Chapter Sixteen: Neville Longbottom
Alsemore was quiet with so many people missing. Many older students had lost some good friends, so the hallways, usually buzzing with their laughter, were unusually silent. The younger students were petrified of being turned over to Death Eaters, so spent their days keeping their heads down, avoiding anybody’s gaze. Lottie grew so restless that she and Andrea spent hours in Palmyitor’s office sorting out the Dark objects.
“Rowe, you need to concentrate if you’re going to try and open anything,” Palmyitor scolded.
Lottie sighed. This was almost as bad as Charms tutoring the previous year. “I don’t think this stuff is ever going to open,” she replied bitterly.
“Well it must,” said Andrea cheerfully, “because whoever used this stuff had to open it, right?”
“Exactly.” Palmyitor pulled her wand out. “If you don’t want to be involved, you’re welcome to leave.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Fine.” Palmyitor demonstrated a wand movement. “This movement, plus the incantation, Veldario, is used to remove the dark properties of an enchanted object. It’s not very powerful and works best with smaller objects.” She pulled out two old silver coins. “These coins have been cursed. If anyone but me touches it, it will burn. So go ahead and try.”
Feeling rather self-conscious, Lottie copied Palmyitor’s wand movements and said, “Veldario!”
She peaked over at Andrea’s work. Her coin was glowing brightly and shuddered so violently that it clanged against the desk. Lottie’s gave a feeble twitch.
“Alright,” Palmyitor said, leaning against her desk. Lottie did not like her smirk. “Go ahead and try to pick it up.”
Andrea reached warily for her coin and picked it up. Nothing happened. Feeling a little more confident, Lottie reached for hers.
“OW!” She dropped the coin, sending it clattering to the floor. Her palm was a bright pink.
Palmyitor sighed. “You never were very good at Charms,” she lamented. “Woolbright, you try that spell on everything. Rowe, you check the artifacts she’s finished for any noticeable change.”
Lottie glared at Palmyitor and sat down, waiting for Andrea to finish the first item. Maybe it was more fun for Andrea, who got to use her wand finally, but Lottie found the hours wasted in Palmyitor’s office hardly better than sitting in the lonely corridors alone. She picked up the knife Andrea had just charmed and tried to open it.
“No difference,” she said, setting it to the side.
They continued that cycle with every knife until Andrea picked up the small snuffbox, flicked her wand and muttered, “Veldario!” As she reached to pick up the nearest bottle, Lottie noticed it shake ever so slightly. Lottie tried to open it. It still stuck. She held it to her ear and shook it to check its contents. Something inside rattled, just loudly enough for her to hear it.
Biting her lip, Lottie stared at the snuffbox. Was there any harm in keeping it for herself? She should probably just tell Palmyitor right away. But then what would she do? Lottie would probably never see the snuffbox again and get no credit for finding it. The corners of her lips twitching, she imagined Palmyitor’s reaction when she revealed the snuffbox’s secrets to her. Hiding her smile at the thought, she said, “No difference,” and palmed the box and sliding it up her sleeve.
None of the other objects were any different. Lottie’s eyes unfocused as she tried to sound at least remotely interested.
“Well, I suppose we’ll try a more powerful spell in a few days,” Palmyitor said with a furrowed brow. “Merry Christmas, you two.”
“You too!” Andrea said cheerfully.
“Mmhmm.” Lottie made sure that the snuffbox was securely up her sleeve.
Andrea and Lottie left the office. Lottie let the snuffbox slide to her hand and pocketed it quickly. “So where do you want to go?” she asked casually.
“I don’t know. Do you still have homework to do before the break is over?”
“Are you kidding me? I haven’t even started!”
“Let’s go to the library then.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lottie agreed and followed Andrea to the library. Once they settled in two stiff wooden chairs, Lottie pulled out her History book and started an essay on the difference between old-fashioned communal schools and modern boarding schools. Andrea busily scribbled notes in her Charms book.
After about ten minutes of silent working, Andrea put her quill down. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” Lottie watched her leave and waited a few moments. Once the door clicked shut, she stood up and dashed to the Defense Against the Dark Arts shelf.
She scanned the rows of books quickly, finally deciding on The Destruction of Dark Magic by Wilhelm Waldvogel. Tucking the dusty book under her arm, she darted from bookshelf to bookshelf until finally settling at her table and cracking the book open. She only had time to flip through a few pages and spot a particularly nasty illustration of an unfortunate man being killed by a charmed egg beater before Andrea wandered back into the library.
