MTL - 94 Diagon Alley-Chapter 237 Festival

hole. On that side were smooth stone steps, and it seemed that the passage had been there for many years. Brass lamps hung on the walls, and the dirt floor was trodden flat. As they walked in the passage, shadows cast on the walls and swayed like fans.

"Are you with us, Gwen?" Hermione asked, sticking her head out of the hole.

"I'll discuss it when the others arrive." Gwen shook his head. "We won't enter Hogwarts easily unless you need help—that would cause unnecessary trouble."

In the secret passage, Neville began to walk backwards, scrutinizing them with a smile on his face. "...Is it true? Did you break into Gringotts? Did you actually escape on a fire dragon? It's all over the place, everybody's talking about Terry Boot yelling about it in the auditorium during dinner. Son, I was beaten by the Carlo brothers and sisters!"

"Yes, it's true," said Harry.

Neville laughed happily.

"What happened to the dragon?"

"Releasing it in the wild," said Ron, "Hermione is determined to keep it as a pet—"

"Don't exaggerate, Ron—"

"But what are you doing? People say you're running around, Harry, but I don't think so. I think you must be doing something."

"You're right," said Harry. "Tell us about Hogwarts, Neville, we don't have any news."

"School... ah, it's not like Hogwarts now." Neville said, the smile on his face faded, "Do you know the Carrows?"

"The two Death Eaters who teach here?"

“They don’t just teach,” Neville said, “discipline is theirs too. These two Carlos like to punish students the most.”

"Like Umbridge?"

"Where, Umbridge is quite mild compared to them. If we do something wrong, the other teachers will have to hand us over to them. However, as long as the teachers can Don't do it if you can hide. You can see that they hate those two people as much as we do."

"Amycus, that man, taught that Defence Against the Dark Arts class, now it's really naked dark magic. Asking us to do it on those incarcerated Practice the Cruciatus—"

"What?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione exclaimed in unison echoed throughout the passage.

"Yeah," said Neville, "that's how my injury came about." He pointed to a particularly deep cut on his cheek. "I wouldn't do it. But some people were quite interested, and Crabbe and Golke liked it. This is probably the first time they've taken a shot at something."

"Alecto, Amycus' sister, teaches Muggle studies, which is compulsory for everyone now. We all hear her say that Muggles are like animals, and Dirty, stupid, vicious and cruel to wizards, forcing wizards to hide, and saying that normal order is now re-established. This wound," he pointed to the other cut on his face, "is because I asked her and her brother's hand How much Muggle blood was on it."

"My God, Neville," said Ron, "it's time and place to speak arrogantly."

"You didn't hear her," Neville said, "or you wouldn't be able to stand it. The point is, it's useful for someone to stand up to them and give people hope. Harry , I noticed it when you did it."

"But they're sharpening your knives," said Ron. Ron shuddered as they passed under a light that made Neville's wound even more shocking.

Neville shrugged.

"It doesn't matter. They are reluctant to waste too much pureblood, so they only torture us a little when we talk rashly, and it won't really kill us."

Harry didn't know which was worse, the things Neville said or the indifferent tone in which he said them.

"The real danger is that the classmates who have relatives and friends outside and cause trouble will be held hostage. Old Sheenau Lovegood spoke too frankly on "The Quibbler", They took Luna off the train when she was going back for Christmas."

"Neville, Luna's okay, we saw her—"

"Yeah, I know, she sent me a letter."

Neville took a gold coin from his pocket, which Harry recognized as the fake Galleons that Dumbledore's Army used to pass messages to each other.

"It's awesome," Neville said to Hermione with a grin, "the Carrolls never found out how we were connected, and they were going crazy. We used to sneak out in the middle of the night and scribble on the walls 'Dumbledore's Army is still recruiting' stuff. Snape hated it."

"When?" Harry asked, noticing that he was using the past tense.

