Chapter 5 - Seven Days With Caitlin

"Now, now, everyone settle down!" Flitwick squeaked, standing on his pile of books to make himself taller. "This is a very important moment!"
Cassie mumbled something, this was pure humiliation! Why did Flitwick choose her to start first?
"Have you practiced all your spells?" Flitwick asked her, she nodded. "Well, than there shouldn't be a problem. It will be fine, just relax. Remember what I told you the other day! Spells only work..."
"... when the witch or wizard truly beliefs that it works and that they can perform it," Cassie finished his sentence, Flitwick had told her this a million times, but it hardly ever worked.
"You may begin," he said, when everyone had finally calmed down.
Cassie had been working hard on her spells for the past three weeks ever since Flitwick had announced that today everyone had to show their spells in front of the entire class. She got so nervous about it, that she forgot all about the letter that Mordred had send her and she still had to write him back.
She raised her wand a little and cleared her throat. "Lumos!"
She gasped when the spell suddenly worked and a light was illuminating from the tip of her wand.
"Very good, miss Avery! Well done," Flitwick said excitedly. "Continue, please..."
"Nox," she said, feeling a lot more confident than a few minutes ago, and the spell miraculously worked again. Just one more spell to go and she would be free for another month. She pointed at the fireplace, "Incendio." The wood in the fireplace caught fire and Flitwick clapped. "You did a very good job, miss Avery. I am proud of you."
Yes well, three weeks of studying kind of deserved this result, didn't it?
The professor muttered something and the fire went out. Cassie walked to her seat and sat down next to Terry, who put an arm around her, "I knew you could do it. You've been worrying over nothing."
"This is just luck," Cassie corrected her, "last night none of the spells would work."
"That was just because you were nervous," Terry said, "and this wasn't luck, this was you. And you did great."

~*~

"You just wrote him back?" Jane said, her eyes wide, "why did you wait this long? He wrote you three weeks ago!"
"I was busy," Cassie said defensively, not wanting her sister to get angry with her.
Jane just rolled her eyes, "you are insane. I mean; how would it make you feel if he didn't write you for three weeks?"
"He didn't write me for eleven years," Cassie shot back, "That's a whole lot longer than 21 days. But I have to go, they're waiting for me at the Library."
"Who's waiting for you?"
"You know, Terry, Hera and Faith... they asked for my help with potions. We have to write..."
"Never mind," Jane interrupted. "I've heard enough. I'll see you tomorrow." She kissed her sister on the cheek and got off her chair. They had been sitting in the Great Hall; when you're not in the same house, there are only a few places you can go to when it's raining outside to sit down and talk with each other.
The Great Hall wasn't exactly the perfect place, it always looked gloomy and depressing when no one was there (at least to Cassie it did), but it was better than the library. There Madame Pince was constantly making sure that you were working and not just talking and relaxing.
"By the way, shouldn't you report yourself to Umbridge?" Jane asked mockingly. Cassie raised her eyebrows. "Didn't read her educational decree number twenty-something? She put it on the message boards about a week ago. I should check it out if I were you, I wouldn't want you to get into trouble."
After that she left.

~*~

When Cassie found the others in the library, she immediately told them about what she had just heard, hoping that they would have some more news about the 'Educational Decree' her sister had been talking about. But none of them knew anything about it.
"I've never looked at the message board before," Faith said, "It's not like First years can ever do anything fun anyway. There are always only messages for those in their third year and up."
"An Educational Decree?" Terry asked, frowning, "not that I have heard of. but I haven't talked to her lately, she's angry with me."
"Angry with you?" Cassie said, "why would she be angry with you?"
"Remember that I told you that I was going to write my grandmother about Aunt Dolores getting High Inquisitor?"
Cassie nodded.
"Well, grandmother decided to send her a Howler. And now she's angry with me because she says that I've betrayed her and everything and that she thought that she could trust me. But it's so stupid; because grandmother could've found out about it just by reading the Daily Prophet, how was I supposed to know it was some kind of big secret." Terry's voice grew louder while she was speaking. Immediately Madame Pince came to action, she rushed to their table and glared at them. "Keep your voices down! People are trying to work here. If I hear you lot one more time, I will be forced to remove you from the library." After that she turned around to address another group of students who had been talking to loudly.
"Anyway, Jane said that we might want to take a look at it, because otherwise we might get in trouble or something," Cassie said, feeling slightly confused. "It's probably no big deal, but knowing how your aunt feels about you right now and what she thinks about me, we might want to take a look at it now. I don't want her to give her any reason to think even less of me, or to take off any more housepoints."
"I'll go," Hera offered, "than you guys can start on Potions."