Panic rose to Lottie’s chest. She couldn’t let Andrea see her with this book out; there was no other explanation as to why she was doing extra research on Defense Against the Dark Arts, one of her least favorite classes. Andrea was only a table away. At a complete loss, Lottie picked up the heavy book, slipped it on her chair and sat on it before picking her quill back up and pretending to be engrossed in her essay.
Andrea flipped through her own History textbook and looked up at Lottie quizzically before asking, “Are you taller than usual?”
Lottie awoke with a start. The dorm was dark. She opened her four-poster to find everyone else sleeping peacefully. What time was it? One? Two? Lottie got out of bed, shivering as her toes skimmed the ice-cold, stone floor. Why not just go back to bed? She didn’t have any classes the next day, so did it really matter if she was tired?
She opened her duffle and dug to the bottom. The snuffbox was cold against her fingers and it rattled as she pulled it out of the bag. She tried to open it, but the dusty box didn’t budge. Quietly, she picked up the book on dark objects from the library and pulled a sweater on over her grey pajamas.
The common room was empty, save for Langley snoring on the sofa. Lottie crept past with her snuffbox and her book. The corridor outside was deserted as well. The torches that lined the hall were all extinguished. Only the moonlight from the scattered windows lit her path. She didn’t dare light her wand, in case of wandering prefects.
She headed up a narrow staircase to a deserted classroom that Stanley told her about on the fourth floor. The fourth floor was lit with torches. That must have meant that there were teachers and prefects patrolling. Lottie tip-toed towards an open door a little ways down the corridor.
“Are you sure you saw somebody in the staircase, Emma?” Lottie froze. She could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. The voice sounded like Professor Stainthorpe’s.
“Yes.” That was definitely Professor Gabaldon.
Lottie held her breath and ran to the door of the deserted classroom, trying in vain to keep her clunky footsteps light against the stone floor. She held her breath until the voices passed.
“She was definitely a girl and fairly small. Maybe a second or third year, I would guess,” said Gabaldon. “And the only dorm close to that staircase is the Palmyitor common room.”
Gabaldon was getting quieter. The pair must have turned a corner because Stainthorpe’s “Let’s check one floor up,” was barely audible.
Lottie released her breath and opened the library book. There must have been some spell in it that could help her open the locked snuffbox, especially now that it had lost most of its dark properties.
Lottie thumbed through the book and tried what must have been ten spells. Maybe the spells actually would have worked, but she was just so bad at Charms that it didn’t work for her.
“Open, stupid thing!” she shouted, shaking the snuffbox. “Okay, if this spell doesn’t work, I’m giving Andrea a try,” she said aloud as she opened the book to a random page.
The spell illustrated was “Abnochio.”
Lottie couldn’t exactly tell what the moving illustration of the cursed object was doing, but it looked somewhat similar to the spell Andrea had practiced earlier that day. The book’s explanation of the spell was also less than helpful.
In cases such as uncursing curséd objects, it often assists the witche or wizard in question to focus solely on the draining of magick properties from the object. The novices of magick who cannot yet refine the subtly of this art tend to, after performing the proper wriste movements, literally pull the Darke Magick from the object.
Rather puzzled by the difficultly deciphered book description, Lottie followed the wrist movement illustrated by the moving drawing on the page and yelled, “Abnochio!” For a moment nothing happened until she, realizing what the book had said about “novices of magick,” started to pull her wand away from the snuffbox.
Lottie gasped. It was as though an invisible string was holding her wand and the snuffbox together. She pulled hopelessly for a few moments before feeling something snap.
Click!
The snuffbox opened. Shocked at her own achievement, Lottie dropped her wand. She scrambled to pick it up, keeping eyes fixed on the box. It wasn’t magical anymore. What was she afraid of?
Lottie suddenly wished that Andrea was with her to pick up the box and inspect it herself. Lottie inched towards the box and prodded it with her wand. Nothing happened.
Tentatively, she picked up the box and peered inside. The culprit of the rattling fell into her fingers. It was a charm, or maybe a figurine. It depicted a great majestic bird, intricately carved to spread its wings with its head facing the ceiling as though nobility waiting to be dealt a deadly blow. Or maybe it was flying. Lottie turned the figurine so its face was staring at her. Now it looked like it was in flight, cutting through the air like a curse.
