When Elodie's psychic abilities begin to become unmanageable, afternoon tea shines some light on a possible way to help. However, after the DA is discovered Hogwarts becomes a different place all together.
Songs used to write this chapter:
Eyes on fire - Blue Foundation
Season of the Witch - Donovan
Breath of Life - Florence + The Machine
Leather and Lace - Stevie Nicks & Don Henley
Hey Lovies! A bit of a longer chapter today. It was originally 5K words, but I shortened it to just over 4K. You know I love interacting with you in the comments, so let me know all your thoughts, what you love, what you want to see next. I shy away from reacting to predictions cause even if it's wrong, I don't want to give any spoilers. But once you get to the end of this chapter, I can guarantee you'll know what's about to come next. - XXOO Val
~Elodie's POV~
"It's absolute rubbish! I can't believe they haven't found him and thrown him back in Azkaban to rot!" I heard a girl from Ravenclaw house say behind us.
The Daily Prophet was reporting that mass escape from Azkaban was plotted and executed by Sirius. I'd been working with Minerva, Dumbledore and Scrimgeour to see what we could do to clear his name, but with Fudge continually denying the truth, that didn't seem like it would be happening anytime soon.
I'd been frozen at the breakfast table as I listened to everyone's snide comments about Sirius. I had absolutely no tolerance for small mindedness. The worst was that, to an outsider, it looked believable. Bellatrix Lestrange was one of the escapee's, and she just so happened to be Sirius's cousin. So yeah, I saw how the odds were stacked against him. But if that's the game everyone was going to play, how would they feel knowing that their potions teacher was a known death eater not all that long ago.
I felt a tiny hand rub my back as Ginny pulled me out of my trance. She looked into my eyes and gave me an apologetic look before putting her arm around my waist and giving me a little squeeze. "Do you want to talk about it Neville?" I asked and reached my hand across the table, accidentally seeing in.
"Not yet," He said simply and folded the newspaper, tucking it away, holding onto his angry demeanor. The thoughts going through his head were the same as mine anytime the thought of Voldemort arose. Bellatrix had made him an orphan, and to a child, there's nothing worse a person could do.
My days felt as if they were passing in a repetitive blur since the party. Every night I'd sit either in the library or the common room studying for my exit exams. Oh, what I wouldn't give to have my Time Turner back just so I could have some time to catch up on my sleep. My hangover after Katie's party was enough to make me not want to drink again for a very long time. Madam Pomfrey said what made it worse was that I'd caught the stomach bug that goes around every year early. She'd given me a potion to flush my system, and quite honestly, I would have rather taken the hangover or the flu rather than to do that again. Between studying, DA sessions, and using Minerva's empty classroom from time to time to work on control I felt like I was dead on my feet most of the time.
After an incident where I'd accidentally looked into one of Alicia's memories of a night she'd spent with Oliva, I'd been doing my best to avoid physical contact with most people. I'd looked into possibilities of charming a pair of gloves so they could help me only see when I wanted to, but Umbridge confiscated a pair of gloves I'd tried to wear during her class saying that the weather was not appropriate and she wanted to make sure my nails were in dress code. She'd taken it upon herself to make colored nails against the dress code, which was especially annoying since one of my favorite pastimes had become painting Fred's nails and teaching him to do mine.
"Did you not find your birthday gift helpful?" Dumbledore asked when we were having tea with Minerva one rainy afternoon.
"Ahh, you mean the box of confusion?" I asked as I reached for a lemon drop and popped it into my mouth. "I meant to ask you what that was about," I said. Minerva gave me a sour look as I was talking with the hard candy in my mouth. I lifted the saucer my teacup had been resting on to my mouth and dropped the candy as I raised an eyebrow at her, to which she just rolled her eyes.
"Manners," She said and sat up a bit straighter. "Honestly."
"My apologies, it may not have appeared as much at first glance, but it was an object of my own creation that I designed with you in mind specifically," Dumbledore said as he stood and went into a drawer off to the side and grabbed something.
