Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, page 64
Three figures took off at almost the exact moment the tower finally gave way. The massive stones split apart like eggshell, and the entire structure tipped, snapping away from the castle itself to tumble to earth with a staggering impact. As it canted, Neville saw a fourth body launched into the air, but this one had no benefit of broom. Whether she had been injured or stunned or simply unable to get to her escape in time, there was no mistaking the only witch on the battlefield who had been wearing scarlet robes as Cho Chang fell in a graceful flutter of red cloth and long black hair, finally disappearing into the dust cloud rising from the shattered tower.
"Back to the castle!" Sprout shouted, puffing for air, her round face beet red as she hurried back across the battlefield. He understood immediately. The tower's fall had given them a moment of distraction, and they would have a better chance to get to cover again before the fighting resumed properly.
The reason for the tower's collapse became apparent as they ran. Hagrid's brother Grawp came lumbering around the edge of the castle, bellowing in outrage as he swiped and stomped at the Death Eaters with a large one-winged gargoyle he had snapped from the rooftop, but behind him almost immediately were two other giants, no less than six feet taller than the massive Grawp, and they were crashing their fists into the sides of the stone walls as they approached him, leaving deep, spider-cracked dents in the masonry.
Grawp turned, brandishing the gargoyle at the nearer of the two giants, and there was a brief, guttural exchange that barely even resembled language before the two mammoths had barreled into one another, grappling and slamming into the building as they wrestled. The blows they shook off could have crushed a wizard into formless pulp, but they continued to pummel one another as if the impacts were nothing more than love-taps.
For a moment, it looked like the third was about to join in, but then a movement through one of the upper windows caught his eye, and he jammed his hand inside. When it emerged, it was to a gleeful roar of success, and he opened the vast palm, letting something that had once been someone fall to the ground as he licked his scarlet fingers happily, like a child finishing a jam sandwich.
Neville shook his head harshly. He had allowed himself to become distracted by the awesome brutality, and now he re-doubled his speed as he followed the others who had almost reached the extremely questionable safety of the school now turned fortress. A familiar voice cried out in pain, and he turned, his wand ready, and it was Ernie at the top of the entrance steps.
The werewolves had gone for the front door en masse. Chris and Perseus were down, their bodies mutilated almost beyond recognition as human by teeth and claws, washes of red coating the stairs all the way down to the path from where they had fallen, and Derek was on his knees, clutching uselessly at a torn throat that was spurting through his fingers in increasingly shallow arcs. A dozen primitively-clad bodies also littered the area, proof that they had gone down hard, but there were many more where Greyback's monsters came from.
Only Ernie and Dean remained standing, backs to the doors, and there were at least ten of the animals surrounding them. Dean had gotten a wand from somewhere, and his dark face was shining with sweat as it flashed and cracked, shooting jets of light in every direction as he fought desperately to keep them at bay. Ernie had not been so lucky. They had hold of him now, driving him to the ground with sheer force of numbers, and it was hand-to-hand, five of them piling onto the Lieutenant in their efforts to keep him from being able to aim his wand at any of them.
Another scream tore the air, and one of the werewolves lifted his head from where he had pinned Ernie's wrist under the full weight of his body, his long, shaggy beard dark with blood as he spat something over the edge of the stairs and howled in victory. Two more werewolves piled on - women by the very vaguest definition - and Neville changed course, running as hadn't since the last time he was facing those creatures, but this time not away from them, but towards them to save his friend.
He was less than thirty feet from the bottom of the stairs when the mass of leather-clad backs gave a great heave, and Ernie pushed himself to his feet from under them, sending two of them flying backwards off the steps to land with the sick crack of shattering necks and skulls before rolling limply to the ground. The moment's freedom allowed him to aim his wand, and he dispatched three rapid green jets, his efforts united again with Dean's. The werewolves hesitated a moment, then in a single motion of frightening unison, they turned and retreated.
