Book 2: Astoria Greengrass and the Haunt of Azkaban
Song rec: "When I Was Young" by The Animals

Rhiannon hadn't felt relaxed for a long time, but she did feel relieved that the students at last knew the story that Fudge had covered up. At least they knew most of it.

It was only one day after the infiltration of Hogwarts had become common knowledge. Whilst the other teachers were visibly frustrated by the fact that they could not address the students about Harry's interview, Professor Sinistra seemed grateful for the first time that Educational Decree Number Twenty-Six existed. She had been taking long walks round the castle all day, her good arm's hand clutching a heavy shawl over her shoulders, but she had only roused mild interest in the students. After all, they had not read about the 1981 Longbottom case in the library newspaper archives as Rhiannon had. They had not noticed that every time Crouch Jr's wife was mentioned, her name had been magically erased from the school's copies. The only thing that seemed strange to the other students was that a clumsy, bulb-nosed house-elf had been following the woman all day.

It was after a successful Transfiguration lesson that Rhiannon and Astoria finally crossed paths with Professor Sinistra. She was sitting in the recess of a window with the house-elf asleep in her lap. The other students were passing by the area quite noisily, but the house-elf did not awaken. Rhiannon, with her concern for fauna of all sorts, slowed down, and Astoria kept by her side whilst the twins inadvertently continued walking with the larger group. The corridor soon became quiet, and when Rhiannon checked for any signs of Umbridge, she found the coast clear. She was about to ask if the house-elf was all right, but the little creature proved herself alive by wiggling in her sleep and scratching her ear. It left the girls standing there with nothing said, and the professor noticed their presence. Rhiannon could not very well describe Sinistra's face in that moment. She had lifted her head, saw the two girls, and quickly resumed looking out of the window. "I know that you know," she seemed to say through a sigh, and Rhiannon wondered if Astoria had made any faces at the teacher during her Astronomy class the previous night.

"It's not like that," Rhiannon wanted to say. She didn't want Professor Sinistra to think that they were there to stare her down, to make something that was terrible even worse. If only there were some words that Rhiannon could throw in the air… Some way of telling the professor that after finding out all these things by some twist of fate, she didn't think less of her.

"…Is it snowing?" Professor Sinistra whispered, squinting through the foggy window.

Rhiannon inched closer with Astoria at her elbow. She stretched the sleeve of her robe over her hand and wiped a patch of the window clean. The Middle Courtyard was wet and green, longing for spring, but winter had not yet given up. The snow fell delicately, almost indistinguishably from a drizzle, but the clouds were pale, and not a fleck of grey rain was in them.

"Yup," Rhiannon answered nervously, for she realised that she had probably crowded Sinistra as she leaned into the recess in the window.

Professor Sinistra had caught her in the eyes, and Rhiannon was not sure if the chill she felt was from the window or from the stare. The professor then slowly moved her eyes over Rhiannon's shoulder, and out of pure instinct, Rhiannon turned. There were holes carved into the stone by the window, holes of all sizes, and Rhiannon did not know what to make of them. However, Astoria, who had peeked over Rhiannon's shoulder, certainly did. She took out her wand and began to connect the perforations with glowing red lines.

"Oh — you can wand-write now?" Rhiannon asked.

"Er, Draco helped me," Astoria replied softly.

Her eyes remained fixed on the curious conundrum by the window until it was filled in.

"Corona Borealis and Corona Australis," she identified at the same time that Rhiannon had begun to recognise that the holes made up a pair of constellations. "The Northern and Southern Crowns."

"Ten points to Slytherin," the professor said with a fleeting smile.

Rhiannon and Astoria moved back from the window. In the faint light from the red lines, they could see that at the bottom right corner of the images was a carved pair of letters: "J + A."

"We had to do a huge project in our seventh year," Sinistra said reminiscently, "and the other kids took all the good constellations. They talked louder than us — you know. We ended up liking these ones nevertheless, as, as you can see. He went by Jonah whenever possible."

Rhiannon nodded and hoped that Astoria was at least listening politely to the professor. Surprisingly, she was. Professor Sinistra looked at the window once more even though it had fogged again.

"I'm so sorry, professor," Astoria said, and was moved to repeat, "I'm so sorry."

The professor furrowed her brow over her wet eyes and said softly, "I am the one who is sorry. I am sorry it happened so close to you."

The professor sat up abruptly, and Rhiannon watched the red lines on the wall fade.

"Go now."

Astoria acted like she needed to know why they had to leave, but Rhiannon took her by the arm and walked away without question. They walked briskly but were careful to keep their footsteps from echoing, and they had made it to the Entrance Hall when they heard the trill of the High Inquisitor. Rhiannon clenched her jaw and hoped with all of her soul that Umbridge had not heard Professor Sinistra breaking decree twenty-six. She wanted to keep walking, to distance herself from Umbridge as much as possible, but at the same time, she needed to hear what Umbridge was trying to do to Professor Sinistra.

"Go now."

It seemed to be an echo of Sinistra's words, distant, yet so fresh in Rhiannon's mind that she could nearly hear the woman's voice! She and Astoria kept walking; they walked until they couldn't be caught doing… well, doing nothing wrong.

The students were still forgetting to write "March" on their papers instead of "February" when Umbridge initiated her revolution. Her position was noticeably gaining more power with each decree. It was not a matter of if Umbridge would strike to kill, but when and how. The answer came exactly as Rhiannon was getting a third slice of rhubarb pie. Umbridge, who was wearing a bloated sort of scarf precisely the colour of rhubarb, had chased Rhiannon's Divination teacher down the stairs and into the Entrance Hall. Rhiannon had never cared for Trelawney much, as she reminded her of Muggles who charged people to read their palms and the like. She was honestly curious about why Umbridge had not sacked her sooner. However, after seeing the amount of distress Trelawney was in, Rhiannon felt guilty.

