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[alt_gredforge]

At the end of dinner, Umbridge called up Sally-Anne Perks and Ginny and (to our surprise) the two of us and Ron, and she told us all to come to her office.

Once we were there, Umbridge turned to Sally-Anne and told her curtly, 'The worthless mudblood who lives with your father was found dead today. Now I imagine you might find this a teensy bit bothersome, but really, it's clear she wasn't happy. Hanged herself.'

And then she smirked and added, 'At least she didn't leave any mess.'

We were really glad that Hermione had passed the news onto Perks first. Ron's jaw dropped and Ginny looked sick. Perks took it cool as could be, though. She just shrugged.

'I'm sure you'll be very happy to hear that your father has applied to re-assume your custody, now that this obstacle is gone.'

That made Perks' eyes go wide. Umbridge waved her out of the office without any ceremony and then turned to us.

We were wondering why the two of us and Ron were there, if Ginny was being called in to hear about her punishment. Turns out, we were part of the punishment. 'Now I understand, Miss Weasley, that you have been distressed because your dear brothers have not been acting like brothers to you. You four, you're Purebloods. You need to understand that you have a family, unlike some--like that half-blood Perks, for example--and you need to appreciate them.

Ron's ears turned so red that we were afraid they were gonna go up in flames.

'Now I'm going to have some special tasks for you, dear. But I'd like to make a teensy little point, and to do that, we're going to have you spend several days where you will all be together.' She smiled that sick smile of hers. 'And we'll follow that up with several days where you will get just a little taste of what it is like to not be able to have a family anymore.'

We looked at each other and then just stared at her.

'Come to my office after classes tomorrow, all four of you. You will spend the weekend together. This will be thanks to a special charm. I'm sure you will find the effects interesting. Your Head of House will remove the charm at bedtime, so that you can sleep, but she will reapply it each morning before you go to breakfast.

And then on Monday morning before classes, you will all come to my office and we will try a different charm.

I'm sure you will find that one most interesting as well.'

What the flipping heck?!

Ginny's pretty upset about how Umbridge broke the news to Perks. Wish we could have told her the truth. It was quite a contrast: the oozing way Umbridge 'sympathised' when she told us about Dad, and the way she told Sally-Anne.

Except we guess it was bloody cruel either way.

Comments

[alt_molly]

My, you're right; I'm very glad that Hermione managed to bring word to Sally-Anne first. Ugh, what a horrible woman!

Be careful, boys. She sounds as vindictive as can be.

[alt_lee]

I had my first punishment session last night. She ordered me to go down with one of the house elves to the kitchens and do what it told me to do.

Thing is, don't think she had exactly thought it through. They got me down there and told me I had to scrape all the food off the plates from dinner. Which is just mad, because the house elves just do that with magic in a split second, and they just kept coming by and wringing their hands and pulling their ears and hopping from one foot to another at the sight of me scraping off that garbage. They HATED seeing me do it. It was almost kind of funny.

So finally I persuaded them that what the Headmistress didn't know didn't need to hurt, and couldn't they just finish the dishes the way they ordinarily do? I mean, I was obviously slowing down their cleanup routine. And then one of them said that she wasn't even the Headmistress, and the castle knew it. She wasn't even a Hogwarts Professor. Which was dead interesting, and would have cheered me up a lot, except he sort of undercut this by banging his head almost to smithereens with a broom handle.

So there was some excitement for a bit, but eventually the other elves calmed him down and sorted him out. And they agreed and magically cleaned the dishes and made 'em disappear. Then I convinced 'em to give me a tour of the kitchens, and I learned loads of useful stuff.

Uh, maybe it's not too clever to explain how I got out of doing a detention on a post that has some Hogwarts staff reading it. But I reckon you probably agree she's not really the true Headmistress either.

Another detention tonight. Apparently I'll be working in the castle laundry.