It turned out that what happened next was a long discussion on magical theory that Neville did not even begin to understand, to the point where he started to wonder if he really needed to be there for it. Never mind that he didn't know anything at all about connected alter-dimensions or the tears in sub-reality, he hadn't even read a book in years, and he had never been particularly clever to begin with; something Malfoy - the younger, ferrety version - never missed an opportunity to remind him in his own reality.

If anyone noticed that he didn't contribute to the conversation, they didn't say anything. The other versions of himself said very little, at least, so he wasn't the only one. Hermione seemed a little shaken after Neville's story, but she spoke to the men from the Department of Mysteries about their progress in determining the directional space between the related worlds until nearly everyone looked thoroughly confused.

"So what you're saying is, we're no closer than we were a month ago," B finally interrupted. The expression on his face was dour.

"Not necessarily," Hermione countered, unconvincingly. "We have succeeded in locating the world nine - "

"Right, the one where we're dead," C sniffed. "Lot of good that does."

"The worlds usually go in reverse," Hermione continued, ignoring him, "which means the next world should be the eighth. We just need to determine whether any of you are from world eight, and if so, how to create a door between the realities."

"Unless it's my world," Neville put in quickly. He thought he better remind them that he most certainly didn't want to go back home.

Hermione hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

Later, when everyone had gone home except for Neville A, who had agreed to stay and have lunch with his four avatars, D made it clear that he was just as unhappy with this measure of 'progress' as the others were. "What if world eight isn't one of our worlds?" he demanded. "And I bet it isn't. Herminy - "

"Hermione," A corrected.

"Right - well she reckons this world is world one, right? Because it all started here. Then I bet B's world is two, and C's is three, and mine is four, and so on. So we'd have to find eight, seven, six and five before we even get to my world."

Neville blinked. He hadn't understood any of that.

"I've been free for… oh, six weeks now and I've spend half that time stuck here," D growled with frustration, stabbing his fish and chips with his fork. They all jumped as a pile of coals sparked behind the grate of the fireplace.

"Calm down," C snapped. "Unless you want to burn up the whole house."

D sighed. "I told you, it was an accident. Anyway it's not my fault they never fixed the fireproofing charms on the stupid castle anyway."

"We weren't blaming you," B said gently.

"Yeah we were," C muttered.

Neville chewed his fish thoughtfully. It was very good. All the food they ate here was delicious, and they ate it all the time. It was hard to get used to. "Six weeks?" he repeated, cutting through the start of what had seemed to be a very promising row. They all turned and stared at him.

"Yeah, so?" D replied, frowning.

"Just wondering." Something was stirring at the back of his mind, but he wasn't quite sure where he was going with it. He turned to look at B. "Didn't you say you got married about six weeks ago?"

B looked confused. "I suppose so - and the twins were born the same day… yeah. They'd be six weeks old now. What's your point?"

"Well, I was just thinking…" Neville tried to wrap his brain around his thoughts. Thinking about anything beyond survival was something else he was only just starting to experiment with. Where he came from, thinking too much usually led to horror and despair getting the best of you. But there didn't seem to be any harm in this line of thought. "That's a pretty important thing, getting married. And having children. And so's freeing all the slaves at Hogwarts."

"The Academy," D corrected, absently.

"I was just thinking… it was about that long ago when I… when Lestrange bought me, in London. I think so, anyway. And that was important. For me. I mean it changed everything."

They all looked at each other. B sat back in his seat. "So you're suggesting that something significant might have happened to each of us at about the same time? And that might have something to do with why we're here?"

"Well that's very interesting," D put in. "But it doesn't quite work unless it applies to these guys as well." He motioned with a hand towards A and C, one at a time. "So? Anything big happen about six weeks ago? Either of you get married recently and didn't tell us?"

They were surprised to see A turn suddenly bright red. "Er…"

"You didn't!" B exclaimed, thoroughly surprised.

"No…" A murmured. "No, I'm not married. But I did, sort of… well…" He trailed off into embarrassment.

"I think this has something to do with the girlfriend he won't tell us about," D said. "Did you propose? Did you find out she had an extra arm, or a family curse, or something?"

Neville had a sinking feeling that something horrible might have happened, by the look on A's face, and he could imagine a lot of horrible things. He grimaced. "You don't have to tell us," he said quickly.