The removal of Trelawney seemed to be only slowed by one issue: Umbridge wished to render the woman homeless. No one else would have thrown her out of an immense castle filled with vacant places for her to stay. Headmaster Dumbledore had made quite the entrance from outside at the perfect time, and with a kindly but quick manner, informed the antacid-coloured tyrant that sacked or not sacked, Trelawney would stay in Hogwarts. For all the fuss caused by Umbridge's squeaking and Trelawney's bawling, Rhiannon found that the situation was not worth having her pie go cold to watch. Most others felt quite differently; they were either fascinated with the drama or were sending their hearts to Trelawney. Yet when Rhiannon started making her way back through the maze of students, the scene caught her interest.

A few years ago, Rhiannon would have convinced herself that she had been hit with a spell to deceive her eyes. Thanks to Professor Hagrid, though, she was saved from confusion as a centaur entered the school upon Dumbledore's welcoming. She recognised what species he was from class. Umbridge's face threatened to outshine even the hue of her scarf as she beheld the approaching centaur, who, if Rhiannon's ears had not mistaken her, was to be the new Divination professor. Even without the horse's body on the bottom, the new professor still would have looked quite mystical. The hair on his head was nearly colourless, but a faint shade of the golden colour from his coat revealed itself at certain angles. Even from where Rhiannon was standing, she could see that he had radiating blue eyes, which gave him something of a wintry look when coupled with his pale skin and hide.

"Looks like Draco's dad is trying to turn over a new leaf after being named in that interview," said Tracey Davis. "I wonder how long it took him to grow that fur coat."

Needless to say, Draco Malfoy would be hearing a different variation of that joke each time he tried to go to his Divination class in peace.

With Rhiannon's birthday quickly approaching, it seemed somewhat slighting that all Astoria would chat about was her family's upcoming Vernal Equinox celebration. She was receiving letters daily from even her distant family. Some had photographs, others, pressed flowers, and some letters folded themselves into origami birds and flew all round the table. The letters were heavily perfumed, and Rhiannon noticed that a set of sensitive-nosed people who could no longer sit in their vicinity.

"Oh! There will be another marriage this year!" Astoria exclaimed happily after reading a letter that sent not one, but four paper birds flying about the Slytherins' ears. "Let's see, I know of Sylvester and Valera… oh, Erez is getting married! Goodness, he's just nineteen… he must have met the girl after Christmas… not a very long time to be dating… What? It's Hazel Brown!"

"Hazel Brown," said Hestia. "I bet her eyes are green."

"Oddly enough, they are," Astoria said, brushing her hand through the air daintily. "I should probably have a chat with Lavender… our cousins are marrying… I don't really want to…"

Rhiannon could never understand the concept of formalities, nor what secrets Astoria knew that made her execute them so perfectly.

"You must be aware," Malfoy cut in after he had shooed a paper bird that had landed on his head, "that all the other families make fun of your wedding ritual."

Returning from her formalities with Lavender, Astoria brightly said, "I know they do. However, the Vernal Equinox is the most festive part of the year for us. It's neither funny nor strange to us. It's our favourite tradition. You can't imagine how huge the celebration is… Our home becomes a small city."

"Granted, Astoria, that does sound fantastic," Malfoy mocked. "Fantastically creepy."

In a slight breach of allegiance to the group, Hestia added, "Yes, Astoria, how many people in your family are born in late December…?"

"Hestia, don't be gross!" Flora chastised.

"Not as many as one might think…" Astoria answered with a flush in the face.

"They must be too tired after partying, then," sniggered Hestia.

"Gosh! Everyone makes a bigger issue of this than necessary," Astoria said.

"It's a pretty big issue when everyone in your whole family gets married on the same day," Malfoy said.

"The Vernal Equinox is either on the twentieth or the twenty-first of March," said Astoria. She then turned to Rhiannon to change the subject. "Your birthday's next Monday!"

"Er… yeah. What reminded you?" Rhiannon responded.

"Your face," said Astoria. "You kept looking at me as though I was forgetting something. I didn't forget, Rhi, but I couldn't remember what you thought I was forgetting… which, er, was your birthday…"

It was one of those cute things that would have made Rhiannon's heart flutter before, and she could feel where the remnants of affection for Astoria were in that moment. She pushed them aside only to find, to her horror, that she might have pushed them across the table… Rhiannon could not describe the face that Malfoy was wearing. She only knew that if Parkinson saw his face, she would get Umbridge to decree that the dorms could be searched for more Pariah albums to destroy.

Rhiannon never expected to be thrown a surprise party in the common room on the evening of her birthday, which, given its title, was exactly the point of a surprise party. Her roommates had made a deal with somebody to get all of the extras in the room that night. There was a large fountain of chocolate with biscuits and fruit ready to drown in it as much as Rhiannon was. There was music playing, engulfing the whole room and turning the party into a dance. There was food — there was food everywhere; there was butterbeer and fruit punch and some peculiar sugary drink that Hestia had invented.

Most memorably, however, were the number of people present at the party, the number of people who smiled at Rhiannon and wished her a happy birthday, and the number of people who had converted from rejecting her as "Slytherin's Blot" to accepting her as the leader of a rock band. It was amazing how people reacted to even mild fame, she thought. She tried to give them the benefit of the doubt now that they were her fans, but she vividly remembered a time when there was no band, no fountain of chocolate, no exciting gossip in Witch Weekly — a time when the same people had either turned away from her when she was bullied or had bullied her themselves. Still, the worst of the Slytherins were not swayed enough by Rhiannon's fame to show their evil faces in the common room that night. After the party, Rhiannon must have spent half an hour thanking her friends. They were falling asleep long before she felt satisfied that she had thanked them enough.

"I do have one question," Rhiannon asked as the other girls were shutting their eyes. "Who bought all that food?"

"Nobody bought the food," Flora said. "That Winky house-elf that stalks Sinistra sent it all up from the kitchens. All Astoria did was ask her to."

Rhiannon groaned, tilting her head back to the wall.

Pariah experienced a surge in productivity after the previous months of friction. They wrote two more songs that they deemed album material and had the sense to scrap a few others. After pushing through a trying year, things seemed to go back to normal for the girls in room 106. It lasted but a week.

Thursdays robbed the most out of Rhiannon. With a booked schedule of eight classes spanning from nine in the morning to ten at night, she typically tried to exert little of anything on those terrible Thursdays, whether it be critical thinking skills, physical energy, or speech. However, with all routines come exceptions, and an exception occurred on the Thursday which fell on the twenty-eighth of March.

