Glass Houses
With great regret Neville had watched the door of the Ravenclaw common room close behind Luna. As he stared into the eagle's face in the centre of the door his earlier confidence turned to gloom. The doorknocker stared back, unblinking, but Neville thought with an undeniably smug twist to its beak, rather like Snape had looked at the welcome feast. He turned away. At the top of the wrong wing of the castle after curfew in the dark was not the wisest place to be. Neville did not risk lighting his wand. Instead he made his way cautiously along dark hallways and up and down shadowy stairways, wishing with each step for an invisibility cloak.
"Sir Knight!" a familiar voice called in an exaggerated whisper. "Here! Here!"
Neville stopped. In the light of a half moon that trickled weakly through a high mullioned window, Neville could see the first of a row of portrait frames. Glaringly out of place in a plush drawing room crammed with sleeping silk clad ladies stood Sir Cadogan. Neville stepped up to the painting.
"I'll guide your way," Sir Cadogan said, attempting a bow. His effort was rewarded with a hail of shoes thrown by the ladies. "This way."
"Thank you," Neville said, as Cadogan went ahead, checking each corner and doorway as best he could for Prefects, teachers and Filch. "I'm no knight."
"Pish!" Cadogan replied. "I bore witness to a famous rescue!"
"It was luck."
Cadogan came to an abrupt halt. He faced Neville, face pinched and angry inside his helmet. "Do you seek greater praise by this denial?" he asked loudly
"No, I just don't think I did anything special," Neville explained, wishing that Cadogan would keep his voice down.
"But you are young," Cadogan conceded, features resuming their geniality, "and unused to glory. Times were when one knew who to trust."
"I'm trying to do the right thing," Neville protested. "Glory has nothing to do with it."
"Ah, in the … Hush!" Sir Cadogan raised a warning hand and crept rather noisily to the end of the picture frame. For a moment his head and shoulders passed out of sight then, but then he drew back. "Flee!" he said as if all the Death Eaters in the land were massed around the corner. "Flee!"
As a leg appeared Neville sank back behind a pillar, not waiting to see who it belonged to.
"Do you think its funny frolicking through the corridors at night?" It was Malfoy.
"Stand, sir," Cadogan challenged. "My name is Sir Cadogan, I will have yours."
"What are you going to do if I don't tell you? Follow me?"
"Impudent cur, I'll …"
"You'll what? Wave your little scribbled sword in the air? Have the portrait of the Alchemists throw their painted crucibles at me?"
"A duel, sir!" Cadogan blustered. "A fight for …"
"Shut up," Malfoy threatened, "before I take my wand and blast your portrait off the wall. Merlin knows why its there in the first place."
"Forgive me," Neville muttered under his breath as Sir Cadogan began what he thought might become a lengthy reply to Malfoy's insult.
Hurriedly, he retraced his steps and chose a different route up the stairway that emerged on the seventh floor beside a suit of armour. At last Neville saw the portrait of the Fat Lady. She lay restless on a heap of pillows, her arm thrown dramatically across her forehead.
"Purity," Neville whispered, thinking that if she fretted any more the pillows would swallow her.
Without speaking, the Fat Lady turned her back to him and snuggled deeper into her pillow, but the portrait swung open.
"I've made it," Neville breathed, sloughing off the skin of strain that the evening had stretched over his bones. The welcoming glow of the fire was ahead of him, and tomorrow was another day. Neville emerged into the common room.
"Where do you think you've been?"
A scattering of students was there in ones and twos, their heads turned with interest as Ritchie Collins' words slammed into Neville. Demelza Robins, the other Gryffindor prefect, sat at the table, apparently content to observe from a distance.
"Just back from the library, Ritchie," Neville lied, aware that he had nothing resembling a book with him.
"Are you familiar with the school rules?" Collins asked.
"I've had six years to get to know them," Neville replied. This was one night he was not going to tolerate trouble from any source. "Was there something you wanted to know?"
Collins' lip curled. "Curfew began over an hour ago. The library is closed. Tell me where you have been."
"I must have been sleepwalking," Neville shrugged.
"Do you know who I am?" Ritchie asked.
Neville thought him an amateur bully compared to what he had witnessed earlier that evening. "I know who you were," he replied. "Last year. Who are you now, Ritchie?"
"He can't talk to you like that." Robins scraped back her chair as she got to her feet.
