a/n: aagghh i'm sorry guys… you've all heard the excuse, i'm sure, but my first year at college got in the way of even thinking about fanfiction. i recently started rereading and rediscovering why i love it and why i wrote it in the first place. i hate to leave projects unfinished so here's the next installment.

OH and guess what my computer broke again, so remember that outline i had bragged about earlier (..way earlier)? yeah that doesn't exist anymore… i'm going to start that again and save it somewhere online because this crap keeps happening to me. so sad! i even had the names of every new first year and their houses and when/if they were going to play a role in the story… it was all very professional. and very un-professional for me to not have it backed up somewhere.

this one goes out to silver weasley because i haven't talked to you in a long time, girl, and you should most def. work on guardian!

--

Chapter Three: The Second Day

Neville went down to breakfast the next morning with a hollowness tugging at his stomach.

I don't know why I'm nervous, he mused to himself. It can't be that different, can it? He began to convince himself that Hogwarts was Hogwarts—it was over a thousand years old and its integrity wouldn't be destroyed after only one day of term. A little bit more steeled, he sat down at the bench and picked up some toast and marmalade.

"Schedules!" said a sharp voice right over his head, causing him to upend the marmalade jar. Neville scrambled to wipe off the table with a few napkins as a piece of parchment was waved in front of his nose. He grabbed at it, smearing the edges with his marmalade-coated fingers.

"Alright, Neville?" came Ginny's voice next to him. She seated herself gracefully next to him, examining her own schedule while pouring syrup on French toast.

"Erm…" he cast his eyes wildly around for another napkin with which to wipe his hands. "…Yeah…" He threw all of the napkins to a clear space in the middle of the table. "Just… erm…" He struggled to orient himself, and he caught Ginny looking at him a little strangely. "Sorry."

"You have some marmalade on your eyebrow," she said, dabbing at his face.

"Thanks." He took a deep breathe, feeling like a clumsy toddler in a high seat. Flustered, he grabbed his schedule again to examine it.

Ugh… double periods every morning… at least he started Mondays with Herbology… free period after lunch every day… followed by…

"Muggle Studies?" he asked aloud. "I was never in Muggle Studies…" Did they mix up the schedules? He couldn't keep up with something he's never done before—he couldn't even keep up with the stuff he has done before!

Neville glanced, panic-stricken, at Ginny, who was turning over her schedule as if she wasn't sure it was hers.

"Oh you're in Muggle Studies with me, Ginny!" said a crisp voice right next to his right year, making him jump again. Luckily, this time, nothing was spilled. Luna grabbed a seat next to Ginny at the relatively empty table.

"I didn't know you were in Muggle Studies. Actually, I don't know I was," Ginny said, frowning at the two schedules which were now side by side.

"I wasn't, either," Neville offered.

"Then why—"

"Professor Snape is making everyone take it. He said Alecto Carrow was teaching it, but I don't think she knows the first thing about Muggles," Luna mused.

"He said that last night?" Neville worried what else he missed from Snape's speech.

"Well, he didn't say that Carrow didn't know the first thing about Muggles, obviously—"

"But what about it being compulsory?"

"No, I was talking to the Muggles in that painting of the Wendelin the Weird being burned again and they told me. He didn't say much about Alecto or Amycus last night, except to tell us that the woman was teaching Muggle Studies and that the man was replacing his previous post."

"Oh." He wished he had paid more attention.

"Why aren't you sitting at your own table, Luna?" Ginny asked, in a curious way and not in a I wish you would go back over there kind of way.

"Oh, I don't have friends over there," Luna said flippantly, scooping some eggs. After a few moments, she added, "And of course I always follow the Sorting Hat's directions."

After breakfast Neville bade goodbye to Ginny and Luna, who were heading to Charms together, and made his way down alone to Herbology. Usually Gryffindors had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, but with only him and Parvati in N.E.W.T. level Herbology and most of the Hufflepuffs gone, he had a feeling that all four of the houses would be combined into the same class.

Entering greenhouse four, Neville took a seat at a workstation next to Parvati Patil.

"Hello Neville," she said.

"Hi," he responded, his chair catching on a nook in the floor as he pulled it out.

Their table was joined by Ernie Macmillan and some Ravenclaw whose name he did not know; Neville was feeling better because no Slytherins had yet walked into the room.

"Welcome to your seventh year of Herbology," Professor Sprout said once everyone seemed settled in. "This year will be your most challenging year yet, so it is imperative that you stay on top of the coursework and that you follow directions. We will be working with some very dangerous plants over the course of the year and the last thing I need—"

The greenhouse door clanged open and a group of four students walked in, talking and laughing. It took them a few long moments to sit at a workstation and organize their things, during which Neville frowned in disapproval.

