As the Sister of Harry Potter

Peace and tranquility, as you know, can never last forever. Chaos always found its way back to you, no matter what.

Chaos came to me in the form of Hyden Black, who ran into Cedric and I as we parted ways in the Entrance Hall just after everyone had cleared from their exams.

“Jen… come quick… we… need… you,” he gasped out, grabbing my hand and dragging me up the marble staircase he has just come down.

“Hyden! What’s going on?” I asked as we took the stairs two at a time.

“Harry had a… ’nother vision,” Hyden answered, taking a sharp turn down the third floor corridor.

“About what?”

“Sirius. He’s in trouble… at the Ministry.”

We came to a halt at Luna Lovegood, who was standing in the middle of the corridor.

“Where is everyone? This corridor is usually filled!”

“We kept them away by telling everyone it’s filled with Garroting Gas,” Luna replied in her dreamy voice.

“Alright, so what exactly is going on here?” I asked Hyden once he had fully recovered his breath.

“Harry fell asleep during the history exam and had a vision about Sirius being tortured by Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries. Harry wanted to rush off immediately, but Hermione talked him into seeing if Sirius is still at the Order or not.”

Great. “So, what are we doing now?” I asked.

“Well, the only way we could think of to contact Sirius was by Floo, so Ron went to distract Umbridge, Ginny, Luna, and Launa emptied the corridor, Harry and Hermione snuck into her office, and I went to go find you.”

I nodded, but my brain was whirling. Was Sirius really in trouble? Or was this a trick of Voldemort’s? If it was real, how the hell did Voldy get a hold of him?

“Check down there, there’s probably more of them.”

A chill shot down my spine. That sickly sweet voice could only belong to one person. I looked around, but there was no where to hide. Footsteps were rushing towards us down the corridor, and a lot of them. We pressed ourselves against the wall, wands ready.
Around the corner rushed a group of Slytherins so fast we didn’t have any time to react. One of them immediately pounced on me, wrestling my wand away with unreal strength and pinning me face-first into the wall. I was gagged and peeled off the wall, my arms held tightly behind me.

“Excellent Lance, bring them all with me,” said Umbridge, grinning evilly.

“As you wish, Headmistress,” replied Lance, my captor. I began screaming through the gag and struggling as we were marched down the corridor to the Toad’s Lair.

When we burst through the door, Hermione jumped nearly a foot in the air. Harry was kneeling on the floor with his head in the fireplace. Umbridge grabbed his hair with her pudgy hand and yanked harshly. Harry came out coughing up ash as Hermione was wrestled into submission by Millicent Bulstrode.

“I want to know why you are in my office,” said Umbridge as she shook Harry by his hair, which was in danger of being ripped out by the roots.

“I was – trying to get my Firebolt!” croaked out Harry.

“Liar!” shouted Umbridge, throwing his into her desk. I continued to try and break free of Lance, whose inhuman grip was causing me to begin to lose feeling in my left fingers.

There was a commotion outside, and several more large Slytherins entered the office, each holding a gagged student. The students in question were Ginny, Launa, Ron, and surprisingly, Neville, who looked rather blue. Now, the entire help-Harry-rescue-Sirius party was being held captive by Madame Toad. Lovely.

“So Potter, you stationed lookouts around my office and you sent this buffoon,” she mentioned to Ron, which sent Draco, who held Harry’s wand, into a laughing fit, “to tell me the poltergeist was wreaking havoc in the Transfiguration department when I knew perfectly well he was busy smearing ink on the eye pieces of the school telescopes. Clearly, you had someone important to talk to. Was it Dumbledore? Or the half-breed, Hagrid? I doubt it was Minerva McGonagall, I hear she is too ill to talk to anyone…”

The Slytherins got a good laugh out of that. I was gritting my teeth in anger, but that was nothing compared to Harry, who was so rage-filled he was shaking. It was scary.

“It’s none of your business who I talk to,” he snarled at Umbridge, whose face tightened.

“Very well, Mr. Potter. I gave you the opportunity to tell me freely, and now I’m afraid I’ll have to force you. Draco – go fetch Professor Snape.”

There was silence in the office now, save the noises us captives were making. Ron’s bloody lip was dripping onto the pink carpet, Ginny was trying to stamp on the foot of her captor, Neville was steadily turning purple from Crabbe’s grip, and Hermione kept trying to throw off Millicent. The girl holding Launa captive seemed to have underestimated her willowy frame initially, but Launa was now actually dangling from the ground against the wall. Small beads of sweat were forming on Hyden’s brow as he tried to escape Goyle’s hold. In fact, everyone was struggling except for Luna, who hung like a rag doll at her captor’s side, staring blankly out the window.

