Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, page 24
"That's not what I meant." Standing, Colin crossed over to where Neville was pacing and began to follow him, leaning in with an excitement that contained none of the usual puppyish enthusiasm, but rather a surprisingly mature intensity. "He knows we've got him outmaneuvered at everything he's tried, but he doesn't know how. He wants to strike back about the Quibblers, but he expects something like what we're doing now - not the Room of Requirement, necessarily, but that we'll have a plan - so he goes after something just as punishing, maybe even better than hitting Luna directly as far as stopping the leaflets, and something we can't stop him in."
Impressed, Neville stopped pacing and cocked his head at the younger boy. "Go on."
"I think he's had something done to her family, to Xenophilius. I think Luna's going to come home to an empty house, or at the very least, to a father who's been punished badly enough to make her think twice about staying with the D.A.."
Ginny gasped, and Lavender let out a little moan of dismay, even as Neville felt his heart sink. "You know, Colin," he sighed, "I think you might be right...it makes an awful kind of sense."
Colin blushed, giving a tiny shrug, but there was something haunted in the wide blue eyes. "I've been thinking about it for months. I haven't said anything, 'cause I don't want it to get back to Dennis."
"You've been thinking about something happening to Mr. Lovegood for months?" Parvati asked.
"No, but we got our Blood Status just barely. My Dad's a Muggle, had no idea the wizarding world even existed until we got our owls. Mom was pretty shocked, too. Dumbledore had to have a long talk with both of them. She was a Squib, you see, but she was born a LeStrange, and they're Pureblood way back."
Neville nearly choked. "Your mother is related to Bellatrix LeStrange?"
"By marriage!" Colin raised both hands in a defensive gesture. "They sent her off to live with the Muggle relatives of some half-blood friends when she was only six! She was told her childhood had seemed a little odd because her parents had been professional magicians, and that they'd left her with these people while they went to Australia to perform, and their plane had crashed. She really had no idea."
"Deep breath, Neville. You're turning purple. Try to remember we're pretty much all related, okay?" Ginny lay a hand on his arm with a wry smile. "Hell, Harry's related to You-Know-Who when it comes to it...the Potters and the Gaunts both go back to the Peverells."
"Sorry." Neville sighed, shaking his head in embarrassment. "I don't...I've got problems with Bellatrix."
Lavender gave a tense little laugh. "That's got to be the worst-kept secret in Gryffindor, unless you count that Harry's scar keeps hurting him, or that Ron's had a thing for Hermione since fourth year." She paused, then allowed a cheeky smile. "Although, if you want to toss in a couple of Sickles in the pool, I'm putting mine on within twenty-four hours of You-Know-Who going down."
"The pool?" asked Neville.
"The betting pool on how long it's going to take Ron and Hermione off alone out there to figure out that they're mad for each other. I've put in mine for New Years. It'd be sooner, but I've lived with both those guys, so I know just how dense Ron is and just how much of a wet blanket Harry's whole hero business can be," Ginny informed him calmly.
"Easter, eight Sickles." Neville answered without thinking, then shook himself. "Never mind - I'm sorry. Colin, please, go on...."
The boy took a deep breath before continuing. "It's just...well...I know that her family is just barely enough to get me into Hogwarts. It's not enough to keep them safe. If anything, it probably makes them more at risk, because they'd hate people to know they had a Squib in the family who'd married a Muggle and raised her kids as Muggles. I've been pretty much expecting an empty house and a lot of blood, to be honest. I've already reserved a cab to take us home if no one meets us at the train, and I've got some Muggle money in my trunk to pay the cabbie to wait with Dennis while I go check."
His voice was calm, but his eyes showed the still-painful resignation of someone who had long accepted the diagnosis of a terminal illness. "There haven't been any answers to our letters since the first week of school. That's part of why I was okay with Secret-Keeper. I don't think I have anyone but Dennis to use against me, and I know he'd be just as willing to die for the cause as I am."
A long silence answered his words, then Lavender spoke. "But, Colin...what will you do if they are gone?" she asked hesitantly.
