"Alright, let's break back into groups and put it to practice, shall we?" Harry announced. The group set off in pairs, everyone taking position on the slightly elevated dueling platforms. Early on, they'd assigned everyone a number. It was an easy way to separate the group in half and made organizing a lot quicker.
"Odds, start with the shield charm, evens try and break it!" Hermione called from beside Harry. A few were still getting their footing and trying to prepare. Cho Chang and Lavender Brown were the first group to get started.
A red streak shot from Lavender's wand and Cho instinctively ducked out of the way, only remembering to try the shield charm after she'd ducked. Lavender shot again, and this time Cho managed to block it.
"So, how was last night?" Hermione asked, pulling Harry's attention away from the group. She was still watching them, but Harry got the feeling that was just an attempt to keep the conversation a little lighter. "Ron said you were talking in your sleep."
"Yeah, I had another dream," Harry admitted.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"Not really, but maybe you can make some sense of it…" Harry hated these dreams he was having, they were always horrible, but if anyone was going to help him make sense of them, it was Hermione.
"I was at the Ministry of Magic. I took an elevator down, not really sure where, but it was dark. The walls were all covered in black tiles." Harry could still picture it in his head. There were no windows and there was no one else down there, at least not for a while.
"I was looking for something, a room somewhere. I don't know what I wanted, but after a moment I knew I wasn't alone down there." He paused, lost in thought.
Hermione placed a hand on his elbow, encouraging him to go on and forgetting about their training classmates entirely.
The images still haunted Harry. A pair of Ministry security wizards were patrolling one of the halls, talking to each other. They weren't listening, weren't paying attention...didn't hear him coming.
"I killed them both...horribly." He didn't need to subject Hermione to the mental images. He could still hear the pained screams as the two were engulfed in a raging inferno. It took forever for them to stop.
He felt like that should be the worst part, the screams of those men dying. What really stuck with him was how he was laughing during it. It wasn't even some maniacal laughter he could detatch himself from. He laughed like it was genuinely amusing...like he'd heard a particularly funny joke in those screams.
"You and I both know that you'd never do that Harry," Hermione said, sounding confident. Harry agreed, but there was more that worried him than that.
"I know," Harry agreed, "but...I don't think I was me in the dream, not really. I don't know how to describe it. It was like I was just watching through someone's eyes." They were silent for a long moment.
"I wish we still had your cloak...if I could just get into the restricted section I'm sure I could be more help."She sounded frustrated, which wasn't surprising given her lack of access to books.
"I didn't hear what you need help with," Neville said from his platform, closest to them, "but you can count on me."
That was all it took for a chorus of affirmations to ring out among the group, adamant pledges of support for Harry in whatever he might be going through. The Gryffindors were the loudest of course, but the students from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw joined in as well.
"Thanks, everyone, really. It means a lot." The rest of the school might think he was lying and just an attention seeker, but here he had real friends. "Thank you."
"Delta Alpha, Delta Alpha, this is Reaper, anybody home?" Brad's familiar voice crackled over the radio on the other side of the room.
Without hesitation, Harry rushed to the radio. He was vaguely aware of the rest of the DA members crowding around him as he replied. "I'm here, it's good to hear from you!"
They'd only talked to Brad one other time since originally making contact and he'd made them promise not to do it again unless it was an emergency. He said it was something to do with transmission tracking and the control net...Harry didn't follow, but he agreed not to use the radio except in an emergency.
"Good to hear you guys, how's everything going?"
They filled Brad in on the progress they'd made so far in training. Most of them were proficient at stunning and disarming spells and could light them off rapidly and reliably. The shield charms still needed some work, but they were getting some of the foundational fighting skills down.
"Excellent work, keep it up. Listen, I wanted to let you know, we got Sirius. There's a lot I can't tell you, but he's safe."
A familiar weight that Harry hadn't realized he'd grown used to lifted from his chest at the words and he couldn't help the grin from forming. "Where was he? Is he there with you?"
"Like I said, a lot I can't say. He's safe though. I just wanted to let you know that you didn't need to worry anymore."
"Thanks," Harry sighed, "it's really good to hear that."
They talked for a minute or so longer, getting a little general catch-up in before disconnecting again for who-knows-how-long. They ended the meeting there, deciding they could pick up on practicing shield charms later.
Fleur tried to keep her eyes shut, even though pain nagged in her stomach. She tried to keep her mind off of her last real meal, a simple bagel with strawberry cream cheese, but she kept wandering to it and reminding herself how long it had been since she'd eaten last.
It was difficult to be sure how long, to be truthful. She struggled to keep track of the passage of the time. A torch above each of the empty cells around her provided her only source of light, as there were no windows in her underground prison.
Every once in a while, one of the green robed students would come down with a small pail of disgusting water for her. It was hard to tell if this was once a day or on some other schedule, but it was the only thing that broke the monotony.
At first she'd resisted drinking it, but the pain in her stomach combined with the cracking of her chapped lips, a first for her, had convinced her that this water was better than nothing. It was harder than she'd expected, drinking water from a pail while someone watched and laughed. She'd remained stoic while they were there, and then cried out all of the precious moisture she'd just taken in after they'd left.
