Can A Phoenix Love A Lion? (Hermione Granger x Male Reader)

33. More Than One Innocent Life

Y/N, Hermione and Harry started to climb down the grounds toward Hagrid's cabin.

Halfway down, Harry stopped in his tracks. "Look. Buckbeak's still alive."

Y/N stopped, too. "Of course." How hadn't he understood this sooner? "Remember what Dumbledore said? If we succeed, more than one innocent life could be spared. Come on."

They made their way down the slope, keeping to the edge of the forest. They moved quickly behind the large pile of pumpkins in the patch next to Hagrid's cabin and peered out from either side.

"Yeh shouldn've come!" Hagrid whispered.

"This is the weirdest thing we've ever done," Harry said fervently.

At that moment, there was a crash of breaking china from inside Hagrid's cabin.

"That's Hagrid breaking the milk jug," Hermione whispered. "I'm going to find Scabbers in a moment—"

Sure enough, a few minutes later, they heard Hermione's shriek of surprise.

Y/N glanced at the castle. He could see three silhouettes up there. "There they are."

"We'd better hurry," Harry said, already moving toward Buckbeak.

"No!" Hermione whispered. "Fudge has to see Buckbeak before we steal him. Otherwise, he'll think Hagrid set him free."

Inside the cabin, Ron was holding up Scabbers.

"That's Pettigrew," Harry muttered. "I'm running in there."

"Harry, you can't," Hermione told him.

"Hermione, he betrayed my parents! You don't expect me to sit here?"

"Yes, and you must!" Y/N caught Harry by his sleeve and pulled him further behind the pile of pumpkins. "Harry, you're in Hagrid's hut now. If you just go bursting in, you'll think you've gone mad. Awful things happen to wizards who meddle with time. We can't be seen, don't you remember?"

"Fudge is coming," Hermione warned.

Y/N moved his head a few inches to get a clearer view. Dumbledore, Fudge and Macnair the executioner were coming down the stairs. He glanced at the cabin again. They weren't going out.

Next to him, Hermione muttered something under her breath. She grabbed a pebbled on the ground, rose slightly her head over the pumpkin pile, and threw it.

Inside, a pot broke.

"Are you mad?" Harry blurted out.

Hermione did it again, this time touching Harry at the back of his head.

"That hurt," Harry commented, scratching the back of his head.

Moments later, Hagrid's back door opened, and Y/N saw himself, Hermione, Harry and Ron walking out of it.

"Go!" Hermione whispered, pushing him and Harry out of the pumpkin patch toward the edge of the forest.

Harry ran behind one tree, Y/N and Hermione behind another next to it. Looking over Hermione's head, Y/N lifted a branch in front of his eyes.

"Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?" Hermione said in hushed tones.

A branch cracked under her foot.

"Hermione!" he whispered, pulling her back behind the tree.

He barely managed not to be seen by the Hermione now hiding behind the pile of pumpkins.

"What?" came his own voice.

"I thought I just saw. . . ." came Hermione's. "Never mind."

"Let's go!" Ron whispered.