'Look who it is!' called Neville to the group at large, as some of them began to get to their feet. 'Didn't I tell you?' Neville stepped aside to reveal Harry, Ron and Hermione to them.
'HARRY!'
'It's Potter, it's POTTER!'
'Ron!'
'Hermione!'
Seamus and Ernie were the first to rush over to them, joined hastily by Lavender, Parvati and the rest of the girls and boys. They formed a kind of scrum at the portrait, all shouting and ruffling their hair and clapping them on their backs.
'OK, OK, calm down!' shouted Neville over the sudden tumult and they all dispersed quickly, but still staring at the trio admiringly.
'Where are we?' Harry asked, staring around at the colourful hangings and hammocks.
'Room of Requirement, of course!' answered Neville. 'Surpassed itself, hasn't it? The Carrows were chasing me, and I knew I had just one chance for a hideout: I managed to get through the door and this is what I found! Well, it wasn't exactly like this when I arrived, it was a load smaller, there was only one hammock and just Gryffindor hangings. But it's expanded as more and more of the DA have arrived.'
'And the Carrows can't get in?'
Neville opened his mouth, but Seamus answered for him.
'No ... it's a proper hideout, as long as one of us stays in here, they can't get at us, the door won't open. It's all down to Neville,' he ploughed on, grinning at Neville. 'He really gets this Room. You've got to ask it for exactly what you need – like, "I don't want any Carrow supporters to be able to get in" – and it'll do it for you! You've just got to make sure you close the loopholes! Neville's the man!'
'It's quite straightforward, really,' said Neville, trying not to look too pleased with himself. 'I'd been in here about a day and a half, and getting really hungry, and wishing I could get something to eat, and that's when the passage to the Hog's Head opened up. I went through it and met Aberforth. He's been providing us with food, because for some reason, that's the one thing the Room doesn't really do.'
'Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elementary Transfiguration,' said Ron, and Neville raised his eyebrows, impressed. Seamus spoke again.
'So we've been hiding out here for nearly two weeks and it just makes more hammocks every time we need them, and it even sprouted a pretty good bathroom once girls started turning up –'
'– and thought they'd quite like to wash, yes,' interrupted Lavender and Seamus laughed.
'Tell us what you've been up to, though,' said Ernie, when nothing happened except that Harry looked around at them all again. 'There've been so many rumours, we've been trying to keep up with you on Potterwatch. You didn't break into Gringotts?'
'They did!' exclaimed Neville. 'And the dragon's true too!' There were more celebratory whoops and the Ravenclaw boys clapped appreciatively. Then Seamus asked the question that was on all of their minds.
'What were you after?'
None of them answered, but Harry turned suddenly faint, turning his back on them briefly, holding his head. Neville remembered how Harry's scar had always had some connection to Voldemort, and hoped the latter wasn't disturbing Harry.
'Are you alright, Harry?' he asked, moving towards him again. 'Want to sit down? I expect you're tired, aren't –?'
'No,' Harry interrupted, looking meaningfully at Ron and Hermione, to whom he muttered, 'we need to get going.'
'What are we going to do, then, Harry?' asked Seamus eagerly again. 'What's the plan?'
'Plan?' Harry repeated. 'Well, there's something we – Ron, Hermione and I – need to do, and then we'll get out of here.'
There was a confused silence. Neville knew they were misunderstood; they had obviously come here to get rid of the Carrows, surely ... what other reason was there?
'What d'you mean, "get out of here"?' he asked.
'We haven't come back to stay,' Harry continued impatiently, massaging his forehead still. 'There's something important we need to do –'
'What is it?'
'I – I can't tell you.'
But Neville knew where this was going: he'd heard Harry talk like this before and half-expected him to announce that he was heading alone to the Ministry to save Sirius. Everyone else was clearly thinking along the same lines, many of them muttering to one another or rolling their eyes.
'Why can't you tell us?' said Neville, trying not to sound too annoyed. 'It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?'
'Well, yeah –'
'Then we'll help you,' he concluded simply, while all around him came nods of agreement, and shuffling sounds as many of the boys got to their feet.
'You don't understand,' replied Harry, sounding weary. 'We – we can't tell you. We've got to do it – alone.'
'Why?' asked Neville, his impatience rising.
'Because ... Dumbledore left the three of us a job ... and we weren't supposed to tell – I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the three of us.'
