The Truth Revealed [Sequel to The Malfoy's Secret]

Chapter 3

I don't own any of the characters apart from Melanie Malfoy. All of the characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
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I guess the next thing that stands out to me well from the last year, is one of our Muggle Studies lessons. They were now compulsory for every student and the teacher was Alecto Carrow. You know, the same one that had watched the last Muggle Studies teacher be murdered by the Dark Lord and then eaten by a snake...

Anyway, she insisted on us having to listen to these lectures every single lesson, regardless of whether any of us felt the same way about Muggles or if we even wanted to. I hated these lessons, but what made it even worse, was the fact that she constantly felt the need to include my name in the speeches that she made.

In the very first lesson, she introduced herself, explained what the lessons were going to be on and also made sure to slip in the fact that she was in charge of punishment along with her brother: "So, if any of you decide to act up in class, know that you'll be dealing with us. Oh, and if it's in another lesson and the teacher is going to let it slide, it will be Melanie's," she gestured one of her grimy hands in my direction, "job to bring you to us."

After that, I had ducked my head straight away and avoided eye contact with the rest of the class. Luckily for me, no one was allowed to talk in the classrooms or the corridor so I hadn't had any death threats for being a traitor yet.

Thank Merlin.

As I was saying, this one in particular Muggle Studies lesson. Alecto had placed us in a seating plan and I was sat next to Neville. He was resting his head in his hand, his elbow coming dangerously close to slipping off the edge of our table. I was fiddling with my quill, too nervous to do anything else.

"Now, today we are going to talk about the threat that Muggles pose to us," she declared, writing the title for the lesson on the board behind her. I pulled out a piece of parchment from my bag and messily scribbled down the first few points she was writing on the board.

"What threat is that?" Neville asked from next to me. I nearly choked on air and my heart started beating faster. Everyone knew not to mess with the Carrows, but most importantly, we knew not to interrupt them or ask random questions without putting our hands up first.

"10 points from Gryffindor, Longbottom," she said, not turning her head to face us. He just snorted and rested his head against the table. I gently nudged him in the side, trying not to bring any attention to us and get him into even more trouble.

"What are you doing?" I hissed, leaning my head down and pretending to write down something else that was on the board. He lazily looked across to me and then back to the desk in front of him.

"I feel like someone should stand up to them. They need to know they can't take over out school without a fight," he whispered back, leaning over and looking over what I was writing. "I mean, look at what she's 'teaching' us."

I nodded, understanding where he was coming from. The last bullet point she had written was 'Muggles are animals, they are stupid and dirty.' I knew this was what the Dark Lord had in mind though. He didn't even want Muggle borns being let into Hogwarts is year.

"Just think of a less obvious way to do it, their punishment methods are a lot more extreme than just detentions," I muttered, looking up at Alecto who was at the front talking about the 'dirty, stupid, animalistic Muggles'.

"Now, wizards were driven into hiding by the Muggles. Can anyone tell me how?" she looked around the room expectantly but no one dared to raise their hand. "The Muggles were constantly vicious towards our kind."

I nearly snorted is time. From my position, it looked like the wizards were definitely more vicious towards the Muggles than the other way around. Especially if you looked at the Death Eaters. The Muggles were like their past time. Suddenly, when someone decided they were bored, the whole community would go on a hunt and kill then for fun. It's just like a really sick past time.

"So now, the natural order is being established once again. The Muggles are becoming less prominent in the wizarding world and we are becoming powerful once again. We now have the chance to overcome the Muggle society. Any question?"

The smile on her face made me want to throw up. It was a mixture between a proud smirk and a smile that has so much hidden meaning, you couldn't possibly know what she was thinking. I actually had to take deep breaths to make sure I wasn't going to draw anymore unneeded attention to myself.

I saw Neville's hand raise out of the corner of my eye and mentally slapped him. He surely isn't going to be stupid enough to say something else in this lesson. Alecto was trying her hardest not to look in his direction but after sweeping her eyes over the classroom three times, she finally had to acknowledge him.

"Yes, Longbottom?"

"How much Muggle blood have you and your brother got in you?" he asked, his voice steady and his tone unreadable. I choked on the air when he said this, knowing there was going to be no good outcome to this. I closed my eyes and prayed that Alecto wasn't in too bad of a mood.

Yeah, nice try there Mel...

"To the front Longbottom."

Neville stood up and slowly walked between the desks up to the front where he came face to face with Alecto. She pulled her wand out and viciously whipped it in Neville's direction. He flinched away from her and when he turned his head I could see a trickle of blood dripping down his cheek. Just as she raised her wand again, I stood up.

"No!"

"What's the matter Melanie?" she asked, her voice suddenly turning sickly sweet. Apparently, she had gained some sort of respect for me after my mission last year. I shuddered at the thought, and pushed the memories to the back of my mind. Now was not the time to be reminiscing.

"Don't you think Professor Snape should have to deal with him. After all, he has just highly offended a teacher. I think the head teacher should have to deal with that instead of you," I said, not knowing where my confidence was coming from. She looked at me, trying to work out if I was being sincere or not, "It'll save you the hassle?" I added.

She turned her head to look at the board quickly and I sent Neville a wink to let him know I was helping him. He sighed slightly in relief and then turned his attention to Alecto.

"That's a good idea Melanie. Get him out of my sight please," she pointed at Neville, looking at m like he was a piece of dirt on her shoe. I picked up both of our bags and strode up to the front and took a handful of Neville's robes before dragging him out of the classroom door.

