I almost kissed the shore when we got out of the lake. Next to Hermione, I collapsed on the ground as I heard Harry recite all of our usual protective spells. Hermione hissed as Ron touched her. Looking to the side I realized the damage of escaping the vault. Both of them had angry red burns all over their faces and arms, I could see our clothes were singed away in some places.
Reaching over to Hermione, she handed me the bottle of dittany they used on themselves and I put some on, wincing at the feeling.
"I have burn ointment in my first aid kit, Hermione," I groaned.
For once, Ron accepted my muggle treatment and placed a thick layer of cream on his worst burns. Harry came over and plopped down next to me, I passed him the potion and ointment.
Hermione pulled out four bottles of pumpkin juice she had brought from Shell Cottage and clean, dry robes for all of us. We changed and then gulped down the juice.
"Well, on the upside," said Ron finally, who was sitting watching the skin on his hands regrow, "we got the Horcrux. On the downside —"
"— no sword," said Harry through gritted teeth, as he dripped dittany through the singed hole in his jeans onto the angry burn beneath.
"No sword," I echoed. "Stupid fucking—"
"At least we can't wear it this time, that'd look a bit weird hanging 'round our necks," said Ron as Harry pulled the Horcrux out of his pocket.
Hermione looked across the lake to the far bank, where the dragon was still drinking.
"What'll happen to it, do you think?" she asked. "Will it be all right?"
"You sound like Hagrid," I laughed softly. "It's a dragon, Hermione, it can look after itself."
"But—"
"It's us we need to worry about," Ron said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know how to break this to you," said Ron, "but I think they might have noticed we broke into Gringotts."
All four of us started to laugh and, once started, it was difficult to stop. My ribs ached, along with my shoulder as I laughed; I felt lightheaded with hunger, but I laid back on the grass beneath the reddening sky and laughed until my lungs hurt.
"What are we going to do, though?" said Hermione finally, hiccuping herself back to seriousness. "He'll know, won't he? You-Know-Who will know we know about his Horcruxes!"
"Maybe they'll be too scared to tell him?" said Ron hopefully. "Maybe they'll cover it up?"
"I sure hope so," I sat up. "It'll be easier on us if You-Know-Who stays ignorant. Right, Harry?"
Harry didn't say anything. Looking to my right, I see Harry sprawled out on the grass, wincing.
"Harry!"
Ron and Hermione scramble around me to look at Harry who looked like he was in pain; another vision. It took a few moments for Harry to open his eyes and when he did, he looked afraid.
"He knows. He knows, and he's going to check where the others are, and the last one," Harry jumped to his feet, "is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew it."
"What?"
My voice sounded strange; Ron was gaping at him; Hermione sat up, looking worried.
"But what did you see? How do you know?"
"I saw him find out about the cup, I — I was in his head, he's– he's seriously angry, and scared too, he can't understand how we knew, and now he's going to check the others are safe, the ring first. He thinks the Hogwarts one is safest, because Snape's there because it'll be so hard not to be seen getting in, I think he'll check that one last, but he could still be there within hours —"
"Did you see where in Hogwarts it is?" asked Ron, now scrambling to his feet too.
"No, he was concentrating on warning Snape, he didn't think about exactly where it is —"
"Wait, wait!" cried Hermione as Ron caught up the Horcrux and Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak again. "We can't just go, we haven't got a plan, we need to —"
"We need to get going," said Harry firmly. "Can you imagine what he's going to do once he realizes the ring and the locket are gone? What if he moves the Hogwarts Horcrux, decides it isn't safe enough?"
"Harry, we need a plan! We can't just barge into Hogwarts with no plan. People will die, not just us– other people, too," I whispered hastily.
The idea of Death rang in Charlotte's mind. There was nothing she could do as the word echoed in her empty chest and rang in her ears. She had known how Fred, Remus, and Tonks would die during the battle, but, as of now, she knew nothing– could remember nothing.
"Charlotte!" Ron shouted, causing me to look up. "How are we going to get in?"
I only shook my head, an odd, heavy feeling eating at my chest.
"We'll go to Hogsmeade," said Harry, "and try to work something out once we see what the protection around the school's like. Get under the Cloak, Hermione, I want to stick together this time."
"Harry, that's still dangerous."
"We don't have any other plan, Charlotte!"
I paced through the tall grass and gave a final look at the three, they looked so determined and hopeful on my answers.
"But we don't really fit—" I tried to come up with the only excuse I could think of.
"It'll be dark, no one's going to notice our feet."
