Updated.
Rose POV
Chapter 5
I tried not to glare at the smug and vicious students who eyed me on the way to detention. They were among the ones who didn't believe a word of what my friend and I were maintaining, and even a few of them had the very old world mentality that females should be seen and not heard, and were disgusted that I had voiced my opinions. I shied away from them by taking a side corridor that would still get me to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom in time. Besides, Harry and I had decided to meet up there.
Harry was waiting in the corridor for me, and resumed his trek to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom when I caught up with him. We walked together into Umbridge's office.
Mews filled the fluffy, shockingly pink room that had been where I had healed and protected Harry from Barty Croutch Jr. who had been masquerading as my godfather the year before. The extreme overhaul of the office made me want to run to the girls' lavatory and vomit. I kept the disdain off of my face as Umbridge greeted us cheerfully.
"Hello Mr. Potter, Ms. Braddock." She stood up, dragging Harry and I to two desks she had situated in front of hers. "Today I want for you both to write some lines for me." This woman had something especially nasty in store for us if her punishment seemed as mundane as copy work. We sat, and dug our quills out of our bags. She stopped us by waving her hand and making our quills vanish from our grasps. "Not with your quills you foolish children." she reprimanded us. I gritted my teeth. "You will be using some very special ones of mine." She handed us each a flamboyant black quill. My instincts told me that there was nothing normal about our loaned writing instruments.
I turned my quill over in my hand. It didn't look out of the ordinary, but I cautiously stalled as long as I could, dreading discovering what nasty surprises the quill had yet to reveal. Umbridge noticed Harry doing the same. "You may start."
"What do you want us to write?" asked the boy beside me tiredly.
"I want you to write 'I must not tell lies.'" she whispered close to our ears, bending down. The horrendous stench of way too much rose scented perfume wafted toward me and I gagged. Harry wrinkled his nose. Was there anything about this obnoxious woman to like?
"How many times?" Harry sighed, glancing at the woman and twirling his pen in his fingers.
"How about... as many as it takes for the message to sink in?" She replied cruelly, striding back over to her desk and plopping down on the overly plush chair. She gingerly picked up the cooling cup of tea that was waiting patiently for her and sipped its contents, sighing contentedly.
I looked away from her and turned my attention toward the paper laying on my desk and habitually dipped my pen in the ink well. The nib stabbed into the desk where the ink well should have been, but wasn't. I momentarily scanned the table top and came up empty handed. What the heck does she expect us to write with; our own blood? I though, aggravated. I looked up at the woman who adjusted various papers on her desk, her discarded teacup resting perfectly in its saucer on its immaculate tea tray. "You didn't give us any ink." I pointed out stubbornly.
She looked up at us innocently. "Oh, you won't need any ink." I saw the smallest smile flash across her face before it shifted back to the expressionless mask it always was and gestured for me to start before going back to her paperwork. I eyed her suspiciously and began to write.
As I spitefully scratched the words, I realized that they were not written in the standard black school ink, but in bright crimson. No. I thought, astonished. As soon as my left hand began to burn I knew what our punishment was. She was forcing us to write with a Blood Quill, a torture device that had been banned from use years before. How she had gotten a hold of them I had no idea, but she should have been thrown in Azkaban for her use of them. The Ministry had probably turned a blind eye to her methods.
As the words I must not tell lies etched themselves into my hand and Harry's, evidenced by our identical actions of cringing and rubbing our left hands; my gift tried to free itself from my control, fueled by the simultaneous hate I felt for Hogwarts' newest teacher and the sisterly love I had for the black haired boy who treated me like his. I struggled to contain it.
I continued to write, allowing the words to slice into the back of my hand as I battled with the healing gift that was at the same time a terrible curse. The teacher noticed my struggle and smirked, thinking that her quill was giving me more torment than she had anticipated. In a way it was; keeping me engaged in a tug of war between my unique magic and my feeble control over it that could have catastrophic consequences if I lost.
Harry cringed and I struggled as the words ceased to cut into our hands, the sentence neatly spelled out. The cat lady in pink came back over to us and stood between Harry and I, condescension practically dripping from her, as I tried to keep my painful internal war off of my face. "Is something wrong, dear?" she asked Harry sweetly, ignoring me; satisfied by whatever agony her torture tool was inflicting.
Harry shook his head and hid his injured hand under his robes. "No." He replied, the woman next to him terrifying him, but he attempted to hide it.
"That's right. Because you know, deep down, you both deserve to be punished." She answered quietly.
As the poisonous words fell from her too thin lips, I lost the battle and inwardly reeled from the pain as my magic snapped; dark magic mixing with light, injury with healing. Harry cried out when his hand started to burn again as mine did, and the bloody lines on our hands healed, but the dark half of the magic, fueled by Umbridge's torture, marring our hands with angry red marks sitting right where the slashes from the Blood Quills had been, and still spelling out what was written on our papers.
Umbridge, meanwhile, cried out and I saw out of the corner of my eye as she rotated her left hand back and forth that the words I will not torture children were slicing themselves into the soft flesh on the back of her small, pudgy hand in a manner resembling what now disfigured ours.
