The silver button felt like a lead weight in Neville’s pocket. Every time it clinked against his wand, he was reminded of the footprints in the tunnel—the small, rhythmic steps of someone who knew exactly how to move through the darkness.
Back in the Room of Requirement, the mood should have been celebratory. The magical relay was working; the crackling voice of Lee Jordan was currently filling the room with news of the resistance, providing a spark of hope that had been missing for months. But Neville couldn’t focus. He stood by the hammock where Demelza Robins was resting, his eyes scanning the room.
“You’re quiet,” Padma said, stepping up beside him. She looked exhausted, her hair messy and her robes singed from the skirmish at the Hog’s Head. “The relay is a success, Neville. We did it.”
“We did,” Neville said, pulling the button from his pocket and holding it out. “But we weren’t alone. I found this in the alcove where the footprints ended. It’s Slytherin.”
Padma’s eyes widened. She took the button, turning it over in her palm. “A silver button… hand-stitched. This isn’t just any Slytherin. This is high-quality. Malfoy? Zabini? Parkinson?”
“Lavender said the prints were small,” Neville reminded her. “And whoever it was, they didn’t alert the Carrows. They watched us go, and they watched us come back. They could have ended the D.A. tonight, but they stayed in the shadows.”
The next morning, the atmosphere in the Great Hall was suffocating. Amycus Carrow was pacing behind the High Table, his face a mask of fury. The news of the “disturbance” at the Hog’s Head had clearly reached the school, and the Death Eaters were looking for someone to bleed.
“I don’t like it,” Lavender whispered as they sat at the Gryffindor table, picking at their porridge. “Look at the Slytherin table. They’re all acting… normal. Too normal.”
Neville followed her gaze. Draco Malfoy looked pale and ill, staring into his goblet. Blaise Zabini was laughing at something Pansy Parkinson had said. But it was the younger students who caught Neville’s eye. Specifically, a girl with dark, waist-length hair and a face carved from marble: Astoria Greengrass.
She wasn’t eating. She was looking directly at Neville. When their eyes met, she didn’t flinch or sneer. She nodded—a movement so slight Neville almost missed it—and then went back to her book.
“Padma,” Neville muttered. “Who is Astoria Greengrass close to?”
“The ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’ crowd,” Padma replied. “Her sister Daphne is in our year. Why?”
“Because she’s the only one not looking at the Carrows with fear or the rest of us with contempt,” Neville said. “She’s looking at me like she’s waiting for something.”
Neville didn’t wait for her to come to him. That night, after the Carrows had finished their final patrol of the seventh-floor corridor, he slipped out of the Room of Requirement. He didn’t use the Marauder’s Map—Harry had that—but he had something almost as good: the trust of the castle’s portraits.
He found her exactly where he expected: near the statue of the one-eyed witch. She wasn’t hiding; she was standing in the center of the corridor, her hands folded in front of her.
“You’re missing a button,” Neville said, stepping out of the shadows.
Astoria didn’t turn around. “And you’re missing a godfather, a home, and a chance at a normal life, Longbottom. We’re all missing things these days.”
She turned then, and Neville saw the dark circles under her eyes. She looked fragile, but her gaze was steady. “The tunnel is collapsing, you know. Your ‘humming’ trick with the vines worked, but the magic of the castle is turning sour. If you use it again, the roof will bury you.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?” Neville asked, stepping closer, his hand on his wand. “You could have handed us to the Carrows on a silver platter. You’d be a hero to the Dark Lord.”
Astoria let out a cold, hollow laugh. “A hero? My sister is being forced to ‘practice’ the Cruciatus on first-years. My parents are prisoners in their own manor. Do you think I want the Carrows to win? Do you think being a Slytherin means I enjoy watching this school turn into a slaughterhouse?”
She stepped forward, the moonlight through the high windows catching the silver of her remaining buttons. “I was in the tunnel because I was trying to leave. I wanted to run. But then I saw you three. I saw the way you fought for that little girl, Demelza. I realized that if I ran, there would be one less person left to remember what this place used to be.”
Neville lowered his wand. He saw the truth in her eyes—not the fiery rebellion of a Gryffindor, but the cold, desperate resolve of someone who had seen behind the curtain of the Death Eaters’ “glory” and found only rot.
“The D.A. needs eyes in the dungeons,” Neville said. “We need to know what the Carrows are planning before they announce it. We need to know who is being taken to the ‘interrogation’ rooms before they get there.”
“You’re asking me to be a spy,” Astoria said. “If I’m caught, they won’t just ‘detain’ me. They’ll kill my family.”
“I know,” Neville said. “But we’re already dead if we don’t fight back. The relay we set up… It’s just the beginning. We’re building an army, Astoria. Not just for us, but for everyone.”
Astoria reached out her hand. Neville reached into his pocket and placed the silver button into her palm.
