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Chapter Twelve—The Spring Term

"I hate to say it," Longbottom mutters, backing off and leaning against the wall where he pants like a Crup who's been chasing a stick too long, "but you're a better teacher than Quirrell."

Blaise doesn't want to laugh. He does anyway. "Anyone would be a better professor than that wanker," he says, and holsters his wand. He doesn't think Longbottom can manage another spell, not with the way the muscles in his arm are trembling. "Well, maybe not Hagrid."

"What have you got against Hagrid?"

Blaise arches an eyebrow. "Nothing, except that he shouldn't be a professor. I've heard too many stories now about how much he drinks and how many dangerous creatures he tries to crowd into that hut."

Interestingly, Longbottom turns red. Blaise eyes him. "What do you know?"

"Me? Kn-know something? N -nothing."

"Come on, Neville, aren't we at least friendly? I wouldn't say we're friends, if you don't want me to, but I thought we were at least friendly enough for you to talk about something like this."

Such an absurdly coaxing tone would never work on Harry, or most people in Gryffindor, either. Maybe slower than average Hufflepuffs. But Longbottom looks at the floor, and sighs, and wipes some more sweat off his face before he answers. Blaise thinks about offering to cast a Drying Charm, but there are limits.

"Hagrid was—he won a dangerous creature in a bet with someone," Longbottom mumbles. "I tried to help him get it safely away from the school, but he didn't want to let it go. So I had to, er, go talk to Professor Dumbledore, and he helped me. Made sure that no one got hurt and Hagrid didn't get caught."

Blaise shuts his open mouth. "What kind of creature?"

"I really prefer not to say?"

"That's okay, I'll guess and watch your reactions and then learn the truth that way," Blaise says comfortably. "So. Mooncalf?"

Longbottom glares at him. "Mooncalves aren't dangerous!"

"Yeah, you're right. Augurey?"

"I'm not playing this game!"

"You didn't start enough, so I don't think it was an Augurey. Hmm. What about a chimera?"

Longbottom folds his arms and starts to turn away, obviously thinking he can get out of the room before Blaise guesses anything.

"You didn't jump enough for it to be a chimera, but there was a twitch to your shoulders. Dragon?"

Longbottom jumps and whirls around this time, despite obviously trying not to do so, frantically fumbling with his wand. Blaise, for his part, leans back and puts his hand over his face, sighing tiredly. Sometimes he thinks that Mother is right and it would have been better for him to have gone to Durmstrang.

Point against: he wouldn't have met Harry. Point for: he wouldn't be dealing with Longbottom and ridiculous people who are trying to rear dragons in wooden huts.

"How did you know?" Longbottom demands. "Did you hear Malfoy talking?"

"No, but apparently I need to pay more attention in the Slytherin common room," Blaise mutters. If Malfoy was bragging about that and he missed it, he must be ignoring too much. "I'm beyond surprised that it didn't come out if Malfoy knew about it."

Longbottom shrugs, hunching over miserably now. "I think that because the Headmaster handled it, anyone who listened to him would have just laughed when no evidence came out. It's—it's gone now, Zabini, can we just forget about it?"

"Yeah, sure," Blaise says, willing to be gracious in victory, the same way he can be when Longbottom picks himself off the floor after a spell has knocked him flat. "But you can see my point that Hagrid wouldn't be a good Defense teacher."

Longbottom rolls his eyes at him and slips out of the room. Blaise looks after him with a small, hard smile. He still thinks that he'll never be as friendly with Longbottom as Harry is, and thank fuck for that. It would be boring, and Blaise would constantly have to tame and curb himself to fit into Longbottom's narrow standards—or even worse, just to make sure Longbottom wouldn't reveal something in an innocent letter back to his family that would add to the rumors swirling around Mother.

But when Longbottom can agree to draw back and accept Blaise's superiority, then he's tolerable company.

And he is getting better at defensive spells. A tiny bit.

"So I just wanted to tell you about Malfoy."

"Thank you, but I don't need to worry about Malfoy."

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Zabini, if you will pay attention, please?"

Harry starts and turns back towards the battlements of the Astronomy Tower. They're on top of it, as usual on Thursday nights, peering at the stars through telescopes. Professor Sinistra has her head tilted at them, her long dark hair sliding down her shoulder.

"Sorry, Professor," Harry says contritely.

