For the next few weeks, many changes were made to Hogwarts. Cora had thought finally having friends would make this place better but that was simply not the case. Umbridge had completely ruined the good nature of the school and Dumbledore was nowhere to be found. It felt as though the man simply... didn't care.
Umbridge frequently sat in on classes, making silly little notes and if Cora was anything like Hermione, she would have stayed quiet and kept her head down. However she was a lot more like the boys which got her a few more detentions before finally a letter home.
She knew that wasn't a good thing but she was having too much fun to care. This was where she belonged, no matter what looks she got from fellow Gryffindors.
After a particularly painful detention, Cora decided not to attend dinner. The markings were horrible and always finding new places to pop up, making every movement all the more painful. The side of her ribcage was now in lots of pain and she wasn't sure how to go about dressing it. She couldn't tell Madam Pomfrey, and she couldn't steal supplies so what was Cora to do?
Her friends came bounding into the common room as Cora sat cross legged on the couch, reading one of the books she had borrowed from Hermione. The boys jogged upstairs to change and Hermione plopped next to her friend with Ginny on the other side.
"This came for you." Hermione handed Cora a letter and it took the Malfoy everything in her not to wince from reaching to grab it.
Marking her page and closing the book, Cora ripped open the letter with her mum's handwriting on it.
My Dearest Cora,
So much trouble aren't you, love? Can't make it a whole semester without a letter to your father and I? You're lucky I intercepted it and he's too busy to attend to family affairs. Please be good Cora. We can't send you anywhere else, mostly because you and I both know you wouldn't go. Draco says you've made some special friends and that's wonderful so stay out of trouble please. I don't want to receive another letter or you will here from me soon again, next time with a howler.
Be good my love.
Mum.
Cora sighed and folded it back up as sweat began to form on her forehead. She gently wiped it clean and attempted to slide the letter back into the envelope as her hands began to shake. Her stomach churned slightly and she swallowed hard.
"Are you alright, Cora?" Hermione asked her. "You didn't come to supper."
"Wasn't hungry." Cora said shortly.
The boys jogged back downstairs and Cora could barely hide the sick feeling anymore.
"Cora." Hermione said, touching the girls arm.
"I'm alright, just need sleep." Cora got up but the world spun around her suddenly. She blinked a few times and wobbled. Everyone held out their arms for her but shook her head. "Really I'm alright."
"Cora you've had a lot of detentions lately..." Hermione said, standing.
"I'm fine, really they're not that bad." Cora chuckled nervously.
Hermione felt the girls forehead and Cora pushed her hand away as she gasped.
"You're burning up!"
"I'm fine!"
"Show us." She demanded.
"What?"
"Show us the wound." Hermione replied harshly.
Cora peered around her, searching for an exit plan but there wasn't one. The boys were surrounding her and Hermione and Ginny seemed ready for the girl to run. She was trapped.
Keeping her eyes down, Cora lifted her shirt a little, grimacing as the cloth unstuck from her open wound. All four of her friends gasped and a wave of nausea and dizziness hit Cora like a stun spell.
"Cora you have to see Madam Pomfrey."
"You could be right about that." Cora muttered.
Cora's legs gave out and the boys carefully lowered her to the floor as the world turned into a haze. Everything went black then would come back into focus and then black again. Cora couldn't stay awake and when she tried, she just felt sick. So she let the darkness take her over.
&
Cora awoke to a whole lot of brightness in her eyes. She groaned and pulled the blankets over her head, turning onto her side. The same side that no longer hurt. Cora sat up quickly and checked where the writing had been and it was nothing but a simple scar now. She ran her finger over it and looked around. Every other bed was empty and she was alone; except for the large candy basket at the foot of her bed. Every chocolate frog box was open, along with her favourite beans gone from the box. Wonderful friends.
A note with pretty handwriting sat beside it and she read it quickly, happy that Madam Pomfrey was letting her go. She changed back into her robes quickly and grabbed a box of flavoured beans - or what was left of one - and started heading back to the common room. She was happily munching away when a large crowd of students was walking by her. She caught Draco's eye and quickly pulled him aside as everyone kept walking.
"What's going on?" She asked.
"Should ask you the same thing." He seethed. His eyes were different and it took Cora a bit by surprise.
"I'm fine." She said, retreating a bit.
"Yeah because we have a good nurse at this school. Honestly, why do you have to be such a trouble maker."