"They wanted to give me the option of what world I'd live in when I grew up, so I still have a University fund, so does Dennis, and we both have all our Muggle papers. If we survive the end of the year, I'll get us a place, get a job, do the best I can." He shrugged. "What else? If I've got to go it alone, I know that world better than this one outside school."
The portrait hole opened, and they all turned as Seamus climbed through, struggling slightly to control what appeared to be a rather vicious-looking footstool with stubby, clawed legs and a white streak of bristly hair down the middle of the cushion. "It's supposed to be a badger," he explained, panting slightly, "McGonagall says I can still get partial marks if I can finish the transfiguration by tomorrow morn - what's goin' on?" He stopped, his forehead furrowing with worry as he saw all the solemn faces.
"Colin thinks they're going after Luna's Dad, and we think he might be right," Parvati explained.
Seamus swore. "Do we have a plan?"
"No," admitted Neville, "but Ginny, you live in Ottery St. Catchpole, right?"
She nodded. "The Lovegoods are just over the hill."
"Then I want you to go home with her if nothing happens tonight or tomorrow morning. Word has it we're being split up by house on the train, but if Colin's right, I don't want her spending the next few weeks fending for herself in an empty house. Do you think she could stay at the Burrow?"
"Absolutely!" Ginny gave a warm little smile. "My parents would be thrilled, actually. Bill's spending Christmas with his wife at their new place, Charlie's in Romania, Percy's still being a twit, the twins are on the run, Merlin knows where Ron is...it'll just be me and them, so we'd love a little more company."
"Okay, then." Neville flicked his wand, Stunning the footstool that had wandered away from Seamus and begun to chew the leg of a table. "I still want top security on Luna tonight, just in case, and I want everyone to sleep in robes, ready to go at a moment's notice, but we do need to pack. I've still got my stuff spread out over half the dorm. Although, Colin, can I have a word with you for a second?"
They split up, Seamus hefting the limp footstool over one shoulder as he started up the stairs, the girls hurrying off to their own dormitories while Neville took Colin over to the far corner of the common room. It was after eight, the firelight beginning to die in preparation for the nine-o-clock curfew, and the ruddy glow made Colin's flaxen hair seem almost as red as Ginny's. Despite only a year's difference in their ages, the other boy barely came up to Neville's chin, and he sat down on the window ledge, not wanting to seem like he was trying to tower over him.
"Colin, I had no idea about your parents. I mean, I knew what they were, but I didn't know you had reason to believe they'd been hurt. Why didn't you say something before?" he asked gently.
"I didn't want you to have more to worry about," he answered, a little fiercely. "I can take care of us."
"I'm sure you can. I think we've probably all underestimated you, and I'm sorry. You can be a little...."
Colin laughed, and Neville winced to hear that it was still the laugh of a child. "Lavender says I'm sparkly."
"That's one way to put it." Neville smiled. "It seems like all of this just bounces off of you, all this darkness that's making me feel like I've aged about twenty years in the last three and a half months...but I think you do understand it, don't you?"
"Of course I do. We're a lot less sheltered out there, you know." There was an almost patronizing tone that surprised him, and Colin seemed to see this. "The Muggle world is an ugly place a lot of the time. We grew up with Football gangs and muggings and double locks on the doors and newspapers full of rape and murder and wars every day. My Granny still has scars from a fire during the Blitz. Dennis was named after a friend's older brother who had been killed in the Falklands, and I bet you don't even know what I'm talking about with either one of those."
He thought of what Seamus had said about Belfast, and felt suddenly almost ashamed of his own quiet, pastoral country upbringing. "No," he confessed, "I don't know. But if it's like that, why aren't you hardened?"
"I don't think you can understand." Colin sat beside him, placing one hand firmly on Neville's knee. "I said something about it earlier, but I don't think you got it. All the fantasies came true when I was eleven. I've seen dragons. I have a wand, a real magic wand, and I cast spells with it. I've eaten dinner with ghosts under real fairies. And even when there's evil, it's grand, terrible evil that's clear and worth fighting, not some knotted mess of social problems when some hooligan shoots someone for drug money. I'm already living in a dream, Neville. I'm not afraid of never waking up."
