Chapter 26

Reunion

"Karina!" called two familiar voices. I spun around.

"Allegra! Michael!" I exclaimed. I ran up to the both of them.

"You're alright!" Allegra exclaimed, throwing her arms around me.

"I am," I said, hugging her back.

"Ow!" Allegra moaned. She stumbled away from me, to Michaels arms.

"You're hurt!" I realized.

"It's nothing," Allegra said quickly.

"No it isn't," I said, "show me what happened,"

"It's okay Ka-,'

"They cursed her," Michael cut her off.

"What?" I asked.
"Mike," she said, "it's not that bad-,"

"They cursed her;" he said again, "this place has become horrible,"

"Explain,"

"Here, let's go inside first,"

I followed them into the empty Hog's Head. To my surprise, they didn't stop there; they kept walking past the barman and into the back room. Michael opened the door and headed inside.

"Where are we going?" I asked him.

"You'll see," And that's when I saw it. We were in the room of requirement. The room had cots and hammocks hanging from all ends of the place. The banners of Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor adorned the walls near the towering book cases.

"The Room of Requirement?" I asked.

"Lucky guess," Michael said.

"When did you start hiding here?"

"It's been about 2 weeks now," Allegra said. Then she turned away from me.

"HEY EVERYONE! GUESS WHO'S HERE?" Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at me.

"IT'S KARINA!" she announced. And all of the sudden I was submerged in a crowd of people.

"Thank god you're alright!" a battered-looking Cheryl cried attacking me.

"There have been rumors going around that you were dead!" Zetta exclaimed joining into the group hug.

"Don't worry guys," I said, "I'm okay!"

"We heard about the snake attack," Cheryl said, "Ginny told us that you were on the run after that,"

"Yep," I replied, "to Spain," I looked around at the familiar faces. I saw Katerina and Giovanna at the back of the group swarming around me.

"Excuse me," I said to Cheryl and Zetta. I went over to them.

"I've missed you so much!" Katerina hugged me.

"You too," I said. Giovanna was next, saying basically the same thing.

"So can someone tell me what has been going on at the school?"

"It's a long story," Giovanna said.

"Let's sit down," Katerina suggested. We went over to the fire where there were huge arm chairs. I sank down into one of them.

"As you know," Katerina started, "Snape is headmaster,"

"Right," I sighed, "and a death eater,"

"So he basically has complete authority over the school,"

"Okay,"

"He started employing death eaters to teach here," Giovanna sighed, "oh Karina, it's horrible,"

"What did they do?"

"Well first of all, Muggle Studies became a mandatory course. All it is now is basically rambling on and on about how muggles are dirty, self centered creatures and that they should all be destroyed,"

"That's a load of bullshit," I muttered.

"And then they go into muggle borns," Katerina continued, "calling them 'mudblood' and saying that they have no right whatsoever to posses a wand,"

"Rubbish,"

"Also, defense against the dark arts has simply become the dark arts,"

"How,"

"They have the 7th years practicing the Crussiatus curse on younger students who get in trouble,"

"Why doesn't McGonagall do anything?"

"It's all fear Karina," Giovanna said.

"So how bad are the Carrows?" I asked, "will they really-,"

"Let's just say they make Umbridge look tame,"

"That bad?"

Katerina nodded.

"You know Michael?"

"Yeah,"

"Well, they tortured him after he unchained a first year from the dungeons…the kid made it out safe from what I heard,"

"So what do the teachers do?'

"They never refer you to the Carrows," Giovanna said, "if they can avoid it,"

I couldn't believe what this place had become. Hogwarts had been my home for two years. Now it was nothing but a prison. I shook my head, not wanting to believe it but it was true. I just hoped that this war wouldn't go on forever.

"So now what are we going to do here?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I think Neville's bulletin on the coins was to the let the remaining DA members here know about where to hide," She shrugged.

"So we just stay here?" I asked.

"Yeah," Katerina said, "I guess so,"