It didn't matter that no one could see our feet under the Cloak. As soon as we Apparated into Hogsmeade, the air was rent by a scream, notifying the village of our presence. The door of the Three Broomsticks burst open and a dozen cloaked and hooded Death Eaters dashed into the street, their wands aloft.
"Accio Cloak!" roared one of the Death Eaters.
I held my breath in anticipation, but it made to attempt to escape: The Summoning Charm doesn't work on it.
"Not under your wrapper, then, Potter?" yelled the Death Eater who had tried the charm, and then to his fellows, "Spread out. He's here."
Six of the Death Eaters ran toward us: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I backed as quickly as possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters missed them by inches. Disapparating didn't work, they had Charmed the village. Dementors soon reigned Hogsmeade. Harry wanted to expel his Patronus, but it would be a dead giveaway of his presence.
"Harry, let me produce it; they know your Patronus, not mine," I whispered frantically. Although I couldn't see Harry's face, I knew he understood.
They seemed to arrive quickly now, taking those dragging, rattling breaths he detested, tasting despair on the air, closing in... I raised my wand: I didn't want to wait for my friends to suffer the Dementor's Kiss. It was Harry, Ron, and Hermione that I thought of as I whispered, "Expecto Patronum!"
The silver deerhound burst from my wand and charged: The dementors scattered and there was a triumphant yell from somewhere out of sight.
"Someone is here, down there, I saw a Patronus, it wasn't Potter's but someone is here!"
The dementors had retreated, the stars were popping out again, and the footsteps of the Death Eaters were becoming louder; but before we could decide what to do, there was a grinding of bolts nearby, a door opened on the left-hand side of the narrow street, and a rough voice said, "Potter, in here, quick!"
Harry obeyed without hesitation: The four of us hurtled through the open doorway.
"Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" muttered a tall figure, passing us on his way into the street and slamming the door behind us.
Still wearing the Invisibility Cloak, we crept toward the grimy window and looked down. Our saviour, whom I now recognized as the Hog's Head's barman, was the only person not wearing a hood.
"So what?" he was bellowing into one of the hooded faces. "So what? You send dementors down my street, I'll send a Patronus back at 'em! I'm not having 'em near me, I've told you that, I'm not having it!"
"That wasn't your Patronus!" said the Death Eater.
The barman grumbled and pulled out a wand, "Expecto Patronum!"
Something huge and horned erupted from the wand: Head down, it charged toward the High Street and out of sight.
"That's not what I saw —" said the Death Eater, though with less certainty.
"Curfew's been broken, you heard the noise," one of his companions told the barman. "Someone was out in the street against regulations —"
"If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned to your curfew!"
"You set off the Caterwauling Charm?"
"I keep my mouth shut, it's why you come here, isn't it?"
"I still say I saw a deerhound Patronus!" shouted the first Death Eater.
"Deerhound?" roared the barman. "It's a lamb, idiot!"
"All right, we made a mistake," said the second Death Eater. "Break curfew again and we won't be so lenient!"
The Death Eaters strode back toward the High Street. Hermione moaned with relief, pulled us out from under the Cloak, and sat down on a wobble-legged chair next to me. I saw the curtains close and then Harry and Ron appeared. I could hear the barman down below, rebolting the door of the bar, then climbing the stairs.
The barman entered the room.
"You bloody fools," he said gruffly, looking from one to the other of them. "What were you thinking, coming here?"
"Thank you," said Harry. "We can't thank you enough. You saved our lives."
The barman grunted. Harry and the barman argued about our next moves. We had set off the Caterwauling Charm, a charm to detect movement during the curfew Death Eaters have set, and we won't be able to move until daybreak when it's lifted.
"We need to get into Hogwarts," said Harry again. "If you can't help us, we'll wait till daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us — well, now would be a great time to mention it."
Aberforth Dumbledore, as we learned, remained fixed in his chair. At last, he cleared his throat, got to his feet, walked around the little table, and approached the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore.
"You know what to do," he said.
She smiled, turned, and walked away, not as people in portraits usually did, out of the sides of their frames, but along what seemed to be a long tunnel painted behind her. We watched her slight figure retreating until finally she was swallowed by the darkness.
"Er — what — ?" began Ron.
"There's only one way in now," said Aberforth. "You must know they've got all the old secret passageways covered at both ends, dementors all around the boundary walls, regular patrols inside the school from what my sources tell me. The place has never been so heavily guarded. How you expect to do anything once you get inside it, with Snape in charge and the Carrows as his deputies... well, that's your lookout, isn't it? You say you're prepared to die."
