Chapter Four-
Tempest was exhausted the next morning, and she sat with her trunk yawning at everything as they waited for the guard (Remus, Tonks and Sturgis Podmore) that Dumbledore had deemed it necessary for her to have. She found the proceedings to be all a bit paranoid- Kings Cross wasn't much of a walk away- she had gone out further than that with just Sirius, although no one was telling Dumbledore that.
There were delays as Moody wanted to wait for Podmore, but they left eventually without him. Stepping out into the weak September sunlight, Padfoot bounded by at Tempest's side. Remus made a half-hearted statement that Dumbledore wouldn't like it, but he grinned with Tempest as they watched Padfoot gambol around, snapping at pigeons.
Tempest thought if Dumbledore had a problem with Sirius leaving the house, he could tell them so personally. She hadn't seen much of him lately, and for someone who saw them so little, he dictated the contents of their personal lives a lot.
Tonks walked ahead of them, grey haired and wearing a purple hat shaped like a porkpie. On the twenty-minute walk to King's Cross, nothing of note happened other than Padfoot's hijinks, and Tempest found the two flanking her to be rather amusing. She cast a glance at Remus, who strode by her carrying the unhappy Nyx's carrier. Well. There were some benefits.
Her trunk, heavier than previous years, trundled along behind her. The sheer amount of potions ingredients and books that Tempest had crammed into her trunk accounted for most of the bulk. In addition to her usual school things, she had stacks of books on magical theory that Sirius had given her from the Black library and cases of ingredients for the Wolfsbane potion she planned to work on.
Packing sleep deprived in the nighttime hours was very inefficient, Tempest had learnt. The finished product was nowhere as neat or organized as what Minnie had achieved last year, she had managed to force her trunk closed by virtue of Sirius sitting on it, and Tempest fastening the buckles with magic.
Platform Nine and Three Quarters was packed with departing students and their families when they emerged from the barrier. Remus gave Tempest a parting hug. "You take care of yourself," he said. He handed Nyx back and slid away with Tonks into the crowd.
"Nice dog, Tempest," called Lee Jordan, passing by.
"Thanks," grinned Tempest. Padfoot wagged his tail frantically.
Tempest usually headed straight onto the train, but for the first time, she remained in the crowd. She knelt down next to Padfoot and hugged him long and hard.
"I'll see you at the full moon," she muttered quietly, knowing he could hear her. "Don't let Kreacher get you down."
The Hogwarts Express blasted steam into the air, and she rose to her feet, grasping her trunk and Nyx's carrier tightly. For one brief moment, Padfoot reared onto his hind legs and placed his front paws on Tempest's shoulders. Tempest grinned and pressed her forehead against his. The warning whistle sounded, and he dropped back to the ground.
Tempest boarded the train, and it began to move almost immediately. She had been the last to board the train, and the other stragglers quickly left, dragging their trunks and other bags with them as they filed along the narrow corridor and into compartments. She did not follow.
Instead, she stayed by the open window, watching the other faces on the platform quickly blur as the train began to move faster, but Tempest watched Padfoot bound alongside the window, chasing the train until they turned the corner, and he was gone.
Still she stayed there, standing by the window with the wind whipping her hair back as she gazed out at the houses flashing past.
"Tempest?"
It was George. He jerked his head down the corridor and said, "Fred and I've got a compartment to ourselves, want to join?"
Tempest stowed her trunk after extracting the Venomous Tentacula seeds for the twins, and the three of them settled down with several sheafs of parchment filled with their recipes for the Snackboxes. It was all ingenious, without a doubt. Their plans were amazing and detailed, and Tempest was intrigued with their diagrams of their other projects, punching telescopes, decoy detonators and one that fascinated Tempest particularly- a portable swamp.
"How do you account for the depth of the water?" she said, poring over the spellwork. "it's not just vanishing the existing ground, or forcing it aside… you're temporarily displacing it- genius. And the wildlife? This is doing my mind in, this must have taken you months."
"We've been working on all of it for years," said George proudly, "the bugs and stuff are just illusions for now. We're thinking if we spelled some into existence it would make them far harder to vanish, which is great for a prank, but less 'portable.'"
Tempest leant back in her seat. "So you two are really going out with a bang."
"Busy, busy," agreed Fred, "some of our products are already ready for sale- extendable ears, the toffees, then we're going to sign up students for testing our projects- fully consenting of course, and we'll pay them for their trouble-"
"-and amongst all of that we'll put on a show for the school," added George, "wouldn't want our legacy to be forgotten."
"For starters, we spiked most of the food trolley with a babbling potion earlier," said Fred.
"You gave us the idea actually," said George, beginning to fish about in his pocket for something. "That story you told us about your dear uncle spiking the feast food with a weightless potion- we thought, why not put our own spin on it? Which reminds me- here." He pulled a paper bag from his pocket and tossed it at Tempest.
She pulled it open and grinned. "Saved some food for me? How sweet." She pulled out a slightly squashed cauldron cake and bit into it. "I'll tell the Lord Charles Eastermont you do him proud."
The train rattled onward, speeding them out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously gray clouds.
Many times, Tempest looked up and out of their compartment to see a couple of Hogwarts students making their way down the corridor, gabbling absolute nonsense to themselves. They threw filthy looks at the twins as they went by.
"It'll wear off in a couple hours," Fred called after them, cackling.
Ron and Hermione arrived from prefect duty later in the train ride, and to say that neither of them were pleased with the twins would have been an understatement.
"It really isn't funny," said Hermione huffily, "you doubled the workload we had going around the train patrolling, and Finite Incantatemdoesn't work- how did you dothat?"
"Now, now," said George, stowing his wand away from quickly vanishing their stacks of parchment, "that would be telling."
"Guess who the Slytherin prefects are though," Ron said to Tempest, "Greengrass and Malfoy."
"Of course," said Tempest, completely unsurprised. She was more surprised that Malfoy hadn't brought it up when she had seen him in Diagon Alley. "The Greengrass girl, who is she?"
"She's actually quite nice," replied Hermione, "I've spoken to her in the library once or twice. She's very quiet though, I'm not sure how she'll handle unruly students."
"We can't stay, we're meant to patrol the corridors every now and then," said Ron, and a glint came into his eye. "I can't wait to get Crabbe and Goyle for something…"
"You're not supposed to abuse your position, Ron!" said Hermione sharply.
"Yeah, right, because Malfoy won't abuse it at all," said Ron sarcastically.
"So you're going to descend to his level?"
"No, I'm just going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine. Although…" he looked at Tempest speculatively. "I hadn't noticed him being such a git last year. Don't suppose you know anything?"
"I haven't really spoken to him since the ball," lied Tempest, "People change. Maybe he grew up."
The last time Tempest had sat in the Great Hall, it had been the leaving feast, and Dumbledore had toasted Cedric Diggory. The Sorting Hat's new song about unity in troubled times inspired the same sort of whispers to spread across the hall.
Tempest remembered the disbelief that had filled the room when Dumbledore had spoken of Voldemort. Remembered pale faces that turned inward, skeptical and dismissive. Now the same faces were looking down at their plates, as though too embarrassed by the perpetuation of the lie that Voldemort had returned.