"What's this?" I asked as he handed me a rag with a band around it.
"This was the first prototype. The one in your possession is the final result," He said. I began unhanding it and revealed a similar leather corseted arm guard. "The idea began as a way to help, as even the best of us tire from wandless magic after so long. Then it became a way to center the magic in one's hands. This way you can have your wand tucked inside, allowing your hands to be the point of control. I do believe this will also help for you to only see in, when you wish."
"A literal trick up my sleeve," I said and let out a little breath. "Oh, Fred would have loved this punchline," I said with a chuckle. "And it'll work?" I asked.
"The magic is within you dear. Now you're just guiding it along," He answered.
And in fact it had been working. I started wearing the cuffs under all of my shirt. Choosing to wear longer sleeved shirts at all times to keep them concealed. I didn't mind, and now I didn't intrude in on peoples thoughts unless I meant to. Adding in my wand the way he'd suggested amplified everything I tried to do with a spell, but I found that so long as it was wordless magic it balanced itself out rather well.
Before the next DA meeting Harry and I had discussed what would be good for everyone to learn next. Before the holiday we'd covered a good amount of counter jinx's and defensive spells. All except one.
"They need to learn to cast a Patronus Charm," I told Harry.
"I agree. But it may take a while, so we should have two or three lessons for it," He said.
"That's fine. That and practice, this is a good lot. They should get it in no time," I told him. "Bedside's, they don't need to cast a corporeal Patronus right away, so long as they're able to cast it is a start."
Everyone gathered in, and we explained to them the uses of a Patronus Charm other than just defense. The importance was another point worth stressing. It was a good thing that they all knew it, it was too dangerous for them not to know it. Harry and I cast ours first showing them that a Corporeal Patronus would take a particular form, Harry's being a Stag, and mine being a Doe.
"Don't focus on its physical form, that'll come after. Just focus on a memory," I said aloud as I walked through the room.
"Yes, and make it a powerful memory, the happiest you can remember," Harry called from the other side of the room. "Keep trying Seamus."
"George, your turn now," I said as I walked in front of George.
"Expecto Patronum!" He called out. A blue light swirled and not long after a magpie took flight, matching Fred's.
"Beautiful," I said as I let my hand brush Fred's arm, earning me a wink. "A full-bodied Patronus is the most difficult to produce," I said to everyone.
The door...
"Yes, but shield forms can also be equally useful against a variety of opponents," Harry added. "Fantastic Ginny!" Harry called out. And the horse she produced right away was bloody beautiful. "Just remember, your Patronus can only protect you for as long as you stay focused."
The door...
"Ready Nigel?" I asked as I turned to him.
"Expecto Patronum!" He said. Slowly but surely, a blue misty light escaped his wand revealing a beautiful Old English Sheepdog that began running around the room.
The door!
"Alright Cat I heard you!" I said and looked around the room for Cat but couldn't spot him anywhere. "Cat?" I called out again. A shake took over the room that moved the chandelier. A silence fell over the room as everyone wondered where it had come from. "Cat?" I called once again as the lights flickered and the room shook again.
She's at the door!!!
Cat called to me with a loud meow as he ran and jumped into my arms, something he'd never done before. I looked at him as I saw what he'd seen as he ran into the room from the corridor. I put him back on the ground and watched him move quickly behind Fred and George. When had Cat become such a bloody coward? With another deep thud, the glass began cracking.
"Harry, Nigel," I whispered as I stepped directly behind them. With one final blow, the glass shattered and revealed a small hole had formed in the brick behind it. Nigel stepped forward to look through it and pushed him aside Harry and I could see Umbridge on the other side.
"I'll make short work of this," Umbridge said as she lifted her wand. "Bombarda Maxima."
"Go!" I shouted out.
In a split-second right before it happened Harry and I had tucked Nigel in front of us to shield him from any blast that could have reached him. Luckily, we moved out of the way in time that we only took a blast from the debris. Still Harry and I stood side by side, hiding Nigel behind us as we caught sight of Umbridge, Filch and the Inquisition squad.