"Sorry, Professor," Blaise says, with a nod and an expression as though he's a professional Astronomer right now and determined to treat Professor Sinistra like a colleague. "It won't happen again."

The professor peers at them, her eyebrows rising. She's a brown-skinned woman with dark eyes and a scar on her nose that Harry longs to ask about. It almost looks like a snakebite scar. But then again, someone a snake would bite probably wouldn't be a Parselmouth.

"Very well," Professor Sinistra says at last, and turns away to help Pansy Parkinson adjust her telescope.

"I don't," Blaise whispers, making Harry have to smother laughter at how quickly he disobeyed the professor's instructions.

Harry just nods when Professor Sinistra glances back at them. He's confident that Blaise can handle himself, after the spells he showed Harry he knew when they were at his mum's house for Christmas.

He just wanted to warn him anyway.

"It is cold," Artemis hisses, as fussy as she always is when they're in Astronomy class. "I wish to be warm and cuddled on your pillow."

Harry darts his eyes around. The telescope on the other side of Blaise isn't occupied, since there are more than enough for everybody and no one among the Slytherins seems to like being that close to Blaise. And the one next to Harry has no one at it because Michael Corner drank a bad potion on a stupid dare and has to spend the night in the hospital wing.

"We'll go back down soon," Harry hisses soothingly. "Just a bit more than an hour."

"I do not like your human notions of time."

Harry snorts to himself, but quietly. Artemis learned to evaluate hours well enough when they were trapped in the cupboard together. She just hasn't had to do it that often since they left the Dursleys. It's time she gets used to it again. "I promise."

Artemis settles down again. Harry glances up and finds Blaise watching him.

"She's restless?" Blaise asks. He leans in to look through his telescope again, and makes some note about the position of Venus on his planet log.

"Yeah, but she'll be fine."

"Mr. Potter, please do not talk. I do not enjoy repeating myself. Two points from Ravenclaw."

"I'm sorry, Professor," Blaise says, shaking his head. "I told him to stop talking, that he'd get in trouble, but he just didn't want to listen to me."

Harry scowls at Blaise while Professor Sinistra commiserates about talkative students distracting serious ones, but Blaise just pays attention to her, nodding seriously at everything she says, until she turns around to leave. Then he shoots such a blinding grin at Harry that Harry can't help but give in and grin back.

It actually takes longer for Malfoy to make his move than Blaise anticipates. It's more than a month since Malfoy got in trouble for drawing his wand on the Ravenclaws in the corridor before he stands and saunters across the common room towards Blaise.

Blaise feels a sharp tingle of excitement fill his hands. But he keeps his eyes on his Transfiguration homework and turns his parchment a little so that he can write more notes.

"Zabini!"

Blaise looks up and locks eyes with Malfoy. The other boy pauses. He's smart enough to be wary, then. Good. But Blaise hopes that Malfoy isn't wary enough to back down from the challenge.

He hopes that even though he can feel Nott's eagerly staring eyes from the side, and knows that frightening that one might be a good thing.

"Yes, Malfoy?" Blaise drawls, after waiting a long moment to make sure that people can see he doesn't leap to attention when Malfoy calls him.

Malfoy flushes, understanding that message as well himself. But he rallies. "Did you know that your little Ravenclaw pet can't defend himself?"

"How do you know that?"

"He relies on the teachers to do it for him."

"From what I can tell, he's the smart one, not pulling his wand in a corridor where a professor could come by and see." Blaise smiles at Malfoy and turns away from him, writing down another note about the explanation of Gamp's Second Law.

From the sound of it, Malfoy is drawing his wand again. Blaise half-shakes his head and looks up at Malfoy with a sigh of pity. "Are you sure that you want to make this a contest of spells, Malfoy? Don't you remember what I did to you last time?"

From the way Malfoy is going pale, he does. But he aims his wand at Blaise. "You're going to tell your little pet to quit challenging me."

"Where does he do that?" Blaise asks, honestly perplexed. He's in all the classes that Slytherin shares with Ravenclaw, and he hasn't seen Harry speaking to Malfoy or even glancing at him. Harry seems to always focus on the telescope or the hex or whatever's at hand.

"You're going to tell him to stop trying so hard in Charms and Transfiguration."

Blaise's eyes widen as he understands now, and it really is difficult not to laugh. He never thought, not once, that Malfoy would feel threatened by Harry's academic performance in other classes, some of which aren't even shared between their Houses. Then again, he supposes that Lucius Malfoy probably thinks of his son as the best and would be upset if he saw a half-blood beating Malfoy.

