The Lion and the Eagle |Neville Longbottom|

35. All Hell Breaks Loose

(Neville's POV)

"I love her, but sometimes I want to shake her silly," said Ron.

Our team of six, five Aurors and Draco Malfoy, had followed Hermione's locator. A blizzard hung overhead of the prison. It wasn't one that any of us knew about, so we chalked it up to the Death Eaters constructing it themselves. Crafty, sneaky blokes.

We were the main infiltrators in this. Other Aurors, some we barely knew, were stationed around the sides, ready to help out when we made our initial way in. It was hard to convince them that Malfoy was on our side, but we made it work.

"You've got to admit, it worked," said Katie. She looked at the building apprehensively. "She's too smart for her own good sometimes."

"I doubt we'll be able to Apparate inside," said Dylan. "We may have to blow the doors in like we did with the Manor."

"Again, I thought the element of surprise was what we were going for?"

Dylan shrugged. "They'll know we're here sooner or later. If there are a lot of prisoners in there, it'll be hard to smuggle them out without eventually being noticed."

"If everyone's ready to do this," said Harry, his way of calling us all to order. "Break off into pairs, try not to get yourself alone. The goal is to free anyone we can, arrest any Death Eaters we can get our hands on. Got it?"

"Got it," said the rest of the group.

Wordlessly, I took charge, with Malfoy at my side. Together, we blasted the doors in. The few guards that were around we knocked out easily. Katie magicked handcuffs on them, snatching their wands. She and Dylan got them outside of the walls of the prison.

The pairs split up. Though instinct told me Malfoy was trouble, this time around, he seemed to not be. A part of me still wanted to believe this was all a farce, that he had tricked us all into a trap.

I wasn't sure where we were heading, but we were getting close to something, if the chatter was anything to go by. The voices ran their way to us. All of them sounded female, with the occasional male barking orders to hush up.

"How many do you think there are?" I asked Malfoy.

"I don't do their bloody payroll, how would I know?"

"Like Harry said, we don't get split up. We tackle this, together."

We took careful steps towards the growing voices. Levels upon levels of cells held cramped bodies. The odor was overwhelming. The level we were on had a few Death Eaters as sentries.

Any prisoners that saw us we hushed quietly. Once we cleared our current level, we broke open the doors. We couldn't contain the frantic stampede that followed. On levels above and below, Death Eaters bellowed in outrage, barking orders.

Malfoy and I alternated between freeing prisoners and shooting at Death Eaters. We were in the women's section of the prison. The Death Eaters had no age range when it came to prisoners: some were old and fragile, others were barely of age to have attended Hogwarts.

"Get to safety!" shouted a familiar voice.

We headed up a level, taking down enemies and freeing more prisoners. I got Hermione's cell open.

"Great timing," she said. She looked barely harmed, a good sign. "Keep going, I'll herd them in the right direction."

We scoured all the levels, opening all the cages. Those who didn't scatter right away went straight for their captors. Malfoy and I tried to help as much as possible, but some were too brave for their own good. Most who went after the Death Eaters wandless collapsed in lifeless heaps on the floor.