"Draco-"
"Just quit being a disappointment would you." With that, Draco rejoined his friends, leaving his twin baffled and hurt in the corridor.
Snapping out of it, Cora walked aimlessly behind the crowd, searching slowly for her own friends. She really needed to know what was going on to make her forget about that conversation; if you could call it that.
Picking out Hermione's curls, Cora pushed people softly as they surrounded the walkway of the courtyard. Hermione, Ron and Harry were all up front and when she got there, Cora felt her heart drop.
"Six... sixteen years I've lived and taught here... Hogwarts is my home." Professor Trelawney cried.
Umbridge stood in front of the poor battered woman, unshaken and mighty. Cora instantly grasped what was happening and although Trelawney wasn't her favourite teacher, Cora never thought she deserved this.
"You can't do this." The professor whimpered.
"Actually I can." Umbridge held up a folded piece of paper and Cora watched in disbelief with half the students from the school.
Professor McGonagall came running, cradling the sobbing teacher in her arm.
"Something you would like to say dear?" Umbridge asked, squeaky and unnerving.
"Oh there are several things I would like to say!" McGonagall replied.
The main doors boomed softly as they swung open and everyone craned their necks as Dumbleore sauntered into the courtyard as if he hadn't been gone almost all semester. A few students whispered but they were silenced when the Headmaster began to speak.
"Professor McGonagall, might I ask you to escort Sybill back inside." He said.
Professor Telawney's tears turned grateful and McGonagall helped her inside, stopping to thank Dumbledore quickly. Dumbledore turned back to Umbridge, the woman slowly losing her nerve.
"Dumbledore," She started. "May I remind you, that under the Terms of Education Decree Number 23, as enacted by the minister-"
"You have the right to dismiss my teachers," Dumbledore interrupted rudely. "You do not, however, have the authority to banish them from the grounds. That power remains with the headmaster."
Umbridge hesitated slightly before speaking. "For now."
Dumbledore seemed to take that in stride, and with the situation dealt with, he turned to leave.
"Don't you all have studying to do!" He exclaimed, sending all the students in his path to get a move on.
Harry called to him, running after the professor as he left the school once again. Cora looked at her friends and folded the flavoured beans box back up.
They all had the same look, and they all knew what this meant. Things were really beginning to change and Cora knew for sure, she really had to smarten up.
After the rest of the classes, everyone in Gryffindor's house seemed to disappear. Nobody knew how to take what happened in the courtyard and although Trelawney was safe, it still seemed like nothing about these stone walls really did seem safe anymore.
It had begun raining as the sun set and it hadn't lightened up when it was dark out but the thunder and lightning had set in. With everything going on, it was quite therapeutic to Cora. She sat at one of the windows, gazing out into the miserable world, tilting her head as lightning flashed.
"That foul, evil, old gargoyle." Hermione grumbled suddenly. Cora looked over at her friend as she had begun pacing. "We're not learning how to defend ourselves. We're not learning how to pass our O.W.L's. She's taken over the entire school."
The minister's voice on the radio suddenly captured everyone's attention and Harry turned it up but Cora went right back to staring out the window.
"Furhurmore, we have convincing evidence, that these disappearances are the work of notorious masked murderer, Sirius Black!"
Cora scoffed.
"What?" Ron asked.
Cora turned to her friends and she was taken aback by the curious sets of eyes on her.
"Sorry just..." She shrugged. "Sirius isn't a murderer."
"He's not." Harry agreed.
"Right. Everyone thinks it was him because he's an animagus and can turn into a scary black wolf. That doesn't make him a murderer. They don't suspect anyone else because not everyone makes it known they're an animagus. It was obviously a set up."
"Hermione." Harry said, still looking at Cora.
"I never told her anything." Hermione said quickly.
"What?" Cora looked at everyone as their faces changed. They weren't angry like she thought they would be but somehow... pleased.
"Peter Pettigrew set him up." Hermione replied.
"Sirius is innocent, you're right. We discovered it in our third year." Ron explained.
"And he's my godfather." Harry spoke up.
Cora smiled a little. "Family that's on the run. How exciting."
Harry smiled and Cora jumped as somebody whispered his name harshly.
"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed, running to the fire. Cora sat up but didn't move from her seat as the other two got closer. "What are you doing here?"
"Answering your letter, of course." The fire responded. "You said you were worried about Umbridge. What's she doing? Training you to kill half-breeds?"