"But what...?" said Hermione, frowning at Ariana's picture.
A tiny white dot had reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel, and now Ariana was walking back towards us, growing bigger and bigger. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than her, who was limping along, looking excited.
I clasped my hand over my mouth in awe; his hair was longer than I remembered and appeared to have suffered several gashes to his face, his clothes were ripped and torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait. Then the whole thing swung forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed.
"I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!" he yelled.
"Neville," I breathed.
At my voice, Neville's eyes snapped from Harry's to mine and he quickly ran to me, picking me up and spinning me around. Spotting Ron and Hermione, he gave yells of delight and hugged them too. But Neville didn't look like himself: One of his eyes was swollen yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of unkemptness suggested that he had been living rough.
"I know you'd come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!"
"Neville, what's happened to you?" I breathed.
"What? This?" Neville dismissed his injuries with a shake of the head. "This is nothing. Seamus is worse. You'll see. Shall we get going then? Oh," he turned to Aberforth, "Ab, there might be a couple more people on the way."
"Couple more?" repeated Aberforth ominously. "What d'you mean, a couple more, Longbottom? There's a curfew and a Caterwauling Charm on the whole village!"
"I know, that's why they'll be Apparating directly into the bar," said Neville. "Just send them down the passage when they get here, will you? Thanks a lot."
Neville held out his hand to Hermione and me, helping us to climb up onto the mantelpiece and into the tunnel; Ron followed, then Neville.
"How long's this been here?" Ron asked as they set off. "It isn't on the Marauder's Map, is it, Harry? I thought there were only seven passages in and out of school?"
"They sealed off all of those before the start of the year," said Neville. "There's no chance of getting through any of them now, not with curses over the entrances and Death Eaters and dementors waiting at the exits." He started walking backwards, beaming at us. "Never mind that stuff— Is it true? Did you break into Gringotts? Did you escape on a dragon? It's everywhere, everyone's talking about it, Terry Boot got beaten up by Carrow for yelling about it in the Great Hall at dinner!"
"Yeah, it's true," said Harry.
"But what have you been doing? People have been saying you've just been on the run, Harry, but I don't think so. I think you've been up to something."
"You're right," I said, "but tell us about Hogwarts, Neville, we haven't heard anything."
"It's been... well, it's not really like Hogwarts anymore," said Neville, the smile fading from his face as he spoke. "Do you know about the Carrows?"
Neville told us all about how the Carrows basically ran the school alongside Snape, who was never seen. Our theory of Dumbledore's Army was proven true as he told us about his, Luna's, and Ginny's idea in reinstating it using Hermione's fake Galleons. It only lasted until Ginny left, Neville was the only one in school to keep it going but hid in the Room of Requirement.
We said nothing until Neville had us turn the corner. 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 the group, I heard Neville call out to unseen people:
"Look who it is! Didn't I tell you?"
As we emerged into the room beyond the passage, there were several screams and yells: "HARRY!" "It's Potter, it's POTTER!" "Ron!" "Hermione!" "Charlotte!"
Before I could get a good look at anyone, the four of us were engulfed, hugged, pounded on the back, our hair ruffled, our hands shaken, by what seemed to be more than twenty people.
"Okay, okay, calm down!" Neville called, and as the crowd backed away, I was able to take in our surroundings.
I didn't recognize the room at all. It was enormous and looked rather like the interior of a treehouse or a gigantic ship's cabin. Multicoloured hammocks were strung from the ceiling and from a balcony that ran around the dark wood-panelled and windowless walls, which were covered in bright tapestry hangings for every house but Slytherin.
"Tell us what you've been up to, though," said Ernie. "There've been so many rumours, we've been trying to keep up with you on Potterwatch." He pointed at the wireless. "You didn't break into Gringotts?"
"They did!" said Neville. "And the dragon's true too!" There was a smattering of applause and a few whoops; Ron took a bow.
"What were you after?" asked Seamus eagerly.
Before Harry could answer, he doubled over in pain; Hermione and I quickly ran to him to keep him from falling over, people around us looked confused and scared.
"Are you all right, Harry?" Neville was saying. "Want to sit down? I expect you're tired, aren't — ?"
"No," said Harry. Harry looked up at Hermione, Ron, and me, as if he were trying to tell us someth— Voldemort knows he's lost another Horcrux.
"We need to get going," he said, and the three of us nodded.
"What are we going to do, then, Harry?" asked Seamus. "What's the plan?"
"Plan?" repeated Harry. "Well, there's something we — Ron, Hermione, Lottie, and I — need to do, and then we'll get out of here."
