Born From Madness (Harry Potter Fanfic)

8

Hermione hurried to the first seat she could find, carrying tightly to her bag and Crookshanks's cage. Setting Crookshanks down beside her, Hermione opened the bag to see what kind of goodies her Grandma had packed her. There were a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, a few packs of Droobles Best Blowing Gum, about ten or fifteen Chocolate Frogs, a couple of Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands and others of the sort. 

As Hermione was about to pull out some of her books, a light knock caused her to jolt her head up to see a boy she remember had said lost his toad. 

"Do you mind? Everywhere else is full?" the boy stated to her. Hermione nodded as she motioned for him to sit down in front of her. The boy scurried in looking like a complete mess with his outfit all messed up completely while he cling to some sort of strange plant. 

"I'm Neville. Neville Longbottom." the boy replied. 

"Hermione. Hermione Granger. I know your name from somewhere. Of course! Longbottom was the name of the two aurors that were attacked by those four dark wizards! Two were Barty Crouch Jr. and Bellatrix Lestrange but I can't remember the other two." Hermione couldn't stop herself from blurting out those facts. Neville seemed to lose all the color in his face. 

"Yeah... they were my mom and dad. They did it under the orders of You-Know-Who." he mumbled silently. Hermione mentally slapped herself. How could she be so stupid and allowed herself to say such thing? She should have guessed there may have been a connection and he probably didn't want to talk about something so dark and horrible in his life. 

"Who exactly is he? You-Know-Who? I've heard about him from some time now and read a few passages, but no one mentions his real name." Hermione asked him. Neville shifted in his seat, clearly not wanting to talk about it at all. 

"You-Know-Who isn't something you want to talk about. He was one of the most cruelest, most heartless, most blood-thirsty in the whole world. Even his last act before he died was terrible." Neville claimed to her. 

"What was that?" 

"You don't know! Blimey! I thought everyone knew! You-Know-Who murdered the Potters! But only one survived the killing curse, which was thought no one could do so! And that's Harry Potter. A mere baby and he defeated the killing curse against the worst Dark Wizard out there!" Neville explained to her. He tried to kill a baby, Hermione thought, why would he want to kill a baby? However, she didn't press the issue. She could see it was driving Neville up a wall talking about it like this. Hermione felt bad for it. She turned to her bad of treats and proceeded to pull out some of the candy. 

"Would you like something?" Hermione asked him, "You look like you need something to eat." 

"No thanks. You're too kind." Neville said. 

"I insist, Neville." She said while holding out her hand full of treats. Neville shrugged as he took hold of one of the licorice wands. Hermione grabbed hold of one of the Chocolate Frogs. 

"Are these real frogs?" 

"No, it's just a spell. But it's really the cards you want from them. They each have a famous witch and wizards. I've got maybe five hundred, myself. I'm missing Agrippa." 

Hermione smiled as she proceeded to open up one of the Chocolate Frogs and picked up a card. There was a picture of an elderly woman on it but she still appeared like she could throw a good punch if you were asking for it. She had short pearl white hair and a bright sly smile across her face as she looked like she just pulled off the best insult you could give someone. Hermione gasped as her eyes landed on the name written underneath the picture. The name... was Betty White.