Prompt: Umbridge & Marietta Edgecombe
Actually, the prompt was Umbridge + Author's Choice and I chose Marietta!
The pink-clad woman drifted in front of her, where she sat, her fists clenched against her knees. Marietta was staring at some fixed point, too stricken with terror to chance a glance at Umbridge's face.
"You don't have a father. Isn't that right?" came the woman's sweet voice.
There were daggers hidden in that sweetness – as if Dolores Umbridge thought that if she said something awful in a nice enough tone, it wouldn't be awful anymore. Or maybe she knew exactly how terrible it was. Maybe it amused her to cloak such venom in honey. "He's sick," Marietta said, stiffly. She couldn't afford to let the grief overwhelm her; not right now. Her father didn't have long for this world, according to the Healers.
Umbridge made a tsking noise of sympathy. "Your poor mother. She must work so hard to keep you in school, mustn't she? These textbooks aren't cheap. And St. Mungo's doesn't run too cheaply, either, from what I remember…"
Ice crawled down Marietta's spine.
"She works for the Ministry, isn't that right?" Umbridge asked, as though she didn't already know. "I mean, if it did happen to come about that her own daughter was subverting school authority, I just can't imagine what her Department Head would thinkof her."
She was trembling under the weight of the threat. Cho's face flashed through her mind, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. You won't tell anyone, will you?
She hadn't wanted to make that promise.
But Cho was her best friend. The bitter taste of bile crawled up the back of her throat, boiling into resentment. What kind of a friend would make her promise that? Would make her run the risk of threatening her family's livelihood?
Desperation forced the words from her throat in a frenzied rush. "It wasn't my fault. I didn't want to!" she exclaimed, her eyes suddenly brimming with unshed, frustrated tears.
"Didn't want to what, my dear?" Umbridge cooed.
Marietta felt sobs bubble up her throat and gave into them. The weight of her father's illness and her mother's perpetually-exhausted face was suddenly too heavy on her, and she collapsed in her chair, burying her face in her hands. It was so easy to be brave when everything else in your life was fine. She was suddenly overcome with a raging, jealous hatred of her fresh-faced classmates, who looked so hopeful under Harry Potter's tutelage.
She'd tried to feel a measure of that hope, but it eluded her, always. She felt Umbridge's hand on her shoulder, her cooing, honey-sweet tone in her ear. "Hey, I'm with you," she assured the weeping girl, a smile stretching across her face. It was almost too easy to pick out the weak ones. "Always."
Quotes: "I'm with you. Always."