Names were taken, and everyone was sent back to their houses as Umbridge and Filch escorted Harry and I to Dumbledore's office. Draco offered to walk me, but in all honesty, I would have rather taken the blast from the wall than to have been near him. Though when Percy appeared, it made me rethink my decision.
"I've been watching them for weeks! And see, 'Dumbledore's Army'. Proof of what I've been telling you right from the beginning, Cornelius," Umbridge said to Fudge. Percy Weasley had a firm grip on mine and Harry's arms as he pulled us up beside them. The more I struggled, the more his grip seemed to firm.
"Get your slimy hands off of me," I said and pulled out of his grasp as he kept his nose in the air.
"We saw your lies for what they were. A smokescreen for your bid to seize control of the ministry," Umbridge continued.
"Naturally," Dumbledore answered simply.
"What are you doing?" I asked, shocked by his response.
"No, Professor! He had nothing to do with this, it was us," Harry said.
Dumbledore directed his attention to us quickly. "Most noble of you Harry, to shield me. But as it's been pointed out, the parchment clearly say's 'Dumbledore's army', not 'Potter's'. It was I who instructed Elodie and Harry to form this organization. And I, and I alone, am responsible for its activities."
I looked at him in a way that had he looked over he'd know I was shouting 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!' at the top of my lungs. But he was careful with everything he did. Where his eyes wandered, the way he sat with his hands clasped in his hands. He'd figured out what we were doing, and he must have known it was only a matter of time until something like this happened.
"Dispatch an owl to the Daily Prophet. If we hurry, we should still make the morning edition," Fudge said.
I was partially dumbfounded by how willfully blind this man could actually be. He cared more about what the morning paper wrote about him than what was actually happening in his country. It was absolutely insulting.
"Dawlish, Shacklebolt, you will escort Dumbledore to Azkaban to await trial for conspiracy and sedition," Fudge said in an eerie tone of manner. Almost as if he'd been waiting to do this for years now.
"Ahh," Dumbledore quickly answered and moved behind his desk. "I thought we might hit this little snag. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that I'm going to- What was the phrase? Come quietly. Yes? Well i can tell you this, I have no intention of going to Azkaban."
"Enough of this," Umbridge whispered loudly and fiercely.
Dumbledore looked at Harry and me, shooting us a wink. He lifted a hand and pointed to his palms before Faux let out a piercing screech. With his hands clapping up, Dumbledore was gone in a fiery escape of a portkey. The blast, enough to send all of the ministry officials flying backwards.
"Well," Shacklebolt said as he stood up. "You may not like him, Minister, but you can't deny... Dumbledore's got style."
***
It didn't take long before word got out that Cho was the one who told Umbridge about DA meetings and where. It was further confirmed when everyone that was in the Room of Requirement that night had been given detention with Umbridge sans Cho Chang. Umbridge's special detention, which was now allowed on a grander scale since she was the new Headmistress of Hogwarts.
All the new school rules had gone so high up on the wall outside the great hall that when Filch posted a new one, his latter would nearly topple over with each hammer swing. Rules like an eight-inch distance between boys and girls. Students being submitted to random questioning. Immediate expulsion of anyone who is in noncompliance of any of her new rules. But worse of all, any and all examinations for students taking advanced courses would be done in a room where either someone from the inquisitorial squad or Umbridge herself present. The pink rodent was attempting to keep me here another year.
All of the paintings had been emptied and removed from the walls. The front doors of the castle were in lockdown. The sun barely had any opportunity to shine through to the once beautiful castle. And as if the ministry hadn't been monitoring the post enough already, now all letters were seen by Filch and Umbridge. It was an absolute nightmare. I knew Sirius wouldn't take the risk of writing to me, but now I wouldn't even hear from Remus, Mrs. Weasley or even Tonks.
