CHAPTER FIVE:
BAD NEWS

€

Breakfast at Hufflepuff table wasn't Amandla's favorite experience. It started out nice, when she was naïve enough as a child and everything about Hogwarts was a wonder. But as she grew up, and that naïve part of her died, she realized how gossip-centric her house.

No one would have realized this if they were from another house, the façade of Hufflepuff overpowered the truth. Everyone believed they were too kind to start rumors or have their own drama that wasn't over who would have the last square of fudge.

Despite that, Amandla enjoyed sitting with Cevira near the end of the table (because they always woke up late), far away from Hailey North, who was quite the gossiper. She didn't mean to, everyone knew that, she sometimes just let important information slip from her mouth loudly...at least, that's what she told everyone. But they all knew it was a lie.

Breakfast itself was special to Amandla and Cevira. Anastasia only gave them cereal while Caesar got a full course meal. It wasn't fair, but Amandla liked cereal more than she liked eggs, so it wasn't all too bad. And Hogwarts always outdid itself, only giving the best to its students – thanks to the house elves, who were quite nice and always loved to give snacks to passers in the night.

Corey, though, never ate breakfast with them. He did have friends in Ravenclaw, even though they were never as close as the trio, and made a deal with them that he would always have breakfast with them, switch out who he ate with at lunch every week, and dinners with his two great Hufflepuff friends.

Amandla and Cevira never minded the agreement, sometimes it was nice for it to be just them and no one else. They did have girl talks every now and again, but their topics were always varying.

"Arithmancy is killing me," Cevira stressed, groaning at the thought of taking another quiz in that class. "I don't know why I let my mother sign me up for it."

Amandla laughed, "Because she wants to be to just like Caesar. But don't worry, Divination isn't much better."

"Well of course it isn't!" Cevira said loudly, but loud enough to attract attention from the other equally loud housemates. "You got that crazy lady teaching you!"

"Professor Trelawney isn't all that bad," the Fitzgerald girl defended, "She just...doesn't understand that some of us aren't Seers and don't enjoy learning the Mystic Arts."

"Then why are in the class?" Cevira sarcastically asked the girl, taking another bite of her bacon.

"Sounds easier than any other course," Amandla replied sweetly, "I mean, Study of Ancient Runes sounds like torture."

"Something that Caesar seems to like," Cevira continued, "I mean, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes? Sounds like the boy has a death wish."

"Or just wants to sound better than everyone else," Amandla smiled before imitating Caesar, "Look at me! I'm Caesar and I only take the hardest classes – like Arithmancy and Ancient Runes! I'm better than you!"

The two friends burst out laughing after that, finding that mocking Caesar was better than realizing that they were just terrible in school. It wasn't always Caesar, sometimes it was others since the two loved to complain. It was their morning pastime since they didn't allow themselves the luxury any other time of the day.

"No, no, no," Cevira said in between her laughter, "He's more like this; I'm not that smart. I only take the hardest and most challenging classes and pass them with flying colors – I barely even study for them because they're so easy. But I'm not that smart, right?"

Amandla nodded, smiling at her friend. That was something she loved about Cevira; she always knew how to make her smile. Without fail, the Stature girl could always make the rough times easier with a simple joke or attempt of one. Even on the anniversary of her parents' deaths, Cevira was there to comfort her and ease her sadness with poorly timed (and poorly said) jokes. And that was all she could ask for in a friend.

It was then that Umbridge, with all her pink clothing, walked into the hall, causing all talking to seize. Most stared at her with disgust as she went to take a seat with the other professors, standing out greatly as the other professors wore darker clothing.

When she sat down, the talking continued. Cevira groaned again, louder than last time, "And then there's History of Magic. I absolutely loath that class."

"It's not that bad," Amandla laughed, and Cevira continued to complain about it as Corey, with a red face, came over to them. By the state of his face, she could tell that he was angry.

"She had gotten on my last nerve," Corey said through gritted teeth, sitting down next to Cevira. "I just – I can't believe her. I mean, why her out of everyone in the Ministry!"

"Umbridge?" Cevira asked, her face shaped with confusion as her eyebrows furrowed and lips tightened. Corey only nodded, passing over the photo that Collin Creevy and taken earlier that day.

Ministry Passes Educational Decree Number Twenty-Three: Dolores Umbridge Appointed Hogwarts High Inquisitor.

