Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, page 49
He felt envious of wizards throughout history who had found witty, inspiring, or particularly heroic things to say in their final moments. Everything that he could come up with seemed trite at best, cliched and hollow, and he wondered if he should just say nothing at all. Silence had been the best choice on the wall, perhaps it would do again. There would be no mis-speaking himself, no eternally engraved "um" or stutter, no last-instant guilt that he had said the wrong thing. Yes. He would be silent.
Perhaps, if he had time before they were taken to die, he would tell Hannah that he loved her, that he was sorry it had come to this, that he was so proud of her strength, that he wished they could have had more together. But for the very end, he would say nothing at all.
Usually, he did not take well to being confined, but this time, Neville felt oddly at peace, and he lay down on the narrow cot in his cell, folding his arms under his head as the last few hours of his life ticked by. There was nothing to do about it. He felt no urge to pace, to rage, to scream or cry or make futile demands, because there was no one to hear him, no one who mattered who knew where he was, and not even the thinnest hope of an escape.
Instead, he allowed his mind to wander over his life, and was surprised to find that he was actually rather pleased with it, all things considered. His childhood had been happy enough, slightly shadowed by the worrisome factor of thinking he might be a Squib, but no one's life was perfect, and his grandmother had been kind and attentive, yet strict enough that he had never been spoiled. Most of the pressure he had felt during his first years at Hogwarts, really, he had placed on himself. He knew how highly his father had been regarded, but Gran had never tried to make him be Frank, only admonished him sometimes when he was being lazy or forgetful that his father had never taken the easy way out, had never slacked off, never given anything less than his best.
Somehow, early on at the wizarding school, he had wound up envisioning Harry as everything Frank must have been like, and that was more than anything what had made it so hard. Harry was an impossible standard to live up to, and when his mind substituted that for his Gran's expectations, they had suddenly become insurmountable, and it had snowballed on itself, the greater pressure feeding greater failure, lower confidence, and still greater pressure because she knew, and fairly, that he could do better. Yet even then, he had never lacked for friends, the greenhouses had always been a haven of good marks and wonderful things to learn, and there always seemed to be something terribly exciting going on - even if it was usually something to do with Harry.
It was the first D.A. that had changed things most dramatically. Seeing Harry hesitate, stumble, struggle for words, mess up when he tried to demonstrate spells and blush and swear that really, he could do them, he'd done them in far worse situations, after all. If the Great And Mighty Boy Who Lived could nearly hex a hole in his own foot because Cho Chang happened to look in his direction, maybe he was human after all. Neville could handle a human being to look up to far better than an ideal.
And then the Department of Mysteries, where he had faced down all of his worst nightmares - Harry failing them, Bellatrix herself, being hurt in battle, seeing friends go down, losing his wand, even the Cruciatus Curse - in a single hour of absolute hell. Life had been different after that. He had been different. He wasn't ready to lead yet, not by a long shot, but he believed he could fight, believed he could follow. Believed he could maybe, just possibly, if the circumstances were right, be a hero.
What was he now? A hero? A martyr? An idiot? A futile gesture? Neville laughed quietly in the empty cell. All of the above, really. He still wasn't his father, but he actually rather liked the man he had begun to know in the last six months, whether or not he had over-developed that tendency to be brave to the point of stupidity, whether or not it had all hurt sometimes past the point of endurance. It was almost a shame he couldn't find out more about who that man could be without the weight of an army on his shoulders. It was definitely a shame he couldn't find out who that man could be with Hannah by his side.
The sound of boot-heels on stone came to his attention, faintly at first, then growing louder. Neville sat up and ran his hands through his hair, trying to settle it as neatly in place as he could before standing and brushing off his prisoner's robes, re-adjusting them to hang smoothly from his shoulders. He did not want to look as if he had been upset, but rather calmly waiting for their arrival, as surprisingly was the truth.
His cell door opened, and Thicknesse entered, flanked by two imposing and unmasked Death Eaters, whom Neville recognized from their wanted posters as being Dolohov and Avery. He ignored them, giving instead a polite little bow towards the Minister. "I assume we're going the old-fashioned route, then?" he asked innocently.
