Christmas at Grimmauld Place had been great. She had bonded a lot over the days there, especially with Ginny, but also her relationship with Hermione was strengthened.

She had liked being around Sirius and the other members of the Order because many of them would tell the teens a story if they had the time. Sirius' and Moody's were the best. Sirius would always talk about the pranks he and his friends had pulled, he said it made him happy and sad at the same time, thinking about it. Moody told them adventurous stories about Death Eaters or other Criminals and how he had caught them.

Mr Weasley had come out of the hospital in time for Christmas Eve, still looking damaged though. The Weasleys were incredibly relieved once he was back, and it was noticeably more fun after that, all of the redheaded teens were suddenly joking and laughing all the time.

Medea was sad she needed to go back to Hogwarts again because the Christmas weeks had been really fun and the people around had been so nice. Of course, she knew there wasn't another way and she dully packed her trunk the last day.

School wasn't fun at all, because all of those people who hadn't liked her anyway, seemed to have been boosted by their parents (or whoever they spent their holidays with) to pick on her even more.

And as the comments got nastier, so did Medea, sometimes causing the bullies or her friends to be very surprised. Once she even got a teacher startled. In a bad way, unfortunately. She had had to go to detention three times, not with Umbridge though, luckily.

She still wondered if that monster would get back at her one day. Medea was sure she wouldn't let her get away with wandering the corridors after curfew, especially because she suspected (and was right with it) that she had been doing it because of her little secret society to learn how to duel properly.

By now, nothing had happened, but it only got her more paranoid. Every lesson with her, she expected the woman to come up with something painful or embarrassing, but she kept quiet, only her teaching got more boring.

Instead of her being the 'evil' teacher, it was, also not surprisingly, Snape. He had been told to teach Harry Occlumency, which he seemed to do not very successful nor very nice.

"And Harry, how was Snape yesterday?" Medea asked her Gryffindor friend on their way to breakfast. He turned and looked at her with dark shadows under his eyes.

"Horrible, as always." Medea chuckled slightly, still not quite understanding the disliking both of them had for the other.

"Oh, come on. You know Harry, I could imagine you're not making it easy for him to teach you either. I mean, Dumbledore wants you to have these lessons and Sirius and Remus think it's good too. I guess you should at least try."

"Ugh, you don't understand, Snape hates me, he's-,"

"Harry! Harry, look what's happened!" Dean and Seamus yelled from the Gryffindor table and held up a Daily Prophet. Medea doubted any of them had a subscription for that, so it must have been Hermione's coming early.

"There was a mass breakout from Azkaban!" The Gryffindors gathered around the two boys, reading out loud from the article. Concerned 'Oh's went through the crowd, to which even a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs now belonged. The teens whispered with their friends, eager to hear everything to know about the ten high-security prisoners.

And so the days blurred by, the lessons getting more intense with the O.W.L.s dawning, the hunt for those prisoners getting more and more pathetic, Harry's Occlumency lessons getting worse, until they ended by him invading Snape's memory, but, most importantly, the occasional pain in Medea's head sharpening every time, the occurrence becoming more frequently.

"Ugh," Harry groaned, collapsing into the couch right beside Medea and Ron. They had been playing Wizard's Chess while waiting for him and Hermione to come back from the interview.

"What's wrong? It can't have been that bad," Medea said, sitting down next to him, glad about the disturbance of her match with Ron since he had beat her seven times now.

"Oh, come on mate, tell us," Ron encouraged his friend and sat down on his other side. Hermione had by now entered the Gryffindor common room and was immediately hit with multiple questions.

"I don't think the interview was his problem," she chuckled, overly busy with her scarf. Harry groaned again.

"What is it, what happened?" Medea asked her friends again, now focusing on Hermione since Harry tried to hide behind a pillow he pressed on his face.

"Chrm, well, his date with Cho didn't go too well. - She got jealous when he said he would meet me now. Harry wasn't very clever, really," the bookworm said, sending amused glances to her black-haired friend, who still looked as if he was about to suffocate himself with the pillow in Gryffindor-colours.

Even though little interventions like this happened, the days were mainly passing by without leaving a relevant memory.

In between it got really interesting though, when the Quibbler published Skeeter's article on Voldemort's reappearance, meaning an interview with Harry about the events on the graveyard during the final task of the Triwizard Tournament.

"Entering force immediately: Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven: Any student found in possession of the magazine 'The Quibbler' will be expelled," it resounded through the halls and Medea laughed with Hermione at the idiocy of that teacher, now everywhere called 'The pink toad'.

As Hermione had explained her before, with banning this magazine from school grounds, it would only cause more students to read it, and she was totally right. Medea had read the article over three times now, always disguised as a textbook (Hermione had obviously performed that charm).

Also, she had left editions of 'The Quibbler' then and now in the halls, causing Umbridge to go wild every time she saw one, especially if Medea or her friends had been through the trouble of making it charms-resistant, giving the teacher a hard time destroying the magazines.

Then something happened, that definitely stood out from the other days, but now that Medea knew the option, she regretted to have ever wished anything else but peace.

"Is she coming?" Harry asked the tiny creature standing in front of him, holding him tight in order to stop him from self-punishment. The elf let out a howl and began beating his bare feet hard on the floor.

"Yes, Harry Potter, yes!" the house-elf answered, and panic overtook the students. Teens of all ages ran wildly through the room, heading for the exit. Harry yelled at them to run, there was a scrum at the door, but then people broke through.

Medea was one of the first to leave the Room of Requirement, along with Dean, because they had been training near the exit.

"Look out for yourself!" Dean whispered urgently. Then he was gone, running to his common room, along with other Gryffindors, his mate Seamus right behind him.

Medea could hear voices and footsteps, but they were approaching, not running away, so she guessed it was Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad. Her hands got sweaty and her mind too troubled to think properly. Her legs carried her far away, right down to the corridors. When she ran through Hogwarts, the panting and the steps of the other fleeing students became quieter, all of them running to their common rooms, and none of them was hers.

After two minutes of running, her mind started working slowly again and she wondered about Ron, Hermione and Harry if they got out. She also got the idea if it was clever to run straight to the common room, but was soon calmed down. It would probably not have been a good idea for anybody else, but Umbridge surely wouldn't suspect a Slytherin to be a member of this, so she wouldn't search these corridors.

Sweat was running down her nose, and she breathed heavily, now that she had reached the doors of her common room, she felt lighter and realized how scared she had actually been. Medea lent on the wall for a minute, trying to slow down her breath, and brushing away the sweat from her face.

Then she entered the Slytherin common room, hiding her churning emotions behind her perfect mask of unconcern that she had developed during her time in Slytherin house.

***

Dear readers! ;)

This chapter has a bit of a different style than the others because I needed to skip quite a lot of time so it doesn't get too boring.

Because of that, please give me feedback, as I need to know if this works.

Other than that, I'm always happy about votes or comments, so if you liked this chapter...

Thanks so much to all of you who are reading this!

-Tonks