"As I was saying," the Herbology professor started again, annoyance clear in her voice, "some of these plants are dangerous so I expect all of you to—"

"Oooh, a dangerous herb," giggled Pansy Parkinson. Professor Sprout stopped, staring at her. Parkinson ceased her giggling, but exchanged a smirk with her fellow Slytherin girlfriends.

After she passed out a syllabus, Professor Sprout spoke again. "Today's lesson is mainly preparation for Wednesday's class: we will be working with a plant called the Fobrolia, a very unpredictable plant that repels its handlers with…"

As Professor Sprout went on about the Fobrolia, Neville took notes and tried to ignore the snickering and rustling of the Slytherin table behind him. Parvati kept turning around to shoot them annoyed looks. Neville wanted to copy her example, but something held him back. He kept thinking that Professor Sprout would do something—she wasn't harsh, like Professor McGonagall, but she wasn't a pushover either.

But after the first few incidents, she kept talking as if nothing was happening.

As soon as the period was over, Neville left the class to head to lunch and, then, he had a free period to start on his Herbology assignment that was due on Wednesday.

He reached the lunch table, already feeling emotionally and mentally drained—even coming out of his favorite class. He buttered up a roll, carefully replacing the knife so he wouldn't knock it over, and took a big bite. It was soft and warm and flaky and buttery, and for a moment he let himself forget the realization that was slowly coming onto him: that Hogwarts, which had been divided into four relatively equal Houses, had one of them not-so-inconspicuously taking it all over.

He looked around just as Ginny sat next to him. It suddenly was apparent to him that he was going to be spending a lot of time for Ginny this year—he couldn't figure out why. Is it because she was one of his closest friends and one of the only Gryffindors left? Because she reminded him of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who no doubt had they been here would already be planning the resistance to this new Hogwarts regime? (Actually, they probably were already plotting against a much longer regime.) Or was it because she was the one who was closest to those three—as Harry's girlfriend, as Ron's sister, and as Hermione's best friend?

"How was your morning?" she asked. There were harsh lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, and her voice was a controlled, flat timbre.

"Double Herbology. It was alright," he said, trying to be optimistic. It did seem like it would be a good class, if it weren't for that table behind him… "The Slytherins were being…" He didn't know how to put it.

"Yeah," Ginny said. "I noticed it too."

There was a silence between them.

"So, uh, what happened?" he ventured.

"Don't want to talk about it." She slammed some soup into her bowl, making it splatter everywhere. Grumbling, she vanished the spills away. "Either way, you'll find out soon enough."

Rebuffed, Neville stared at his plate and then put his roll down. He wasn't hungry anymore.

There were several minutes of silence between them. Neville looked up and down the Gryffindor table. Many of them were silent as well, or talking in restrained whispers. Occasionally some would look up and fix an angry and resentful stare on the table on the far side of the hall.

"Yeah, what are you looking at?" some of the Slytherins called over, brazenly. Neville looked harder at his plate, feeling Ginny whip around on the bench behind him.

"We're not looking at anything, apparently!" her voice rang over the whole Hall; Neville snuck a glance at her face. It was very pink, but she was looking hard and determined at the Slytherin table. The Hall had fallen silent: the palpable tension that had been stewing and boiling since their arrival to the school seemed about to explode.

And it's not even the second day, Neville noted sourly.

"You wanna go, little girl?" called over a tall Slytherin—Blaise Zabini, Neville recognized.

Ginny made a sudden movement to get up, but Neville and, on Ginny's other side, Seamus Finnigan grabbed either of her arms. A fight would not do.

"Hey I didn't know that Gryffindors had brains!" laughed Blaise Zabini; Tracey Davis, who appeared to be quite taken with Blaise, laughed along with him. "Especially those two!"

Unfortunately, neither Seamus nor Neville thought to put a hand over Ginny's mouth. "Now I know it isn't difficult to do, Zabini, but at least they have more brains than you have ba—"

Her mouth completed the rest of the word, but her voice didn't. Frowning and putting a hand over her throat, she glanced back up at Zabini, who had his wand lazily pointed at her.

"So it does shut up!"

Ginny's mouth performed what would have been savage cry as she wrenched her arms free. She was bringing her wand around towards Zabini when a shock of pain crossed her features and she dropped her wand. Clutching her wrist, she looked wildly around as if to locate who had hexed her.

"Fighting, Ms. Weasley?" said a smooth voice like rotting silk.

Neville just about flew three feet into the air as Snape's voice floated above him. In his shock, he stared into the features of the Headmaster, then looked away as the man turned a sneer onto him. He stared determinedly at the table.

Ginny talked next to him. Someone must have reversed the silencing charm.

