Hello My beautiful readers!
WE REACHED 50 REVIEWS! Thank you so much for all your love and support throughout this journey. Also a massive thank you for all your Birthday Wishes, I had a mint day. I am so excited for us to experience more of this story and learn more about the characters as we get further on! Thank you to, Chica90, Marie0907, Lavendor Queen, Madwamoose, Writingfuelsthesoul, Anya and Yvonne for their reviews.
I feel as though this chapter is quite happy despite the dark undertones, the characters interact a lot and you see a lot more into their personality. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to leave a review!
This chapter is dedicated to my fiftieth reviewer, Madwamoose, who has been here from the start.
"Remembrance is a strange thing. With love its pain is bearable. With bitterness it simply destroys." Elaine di Rollo,
"WAKE UP SLEEPY HEADS!" Professor Bradley bellowed as he walked into class to see most of his seventh year class with their heads on their desks snoring. Many jumped up in shock, some grabbed their wands and one, namely Sirius Black, stayed asleep. It would've been an amusing sight had professor Bradley not looked so serious. "THIS IS A DEFENCE CLASS NOT NAP TIME!"
Elizabeth looked towards Beverley whom she was sitting next to, she looked pale and withdrawn, her hair was its normal colour and put into a topknot, she had dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks were unusually sullen.
"Today is a class that I've been dreading since the start of the year, but after the events of last Hogsmeade Weekend I felt I couldn't postpone this any longer." He walked to the top of the classroom right infront of the whiteboard before turning to face everyone in the class.
"So, what do you all know about the unforgivables?" he asked cheerfully, as if having a pleasant conversation with the queen.
Elizabeth felt Beverley shrink into her chair next to her and slouch, trying to hide herself from the peering eyes and curious stares. Elizabeth looked at her quickly before looking back at Professor Bradley.
As hands went up the Professor shook his head, "That was a rhetorical question. Now I'll give you the simple version, the ministry version. The one I have to teach you."
"Now the unforgivables are three dark curses that, when used can earn you one year in Azkaban." He walked to the side cupboard and picked three jars, each with a different anthropod. He put his hand into one of them and pulled out a spider, not all that big, but still big enough to cause many people to shrink back. "May I ask why these curses are so deemed unforgivable?" Many confused looks met his eyes, a sigh escaped him, "Why is there only three, why is the blood boiling hex not unforgivable or the curse that shuts the organs down?"
Remus slowly raised his hand in the air causing everyone to look at him, Bradley nodded his head in Remus's direction.
"The unforgivables take away three basic necessities to a human, their will, their minds, their life. There are many other curses that have similar consequences but the Unforgivables take away three fundamental human needs." He answered confidentially with a slight unsure tone laced into his voice. Professor Bradley nodded.
"Correct! 10 points to Griffindor! The imperious curse, is the only unforgivable that can be fought off, with a strong will and strong mind, you can throw off the Imperious curse. Sounds easy, but its not, the imperious curse is said to give one a calming sensation, you lose your will, your moral principles, everything, you become a puppet." He placed the spider down and quickly made it larger before casting the curse "imperio." Suddenly the spider was in the air doing somersaults, the class started snickering, he commanded the spider to get on Lily and Dorcas Meadows desk and start dancing. Then everyone started laughing, all out laughing.
"Think that's funny, did you all forget that quickly what I told you? This spider is mindless, it has no will, nothing, it's a puppet. I can throw him into a fire to burn, I can drown him in a bucket. I can do whatever I choose, and he wont be able to do anything to fight me." The class almost instantly stopped laughing.
"The imperious curse is no joke, many people have been tricked with it, you can kill your family with no remorse without knowing, you can be at the end of your best friends wand and they wouldn't know." He looked lost in a memory, before shaking out of it and grabbing a Scorpion out of another jar, oh how Elizabeth disliked Scorpions.
"Now, in my opinion the worst of the Unforgivables, The cruciatus curse." Elizabeth shuddered as memories started to fly through her mind, spasming on the ground as if having a seizure, screaming in agony, feeling the worst pain she's ever endured. Her breathing became slightly shallower and she felt lightheaded, She shook herself out of it and continued paying attention.