I wonder how he feels about Granger. Blaise doesn't think that Granger has intelligence as much as cleverness, but she's another one who will certainly challenge Malfoy for the top spot. Maybe Malfoy just feels too humiliated by her blood status to take her into account.

"Are you listening to me, Zabini?"

"Not really."

"Are you going to tell him? Or do I have to take matters into my own hands?" Malfoy waves his wand around again.

"Manus ardens," Blaise says, clearly, loudly, aware of all the Slytherins watching him, and knowing that they'll both hear the incantation and see that his hands are holding a quill and parchment, not a wand.

Malfoy starts to say something else, but then shrieks and drops his wand as blisters spread all along his right hand. Blaise smiles at him as chuckles break out. Slytherins are always happy to laugh at anyone who humiliates themselves, and Blaise being a pureblood means that they have no particular reason to cheer on Malfoy.

"What did you do?" Malfoy wails at him. He's clutching his hand, and his eyes are big and wide and finally, properly afraid.

"Wandless magic."

"You can't—that's accidental—"

"Oops." Blaise widens his eyes. "I suppose that means that what happened to you was accidental magic, with it getting away from me because I was pissed off. Just imagine what might happen if you annoyed me enough to use magic deliberately." He catches Malfoy's gaze. "Just imagine it."

Malfoy has enough sense to retreat and go to Madam Pomfrey. Blaise thinks he will be able to finish his Transfiguration essay in peace, but Nott swaggers across the room to him and sits down on the chair next to his. Blaise eyes him.

"Quite a disappointment, what happened to Malfoy," Nott says softly.

"I don't see why it's a disappointment for anyone but Malfoy."

"If someone was backing him, say. Counting on him to put Potter in his place. Or really, just anyone who's a half-blood or a Mudblood in their place."

Blaise might get angry, but he can see the gleam in Nott's eyes and he knows that this is a challenge of a different kind. Nott might even have driven Malfoy into trying to take on more of Blaise's anger than he could manage. He leans back in his own seat. "Someone who was backing him might do well to remember where real power rests."

"Where's that?" Nott's voice is soft, his eyes burning. He does enjoy this kind of game, and Blaise wishes he hadn't got dragged into playing it, but at least Nott is a more tolerable opponent than Malfoy himself.

And Nott hasn't said anything about his mother, because Nott's smarter than that.

"In the hands of those who take it."

Nott eyes him a little longer, and then nods and stands and walks back across the common room towards the couches near the fire. Blaise can see a few older students sitting there. One of them, Hester Carrow, is connected to Nott by blood or marriage. He'll have to revise the genealogies in his head.

Blaise smiles. He won't tolerate Nott if he's any sort of threat to Harry, and if he becomes a threat to Longbottom and the others in their little group, he'll have to reconsider, but at the moment, it's sort of fun to have a challenge.

"You know that your human would be happy to practice with you."

Harry swears and blinks sweat out of his eyes. He's in the middle of one of the "designated practice spaces" that Professor Flitwitck sets up all the time in Ravenclaw Tower, basically floating bubbles of wards that keep spells from flying out of them. It's meant to encourage students to do spells as badly as they need to to become better, and so no one can see in. That means Harry can have Artemis lying on the floor watching him.

"Which human?" Harry stretches and winces as he hears something pop loudly in his back.

"The one with the warm hands."

Harry smiles a little. Yeah, Blaise would be willing to practice with him, and he already knows about Artemis, so it's not like Harry would have to hide her.

But Harry also feels a little bad about wasting Blaise's time. Blaise knows so much already, including all the cool spells that he showed Harry at Aradia's house over Christmas. He won't want to practice basic Charms and Transfigurations over and over again, and Harry tells Artemis that.

"He would not mind."

"Maybe, but I don't want to waste his time."

"He would not consider it a waste of his time."

"How do you know?"

"I can smell it."

Harry just shakes his head a little. "I know that Blaise is already dealing with duels all the time because of the rumors about his mum and trying to study ahead in Ancient Runes. I don't want to take up his time."

Artemis gives a little wriggle of frustration.

Harry ignores that and goes back to trying to get his Transfiguration of a button into a beetle perfect.

