MAGIANIMA // Hermione Granger

Blood Is Blood

They resided in silence. Atlas sat pooling over the monotonous book Umbridge had assigned them in class, her head down while the soft scratch of Umbridge's quill rang through the air, quickly turning raucous and harsh on her ear. The copious number of cats that donned the walls in the forms of collectable plates all mewled irritably, in a way that Atlas could tell was entirely unnatural, they hissed on occasion, hackles raised when Atlas's eyes flashed with agitation. And it made her palms sweat, made her eyebrow twitch from stress and had her knee bouncing anxiously. Umbridge did not seem to notice and if she had, well, it would explain the pleased smile upon her face.

It had been hours since the school day had come to an end, Atlas should be apologising to her professors for her absence that morning, catching up on homework and perhaps flying through the darkened sky to clear her head before bed, but instead, she was waiting, her gaze flitting uncomfortably to the fire and the pokers that hung from the mantle above it and back to her dull and frankly drowsy book. There wasn't really much to look at and Atlas wouldn't dare look at Umbridge for fear of drawing attention to herself.

Unfortunately, that would happen whether she liked it or not.

"Now..." Atlas had to restrain her neck from physically snapping upwards to meet Umbridge's gaze and instead, calmly glanced at her professor, closing her book - with some shocking amount of hesitance - carefully in her lap. "You're going to be doing some lines for me, Miss Black, with a rather special quill of mine."

She handed her a long, thin black quill, the hollow shaft a sickly red with an unusually sharp point at its end. Atlas took it, feeling an instant shiver crawl up her spine, her hand shook as she accepted the piece of parchment that followed.

"What would you like me to write?"

"You have not done anything wrong as of yet," Umbridge said thoughtfully, "so I cannot punish you for telling lies...however, I must leave an impression on you, to give you a reminder and...motivator to control your brother's behaviour."

"Of course."

"Well then, how about that family motto of yours you despise so much?" Umbridge suggested sweetly, shrugging her shoulders with a high giggle to her pinched smile. Atlas looked at her and then back to the paper, eyebrows furrowing as she thought, "well? What was it? Will you remind me?"

"Toujours Pur..." Atlas muttered.

"Good."

"How many times would you like me to write it?"

"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in," she said and turned back to her marking, a great big stack of parchment practically blocking her from view. "Off you go."

"You haven't given me any ink, professor," Atlas continued, trying her damndest to sound polite.

"You won't be needing any," that horribly vile voice came and Atlas didn't need to see her face to know she had smiled.

Atlas frowned, adjusting the quill between her fingers a few times and glancing at it hesitantly before she pressed it to the paper, her neat letters forming into a vile string of French. A mere two words she had come to despise over time, maybe not entirely the words themselves but because of what they stood for; absolute purity of blood. An impossible and repulsive expectation the House of Black placed upon all its kin.

A sudden pain jolted across Atlas's right hand and she grimaced, biting back a gasp as she winced at the gouges of her fist, the words she had written upon parchment now etched in the flesh of her skin, angry, red but slowly healing until not a scar remained. She quickly turned back to the parchment, well aware that Umbridge's eyes had fallen upon her.