Chapter 34

George POV

"You're not going to like tonight's report." Kingsley said in a grave voice and he dropped the slip of parchment in front of his set up as they were preparing for tonight's Potterwatch.

George's eyes scanned the paper and read: Lightning and co. broke into Gringotts and escaped on a dragon. For what purpose, unknown. He shook his head. "They're bloody mad. I know why, but we can't report it. They're safe?"

Kingsley gave him a small smile. "I would've put if it was otherwise, wouldn't I? She's fine, George."

He sighed and nodded while continuing to set up the magical microphones and radio frequency technology. Fred looked at the parchment and muttered, "Bloody hell… your girlfriend is ten times cooler than you, mate."

"Yea well that's our little brother, too. We will never be able to live this down. That outshines any prank." He attempted to joke but it came out stale sounding as the worry was gnawing at his stomach. George shook his head as he finished up the set up. He was trying to get the image out of his head of his beautiful Hermione, with her wild curls, riding a bloody dragon.

Lee gave them a nod to symbolize that it was almost time for everyone to begin tuning in. George had already done the charm work for the password, Longbottom, to be required before viewers could tune in. He wondered where Hermione was right now. Was she listening?

Lee began to request for a moment of silence to recognize the deaths not reported by the Daily Prophet or Wizarding Wireless Network News before he read off the slip of paper, amplifying the excitement and assuring any listener that Lightning was okay.

Fred took over the next segment of survival tips. "Now remember, keep on listening to Potterwatch for future updates but also be on the lookout for infamous Death Eater Travers, Malfoys, Bellatrix Lestrange, the werewolf Fenrir Greyback, Rowle and Dolohob, The Carrows, Severus Snape, and all others."

"Know your friends, but be on the lookout for any signs of the Imperius Cure or Polyjuice Potion." Lee added into the microphone.

"And with that, good luck, stay safe and support Harry Potter!" The two called off in unison.

They began to pack up their equipment and George had to ignore the image that kept swimming in his head of a wild head of curls riding on the back of a large dragon after breaking out of the most high-security area of wizarding London. What couldn't Hermione Granger do…

Hermione POV

She shifted nervously in front of the portrait in the Hog's Head. Was this a trap that Aberforth was setting them up for? She stared deep into the scene as two figures grew larger and larger, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait. Then the whole thing swung forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed. And out of it, his hair overgrown, his face cut up, his robes ripped to shreds, clambered the real Neville Longbottom.

Hermione's heart soared as he gave them all a large smile and roared out. "I knew you'd come! I knew it!" He wrapped up his classmates into a large group hug with glee all over his face.

"Neville—what—how?" Harry was stammering as he let a smile fill his face as well as they saw their quieter and shyer Gryffindor safe in front of them.

"Ab, there might be a couple more people on the way." Neville admitted after he let go of the Golden Trio.

The old man grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. "Couple more? What d'you mean, a couple more, Longbottom? There's a curfew and a Caterwauling Charm on the whole damn 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." Neville smiled before holding his hand to Hermione and helping her up into the mantelpiece and into the tunnel. She felt Ron and Harry, tall enough to not need help, following behind them.

"Neville, are you alright? Your face…" Hermione shook her head sadly as Neville held out his wand, casting a lumos charm to light up the tunnel.

"Oh this? It's nothing. Seamus is far worst. It's the bloody Carrow's. Nevermind all that… is all the things we heard on Potterwatch true? Did you lot actually break out of Gringotts and the dragon?!"

Harry nodded. "Yea, it's true."

Neville let out a laugh. "What did you do with the bloody dragon?"

"Released it into the wild. Hermione was all for keeping it as a pet—" Ron teased.

"Don't exaggerate, Ronald!" She snapped and glanced over at him. It was a strange feeling going back to Hogwarts with Neville. It was almost like they weren't trying to fight the darkest wizard in the world at the moment. It was like they were sneaking out after curfew in their first year.

"Forget about that, tell us about Hogwarts." Harry urged.

"The Carrows do more than teach. They're in charge of all discipline. They like punishments, the Carrows." Neville said darkly. "They make Umbridge look tame. The other teachers are all supposed to refer us to the Carrows if we do anything wrong. They don't, though, if they can avoid it. You can tell they all hate them as much as we do. Amycus, the bloke, he teaches what used to be Defense Against the Dark Arts, except now, it's just the Dark Arts. We're supposed to practice the Cruciatus Curse on people who've earned detentions—"

"What?!" The three cut Neville off in disgust. Hermione's stomach filled with bile as she thought of Bellatrix and her cruciatous curse on her.

"Yea… that's how I got this—" he pointed to the deepest gash on his right cheek. "I refused to do it. Some people are into it, though… you can guess who. Crabbe and Goyle love it. First time they've been top in anything; I expect. Anyways, Alecto, the girl, teaches Muggle Studies, which is compulsory for everyone. We've all got to listen to her explain how Muggles are like animals, stupid and dirty, and how they drove wizards into hiding by being vicious toward them, and how the natural order is being reestablished. I got this one," Neville pointed to the slash above his eyebrow, "for asking her how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got."

Hermione gulped as she thought of her parents, somewhere in Australia, hopefully safe from all the danger in London. Neville pulled out a coin from his pocket and her heart soared as she recognized the coins, she charmed for Dumbledore's Army back in their fifth year. "These have been great, Hermione. The Carrows never rumbled how we were communicating; it drove them mad. We used to sneak out at night and put graffiti on the walls: Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting, stuff like that. Snape hated it."

"Used to?" Harry pressed, noticing the verbiage.

"Well… it's been harder. We lost Luna at Christmas, and Ginny never came back after Easter, and the three of us were sort of the leaders of the group." Hermione smiled at the image of the trio of them leading the revolution at Hogwarts. "The Carrows seemed to know 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. We will are fighting, doing underground stuff, right up until a couple of weeks ago. That's when they decided there was only one way to stop me, I suppose, and they went for Gran."

"What?!" The Golden Trio said in shock together and how casually Neville was reciting this information to them.

"Well, you can see their thinking. It had worked really well, kidnapping kids to force their relatives to behave, I s'pose it was only a matter of time before they did it the other way around. Thing was, they bit off a bit more than they could chew with Gran. Little old witch living alone, they probably thought they didn't need to send anyone particularly powerful. Dawlish is still in St. Mungos' and Gran's on the run. She sent me a letter, telling me she was proud of me, that I'm my parent's son, and to keep it up."

Hermione's mouth hung open in shock at the image of Little Granny Longbottom fighting off a death eater and being on the run. Ron nodded in awe. "Cool, mate."

"Only thing is… once they figured our they had no hold over me, they decided Hogwarts could do without me. I don't know whether they were planning to kill me or send me to Azkaban; either way, I knew it was time to disappear. You'll see where I went, we're here." He gave them a smile before they turned a corner and they pushed open a small door just like the one they entered through. "Look who it is! Didn't I tell you!" Neville shouted into the room before stepping aside and revealing Harry, Hermione, and Ron standing in the entranceway.

The room filled with cries of disbelief and joy. "Harry!" "It's Potter!" "Ron!" "Look it's Hermione!" Suddenly, people were grabbing them into hugs and pounding on their backs as if they had just won their house a million points.

"Okay! Okay! Calm down, you lot. We are going to have a lot more company soon, I told them to announce on Potterwatch that Lightning had struck."

Hermione rounded to look at Neville. The only thing that was filling her thoughts was that she would be seeing George.