Wot In The Harri Potter?

35 - The Heartbreaker

Draco swallows, his throat bobbing as he drives a hand through his hair.

The sound of hurrying footsteps approach at the far end of the corridor, unmistakably Umbridge's. Draco looks panicked, as though he genuinely doesn't know what to do.

"Get out of here," he mutters, "now!"

But I refuse, instead standing defiantly in front of him with my arms now crossed over my chest. It's not that I relish getting caught, I'm just intrigued to see what Draco will do.

"It's her!" Umbridge calls jubilantly as she comes bustling round the far corner, breathless but wearing a delighted smile. "Excellent, Draco, excellent, oh, very good - fifty points to Slytherin! I'll take her from here."

She reaches out and seizes my arm so violently that my glasses fall off my face.

Draco immediately bends down to pick them off the floor. "It wasn't her, Professor," he says at once, handing me back my glasses. "She's my friend, she wouldn't betray me like that."

Umbridge looks at him with interest. "Yet she betrays you everytime she opens her mouth and spouts those wicked lies about your father."

I snort, I can't help myself. "Going to put me back in detention are you? Make me bleed all you like, but you can never stop me from telling the truth: Voldemort is back."

"LIES!" Umbridge screams, really looking like a demented old toad. "Now come with me and I'll do better than detention. Harri Potter, this time you're looking at expulsion."

Again.

She drags me down the corridor, ignoring Draco who shouts after her that she's got the wrong student.

Once again Dumbledore saves me from being expelled, by turning all the blame on himself and then doing some showy-off magic.

"Damn, that dude's got style." Kingsley says impressively after Dumbledore vanishes in a flash of fire.

******

The next morning, Fred hurries over to me the moment I enter the Great Hall for breakfast.

"What the hell happened to you?" He asks, looking green. "There are rumours that Umbridge caught you. She didn't hurt you, did she?" His gaze quickly drops down to my left hand.

"I'm fine," I reassure him at once. "But Dumbledore's done a runner. Umbridge is now headteacher."

Anger flickers over Fred's face. "Oh, for fuck's sake. I've had enough of this. I take it DA is now off the cards?"

I shrug. "It's too risky Fred, now Umbridge knows about the Room."

And then ours meet in mutual horror, having realised something else.

"So no Quidditch, no Dumbledore, no DA, and now no you."

"You've still got me, Fred. We'll just have to find somewhere else to meet."

I really, really do not like the look on his face. He looks thoroughly fed up.

I spend the rest of the day feeling uneasy, barely concentrating in classes. Everything that was good about the school has gone, and now I feel I'm losing Fred because of it.

And sure enough, just a few days later, Fred asks for a private word. I nod, following him as he ushers me through a door on the first floor.

"This can't go on," he says, closing the door to the empty classroom behind him.

I can't help but notice it's the very same classroom he brought me to the day after the Yule Ball - the one where he sat me on a desk and kissed me until he almost came in his trousers