SMILE » n. longbottom

lxvii

"W"

Rumors had begun to spread throughout Hogwarts that their very own Headmaster Dumbledore disappeared from the grounds completely, upon the accusation that he was the one to start the D.A., or rather Dumbledore's Army. This, of course, would not be a bad thing until Professor Umbridge accused him of creating this so-called army to go against the likes of the Ministry of Magic.

But everyone within this army of students knew otherwise, and rather assumed the rumors to be true by how ruthless and unwavering Umbridge could be.

Upon the disappearance of Headmaster Dumbledore, Umbridge was appointed to the role itself. And furthermore, all students under the grouping known as the D.A. were given a certain punishment that a couple of its members would remember.

Blood quills.

And of course, the D.A. had no choice to object, so they complied. Alana was slightly less bothered by the effects the magical instrument had on her skin, due to previous detentions with the now-Headmaster.

She slowly looked across the room at her peers and became more sick and distraught by the faces she saw. Erise, her friend and roommate, was struggling to keep writing, her teeth bared slightly, and tears glistened across her cheeks like gloss. Neville, who winced every now and then, and whose writing-hand shook violently, trying very hard to keep the quill within his grasp.

But it seems as though her previous scars and exposure to the blood quills must have given her more resistance against its effects. Professor Umbridge did not give instructions on when to stop writing, and Alana become worried about what would happen if she ran out of space on her body for the words to appear. Would it overlap? That, she feared the worst — cuts over cuts seemed like the worst-case scenario.

Eventually, this horrid lapse of time ended and the D.A. exited from the Great Hall where their punishment was conducted.

Alana saw from ahead of the silent crowd a certain person: Neville. He was silent.

Alana walked slightly faster to reach him. And grabbed his wrist slightly.

He looked back with clouded eyes. Alana readjusted her grip on his wrist, and grabbed his hand with her own.

Alana led the two from the rest of the crowd, turning a sharp corner and pushing them both against the wall, around a column.  Once they all passed, and once their steps were no longer audible; she turned towards him.

She lifted up their hands that were joined, and carefully pulled back the sleeve of his cloak to reveal his arm. "Let me heal you," she whispered, as if only a few syllables were being voiced. But they both knew what she was saying.

He nodded.

She pulled him down the hallway, as if winding through the castle. She came to a door and slowly pushing it open. Half expecting it to not open, half expecting if to creek loudly if it did. Luckily for the both of them, neither of those things happened.

Alana pushed herself through the gap in the door and let him follow behind her. She shut the door, and walked silently to the cupboards trying to find something for Neville's wounds.

There was a small container that simply said 'Ointment'. Alana simply assumed that a Muggle-born witch or wizard supplied this to the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts. She grabbed bandage cloths as well.

Alana sat down on an empty bed and patted next to the area next to her. He sat down. She pulled back his sleeve of his cloak again, and looked up at him. His eyes seemed back to normal. "Are you okay?" she asked simply, even though it was obvious that she knew.

"I'll be okay," he responded.

"Would this help you?" she leaned forward to meet his eyes more closely.

In return, his face turned a light pink, as far as she could tell from the illumination that the night provided. She pushed forwards, more and let their lips touch very slightly.

They kissed slowly, as Alana was being careful to avoid Neville's wounds. Alana felt her face become warm, but pulled away to observe his wounds yet again. Neville nodded, referring to her question that she asked before they joined lips, "Yeah, that helped."

It had to be treated. She dragged the ointment over the wound and wrapped his arm with the bandages. "That should be better," she said, setting down his arm on the bed.

Alana sat up from the bed and put the back of her hands against her cheeks, and walked briskly from here to there. She stopped just in front of the door, turned to look at Neville, and quickly averted her eyes to the blue faded window just to the right. "It's late," she said so obviously. "I should be going."

Before Neville could say anything more, Alana walked out.

.

The students were taking the O.W.L. Examinations in the Great Hall, the four columns of tables had been exchanged ever so simply by individual desk chairs that have been spaced out around the floor. At the front of the room swung a dark metal pendulum, along with Umbridge standing square in front of it. The room seemed more darker, sullen, and haunted than it had ever been before.

Suddenly, there came an echoing noise from outside of the hall, at a very mysterious tone. All student became confused as to what it could be, and turned to look behind them. Upon the interruption of the echoes, Umbridge began to walk swiftly to the doors.

By the time she had reach the doors and opened them as well, a floating sparkle met her, wavering around in front of her face before swerving off into a burst of blue fireworks inside of the hall.

From outside of the hall was a distant yelling, to which there flew in two people on broomsticks through the open doorway of the Great Hall. It was the Weasley twins. The papers on the students' desks flew up behind them as they passed. Above them were fireworks that exploded tremendously with miraculous booms and exciting colors. Smaller sparkling wisps flew down from above and met at some students faces and exploded into smaller firework bursts.

The students cheered in excitement, more excited to avoid a boring pointless test, and not at all worried about the validity of such test. The two Weasleys waited together at the top of the Great Hall, and threw up a torch that then exploded into more fireworks. From this formed a set of jaws that hovered down towards Umbridge.

It followed her as she ran hurriedly out of the Great Hall, with a great thundering growl. And as the two met outside of the hall, the firework-dragon chomped down on her. This caused fireworks to abrupt from the jaw, which targeted all of the Educational Decrees upon the wall. Upon the room floated shreds of the paper and smoke. Suddenly, all of the decrees' frames fell down at once with clamoring bangs.

From behind Umbridge flew out the two Weasley twins, zooming past the pink lady with great velocity to the outside of Hogwarts, where they flew up into the sky. The students follows immediately, cheering and clapping the two on. Fireworks and then a great sparkling 'W' followed behind them, staying afloat in the sky.