-slightly unedited-

"Harry Potter!" A voice booms pointing to us. Death eaters surround us. Definitely because of Voldemort's panic from the missing horcruxes.

"Accio cloak!" One of them calls. Harry grips the cloak tightly but it seemed the summoning charm had no effect on the cloak. "Not under your wrapper, then, Potter?" yells the Death Eater who had tried the charm, and then to his fellows, "Spread out. He's here." Six of the Death Eaters run toward us. We back away as quickly as possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters miss us by inches. We wait in the darkness, listening to the footsteps running up and down, beams of light flying along the street from the Death Eaters' searching wands.

"Let's just leave!" Hermione whispers. "Disapparate now!"

"Great idea," says Ron.

"We know you're here, Potter, and there's no getting away! We'll find you!"

"They were ready for us," whispers Harry. "They set up that spell to tell them we'd come. I reckon they've done something to keep us here, trap us—"

"Definitely," I say to them, "there is no way we could leave."

"What about dementors?" calls another Death Eater. "Let 'em have free rein, they'd find him quick enough!"

"The Dark Lord wants Potter dead by no hand but his—"

"—an' dementors won't kill him! The Dark Lord wants Potter's life, not his soul. He'll be easier to kill if he's been Kissed first!" Harry shutters and I place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"We're going to have to try to Disapparate, Harry!" Hermione whispers as the air chills.

"No time," I say to them, "dementors now." Despite my protest Hermione seizes my arm and attempts to dissapparate us. Nothing happens with us but the approaching dementors move closer and the air chills. The fear amongst us fueling the dementors to fly at us faster than ever before.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yells.

"Idiot!" I call to him pulling us back as the sliver stag bursts from his wand. The dementors scatter and a triumphant yell booms from somewhere out of sight.

"It's him, down there, down there, I saw his Patronus, it was a stag!"

"Shit," I hiss. Before I can react the door behind us opens.

"Potter, in here, quick!" A tall man says. With out hesitation he obeys and the rest of us follow diving into the home.  "Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" mutters a tall figure, passing us on his way into the street and slamming the door behind him. We obey with out much time to deliberate or ponder. Knowing that they would kill us on sight after escaping last time. As we get up stairs I let out a shaky nervous breath. Who the hell was this person saving us. And why would he do that? As the loud shouts from outside grow, Harry nudges us towards the window. I finally recognize the man as the bartender from Hog's Head.

"So what?" he bellows into one of the hooded faces. "So what? You send dementors down my street, I'll send a Patronus back at 'em! I'm not having 'em near me, I've told you that, I'm not having it!"

"That wasn't your Patronus!" says a Death Eater. "That was a stag, it was Potter's!"

"Stag!" roars the barman, and he pulls out a wand. "Stag! You idiot—Expecto Patronum!" A silver creature bounces but I couldn't quite see what it was.

"That's not what I saw—" says the Death Eater, though with less certainty.

"Curfew's been broken, you heard the noise," one of his companions tells the barman. "Someone was out in the street against regulations—"

"If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned to your curfew!"

"You set off the Caterwauling Charm?"

"What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kil me for sticking my nose out my own front door? Do it, then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven't pressed your little Dark Marks and summoned him. He's not going to like being called here for me and my old cat, is he, now?"

"Don't you worry about us," says one of the Death Eaters, "worry about yourself, breaking curfew!"

"And where will you lot traffick potions and poisons when my pub's closed down? What'll happen to your little sidelines then?"

"Are you threatening—?"

"I keep my mouth shut, it's why you come here, isn't it?"

"I still say I saw a stag Patronus!" shouts the first Death Eater.

"Stag?" roars the barman. "It's a goat, idiot!"

"All right, we made a mistake," says the second Death Eater.

"Break curfew again and we won't be so lenient!"

The death eaters stride away and the barman heads back inside. Harry pulls off the cloak and moves towards the mantle. While I stay watching throughout the window. As the door opens loudly my attention snaps to the door.

"You bloody fools," the barman says gruffly, looking from one to the other of them. "What were you thinking, coming here?"

"Thank you," Harry says. "We can't thank you enough. You saved our lives." The barman approaches Harry. And at this distance I can see his blue eyes and scruffy long beard better.

"It's your eye I've been seeing in the mirror." Harry says and the man was silent. I look on at him in curiosity.

