SCARLETT: THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

Chapter 27: Breaking into the office

We raced up towards her office and it seemed like an entire lifetime had passed when we entered the corridor that led to her office. We both stepped off to stand behind a statue that was located in an area just off of the hallway to wait for the signal to go off and her to leave her office.

Within a few minutes, just when I was starting to get nervous that nothing would happen, I heard a sudden BANG erupt from downstairs followed by several other BOOMs and screams from people below. We pressed ourselves up against the wall in preparation for our new Headmistress to see what was going on.

A door flew open near us and I watched from behind the statue as Umbridge went running from her room. I have no idea what they did below or how they managed to do it so fast, but it was working nonetheless. We only hesitated for a moment longer to make sure that she was out of the area before we went running again.

We pushed through the door of her office and ran towards the fireplace. I ignored the hisses and snarls of the portraits of cats that surrounded me as I looked around for the Floo Powder. Before I caught a glimpse of it, Harry had already found it and had thrown it into the fireplace. We both knelt down and Harry shouted Sirius's address before we shoved our heads through the fire.

It felt like my head was spinning around in a vortex. All around me I could hear voices of people that I would never know and I could see several fireplaces appearing and disappearing. Just when I thought that I was going to be caught in this strange place forever, I suddenly found myself looking into a familiar room.

It took me a moment to realize that I was in Sirius's house, but as soon as I did, I looked to my right and found Harry's head floating in the fire next to me.

"Sirius!" Harry shouted.

That's when I suddenly forgot about how strange the situation was and remembered why we had done this in the first place. We needed to find Sirius and it worried me that he wasn't in sight.

"Sirius - we need to talk to you!" I shouted.

I heard footsteps coming towards us, but they seemed light and quick which made me believe that it wasn't him because I knew that he didn't exactly have the lightest footsteps. After a moment someone appeared, but it wasn't the someone that I expected. It was Kreacher.

"Kreacher - you need to get Sirius," Harry said quickly. "This is urgent!"

"Kreacher should have known that the filthy half-bloods would visit the Master," he spoke to himself. "Kreacher knew that it was only a matter of time."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Is there something wrong - where is he?"

"The filthy Potter boy and Carran girl expect Kreacher to do everything," he mumbled. "Kreacher was talking to his Mistress, but that's not important to the nasty - "

"KREACHER!" I shouted. "Where is Sirius - we don't have time for this!"

Harry and I watched as Kreacher let out some sort of demented laugh as he walked away from the fireplace. Something about him seemed different than usual - he wasn't normally this chatty or happy about anything.

"Kreacher doesn't think that Master will return tonight," he said loud enough for us to hear. "Master has gone to the Department of Mysteries and now my Mistress will have her home to herself again."

He let out another cruel laugh before walking out of view. The blood in my veins ran cold and I wasn't sure if I wanted to scream or cry, but I didn't have time to do either because I suddenly felt a jerk on the back of my neck and I flew backwards and hit my head on something hard.

"What do you think you're doing?" a dark voice said to me.

I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the floor in a pink room. When I looked up, I found a very angry woman staring down at me. Once my head stopped throbbing, I realized what had just happened and my eyes widened in fear.

Harry jumped up to his feet quickly and I joined in and backed into a wall that was behind me. I reached for the wand in my pocket and found that it was missing.

"Don't even think about it," Umbridge snarled as she held up a pair of wands in her hand.

The door to the room burst open and I saw a pair of burly Slytherin boys barging into the room, but they weren't alone. One of them was dragging Ginny and the other had Neville by the scruff of his neck. They both looked at us with the most apologetic expression and I suddenly felt guilty for having them involved.

"Let them go," I demanded.

"You are in no place to make orders," Umbridge said. "And I suggest you keep your mouth shut unless I request you do otherwise, do you understand?"

For the first time in a while, I actually did as I was told. To be honest, I wasn't sure what there was to be said - she had caught us in the act of breaking into her office and there wasn't any denying it. The only thing that we had on our side was that she didn't know who we were talking to.

She grabbed us both by the collar of our shirts and shoved us into a couple of chairs that sat nearby. I went to jump up again, but she had already waved her wand. I wasn't sure what spell she put on me, but I couldn't move from my chair and it felt as though ropes were keeping me seated. I found that I was still able to move my head around when I turned to see some more people coming into the room.

"We found these shooting off dung bombs downstairs," Draco said. "I assume that they're with this lot."

He dragged in Luna and was followed closely by a couple of other members of the Inquisitorial Squad that were dragging in Ron, Luna, Eden, Olivija Eliza and Hermione. Each one of them had their wand taken from them which made all of us defenseless.

Once everyone was in the room and the door was closed, Umbridge walked back over to us and narrowed her eyes.

"You were trying to reach Dumbledore, weren't you?" she said as she pointed her wand at Harry's face.

"How could we do that?" I asked angrily. "No one knows where he is - "

"Don't lie to me!" she shrieked. "You know where he is and I demand answers - "

The door to the room opened again, interrupting her in what I assumed was going to be a threat. My stomach nearly did a leap when I saw that it was Snape at the door and I suddenly felt some sort of hope that we were going to get out of this and get to Sirius before it was too late.

"Ah, Severus," Umbridge said. "Just the person that I needed - I'm going to need some more Veritaserum."

"I'm afraid that we don't have anymore," Snape said sounding uninterested. "May I ask what for?"

"Can't you make some more?" she demanded while ignoring his latter question.

"Not at the moment," he said. "Veritaserum can't be made that quickly - it takes time."

Umbridge's face suddenly grew very red and I half expected her to punch Snape in the face, but she suddenly calmed herself and put on a very unpleasant looking smile.

"I expected more of you Severus." she said. "Lucius spoke very high of you."

Umbitch untied me and handed me to Draco. "Don't let her move." she muttered. I looked up at Draco desperately. Luckily, he didn't hold a tight grip on me, as I didn't think he'd want to practically choke his girlfriend.

"You still won't talk?" she said to Harry a few minutes later. "Maybe the Cruciatus curse will loosen up your tongue..."

I didn't know what was going to happen now...