She could feel the looks cast her way as well. She knew what the Prophet was saying, knew that she appeared to be delusional- driven insane. It was fine. They could have theirs.
Dinner begun, and Ron managed to insult Nearly Headless Nick, who was touchy at the best of times, but Ron seemed to find the best ways to put his damningly corporeal foot into his equally solid mouth. Hermione began bickering with him, and Tempest tuned the pair of them out. She poked at her potatoes.
It was far removed from Kreacher's begrudgingly cooked meals, and the fairly repetitive takeout that they had at Grimmauld Place. Tempest tugged her mug of tea closer toward her. Even the blend was different. She wondered what Sirius was doing at the moment. Were any of the Order members over? She felt certain Remus had stayed. He and Sirius might have been having drinks by the fire at that very moment.
Tempest was struck with a feeling so intense she blinked down at her tea for several seconds before she managed to swallow and think again. For the first time in her life, she felt homesick.
It was ridiculous. She was at Hogwarts- Hogwarts which had been her favourite place, filled with magic and mystery… except Tempest looked around the hall at people who had ducked to avoid her gaze on the way to the Great Hall, who had thrown her frightened or pitying gazes on the train, and suddenly the school seemed colder, more foreign.
There was a rift that Tempest felt had formed between her and the school, a rift that made an empty feeling start in the pit of her stomach, regardless of how much potatoes and ham she sent to join it.
Umbridge's speech did little to help how ill at ease Tempest was beginning to feel. Ministry interference after they had made their stance regarding Voldemort's return perfectly clear did not bode well in the slightest.
To cap it all off, it seemed the first years were frightened of her too. After one of the firsties audibly shirked away while filing past Tempest, she bared her teeth and let a flash of the wolf cross her face.
It would just look like a trick of the light, but it was enough for the first years to squeak and scurry past her as quickly as possible. Tempest thought it was entirely worth it, and leaned over to Hermione, who was currying the last students after Ron.
"What's the password for the Fat Lady?" asked Tempest.
"Mimbulus mimbletonia," replied Hermione, scowling as Ron set off very quickly, leaving the first years to run to keep pace with his longer steps. "It's a rare plant."
"Couldn't have come up with one less than eight syllables, could they?" said Tempest wryly. "I'll see you up there."
Tempest's luggage and Nyx had already been moved up to her dormitory, and she entered the room to find Nyx already making herself comfortable at the end of her bed. Lavender and Parvati had arrived before her, and were speaking in hushed voices that stopped abruptly as she walked in.
Tempest paid them no mind and set about unpacking. Some items went in her nightstand, others she left safe in her warded trunk. Lavender and Parvati were pinning up posters around their beds, arranging pictures on their nightstands. Tempest went for a shower and on return, was searching for a book in her trunk when Lavender spoke to her.
"So... You said you saw you-know-who come back?"
Bent over her trunk, Tempest closed her eyes briefly. Book found, she straightened up, closing her trunk and ensuring her wards were in place. "I did."
"Well," said Lavender slowly, "how do we know it's really true? I mean," she glanced over her shoulder back to Pravati for support, and emboldened, she rushed on. "Dumbledore said that he was back, but only because you said so. It's not like you have proof."
She was looking at Tempest with very wide blue eyes and Tempest found herself noticing just how foolish and weak Lavender's face was. The suffocating feeling that surfaced every time she thought about the graveyard had returned.
When she had been fighting for her life, when she had watched Cedric die, she hadn't been thinking about this.
"So don't believe me," Tempest said very calmly. "That's not my problem."
And she got into bed and drew the curtains around it, warding them as well.
She propped the book up on her knees and read about the nuances of the transmittance of magic from one source to another until Hermione had come up and all the other girls had gone to bed. Tempest knew she had risen early that day and she had class tomorrow, but she continued reading into the night until her eyes ached and the words began bleeding together before her eyes.
Finally, she extinguished the light from her wand and lay back against the pillows.
Nyx lay on Tempest's legs, a warm comforting presence.
Hogwarts was one of Tempest's favourite places in the world. But as she lay there in the darkness, Tempest missed the yell of 'goodnight' through the wall to Sirius, missed the sound of his snoring in the next room. She missed hearing the sounds of the house at night, of Kreacher moving around downstairs.
When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of long echoing corridors and echoes of Cedric's name ringing in her mind.
Tempest, was sitting in the Great Hall, eating her toast and her customary cup of tea when a pack of fourth year Ravenclaws passed by her, shooting her scared glances as though they expected her to draw her wand and begin cursing them.
She was momentarily tempted, but decided against it. She contented herself with crunching particularly vigorously into her slice of toast and winced in pain as she bit herself. She scowled and reached for her cup of tea.
"How'd you like being dubbed disturbed?" asked George, startling Tempest and making her slop scalding tea over her hand.
Tempest swore loudly. A second year a few meters away shot her a frightened look, and Tempest snarled inarticulately. George chose that exact moment to steal a piece of toast from her plate.
Tempest glared for a moment, then sighed, "fuck you, George." He grinned at her, and Tempest had to concede that her anger was draining away quickly enough that she felt foolish holding a grudge when he was one of the few that she had no cause to be irritated with.
"I suppose I didn't have to fight for a seat at the table today," she admitted. "People have been parting for me like I have the plague."
George whistled. "See, not bad. What'd you think it'd take for me to get put in the paper somewhere for being mental?"
Tempest shrugged. "Do some of the stuff I did."
"I don't think anyone could do what you do," laughed George.
The post owls arrived then with a great whoosh and clatter. They showered breakfasters with droplets of water from the heavy rainfall outside. Tempest looked up instinctively, then ducked her head again. Wishful thinking- she had seen Sirius just yesterday.
"Oh, Angelina was here before," added George, distracting her. "She told me tell you that Keeper tryouts are on Friday at five, and she wants you there so the whole team can be present to see how the new person will fit in."
"So she got made Quidditch captain?" said Tempest. "Nice. Hopefully she'll ease up on the pep talks. Oliver's were enough to want to shove him through a few hoops-"
Minnie swatted at the back of Tempest's head as she passed by, handing out the Gryffindor timetables.
"Sorry Professor," smiled Tempest, as Minnie walked away, then glanced down at her timetable and groaned. "I'm fucking exhausted. History of Magic, Double Potions with the Slytherins, Divination, and Double DADA… just bloody brilliant for the first day back."
"But you like potions and DADA."
"I like making the potions and DADA is great with the right teacher," said Tempest. "I'm sure you recall who teaches both."
"I'd offer you a Snackbox, but I'm not sure if you'd like the side effects."
"Maybe another day," said Tempest, glancing up as Hermione approached. "What's wrong now-"
"This!" snapped Hermione, slamming a piece of parchment down in front of them.
Tempest picked it up, recognizing George's handwriting.
Gallons of Galleons!
Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings? Like to earn a little extra gold? Contact Fred and George Weasley, Gryffindor common room, for simple, part‐time, virtually painless jobs. (We regret that all work is undertaken at applicant's own risk.)
George looked up at Hermione innocently. "What's wrong with it? We were completely honest!"
"Look, you can't advertise for testers on the Gryffindor notice boards," said Hermione.
"And why not?" Fred asked, sliding down the bench toward them.
"Because I say so!" Hermione declared. "And so does Ron!" she added as an afterthought.