"Him?" I ask Harry. He nods slightly.

"You sent Dobby." The barman nods and looks around.

"Thought he'd be with you. Where've you left him?"

"He's dead," Harry says, "Bellatrix Lestrange killed him." The barman's face was impassive. After a few moments he says, "I'm sorry to hear it. I liked that elf." He turns away, lighting lamps with prods of his wand, not looking at any of us.

"You're Aberforth," Harry says to the man's back. He neither confirms nor denies it, but bent to light the fire.

"How did you get this?" Harry asks, walking across to a mirror.

"Bought it from Dung 'bout a year ago," Aberforth says. "Albus told me what it was. Been trying to keep an eye out for you."

"The silver doe!" Ron says excitedly. "Was that you too?"

"What are you talking about?" Aberforth says. I roll my eyes at Ron.

"Someone sent a doe Patronus to us!"

"Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Haven't I just proved my Patronus is a goat?"

"Oh," Ron says, "Yeah... well, I'm hungry!" he added defensively as his stomach gave an enormous rumble.

"Excuse him sir," I say, "Ron lacks basic intelligence, especially with such a distraction as hunger."

"I got food," Aberforth says, and he slopes out of the room, reappearing moments later with a large loaf of bread, some cheese, and a pewter jug of mead, which he sets upon a small table in front of the fire. Ravenous, we eat and drink, and for a while there nothing could be heard except the soft sounding of chewing after a while Aberforth speaks up.

"Right then," Aberforth says when we've had ate our fill, and Harry and Ron sit slumped dozily in their chairs. "We need to think of the best way to get you out of here. Can't be done by night, you heard what happens if anyone moves outdoors during darkness: Caterwauling Charm's set off, they'll be onto you like bowtruckles on doxy eggs. I don't reckon I'l be able to pass off a stag as a goat a second time. Wait for daybreak when curfew lifts, then you can put your Cloak back on and set out on foot. Get right out of Hogsmeade, up into the mountains, and you'll be able to Disapparate there. Might see Hagrid. He's been hiding in a cave up there with Grawp ever since they tried to arrest him."

"We're not leaving," Harry says, "We need to get into Hogwarts."

"Urgently," I add.

"Don't be stupid, boy," Aberforth says.

"We've got to," Harry says.

"What you've got to do," says Aberforth, leaning forward, "is to get as far from here as you can."

"You don't understand. There isn't much time. We've got to get into the castle. Dumbledore—I mean, your brother—wanted us—"

"My brother Albus wanted a lot of things," Aberforth says, "and people had a habit of getting hurt while he was carrying out his grand plans. You get away from this school, Potter, and out of the country if you can. Forget my brother and his clever schemes. He's gone where none of this can hurt him, and you don't owe him anything."

"You don't understand," Harry says again.

"Oh, don't I?" says Aberforth quietly. "You don't think I understood my own brother? Think you knew Albus better than I did?"

"I didn't mean that," Harry says, "It's... he left me a job."

"Did he now?" says Aberforth. "Nice job, I hope? Pleasant? Easy? Sort of thing you'd expect an unqualified wizard kid to be able to do without overstretching themselves?" Ron gives a rather grim laugh as I chuckle slightly.

"Yeah that's the word for it," I say sarcastically as I look to Harry.

"I-it's not easy, no," Harry says. "But I've got to—"

"'Got to'? Why 'got to'? He's dead, isn't he?" says Aberforth roughly. "Let it go, boy, before you fol ow him! Save yourself!"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I—" Harry stutters clearly overwhelmed, "But you're fighting too, you're in the Order of the Phoenix—"

"I was," says Aberforth. "The Order of the Phoenix is finished. You-Know-Who's won, it's over, and anyone who's pretending different's kidding themselves. It'll never be safe for you here, Potter, he wants you too badly. So go abroad, go into hiding, save yourself. Best take these three with you." He jerks a thumb at Ron, Hermione, and I. "They'll be in danger long as they live now everyone knows they've been working with you."

"I can't leave," says Harry. "I've got a job—"

"Give it to someone else!"

"I can't. It's got to be me, Dumbledore explained it all—"

"Oh, did he now? And did he tell you everything, was he honest with you?" Aberforth asks. I wanted to help Harry out but there wasn't a single defence I could come up with. "I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother's knee. Secrets and lies, that's how we grew up, and Albus... he was a natural."
The old man's eyes travel to the painting of the girl over the mantelpiece. It being the only picture in the room. There was no photograph of Albus Dumbledore, nor of anyone else.