"Yes he does," D insisted. "If he wants to get all this sorted out, he does. Bet he doesn't much like us crowding up his reality, right, Neville?"

A glared. "Oh, fine," he muttered. "If you all really must know… it was the first time that we… that we… you know."

They all gaped at him. "Seriously?" D said.

"Seriously," A replied, red right to the tips of his ears. "And I'd thank you to all forget I told you, now that I have."

D laughed. "Great. So B had two kids pop out six weeks ago, and you had sex for the first time -"

"Don't -"

"What about you then, C?" D asked, turning to the last member of their little company. C, Neville realised, had been silent as the grave ever since the subject had been raised. In an almost polar opposite to A's reaction, he had gone quite pale.

"Nothing," he said after a while, when they had all watched him squirm under their inquisitive gazes until he could no longer stand it. "Nothing happened."

"That's less than convincing," A said, frowning. "Want to pull another one?"

C shook his head. He looked over at Neville, with slightly wide eyes. Neville suddenly remembered the moaning noise the other man had made when he had told about Lestrange torturing him. But he must have known his mother tortured people, even if he claimed never to have done it himself. Still, he was looking at Neville with an expression he could almost recognise as one of his own. Shame, with a hint of fear.

"You have to tell us if you want to go home," Neville said, as politely as he could manage.

There was a pause, and then C pushed his plate away and stood up. "I'll find my own way home," he said, stomping away from the table. D made to get up and stop him - how, Neville wasn't quite sure, since C was arguably the strongest, physically, out of all of them - but B put out a hand.

"Let him go."

"But -"

"Let him go, mate. He's not going to tell us anything he doesn't want to."

C didn't come out of his room for the rest of the day. A went home after lunch, promising to tell Hermione about E's theory as soon as he got a chance, and the rest of them went back to what passed for a routine at Grimmauld Place - D to his own room, B to the library where he seemed to spend most of his time doing research. Neville wandered around the big house, peeking behind pictures and tapestries to see if he could find any secret passages. He had already found two at Malfoy Manor, though they had made his cuff burn uncomfortably when he tried to go too far down them, and he had come straight back. Narcissa had made all kinds of threats of what would happen if he tried to leave the Manor, and he didn't intend to provoke her into trying them out.

There didn't seem to be any passages at Grimmauld Place, though he found a few spots behind certain tapestries where something else had clearly been for a long time, and something magical, by the way the whitewash that covered every wall in the house wouldn't stick to those areas. Old portraits, he guessed. They had had one at his Gran's house of an ancient relative that had a serious sticking charm on it. Said relative - Neville couldn't remember his name now - had slept most of the time, so no one had really minded. Nearly all the portraits he had encountered in Pureblood houses since the end of the war had been thoroughly unpleasant, much like their descendants, but there didn't seem to be any magical portraits at Number Twelve at all, for all it was clearly a very old house.

B eventually found him to tell him it was time for dinner. A had come back to join them, assuring them that Hermione had promised to look into the theory. When asked why he hadn't waited until the next day to tell them this, he replied grudgingly that his grandmother was visiting and had effectively taken over his flat. This was apparently such a problem - though privately Neville thought that he might have given anything to see his Gran again - that he accepted B's offer of staying the night at Number 12. C did not make an appearance at all.

He was lying on a bed. A big, comfortable bed, and it was his. It wasn't strange to him, it was simply his bed, and always had been, ever since he could remember. The room was his as well, despite the Slytherin banner that decorated half the east wall. There was a big window that looked out onto the grounds. He always liked that window. When he was little, he had loved to watch the moon rise as he fell asleep, and on full moons, to listen to the howl of the werewolves that guarded the boundary to the manor.

He wasn't little anymore though. He lay back and stared up at the ceiling. It was weird being home, still. He'd been away for nearly a year, and it wasn't as easy as he had thought to settle back into his old life, even months later. He kept having uncomfortable dreams, about Karkaroff, and Russia, and all the things he'd seen there. In the day, he could pretend that things were still the same, but at night, it was harder to hide. More than once he had woken up in a cold sweat, with a House Elf or two begging to know if he was all right and if he needed anything. Apparently he'd been screaming. He had to threaten them into not telling his mother. He didn't want to know what her reaction would be.

Someone knocked on the door. He ignored it, hoping they would go away.

"Lestrange, get out here right now."

He rolled his eyes and sat up. "What's the matter now, cuz?"