Shaken, she stood. I struggled to stay up in my chair, my uncontrolled magical outburst draining me of strength in return for its use. This very unique gift I controlled – in reality, hid – always came with this price which was why I rarely used it. I was probably also paying the price for the minuscule part of the gift I'd used that morning. Umbridge said fearfully, "You are dismissed," opening the door and all but shewing us out.
Harry led me out of the room to safety. I couldn't even begin to speculate what explanations Ministry Woman was thinking up for what had happened the minute before. My housemate helped me down the stairs and he stopped once we found a bench and we were able to sit down. Harry rubbed the marks that I had caused and stood up a second later. "What happened back there?" Harry demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I lied, peering at him expressionlessly.
"Don't lie to me Rose." He snapped. "I saw how you reacted back there. You know something about what caused this," Harry grasped my hand, laying it next to his and I yelped, "And the marks on Umbridge." I blinked. Harry had noticed them too. It appeared that I had a lot of explaining to do.
"Harry." I tried, another fib on my tongue.
He huffed and stared sternly at me. "No, tell me the truth."
I sighed, finally resolving to give my secret to the young man who was replacing Draco as my best friend. "You must promise not to tell anyone, Harry. You have no idea how dangerous it could be if the Death Eaters knew." He nodded, waiting. I took a deep breath and continued. "I was born with a gift, separate from my normal magic, that can do things like that. It is set off by my emotions and I can't control it." I admitted ruefully, looking at my hands resting in my lap. "You saw why I have to keep it hidden."
"Why didn't you tell me, or any of us, before? We could have helped you." Harry assured me. I sighed and smiled. Harry was always trying to protect the people he cared about, but he could also be rash and foolish, and this gift was more powerful than he realized.
"What could you have done, Harry? I already shut down the emotions that set it off as much as I can, and no one that I know has it or can teach me to control it. And... I don't any of you to get hurt because of me."
"Get hurt?" he exclaimed indignantly. I'd momentarily forgotten that he was the type to run head long into the fire.
"Not only does my gift drain me when I use it, Harry, but it can also harm people if I'm not careful. You saw what happened to Professor Umbridge. It would kill me if it was used against any of you." I kept my voice level, and put up the calm facade I wore almost every day of my life, but inside I was panicking, trying to still the emotions that roiled and threatened to ignite another wave of my unpredictable magic.
"Which is why you were weak coming out of Umbridge's office." Harry deduced. I nodded calmly.
"I know you want to help me Harry, and I appreciate it. I really do. But this is something that I have to deal with on my own." I explained, keeping the brimming tears locked inside before standing up and walking away from him. He grabbed my hand, forcing me to halt and look at him.
"You will have to tell them some time." he indicated forcefully.
"No, I won't." I answered stubbornly and walked down the hall to Gryfindor Tower, leaving Harry standing outside the classroom, completely aghast that I had a power so dangerous.
I continued on my way, and heard someone call my name when I reached the exact spot where I had met up with Harry the hour before. I turned and peered down the corridor, finally spotting the pale blond hair that belonged to Draco Malfoy. Oh great. He was about the last person I wanted to see right now, I was still furious about what had said when we got off the train, but I couldn't let that emotion take hold again.
Don't let it show, my inner voice, the same one who tried to persuade me on the train that Draco had moved on, advised. I pushed it down and shut it back in its box. What was the point of keeping it concealed? He already knew. He had known since before Hogwarts, when I lost control of it and healed us both when we fell from a tree.
In spite of it all, I sighed and put up my facade once more. Even though I was angry with him, I didn't want to accidentally murder him. Keeping my emotions inside where they couldn't harm anyone was hard enough at the moment, I didn't need to increase them by snapping at Draco. After all, we had been friends once, long ago, and I still kept those feelings and memories stashed safely in my heart. They were among the many I pulled on when I wanted to use the light side of my gift to heal.
His angular face was contorted by a look of anger and resentment, mixed with the something along the lines of the same emotion that I had seen at the Start of Year Feast. He stalked over to me, looking like he was about to kill somebody.
"What is bothering you, Draco?" I snapped, scowling at him and giving him my enraged emerald green stare.
"You..." He started, the emotions he was displaying transforming his face into one that I didn't know. He seemed to be letting his emotions control him to the point that he couldn't complete sentences.
While trying to speak to me and answer my question, his eyes fell on something that caused his expression to shift into something – although decidedly different – that I hadn't seen in him since we were kids. He pulled up my injured left hand and stared at the lines crisscrossing it. I could see the wheels turning in his head. "You..." His tone changed from one of malice to almost... concern.
"Just spit it out already." I demanded, annoyed and exhausted. I wanted to get into my own bed and sleep off my ordeal and replenish the strength that my gift had stolen from me.
He made eye contact with me, his light gray eyes hinting at so many feelings still too well hidden for me to see that left me confused. Something stopped him from saying anything, and a foreign emotion passed over his face before he just walked away without another word.
What just happened? I nearly reprimanded myself for being mad at him in the first place, but he still had a lot to answer for.
When I finally got to the Common Room, I didn't retire right away. Too scared to sleep, I took out a piece of parchment, and, with a quill that wouldn't write in my own blood, wrote a very short note to my mother, one that I would send to her at the next possible opportunity. My newly found fear was transferred to my script, causing it to lose its usual elegance and degrade into a shaky, nearly incoherent scrawl.
I lost control. What do I do?