"Defending myself, sir." She spat the pleasantry through gritted teeth. Neville chanced a glance over at her. Her face was pink again, probably from anger and resentment. He caught a look of a stout, hunched woman behind Ginny who had her wand out. He guessed that she must have been the one who threw the hex at Ginny.

Apparently, teachers were now allowed to cast spells on students.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor," he said, loud enough for the Hall to hear. Then his voice quieted down. "And if you lose your temper again you will likewise lose more than that."

Ginny snorted, but seemed to catch herself rolling her eyes. Neville marveled at her bravery right in the face of a murderer. But he was able to follow her train of thought—as if points mattered this year.

Snape slithered away back toward the teacher's table, and the woman—Alecto Carrow, still with her wand in her grubby fingers—followed him. Neville shuddered as her robes brushed against his back.

He looked at Ginny once more. Her eyes were swimming with tears. Abruptly she stood up, climbed over the bench and strode toward the exit of the Great Hall.

After a moment, Neville clambered up to follow her. He ignored the jeers from the table at the far end of the Hall.

After a few moments of him jogging after her—she was really a very fast walker—he touched her arm. "Ginny—"

The wild look in her watery eyes made him take a few steps backwards. Tears hadn't fallen yet; there was no wetness clinging to her bottom lashes.

His mouth open, Neville watched as Ginny swallowed back the tears. "What, Neville."

"I—well, are you alright?" he asked, then realized What a stupid question. "What I mean is—well, you were really brave back there—I mean, I couldn't've done it—"

His bumbling, amazingly, seemed to calm her down a bit. "No. Thank you Neville." She swallowed again, then took another deep breathe. "It's just—well, it doesn't feel like Hogwarts anymore, does it?"

He remained silent, not wanting to admit his agreement.

She sighed, the hard lines returning to her eyes. "I'm going to the Common Room. Are you coming?"

"Uh—sure." Thank goodness he was wearing his backpack when he followed her out of the Great Hall. "I should get to work on this assignment anyway…" he said, consenting to follow her. She was staring straight ahead as she walked, her lips pursed. He wondered what kind of Gryffindor he looked like next to her.

"What were you so upset about earlier?" The question burst from his lips without any prompt from his brain. He felt his face go hot. As if she needed reminding.

There was a hesitation on her part, then—"When do you have Muggle Studies?"

"This afternoon."

"You'll know then."

Neville almost considered not going to Muggle Studies, he was so anxious. If Ginny even refused to talk about it, then he didn't know how he was going to survive it. In the end, though, he found himself sinking slowly into a chair in the classroom. He figured that it would be worse for him to not go.

The classroom was bare with no decorations; in any other circumstance, he would have thought it unused. Chairs were crammed into crooked lines. Neville guessed that they were trying to fit the whole Seventh Year into one time slot.

There was one open window; the dust on its panes dimmed the light that was struggling through.

Around him, his classmates started filtering through and silently sitting down. Parvati Patil sat next to him, as she did in Herbology. Susan Bones took a seat in front of him.

Looking around, Neville noticed that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were the two Houses more fully affected by the new… regime. Both Ravenclaw and Slytherin were easily twice the size of the former two Houses. Ravenclaw—fine; he was worried, though, that Slytherin would once more take advantage.

Not only worried. He was sure. Of course they will, with Alecto Carrow teaching the class… Neville buried himself further into his chair.

At exactly a quarter past three, the door opened and closed with a slam that could only be a professor. Well—not any professor, but Neville didn't think that Alecto Carrow seemed the type to be very discreet about anything.

Neville watched her shuffle to the front of the room with trepidation. She turned around, smiling at the class. Neville wondered if she thought that would be comforting, because it wasn't. It gave him the creeps.

"Well well…" She stared around at them all. In front of him, Susan Bones shuddered. "I can see that this class is going ta be as difficult as was the Sixth Years."

Her small eyes rested on the Gryffindor section of the classroom. Neville realized that they had all segregated.

"But you lot do need ta have a reeducation on truth about the—" Her nose crinkled. "Muggles."

Oh goodness.

"The, er, purpose of this class is ta prove the superiority of magical blood to the muddied blood of Muggles." Her nose crinkled again as she spat on the floor. Neville, who was sitting near the front of the class, pushed his chair back an inch.

The noise of his chair scarping against the floor brought the attention to him.

"Ah… Longbottom… I remember ya…"

Neville forced himself to look at her face. He knew that she was referring to that time in June, the month of the marble tomb, when he had thrown a curse at her face as she raced down from the top of the tallest tower.

She smirked at him, but said no more; turning her broad back to him, she paced away. The seventh-year was hit by an odor in the air that she stirred.

Ugh.

