I am sorry for the HUGE delay. I think I will get better now that the summer is closer and my work load is lighter. I hope you all enjoy this and give me some feedback, good or bad I don't mind, it all helps me become better! Thank you!
Author's Note: If you have read all of this story before May 28, 2007, you might want to review the last chapter, there were a few things I tweaked in Emily's conversation with her father.
I still do not own Harry Potter.
After their midnight conversation, Emily's relationship with Sirius started to take off. They became closer, the shadow over their conversations were gone. Unfortunately, less than a week later Dumbledore informed them she was to come back to Hogwarts.
Dumbledore refused to let Sirius take her, so Emily said goodbye to her newly found father and left with Kingsley Shacklebolt, Apparating outside of Hogwarts and riding the rest of the way in a carriage.
It was dark, Dumbledore felt that was the safest and quietest way to get her back to school. As Kingsley led her to the picture of the old lady Emily realized that she had missed the old castle. Even though she hadn't been there for long she had grown to love it. Her house next to Privet Drive was not home, even though her father was there she could never call Grimmald Place home and she was only a guest at the Weasley's house. Hogwarts was her home.
"Miffler Nugget." Kingsley whispered to the surprisingly alert lady in the portrait.
"About time, I was told I couldn't sleep until you got here." She swung forward, revealing the portrait hole and the Gryffindor common room behind it.
Kingsley bid her a farewell and made sure the portrait door shut tightly behind her.
As soon as the portrait door closed, Emily heard a yell and was tackled from behind. She laughed as George gave her a noogy and the twins welcomed her back.
"Oi! It's been ages!" exclaimed George.
"We were starting to wonder if you'd ever come back." Fred smiled.
"How could I stay away from you two for too long?" she laughed, smoothing her hair from the noogy.
"We've got something for you." Fred announced.
They went over to the big couch in front of the fire and sat.
"Happy Christmas!" they said in unison, handing her two brown paper cover packages.
Emily set them down gently and stared at the objects, making no move to open them.
"What are they?" she asked.
"You have to open them to find out."
"Isn't that the point of us wrapping them?"
She remained motionless.
"What?!" Fred exclaimed.
"I don't trust you two."
They were both offended.
"How am I supposed to know I won't turn into a chicken if I open these?"
"Because we wouldn't do that to you." George explained.
"At least I wouldn't." Fred stated.
George turned to him, mouth open to defend himself.
"Besides," Fred continued. "We haven't figured out how to turn people into chickens yet."
George nodded in agreement. Emily wasn't convinced. She folded her arms in front of her.
"I promise nothing will happen." Fred said. "I promise my entire savings."
"Which is a lot." George informed her.
Emily knew the twins didn't bet money unless they were sure they wouldn't lose. Satisfied, she pulled one of the boxes into her lap and began tearing at the paper.
"That one's from me." George smiled.
Inside the many layers of paper and string lay a box, which contained a box in a box. When Emily finally got to the center of it all she found a note.
Open other box. It said.
Emily sighed and began opening the other one. Several boxes later she found what looked like a vial of perfume.
"It's essence of Veritaserum." George told her.
"You use it like perfume, dab it on and for half an hour everyone around you can't help but tell the truth."
"Cool! Should I try it out?" she smiled mishchievously.
The smiled vanished from their faces as they thought of everything she could find out about them. Fred seemed a little paler than George and visibly gulped.
"Not fair!" George protested. Emily laughed and pretend to begin to open the vial.
The two jumped at her, grabbing for the vial. She laughed, and when the twins realized she was joking they laughed with her. They spent the rest of their night talking catching each other up. Emily told them about getting to know her father and the twins told her about the evil Umbridge's attempts at taking over.
"And the worst part is that people actually agree with her!" George ranted. "Parents are writing in saying they think she's doing a great job and of course all of the Slytherins are on her side, hoping she kicks out Dumbledore. Nobody gets to complain or they'll be punished and no one can complain to their parents because all of the mail is being read."
"That's why you can't write to Sirius about anything specific, Emily." Fred told her. "You can refer to him by some other name and don't ask any questions about the Order or him. If Umbridge caught a whiff of anything suspicious she would probably attack you like she has Harry, if not worse."
"What do you mean?" Emily asked, confused.
"He's had a lot of her detentions and she's tried to drug him with Truth Serum." George said.
"What is so bad about her detentions?"
"She has him basically carve sentences into the back of his hand." Fred said. They explained what they knew about the detentions. and the quill that carved what you wrote into your flesh, scarring you.
"And no one will stop her? Is there no law saying she can't do that?" Emily asked.
"If there is she and the Ministry are ignoring it." George said.
Emily gulped. What had Dumbledore brought her back to?
Emily was extremely cautious through out her classes, even more so in her Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Unfortunately Umbridge took notice of her long absence and questioned her periodically about it.
"Did you have a nice little vacation Miss Smith?" she asked on her first day back.
"Yes, Madam."
"May I ask what kept you from this fine establishment for such an extended period of time?" she asked, a sickly sweet smile spread across her toady face.
"It is kind of personal Ma'am." she said. Umbridge frowned and waddled back to her desk, disappointed. Emily hid a sigh behind her book and the twins gave her identical thumbs up for a job well done.
Umbridge turned abrupty around and the thumbs disappeared. She narrowed her eyes at the three of them, suspicious. Emily tried to pretend to be focused on her reading of Vampires but was overwhelmed by the searching eyes of Umbridge watching her for the rest of the class.
None of her others seemed to mind her being gone for so long, though McGonagall warned that she would need to do a lot of extra studying to keep up, as if she hadn't stopped in on several sessions of Lupin tutoring her to give Transfiguration tips.
Emily could see that the school was divided into two groups. One was Umbridge and her group of Slytherin students she adored, the other was the rest of the school. It seemed that the students only put up with her because they were afraid of what she might do to them and Emily had the distinct feeling that the teachers only put up with her because Dumbldore had told them to.
Everything seemed to get worse and worse. Dumbledore disappeared in the middle of the night and Umbridge soon became High Inquisitor of the school. She had rules piled onto the students in an attempt to keep order and carry out her agenda, whatever that might be.
Though Emily tried to keep her head down, Umbridge managed to make excuses to get her into her classroom after hours and interigate her. One night she had Emily scrubbing desks for four hours.
"Now Emily, I'm curious, what was the cause of your absence for so long?" Umbridge began.
"It is a very personal matter Professor, I just don't feel comfortable sharing any of the details." Emily replied, trying to deflect the questions.
Umbridge paused, approaching from a different angle. "My dear, I must tell you that I have been deeply concerned about you lately. From what I understand you left because of some medical problems?"
Emily hardly considered being possessed a medical problem.
"It seems that whomever you stayed with was able to heal you of these ailments. I am just afraid that the symptoms may come back and I want to perhaps discuss the cure with them in case ." she smiled with fake concern.
Emily smiled, pretending to appreciate the worry. "Professor, Dumbledore healed me before I left. If you'd like to know how he did it, you should talk to him."
Umbridge was silent. The Ministry had no idea where Dumbledore had run to. He was a wanted man now and probably had no intention of telling them where he was. Rubbing this fact in the High Inquisitor's face only made her mad.
Umbridge looked down at one of the desk tops.
"These desks are still filthy. Detention is meant to teach you a lesson for breaking the rules and I refuse to let you slack off, rewash them all." she commanded, going to her desk and absorbing herself in some sort of paperwork.
Emily held in a sigh and looked at the rows of desks. She had been on number forty-five of fifty, using three different steps of noxious smelling potions to clean the desks. This was going to be a long night.
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