Ernie caught sight of Neville and laughed, pushing the blonde curls back from his forehead with the back of his wrist. As his hand raised, the wand still held firmly, Neville saw to his shock that three of the fingers were gone: two of them ripped away entirely while the third had been gnawed to bare, bloody bone. Yet impossibly, Ernie's voice was cheerful as he called out. "Persistent bastards! That's the fourth wave of them! I do imagine they're trying to crash our party, even though I've tried to tell them very firmly they're not invited!"
"Do you need - ?"
"Dean and I've got it, thanks! Just don't let those fellows over here...I'm a touch arachnophobic, to tell you the truth, dear chum!" Neville turned, looking where Ernie had pointed, and his blood chilled. The Forbidden Forest was disgorging all of its nightmares tonight.
Morag, Wayne and Lupin had come sprinting from the edge of the dark woods, and close behind them, their hundreds of tiny eyes shining with hunger, were fifty of the car-sized spiders. The trees bent and shivered beneath their weight as they crawled along trunks and branches as rapidly as they scampered through the heavy brush, and they were closing fast.
Wayne was staggering, falling behind, his left arm hanging uselessly from a shoulder that was visibly dislocated even from this distance. The spiders were mere feet away. Lupin fell back to help him, but a streak of green from one of the Death Eaters caught him in the neck, and the young Professor dropped, dead before he ever knew what struck him.
One of the spiders snatched up the body, the thick mandibles clattering, but Wayne dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the monster, shoving his wand up like a dagger directly into the soft underbelly. The creature's body lit from within, its hideous outline cast in brilliant blue for a split second, then the fat body bulged and burst, splattering ichor over twenty feet and drenching the young wizard beneath before it collapsed atop him.
Neville was there now, Morag holding the other spiders back with a barrage of curses as he grabbed the disgusting corpse and heaved, tossing it over in a crumple of hairy legs as he reached down to take Wayne's good arm and haul him to his feet again. He was gagging, spitting out mouthfuls of the thick, greenish-gray substance, wiping furiously at his eyes, but he was alive, and the three of them closed ranks, firing spells one after the other at spiders and Death Eaters alike as they began to cross the field of death once more.
The spiders scattered suddenly, and the three teenagers exchanged a look of trepidation before they felt it too. The ground was shaking, trembling with the force of an earthquake, and they were thrown to their knees along with every other fighter on the field as the scorched and bloodstained grass in front of the castle began to heave like a living thing. Then it exploded. Chunks of sod and a heavy rain of dirt spread widely, and Neville had to turn away, shielding his eyes from the flying grit as he spat out pieces of grass.
A deep pit, ten feet wide, had opened in the ground. The edges were still caving in, a fog of dust and dirt still lingering in the air, but there was motion from within. Neville jerked his head towards Wayne and Morag, and they followed him towards it, wands outstretched, waiting to see what You-Know-Who had in store for them now. Slowly, a figure began to emerge from the dust, shaking his head and coughing, and Neville's jaw dropped as he recognized the slightly-built silhouette. "COLIN!"
More heads and shoulders were emerging now, and as the dust settled, he could see that dozens of faces were looking up at him from the hole, some climbing out on their own as Jennifer Lindsey and Arthur Chambers took advantage of their height to boost the smaller ones up to the edge. Neville shook his head in disbelief at the young officer. "What - how - ?"
"We couldn't take it any more, Commander!" Colin's face was streaked with dirt and something that looked almost like soot, but he was beaming. "Reports have been saying you guys were getting slaughtered up here, and then we saw the tower go down, and...well...I'm not an Auror, but I can stun and bind a Squib and a Healer just fine!"
Neville crouched, reaching down to grab Orla's wrists and pull her up. The new arrivals were forming a loose perimeter around their dramatic entrance point, their wands out and ready, but as yet, none of the Death Eaters seemed to have been able to decide what was going on enough to leave the battles they already faced with the existing defenders. Morag was staring at Colin as if she had never seen him before, and she shook her dark auburn head in disbelief. "But ye didnae need ta tunnel in like Nifflers, Creevey! We'da let ye in t' front!"