Detention was a painful blur. We sat in rows all holding one of her 'Special Quills' scribbling ridiculous lines as they carved into our hands. Each day was worse and worse. I'd tried to heal as many people as I could after, but it seemed that the quicker we healed, the more lines she would require us to write. There was one night the pain had become so unbearable I dropped my quill on the floor.
"You seem to have dropped something dear. Perhaps you'd like to pick it up?" Umbridge said as she stood in front of me.
It took everything in me not to send her flying out of the giant window. To not Crucio her right then and there for everything she was doing to the people I cared about.
Not yet...
She can't know about us...
A bit longer...
So, I listened. I reached over, my hand shaking the entire time, and picked up my quill placing it down on the table. I placed my shaking hand palm side up to let the dripping blood smear on the page as I kept eye contact with her the entire time. After a moment I reminded myself, it would just be a bit longer. Then I picked up the quill and continued writing.
***
The remainder of March passed in almost an agonizing blur. The only highlight had been that I was offered the long-awaited position with the Department of Mysteries upon completion of my exams. Minerva promised we'd celebrate after graduation, and that she'd try her best to see if Mr. or Mrs. Weasley could inform Sirius and Remus. April brought on a different form of pain. With all the new rules in place Fred and George hadn't been able to go about their usual birthday tradition of pranking everyone in the castle. I'd wanted to go to Hogsmeade to pick them up a gift, but anyone who'd had detention was banned from going.
The detentions got worse and worse. More people were being subjected to them, for even the smallest infractions. It was ridiculous that she was subjecting first years to her torture for simply speaking too loud in the grat hall. I'd tried to intervene if it were ever possible. Once at dinner Nigel's laugh carried a bit louder than what was acceptable. When Umbridge came over to give him a detention, I told her it was me that was laughing, earning me my first detention of May, just as exams were about to begin.
Getting out of detention that night, I pressed the sleeve of my robes to my open flesh to try and stop the bleeding. I wanted to hurry back to my common room as quickly as possible, but the sound of a crying child down the corridor stopped me in my tracks.
"What's your name?" I heard an oh so familiar voice whisper.
"Nathaniel," The little boy answered in between sobs. I stepped around the corner and saw them sitting on a bench with a first year that had just left detention as well. I remembered him from the library. The same Nathaniel that had let me borrow his quill.
"Your hand is going to be fine, Nathaniel," George's voice said.
"Yeah, it's- It's not as bad as it seems," Fred told him, showing him his hand as I stepped closer. "See? It's fading already." It was moments like this where the Fred and George I knew, were visible to someone other than myself. They probably didn't know him, but yet they saw he needed cheering up. The kind of cheering up that laughter couldn't necessarily fix.
"You can hardly see ours anymore," George told him as I crouched down in front of Nathaniel. "And the pain stops after a little while."
I gave them a weak smile before reaching forward and brushing a bit of Nathaniel's hair out of his face. "May I?" I said, placing my hand out, asking to see his.
I'd tried not to make it a habit of healing anyone, but he'd shown me kindness when I needed it once. I covered his tiny hands with mine and focused on his open cuts, how they would close and look like tiny scratches. How they'd heal and leave soft pink blurred flesh. A tiny flicker of a warming light came out of my hands into his, and his tears stopped. I opened my hands so he could see that it wasn't as bad anymore.
"There, all better," I whispered to him.
"Hem, Hem," I heard behind us. I stood from the ground and went to stand next to Harry who'd walked down the corridor as well. "As I've told you once before Ms. Potter, Naughty children deserve to be punished," She said with a devious smile on her face. "I'll see you once again tomorrow night. Oh, and I do hope you're prepared for your first exam tomorrow morning. I quite look forward to it."
"You know George, I've always felt our futures lay outside the world of academic achievement," Fred said behind us.
"Fred, I've been thinking exactly the same thing," George said to him.
