Rosalyn walked through to portrait hole and into the common room. She was alone.

The common room, however, was packed with new and old Gryffindors alike. People Rosalyn knew. She tried to go up to Parvati and Lavender, to chat, but they backed away from her, scared. She tried to talk to Eloise Midgen, a nice girl with acne, but she told her that she had to put her face cream on. Rosalyn knew her. She put it on before she went to bed, and it was only seven o'clock. This was simply an excuse to get rid of Rosalyn.

Snarling under her breath, she went to two other friends. "Dean, Seamus, good holiday?" She asked, looking at the two boys with a nervous smile.

Now, Dean and Rosalyn were quite close. They talked and laughed but that was with other friends there. Rosalyn and Seamus were just different. They weren't romantic or anything, but they were just closer.

This is what made what happened next such a slap in the face.

"Alright," Dean answered. "Better than Seamus's, anyway."

"Wh- what?" Rosalyn looked at Seamus, who stood up.

"Me mam didn't want me to come back this year," he said nastily.

Rosalyn was completely unprepared. She hadn't expected this to come from Seamus of all people.

"Why?" She asked.

"Erm- let me see, because of you," he said sarcastically. "The Daily Prophet's been saying a lotta things about you Rosalyn, and Dumbledore as well."

"And your mum believes them?" Rosalyn asked incredulously, more shocked than annoyed at that moment.

"Well, no one was there when Cedric died," Seamus said defensively. "We don't know what actually happened."

"Well if you want to know," Rosalyn's temper was rising rapidly. "I guess you should read the Prophet like your stupid mother."

"Don't you dare have a go at my mother!"

"I'll have a go at anyone who calls me a liar," Rosalyn shot back. "I bet your precious mummy was in a right tizzy, sending you off to school with an attention seeking liar."

"Shut up about my mother!"

"What's going on here?" Ron had arrived at the scene.

"She's mad is what's going on!" Seamus yelled. "D'you believe all the rubbish she's come out with about You-Know-Who?"

"Yes because he's not as stupid as you are!" Rosalyn shot back.

"Yeah, I do actually," Ron said, standing by Rosalyn. "Has anyone else got a problem with Rosie?"

The room stayed in silence. Rosalyn finally broke it, saying to Seamus. "You know what? I don't care. He can talk to me when dear mummy lifts the restraining order she's probably filing for."

She stormed up the stone steps, Ron following her. "You alright?" He asked her before she got to her dorm.

"Fine," Rosalyn answered, but she wasn't. They both knew this.

"Seamus was bang out of order," Ron continued. "But he'll come round, you'll see-"

"I said I'm fine, Ron!" Rosalyn yelled, turning round.

Ron was silent for a few moments until- "Alright."

Rosalyn stormed up to her dormitory, changing into pyjamas before going to bed. Her dreams were disturbed.

First she was in a long corridor with black, tiled, shining walls, gold in between the cracks. She saw a pale white hand reaching out for something, a door... a door at the end of the corridor. She saw lots of glass orbs, they looked like crystal balls... then Lord Voldemort was there, trying to get something-

She woke up. She was sweating buckets, but she had a clear memory of everything she saw. And she couldn't understand it one bit.

☆☆☆

The first lesson with the Pink Bitch came sooner than Rosalyn wanted. She trudged down the corridor with Hermione, feeling very much that this lesson was doomed from the start. When she and her best friend got to the door and went inside, she saw many students already sitting at desks. Umbridge was not present.

However, Seamus was, and so was someone else. Someone even more unpleasant.

"I know, Finnigan, such a nutter isn't she?" Draco Malfoy said loudly.

No, Rosalyn thought, no, Seamus. You can spread rumours, be cold, stop talking to me, but please don't team up with Malfoy.

But, however much she wished against it, he did. "Yeah, and I bet she's doing it all for attention. I bet she thinks the papers will-"

"She thinks the 'papers' will be a bit less stupid and so will her so-called friends," Rosalyn said loudly, her lip curling, not turning round to face Malfoy.

Malfoy nodded, not paying attention to Rosalyn. "Yeah, she loves attention, does Potter-"

"I love being ignored," Rosalyn cut him off loudly. "It means you can hear what people really think of you."

