The Dark Gryffindor

sjauthor: Thanks for that review so long ago. I think I'm coming back to this story as well.


LancesPet: Thanks for the review. I'll let you have that hope.


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Continuation of…


Chapter Forty-three: The Carrows’ Secret


The gash on Neville’s cheek was still bleeding profusely. Yet somehow, he remained stoic at his efforts to ignore it.

Neville, and Valerie and Seamus watched as the other Carrow entered his sister’s cramped dwelling that could be called an office. Amycus shut the door behind him softly and smiled when he saw the three of them waiting. To Amycus he saw them as complacent. Yet they were really anything but.

Valerie was surprised by Neville. He strutted over to the chaise and sat down. Amycus quickly followed with Alecto, both of them wands out. And then Neville, in a show of treachery and a daring gleam in his eyes, crumpled his “T” marked essay. “Okay – What did you really bring us in here for?” he asked, jutting his jaw out defensively.

“Ah, caught on pretty fast have you boy?” said Alecto and her eyes gleamed malevolently. Amycus laughed a brief guffaw and sat across from the three students with his sister.

Of course Valerie knew the real reason they were here, and she had been hoping to feign a bit longer to buy some time. She cringed at the thought of being forced poison through her mouth. Her eyes darted around the room, remembering the magical vice that felt like it would crack her skull last time she was here!

Alecto went on, before anyone else could speak, “No!....This is to absolve your transgressions, Mr. Longbottom! Punishment for refusing to use the Cruciatus Curse, releasing prisoners and ordering others to do so in your stead and….for embarrassing me in my class today…I think it’s high-time I sought vengeance!”

Neville looked puzzled. “If all that’s true…then what are Seamus and Valerie doing here?”

“Why they helped you, Longbottom!”

“No! I get it! What we have in common is the D.A.! I see right through you. You want to destroy the D.A. by eradicating it’s leaders,” Neville boomed. He sounded strong and sure.

Alecto and Amycus frowned. They hadn’t wanted them to realize this. At least not so soon.

“You know what? I think Neville’s right,” added Seamus furiously. All Valerie could manage was a weak nod in agreement. Yet she had hoped this inevitable confrontation would go better. Just like the Carrows didn’t like how this was going, neither did Valerie, but of course she had a different reason. She was hoping she could bide her time and give Severus a chance to rescue them somehow!

“No! I believe you!” appeased Valerie rather recklessly. Yet she was desperate to avoid the end result: their deaths. She knew that was on their agenda, whilst Seamus and Neville did not.

“You want to encourage us to take part in your Punishers' duties! Fine! I-I’m willing to compromise!” she added in the spur of the moment. Anything that would buy them time, but she didn’t mean a true compromise.

“Powers!” Neville and Seamus had chided together, mouths-dropping open.

“How could you?” murmured Seamus. And the hotheaded explosive Seamus spat on the floor. “There’s your compromise? Like it?”

Amycus said, “It’s too late for compromises. We know what we want…”

“Yes.” Said Alecto. She rounded on Neville and drew closer to him, her wand pointing at him. “Dismantling the D.A. is our goal and also….somebody much more powerful…Reckon you know who I mean?”

“Snape!” screamed Seamus.

But Neville knew right away, “It’s You-Know-Who’s idea isn’t it?”

Before Neville or Seamus could question them more, Alecto practically jumped into Neville’s space in the chair, her wand pointing straight at his face. She seemed over eager. “And now I get my revenge for today…You will take back those words. You will never ask impertinent questions again. How dare you ask if I have dirty blood! And in front of the students. It simply is not true! Take it back, Mr. Longbotom!”

“Never!”

“Then we shall start playing rough with you…Crucio!”

Neville’s face exploded in agony and he turned slowly from pink to red to bilious green in complexion. His scream wore on.

Finally the witch relinquished her curse. “Now Longbottom…Perhaps I have persuaded you. Perhaps I will give you a chance....Tonight you may publicly announce your mistake.”

