circles; h.potter

48- Detentions

"McGonagall thinks I need to keep my head down, she thinks I'm just attracting trouble," Harry sighed, annoyance evident in his voice.

"You didn't do anything wrong, you just wanted to tell the truth, and so did I," Liana frowned as she leant against Harry, giving him sympathetic eyes. They continued to walk in silence as they reached the office. It occurred to Liana as she reached the door and raised her hand to knock that the last time she had been in this office was when she had been tossed into the dark depths of the metal trunk like a rag doll.

It sent a shiver down her spine as she knocked firmly.

"Come in," a simpering voice called out. Liana turned to shoot Harry an unreadable look as she pushed open the door, Harry let his arm slip from around Liana. He already had a bad feeling about Umbridge, he didn't want the wretched teacher getting any ideas by using Liana against him.

Liana felt her eyes widen in revolt as she stepped into the office. Instead of Lupin's warm cavern filled with a magical menagerie and the smell of Honeydukes chocolate or Moody's industrial space packed with foe glasses, dangerous looking trunks and flasks of funny smelling liquid, the room had been painted a magenta pink and filled with ceramic paintings of cats.

It made Liana's eyes hurt just to look at it.

"Good evening Mr Potter and Miss Holly," Umbridge spoke up from her desk. Liana glared sulkily at the Professor.

"Sit," instructed Umbridge, gesturing to a table with two chairs. Liana huffed under her breath with annoyance and slumped in her chair, dropping her bag onto the floor. She looked up at Harry as he walked past her and sat opposite.

His fists were clenched and Liana could tell it was taking a lot of patience for Harry to tolerate Umbridge. As Harry sat down he ran a hand over his scar with an irritated and confused expression on his face and it made Liana frown to herself.

"You're going to be doing some line for me today- no not with your quill Mr Potter, you both shall be using rather special ones of mine," Professor Umbridge smiled sweetly as she picked up two quills from her desk. One long scarlet one, which she handed to Harry and a dark black one which she laid in front of Liana who was refusing to look up from the ground.

"You haven't given us any ink," Liana pointed out rudely as she finally scowled up at Umbridge who was now standing with her back to them, sipping her tea quietly.

"Oh you won't need any ink," Umbridge told her, ignoring Liana's tone.

"What do you want us to write?" Harry asked stiffly, holding his hand over the stack of parchment.

"Mr Potter, you will write 'I must not tell lies'. Miss Holly, you will write 'I will not spread rumours and threaten teachers'."

Liana rolled her eyes instinctively as she turned the quill around in her fingers. It was a curious looking quill, it didn't look to be a feather from any bird she would recognise. The black feather was flecked with deep, dark might night blue and the point was oddly sharp and Liana was sure it would make holes in the parchment without any ink.

"How many times?" Harry asked sullenly.

"As long as it takes for the message to- sink in," Umbridge told them without turning round from the window where she was looking out upon the grounds, taking yet another drawn out sip of tea. Liana clenched the quill tightly in her fist and began to scratch out her lines as she visualised what a wonderful feeling it would be to push Umbridge's head forwards so it slammed into her cup of tea.

Liana began to write and to her surprise, instead of the quill just scratching holes in the parchment, a thick red ink had appeared on her paper, looping into Liana's lines. From somewhere beside her she heard Harry gasp in pain and looked up with questioning eyes.