"Hi, Demelza," Neville said. She did not reply.
"We have instructions to report anyone out after curfew," Ritchie said pulling a small notebook from a pocket inside his robes.
"And troublemakers," Robins added. She handed Ritchie a small, silver-nibbed quill.
"Well that makes everything all right," Neville said, walking between them towards the archway that led to the dormitories. "You can always claim you were following orders."
"Come back here!" Ritchie demanded.
"How is Malfoy?" he asked. "Or do your 'instructions' come from Professor McGonagall?"
"It doesn't matter where they come from," Demelza said hotly. "They're the rules."
"Doesn't it?" Neville asked, turning back to them. "I'm in the Gryffindor Common Room. Give me an order from McGonagall, and I'll take it. She's the Head of my house, but bring me an order from a Death Eater…"
The splatter of rain against the high narrow windows was audible in the silence that washed over the common room. In the hearth a log splattered and hissed as though a few drops of rain had reached the fire. With a thud and a crackle it shifted in the grate, sending a burst of ash and sparks up the chimney.
"Tell me again that it doesn't matter," Neville said, painfully aware that every eye in the room was upon him.
"Draco said some of them would be like this because they'd been passed over," Demelza said to Ritchie, dismissively, but her words were loud enough for the whole common room to hear.
"Jealousy is really ugly, Longbottom," Collins said. "Just because you weren't chosen to be a Prefect."
"Complacency is much worse," Neville replied. "If you're both quite finished, I'd like to go to bed."
"I'm not going to stand for this," Demelza said. "They're the rules." Something about the way she repeated those words made Neville wonder who she was trying to convince. "You'll bring this house down with that sort of attitude, and we'll all pay for it – we have to keep safe."
"Now you're suggesting I keep my head down?" Neville asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I've tried that and nobody's any safer. Have you stopped to ask yourself why?"
"You're on report," Ritchie said flipping open his notebook, the little quill poised in his hand. "The Head Boy and Girl will hear of this. Probably the Headmaster too."
"On report?" Neville asked as Collins wrote. Seemingly he was not as familiar with the school rules as he had thought.
"That's a week," Collins said. Robins nodding her support. He continued, "Free periods not spent in the library or with a teacher must be passed in the common room under our supervision, no exceptions. Straight back here after meals, too. And don't think you can get away with not complying," he added, shoving the page under Neville's nose, "until this ink fades." Collins snapped his notebook closed.
"Shall I remember that when they come for you?" Neville asked, rubbing his fingers over the lumpy surface of the single gold galleon in his pocket. "Do you really think your blood will protect you?"
Dumbledore's Army, he thought. Harry would not have stood for this."That's the way it is," Collins said. "Orders of the Head Boy and Girl. The Headmaster has sanctioned it."
"We're only doing our job Neville," Robins said, apologetically. "There's nothing we can do about it."
"Keep telling yourself that," Neville replied and walked away.
"Finite Incantatem! FINITE!"
The repeated shriek rattled the windows of the highest tower in Hogwarts.
"FINITE INCANTATEM!"
Ignoring the protests of Professor Binns, the seventh years spilled out of the History of Magic classroom. Running along the first floor corridor, robes hitched up around her knees, they saw Alecto Carrow shrieking and dodging as a large and heavy oak chair hurled itself at her head.
"FINITE INCANTATEM!" she screamed again, but the spell seemed only to increase the vigour with which the chair attacked.
"Would you look at that," Seamus said nudging Neville. "That's got to hurt. What happened?" he asked the first year at the front of the knot that crowded in the doorway of the Muggle Studies classroom.
"Wow!" Neville said to no one in particular, turning away as amazed as the rest of the growing crowd.
"I want every wand checked!" Carrow's scream echoed down the corridor followed by a loud splintering crack. "EVERY WAND!"
All of a sudden Neville felt sick, a quick test and they would all know what he had done. He'd be expelled at the very least. He pushed through the crowd, anxious to get to a place where he could think. "Greenhouse Eight," he muttered. "Greenhouse Eight."
In the commotion nobody noticed him slipping away.
Greenhouse Eight, he thought, as he paced along the seventh floor corridor near to the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy. Just next to greenhouse four with the connecting door concealed behind the venomous tentacular
If anyone had seen him, they would have thought him mad. Hogwarts had no Greenhouse Eight, particularly not on the seventh floor, but Neville knew a secret or two about Hogwarts. He knew about the things that did not appear or even exist until you thought of them.