Thicknesse blinked, looking startled and a little uncomfortable with how calm Neville seemed about the whole thing, despite clearly knowing what was going on. "You are to be beheaded, yes."
"Privately, of course. I know they used to be public, but I doubt you'd want to do that knowing the kind of crowd I run with and the kind of trouble we've caused in the past...not to mention it would be a lot harder to put a spin on my last words if there are too many witnesses." Neville spoke as matter-of-factly as though he were discussing in which subjects he could hope to earn N.E.W.T. levels, then held out his arms. "Shackles, right?"
Still rather disconcerted, the Minister nodded his head towards Dolohov, and the giant Death Eater flicked his wand towards Neville's outstretched wrists. Manacles appeared out of thin air, the cuffs as thick as the ones that had bound Hagrid as they clamped themselves down, a heavy iron chain forming instantly between them. Neville's arms sagged under the weight, and he rattled the chain experimentally, his eyebrows raising. "Blimey, sir, I'm a seventeen year-old unarmed kid, not a Hungarian Horntail!"
"According to Professor Snape," Thicknesse replied coldly, "you are an extremely dangerous young man, Mr. Longbottom. I feel safer not underestimating you."
Neville shrugged. "If it makes you feel better."
The Minister did not reply, turning to exit the cell with Avery, Dolohov falling in behind his prisoner to escort Neville at wand-point after them. They walked along in silence down the long, dark hallway, then Neville called out ahead, "So who's going to be there, anyway?"
To his surprise, it was Avery who answered him. "The Minister, myself and Dolohov, Abbott's guards - Rookwood and Dawlish - and the executioner, so that's six of us to two of you, if you're getting any funny ideas." He paused a moment, then looked back over his shoulder in an afterthought. "And the Weasley kid'll be taking the record, so don't bother if you're planning on trying to get a last message out to Potter. He's loyal."
Neville chuckled thinly. "One in every family, I guess. If I were him, though, I'd hope I never met my sister in a dark alley."
There was no answering laugh, and the remainder of the short journey to the execution chamber was in silence. A part of Neville's mind was still scanning around for possibilities of escape, not wanting to bypass some opportunity, no matter how fleeting, just because it seemed impossible. Yet impossible it was. The guard, the chains, and his own lack of a wand aside, there was also the fact that they were deep on the lowest levels of the Ministry, a hundred locked doors and who even knew how many people between him and the outside, with no way to Apparate in or out and the Floo Network locked down to only those with proper Ministry identification and passwords. He knew from Luna that the guard had been tripled after Harry's infiltration, and every entrance and exit would be barred completely, much less to someone dressed as a criminal awaiting execution.
The execution chamber itself was surprisingly simple. He didn't know what he had expected - something grandiose and morbid, perhaps, but this looked almost utilitarian. Like the courtroom, it was circular, wizarding tradition dictating that places of justice have no corners for secrets and shadows to lurk. The floor was smooth stone, the high ceiling lit with the Ministry's usual hovering globes of light, the walls simply decorated with the crest of the Ministry of Magic above the door they had just entered and otherwise merely wood-paneled. In the center of the room, a low dais stood, and on it, a stone block, magically unchipped or gouged despite the number of times it had been struck throughout history.
At the moment, two small, carved stone cradles sat on the block, and Neville recognized his and Hannah's wands there. Of course! He had entirely forgotten. Their wands would be chopped in half first, and then the pieces would be put under the block when they were beheaded. It was an old superstition that doing this would prevent a witch or wizard from hexing anyone with their final breath.
Then the door opened again, and Hannah entered, Rookwood and Dawlish each tightly gripping an elbow. Like him, she was clad in the black robes that bared her neck, and chains almost as large and heavy as his weighed down her delicate wrists. She could barely lift her arms, but she had clearly put up a fight every step of the way, still twisting and writhing and swearing in their grip, trying to kick and bite despite their size and Shield Charms. The two Death Eaters were not in any danger, but they were still rather red-faced and looking as though they would very much like to simply cast a curse and be done with the young witch entirely. And quickly.