I myself was still trying to put up a fight with Lance. Both my hands were now completely numb, with it creeping up to my elbows where Lance held me. I could feet his hot breath on the right side of my neck. He was probably just dying to take a bite. And knowing Lance and how much of a creep he was, he probably would, too. His lips nearly touching my ear made me shiver violently, and he clenched even tighter. A small wince escaped from my lips.

And then without warning, my brain went on a freak-out. Images began flashing through my mind, images that pained me; gore… death… destruction. I felt like I was undergoing a Dementor attack, but I knew that just wasn’t possible. I tried to block them out by thinking happy thoughts, and the images flickered. I kept thinking, and the images began switching rapidly between good and bad. And the second I gave up, they went right back to nightmarish.

‘It’s like the Imperius Curse,’ I told myself, and I began a mental battle. ‘Get out,’ I told the invader, but they only pressed harder. ‘Out,’ I said, adding a little mental push. They pushed images into my mind so hard my head hurt. ‘GET OUT!’ I mentally screamed.

And it all ended. I opened my eyes and controlled my breathing. Snape was sweeping from the room, leaving Umbridge steaming. Whatever she had wanted from him, she wasn’t getting it. She turned to Harry, slapping her stubby wand into her empty palm.

“Very well… you are forcing me to do, Potter, what I’d rather not do…” she said, shifting restlessly from one foot to another. “But sometimes… and under the circumstances… the Cruciatus Curse ought to loosen your tongue,” she said quietly.

“No!” shrieked Hermione. “Professor Umbridge, that’s illegal!”

“What Cornelius doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He never knew I ordered Dementors after the Potters last summer, but he was delighted to be given a chance to expel them, all the same…”

“So it was you!” Harry gasped.

“Yes Potter… they were all talking about silencing you… but I actually did something… and you two wriggled out of that, didn’t you? But not today.” Umbridge raised her wand. “Cruc–”

“NO!” Hermione shouted. “Harry, we have to tell her…”

“Well, it looks like Miss Question-All is going to give us some answers!” said Umbridge gleefully.

“Er – my – nee – no!” choked out Ron through his gag. We all stared at her like she was mental… but then I noticed she was only pretending to cry.

“Now then… who were you communicating with?”

“Well, we were trying to get a hold of Professor Dumbledore—”

I felt the same presence try and take over my mind again. Who or what was doing that? It wasn’t exactly like Imperius… could it be Legilimancy? I couldn’t think of anyone with that strong of an ability of it… except perhaps Sarlanda, but she wouldn’t do this to me. I started pushing them out of my mind again. Whoever they were, they needed to get out and leave me alone. They were hurting my brain.

When they were finally gone and I could focus on our predicament, Umbridge was shoving Harry and Hermione out the door at wand-point.

“Lead on,” were the last words I heard leave her toady mouth.

I surveyed the room again. I caught Ginny’s eye. She had her hand wrapped around her wand in her captor’s pocket. I nodded, and she let loose.

“Stupify!” she yelled, stunning her captor and making everyone else jump. I wriggled loose of Lance’s grip and pounced on him, wrestling my wand away from him with numb arms. From there on, complete chaos erupted. I’m pretty sure I stunned Crabbe, but I can’t be sure. But at the end of our skirmish, the Slytherins were stunned save Draco, who had fallen victim to one of Ginny’s brilliant Bat-Bogy Hexes.

“Off to the forest then,” asked Ron, wiping blood off his lip. We all nodded, and ran down to the forest together to find Harry and Hermione.

They were at the edge of the forest. “…and how do you plan on getting to London, Harry?” Hermione was asking.

“Yes Harry, any ideas?” asked Ron, shocking them both as he handed them back their wands.

“How did you get away?” asked an amazed Harry.

“Stunners, Disarming Charms, Neville with Impedimenta, and Ginny’s amazing Bat-Bogy Hex,” summed up Hyden. “Where’s Umbridge?”

“Grawp got a hold of her,” said Harry. “And then the Centaurs carried her off.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “And now, how do we get to London?”

“We fly, of course,” said Luna in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Wait, we? ‘We’ aren’t going anywhere, because only a few people have a broom, and–”

“Excuse me, I care about Sirius just as much as you do, and it’s because of me Malfoy’s got great bogey’s attacking him–”

“Yeah, but–”

“We were all in DA,” spoke up Neville. “It was supposed to all be about fighting You-Know-Who, or was that a game?”

“No, of course not–”

“Zen we should all come,” said Launa simply.

“Yeah if we want to help, then we should,” added Hyden.

I counted our numbers. “Nine people. That’s a lot.”

“And we don’t have that many brooms,” added Harry, agitated.

“We don’t need brooms, because they can fly,” said Luna, pointing off into the trees. Out of the dark, I heard rustling and sniffing, then what must have been a Thestral licked some blood off of Harry’s sleeve.

“Right, to London then,” said Harry heavily.