Fragile Delay

Chapter 2 - Chapter Two

Low murmurs permeated throughout the classroom, before in a sickeningly sweet tone, Umbridge yelled for silence. The class went quiet immediately, resulting in a forced giggle from the professor. Although they had forgone speaking, the students looked at each other from across the room.

Suddenly, a hand shot up into the air. The person who raised their hand was someone Devara was fairly close with as another member of her house. They weren't best friends or anything, but she could hold a conversation with the girl. Umbridge had turned her head to face the student who was willing to talk to the disturbing professor directly.

The woman had her hands spread out in a seemingly placating gesture, contrasting to the slowly building yet tightly leashed anger of the girl. Her raised hand had slowly curled into a fist as she brought it back down to the desk.

"Yes, Miss..?" Umbridge had started, intending for the girl to finish the invitation to speak, her hands returning behind her back, a false smile proudly decorating her toad-like features.

"Susan Bones," The girl said with a surprising air of calm. "Why, exactly, are we not practicing Defence? Your course aims mention nothing about actually practicing magic. Rather, simply learning the theories behind them, despite the fact that danger is out there?"

Her words had been a fresh wave of common sense, breaking some of the quieter students' silence. Murmuring started popping up around the class, whilst Aurora, Dakeira, and Devara had all shared a wary look.

The off-putting giggle which erupted from Umbridge, suddenly and quite loudly, had caused chills to run down the spines of some of the kids, and raised the goosebumps of others.

"Why, pray tell, would you children ever need to use actual spells? You lot are perfectly safe in these walls, and knowing that type of magic could very well place you all in danger. Danger that simply wouldn't exist without. I'm not sure what other danger you could be referring to, Miss Bones." Umbridge said with ease.

The girl named Bones had raised her hand in the air again, this time unable to keep some of the tears out of her eyes. She had waited until being called upon again to express her grievances.

"With all due respect, Professor," She took a pause to release a shuddering breath, as well as to intake a calming one, her face of steel determination. "My family was murdered. By He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And now my senior housemate as well? There is much to fear out there, and I cannot stand by and let my classmates fall victim to these horrors because you refuse to teach them what they need to know to survive."

Her confession resulted in pandemonium breaking out within the class. Some students exclaim out loud in surprise, and fear at the reminder. Others, simply occupying an expression of pure shock and disbelief at her outburst. Some seemed skeptical, and many of the Slytherins seemed completely dispassionate towards her speech.

Aurora had gasped and covered her mouth with a hand, her expression of utter shock. Dakeira, though less audible in his reactions, was given away by his facial expressions. Devara clenched her fist, already well aware of the tragic fate that had befell the Bones family. The fact she'd gotten to know Susan at all during her time here at Hogwarts was a miracle considering how close she'd come to dying before Voldemort had been defeated by Harry Potter.

Umbridge had seemed at a loss of words for a couple moments, whilst the class's volume had risen to great heights. She gave a quiet 'hem', as she cleared her throat hoping to recall the students' attention.

Upon realising that her method had not worked, she raised her voice with a shrill, "Silence!" The chaos within the class had dissipated immediately. A forced, tight, smile now appeared on her face. "Wonderful."

She smiles insincerely. "Truly unfortunate, what happened to your family. But their deaths and what happened to Cedric Diggory last year have no connection. It was simply a rather unfortunate accident, and his death serves as no sort of threat to any of you," she said. Devara clenched her fists at the woman's clear dismissal of the circumstances of Cedric's death. It was no accident, of that she was sure. "Now, dear students, another outburst like that, and you all shall serve time in detention with me. We wouldn't want that, now would we?"

Another bout of silence among the students permeates the room, and her false enthusiasm grows. "Lovely," she says, returning to the centre of the class and standing before the blackboard.

Susan had sat down in her chair harshly, small droplets of tears managing to escape her eyes. She gripped the table with enough force to colour her knuckles a stark white. Many of her housemates had sent her sympathetic glances, Devara included. She had every intention of approaching the girl later to check on her, but she'd wait until they were far away from this class and this woman.

"Now," Umbridge started, her form rigid as ever, pointing a finger to the letters plainly written out on the board. "Open your textbooks. I will not repeat myself. Disciplinary action will be taken the next time we have a ridiculous disruption such as the one we had just witnessed."