Neville smiled. There in the wall opposite the tapestry was the little door that led to the Room of Requirement.
He pushed it open and stepped into a lushly populated greenhouse. Colourful blooms twisted out from between fat foliage and butterflies vied with imps and doxies for nectar. Neville's feet crunched along the winding gravel path that meandered through the garden, and every now and then he bent to examine a specimen as he headed toward the far wall, through which he could see tentacles rubbing lazily against the glass and a class of students being shown mandrakes by Professor Sprout.
Tentatively, Neville turned the wrought iron handle pushing the door open very slightly
"… is why the Mandrake's scream is fatal," Sprout explained as the always inquisitive venomous tentacular sent an exploratory tentacle to investigate the sudden change of air. Quietly, Neville closed the door.
Not even Professor Sprout could imagine this particular place. He had been coming here for the last year when he needed to clear his head, which was often. The doorway to Greenhouse Four was a new addition. Neville smiled, realising that he created shortcut from the seventh floor all the way down to the greenhouses.
"I wonder if I can get in from the other side," he said, aware that he would never get the chance again once Carrow found him out, but there was a class going on so that experiment would have to wait.
Sadly Neville flipped over a terracotta plant pot and sat down. He pulled out his cherry wood wand, wishing that he still had his father's own wand. He could have switched them and no one would have known who cast the hex. But Frank Longbottom's wand had been broken by a Death Eater in the battle in the Ministry of Magic.
Neville sighed. He was in trouble. He had two choices – to hide here for the rest of his life or to get on with it and, if necessary, face his punishment. Knowing Carrow, it would be something quite horrible.
Resolved, Neville left his refuge and emerged into the empty seventh floor corridor. He'd have to hurry to make it on time. Setting off at a brisk pace, Neville turned the corner.
"What are you doing up here?" Demelza Robins was glaring at him.
He thought quickly. He was on the seventh floor, near to the common room and out when he should be on the first floor packing his History of Magic textbooks away. "I left my wand in the tower," he confessed. "I didn't need it for History of Magic, but I have Charms next … Binns let me out early so I could get it.""
Neville tried to look innocent as Demelza checked in a little notebook just like the one Ritchie Collins had used the night before.
"All right, Neville," she said. "But hurry up. There's been some trouble, and the Carrows are on the warpath."
"What happened?" he asked.
"I don't have time to gossip," Demelza replied, scribbling a note. "You're just lucky I caught you and not one of the others. Don't cut class again."
She tore it out and handed it to him.
Permission to retrieve wand from Gryffindor Tower, signed D.R.
"Thanks, Demelza," he said, too relieved to feel guilty about his deception.
"Ah, Mr. Longbottom," Professor Flitwick said, as Neville arrived a few minutes late in the Charms classroom. "Late to your first lesson of the year. Not a very good start."
"Sorry, sir," Neville said, taking the vacant desk next to Seamus Finnegan.
"Where did you get to?" Seamus whispered. He pointed sharply at the stack of books on Neville's desk. "You owe me for carrying them!"
"Thanks. I forgot my wand this morning," Neville lied.
"You'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on," Seamus laughed. "Beats History of Magic, though. You missed a real show. It all started whe …"
"I am sorry to say that the Headmaster has insisted that before our lesson I must check each of your wands," Flitwick interrupted.
Neville and Seamus exchanged worried glances and fell silent. "Many of you witnessed an unfortunate incident earlier today that resulted in serious injury to a teacher. Impressive though such wandwork may be, I must make you aware of the seriousness of such occurrences. Be warned, if any incriminating evidence is found, Professor Carrow wants the culprit punished. Would you please form a line at my desk."
"Touchy old hag," Seamus muttered. "Who hasn't been hit with the odd Jelly Legs or Flying Chair?"
"Yeah," Neville said,, automatically getting to his feet and joining the queue.
"It started when she said Mudblood," Seamus said as they waited in line. "She was sitting down, and the chair shot back from under her. One of the first years told me.
She had a right go at them saying she'd hex the ears of whoever did it. Like a first year could do that!"
But Neville wasn't really listening. He was standing in a queue and each time he moved up a place, he grew closer and closer to his fate. He felt sick again and a little hot and too cold all at the same time, an unsettling sensation that grew stronger as he moved to the front of the classroom.
