Blank Sheet

Getting caught

Christmas at Grimmauld Place had been great. She had bonded a lot over the days there, especially with Ginny, but also her relationship with Hermione was strengthened.

She had liked being around Sirius and the other members of the Order because many of them would tell the teens a story if they had the time. Sirius' and Moody's were the best. Sirius would always talk about the pranks he and his friends had pulled, he said it made him happy and sad at the same time, thinking about it. Moody told them adventurous stories about Death Eaters or other Criminals and how he had caught them.

Mr Weasley had come out of the hospital in time for Christmas Eve, still looking damaged though. The Weasleys were incredibly relieved once he was back, and it was noticeably more fun after that, all of the redheaded teens were suddenly joking and laughing all the time.

Medea was sad she needed to go back to Hogwarts again because the Christmas weeks had been really fun and the people around had been so nice. Of course, she knew there wasn't another way and she dully packed her trunk the last day.

School wasn't fun at all, because all of those people who hadn't liked her anyway, seemed to have been boosted by their parents (or whoever they spent their holidays with) to pick on her even more.

And as the comments got nastier, so did Medea, sometimes causing the bullies or her friends to be very surprised. Once she even got a teacher startled. In a bad way, unfortunately. She had had to go to detention three times, not with Umbridge though, luckily.

She still wondered if that monster would get back at her one day. Medea was sure she wouldn't let her get away with wandering the corridors after curfew, especially because she suspected (and was right with it) that she had been doing it because of her little secret society to learn how to duel properly.

By now, nothing had happened, but it only got her more paranoid. Every lesson with her, she expected the woman to come up with something painful or embarrassing, but she kept quiet, only her teaching got more boring.

Instead of her being the 'evil' teacher, it was, also not surprisingly, Snape. He had been told to teach Harry Occlumency, which he seemed to do not very successful nor very nice.

"And Harry, how was Snape yesterday?" Medea asked her Gryffindor friend on their way to breakfast. He turned and looked at her with dark shadows under his eyes.

"Horrible, as always." Medea chuckled slightly, still not quite understanding the disliking both of them had for the other.

"Oh, come on. You know Harry, I could imagine you're not making it easy for him to teach you either. I mean, Dumbledore wants you to have these lessons and Sirius and Remus think it's good too. I guess you should at least try."

"Ugh, you don't understand, Snape hates me, he's-,"

"Harry! Harry, look what's happened!" Dean and Seamus yelled from the Gryffindor table and held up a Daily Prophet. Medea doubted any of them had a subscription for that, so it must have been Hermione's coming early.

"There was a mass breakout from Azkaban!" The Gryffindors gathered around the two boys, reading out loud from the article. Concerned 'Oh's went through the crowd, to which even a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs now belonged. The teens whispered with their friends, eager to hear everything to know about the ten high-security prisoners.

And so the days blurred by, the lessons getting more intense with the O.W.L.s dawning, the hunt for those prisoners getting more and more pathetic, Harry's Occlumency lessons getting worse, until they ended by him invading Snape's memory, but, most importantly, the occasional pain in Medea's head sharpening every time, the occurrence becoming more frequently.