My turn then?


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Emily stared blankly at the parchment in front of her. After Alicia and Firenze had told her of her father’s fate, Emily burst into tears, balling her eyes out until she finally calmed down enough to compose her thoughts. The last thing she had told him was that she hated him. She knew deep down that she honestly didn’t mean those three little words; she had just been upset about his immaturity. And now she didn’t know if she’d get the chance to apologize face to face before it happened, so she decided on a letter. A letter she had no idea how to start.

She glanced down at the floor of her dormitory; her side of the room was littered with crumbled up pieces of parchment. She tapped her quill on her desk several times before Alicia shot her a glare from the other side of the room. She too had been crying, her hair still a pale yellow.

“Ali?” Emily whispered as she put her quill down and made her way to Alicia’s bed. “There has to be a way to stop it from happening. I mean, not every vision has come true, has it?” Emily asked desperately as her tears started again.

Alicia frowned sadly at her for a moment before shaking her head. “There’s no stopping it,” she said a hoarse whisper. Emily let out a sob as she sunk down on Alicia’s bed. Alicia pulled Emily’s head in her lap and stroked her red curls softly as her own tears dropped into Emily’s hair.

“It’s not fair,” Emily mumbled.

“I know,” Alicia whispered soothingly as Hermione burst through the door, out of breath. Emily didn’t bother sitting up as Alicia asked the obvious.

“What happened?”

“Just—escaped—Umbridge—and—Blaise,” she said, gasping as she tried to slow her heart rate.

“Umbridge and Blaise?” Emily mumbled, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“Wait, wasn’t the DA meeting tonight? They didn’t—” Alicia said in disbelief as Hermione nodded slowly.

“Did anyone get caught?” Emily asked in horror as she slowly sat up and wiped her eyes. Hermione nodded again and Emily gasped. “But who, Hermione? This isn’t the time to stay quiet! Spit it out!”

“Calm down, Ems… Harry got caught, but I’m sure Dumbledore will take care of everything,” she said as Alicia’s eyes turned pink.

“No!” Alicia shouted as her hand flew to her mouth.

“Not more,” Emily almost wined, but also said in horror.

“Dumbledore’s gone,” she whispered. “Umbridge is the Headmistress now.”

“What?” Emily and Hermione asked incredulously.

“He took the fall for the DA… They were going to take him to Azkaban but he fled,” Alicia explained. Emily stared at Alicia in horror as she thought about how Umbridge was now taking over. Alicia started toward the Common Room and Hermione and Emily followed in her wake.

They met the boys downstairs, Harry nowhere in sight. Alicia went to Jamie’s side immediately and hugged him while Emily hugged her shoulders. This was one of the moments she wished Draco was a Gryffindor. Emily snuggled into the couch beside Fred, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She smiled slightly before staring off into the fire, her eyes watching the dancing flames.

“You okay?” Fred asked quietly. Emily caught Alicia’s eye before nodding to Fred. They had decided to not tell anybody about Alicia’s vision of Sirius.


By the next morning, notices saying that Dolores Umbridge had replaced Albus Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts were all over the school, though they were unnecessary since everyone seemed to already know about it.

Emily, Alicia, Draco, and Jamie followed the golden trio and Ernie Macmillan as they walked towards the Great Hall for lunch. Emily never talked much after Alicia’s vision, especially to the others. It was very rare that you wouldn’t catch her crying, Draco glancing at her sympathetically as she would cling to his waist. He hugged her shoulders once more as Blaise popped out from behind a door, closely followed by Crabbe and Goyle. Draco tensed immediately and Emily glanced at him nervously. She wasn’t sure how he did it; he had to share a room with these guys, who now hated him because he “betrayed” them and the Dark Lord.

“Now, do you really want to finish that sentence, Granger?” Blaise snarled, glancing at Emily and Draco.

“Afraid I’m going to have to dock a few points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff,” he said lazily with a smirk. Draco edged forward, despite Emily’s silent protests. She knew he wouldn’t let the others be hurt from his ex-best friend. And she also knew that Blaise would have docked points from Draco too if they weren’t in the same house.

“It’s only teachers that can dock points, Zabini,” Ernie said at once.

“Yeah, and you’re not even a prefect,” Ron added. “What makes you think you can deduct points?”