Ron, who had just arrived at their table in the Great Hall, seemed to choke on his own spit as he met two pairs of glaring eyes.
"Really?" said Fred dangerously.
"Leave me out of this," Ron said, holding his hands up defensively.
"Hermione, calm down," George said, looking unconcerned as he took a long draught of pumpkin juice. "It's all for your benefit in the long run. It's a nightmare of a year, the fifth," said George. "If you care about exam results, anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our peckers up somehow."
"So you say," Fred said, giving George a look that Tempest couldn't decipher. "While certain other some of us were keeping their spirits up, certain other some of us went against everything that we had said we would do in OWL year and got actual good marks."
"Oh come on!" George complained, "Just because I decided to do a bit of last minute studying doesn't mean that I took them seriously."
"Lay off him," sighed Tempest, recalling that while Fred had scraped the barest of grades, George instead had managed several EEs.
"Regardless," said Fred, "we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement."
Hermione looked scandalized. "You're going to flunk your NEWTS?"
"Oh come off it Hermione," Fred said, "Did you really think we'd try any harder for them than we did for the OWLS? We weren't even going to come back this year-"
"Well then, why did you?" Ron asked, peering around Hermione.
Fred shot George another glance that looked almost accusing.
"We uh," George began uncomfortably, "Well I thought that there might be some things at Hogwarts that might- that is to say that I thought… We figured mum wouldn't be able to take us leaving school early… not with Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."
Tempest wondered at his stuttering. "I thought you said it was all about the legacy- and to do some market research, figure out what demand there was."
"That," said George, nodding emphatically. "Is what I meant to say."
Tempest gave him a very odd look. "You haven't accidentally sniffed any of the prototype potions I gave you, right? I told you specifically not to-"
"You're helping them?" Hermione asked in horror, "It's OWL year, Tempest! You won't have time!"
Tempest waved her off, quickly tiring of the scrutiny. "I'll be fine. A bit of fun never hurt anyone-"
"But OWLS are important!" Ron said, sounding a lot like Hermione at that moment. "They affect the jobs you can apply for and everything…"
"Ron, at the moment, everyone thinks I'm insane," said Tempest slowly. "No one's going to want to give me a job regardless of my grades… beyond that…" Tempest thought about the dementors in Little Whinging, the fact that Sirius was still wanted for mass murder. She thought about Cedric Diggory, who would have been graduating that year if things had been different. "I've got other things to worry about."
History of Magic reintroduced the same sort of monotony that had characterized her last days of Hogwarts in the past term. It was wrong that Tempest felt so tired of school- it was magic school. Never as a child had she ever through this was possible… only hadn't she?
She had always known she was different; what other child had she known who could speak to snakes, spark life into dead flowers and leap off two story rooftops only to land lightly on the ground? And when Minnie had appeared in an alleyway from thin air and told Tempest she was a witch, it had felt less like a shock, and more like validation.
Still, she couldn't have accounted for everything that had happened since.
Professor Binns, of course, was oblivious to any change in his class, and he droned on for forty-five minutes about the giant wars, a subject only he could make dull. Double Potions was after, and Tempest filed into the dungeon after Ron and Hermione, the three of them settling down at their usual table near the back.
Snape's mere presence ensured the class's silence, and he began with a speech about OWLS and those who he would gladly see leave his class next year. He sneered down at them all from behind his desk, and Tempest wondered why on earth someone like Snape had ever chosen to become a teacherof all professions.
This class, she was perfectly capable of enjoying, although all of that hinged on how much Snape ignored her in the lesson. It was a return to form, to see him in his teaching capacity. Their interaction in Order meetings was next to none, and Snape had left as quickly as possible after them. He had been almost frighteningly civil throughout the holidays, and now that they were back at Hogwarts, Tempest wondered if he would have changed at all.
They started on the assigned potion: the Draught of Peace. Tempest was partnered with Hermione at their workstation, which suited her very well. It was easy to distinguish between their separate workspaces as Hermione kept her ingredients neatly placed, in order of the ones she would be needing to use first, while Tempest's side was a mess of ingredients easily within reach, then tossed aside once Tempest was done with them.
It was a very precise potion, and more finicky than any others that they had brewed in class before, but Tempest quickly caught her stride, and by the time Snape swept around their workstations, he could only comment on the mess of her ingredients, and not her potion itself.
"How did you get that?" hissed Hermione from beside Tempest.
Tempest cast a quick look at Hermione's potion. It was easily the best of the rest of the class's but the silver vapor that drifted up from the surface of her liquid held a slightly grey tinge, and wasn't as thick as Tempest's.
"Give it another stir," said Tempest, after peering into her cauldron, careful not to breathe in. "Clockwise this time. It'll help the moonstone bond with the hellebore."
"Are you sure?" said Hermione doubtfully, looking again at the instructions on the board, then down at her potion.
Tempest shrugged. "Take a risk."
Hermione hesitated, then added the extra stir. She relaxed as the liquid and vapour turned the same shade and consistency as Tempest's. "I don't know how you do it Tempest," she said, moping sweaty strands of hair away from her face. "With the amount that you muck about, and the fact that you rarely study, you shouldn't be this good."
"Cheers," grinned Tempest. She carefully corked her vial of potion and labeled it clearly. She deposited it on Snape's desk and walked away. She could feel her mood beginning to lift.
Divination soon remedied that though. It was easily Tempest's least favorite class, an utter waste of time and an assault on Tempest's senses to boot. "Why did we take this?" she asked Ron, as she flipped open The Dream Oracleby Inigo Imago. Incense swirled about in the air, and Tempest pinched the bridge of her nose to stop her eyes from watering.
"Dunno, mate," sighed Ron, "thought it'd be a laugh. I reckon Hermione had the right idea, walking out. Surprised you didn't either..."
"I couldn't very well have left you here all on your lonesome," said Tempest, and they exchanged a grin before ducking their heads and beginning to read.
The one good thing to be said for the lesson was that it was not a double period. By the time they had all finished reading the introduction of the book, they had barely ten minutes left for dream interpretation. At the table next to Tempest and Ron, Dean had paired up with Neville, who immediately embarked on a long-winded explanation of a nightmare involving a pair of giant scissors wearing his grandmother's best hat; Tempest merely looked over at Ron skeptically.
"I never remember my dreams," said Ron. "You say one."
"Give me anything," said Tempest. She'd be damned if she was to share any of hers. "It's not as if any of this matters."
"Well, I had one that I was playing Quidditch the other night," said Ron, screwing up his face in an effort to remember. "What d'you reckon that means?"
"By my reckoning, that you enjoy a good match," said Tempest dryly, flicking through the pages of The Dream Oracle without interest. "According to this book? You'll probably be eaten by some fire-breathing pig."
When the bell went, they were tasked with keeping a dream diary for a month as homework. This topped the potions homework they had been set (twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and it's uses in potion making, due Thursday) and Ron led the way back down the ladder, grumbling loudly.
"All I'm saying is that the Umbridge woman had better not give us any more homework," he said, "I feel done in already."
As it turned out, Tempest never managed to find out what homework was set.