Draco opened the door and came in, grey eyes glinting. "What on earth is wrong with you? You were meant to join us for training this morning. What am I meant to tell the Queen?"

Neville grimaced. "Shit. I forgot."

"Clearly. If you want to train for the Army - "

Neville grimaced. "I don't want to train for the Army, Draco. Mother doesn't even want me training for the Army. She just wants to give me something to do so I stay out of the way."

"That's Captain Malfoy to you," Draco snapped.

Neville sniggered. "I am not calling you Captain," he said, waving his hand. "Unless you want to start calling me Prince Lestrange…"

"I'm your cousin. I don't have to address you - "

"Then neither do I." Neville stood up and stretched. "Want to go out for a bit?"

Draco looked nonplussed. "What?"

"Go for a walk… go to a pub… I'll even go flying with you." This was a big offer. Neville usually hated broomsticks. "Just get me out of this house for a while."

"You should really ask your mother about that."

Neville's face twisted into a snarl. "I don't need her permission to leave the house - I'm a fucking adult, Draco -"

"You should at least have a guard with you -"

"You're a Captain of the Army!"

"And the Queen would have my head - quite literally - if anything ill were to befall you," Draco pointed out, inclining his head slightly. Neville stared. He expected that sort of behaviour from most people - he was, after all, their Prince - but Draco was family.

"You've changed," he accused. "We used to do dangerous things all the time - remember when we climbed the big oak?"

Draco's mouth twitched. "We were six, Neville. And you fell and broke your arm and Father thrashed me. Happy memories, indeed."

Neville frowned. He had forgotten that Draco had been punished for that incident. "Oh fine," he snapped. "I'll ask mother for a guard."

"Tomorrow," Draco said. "I have more training this afternoon. Are you coming?"

Neville shrugged. Bored as he was, he really didn't want to spend his day casting curses at people who - by royal decree and on pain of death - could not fight back. "Nah." He noted the expression of consternation on his cousin's face. "I'll tell Mother. Don't worry about it."

A few hours later, he was regretting his decision. There really was nothing to do in this stupid house. He considered going to Malfoy Manor. Cassie was home for the holidays and she liked when he visited. Draco's sister was in her final year at Hogwarts and - unlike her older brother - was actually fun to be around, a lot more so than when she was little and a permanent nuisance. And there was the added bonus that she was bidding fair to be even more beautiful than her mother. But of course he couldn't tell Draco that. Anyway there was always the chance he might bump into his Uncle Lucius, and that was never a fun time. The man was never quite disrespectful, but Neville always got the impression from him that he didn't quite consider the young Prince a 'real' member of the family. Sometimes Neville wondered if he should have his Uncle seriously demoted when he was King. But then Draco probably wouldn't like that much, so maybe not.

He got up and wandered aimlessly around the castle for a bit. Aside from the Army recruits training with Draco in the big ballroom, it was empty. His mother and father were both out on state business - he hadn't asked what. Every now and then a House Elf popped up to ask snivellingly if he needed anything. After the fifth time it happened, he considered giving the latest one a hotfoot, but it vanished before he could reach his wand.

After a while he found himself at the entrance to the dungeons; empty these days, but he knew they had once held several war prisoners. He hesitated. He hadn't been down here in a long time, now that he thought about it. He'd avoided the place ever since he was eight years old and he'd accidentally walked in on his mother disembowelling a man. He'd had nightmares for weeks, until his mother had convinced him that the man was a traitor who had been trying to hurt their family, and he deserved everything he got. His mother had been nicer back then, he thought, cautiously opening the door that led to the elaborate maze of cells. These days she barely spoke to him except to remind him of his duties as Heir. She never actually went into detail about what those duties might be, however.

Yet another infernal House Elf appeared as he passed the first empty cell. "Your Highness!" it squeaked. "Master Lestrange - Master is in the dungeons!"

"Well spotted," Neville muttered. "Bugger off, will you?"

The little creature tugged at its ears, its scrunched-up face twisted with contrition. "Master, Giddy is so sorry Master, but My Lady Queen Majesty has said Master Prince Lestrange should not come to the dungeons alone!"

"Why not?" Neville frowned. "It's all empty down here."

The House Elf let out a low whine. "Please come upstairs, Master Prince Lestrange," it begged, so wretched that Neville couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for it. He had been practically raised by House Elves, and while some of them were annoying, and he had enjoyed a few pranks on them over the years, usually with Draco in tow, he had never liked the way they constantly punished themselves. Still, he wasn't going to let this one stop him going wherever he wanted to go in his own house.

