Roses and Riots | f. weasley

Chapter 42: Headmistress

"You're all doing really well!" Harry encouraged as he and Emilia continued helping their fellow D.A. members with the Patronus Charm as the weeks progressed to April.

"That's brilliant, Luna," Emilia said as Luna's Patronus appeared quickly and more vividly than before.

"Thank you, he's rather cute don't you think?" Luna said, gesturing up to the white rabbit hopping around in front of them.

"Very," Emilia smiled at her before moving on.

She saw Ron's jack russell terrier chasing Hermione's otter, but as she looked around, her face fell. She noticed that Cassius wasn't there, which was strange, because she knew that the D.A. meetings were the highlights of his week.

She went over to the group of students she knew he was friendly with, "hey, have you guys seen Cassius?"

Most of them said no, but one boy frowned and looked up, "he said he'd be here, he was called into Umbridge's office but he told me he'd be here afterwards."

A horrible feeling dawned on Emilia like cold water had just been thrown on her, trickling down her spine like ice.

She hurried across the room, "Harry!"

He looked at her worriedly, "what is it? Has something-"

Just then the room felt like it was tremorring, and the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling began to quiver.

"Oh no," she whispered, and the room grew dim as the lights went out, and the Patronuses faded as people realised that something was happening.

Emilia and Harry stood at the front of the group, and Beth dragged Nigel back with her as the rest of the group clustered together in the centre of the room.

The twins, Ron and Hermione were close behind them, and they all jumped as the mirror on the wall in front of them shattered.

There was silence, and Emilia took a step forward and leaned down to look through the hole that had been created in the wall, on the other side, she saw Umbridge raising her wand.

"Everyone get back!" she yelled, running back, and raising her wand, "Protego!"

She cast the Shield charm just as the wall blasted open to reveal Umbridge on the other side with Filch and the Inquisitorial Squad, and to Emilia's dismay, Cassius was with them, being held by his robes by Crabbe and Goyle.

Emilia stared at him in shock. He was pale and he looked at her with tearful eyes and shook his head pleadingly, and Emilia felt a lump growing in her throat and looked away from him.

He couldn't have betrayed the D.A. like that, could he?

Umbridge smiled, "well, well, what do we have here?"

Emilia wished more than anything that there was a way out of this, that the younger students could get out of this unscathed, and just like that, a door opened on the other wall.

She turned to look at Fred who stood behind her, subtly nodding to the new door that was hidden from Umbridge's view. His eyes flickered over to it momentarily, and he gave her the tiniest of nods.

She turned back around, held up three fingers behind her back, just as the twins would do when setting off a Dungbomb or a Whizzbang, and counted down to one on her fingers, hoping Fred would see.

As soon as she counted down, the twins yelled for everyone to run to the new door, each of them grabbing some of the tiny first years and hauling them or carrying them out of the room. 

At the same time, Emilia rushed Umbridge who sent her flying back with the Knockback Jinx, and she fell hard on her back on the stone floor.

"Emilia!" Harry yelled, but she rolled over and pushed herself up, only to be grabbed by the hair by Pansy Parkinson, while Malfoy took great joy in grabbing Harry.