Andre caught up to Imani just as she was heading off for her first class. "Don't," she snapped, the moment she spotted him.
"Imani-" Andre began, walking beside her. "Please, just listen for a second." Letting out an irritated huff, she stopped, faced him and raised one of her eyebrows at him. "Look, I could maybe get behind stealing the potion, but burning down the Ministry of Magic? That's too far. I understand your anger. I understand your frustration, trust me, but how are we making anything better by being exactly what they think we are?"
"It would sure make me feel better," she muttered bitterly.
"For how long?" Andre countered. "Until they have an even stronger case for killing us? Until they declare war? Until all our people are slaughtered? Nothing good will come from this, Imani."
"We have to do something," she protested.
"And we will," Andre said quickly. "But we have four months until the conference which means we have four months to plan."
"Fine," she snapped.
⥖✦✧⦽✧✦⥗
Imani ignored Dioleh throughout all of their lessons that day, choosing instead to sit with Andre or anyone else she managed to snatch a seat by. By the time dinner had rolled around, Dioleh was so annoyed she didn't even bother to try sitting by Imani and instead went and joined Ron, Hermione, and Harry at the Gryffindor table. "What's that got to do with our homework?" Hermione asked as Dioleh sat down.
"You look as miserable as I feel," Harry remarked. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she said bitterly. "I just need to get away from everyone else."
"Oh?" Hermione said, glancing curiously back to see Imani sitting with a rather miserable-looking Andre.
Five til, Harry and Imani both got up to head towards Umbridge's office. They walked side-by-side, too miserable to talk. Upon reaching the door, Harry knocked. "Come in," a sugary voice said from inside. The moment the door opened, Imani winced. Everything was pink and not the soft pastel pink of her hair or the rosie tint in her dark lips, but the kind of fake, insufferable pink that clashes with everything. "Good evening, Mr Potter, Ms Kanumba."
"Evening," Harry said stiffly. Imani didn't bother to speak.
"Well, sit down," Umbridge said. Imani lowered slowly, her chin raised proudly.
Harry sat down next to her as he said, "Er, Professor Umbridge? Er, before we start, I-I wanted to ask you a...a favour." Imani narrowed her eyes at him.
"Oh yes?" Umbridge said. This caused the young siren's skin to crawl.
"Well, I'm on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. And I was supposed to be at the tryouts for the new keeper at five o'clock on Friday and I was - was wondering whether I could skip detention that night and do it - do it another night...instead..." Imani let out a short laugh before coughing to cover it up.
"Oh no," Umbridge said, taking no notice of Imani's small outburst. "Oh no, no, no. This is your punishment for spreading evil, nasty, attention-seeking stories, Mr Potter, and punishments certainly cannot be adjusted to suit the guilty one's convenience." As soon as she had finished, there was a knock on the door. "Come in," she said. The door opened and on the threshold was Draco and Dioleh.
Glancing curiously at the rather moody and irritated Imani and Harry, Draco said uncertainly, "You said you wanted to meet with the two of us?"
"Yes," she said. "Don't mind them. Just detention." Imani avoided Dioleh's gaze like the plague.
"Uh, well, is now a bad time?" Dioleh asked.
"No, of course not," Umbridge replied. "I'll just get them started and we can begin." Turning back to the two sitting, she said, "Now, you're both going to be doing some lines for me today." As they both went to grab their quills, she said, "No, not with your quills. You're going to be using a rather special one of mine." She drew from her desk two long, thin black quills with sharp points. "Mr Potter, I want you to write I must not tell lies. Ms Kanumba, I must be prepared."
"How many times?" Harry asked tensely, although Dioleh could tell he was doing his best to remain polite.
"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in," she said. "Off you go."
"You haven't given us any ink," Harry remarked.
"Oh you won't need ink," she explained. Dioleh glanced over at Draco, but he was staring rather tensely at the quill in Harry's hand, which was closer to them, the gears in his head turning quickly.
Just before Harry started to write, he said, "Wait, Professor-" She looked up. Harry stopped, glancing back at Draco with furrowed brows. "Why have you given them that quill."
"As a student, it is not your place to question," she said, for the first time a slight edge appearing in her voice. Although he was still confused, Harry began to write. The moment the first sentence was written, he gasped in pain. Dioleh felt all the colour drain from her cheeks as she watched the back of Harry's hand split open with the same words. Her mouth open, she looked at Imani who had written several sentences already. Blood was pouring from her hand. Instantly, both sentences healed over, merely leaving the skin raw and tender underneath.
Dioleh felt sick as she saw Harry look up with shock at Umbridge. "Yes?" she said, her eyes seeming to beg for Harry to protest, give her some kind of reaction.
"Nothing," Harry said. His voice was quiet as if he hadn't quite processed what was happening.
"Professor," Dioleh said. Her voice was only just audible. She was staring, transfixed at the cut continually forming and healing on Harry's hand. Umbridge looked up. Dioleh had paled so drastically she seemed almost green. Draco grabbed onto her hand discreetly squeezing it in an attempt to comfort her.
"Yes?" she said. Umbridge was daring Dioleh to contradict her, to fight her.
"I-" she began before Harry shook his head, just subtle enough for Umbridge to not see it. "N-nothing."
"What was it you wanted?" Draco asked, running his thumb over the back of Dioleh's hand to calm her.
"Ah, yes," she said. "As Slytherin's Prefects, I would like for the two of you to oversee detentions for your house. It will be split between the two of you and the sixth and seventh-year prefects."
"Detentions doing what?" Draco asked. Dioleh didn't trust her voice enough to speak.
"Well, that is why I asked to see you now, so you could know the form of punishment I see most suitable." Seeing the look of unease on both of their faces, she took on an even more sickly-sweet expression as she said, "That won't be a problem now, will it?"