Why Amy Frome decided to work on her Divination homework in Umbridge's class was beyond anyone's guess. It was only a few minutes after she had begun writing that Umbridge spun on the heels of her clogs and swiped the papers from her desk. Frome became indignant as though she truly did not expect Umbridge to take action; their attitudes collided briefly before Umbridge's voice reached its highest pitch and declared:–

"I will NOT have the germs of that half-breed monster enter my room, Miss Frome!"

And with that, she took out her stubby wand and incinerated Frome's homework from the centaur professor.

"'Half-breed monster?'" Rhiannon said angrily to herself.

"What was that, Miss Clarke?" Umbridge squeaked viciously.

For a moment, Rhiannon was tempted to say, "Nothing," and carry on with her business. But this issue was more of her business than anything she'd find in that worthless textbook on her desk. She lifted her head and raised her voice.

"It's ignorant and unbecoming," she said, picking words she had heard come from Astoria's insults, "to use slurs."

Umbridge's eyes bulged from her sockets, and she skulked over to stand right at the side of Rhiannon's desk. Amy Frome looked appreciative to have been rid of her, but Rhiannon now had a giant, poisonous toad to deal with. She decided that it was better to take punishment than to join the scared and silent population. And Umbridge wasted no time in sentencing Rhiannon to one week of detention for "disrespecting authority" or something of the sort.

It was five o'clock sharp when Rhiannon knocked on the door to Umbridge's office. The last time she had been in the room was when Professor Lupin had it; she had only seen glimpses of the place when Crouch was there. But the room she remembered was not there when Umbridge opened the door. Massive, ugly quilts hung on the walls. There were china plates instead of pictures or portraits. There was nowhere to look away from them that did not have a lace doily. Fake flowers sat in pale ceramic vases and were stuffed into an indoor window box. It was the scene of a twisted nightmare, as if Umbridge had tried to eliminate the sense that someone's soul had been ripped out in that room. The effect was that of wallpapering over mould.

"Sit," Umbridge said, and bowed her head toward a small desk, rolling her many chins.

Rhiannon took her time following the direction; she sat in a plank-like chair whilst Umbridge spent several more minutes rambling about her various concepts of supremacy. At some point during this senseless oration, Umbridge gave Rhiannon a roll of parchment and an oddly foul-smelling quill with a black, matted plume.

"Therefore," Umbridge said, summing up a speech to which Rhiannon had not listened, "you shall write 'I will respect authority.'"

"How many times?" Rhiannon uttered.

"Well," Umbridge said in a tingly voice, "until I say."

With a grimace, Rhiannon set her bottle of ink on the corner of the desk only to have Umbridge swipe it up and drop it into her robe pocket.

"I brought one inkwell, and that right there was it," Rhiannon announced in a tone that directly contradicted the lines which she was to write.

"You require no inkwell!" Umbridge said impatiently and parked her bottom on the velvety old chair at her desk.

With a final suspicious whiff of the dark, inkless quill, Rhiannon put the nib on the paper.

"I," was all she wrote, for she felt something slice her hand. She was not wrong; on the back of her right hand was nothing other than the "I" she had just written carved into her skin. Yet as soon as she had identified it, it vanished. Frightened, she rubbed her finger against the letter on the parchment. It was blood — it was her blood. Rhiannon was so stunned that she had no idea what to think of the situation. To make sure she had not hallucinated, Rhiannon wrote "will." To her horror, the process repeated itself. The pain, the blood… it was all real.

Rhiannon looked up from her red hand to see Umbridge's smiling head tilted sideways. Her bug-like eyes were simply daring Rhiannon to speak, waiting for her to speak, as though what would happen if she spoke would be even worse. This monster that called herself a professor, wanted to watch Rhiannon suffer not only emotionally from being in detention, but physically. This woman who threatened to crush Rhiannon's dream of being a musician now physically cut into her skin. But more hatred than blood poured from Rhiannon's cut. She already had enough scars. She had enough hurt. The fact that she had come to expect it only made it worse. Her mind swelled. Her heart raced. And her voice could come out as nothing other than a growl.

"You gave me," said Rhiannon, "the wrong quill."

Umbridge's pleasure wrinkled her ugly face.

"No, Miss Clarke," she crowed, "I'm afraid I did not present you with anything other than what you deserve. This way, you will learn that the valuable lessons I teach will stay with you for a lifetime."

A lifetime. Rhiannon knew that that meant something even longer than it sounded like. Certain abuses would not leave her, sure to plague her thoughts every single day — every single day until that 'lifetime' ended. No escape. Only remembering and keeping every ugly mark that was placed — physical, emotional, or both. She could conquer these things but could never forget them. That was why it was so easy for Rhiannon to see her parents in Umbridge. The sense of doom Rhiannon felt was exactly how she remembered it — doomed to be harmed, doomed to be powerless, doomed to be told that she deserved every bit of it, that it was her fault. But Rhiannon was not at the flat with Geoffrey Clarke. She was not at the flat with Jessica Limmen. She was in a room at school with Dolores Umbridge. So she stood and tried to leave and discovered that the door was locked. Would this be any different from the flat after all?

Rhiannon could not unlock the door with her wand, and Umbridge was transitioning from evilly amused to dangerously angry. But the punishments at school could not get much worse. Umbridge chose this method of torture because it would be subtle. Anything more, and even Fudge would want to step in. The problem was that Rhiannon could not step out. And in the time that she slowly realised how trapped she was, both she and Umbridge were getting angrier and brasher.

"Sit down and write," seethed Umbridge.

The bloodsucking quill was still perfectly in place on the desk.

"Sit down and write, Miss Clarke."

This school let anything fly. These stupid wizards probably didn't even know what hepatitis or HIV was, but Rhiannon wasn't going to take this kind of treatment regardless of tales of bloodborne illness in the Muggle news. Beneath the bloody quill and parchment was a frilly table covering. It was in perfect condition, much like every other frilly or flowery thing in the room. Umbridge waddled right up to Rhiannon's face.

"DO IT!" she shouted.