"I'm just going to have a look around," he said. "Mother won't mind. I bet she made up that rule years ago, and it doesn't count anymore."

The House Elf still did not look happy. It moaned and made to start bashing its head against the wall, torn between its obligation to Neville, who was standing right there in front of it, and its loyalty to the Queen, its true Mistress.

"Tell you what," Neville said, with as much patience as he could manage. "If I'm not back in twenty minutes, you can come find me and I'll come straight out, I promise. In the meantime, how about you go make me a sandwich? No - a cake. Chocolate. With strawberry icing. And lots of decoration."

The Elf stopped hitting itself and looked dazed. "Giddy will do as Master says!" it squeaked, and vanished. Neville grinned. Once you'd lived with the creatures for a while, you started to get the hang of distracting them.

After a few minutes of wandering through the empty cells, however, he started to wonder what had possessed him to come down here in the first place. It was dark, and damp, and thoroughly depressing. He was just about to give up and go back, well ahead of his twenty-minute deadline, when he felt something odd in the air to his left. He turned back towards a blank stone wall. He couldn't see anything else, but his training in Russia had taught him to recognise wards when he felt them. This one was not particularly strong. Any decent cursebreaker should be able to crack it.

He hesitated for a moment. If his mother had put up a ward in the dungeons, he could only guess there would be something thoroughly unpleasant behind it. It probably wasn't a good idea to let it out. On the other hand, this was a dungeon, after all, one measly ward couldn't be all there was to it. And it could just be an old ward, left over from the days when the cells were in regular use. Couldn't it?

He made up his mind in that instant, pulled out his wand, and performed five or six countercurses until he found the one that caused the ward to shimmer and go out. The stone wall vanished. "Lumos," he said, allowing his wand to illuminate the dark end of the corridor revealed by the breaking of the ward. There was a single cell at the end, looking just as empty as the others. A little disappointed by this anti-climax, Neville sauntered up to the bars. There were heavy charms on them. He lifted his wand a little to see inside, and almost jumped out of his skin when he realised there was something - or someone - in there. A hunched figure was crouched in a corner, as still as a statue, covered in what seemed to be an old cloak. There was a plate of half-eaten bread and a bowl of water beside it. He wondered if whoever it was had died ages ago and it was just a skeleton. The thought made him shudder inwardly, though it wasn't as if he hadn't seen dead bodies before in much worse condition than bones. The next breath he took made him think otherwise, however. Something was definitely living down here - living in its own filth, apparently.

Throwing all caution to the winds, he rapped on the bars with the butt of his wand. "You alive in there?" he called out.

It took a few seconds, and another rap on the bars, but the figure eventually moved, painfully slowly, the cloak falling aside to reveal a gaunt face, made even more hideous by the low wand light that left dark shadows in the pits of its eyes and the hollows of its cheeks. It had long, grey hair and a tangled mess of a beard that disappeared beneath the cloak. Neville had half a mind to leave without any further investigation, but the curiosity was burning. "How long have you been here?" he asked, at the back of his mind adding, Mother is not going to be happy about this.

Another few seconds, then a hoarse, choking voice replied, "what… what year is it?"

Neville told him. There was another silence. Then the thing breathed out, a low, hoarse, death rattle of a breath that made Neville's spine tingle. "Twenty years," it said, barely audible even in the otherwise total silence of the dungeon. "Twenty… twenty years." It looked up at him, its terrible eyes meeting his for the first time. It was almost shocking to see that it was really just a man. The eyes were quite human. They were even - and Neville wasn't sure how he knew, but he was quite sure he could tell the difference - sane. The man crawled forward a metre or so, nearly knocking over the water bowl, and Neville had to resist the urge to take a step back. "Who are you?" it demanded.

Neville didn't know why he answered. He knew he should leave, now. This was clearly an old war prisoner, one his mother had deemed too important to kill, but dangerous enough to be kept down here ever since she had taken power, behind spelled bars and wards. "Prince Lestrange," he said, and then, for some reason he couldn't explain to himself, he added, "Neville."

The man made a choking noise that could have been fear, or anger, or anything. He reached out through the bars, and Neville did step back then, turning up his nose at the stink and the wasted remains of the man's arm, chalk-pale and skeletal. He turned to leave, but the man called out to him.