“I’ll give you the names,” she whispered. “But don’t ever think we’re friends, Longbottom. I’m doing this because I want to survive.”
“That’s more than enough for me,” Neville replied.
Part II: The Poisoned Tip
Trust in a time of war was a luxury the D.A. couldn’t afford, yet Neville found himself betting the lives of his friends on a silver button and the word of a Slytherin. Two days after their midnight meeting, a folded scrap of parchment appeared in Neville’s pocket during a chaotic Transfiguration class.
“The Carrows have found the wireless. They are moving the confiscated items to the Trophy Room tonight at ten. They aren’t guarding it—they think the fear is enough. If you want your ‘voice’ back, move fast. – A.”
Neville showed the note to Padma and Lavender in the safety of the Room of Requirement.
“It’s a trap,” Lavender said instantly, her eyes narrowing. “It’s too easy, Neville. The Trophy Room is a dead end. If they catch us there, we’re cornered.”
“But if it’s true,” Padma countered, pacing the length of the room, “they have the Potterwatch equipment. If they take it apart, they might find the frequency we’re using for the relay. They could trace it back here.”
Neville looked at the note. He remembered Astoria’s eyes—the way she looked not with malice, but with a cold, desperate exhaustion. “I’m going. Alone.”
“Like hell you are,” Lavender snapped. “If you’re walking into a trap, you’re walking in with us.”
The castle felt different at 10:00 PM. The air was colder, and the shadows seemed to stretch and reach like the Devil’s Snare in the Hogsmeade tunnel. The trio moved under a disillusionment charm, their breaths shallow and synchronized.
They reached the Trophy Room. The door was ajar, a sliver of candlelight spilling onto the stone floor. Inside, a heavy iron chest sat in the center of the room, surrounded by the silver cups and shields of Hogwarts’ past.
“I don’t like this,” Padma whispered, her wand tip glowing faintly.
Neville stepped toward the chest. Just as his fingers brushed the cold iron, the door slammed shut. The candlelight vanished, replaced by the harsh, sickly green glow of Morsmordre—the Dark Mark—flickering in a jar on the ceiling.
“Well, well,” a voice sneered from the shadows. It wasn’t a Carrow. It was Vincent Crabbe, his face twisted in a cruel grin, flanked by Gregory Goyle and Pansy Parkinson. “The blood-traitor actually came. Astoria said you were predictable, Longbottom.”
Neville’s heart sank. Astoria. She had played him. She had used the button to get close and then handed them to the Inquisitorial Squad.
“Where is she?” Neville growled, raising his wand.
“Safe in the dungeons, probably laughing at how easy it was to trick a Gryffindor,” Pansy spat. “Now, drop the wands, or we start with the Brown girl. I’ve been wanting to fix that pretty face of hers.”
The fight was fast and brutal. Crabbe and Goyle weren’t the bumbling fools they used to be; the Carrows had taught them to enjoy pain. Red and green sparks flew, shattering the glass cases of the Trophy Room. Lavender moved with a dancer’s grace, weaving through the spellfire to tackle Pansy, while Padma used a powerful Depulso to send a heavy trophy cabinet crashing toward Goyle.
“Enough!” a new voice rang out.
A jet of silver light burst from the back of the room, striking the jar on the ceiling and extinguishing the green glow. In the sudden darkness, a silhouette moved with terrifying speed.
“Stupefy! Impedimenta! Petrificus Totalus!”
By the time the trio regained their bearings, Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy were bound in magical ropes, unconscious. Standing over them, her wand still smoking, was Astoria Greengrass. She was breathing hard, her robes torn at the shoulder.
“You… you set us up,” Neville gasped, his wand still pointed at her.
“I didn’t,” Astoria hissed, clutching her arm. A dark stain was spreading across her sleeve. “They found the note. Pansy went through my things. I had to tell them I’d lure you here, or they would have gone straight to the Carrows. I told them I’d stay behind to ‘watch the door.’”
“You took a curse for us,” Padma realized, stepping forward to look at Astoria’s arm. “That’s dark magic. It won’t heal with a simple Episkey.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Astoria said, her voice shaking. “You have to go. They’ll be awake soon, and they’ll know I turned on them. I can’t go back to the Slytherin common room tonight.”
“You’re coming with us,” Neville said. It wasn’t a request.
“I can’t be in the Room of Requirement,” she argued. “The others… Seamus, Ginny… they’ll kill me the second they see my tie.”
“Then we’ll hide you in plain sight,” Neville replied, looking at the unconscious Slytherins. “Padma, can you modify their memories? Make them think they tripped a trap in the room and the D.A. was never here?”
“I can try,” Padma said, her Ravenclaw focus returning. “But Astoria… Neville is right. You’re one of us now. Whether you like it or not.”
They returned to the seventh floor, but they didn’t go to the Room of Requirement. Neville led them to a hidden alcove behind a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
“This is the ‘Safe House’ we use for the younger kids when things get bad,” Neville explained. “It’s small, but it’s hidden.”