"We tried to come back in the way we went out," Colin explained, pausing to shoot a hex over her head that dropped a Death Eater who had decided to become curious. "But when we got close, it was hotter than hell, and even with a Freezing Charm, we couldn't touch the door. It was glowing...so we decided to backtrack until we figured we weren't under the castle any more, then make our own door."
"CREEVEY!" Professor McGonagall's shout was so furious that even Neville cringed, turning to see her jogging towards them, her stern face set in an expression of astonished outrage to a degree he had never seen before. Her tartan dressing gown was torn, her hair had come loose, a few pins still sticking out oddly, and a painful-looking slice crossed one sharp cheekbone. "I explicitly forbid you, Longbottom! I can't believe that after I allowed you the privileges of a grown -"
"It wasn't Neville, Professor - look out!" Colin ducked around her, and McGonagall turned at the same time. The Professor's arrival had signaled the allegiance of the new fighters clearly enough, and the Death Eaters were attacking now. All around them, the younger members of the D.A. were clustering in pairs and trios as they had been taught, holding one another's backs as they faced the newest assault with an almost giddy exhilaration.
Neville found himself back to back with McGonagall and Colin, who was still trying to explain. "I came - Stupify! - completely on my - Incendio! Impedimenta! - own and - Protego! Levicorpus! - so did everyone I brought - Petrificus Totalus! Reducto! - with me!"
"And how many is that, Mr. Creevey?"
"Um... Relashio! All of them."
"All of whom, Mr. Creevey?"
"The D - Expelliarmus! - The D.A. Some of the D.C. tried, but it's okay, they're all tied to - Diffendo! Desanguium! - things, so they're not going anywhere."
"You're going to have to leave. We cannot allow -" McGonagall's voice was firm, but Colin shook his head as calmly as if he were declining a second cup of tea.
"With all due respect, Professor - Incarcerus! - you're getting your butts handed to you, if you don't mind me using a Muggle term - Confundus! - and you don't have enough fighters to - Tarantallegra! - spare to force us out. Go ahead and expel me if we're all alive tomorrow."
There was a pause as they continued to duel, and then McGonagall sighed, and her voice had a tight air of what seemed almost like the faint edge of tears when she spoke again. "Just be careful, Creevey, we're losing too many tonight."
"WE'RE PUSHING THEM BACK, COMMANDER!" Natalie came running over, her hair singed and one side of her face blistered, but her eyes shining as she shouted the news. "Look!" She pointed enthusiastically behind them, and Neville glanced over, realizing to his amazement that the girl was right. Everywhere, Death Eaters were drawing back, still dueling, but only defensively, their lines vanishing back into the darkness as the flashes came further and further apart.
Neville grabbed the little witch by both shoulders and kissed her hard on the forehead. "You guys are brilliant! Let's get inside, regroup. Professor, we've got a lot more people to distribute. We'll see if we can get reports on who we've lost - Peakes, do you have a broom?"
The young Beater nodded enthusiastically as he shouted back. "Yes, sir! And it's a Nimbus 2003!"
"I want you to take reports from the two towers that are still standing, as well as Arthur's - Mr. Weasley's - group and anyone else you can find. See who we've lost, who needs the most help, and report back. I'm going to take Sinead, Camellia, and Fritz to the greenhouses, and we'll get a few more nasty surprises for them...I saw a lot of things in there that you don't want thrown at your head. Professor, where do you want to -"
Colin swore. It was a single word, emotionless and even rather gently spoken, but the blue eyes were suddenly wide, and he looked down at his chest as though inexplicably betrayed. Neville's own eyes followed, and he gasped.
"No..."
The boy reached to finger the charred hole that had appeared over his breast pocket, then looked up again, and his mouth opened, but all that emerged was a heavy gush of blood that soaked his shirt to the waist as his knees buckled beneath him. For a moment, he seemed to hang gracefully, suspended in mid-air, then his back bowed loosely and he fell into the hole he still had barely taken a step away from.
"COLIN!!" Dennis had not spoken since December, but the sound that tore from the young boy's throat now could barely be called speech. It was a howl, a keen, a shriek of raw agony and the pure, blind rage that only the very young are truly capable of. He shot forward, breaking ranks and driving towards the masked Death Eater who had struck down his older brother, closing the distance between them faster than seemed possible.
