Circi | 2

SEVENTEEN

"My father is my family"

September 1995, 2 months later

The rest of the summer Circi spent dumping handfuls of dirt out of the door and windows of the greenhouse. In her gardening fervour she had somehow designed a wall around the entrance to divide her from the rest of the grounds and, with the aid of one rogue house elf named Teeley, she succeeded in spending most of her days in the building.

Her avoidance of the manor and her family angered them all.

Draco sometimes stood in the doorway and watched her doing her homework on a makeshift bed of dirt covered over with a blanket. He despised her attitude, he couldn't understand how she could hate the safety they had been promised.

Most of the time, what he thought to be homework she knew to be letters. In the dead of night she corresponded with Christian Rier, the grandfather she had rejected the year before. She had explained everything to him, recounted the events of her second year and expressed her fear of being in her own home. He responded speedily with promises to keep her safe and words of encouragement to hold on until he could get her out.

Knowledge of these letters spread to Lucius for, on one of the days where he dared attempt to make amends with her, he had politely demanded she speak to him if she had worries or concerns; that she need not involve the Riers in family business.

What he didn't understand was that she no longer considered him to be family.

The Lucius she knew was her father. He cared about her and her thoughts, he still loves her mother despite what she did(n't) do, and he would never be a death eater by choice. She would rather her mother be the true death eater. She would rather be the daughter of overt evil instead of cowardice.

She was not surprised, upon returning to Hogwarts, when the ministry placed one of their own in the position of the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. It would have been her father's decision and everytime the woman in pink cast her eyes over her, she could feel the watchful stare of Lucius Malfoy.

There was no escape. Draco knew her timetable and was there when she approached the astronomy tower and was waiting when she left. There was no way she could get time alone with Professor Rier and it infuriated her. He watched her often in the common room and at dinner, sometimes with a harsh stare alike to her father's and sometimes reluctantly. Most days he ignored her but some days his conversation was friendly, almost loving and concerned- but she would have nothing to do with him.

Confiding in the girls in her dorm enough but not all, they took turns to monitor the common room so she could spend time with Leslie. But her best friend understood most of it. He had taken a few educated guesses and therefore encouraged her to only leave her dorm if she wanted to.

Her correspondence with Christian continued as the year progressed and Professor Rier began to split her astronomy class down. He taught smaller groups at certain points in the lesson so that the noise of the class drowned out the conversation he could sneak in occasionally for he too noticed Draco's presence and often indulged himself in dishing out detentions for being out of bed so late unprompted.

Halloween approached quickly and the longer Umbridge- the ministry official- grew comfortable, the more power she gained. Her methods of punishment were shared in whispers around the school. It was well-known that detention with Umbridge would result in pain.

So, the shock, the horror, the fear and concern on the students faces when the woman herself interrupted a third year potions class full of Slytherins and Gryffindors to summon Circi to her office was well-deserved. The walk between the desk and the door was painful and Circi could feel every set of eyes on her. Mica watched her go from the other side of the room with a weak attempt at a supportive smile and a thumbs up.