Cevira read the words aloud in disgust as Amandla looked at the photo intently. She read the bottom of it, seeing that, as High Inquisitor, she had the right to inspect teachers and fire them, her eyes widening as she read it. Now she knew why Corey was mad when they read it.

She played a list in her head of all the teachers at the school, and who Umbridge might fire; McGonagall at the top of the list. Everyone knew she was closest with Dumbledore, even an idiot could tell you that, and she was fierce and stubborn. She would not let Umbridge stealing her power lightly; she would put up a fight. And Amandla guessed that Umbridge didn't want that, and would do anything to quiet her.

And then, as if it couldn't get any worse, the birds carrying mail flew into the hall. Amandla, at first, didn't think anything of it. She never got any mail, and neither did Cevira. Her mother never cared enough to write, but the feeling was mutual. The only child who stayed with the Stature family that kept in touch with Anastasia was Caesar; her prized son. The only time they ever received something from Anastasia was when they were doing something wrong.

"I bet she's going to get rid of Trelawney first," Corey bitterly said, "She's my favorite! All crazy and messed up! Reminds me of home – and now she'll be gone. All because of Umbridge."

Cevira sighed, her dark, yet innocent, eyes staring with compassion at Corey, "I'm sorry, but she isn't the best professor here."

"Yeah, like Snape is," Corey snapped, "I bet she'll keep him around, make him her prized little pet." He spat out his words, showing his disgust even more.

The Fitzgerald girl brought her hand to his arm, trying to comfort him even though she didn't feel the same. Amandla didn't particularly enjoy Divination, but she also didn't want to see anything bad happen to the professor.

Corey, though, excelled in the class. It was his best subject, the one he loved more than anything because it was 'easy' in his mind.

(Though, Amandla would argue about that because Professor Trelawney always got off topic and it was really hard to follow her.)

(But Corey seemed to do it with ease and always had to explain to Amandla what she was talking about.)

"I agree with you, Copernicus," Cevira started as Corey glared at her, hating the use of his first name, "Snape's gonna suck up to her, or she's going to cast a spell to make him love her. Potions is useful."

"You hate Potions class," Corey pointed out.

Cevira shrugged, "Never said it wasn't useful. I just said that it's boring – because it is."

The Lovegood boy rolled his eyes, "Potions is actually very interesting if you read the history part of it all."

"But I hate history," Cevira counted, "So, no, it's not very interesting for me to read about a bunch of dead people who created a potion for themselves."

Corey just rolled his eyes, shaking his head which caused his light hair – which was already messy and out of place – to move in front of his eyes, "You're impossible."

Cevira only smiled.

But then a letter landed right on the plate, which was lying front in front of Amandla, and all conversation halted as they stared at it. Amandla, like said before, never received letters – they all knew that – and none knew why she would finally have one. The first thing she noticed was the nice, proper cursive that spelled her name, and she immediately recognized it as the handwriting of her aunt; Narcissa Malfoy. And by then, she already knew what the letter was about, even without reading it.

But, she knew that she had to read it. Even though dread filled her stomach and warped around her heart and she felt like leaving and puking in the girls' bathroom, she stayed. And, with nimble fingers, opened the letter that her friends had already noticed and were staring at with curiosity.

Dear Amandla,

With the recent discovery of your liveliness to the Death Eaters, the Dark Lord himself requests a meeting with you. It will occur during the winter holidays in which you will be coming home with Draco. We will discuss your involvement then.

Please, do not try and run away from this. We will always be able to track you, and he does not like having to track people down. It will be much worse for you.

With regards,
Narcissa B. Malfoy

She gulped, rereading the letter as much as she could in the ten seconds she knew she had before her friends started to ask questions. Then, since the piece of parchment was thin and her aunt was being particularly less elegant with her writing and pressing her quill down onto the paper more, she saw writing on the back as well. Turning the parchment, she read:

Truly, I am sorry. I hope one day you will be able to forgive me. I love you so much, and I never meant for this to happen to you.

€

"Greetings my children. I sense now that many of you have already made the transition into the beyond," Trelawney boldly said, her hands going wild as Umbridge smiled at her like a toad.

"Today we will be continuing our interpretation of prophetic dreams. Please divide into your groups and discuss your recent night time visions using the text as a guide," Trelawney instructed them as Amandla turned to Corey.