The class began without promise, and Tempest sat itching in her own skin as she attempted to read Slinkhard's book. The books that Sirius had given her on magical theory were far superior; they actually meantsomething. It was almost a relief to see Hermione hadn't begun reading and was instead looking determinedly at Umbridge with a raised hand. Umbridge however, looked just as fixedly in the opposite direction.
The book was so tedious that it wasn't long until most of the class was looking at Hermione rather than their books, and finally, Umbridge seemed to decide she could not ignore the situation any longer. "Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?" She asked Hermione, as though she had only just noticed her.
"Not about the chapter, no," Hermione replied.
"Well, we're reading just now," said Umbridge, showing her small pointed teeth. "If you have other queries we can deal with them at the end of class."
"I've got a query about your course aims," said Hermione.
Umbridge raised her eyebrows. "And your name is?"
"Hermione Granger."
"Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully," said Umbridge in a voice of determined sweetness.
"Well, I don't," said Hermione bluntly. "There's nothing written up there about using defensive spells."
Tempest's eyes flickered to the board and scanned through the few sentences. (1. Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic. 2. Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can legally be used. 3. Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.)
Hermione was right. But surely it wasn't possible- the Ministry couldn't- wouldn't prevent them from learning practical defense, would they? It was downright backwards…
"Using defensive spells?" Umbridge repeated with a little laugh. "Why, I can't imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren't expecting to be attacked during class?"
"We're not going to use magic?" Ron exclaimed loudly.
"Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr‐?"
"Weasley," said Ron, thrusting his hand into the air.
Umbridge, smiling still more widely, turned her back on him.
Hermione's hand was in the air again, and Umbridge addressed her. "Yes, Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?"
"Yes," said Hermione. "Surely the whole point of Defense Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?"
"Are you a Ministry‐trained educational expert, Miss Granger?" asked Umbridge, in her falsely sweet voice.
"No, but ‐"
"Well then, I'm afraid you are not qualified to decide what the 'whole point' of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new programme of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk‐free way ‐"
"The world isn't risk-free," said Tempest incredulously. "What use is theory without practice-"
"Hand, Miss Potter?" sang Umbridge.
Tempest refused to raise her hand, and others around the room raised theirs.
"And your name is?" Umbridge said to Dean.
"Dean Thomas."
"Well, Mr. Thomas?"
"Well, it's like Tempest said, isn't it?" said Dean, shooting Tempest a wary glance. "What's the point of learning the theory and spells and stuff if we're not going to use them?"
Umbridge smiled in a very irritating fashion at Dean, "And why on earth would you need to use defensive spells?"
"Well-"
Umbridge talked over him. "I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school," she said, an unconvincing smile stretching her wide mouth, "but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed‐not to mention," she gave a nasty little laugh, "extremely dangerous half‐breeds."
Tempest's blood heated very quickly. She stood up so quickly her chair was knocked over. "If you're talking about Professor Lupin, he was the best teacher we ever had, and a right sight better than-"
"Five points from Gryffindor!" Umbridge said loudly, "Now take your seat."
"No," said Tempest, and the whole room fell deathly silent. The feeling of restlessness that had pervaded her the entire day seemed to coalesce into the figure of Umbridge before her, and Tempest snapped. "You're willfully preventing us from protecting ourselves."
Umbridge's toad-like eyes stared at Tempest unpleasantly. "It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. What on earth would you need protecting from?"
"Are you kidding me?" said Tempest, "I can sort-of understand why your Ministry's so hell-bent on denying that Voldemort's returned- I'd be fucking gladif he wasn't, but what about the rest of it? What about protecting against a mugger? A rapist?"
Tempest could not recall the entire class ever being so silent. She could almost hear the voice of Professor Binns upstairs through five feet of thick stone. People's eyes were flickering from her to Umbridge and back again.
Umbridge was breathing very heavily, and her voice when she spoke, was trembling slightly. "Ten points from Gryffindor, and detention, Miss Potter. Tomorrow evening, five o'clock, my office."
"Why?" asked Tempest recklessly, ignoring Hermione's frantic tugging at her sleeve, trying to get her to sit.
"Am I making too much sense?" demanded Tempest, "don't want to see the logic of my argument? We need to learn how to defend ourselves from what's out there!"
"There is nothing waiting out there, Miss Potter-"
"Bullshit," said Tempest. Her heart was pounding fast and loud in her ears. "Voldemort's back, he killed Cedric Diggory-"
"You have been told," Umbridge said loudly, "that a certain Dark wizard is at large once again. This is a lie. Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident-"
"It is not a lie," snarled Tempest, Cedric's falling body flashed before her eyes, the phantom pain of the Cruciatus curse making her fists clench at her sides. "Cedric Diggory didn't trip over and die. He fought Voldemort himself, he diedfighting. He held his own, and the only reason he managed, is because he'd learnt and practiced those spells."
She stood there, trembling with the force of emotion that was coursing through her chest. She understood- she truly did, that without proof, her claims that Voldemort had returned seemed like fearmongering. But it was an insult, to her, to Cedric, to all of Voldemort's victims, to turn a blind eye.
The room seemed to be holding its breath. She had not spoken about the night of the third task, and now that she was speaking, it was just a show for her classmates. Tempest knew, because how could it be anything else? They hadn't experienced the horror of the graveyard, they hadn't been fighting for their lives… if it had been any one of them there with her, they wouldn't have lasted past the first spell. She was standing in a room filled with timed corpses, and Umbridge was driving them closer to that fate.
Umbridge's bulbous eyes were very, very cold, her face blank. Tempest thought for a moment that she was about to scream at her. Then she said, in her softest, most sweetly girlish voice, "Clearly mental trauma from the stress of the Triwizard Tournament. Come here, Miss Potter, dear."
Tempest kicked her fallen chair aside and strode up to Umbridge's desk. There would be consequences, Tempest knew, but again, Cedric's face, illuminated in the flash of green light, filled her vision, and she could not bring herself to care what would happen next.
Umbridge pulled a small roll of pink parchment out of her handbag, stretched it out on the desk, dipped her quill into a bottle of ink and started scribbling, hunched over so that Tempest could not see what she was writing. Nobody spoke.
After a minute or so, Umbridge rolled up the parchment and tapped it with her wand; it sealed itself seamlessly.
"Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear," said Umbridge, holding out the note to her.
Tempest wanted nothing more than to turn on her heel and leave Umbridge there with her short stubby arm still extended, but she forced herself to take the note with two fingers, then whirled around and left the room.
She walked very quickly along the corridor, rounded the corner and almost ran into Peeves.
Peeves, who had been juggling inkwells, let them drop, ink spattering the walls as they smashed. "Oooh, it's Potty Wee Potter!" Cackled Peeves, his wide mouth curving up into a mischievous grin.
Tempest gritted her teeth, unable to force a smile. "Hi Peeves," she said tightly. Inspiration struck her, as suddenly as the last inkwell that Peeves threw at her. She paid no attention to her ink splattered robes, and said instead: "If you were looking to disrupt some people's lives, I wouldn't object to you doing your worst to the DADA class I just came out of."
"The toadsie do something to dear Potty, did she?" Peeves asked, flipping over in the air and straightening his orange waistcoat. "Annoy dear scar-face and tease her about hearing voices and seeing visions?"
"Close enough," said Tempest from behind her teeth.