"Its bad to lose you will yes, losing your life is even worse. But losing your mind, your sanity, to me, it's a fate worse than death." He spat shaking his head. "This curse doesn't cause any physical harm or leave any injury on the victim, it is speculated that it only aggressively stimulates pain receptors."
The class was so silent you could hear a pindrop, was he going to cast it, what would happen? Professor Bradley took a moment to collect himself, his hands were shaking and his face looked oddly flushed, in anger. With his eyes closed you could hear him growl out in a deep voice, "Crucio." A red light flew out of his wand, the impact of the curse against the Scorpion caused it to get throw back and start spasming, its tail was shaking and it was letting out pain filled, desperate shrieks. It was rolling side to side and it was shuddering and jerking more violently than ever.
Elizabeth gasped at the creature, listening to its shieks of pain, tears filled her already wet eyes, her breathing became shallow and deep, her hands shook in panic. Her knuckles were turning white from her tight grip on the edge of the table.
"It's time you learnt your place Mudblood" he yelled at her a they stood face to face, wands pointed at eachother.
"And where would that be?" she spat.
"At my feet, begging for mercy." He whispered harshly, without notice a red light flew towards her and hit her right in the chest, she'd never felt pain like this, it felt like millions of burning hot knifes were stabbing her at the same time, over and over again. Gun wrenching screams escaped her dry throat, breaking through the air. She veins felt on fire, her head was pounding. She couldn't do it, kill me, kill me now, just end it, have mercy. She never voiced her thoughts, no, she'd never give that satisfaction.
"Liz" Beverley harshly whispered bringing her out of her flashback, her eyes were glazed over,her chest heaving, her harsh breaths echoing around the classroom, everyone was too fixated on the spider to notice her reaction to the most unforgivable of the unforgivables,sweat had broken out in beads on her forehead.
"The cruciatus curse isn't just an incantation, no, that's not how the spell works. It is fuelled by emotion, you need to feel hate, the need to hurt someone." He broke the curse and they all watched, as he picked up the scorpion who seemed to be in too much pain to move, and walked around the room before standing at their desk. He placed the near dead scorpion on their table and begun to speak with an almost regrettable tone to his voice.
"The last curse, Avada Kedavra, the killing curse." He begun then sighed, "it leaves no marks, no evidence, it cant be blocked , nobodies ever survived. And That's pretty much it." No need to be blunt Elizabeth thought, honestly, do you not understand sensitivity.
"All that I can say is that if you ever see a green light, dodge or die."
He looked into Beverleys eyes as he pointed his wand towards the scorpion and with a flash of blinding green light and a vast whooshing sound, the scorpion fell onto its stomach, unmistakingly, dead. Just like that. He then proceeded to fling the scorpion off the table and onto the floor.
Beverley felt the pent up air in her lungs escape her as she saw the blinding, poison green spell impact the scorpion, and then it stilled. That was what happened to the man. He was hit by a curse and...that was it. With two words from her mouth that man lost his life. Shouldn't she have been happy to have ended the life of a death eater. If she was, she most definitely wasn't happy about it.
"Killing isn't as easy as the innocent believe is it." It sounded like he directed that towards Beverley, but she could never be sure.
"Elizabeth, Beverley, stay behind after class." He then walked away as if nothing happened, as if he felt nothing over hurting those innocent arthropods, they lived, they ate, they were alive. He took a life and he didn't care. It didn't matter if they were human or not, a life is a life. What sort of person can do that. She watched him in disgust and he taught the rest of the class of the consequences that came with these curses.
As the class begun to litter out of the defence room Beverley and Elizabeth lagged behind, as they were to stay behind on Professor Bradleys request. He lead them to his office upstairs and motioned for them to sit on the two chairs on the other side of the desk.
"I sent a note to Professor Flitwick saying you'll be late, but I'm sure I could makeup an excuse if you cant bother going." He said with a smirk, he then produced three butterbeers, he placed them infront of them before proceeding to place his feet ontop of his desk. Beverley looked at him in distain, did he have no decorum, honestly, he was a good teacher and all but his manners were atrocious. She saw Elizabeth sitting beside her with an incredulous look on her face and Professor Bradley sitting with an indifferent expression on his face. Did she say that outloud?
