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Something collided hard with Harry’s shoulder, knocking him sideways. A split second later he realised that Neville had just charged past him, heading straight for Malfoy.

“Neville, no!”

Harry leapt forward and seized the back of Neville’s robes; Neville struggled frantically, his fists flailing, trying desperately to get at Malfoy who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked.

“Help me!” Harry flung at Ron, managing to get an arm around Neville’s neck and dragging him backwards, away from the Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle were flexing their arms as they stepped in front of Malfoy, ready for the fight. Ron seized Neville’s arms, and together he and Harry succeeded in dragging Neville back into the Gryffindor line. Neville’s face was scarlet; the pressure Harry was exerting on his throat rendered him quite incomprehensible, but odd words spluttered from his mouth.

“Not… funny… don’t… Mungo’s… show… him…”

The dungeon door opened. Snape appeared there. His black eyes swept up the Gryffindor line to the point where Harry and Ron were wrestling with Neville.

“Fighting, Potter, Weasley, Longbottom?” Snape said in his cold, sneering voice. “Ten points from Gryffindor. Release Longbottom, Potter, or it will be detention. Inside, all of you.”

Harry let go of Neville, who stood panting and glaring at him.

“I had to stop you,” Harry gasped, picking up his bag. “Crabbe and Goyle would’ve torn you apart.”

Neville said nothing; he merely snatched up his own bag and stalked off into the dungeon.

“What in the name of Merlin,” said Ron slowly, as they followed Neville, “was that about?”

Harry did not answer. He knew exactly why the subject of people who were in St. Mungo’s because of magical damage to their brains was highly distressing to Neville, but he had sworn to Dumbledore that he would not tell anyone Neville’s secret. Even Neville did not know Harry knew.

Harry, Ron and Hermione took their usual seats at the back of the class, pulled out parchment, quills and their copies of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. The class around them was whispering about what Neville had just done, but when Snape closed the dungeon door with an echoing bang, everybody immediately fell silent.

“You will notice,” said Snape, in his low, sneering voice, “that we have a guest with us today.”

He gestured towards the dim corner of the dungeon and Harry saw Professor Umbridge sitting there, clipboard on her knee. He glanced sideways at Ron and Hermione, his eyebrows raised. Snape and Umbridge, the two teachers he hated most. It was hard to decide which one he wanted to triumph over the other.

“We are continuing with our Strengthening Solution today. You will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson; if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend—instructions—” he waved his wand again “—on the board. Carry on.”

Professor Umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes in her corner. Harry was very interested in hearing her question Snape; so interested, that he was becoming careless with his potion again.

“Salamander blood, Harry!” Hermione moaned, grabbing his wrist to prevent him adding the wrong ingredient for the third time, “not pomegranate juice!”

“Right,” said Harry vaguely, putting down the bottle and continuing to watch the corner. Umbridge had just got to her feet. “Ha,” he said softly, as she strode between two lines of desks towards Snape, who was bending over Dean Thomas’s cauldron.

“Well, the class seem fairly advanced for their level,” she said briskly to Snape’s back. “Though I would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the Strengthening Solution. I think the Ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus.”

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4. A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.
5. A seam had split on Hermione’s bag. Harry wasn’t surprised; he could see that it was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books.
6. A second, very small parcel contained a note.
7. A vivid image of the shrieking, spitting portrait of Sirius’s mother that hung in the hall of number twelve, Grimmauld Place flashed into Harry’s mind. “I bet there has,” he said.
8. A whistling in Harry’s ear told him the Bludger had just missed him again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction.
9. After a few minutes’ progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry’s ears.
10. And Harry’s feet left the floor to fall, seconds later, back onto the rug in front of Dumbledore’s desk.
11. And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness Harry’s eyes had been struggling to penetrate; it flew up over the treetops and into the sky.
12. And then the tunnel began to rise; moments later it twisted, and Crookshanks had gone. Instead, Harry could see a patch of dim light through a small opening.

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