"Never be it said that Peevsie turned down an opportunity to wreak havoc!" said Peeves, sweeping her an elaborate bow. "The toadsie pissed off Potty and now Peevsie will have some fun…"
Peeves shot off down the corridor, and Tempest allowed herself to take several deep breaths, trying to calm down. She continued down the corridor, then down a flight of stairs until she reached a door to her left. She forcibly unclenched her hands, which had been balled into fists, and she knocked twice.
The door opened, and Minnie emerged. She looked at Tempest in surprise. "Why on earth are you here, Miss Potter? Why aren't you in class?"
"Sent to see you," said Tempest, "Had a disagreement with Umbridge."
Minnie glanced up and down the corridor, then she waved Tempest inside. She closed the door behind them and gave a long suffering sigh. "Tempest, it's your second day back."
"I know," said Tempest, offering her the note from Umbridge. "I'm sorry- sort of."
"Sort of sorry?" said Minnie skeptically.
Tempest felt the roiling mass of emotions that had been seething beneath her skin ease slightly. She managed a smile and took the seat Minnie waved her toward. As she sat, Minnie slit open the note with her wand, stretched it open, and read it, her eyes narrowing with every line.
"Is this true?" said Minnie, when she was done. Her expression was very serious.
"What did she write?" asked Tempest.
"That you shouted and cursed at her, and in your outburst, accused the Ministry of both endangering student lives, and claimed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned?"
Had she shouted? Tempest found she couldn't remember. "It all sounds about right."
Minnie looked down at the pink note with distaste, then seemingly on an impulse, she threw the note into the fireplace, where it flared up, then burnt to ashes. "Tell me what happened."
"She isn't teaching us defense," said Tempest, "she's the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and she's not teaching us how to defend ourselves. Then she claimed there was nothing out there in the world that could possibly harm us. And she insulted Remus. It got to me."
"And so you lost your temper, of course." Minnie frowned over at Tempest, then said, "have a biscuit."
Tempest reached over for the tin, taking a ginger newt and biting its head off.
"Tempest, you need to be more careful," Minnie said quietly as Tempest chewed. "Crossing Dolores Umbridge could cost you much more than the disciplinary methods that the school allows."
"Minnie, I'm sure she could bring the entire weight of the Ministry against me, but what does that matter? Voldemort's out there and Umbridge is-"
"And there's nothing you can do," said Minnie urgently, "I need you to understand this Tempest. This sort of injustice isn't one you can charge headlong into. Albus and I are doing what we can. I know it's difficult, and it's not what you want to hear, but what you need to do, is keep your head down."
The bell rang for the end of the lesson. Overhead and all around came the elephantine sounds of hundreds of students on the move. Tempest simmered with frustration. Minnie waited until the noises had died down slightly before turning back to Tempest. "Just… tread carefully," she said. "Now, if I remember correctly, it said in the note that Professor Umbridge has given you detention every evening this week, starting tomorrow."
"Injustice indeed," said Tempest darkly. She did understand, she did, not that it made it any easier to accept. "Is there anything you can do?"
Minnie's expression told Tempest everything she needed to know. She offered Tempest the tin of cookies again. "Have another biscuit."
Tempest took one, repeating her motion and biting off the head. "What happened to the snickerdoodles?"
"Albus discovered I had muggle cookies and ate the lot," replied Minnie, replacing the lid. Then she shook her head and frowned at Tempest. "For goodness sakes, at least try to reign your tongue and temper in, won't you, Tempest?"
"I'll try," said Tempest grudgingly.
At dinner, Tempest took two steps into the Great Hall, and every head turned toward her. Word of her outburst, and the subsequent tornado of havoc that Peeves had wreaked on her DADA class had quickly spread, and people were talking loudly about it. Gone were the hushed whispers and sideway glances, it was as though the other students were attempting to get a rise out of her. To watch her put on another show.
Tempest turned and walked out.
She went down to the kitchens, where an enthusiastic Dobby greeted her, stars in his eyes that Tempest had come to see him so soon when term had just begun. They talked about their respective holidays, with Tempest inquiring after Winky as well, who was slowly recovering from the (relatively) recent deaths of her two masters. Tempest left not long after, with some bundled up sides of food that hadn't been sent up to the Great Hall yet.
Food in hand, she left the kitchens. She headed straight for the Owlrey. She would have preferred to go with her cloak, but she was reluctant to head back to her dormitory with the chance of running into other students. At that time of the day, the Owlrey was, as Tempest had predicted, empty, and she stuffed her package of food inside the front of her robes as she climbed up onto the battlements.
She made her way along the wall and jumped up onto the roof, where, not far above her, jutted out a narrow ledge. She clambered up to it, and perched there, sucking in deep lungfuls of evening air. It was her favourite nook at Hogwarts, and up there, she could see the castle grounds sprawled out below her. She stayed there munching on the food and looking out over the school.
It wasn't a great feeling, being driven into solitude. Tempest would have liked to have dinner with her friends, perhaps gotten a laugh before the day was over, sealing the fact that Hogwarts was lesser than it used to be.
The following day dawned just as leaden and rainy as the previous one.
"But on the plus side, no Snape today," said Ron bracingly. Tempest merely yawned, and poured herself a cup of tea. She did not look over at the Slytherin table.
Double Charms after breakfast was succeeded by Double Transfiguration. Professor Flitwick and Minnie both spent the first fifteen minutes of their lessons lecturing the class on the importance of OWLs.
"What you must remember," said Professor Flitwick squeakily, perched as ever on a pile of books so that he could see over the top of his desk, "is that these examinations may influence your futures for many years to come! If you have not already given serious thought to your careers, now is the time to do so. And in the meantime, I'm afraid, we shall be working harder than ever to ensure that you'll do yourselves justice!"
They then spent over an hour revising Summoning Charms, which according to Flitwick were bound to come up in their OWL, and he rounded off the lesson by setting them their largest ever amount of Charms homework. It was the same in Transfiguration.
"You cannot pass an OWL," said Minnie grimly, "without serious application, practice and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an OWL in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work." Neville made a sad little disbelieving noise. "Yes, you too, Longbottom," said Minnie. "There is nothing wrong with your work except lack of confidence.
"So today we are starting Vanishing spells." Minnie continued. "These are easier than conjuring spells, which you would not usually attempt until NEWT level, but they are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested on in your OWL."
Tempest thankfully, was well versed with vanishing spells, and she successfully vanished her snail even before Hermione, with the pair of them earning Gryffindor twenty points. It made up for the fifteen that she had lost yesterday, and they were the only ones in the class not given homework, which Ron took very badly, giving them a filthy look at the end of class. He hadn't managed to get his snail to disappear, but he did say that its shell had gotten paler.
Tempest spent break finishing off her essay on Moonstones, and had just started on Charms when the bell rang and they headed down to Hagrid's (empty) hut for Care of Magical Creatures.
At this point, the mugginess had dissipated somewhat, and the day had become rather cool and breezy. Professor Grubbly-Plank stood waiting for the class some ten yards from Hagrid's front door, a long trestle table in front of her laden with twigs. Tempest glanced over her shoulder as she heard the sound of voices drifted over to them, carried by the wind, and saw Malfoy walking with Zambini behind them.
"Everyone here?" barked Grubbly-Plank, once all the Slytherins and Gryffindors had arrived. "Let's start in then. Who can tell me what these things are called?"
