The Deathly Hallows | Hermione Granger x Male Reader (Book Seven)

27. The DA's Reunion

Harry's POV

"Neville...what the....how-?" I began but Neville had spotted Ron and Hermione, and with yells of delight was hugging them too.

"I knew you'd come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!"

"Neville, what's happened to you?" Hermione asked, looking at the disheveled state of the boy.

"What? This? This is nothing, Seamus is worse. You'll see. Shall we get going then? Oh," he turned to Aberforth, "Ab, there might bea couple more people on the way."

"Couple more?" repeated Aberforth ominously. "What d'you mean, a couple more, Longbottom? There's a curfew and a Caterwauling Charm on the whole village!"

"I know, that's why they'll be Apparating directly into the bar, just send them down the passage when they get here, will you? Thanks a lot."

I muttered a gracious thanks to Aberforth before setting down the tunnel with the others.

"Is it true? Did you break into Gringotts? Did you escape on a dragon? It's everywhere, everyone's talking about it, Terry Boot got beaten up by Carrow for yelling about it in the Great Hall at dinner!"

I nodded and Neville laughed gleefully. "What did you do with the dragon?"

"Released it into the wild," said Ron, "Hermione was all forkeeping it as a pet-"

"Don't exaggerate, Ron-"

The conversation shifted to Hogwarts and Neville started talking about how the school had changed. The Carrows were in charge, their specialty was punishment. They supposedly made Umbridge look tame - I wonder how that old hag was doing. Defence Against the Dark Arts had change to the Dark Arts and disturbingly the Cruciatus Curse was practiced on people who had detention. Muggle Studies had also taken a dark turn, with Alecto teaching it and preaching about how all muggles were awful.

Hermione beamed with pride when Neville informed her that the Galleons used for previous DA meetings were still being used ow to communicate. The DA had fallen off slightly though, the loss of Ginny and Luna made it harder for Neville as that trio were the leaders.

"The Carrows seemed to know that I was behind a lot of it, so they started coming down on me hard, and then Michael Corner went and got caught releasing a first-year they'd chained up, and they tortured him pretty badly. That scared people off."

"No kidding," muttered Ron, as the passage began to slope upward.

"We do get some information from the inside though. F/N visits us sometimes-"

"F/N?" Hermione asked, her eyes lighting up slightly.

Neville nodded. "Not often, but he comes when he can and gives us updates. I think he joined his lot...I doubt he had a choice. S'pose his parents probably forced him alongside Draco."

I nodded but internally I knew there was a much longer story behind it.

We turned a corner and there ahead of us was the end of the passage. Another short flight of steps led to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana's portrait. Neville pushed it open and climbed through. As I followed, I heard Neville call out to unseen people.

"Look who it is! Didn't I tell you?"

As I emerged into the room beyond the passage, there were several screams and yells.

The next moment, we were engulfed, hugged, pounded on the back, our hair ruffled, our hands shaken, by what seemed to be more than twenty people. It was like we had just won a Quidditch final.