Beyond
Never Alone,
Book III
Chapter Twenty-nine –
Diggorying into the Problem
"And... if I were to look into your mind right now, what would I see?"
Gabby gulped.
"Er..."
"That's what I thought."
"So... how 'bout it Gabby?" Pansy smirked, staring at the silvery blonde hair of the girl in front of her.
"I am not lying!" whined Gabby, nervously pulling on a strand of hair, "Don't hurt me, please!"
Gabrielle was afraid. Pansy took a step back and looked at her curiously,
"That was never my intention, I just need you to know what a ball of slime he is." Pansy crinkled her nose as she thought about the Slytherin Prince, "He'll use you then abuse you. You deserve better than him."
Gabrielle growled a little, coming from her, it was cute rather than intimidating,
"I told you I do not like him." she sighed, "I love Nick."
Pansy pursed her lips together in contemplation. She remembered the days surrounding her wedding when Gabrielle had fallen for and tried to win over Nick Granger, but she had assumed that Gabrielle had given up on him.
"Okay..." Pansy began, thinking out loud, "So your Patronus is a ferret because you lost your pet two years ago... that doesn't explain to me why you were so busy eying the Boggart Draco."
Gabrielle mumbled something incoherent.
"What was that?"
"I said 'e scares the shit out of me." she mumbled still, but this time it was understandable.
Pansy snorted at the words coming from Gabby's mouth. She hadn't been one to swear. Pansy plopped down beside the silvery-blonde and talked with her till supper time called.
"Oh, be careful!" squeaked Mrs. Weasley as Libra shot off a Stunning Jinx that narrowly missed a lamp. "You'll break that lamp."
Sirius joined in,
"Actually, smash that lamp. It was my mother's favourite." Ron and Nick chuckled. Mrs. Weasley gave a disapproving scowl.
Harry vanished. Something Mrs. Weasley still had not gotten used to. When Libra vanished immediately after he did, she let out a rather loud squeak of shock. Sirius assumed it must have been a natural motherly reaction to seeing 'your children' vanish right before your eyes.
Harry and Libra reappeared. Harry just where Libra had been the moment before, Libra just a foot back from where Harry now faced away from. Libra immediately shot off a Stunning Jinx, nailing Harry in the back at close range.
Tauntingly as Pansy had been known to do, Libra walked around her defeated opposition and smiled. Throwing herself on Harry, wrapping her legs around his waist for support, she brought herself up to his eye level, kissed his forehead and unstunned him as he fell backward onto an empty seat on the couch.
Harry grunted as his back smashed into the cushions, but allowed himself to kiss Libra's forehead.
"You're lucky you're light," Harry whined playfully, "you could have broken me."
"Well, Daddy, you're just getting to be an old man." she teased, pulling on his cheek affectionately.
"Old man?" he whined, "I'm fifteen! I'm only three years older than you are!"
She chuckled and got up off of him, sauntering over to Nick and taking his hand.
"First duel against you and I cream you, you really need to close your mind." she motioned some hand gestures to intensify her point.
"Funny you should say that," said a voice from the door, "Dumbledore was just saying the same thing." Snape smirked evilly, "In fact he has given me the displeasure of giving you extra lessons once a week for Occlumency to do just that."
Libra glared at her potion's master,
"I've been teaching him some already." she said proudly.
Snape laughed a demented laugh, turned, and left.
They hadn't even been back at Hogwarts a week when Umbridge had loosed her reign of terror upon the campus once again. In the middle of the Great Hall stood nearly half the campus, watching as Umbridge, two ministry wizards at her side, belittled another professor who was sitting on the floor crying, her bags and trunk at her side.
"You can't do this to me. Hogwarts is my home." the voice of the person crying was unrecognizable as it was too heavily distorted by crying, pushing through the audience, Harry and Pansy made their way to the front to observe Sybill Trelawney, her glasses crooked and clouded with tears, begging for mercy, "Sixteen years I've been here... sixteen... years... of loyal service... to this school and... to its students... you can't sack me!" she continued to bawl, "Hogwarts is my home!"
"I'm sorry, dear. You're quite incapable of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections..."
Pansy took a step forward and offered Professor Trelawney a hand. Pansy glowered a poisonous glare at the toad as Trelawney wobbly stood on her feet.
"Professor Trelawney is quite capable of making predictions, Professor Umbridge. She predicted Harry and I's marriage before either of us recognized our attraction was mutual. She predicted..."
"That is quite enough, young lady, I shall see to it that you are.."
Pansy punched Professor Umbridge in the face, her fist landed with a loud crack as the Toad's nose shifted leftward when it broke. The two Ministry wizards at her side stood in shock and bewilderment.
"Well, do something!" screeched Umbridge as she held her nose to prevent bleeding, the two wizards at her side took a look at Pansy and raised their wands.
"Don't even." growled Pansy as Dumbledore walked up behind them.
"This... this..." started Umbridge, her eyes filled with rage, "She hit me!"
One of the Ministry wizards beside her laughed,
"You do realize how childish that sounds, Dolores?"
"Silence, Shacklebolt." she huffed, "I didn't see you stopping her."
Dumbledore motioned Pansy to take Trelawney back to her room as he levitated the Diviner's things to follow them,
"Now, you may have the power to fire my teachers. You do not, however, have the power to banish them from the grounds, that authority rests with the headmaster."
"SHE HIT ME!" squawked Umbridge, pointing to Pansy leading the Divination professor up the stairs as Harry, Lavender Brown, and Parvati Patil followed behind. Dumbledore took his wand out and pointed at her nose, he muttered,
"Episkey." and walked away shouting, "Get back to your classes, all of you."
That night was another D.A. meeting, several of the members had been quite excited with Pansy's breaking of Umbridge's nose, but quickly settled down as the night's spell to be learned was revealed.
Tonight they would be learning the basics of Blinking. Libra, having already learned, helped teach the lesson as she had done with the Melting Charm, and was having a great deal of fun teasing the Weasley twins when they failed to Blink repeatedly.
After a couple of minor successes, Ginny Weasley managing to Blink straight into a wall and Gabrielle Delacour Blinking upside down on a large mat, the meeting was called and those attending were allowed to leave.
As Harry grabbed the books to carry with him back to his common room, Cedric Diggory approached him with a slightly worried look on his face,
"Harry?"
Harry hmmed in response,
"Firstly I'd like to thank you for doing this, it's going to help tremendously when it comes to my NEWTs, but I should tell you, I'm not sure everyone here is loyal to the Defense Association. The Aragons are all part of the Inquisitorial Squad and..."
"I'm quite aware of their affiliation." said Harry plainly, "They're part of the organization to bring feedback to us to make sure we've not been discovered and to help us keep informed on what they're up to."
"What about Cho Chang and Terry boot?" Cedric asked looking into Harry's eyes with a nervous stare.
"What about them?" Harry said dryly as he threw his bag over his shoulder and made for the door.
"They didn't come to the meeting today and I'm quite certain that Boot is feeding Umbridge information."
Hermione walked up behind them and spoke softly,
"If he were, we would know."
"What do you mean?" asked Cedric, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"Let's just put it this way," Hermione explained, "they'd make Eloise Midgen's acne look like cute freckles."
"That's..." Cedric breathed, Pansy finished his statement for him with words that he certainly would not have chosen himself.
"Completely fair."
A/N: Hope that was a moderately interesting chapter. As always, I love to see reviews and posts on the "Never Alone" forums!