I waited until we had gotten so far down the corridor before rounding on him. I whipped my head around so fast that my hair hit me in my face and I could see the look of terror on Neville's face.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want to be killed?" I screamed at him, storming down the corridor the second I had finished yelling at him. I could hear his footsteps coming after me. I was just letting my feet carry me, not exactly sure on where I was going.

"They wouldn't kill me. I'm pureblood, they don't want to spill to much of that. Where are you going anyway?" he asked, stopping suddenly and taking a hold of my arm. I jerked forward but tugged my arm out of his grip and carried on walking.

"We're going somewhere that we can hide in for a couple of hours. As soon as that lesson is over Alecto is going to go straight to Snape and ask if he's seen you. When he says no, she'll be on the hunt for you along with Amycus. Now hurry up and walk faster!"

He did as I said, keeping his pace level with mine and walking by my side in silence. I finally reached my destination and dropped my bag to the floor. Neville sent a confused glance my way but I brushed it off and paced in front of the wall three times, thinking of the room I wanted it to present me with.

The door showed up and I pushed Neville through it and checked the coast to make sure no one had seen us. When I saw nobody I ran inside the room after picking up my bag and slammed the door shut. Neville was stood in the middle of the room, looking around in awe.

"I haven't been in here for a while," he said, raking his eyes over every detail in the room. It was my turn to be confused now. I thought he was looking around like that because he'd never seen the Room of Requirement before.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I forgot you weren't here then. In our fifth year, Harry started up Dumbledore's Army. You probably haven't heard of it. Anyway, we always had the lessons in here. There was a massive big group of us. Cho was a part of it as well," he mentioned sitting down with his back against the door.

I mimicked his action, raking through the many thoughts in my head to try and remember where I'd heard that before. "Did you get caught for being in Dumbledore's Army?"

He nodded his head solemnly. I could tell that this group had meant a lot to him, whatever it was.

"Was it Umbridge who found you?" I asked, thinking about the letters I had received from Draco two years ago when I had still been at home.

"Yeah, how do you know who she is?"

"Draco has been coming to this school since first year. He always used to write me letters telling me what was going on.... Wait, was it the inquisitorial squad thing that caught you?"

He nodded again, his eyes wide clearly shocked I knew all about this. "Yeah, they barged in here with Cho's friend who had told Umbridge on us. That's how Cho fell out with Harry," he explained.

"Oh, I always wondered what it was. I thought it had something to do with Diggory. At least that's what she'd told me..."

"It was probably both. The DA stopped after that though. No one was willing enough to carry it on. Once Umbridge found out all the fun of it was gone. We were only doing it to rebel against the rules in the first place and prove a point-"

He cut off so quick that it took me a little while to realise he wasn't talking anymore. He had stood up and ran across the room, digging through his bag for something. I made my way over to him quickly, taking something had happened. After a few seconds, he pulled out a galleon.

"That's great Neville. Why are you showing me this?"

"This is how we used to communicate when we were a part of the DA. I'm thinking we could start it up again and then we could rebel against the Carrows, just like we rebelled against Umbridge before," he sounded so excited that I almost didn't want to explain how that plan couldn't work.

"They'll find out. There are so many people that could tell the Carrows what you're doing," I said softly, scared to raise the volume of my voice anymore.

"No they won't. I know for a fact that people will be willing to help us out. If someone stands up to them, it gives others hope. Can you imagine what would happen to this place if a group of students started standing up for everyone. We might be able to change Hogwarts back. Are you in?"

I thought about that decision long and hard. The whole reason I had decided to come back to Hogwarts this year was so that I could help protect the students anyway. If I became a part of the DA then I could actually play a part in helping them get through the year. While also pretending to be spying for the Dark Lord if any of the Death Eaters ask.

"Of course I am."

Neville messages everyone the second the words were out of my mouth. He thought that the quicker we start, the easier it would be. Plus, it meant that we has more time. Ever since then, we've been going round and stopping the students from getting punished by the Carrows. I used my Head Girl status regularly to stop them, insisting that Snape should have to deal with their bad behaviour.

It worked as well. We got a huge group of students together again and we were actually making some progress. Cho had refused to join, claiming that it would bring back bad memories from last time, but I didn't push her. I never even mentioned this to Draco. He would have a heart attack if he knew I was purposely going against the Dark Lord like this.

Then, it all went downhill. We had heard about a first year being held by the Carrows and we had a huge debate about who would go down to the dungeons to save them. No matter how much I insisted it should be me, I was overruled and Michael Corner went down instead.

He also got caught and punished heavily by the Carrows. No matter what I said to them, they wouldn't let me take him away, so he came out pretty badly. People started to leave the group after that. Neville and I decided that would've been the worst thing that could have happened.

Oh, how wrong we were...
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Update before the end of the week just like I promised! Thankyouu guys again for getting me 9k reads on 'The Malfoy's Secret', it really does mean the world to me. Since it was my first book on Wattpad as well, it makes it even more special that it is doing so well.

I feel bad because Draco's name is only mentioned in this chapter and he doesn't actually make an appearance, but he will be back in the next chapter. I just felt like I needed something with just Mel in and showing a bit more of her true self.

I never planned on making Neville such a big part of TTR, he was meant to come in at the end, but I'm kind of falling in love with his and Mel's friendship.

Anyway, please vote and comment? I love to see what you guys think of the story. I will try to update again soon :)
C x