"Well, things got tougher after that," Neville said, "lost Luna at Christmas, Ginny didn't come back after Easter, and the three of us were pretty much the lead. Yes. The Carrolls seemed to know that I was behind a lot of things and started punishing me hard, and then Michael Corner was found when he went to release a freshman they had locked up and they tortured him to the point of Terrible. It scared a lot of people away."

"I can't believe it." Ron muttered under his breath as the passage began to turn uphill.

"Yeah, I couldn't ask someone to go through what Michael did, so dropped those dangerous practices. But we're still fighting and doing some underground work until two weeks ago. That At that time, they probably concluded that there was only one way to restrain me, so they went to my grandma."

"What?" Harry, Ron and Hermione asked at the same time.

"Yeah," said Neville, the passage was steep and breathless, "Hmph, you can see what they're thinking. Kidnapping children to make relatives follow the rules has always been a trick. Very clever, and I guessed that sooner or later they'd use it the other way around. The thing is," he faced them, and Harry was surprised to see him smiling, "they're so over-the-top. Grandma, An unremarkable old witch, living alone, they probably thought they didn't need to send someone special. As a result," Neville laughed, "Dawlish was still lying in St. Mungo's Hospital, and grandma escaped. She asked Aberforth to send me a letter," he patted the breast pocket of his robe, "and told me that she was proud of me, and that I was worthy of my parents' son, and told me to persevere."

"It's amazing," said Ron.

"Yeah," said Neville cheerfully, "the problem is, they realized they couldn't threaten me, and they decided that Hogwarts could not have me anymore. I don't know what they were going to do. Kill me or send me to Azkaban, no matter what, I know I should be gone."

"But," said Ron, seemingly completely confused, "we—are we not going to Hogwarts?"

"Sure," said Neville, "you'll see. Here we are."

They turned a corner and came to the small square like a cave. There were seven doors in all, and Neville somehow identified one of them. Step forward. Neville pushed open the door and climbed in. Harry followed, only to hear Neville shout to some invisible people, "Look who's here! How did I tell you?"

As soon as Harry got into the room at the end of the passage, he heard several people screaming, shouting—

"Harry!"

"It's Potter, it's Potter!"

"Ron!"

"Hermione!"

The colorful curtains, the lights, and the many faces made Harry dazzled. Then, he, Ron and Hermione were surrounded by about twenty people. The men hugged them, shook their hands, thumped their backs, rubbed their hair as if they had just won a Quidditch final.

"Alright, alright, be quiet!" Neville shouted, and the crowd receded, and Harry could see what was going on around him.

Harry didn't know this room at all. It was huge, and it looked like a fancy treehouse, and like the cabin of a big ship. Hammocks of various colours hung from the ceiling, hanging from the foyer that surrounded the dark, windowless parquet walls covered with bright tapestries, and Harry saw the golden lion of Gryffindor, Stand out on the bright red background, as well as Hufflepuff's black badger, which has a yellow background, and Ravenclaw's bronze eagle, which is set off by blue, but Slytherin's silver and green are not seen. There are bookshelves crammed into the room, broomsticks against the wall, and a large wooden radio in the corner.

"Where are we?"

"House of Requirement, no need to ask!" Neville said, "It's over the top, isn't it? The Carlos were chasing me, and I knew there was only one place to hide. Chance: Fortunately, I finally got in and found this place! Of course, it wasn't like this when I first arrived, it was much smaller, and there was only one hammock and only a Gryffindor drapery. Later with As more and more D.A. members join in, it expands."

"Can't the Carlos come in?" Harry asked, looking for the door.

"Can't get in," said Seamus Finnigan, Harry only recognizing him when he spoke. Seamus' face was swollen and scarred. "It's an ideal hiding place, as long as we have one of them here, they can't get in, the door won't open. Thanks to Neville. He really has the room. You've got to ask it for what you really need— Like, 'I don't want followers of the Carrows to come in' - it will do it for you! But you have to make sure you close the loopholes! Neville