In which Ramona Burke reaps the consequences
-September 1995-
"She is by far, the foulest, most horrid, slimy little toad of a woman I've ever met in my entire fifteen years of existence!" Ramona's voice carried around the entire common room which had mostly cleared out when she'd started on her rant, a pillow clenched so tightly in her grasp she'd permanently deformed it.
"Still on about Umbridge is she?" Draco slid in next to Delilah despite Pansy having scooted over to offer him the seat by her, Crabbe and Goyle close on his heels.
"Of course I am!" she snapped. "She's totally and completely incompetent!"
"Dunno," Delilah shrugged. "It was kinda funny when she gave Potter detention."
"Are we all just forgetting that she gave me detention too?" Ramona's upper lip curled into a sneer, disappointed at her friends' lack of sympathy for her.
"For good reason," Pansy sniffed, having shared Delilah's opinion that she was siding with the blood traitors in her rebellion against Umbridge's irrationality and censorship.
"Whatever," she threw the pillow aside and scooted a few more inches away from the others, "I just wanna get this week's detentions over and done with."
Draco grinned teasingly. "Oh yeah, you've gotta spend the evening with Potter, haven't you? Gonna be a riot, I suspect."
"Yes, I'm bursting with excitement as it grows nearer," her shoulders sank and she tossed her head back. "Stuck in a room with Potter and Umbridge, a dream come true."
She'd thought her friends' disappointing reaction to her detention was as bad as it could get but Cho's response was infinitely worse. The second Ramona had relayed to her the story, Cho had gone on a tyrant about how brave and noble Harry Potter was to speak the truth and defend the death of Cedric, not a word of it praising her friend who'd done the same. Needless to say, the talk with Cho had made her feel no better.
Ramona was in a foul mood for the entirety of dinner and didn't speak a word, scowling as she pushed around her baked potato aimlessly on her plate. She wasn't in the state of mind to listen to Draco drawl on about his father and Minirsty business, occasionally slipping in some backhanded insult about Potter as he seemed to more and more every year or watch Pansy drool over him rather than the perfectly good plate of food in front of her.
She ended up leaving early, only Delilah and Blaise sending a look at her retreating figure and went for a walk. First day back at school and she was already in trouble (even if it had been a more than fair criticism). Had Cedric still been there he would've rattled off bad joke after bad joke until he cracked a smile out of her. But Cedric wasn't there anymore. And Cho was sad and her parents were distant and Pansy only ever wanted to talk about Draco and Ramona had never hated her friends before but now she was starting to and-
A force hit her head-on and she stumbled back, falling onto the cold stone floor. She really must have been losing her mind if she was walking into statues she'd passed almost every day for four years. Ramona buried her face in her hands for a second, breathing deeply. She was fine. When she lifted her head, an arm was outstretched towards her, fingers trembling slightly.
"What are you doing here, Longbottom?"
He retracted his hand, biting his lip sheepishly. "Going to dinner."
"You're a bit late, they'll be serving dessert by now," she got to her feet and regarded him. He'd gotten taller over the summer, more gangly, lost some of the baby fat her friends loved to weaponise against him but his hair was still unruly and he still had perhaps a few more years until he grew into his ears.
He mumbled something, not looking her in the eye. She wasn't bothered enough to pull anything out of him and she didn't even have the energy to throw in a snide remark or even a disdainful look.
"Whatever, if you need proper food, you can get into the kitchen by tickling the pear."
He watched her brush past him and down the steps leading to the dungeons where the Slytherin common room and a roaring fire was waiting for her and opened his mouth, thinking to say thank you. But, nothing came out and she disappeared before he could even stammer out a single word.
~~
The following day was cool and breezy and the dark clouds overhead were not promising which only put Ramona in an even worse mood, already dreading her detention with Umbridge that evening. She was walking down to Care of Magical Creatures (which they unfortunately shared with the Gryffindors) with her friends, listening to Draco's usual insults about Potter. The others all sniggered along to gratify him but Ramona could find no humour in the topic. He never shut up about the Potter boy and it was really starting to get on her nerves, their was a not-so-time line between rivalry and obsession which she thought he had crossed long ago.