The figure was about half the height of Lottie’s palm. It had a dull silver shine that made the bird seem as though it were moving, eyes glinting with life when it caught the moonlight. It was icy to the touch and no matter how long Lottie held it in her palm, it remained cool.
Something else was in the snuffbox. Lottie tapped the bottom of the box, causing yellowed parchment to fall out and drift to the floor. She scrambled to pick it up and unfolded it. The fading ink was hardly readable on the darkening parchment. Lottie held it under the light from the window.
The location of the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.
-Neville Longbottom
Lottie stared at the note. It seemed so important, but she didn’t know why. The Order of the Phoenix was the group dedicated to fighting the Dark Lord, she knew that. But then who was Neville Longbottom, and where was Grimmauld Place?
She carefully folded the note and slipped it into her pocket. She didn’t know what she planned to do when she got to the dorm, but she couldn’t stay here until morning and be caught by a teacher.
Keeping the bird figurine safely in her palm, Lottie crept back down the corridor. She didn’t meet any teachers or prefects on her way back, but did have a rather close call with a temperamental portrait.
The common room was empty this time; Langley must have woken up and gone back to his dormitory. Lottie inched down the stairs and down the hall to her dormitory, carefully avoiding the squeaky spots; she couldn’t afford to be caught out, not with what she was carrying.
Lottie pushed the door open slowly. Relieved to find everybody asleep, she continued to tiptoe past Andrea’s bed to hers.
“Honestly Lottie? Again?”
Lottie whipped out her wand and spun around. “Lumos!” The bird figurine clattered to the floor. “Oh, it’s just you,” she sighed, spotting Andrea, sitting up in her covers.
Andrea stepped out of her bed. “Just me? What are you doing here? I hope you aren’t making these late night ventures a habit.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it.” Lottie casually dropped her wand. “Oops!” She fell to her knees and picked it up, snatching the figurine along with it. “Come on, let’s just go to bed before Julianne and Sophie wake up.”
“You’re up to something,” Andrea said slyly.
“Andrea--no--let’s just go to bed. It’s not a big deal.” Lottie sat down on her bed. “Sophie and Julianne get so worked up when we wake them up late at night.”
“When you wake them up late at night,” Andrea corrected. “Well I’m not going to shut up until you tell me what you’re doing. As a matter of fact…” She made a face. “I’m just going to talk as emphatically as I possibly can until--”
“Okay!” Lottie stared restlessly at Julianne, who turned over in her sleep. “Okay, but not here, alright?” She pocketed the figurine and note from Neville Longbottom and snuck out of the dormitory. Andrea followed her down the corridor and into the deserted seventh years’ dorm.
“What are we doing here?” Andrea asked with a shiver. “Can’t we go to the common room? This place gives me the creeps.”
“Because we can’t be overheard,” Lottie answered, shutting the door behind her. “Nobody would dare come in here after what happened.”
“Except you,” Andrea pointed out.
“Well, yeah, but I’m--” Lottie sighed. “Yes, except me,” she said hurriedly. “But that’s not important!” She took a breath. Could she really trust Andrea? “Okay, this is a big secret,” Lottie said seriously. “It’s not like last time. You really can’t tell anyone. And if you do, we’ll both be in trouble.”
Andrea raised her eyebrows. “What did I do?”
“Well, nothing,” Lottie said cautiously. “But if you do tell someone, I’ll never talk to you again.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure,” Andrea breathed with a wave of her hand.
“I’m serious, Andrea! I wouldn’t be happy either, but I’m serious. You really can’t tell anyone about this. I’ll never say a word to you again if you do! Okay?”
Andrea bit her lip for a moment and glanced around at the deserted dorm. “But what--”
“Okay?”
Andrea stared at Lottie. She didn’t want to lose her best friend, but she couldn’t keep a secret that would prevent them from ending the war.
“Well?”
“Fine,” Andrea said solemnly. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Swear on your life?”
“Yes!” Andrea sighed a stream of air slowly. “I swear,” she added at Lottie’s raised eyebrows.
“Okay.” Lottie glanced at the door and the windows. “So remember when we were checking the dark objects with Palmyitor?” Andrea nodded. “Well--I took this.” Lottie pulled out the empty snuffbox.
