Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

And out of it, his hair overgrown, his face cut, his robes ripped, climbed 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 the — how — ?”

“Neville!” I cried, hugging him, and he embraced Hermione and Ron as well.

He looked awful, more so the longer I looked at him. One of his eyes was swollen and purplish, he had large gashes on his face, and he seemed generally unkempt, suggesting he had been living pretty rough.

Nevertheless, he was grinning and said again, “I knew you’d come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!”

“Neville, what’s happened to you?” Harry asked.

“What? This?” Neville dismissed his injuries with a shake of the head. “This is nothing. Seamus is worse. You’ll see. Shall we get going then? Oh,” he turned to Aberforth, “Ab, there might be a couple more people on the way.”

“Couple more?” repeated Aberforth ominously. “What d’you mean, a couple more, Longbottom? There’s a curfew and a Caterwauling 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, then to me, helping us climb up onto the mantelpiece and into the tunnel. There were smooth stone steps on the other side, and the passage looked like it had been there for years. How had Fred, George, and I not found this one? Where did it lead?

“How long’s this been here?” Ron asked as we walked. “It isn’t on the Marauder’s Map, is it, Harry? I thought there were only seven passages in and out of school?”

“They sealed off all of those before the start of the year,” said Neville. “There’s no chance of getting through any of them now, not with curses over the entrances and Death Eaters and dementors waiting at the exits.”

He started walking backward, beaming at us, “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.

Neville laughed excitedly.

“What did you do with the dragon?”

“Released it into the wild,” said Ron. “Hermione was all for keeping it as a pet —”

“Don’t exaggerate, Ron —”

“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, “but tell us about Hogwarts, Neville, we haven’t heard anything.”

“It’s been . . . well, it’s not really like Hogwarts anymore,” said Neville, his smile fading. “Do you know about the Carrows?”

“Those two Death Eaters who teach here?” I asked.

“They do more than teach,” said Neville. “They’re in charge of all discipline. They like punishment, the Carrows.”

“Like 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.

“Amycus, the bloke, he teaches what used to be Defense Against the Dark Arts, except now it’s just the Dark Arts. We’re supposed to practice the Cruciatus Curse on people who’ve earned detentions —”

“What?”

Our united voices echoed along the passage.

“Yeah,” said Neville. “That’s how I got this one,” he pointed at a particularly deep gash in his cheek, “I refused to do it. Some people are into it, though; Crabbe and Goyle love it. First time they’ve ever been top in anything, I expect.

“Alecto, Amycus’s sister, teaches Muggle Studies, which is compulsory for everyone. We’ve all got to listen to her explain how Muggles are like animals, stupid and dirty, and how they drove wizards into hiding by being vicious toward them, and how the natural order is being reestablished. I got this one,” he indicated another slash to his face, “for asking her how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got.”

“Blimey, Neville,” said Ron, “there’s a time and a place for getting a smart mouth.”

“You didn’t hear her,” said Neville. “You wouldn’t have stood it either. The thing is, it helps when people stand up to them, it gives everyone hope. I used to notice that when you did it, Harry.”

“But they’ve used you as a knife sharpener,” said Ron, wincing slightly as we passed a lamp and Neville’s injuries were sharply illuminated.

Neville shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They don’t want to spill too much pure blood, so they’ll torture us a bit if we’re mouthy but they won’t actually kill us.”

His matter-of-fact tone while talking about all of this disturbed me. There must’ve been a lot of terrible things happening at Hogwarts.

“The only people in real danger are the ones whose friends and relatives on the outside are giving trouble. They get taken hostage. Old Xeno Lovegood was getting a bit too outspoken in The Quibbler, so they dragged Luna off the train on the way back for Christmas.”

“Neville, she’s all right, we’ve seen her —”

“Yeah, I know, she managed to get a message to me.”

He pulled out a golden coin…one of the DA galleons.

“These have been great,” said Neville, beaming at Hermione. “The Carrows never rumbled how we were communicating, it drove them mad. We used to sneak out at night and put graffiti on the walls: Dumbledore’s Army, Still Recruiting, stuff like that. Snape hated it.”

“You used to?” said Harry.

“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.

“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?” we said together again.

“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 strangely, 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 patted a pocket of his robes, “telling me she was proud of me, that I’m my parents’ son, and to keep it up.”

“Cool,” said Ron.

“Yeah,” 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.”

“But,” said Ron, looking confused, “aren’t — aren’t we heading straight back into Hogwarts?”

“ ’Course,” said Neville. “You’ll see. We’re here.”

We turned a corner and reached the end of the passage. There was another small flight of stairs leading to a door just like the one behind Ariana’s portrait. Neville pushed it open and we all climbed through.

Neville called out, “Look who it is! Didn’t I tell you?”

There were several screams and yells as we entered the room: “HARRY!” “It’s Potter, it’s POTTER!”

“Ron!” “Caroline!” “Hermione!”

I barely got a look at the room before we were all engulfed by people hugging us, shaking our hands, and such.

“Okay, okay, calm down!” Neville called.

The crowd backed down and I saw that we were in a giant, spacious room that looked like the inside of a tree house, or maybe a pirate ship. There were hammocks hung from the ceilings and all around the walls were posters and hangings. I saw Gryffindor greatly represented, the gold and red lions were all over the walls, but Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tapestries also hung right next to them. The only one missing was Slytherin. There were bookcases, some broomsticks, and a large wireless in the corner.

“Where are we?”

“Room of Requirement, of course!” said Neville. “Surpassed itself, hasn’t it? 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. have arrived.”