The two of them opened their books, like the rest of people in their class, and Amandla looked down at her messy handwriting, looking at the dreams she made up. Amandla remembered all her dreams clearly, she remembered every detail perfectly, and that's why she had to lie.

She couldn't tell everyone that she had dreams of her parents' death, or that she had seen Draco and herself getting Dark Marks. She saw herself turning into a monster, someone who killed without mercy and was praised for it. She saw that, and she hated herself because that was the person that her parents hated, the reason they ran away. She saw darkness, destruction, and sometimes, if the dreams were merciful, ones of Hermione and herself, happy, alive, and away from all the trouble. Her dreams punished her in every way, showing her darkness and showing her things that would never happen in real life. Because Hermione would never love her.

So, instead of spilling all of this to her friend who would never understand the darkness that surrounded her and would tease her for the light ones she had with Hermione, Amandla lied.

And it seemed that she was good at it because Corey never asked questions. She said she had dreams of valleys (which were partial lies) and of childhood (she never did), and sometimes the occasional 'I don't remember.' Corey never questioned it, and neither did Trelawney. So Amandla was fine.

But they stopped sharing dreams with each other when they heard Umbridge speaking to Trelawney. In their defense, so did everyone else, besides Lavender Brown and Parvati Patel, who cared too much about the class to let the toad-like woman stop them.

"And how long have you been at this post?" Umbridge asked, her pen ready to write down something else.

"Near to sixteen years I have been the guide to young seers possessed of the Inner sight," Trelawney answered, which Amandla thought was too grand for the question.

Corey rolled his eyes, muttering, "What possession of the Inner sight?" Amandla smiled at him.

It was true that he loved the class and excelled in it, but that didn't mean he possessed an Inner sight. He liked talking about himself and he loved talking about dreams, even before they had Divination Corey would go to Cevira and Amandla to talk about his dreams in full detail – not letting them miss one. So, in return, he loved the class because that was all the did most of the time.

"I understand you are the descendent of the famous Seer Cassandra Trelawney?" Umbridge asked once she finished writing something down.

"I am."

"And you are the first since Cassandra to have the Second Sight?" the lady in pink continued to ask questions.

"These things tend to skip...several...generations," Trelawney nimbly answered.

"Of course," she made another note, "Now, if you would kindly make a prediction for me?"

Trelawney swelled with anger and uselessness, "The Inner Eye does not See upon command!" Umbridge smiled widely, her teeth showing as she looked so similar to a toad at that moment. Trelawney, set on redeeming herself, moved swiftly to Harry Potter, "My dear boy, your dream diary, if you please!"

Harry nervously then handed his journal to her, and Amandla didn't blame him. Trelawney could be quite scary, as she was then, rapidly flipping the pages with trembling fingers as she gazed for only a moment before dropping the journal down and giving a shriek.

"My dear boy! My poor boy! These dreams are evil portends!" Trelawney yelled, distress written on her face.

Everyone in the class was mostly intrigued at the moment, especially Lavender and Parvati, who were excited for any prediction the professor gave them.

But, Harry, a skeptic, looked down at what he wrote before reading it, "Dreamt I was at breakfast eating oatmeal?"

The class looked down ashamed that they had gotten their hopes up while the two who loved and believed Trelawney more than anything remained hopeful. Trelawney only stared at the boy in horror as Umbridge smirked and made many more notes about the professor, which Amandla thought would be quite terrible.

"Yes, yes, oatmeal! Are you telling me you cannot see the signs? The foretelling of suffering and death?" Trelawney asked him, going mad again.

"Er..." Harry struggled to say anything, not seeing anything himself. But none of the class had anything to say either.

"Perhaps you are not as in the beyond as the others," Trelawney dismissed it, thinking that the others understood perfectly what was happening, even Lavender and Parvati were struggling to understand and hoped that their favorite professor would explain it to them.

Trelawney swept away from Harry's table, going to others and continuing class like it never happened while Umbridge stood there with a toad-like smile, her clipboard down signaling that she was done taking notes. "Well, if that's the best you can do, Professor, I will be going," she said before leaving the tower.

Amandla turned back to Corey, both of them looking exhausted after having to keep up with the conversation and having to deal with Trelawney and her crazy self. The boy sent her a smile before picking up his journal again and reading her one of his dreams that happened last week, and she smiled. Maybe it wasn't completely normal, but it was close enough, and that was all she needed.