'We're his Army,' said Neville quietly; didn't they realise how hard it had been for them at Hogwarts this year? 'Dumbledore's Army. We were all in it together, we've been keeping it going while you three have been off on your own –'
'It hasn't exactly been a picnic, mate,' said Ron, but Neville had found his new spark of courage at the beginning of the year and he was going to use it now. He straightened up, looking directly at them, feeling exactly like he had done in their first-year when he'd threatened to fight them if they went out to cause trouble again.
'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.'
'Look –' but Harry's next excuse was cut short as everyone was distracted by figures emerging through the dark hole of the tunnel. On a better day, Neville would have been delighted to see Luna and Dean, but his annoyance and angst at being left alone had clouded over everything else.
'We got your message, Neville!' Luna said brightly, and Neville grinned happily in spite of himself, his heart rising again. 'Hello you three, I thought you must be here! Hi everyone! Oh, it's great to be back!'
Dean grinned down at everyone and Seamus ran up to hug his best friend with a shout of joy.
'Luna, what are you doing here?' asked a perplexed Harry. 'How did you –?'
'I sent for her,' explained Neville, showing them the Galleon again. 'I promised her and Ginny that if you turned up I'd let them now. We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution. That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows.' As he talked, the coin in his hand went hot and he read the message:
Suddenly struck by an idea, while Luna continued to talk to Harry, Neville hastily etched a reply:
Whatever Harry, Ron and Hermione were deciding, Neville was positive that tonight would be the Carrow's and Snape's downfall.
'Listen,' Harry was pleading to Luna and Neville put the coin back in his pocket, '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?' said Michael loudly and incredulously.
'No!' shouted Ron, just as annoyed. '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!' Neville half-yelled. 'We want to be a part of it!'
Much sooner than he'd expected, he was cut off by the arrival of Ginny, the twins, Lee and Cho. How they had managed to alert Aberforth and reach the end of the tunnel in under a minute was beyond his comprehension.
'Aberforth's getting a bit ratty,' said Fred to Neville, when their reception had died down. 'He wants a kip, and his bar's turned into a railway station.'
'I got the message,' said Cho, holding up her own coin while smiling at Harry, and Neville was surprised she still had it. She went and sat next to Michael.
'So what's the plan, Harry?' asked George eagerly.
'There isn't one,' Harry answered evasively.
'Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favourite kind,' said the other twin.
'You've got to stop this!' Harry burst out and it took Neville a few seconds to realise that Harry had aimed it at him. 'What did you call them all back for? This is insane –'
'We're fighting aren't we?' piped up Dean, and Neville had to fight back a laugh. '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.
'The Snatchers took it,' explained Dean, as Harry, Ron and Hermione appeared to be conferring over something. Fred and George were demonstrating their Shield Hats and cracking jokes, while Lavender and Parvati laughed and squealed as the jinxes deflected off the hats. Then Harry gathered the group's attention again.
'OK ... 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. I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw? Daddy's trying to duplicate it.'
'Yeah, but the lost diadem ... is lost, Luna. That's sort of the point,' said Michael and a couple of people laughed.
'When was it lost?'
'Centuries ago, they say,' answered Cho. 'Professor Flitwick says the diadem vanished with Ravenclaw herself. People have looked, but nobody's ever found a trace of it, have they?' she asked Terry and Michael, who shook their heads.
'Sorry, but what is a diadem?' asked Ron sceptically.
'It's a kind of crown,' said Terry. 'Ravenclaw's was supposed to have magical properties, enhance the wisdom of the wearer.'
'And none of you have ever seen anything that looks like it?' asked Harry, as Luna sounded to Neville as though she was on the verge of sharing one of her and her father's odd stories. But they all shook their heads.
There was a pause, during which Neville wondered why on earth Harry was looking for something of Ravenclaw.
'If you'd like to see what the diadem's supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you, Harry?' suggested Cho. 'Ravenclaw's wearing it in her statue.'
Harry spoke to Ron shortly before agreeing to be escorted to the Ravenclaw common room, and Cho got to her feet –
'No, Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?' said Ginny quite angrily.
'Oooh, yes, I'd like to,' she said, getting to her feet while a disappointed-looking Cho sat back down.
Harry took a deep breath and turned to Neville.
'How do we get out?'