Hand Me Downs.

I shuffled further into the overlarge coat, the fabric was almost leather, heavy, my gloves much the same, making it tricky to grip.

The goggles however had the opposite problem, too tight over my large head and digging into my cheekbones.
I waved a gentle hello, walking over and glaring down at the plants.

They were similar to Mandrakes in that they held almost a human like form, but they were red, coated in thorns that, if not treated and you were pricked, I remember Neville telling me could cause boils to form all over your body, for you to dehydrate, blood to congeal in a couple of hours.
The only reason we had them at the school was for the liquid they secreted when massaged, that could be used in lots of brews, and simply as an ingredient.

“Hey.” I sidled up to him, grimacing at the one he had just removed from it’s cocoon. “They’re so disgusting.”

“Very interesting lifespan though.” I lifted a brow but kept silent, letting him push it towards me. “You have to rub with the thorns, and then when it secretes a decent amount you have to dip it into that liquid in the tank and the residue will sink.”

“Delightful.” I did as he said, the thing was silent, unlike a Mandrake but struggled, snapped it’s dark red teeth.

It was a demon, the kind I had always imagined preached about at church.

“I assumed you’ve seen...”

“I saw your face...so I already knew what it was before I saw the paper and...”He sighed lowly, “It said their names.”

“All three?” My heart raced again.

“All three.”

I hadn’t even looked at the text, the headline was enough, her face.
But now everyone knew, the looks in transfiguration, my blatant lies.

I kept mun but rubbed the foul creature harder, lifting it almost like an infant and dropping it into the clear liquid, a substance like ink, smoke drifted to the bottom. It was vile, and I longed to ask what it was.

But the silence was comforting, did we need to speak about her, let her taint this moment, something Neville enjoyed so much.

“You ever think it’s odd how many things there are in the school that can kill us?”

“Other than the stairs?” I let out a giggle at his quick wit, not often showed.

Neville kept quiet, only enhancing others belief of his slowness.
His clumsiness however was undeniable.

We fell quiet again, working through several of the little buggers, one latching onto my glove, gradually he seemed to slow, stop his rapid pace.

“Do you know when the next DA meeting is?”

“Not yet...why?”

“If I want to practise outside of it, will you help me?” I glanced up at him, now easily three inches taller than me, the chubby, round cheeked boy I had known was thinning out, growing into himself.

“If I can find time, I’m doing quite a lot with McGonagall at the moment.”

“Is it to do with...”

“You could say that, but...we’ll work out an evening, a place, okay? And we’ll go for it.”

“Thank-you.”

I could see past his seemingly simple request, he wanted to be stronger, better.
Because he wanted the same thing I did.

He wanted to take down Bellatrix Lestrange himself.
Dead or alive.
_______________________________

“Umbridge banned me from classroom for the day.” I answered, being passed a small plateful of food, “And I’ve been with Neville.” She nodded wordlessly, although I already seemed to have the majority of the Common Room eyes on me.

“You want to head upstairs?” Aaron asked softly and I bit my lip, the three of us trailing up the boys staircase to the sixth year dorm.

It was the slightly different to ours, the room a perfect circle when ours was more oval. Five beds sat, all decorated in that deep red.

Dale’s, Ryan’s, Aaron’s, Cormac’s and the elusive Smithy, who, whilst a perfectly nice guy had never clicked with us, preferring to be seen with his twin brother, ironically in Hufflepuff.

Ryan and Dale were sat on their beds, obviously expecting us, me.

“I think you need to tell us something.” Even Dale’s voice was soft, his face gentle, open.
I felt tears sting my eyes again, how could I ever want to distance myself from him?
How could I not have told them?

I opened my mouth, but Katie shot me a look, saving me from the story and telling it herself, basically, the facts.

“So, did you feel like you couldn’t tell us?” Ryan looked almost hurt, as down as his face got.

“I...” My own mouth shut hard, and it took a lot to wrench it open, “I don’t know...I just didn’t like the idea of people knowing and the pity and...I don’t like thinking about it.”

