She entered the classroom and looked around for her father, spotting him in his usual place by his desk grading papers. She walked up to it and stopped at the far side. Without looking up at her he drawled in his usual tone.
"You're late." Hearing those words just put her over the edge. She felt her face fall and the exhaustion from her previous detention and the pain in her hand made her emotions begin to catch up to her.
"Don't let it happen again." he continued. When she didn't answer, he looked up from the papers he was grading and saw her glassy eyes. He abruptly stood up and walked around the desk.
"What happened?" he asked quietly, putting his hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. At his sudden compassion, the tears began to silently fall. She just shook her head, not wanting to tell him. She was ashamed for crying in front of him in the first place, having him see what it said on her hand would be worse.
He waited a minuet, as if to see if she would say anything before looking her up and down to scan for injuries. His eyes zoned in on her sleeve that was pulled down over her hand and he went to grab it, to see what she was hiding. She tried to pull her hand away, but he had a firm hold of her wrist and had already pulled up her sleeve.
It looked worse than it did earlier. The sleeve must have brushed again it too much, because it looked much more irritated than before. Her father stared at it for a while before exclaiming in anger.
"Who did this?!" The tears were falling more freely now. Her fathers rage not helping at all.
"I think you know who." she said through her tears. He became still as if thinking. She knew he knew it was Umbridge, he just didn't know what to do about it.
"Come here." he said, walking over to his desk and grabbing his wand. She sat down in the chair he gestured to and he pointed his wand at her hand and muttered a few healing charms. The blood began to disappear and it hurt a lot less, but it still looked red and inflamed. He went to his small supply closet and took out a jar of essence of dittany and dropped some on her hand. Immediately the pain subsided greatly.
"That's all I can do for now. Let me get you a bandage." he said and went to rummage around in the supply cupboard until he came back with a roll of white bandage. He knelt down in front of her and carefully wrapped it around her hand. Once he was done he looked up at her tear streaked face and pulled her into quick hug.
"I'm sorry, Aurora, for letting that witch get to you. I should have warned you about what she is capable of." His voice was entirely different from when she had first entered his classroom. She didn't say anything in return, not quite sure what to say, but she hugged him tighter and let her tense shoulders relax.
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Her father had let her off detention, so she had made her way to the Hufflepuff common room to relax as per instruction from her father, but a thought struck her. Hermione was probably still in the library. Since her hand was much better and she felt up for it, and made her way towards the library.
Once she walked in she spotted the Gryffindor girl straight away, but what made her frown was the fact that Draco Malfoy was standing by her table, looking quite pleased with himself, something that never boded well for others.
She rushed over and noticed Hermione was trying to appear strong, but was cracking at the edges at what Malfoy was saying.
"-mudbloods like you should just cease to exist. It would certainly make the world a slightly better place." She caught the end of Malfoys sentence and felt a fury ignite withing her, injured hand and exhaustion be damned, she stormed up behind them.
"How dare you say something like that, Malfoy! Do you have any idea how hurtful and completely untrue that is." She said as loud as she dared in the library as she stormed up to him. He towered over her, but she was so furious she didn't let it intimidate her as it had done before. Malfoy only sneered down at her, a glint of sadistic delight in his cold eyes.
"Well isn't this interesting. Come to be the knight in shining armor, Snape. Not often you get to be heroic in you utterly depressing life is it?" Malfoy smirked, looking her up and down before briefly glancing over at Hermione.
"It's so sweet of you to come rescue her. A mudblood and a bloodtraitor, how fitting." He said thoughtfully. Her face grew red at his words. She knew Malfoy was just teasing, that he didn't know anything, but she was scared to find out what he would do if he actually knew what she felt for Hermione. She stared him down and with nothing more to say he sauntered of, his robe flowing behind him. She sighed and sunk down into the chair across from Hermione, not daring to make eye contact at first.
"I'm sorry that he bothered you, are you okay?" Aurora asked, finally lifting her head from staring at the table. Hermione had an interesting look on her face, one she hadn't seen before.
"I'm fine, thank you, Rory." she said, patting Auroras uninjured hand that was lying on the table. "Knight in shining armor?" Hermione said, brow raised and a small smirk on her delicate face. Auroras face blazed red immediately and she looked away, not daring to make eye contact.
"I thank thee, my knight, for coming to my rescue. I shall forever be in thy debt." she did a fake bow and grinned at her. Aurora couldn't help but blush and laugh at the same time.
"It was my honor to save a lady as fair as thee." Aurora replied, giving her own miniature bow while still seated, a grin on her face.
"What's this?" Hermione asked suddenly, reaching for her bandaged hand, all signs of laughter gone. "And what happened with Snape's detention?"
Aurora hesitated before answering. She didn't want Hermione to see but she didn't want to lie either. "Uhm, well," She swallows harshly before continuing. "Umbridges detention was worse than anticipated," Hermione's eyes widened and looked even more intently at her hand. "- so dad let me off detention."
"What happened?" Hermione lent closer, placing a warm hand on her own.
"Er....She made we write with this quill that cut what I was writing into my hand." She gulped, looking down at their hands as Hermione pulled away and covered her mouth, gasping.
"She can't do that! That's against the law!" Hermione exclaimed. "Are you okay? Does it hurt?" She had gotten up and sat down on the other side of the table right next to Aurora and picked up her injured hand gently.
"I'm okay. Dad healed it as best he could. As for it being against the law, she's from the Ministry, I think they let her do what she wants."
Hermione sighed and lent her forehead against Auroras shoulder, wrapping her arms around Auroras neck. "Things are just getting worse and worse, aren't they?" Hermione sighed dejectedly.
They didn't know it then, but things were about to get so much worse then a mean Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.