Rhiannon pretended to be greatly affected by the noise when noise was something she had nearly grown numb to. There were a lot worse things than noise. This quill was one of them. She sat down and took it in her hurting hand. She waited until Umbridge calmed and said some infuriatingly satisfied words. But Rhiannon repeated in her thoughts that she was not at the house with Geoffrey or Jessica. She was in a room at school with Dolores Umbridge, a room that Umbridge prized very much, a room that Rhiannon would have to be kicked out of by Umbridge herself if she wanted to escape.

"HELP ME," Rhiannon wrote, covering multiple inches of the sheet of parchment.

The cuts seared Rhiannon's hand. They hurt much more than the cursive writing. They bled a lot more, too. She tilted her hand and the parchment onto the table. She was getting out of this prison. Nothing she could feel from this pen would be worse than feeling the basilisk nearly bite off her arm, she repeated in her head. Nothing was going to be worse than her parents.

Tears fell from her eyes. She quickly put the quill into her pocket. She lifted up her bleeding, stinging hand. She began to sob from the pain, and when Umbridge heard the noise, her eyes widened in sheer fury at what she beheld. Her table cover had much more blood on it than it should have, and Rhiannon was deliberately wiping it onto the white frills. The rug, her very favourite rug which was beneath Rhiannon, was being contaminated with "Mud-blood" being shaken off the parchment.

Rhiannon had not been this angry since Jessica threw a glass beer bottle at her head last summer. Her anger blocked some pain and made her do things she normally would not do. She started screaming things that were not quite words. She smacked her wounded hand right on a quilt, leaving a frightening print. She did it again. Then she hurt too much, and she stood by the door and continued to scream and did not even pay attention to the horror-struck look on Umbridge's mug.

"OPEN THIS DOOR!" Rhiannon commanded.

Umbridge was trying to out-scream her, but Rhiannon ignored it.

"I SAID OPEN THE DOOR!"

Umbridge, too uneasy to approach Rhiannon, kept pretending that she had the upper hand. But she was too distracted trying to get the mud-blood off of her things. She screamed nothing Rhiannon cared to hear. Rhiannon's wounds were starting to close up, since she hadn't used the quill since. She had to get out before she was out of ammo.

"OPEN THE EFFING DOOR RIGHT NOW!" Rhiannon screamed, and she no longer sounded like she was using her own voice. Umbridge's eyes bloated and she began sputtering rather than screaming, horrified that Rhiannon contaminated everything she loved in the room, astonished that a student would behave this way… believing that it was because Rhiannon was Muggle-born that she could actually become a dangerous "savage" if left in this room any longer…

With a sore hand and a sore throat, Rhiannon was tired of using this method and quite prepared to be expelled for anything she would be forced to do next. Maybe even a curse she had learnt last year. Right when she thought it would come to that, it did not. Umbridge drew her wand, but not at Rhiannon. In her utter terror, she released some spell from the door, and Rhiannon leapt from it like she was escaping Hell itself. She ran as fast as she could, shocking and bumping everyone in her way, until she got to the Hospital Wing and announced all that had happened as clearly as she could. She was met with startled faces of disbelief and some ten unimportant questions from Madam Pomfrey. So Rhiannon didn't repeat the story. She made it all simple. She reached into her pocket and threw Umbridge's wet quill onto the floor and said, "That. That is the thing that she gave to me."

By the time Rhiannon had repeated the story two more times for the staff members who had come to investigate, she was slightly embarrassed about it. Fortunately, she figured, Umbridge was probably hiding away in her office trying to Scour the blood whilst the headmaster and other teachers were listening to what had happened. Indeed, only a few traces of evidence were left in Umbridge's office by the time the headmaster saw them, but those traces were enough. The quill in question was taken by Dumbledore, and Rhiannon was left in the Hospital Wing for the rest of the evening even though her cuts had healed long ago. Rhiannon chose not to tell her friends everything that had happened when they paid her a long visit.

Rhiannon hoped that Umbridge would finally be dismissed from the school — perhaps even registered as a child abuser — but the most news she got was that a report about the event had been sent to the Ministry. It was lights-out in the Hospital Wing when she could finally cry in peace, lamenting that she would have to face Umbridge in class for the rest of the year…

"Visiting hours are over," Madam Pomfrey's said, gradually becoming louder from her initial whisper each time she had to repeat it.

"I will not be long, Poppy," came a final, undebatable answer, and the dark figure of Professor Snape appeared in Rhiannon's view. She sat up. He sat down.

"Is she gone, Professor?" Rhiannon asked hopefully.

He shook his head.

"Didn't a report get sent to the Ministry?"

"I want you to think of some words to describe our Ministry, and then, I assure you, your further thoughts about this subject will be more accurate than wistful."

The glass should have been considered half-empty from the start. If a pure-blood student had received the same treatment, something would have been done.

"I do have news for you," he said coolly.

"Yes, sir?"

"You are freed from her detention."

"Oh, good," Rhiannon exhaled. "Wait, Professor — who got me out?"

"It was the High Inquisitor's decision," Snape answered. "You have a restraining order. You are not allowed in her office and must sit in the back of her classroom."

"No loss there."

The professor's face brightened so faintly that Rhiannon nearly missed the sight.

"None indeed," he said.

After a moment's pause, he said quietly, "I would like to know exactly why you… resorted to such extreme behaviour, Miss Clarke."

"I was put in detention for speaking up against her when she used a racial slur," Rhiannon stated strongly. "I shouldn't have been there."

Professor Snape went silent and folded his hands in his lap. Rhiannon was tired and was waiting for him to leave. He didn't seem to really be there anymore anyway by the look on his face. She adjusted her pillow impatiently, waiting to sleep, and the motion regained his attention.

"You shouldn't have been there, so you put blood all over her table?" Snape asked intently. Rhiannon didn't like being questioned about her behaviour. It made her ashamed and defiant at once.

"I don't know," she mumbled frustratedly. "She's afraid of mud blood, I figured."

He raised his eyebrows, apparently expecting a much more eloquent and explanatory answer from one of his Slytherins.

"Well, sir," she coughed, annoyed by the fact that he demanded this explanation before she went to sleep. "I thought I only had to go through this at home. So when she did that to me, I'm just gonna say that I totally lost it, and that's the best I can say. Am I in trouble?"