Albus hesitates when he sees Harry Potter walking down the corridor near the gargoyle, but it is perfect timing. He's just come out on the way to lunch, and it looks like young Harry is also on the way there. A short conversation won't delay them unduly.

"Mr. Potter?"

Harry looks up. The sight of Lily's eyes in James's face makes a sad smile play along Albus's lips, but if Harry notices, he doesn't say anything about it. "Oh, hello, Headmaster! How are you?"

"I'm fine, Harry, thank you." Albus can feel some of his regrets receding as he looks at the child. Harry might not have had the best home with the Dursleys—that's evident from the letter that Sirius shared with Albus—but it hasn't damaged his cheerfulness. Things must not have been as bad as Albus thought they might be. "I wanted to speak with you about your godfather."

"Oh! Sirius Black, sir?"

"Yes, Mr. Black. You know that he would have loved to be around during your childhood but he couldn't be?"

"No, sir, he told me." Harry's voice is admirably calm. Albus was surprised when the child didn't go to Gryffindor in the Sorting, but he's starting to be able to see why. "He said that he was doing something really important on your orders and he would come back when he could."

Albus smiles, amused and impressed that Harry is so mature. "Yes, that's correct, Mr. Potter. He's doing something that could affect the fate, the safety, of the whole world. I'm afraid that I can't share more details with you."

"That's all right, sir. Sirius told me what he could in the letter."

"So you will be willing to eventually welcome him back?"

Harry tilts his head. He looks very like Lily in that moment, in some of the moments when Albus saw her doing research for the Order. Bright eyes, intent gaze. "Yes, sir. I'd be willing to talk to him, anyway, and give him a chance to explain himself."

Albus nods. Honestly, most of what Sirius asked him to do is done, but he does want to ask one thing more. Albus himself isn't that worried about it, but Sirius is, and Albus owes the man much. "I wanted to ask about your friendship with Mr. Blaise Zabini as well, Harry. Are you aware that—"

"No, sir."

"No? You weren't aware of the rumors surrounding his mother?"

"I mean, no, sir, you don't get to ask about my friendship with him."

Harry is practically radiating fury, for all that he stands still. Albus stares at him in bewilderment. Harry is willing to forgive him for sending Sirius away for most of Harry's childhood but not for a perfectly reasonable request about how close his friendship is with the son of a murderess?

Most of the time, Albus feels like he understands children. And then someone bewildering comes along and makes him feel that he might only understand Gryffindors.

"I—if you don't want me to ask, Harry, of course I won't." Albus can't press. He might have been able to if Harry was in Gryffindor or if Tom had chosen Harry that night, but he simply doesn't have that kind of relationship with this strange Ravenclaw boy.

"Good," Harry says, and then adds over his shoulder, as he starts to walk down the corridor, "I don't want Sirius to ask, either."

Albus blinks at his back, and decides that Harry probably knew all about Albus asking on Sirius's demand. Ravenclaw does attract the smart ones. Sirius is going to have his hands full with Harry when he comes back to Britain.

Albus finds himself smiling a bit wistfully as he takes a slightly different route to lunch in the Great Hall. He hopes that Sirius and Harry will be good for each other.

"I don't understand why nothing has happened since the troll, if whoever made that door in the wards made it so they could send the troll in."

Blaise smiles a little as he glances at Harry, who is lying on his back at the base of the Astronomy Tower and idly kicking his legs in the air. It's a nice spring day, and they're alone, with a couple Proximity Charms set up to tell them if anyone is coming, so Artemis is curled, sleeping, on Harry's chest.

"We don't know for sure that they made it for that reason," Blaise points out mildly. The sunshine is warm on his muscles. He yawns and rolls on his back, too. Mother would scold him if she saw it, but Mother doesn't need to know. "Maybe someone else made it a long time ago and whoever let the troll in knew about it and took advantage of it. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the troll at all."

"Do you really believe that?"

"No. It's too much of a coincidence."

"Ah-ha!"

Blaise laughs at Harry and lets his head fall back on the grass with a thump. "I'm not saying that you're wrong, Harry. Just that we've been watching the door but we don't have any evidence of who made it or who's using it, and we haven't seen anything else like the troll, either."

"I wish we had," Harry mutters, stroking Artemis. She gives a hiss that sounds sleepy to Blaise.

"I'm sorry, you wish we had more trolls in the school?"

"I mean, I just wish we had more signs of what was going on. How am I supposed to protect people if I don't know what's happening?"