“Alright,” I glanced at him, waiting for more questions, more need for explanation, “And on that note can you help me with the fucking Episkey charm?”

“Doing it or writing about it?” I tried to hide the shock in my voice.

“Both.”

“No offense Ryan but I am not breaking any bones for you.”

“I’ll break Cormac if you want.” We all grinned at Dale, the atmosphere lasting for a while but gradually fading into trying to repair chicken bones apparently stolen from dinner.

“No, you have to be less flouncy?”

“Flouncy?”

“Like, harder with the movement, keep your wrist straight and just flick, don’t twist.” I showed him, the snapped bone rejoining, “Like that.”

He mimicked me, pulling a face.

“Guys, seriously, if you want to copy this essay you better shut up and let me do it.” Aaron complained from his bed, his copy of advanced potion making propped on his pillow. “When’s it due again?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Loads of time then.” Dale decided, leaning back with a yawn, “Unlike Charms which is due in tomorrow.”

“This essay?” I asked, pointing to Ryan successfully performing the spell. He nodded, “Seriously Dale?! You haven’t started?” He shook his head and I rolled my eyes, “You’re such an idiot.”

“Who sets six inches for three days?!”

I was glad we had moved on so quickly, but surprised by the lack of questions, the acceptance at what Katie had said.

Maybe they were just keeping quiet whilst I was here. I could imagine there would be a lot of hidden conversations over the next couple of days.

And the looks were already getting to me, how Harry dealt with it I didn’t know.

I had it for about twenty minutes and could feel myself get annoyed, het up.

I’d been back down to the common room shortly, just to go to the girls dorm, grab my own essay and let my two of my favourite idiotic people paraphrase it.

“Seriously, don’t make it too obvious you’ve copied it.”

“We won’t.” I lifted a brow, “Pinky promise,” He teased, linking our fingers.

“I’m going to bed or something anyway.”

I got a chorus of goodnights, a long hug from everyone.
That in itself was unusual.

I could already hear their whispers as I reached the staircase, and instead of going down I went up one floor, where I assumed Fred and George were.
Instead I was met with just one of them and Lee Jordan.

“Where George?”

“Detention with Umbridge,” Fred said lightly, resting a heavy arm around my shoulders as I sat on his bed, the two of them playing Wizarding Chess, I followed it blankly with my eyes.

“Tough day then?” I nodded, letting my head flop against his shoulder.

“Heard you did some damage to Malfoy though.” Lee grinned, “What you get in return?”

“A weeks detention with McGonagall and three days with Umbridge.” He winced. “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to those three, McGonagall will be fine though.”

“Well, I’m sure even McGonagall will have wanted to punch Malfoy at some point.”

“Don’t we all,” Fred asked lowly, making his winning move and cheering slightly, Lee pulling a face.
“Are you alright anyway?” Lee asked, the two through their next game. I shrugged, and he shot me an apologetic smile, again the topic was dropped.

I’m sure Fred will have filled him in to a degree...if the Daily Prophet hadn’t already. “Do you...have a copy of the Prophet?” I saw them share a glance, but Fred nodded, moving to his bed and pulling it from underneath.

“Are you sure you want too?” I nodded quickly.

“I need too.”

“Apparently they’re blaming Sirius Black.” He said, an edge in his voice that made it impossible to hide my grin, having to keep quiet in front of Lee.

I settled silently in the paper, glancing at each picture, Bellatrix’s twisted husband, Rodolphus. Travers, Rockwood. Ten of them in all, all murderers.

I felt sick and set it down but her face still teased me, roaring, her hair a mess, eyes wide with deep lids.

She looked so unlike my mother.
But she had tainted my memory of her.

I kept catching Fred and Lee looking at me, watching me watch her. Eventually I had enough, pulling the page away and tearing straight through her face, the charm of the photograph broken immediately.

She was still, torn in two how I had been.

