𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟-𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝

A Game Of Chess

Rewritten

"Stop glaring, you'll burn her to bits,"

"I hate her." Aurora hissed, black and gold eyes burning holes into the pink-clad figure of Umbridge sitting at the head table for breakfast, her saccharine smile like daggers underneath a cloak.

"We know," Ron mumbled.

"No, I hate her," Aurora repeated, "as in I want to bite her throat out."

They paused, Ron and Hermione both stared at her, brows furrowed, Hermione's cup raised to her lips and Ron's fork hovering midair.

"Maybe after I finish my omelette," Ron suggested weakly, sharing a pointed wary glance with the smart witch next to him.

"You don't actually mean it, right?" Was that a hint of desperation she detected in Hermione's voice?

Aurora stared back at them with her usual scowl, arms crossed.

"On the contrary, I'm completely serious. Last night I even came up with strategies to kill her out of boredom," she sighed, "carving out lungs is still my favourite."

"Okay," Ron exclaimed, hitting the table. "No more murderous comments before ten o'clock." He pointed his fork at her reprimandingly for good measure.

Aurora's time at Hogwarts was shadowed by a dark cloud, and that cloud was several things mixed together that made Aurora's teeth grate. At the top of the list was the flying restriction put on her. Every time she stared outside her spine stiffened with the anticipation of letting her wings free. But, alas, she wasn't allowed, not whilst the three-headed dragon from hell was roaming the halls.

And the second part of the cloud was the three-headed dragon herself. Aurora utterly loathed her, several times she almost swiped her claws through her neck, and she would have, had Ron not held her back.

To help wade off the stress of it all, she smoked at least a pack a day, it made the others wrinkle their nose and complain around her but it also stopped her from jumping out the window so Aurora really didn't care.

One positive thing that occurred was the return of Harry to the group.

It seemed like her words had affected Harry Potter and he had heeded her advice (or observations), because that morning at breakfast, he came to stand behind them hesitantly, asking for permission to sit.

"Harry!" Hermione smiled, albeit a little nervously since she feared his temper these days.

Ron gave his friend a mouth filled with food smile, looking back down at his Quidditch catalogue.

"Can I join you?" Harry asked hesitantly, eyeing the empty seat next to Hermione occupied by her bag.

Hermione picked up her bag with a relieved look on her face.

Aurora barely paid any attention to this ordeal, sitting next to Ron with a cigarette dangling from her lips as she leafed through The Daily Prophet. Every now and then she would scoff, mutter some insults and then turn the page, a cup of half-drunk coffee steaming away on the table as her breakfast.