She indicated the heap of twigs in front of her. Hermione's hand shot into the air. The girl next to Parkinson whispered something to her, and Parkinson let out a squeal of girlish laughter that turned into a scream as the twigs on the table leapt up into the air and revealed themselves to be what looked like tiny pixie-ish creatures made of wood, each with knobbly brown arms and legs, two twig like fingers at the end of each hand and a funny flat, bark like face in which a pair of beetle-brown eyes glittered.
"Kindly keep your voices down, girls!" said Grubbly-Plank sharply, scattering a handful of what looked like brown rice among the stick-creatures, who immediately fell upon the food. "So, anyone know the names of these creatures? Miss Granger?"
"Bowtruckles," said Hermione. "They're tree-guardians, usually live in wand-trees."
"Five points for Gryffindor," said Grubbly-Plank. "Yes, this is a bowtruckle, and as Miss Granger rightly says, they generally live in trees whose wood is of wand quality. Anybody know what they eat?"
"Woodlice," said Hermione promptly which explained the grains of brown rice were moving. "But fairy eggs if they can get them."
"Good girl, take another five points. So, whenever you need leaves or wood from a tree in which a bowtruckle lodges, it is wise to have a gift of woodlice ready to distract or placate it. They may not look dangerous, but if angered they will try to gouge at human eyes with their fingers, which, as you can see, are very sharp and not at all desirable near the eyeballs. So if you'd like to gather closer, take a few woodlice and a bowtruckle. I have enough here for one between three. You can study them more closely. I want a sketch from each of you with all body parts labeled by the end of the lesson."
The lesson was fun, and Tempest thoroughly enjoyed when Parkinson accidentally gripped the bowtruckle too hard, and it attacked her.
"That was a great lesson," enthused Hermione, practically bouncing on their way to the greenhouses afterward. Tempest agreed unenthusiastically, very aware that as much as she wished Hagrid were back, Grubbly-Plank held a very good class.
When they reached the greenhouses, the door opened and some fourth years spilled out of it, including Ginny.
"Hi," she said brightly as she passed them. A Ravenclaw Tempest recognized followed soon after, her dirty-blonde hair tied in a knot at the top of her head. When she caught sight of Tempest, she made a beeline straight for her.
Luna took a great breath and then said, without so much as a preliminary hello: "I believe He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back, and I believe you fought him and escaped from him."
Tempest stared at the odd girl, the abruptness of the validation taking her aback.
"Thanks," she said, heartened. "And others, the less informed of us, might want to shut up," she added pointedly as Lavender and Parvati began giggling at Luna's orange radish earrings.
Luna walked off, and Tempest felt significantly better, even after Hermione scoffed at Luna, whose father was apparently the editor of The Quibbler. The magazine was fairly ridiculous, Tempest would admit, but then Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff stepped up to her.
"I want you to know as well, Potter," he said in a loud, carrying voice, "that it's not only weirdos who support you. I personally believe you one hundred percent. My family have always stood firm behind Dumbledore, and so do I."
"Cheers," said Tempest at the backhanded support.
Her third day back at Hogwarts seemed to have vastly improved now, and Tempest felt significantly less bitter as she went about in Herbology. Inside the greenhouse, to nobody's surprise, Professor Sprout started their lesson by lecturing them about the importance of OWLs.
Tired and smelling strongly of dragon dung, Sprout's preferred type of fertilizer, the Gryffindors trooped back up to the castle an hour and a half later. Tempest couldn't be bothered to walk all the way to Gryffindor tower to change, so she went straight to dinner, cutting a wide berth around her at the stench. She had Umbridge's detention right after, and she saw no reason to freshen up beforehand.
However, the one person whom Tempest had not managed to put off was Angelina, who strode down the table toward Tempest angrily. "What the hell did you do?" she said loudly, making many heads turn toward them.
Tempest lowered her knife from her lamb chops. "What did I do when?" she asked blankly.
"Don't give me that look," yelled Angelina, "You know perfectly well what you did- landed yourself a detention for every day of this week, and that includes Friday practice- didn't I tellyou to be there specifically so we could see how well the new person would fit in?"
"Ah," said Tempest, shifting on her spot and looking at her plate of tantalizing lamb chops that she felt would be inappropriate to eat at the moment. "Sorry about that."
"It's not funny!" shouted Angelina, not that Tempest had laughed, "Isn't it enough that I've got a new player to fill in, and now I learn you can't even be there!"
"I'm not off picking daises," snapped Tempest, "Umbridge put me in detention- d'you think I wanted this?"
"You could've kept your trap shut for the team!" said Angelina fiercely, "I don't care how you're going to do it- go to Umbridge, ask her to let you off Friday, just make sure you're there!"
She stormed away.
Tempest sat there, facing her food, and found her appetite had left her. Again, people were staring. She threw down her knife and grabbed her bag, walking very quickly from the hall. At this rate, she would have to get all of her meals direct from the kitchen.
She walked in circles around the castle until it was almost five, then made for Umbridge's office on the third floor. She rapped on the door.
"Come in," said Umbridge.
Tempest pushed open the door and stopped dead. The room was foul. The only thing that came close to the pink horrendousness of Umbridge's room was when Gilderoy Lockhart had occupied the room. Then again, Tempest almost preferred the dozens of self-portraits he had plastered over the room. Swarmy git he was, he hadn't been half-bad to look at.
Under Umbridge, all surfaces had been draped in lacy covers and pastel colours. There were vases of dried flowers residing on doilies, ornamental plates covering the walls, each decorated with a large technicolour kitten.
"Good evening, Miss Potter." Umbridge was seated behind her desk, her poor choice of flowery robes blending in with the tablecloth on the desk behind her.
"Sure," said Tempest.
"Well, sit down," Umbridge said, pointing toward a small table draped in lace beside which she had drawn up a straight-backed chair. A piece of blank parchment lay on the table, apparently waiting for her. Tempest dropped her schoolbag beside the chair and sat down.
"There," said Umbridge sweetly, "Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Miss Potter. No, not with your quill," she added, as Tempest bent down to open her bag. "You're going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are." She handed her a long, thin black quill with an unusually sharp point. "Now, I want you to write 'I must not tell lies'."
"How many times?"
"Oh, just as many times as it takes for the message to sink in."
Tempest gritted her teeth, and was about to begin writing, when she realized- "You haven't given me any ink."
Umbridge who had moved back over to her desk, and was preparing to mark what looked like a stack of essays, looked up. "Oh, you won't need ink," Umbridge said, with the merest suggestion of a laugh in her voice.
Tempest placed the dry nib of the quill to the parchment and wrote: I must not tell lies.
Her right hand clenched around the quill. Instead of scratching fruitlessly at the parchment, the words had appeared in crimson ink. At the same time, the words etched into the back of her hand, as though carved there by a scalpel. Within moments, the skin had healed over, leaving it slightly red, but quite smooth.
The pain had been brief but intense, and Tempest stared down at the parchment very hard as she wrote I must not tell lies again.
Again her skin split open, and she knew that she was writing with a blood quill. They were meant for signing official documents. Tempest had found one in Sirius's father's office at Grimmauld Place and made the mistake of using it, before Sirius had snatched it from her hands and snapped it.