There was another pause, but this one came equipped with eye contact that made Rhiannon nervous. Then Professor Snape nodded, as if to say, "I see," and he furrowed his brow and looked at the floor as Rhiannon had never seen him do. It was very strange to see Snape mulling over things rather than hovering over them.

"Of course you are not in trouble," he said crisply, as though he had just been asked the question. "I expect you to be prepared for brewing tomorrow. Goodnight."

And he left, thinking whatever he was thinking, judging whatever he was judging, and leaving Rhiannon with a repetitive dream about her flooding his classroom with botched potions.

— BY ORDER OF —

The Ministry of Magic

Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor) has replaced Albus Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-eight.

Signed:

Cornelius Oswald Fudge

MINISTER OF MAGIC

"No thank you!"

Tracey Davis was the first to speak from the crowd that had gathered round the common room's bulletin board.

"Nooo thank you."

In a matter of moments, those who were not totally objecting to the new development were ousted from Tracey's area, and the population of the Slytherin common room was peculiarly split in two. Rhiannon could no longer muster any ability to be surprised at Umbridge's petulance. It was no longer even petulance to Rhiannon; it was an act of war. For a few minutes, in fact, Rhiannon fantasised about a grand protest on the part of the student body which would render school out of session until either they were expelled or Umbridge was. By estimating the size of Parkinson's crowd, Rhiannon determined that only about thirty students in the entire school would be on the pink one's side. And who would support the Ministry if it wasn't providing the children with a decent education? Fudge would be cornered into removing Umbridge.

Why the hell was everyone going to breakfast like nothing could be done?

"Hey," Rhiannon said to Hestia, who, at the moment, was the only one who was willing to listen to her. "What, er…?"

"What's this mean?" Hestia filled in when Rhiannon's actual question was going to be more along the lines of "What do we do?"

"I suppose we'll find out, Rhi," Hestia sighed. "It's hard to think of it this way, but with all the interference Umbridge has caused anyway, things might not be that different…"

Not that different‽ Dumbledore was the one in charge around here. Dumbledore was the headmaster. Dumbledore had taken away the blood-sucker quill! Why was everyone acting like they expected this to happen? How long was this going to last? When was Dumbledore coming back?

People filed out of the room with rumbling stomachs, but when the thought of Umbridge in the headmaster's seat came to Rhiannon, she twirled round and went back to her room to munch on the provisions from her birthday party she had stashed under her bed. Her first class was History of Magic… she could skip that. Binns never noticed the difference between his students' presence and absence. But Rhiannon couldn't skip Professor Hagrid's class; she liked it too much. And the rest of her day was necessary. She faced the fact that she couldn't hide from Umbridge forever, but it terrified her to think of what came next. Would she be expelled? Sent back to Jessica? Hurt again?

Rhiannon felt the scratching sensation of paranoia all over her back throughout the morning. Each moment, she swore she would be scooped up by Umbridge and forced back to London through the Floo Network. By lunch, the feeling had not diminished, and Rhiannon was too frightened to even speak to her friends about it. She gobbled her food and sat in wide-eyed silence, waiting for her fears to come true. Umbridge was headmistress. It was the end.

Or perhaps the horrible sound of a detonating bomb would bring the actual end.

In less than three seconds, Rhiannon had mindlessly grabbed the collars of the two girls next to her and shoved them under the table. She opened her eyes but could not regain her hearing after the loud noise. Beneath the table and next to her were Astoria and Manami Ichijō. Other kids were crawling under the table as they screamed and somewhat pointlessly held the tops of their heads.

"Hestia!" Rhiannon shouted, although she did not hear herself. "Hestia! Flora!"

The twins weren't under the table, and Rhiannon did not see their feet at their spot. She drew her wand, told whoever could have heard her to stay put, and jumped out from under the table.

"HESTIA! FLORA!"

She heard herself then. Students were scrambling out of the Great Hall… screaming, crying, selfishly but instinctively pushing…

Somebody said, "Death Eaters," but somebody else said, "fireworks!"

Rhiannon examined her surroundings quickly. There was no structural damage to the castle, so her initial thought that there had been an explosive was wrong. So far, no strangers were present at the scene, so the accusation of Death Eaters was probably wrong, too. People were running, though, and Rhiannon no longer had to ask from what.

Giant wheels of fire were spiralling and travelling through the air as a further series of bright blasts detonated. What were these fireworks trying to distract everybody from? And where in the world were Hestia and Flora?

"This way!"

From beneath all four tables, the students who had had the sense not to run out into the field of detonating pyrotechnics poured out with hunched backs and shuffled in the direction of the basement. The source of the commanding voice was at the entrance of the stairwell, and Rhiannon was relieved to see Hestia and Flora directing people downstairs. They acted like this was all in a day's work… Well, having worked in Knockturn, maybe it was.

Magical pink and green rockets detonated against the walls only to flip backwards into the action again. The faculty totally lost control of the situation once massive, multi-coloured dragons roared and twisted through the hall in aerial acrobatics. Even Professor Snape had been hindered for several moments as a quintet of rockets spun round his head.

Rhiannon reached under the table and felt Astoria's tiny hands in hers. She helped Astoria out and tried desperately not to savour the moment as the other clung to her arms whilst colourful lights reflected in her eyes. Letting go was unfortunately an effort, but once Rhiannon was sure that Astoria made it to the outgoing procession of students, she was able to help Manami, Alexa Crover, and a trio of crying first-years.

There was another explosion, yet this one sounded as though it had made an impact somewhere. Rhiannon's head moved side to side as she saw students pile into the stairwell to the basement and dungeons. She worried about those who had taken the route to the Entrance Hall; the explosion had come right from there… Before Rhiannon knew it, she had seen everyone clear out and was the last student in the Great Hall.

"Protego!"

The incantation hailed from three different voices and had protected Rhiannon from a nearby blasting firework that was too big for her eyes to see the whole of.

Radiant cinders plopped onto the shield, and Rhiannon stepped backward only to be lifted from her feet by Professor Snape and carried to the filled stairwell. Behind them was Professor Sinistra, who proudly used her recently healed arm to cast a spell, putting up a stone wall before a screeching Catherine wheel reached them. Snape set Rhiannon down before her eyes could adjust to the dark stairwell and she felt herself in a girl's embrace.