I could hear the smiles reverberating off of their faces. And I knew what it meant. Fred had told me before that they didn't see the point in returning to Hogwarts for their final year. I thought they would have stuck it out anyway, but if they were to be subjected to this, I understood why it was better for them to leave.
"Come on Nathaniel," I said and moved to place my hands around his shoulder. "Let's have Madam Pomfrey take another look. I'll see you lot, a bit later," I said and gave them a smile as we walked away. I wanted to make sure that the healing charm would stick, and that he wouldn't feel any lingering pain. The headache I had coming on wouldn't hurt to have looked at as well. Part of me thought it may have been someone trying to get into my mind, the way Snape had shown me with Legilimency. Though this didn't have the burning sensation.
"Oh no. Not feeling ill again, are you dear?" Madam Pomfrey said as I walked through the door. I'd been all too familiar with the hospital wing lately. She even joked that I reminded her of my father and how he was in the hospital wing almost every week. Though of course his visits were from quidditch injuries or shenanigans gone wrong.
"Not just me this time," I said and gestured Nathaniel forward. "I tried to heal him, I just wanted you to have another look," I told her.
***
"Tell me a secret," Fred said as I sat between his legs at the window in his room once everyone else had fallen asleep. Once I'd returned from the Hospital wing, no matter how many times I read and reread the same textbook, I couldn't focus on anything. It was as if I was all studied out. Instead I lazily flipped through the text I still had from the restricted section of the library.
"Hmm," I said as I thought about it. I hated the feeling of being put on the spot the way he had. It was as if my mind went blank and I couldn't remember anything. "Remember my fourth year, when you couldn't figure out how I'd managed to take so many classes? I'd actually been given a time turner. That's how I managed to get ahead," I told him.
"You're a mad genius, do you realize?" He said to me.
I laughed and snuggled into him a bit more as we looked out the window. Allowing the blue light from the night sky to illuminate our skin. It was a full moon tonight. My thoughts were far beyond the castle as I wondered how Remus was doing. Had the wolfsbane potion been helping him? Had he remembered to take it?
"Did you fall asleep?" Fred whispered as he trailed lines up my arm, setting goosebumps ablaze.
"I'm awake. Just thinking about Remus. I know there's no cure for Werewolf, but what if there was a spell to repress the shift?" I asked him as the idea popped into my head.
"Don't you think someone would have thought about it by now?" Fred asked me, being realistic.
"Maybe, but that person couldn't do what I can do. Think about it, If Voldemort was able to conjure the magic of Historically powerful and dark witches, with their help, why can't I make it easier for Remus?" I said as I turned to face him.
"You have a point there. What if it backfires though? Everyone says, no good can come from the dark magic," He pressed as he ran his hand through the back of his hair.
"People also say you shouldn't eat standing up, but that's a load of bollocks," I told him and turned to lay back on him. "I have all this magic inside me. I know it's meant for something more. Something that I can't learn in a classroom here. I don't know, maybe I've just spent so much time studying for my exams that I've neglected the bigger picture."
"In time lovie," He said as he wrapped his arms around me.
Something in the text had caught my eye, It was a spell I'd never seen or heard of before. The only description said 'to use it in situations of mortal danger' but nothing else. "Hey Freddie, have you ever heard of this spell? 'Vitalum Vitalis?'" I asked him.
"It doesn't sound familiar, no," He answered. I turned the page to see if there was something else, but the book just ended there.
It's our spell...
Not yet...
"Tomorrow's the day?" I asked him as I stood and grabbed his jumper off of the bed to cover my arms from the cold that even he couldn't keep away. He hadn't actually said it yet, but I knew it was coming sooner, rather than later.
"You could still come with us you know. Though I'd much rather you explain that to McGonagall and Sirius when I'm not in the country," He said and pulled me to stand between his legs as he hugged me and rested his head just below my chest.
"My place is here," I whispered. "Still looking after Harry a bit longer," I said. He pulled me in a little tighter, and I could hear him taking in my smell. Familiarizing himself with it, as he prepared to live without it for the next few weeks.