From the corner of her eye, she could see that Umbridge had stilled. She was watching her, waiting for Tempest's reaction. Waiting to get a rise out of her, an expression of pain.
Tempest wrote I must not tell lies. She wrote it again, then again. She had suffered through the Cruciatus curse, she had torn the very flesh of her hand from the bone, this quill was nothing. She continued writing. Darkness fell outside Umbridge's window, but Tempest did not pause nor look up. She continued writing until she had finished filled in both sides of the long parchment, until her blood covered almost every blank space and then, finally, she looked up.
"Might I have some more parchment?"
Umbridge looked up from the essays. She clearly had not intended to be here for so long- her eyes had grown even more pouchy at the late hour. "Come here," she said.
Tempest stood up. A quick glance through the window at the moon told her that it was well past midnight. She walked over to Umbridge, standing almost a head and a half taller than her. "Hand," Umbridge said.
Tempest thrust her hand forward. It was still stinging, but Tempest felt a swell of nausea greater than that when Umbridge touched her with her thick, stubby fingers. She wrenched it away as soon as she was able.
"Tut, tut, I don't seem to have made much of an impression yet," said Umbridge, a smile stretching grotesquely across her face. "Well, we'll just have to try again tomorrow evening, won't we? You may go."
Tempest left. Her hand was fine, she told herself, clenching and unclenching it. She had had far worse. There was the time that the cursed Bludger had shattered her forearm, there was the time that Vernon, in a fit of anger, had driven a knife straight through her hand… It was nothing, Tempest told herself, nothing.
She didn't go up to her dormitory, instead settling down by the still-burning fire in the common room. She leant against the edge of the couch with a sigh. While in Umbridge's office, she had felt the need to remain utterly alert, now she felt so tired that the steps up to her dormitory seemed insurmountable.
The fire was crackling so familiar, and the heat on her skin was so blessed and comforting, that Tempest felt her eyes slipping closed.
The sound of something falling to the ground jerked Tempest awake.
Her head snapped up, and she groaned as her neck muscles twinged. "What?"
Ron swam into her vision, still dressed in his robes and holding his broom in hand. He stood peering over the side of the couch. "Blimey, Tempest! I thought you were passed out or something. What're you doing down there?"
"I fell asleep," said Tempest, getting to her feet and rubbing her eyes. She now had a stiff neck due to the damned position she'd fallen asleep in. "Just got back from detention… what are you doing still up?" She looked at his new broom. "Did you fancy a nighttime flight?"
Ron looked suddenly very awkward. He shifted from side to side, his grip on his broom tightening. "Do you… do you promise not to tell Hermione? She might laugh at me… well, come to think of it, you might too-"
Tempest laughed. "There, out of the way," she said tiredly, "I won't tell Hermione. Now what was it?"
Ron took a deep breath. "Oh all right… well, I'm… I thought now that I've got a decent broom, I'm training so I can try out for Keeper."
It took a moment for the meaning to register with Tempest, but when it did, she felt a smile break across her face. "That's brilliant! It's going to be so much fun- imagine if we were on the team together!"
Ron's expression cleared. "Yeah, yeah it would," he said, sounding relieved, "you don't think it's a bit of a long shot?"
Tempest shook her head, "of course not- I've seen you fly before, and with a bit of training up with the rest of the team, you'd be a great addition. I'm only sorry I won't get to be there for you at tryouts."
"Umbridge didn't let you off detention?" Ron said sympathetically.
"Nah," said Tempest, omitting the fact that she had failed to ask. There had been no chance of Umbridge agreeing, and she had not been about to hand Umbridge the knowledge that the detentions were detracting from her life. "I'll tell Angelina when I see her... that'll be a fun conversation."
"I'm sorry," said Ron, "you won't tell anyone yet though, will you?"
"You have my word," said Tempest, then yawned loudly. "Right, we should get to bed. I'm guessing you haven't done Divination yet, have you?"
"Nope."
"Neither- more for the morning then. Night."
The next few days were some of the worst Tempest had ever had at Hogwarts. The skin on the back of her hand had healed completely the next day, but she had fallen behind on homework, and found it much harder to concentrate in class with exhaustion tugging at her. Her next detention was just as bad as the last, and Tempest, who watched the cuts heal over, knew that it was happening far more slowly.
She returned to bed even later than the night before, and fell asleep on top of her bed covers, still fully clothed.
Thursday dawned blearily before Tempest's eyes, and she dragged herself class after a liquid breakfast where she hatefully broke tradition and poured herself three cups of coffee. Transfiguration homework she completely fairly quickly in History of Magic, and spent the remaining time writing something for the proper handling of bowtruckles.
That weight lifted off her, Tempest went to Umbridge's office at five o'clock and spent the next few hours slicing I must not tell lies into her hand until eventually it stopped healing, and remained there, oozing droplets of blood. Tempest gritted her teeth, mopped up the blood with the edge of her robes and kept writing.
Finally, Friday came around, and though overnight, her skin had pulled together, it split open immediately with the first stroke of 'I' and red bled down her hand, curving toward her wrist. It was the day of Quidditch tryouts, and Tempest tried to keep an eye out of Umbridge's window, where she could see tiny figures flying about at the distant Quidditch pitch.
The blood now ran down Tempest's hand, it coated her fingers as well, smearing grotesquely across the page, obscuring the words, but Tempest kept writing relentlessly. Some of her blood had dried, some of it remained gleaming and fresh.
"Let's see if you've gotten the message yet, shall we?" said Umbridge's soft voice when Tempest had lost all track of time.
She moved toward Tempest, holding out her short be-ringed fingers for her arm, gingerly avoiding the smears of dried blood. And then, just before she was able to touch her, pain seared, not across the back of her hand, but across the scar on her face.
The bottom dropped out of Tempest's stomach and she stood very suddenly, pulling her arm back.
Umbridge looked at Tempest, a smile stretching her wide, slack mouth.
"Yes, it hurts, doesn't it?" she said softly.
Tempest refused to answer. It couldn't possibly be… there was no connection at all… Umbridge's foulness was of a breed of its own…
"Well, I think I've made my point, Miss Potter. You may go."
Tempest caught up her schoolbag and left the room as quickly as she could. For the second time that week, she ran up the steps of the Owlrey, not stopping until she had reached the battlements and was clambering up onto the roof. The pounding beat in her chest and ears might've sounded like escape, but to Tempest, she just wanted a break- a moment where she knew she was free of that room... of that woman...
She had barely sat down, bag at her side before she had drawn her wand and was cleaning her hand hastily, an aguamenti and scourgify quickly washing away the blood.
I must not tell lies remained etched in her skin.
With a sudden rush of hatred, Tempest wanted the words gone. She grasped her wand firmly with her left hand and whispered, "Arci incendio."
A thin blue flame hissed into existence, emitting from the end of her wand.
Tempest steeled herself and lowered the wand to touch the back of her right hand.
She strangled a cry at the pain, and her eyes watered as her skin crisped and seared beneath her wand. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air, and Tempest gagged, maintaining contact until she had dragged her wand the whole breadth of the words. She severed the magic, unable to bear it any longer.