"Mr. Dumbledore?" Hermione asks rather timidly. "Is that your sister? Ariana?"

"Yes," says Aberforth tersely. "Been reading Rita Skeeter, have you, missy?"

"Elphias Doge mentioned her to us," says Harry, trying to spare Hermione.

"That old berk," mutters Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. "Thought the sun shone out of my brother's every orifice, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the looks of it."

"Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry, very much," Hermione says in a low voice.

"Did he now?" Aberforth asks, "Funny thing, how many of the people my brother cared about very much ended up in a worse state than if he'd left 'em well alone."

"What do you mean?" asks Hermione breathlessly.

"Never you mind," Aberforth says.

"But that's a really serious thing to say!" Hermione says, "Are you—are you talking about your sister?"

"When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, set upon, by three Muggle boys. They'd seen her doing magic, spying through the back garden hedge: She was a kid, she couldn't control it, no witch or wizard can at that age. What they saw scared them, I expect. They forced their way through the hedge, and when she couldn't show them the trick, they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it. It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn't use magic, but she couldn't get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless. And my father went after the bastards that did it," Aberforth says, "and attacked them. And they locked him up in Azkaban for it. He never said why he'd done it, because if the Ministry had known what Ariana had become, she'd have been locked up in St. Mungo's for good. They'd have seen her as a serious threat to the International Statute of Secrecy, unbalanced like she was, with magic exploding out of her at moments when she couldn't keep it in any longer. We had to keep her safe and quiet. We moved house, put it about she was ill, and my mother looked after her, and tried to keep her calm and happy. I was her favorite," he says and as he said it, a grubby schoolboy seemed to look out through Aberforth's wrinkles and tangled beard. "Not Albus, he was always up in his bedroom when he was home, reading his books and counting his prizes, keeping up with his correspondence with 'the most notable magical names of the day,'" Aberforth sneers. "He didn't want to be bothered with her. She liked me best. I could get her to eat when she wouldn't do it for my mother, I could get her to calm down when she was in one of her rages, and when she was quiet, she used to help me feed the goats." He takes a breath and looks to the picture, "Then, when she was fourteen... See, I wasn't there," Aberforth says. "If I'd been there, I could have calmed her down. She had one of her rages, and my mother wasn't as young as she was, and... it was an accident. Ariana couldn't control it. But my mother was killed."

A horrible mixture of sadness and pity fills me as I listen to his words.

"So that put paid to Albus's trip round the world with little Doge. The pair of 'em came home for my mother's funeral and then Doge went off on his own, and Albus settled down as head of the family. Ha!" Aberforth spits into the fire. "I'd have looked after her, I told him so, I didn't care about school, I'd have stayed home and done it. He told me I had to finish my education and he'd take over from my mother. Bit of a comedown for Mr. Brilliant, there's no prizes for looking after your half-mad sister, stopping her blowing up the house every other day. But he did all right for a few weeks... till he came." And now a positively dangerous look creeps over Aberforth's face. "Grindelwald. And at last, my brother had an equal to talk to, someone just as bright and talented as he was. And looking after Ariana took a backseat then, while they were hatching all their plans for a new Wizarding order, and looking for Hallows, and whatever else it was they were so interested in. Grand plans for the benefit of all Wizardkind, and if one young girl got neglected, what did that matter, when Albus was working for the greater good? But after a few weeks of it, I'd had enough, I had. It
was nearly time for me to go back to Hogwarts, so I told 'em, both of 'em, face-to-face, like I am to you, now," and Aberforth looked down at Harry, and it took little imagination to see him as a teenager, wiry and angry, confronting his elder brother. "I told him, you'd better give it up now. You can't move her, she's in no fit state, you can't take her with you, wherever it is you're planning to go, when you're making your clever speeches, trying to whip yourselves up a following. He didn't like that," said Aberforth, and his eyes were briefly occluded by the firelight on the lenses of his glasses: They shone white and blind again. "Grindelwald didn't like that at all. He got angry. He told me what a stupid little boy I was, trying to stand in the way of him and my brilliant brother... Didn't I understand, my poor sister wouldn't have to be hidden once they'd changed the world, and led the wizards out of hiding, and taught the Muggles their place?"