She looked up as they entered the room, and her eyes widened hugely as she saw him. "Neville! They're going to - "
"I know," he nodded, "I knew the second I saw the robes! It's okay, Hannah! It doesn't hurt half as much as stuff we've already done!"
"OKAY?!" she shrieked, "OKAY?! NEVILLE, THEY'RE GOING TO CUT OUR HEADS OFF! WE NEED THOSE!"
Beside him, Thicknesse sighed. "Could you please calm down your little friend before I simply have her stunned, Mr. Longbottom? This is an extremely serious proceeding, and hysterics are not called for, nor seemly."
Neville gave the Minister a skeptical glance. "You're actually going to let me talk to my supposed partner in treason? What if I - "
"And what could you do?" Thicknesse shrugged. "You have both been thoroughly searched and are concealing nothing, any message you passed to one another would be a moot point as you are both about to die, and there is no possibility of an escape plan. So really, the most you could do is rile one another up, in which case a Silencing or a Stunning Spell would handle things neatly."
Nodding quickly, not wanting Thicknesse to be given time to reconsider, he rushed forward across the room, grabbing Hannah firmly and pulling her away from Dawlish and Rookwood. He had to loop the chain awkwardly up and over her head to hold her, but embrace her he did, wrapping her tightly in his arms. The Minister had wanted him to talk to her, but it accomplished shutting her up just as much to kiss her too, and he had always been able to say more eloquently with his body than with his words how much he loved her, how beautiful she was, how strong and good and kind and loyal. And this time, there was more. The lost cottage was in that kiss as well.
Then rough hands had his shoulders, and he barely managed to keep the chain from striking her in the head as they were pulled apart. She gave a little cry, and he locked his eyes on hers, silently begging her not to make a scene again, to face the end with dignity, like the adults they scarcely were. Thankfully, she seemed to understand, replying with the tiniest nod and taking a deep breath, her head held high as she regarded their captors with silent scorn.
The executioner was there now, a tall, barrel-chested wizard with arms thicker even than Ernie's, a heavy, double-bladed axe held in his ham-like hands. To Neville's relief, the blade looked extremely sharp.
Percy was there too, his robes neatly pressed as ever, his customary quill in hand, though the one behind his ear seemed to have been abandoned for the occasion. He was standing so close to Thicknesse that their shadows blended into a single two-headed shape on the stone floor, and he passed a piece of parchment to the Minister, who adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. "By the authority of the Ministry of Magic and the ruling found by the Wizengamot, upon this day, the twenty-first of March, nineteen hundred and ninety--"
"Anyvun moves, he dies." The Minister's words were cut off in a choke of shock as Percy moved with a speed that Neville never would have imagined. One moment, he had been standing in meek readiness by Thicknesse's side, but now the quill was on the floor, a wand - a heavy black wand that Neville had never seen before and which came to a vicious-looking point - in his hand and held tightly to the Minister's throat, Percy's other arm locked tight around the taller wizard's chest.
"Percy -" Neville said, but the red head gave a terse shake.
"Your vands. Get them. Now." There was something wrong. It was the same voice, but the accent was all wrong, Percy's customary over-enunciated and perfectly cultured diction changed to something coarse, deeply foreign, yet oddly familiar somehow. Neville hesitated, but the Death Eaters had started to move, and the wand tightened at the Minister's throat, a tiny drop of blood appearing there. The blue eyes blazed at them. "NOW!"
Questions could wait. Both prisoners lunged for the dais, and Neville felt a surge of power and relief as his hand closed over the cherry handle, the chains suddenly light as he spun. "Stupefy!" Hannah's spell came almost at the same instant, then they both fired again before the first scarlet flashes had even reached their victims, speed honed by months of practice and boosted further still by what was at least for Neville a ridiculous amount of raw adrenaline.
The Death Eaters were down, but the executioner had decided to call Percy's bluff. The huge axe came up in a swing that could have cut a man in half easily, but the young clerk's reflexes were inhuman. He dodged the blow like a mongoose evading a cobra's strike, and he was on Thicknesse's other side now, the wand lashing down to hit the executioner in the chest with a blast of red and turning back to his hostage in the space of less than a breath.