"Shut up Potter," Malfoy said gleefully. "Not so popular this year, are you? Now everyone knows your true colours..."

But Rosalyn had no interest in the shit Malfoy was talking about her, she had come to expect that from him. She went to Seamus. "Shut up about me, get a life and talk about something else."

He didn't answer.

Meanwhile, Parvati had created a paper bird, and was levitating it around the room.

"Come on Dean, hit it!" A random Hufflepuff said to Dean, and he stood up from his chair, lashing out at the bird. He caught it and sent it off course so that it flew up higher. Crabbe then caught it with a slingshot and a small ball. The bird flew up and up, up to the light-

Then it was set on fire and it fell back down to Parvati's desk.

Umbridge stood at the back of the classroom, wand outstretched. "Good morning children," she said as though she was a nursery teacher.

She raised her wand again and made chalk write on a blackboard at the front. "Ordinary, Wizarding, Level, examinations. O.W.L's, more commonly known as... owls."

She was at the front now, addressing them properly. "Study hard, and you will be rewarded. Fail to do so, and the consequences may be... severe."

She pointed her wand at a stack of books and they flew off the shelf and deposited themselves on desks. Rosalyn read Defence Against the Dark Arts: Basics For Beginners off the front and lost interest.

"Now, your previous instruction in this subject has been disturbingly uneven," Umbridge said, and Rosalyn rolled her eyes. "But you'll be pleased to hear that from now on you'll be following a carefully structured, Ministry approved guideline. Yes?" She asked Hermione, who had her hand up.

She also already had the book open, saying, "There's nothing in here about using defencive spells?"

"Using spells?" Umbridge gave a girlish laugh. "I can't imagine why you would need to use spells in my classroom."

"We're not gonna use magic?" Ron asked, dumbstruck.

"You will be learning about defencive spells in a secure, risk free way-"

"But what the hell will that teach us?" Rosalyn asked retorically. "Nothing! That's what! If we're gonna be attacked it won't be risk free-"

"Students will raise their hands when they speak in my class," Umbridge said, turning away for a second then turning back. "It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examinations which, after all, is what school is all about!"

"Ahh yes it's all happy clappy fun!" said Rosalyn, smiling widely and unrealistically. "How the fuck is theory supposed to prepare us for what's out there?"

"Watch your language, Miss Potter, or I am afraid I will be forced to put you in detention. And there is nothing out there," reassured Umbridge. "Who do you think would want to attack children, such as yourselves?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Rosalyn, temper out of control. "Maybe... Lord Voldemort?"

There was a silence. Umbridge waited for a second before saying, "Now let me make this quite plain," she started to walk towards Rosalyn and Hermione's desk. "You have been told that a certain dark wizard is at large once again. This. Is. A. Lie."

She was leering over Rosalyn now, and the girl yelled. "It is NOT a lie! I saw him! I fought him!"

"Detention, Miss Potter!" Umbridge yelled, turning back.

"So according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord?" Rosalyn asked to many gasps.

"Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident-" Umbridge began.

"It was murder! Voldemort killed him! You must know that-" Rosalyn shouted, but she too was cut off.

"Enough!" Umbridge yelled in a high voice. "See me at five o'clock, Miss Potter, my office."

Rosalyn, out of breath and fuming, made no reply, and as soon as the bell went she hurried out the class, not listening to a word Malfoy said. Or anything any of her friends said.

☆☆☆

Umbridge was in her office when Rosalyn arrived at one past five. She was spooning pink sugar into her tea.

As soon as Rosalyn had seen Umbridge, she knew she wasn't her sort of person. The office proved it. The brick walls had been painted pink, and they were covered in China plates with cats on them. The cats were moving, of course, and meowing as well. "Sit," Umbridge said, and Rosalyn sat in the chair opposite Umbridge.

"You're going to be doing some lines for me, today, Miss Potter," she said. Rosalyn made to get her quill, but her teacher said. "No, not with your quill. You're going to be using a rather special one of mine."

She was handed a long piece of parchment and a quill with a blood red feather. Rosalyn would soon learn the reason for this.

"Now, I want you to write 'I must not tell lies' alright?"

Rosalyn asked bitterly. "How many times?"