In fact, all anyone could ever seem to talk about those days was Harry Potter whether their tone was pity, hatred, love, admiration, or fear and it was slowly driving her mental. Cedric had been brutally murdered and Voldemort was back and people only cared that Potter was a liar and filled with teenage angst. It was infuriating to say the least.
Professor Grubbly-Plank had gotten not two minutes into the lesson on Bowtruckles before Draco had instead turned to mocking Granger as her hand flew eagerly in the air. Pansy shrieked with laughter and Ramona inched away from them and closer to Delilah. They were to split up into groups and examine and sketch the Bowtruckles, little creatures that looked like twigs yet far more dangerous. Hopefully one could scratch out her eardrums so she'd never have to listen to Potter drama ever again. She stuck to the back of the class with her robes drawn tightly around her arms as Delilah picked out a Bowtruckle.
"Where's Hagrid?" Potter had questioned Grubbly-Plank, having also hung back.
"Never you mind," she'd said dismissively, walking to the other side of the group to avoid further conversation.
Draco cut between them and seized a Bowtruckle in his fist, the creature squirming in discomfort. "Maybe the stupid, great oaf's got himself badly injured."
"Maybe you will if you don't shut up," Potter had shot back tiredly under his breath.
"Maybe he's been messing with stuff that's too big for him, if you get my drift."
Ramona's head throbbed and she felt the familiar bubbling of her temper rise to a boil. "For Merlin's sake, Draco, do you really have to make a comment every time Potter breathes? It's getting old."
Both boys looked at her as if she'd sprouted two heads and starting reciting Greek poetry and she realised that perhaps that may have read as her defending Potter which she most certainly was not, she knew better.
"...But sure, Hagrid sucks or whatever."
Draco spent the rest of the lesson sending her evil looks and leaving Pansy to do all the work while Potter had clearly relayed what she'd said to his friends, all three of them stealing glances at her when they thought she wasn't looking. She would have killed to become invisible.
She spent the rest of her day steeping in this foul anger, wishing for things to go back to the way they were last year, when life wasn't so damn complicated. By the time she was shuffling herself off to Umbridge's office for detention, you could practically see the black cloud hanging over her head, her fists balled up in her robes, feet dragging across the stone floor and a poisonous look in her dark eyes.
"You're late, Miss Burke." Umbridge and Potter stared up at her as she entered. The office was covered wall to wall in bright pink wallpaper, little ceramic plates of moving kittens lined up in rows upon them, every surface was draped with little lace doilies or floral print cloths and there was way too many cushions, embroidered, fluffy, crocheted, all pink and all hideous. Ramona's eyes felt assaulted and she blinked a few times to try and adjust to the sudden attack of colour. "Never let this happen again."
"Okay."
She took the seat beside the boy, dropping her bag to the ground with a clatter, pulling the piece of parchment set before her closer, she just wanted to get this over with and admittedly, writing lines was not the worst detention she'd ever had, the company was just less than subpar. A few days of this wouldn't be too bad, at least she wasn't being hung by her ankles as Filch always begged.
"Now you two will be doing some lines for me. No, not with your quill," she added and the pair retracted from their schoolbags. "You're going to be using some very special ones of mine. Here you are."
Ramona inspected the long, inky black quill and its unusually sharp point at the end, she did not have a good feeling about this.
"Ms Burke, I would like you to write 'I must not talk back', Mr Potter, please write 'I must not tell lies'," she said softly but with some menacing glee stewing at the back of her throat.
"How many times?" he asked, an edge to his voice, like he was trying incredibly hard not to snarl at her like a rabid dog.
"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in," Umbridge dropped three sugar cubes into her teacup. "Off you go."
Ramona looked around, the quill hovering midair, and realised they were missing something. "You haven't given us any ink."
"Oh, you won't need ink."
Ramona had barely scratched out her first 'I must not' when a sharp pain twanged from her left hand and she let loose a strangled gasp. She looked from the shining red letters on her parchment to where they also stood stark against the back of her left hand. She glanced at the boy sat beside her, equally as startled, and turned to look up at Umbridge.
"Is there something the matter, dear?"
Ramona opened her mouth to let loose a flurry of curses, how inhumane this was, child torture, illegal, something plucked straight from a medieval punishment book, that she would not sit by and wilfully deform herself, but Potter placed his hand on her shoulder and said, "Nothing."
