When Bellatrix has a Daughter

10. Punishment

“No Elvis! You can’t think of doing more magic!” Hermione sounded shocked. “I can,” I retorted, “Accio trunk!” my trunk flew out of my room and into my hands. “Now let’s go, one minute is left still.” We all stomped out quietly from the common room.

On reaching the office, Professor McGonagall looked up from her desk, “You’re late.”

“On the contrary,” I disagreed, “we are two seconds early.” Well, you can’t blame me for being thorough.

I supposed I should not have said that…

We were given 15 minutes scolding which was extremely nasty. “Why were you fighting?” Professor repeated. “Uh… it’s not their fault, Professor,” I said meekly, “So please don’t let them suffer with me.” “I will decide that unfortunately, Miss Lestrange,” she said smartly. “I made fun of Neville,” I confessed, “I told him that he was so stupid, he could not have passed his Owls.”

Professor glared at me, “That was extremely indecent of you Lestrange. And everyone started fighting automatically? This is so childish!”

“Ginny… well, Ginny warned me not to tell such things,” I continued, “so I turned up on her instead. I, uh, tried to Petrify her.” “Any reason why you had such anger inside you?” she asked quivering with anger. She was looking so hard at me; I thought she might be using Occlumency. I didn’t reply. Professor took a deep breath, “But I could see that Miss Weasley was not Petrified. She’d just fainted.”

“Well, uh, before I could complete the curse, Harry disarmed me,” I said, looking at my feet. Now Professor gave an ice-cold glare to Harry. “Well, that was a good thing wasn’t it?! If I hadn’t done that, Ginny would have been Petrified!” Harry shouted. He and his temper.

“LOWER YOUR VOICE POTTER!” Professor banged her fist on the table, shouting as loud as Harry. I flinched; I never thought Professor could be so angry. Then in a forcibly controlled voice, “Then what happened?” “We started… fighting,” I said then looked up to meet Professor’s eyes. My knees were shaking but I hoped my face was confident, “You can’t blame them. It’s all my fault.” True, I would get expelled and maybe I would be killed….

I couldn’t afford to think of that now, I thought as bile rose to my throat.

“And where does Longbottom and Granger come into the picture?”

“Um, well Hermione was warning us not to fight. She tried to confuse me by using the Confundo curse, but I silenced her and was,” I swallowed and said bravely, “about to talk foully to her, when uh, Neville disarmed me.” Professor was listening emotionlessly. Then in a stone hard voice, “How come Weasley was Stupified?”

I gulped. This was it. I would get expelled, so why lie now? “Well, I’d thrown Harry making him hit the wall, by using the Alarte Ascendare curse and I’d just hit Ginny with a disarming Curse so hard that she’d fainted and I knew Ron was about to use a spell on me,” I said earnestly, “so I acted on instinct. I Stupified Ron without thinking, until… until I realized what I had done.”

Professor had turned her back on me, “Tomorrow, you all will go home in the Hogwarts Express, including the two Weasleys. Be ready and say good bye. Now you can leave for Dumbledore’s office. I suppose Dumbledore will give the same sentence to you like me; there is simply no reason to keep you in school any longer-”

Hermione gave a hysterical sniff. I looked around at them, Hermione had tears streaming down her face and looking down shame faced, Neville looked as if he was constipated and Harry had his fists clenched though his eyes were glazed, with anger or the judgments’ unfairness.