"Merlin's sake," I say sitting back in my chair.

"And there was an argument... and I pulled out my wand, and he pulled out his, and I had the Cruciatus Curse used on me by my brother's best friend—and Albus was trying to stop him, and then all three of us were dueling, and the flashing lights and the bangs set her off, she couldn't stand it—" The colour drains from Aberforth's face as though he had suffered a mortal wound. "—and I think she wanted to help, but she didn't really know what she was doing, and I don't know which of us did it, it could have been any of us—and she was dead." His voice cracks with the last couple words.

"I'm sorry," I say softly.

"I'm so... I'm so sorry," Hermione whispers.

"Gone," croaks Aberforth. "Gone forever." He wipes his nose on his cuff and clears his throat.
"Course, Grindelwald scarpered. He had a bit of a track record already, back in his own country, and he didn't want Ariana set to his account too. And Albus was free, wasn't he? Free of the burden of his sister, free to become the greatest wizard of the—"

"He was never free," Harry says.

"I beg your pardon?" says Aberforth.

"Never," says Harry. "The night that your brother died, he drank a potion that drove him out of his mind. He started screaming, pleading with someone who wasn't there. 'Don't hurt them, please... hurt me instead.' He thought he was back there with you and Grindelwald, I know he did," says Harry, "He thought he was watching Grindelwald hurting you and Ariana... It was torture to him, if you'd seen him then, you wouldn't say he was free."

"How can you be sure, Potter, that my brother wasn't more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you aren't dispensable, just like my little sister?"

"I don't believe it. Dumbledore loved Harry," Hermione says.

"He cared so much for Harry," I add.

"Why didn't he tell him to hide, then?" shoots back Aberforth. "Why didn't he say to him, 'Take care of yourself, here's how to survive'?"

"Because," says Harry before Hermione or I could answer, "sometimes you've got to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes you've got to think about the greater good! This is war!"

"You're seventeen, boy!"

"I'm of age, and I'm going to keep fighting even if you've given up!"

"Who says I've given up?"

"'The Order of the Phoenix is finished,'" Harry repeats. "'You-Know-Who's won, it's over, and anyone who's pretending different's kidding themselves.'"

"I don't say I like it, but it's the truth!"

"No, it isn't," says Harry. "Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to me. I'm going to keep going until I succeed—or I die. Don't think I don't know how this might end. I've known it for years."

"We need to get into Hogwarts," I say pushing the issue.

"If you can't help us, we'll wait till daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us—well, now would be a great time to mention it."

Aberforth remains fixed in his chair, gazing at Harry with the eyes that were so extraordinarily like his brother's. At last he clears his throat, gets to his feet, walks around the little table, and approached the portrait of Ariana.

"You know what to do," he says. She smiles, turns, and walks away, not as people in portraits usually did, out of the sides of their frames, but along what seemed to be a long tunnel painted behind her. We watch her slight figure retreating until finally she was swallowed by the darkness.

"Er—what—?" begins Ron.

"There's only one way in now," Aberforth says, "You must know they've got all the old secret passageways covered at both ends, dementors all around the boundary walls, regular patrols inside the school from what my sources tell me. The place has never been so heavily guarded. How you expect to do anything once you get inside it, with Snape in charge and the Carrows as his deputies... well, that's your lookout, isn't it? You say you're prepared to die."

"But what...?" Hermione says, frowning at Ariana's picture.

"We've been prepared to die since we started this," I say to him as I look to the painting. A tiny white dot had reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel, and now Ariana was walking back toward them, growing bigger and bigger as she came. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than she was, who was limping along, looking excited. His hair was longer than Harry had ever seen it: He appeared to have suffered several gashes to his face and his clothes were ripped and torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait. Then the whole thing swings forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel is revealed. And out of it, his hair overgrown, his face cut, his robes ripped, clambers the real Neville Longbottom, who gave a roar of delight, leapt down from the mantelpiece, and yells, "I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"

"Neville—what the—how—?" Harry asks. I move towards him and pull him into a hug.

"Neville oh my god!" I exclaim attempting to keep my voice down.

"I knew you'd come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!"

"Neville, what's happened to you?"