The girl tore her eyes from that disgusting woman and scribbled out: 'I must not talk back' again, the second crimson line joining the first. She tucked her left arm beneath the table and out of sight of Umbridge. She would not give her the satisfaction. She wrote it again and again, line after line, the letters becoming messier as it became harder to ignore the pain, for what felt like hours and prayed that someone, anyone, would burst in and stop her and haul her off to Azkaban.
"Hands," Umbridge said after a while.
The pair presented their left hands to her, bright red and throbbing although the cuts had healed over. She snatched at them with her stubby fingers, and examined what damage she'd done. "Tut tut, I don't seem to have made much of an impression yet. Well, we'll just have to try again tomorrow evening, won't we? You may go."
They left silently. The halls were empty, it was surely past midnight and Ramona really wanted to cry.
"She can't do this," she muttered as they left the dreaded office in their wake. "It's literally child abuse...we have to tell someone."
"We can't," he said.
She looked at the Boy-Who-Lived with wide eyes. "What the ever loving fuck do you mean we can't?"
He sighed. "Telling someone won't do anything, Umbridge has got the Ministry's protection, nobody can stop her, even Dumbledore, it would just be making an unnecessary fuss."
"That's a bullshit excuse and you know it, Potter," she hugged her arms around herself tightly. "This is a pride thing and I get it but it's not just you she's attacking, despite how special everyone tells us you are, your wellbeing is no more important than anybody else's. Just because you're the Chosen One, doesn't give your life any more importance than mine. See you tomorrow, Potter, maybe invest in some disinfectant for that hand."
~~
The second detention was just as bad as the first although at least now, she knew what to expect. With every line she wrote out, her hatred festered more and more and she wished she could reach across the lace-draped desk and wring her awful fat neck. Miraculously, she managed to keep her temper in check and breathed through the pain but the mere thought of another two days of this torture gave her a headache.
She hadn't told any of her friends about the detention, the idea of doing so made her feel oddly queasy but none of them had even asked which made the topic easy to avoid. Ramona couldn't help but think that if Cedric were still alive she would have gone to him. He would have been furious, he'd always hated seeing other people get hurt, especially her. God, she missed him more than words could describe.
Ramona's fingers ghosted over the red raw patch on the back of her left hand while sat out by the lake with Cho, the pair taking a much needed break from the rest of the school.
"How are you holding up?" she asked softly, watching the tentacles of the Giant Squid skim the top of the water.
Cho sank down a bit into herself. "I don't know, Mona, it's ups and downs. Mostly downs."
"That's okay, I've been thinking about him a lot too," she took Cho's free hand in her own, the unmarred one and squeezed it lightly. "Nobody else really gets it, they didn't know Cedric like we did."
"It's like everyone expects me to just get over it, like I had a few months to grieve and now it's old news, they're sick of me, they're sick of talking about his death," Cho's voice wobbled a bit as she spoke. "I'm just really sad and confused all the time and all my friends are treating me like I've lost my mind."
Cho dissolved into tears, a common occurrence these days.
"I know, Cho," she wrapped her arms tightly around her friend and pulled her close, wishing she could do or say something, anything, that would make all this pain stop but she knew better than that, she knew that the world didn't work like that. "But you just have to keep on, there's nothing else you can do. You know Cedric wouldn't want you to feel this way, if he could he'd rise from the grave just to stop you from crying."
Cho buried her face deeper into Ramona's cloak and her shoulders shook violently.
"I'm sorry."
~~
The third and second last detention sucked Hippogriff ass. The wound had stopped healing over and instead remained an angry, bleeding crimson, the words mocking her every time she caught sight of them. I must not talk back. Umbridge was a twisted woman. Thankfully, once she'd seen that their wounds were freely bleeding she'd let them leave early (if half ten could be considered early) with a comment on how with one more session could etch the message even deeper that sent a shiver down Ramona's spine.
Her and Potter had walked all the way down the hallway in silence before they parted ways, stopping briefly before he was to go up the stairs and her to go down. "Wrap up that hand of yours, Potter," she clapped him on the shoulder. "You wouldn't want it to scar."
He'd looked at her oddly in the dim torchlight before nodding. "You too, Burke."
