© Sunrisepainter: Because of Snape
Out of Hand
As promise, Hope was allowed to leave the Hospital Wing the following day. Madame Pomfrey advised her to never go on secret trips to the Forbidden Forest again. Hope promised her to follow this advice.
Her house mates enthusiastically received her to the common room. Angelina, Alicia, Lee, Fred and George sat in the armchairs around the fire or on the floor and placed Hope happily between them. As always, the twins got hold of butterbeer and some eclairs.
"Welcome back, Hope! We came up with the idea of celebrating your and Fred's survival!" Angelina laughed and pulled her into a hug.
Although it was supposed to be a welcome-back-party in the first place, it became more of a cosy get-together. Nonetheless, Hope's heart was filled with warmth and bliss. She forgot all about her loneliness and her pain. The twins and Lee amused everyone with their jokes and Angelina explained every single move of their last Quidditch game against Slytherin.
Later on, Hermione, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, Neville Longbottom, Euan with his friends, Katie Bell and some second graders joined them. They talked, laughed and played a lot. After a while, Hope retreated a little from the gathering. She just watched them silently in amusement and took a nip from her warm butterbeer from time to time.
"Do you want to play a round of "Exploding Snap" with us?" One of the first graders asked her.
"No, thanks."
"Okay, I'll ask someone else then. Mr. Jones, do you want to play cards with us?"
Hope could not hold back a small laughter. Her younger house mates were just too cute if they talked to the older ones with awe.
"They're adorable, right?" A voice piped up right next to her. Fred nonchalantly leant against the wall with a bottle on his hand.
"Sure, I can't imagine us ever being as small and cute as them!" Hope laughed.
"Well, that's true. Looking at George and me it's quite unbelievable. Mum always tells us we have never been adorable children. I think it's because we've never been her little angels. Not even when we were little!"
"Figures."
After that, they kept silent for some minutes.
"I'm going to bed." Hope finally said.
"What? Already?"
"Well...I'm very tired and tomorrow will be stressful as I have to repeat everything I missed in class."
"You have a point...so...then...good night!" He said.
"Good night, Fred!" She smiled, put her bottle on a table and left. She was almost near the steps when he called her back.
"Hope?"
"Yeah?" She turned around. Fred grinned at her:
"It's great you're back to live again! We've really missed your annoying personality. "
Even if it was not the nicest way to tell someone how everyone had missed him or her, Hope had to grin anyway. And she was still grinning when she was long in bed.
The next morning, Hope had to go back to school.
The breakfast was peaceful and quiet. Angelina was in a bad mood because some stupid Slytherin had called her a "mudblood" on the corridor. Mark Merway was now in the Hospital Wing with furuncles covering his whole face. Alicia was still too tired to talk and Hope was worried if she was able to follow all the lessons.
"What happened to you?" Lee grabbed a toast and fell down next to Alicia on the bench.
"Don't ask!" Angelina grumbled.
"Did you say something?" Alicia yawned. Hope just sat next to her and silence a starred blankly at the wall.
"Wow, you seem to be on top of the world!" George mocked when he saw thee girl's faces.
"Shut up, Weasley!" Angelina grumbled. Alicia yawned again and Hope just sat there in silence and stared blankly at the wall.
"Cheer up, Angelina! You put Merway to the Hospital Wing!" Fred said.
"That's right. And you look as if you're going to fall asleep while eating, Alicia. Didn't you get enough of sleep?" George smirked.
"No wonder if you drank eleven bottles of butterbeer." Angelina hissed.
"Twelve."
"What?"
"It were twelve bottles!"
"Honestly, Leesh! Sometimes, I ask myself if you have a screw loose somewhere!"
"Oh, you don't have to talk, Miss I-haul-everyone-out-of-bed-early-in-the-morning-for-Qudditch-training!"
"What am I supposed to do if you're so slow?" So, Alicia and Angelina went on bickering.
"JUST SHUT THE HECK UP!" Hope roared all of a sudden. Immediately, everyone in the Great Hall went silent. Hope blushed.