"Sirius, she's not letting us use magic at all." Harry told him.
"Well I'm not surprised. The latest intelligence is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat."
"Combat? What does he think, that we're forming some kind of Wizard army?" Ron asked.
"That's exactly what he thinks." Sirius said. "That Dumbledore is assembling his own forces to take on the Ministry. He's becoming more paranoid by the minute.
"The others, wouldn't want me telling you this Harry... but things aren't going at all well with the order. Fudge is blocking the truth at every turn and these... disappearances are just how it started before. Voldemort is on the move."
Cora's heart sank and she finally got up from her seat, crossing her arms in front of her chest. This all makes sense with her mother's letter. Her father was always rumoured to be a Deatheater and with the Quidditch Cup the year before and how busy he seems to be now... it's more than just the ministry keeping him away.
"Well what can we do?" Harry asked.
Something ticked in the fire and Sirius was quick to speak. "Someone's coming. I'm sorry I can't be of more help. But for now at least... it looks like you're on your own."
He disappeared into the flames and Cora thought hard about the conversation.
"Order... The Order as in... the Order of the Phoenix?" She asked.
Harry got up and shoved his hands into his pants pockets, his eyes lingering on the fire before turning to Cora. "You heard of it?"
"Mum used to tell us stories of the first war. The way she told them... I didn't think they were real but she told me about all the members. All the ones who were killed..."
"Yeah..." Harry walked over slowly. "A lot of people died."
"The Order isn't as big as it used to be." Ron said solemnly.
"If Voldemort is on the move... the Order isn't acting... we're all just sitting ducks then aren't we?" Cora assessed.
"Pretty much." Ron sighed.
"He really is out there isn't he?" Hermione asked quietly. It was her turn to stare out into the storm.
"Unfortunately." Harry replied.
"We've got to be able to defend ourselves. And if Umbridge refuses to teach us how, we need someone who will." Hermione said. She turned around and looked at Harry and the tension grew in the room.
Harry didn't respond. He simply nodded and kept his eyes off any one of us. Nobody spoke for a few minutes. The four friends stood and thought about how they would go about doing it and what the consequences would be if they were found out. Soon enough, it took much for one night and Hermione and Ron decided to go to bed. Harry wasn't tired and after everything that day, neither was Cora.
Harry collapsed on the couch first and Cora leaned against it, watching the stressed out Boy Who Lived.
"I don't know how to teach anything." He sighed.
"Sit up." She tapped his head and sat down, letting him rest in her lap.
"I could steer them wrong. I couldn't blow someone up, I'm no expert." Harry grumbled.
"No you are not." Cora said, getting comfortable.
"Hermione should be the one to teach."
"Yes she should."
"That way, nobody dies because of me."
"Would be awfully tragic."
"That's not helping."
"The way I see it is, Hermione is very technical and she's great. But she's never had to use defensive spells. Rumours made their way to Beauxbatons and it was in the papers and so many people would speak about it but you're the only one who was there. You had to fight to stay alive and that's something no other student has had to do yet." Cora explained.
Harry sat up and looked at her. "You believe me?"
Cora hesitated, looking for the right words. "Harry... I'm quite bright. Seeing the truth is something I've always been quite good at. It takes a lot to fool me. You battling Voldemort makes loads of sense... as to where my father was that night."
"Your father?"
"I know why you couldn't trust me at first. Just because I'm your bully's sister doesn't mean I'm the same and just because I'm a Malfoy doesn't make me evil. But there is a strong possibility of my family's involvement with Voldemort. And you're right about that. I've known since my second year."
Harry looked away, resting his forearms on his knees, clasping his hands together. Cora sat up, next to him and continued.
"Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived not just once... but twice. You may not think so but you know what you're doing. Just speak from your heart or whatever." She said.
"You really know the right thing to say don't you?" Harry looked at the Malfoy girl and she shrugged.
"What can I say, I breath wisdom."
The two laughed and then sat back.
"Promise me you're not evil." Harry said.
"Cross my heart and hope to die." Cora held up her pinky and Harry smiled. He hooked his pinky in hers and their hands dropped between them."Now please, enlighten me with the gorier details of past years."
With the promise locked, Harry spilled the beans about all the dark stuff that happened while Cora wasn't a part of their lives. She needed to know everything if she was truly going to be a part of this. Cora wanted to make sure she got no surprises.