~*~

A few minutes later, Faith returned, clutching a piece of parchment in her hand.
"Your Aunt," she said to Terry when she reached their table, "is insane! Read this!"
She shoved it into Terry's hands who read aloud:

"By Order of the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts
All students, organizations, societies, teams, groups and clubs are henceforth disbanded.
An organization, society, team, group or club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students. Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor - Professor Umbridge.
No student organization, society, team, group or club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor. Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an organization, society, team, group or club that has not been improved by the High Inquisitor, will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree number Twenty-four."

For a moment all four of them exchanged glances.
"So..." Faith said eventually, "that includes us, doesn't it? We're a group of four students who meet regularly."
"Oh come on," Terry protested, "we're friends. That doesn't count - right?"
Another silence fell. None of them felt like going to Umbridge to ask her permission if they could still see each other. "Well," Hera said hesitantly, "I guess it does count. At least in the eyes of Umbridge. We could ignore it, but that would risk expelling us. And what are we afraid of? Why would she disapprove of us? We haven't done anything wrong, right?"
Cassie wasn't so sure about that - didn't professor Flitwick say last week that Umbridge thought that she had a bad influence on Terry? This would be the perfect opportunity to forbid Cassie and Terry to remain friends. And the fact that Terry and Umbridge were now mad at each other didn't help much either.
"I say we go to Umbridge," Faith said. Everyone looked surprised at her and she blushed, "what? So I don't agree with Umbridge - I don't want her to ruin my future. I don't want to be expelled. We go to her now, explain our situation and the problem is solved. If she says that we can't see each other anymore, which I highly doubt, than we'll just meet in the Common Room, she can't get in there because she doesn't have the password. But at least we asked her - didn't we? It's a win-win-situation."
"OK," Cassie agreed. "We'll go to Umbridge."

~*~

Umbridge looked at them, her eyes narrow. "I put this up the message board a week ago - that means you have been meeting illegally for one week."
"We didn't know about it, professor," Hera said, smiling innocently. "We just found out and we immediately came to you. We did not mean to break any rules."
"Especially as Ravenclaws I would have thought that you would look on the board every now and than," Umbridge said, still not satisfied with Hera's explanation. "It is very important to do so. You can expect some more Educational Decrees and changes on Hogwarts and you need to know about them. I won't be so friendly next time, but I'll let it slip just this once."
All of them sighed with relief.
"But..."
Their faces darkened.
"... I do want you to write 2000 words about 'why I should look on the message board' and have it finished by next week."
Well, that was doable. 2000 Words was not that much and she had a week to figure out what to write. Cassie nodded enthusiastically, but she heard Faith softly groan next to her and whisper: "2000 Words? Why not sentence me to death immediately?"
"If one of you doesn't have it finished by next week," Umbridge continued, a cruel smile on her face, "I will be forced to disapprove of your group. Meanwhile, all of you are not allowed to meet, talk and even look at each other. If I catch any of you doing otherwise, I will be forced to expel you. And that means one-on-one meetings as well!"
Cassie's mouth fell open. She wasn't allowed to see them for an entire week?