Astoria sat on a low bench, allowing Lavender to tend to her wound. The silence between them wasn’t the silence of enemies anymore; it was the heavy, complicated silence of people who had seen the worst of the world and decided to stand together anyway.
“They’ll come for me eventually,” Astoria said, looking at the silver button she still held in her hand. “The Greengrass name won’t protect me forever.”
“Then we’ll be ready,” Neville said. “And Astoria? Thanks for the ‘tip.'”
She looked up, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “Next time, Longbottom, try not to be so predictable.”
Part III — The Great Escape
The atmosphere at breakfast was not just heavy; it was electric with the scent of ozone and old blood. The Carrows were no longer pacing; they were stationary, flanking the Great Hall doors like gargoyles. Amycus was clutching a list of names—a new list, one that Neville knew from Astoria’s latest whispered warning was the “Final Purge.”
“They’re not just taking the runaways anymore,” Neville whispered to Lavender as they sat at the Gryffindor table. “They’re clearing the board. Anyone with a family connection to the Order or the Ministry resistance is going to the dungeons tonight.”
“Including us,” Lavender noted, her eyes fixed on Alecto Carrow. “So, what’s the move, Commander?”
Neville didn’t hesitate. “We don’t wait for the sun to go down. We execute ‘The Great Escape’ now.”
The plan relied on the one thing the Carrows couldn’t control: the absolute, unhinged spirit of Hogwarts itself. At exactly 10:30 AM, during the transition between classes, the castle erupted.
It started with the “Weasley Legacy.” Fred and George had left behind a cache of specialized fireworks in a hidden compartment behind the portrait of a particularly grumpy monk. Lee Jordan had given Neville the password before he left.
With a thunderous BOOM, a series of Whiz-bangs shaped like dragons and giant, flaming lions roared through the Entrance Hall. They didn’t just explode; they multiplied, chasing any student wearing an Inquisitorial Squad badge.
“Now!” Neville yelled.
While the Carrows were busy trying to hex the indestructible fireworks, the D.A. went to work. Padma and the Ravenclaws used a synchronized “Glacius” on the marble stairs, turning the main thoroughfares into ice rinks for the pursuing Snatchers.
Amycus Carrow screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated rage. He leveled his wand at a group of fleeing third-years. “CRUC—”
“EXPULSO!”
Neville’s spell caught the stone floor at Amycus’s feet, showering the Death Eater in debris and forcing him to shield his face. Neville stood at the top of the stairs, the Sword of Gryffindor (which he’d retrieved from its hiding place in the Room of Requirement) gleaming at his hip, though he kept his wand out.
“The school is closed, Carrow!” Neville roared.
“You’re dead, Longbottom!” Amycus snarled, lunging forward, but he forgot about Padma’s ice. His boots slipped, and he went crashing down the marble steps, his dignity following shortly after his wand.
The goal wasn’t a fight to the death; it was a disappearance.
Lavender led the “Safe House” group—the younger students and Astoria—toward the Room of Requirement. But the Room was no longer just a room. It had sensed the desperation of its inhabitants and had shifted.
When they arrived at the seventh-floor corridor, the door didn’t just appear; it expanded. The Room of Requirement had opened a direct, permanent tunnel—not to the Hog’s Head, but to a hidden cave in the mountains surrounding the school.
“Everyone inside! Don’t look back!” Neville commanded.
Astoria stopped at the threshold, looking at the stone walls she had called home for years. “If we leave, we can’t come back until it’s over.”
“Then we make sure it’s over soon,” Neville said, handing her a spare wand they’d confiscated from Goyle. “Go, Astoria.”
Neville, Padma, and Lavender were the last ones at the door. Behind them, the sounds of the Carrows and the reinforced Ministry guards were getting closer.
“Seal it, Padma,” Neville said.
“If I seal it from this side, the Room might not open again for a long time,” Padma warned.
“Do it.”
As Padma began the incantation to collapse the entrance, a final jet of green light flew down the corridor, missing Lavender’s head by an inch. Neville returned fire with a stunning spell so powerful it cracked the stone of the opposite wall.
The door vanished. The stone became smooth, solid, and silent.
They emerged in the cold, biting air of the Scottish Highlands. Below them, Hogwarts sat like a dark, jagged crown on the landscape. They were out. They were safe. But they were no longer students.
“What now?” Lavender asked, rubbing her arms against the chill.
Neville looked at the group of thirty students huddled in the cave. He looked at the silver button Astoria had pinned to her cloak—a badge of a different kind of loyalty.
“Now,” Neville said, his voice echoing in the cavern, “we stop hiding. We have the relay. We have the names. We’re going to find Harry, and we’re going to finish this.”
He looked at his friends—the Ravenclaw strategist, the Gryffindor scout, and the Slytherin spy. They weren’t just the D.A. anymore. They were the architects of the final stand.