A/N: Just to warn you, but my laptop broke again :( but I do have the story on a memory stick, however, my parents use the main computer a lot so I don't know how much I'll be able to write until it's fixed :(
Anyway, I just want to thank koffeejinx, Gril4Life, rianneck13, rosiehorgan7, ellietaylor1253, Moon Lantern, Gruffard and SJ Iolanthe for reviewing/favouriting/following. It's so nice to see that people are enjoying this :D

At five minutes to five, Ariella and Harry said goodnight to their friends and went up to Professor Umbridge's office together. Ariella could feel her nerves jittering, but didn't say anything as they stopped outside the freshly painted pink door.

"Are you okay, Ella?" Harry asked as he reached out to knock.

"Yes, I'm fine." She could tell Harry knew she was lying, but was grateful that he let it pass and continued with rapping against the door.

"Come in," came Professor Umbridge's sickly sweet voice. Harry entered first. "Ah, Mr Potter, Miss Granger. You're both going to be doing some lines for me today." She indicated to two desks, each draped in pink lacy covers besides which she'd drawn up to straight backed chairs. Each table had a blank piece of parchment on, waiting for them.

"Um, Professor. Er… before we start, I… I… wanted to ask you, well, ask you a favour," Harry stuttered.

Ariella swallowed as the lady's eyes bulged at Harry, making her look uglier than ever.

"Oh yes?"

"Well, I'm in the Gryffindor Quidditch team. And I was supposed to be at the tryouts for the new keeper at five o'clock on Friday and I was… was wondering whether I could skip detention that night and do it… do it another night instead…"

"Oh no," said Professor Umbridge, smiling so widely she looked like she'd swallowed a really juicy fly. "Oh no, no, no, no. Both of you will serve the detentions I set you, they are punishments and cannot be adjusted to suit the guilty one's convenience. You, Mr Potter, will be here at five o'clock, tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that and on Friday too. I think it rather a good thing that you are missing something you want to do. It ought to reinforce the lesson I am trying to teach you. Now will both of you please sit down."

Ariella nervously went over to one of the chairs and sat, Harry on the other hand, hesitated a bit, as though he wanted to shout something back at her, thankfully, he didn't and moved across to sit next to Ariella.

"Now, Mr Potter, you will write I must not tell lies," she said softly. "No, not with your quill. No, instead, you will be using a rather special one of mine." She handed him one of the two thin black quills in her hand, ones that had extremely sharp points at the end, before turning to Ariella. "Now, you, my dear, will be writing, I must not insult my betters." She put the quill down on the desk. "You may start."

Ariella glared at her as she turned away, she knew what that meant. It didn't mean betters as in pupils and teachers, no, it meant muggleborns and purebloods. She was talking about Georgiana Greengrass.

"How many times do you want us to write it?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I'd say… as long as it takes for the message to… sink in."

As Ariella set down to write, she realised she was missing ink, but before she could open her mouth to say anything, Harry got it out first.

"Oh, you won't need ink," the woman said, with the merest suggestion of a laugh in her voice.

Ariella looked back down at the parchment and carefully started to write, although she was startled when the ink came out a bright red. It didn't take long, however, for her to notice the tingling on the back of her right hand. She put the quill down and rubbed it before finishing the sentence. The tingling didn't stop. In fact, it got worse, developing into a stinging pain that was so bad it made her eyes water.

She looked over at Harry and saw that he was clearly feeling it too from the way he was gritting his teeth. As she watched, he let out a gasp of pain and looked at his hand. Ariella saw something fade and looked down at her own hand. All that was there was a faint red outline. And if she looked closely, she could see it was a faint red outline of the words I must not insult my betters.

Her head jerked up to look at Professor Umbridge. She was watching them, her toad-like mouth stretched into a smirk.

"Yes?" she asked in her high pitched squeak.

"Nothing," Ariella answered quietly and went back to her work.

She placed the quill on the parchment and wrote. Once more, the pain started, this time worse than before. The words appeared on her skin and once more faded a few seconds later. It happened again. And again. And again. Ariella was trying her hardest not to let tears escape as she continued to cut her hand open with every word she wrote. She could feel the woman's eyes on her, watching for any sign of weakness and wasn't prepared to give in.

Darkness came and still Umbridge didn't allow them to stop. Ariella didn't dare ask and it seemed Harry didn't either, so they continued. Ariella reckoned she must have written over two or three feet by the time Umbridge told them to stop.

"Come here," she said.

The two of them stood up. Ariella glanced at her stinging hand. The words were faintly etched into her hand, but it wasn't bleeding.

"Hand," she ordered.

Harry extended it and Umbridge examined it closely, although Ariella could see his hand was nowhere near as bad as her own. "Tut, tut, I don't seem to have made an impression yet, Mr Potter" she said, smiling. "Well, we'll just have to try again tomorrow, won't we? You may go."

Harry moved away from the table and went to pick up his bag.

"Hand, Miss Granger."

Ariella flinched when Professor Umbridge's stubby hand took her own and traced a finger over the words.

"Well, that is much better than Mr Potter's in any case. However, I still think we can etch the message a little deeper, don't you think? It would do no good to have you forget it now, would it?" Ariella shook her head. "Well then, I think you can go."

The young witch went and picked up her bag before leaving, finally able to let the tears of pain escape.

"Ella, are you okay?" Harry's voice came from the shadows, making the young girl jump and immediately wipe her eyes of the tears there.

"Yes, I think so," she replied, trying to keep the fact she was crying from him.

"I heard her say your hand was a lot worse, it doesn't hurt too much, does it?"

"No," Ariella lied. "Can we go back to the common room? I'm tired."

"Yeah, it's this way." Harry indicated down the corridor.

"Don't tell Hermione about this, please. I don't want her to worry or fuss," Ariella added as they walked down the hallway.

"Don't worry, I wasn't planning to, she'll try and convince me to go to McGonagall or something."

"Thank you."

Neither of them spoke after that, apart from to say goodnight after they clambered in through the hole behind the portrait. Ariella wearily climbed up to her dormitory and, seeing that all the girls were asleep, she quietly changed and slipped into bed, eventually drifting off.