Gasping, Andrea snatched the box from Lottie’s hands. “You stole this? Lottie, you’re going to get expelled! We need to take this back to Palmyitor. What if it’s really important?”
“Well then we can deal with it. We know enough, don’t we? -- Don’t answer that.” She pulled out the bird figurine. “I managed to open it,” she added. “Funny that you couldn’t and I could, right?”
Andrea set her jaw. “Yes, how funny,” she growled through clenched teeth. “What spell did you use? I do hope it wasn’t illegal.”
“Oh give it up,” Lottie dismissed. “There are no rules in times like this.”
Andrea glowered up at her.
“But there’s more,” Lottie said. “Inside was this.” She showed Andrea the trinket.
Andrea seemed not to breathe as she pulled the bird from Lottie’s hands. “It’s a phoenix!” she exclaimed. “It’s a majestic sculpture, isn’t it? So detailed!”
“A phoenix?” Lottie repeated.
“It’s a bird… obviously. A magical bird that’s born from the ashes when it dies.”
“Oh! Like the Order of the Phoenix! I get it!”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “Yes, exactly,” she said. “I wonder if they’re connected.”
“They are,” Lottie said confidently. “This was in it too.” She showed Andrea the scrap of parchment.
“Oh wow… wow!” Andrea read the parchment several times. “How long have you been keeping this?”
“I just found it,” Lottie answered. “What do you think it means?”
“Well that’s a bit obvious, isn’t it? It means that the location of the Order of the Phoenix is at Grimmauld Place. Of course, I have no idea who Neville Longbottom is, but--”
“Who cares?” Lottie interrupted. “We just need to find Grimmauld Place and find the Order.”
“But do you really think that they’re still there?” Andrea asked skeptically. “I’d guess that this was made before the war ended. If the Order had been reformed, I’m sure the heads would know about it, right?”
“Maybe,” Lottie said. “But we’d find valuable stuff there anyways, even if it was abandoned.”
“But how would we find it?”
“I don’t know.”
Andrea sat down on one of the abandoned beds and put a fist to her chin. “Well, since you won’t let me tell anyone,” she said coldly, “what we need to do is find this Grimmauld Place and see if we can find any information that could help our side.”
“Okay,” Lottie agreed. “Then let’s go to the library tomorrow to see if we can find its location.”
Lottie and Andrea spent nearly all of their free time for months in the library, searching for information on the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, no books had been published on the Order, since the Death Eaters chose what could be published and what couldn’t. So all of the information Lottie and Andrea found was in handwritten essays.
Day after day, Lottie struggled over the rushed and cramped handwriting on fading parchments as her boredom grew to an unbearable level. Even Andrea was hardly keeping up on her homework, because she spent all of her time searching. The afternoons in the stuffy library were absolutely intolerable. Sunlight shone through the narrow windows and sapped all of Lottie’s energy as she sluggishly searched for anything that might give her some sort of clue.
“I give up,” Lottie said after a particularly long dinner in early February, throwing a scroll of parchment to the floor. “This has taken months and we’re still not getting anywhere. I’m exhausted and--” She stopped. Andrea hadn’t said a world. Lottie wasn’t used to ranting without interruption. “Andrea?”
Andrea looked up, eyes wide. “I found it,” she whispered.
“What?”
Andrea pulled off her glasses, rubbed them on her sweater and put them back on. “Here, see? Secret Keepers are a vital part of the Fidelius Charm. The Fidelius Charm is used to magically conceal people and places until the chosen Secret Keeper reveals the location.”
“So what?” Lottie asked. “We’re looking for Neville Longbottom, remember?”
“Don’t you get it?” Andrea asked, slapping her palm against the table anxiously. She lowered her voice. “The Order of the Phoenix was located at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and Neville Longbottom was their Secret Keeper. Nobody can see Grimmauld Place except for people who were told the secret. And now that we found the note from him, assuming that it’s actually from him, we know the secret too.”
Halfway to Infinity by Eponine
Chapter Notes: Sorry again for the lateness of this chapter! My computer had some technical difficulties that prevented me from accessing my chapter for a while. It's kind of sorted out now, so hopefully I'll update kind of soon!
Thanks to TheBird for doing a spectacular beta job! There were quite a few mistakes in this one, so I'm very grateful to her for helping me fix them!
This chapter is dedicated to my dog, Nikki.