"No! Don't leave, please… Neville…" He looked back. The man was gesturing through the bars, reaching for him desperately. "You don't know me," the old creature said. "How could you… please… come closer, let me see you."

Neville took a half step forward, holding his lit wand aloft, but still well out of the reach of that wasted hand. "Who are you?" he asked.

The man flinched, a kind of shuddering spasm of the body. He drew the hand back and closed the stick-like fingers around one of the bars.

"I told you my name," Neville pointed out. "It's only fair. Unless you don't remember." He'd seen that happen sometimes, especially in Russia - Karkaroff's prisoners tended to lose their minds after years, sometimes even months, driven mad by the hunger and the isolation and the pain. Twenty years was more than enough time.

"No, I remember." The man stared up at him, the eyes, dark and terrible, transfixed on Neville's. "My name was… is… Frank," he said, his hoarse voice echoing eerily around the chamber. "Neville… I'm your father."

Neville E woke as if someone had hit him with a stinging hex. His sheets were drenched with sweat. He was back in his own bed, at Grimmauld Place, and he was himself again. The dream, like the one of the previous night, stood out in stark clarity in his mind, quite unlike the way dreams were supposed to, but this one had not been a memory of his past. It was someone else's memory, though, and he had a pretty clear idea who it was.

It was the middle of the night, but he scrambled out of bed and made his way downstairs to C's room. He had to knock several times before C finally opened the door, looking furious. "What the hell do you think you're -" he began, but Neville interrupted him.

"I know what happened," he said. C tried to close the door on him, but he stuffed his foot quickly between the door and the jamb. The result was quite a lot of pain in his foot, but he ignored it. "I dreamed it," he added, shoving his way into the room. "I saw you - and him - in the cells…" The thought of the cells was enough to make him shiver. Even in his own reality, he had been more than well acquainted with the cells of Lestrange Manor.

C had gone quite pale. "You… you dreamed it? How?"

"You were the one who asked me about dreams," Neville pointed out.

C swallowed. "Everyone gets vivid dreams here," he said. "But about themselves, not about…"

"It was real though, wasn't it," Neville said, more certain of this fact than ever. "You found Dad in the dungeons. He'd been there the whole time, and Les - your mother -" he corrected himself for the sake of the argument - "never told you."

C shut the door hurriedly. "Shut up," he snarled. "You want everyone to know? D would rip my head off if he knew, the little savage…"

"But what did you do?" Neville had to know. The dream had ended before he could see what happened next. "Did you let him out?"

C's eyes widened with shock. "Let him out? Why would I do that?"

Neville stared back, incredulously. "Because he's… because he's your dad!"

"I don't know that for sure," C snapped. "He could be lying - he could be anyone. And even if it is true… well, my mother always said that my real parents abandoned me. Why should I have anything to do with him?"

"They didn't abandon you!" Neville almost shouted. He couldn't believe his other self was so dense. "Lestrange attacked them, just like she did mine, and A's, and B's - except instead of driving them mad, she captured your dad and locked him up! She didn't take you in out of kindness, she kidnapped you!"

There was silence for a minute. "No," C said eventually. "That makes no sense - why would she?"

"I don't know," Neville sighed. He was about to ask if Frank had said anything about his - that is, C's - mother, but suddenly an animal howl erupted from somewhere above them. They both looked up, startled. "What was that?" Neville gasped.

"Werewolf," C said darkly, without hesitation. Neville didn't have to ask how he knew.

"In the house?" he squeaked. "How?"

"Never mind how. Let's get out of here."

Neville glanced at the solid-looking door. "Maybe we should stay," he suggested. It seemed safer.

"Werewolves can smell people," C said. He seemed remarkably calm, Neville thought, trying to ignore his own stomach which seemed to have turned to jelly. "It'll find us. That door won't stop it. Come on."

Reluctantly, Neville followed him out of the room and onto the landing, where B was coming up the stairs from his room on the second floor, wand firmly in hand, though said hand was shaking slightly.

"Say, this might be a good time to give me my wand back," C muttered as they drew near. Another howl echoed from above, coupled with the shrieking sound of claws raking through wood. It sounded like it was on the next floor.

"I don't have it," B hissed. "How the fuck did it get in? There are all kinds of wards - "

"Give me yours then."

"Are you mad?"

