SMILE » n. longbottom

xlvi

"DETENTION"

Professor Dolores Umbridge, or simply Toad-Face as some would like to call her, waited patiently for the occupants of this afternoon's detention to arrive. Her office had been previously owned by the apparent Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody whom had been revealed to actually be Bartemius Crouch Jr in disguise. The room was now completely pink — a disgustingly overwhelming shade of pink.

Everything within eyesight was pink. Even Professor Umbridge's own clothes were pink. The floral curtains, the faded wooden plush chairs, the carpet, the decorative plates clad with different kittens, and especially the wall tiles that looked as those they were gleaming even though everyone who saw the tiles knew that they were definitely not.

After she had spooned out three measurements of brown sugar into her cup and stirred it: there had been a knock at her door. The women paused, setting her cup down after taking a sip, and commanded, "Come in." The curious meows of the moving cats on the decorative plates greeted whoever had opened the door. "Good evening, Mr. Potter," Professor Umbridge greeted the fifth year boy as he entered. She nodded towards one of the two wooden plush chairs across the table from where she sat: "Sit. Mr. Potter, would you happen to know why exactly Ms. Wallace is not here with us today?"

"No, I wouldn't. Oh right, ... maybe she is not here since she is not obligated to?" the boy had replied in a such snarky way. He made his way to the seat across from the table where Professor Umbridge sat, closing the wooden door behind him as he entered.

The woman in pink smiled from practically ear to ear, sipped her drink and returned her focus back towards the fifth year boy, "If that is so; then why exactly are you here, Mr. Potter?" Harry had flushed to a bright pink, almost blending into the room — since he had not known the answer to Professor Umbridge's question in turn, despite his actions of attending this detention.

After a short and awkward moment of staring between the two figures, another knock at the door had arisen. The small toad-like woman waddled across the room to the door and opened it to reveal that Alana had just arrived. "Ah, Ms. Wallace, how nice of you to bless us with your presence! Please, sit," she pointed to the empty wooden plush chair beside Harry.

Once Alana entered, the small women clad in pink closed the door behind the fifth year girl. There were two quills on the desk on top of two fairly small lined notebooks, both of them wearing a dark red feather as far as both Harry and Alana could notice. Professor Umbridge walked between both of the two students and spoke: "Today both of you will be doing some lines for me, Ms. Wallace and Mr. Potter —"

The two interrupted the women with their talk as they both rummaged through their bag for ink and a quill. The small women demanded, "No, not with your quills. You're going to be using some rather special ones of mine." Both students looked surprised at this, noticing that the quills on top of their notebooks did not accompany any ink at all.

They held the quills in hand, rather curious as to what to do with it, glancing back towards the toad-like woman who stared back down at them. "Mr. Potter and Ms. Wallace, I would like you both to write 'I must not tell lies' ... since clearly you two believe that some outside force has returned once again."

Harry began to write the lines and as he did he felt a surprising pain on his arm. On his arm was written: "I must not t—" which had been identical to what he had written on that small notebooks that Professor Umbridge had provided. Alana looked in horror at the scene, she had just realized something horrendous that had just happened at Hogwarts: The inkless quills that have been provided wrote with a dark red ink happened to be the blood of whoever wrote with it.

"Write," Professor Umbridge commanded as she walked to the other side of the desk and sipped her drink.

The two looked at each other, rather surprised at what the Ministry had come to. They began to write and flip through the now full notebook as they did so; every word seemed to hurt just as much as the first, except as they continued to write more and more sentences: their arms ached tremendously. By the time they came to the end of the notebook, their arms were full of the words 'I must not tell lies' just as much as the notebook had been written in.

Professor Umbridge stared back at the students as they stared back, unsure of what to do. She sat up from her chair and closed the notebooks, setting their corresponding quills on top of them, she nodded, "I'll be seeing you two again."

Alana and Harry exited the room much faster than they'd entered. Alana clutched at her arms, attempting to stop the ache that she felt; whereas Harry let his arms hang to his sides. The Hufflepuff girl's blank stare turned to a sort of frightened look, "Shouldn't we get this checked out?" she paused just as she exited the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"Now, that you mentioned it, I'd suppose so," the Gryffindor replied; he pulled back his sleeves to reveal the carvings that the demented quill had inflicted. "I had not expected the lines to be exactly like this. This ... this is ..."

"Absurd," she had finished Harry's sentence. Alana pulled the sleeve back over the words since he had been staring at the overwhelming words that covered his arm. She pulled Harry along to the Hospital Wing, remembering it by memory, "Someone's got to know about this — the Ministry can't just be allowed to walk all over Hogwarts like this."

"Who's going to stop them then?"