"Are you all right?"

It was weird to hear a voice so clearly after being exposed to so much noise. Rhiannon could tell it was Hestia by the smell of her hair. She assured her she was fine before asking the same question and getting the same response. Beneath the landing, there were students packed on the stairs and looking up, shaking in astonishment.

"There is no real emergency," Snape shouted in Rhiannon's ear as he was addressing the disoriented students.

"Evidently, someone thought it would be amusing to pull a large-scale prank," Sinistra continued.

"It's the second of April, not the first," Flora scowled from the corner of the landing.

"I thought those were dangerous, sir!" Astoria's voice argued from half a storey down.

"I did observe," Snape said angrily, "that the fireworks have a particular magnetism to Slytherin students…"

As if on cue, a tremendous session of explosions rang against the wall that Professor Sinistra had put up.

"Therefore, no student in the House of Slytherin is permitted to attend their final class today and must report back to the common room," Snape said.

"Ah… just sense their disappointment," Sinistra said to Snape.

The common room was colder than it had been that morning, for the house-elves were not expecting the Slytherins to be back for another hour. Malfoy complained theatrically about the lack of a fire whilst Parkinson huddled up to him in her usual nauseating fashion. The fireplace was notoriously difficult to get to light on one's own. The students could sometimes get it going for ten minutes or so, but it was used to a different breed of magic.

"They're stupid creatures!" Malfoy said to anyone who could hear. "It was that old sack of wrinkles' idea to have them."

"I say we should ask our new headmistress if we can make the Mudbloods do the work instead. Although, I can't say I'd want one getting near my food…" Blaise Zabini joined in, and Malfoy roared with laughter.

Rhiannon had hardly flinched that time. She didn't care about what came out of their mouths. Though it hurt to the core that people actually felt that way about Muggle-borns, Rhiannon felt like their particular prejudice was old news. Other people weren't joining in as much the way they had when Rhiannon was a second-year. Despite how people might have felt about pure-blood supremacy, it was clear that the only one outwardly amused was Parkinson, if that was even real amusement. After the chaos that had unfolded during lunch, even the bigots considered Malfoy nothing more than a blond git standing next to an empty fireplace in a cold room. Rhiannon was awfully tense about Umbridge's becoming headmistress and realised that even the sight of Malfoy and Zabini being ignored would not remedy what a long nap in her cosy dormitory might. Rhiannon's head at once filled with pleasant thoughts of warm, fluffy blankets in her dim, peaceful room, of wonderful sleep and of an evening off well-spent. Before she even put her foot forward to the dorm, though, she unintentionally became a witness to Astoria's verbal attack on Malfoy.

"What has got into you‽"

Huddling with Parkinson, Malfoy hardly noticed the small girl approaching him in a near-gallop. Rhiannon considered that she was dreaming lucidly — the words that came from Astoria were that odd.

What do you mean what's got into Malfoy? Rhiannon thought. This isn't unusual.

Astoria must have thought it was. Granted, Malfoy hadn't been making too much of a ruckus about blood purity for some time, but Rhiannon considered it more of an accident than an improvement on his part. Astoria was both offended and disappointed as far as Rhiannon could tell, but Rhiannon merely shrugged at the obvious. This was what Astoria would get for putting any of her faith in Malfoy. The argument attracted the attention of everyone in the common room, and, regardless of the spoken outcome, it would be in Malfoy's favour, since all he wanted was that attention. It would make Astoria look like a fool.

The sight of the ordeal made a greater impression on Rhiannon than the words involved. Astoria was inches from Malfoy, her fists clenching between each distressed wave of the hand. She shook her head at the floor quickly and lifted it back up to him, speaking louder than necessary about things that mattered a great deal to her and nothing to him.

Astoria actually touched her opponent, poking his prefect's badge. Her voice rose again, more pryingly. That was when Parkinson and Zabini were able to insert themselves into the fight, and the three nastiest fifth-years of the House of Slytherin were able to double-team Astoria in no time. Parkinson even backed her into a chair, blithering something about Umbridge and spitting out a few slurs for added effect. The yelp in Astoria's voice finally caught Rhiannon's full attention. It was time to get her body to move. Yet as she approached the site near the inhospitable fireplace, Astoria gathered her ground. She brushed Parkinson and Zabini out of her way like they were nothing more than gnats and went toe-to-toe with Malfoy once more. It seemed that they had strayed from the topic of Muggle-borns and were already fighting about something else.

"So, you're only doing these things to look impressive, and you don't care whom you hurt in the process‽" Astoria confronted.

"Whoa, hey," Malfoy replied. "You know that this is an honour, right? I mean, think about it, it's all that Crabbe and Goyle have to show—"

"An honour! You hate that woman! Are you saying that all she has to do to get you on her side is give you a stupid little emblem‽ Surely, you're better than that, Draco!"

"What does this matter to you anyway‽" Draco demanded, finally matching Astoria's volume. "Why don't you mind your own business?"

"Like you've ever minded your own? This—"

"I haven't bothered you in—!"

"No, no — I'm talking and you're listening right now!" Astoria blazed. "This matters because I don't want to talk to some spurious version of you any longer! You must know by now that you can't look good for everyone. You can't laugh at those stupid, supremacist comments one moment and even dare to look me in the eye the next. I'm tired of hearing this in school; I'm tired of hearing this from you, and I can't understand why you're so… so willing to keep doing things that you know hurt other people!"

"Oh yeah‽ Who is it that I'm hurting so badly, Greengrass?"

Astoria faltered. She must have known Rhiannon didn't really care anymore. Rhiannon didn't see this as worth either of their time.

"Me, I guess," Astoria said. "I guess you're hurting me."

Malfoy was either bored or losing. He moved away from Astoria in the direction of the boys' dorms with a scowl on his face and a zipper across his lips. Parkinson pursued him, but he acted sulky toward her and she sneaked away from the strange scene with Imogen Stretton and Diane Carter.

"Where are you going?" Astoria called to Malfoy, making the scene even bigger by trailing behind him.