"Only recently has the Wizarding world recognized the vileness of Muggles." The Carrow started in a speech that sounded suspiciously like it had been prepared for her. "Their jealousy of those with the good blood, their need ta oppress those who are more powerful. We've bin livin' under the thumb of these weaklings for much ta long. These stupid, nasty—"

Neville was hardly able to believe his ears. Of course he had known—he had known that these views existed, from that time in the Department of Mysteries to the whispered insults at Hermione Granger when she once again upshowed everyone in the class. But to hear it so blatantly—not dared to be challenged—to be sure, he should have suspected it, but then why did those words feel like a physical blow to him?

"—the world today is not Pureblood, of course, and it is easy to spot those who have Muggle blood dirtyin' the pure Wizarding blood of their veins—any such person in here, raise your hands."

She was met with absolute silence. People glanced at each other, mouthing What? A few actually smacked their heads as if to wake themselves up from a bad dream.

Then Seamus Finnigan raised his hand into the air. It didn't waver or shake and there was no scared or apologetic look on his face.

People stared at him. Then, one by one, hands were raised into the air. Neville noted that none of the Slytherins, although surely some of them were half-bloods, raised their hands; the other three Houses each had a motley crue of seventh-years who had their hands in the air.

Alecto Carrow sneered. "Of course this class was... diverse. I guess we'll have ta slow down for these half-bloods ta keep up. All half-bloods in the front of class."

Like most of her declarations, this one was met with a stunned silence. Then Seamus Finnigan was once more the first to react. He stood, a carefully blank expression on his face, kicked his chair behind him and walked to the front of class. He stopped at the chair directly in front of her.

Everyone was watching him with awe or disgust, the latter on the Slytherins' end.

He stared Alecto Carrow in the face—Seamus was taller than her—for a long second before dropping his bag on the desk and sitting. All of these actions echoed in the silent room.

Once again following his lead, the other half-bloods moved to the front of class. Neville was forced to move a seat back to allow one of them to have his chair.

His movement seemed to have made Carrow remember something. A look of smugness spread across her pudgy face. It did not mix well with her features, and Neville felt disgusted looking at it.

"That's right, innit?" she said, not looking away from him. "So the scummy Houses do have some Purity left in'thm. You're a Pureblood, Longbottom."

She said it as if she owned him—as if that made him somehow linked with her. His disgust intensified.

Despite his disgust, he doesn't know what made him say it. What was going through that brain of his when he decided to speak back to her. It was as if that brain suddenly severed connection with his mouth. Or maybe he was channeling Harry, although he hoped that wasn't the case, because didn't Harry have to be dead for him to do that?

Whatever the case, he couldn't catch his words from the fabric of time and swallow them even while they hovered just outside his mouth. Like sunlight, untouchable and uncontrollable, they drifted across the room.

"Wish I wasn't," was what he said.

He hoped the regret didn't show on his face.

Carrow's voice dropped two octaves and her face deadened. "What."

"Well…" Oh hell, he might as well go full steam ahead—to use the Muggle expression. "Hermione Granger was Muggleborn, and that may have been her trick. She was smarter than everyone in the school, 'cept Dumbledore. So if she were here…" he paused, then forced himself to keep talking. The words came out a little more rushed than he would have liked. "I guess she'd be smarter than, you know, everyone."

Yeah, said the significant silence that followed his words, that means you.

Oh God. Neville, hide under your desk. Run, while you still can. For a few weeks—no one will notice, and by that time this woman would have forgotten and you can live out your Hogwarts days in obscurity. Keep your head down, don't say anything—

"Longbottom," she barked, and resentment coated her tone. "What are you mutterin'?"

Hell—did he say all of that out loud??

Oh hell hell hell…

"Sorry," he muttered, then swore at himself—he made sure silently this time.

"Class dismissed. Get these stinking half-Mudbloods out from in front of me," she snapped. The class got up quickly and shuffled out, most of them pale and quiet. The Slytherin corner shot him dirty, threatening glances.

"Longbottom come see me." Her harsh voice seemed to sock him in the stomach.

Slowly, he made his way up to her, willing the redness in his face to calm down. Hopefully she will think that that was how his face always looked.

Neville stopped in front of her. Then, out of no where, his head twisted around in response to the sudden blow he felt on the left side of it. It was as if she smacked him, but she didn't raise her hand.

Oh, he thought. She wouldn't. That's too 'Muggle' for her.

"It seems that this reeducation is going ta do wonders for ya," she breathed at him. Neville decided he didn't even need the slap, the way the woman's breathe smelled. If a smell was ever so similar to a slap in the face…

"Now get out."

He didn't need telling twice. He turned, and all but ran from the classroom.

Welcome to Hogwarts.