CHAPTER XLI:
detention

( September 1995 )

THE WEEKEND HAD GONE BY FASTER THAN GINGER WOULD'VE LIKED LEADING TO HER SINGLE DAY OF DETENTION. She had of course spent the weekend spending time with the Gryffindors and Alexander trying to get back into a sense of normal, but as soon as Monday came, normal was over.

Her final professor dismissed the class for the day and a shaky feeling immediately swelled in Ginger's bones. Something about only having one day of detention with the cruel woman in pink seemed too easy. There had to be more to it than she knew.

      With her bag slung over her shoulder, she trudged her way to the class and up the stairs to the woman's office. Ginger lifted her hand to knock but hesitated. How much harm would she do if she walked away? Just as she was about to put her hand down, the door creaked open to reveal a cheery Umbridge, toad smile and all. Putting on her doe eyes and a small smile, Ginger sighed walking in and closing the door behind her.

"Where would you like me to sit?" She questioned looking at the options for seats.

"Right here will do just splendidly," Umbridge quipped setting her hands on the head of a pink and gold chair in front of a single desk. Ginger silently complied sitting in her spot. "You will be writing lines for me today, that's all. Nothing more, nothing less." Ginger's eyes squinted with furrowed brows while the woman stood behind her. Leaning down in her bag to search for a pen, Ginger was stopped. "No, no, you're going to use my own special quill."

      She clicked her heels to her own desk to fetch a small box with a fancy-ish looking quill. "How many would you like me to write, and what will I be writing?" Ginger innocently asked.

       Bringing out a small piece of paper from her desk too, Umbridge handed her the two items before taking a seat. "Until it sinks in," was all she said while going back to the paperwork she had been doing. Ginger gave her an odd look just as she let her eyes read over what she was tasked to write. "I hope you don't mind, but I added two things on there since you did also deliberately missed my classes for four days. But you will only need to write that one twice, the first sentence will need to be written multiple times for optimal understanding."

Gingers jaw clenched reading the first sentence she was tasked to write. This woman had gone to a new level of excusable for violence. The second sentence simply readout I will not purposely miss my lessons. Not nearly as terrible as the original sentence that was good enough to cause her eyes to burn with salty tears forming in them.

Hunching over the table, Ginger had begun writing the latter sentence first, her elegant letters traced on the off white paper in black in so easily with the quill that she almost asked Umbridge for the make of the quill. That was until a burning sensation etched its way into Ginger's delicate skin. Quite literally in fact.

Quickly raising her sleeve, the elegant lettering she wrote on the paper had begun to trace itself onto the freckled hand connected to her being. Her golden eyes stared incredulously at her hand then up at the woman who had already been looking at her.

"Something the matter dear?" an innocent tone contorted with the blood forming on the girl's hand. She shook her head quickly to not anger the woman now feeling fear and anxiety from her presence. "Alright, then carry on."

I will not purposely miss my lessons.

The perfect handwriting she held almost made her dizzy from how much it seeped through her skin tissue. And now came the first sentence. The one she dreaded from the moment she read it. The nine convoluted words she was tasked to write were enough to make her circle back on the past four months of dreadful emotions she had felt at different times and melt into a whirlpool of sentiments all at once.

Dolores shifted her attention to watch Ginger write the words on herself. Shaking hand and all. She scribbled the words with her handwriting beginning to become words as she watched and it carve every letter into her hand beginning to trail up past her wrist bone like a bracelet. And then she did it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Finishing with a total of about eighty-one words, not including the original sentence talking about her lessons, from the one sentence being repeated over and over again, Ginger's arm ached with the pain that had been seeping scarlet liquid into her robe sleeves long before she got to her fourth repetition.

"That's enough, dear, you're finished. I hope the messages really sunk beyond the surface," Umbridge sadistically smiled as Ginger finally dropped the quill.

The poor girl had written eleven sentences, including the original two, eighty one words, and three-hundred sixty-six letters as a total of what had been spiraling from the back of her hand to the palm all the way to her elbow.

Rushing out of the office without a second glance back, Ginger's arm had been suffering plenty blood loss as it had begun to feel numb to the touch. Her heels clicked loudly as her vision blurred while stepping through the corridors with students still roaming. Her glazed eyes darted around to her surroundings and to her arm consistently as she began scrubbing at the words that plagued her existence.

      "Please, please, please, come off!" She gritted her teeth while she used one of her sleeves to rub viciously at her wounds as if it would somehow make them go away.

       Down the hall stood her favorite group of Gryffindors along with Alexander who had all been awaiting her exit of detention so they could all hang out as a group. Tears had begun trickling down her flushed cheeks when they set their eyes on her but none of them could make out the sobs escaping past her lips.

       "Hey, Moon." George smiled as she neared them, but his smile quickly faded when she fell into Alexander's arms weakly causing them both to fall to the cold floor. Seconds after her limp fall she lost consciousness. The Gryffindors panicked at the sight of blood dripping from her arm calling for Professor McGonagall who had been passing by. George quickly lifted her sleeve as she remained in Alexanders arms revealing the various wounds she had suffered by the hand of her own.

       With the words smeared in blood, he found it a miracle he was able to even read anything but his heart dropped at the dreaded words that had brought her to the point she was. Unconscious and bleeding with Minerva rushing down the hall at the sight of the teenagers in such distress.

      Cedric Diggory's death was an accident waiting to happen.

NOTE. IVE SAID IT ONCE AND ILL SAY IT AGAIN ☝🏽 UMBRIDGE HATE CLUB ‼️ and lets acknowledge the math i did for this chapter please 🧍🏽‍♀️ i suck at math and it took me like 5 minutes to figure out the specifics for how much she wrote on herself

QOTC. not a question but im probably gonna end up making the qotc's more rare throughout the story cause i forgot i suck at thinking of questions on the spot 😋