The three friends showed up for detention around five o'clock.
Esme was terrified. This would be her first detention with Umbridge, and Esme hated pain.
But she had George so she was sure it was going to be alright.
All day, Fred had been grilling Esme and George about their kiss in the Great Hall and if they were officially together.
They hadn't told him or anybody about that kiss in the dressing room and they weren't going to tell Fred either.
Though they did tell him that they'd go on a date this weekend. They wanted to try and see if they'd work together as a couple of if they were better off friends.
They didn't want to just jump into it. If they did and they didn't work out, their friendship would be at risk, so rather ease into it so they could back out again if it wasn't working.
"I think I'm gonna throw up." Esme muttered as she stared at the door to Umbridge's office.
George reached down and took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze while Fred knocked on the door.
A voice came from the other side and Fred looked back at us before opening the door, leading the way in.
Umbridge sat behind her desk.
"Close the door." She instructed, and George did.
Then Umbridge stood up and looked at the three of us.
"You two—" she pointed between Fred and George. "...will not be writing lines."
All three looked confused and Fred and George exchanged a look over Esme's head.
"But you... Miss Night..." Umbridge walked around her desk until she stood in front of Esme. "...you will."
Esme cleared her throat.
"I'm sorry but I don't under—"
"You'll write lines while your friends watch." She said. "I observed the friendship you've got going on when they both happened to defend you in the Great Hall. It seems as my regular punishments doesn't do the work for them, so maybe this will."
Esme stared blankly at her.
This woman was crazy. She was going to torture her and she was going to make her best friends watch it.
"You have no right doing this." Esme said and Umbridge just smiled sweetly at her, a smile that Esme wanted to rip off her face. "Give me one good reason as to why I should write lines and they shouldn't? Give me one good reason as to why I have to sit here for an entire week when they don't."
"As I've told you, Miss Night. I don't need a reason."
Esme laughed through gritted teeth.
"Bullshit!"
"Do you want to make it two weeks?"
"Ess—" George tried quietly but Esme didn't listen.
"This is because of my dad, isn't it?" Esme asked. "You went to school with him and you chased after him and then he chose my mum instead of you. You worked with him—"
"He worked for me."
"And you harassed him at work!" Esme raised raised my voice. "Then he quit! You're angry at him so you've decided to have it out for his daughter, am I right?!"
"Essie, back off." Fred whispered. Neither he or George wanted to see her get into anymore trouble, but after what she just said, it wasn't looking good.
Umbridge exhaled, then walked around her desk again and sat down in her chair.
"That's three more weeks, Miss Night." She said and gestured towards the chair opposite of the desk. "Sit."
"No." Esme stood up straight, refusing to let this woman torture her with some kind of branding.
Umbridge looked at her, awfully calm.
"No?"
"No. Fuck you and fuck whatever you've got going on with this school." Esme turned around and marched out of the office, hurrying down the stairs.
She was breathing heavily, tears stinging her eyes and when she got outside, she let them fall.
She let her bag drop on the ground and then she ran. She ran towards the bridge, over it and off Hogwarts grounds.
She collapsed into the cold grass close to the bridge, a loud cry leaving her mouth.
Things were terrible at school. All of these new rules, Umbridge torturing students and no one being able to do a goddamn thing about it.
She felt helpless and stuck and she missed her mother more than ever.
It had been twenty months since the death of Yasmine Night and when Esme finally felt like she got better with the loss of her mother, something just made her break.
It was especially in times like these. When things were hard, she longed for her mother's arms around her, but she didn't have that.
Esme stayed on the ground for a long time, crying until George found her. She was completely breaking and he hated it.
Esme ended up getting suspended until after the holidays. David Night was contacted and told to come pick up his daughter who was waiting with her luggage in Umbridge's office.
As David walked through the door, his eyes landed on his daughter first, and then Umbridge.
"What is this? You're suspending my daughter?"
"Your daughter has been corrupting this school for the past week with her whoring ways and foul mouth."
Esme rolled her eyes.
"How dare you call my daughter a whore!" David raised his voice slightly as he put a hand in his daughter's shoulder. "Let's go, Esme."
Esme got up, grabbed her trunk and followed her father out of the office and through the castle, neither of them saying anything.
She felt ashamed that she had gotten suspended. The word had reached every student in the castle and there was now a rumour about Esme being a whore. They're saying she's slept with every guy from her own year and six year, at least twice.
A few have even gotten out and told them how she is in bed, even though she's never even talked to those guys.
This morning, Pansy Parkinson stood forward with a statement. "She even tried to get me into bed with her."
So now Esme was also a raging lesbian according to the people around school. Immature boys would yell the D-slur after her throughout the day so while she was ashamed because of the rumours, she was also very happy to be going home and away from school.
"I'm really sorry, dad." Esme's voice was quiet as her and David walked across the bridge to leave Hogwarts grounds.
David looked at her and paused to speak his next words.
"Don't apologise for nothing, sweetheart. Dolores is and always have been a miserable old hag."
David wrapped his arm around his sixteen-year-old daughter and apparated them both out of there.
When the world settled around them again, they were in front of their house home in Holyhead, Wales.
David walked up the small path to their house, opening the small gate in front of him and it shut behind him but then he realised that Esme wasn't following him.
"Is Ethan home?" She asked, and her father nodded.
When they got inside, Esme put her trunk down, undid her coat and put it on the wall.
She pushed off her shoes and while her father walked into the kitchen, Esme's eyes landed on the picture of her mum on the side table.
Like she always did, she put it down and then made her way upstairs and to Ethan's room.
She knocked, heard him call from the other side and when she opened the door, he offered her a smile, telling her that he knew about the suspension.
Ethan stood by the window and had been in the middle of taking down some old posters from his wall.
"What's up troublemaker?" He asked in a joking tone, loving that his sister who was such a prude sometimes, had been suspended.
When she didn't answer, he looked at her and he barely got to, before she hurried over and wrapped her arms around him.
She had almost knocked him over but he regained balance and hugged her back.
Esme let out a sigh.
"I've missed you."