"You're right, I don't think I can ever really understand, but I think I do as much as I can." He met the other boy's eyes directly, and with a new respect. "I was going to bring you over here to try and tell you that you can't take care of your brother by yourself, but I think I was wrong. Still..." Neville held out a scrap of parchment, tapping it with his wand. "You can send an owl here, and if not, you can send Muggle post to the village and I'll check when we go down to do the shopping each Saturday. We're not the Malfoys by a long shot, but my Gran and I get along okay, and we've got a couple of spare rooms. If you think you're in danger, or if they've seized your vault or something, you let me know. Promise?"
"Promise." Colin took the parchment and stood, then turned back and flung his arms around Neville's neck in a hug that took the older boy completely by surprise.
"What was that for?" Neville laughed.
"If I don't see you again." There was no trace of regret or sorrow in his voice. "That's for letting me be part of the dream."
OOO
The Hogwarts Express had changed. The compartments were gone, and as Alecto Carrow marshaled the Gryffindors into their car in silent, straight lines, Neville saw that the interior had been stripped to bare, raw wood panels, the floor lined with an array of rough benches. Only the overhead compartments remained, and he stared at the benches in growing alarm as he wrestled his trunk into place. He shot a look at Seamus, who was securing his own trunk beside him. "Why have they -?"
"Silence! No talking!" Alecto's voice was shrill, and she jabbed him painfully in the back with her wand. "One more word, Longbottom, and it's the Cruciatus!"
He gave her a filthy glare over his shoulder, then tightened the straps holding his trunk in place and turned, waiting for her next command with hatred burning in his eyes as she finished prodding the others into the car. When she was finished, there were just over fifty students packed into the tight space, and most of the younger ones, who had been shoved in last, were forced to stand with their trunks at their feet as she surveyed them with a vicious grin. "Sit!"
Neville sat on the nearest bench, sliding over against the window as far as he could to allow Seamus, Parvati, Lavender, and Ginny room to squeeze in next to him. Carrow glared at the five of them and motioned with her wand again. "No, I don't want you lot together. Yer trouble. Finnigan, you switch with Frobisher. Patil, switch with Abercrombie. Brown...Hooper. Weasley...Coote."
When the changes had been made to her satisfaction, her smile widened, and she gave a little flick of her wand. Manacles burst from the floor at his feet, and before Neville could move, they had clamped tightly around his ankles, shackling him immovably in place. Several students screamed, and his fist tightened on his wand, his fingers aching to jinx the ugly grin from her pallid face, but he couldn't. There were too many innocent victims for her to use against him if he made a foolish strike, and as her narrow eyes found his, the triumphant gleam in them told him that she knew it too.
With a swirl of black robes, she strode out of the car, and he heard the door slam and bolt like the sound of a crypt sealing. Barely a second had passed before Seamus spoke, his lilting voice heavy with sarcasm. "They could have just told us they were sick of us runnin' in the corridors, you know."
A few weak giggles came in answer, and Neville wanted to say something back. A retort had been on the tip of his tongue, he was certain, but the air had suddenly taken on a sweet, cloying aroma like rotting fruit, and his lips had fallen numb. It was hard to think. Vaguely, he was aware that he should be panicking, that they were being drugged, but it just didn't matter. His eyelids grew unbearably heavy, and he slumped against the window, scarcely feeling the soft thud of the fifth-year girl, Victoria Frobisher, as she collapsed against his side, unconscious mere seconds before him.
He awoke to screams. Neville's head was spinning, he felt sick, dizzy, but the screams pierced through the fog like knives, and he fumbled for his wand, trying to force the numb, reluctant fingers to find the weapon in the folds of his robes. His hand closed over the thin, polished handle, and he tried to stagger to his feet, only to be tripped by the manacles still clamped on his legs and stumble hard back against the side of the car.
The train had stopped moving. Through the windows, Platform 9 ¾ of Kings Cross Station was unmistakable, if as blurry and vague as everything else seemed to be, and he could see people waiting silently, a ring of dark-robed, silver-masked figures standing sentry, and all around him, students were stirring, coming slowly awake as the sweet scent faded from the air. And still the screams.
