PLAYING A FACADE | D.M fanfic

five.

Several weeks passed uneventfully in Hogwarts and surprisingly, I hadn't asked Draco Malfoy for help in Astronomy, I guess my pride got in the way. Everyday, I attended quidditch practice for the Slytherin team, we watch the quidditch matches every fortnight, the last one was Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff, where the blue house won by catching the Golden Snitch, meaning that we will be versing them within two weeks. On the days Hogwarts didn't have quidditch matches, I would go to Hogsmeade, getting butterbeers with Draco, Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle and sadly Pansy would butt in at times. Or I would be practicing quidditch by myself at the pitch. Umbridge had more control over the school than ever for some reason, which favored the Inquisitorial Squad and Slytherins. As usual, I sat next to Hermione Granger in toad-face-Dolores Umbridge's Defence Against the Dark Arts class and the class have gotten used to a Slytherin sitting next to a Gryffindor at this point. The need to send Umbridge to Azkaban was real as well. Dark Arts barely had any practical tasks and mostly on theory. Though I know enough to Crucio her right now. Draco and the Inquisitorial Squad were more and more favored by Umbridge, with a guranteed pass on OWLs for Defence Against the Dark Arts and daily attempts on busting the "Dumbledore's Army". Time dragged on slowly in this class, no one spoke, a period on this lesson was spent on reading and writing and nothing else, another reason why I miss Ilvermorny. I was surprised that my hand is still intact despite the numerous writing done in every class.

As I read on how to perform Lacarnum Inflamari and the Reductor Curse, which I have learned at Ilvermorny earlier this year as we always do practical activities on the first half of the year and theories in the second half to prepare for OWLs, which made me realize that I transferred to Hogwarts on time to study the theory aspect of Dark Arts. I was suppressing my yawn as I looked at the clock, telling me that we had about twelve minutes left of this class before continuing to read the flicks that must be done to perform Lacarnum Inflamari, basically pointing the wand at the target and an orange light would come out of your wand, causing the target's cloak to be burning.

Maybe I should perform that on Umbridge.

We had no quidditch practice today, the team decided to make today a rest day. A rest day for the quidditch team was basically a day where the team decided to skip practice. Draco only allowed this rest day once a month. As I continued reading, an origami bird landed on my book, blocking the words I was reading. I picked the origami up and scanned the room to see who gave me this and it is none other, Draco Malfoy. He gave me his raised eyebrows look, telling me to open and I saw Hermione being curious next to me.

Extra quidditch practice at 5. - DM

I looked at Draco again with confusion and he raised an eyebrow, telling me that practice would commence, that rest day is cancelled. Unfortunately, Umbridge was very, very nosy.

"Miss Edwards, care to share to the class what's in your hand?"

"That's none of your business, professor." I replied in an instant while shoving the paper onto the pockets of my Slytherin robe.

"Detention for you, Edwards. My office at five."

The whole class looked at me. I was the first Slytherin to get a detention from Umbridge in our year level. I've heard that Umbridge's detention is literally torture, with her forcing the students to write lines on a piece of paper and the writing would transfer to their arms, leaving scars. I would talk back one more time, but that would probably lead to the reduction of Slytherin house points so I decided to keep my mouth shut. At that point, I couldn't do anything much but attend the detention later, meaning that I would not be able to attend the quidditch practice at five. I looked at Draco once more, giving him an awkward smile and he shook his head, clearly annoyed at me before he returned to reading the thick textbook of the subject. Hermione gave me a sympathetic smile and I shrugged at her as regret started to make its entrance into my conscience.