Umbridge sighed. "Let's just say for as long as it takes for the message to sink in, okay?"

As she turned round, Rosalyn pointed something out. "You haven't given me any ink."

"Oh you won't need any ink," Umbridge said.

"But then won't the message not-"

"Shh, Miss Potter I assure you it will, now..."

Rosalyn sighed and wrote I must not tell lies.

The first time, the back of her hand began to tingle. The second, it began to hurt. The third time, she went slower, and saw the truth for herself.

Each time she wrote I must not tell lies on the page, the quill carved it out her hand and used her blood to write the message.

And Rosalyn was filled with so much anger just then that it was all she could do not to punch Umbitch in the face. And then she did something else, something more infuriating.

She walked round to face Rosalyn, leering over her. "Yes?" She asked in that sweet voice that made Rosalyn's stomach curdle.

But she held her gaze, stopping her eyes from flooding with tears and saying. "Nothing." She couldn't give Umbridge the satisfaction of knowing how much pain she was in. She wouldn't.

"That's right," she said in the most patronising voice. "Because you know, deep down, that you deserve to be punished. Don't you Miss Potter?"

Rosalyn was fuming with injustice and rage, but she kept it under control and said nothing.

"Go on," Umbridge said. "I need the message sunk in. You're not leaving here until it does."

No, thought Rosalyn savagely, no. I'm not leaving until my hand is dripping buckets of blood, I'm crying a sea of tears and you're chuckling barrels of laughter.

☆☆☆

When Rosalyn arrived back in the common room, Fred and George were the centre of attention. They had been planning on starting a joke shop for as long as Rosie could remember, but they had never acted upon this until the summer.

They had started to save money, get supplies and, as far as Rosalyn knew, premises. Now they were developing a new range of products, which they were interested in advertising to the first and second years.

They placed a chest on a table in front of Rosalyn, who was watching them closely. George was sat beside a young Gryffindor fist year, who looked apprehensive. "Skiving snackboxes!" Fred said excitedly, sitting down on the other side of the first year.

"Sweets that make you ill!" George explained to his adopted sister.

"Get you out of class any time you like!"

"Obtain hours of pleasure from unprofitable boredom!"

The first year's chin suddenly expanded, drooping down low. "Care for another?" Fred asked.

Rosalyn sighed half heartedly, saying. "Soooo... did you hijack these first years or did they agree?"

But before Fred could answer, Rosalyn got up because Ron and Hermione were there. Rosalyn suspected that they'd hijacked them anyway, she didn't need an answer.

"I'm not asking you to do all of it for me!" Ron was saying as they walked to their favourite spot on the sofa which Harry was already at, reading a book.

"Oh please!" Hermione said, half irritated and half amused.

"It's just I've been too busy studying for these stupid owl exams..." Ron trailed off.

"I'll do the introduction, that's all," Hermione said, sitting down, Rosalyn beside her.

"Hermione, you're honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met," Ron said. "And if I'm ever rude to you again-"

"I'll know you've gone back to normal," Hermione said, though she was smiling. That soon faded however, as she asked Rosalyn. "What's on your hand?"

Rosalyn was completely unprepared. If she'd been smarter, she would've covered her hand, or made up and excuse. Instead, she simply held up the hand without I must not tell lies on it and said. "Nothing."

"Your other hand," Hermione said, grabbing it as Rosalyn attempted to keep it away.

One look at it and Hermione said. "You've got to tell Dumbledore."

"No," Rosalyn said a little too quickly. "He's got enough on his mind."

"Am I missing something here- woahh," Ron said, him and Harry leaning over to see Rosalyn's scars.

"And I'm not giving Umbitch the satisfaction," Rosalyn said.

Ron and Harry sniggered slightly at the name, but Ron said, fighting to keep a straight face. "Satisfaction? Rosie, the woman's bloody torturing you! If the parents knew about this-"

"Yeah well I haven't got any of those have I Ron?" Rosalyn replied coolly.

"Rosie you- you have to report this," Hermione said desperately. "It's perfectly simple, you're being-"

"It's not!" Rosalyn burst out. "Hermione whatever this is, it's not simple. You don't understand."

And with that she got up and walked away, leaving her best friends on the sofa, looking as bewildered and angry as she felt.