C glowered at him. "Look, how many times have you fought a werewolf? My mother practically keeps them as pets - I know how to deal with them."

"I'd give it to him if I were you," Neville put in. "I dunno about you, but I didn't escape the Malfoys just to get eaten by a werewolf."

B hesitated a moment longer, then, with the utmost reluctance, handed his wand over. C twirled it between his fingers before gripping the shaft firmly, his features settling into a grim smile. "Right," he said. "Let's go on a wolf hunt."

When they got up to the next floor, the only thing that stopped Neville turning and running back up the stairs again was B's solid presence over his shoulder. An enormous, hairy, fanged monster was attacking one of the doors at the far end of the corridor, ripping off strips of timber with its claws and tearing out chunks with its teeth. It was so intent on the destruction that it didn't seem to notice the three Nevilles as they carefully ascended the stairs at the other end. With a horrible jolt, Neville realised the door it was attacking was the room where A was staying for the night. D's room was halfway down the corridor, so he was also trapped, unless he chanced to risk running past the creature.

"No sudden movements," C whispered. Neville didn't think he could have moved a muscle even if he wanted to. C started inching forward along the corridor. The creature had its back turned to them, but surely any moment it would turn around, or it would smell or hear them, and if it didn't, it would surely break through the door, and then who knew if A would know how to defend himself from a werewolf…

"Incendio!" C yelled suddenly, and the red-hot spell hit the thing in the flanks. It howled in pain and whirled on them, thick saliva dripping over its black lips onto the hall carpet, its claws gouging huge furrows in the floorboards beneath. C cast the curse again, and it hit the ground just in front of the creature, causing it to scramble back awkwardly as a small fire sprang up between its paws. "Get him out," C yelled over his shoulder, motioning to D's blackened door. To his shame, Neville still couldn't bring himself to move, but B hurried forward and pulled the door open, bringing D out seconds later with a look of utter terror on his face. C was backing up towards them, still casting fire at the thing every time it tried to leap forward, keeping it backed against the door it had been mauling. "Let's go!" C shouted.

"What about A?" B yelled back over the creature's anguished growls. "He's in that room!"

C looked genuinely surprised, and then angry. "Well why didn't you tell me?" He took a half step back and lowered his wand, and in that second the werewolf bounded forward, jaws agape. Neville opened his mouth to scream with horror, but C raised his wand again with an easy calmness that reminded him eerily of Bellatrix Lestrange, and cast fire at the thing's left forelimb. It howled and twisted in the air as C aimed another curse at it, forcing it back and left until it came up against the open doorway to D's room. The curses forced it even further back, and C's next spell slammed the door and locked it with a heavy thud. Immediately they could hear the thing start to shred the door from the inside.

"Oi, Neville!" D yelled. "Come out now!"

A came out, grimacing when he saw the state of his door. "Where is it? What is it? How the fuck did it get in?"

"That's what I said," B replied.

"And why is he the only one of you holding a wand?" A demanded, pointing his own wand at C, who glowered.

"You're so welcome," he sneered, with a mocking little bow.

"Don't start fighting now!" Neville called from his safe spot by the bannister. "What do we do?"

C pointed towards the hall window. "Don't have to do anything," he said triumphantly. "Sun's rising."

In the distance, an orange glow was starting to illuminate the dusky grey sky as the day began. It took Neville a few moments to realise what that meant. "Oh," he said stupidly, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down enough for his brain to start working again. Behind them, the growling and wood-tearing gradually faded away.

B ran a hand through his hair, colour returning to his cheeks. "Bloody hell," he breathed. "What the hell is going on? Is it Lupin?"

A shook his head. "He died years ago."

"Greyback?"

"Also dead. Killed him myself."

There was a very pregnant pause. "Who the hell is it then?" D demanded.

"One way to find out." C brandished the borrowed wand, undid his locking spell, and put a hand on the door handle. They all yelled a protest, but it was too late, he was already turning the handle, the door was opening, and the naked man who had been slumped up against the door fell back onto the hall carpet. There was silence from the three men.

"Shit," A breathed. "Shit."

"Hermione did say we always show up near you," B said, wide-eyed.

Neville took a shaky step forward to get a closer look. And then another. The naked man was pale and covered in fresh cuts and scratches, but the face was perfectly recognisable. There was no doubt about it - there were now six Neville Longbottoms at Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

Extra long chapter to make up for the delay... please leave a comment!