"I'm sorry!" She mumbled and quietly sat down again. She was trembling all over and her face was all pale.
"You're okay?"Alicia asked softy while the other students started to whisper looking at the Gryffindor table in wonder.
"Yes." Hope answered touching her head. Suddenly, she was suffering from migraine.
"Would it be better if we take you to the Hospital Wing?" George proposed. Hope shook her head.
"Really?" Angelina eyes her suspiciously.
"No. And, if you don't mind, I would like to leave...I need some time too clear my head again." Hope raised to her feed and left the Great Hall head over heels.
"What's going on? I'm feeling terrible right now. I'm scared. Why? Why made me the quarrel between Angelina and Alicia so angry? Of course, it was quite annoying but there was no reason for me to freak out like that!" The thoughts rushed trough her mind like jetliners when she stepped outside.
The fresh air was comforting. It was quite cold outside and so, she tightened her coat around her shoulders. Shuddering, she stepped along the lakeside and finally, sat down on a cold rock.
The surface of the lake was waveless and the dark grey sky was reflected in it. The rough winds of the last few days calmed down since the beginning of November. There were creepy noises coming out of the Forbidden Forest and Hope cringed. Just a few days ago, she had been in there, too. In the maze made from branches and limbs. She constantly asked herself how she and Fred had escaped from there. What if the wolfs had come back or even more dangerous magic beasts? It would have been hard for Fred to fight them while still trying to protect her. Both of them would have ended up dead. So, she came to the conclusion that they had been more than lucky. Damn lucky!
"Hey!" A voice behind her her piped up. Hope turned around and smiled.
"May I sit down?"
"Sure." Hope made some space and Hermione sat down next to her on the rock.
"Do you already have plans for the holidays?" Hermione asked after some time had passed.
"I think, I'll spend Christmas with my mother. Otherwise, she would be lonely and I would be lonely in Hogwarts, too. So, why not be lonely together?"
"Is your mother you're own relative? I mean..."
"I know what you want to say. Yeah, she's more or less my only family. She and Aunt Hethar, but she doesn't count as I haven't seen her in years. And she's a scary person anyway. She always tells my mother how to raise me and stuff like that. I think she eventually understood that we don't need her at all as she didn't visit us since my mother threw her out a few summer back. You see, my aunt tried to burn some of my mum's treasured muggle records."
"Your mum listens to muggle music?" Hermione asked with a lot of interest.
Hope laughed:
"Yes, both of her best friends at Hogwarts had been muggle born. She got to know a lot about their world whenever she paid them a visit at home. They listened to a lot of records: Deep Purple, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and a lot more."
"And your dad?"
Hope's face darkened. Hermione gulped. She knew she hit a soft spot.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to upset you. It's just that I'm very-"
"Curious. I know." Hope smiled. "I'm not upset. It's just that I don't like talking about my dad. He had really hurt my mum a lot in the past when he left us for another woman. I was really young back then and didn't get the situation at all but today I know that I have to hate him for it. However, I sometimes wish to see him again. I know I have to hate my father for all he has done but..."
"Well, I could never hate my dad!" Hermione said.
"Even if he would elope with another woman and leave you and your mother on your own?"
Hermione kept silent. She did not tell Hope that she could never imagine her father doing something cruel like that.
"So, where do you spend your Christmas?" Hope changed topics.
"My parents want to go skiing with me. I would rather like to spend the holiday with Harry and Ron but I promised my parents to join them and moreover, I haven't seen them for a long time now."
"Isn't skiing the thing where muggle sit down on some strange motorised vehicle and endlessly drive around in circles?" Hermione giggled and could not believe that her friend did not know about skiing:
"That's called a racing car. Skis are two very long flat vats that people buckle under their feet to head down a hillside."
"Oh! I've seen that before, thought!" Hope sounded a little upset with her own ignorance.
"Don't take it to heart. I had to explain it to Ron, too. However, I think he still doesn't have a clue."
"Muggle invent a lot of useless stuff."