"Well, according to you, I can't do anything without making somebody on this planet upset. I'm not staying here so you can nag me about it — I don't know who you think you are, Greengrass!"

Rhiannon couldn't see Astoria's face from where she stood, but her body language was furious.

"I don't know who I thought you were."

Malfoy sniffed and walked up the staircase. To Rhiannon and the rest of the audience's surprise, Astoria pursued him for several steps and finished her lecture. Only her shiny black shoes were visible when her voice reverberated against the castle's stone.

"Let me know when my friend gets back."

Smoothly, daintily, Astoria stepped back into the common room. Withstanding the stares from other students and the "tut-tut" from Flora, she wordlessly retrieved Rhiannon for what both girls suspected would be a long discussion in the dorm.

Astoria sat poised on her bed and looked like she was waiting for Rhiannon to start the conversation; however, Rhiannon could not make enough sense of the event to formulate words about it. Thankfully, Astoria had enough insight to figure out what Rhiannon wanted to talk about.

"I am very disappointed in Draco," Astoria said, "because I thought he was so much better in comparison with last year. I thought he had matured. He acted nicer when we talked. He… erm, I wasn't as ashamed to be around him since he was acting better. In fact—"

"You considered Malfoy your friend," Rhiannon said plainly.

"I did," Astoria replied with a nod.

"I remember," Rhiannon said, nearly laughing.

Unfortunately, she knew that this time, there was no joke. Astoria must have found something in Malfoy over Christmas. Whatever it was that she found that made her so happy couldn't have been much, but Rhiannon had to admit that what she found in Asenath was probably on the same level. Hopefully, this wasn't in the same context. It couldn't have been. It was weird enough that Astoria thought Malfoy was her friend. She couldn't possibly like him beyond that.

"It was different this year," said Astoria. "I almost thought that the Draco from last year was this Draco's evil twin or something…"

Her small laugh quickly diminished before she said, "It hurts, Rhi. I don't know."

Rhiannon suddenly noticed how uncomfortable she was leaning against the wall and joined Astoria on her bed. How was she supposed to support her? Rhiannon hated to think of it, but the whole situation really seemed like Astoria's mistake. Didn't she know better than to give Malfoy any credit? Didn't she suspect he had stayed his usual self deep down?

"I'm sorry," Rhiannon said. It seemed like the right thing to say.

"I was stupid," Astoria said dejectedly.

"You weren't… stupid," mustered Rhiannon. "He was. He always is."

"No, that's the issue," Astoria said, gaining energy. "If he always was stupid, then I wouldn't hurt. He was really quite nice to me, Rhi — now, I know it seems hard to believe — but perhaps Flora was right all along. He just wants attention. He acted like my friend, but… maybe I'm nothing to him. Maybe everything we've been through was nothing."

"He oughta be nothing to you," Rhiannon commented, trying to use a wise, sagely tone. "You're ninety-thousand million times a better person than he is."

Rhiannon had to admit that that didn't sound very sagely, but it did bring a smile to Astoria's face, and that was the outcome she wanted.

"Thank you, Rhiannon."

Friendship duties completed, Rhiannon changed into her favourite track pants and jumper and snuggled into bed. Astoria, on the other hand, was wide awake and implying with "erms" that she still had something to say.

"What is it?"

"I've… been meaning to talk to you about this summer," Astoria stated vaguely.

"What about this summer?" Rhiannon was brought to ask.

"You-Know-Who is back…"

"Think we all get that now, yeah."

"My parents, they, erm, are expecting the worst."

"The worst. Right. Okay."

Where was Astoria going with this?

"Well, I wanted to know if you would be willing to… sort of move in with us…"

Move in?

Rhiannon was dumbfounded. There would be hundreds of things to think about if she moved in with Astoria's family. She knew that because of their wealth, there would be no way that she would be a financial burden, but what if she was an unpleasant tenant for them? She wouldn't be a freeloader because of Pariah, but would they let her eat their food with them without making her feel guilty? She had always eaten the food Jessica bought for herself or what the school provided. The only foods she usually purchased herself were sweets and desserts, which were not considered food by most people. Food was expensive, wasn't it? Even though the Greengrasses could afford to feed Rhiannon, would it make her feel embarrassed? Was there any good way, any protocol, to repay people for providing you with food and shelter? That was one's own family's job, but Rhiannon didn't have a family. She had a ridiculously caring friend with a family who had been tying to help Rhiannon out since the previous year. Rhiannon thought it must not be wrong to accept the offer, but it was definitely going to be strange. She did not like the sound of a wealthy pure-blood family taking in a Muggle-born waif when she would have to play the role of the Muggle-born waif… Did they pity her that much?

It made sense that the Greengrasses would propose this, though, which freshened the horrible feelings that Rhiannon had been trying to bury. You-Know-Who targeted Muggle-borns first and pure-bloods last. Blood-traitorous pure-bloods were likely on his "greylist" rather than his blacklist… So, if the Greengrasses felt like they still had a couple of years of safety left at home, they were willing to share them with a Muggle-born who had nowhere else to go. Rhiannon would not be in immediate danger over the holiday. She would be rescued from Jessica. Maybe the Greengrasses would even take Rhiannon with them if they had to seek refuge on the Continent again.

This will be a good experience, she reassured herself. She still could not accept the offer.

Living with the Greengrasses. What would that mean? Would it mean that Daphne would resent her for "invading" the estate and try to make what was supposed to be a haven as bad as possible? Would it mean that it would be harder to get over Astoria? Would it mean that the two would have another fight?

It might have seemed like an obvious choice. The negatives of living with the Greengrasses did not compare to the negatives of continuing to live with Jessica. Yet Rhiannon had not made a choice to live with Jessica, and moving to Quennell Park would be an active decision. She would not be able to say, "I didn't choose this" as soon as something bad happened. One thing Rhiannon did not like about being around people that weren't always wrong was that it meant that Rhiannon was not always right. But if her sense of faultlessness was the only thing to lose, she would have made the decision much quicker. Leaving London meant more than that. It meant leaving the Muggle world she had always known. The culture she was more familiar with. The sense of duality that came with being Muggle-born. Wizards were as backwards as they claimed Muggles to be.

