The Potion Princess

The DA's Punishment

Word spread through the castle quickly, in rushed whispers and exaggerated stories of their skill and bravado.  Soon, everyone knew of Harry Potter's secret group that was being carried on right under Umbridge's nose, and how they almost got away with it had someone not turned them in.  How they were rounded up by the Inquisitorial Squad and used their new DADA training to send half of them to the hospital wing before spending the rest of the night being held hostage by the remaining Slytherins.  How Audra Stanton, niece of Bellatrix Lestrange, was caught shuttling the DA to safety and paid the price for it that very night, dearly.  And of course, how Dumbledore managed to get away when he was surrounded by three aurors and the minister of magic himself.

It was quite a story, and Audra was enjoying the newfound leniency that the teachers seemed to be showing her.  Umbridge, on the other hand, hated that the DA members were being held up as heroes, which might be why she had decided to give them an extra long detention as their punishment.  The first of many, Audra assumes.

Audra had been waiting for them all night.  She had intended to catch up on most of her homework, but then she started thinking of them all instead, writing lines with that stupid quill for the first time and being stared down by Umbridge, and found she couldn't even focus on her regular potions course.   So she went down to the greenhouses and helped Professor Sprout strain murtlap leaves until they had enough to the stuff to last the students for the rest of the month, and headed back down to where the stairways intersect with three great jars of the stuff, one for each of the houses to take back to the dorms.   It had been hours of her pacing back and forth, straining her ears to listen for any possible sign of danger.

She could hear them before she caught sight of them- the slow shuffling of feet, the muttered curses, the whimpers of pain and muffled crying.  It was a sorry bunch that approached her, the younger ones sniffling and blinking back tears, the oldest cradling their arms to their chests and grimacing in pain, and some of them just staring around with a shellshocked expression on their face, like they couldn't understand how they got here.  She spotted Hermione somewhere in the middle with Ron's arm around her, his head bent close like he was comforting her.  Hermione probably felt almost as responsible for this as Harry did, seeing as it had been all her idea to start with.

Not really, Audra thought, catching sight of Ginny holding onto the hand of a Hufflepuff third year.  I'm the one who put it in her head.  I'm the one who couldn't save them.

Fred and George found her first, followed by Clary.  Clary had never been good at hiding her pain, and tear tracks stained her cheeks.  She didn't even try to brush them away. 

"Well, that was bloody awful."  Fred said, and he seemed to exhausted and too angry to even make a joke about it.  He just leaned against the banister instead and tried to hide the pain on his face, already looking towards George.  She could see the questions fleeting from one twin to the other (are you alright, of course not, how bad does it hurt, mine's still bleeding, don't let Audra know how bad it stings) and she has to turn away from it. 

"I'm sorry."  She moves up a step so they're the same height and leans in to kiss them, not caring that Lee and George will make fun or that Clary will get that look on her face like she thinks it's bad form to kiss in public.  "The stinging goes away soon."

"Oh, so it's alright that we got our hand shredded because it won't hurt soon?  I know you just got tortured by a psychopath, but don't worry guys, because after a whole night of literally cutting into your own skin, the pain goes away."  Zachariah Smith's voice was loud among all the whispers, carried up to the high ceiling and magnified against all the stone.  It sounded angry and bitter and not at all like the collected prefect Audra had begun to expect.  In fact, he sounded slightly hysterical.  "What are you doing here, anyways?"