Hey :)
This is my first proper fanfic, so please review (but be nice... constructive criticism only please!). All characters etc. obviously belong to the awesome JKR, and so does the speech in the parts where Harry is present, because I like things to be like they are in the books. All the bits where Harry isn't there are from my imagination... :P
Enjoy!

LilyMoon.x

Hogwarts. It seemed like so long ago that they had last walked along those stone corridors that so many others had walked before them, familiar yet undiscovered. Hermione couldn't believe that it had only been a few months. It felt like a lifetime. The Hogwarts she remembered belonged to a different world in which colours were brighter, where you could run without looking over your shoulder and laugh freely without fear of being overheard. A world without fear. That was the thing she missed most: that feeling that these days could go on happily forever.

It's not the same. It's not like that anymore, she kept reminding herself, drumming it through her head so she wouldn't be disappointed. But she couldn't suppress a flicker of excitement and longing as she followed Neville down the dimly lit passageway from the Hogs Head. Hermione slid a look sideways at Ron and Harry, but their faces were incomprehensible; she could only guess that their emotions were just as mixed up as hers.

"We're here," Neville announced to them after they rounded a final corner. He turned around to face them, grinning broadly. Hermione blinked a few times, trying to penetrate the musty gloom until she could make out a short flight of steps in front of them. Neville scrambled up first and pushed his shoulder against a small door at the top, which creaked open. Bright, welcoming light spilled out onto the steps, and Hermione was gripped by a feeling of yearning for Hogwarts as it used to be, when she, Ron and Harry would sit in the common room for hours by the fire playing exploding snap with Fred and George (a smile curled her lips as she remembered the astonishment on Ron's face the first – and only – time she managed to beat him at chess), when they would sneak out under the invisibility cloak to go and visit Hagrid, when she and Ron would sit bickering in whispers at the back of Transfiguration with Harry trying unsuccessfully to keep the peace...
More memories floated back towards her like snowflakes, each one unique but beautiful in some way: laughing at Ron and Harry's promises of eternal servitude if she 'looked over' – i.e. finished writing – their potions essays; sitting on the damp floor of the girls' bathroom secretly brewing polyjuice potion; comparing timetables on the first day of term and moaning about double History of Magic (which she didn't actually mind that much but she joined in anyway); the hours spent inventing new hexes to try out on Malfoy; cheering for Harry and Ron in the Quidditch stands until she was hoarse and her face was numb from the cold...

Her reverie was interrupted as she abruptly realised that the cheering she could hear was not just in her head – it was bursting into her ears from within the room ahead of them.

"HARRY!"
"It's Potter, it's POTTER!"
"Ron!"
"Hermione!"

As he emerged into the room, Ron grinned, astonished, at the enthusiasm and the amount of people and the brightness of it all after the dark passage. Before he could take in anything else he was being hugged by about five different people at once, and someone else was pounding him on the back, and everyone was firing excited questions at them.

"Where have you been?"
"So what have you actually been up to?"
"Is it true that you broke into Gringotts and escaped on a dragon?"

"OK, OK, calm down!" roared Neville, and everyone backed off, grinning, so they could all breathe.

Ron looked around at all the familiar faces: Seamus, Parvati, Lavender, Ernie – although he couldn't help noticing that some of them looked a bit worse for wear. Anger at the Carrows and what Hogwarts had become rushed up inside him, but he calmed himself down when Harry asked, "Where are we?" and Ron suddenly noticed that he didn't recognise the room either. Oddly, there were hammocks hanging from the ceiling and from a balcony that ran around the edge of the room. On the wall there were huge tapestries proudly displaying the emblems of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff; Slytherin was conspicuously absent.

"Room of Requirement, of course!" beamed Neville. "Surpassed itself, hasn't it?" He eagerly explained how he had wanted a place to hide from the Carrows and immediately thought of the Room.

"And the Carrows can't get in?" checked Harry, his eyes searching for the door.

"No," replied Seamus. "As long as one of us stays in here, it's a proper hideout, the door won't open."

Ron couldn't help being impressed. It was the kind of hideout he had always longed for as a kid, and excitement started slowly stirring up inside him for the adventure.

"Tell us what you've been up to, though," interrupted Ernie Macmillan. "You didn't break into Gringotts?"

"They did!" cried Neville proudly. "And the dragon's true too!"

A few people gasped in admiration and others clapped and whooped. Ron couldn't stop himself from taking a mock bow.

"What were you after?" Seamus asked eagerly, but Ron was distracted by Harry clutching at his scar; his eyes went out of focus and he swayed slightly on the spot. Ron quickly reached out to him before he leaned over too far. Vaguely, he heard Neville asking Harry if he was alright, but Harry was looking intensely at Ron and Hermione, trying to convey something to them, probably about the vision he must have just had.