“I will not!” said Neville indignantly. He clutched his face, where the torture curse had mostly been concentrated on. It was now swollen and puffy. All of this joined the deep, bloody gash on his cheek.

“Perhaps…Going for the girl will make you think different!”

Neville and Seamus were forced to listen to Valerie under the torture curse. Neville at once began to plead valiantly for them to lay it off. But Seamus did not, remained fixated in horror, waiting his turn.

Neville couldn’t stand it and he pleaded, “No! No! You can hurt me. Not my friend.”

Valerie was now twisting on the ground it hurt so badly as the witch continued. And Amycus was thudding his boot against her ribs and hips continuously kicking, just enough that it hurt too.

In a bold move, Neville threw himself on top of Valerie. She wished he would stop. He’d only make things worse.

Amycus suddenly went for Neville with fury. Pounding Neville’s sturdy shoulders and back with his fists. Seamus didn’t like to see his friend in a scrape without help, and he got on his haunches, as if he was about to wrestle. It was two fit boys against a middle-aged man.

But before, anything else could happen, Alecto screamed, “Accio wands! Accio wands!”

All of their wands came shooting out of their pockets and into her pudgy hands. Instantly, Alecto tossed back her brother’s wand and he managed to catch it. Slowly and with a sly smile, Alecto put the wands back inside her pocket, and she kept her own pointing in the direction of Valerie, Neville and Seamus.

“Put them in chains then,” ordered Alecto to her brother, and she motioned towards the wall.

“I guess it’s about the right time to do it.”

He grabbed Neville by the hair, so hard some of it came off, living little bald patches on top of his head. It took all Neville’s strength not to scream from that.

“You two up against the wall right next to him” grunted Amycus. Valerie obeyed at once, before the wizard would push her against it hard, like he did to Seamus.

Amycys busied himself linking stout chains to hooks on the wall. Meanwhile, Alecto watched all the time, beating her wand against the palm of her hand. They knew they didn’t have a choice, they couldn’t fight themselves free. Not from this.

Within moments Valerie’s wrists hung straight above her, clamped together in manacles. And her ankles were also fettered to the wall at the floor. And Neville eye was fast becoming bruised from before. Their bodies ached from the recent dose of the Cruciatus.

Continuing with the muggle rabbling of before, Amycus and Alecto beat every inch of the three with their fists. It hurt so badly, Valerie couldn’t protest.
“We’ll be back with dinner…When you’re all good and hungry!” said Alecto gaily. And she was thinking of her plans to poison their food. This had all been an act to get the leaders in enough submission that they’d feel compelled to take the food later.

“Come along Amycus,” she called.

Valerie, Seamus and Neville watched them go to the door, which happened to be right across from them. Valerie felt a glimmer of hope when she thought she saw Snape standing outside. But she couldn’t be sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Snape watched them, his eyes black and fathomless. Amycus and Alecto could never have guessed his hopes that the plan failed, and his desire to do anything to save Valerie. “The plan is going well then, I suspect?”

“Oh, yes. Snape. We’ve caught the leaders of the resisters! We’ll have them dead by tonight and the Dark Lord-“

“Will congratulate me, more than you, Alecto and you too, Amycus. I am master of this school. It is upon my shoulders that order is maintained!” He was playing his part well. The Dark Lord would never know.

Amycus looked a little belligerent to these words. He hated to be reminded that he was mere second in command at Hogwarts. “We have classes Snape. What are you going to do?”

“I must stay here and make sure their little friends don’t come by. They shall not make an escape.”

The Carrows agreed with this and were soon gone. Snape remained, leaning against the wall almost like a solider at attention. Occasionally, a patrol unit of Snatchers would go by, but of course they didn’t dare question the headmaster. Hours past. But Snape was determined to stay. He must be present when the Carrows returned. And he must find a way to intervene without blowing his cover. Dozens of ideas came to him, but each of them sloppier than the former.

And nobody would wonder why Headmaster Snape wasn’t to show at meals. Afterall, it had been his perpetual habit for months.


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