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

"Couple more?" repeats 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 holds out his hand to Hermione and helps her to climb up onto the mantelpiece and into the tunnel. Then helps me in. I wait back for Harry and see him turn to Aberforth.

"I don't know how to thank you. You've saved our lives twice," Harry says.

"Look after 'em, then," says Aberforth gruffly. "I might not be able to save 'em a third time." With that I help Harry in and we move along the tunnel.

"How long's this been here?" Ron asks as we set off. "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," says 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 starts walking backward, beaming, drinking them in. "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," Harry says.

Neville laughs gleefully.

"What did you do with the dragon?"

"Released it into the wild," says Ron. "Hermione and Y/n were all for keeping it as a pet—"

"Don't exaggerate, Ron—"

"Nope totally wanted to keep it," I say to Neville, "I did at least."

"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," says Harry, "but tell us about Hogwarts, Neville, we haven't heard anything."

"It's been... well, it's not really like Hogwarts anymore," says Neville, the smile fading from his face as he spoke. "Do you know about the Carrows?"

"Those two Death Eaters who teach here?"

"They do more than teach," says 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—"

"That's sick," I say, "we ought to stop by them and teach them a few manners."

"Not now," Harry says to me.

"Yeah," Neville says, "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."

"Definitely the two can't tell a their left from their right," I scoff.

"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 indicates another slash to his face, "for asking her how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got."

"Blimey, Neville," says Ron, "there's a time and a place for getting a smart mouth."

"You didn't hear her," says 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," says Ron, wincing slightly as they pass a lamp and Neville's injuries were thrown into even greater relief.

Neville shrugs.

"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. 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."

From his pocket he pulled a golden coin, and Harry recognized it as one of the fake Galleons that Dumbledore's Army had used to send one another messages.

"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, who had noticed the past tense.

"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, as the passage began to slope upward.

"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?"  Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I say together.

"Yeah," Neville says, 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 faces us, astonishingly 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 laughs, "Dawlish is still in St. Mungo's and Gran's on the run. She sent me a letter," he claps a hand to the breast pocket of his robes, "telling me she was proud of me, that I'm my parents' son, and to keep it up."

"Cool," Ron says.

"No excellent really," I say smiling at him.

"Yeah," says 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," Ron says looking thoroughly confused, "aren't—aren't we heading straight back into Hogwarts?"

"'Course," says Neville. "You'll see. We're here."

We turn a corner and there ahead of us was the end of the passage. Another short flight of steps leads to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana's portrait. Neville pushes it open and climbs through.

"Look who it is! Didn't I tell you?" Neville yells as Harry climbs out. The rest follow now facing many worn bodies of students around us. "Okay, okay, calm down!" Neville calls, and as the crowd backs away. I look around the room to see the condition of the room. First off there were hammocks of varying house colours with a matching banner for the house. No Slytherin to be found. It was common to see this. Yet in the current state of things. I didn't want to deal with it.

"Where are we?" Harry asks.

"Room of Requirement, of course!"  Neville says. "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?" asks Harry, looking around for the door.

"No,"  Seamus Finnigan says, Who was barely  recognizabilie until he spoke: Seamus's face was 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!"

"It's quite straightforward, really," Neville says modestly. "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," Ron says to general astonishment.

"Yeah Don't be proud he knows that," I snap.

"So we've been hiding out here for nearly two weeks," says 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," supplies Lavender Brown. Now that I can look around properly, I see many 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," says 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!" says Neville. "And the dragon's true too!"

There was a smattering of applause and a few whoops; Ron takes a bow. I smile at them.

"Really miss the dragon tho," I say to them.

"What were you after?" asks Seamus eagerly. Before any of us could even attempt to answer the question Harry turns his back to the group and falls down. I move catching his arm to keep him from hitting the ground. People move towards us and the wave them back as Harry comes too.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Neville says "Want to sit down? I expect you're tired, aren't—?"

"No," Harry says looking to Ron, Hermione, and I.

"We need to get going," he said, and their expressions told him that they understood.

"What are we going to do, then, Harry?" asked Seamus. "What's the plan?"

"Plan?" repeated Harry. He was exercising all his willpower to prevent himself succumbing again to Voldemort's rage: His scar was still burning. "Well, there's something we—Ron, Hermione, and I—need to do, and then we'll get out of here."

"What d'you mean, 'get out of here'?"

