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When Dark Falls by MithrilQuill

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Blaise found himself preoccupied with watching Nott during the evenings in the common room. He knew that Nott had never been interested in joining groups or gangs, and aside from the highly uncharacteristic act of joining the biggest gang there was – the Death Eaters – he was still following this rule. He sat in a corner with a book propped open before him, but he was clearly looking over the edge of the book towards Pansy Parkinson.

The girl’s troubles had not ended after the first Dark Arts class. In fact, her actual humiliating experience with the Imperius curse was nothing compared to the whispers and giggles she was receiving on a daily basis now. Eventually some sixth and seventh years made a large circle near the fire and began playing a game. They kept calling Pansy over, and although Blaise had no idea what it was they were playing he knew that it involved either the Imperius curse or removing clothing. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, the image of his mother assaulted him.

He stood up abruptly and shook his head, trying to clear it. Blaise stumbled out of the common room, vaguely thinking that a walk could clear his head. It didn’t. As he made his way through the deserted corridors of the castle his mother’s voice filled his head. It was only last year that Blaise had worked up enough courage – and anger – to confront his mother about all of her dead husbands, about the rumors, and asked her which one of them her father had been.

That had been the worst Christmas of his life. Her words still rang in his ears. “I was beautiful, Blaise-”

“You still are, mother.”

“But that wasn’t all!” she yelled, “I was one of the cleverest witches in my year at Hogwarts, but no one saw that, no one saw past my looks and tried to understand me. They all treated me as if I was a pretty, but stupid, little doll whose only function was to look good. I won’t tell you how my husbands humiliated me. I won’t tell you what one of them wanted me to do when he joined the Death Eaters. I don’t regret any of those murders, but I know that in those years I became someone different – I changed for the worse. And it was all because of the stupid weakness of wanting to find someone who could love and understand me.”

“Mother, I-”

“Your father was not one of them, Blaise. Never…never be one of them, do you understand.”

Her face still swam before his eyes and now he imagined her in Pansy’s place, being forced to remove her clothes….or worse. It was difficult to imagine his mother as anything less than perfectly strong, invulnerable, but he understood the weakness she spoke about, because he felt it too. Blaise had fought his entire life against the ridiculous, but overwhelming longing to have someone with whom he could share everything. He hated himself for it, because he knew that you couldn’t trust anyone or else you’d make yourself weak – he knew that no one was worth that trust, but he could never get rid of that longing. He just buried it as deep as he could.

The voices brought him out of his painful thoughts and memories. Blaise stopped in his tacks and edged closer to the walls. There was laughter and muffled cries of pain. He inched forward slowly, the voices growing louder, only to be met with the back of Nott’s head. Nott stood close to the wall, too, hidden from the view of the two big Ravenclaw boys who were taking it in turns to jinx a trembling younger student.

The student was unrecognizable now. Horns grew out of his head, his nose had been transformed, and large boils covered his entire body. Even his hair had transformed into a bunch of wriggling worms.

Suddenly, Nott stepped out into the open and, with the quickest spell-work Blaise had ever seen, he sent the two attackers into a stunned stupor. His brought his wand down in a vicious slash, giving them both angry purple boils.

Blaise saw another figure gaping at Nott from the other side of the hallway. It was Longbottom. Nott had not noticed, he was now healing the worst of the young victim’s injuries and the boils were disappearing.

Blaise reacted quickly, stunning Longbottom and then approaching him quickly with his wand still held out.

“Obliviate!” he said, and then, turning on the younger student, he repeated the stunning spell and the memory charm.

“Memory charms are dangerous things,” Nott said, eyeing Blaise thoughtfully.

Blaise shrugged, “Longbottom’s not going to tell anyone that matters, anyway. I’d just rather not have him try to be my friend.”

There was a brief silence that Blaise broke. “I’m not going to tell anyone either, Nott,” he said before turning and beginning the walk back to the common room.

“I know,” Nott said seriously from behind him, “And it’s Theo.” He came up beside Blaise and they fell into step.



Neville woke several minutes later and jumped to his feet. He looked down at the three injured students before him. The Ravenclaws had been trying to help the little boy, but Nott and Zabini had been vicious. He decided that the two big Ravenclaws didn’t need him as much as the little boy did. He bent down and picked the little boy up, hurrying to the seventh floor corridor.

Just a few days ago the Hospital Wing had been declared out of bounds after hours. Anyone found in there in the evenings, no matter how severely injured, would be punished. This prevented any of the detention students – the Carrows’ torture victims – from getting any help. It had also led to an increase in nighttime bullying.

Neville’s arms were screaming out in pain when he finally got into the room of requirement and deposited the boy on the tiny bed there. He took care of the curses he knew how to reverse and then looked around. As always the room had provided what he needed. A book on jinxes was lying on a small table nearby. Neville looked through the index and found the counter-jinxes he needed quite easily. He finished healing the boy’s outward wounds and then revived him and offered him some of the chocolate he always carried around.

“What’s your name?” Neville asked eventually.

“Rogers,” the boy said in a shaky voice, “Kevin Rogers.”

“Well, Kevin,” Neville said getting up, “I’m going to walk you back to your common room now and I need you to make sure you don’t go out after hours again.”

The boy nodded and they snuck out of the room of requirement and down to the Hufflepuff common room. Neville stood a little way back, but he waited until the boy was safely inside his common room before leaving. He did not go back to Gryffindor tower, the night was long and he was determined to patrol the corridors and make sure no one else was attacked.

Neville’s thoughts turned to Ginny then. He was determined to get her on her own and ask her what she knew about Harry, Ron and Hermione. They could defy the Death Eaters’ hold over Hogwarts, but for how long? The real solution to all these problems was to get rid of Voldemort and end the war, and if Harry and the others were doing that then Neville wanted to help.


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