"I do have decorum, if you must know, but since my mother isn't here to scold me I decided to forgo it, do you want to replace her?" She didn't reply, he had no right to speak to her in that way, teacher or not. "Beside my lack of decorum, I let you two stay behind because I wasn't sure if you'd be alright after this lesson."
"Most of the people in the class weren't alright sir." Elizabeth replied, "I wouldn't be surprised."
"And why's that?" he questioned.
"Because you killed someone." She replied snidely, her voice cracking with emotion.
"Something."
"Someone, anything that is alive and breathing, is a sentient being."
"Well not all of us have the same regard of life as you do." He replied, with a raised eyebrow. She scoffed sarcastically.
"Yeah I can tell, I mean you flung a dead scorpion, one you killed, onto the floor."
"Big deal, it was dead anyway." He shrugged non committedly, Beverley watched as they, teacher and student bickered over this matter, Elizabeth Gilmore, resident good girl, was arguing with a teacher. She couldn't do this, she could hear words of, illegal, wrong, disgusting, alive, dead in the background and memories came flooding back towards her, she remembered as people fell to the ground and as they were hit with curses and she couldn't deal with that.
People were dying out there and they were arguing over the death of a scorpion.
"ENOUGH!" she screamed in a panicked voice, they both turned to look at her before the professor shook his head and spoke with a clipped tone.
"No Beverley, let Miss Gilmore here have her say." Beverley could see Elizabeth locking her jaw, her face flushed as she got involved in the argument.
"I believe that you cant be that decent of a person if you can just walk away from using the killing curse and not feel anything, you killed, you took a life and you're just sitting there with your feet on the table as if you've had a completely normal day."
Beverley winced at her harsh words, but tried her best to not let it get to her. One who had not caused death would not understand the feeling afterwards. The hollow emptiness in your heart, the rush of regret and the desire to undo it all.
Killing is not as easy as the innocent believe.
"Then you can't have met all that many indecent people Miss Gilmore." He commented, his eyes darkening. "I believe that people become who they are by the experiences they face in life, a cruel person has felt hate and been hated, a kind person has felt love and loss, and wishes to prevent others from feeling pain. One day your passion will get you and the ones you love killed and it will all be in vain."
She looked at him, a fire burning in her eyes, her chest heaving. Beverley believed that Elizabeth was passionate, she was passionate and powerful and too kind for her own good, but that's what made her Elizabeth, that's what made her the person that they all loved.
"So Voldemort grew up hated and lonely, is that it?" she laughed sarcastically, "We're in this gigantic mess, because he has daddy issues or something!"
"I don't even attempt to phyco-analyse Voldemort, Miss Gilmore."
She watched as Elizabeth moved to leave the office, shaking her head.
"Miss Gilmore, next lesson come to class in something you can move in, detention tonight at 7."
As they sat at lunch talking all eyes were on Elizabeth, because she was one of the few people who had managed to get a detention from professor Bradley, and those that had gotten one, never made the mistake of getting one again.
"So he just gave you a detention?" Peter asked in shock, Elizabeth nodded whilst picking at her crème caramel,
"How did you get a detention from Bradley and I haven't?" Sirius groaned whilst banging his head against the table. "Prongs!" he mock sobbed whilst banging his head, "We're losing our touch!"
"Padfoot you're going to get brain damage." James commented,
"You need a brain before you damage it." Lily snorted into her tea,
"HEY! I got 8 OWLS!"
" Enough of that, you got your detention, Just like that?" Remus questioned, his eyes dancing with laughter.
"Just like that." She answered solemnly. "I'm going to die!"
"Stop being so melodramatic!" Lily laughed, and Elizabeth looked at her with a panicked expression,
"Melodramatic! MELODRAMATIC LILS!" she panicked, "Have you heard the horror stories? People who get a detention with Bradley never recover, they are forever changed."
"If only all detentions did that." A Scottish accented voice interrupted their conversation; it was professor McGonagall whom seemed to be staring at the marauders.
