Supported & Torn (HP) {Book 3 of the Wild & Free Series}

9. Detention with Umbridge

Dinner in the Great Hall that night was not a pleasant experience for Harry and me. The news about our shouting match with Umbridge seemed to have traveled exceptionally fast even by Hogwarts standards. I heard whispers all around me as we sat eating between Ron, Rowan and Hermione. The funny thing was that none of the whisperers seemed to mind Harry and me overhearing what they were saying about us — on the contrary, it was as though they were hoping we would get angry and start shouting again, so that they could hear our story firsthand.

"They say they saw Cedric Diggory murdered..."

"He reckons he dueled with You-Know-Who..."

"Come off it..."

"Who does he think he's kidding?"

"She says she was tortured by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself."

"Pur-lease..."

"What I don't get," said Harry in a shaking voice, laying down his knife and fork (his hands were trembling too much to hold them steady), "is why they all believed the story two months ago when Dumbledore told them..."

"The thing is, Harry, I'm not sure they did," said Hermione grimly. "Oh, let's get out of here."

She slammed down her own knife and fork; Rowan and Ron looked sadly at their half-finished apple pie but followed suit. People stared at us all the way out of the Hall.

"What d'you mean, you're not sure they believed Dumbledore?" I asked Hermione when we reached the first-floor landing.

"Look, you don't understand what it was like after it happened," said Hermione quietly. "You, Harry arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching Cedric's dead body and Liana, half-dead... None of us saw what happened in the maze... We just had Dumbledore's word for it that You-Know-Who had come back and killed Cedric and, tortured you, Liana and fought you, Harry."

"Which is the truth!" said Harry loudly.

"I know it is, Harry, so will you please stop biting my head off?" said Hermione wearily. "It's just that before the truth could sink in, everyone went home for the summer, where they spent two months reading about how you're a nutcase and Dumbledore's going senile!"

Rain pounded on the windowpanes as we strode along the empty corridors back to Gryffindor Tower. I felt as though my first day had lasted a week, but I still had a mountain of homework to do before bed. A dull pounding pain was developing over my right eye. I glanced out of a rain-washed window at the dark grounds as we turned into the Fat Lady's corridor. There was still no light in Hagrid's cabin.

"Mimbulus mimbletonia," said Rowan, before the Fat Lady could ask. The portrait swung open to reveal the hole behind and the three of us scrambled back through it.

The common room was almost empty; nearly everyone was still down at dinner. Crookshanks and Nymeria uncoiled themselves from an armchair and trotted to meet us, purring loudly, and when Harry, Ron, Rowan, Hermione and I took our favourite chairs and couch at the fireside, Crookshanks leapt lightly into Hermione's lap, Nymeria into my lap and both curled up there like furry cushions. I gazed into the flames, feeling drained and exhausted.

"How can Dumbledore have let this happen?" Hermione cried suddenly, making us jump; Crookshanks leapt off her, looking affronted. She pounded the arms of her chair in fury, so that bits of stuffing leaked out of the holes. "How can he let that terrible woman teach us? And in our O.W.L. year too!"

"Well, we've never had great Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we?" said Harry. "You know what it's like, Hagrid told us, nobody wants the job, they say it's jinxed."