Chap 6
"I've had enough, Sev. And so have my friends. Stop picking on defenseless people, or I swear to God, we will come for you." Lily's face was flushed red. Dina saw Severus' face crumple as Lily put the counter curse on him and turned around to walk away. He fell on the floor in a heap and didn't raise his head, his thin shoulders shaking with huge sobs.
Avery had begun to wake up on the floor, but both James and Dina hit him with a combination of spells until he fell back groaning, sprouting what looked like fuzz all over his face, resembling a giant bee more than anything else.
"Well, I don't think any of those girls are going to like him quite so much anymore", James grinned. Dina grinned back as she conjured ropes to bind both the Slytherins. Lily rushed to pick up the girl, who was still unconscious, her face tear-streaked as she mumbled uneasily. "I'm going to the Hospital Wing with her. You both take these two bits of scum to Dumbledore, he'll know what to do."
Dina could see that Lily needed some time alone. She tugged at James' sleeve, and he started Levitating the two boys so they could head towards the Head's office.
Dina and Toni gasped when Avery's bulk moved towards them. His shifting robes revealed a heap on the ground, and they could see Marl's blonde head moving vaguely. Toni started to run towards her, but was blasted off her feet by Snape. Lily stood next to James, looking like her heart was breaking. She lifted her wand and aimed it at Regulus, who by now looked like he had forgotten all semblance of any magic he knew. Sirius was walking at him. He hadn't bothered to pull his wand on him, and Regulus was already trembling. The fourth boy, Dina thought his name was Nott, was engaged in a wrestling bout with Peter while Remus was trying his hardest to incapacitate him, but missed every time the two boys tumbled over in their bid to gain the upper hand. Toni had hit a desk, crumpled sideways over it, and slid to the floor with a sickening thud.
Dina looked around, panic blossoming in her stomach. Toni was out, Remus was too caught up, so was Peter, and Sirius would not look away from his brother. Avery continued to walk towards her.
"Impedimenta!" James bellowed from beside Lily. Snape tried to shield Avery, but Dina caught him with a Jelly Legs curse, and he was soon incapacitated. Lily still had her wand on Regulus, her wand arm shaking, refusing to look where Snape was being compelled to dance by Dina's curse. Sensing an opening, Dina rushed to pick Marl up. She was whimpering on the floor, and when Dina picked her up, leaning her against the nearest desk, she saw blood on her lips, and a bruise beginning to blossom on her cheek. Something in the pit of Dina's being began to burn, a slow fire spreading to her limbs. She'd had just about enough. Somewhere, as if from a distance, she could hear Sirius punching Regulus as he cried out to him for help, to stop, that he would tell their mother; she could see that Remus had finally decided to go the whole hog and tie up both Peter and Nott and they were squirming in a silvery cage he'd conjured; she could see Lily shaking, barely lifting her wand as James spun around her, hitting anyone attacking her with curses as fast as he could. She saw all of this, but all of it had suddenly stopped to matter. She felt a rushing in her ears as she spoke to Marlene.
"Get up, Marl. This can't be anymore. Stand up, lean on me if you need to, but stand up." She helped her up, struggling to handle her weight but holding on to a desk for support. She looked around for Marl's wand and Summoned it from under a nearby chair, a slow calm dogging her actions. She put the wand in her hand and looked her straight in the eye. "He's done this to you, Marl. And I know I could take him. But he really is yours to take down."
The blonde girl looked at her and a smile dawned on her grimy face. She wiped the blood off her lips with the back of her left hand and picked up her wand to aim it at Avery. The room seemed to stop as Avery halted, not advancing towards the two girls in the centre anymore, looking scared for the first time that evening.