"It's not your job to protect people."

"You know all sorts of cool magic, and I don't." The grim tone to Harry's voice startles Blaise, who turns his head sideways to stare at Harry. "I'm trying to catch up, but it's hard. What happens if the next thing that's like a troll threatens you, or Artemis, or Neville, or Padma, or Anthony? What am I going to do?"

"I'll handle it for you."

"But—you don't even really like Neville or the others."

"But you do. So I'd do it for you," Blaise clarifies, and sighs when Harry stares at him in utter bewilderment. Merlin, the things he'd like to do to Harry's Muggles. "You thought I wouldn't? That we weren't good enough friends for that? You would protect any friends I make, wouldn't you?"

Allies, really, is what it would be. But Blaise thinks Harry would probably see them as Blaise's friends.

Harry goes on staring at him. Blaise puts a hand over his heart and takes on a wounded expression that Mother made him practice over and over again until he could do it perfectly. "What? Don't you believe me, Harry? I never—"

Blaise chokes and goes over backwards when Harry tackles him. It's an amazing tackle. He doesn't think Harry even fully got on his knees. They roll over once, and Harry lies next to him as he begins to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Blaise mutters sulkily. "I got grass stains on my robes, look."

"You're amazing," Harry says, and hugs him hard enough that Blaise almost starts coughing. "You're an amazing friend, and you're an amazing wizard, and now I'm not going to worry so much about trolls or other things getting into the school through that door in the wards."

"I'm pretty amazing, yes," Blaise says.

Artemis, rudely dumped on the grass, hisses something that he doesn't think is complimentary, but it just makes Harry beam at him some more, which Blaise can definitely live with.

"Neville, come into the drawing room, please."

Neville takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he's doing a lot better, now that he's getting dueling training with Zabini. It might even be enough to please his grandmother.

But part of him wishes that he'd stayed at Hogwarts for the Easter holiday the way that Harry announced he was going to and Ron also did. Then at least Neville would have had some sympathetic company.

He walks into the drawing room. It's huge, the heart of the house, and so big that Neville really thinks they should call it the ballroom instead. The ceiling arches overhead, made of separate, overlapping planes of crystal-clear glass that allow the sunlight down and in and to bounce off all sorts of weird crystal ornaments Gran has on the walls. Seven mirrors rest on each of the seven walls, making Neville blink away dazzling afterimages. He's pretty sure some of the mirrors have to do with necromancy, but he won't ask. As long as Gran keeps her attempts to talk to the spirits of his parents quiet, he doesn't have to say anything.

Gran is sitting on a chair in the middle of the light, clad in the deep purple robes that she most often wears outside the house. Neville pauses. She didn't tell him that they were going somewhere, but then, she often doesn't.

And standing beside her, looking as grave as he did the day he told Neville he would start dueling training, is Professor Dumbledore.

"Headmaster?" Neville asks hesitantly, looking back and forth between Dumbledore and his gran, blinking a little as more light gets in the way. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, more than," Gran says, and Neville doesn't think he's seen her smile like that—well, maybe ever. Some of the old moving pictures of her with his dad and mum, maybe. "Professor Dumbledore has simply agreed with me that you should start a new kind of training. He thought you were too young for it, but I've spoken with him, and we do agree that it would defend you against Voldemort."

Neville does his best to ignore the shiver that crawls down his spine at the name. Gran will scold him if he's afraid, even if he thinks it sort of makes sense to be afraid of the monster who murdered your parents. "What kind of training is that, Gran?"

"Training in the mental branch of magic, Neville," Dumbledore says gently. "Occlumency and Legilimency. The art of defending your mind from intrusions, and the art of reading the thoughts of others."

Neville locks his knees so they won't shake. "So you'd be looking into my mind?" he whispers. "You'd see my every thought? What if you didn't like them? What if I was petty and terrible sometimes?"

Dumbledore gives him a small smile and a shake of his head. "Everyone is like that sometimes, Neville. You will occasionally see into your teacher's mind as well, once your training advances, and you will be able to see that everyone is human. Indeed, you may look at this magic as a way to connect you to a sense of being human. There are so many who only see you as an icon. This will keep you human."

Neville opens his mouth, and then closes it.

"Well?" Gran asks impatiently. "Thank the nice professor, Neville."

"I just…I couldn't help noticing that you said I would be seeing into my teacher's mind, sir. Not your mind."