"Professor please! Please get me out of it! I'll do prefect rounds tonight instead, I'll polish Filches shoes with a toothbrush!" she begged, her eyes wide and skin pale, "Anything."
"Anything miss Gilmore?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow, she was answered with rapid nods of her head. "Very well, I think you can do Prefect rounds every day for the next…shall we say week and you must meet me in my office at 6:30 today." She pressed her lips tight together as she looked down at Elizabeth who seemed crestfallen, "Do not disappoint me." With that she walked away leaving a broken Elizabeth.
"NOOOOO!" she groaned out loud bashing her head against the table. "I'm done for!"
"Hey stop! That's my thing!" Sirius complained, whilst shoving a piece of bacon in his mouth.
"Yeah but I have a brain." She commented, with a roll of her eyes, "If I get brain damage do you think I'll need to go to detention?"
She was rewarded with several nods and a groan escaped her. She was going to hell.
Come 6:30 Elizabeth Gilmore was standing in front of McGonagall's office, dreading the next few hours. Oh how she wished she could get out of detention and meeting McGonagall. She took a deep breath before knocking. What did McGonagall want? Why was she the only one here? Was she failing transfiguration? It had been driving her crazy throughout arithmancy and ancient runes, she got an equation wrong, she Elizabeth Gilmore, charms and Arithmancy prodigy got an equation wrong. She hadn't done that in such a long time.
Suffice to say she'd had an awful day.
She heard a muffled "come in" through the door and made her way through, to see McGonagall sitting there looking through a file, a file that said Elizabeth Gilmore. She made her way towards the chair on the opposite side of McGonagall's desk.
"I was rather shocked and may I say, disappointed, when Professor Bradley informed me of your detention, it was surprising that one of my best students was given a detention by, dare I say it, the most lenient teacher in the school." She nodded whilst pulling out a sheet in her file, Elizabeth felt shame coil in her stomach and her palms begin to clam up.
"He then told me why you got your detention and I felt so proud of you; To have such a person in my graduating class, someone who'd stand up to someone they respected and told them that their actions were wrong. It was admirable."
Elizabeth blushed under her piercing stare. McGonagall was one of those teachers that could make you feel like the lowliest scum in the world one second, and then two seconds later you'd feel ontop of the world.
"You would be a very talented teacher."
She commented off handedly, causing Elizabeth's eyebrows to raise so high that they were disappearing underneath her hairline, teaching…she'd never thought about it, it seemed a job she'd never imagine herself being able to do. Her lips parted in surprise at her head of houses suggestion.
"Teaching?" she questioned,
"Yes teaching, arithmancy or charms of course. You have a way about you Miss Gilmore, you're charismatic and you don't realise it, you're intelligent but not unwise, you're likeable and humble, encouraging but not unrealistic, You have the traits of a wonderful teacher yet you don't realise it."
She gave Elizabeth a rare smile and she found that her cheeks were burning up like a wild inferno, she felt…complimented, honoured. She felt like she sounded star struck but Professor McGonagall gave her a smile. HER A SMILE!
"th..thank…you." she stuttered, looking up at McGonagall shyly.
"But discussing your capabilities as a teacher was not why I bought you here. No, I'll be calling over all your classmates in my free time to discuss their career choices and what they choose to do after school. Applications for careers generally begin around March; before NEWT exams."
Elizabeth exhaled, she wasn't sure, her whole life she'd wanted to be a healer, someone active in helping others, when she was a child she dressed up as a doctor and walked around the house listening to peoples heartbeats with her mother's old stethoscope, but now…even with the war, she wasn't sure.
"You said two years ago that you wanted to be a healer, and you got the grades for it, you even managed an Acceptable in Herbology."
"I'm sure that was for the theory section." She added in, deciding to not take Professor McGonagall's surprise as an insult.
"Do you still wish to pursue healing or have you changed your mind." She added in noticing the grimace on her students face.
"I don't know. For so long I wanted to be a healer, to help people, and in times like this well…" she let the sentence hang for a few seconds before continuing, "I want to be able to pursue something that I can use both charms and arithmancy in, something I'll be genuinely good at, something unique to me." She hesitated before continuing, "As selfish as it sounds. I mean we're in a time of war, any decent person would put others first and do something to help others but…I don't know. I don't want to make a choice based on the fact we're in war times."
