Rosabella Black|Daughter Of Sirius Black|(Book 7)

The Lost Diadem

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. Ro got the worst punishment when they wiped her. I tried to stop but Ro made it very clear to stay put. I think she had an idea of what was going on and Ro being the genius she is, used to benefit us. She didn'tscream even though you can tell it hurt. Badly. We were all forced to watch. But when the Carrows finally stopped, thinking they broke her, she laughed. Just laughed. Then she yelled Dumbledore's Army. So instead if scaring people off, it actually increased our members." Neville said.

I did not know what was worse, the things that Neville was saying or the matter - of - fact tone in which he said them. All I wanted to do now was see Rosabella. Make sure she was fine with my own eyes.
   "Where is Ro, Neville?" I asked desperately.
   "At the moment she's rescuing a first year. She'll be back soon. 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 said.
   "Neville, she's all right, we've seen her –" I said.
   "Yeah, I know, she managed to get a message to me." Neville said.

From his pocket he pulled a golden coin, and I recognized it as one of the fake Galleons that Dumbledore's Army had used to send one another messages.
   "These have been great. The Carrows never rumbled how we were communicating, it drove them mad. Ro found it hilarious. We used to sneak out at night and put graffiti on the walls: Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting, stuff like that. Snape hated it." Neville said, beaming at Hermione.
   "You used to?" I said, 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 Ro had to hide within Hogwarts because the Carrows had been given orders to kill, and the four of us were sort of the leaders. The Carrows seemed to know that besides Ro, 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." Neville said.
   "No kidding." Ron muttered, as the passage began to slope upward.
   "Yeah, well, Ro and I agreed we couldn't ask people to go through what Michael did, so we dropped those kinds of stunts. Only Ro would do them, I wanted to help but she wouldn't let me. But the rest of us 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." Neville said.
    "They what?" Ron, Hermione and I said together.
    "Yeah," said Neville, 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." Neville said, panting a little now, because the passage was climbing so steeply.
Neville faced us, and I was astonished to see that he was grinning
    "Thing was, 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, Dawlish is still in St. Mungo's and Gran's on the run. She sent me a letter, telling me she was proud of me, that I'm my parent's son, and to keep it up." Neville said with a laugh.
   "Cool." Ron said.
   "Yeah. 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. Just like Ro." Neville said.
   "But, aren't – aren't we heading straight back for Hogwarts?" Ron said, looking thoroughly confused.
   "'Course. You'll see. We're here." Neville said.

We turned a corner and there ahead of us was the end of the passage. Another short flight of steps led to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana's portrait. Neville pushed it open and climbed through. As I followed, I heard Neville call out for unseen people:
    "Look who it is! Didn't Ro and I tell you?"
As I emerged into the room behind the passage, there were several screams and yells: