From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old wizarding photograph.

'Original Order of the Phoenix,' growled Moody. 'Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn't had the manners to return my best one… thought people might like to see it.'

Harry took the photograph. A small crowd of people, some waving at him, others lifting their glasses, looked back up at him.

There's me,' said Moody, unnecessarily pointing at himself. The Moody in the picture was unmistakeable, though his hair was slightly less grey and his nose was intact. 'And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side… that's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That's Frank and Alice Longbottom -'

Harrys stomach, already uncomfortable, clenched as he looked at Alice Longbottom; he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville.

'- poor devils,' growled Moody. 'Better dead than what happened to them… and that's Emmeline Vance, you've met her, and that there's Lupin, obviously… Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him… shift aside there,' he added, poking the picture, and the little photographic people edged sideways, so that those who were partially obscured could move to the front.

'Right,' said Harry, picking up Hedwig's cage in one hand and the handle of his trunk in the other. They struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-panelled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full. Harry could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at him with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbours and pointed him out. After he had met this behaviour in five consecutive carriages he remembered that the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer what a lying show-off he was. He wondered dully whether the people now staring and whispering believed the stories.

In the very last carriage they met Neville Longbottom, Harry's fellow fifth-year Gryffindor, his round face shining with the effort of pulling his trunk along and maintaining a one-handed grip on his struggling toad, Trevor.

'Hi, Harry' he panted. 'Hi, Ginny… everywhere's full… 1 can't find a seat…'

'What are you talking about?' said Ginny, who had squeezed past Neville to peer into the compartment behind him. There's room in this one, there's only Loony Lovegood in here -'

Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb anyone.

'Don't be silly,' said Ginny, laughing, 'she's all right.'

She slid the door open and pulled her trunk inside. Harry and Neville followed.

'Hi, Luna,' said Ginny, 'is it OK if we take these seats?'

The girl beside the window looked up. She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer corks, or that she was reading a magazine upside-down. Her eyes ranged over Neville and came to rest on Harry. She nodded.

Thanks,' said Ginny, smiling at her.

Harry and Neville stowed the three trunks and Hedwig's cage in the luggage rack and sat down. Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans. She stared and stared at Harry, who had taken the seat opposite her and now wished he hadn't.

'Had a good summer, Luna?' Ginny asked.

'Yes,' said Luna dreamily, without taking her eyes off Harry. 'Yes, it was quite enjoyable, you know. You're Harry Potter,' she added.

'1 know I am,' said Harry.

Neville chuckled. Luna turned her pale eyes on him instead.

'And I don't know who you are.'

'I'm nobody,' said Neville hurriedly.

'No you're not,' said Ginny sharply. 'Neville Longbottom - Luna Love good. Luna's in my year, butt in Ravenclaw.'

'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure,' said Luna in a singsong voice.

She raised her upside-down magazine high enough to hide her face and fell silent. Harry and Neville looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. Ginny suppressed a giggle.

The train rattled onwards, speeding them out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously grey clouds.

'Guess what I got for my birthday?' said Neville.

'Another Remembrall?' said Harry, remembering the marble-like device Neville's grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.

'No,' said Neville. 'I could do with one, though, 1 lost the old one ages ago… no, look at this…"

He dug the hand that was not keeping a firm grip on Trevor into his schoolbag and after a little bit of rummaging pulled out what appeared to be a small grey cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.

'Mimbulus mimbletonia,' he said proudly.

Harry stared at the thing. It was pulsating slightly, giving it the rather sinister look of some diseased internal organ.

'It's really, really rare,' said Neville, beaming. 'I don't know it there's one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. 1 can't wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My Great Uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I'm going to see if I can breed from it.'

Harry knew that Neville's favourite subject was Herbology but for the life of him he could not see what he would want with this stunted little plant.

'Does it - er - do anything?' he asked.

'Loads of stuff!' said Neville proudly. 'It's got an amazing defensive mechanism. Here, hold Trevor for me…'

He dumped the toad into Harry's lap and took a quill from his schoolbag. Luna Lovegood's popping eyes appeared over the top of her upside-down magazine again, to watch what Neville was doing. Neville held the Mimbulus mimbletonia up to his eyes, his tongue between his teeth, chose his spot, and gave the plant a sharp prod with the tip of his quill.

Liquid squirted from every boil on the plant; thick, stinking, dark green jets of it. They hit the ceiling, the windows, and spattered Luna Lovegood's magazine; Ginny, who had flung her arms up in front of her face just in time, merely looked as though she was wearing a slimy green hat, but Harry, whose hands had been busy preventing Trevor's escape, received a faceful. It smelled like rancid manure.

Neville, whose face and torso were also drenched, shook his head to get the worst out of his eyes.

'S - sorry,' he gasped. 'I haven't tried that before… didn't realise it would be quite so… don't worry, though, Stinksap's not poisonous,' he added nervously, as Harry spat a mouthful on to the floor.

At that precise moment the door of their compartment slid open.

'Oh… hello, Harry,' said a nervous voice. 'Urn… bad time?'

Harry wiped the lenses of his glasses with his Trevor-free hand. A very pretty girl with long, shiny black hair was standing in the doorway smiling at him: Cho Chang, the Seeker on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.

'Oh… hi,' said Harry blankly.

'Urn…" said Cho. 'Well… just thought I'd say hello… bye then.'

Rather pink in the face, she closed the door and departed. Harry slumped back in his seat and groaned. He would have liked Cho to discover him sitting with a group of very cool people laughing their heads off at a joke he had just told; he would not have chosen to be sitting with Neville and Loony Lovegood, clutching a toad and dripping in Stinksap.

'Never mind,' said Ginny bracingly. 'Look, we can easily get rid of all this.' She pulled out her wand. 'Scourgify!'

The Stinksap vanished.

'Sorry,' said Neville again, in a small voice.

Ron and Hermione did not turn up for nearly an hour, by which time the food trolley had already gone by. Harry, Ginny and Neville had finished their pumpkin pasties and were busy swapping Chocolate Frog Cards when the compartment door slid open and they walked in, accompanied by Crookshanks and a shrilly hooting Pigwidgeon in his cage.

"I'll carry that owl, if you like,' said Luna to Harry, reaching out for Pigwidgeon as Neville stowed Trevor carefully in an inside pocket.

Luna drifted away from them at the Ravenclaw table. The moment they reached Gryffindors, Ginny was hailed by some fellow fourth-years and left to sit with them; Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly-friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before.

The Sorting Hat usually confined itself to describing the different qualities looked for by each of the four Hogwarts houses and its own role in Sorting them. Harry could not remember it ever trying to give the school advice before.

'I wonder if it's ever given warnings before?' said Hermione, sounding slightly anxious.

'Yes, indeed,' said Nearly Headless Nick knowledgeably, leaning across Neville towards her (Neville winced; it was very uncomfortable to have a ghost lean through you).

Harry had reached the end of the corridor to the Gryffindor common room and come to a halt in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady before he realised that he did not know the new password.

'Er…' he said glumly, staring up at the Fat Lady, who smoothed the folds of her pink satin dress and looked sternly back at him.

'No password, no entrance,' she said loftily.

'Harry, I know it!' Someone panted up behind him and he turned to see Neville jogging towards him. 'Guess what it is? I'm actually going to be able to remember it for once -' He waved the stunted little cactus he had shown them on the train. 'Mimbulus mimble-tonifl!'

'Correct,' said the Fat Lady, and her portrait swung open towards them like a door, revealing a circular hole in the wall behind, through which Harry and Neville now climbed.

The Gryffindor common room looked as welcoming as ever, a cosy circular tower room full of dilapidated squashy armchairs and rickety old tables. A fire was crackling merrily in the grate and a few people were warming their hands by it before going up to their dormitories; on the other side of the room Fred and George Weasley were pinning something up on the noticeboard. Harry waved goodnight to them and headed straight for the door to the boys' dormitories; he was not in much of a mood for talking at the moment. Neville followed him.

'Why, what happened, Seamus?' Neville asked as he placed his Mimbulus mimbletonia tenderly on his bedside cabinet.

Ron glared at Seamus, then looked at Dean and Neville.

'Anyone else's parents got a problem with Harry?' he said aggressively.

'My parents are Muggles, mate,' said Dean, shrugging. They don't know nothing about no deaths at Hogwarts, because I'm not stupid enough to tell them.'

'You don't know my mother, she'd weasel anything out of anyone!' Seamus snapped at him. 'Anyway your parents don't get the Daily Prophet. They don't know our Headmaster's been sacked from the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards because he's losing his marbles -'

'My gran says that's rubbish,' piped up Neville. 'She says it's the Daily Prophet that's going downhill, not Dumbledore. She's cancelled our subscription. We believe Harry' said Neville simply. He climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin, looking owlishly over them at Seamus. 'My gran's always said You-Know-Who would come back one day. She says if Dumbledore says he's back, he's back.'

Harry felt a rush of gratitude towards Neville. Nobody else said anything. Seamus got out his wand, repaired the bed hangings and vanished behind them. Dean got into bed, rolled over and fell silent. Neville, who appeared to have nothing more to say either, was gazing fondly at his moonlit cactus.

'Don't worry about it, Harry,' Dean muttered, hoisting his schoolbag on to his shoulder, 'he's just…'

But apparently he was unable to say exactly what Seamus was, and after a slightly awkward pause followed him out of the room.

Neville and Ron both gave Harry an it's-his-problem-not-yours look, but Harry was not much consoled. How much more of this would he have to take?

'Before we begin today's lesson,' said Snape, sweeping over to his desk and staring around at them all, 'I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions. Moronic though some of this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to scrape an "Acceptable" in your OWL, or suffer my… displeasure.'

His gaze lingered this time on Neville, who gulped.

'After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me,' Snape went on. '1 take only the very best into my NEWT Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying goodbye.'

While everyone around him filled their flagons, Harry cleared away his things, seething. His potion had been no worse than Ron's, which was now giving off a foul odour of bad eggs; or Neville's, which had achieved the consistency of just-mixed cement and which

Neville was now having to gouge out of his cauldron; yet it was he, Harry, who would be receiving zero marks for the day's work. He stuffed his wand back into his bag and slumped down on to his seat, watching everyone else march up to Snape's desk with filled and corked flagons. When at long last the bell rang, Harry was first out of the dungeon and had already started his lunch by the time Ron and Hermione joined him in the Great Hall. The ceiling had turned an even murkier grey during the morning. Rain was lashing the high windows.

The one good thing to be said for this lesson was that it was not a double period. By the time they had all finished reading the introduction of the book, they had barely ten minutes left for dream interpretation. At the table next to Harry and Ron, Dean had paired up with Neville, who immediately embarked on a long-winded explanation of a nightmare involving a pair of giant scissors wearing his grandmother's best hat; Harry and Ron merely looked at each other glumly.

'Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?' enquired Professor Umbridge in a horribly honeyed voice.

'Hmm, let's think…' said Harry in a mock thoughtful voice. 'Maybe… Lord VoldemortT

Ron gasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways off his stool. Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring at Harry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face.

'You cannot pass an OWL,' said Professor McGonagall grimly, 'without serious application, practice and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an OWL in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work.' Neville made a sad little disbelieving noise. 'Yes, you too, Longbottom,' said Professor McGonagall. There's nothing wrong with your work except lack of confidence. So… today we are starting Vanishing Spells. These are easier than Conjuring Spells, which you would not usually attempt until NEWT level, but they are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested on in your OWL.'

Determined not to give Snape an excuse to fail him this lesson, Harry read and reread every line of instructions on the blackboard at least three times before acting on them. His Strengthening Solution was not precisely the clear turquoise shade of Hermione's but it was at least blue rather than pink, like Neville's, and he delivered a flask of it to Snape's desk at the end of the lesson with a feeling of mingled defiance and relief.

'It doesn't matter, pick any of them,' said Harry, chancing a glance behind him. Professor Umbridge was now standing at Professor Trelawneys shoulder making notes while the Divination teacher questioned Neville about his dream diary.

The door of the pub had opened. A thick band of dusty sunlight split the room in two for a moment and then vanished, blocked by the incoming rush of a crowd of people.

First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma Patil with (Harry's stomach did a back-flip) Cho and one of her usually-giggling girlfriends.

'I've told you, they just want to hear what you've got to say,' said Hermione soothingly; but Harry continued to look at her so furiously that she added quickly, 'you don't have to do anything yet, I'll speak to them first.'

'Hi, Harry,' said Neville, beaming and taking a seat opposite him.

Harry tried to smile back, but did not speak; his mouth was exceptionally dry. Cho had just smiled at him and sat down on Ron's right. Her friend, who had curly reddish-blonde hair, did not smile, but gave Harry a thoroughly mistrustful look which plainly told him that, given her way, she would not be here at all.

'Of course I do,' said Hermione at once. 'But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defence because… because…" she took a great breath and finished, 'because Lord Voldemort is back.'

The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.

Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said 'Wow!' softly. Harry was feeling slightly hot around the collar now; he was determinedly looking anywhere but at Cho.

'And in our first year,' said Neville to the group at large, 'he saved that Philological Stone -'

'Philosopher's,' hissed Hermione.

'Yes, that - from You-Know-Who,' finished Neville.

'No, he hasn't,' snapped Hermione.

'Yes, he has,' said Luna.

'What are Heliopaths?' asked Neville, looking blank.

They're spirits of fire,' said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever, 'great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of -'

They don't exist, Neville,' said Hermione tartly.

'Oh, yes, they do!' said Luna angrily.

'I mean,' said Malfoy, raising his voice a little more, his grey eyes glittering malevolently in Harry and Ron's direction, 'if it's a question of influence with the Ministry, I don't think they've got much chance… from what my father says, they've been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur Weasley for years… and as for Potter… my father says it's a matter of time before the Ministry has him carted off to St Mungo's… apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic.'

Malfoy made a grotesque face, his mouth sagging open and his eyes rolling. Crabbe and Goyle gave their usual grunts of laughter; Pansy Parkinson shrieked with glee.

Something collided hard with Harry's shoulder, knocking him sideways. A split second later he realised that Neville had just charged past him, heading straight for Malfoy.

'Neville, no!'

Harry leapt forward and seized the back of Neville's robes; Neville struggled frantically, his fists flailing, trying desperately to get at Malfoy who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked.

'Help me!' Harry flung at Ron, managing to get an arm around Neville's neck and dragging him backwards, away from the Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle were flexing their arms as they stepped in front of Malfoy, ready for the fight. Ron seized Neville's arms, and together he and Harry succeeded in dragging Neville back into the Gryffindor line. Neville's face was scarlet; the pressure Harry was exerting on his throat rendered him quite incomprehensible, but odd words spluttered from his mouth.

'Not… funny… don't… Mungo's… show… him…'

The dungeon door opened. Snape appeared there. His black eyes swept up the Gryffindor line to the point where Harry and Ron were wrestling with Neville.

'Fighting, Potter, Weasley, Longbottom?' Snape said in his cold, sneering voice. Ten points from Gryffindor. Release Longbottom, Potter, or it will be detention. Inside, all of you.'

Harry let go of Neville, who stood panting and glaring at him.

'I had to stop you,' Harry gasped, picking up his bag. 'Crabbe and Goyle would've torn you apart.'

Neville said nothing; he merely snatched up his own bag and stalked off into the dungeon.

'What in the name of Merlin,' said Ron slowly, as they followed Neville, 'was that about?'

Harry did not answer. He knew exactly why the subject of people who were in St Mungo's because of magical damage to their brains was highly distressing to Neville, but he had sworn to Dumbledore that he would not tell anyone Neville's secret. Even Neville did not know Harry knew.

Harry, Ron and Hermione took their usual seats at the back of the class, pulled out parchment, quills and their copies of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. The class around them was whispering about what Neville had just done, but when Snape closed the dungeon door with an echoing bang, everybody immediately fell silent.

It seemed, however, that he was not the only person in Divination who was in a temper. Professor Trelawney slammed a copy of the Oracle down on the table between Harry and Ron and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the Oracle at Seamus and Dean, narrowly avoiding Seamus's head, and thrust the final one into Neville's chest with such force that he slipped off his pouffe.

It felt very odd to be issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them followed. Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up. Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

'You can practise with me,' Harry told him. 'Right - on the count of three, then - one, two, three -'

The room was suddenly full of shouts of Expelliarmus. Wands flew in all directions; missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air. Harry was too quick for Neville, whose wand went spinning out of his hand, hit the ceiling in a shower of sparks and landed with a clatter on top of a bookshelf, from which Harry retrieved it with a Summoning Charm. Glancing around, he thought he had been right to suggest they practise the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in Disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backwards a few paces or wince as their feeble spell whooshed over them.

'Expelliarmus!' said Neville, and Harry, caught unawares, felt his wand fly out of his hand.

'I DID IT!' said Neville gleefully. 'I've never done it before - I DID IT!'

'Good one!' said Harry encouragingly, deciding not to point out that in a real duel Nevilles opponent was unlikely to be staring in the opposite direction with his wand held loosely at his side. 'Listen, Neville, can you take it in turns to practise with Ron and Hermione for a couple of minutes so I can walk around and see how the rest are doing?'

Harry felt as though he were carrying some kind of talisman inside his chest over the following two weeks, a glowing secret that supported him through Umbridge's classes and even made it possible for him to smile blandly as he looked into her horrible bulging eyes. He and the DA were resisting her under her very nose, doing the very thing she and the Ministry most feared, and whenever he was supposed to be reading Wilbert Slinkhard's book during her lessons he dwelled instead on satisfying memories of their most recent meetings, remembering how Neville had successfully disarmed Hermione, how Colin Creevey had mastered the Impediment Jinx after three meetings' hard effort, how Parvati Patil had produced such a good Reductor Curse that she had reduced the table carrying all the Sneakoscopes to dust.

And then, to see them surrounded by all those other happy faces… Benjy Eenwick, who had been found in bits, and Gideon Prewett, who had died like a hero, and the Longbottoms, who had been tortured into madness… all waving happily out of the photograph forever more, not knowing that they were doomed… well, Moody might find that interesting… he, Harry, found it disturbing…

Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as Ron's and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face; and Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.

'Assuming they can understand you, of course,' said Malfoy loudly, and Pansy Parkinson collapsed in a fit of renewed giggles. Professor Umbridge smiled indulgently at them and then turned to Neville.

'You can see the Thestrals, Longbottom, can you?' she said.

Neville nodded.

'Who did you see die?' she asked, her tone indifferent.

'My… my grandad,' said Neville.

'And what do you think of them?' she said, waving her stubby hand at the horses, who by now had stripped a great deal of the carcass down to bone.

'Erm,' said Neville nervously, with a glance at Hagrid. Well, they're… er… OK…"

'Students… are… too… intimidated… to… admit… they… are… frightened,' muttered Umbridge, making another note on her clipboard.

'No!' said Neville, looking upset. 'No, I'm not scared of them!'

'It's quite all right,' said Umbridge, patting Neville on the shoulder with what she evidently intended to be an understanding smile, though it looked more like a leer to Harry. 'Well, Hagrid,' she turned to look up at him again, speaking once more in that loud, slow voice, 'I think I've got enough to be getting along with. You will receive' (she mimed taking something from the air in front of her) 'the results of your inspection' (she pointed at the clipboard) 'in ten days' time.' She held up ten stubby little fingers, then, her smile wider and more toadlike than ever before beneath her green hat, she bustled from their midst, leaving Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson in fits of laughter, Hermione actually shaking with fury and Neville looking confused and upset.

They all divided up obediently; Harry partnered Neville as usual. The room was soon full of intermittent cries of 'Impedimenta! 'People froze for a minute or so, during which their partner would stare aimlessly around the room watching other pairs at work, then would unfreeze and take their turn at the jinx.

Neville had improved beyond all recognition. After a while, when Harry had unfrozen three times in a row, he had Neville join Ron and Hermione again so that he could walk around the room and watch the others. When he passed Cho she beamed at him; he resisted the temptation to walk past her several more times.

Harry felt himself positively swelling with pride as he watched them all. True, Neville did Stun Padma Patil rather than Dean, at whom he had been aiming, but it was a much closer miss than usual, and everybody else had made enormous progress.

They pulled off their robes and put on pyjamas in silence; Dean, Seamus and Neville were already asleep. Harry put his glasses on his bedside table and got into bed but did not pull the hangings closed around his four-poster; instead, he stared at the patch of starry sky visible through the window next to Neville's bed.

He could hear Seamus and Dean muttering but did not care. The pain in his forehead was subsiding slightly, though he was still sweating and shivering feverishly. He retched again and Ron leapt backwards out of the way.

'Harry, you're not well,' he said shakily. 'Neville's gone for help.'

'I'm fine!' Harry choked, wiping his mouth on his pyjamas and shaking uncontrollably. There's nothing wrong with me, it's your dad you've got to worry about - we need to find out where he is - he's bleeding like mad - I was - it was a huge snake.'

He tried to get out of bed but Ron pushed him back into it; Dean and Seamus were still whispering somewhere nearby. Whether one minute passed or ten, Harry did not know; he simply sat there shaking, feeling the pain recede very slowly from his scar… then there were hurried footsteps coming up the stairs and he heard Neville's voice again.

'Over here, Professor.'

There was only one thing for it: he would have to leave Grimmauld Place straightaway. He would spend Christmas at Hogwarts without the others, which would keep them safe over the holidays at least… but no, that wouldn't do, there were still plenty of people at Hogwarts to maim and injure. What if it was Seamus, Dean or Neville next time?

'And look, Broderick, you've been sent a pot plant and a lovely calendar with a different fancy Hippogriff for each month; they'll brighten things up, won't they?' said the Healer, bustling along to the mumbling man, setting a rather ugly plant with long, swaying tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall with her wand. 'And - oh, Mrs Longbottom, are you leaving allready?'

Harry's head span round. The curtains had been drawn back from the two beds at the end of the ward and two visitors were walking back down the aisle between the beds: a formidable-looking old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a pointed hat decorated with what was unmistakeably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed - Neville.

With a sudden rush of understanding, Harry realised who the people in the end beds must be. He cast around wildly for some means of distracting the others so that Neville could leave the ward unnoticed and unquestioned, but Ron had also looked up at the sound of the name 'Longbottom', and before Harry could stop him had called out, 'Neville!'

Neville jumped and cowered as though a bullet had narrowly missed him.

'It's us, Neville!' said Ron brightly, getting to his feet. 'Have you seen -? Lockhart's here! Who've you been visiting?'

'Friends of yours, Neville, dear?' said Neville's grandmother graciously, bearing down upon them all.

Neville looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. A dull purple flush was creeping up his plump face and he was not making eye contact with any of them.

'Ah, yes,' said his grandmother, looking closely at Harry and sticking out a shrivelled, clawlike hand for him to shake. 'Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of you.'

'Er - thanks,' said Harry, shaking hands. Neville did not look at him, but surveyed his own feet, the colour deepening in his face all the while.

'And you two are clearly Weasleys,' Mrs Longbottom continued, proffering her hand regally to Ron and Ginny in turn. 'Yes, I know your parents - not well, of course - but fine people, fine people… and you must be Hermione Granger?'

Hermione looked rather startled that Mrs Longbottom knew her name, but shook hands all the same.

'Yes, Neville's told me all about you. Helped him out of a few sticky spots, haven't you? He's a good boy,' she said, casting a sternly appraising look down her rather bony nose at Neville, 'but he hasn't got his father's talent, I'm afraid to say.' And she jerked her head in the direction of the two beds at the end of the ward, so that the stuffed vulture on her hat trembled alarmingly.

'What?' said Ron, looking amazed. (Harry wanted to stamp on Ron's foot, but that sort of thing is much harder to bring off unnoticed when you're wearing jeans rather than robes.) 'Is that your dad down the end, Neville?'

'What's this?' said Mrs Longbottom sharply. 'Haven't you told your friends about your parents, Neville?'

Neville took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Harry could not remember ever feeling sorrier for anyone, but he could not think of any way of helping Neville out of the situation.

'Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!' said Mrs Longbottom angrily. 'You should be proud, Neville, proudl They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!'

'I'm not ashamed,' said Neville, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at Harry and the others. Ron was now standing on tiptoe to look over at the inhabitants of the two beds.

'Well, you've got a funny way of showing it!' said Mrs Longbottom. 'My son and his wife,' she said, turning haughtily to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny, 'were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers.'

Hermione and Ginny both clapped their hands over their mouths. Ron stopped craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Neville's parents and looked mortified.

They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the wizarding community' Mrs Longbottom went on. 'Highly gifted, the pair of them. I - yes, Alice dear, what is it?'

Neville's mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress. She no longer had the plump, happy-looking face Harry had seen in Moody's old photograph of the original Order of the Phoenix. Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes seemed overlarge and her hair, which had turned white, was wispy and dead-looking. She did not seem to want to speak, or perhaps she was not able to, but she made timid motions towards Neville, holding something in her outstretched hand.

'Again?' said Mrs Longbottom, sounding slightly weary. 'Very well, Alice dear, very well - Neville, take it, whatever it is.'

But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty Drooble's Best Blowing Gum wrapper.

'Very nice, dear,' said Neville's grandmother in a falsely cheery voice, patting his mother on the shoulder.

But Neville said quietly, Thanks, Mum.'

His mother tottered away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked around at the others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh, but Harry did not think he'd ever found anything less funny in his life.

'Well, we'd better get back,' sighed Mrs Longbottom, drawing on long green gloves. 'Very nice to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of them to paper your bedroom by now.'

But as they left, Harry was sure he saw Neville slip the sweet wrapper into his pocket.

The door closed behind them.

'I never knew,' said Hermione, who looked tearful.

'Nor did I,' said Ron rather hoarsely.

'Nor me,' whispered Ginny.

They all looked at Harry.

'I did,' he said glumly. 'Dumbledore told me but I promised I wouldn't tell anyone… that's what Bellatrix Lestrange got sent to Azkaban for, using the Cruciatus Curse on Neville's parents until they lost their minds.'

'Bellatrix Lestrange did that?' whispered Hermione, horrified. That woman Kreacher's got a photo of in his den?'

But Harry's eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. Her face had leapt out at him the moment he had seen the page. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture, though he had seen it sleek, thick and shining. She glared up at him through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. Like Sirius, she retained vestiges of great good looks, but something - perhaps Azkaban - had taken most of her beauty.

Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent inca-pacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Harry was pleased to see that all of them, even Zacharias Smith, had been spurred on to work harder than ever by the news that ten more Death Eaters were now on the loose, but in nobody was this improvement more pronounced than in Neville. The news of his parents' attackers' escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him. He had not once mentioned his meeting with Harry, Ron and Hermione on the closed ward in St Mungo's and, taking their lead from him, they had kept quiet about it too. Nor had he said anything on the subject of Bellatrix and her fellow torturers' escape. In fact, Neville barely spoke during the DA meetings any more, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and counter-curse Harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents and working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm - a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker - only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville.

Harry would have given a great deal to be making as much progress at Occlumency as Neville was making during the DA meetings. Harry's sessions with Snape, which had started badly enough, were not improving. On the contrary Harry felt he was getting worse with every lesson.

'Can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public,' said Dean, sounding awestruck at dinner on Monday night. Seamus was shovelling down large amounts of chicken and ham pie on Dean's other side, but Harry knew he was listening.

'It's the right thing to do, Harry,' said Neville, who was sitting opposite him. He was rather pale, but went on in a low voice, 'It must have been… tough… talking about it… was it?'

'Yeah,' mumbled Harry, 'but people have got to know what Voldemorts capable of, haven't they?'

'That's right,' said Neville, nodding, 'and his Death Eaters, too… people should know…'

Neville left his sentence hanging and returned to his baked potato. Seamus looked up, but when he caught Harrys eye he looked quickly back at his plate again. After a while, Dean, Seamus and Neville departed for the common room, leaving Harry and Hermione at the table waiting for Ron, who had not yet had dinner because of Quidditch practice.

It took Harry much longer to get to sleep; his body was tired, but it took his brain a long time to close down.

He dreamed that Neville and Professor Sprout were waltzing around the Room of Requirement while Professor McGonagall played the bagpipes. He watched them happily for a while, then decided to go and find the other members of the DA.

'But that would be really scary!' said Lavender, who was shooting puffs of silver vapour out of the end of her wand. 'And I still -can't - do it!' she added angrily.