Rhiannon felt strong when she was around Muggles, even though she was legally forbidden to use magic. Yet she always had the comfort that, if anything truly came to life or death, she would get her court appearance at the Ministry like the rest of them and likely be pardoned. She figured that she would be pardoned for using magic to protect herself from attackers or natural disasters. But in the Wizarding world, however ironic it seemed, sometimes magic didn't work, and Rhiannon felt very weak. Wasn't it only an hour earlier when Rhiannon had seen fiery rockets multiplying out of thin air? She couldn't do that! Wasn't it just in January when two Azkaban inmates had their souls sucked out during a prison breakout, right after one died once his soul finished digesting? Wasn't Rhiannon twelve years old when she experienced first-hand what sorts of things happen when even wizards can't control something? Even with the skeleton of a basilisk tattooed on her back, Rhiannon knew she could only mock her fear on the surface. She felt like a very weak witch but a very strong Muggle. And moving in with the Greengrasses would be acknowledging the fact that she was powerless compared to You-Know-Who. Rhiannon already knew that she was in danger, but moving in with the Greengrasses might put them in even greater danger.

Rhiannon felt like her own existence endangered Astoria's life. She felt like the only thing she could do to protect her friend would be to cut herself off from her. But that sounded like something from James Bond. And Rhiannon knew that, unlike pretend spies, she could actually die. It made her sick to think that it was a choice between self- or group-sacrifice. But it was an easy choice for her after all.

"No. I won't put you in danger. I won't put your family in danger," Rhiannon announced.

"You—"

"It means so much to me that you'd do this. So thank you. But no."

"But, Rhiannon—"

"If I'm there, they're going to go right for you. I'm not gonna do that to you."

"Let me speak for a moment!" Astoria demanded.

"Go on."

"Listen. The Death Eaters are already after us. They know we are a 'blood-traitorous' family. These people do not care how 'blood-traitorous' we are; they simply care about whether or not we oppose their ideology. We do; therefore, we are at risk of being attacked or persecuted by them. Whether we have no Muggle-borns in our house or thirty-seven Muggle-borns plus all of their Muggle families in our house, the Death Eaters do not care. Our family has already married non-pure-bloods. Our family has always kept our Squibs. Our family is a historical adversary to everything in which You-Know-Who believes.

"You will not further jeopardise our safety. It is to your advantage, not to our disadvantage. In terms of our safety, it will make no difference. In terms of your safety, it could save your life! Rhiannon, I spoke of this as an offer, but the truth is that it is a polite order. If I can save your life, I am not going to let you stand in my way of doing so. They can get you more easily if you are amongst Muggles. We can protect you as long as we can protect ourselves. And if we can no longer protect ourselves, then we will take you with us. The only other question I will bring to you is: how will you inform your mother?"

Astoria had exterminated Rhiannon's greatest fear about the issue in only one minute. Rhiannon did not argue any more; Astoria had made it pretty clear that there was nothing else to argue. Rhiannon said "thank you" with only the shaking of her head, since her throat felt tight and she suddenly felt uncomfortable under Astoria's gaze.

Rhiannon slouched over the edge of her bed and dragged out her suitcase. Instead of lifting it onto her bed, she rummaged through it in a rather impractical position until she found a pen and the band's notebook. Returning her bottom to the bed, she flipped through the pages in the hope of finding a blank one to use to write to Jessica. To her surprise, there was only one blank page left at the very back of the notebook, threatening to tear from the rings. Rhiannon returned to the front. There was a lot to be said about filling every page of a notebook.

In the beginning, there was only Rhiannon Nicole Clarke. She had the notebook for her Muggle school, but she never took notes in it. Instead, she created them — musical ones. It had been excruciating to try to learn music with only a library and no teacher. Rhiannon didn't even like to read. But she loved to create. She had the notebook before she had the guitar. She mostly wrote lyrics at the time because writing music was hard. But eventually she wrote more and more music.

It was Christmas when Rhiannon got her guitar, but that had been a coincidence. Rhiannon was never just handed nice things on Christmas, and neither was the man she acquired it from. P.R., Rhiannon's de facto caretaker by the goodness of his own heart, lived in her misfortunate neighbourhood but was fortunate enough to have purchased her future guitar. He noticed that she had taken an interest in music at a young age, much like he had. When she said she wished she could play guitar, he gave her an opportunity by giving her an old Fender Jaguar he intended to replace with a new Gordon-Smith model. He even taught her in exchange for doing his chores round the shop. It was his way getting the job done whilst keeping her the hell away from her father. He had warned Rhiannon that the guitar was in bad shape and that it was likely that the previous owner had stolen it from a guitar dealer. She wasn't the type to care about things like that.

Two years later, Rhiannon went to Hogwarts and ended up writing many more songs in her notebook. But she couldn't play an electric guitar in Hogwarts. That is, she couldn't play it until she converted it to magic in another two years. Then it wasn't simply Rhiannon Nicole Clarke anymore. The notebook belonged to Pariah, with her bandmates' pretty handwriting stuffing it, pages falling out from overuse, and many achievements. It felt right that the last page of the notebook, the last achievement Rhiannon would make in it, would be a good riddance to Jessica.

She did not realise how eager she was to write to Jessica. She made a mental note to also write the first of what she deduced would be many letters to P.R., since he was one of the only people in her old life she would miss. It occurred to Rhiannon that Umbridge would be reading both of those letters, but she didn't really care as long as they were both sent.

Jessica,

I'm not coming back. I figured out it's possible to have a decent life even though I had to come out of the likes of you when I was born. I hope you aren't too high to read this because it is the last thing you will ever get from me and it might be the only motivation you'll ever get to try to improve yourself. But I doubt that will ever happen. Don't try to find me. Oh, wait, you won't. Thanks for the stale cereal and pizza crusts and for not stealing my guitar. That's all I can thank you for. But tell the landlord thanks because it was because of him that you had to keep the door on my bedroom. That was the only way I could get away from you & Geoffrey at night. I'd like to remind you that you never told me you loved me. Do me a favour and don't stain anyone else's life.

Your own flesh and blood,

Rhiannon

Rhiannon folded the paper in half and smiled at Astoria, and Astoria smiled back.