"Not selfish, its you debating between your heart and your mind, your mind is saying healer, your heart is saying something that you can't identify. I've always found that following your heart is the better option, but its your choice."
"I don't know what to do? There are so many choices yet so little, I'm muggleborn and we're in a war. I'm already at a disadvantage." She slumped back, it was something that plagued her, there would always be someone with higher blood status, someone older, someone with more money. In the magical world, it was rarely about skill, no, it was your class and it drove her insane.
"Anything is possible if you have enough nerve to follow through with it. As for arithmancy and charms related careers have you considered Curse Breaking?"
"Yes. Its useless, I have no chance at any of those careers."
"And why not?" McGonagall lost her kinder tone in her voice and went back into stern teacher mood, just when she was starting to feel comfortable, honestly. She grimaced at the thought of admitting to McGonagall the reason to why she didn't want a curse breaking career.
"I'm not enough of a risktaker or near brave enough to be a curse breaker." McGonagall pressed her lips together so much she wondered if she had any lips, honestly, how does she do that? Okay so questioning her daring and bravery infront of her head of house wasn't such a good idea… understatement of the year.
"I considered the experimental charms division, but I'm not sure."
"That's a wise choice, creating spells and experimenting them…I think it should be good for you. Professor Flitwick started off there and well, look where he got." she commented before looking at the time, "Theres 5 minutes until your detention, Miss Gilmore. I bid you farewell and good luck." Elizabeth inwardly gasped, 5 MINUTES! 5 MINUTES! To get to Bradleys office… she was going to be late…and she was going to die, she was going to die and embarrassment. On her tombstone it would read, death by detention, and she'd be the laughing stock of Hogwarts for generations to come.
Her chest heaved as she panted her way through Professor Bradleys door.
"Miss Gilmore, you're late."
"I know." She replied stoically, standing straight as she anticipated her end. This was it for her, she didn't even get a chance to
"I'm sure you've heard tales of my detentions, however I have other plans for you." Not to sound pervy or anything, Elizabeth added silently in her mind, that sounded vaguely pedophillic and creepy.
"Next week during defence you will get your full punishment, today however, we're going to duel."
"Duel?" she questioned, her detention was duelling. Who in their right mind, made students duel in detention. Was he going to duel her to the death? She bet that he was going to duel her to the death for how she acted before.
"Be grateful I'm not taking you around the castle and making you deal with all the boggarts. I heard about your pitfull attempt at duelling before the holidays and I think that if you want any hope of surviving this war, you need to duel properly." She bristled, she knew she wasn't the best at duelling but calling her pitfull was abit of an exaggeration. Merlin she was going to show him just how capable she was at duelling.
"Wands at the ready, STUPEFY!" and then she saw black, wonderful.
"You're worse than I thought." He commented whilst helping her up,
"You didn't give me a chance to prepare!" she complained whilst rubbing her temples, that hurt, like bloody killed.
"Yes because Death Eaters are going to sit around and twiddle their thumbs whilst you prepare to duel them." He said sarcastically, alright so he had a point, but I'm still not pitiful then an idea struck me, she had to be careful. She held her wand underneath her sleeve whilst muttering "stupefy." Professor Bradley put up a silent shield.
"Smart, but not smart enough. Flipendo!"
"Protego, expelliarmus!"
Professor Bradley dodged her accurately aimed spell before throwing back a turrent of spells, ranging from tarantellegra to stinging jinxes, she was forced to dodge, shield and conjure to protect herself, she then decided, she wasn't going to be pitfull, no she was going to shock him. She begun silently casting, not defensive spells, but charms. She threw the best she could, advanced magic that she'd studied for years, charms that she wasn't meant to know, nobody her age generally did.