Ramona was far from being Harry Potter's biggest superfan (she still thought he was annoying and egotistical and how did he manage to literally be the centre of everything that happened in Hogwarts?) but after the past few days she supposed he wasn't all that bad. While she couldn't say she really knew him or understood him any better, they had something in common now, an enemy, and that was more than what she had with anyone else at present.
~~
Ramona trudged off to Umbridge's office at five o' clock on Friday evening as she had done so all week, glad to be done with it and looking forward to the weekend. If anything, Umbridge's methods were effective, Ramona might think twice before she spoke up in DADA again. Potter was looking more sullen and irritable than usual, his gaze directed out the window where Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts were being held. At least that explained his attitude when she'd been dumb enough to greet him as she took up that cursed quill.
She had gotten used to the pain at that point, and the itching that followed some hours after the bleeding stopped but that made it no less unpleasant and she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from betraying her discomfort to the fat woman across from her. Some drops of blood from the back of her hand fell onto the lacy white tablecloth and she hoped it would stain.
After darkness had fallen outside, Umbridge put down her own pink quill on the desk and looked to the pair expectantly. "Let's see if you've got the message yet, shall we?"
Ramona held up her bleeding hand to the foul woman who examined it with beady eyes, grinning when she flinched as Umbridge poked at the stinging flesh with the tip of her nail. She'd moved over, satisfied with the damage and Potter offered his hand next which she'd snatched up in her stubby little fingers like a greedy child after sweets. She'd held him for but a few seconds when he ripped his arm from her hold and sprang to his feet, looking alarmed. Drama queen.
"Yes, it hurts, doesn't it?" she said softly. "Well I think I've made my point, you're both free to go."
Potter literally sprinted away from her office and Ramona debated chasing after him, for what reason, she didn't know and ignored her weird impulse, instead shouting half heartedly after him. "It was lovely hanging out with you, Potter, I really will miss our lovely conversations."
When she got back to the common room, she fell down in one of the armchairs by the fire, folding her arms around herself and tucking her knees into her chest. It wasn't as late as it usually was when she got back from detention and there were still plenty of people around, playing cards or reading or speaking in low tones or finishing off homework but none spared her much notice.
"Mona, what are you doing down here?" Delilah squeezed herself between Ramona and the side of the chair, already dressed in her pyjamas. "Avoiding everyone again? Or just moping?"
"I'm not avoiding you guys."
"You're a terrible liar," Delilah poked her in the side of her ribs. "You've been acting weird since we got back to school, is everything okay?"
Ramona didn't look at her, guilt clawing at her insides. "Yeah, I've just been in a really bad mood because of Umbridge and Potter and Pansy's being annoying and I can basically see the stick up Draco's ass coming out his mouth it's so deep in there and I just...I really miss Cedric."
Delilah's eyes softened a bit and she took up her friend's hand in her own, not noticing the writing on the back. "I know, but no matter how much everyone is pissing you off, they're the ones that really count in the end. Do you really think that when Potter and his posse accuse you of being a Death Eater, Chang will step up and defend you against her boyfriend? Not even Diggory would if he were still around. But we've got your back, no matter what, through thick and thin, always, because...we understand...what's this?"
Ramona looked down at her bleeding hand in Delilah's and shrugged as if that made the self-inflicted torture any more bearable. "Umbridge."
"She made you do this?"
"Yeah, sick freak." she swallowed the lump building up in her throat. "Potter had to write something about telling lies and he's being a dramatic little bitch about it."
"When's he not?" Delilah said softly. "Threw a tantrum the other day about missing Quidditch. We should get this bandaged up though, it's not curfew yet, I can borrow some stuff from Madam Pomfrey."
Ramona shook her head and took her hand back. "It's fine, I almost hope it scars so I can use it against her someday, maybe in court, maybe as blackmail, who knows?"
"Why not tell someone? Snape will be over the moon to get her fired."
"I..." she couldn't just say she'd promised Potter not to tell anyone, that would just result in a lecture she wasn't in the mood to sit through. "That won't get her fired, she's the Ministry's little puppet and they'll just cover this up if it gets out."
"True...I suppose we'll just have to cover up her her hideous murder as an unfortunate disappearance in the Forbidden Forest or something."
"I wish."