"Ah, Neville, I wish I had the time to instruct you, but as important as this training is, I cannot take time out of my duties with the school and the Wizengamot. Therefore, Professor Snape has agreed to take on the training."

The room spins slowly around Neville. He doesn't know if he's going to faint or throw up, but it feels like he might do either. He stumbles and goes down on one knee because he has nothing to grab onto, ignoring Gran's sharp reprimand. She hates to see him showing weakness of any kind.

"Mr. Longbottom?"

Dumbledore is standing next to him, and he looks vaguely alarmed. Neville reaches out to grab his hand, but he doesn't allow Dumbledore to pull him back to his feet. "He hates me," Neville whispers hoarsely. "I'm not exaggerating, sir. He's going to use this chance to get into my head and torture me!"

"Neville, I've told you that's not true," Gran snaps. "Severus Snape has no reason to hate our family, not the way he does to hate the Potter family. If you did better in Potions, Professor Snape wouldn't pick on you so much."

"That is true," Dumbledore says, nodding. "A better performance in his class may actually result from this, Mr. Longbottom. At the very least, Professor Snape will see and understand your anxieties."

"And make fun of me for them!" Neville yells. He feels his magic lashing out from him, but doesn't even try to stop it as it shatters some of the mirrors on the walls. "He already makes fun of me for supposedly flaunting my celebrity all the time in Potions! This is going to be worse!"

"Neville!"

Neville can feel his chest heaving, still, but as always, his Gran's sharp tone calms him down. He twists his head away and bites his cheek, shaking his head.

"Professor Snape has graciously agreed to overlook the animosity between you and give you the Occlumency lessons," Dumbledore says after a moment of silence. "And you do need them, Neville. One benefit of Occlumency is emotional regulation. Look at what you did, in a moment of being unregulated." He gestures, and Neville knows he's indicating the broken glass on the floor of the drawing room.

Neville refuses to glance at it. He knows well enough what it looks like. A long, uncomfortable silence settles over the room.

"You know that I would never ask you to do something that hurt you, Neville," Gran says at last, in the wheedling tone that's the rarest one she uses with him. "Or something I thought you couldn't do. Frank and Alice were both experts at Occlumency. I know that you've inherited their talents."

Neville swallows. He hates the way she uses his parents' memories to manipulate him. He hates even more how well it works. "I'll learn," he whispers, still not looking at them. "But with someone other than Snape."

"Professor Snape, Neville. And unfortunately, as I explained, he is the only fully-trained Occlumens we have available."

"You could do it yourself," Neville whispers. "You made the time to visit the house and teach me things when I was a kid."

"You are still a child, and do not understand the burdens that I shoulder," Dumbledore says gently. "But your grandmother is right, Neville. Professor Snape has no particular reason to hate you. This will improve your bond."

Neville closes his eyes and just nods, saying nothing, because it's obvious nothing will persuade them. But when he's done there, he runs up to the owlery.

His Gran won't think much of that. She knows that he always goes somewhere to be by himself when he's "sulking," as she calls it.

Eyes stinging with desperate tears, Neville reaches for the quill and the inkwell and the stack of parchment that's always here, and dashes off a letter. His hand is shaking so badly that the parchment blots, but he thinks that Harry will still be able to read it.

Dear Harry,

I don't know what to do. They want me to study mental magic with Professor Snape. He's going to rip open my mind and laugh at it. I know he is. And he'll laugh with the Slytherins, and taunt me about it in class. I don't know what to do. Dumbledore says I have to learn, but I don't want to!

Help me!

He scrawls his name and then looks up. Most of the owls are gone, but his Uncle Algie's bird, Serena, a lovely barn owl, is there and looking bored. She hops along the perch and hoots softly when she sees him with the letter.

"Harry Potter, please, girl," Neville whispers, and hands over the letter. Serena snatches it and leaps out the window, wings opening a second later.

Neville leans on the windowsill and watches her fly silently away. Then he closes his eyes and shakes.

He shouldn't be such a coward. He knows he shouldn't. He should be stronger.

But even his Mum and Dad, the Best Aurors in the World, didn't do everything all alone. They had each other.

Well, Neville has his friends. And if Harry can't help him, he'll talk to Ron, and the other students he's been studying with like Padma and Anthony. Merlin, even Zabini if he has to.

Maybe he has to face Voldemort someday in the future, but he can't face Snape.