But he was too good, his reflexes to fast, and shields to strong and her energy was slowly depleting, she couldn't keep going like this. And then a thought appeared, distraction, distraction was a key in duelling. She knew what he had to do, she needed a memory. She remembered her parents, how they always told her they were proud of her, when she got to have her first stethoscope, how they encouraged her to learn magic and do well.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she yelled, out of her wand an occamy appeared, and attacked Professor Bradley, who knew occamies were so vicious? Then in his split moment of not concentrating she threw an expelliarmus towards him causing his wand to fly threw the air and into her awaiting hand.
"HA BEAT THAT!" she cheered and did a small jig before she saw a flash of red light in the corner of her eye and once again was consumed by the darkness…
When she was introduced into the world of the living she was introduced to the sight of Bradleys smug face looming over her. With a groan she turned onto her stomach.
"That cant have been pitiful."
"It was surprisingly good, but your moves were too predictable."
"They were not."
"Yes they were, you used charms, you're brilliant at charms, I was expecting it, and then using a defensive charm like Patronus to distract me, and then your worst mistake, you let your guard down, I could've avadaed you and you wouldn't know."
She bristled at his critism.
"I believe in using my talents to my advantage." Her eye twitched, since when did he get so critical and irritating.
"I suggest using transfiguration at some points to throw one off your scent."
She nodded, "Is that all?" and when he turned around and walked over to his desk she took that as her que to leave. Whilst walking out she heard him yell after her.
"DON'T FORGET TO WEAR SOMETHING YOU CAN MOVE IN NEXT LESSON!"
Oh she'll remember, he only yelled it loud enough to crush her eardrums and make them bleed enough blood to satisfy a vampire.
Come Tuesday after lunch Elizabeth was standing in the hallway with the rest of the 7th year Defence students, however all attention was on her. She was in sneakers, long leggings, and a running tank with a hoodie over her to keep her from getting cold, she was the odd one out, and she had no clue why.
Just standing there out of uniform was enough punishment, if McGonagall caught her she'd get a detention.
Professor Bradley came striding down the hall and instead of opening the door and letting everyone in he just stood there.
"Miss Gilmore, well done on wearing what I requested." Whispers broke out, not only because of the reasoning behind her attire, but because Professor Bradley called her Miss Gilmore, from day one he called all his students by their first name unless they got on his bad side. "You can all leave your stuff in the class, we're spending the class outside."
Crap…crap, crappity, crap.
She did not want to know what was going to happen to her. Not only was she going to suffer big time but the whole of seventh year defence was going to hate her guts and sneak up on her in the night and kill her. OKay maybe she was exaggerating but it would be something on that level.
The class was shivering in the cold January weather as Professor Bradley explained his reasoning.
"Now, last Friday after our lesson one of my students decided to disrespect me and question my intentions, I gave said student a detention and at last minute decided, I'm not going to give this student a Bradley style detention, I'll give my class a taste of my detentions and use her as an example. I teach what I teach to help you, I show you what I show you so you can be prepared. So Miss Gilmore, are you prepared to work to the best of your ability today?"
She just shrugged, of course she was, he was only planning on humiliating her infront of her entire defence class.
"Run two laps around the lake." He ordered and her jaw dropped, he had to be joking. she couldn't run 100 meters let alone two laps of that massive lake!
"Pardon?"
"I said run two laps around the lake." He was serious, holy crap. She heard gasps of shock around the class and murmurs of how unfair that is. And that's when things turned sour.
"Sir that is ridiculous!" Lily exclaimed, it really was but lily, please keep your gob shut for once in your life. She didn't need her best friend coming to her rescue, she could defend herself just fine, hence why she had detention.
"Are you questioning my punishment Miss Evans." She was in for it, and then she nodded, there were some days where she felt like strangling the living daylights out of her best friend and today she wanted nothing more than to do exactly that. Professor Bradley then proceeded to point his wand at Lily's clothing and transfigure it into an outfit almost exactly like her own. "Then I guess you wouldn't mind joining your friend will you."
And then to everyone's surprise Lily gritted her teeth, stuck her middle finger up at him then started running her route. And then Elizabeth joined her.
"Lils are you CRAZY!"
"Sometimes I think so."
"Think! THINK! OH I KNOW SO!" she yelled whilst running side by side with lily, "You just willingly put yourself in the position to get humiliated infront of everyone."
