Obliviate my Destiny {Book 5}

17. Fireproof

Time passed and things didn't get any easier.

No sightings of Harry, Ron and Hermione were reported—which was both a blessing and a curse. No news was good news, right? But there was a pain inside of me in the dark stretching nights that longed to see my brother again, have any idea of where he was.

And Gennie, of course, poor Gennie was still in Azkaban. Cole had been strong for the first week, anticipating a headline about her to be the second escapee of Azkaban. But the only thing about Gennie in the newspapers was a mugshot of her—pale and afraid with a bruised face.

Cole held onto the mugshot like a talisman, touching the contours of Gennie's cheekbones and her crazy hair, as if his physical touch could bring her back.

But after three weeks without anything—morale was low.

The various messages we left around the castle were an astounding success—the death eater guard were paranoid and terrified, our teacher allies beaming and giving house points to anyone they believed was a part of the DA.

But of course, Alecto Carrow, Muggle Studies teacher and death eater wasn't paranoid or afraid; she was livid and full of hatred that she wanted to pass on.

"I know our learning has been.... Disrupted to say the least." She said in a lesson near the end of September. She was speaking about how the sounds of students screams as they tried to escape from detention forced her to 'deal with them'. "But, I'm not letting any of these brats who won't take their justified punishment ruin your education."

Cole tensed up in the seat next to me, looking ready to fly at Carrow. His temper was so close to the surface these days, as well as his dark thoughts; the happy kitten loving Cole was buried beneath his pain and anger.

"One of them was one minute late to her class," Cole muttered under his breath, his voice breaking. "How is that justified?"

Carrow ignored him.

"Of course, once upon a time muggles worshipped us—they came to us for help for their whining's and actually praised us for our abilities. Merlin even is still today well regarded by those animals—"Carrow spat, and all hopes vanished of this being a fair story. "The muggles soon began turning on us, persecuting us for the very magic that once helped them so much. And that of course led to the Salem witch trials and we were forced into hiding."

"We weren't forced; it was a collected decision by the Ministry." Cole said loudly. "Are you defying the Ministries decisions, Professor?"

Carrow, who happened to walking past our row, smacked Cole on the back of the head; but he just rolled his eyes. "The old Ministry had poor judgement. This is a new era."

"New doesn't always mean better." I blurted out.

Carrow froze. "Excuse me, Miss Stark?"

"New doesn't always mean better," I said again, even though Alia was hitting my arm, telling me to shut up. "Like seriously—the Ministry had poor judgement in the past, but at least they actually cared about most people. What does this new Ministry do? Scare and hate, torture and kill those who speak their minds?!"

"I think you'd better be quiet, Miss Stark." Carrow whispered, standing only a few inches away from my face.

"What are you going to do? Get Cameron? I'm not scared." I said defiantly. "But I know you are."

"Detention, six pm tonight Miss Stark." Carrow snapped, practically spitting on me. "And trust me—this detention will be worse than anything Cameron Wilde could do to you."

After dinner, after practically everybody gave me a lecture for speaking up I headed to the defence classroom with a very bad feeling. I know I shouldn't have spoken up, but somebody had to, right?