When the burning pain had receded into an intense ache, Tempest forced herself to look down at her work. The fresh wounds had been cauterized, then erased; seared out by a line of red and blackened flesh. Against the pain, Tempest suddenly felt much better.
For a moment, the only noise was that of her breathing, harsh and loud in her ears, until she became aware of a strange sound growing louder. It seemed to come from beneath the rim of the roof. Tempest gripped her wand again with her left hand and looked forwards to the sound.
The sound, which Tempest thought was rather like robes flapping in the wind, stopped, and she was just about to dismiss it when above the lip of the roof, Malfoy's silver head rose into sight. He was perched on his Firebolt; reminiscent of the last time they had met like this.
This time, Tempest did not point her wand at him.
Instead, she let her wand drop and she stared blankly as Malfoy began to drift closer on his broom.
It was not until he was a meter away from her that she realised his intention, and she shifted over on the ledge, moving her bag to make room. Malfoy waited until he was level with Tempest, then dropped off his broom and onto the roof.
He lowered himself to sit beside Tempest, leaning his broom beside his left knee. There was a fair amount of shuffling- Malfoy making sure his broom wouldn't fall, and Tempest stowing her wand away, and making sure he had enough space. He didn't, and she moved over even further. It was enough to have Tempest brace herself against the roof and grip the edge tightly.
Settled in, the world stilled again, and Tempest was very aware of Malfoy's silent presence at her side. She was also very aware of her own breathing, and endeavoured to breathe quieter. Finally, she spoke, "What are you doing here, Malfoy?" she said, "I've had a spectacularly shite week."
Maddeningly, Malfoy did not translate- 'spectacularly shite week' to mean anything close to 'so get to the point,' as he said, "I thought you came up here fairly often."
Tempest, annoyed at the deflection, raised an eyebrow. "I do."
"Then why are you clinging to the roof like it's about to buck you off?"
Tempest grimaced, and loosened her grip on the stone ledge. "A precaution in case you push me off."
Malfoy laughed, a startling sound. But it forced a chuckle out of Tempest as well, and when the laughter had died out, he finally answered, "I was flying around the school, I heard you yell." He gave Tempest a quick searching glance, which she ignored.
"Right," said Tempest tiredly, not bothering to answer his unspoken question, or to pay any mind as to why Malfoy was on a nighttime flight about the school. "Well. I come up here to be alone. Something you have ruined for me twice over."
"I do apologize," said Malfoy, unapologetically, "I could leave."
"No," Tempest found herself saying, "no, it's fine." She leant back with a sigh and rested her head back on the roof behind her, hands folded over her stomach. There, up through a gap in the clouds, she could see a glimpse of the endless star-studded sky. After a week of fitful and unsatisfying sleep, Tempest melted into the hard and uncomfortable stone, and the feeling loosened her tongue enough for the words to slip out; "It's just gorgeous," she sighed.
Malfoy had looked over at her. "It really is," he said.
"How's your time back been then?" said Tempest, to stave off the sleepiness she could feel tugging at the edges of her mind, "oh, and how were your exam results?"
"Being back is just… fine," said Malfoy, an odd twist to his mouth as said the words, "and I was pleased with my exam results, thank you."
"I only ask because I recall you spent a significant amount of time not studying with me," said Tempest, "glad it hasn't tripped you up."
"No it hasn't."
Tempest turned her head to look more clearly at Malfoy. He was still staring at her. The strange turn in his voice was not all that had changed. In the weak moonlight, she realized his eyes were heavier than usual, as though he too wasn't getting enough sleep.
"How do you know about this place anyway?" asked Tempest, "I never did ask."
"It's a nice spot," affirmed Malfoy, inflectionless. "I've been coming here since third year."
"Same," said Tempest, much more awake now. "When specifically?"
"Would you mind just the month, or would you like the day as well?"
Tempest flushed and looked back up into the sky. "All right, it was a fairly ridiculous competition."
Malfoy was still looking at Tempest.
"Stop looking at me like that," said Tempest.
"Like what?"
"There's this look that your family gives me, like I've dribbled on my shirt or something," said Tempest, "funnily enough, I don't appreciate it."
"Sorry about that," said Malfoy, again not sounding remorseful at all.
He did look away though, and down, at Tempest's hands. "Did you burn yourself?"
Tempest dropped her hands out of sight immediately. "No," she said quickly, before realising how stupid it sounded. "I mean yes. Accident. Burnt myself. Potions accident."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed at Tempest. "You never have accidents in Potions. And that looked fresh." Tempest didn't reply, keeping both her hands tucked back up the sleeves of her robes.
"Fine," said Malfoy eventually, "here, take this, your robes have to be scratching at it."
He fished about in his pocket and extracted a folded piece of fabric that he dangled in front of Tempest. It was a deep green silken handkerchief, predictably embroidered with an italicized silver M.
Slowly, Tempest reached out to take it. "Thanks," she said cautiously, swiftly knotting it around her hand.
"You want to be more careful," said Malfoy quietly beside her. At first, Tempest thought Malfoy was talking about her hand. It was a justified sentiment, but he shook his head. "Your godfather."
The mention was so unexpected that Tempest froze for a moment before forcing herself to remain clam, even as her heart resumed pounding in her chest. "What about him?" she said. "And why do I want to be more careful?"
Malfoy seemed surprised at her defensiveness. "Self preservation?" he said, "I assume you care somewhat or you wouldn't have put on such a show at the platform... Potter, this is a... warning... you can't seriously be this naive, you were noticed. My father noticed."
"Noticed what?"
"Sirius Black," said Malfoy very slowly, "was your large furry friend on the platform."
Tempest was wide awake now. Any notion of sleep was chased from her mind and her blood turned to ice. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," she managed to say, the words forced out through stiff lips, "all that Skeeter business must have made you overly paranoid- that was my friend's dog. We got close. The dog and I, that is, not the friend- although, sure, I'm close with them as well, the friend that is. That is… my cue to leave, actually."
Heart pounding, Tempest got to her feet. Malfoy made an aborted movement, as though about to grab her, then thought the better of it.
"Potter- stop- look, stop being so bloody on edge, would you?"
"On edge?" repeated Tempest incredulously. Her bag over her shoulder, she had made it halfway down the roof already as she spoke, "on edge? You know- you know what's out there, and you have no excuse to say otherwise- you know what's back and you're telling me to be less on edge?" A sudden, different sort of fear struck her and she stopped short of the roof's edge. "Or are you going to deny it as well? Your own father was there, and are you honestly denying anything's changed- that things are just the same?"
"I'm not denying anything!" hissed Malfoy, cutting through Tempest's increasingly loud voice. "My father couldn't walk, the night he got back! I'm not exactly pleased with this either, all right? Will you sit back down now?"
Tempest stared at Malfoy for a long moment. She did not return to sit down.
"You said your father couldn't walk."
"No," said Malfoy shortly, "he was tortured a fair amount. All of them were." When Tempest said nothing, he snorted quietly. "Look, I don't deny that I believe that mudbloods and blood traitors belong below us, but I never wanted him to come back. You'll forgive us though, if we want to remain in his good graces."
"Would I?" said Tempest tightly.
"Well, it helps that I don't need it from you," added Malfoy. "Do you feel better then? Knowing that we've suffered too?"
no.
"Yes," said Tempest, and dropped off the roof, out of sight.