"Yeah and its better than you doing it all by yourself aint it?" she questioned, "Liz you're my best friend, I wasn't going to let you go ahead with this by yourself, you'd die."
"You're the one who had asthma as a child Lily." She decided to remind her best friend,
"Stop bringing up my asthma, Merlin I was such a failure child, I couldn't even breath properly without nearly dying." Lily scoffed rolling her eyes.
"Exactly, you could die, you could collapse here, right now and I'd have no way of helping you!"
"Hocus Pocus, Elizabeth, we're witches or did you forget that little tibit?"
"Oh my…just, shut up and run, I want to get this over with."
Turns out us trying to finish our run in the quickest time possible wasn't the best idea in the world, no because we just had more time to do more work, pushups, situps, burpees, squats you name it. Both Elizabeth and Lily felt degraded against, inferior and quite likely felt disgusted at how they had no choice but to submit. The girls had never felt so joyful for a class period to be over, they were sore, disgusted with themselves, humiliated and covered in sweat.
"I hope that you all learnt something this lesson. Expect that once the weather warms up I bring you ALL out here for something similar to this." The class scampered off except for james and Sirius whom stayed behind to held them up. Professor Bradley approached the group and waved his wand over the two girls, transfiguring their clothing to their uniform and cleaning them of all sweat. "Here's some pepper up, you've been exercising in the freezing cold, you'll probably need it."
"Sir."
"Yes Sirius?"
"What was the point in humiliating them infront of the class."
"There are times where you should let your opinion be known, and times where you should keep your opinions to yourself. Quite frankly more than that, I wanted to give the class a lesson in humiliation, Miss Gilmore gave me the ample opportunity to do so."
"Why a lesson in humiliation of all things?" James questioned, confused.
"If one is unfortunate enough to be captured by death eaters what do you think happens to them. They most certainly do not invite them to have a cup of tea and interrogate them with veritaserum. Why should they, they have power over someone. The power of fear. Fear can make people do terrible things, no matter how degrading, illegal or wrong. I wanted to show the power of humiliation and what happens to the one being humiliated. Both Ms Gilmore and Ms Evans are passionate, strong girls and look at them, they were bending and submitting to my very will."
"You could've at least asked." Elizabeth commented irritated. She had just been humiliated and embarrassed in front of many people and he used it as a lesson. She was annoyed, more than annoyed actually.
Extremely annoyed.
Elizabeth Gilmore was irritated, her muscles were aching, every step she took used so much effort, she was meant to get her period in two days and she had a horrible night's sleep despite being more exhausted than she could ever remember being.
It had taken all her effort not to snap at anyone that morning, and for her to not fall asleep over her cocopops cereal.
And then it happened, her horrible week became even more horrible, disastrous more like it with the arrival of the post.
She was roused from her near asleep state by the pecking of an owl on her hand. People around her were staring at her as if she had three heads. "What?" she questioned causing a few to turn back to her lunch. It was then she realised it was a ministry owl, what on earth was a ministry owl doing with a letter addressed to her of all people.
Why would the ministry send her a letter, she was nothing but a lowly mudblood anyway. They spat on the dirt she walked on.
She grabbed the letter and it seemed time slowed down, noise around the hall disappeared and all she could hear was a thumping of her heart. After the first paragraph she dropped the letter in shock, her hands shook and her head spun, and she ran.
She ran blindly out of the great hall.
She couldn't do this.
It wasn't real.
I am feeling dread in my stomach just thinking of the next chapter :((( Its angsty and sad but theres some shippy moments in between so that's a happy thing...I guess. Down below is a sneak peek for chapter 12!
Nothing he said would make her feel better.
So he just held her.
I don't know how I feel about the above chapter, as I've mentioned a hundred times I wrote this years ago and the editing is driving me crazy aha! But some very exciting things are coming up!
Don't forget to leave a review, follow and favorite!
Before anybody mentions the fact that it seems like Liz was having breakfast after class, she wasn't...She was having cereal for lunch. Does anybody do that? I do that, I hate cereal in the morning. Leave an answer in your review!
Thechosenbibliophile xo