Fred opened his mouth as I tore the pictures further up into small chunks, again and again until it was confetti, a way to rid myself of her. But George interrupted, “You guys know where Amelia is?” He stopped at the doorway, spotting me, my hands in fists, flurries of paper around me.

“Are you...”

“Your hand looks bad.” I didn’t want more sympathy and stood, the paper falling like snow to the ground, “Hermione gave me essence of murlap for it, wait a second I’ll go grab some.” He brushed out of the way gently, letting me move around the heating block, again in their room it was central, where ours was closer to one wall, less in the way.

There was still no-one in my dorm when I arrived, and the door the sixth year boys had been closed.
I felt odd knowing they were speaking about me.

Arriving back quickly I moved to George, sitting on his bed, grabbing his hand softly, “What did you do to piss her off?” He bit the inside of his cheek.

“She made a comment.”

“About what?” I used the slightly stained cloth, pouring the lotion on to it and over his hand, reading the words carved into his skin.

I must not defend liars

I muttered them out-loud, “Did she say something about Harry?”
He shook his head, the look on his face giving me the answer, “Umbridge can say what she likes about me, you shouldn’t have...”

“Like I was going to sit there and listen to it...she didn’t mention you by name but it was pretty clear.”

“George...”

His face hardened and I dropped it continuing to bath his hand, “That feels a lot better.”

“Good.”

He lifted my own hand slightly as I sat on the bed, the words still there, slightly white and lifted. “I assumed you’d have more, everyone was saying it was Umbridge that caught you with Malfoy.”

“Yeah, but McGonagall came and saved me.” He snorted a little, Fred and Lee had entered into conversation, no doubt to give us privacy.

“I heard you broke his nose.”

“I hope so.” He chuckled again, pressing his lips against my forehead.

“I’m sorry about...”

“Yeah, well...Fudge can’t really deny it all now can he? This is it, everyone is going to know that Voldemort is out there so hopefully they’ll start doing things...and we have the DA.”

“Yeah,” His good hand moved around me, rubbing my upper arm, “Yeah we do, where were you this afternoon?”

“With Neville.”

“I thought so...is he...alright?”

“He’s angry...” I scoffed a little, “I’m angry...but, it’s alright...just got to fight harder yeah?”

I couldn’t describe the smile on his face as anything other than proud.

“And I refuse to cry anymore over her.” I spat the word, “Although I think Malfoy is going to be after me now.”

“We can handle ickle Draco, can’t we Fred?”

“Of course we can handle a fucking ferret mate. First job, working on sneaking some puking pastilles into his breakfast.” I rolled my eyes, the mood quickly turned jovial, plots, pranks.

“Speaking of which,” Fred announced with a bow, moving to the pile of boxes in the corner that seemed to grow every time I was in the room. “You still owe us a demo.”

“No, I am not having anything from your skiving snackbox.”

He whined, looking at George who shook his head, hand over mine, “Fine, let’s try a whizbang.”
I was well aware what a whizbang was, very similar to the muggle firework, but much more exciting, diverse and therefore dangerous.

“In here? Are you guys mental? Don’t people hear you?”

“What, you think Mum is going to randomly appear?”

“You’re such an idiot, do a small one then if you must.” The trio shared a grin, Fred digging through boxes. “You remember when I said if you actually tried at lessons you two would do really well?”

I was cut off by a groan, “Boring!”

“Whatever Weasley, don’t drag poor Lee down with you” Lee guffawed, catching the cylinder tossed at him and reading it out-loud, “Loonar Loop Luminators.”

“That doesn’t sound too dangerous.” I reckoned, accepting it, looking at the crudely drawn moon on the side, “When you guys start selling these properly you really need better packaging.”

“You can kind of draw, that can be your job!”

“My dream job.” I said, voice full of sarcasm, “So, where do I light this?”

“Put it on the heater,” George suggested, watching me place it on the highest pipe, the heat making the string catch instantly. I took a cautious step behind him, earning laughs.

And then the room lit up.