€

Classes had ended for the day, and Amandla was feeling much cheerier now. She didn't like Divination, but she managed to have a laugh when Corey reprimanded her for having a dream about wandering into a dark cave because "those are dark and dangerous, Amandla, you shouldn't mess with them."

And then, after Divination, she had Potions with Snape, and he wasn't all too happy that she hadn't completed the homework he had assigned. It seemed that he had forgotten what it was like to be a student and have loads of homework from each class every day that she had to complete on top of his. And it didn't help that she hated his class and had no care for it, so doing homework didn't matter much to her, but it meant the world to Snape, apparently.

The class had gotten worse when they were learning the history of a Potion, something about a wise old man wanting to live forever or turn back young – something of the sorts, but Amandla knew that she could just use the notes that Corey took.

Then there was she was, walking around in the corridors, making her way back to the Hufflepuff Common Room when she was grabbed by the arm and lead to the one bathroom that no one ever used anymore because of Moaning Myrtle who haunted the place and was often very whiny.

She looked at her kidnapper to see an angry, yet sad, Draco Malfoy looking into her confused eyes before turning away. Something was wrong, something terrible was wrong and she was left in the dark. Something was always wrong, at least it was now, and she was always left in the dust before they felt the need to include her – and that was never when the problem arose. No, it was weeks later, it was weeks of knowing and waiting before even thinking of telling her, and that hurt the girl. And here she was again, waiting for bad news like she always was.

"My friends think that something's going on between the two of us," Draco spat the word 'friends' bitterly.

"I know, Pansy cornered me in the library," Amandla said quickly after he finished speaking, "I told her a lie and that was it. There's nothing else."

"But there is!" Draco stressed, "Do you think they'll actually leave this alone? They won't! They're probably right outside listening to this conversation!"

Amandla shook her head, trying not to cry as she realized what Draco was going to tell her. "No," she mumbled, hoping that he would leave it at that, "Please, don't."

Draco moved away from her, grasping the sides of one of the sinks as he stared at himself, his eyes shifting to Amandla who was behind him with sad eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "But it has to happen. I need to keep my reputation here, and you don't want me to be around you."

Amandla disagreed, shaking her head, "No, no. I'll always want you – always need you. You're the only one who understands."

Draco continued, ignoring her, "Maybe when summer comes, maybe then we can be friends again. I just – if it works in our favor, you won't want me when summer comes."

Amandla stepped forward then, turning Draco around so that she could see his face. There were bags under his eyes and tears brimming, just like hers. His skin was paler than usual, and he wondered how no one noticed. This was Draco, through all the layers he presented himself as. Though he could be cruel, though he believed some of the things his parents installed in him, he was struggling like everyone else. Now, with her help, with good times, he had broken through the words his parents told him growing up out of fear of being different. But this...this broken boy who worried constantly for her and would protect her from everything was the boy that she grew up with – the one that she loved.

He wasn't a terrible person. He did terrible things, he tried his hardest to be just like his parents, but then everything changed for him. It was summer, it was the rise of Lord Voldemort and the impending doom of receiving the one thing that kept his family prisoners. He didn't want that, but what choice did he have? No, he didn't have a choice, but Amandla did. She had the choice to defy, to be free, something he could only dream of. And he would be damned if he let Amandla be taken down with him.

"I'll always want you," Amandla spoke softly, her soft hands on his pale face.

Both of them understood, both of them needed each other. They had gone through everything together, they were each other's rocks, but he needed to protect her from him. He needed to let her become her own good self – without him – so he left.

He looked at her once more, bringing her into a longing and lasting hug before letting her go and looking into her eyes once more, trying to forget her warm and loving embrace.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her with the sincerest voice she had ever heard before walking out of them room.

She didn't call after him, she didn't yell at him to come back because she knew that it was useless. He left her, her rock, the only thing to help her through the bad times was gone. For such a long time, she thought, through all the changes, Draco would always be there.

Draco was her only constant growing up, the only one who truly understood her. He was the constant who stayed with her through everything, who didn't even leave her when they were sorted into different houses. No, he stayed, like she always thought he would.

But as she watched the door that he had so recently left through, she realized how wrong she was in that. Draco wasn't there for her anymore, he was gone, and she was left alone.