“I know prefects can’t deduct points, Weasel King,” Zabini sneered as Crabbe and Goyle sniggered. “But members of the Inquisitorial Squad—”

“The what?” Alicia asked sharply.

“The Inquisitorial Squad, Daniels.” Zabini pointed to the small silver ‘I’ on his chest. “A select group of students who are supportive of the Ministry of Magic, hand-picked by Professor Umbridge. Anyway, members of the Inquisitorial Squad do have the power to dock points…” Blaise’s eyes glinted with happiness as he stared at them all, his eyes falling on Draco with a smirk. “So, Granger, I’ll have five from you for being rude to our new headmistress… Macmillan, five for contradicting me… Five each because I don’t like you, Potter and Starlight… Weasley, your shirt’s untucked, so I’ll have another five for that… Let’s see, Black, five from you because I shouldn’t be tortured to have to see such an ugly face.” Draco growled and Emily clung to him more tightly, trying to get him to fall back behind the others. “Oh yeah, I forgot, you’re Mudbloods, Granger and Daniels, so ten each for that…”

Ron and Draco both went for their wands, but Hermione and Emily pushed them away, whispering, “Don’t!”

“Wise move… New Head, new times. Be good now, Potty… Black… Malfoy…” Blaise laughed as he walked away, Crabbe and Goyle following after him.

As Ernie went on about how Blaise had to be bluffing, they turned toward the giant hourglasses that were set on the wall behind them. As they watched, more and more stones flew upward, except not from the Slytherin hourglass.

“Noticed, have you?” Fred’s voice piped in. He and his twin had just joined the small group in front of the hourglasses.

“Zabini just docked us about fifty points,” Harry said furiously as they watched more stones fly out of the Gryffindor hourglass.

“Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break,” George said.

“What do you mean, ‘tried’?” Jamie asked quickly as he looked at his older cousins expectantly.

“He never managed to get all the words out due to the fact that we forced him headfirst into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor,” Fred said with a smirk.

“But you’ll get into terrible trouble!” Hermione exclaimed in shock.

“Not until Montague reappears, and that could take weeks, I dunno where we sent him,” Fred said coldly. “Anyway, we’ve decided we don’t care about getting into trouble anymore.”

“Have you ever?” Alicia asked.

“’Course we have,” George said. “Never been expelled, have we?” Draco let out a small chuckle at the twins.

“We’ve always known where to draw the line,” Fred added.

“We might put a toe across it occasionally,” George continued.

“But we’ve always stopped short of causing real mayhem,” Fred finished.

“But now?” Ron asked apprehensively.

“Well, now—” George said.

“—what with Dumbledore gone—”

“—we reckon a bit of mayhem—”

“—is exactly what our dear new Head deserves,” Fred finished.

“You mustn’t!” Hermione whispered. “She’d love a reason to expel you!”

“You don’t get it, Hermione, do you? We don’t care about staying anymore. We’d walk out right now if we weren’t determined to do our bit for Dumbledore first.” Fred smiled and checked his watch. “So anyway, phase one is about to begin. I’d get in the Great Hall for lunch if I were you, that way the teachers will see you can’t have had anything to do with it.”

“Anything to do with what?” Hermione asked anxiously.

“You’ll see. Run along, now,” George said before he and his twin turned around and disappeared.

Emily, Alicia, Draco, and Jamie continued toward the Great Hall as Filch started talking to Harry.

“Come on, I don’t want to be anywhere near what the twins are planning,” Jamie said as he shook his head. They headed for the end of the Gryffindor table, Jamie and Alicia leading the way.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Draco whispered to Emily as she played with her food rather than eating it. “You hardly ate anything for breakfast.”

“No, I don’t have much of an appetite anymore,” she whispered.

You’re making yourself sick, Ems. You have to eat something, Alicia’s thoughts sounded in Emily’s head and she glanced over at her. She sounded sincere and worried, but Emily couldn’t seem to care at the present. She rarely cared about anything for the past day and a half.

I don’t care if I make myself sick when my Dad is about to die, Alicia, but just to please you… she thought sarcastically as she speared three green beans with her fork. She stuffed them into her mouth, chewed for a second, and then swallowed them hastily as she sent a glare toward Alicia. She pushed her plate toward the middle of the table and laid her head down against her arm. Draco rubbed soothing circles into her back as she released yet another set of tears.

Any quotes you recognize belong to JK Rowling.
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