AMOR VINCIT OMNIA; GRANGER

XXII.

( a helping hand )

Neville Longbottom would never consider himself a lucky person, bad luck clung to him since the day he was born, however now it seemed that it had finally left him to plague another person.

The Longbottom boy was sitting in the courtyard, enjoying the warmth of the last sunbeams as they hid themselves behind a big gray cloud, when all of a sudden something hit him straight in the face. It hadn't hurt but it did shock him quite a bit as he opened his eyes to see a paper bird in his lap, the beak being crumpled from hitting him.

Neville looked around in search for the person who had sent this bird to him but no one was around. He shrugged and picked it up along with his belongings, when he noticed that there was something written on the bird.

Unfolding it, Neville read over the neatly, in cursive written lines and almost couldn't believe his luck.  Hastily he made his way inside the castle in search of Harry or Hermione. He had to show them his discovery as fast as possible.

"Harry! Hermione! Ron!"Neville breathed out as he finally found them sitting in the common room with a map of Hogwarts in front of them. "You will never be able to guess what just happened to me."

The excited boy sat down next to them and began to recount what had just happened to him, the expressions of the listeners lightening up with every word he said. This was an enormous help to them, since they wouldn't have to search the whole castle now for a suitable place for the meetings of Dumbledore's Army.

"Let me see this paper, please", Hermione asked as she was growing suspicious. Who would have been generous enough to help them out and knew of the problem Dumbledore's Army was facing so soon after having been founded?

Neville handed the slip over and as Hermione read over the lines, her expression darkened to the point that the three boys were scared for their lives. Though, not one of them understood the reason behind the sudden shift of her mood; shouldn't she be happy that they can start with the lessons right away?

Hermione Granger hated few things in her life, she tried (most of the time) to have a positive outlook on life but this, this small piece of paper made her blood boil and she wanted to do nothing but throw it into the fire and watch it burn. How could he dare to involve himself in her life and her affairs? How had he even found out about what she and her friends were planning? And last but not least, why had he not contacted her? Should not she have been the one receiving this note from him?

"Hermione, what's the matter?" Neville asked as he was blissfully unaware of the inner tumult in Hermione. Shaking her head, the curly haired girl put on a smile and said, "Nothing, I just can't believe that I hadn't thought of this sooner, the Room of Requirements is the perfect place for the DA and with this," she held up the paper with its stupid cursive letters, "We can even find it without any issues."

The quartet stood in front of a wall, like any other in the castle and only Hermione was sure that what they had planned would work out.

"Neville, you now just have to walk in front of this wall three times while thinking about the room you, or rather we, need," Hermione instructed as she looked at the wall, behind this wall was a room that held so many memories that Hermione just wanted to forget.

Ron looked at the girl, "Why won't you do this? You're the one who knows exactly what we need for these lessons you're planning."

Now Harry and Neville also looked at the girl and her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink, as the boys all questioned her. "I think it's just right that Neville creates this room, after all, he was the one who received the note."

The explanation was plausible enough for the boys and Neville turned back to staring at the wall, his imagination coming up with various ideas for the room that would soon appear.

Hermione was thankful that the boys let the topic drop so quickly, because in all honesty, the girl was scared. She was scared of entering through the same door into a room she had never seen, it would make everything that had happened in the last year seem like a long and sweet dream. She was also scared that if she would imagine a room, then she would only be able to imagine the room she had seen on the last day she had talked to Milo. Hermione didn't want to see this room ever again in her life, it was dark, cold and reminded her of the painful break up she had experienced not even weeks ago.

Neville took a deep breath and walked three times up and down the corridor. At first it seemed like nothing would happen and Harry already sighed in disappointment, he really had hoped that something would happen. Just as he was about to speak up, though, did the wall start to shape itself into a big, ornamented portal and opened its doors for them to enter the room Neville had created in his imagination.

"Neville," Harry spoke, his mouth wide open, he loved magic, "you did an amazing job. This room is perfect."

Neville smiled, his cheeks a light red color, not used to getting compliments from other people. "Thank you!"

Thus did the lessons of the DA begin and everyone, but Hermione, was blissfully unaware of the helping hand a certain Slytherin had given them.

Milo smiled bitterly as he watched the four Gryffindors enter the room of requirements. He was glad that he could help Hermione but now, as he thought more about it, did he realize that now many people would be aware of the existence of this room and he would never be able to consider it only Hermione's and his again.

Now that he had helped Hermione a bit, he would let her be, let her anger cool down and in the meantime he would need to figure out a way to get into Umbridge's inquisitorial cult, this would not only please his parents and the Dark Lord, it could also help Hermione if he were able to divert the attention of the other members to other things than the secret organization that worked against Umbridge.

Getting into the inquisitorial was not as difficult as Milo had expected it to be. He just had to go to Umbridge's office, tell her he was a Slytherin pureblood and he got the job.

Malfoy was also a part of it and since he had signed up from the very beginning he should explain the rules and tasks Milo now had. And, as laughable as it was, one of the rules was to never doubt anything Dolores Umbridge said and one of the tasks was to always keep an eye on Potter and his "illegal" activities.

"You have to take this seriously, Milo," Draco said to him as they walked alongside each other, "If we do a good job, Umbridge will give our house more points and we could finally win the housecup and show those Gryffindors what we are really made of."

Milo just nodded along to everything the other boy said and withheld the need to laugh at his last words, even if Slytherin managed to get more points till the end of the school year, Dumbledore would find one way or another to gift as many points as possible to Gryffindor, handing the victory over to his preferred house, rather than the one that worked hard to gain those points.