With another scream, Dennis had jumped him, tearing away the mask to reveal the bearded face of his own uncle, Rudolphus LeStrange. The Death Eater grinned, bringing up his wand to shove it against the child's throat, but Dennis moved inhumanly fast, grabbing the older wizard's wand with both hands and driving it down like a spike. It sunk directly into one dark eye, burying itself to the handle as he drove it through with all his strength and pain, but it was not enough. The cherub's face had become a demon's guise, and his voice was achingly high and clear, a yet-unbroken treble screaming a curse far beyond his own understanding or ability to control. "AVADA KEDAVRA, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
The green flash blazed through the night, but it was no well-aimed jet, and the wand had cracked with the force Dennis had driven it into the Death Eater's skull. The curse exploded, catching both figures in a lurid outline before it faded, leaving the boy slumped limp and unseeing over his final revenge against the people who had destroyed his family.
Neville felt stunned, numb, staring incredulously at what had only seconds before seemed like the edge of hope, but McGonagall's voice came through sharply. "They've broken into the castle! I'll take the other children - you'll have your way after all, there's no turning back now with the passage caved in - and you get your plants. Now hurry, Longbottom!"
Nodding quickly, he forced what he had just seen out of his mind and turned to the cluster of young soldiers behind him. "Parkinson, Bagman, Whelan...you're with me. Let's go!"
They encountered only a handful of Death Eaters on their way to the greenhouses, and the scarcity worried him. It didn't seem possible that they had whittled them down that far, and that meant that the majority were inside the castle now, and that's where Harry - their one hope of true success - was trying to complete his mysterious mission. If he were killed.... No. He couldn't allow himself to think that way. He couldn't allow himself to think at all, really. Just act.
Act. Fight. Lead. Survive.
The greenhouses had taken several more hits since he had been there last, and large sections of the plants were lying in limp, withered piles, but there were still more than enough for his purposes. He passed out armfuls of Devil's Snare and Snargaluff pods, keeping several vicious specimens of Venomous Tentacula for himself, then they hurried to join the others in their retreat to the castle.
It was impossible not to see how they had gotten in. Several huge holes had been blasted in the stone walls, a dozen different points of possible entry, and he gripped his wand tightly as he lead his little band towards the closest one. The room beyond seemed dark and forbidding, the shattered desks and cracked, hanging blackboard barely recognizable as having once been McGonagall's Transfiguration classroom.
Neville entered first, but it was deserted, and he nodded the others in after him. "Sinead, pass those around. Give some to Hannah if you see her, and Peeves if you can get him to cooperate. He's been throwing dung bombs so long, let's see what he can do that's useful. Camellia, you've got a free hand...cast a Patronus to Ernie, tell him to get the hell away from the doors if he's still alive, and Dean too. There's no point when they've got so many other ways in. Then come with Fritz and I. We're going to the entry hall, that's where most of the noise seems to be coming from."
The young witch nodded, adjusting her grip on the pot as she thrust her wand towards the door. A silver crow burst into the air and soared through the heavy oak as though it were nothing more than mist. Neville made a sound of approval as he braced his back against the door, then pushed, ready to fling the toxic stems at any enemy that presented itself.
But the hall seemed empty. He frowned, clearly able to hear the sounds of a violent battle somewhere very close by, and then there was another sound; a low, hollow moan of pain. Neville looked down, and Jack Sloper was sitting slumped against the wall in an immense pool of blood, his face ashen as he used his teeth to cinch his belt tightly around the jagged stump of his left thigh. There was no sign of the missing limb, but both hands were burned black, and he looked up with an expression of dazed shock in the gray eyes. "They took my wand, Commander, I'm...I'm sorry..."
"It's all right," he said automatically, though it was anything but all right, and he knew that it would be about four different kinds of miracle if he ever saw the young wizard alive again. But it didn't matter. Jack could still speak, and he still had enough consciousness to give information. "Where's the fight?"
