Ethereal ✭Fred Weasley✭

58.

Umbridge cleared out the Great Hall one evening and sat in Dumbledore's glorious chair, sipping her tea as Dumbledore's Army wrote lines with her retched Blood Quills. Sounds of suffocating grunts of pain were heard every now and again as the words engraved into their hands. Small droplets of blood littered the desk as the students used their own liquid to write, flickering their hateful gazes up to the woman who sat there as satisfied as a cat would be from its recent catch.

Some of the students had scabbing over scars on their hands already from past run-ins with Professor Umbridge, making it twice as painful. Sophia, being one of these people, sat there with a permanent cringe on her face as she wrote with the black quill. Her other hand was clenched in a tight fist as the past words 'I must not speak out to my superiors' were written over diagonally by new ones, causing the healing scabs to bleed once more. The nerves in her hand twitched in agony and she had to clench her teeth together in order to not make a sound. She couldn't imagine how Harry must feel right now as he had several scars on his hands from the week of detentions he received from Umbridge compared to her one night of lines. Along with this, he must be blaming himself for getting all the DA into trouble. He had been their teacher after all. It didn't help that Dumbledore was also gone, leaving Hogwarts in complete control of the Ministry.

Fred grimaced at the carving sensation in his skin, biting his lip hard enough to keep him from saying anything. Him and George had simultaneously looked up to send Umbridge the deadliest of glares but were left unsatisfied as she just sat there with a smile on her toad face. Fred went to look back at his parchment when he heard the quietest of sniffles come from next to him, making him turn his head to where Sophia sat. His heart broke at the sight of her teary eyes and clenched fist that was leaking with blood. He noticed her shaking hand as she forced herself to keep writing, wanting nothing more than to apparate her out of the hall and into the confines of the common room where he knew she would be safe. But he knew he couldn't apparate inside Hogwarts nor would he ever be able to escape Umbridge's repercussions.

Taking one hasty glance at the woman sitting at the front, he let his bleeding hand slip off the desk and hang by his side. He ignored the blood that started to drip onto the tiled floor and stared hopefully at Sophia's side profile, intending for her to sense his gaze and see his hanging hand. When she did, she looked at him puzzled until he motioned his eyes down to his hand that hung limply in need of holding. She let her own arm fall and thanked the heavens that she was part of the minority that wrote with her left hand and Fred with his right hand. The two reached out their bleeding hands and linked pinkies, cracking a smile at each other full of reassurance.

"Hem hem," the most hated voice in history sounded. Fred and Sophia tore their eyes away from each other and looked up to see Professor Umbridge standing there, her wand in her hands and eyes twinkling evilly down at their locked pinkies. "Eight inches Mr Weasley and Miss Lupin."

A spark appeared between their hands and it made the two flinch away from each other, an extra set of pain now occurring in their hands. The sitting students had looked over their shoulders to see what was happening, but quickly went back to their parchments when the Professor began making her way back to Dumbledore's chair.

And as she walked away in all her stubby glory, Fred knew that they had to leave. Hogwarts wasn't home anymore.

---

As if the torturous detention wasn't enough, the O.W.L and N.E.W.T exams were approaching fast. Sophia couldn't believe she could spend as much time in the library as Hermione did. She sat a table surrounded by books and parchments that she needed, feeling frazzled and overly stressed out. She wasn't alone though. Many other students looked the same whether it was in the library, the Great Hall, the courtyard, the corridors or in their common rooms. You would think a natural disaster had ripped through the school at the amount of students that sat on the floors or benches looking disheartened and exhausted.