I am in Malfoy Manor again, torturing someone, a young man maybe only a few years older than me.
"Crucio." I say in a cold, happy voice.
The man looks up, and I see Ky's angry, fearful dark eyes. I watch as I do it again, despite all my struggles not to. And again.
"Stop!" I yell, looking away, anywhere but the evidence of what I've done. I need to look anywhere but there. I look, and the body is gone, replaced by a mirror in the spotlight, surrounded by darkness.
"Come, see what you've become, young apprentice," Voldemort's voice whispers. I step forwards, to see a monster in the mirror. My hair is the color of the blood that stains my hands and the crimson of my eyes. My skin is pale, and there is an aura of shadow around me, and my expression is an insane Cheshire Cat smile.
"No." I back away, and the reflection flickers back to green-eyed, purple-haired, blood-free, panicked Alice. "No, I don't want this."
The girl turns back to me, and smiles sinisterly, and raises her blood-stained hand, and presses it against the glass. I stumble back, and see a bloody handprint over my heart.
"NO!" I awoke, thrashing, and looking about wildly for the monstrous version of me, the wicked girl with the Cheshire Cat smile.
"What is wrong with you, Alice?" Pansy whined, as she undid her rollers. "Always screaming and kicking. Maybe that's why the Dark Lord let you go, since you're so cowardly."
I glared at her, but got out of bed, and started about my morning routine. Lines were already drawn. Tracey, Pansy, and Millicent had decided that they were with the Death Eaters, and against the Spark.
Daphne, however, and the girls in the other dormitory except for one, Juno Rosier, were with the Spark. I took that small victory seriously as I got dressed in my robes and combat boots, and prepared for the school day.
At the table, we soon discovered where the loyalties really were. It was noted that all of the tables had two groups of students, divided largely by a foot where no one sat. At Slytherin, it was split exactly fifty-fifty, as was Gryffindor.
I sat with my group in the Slytherin table, and started pouring up my coffee as the others went about their day. I looked up at the staff table to see them all whispering and eying the divides with fear and worry.
You've got more important things to worry about, sweetheart, I thought as I sipped my coffee and watched Umbridge wrinkle her nose at the Hogwarts houses divided, and she scribbled something down on her cat-patterned notepad.
"How'd things go in the common rooms last night?" I asked my co-leaders of the Spark.
"Went just fine," Wesley said brightly. "There's a few people who don't want to join the resistance, but most are willing to fight, and train."
I nodded. "Good, good."
"The whole is Slytherin is divided," Ellie informed the others. "I've never seen anything like it. Everyone had a wand pointed at someone else's head."
"Gryffindor's divided, too," Teddy reported. "Not quite as strongly as Slytherin, but the half that isn't with the resistance doesn't believe that Voldemort's back. By the way, what are we calling this thing?"
"The Spark," Ellie and I chorused softly.
"Okaayy..." Wesley said.
"Things in the Ravenclaw common room went horribly wrong," Hayden said as we passed a group of sixth-years. One of them was a certain figure that filled me with dread, and I remembered my nightmare. Hayden, Alex, and Luis glared fiercely at him, and he gave them a cold look, and his eyes widened with surprise upon seeing my face. I just raised my eyebrows.
"What did those sixth-years ever do to you?" Teddy asked nervously.
"See that one with the curly black hair?" Hayden asked, hate evident in her voice. "He ruined everything."
"I forgot that he probably would," I murmured.
The three Ravenclaws shared a glance. "Why?" Luis asked.
"He's Voldemort's other apprentice, and if I'm guessing correctly, he tried to lure kids in?"
"Oh, yes he did," Hayden said venomously. "He went so far as to call our side powerless in comparison to the dark side."
I laughed. "Please, direct me to the idiot. Let me take him on."
"You've beat him in a duel?" Ellie asked.
"Damn right I have," I said. "When I'm done with you guys, you'll be just as powerful."
"So Gryffindor is either in the Spark or doesn't believe that Voldemort's back, a large majority of the Ravenclaw is allied with the Death Eaters, the majority of Hufflepuff is with us, and Slytherin's fifty-fity," I recapped.
"Yep," they all affirmed.
All classes were in for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"Wands away, class," the professor tittered. She was a little toad of a woman, dressed all in pink and fluff, and was so crap-saccharine that it made me feel a little sick just looking at her.
I put my wand away, and waited to be bored out of my mind.
"Good morning, class," she said.
"Good morning," a few people mumbled sleepily.
"Let's try that again, and this time, use my name. It is Professor Umbridge if you didn't already know," she said in a condescending voice.
"Good morning, Professor Umbridge," we all chorused, still sounding bored and exhausted.
"As I'm sure you know, your Defense Against the Dark Arts education has been all over the place. This diversity isn't good for young minds such as yours, and it can be quite confusing. That isn't good for naive, impressionable innocents such as you," she said.
Naive? Innocent? What language are you speaking, woman?
"For instance, we had a half-breed teach you, and a madman-"
"Are you talking about Lupin?" Dean Thomas from Gryffindor asked. "Because he was the best teacher we ever had? And that other guy was a nutter, but we still learned loads-"
"Five points from Gryffindor Mr-"
"Thomas."
"As I was saying, you need stability, and most of all, you need a return to the basic principles of defending yourself against the abundant evils in the world," Umbrdige continued.
"Get out a notebook and copy these down," she said, and she tapped her wand and words appeared on the board.
The Goals of This Class:
Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.
Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can be legally used.
Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.
Hermia's hand shot up like a rocket.
"Yes, Miss-"
"Granger, and the board says nothing about using defensive magic," Hermia said.
"Why on Earth would you need to use it? Do you expect to be attacked in my classroom?" Umbridge asked.
"No, but-"
"Hand, Granger." Umbridge said firmly. Hermia's hand shot into the air. Umbridge ignored it, but I'd shot my hand up into the air. Everyone else's went down, and all eyes were on me. Umbridge had no choice but to call my name.
"Yes, Miss Potter?" She asked in a sickly-sweet voice.
"I want to learn defensive magic, since the theory won't protect anyone against Voldemort," I said loudly.
If all eyes weren't on me before, all eyes were on me now.
"Five points from Slytherin, Potter, and detention. I will not have lies spouted in this class," Umbridge said.
"Excuse me?" I demanded.
"Hand, Potter!" She said.
No one raised their hands. "Forget the hand! Why would think I'd lie about something like that? You think that I'm insane? An attention-seeker? Then tell me where this came from."
I drew up my sleeve, displaying the place where Pettigrew had taken my blood.
"The maze?" Umbridge guessed.
Crap.
"Fine, hole in my argument, got it," I said, annoyed.
"Another detention, Potter, for defying a teacher," Umbridge said. "Now, class, begin chapter one."
We all did so, although I might have been drawing over my textbook since it was such utter rubbish. One small victory.