"Cover him," Percy ordered, and after a second's exchanged look, both rescued wands were brought to bare squarely on the middle of the Minister's heavily bearded face.
For a moment, Percy fumbled in the pockets of his robes, and now that he had a chance to really look, more than the accent was wrong. His shoulders were oddly tucked forward, not plumbline straight as they always had been, and there was something about his movements that reminded Neville of a bird of prey. Then he said something, a shout of triumph that wasn't in English at all, and pulled what appeared to be a tiny model of a broomstick from his pocket. A tap of his wand, and it expanded instantly to full size.
Neville gaped. "A Firebolt Pro Edition?! Percy, where in Merlin's - Ron said you could barely - how could you - ?"
"Mr. Veasley," Percy replied in the same heavily foreign voice, "is in his flat, tied up and heffily drugged. You vill find him there, Minister, ven you vake up. Goot night." A jerk of the wand, a flare of scarlet, and Thicknesse joined the others on the floor.
"Who are you?!" Hannah demanded.
"I am getting you out of here." He threw one leg over the broomstick and took the handle firmly, nodding his head at the two of them as they used their wands to cut the chains away from their wrists. "Get on."
Despite all their rescuer had done so far, Neville wavered. "There's no way we can fly out of here!"
"If it can be done, I can. If not, you die. You vud die anyvay, no?" The words came with an oddly casual shrug, and Hannah gasped in abrupt recognition.
"Krum!"
"Ja." Confident now that at least he wasn't about to be dashed to pieces on the back of a broomstick way out of the league of Percy's ability to handle, Neville climbed on quickly, locking his hands tightly around Percy - no, Krum's - waist and feeling as Hannah did the same. Her fingers dug in so hard it hurt, but he would bless the deepest bruises if it meant getting out of this alive somehow.
Krum kicked off, and the broom shot towards the ceiling faster than anything Neville had ever comprehended as possible from any broom, much less one laden with three people. For a heart-stopping instant, they seemed about to crash into the ceiling, then it whipped into a razor-sharp turn, and they were diving again, soaring towards the door. Krum turned his head just enough to shout back over his shoulder. "I fly. You blast."
"Blast?"
"Doors." The meaning became extremely clear as Neville saw that they were flying directly at the tall, heavy double doors, and he barely got the curse out in time, the wood still shattering around them as they hit it, the last of the destruction completed by brute force. Sharp fragments grazed his bared shoulders, and he heard Hannah suck in a pained breath behind him, but there was no time.
They were through, shooting down the hall so fast that the speed made his eyes water, and Harry was out of his mind more completely than Neville had ever guessed if he did this for fun! This was suicide, but Krum seemed completely calm, snapping them around corners and whipping past Ministry employees and through clouds of memos before anyone could register more than a blur.
Doors were slamming shut everywhere, and Neville's spells began to bounce off of them as security measures fell into place. Then a jet of light just missed his shoulder, but Krum seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, and he dodged the next neatly. "We're being chased!" Hannah warned them.
"Ja." Krum said calmly. "I expect that. And they lock the doors, so now ve go another vay."
Neville's eyes widened even against the biting wind as he saw where they were headed. "NO!"
"Blast."
It was obey or be crushed against the closed doors, and Neville closed his eyes, bracing himself as he fired the Reducto Curse ahead into the doors of the lift. Hannah was sobbing behind him now, her fingers digging in so hard he knew they would have to be removed by magic. And then they were in the shaft, the lift cars moving in a dozen directions through the maze of tunnels, missing them by inches as they dodged, accelerated, ducked, twisted, dove, and soared.
To his utter shock, Krum laughed. It was a more boyish sound than he would have imagined of the famously grim-looking Seeker, but it was a sound of genuine enjoyment. "Sometimes, ven ve practice," Krum said, "they let out fifty Bludger at once and I get the Snitch in this. These are bigger, do you think?"
