who so that you can feel like you feel like you've honoured Harry, but that's just my opinion so it's probably stupid."

I could have told myself the same thing, but hearing it come from my friend's mouth seemed to make me feel a little better. Or maybe it was just the relief of getting it out.

"Thanks, Neville." I told him gratefully, placing my hand over his. "It was really nice of you to listen. I'm sorry that I can't tell you about what Harry was suffering from, it's just that it's not really my secret to give. Harry didn't want people to know so I'd feel guilty going against him, even if he is... you know."

The half frown which he was obviously trying to hide gave away that he wasn't exactly happy about my secretive nature, but perhaps knowing my stubbornness he decided to let me get away with it this once. He got up from where we sat on the bed, comically tripping over a stack of books on the floor and looking around embarrassedly, and went to gently run his fingers over his treasured DA galleon.

"We need to get the DA together again so that we can fight him." He said quietly, looking at the picture of the assembled group. A few of those members had died, and all of them needed to be avenged. Colin, Lavender and, of course, Harry.

Remembering the whole purpose of my visit, I spoke up. "I can help you with that. I came here today to invite you to join the Order of the Phoenix, which is a group dedicated to bringing down You-Know-Who, and obviously the invites will be extended to other members of the DA who we're sure that we can trust; Ron's talking to Luna as we speak."

"Count. Me. In."

Harry's POV

"I see that your intellect is as powerful as ever, Potter." Draco Malfoy sneered, quickly shutting the door behind him. "Of course it's me."

Momentarily, I considered heaving myself up and fighting him. How could he dare take pleasure from my condition when I had saved his life, risking my own in doing so, at the Battle of Hogwarts? My limbs whirred and creaked like a faulty machine at any attempt to mobile, however, and my valiant attempts were soon forgotten. My body was receiving no energy from the limited food that I ate, my muscles had wasted away into nothingness, I was even skinnier than I had been in my days with the Durselys. Of course I couldn't fight him.

"If you ask me, you've had this coming to you for a very long time." He continued, strolling around the room nonchalantly as he twirled his wand around in his fingers. "You could have avoided all of this if you'd just accepted my offer on the first day of Hogwarts. If you'd chosen to follow me rather than Weasel and the Mudblood, then you would be in a totally different situation right now. You'd be on the winning side, and you wouldn't have caused all of those people to die in the Battle of Hogwarts."

"Shut up." I whispered quietly, willing him to be quiet. A part of me knew that he was even just a little bit correct; the deaths of Remus, Tonks, Fred, Lavender and all of the others had been my fault.

He continued, "Exactly how many of your friends did die that night? I'd imagine that there were quite a few."

"SHUT UP!" I roared, unable to contain my anger nor my guilt. My hands reached up to cover my ears; this was a torture worse than any of the physical kind.

"I think I've struck a nerve!" He laughed, just loud enough that I could still hear him. "Either way, no more dallying. The Dark Lord has sent me here today to fill in for him; he's a little busy, you see. Probably hunting down your traitorous friends."

Strangely, I was glad that he was going to torture me. Whatever curses he would throw at me, whatever physical pain I would be forced to endure, nothing could be worse than the words that he had just made me listen to. As long as he was no longer speaking, I figured that I would be okay.

"This one's revenge for a few years ago. SECTUMSEMPRA!"

The incantation left his mouth with such biting malice that I swore it could've cut through steel, and the pain that hit me half a second later represented that. It made me almost feel sorry for casting the spell on him in the sixth year, the pain so great. It was like being stabbed with one hundred wickedly sharp blades at once, cuts opening up on every other square inch of my body. Blood gushed out like a fountain, enough to create a river of crimson on the cell floor. No cry escaped from my lips, as if my body had by now been hard-wired to deal with incessant torture.

Instead, I managed to force some words out. "I...saved your life,... Malfoy."

Noticeably, he hesitated for the briefest of moments and the concentration of pain in my body lessened ever so slightly.

"Shut up." He grunted maliciously, waving his wand in a familiar pattern. "Crucio!"

Dealing with the cruciatus curse had almost become second nature to me by now, and I was prepared for the excruciating feeling of being pulled apart, as if attached to two broomsticks speeding off in different directions.

"You...don't...have...to do this,... Malfoy."

Showing his first signs of weakness, the blonde haired wizard replied, "Of course I do, Potter. If I don't, he'll kill me."

I didn't comment, but the signs that he was only doing this because he was being forced to made me feel a little better. If there was one thing that Dumbledore had taught me, it was to try to see good in everybody and if there was someone who you couldn't seen any of this most basic asset in, then they should be pitied rather than hated.

He continued, "The Dark Lord wants me to harm you, Potter. He wants you alive, but not alive; he wants me to torture you until you go insane."

Dread coursed through me like ice running through my veins as memories of Frank and Alice Longbottom played in my head. Insanity was something that I feared above all, being tortured so much that I wouldn't even recognise my friends or parents like Neville's parents hadn't been able to recognise him. It was unthinkable, surely a fate much worse than death.

Another cruciatus curse hit me, this time causing me to feel as if white-hot knives were piercing ever inch of my skin; my head felt ready to blow up. Still, though, it was not as intense as others that I had suffered from and I quickly deduced that Draco Malfoy was simply not sadistic enough to use the spell to its greatest extent. Bellatrix Lestrange had told me that you really had to mean it, that you had to utterly despise the person that you were casting it on and that you had to enjoy the feeling of causing someone pain. Malfoy didn't tick those boxes.

The session went long into the night. Cruciatus curse after cruciatus curse, each time I felt myself drift away somewhat from reality. My senses dulled, my concentration broke, I found myself totally forgetting where I was. All of this, however, did not stop me from noticing the single tear which dripped from Draco Malfoy's eye as he left the room, leaving me alone once more.

Okay dokey, not bad at all. Quite long as well; always a bonus. Hopefully, from here on in it'll only get more exciting because next chapter's going to see the meeting of the Order with all of its new members and plans for attacking Voldemort begin to be drawn up. Yay.
As ever, mega thanks to those of you who reviewed. The efforts that some of you have gone into is just spectacular and really, you people are the reason that I've managed to write five and a half pages in a few days. Thanks!

Charlie.