A clang upstairs and the click of high heels coming down the flagstone stairs, along with the regular shuffle of fabric and shoes, told her that someone was coming down to the dungeon. It wasn't long before a pair of those students, they called themselves Inquisitors, stepped into the dungeon, followed by a short, plump, and rather unpleasant looking woman dressed in a brilliantly pink cardigan.
"My, it's rather dark down here, don't you think?" she asked in a girlish voice that grated against Fleur's already frayed nerves. She waved her wand and the torches flared brighter, illuminating the dungeon.
"She's right here, headmistress," one of the Inquisitors remarked, pointing to Fleur's cell. They were the meatheads that followed that Malfoy everywhere.
She stepped over to the bars of the cell and Fleur sat up in her pile of straw, drawing her knees to her chest. It was as close to a soft surface as she had and it did better at keeping her warm than laying on the bare stone.
"Hmph," Umbridge remarked, examining Fleur. "You look disgusting. I'd never guess you were part-Veela looking like this."
It was the first time Fleur could ever remember being called disgusting and she wasn't proud of how deeply it cut.
"Why am I being held here?" she asked, forcing the edge of defiance into her voice even as it cracked. "I've committed no crime."
"Committed no crime, you say?" Umbridge asked, a corner of her wide mouth turning up. "How about cavorting around with enemies of the Ministry of Magic? No? Trespassing on school property, perhaps?"
"It is a public-" Fleur started, anger building in her chest, but she was cut off when Umbridge slammed a hand against the bars.
"This is MY SCHOOL!" she shrieked. Fleur jumped and would have scooted further back had she not already been pressed against the wall of the little cell. "It is my responsibility to ensure the safety of these students and I will not have some half-breed prancing around and endangering them!"
They were all silent for a moment as Umbridge regained her composure. Even the Inquisitors looked surprised at the outburst, though neither of them said anything.
"Where are the soldiers?" Umbridge asked, her voice again girlish and falsely polite.
"I don't know where they are." Fleur truly didn't, she was expecting them to be here.
"I don't believe you," Umbridge said matter-of-factly. "You've sent three letters to your beau trying to get him to reply, which he obviously couldn't if he was going to keep his presence a secret. Tell me where they are."
"I don't know!" Fleur shouted, standing up angrily. "Vous crapaud incroyable, I thought I would find them here but I was obviously mistaken!"
Umbridge frowned at her for a moment, allowing for the fuming anger to evaporate a little.
"The muggles were evicted from Britain, rather publicly I might add, so I have a hard time believing you don't know anything about it."
"I don't live here, why would I know that?"
"It seems pertinent," Umbridge said, souring her face. "You really smell incredibly bad, and your manners…"
Fleur stepped back into the cell a bit further, again taken aback by the remarks. She'd never been told she smelled bad before.
"You look thirsty too. Hungry, perhaps?"
She remained still, not intending to reply. Her stomach betrayed her at the sound of that word and grumbled loudly, causing Umbridge to smirk again.
"Where are they?"
Fleur felt her eyes well up at the absurdity of it. She didn't know anything. "I don't know," she replied meekly.
"Very well, perhaps we can get two birds with one stone here, so to speak. Start off small and teach you who is in charge." She dug into a little purse that Fleur hadn't noticed before, producing a quill and a bit of parchment.
Then she waved her wand. A tall glass of water appeared, beside it a small plate with a serving of potatoes and a slice of ham. She could see the steam wafting from the plate and the smell almost made her throw up, she wanted it so bad.
"A few lines with this, and you can have something to eat." The quill and parchment floated into the cell beside Fleur and she picked them up, eyeing them cautiously.
"What should I be writing?" she asked.
"Something true...filthy half-breed will do."
Defiance soared in Fleur's chest at even the thought of writing something so cruel. She tensed her hand, ready to throw the quill across the dungeon, and then inhaled again. Her stomach rolled in her abdomen, quashing her defiance in one swing.
She set the parchment against the floor and pressed the quill down, trying to ignore the smirk on Umbridge's face as she started to write. Pain sliced across the back of her hand and she dropped the quill. When she looked, she could see a pink f already starting to fade.
"The message needs to sink in, dear."
Fleur hesitated for a long moment, trying to convince herself not to play this game. Another breath, another deep inhalation that promised her relief from the nagging pain in her abdomen. She picked up the quill and pressed it to the parchment again.
She was all the way through the word filthy before the first tear ran down her cheek. By the time she'd finished the second line, she openly wept and wrote quicker, willing it to be over. Three lines, four...five.
Blood ran from the back of her hand onto the parchment before Umbridge finally cleared her throat. Fleur dropped the quill and held her hand to her chest, trying to stop the hitching breaths.
"Very good," Umbridge said. The quill and paper floated out of the cell and the food floated in, landing gently beside her. She picked up the slice of ham just before a blast of icy cold water crashed into her.
She looked up to see one of the Inquisitor boys letting a bucket down with a grin on his face. The water had knocked her glass over and her mashed potatoes were in small wet bits, scattered around the floor.
"For the smell," Umbridge said before heading back upstairs, flanked by the two boys. When they were gone, she allowed what little remained of her dignity to collapse. At least no one was around to see her picking at the food.