"Flipendo." Marl moved towards Avery now as he fell back. "Petrificus Totalus". He thudded to the floor and pure revulsion flooded Marlene's face as she walked up to him and looked down at him. "You cannot believe how much I'm going to enjoy this. Cru-"
"McKinnon! Stop that this instant. Step away from him!" McGonagall had tumbled into the room, with Dumbledore and their Potions Professor, Slughorn, on her heels. Dumbledore calmly looked around, surveying the situation, his eyes blazing over his glasses. Slughorn was huffing to himself, muttering a number of excuses already about how four boys from his house, including a second year, had managed to sneak off to presumably hold a Gryffindor hostage, and a young girl at that-
"That's quite enough, Professor. Minerva, would you be so kind as to escort the four Slytherin gentlemen, and oh, Riven, is it, from Hufflepuff? Could you please take them to my office and wait for me to come up there? Horace, I suppose you and I could help clean up the room."
McGonagall immediately unfroze Avery, and extricated Regulus from Sirius' grip, his lip and nose bleeding copiously. Snape was on the floor; James' curses had unerringly hit him the worst. She conjured two stretchers, one for him, and the other for Riven, and turned to Slughorn, who was standing with his back to Dumbledore's, the two of them having just set the desks back in order.
"Could you take them to the hospital wing, Horace?" She walked towards the cage Remus had conjured, inspecting it with her wand before Vanishing it with a tap. Nott and Peter fell out in a heap, and she picked both of them up by the scruff of their robes. "You're to go to the Head's Office, Nott. And you too, Avery, Black. Get going. I'll know if you don't get there."
Dumbledore gave them a brief smile before leaving, saying, "I leave it to you to handle this, Minerva. I suppose you could call Flitwick here if you feel the Ravenclaws are not under your jurisdiction. But I leave that to your discretion." His eyes again regaining their usual twinkle, he left the room.
McGonagall finally turned to the rest of them. " , I can see, needs the hospital wing, and so does Ruthers. But before that, I need someone to tell me what exactly happened here."
"Professor, you have to believe-"
"We saw them on this-"
"Marl, I mean Marlene, you see, she'd been missing-"
"And we didn't know what-"
"There was no time, Professor, we swear, we would have-"
She raised a hand, and silence fell again. "One at a time. You will each have your turn. And I will take Ms. McKinnon's testimony tomorrow, when Madam Pomfrey's had a look at her. The same goes for Miss Ruthers. Now you, Potter, tell me what happened."
"She was missing since last night, you see, Professor. None of us had seen her, and she never misses Quidditch matches. And we got worried because none of her friends had seen her."
Lily chimed in timidly. "It's my fault, Professor. I should have checked on her."
Dina spoke up, unable to stay quiet any longer. "Actually, Professor, it's all our faults. Marl's been threatened by these people before, and she had been subject to violence by Avery and his cronies before this. I think we all kept excusing it as some sort of-"
"A lover's spat, or something or the other. We always found excuses to explain her bruises, their real nature was too unsettling," Remus added, looking crestfallen.
McGonagall looked around at them, her eyes narrowing. "And how did you manage to find her, if you hadn't seen her or spoken to her since last night?"
The boys exchanged tense glances. Their map was very valuable to them, and for it to fall into a teacher's hands would be absolute disaster.
"Um, you see," Peter was shuffling his feet as he spoke, and Dina could almost see the wheels whirring in his head. "We have this parchment we communicate with."
"Yes, we Ravenclaws have it too, it's how we usually speak when we can't meet each other around the grounds." Dina spoke up with Peter, and Remus threw her a grateful glance. Giving up some parchment was no big deal compared to the kind of trouble they could get into over that map.
"I see. I still don't approve of this kind of arrogance, where you thought you should all personally dole out justice, however well placed your regard may have been. Detention for all of you, each Saturday of the following month. You too, Adams, and Ruthers as well, when she's woken up. I will be informing Professor Flitwick of this. I never expected behavior like this from model students like you, and you too, Evans. I hope month-long detention teaches you that you should defer to the Professors when matters get out of hand."
They all stayed silent, Sirius surprisingly still staring hard at the floor, looking like he wished it would swallow him up. McGonagall turned on her heel, and made as if to walk out of the room, her robes swishing. After two steps forward, she stopped and turned again. "Twenty points to Gryffindor for you, Lupin. Excellent spellwork with that cage." And before they could see the hint of a smile on her face, she had gone.
