So when they had gone to the Professor sobbing, angry and clearly upset, which hadn't been hard since the girls had just found they really couldn't disguise their new adornments in any manner, to tell their broken tale of how Harry had hurt them again, it hadn't surprised them when she'd filled in the blanks of their tale herself. She always believed them. No matter what they told her Harry had done. Even when common sense and a little bit of thought should've told her he couldn't possibly have done what they were claiming. For that reason, Hermione never felt guilty about lying to her. She was a teacher. If she couldn't use her brain enough to catch them in an obvious lie than she deserved to be lied to. Even so, by the time they had left her office, their faces, where the runes sat, were swollen and red. They'd needed to wait out the swelling before they dared show their faces in such a public place as the Great Hall. Which was why they'd missed Professor Snape telling her off and leaving right before they'd entered.
None of them noticed their cheeks were beginning to swell yet again as the marks began to react to their thoughts. In just a single evening, they'd gotten so used to feeling their faces swelling the feeling had already been relegated to the back of their minds. Harry had warned them the degree of punishment would increase as time went on and they continued to behave badly towards himself. But as usual they discounted that as just wishful thinking on his part. He'd warned them they'd no longer be able to act against him in word, deed or thought. That meant the marks would react even when they were only thinking of lying. They were just so used to having everything go their way when matters involved Harry, they hadn't yet stopped to think what his words to them might mean or realize he'd told them the truth about what he'd done to them. No longer would they be allowed to get away with betraying him. Period.
They rose from their seats and quietly walked behind their Head of House carefully concealing their smirks behind falsely upset faces. Well, they weren't false really. They were upset over having been marked like this and told they were basically nothing more than slaves to that brat's will. It was embarrassing but if Harry ended up taking most the scorn, how did they lose by that? He had, after all, cut them off from their funding and, from his speech yesterday, he had made it clear both Ron and Ginny's educations hung by his whim. He could have both of them expelled simply by refusing to make their next tuition payment and there was nothing they could do about it.
Molly and Arthur couldn't afford to pay their tuition which is why they'd considered not sending either one to Hogwarts at all. Molly's Aunt had offered to cover the tuition for Ginny but she wanted to send her to some foreign finishing school for ladies of quality. Muriel had sworn Ginny had a better chance of landing an affluent husband if she learned to be more ladylike and refined. Learned what a lady of quality was supposed to know and be good at doing.
As for Ron, well Molly had been teaching him at the kitchen table. They'd figured to continue that until the older boys could help them cover a tuition to a less expensive school that would teach him a trade so he could make a living for himself when he grew up. But then Professor Dumbledore had visited and told them about the scholarships being offered drawn off the interest earned from the Potter inheritance vaults. So they got to come here after all.
None of them had bothered to stop and think for a minute that Potter had never agree to it as he should since it was his inheritance being used to fund it. After all, he was still locked away in the muggle world completely ignorant of the existence of the magical world when Professor Dumbledore had come to them with news of the fund. And magical guardians did not have the right to use their wards inheritance as funding for a scholarship program they wanted to offer. Especially when only two children were to ever receive said scholarship.
All any of them could see was that now, after four years of attending Hogwarts that brat was threatening to pull his backing away from them. Just because they were making him do things he didn't want to do. Things that would remind the public he was their chosen hero and so were in his best interest to do.
Well, he wouldn't get away with it. They'd ruin him from behind the scenes. Their cheeks swelled up more and small cracks were beginning to form as the skin was stretched too tightly. And they could do it. They knew they could because they'd been doing it for years. He said nothing about leading others to the conclusion they wished them to draw and letting them do the actual bad mouthing of him for them. Except he had.
.....
Join my p@treon and read ahead by more than 60+ chapters.
Link : [email protected]/Sonic_Spectre
Free members can read the next two chapters for free on my p@treon