black and white ✰ g.w.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Umbridge soon left her office with Harry and Hermione, leaving the Inquisitorial Squad and the DA alone. Knowing they had to get out of there, Olivia began to formulate a plan in her head, and looked to Faustus. He had been looking at her too, and she gave him a look, silently telling him to start talking.

"Well," said Faustus, getting the hint and breaking the silence, "this is awkward..."

"And whose fault is that, Black?" Warrington spat.

Looking around, Olivia grinned. Her plan was working; the Inquisitorial Squad had been distracted by the sudden conversation.

"Well, I could put the blame on a number of people, including you, Cassius," Faustus said, "but there's no point, really."

"Say, Warrington, how's Montague?" Olivia asked, giving him a false kind smile. She wasn't asking this because she was curious or because she cared; in fact, she already knew how Montague was, and she probably knew more than the Slytherins themselves. Back when the Inquisitorial Squad had first been formed, Montague had tried to take points from Fred and George, but the twins had shoved him into a Vanishing Cabinet as retaliation. He had turned up some time later in a toilet, confused and disoriented. He had been in the hospital wing ever since.

"He's recovering," Warrington lied, scowling but avoiding Olivia's eyes.

"I heard your Quidditch team didn't do so well without him. Who was it that you got to replace him again?"

"An inexperienced second-year," Faustus answered for him with a tone of indifference. "Poor lad tried his hardest, though, I'll give him that."

"Ah, such a shame. You had been so close to winning the Cup, too! But in the end, the best team won, wouldn't you agree?"

"No, I wouldn't," Warrington retorted.

"Ah, well, we all have our differing opinions."

"You only won because Weasley suddenly learned how to Keep."

"Yeah, very suspicious, by the way," growled the seventh-year girl restraining Olivia. "Almost magical."

"I think he just got tired of listening to your song, personally," Olivia said.

"It really wasn't all that great of a song," Faustus agreed. "Listening to it over and over, it's very easy to get sick of it."

Warrington opened his mouth to reply but didn't get a chance to, for Olivia's plan had come to fruition.

"Stupefy!" yelled Ginny, having used the distractedness of the Inquisitorial Squad to her advantage, freed herself from the grasp of the sixth-year girl holding her, and removed her wand from her robes to Stun her.

Instinctively, Warrington and the girl holding Olivia both pointed their wands at Ginny and totally forgot about Faustus and Olivia, allowing them to retrieve their own wands and Stun them. At the same time, everyone else in the group had managed to do more or less the same thing, allowing them all to escape the office scratch-free.

"Where are we going now?" Neville asked as they all ran away from Umbridge's office.

"The forest!" Ron and Arabella answered as they led the way.

"The forest?" the rest of them asked, confused.

"That's where Harry and Hermione went with Umbridge," Ron said. "We saw them through the window."

"Merlin help me!" Olivia groaned.

Once they got onto the grounds, they eventually came across Harry and Hermione running out of the Forbidden Forest... without Umbridge.

"How'd you get away?" Hermione asked, pleasantly surprised.

"Liv and Faustus talked Warrington's ear off," Evelyn told her, shooting her cousins a proud smile. Ron handed Harry and Hermione their wands. "Distracted them all so that we could get our wands back."

"It was brilliant," Neville praised them.

"Oh, well..." Olivia and Faustus trailed off, unsure of what to say that wouldn't make them sound like they were full of themselves.

"So, how are we getting to London?"

"Look, it's not that I don't appreciate everything you've done, all of you," Harry said, "but I've got you into enough trouble as it is."

"You're not serious?" Olivia asked, completely exasperated. They did all of that just so Harry could go on his own?

"Dumbledore's Army was supposed to be about doing something real," Neville said. "Or was that all just words to you?"

"Maybe you don't have to do this all by yourself, mate," Ron said.

"Yeah, come on, Harry," Arabella said. "We're in this together."

Thankfully, this convinced Harry. "So how are we going to get to London?" he asked.

"We fly, of course," Luna said.

"Like... on brooms?" Faustus asked, looking thoroughly confused.

"Not all of us have our own," Olivia reminded them all. "Last I knew, Harry's was being guarded by a troll."

"Some of us could share," Ginny said.

"If you think our Cleansweeps are going to hold more than one person, you're out of your mind," Ron said to her.

"Liv and I have got pretty good brooms," Faustus said.

"'Pretty good'?" Arabella repeated. "Olivia's got a damn Firebolt!"

"Yeah, but there are five of us that don't have our own," Evelyn said. "So unless your brooms have got room for two or three more people..."

"I wasn't talking about broomsticks," Luna said.

"Then what were you talking about?" Arabella asked.

Luna looked at Harry and then looked at something behind him. He turned around to see whatever she was looking at.

"Of course," he said, appearing to be petting the air. "Luna, you're brilliant!"

"Oh, thank you," Luna replied.

"I feel like I'm missing a key bit of information here," Arabella said. Olivia felt the same.

Harry turned back around to face them all. "Thestrals," he said. "Remember? Hagrid taught us about them."

"You mean those horse things that people can only see if they've watched someone snuff it?" Ron asked.

"You truly have a way with words, Ronald," Arabella said.

"Okay, well, if we're going to be using the thestrals, can you at least point them out to us?" Olivia requested. "Because they're invisible to most of us."

[word count: 1001]
[written: 8/25/20]
[published: 8/25/20]