Disclaimer: I own none of the recognizable characters. Just borrowing.
A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. I've had finals all week and haven't had a spare minute for all the studying. Anyway, enjoy!
The Book Man
Chapter 3
As it turned out, I did not get to sleep until Monday; a tiny finger prodded my shoulder somewhere around eight o'clock in the morning the next day, and I was slowly forced into consciousness. That didn't mean that I was happy about it.
"Go away," I mumbled, rolling away from the offending finger.
"Ciara Moody?" the girl asked hesitantly. Most likely a first year, maybe second, which meant that she had probably been sent by someone important.
"What d'you want?"
"P-Professor McGonagall wanted to speak to you in her office." she stuttered. I dragged my eyes open -- it felt like they weighed a ton! -- and finally resigned myself to my fate. The girl had dishwater blond hair and wide, brown eyes that were currently boring holes into my forehead. I pushed myself into a sitting position and grabbed my wand.
"What time is it?" I asked, sliding out of the bed and into a pair of ratty slippers.
"A little past eight. McGonagall wanted to see you right away." The girl hopped out of the way as I walked around to my trunk and started digging for clothes.
"Yeah, I figured as much. You can go." She turned and skipped out of the dormitory without a word. I dressed groggily, taking probably ten minutes longer than necessary, and stumbled down into the common room -- where I was ambushed by the Weasley twins.
"I don't have time for this, I have to go." I sighed, trying to end this conversation before it began. Needless to say, it didn't work.
"We heard that you walked out of a detention with Filch -- "
"Passed out right on top of McGonagall in a corridor in the middle of the night -- "
"And were expelled!" They waited expectantly, blocking the only path to the portrait hole.
"Well, you got two out of three... or two and a half maybe. I don't think I'm getting expelled, not yet anyway." I tried to shove my way between them fruitlessly and let out a huff of exasperation.
"Wicked!" exclaimed George. Or maybe it was Fred -- it was simply impossible to tell and I couldn't really care less at the moment.
"What'd Filch do?"
"Yelled at me, had a seizure, blabbed to McGonagall, and at this very moment is probably waiting impatiently for my expulsion -- which will happen if you two don't let me through."
"Well, we couldn't have that now, could we?" George/Fred grinned, but he and his twin stepped to the side and allowed me passage.
"See ya later, Moody." I hurried past them, ignoring the eager questions fired off from at least twenty other curious Gryffindor mouths, and darted down the corridor towards Professor McGonagall's office.
I rapped smartly on the door, just once, before I found myself face to face with the professor and poised to knock right on her chin. McGonagall pulled me non too gently inside the rather large office, and dropped me in a wooden, straight-backed chair. So this was how the game was going to be played, huh?
"It's been thirty minutes since you recieved my message. What, may I ask, have you been doing in all that time?" she demanded, sounding cool and distant. I hated to admit it, but this whole situation was rather intimidating, and I really considered for the first time the concept of my expulsion. Losing my magic was unthinkable.
"I was sleeping, ma'am." McGonagall briskly looked me up and down, her frown deepened, but she said nothing more of my lateness. Did I really look that bad?
"The headmaster will be joining us shortly. I met with him this morning to discuss last night's events and it seems that your actions, though a little rash, were justified." The expression on her face contradicted her words, something like worry and maybe a little pity. I didn't like to think about the implications there.
"So what's the problem, professor?" I asked politely.
"The Minister seems to disagree." For a moment, I was rendered incapable of coherent speech, sputtering out incomprehensible questions and phrases. It absolutely enraged me that the Ministry was going to try to expel me after Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Madame Pomfrey had all deduced that I was innocent.
A few minutes later, I found my voice again. "Am I going to be expelled?"
"It... is not likely. A possibilty, yes, but like I said: your actions were completely justified under the circumstances." And yet, she herself didn't seem convinced.
"Why do they care? If you and Dumbledore -- ?" Oh. Right. The Ministry was not very happy with Dumbledore right now... or anyone who followed him... or Harry Potter, who I had vouched for that day in that woman's class. That was why I was here, in danger of losing everything I cared about, not because I broke the school rules but because I had chosen sides and thrown my lot in with Dumbledore.
It wouldn't have been the same for anyone else, at least not anyone I knew of, but if I were expelled I really would lose everything. As I was Muggle-born, adopted by wizards from an orphanage at the age of six, once rejected by the wizarding community I would be sent back to the Muggles. It was possible that I would be adopted by a non-magical family at some point, but I would probably be spending the last three years before I became a legal adult in the old orphanage. It was an old law, from the middle ages when Muggle-borns were more discrimated against, but it had never been revised and now I would suffer the consequences. I was going to lose my family.
"But I didn't do anything!" I whispered, my composure quickly slipping away with each passing second. "I don't want to go!" McGonagall only looked sadly down at me, no words of comfort to calm me, or stifling closeness like hugs and such to tell me that everything was going to be alright. Because we both knew that I was about to lose everything.