High and sharp and terrible, they pierced the air again and again, but as his head began to clear, he realized that the sense of distance had nothing to do with the lingering effects of the gas. They were coming from somewhere else, from another car, and they were words. He shook his head harshly, forcing himself to take deep breaths of the clearing air, and then he understood, and a horrible knot of defeat clenched his heart as he began to struggle so hard against the merciless bands that cloth tore and flesh chafed bloody against their sharp edges.
"LUNA! LUNA! She's GONE!"
With a loud clatter, the shackles all over the car retreated back into the floor, and Neville sprang to his feet, wand held tight as he shoved his way through the tangle of groggy students. Forcing a path to the front of the car, he pointed his wand at the latch on the door. "Alohomora!" Nothing happened.
Not wasting a moment, he yelled back over his shoulder, "Seamus!"
The young Irishman was already at his side, his blue eyes dark with understanding as he nodded. "We'll force it. On three. One, two -"
Before they could throw themselves against the door, the bolt vanished, and they exchanged a quick glance before throwing it open and leaping down onto the platform below. His legs were still uncertain, and he stumbled, skinning his knee, and then he was on his feet again, sprinting down the length of the train to where a river of pale-faced, panicked-looking students were pouring out of the Ravenclaw car.
Michael seized him as he came out of the car. He was almost unrecognizable, his handsome face beet red and contorted in helpless rage. "They chained us up and drugged us!" he spat. "We were treated like animals!"
Terry had appeared at his friend's side, nodding furiously. "When we woke up, she was gone, mate! Her trunk's still there, but Luna's just vanished!"
"Signal her with the Galleon, keep doing it until she responds. Even if they've taken her wand and she can't get a message out, she can make it heat up if she just has a hand free to squeeze it. Terry, I want you to get her trunk. Use Reducio, get it down as small as you can, then give it to Seamus." He turned to his fellow Gryffindor. "Seamus, you get Ginny. Give her the trunk, tell her to keep it safe, and I want her to keep an eye on the Lovegood place. I need a message the second there's news: about her father, about a ransom demand, about--"
An anguished, inhuman wail carried across the platform, and the young men turned. Two Death Eaters were holding the elbows of a wizard with bright turquoise robes and frizzy white hair and a beard the texture of candy floss. His face was twisted into a look of heartbroken pain and loss as he writhed in their grip. "Luna!" he howled. "My Luna! What have you done with my Luna?!"
"Your daughter is better off away from you, you crazy old liar!" growled the taller of the Death Eaters. "We'll take good care of her 'less you give us reason to do otherwise."
"Please..." begged the wizard whom Neville now realized had to be Mr. Lovegood. "Give me back my Luna, she's all I have! I love her!"
"Touching," the other Death Eater sneered. They let go, flinging Mr. Lovegood harshly to the platform, where he lay; a crumpled, sobbing wreck of a man. "You come to your senses, take some time to think about the lying trash you print in that stupid rag of yours, and maybe we'll talk about your Luna later." Mr. Lovegood made no effort to rise. He lay on the platform, weeping convulsively, his thin hands opening and closing against the boards like the wings of a dying bird as he moaned his daughter's name over and over in a funereal chant.
"Disgraceful! Taking children hostage because you don't care for their parents' politics. Those are the actions of a coward, if you ask me." A tall, dignified elderly witch with an enormous stuffed vulture perched on her hat strode forward, looking down her nose at the Death Eaters with undisguised contempt as her voice rang out over the hushed crowd.
"Watch yer mouth, Granny. Best show some respect to the Dark Lord." The taller Death Eater turned to her, flexing his fingers menacingly. Neville's jaw clenched, and he took a step forward, but a single look from his grandmother stopped him dead in his tracks. She drew her wand and gave it an almost casual flick, and the silver mask fell with a clatter to reveal the scarred, shocked face of a middle-aged wizard with a patch over one eye.
"Walden MacNair." Her voice was arch, sharp with disdain. "You should be ashamed of yourself, torturing an old man and kidnapping a little girl. But if I remember correctly, I stopped letting you play with Frankie because you liked hurting anything weaker than you were. I see it's a nasty habit you haven't grown out of."