In front of Neville, Susan Bone's wand revealed a cheering charm and a locator spell. Flitwick handed the wand back to Susan, and she sat down. It was Neville's turn.
Neville's throat was dry as he laid his wand on Flitwick's desk. He could hear nothing but the blood in his ears beating and beating. He reached out, holding the edge of the desk for support.
"Are you ill?" Flitwick asked as he picked up Neville's wand.
Unable to speak, Neville shook his head.
"Prior Incantato," Flitwick said, waving his own wand. "Well what is this?" the Professor asked with real curiosity as the telltale wisps emerged from the tip of Neville's wand.
Neville was caught. His legs seemed reluctant to support him. For a moment his vision blurred. Then he found himself confronted by Flitwick's piercing dark gaze. To Neville's amazement, the Professor winked.
"Everything seems to be in order here," Flitwick said, handing the wand back to Neville.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Ginny asked peevishly.
"I hadn't planned to do it," Neville replied. They sat in the corner of the common room on either side of a small wooden table. Books lay open between them, but neither Neville nor Ginny were using the time to study. Here, in the spot furthest from the fire, their conversation was least likely to be overheard.
A lively buzz of chatter filled the room for the first time that year, followed by laughter as a first year boy who Neville recognised as Michael Brydon chased a friend between the battered armchairs and over the thick red carpet with a spindly chair held high above his head.
"Can't stop me with magic!" Michael giggled, "Can't stop me!"
"Reminds me of Harry and Ron," Ginny smiled. "How did you get away with it?"
"That's the incredible thing." Neville twisted in his seat away from the room as he related his unlikely encounter with Professor Flitwick.
"I knew the teachers couldn't be part of this!" Ginny said, triumphantly.
"They're just trying not to upturn the cauldron," Neville said. "For our protection. These are not nice people we're dealing with."
"Neville, that is the best description yet of Death Eaters – not nice people!" she lowered her voice to a whisper. "And Voldemort? What's he? A bit of a cad?"
"That's not what I meant, Ginny."
"I know! But do you realise what this means?"
"I think you're about to tell me."
"The right teachers are on our side, and, if we're careful, we can get away with anything. Just think. If half of the school uses that hex, Carrow and Co. will not be able to isolate any one culprit. She can crawl to Snape all she likes, but even he can't expel half of the school. How would that look to his master?"
"You have a point," Neville admitted reluctantly, leaning back as comfortably as he could on the wooden chair. Near the fireplace, Ritchie Collins was loudly berating the first year boys for mocking a teacher. He had his little notebook and quill at the ready.
"Yeah," Neville said, "when Gryffindor prefects are acting like Slytherin bullies and taking orders from Malfoy, something has gone astray."
"Not all of them," Ginny said. "Look."
Neville saw Demelza Robins had just come down from the dormitories, a large book clutched to her chest. She paused for a moment watching Collins, then turned away.
"It's a start," Neville said. She was hardly making a stand. "Remember this, Ginny?" Neville asked drawing his galleon out of his pocket.
Ginny nodded. "Those were the days."
"They're not over yet. Do you still have yours?"
"I think so."
"Find it. Will you see Luna tomorrow?"
"I think so. After Quidditch tryouts."
"Ask her if she has hers, and if you find yours, keep it with you."
"Do you have a plan, Neville?" Ginny asked.
"Not really. But this is our responsibility, all of ours, not just the Muggleborn's and not just Harry's. Things are going dangerously wrong, Ginny. The hope is draining out, and if someone doesn't do something soon, there'll be nothing left to fight for. This was one day we've won, but tomorrow we could be back where we started. Saving wizarding society is not our job, Ginny, but saving Hogwarts is. This is the start of it. We're going to send a message that Hogwarts is not lost. That no matter how many Death Eaters Snape packs the school with, we will not accept it."
Author's notes:
Some of you may notice a rather marked improvement in punctuation this chapter. I haven't suddenly unlearned bad habits, but I have had the assistance of the remarkable JLHufflepuff. While you're waiting for the next chapter here I'd recommend popping over to her profile and joining Scorpius Malfoy at Hogwarts in Visions of Greatness.
Edit 24th August 2007: I've had to add lines between scenes in order to counter this site's inability to keep the correct format. Sorry for those of you who were confused by the scene transition.
Disclaimer:
This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.