Nobody was laughing or whooping anymore. Neville looked confused.
"What d'you mean, 'get out of here'?"
"Neville, we haven't come back to stay," I said softly to him.
"There's something important we need to do —"
"What is it?" Neville cut Harry off.
"I — I can't tell you."
There was a ripple of muttering at this: Neville's brows contracted.
"Why can't you tell us? It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?"
"Well, yeah —"
"Then we'll help you."
"You don't understand. We — we can't tell you. We've got to do it — alone."
"Why?" asked Neville.
"Because— Because Dumbledore left the four of us a job," he said carefully, "and we weren't supposed to tell — I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the four of us."
"We're his army," said Neville. "Dumbledore's Army. We were all in it together, we've been keeping it going while you four have been off on your own —"
"Neville, it's not how you think it is," I said softly.
"I never said it had, but I don't see why you can't trust us. Everyone in this room's been fighting and they've been driven in here because the Carrows were hunting them down. Everyone in here's proven they're loyal to Dumbledore — loyal to you guys."
"Look—" Harry began but it did not matter: The tunnel door had just opened behind him.
"We got your message, Neville! Hello you four, I thought you must be here!"
It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to hug his best friend.
"Hi, everyone!" said Luna happily. "Oh, it's great to be back!"
"Luna!" I ran to her and gave her a hug. "What- what are you doing here? How did you—?"
"I sent for her," said Neville, holding up the fake Galleon. "I promised her and Ginny that if you turned up I'd let them know. We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution."
"Listen," said Harry with a rising sense of panic, "I'm sorry, but that's not what we came back for. There's something we've got to do, and then —"
"You're going to leave us in this mess?" demanded Michael Corner.
"No!" said Ron. "What we're doing will benefit everyone in the end, it's all about trying to get rid of You-Know-Who —"
"Then let us help!" said Neville angrily. "We want to be a part of it!"
There was another noise behind us, and I turned. My heart seemed to fail: Ginny was now climbing through the hole in the wall, closely followed by Fred, George, and Lee Jordan.
"Aberforth's getting a bit annoyed," said Fred, raising his hand in answer to several cries of greeting. "He wants a kip, and his bar's turned into a railway station."
Right behind Lee Jordan came Harry's old girlfriend, Cho Chang. She smiled at him.
"So what's the plan, Harry?" said George.
"There isn't one," said Harry, still disoriented by the sudden appearance of all these people, unable to take everything in while his scar was still burning so fiercely.
"Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favorite kind," said Fred.
"You've got to stop this!" Harry told Neville. "What did you call them all back for? This is insane —"
"We're fighting, aren't we?" said Dean, taking out his fake Galleon. "The message said Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I'll have to get a wand, though —"
"You haven't got a wand — ?" began Seamus.
"Harry," I said curtly. The noise in the room stopped and Harry turned to look at me. "Let them help."
"Charlotte —"
"I know, I know," I said quickly, walking up to the three of them. "It's dangerous and risky, but you've taught them well— all they know. They're loyal to you and we need help."
The four of us had a silent conversation with our eyes and I knew I won Harry over.
"Okay," Harry called out to the room, "There's something we need to find. Something — something that'll help us overthrow You-Know-Who. It's here at Hogwarts, but we don't know where. It might have belonged to Ravenclaw. Has anyone heard of an object like that? Has anyone ever come across something with her eagle on it, for instance?"
"Well, there's her lost diadem," Luna spoke up. "I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw? Daddy's trying to duplicate it."
"Yeah, but the lost diadem," said Michael Corner, rolling his eyes, "is lost, Luna. That's sort of the point."
"When was it lost?" asked Harry.
"Centuries ago, they say," said Cho. "Professor Flitwick says the diadem vanished with Ravenclaw herself. People have looked, but," she appealed to her fellow Ravenclaws, "nobody's ever found a trace of it, have they?"
"I can take you to see the statue of it, Harry," Cho suggested.
"No," Ginny said rather fiercely. "No, Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?"
"Oooh, yes, I'd like to," said Luna happily, and Cho sat down again, looking disappointed, as I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Lottie, can you come with us?" Harry asked. I nodded. "How do we get out?"
"Over here," Neville pointed.
He led Harry, Luna, and me to a corner, where a small cupboard opened onto a steep staircase.
"It comes out somewhere different every day, so they've never been able to find it," he said. "Only trouble is, we never know exactly where we're going to end up when we go out. Be careful, you three, they're always patrolling the corridors at night."
"No problem," said Harry. "See you in a bit."