~*~

How could anyone be this boring? All Caitlin could talk about was school, homework, more school and a lot more homework. Didn't she have any other hobby's or something? Cassie missed the others, and especially Terry. She hadn't seen her for four entire days now, and in that time she had mostly spent her time with Caitlin; who didn't seem to have any life outside of school.
"So," Cassie said, in a strange need for a story about someone's family. "Are your parents wizards?"
"Yes, both of them." Caitlin nodded, "They're very nice. But you know, in Herbology yesterday..."
"Please, Caitlin," Cassie suddenly interrupted - she felt like she could take it no more, "I know what happened in Herbology yesterday, I was there. Can't you talk about something else? What do you do when you're at home? What do you want to do when you grow up? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
Caitlin stared at her, her eyes big. And suddenly she started to cry.
Cassie sighed heavily, "I'm sorry, Caitlin. I didn't mean to upset you, it's just that you only talk about school and that's just... boring."
"So you find me boring too?" Caitlin sobbed and only started to cry harder. "Everyone thinks I'm boring, everyone hates me."
People were beginning to stare.
"That's not what I meant," Cassie said swiftly, "You're not boring. Well... I don't know if you're boring, because you never tell anything about yourself. It's just school that is boring!"
"R-really?" Caitlin said, wiping the tears from her face and looking with watery eyes at her.
"Really," Cassie said, smiling the sweetest smile she could manage at this point.
"But it was just that yesterday with Herbology..."
Cassie rolled her eyes. It was just that it was three more days to go, or she would've jumped out of a window.

~*~

"Have you finished it?" Faith whispered. All four of them were lying in their room, tomorrow they would finally be allowed to talk with each other again. And since the clock just struck twelve o'clock they figured that they could start the talking right now.
"Yeah, I finished it the first day," Cassie said.
"So how was it with Caitlin?" Hera asked with a grin.
"Well, she warmed up a little in the end. I know she has a dog named Mr. Browneyes and that she hopes to be a teacher at Hogwarts one day. And I've got my homework finished for the next couple of weeks," Cassie added darkly. "So what did you guys do?"
"I spent the week with my brother. The most annoying guy that there is," Faith said.
"Todd," Terry mumbled half-asleep.
"Daphne, she's funny," Hera said cheerfully.
"Not thinking about leaving us, are you?" Faith said sharply.
"No, of course not. But maybe we should think about expanding, you know. Until now, it has always been the four of us. Umbridge kind of forced us to communicate with others, and why stop? Daphne and Amber are so nice and extremely funny. Why not hang out with them as well?"
"I'm fine with just the four of us," Terry said, yawning loudly.
"Of course it's fine," Hera said swiftly, "but I think it would be nice if we'd talk to the others some more."
"I don't mind," Cassie said, as she closed her eyes, ready to go asleep, "but there's no way I'm spending seven days with Caitlin alone again."

~*~

Umbridge looked slightly disappointed when all of them turned in their work on time, but had no choice but to 'approve' of their group. Hera still found it insane that Umbridge had ever needed to approve of their friendship. "She acts like some kind of dictator or something," she said fiercely. Faith was glad to finally have found a soulmate who agreed that Umbridge was the worst witch that had ever existed.
Terry wasn't too happy about it. "I told you that everyone would realize in a few weeks what it would really mean," she said to Cassie, when they were alone. "And it will get worse. Just a couple of more weeks and than people will really start to hate her, and blame me for being her niece."
Cassie told her that in the end everything would turn out to be just fine and that she shouldn't worry, but she wasn't so sure of herself when she said this. What if Umbridge was here to stay? Than she would rather have Dumbledore, whether he was a lunatic or not.

~*~

A/N: Just something I wanted to say to Serayane: you asked me why Snape didn't know that Cassie was the daughter of Avery, well, a lot of that will be made clear throughout the following chapters. I don't want to reveal to much about that. Second; there will be more of Snape than you will like later on :).
Also some of the other characters out of the book will make an entrance (Draco Malfoy for example).
And thanks to HNH for her lovely review...
As for the timeline; I'm counting on it that in the fifth year, school once again started on the first of September. That means that in the beginning of the chapter, Cassie is somewhere in the first week of October. But I'm really bad with this sort of things, so please correct me if I'm wrong.