"We haven't come back to stay," said Harry, rubbing his scar, trying to soothe the pain. "There's something important we need to do—"

"What is it?"

"I—I can't tell you."

There was a ripple of muttering at this: Neville's brows contracted.

"Why can't you tell us? It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?"

"Well, yeah—"

"Then we'll help you."

You don't understand." Harry seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours. "We—we can't tell you. We've got to do it—alone."

"Why?" asked Neville.

"Because..." Harry says sounding desperate, "Dumbledore left the three of us a job, and we weren't supposed to tell—I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the three of us."

"We're his army," says Neville. "Dumbledore's Army. We were all in it together, we've been keeping it going while you three have been off on your own—"

"It hasn't exactly been a picnic, mate," Ron says.

"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."

"Besides it's not like they had such an easy time either," I point out looking at the wounds around the room.

"Look," Harry begins. Before he can say anything else the door behind him opens.

"We got your message, Neville! Hello you four, I thought you must be here!" Behind us now is Luna and Dean.

"Hi, everyone!" says Luna happily. "Oh, it's great to be back!"

"Luna," says Harry distractedly, "what are you doing here? How did you—?"

"I sent for her," says 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," Luna says brightly. "Isn't it, Harry? We're going to fight them out of Hogwarts?"

"Harry," I caution.

"Listen," Harry says, "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?" demands Michael Corner.

"No!" says 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. I turn to see Ginny, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan.

"Freddie!" I cheer happily run towards him. He holds on to me tightly.

"Hello Doll," He says. He leans down and I kiss him quickly. Smiling as he pulls away. He looks to the others.  "Aberforth's getting a bit annoyed," says Fred, raising his hand in answer to several cries of greeting. "He wants a kip, and his bar's turned into a railway station."

"I got the message," Cho Chang says holding up her own fake Galleon, and she walks over to sit beside Michael Corner.

"So what's the plan, Harry?" George says.

"There isn't one," Harry says.

"Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favorite kind," Fred says and I smile happily.

"You've got to stop this!" Harry tells Neville. "What did you call them all back for? This is insane—"

"We're fighting, aren't we?" says 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—?" begins Seamus.

Ron turns suddenly to Harry.

"Why can't they help?"

"What?"

"They can help." He drops his voice and says only so the four of us could 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 looks from Ron to Hermione to me, "I think Ron's right. We don't even know what we're looking for, we need them." Hermione murmurs and when Harry looks unconvinced, "You don't have to do everything alone, Harry." He looks to me.

"I think they are right. We only have a couple things left to do. But now that you know who is on to us we'll need more hands and eyes to get this done," I say to him.

"All right," he says quietly to us. "Okay," he calls to the room at large, and all noise ceases: Fred and George, who were cracking jokes for the benefit of those nearest, fall silent, and all of them looked alert, excited.

"There's something we need to find," Harry says. "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?"

"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," Michael Corner says rolling his eyes, "is lost, Luna. That's sort of the point."

"No that's perfect," I say looking hopefully to Harry.

"When was it lost?" asks Harry.

"Centuries ago, they say," Cho says, "Professor Flitwick says the diadem vanished with Ravenclaw herself. People have looked, but," she appeals to her fellow Ravenclaws, "nobody's ever found a trace of it, have they?"

They all shake their heads.

"Sorry, but what is a diadem?" asks Ron.

"It's a kind of crown," Terry Boot says, "Ravenclaw's was supposed to have magical properties, enhance the wisdom of the wearer."

"Yes, Daddy's Wrackspurt siphons—"

"And none of you have ever seen anything that looks like it?"

"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," he says quietly to Ron,  Hermione, and I. He glances at Cho and then back at at all 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."

"No, Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?" Ginny says fiercely as she looks at Cho.

"Oooh, yes, I'd like to," says Luna happily, and Cho sits down again, looking disappointed.

"How do we get out?" Harry asks Neville.

"Over here," Neville points but I stop Harry from leaving.

"I have a theory," I say to him, "an idea that I think will help with our lack of sword. But you need to trust me."

"Okay?"

"The chamber of Secrets. The basilisk venom can destroy the items," I say to him, "maybe the skeleton fangs will work." His eyes widen and I smirk, "Hermione and Ron can come with me. But we need to spilt up."

"Fine," Harry says, "destroy it."