Ternion || Oliver Wood

Chapter 138

Reunited

Our united voices echoed up and down the passage as we made our way.

"Yeah," answered Nev. "That's how I got this one," he pointed at a particularly deep gash in his cheeks, "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."

I stiffened, I wonder how Linda is doing, how the Hufflepuff Quidditch team is doing, are they all right?

"Alecto, Amycus's sister, teaches Muggle Studies, which is compulsory for everyone. We've 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 indicated another slash to his face, "for asking her how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got."

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

"You didn't hear her," said 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," I uttered, wincing slightly as we passed a lamp and Neville's injuries were thrown into an even greater relief.

Neville shrugged.

"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."

It didn't give me any relief, I already experienced being tortured several times, and I almost couldn't bear it all. What Neville was saying was bad, but his matter-of-fact tone in which he said them was worse.

"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." informed Neville.

"Neville, she's all right, we've seen her —" muttered Hermione.

"Yeah, I know, she managed to get a message to me." he cuts off Hermione.

Neville's hand reached for his pocket, and from his pocket he pulled a golden coin, and I immediately recognized it as one of the fake Galleons that Dumbledore's Army has used to send one another messages.

"These have been great," uttered Nev, 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. There were also several times where Snape would order Sephitis to give us a punishment, the punishments were lightweight, maybe she's pitying us?"

"You used to?" I asked as I noticed the use of 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."