"You have to admit McGonagall's really cool, though," Toni mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate as they sat on Marl's bed in the Hospital Wing the next morning. "She didn't have to let us off so easy."
"Yes, and she almost caught Marl using an Unforgivable. What on earth, Marl?" Dina looked at Marl as she spoke. Marlene now looked much brighter, the cut on her lip healing, and the bruise Vanished by Pomfrey's ointment.
"I don't know what came over me. I just saw this red haze, and every single time he's abused me came rushing back to me. I don't think I knew anything else I could have done."
"I doubt you'd have been able to really do the Cruciatus Curse on him, though. It takes a lot," Lily had walked in, looking better than she had in days.
"No, actually, I think I would have. I've never felt the kind of energy coursing through me that I felt as I looked down at him. I didn't really know how much I hated him until he was cowering there at my feet."
Lily grinned at Marl as she sat down and reached across her for a Chocolate Frog. The boys had mysteriously delivered a huge bunch of chocolates to the Hospital wing within the space of the night and the morning. Toni had said they had better not ask for explanations, because who would do that with chocolate, you right prat, Dina, get your hands off them if you're so suspicious. They had all then proceeded to devour roughly twenty Chocolate Frogs, ten Licorice sticks, two packs of Bertie's Every Flavour beans, something called Razzle that Remus seemed to have slipped in, and god knows how many Ice Mice- they were Marl's weakness. Dina looked at Lily and wondered if she should speak to her. She seemed pretty torn up last night about Snape being there, don't really know if I should ask her. Toni spoke up, cutting across Dina's reverie. "How are you feeling, Lily?"
Lily looked at all of them. Marl and Dina had fallen silent, looking at her. She picked out another Licorice stick and started chewing on it. "I'm alright, I think. At least, I've been better, but now I'm not crying. I don't want to speak to Sev right now, but I think I can safely say he and I are not going to be buddies meeting over the summer anytime soon."
"You know you can talk to us, right, Lily?" Dina reached across and put a hand on Lily's knee. "We'll be here."
Lily looked at the three of them and smiled wanly. "You know, I can think of a few things that would make me feel better."
"What, Lily?" Toni was still scarfing down chocolate as she spoke.
"Well, for one, I would like to know what the hell is going on with you and a certain ," grinned Lily, her eyes beginning to sparkle. This was always the face she had when asking someone for information she knew they were reluctant to share. Dina traded a look with her and took up the cue.
"Yeah, what was up with that tension yesterday? Care to share, Miss Ruthers? Or must your friends wait for you to shine the knowledge of Black smooching skills on-"
"Oh, shut up, you guys! He and I started talking about Quidditch over the summer, and he suddenly opened up to me. Asked me to meet him a couple of times, so I did. He seemed very cagey about his house, though, pointedly meeting me really far away from where I knew he lived. Then before we got on the train, we, you know-"
"Smooched, made out, ruffled a few feathers?" Marl was sitting up now, her eyes gleaming. She was a basset hound with gossip.
"I'd throw a pillow at you if you weren't so weak already, you arse. Yes, we kissed, but I told him it was a mistake and that both of us would be really bad for each other. Could you imagine the ego battles? And anyway, I don't really date. He's been trying to ice me out ever since, pretending like I don't exist, but giving me cold glares when he thinks I'm not looking."
"Oh, those glares are anything but cold, Toni. I've seen them come your way, they've almost scorched me in the passing." Toni did throw a pillow at Lily this time.
"Oh, come on! You know what she means. Just talk to him! You know you want to, really. Why build this up?" It was Dina's turn next, as a Chocolate Frog came soaring at her.
"Girls, really! This is the Hospital Wing! Out, out, all of you out right now, Miss Ruthers and McKinnon need their rest. Get back to your Common Rooms!" Madam Pomfrey had arrived, and proceeded to shoo them out of the Hospital Wing very efficiently, cleaning up the mess behind her back with her wand.
Dina looked back before she left the Hospital Wing, and as the doors swung shut, she saw Toni and Marl laughing. It finally felt like a school year again.