"Well, what are they supposed to do as they can't use magic? Muggle can't apprehend magicians and witches either. For example, Ron's father, Mr. Weasley, is dead keen on finding out all about the muggle world, like living without magic himself once a month. On the other hand, a non-magic person would wonder why he voluntarily refrains from using magic."
"I guess that's just where tow different worlds collide..." Hope mused.
"Yeah, I guess, too." Hermione agreed. Something white landed on their heads. It was cold and wet.
"Wow, it's snowing." Hope smiled.
She was right. White, thick snowflakes slowly fell to the ground. A while, the two girls quietly watched the snow fall down. The snowflakes bedded themselves on the yard, on the bald tree tops and got caught in Hermione's curly as well as in Hope's smooth hair.
"The first snow is always special." Hermione said.
"When I was a child, me and my mum always said down next to the window and counted each snowflake of the first snowfall. In the evening, we always made a fire and my mother told me stories of her happy days in Hogwarts while we were drinking some hot cocoa."
"What was her house?"
"Gryffindor. Same like us. She was in one class with-"
"Hermione? Are you coming? Our lesson started ten minutes ago." Harry called his friend.
"WHAT?" Both of them yelled simultaneously and jumped to their feet.
"Gosh, I have DADA!" Hope said.
"And we have Herbology. Well, Professor Sprout is way less strict than Umbridge!"
"Yeah, I have to hurry now. Bye, Hermione. Bye, Harry." Hope said her goodbyes and hurried to her class.
"Miss Shycates, may you have a look at your watch? My class started a qaurter of an hour ago" Umbridge smirked smugly.
"I apologize for being late, Professor." Hope answered abashedly and she did not dare to look at that toad-like face.
"Would you mind telling me your previous location?"
"You don't need to know, you old hag!" That it what Hope would have liked to say but she was just too shy to talk back, so she stuck to the truth instead.
"At the lakeside. With Hermione Granger. A fifth grader from Gryffindor."
"Well, well." The mean teacher stepped trough the room and stopped with her back facing the class.
"Fifty points deducted from Gryffindor and one week of detention!" Umbridge finally said in her girl's voice.
Hope indignantly gasped for air. Her classmates started to whisper.
That's when Hope felt it. She had felt it before but this time it was much, much stronger. It was this inexplicable anger. Hope clenched her fists and teeth and her eyes narrowed:
"That's so damn unfair! McLaggen also came late the other day and you didn't punish him at all!"
"Firstly, Mr. McLaggen had solid reason for being late back then. Secondly, do you want to accuse me of favouring certain pupil?"
"Well, let's think about it for a moment...yes! Yes, I do. In case, you believed his stupid excuse, you're not only mean but also very useless, Professor!"
"TWO WEEKS DETENTION!"
"Oh wait. Now, I know why you didn't punish this moron ("Three weeks, Miss Shycates!") It's because his uncle is working in the Ministry, right? Everyone knows
that you're in cahoots with these thugs!"
"How dare you talk to me so disrespectful!" Umbridge hissed and turned around to face her class again. Hope was not scared any more. She did no longer care about the consequences.
"I'm talking to you the way you deserve it! Everything you're doing in your class is just bloody fake! The thing with your witless rules and your ridiculous school books!"
"MISS SHYCATES, LEAVE MY CLASSROOM AT ONCE!"
"It's my pleasure!"
Hope turned around on her heel. After arrogantly flipping her hair back, she left the room without showing any sign of remorse. She had almost reached the door when all of a sudden, a hurricane of applause broke out. Ravenclaws and Gryffindors cheered in unison.
"Good job, Hope!" Lee yelled and whistled loudly.
"QUIET!" Umbridge boomed. "IF YOU DON'T LEAVE INSTANTLY, I'M GOING TO GET YOU EXPELLED!"
Swiftly Hope pushed the door open and hurried outside. When she was on the deserted corridor, she leaned her back against the wall and buried her face in her hands:
"Oh Hope, what did you do just now? Why did you have to pick a fight with that old toad? This is bound to end in disaster! In a major disaster!"
End of Chapter Seventeen.