"Miss Hill?"
I jerked my head up from my palm. My quill twitched and scrawled before me of its own accord at my desk, the Dictation Spell recording Professor Umbridge's every word while I drifted in and out of focus. I glanced down at my name scrawled at the bottom of the page, my quill floating above it. Professor Umbridge stood over me at my seat in the far back corner of the room, a shadowy space partially obstructed by the support beams running from floor to ceiling throughout the classroom.
"Yes, Professor?"
"I do not condone dictation spells in my classroom, which you'd be well aware of if you bothered to attend my class on a regular basis." Her manufactured sweetness dripped like acid from her tongue, her beady eyes glowering down at me.
"I'm sorry, Professor. I've been ill and—"
"Quite a lengthy sickness, wouldn't you say? We are well into the school year at this point, Miss Hill." The class sat in rapt attention at my scolding, shocked that Professor Umbridge singled out a Slytherin. She twirled her wand, flicking it toward the other students. "And now you've disrupted the learning of the other students. This will not do, Miss Hill. We will discuss this further in detention tomorrow evening." Jaw clenched, I snatched my quill from midair, breaking the dictation spell.
"But Professor—"
"You've taken up more than your share of class time, Miss Hill," she said, turning back toward the front of the classroom.
"Yes, but—"
Draco stood from his seat across the room. "It's my fault, Professor." Professor Umbridge halted mid-step, eyeing her Inquisitorial Squad leader with curiosity and surprise. I did the same, shocked. Draco and I shared no more than a casual greeting or two since the events of the Fairest show a week ago. Awkward, maybe even slightly embarrassed at the public display, his typical cool superiority had been replaced with a rigid concern. "I requested Hill's assistance with patrol late last night. She'd been inquiring about the Inquisitorial Squad. I thought I'd give her a trial run."
"Is that so?" Professor Umbridge's sickly sweetness pierced Draco, then redirected toward me. "Quite an interesting choice of recruit, Mr. Malfoy." I shrunk back down into my seat, biting my tongue at the clear jab at my character. Behind her back, Draco held up a hand toward me, imploring me to keep calm. I let my protests die deep down in the pit of my stomach under Professor Umbridge's judgmental gaze. Finally, she turned away toward the front of the room. In passing, she muttered to Draco, "We will discuss this after class." He nodded, sitting back in his seat.
Throughout the rest of class, I fell victim to disgusted glances from several Gryffindors. The false impression that I longed for an Inquisitorial Squad position left a knot in my stomach. What it insinuated about me. The thought of others hearing about it; others like Aimee.
By the end of class, I was livid. Draco refused to acknowledge me, keeping his focus on the board ahead. I was first out the door at the end of class and waited across the hall, formulating the verbal tongue lashing I planned to reign down upon him. But after ten minutes, Draco still hadn't emerged from the classroom. The hallway cleared out and my books sagged a little in my arms from holding them for so long. I poked my head cautiously into the small window of the door. Draco's back faced me, hunched over the desk. Professor Umbridge stood over him, watching. It looked as if Draco had been given lines to write, though nothing had been written on the chalkboard. Aware of Charms starting, and Draco looking no closer to being dismissed, I abandoned my verbal assault for the time being and raced to my next class.
************************
With all the conversations melting together into an indiscernible buzz of sound in the Great Hall that evening, I convinced myself that any thoughts of those conversations being about what happened in Umbridge's class were to be chalked up to paranoia. I had just snuck a joint at the end of classes, after all. I sat relaxed, settling into a salad and a bowl of chicken soup. Three bites in, Natalia and Celine slid into the seats across from me.
"We heard about the scene in Defense Against the Dark Arts today," Celine said, thirsty for more details.
I deflated, setting my spoon down. "How?" I asked. I hadn't seen either of them the rest of the day.
"Some Gryffindors were talking about it in Divination."
"Why do the two of you even bother with that shit? Everyone knows Divination is a fucking joke." The two of them looked toward one another, clearly reading my outburst for what it was: a transparent attempt at changing the subject.
A blob of black and green made its way into my peripheral vision as students continued to filter into the Great Hall. Pansy entered with her gaggling group of girlfriends, electing to sit toward the end closest to the double doors. A girl I knew to be named Manda, though we hadn't spoken much due to her nasal tone and overt unpleasantness, eyed me and laughed, saying something to the group. My paranoia mounted again, my food forgotten at the sight of the group. Pansy grew visibly less amused as Manda spoke. I tensed, looking down at my half-eaten salad and full bowl of soup. Echoes of past taunts and insults filled my ears. Pansy wore that same expression back then; all those girls did.
Celine spoke, but my anxiety blocked the words from registering. I stood, my spoon flipping out of my bowl and onto the table. Without a word, I made a calm exit. Pansy gave me a nod of acknowledgment as I passed, but her eyes burned holes into my back the rest of the way to the double doors.
I took the shortcut through the courtyard to the Slytherin Common Room, coming out to an unexpected chill. Cold air tinged my cheeks red. I pulled the sleeves of my robes over my fingertips, hiding them and tucking them beneath my chin. I picked up my pace to a run, the air stinging my throat and lungs but damn if it didn't feel good. So good, in fact, that I didn't stop running until the Dungeon Corridor, where I skidded to a stop at the top of the staircase. Taking the stairs two at a time, I nearly tripped when an unexpected figure appeared at the bottom. I came to a halt in front of Draco, freshly changed out of his school robes. My first instinct overtook me, and I flung my hand forward and slapped him hard across the cheek.
"What the fuck?!" Draco hollered, grabbing the side of his face and revealing a white cloth bandage wrapped up all the way around his right hand. He stumbled backward out from the staircase into the opening in front of the Slytherin Common Room entrance. I followed him, submerged into the flickering torch light of the dungeon below, our shadows dancing against the stone walls.
"What happened to your hand?" I asked, voice still edgy but temporarily distracted from my rage.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You fucking hit me for doing you a favor!" he growled, ignoring your question.
"I didn't ask you to do me a favor!" My voice raised several decibels. "Do you even know what you've done?"
"Enlighten me," he said. His sarcastic tone nearly earned him another slap.
"You called attention to us."
"Us?" he asked. "What about us?"
"Whatever Pansy and those lemmings make up in their deluded minds, that's what!" Draco rolled his eyes, sending another wave of anger through me so powerful it churned my stomach. I shoved his shoulders, pushing him into the wall. He grabbed my forearms, holding them out in front of me to prevent another hit to the face. "Draco, you know how Pansy feels about you. Girls don't need much of a reason to make each other's lives fucking miserable. I can't—" My voice cracked, my arms trembling in his grip. He let go and they fell to my sides, heavy weights threatening to drag me down. "I can't go through that. Not again." The two of us stood across from each other. The torches illuminated his pitying eyes and my heart hardened. Before he felt compelled to hug or comfort me, I took a deep breath and drew myself up to my full height. "I don't need you to try to help me, Malfoy. Now you've got people thinking I want to be in that bloody Inquisitorial Squad! All over one fucking detention."
"You don't want detention with Umbridge, Imogene," he said.
"Detention is detention, Draco. I think I can handle it." Draco fell silent, shoving his hands in his pockets. I shoved past him toward the entrance of the Slytherin Common Room. "Please just stop. Whatever this is," I said, gesturing between the two of us, "needs to stop."
Another beat of silence. Draco came away from the wall, taking slow steps toward the staircase. "Trust me, Hill." He took the rail of the staircase in his good hand. "Whatever you think 'this,' is? It isn't." With that, he disappeared up the stairs, leaving me alone in the shadows.
