the girl with all of the choices

t h i r t y - s e v e n

**TW: Mentions of Suicide**

3736 words

january twenty-seventh- sneaking around

It had been two weeks since we founded Dumbledore's Army, and everything seemed to be getting worse, fast. 

Umbridge had made at least 10 educational decrees in that time, and they were ridiculous. 

Right after we had all signed our names on the piece of parchment signifying the DA, Umbridge decreed that she had the power to monitor all extra-curricular activities. We had to be super secretive about it to make sure that we wouldn't get caught.

She banned all Weasley products, so Fred and George couldn't test their things. It also meant that study time was much more boring and that I could never use a fever fudge to get out of one of Snape's lectures again. 

In addition to Fred and George's creations, she also banned all items that were not of educational value. What did that actually mean? No clue.

She made decrees proclaiming that 'proper dress and decorum' were to be maintained at all times. Her language was very vague, so at first, Fawn got 10 points taken away from Hufflepuff for wearing a jumper in the courtyard last Saturday. Since then, we had been wearing our school robes all the time. 

Her rules were stupid, like decreeing that boys had to keep their hands outside of their cloaks, and confiscating wands from students who frequently misbehaved. 

The most idiotic of her rules was the one that said boys and girls couldn't be within eight inches of each other. It was stupid because it meant that Draco and I couldn't really be together around anyone else. Of course, this wasn't really a problem since we hadn't been doing many things together around the time, but because of her, we didn't even have the option to hang out together. We couldn't hold hands, or kiss around other people, or do anything we usually did. 

We had decided to start meeting in the Kitchens on the weekends to make sure we could still see each other. I had started to struggle in Potions again, so he said he would help me while we hung out. We were meeting later today after lunch, so I had decided to spend my time hanging out with George, eight inches apart, of course. 

We were sitting in the corridors surrounding the courtyard, bundled up to protect against the cold winter wind. Technically it was supposed to be study time, so we both had our books in case we got questioned, but we weren't using them, instead, talking about anything and everything. 

"So Malfoy actually stayed with you during the holiday?" George taunted.

"Yes," I chuckled. "And he seemed to like it better than being here."

"Bullshit. There is no way that Malfoy preferred living like a muggle over staying here."

"I'm being serious! He was completely different."

"Are you sure that's not just because he was meeting the parents?"

"I think I know my own boyfriend, George," I teased back. "How's your dad doing? If you don't mind me asking."

"No, I don't mind. He's doing better. He was still pretty bad at Christmas, but he's almost completely healed now, so that's good."

He paused for a second as if he was going to say more, but he didn't. 

"Do you know what happened to him?" I asked. "As in, who hurt him?"

He hesitated a moment before confessing. "He was working the night shift in the Department of Mysteries and was attacked by a snake. We don't know for sure who it belonged to, but we've assumed it was..."