“And the Carrows can’t get in?” asked Harry.

“No,” said Seamus Finnigan, who I had just realized was there, his face all 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 it 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!”

I smiled as Neville said modestly, “It’s quite straightforward, really, 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 the 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.

“So you do listen sometimes Ron!” I laughed.

“So we’ve been hiding out here for nearly two weeks,” said Seamus, “and it just makes more hammocks every time we need them, and it even sprouted a pretty good bathroom once girls started turning up —”

“— and thought they’d quite like to wash, yes,” Lavender Brown spoke up.

Looking around, I saw many other 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 some applause and a few whoops; Ron and I both took a bow.

“What were you after?” asked Seamus eagerly.

Before any of us could say anything, Harry had turned around and was clutching his head. Ron quickly went over, supporting him as he looked about to faint.

“Are you all right, Harry?” Neville asked. “Want to sit down? I expect you’re tired, aren’t — ?”

“No,” said Harry.

He looked at us, seeming to try and get a message across, and I took it to mean that Voldemort had discovered another of his Horcruxes gone.

“We need to get going,” he said.

“What are we going to do, then, Harry?” asked Seamus. “What’s the plan?”

“Plan?” repeated Harry. “Well, there’s something we — Ron, Hermione, Caroline, and
I — 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’?”

“We haven’t come back to stay,” said Harry. “There’s something important we need to do -”

“What is it?”

“I — I can’t tell you.”

There was some muttering at this.

“Why can’t you tell us? It’s something to do with fighting You- Know-Who, right?” Neville asked.

“Well, yeah —”

“Then we’ll help you.”

The other members of Dumbledore’s Army were nodding, some enthusiastically, others solemnly. A few rose from their chairs, as if eager to fight.

“You don’t understand.” Harry said. “We — we can’t tell you. We’ve got to do it — alone.”

“Why?” asked Neville.

“Because …Dumbledore left the four of us a job,” he said carefully, “and we weren’t supposed to tell — I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the four of us.”

“We’re his army,” said Neville. “Dumbledore’s Army. We were all in it together, we’ve been keeping it going while you four 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.”

“Look,” Harry began, but just then the tunnel door 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!”

“Luna,” said Harry, “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, Harry? We’re going to fight them out of Hogwarts?”

“Listen,” said Harry, “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 Corner.

“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 us and I looked to see Ginny smiling as she climbed through the portrait followed by Fred and George. I gasped. They both grinned and George damn near fell out of the opening when he saw me. They all received a cheer of greeting from the crowd.

“George!” I cried as I jumped into his arms.

I kissed him passionately and my legs wrapped around his waist. He was holding me so tightly I almost couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t care. I had also forgotten about the group of people standing behind us.

“I missed you so much” I said against his lips.

“You have no idea” he murmured, kissing me as if we hadn’t seen each other in months…oh wait.

“Oi, where’s my hello, didn’t you miss me?” I heard Fred say.

I smiled, still kissing George, then I hopped down.

“Of course I missed you too, you git” I wrapped my arms around Fred’s neck and kissed his cheek. He hugged me back tightly, lifting me off my feet.

“I got the message,” Cho Chang said, appearing in the portrait opening and holding up her fake Galleon.

“So what’s the plan, Harry?” said George, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me close to him again.

“There isn’t one,” said Harry, seeming stunned by the appearance of all these people.

“Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favorite kind,” said Fred.

“You’ve got to stop this!” Harry told Neville. “What did you call them all back for? 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 — ?” began Seamus.

I turned to Harry.

“Why can’t they help?”

“What?”

“They can help.” Ron said quietly, so most of the others couldn’t hear, “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 me to Ron to Hermione, who murmured, “I think Ron’s right. We don’t even know what we’re looking for, we need them.”

Harry still looked unconvinced so I said, “You don’t have to do everything alone, Harry.”

“All right,” he said quietly to us, then to the room, he called, “Okay”

Everyone got quiet.

“There’s something we need to find,” Harry said. “Something — 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. Has anyone heard of an object like that? Has anyone ever come across something with her eagle on it, for instance?”

We looked hopefully at the little group of Ravenclaws.

Luna answered “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 Harry.

“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.

“Sorry, but what is a diadem?” asked Ron.

“It’s a kind of crown,” said Terry Boot. “Ravenclaw’s was supposed to have magical properties, enhance the wisdom of the wearer.”

“Yes, Daddy’s Wrackspurt siphons —”

But Harry cut across Luna. “And none of you have ever seen anything that looks like it?”

They all shook their heads again. He looked at us, disappointment showing in each of our faces. If it had been gone for this long, how would it be possible to make into a Horcrux?

Cho spoke again, “If you’d like to see what the diadem’s supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you, Harry? Ravenclaw’s wearing it in her statue.”

“He’s on the move,” I heard him say quietly.

Then, he glanced at Cho and back at us, “Listen, I know it’s not much of a lead, but I’m going to go and look at this statue, at least find out what the diadem looks like. Wait for me here and keep, you know — the other one — safe.”

Cho had stood up, but Ginny said rather fiercely, “No, Luna will take Harry, won’t you, Luna?”

“Oooh, yes, I’d like to,” said Luna happily, and Cho sat down again, looking disappointed.

“How do we get out?” Harry asked Neville.

“Over here.”

Harry and Luna left through a small cupboard that seemed to open into a staircase. Once they were gone, people began talking excitedly again about finally ridding Hogwarts of Snape and the Carrows and of getting to do something after all this waiting.