Beginning of April:

I need to write about this! I need to do something! Maybe writing it down will help me make sense of it, and realise what can be done, but I don't know.

It all happened yesterday, with Dominic being an idiot. It was in the Great Hall, just as we were leaving after dinner. Apparently the Gryffindor 6th Year called Max Castellanos threw something at him, and it started an argument. I didn't see that part, but I did see what happened next, because I noticed Dominic was being surrounded.

I wasn't going to leave him on his own, seeing as the situation was escalating. I approached the group just in time to hear Dominic call Max a 'Mudblood'. I stopped in my tracks. I knew I couldn't stand up for him now. Calling a Muggleborn student a 'mudblood' to their face in the Great Hall! He was going to be expelled for that. No question about it.

I was sure the Gryffindors would run off and report him immediately, but they just stood there, and I can tell you this - they had weird, sort of delighted looks on their faces, almost as if they'd wanted him to say it!

Then Silas Warren said to Dominic,"apologise!"

Dominic wouldn't apologise. He's too stubborn.

"You refuse to apologise?"Silas went on,"you're sure about that?"

"Go on then! Report me! Expell me! I don't want to stay here any longer!"Dominic yelled,"I don't care!"

"You should care,"Silas said,"if you get yourself expelled, you won't be able to use magic any more. Do you know what they do? They destroy your wand,"then he turned to Max,"what do you say, Max, should we report him?"

"Don't worry, we won't report you - this time,"Max said.

"Yes, we have other ways of dealing with people like you,"Silas said, and I didn't like the way he said it,"which you'll find out very soon. See you later, Carrow!"

The Gryffindors walked off. I guessed that wouldn't be the end of it. I knew something else was going to happen. I hadn't liked the way Silas had spoken to Dominic...

I didn't want to get involved, but I ended up becoming a lot more involved than I intended to!

Later on, in the evening, when the sun was beginning to set; Lotty came running up to me, breathlessly, as I was on my way to the common room.

"Cathy!"she shouted.

I was surprised to see her down here.

"What is it?"I asked, then I noticed the look on her face, and I felt my stomach drop.

"It's Dominic!"

"What?"I felt rooted to the spot, what stupid, stupid thing had he done now!

"It's the gang!"she said,"they're going to do something really bad to Dominic!"

"Really bad? What do you mean?"I asked.

"I know where they're going to take him,"Lotty continued, paying no attention to my questions,"they were going off to look for him when I left. They're going to ambush him, capture him and bring him to their courthouse!"

"Courthouse?"I said,"Lotty, what are you talking about?"

"Do you remember the old ruin?"Lotty went on,"the one we explored last summer? You called it 'Square Walls', it's on the very edge of Hogwarts grounds! Well, they call it the Courthouse - a place where they mean to bring people who have done wrong things and punish them!"

"Punish them?"I said, not liking the sound of this,"do you know how they would do that?"

"I have some ideas, from things I've heard,"Lotty said,"but they've never used the Courthouse until now. I'm going to see if I can find Dominic!"

I went into our common room. He wasn't in there, and neither was Antonius. I went back out and was greeted by Lotty, who was out of breath again.

"I tried calling him!"she gasped (Dominic has the wand call too, though we rarely use it with him),"he doesn't have his wand or he doesn't want me to find him."

"Let's hope he's with Antonius,"I said.

Lotty and I found the Courthouse. It's only just within the grounds of Hogwarts. We went in and looked around, there didn't seem to be anything different about it. No sign that it was being used as anything in particular; but then Lotty, who was peeking through a gap in the wall, saw something.

There was a large group of students, about eight of them were Gryffindors, and two or three Ravenclaws. Two boys were dragging Dominic between them, he didn't have his wand, and he was trying desperately to get away.

We quickly ran to the back of the ruin, and climbed up the wall into the trees above it. We could see down into the ruin from there, and we hoped the gang wouldn't be able to see us.

I noticed Silas walk forward towards the end of the ruin directly beneath us. He uttered an incantation that I barely heard, and I noticed something rising up out of the ground. A wooden pillar of some kind. Then he turned around and faced Dominic, who was still being held by the two boys (who I noticed were Max Castellanos and Kenneth Brass). Then Silas addressed the group.

They formed a human wall behind Dominic to prevent him from escaping. The Courthouse didn't have a roof, it was just 4 red-brick walls with an old doorway going in. The boys released Dominic and shoved him towards Silas.

"Why are you doing this?"Dominic was saying,"what are you doing?"

"Dominic Carrow,"Silas Warren said, in a grim voice,"you are on trial for the crime of perpetuating harmful practices, persecution of your fellow students based on blood-status, and uttering an expellable word!"

"On trial? What is this?"Dominic went on.

"Dominic Carrow, do you deny the allegations laid against you?"Silas continued.

"Deny what?"Dominic answered.

"We find you guilty,"Silas concluded.

Dominic said nothing now, he was looking frightened and confused.

"However, we are going to allow you the opportunity to redeem yourself a little - you will still be punished, but it will be much better for you, if you apologise now and get it over with,"Silas continued.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I was confused as to how they expected to punish him.

"I'm not going to apologise!"Dominic said.

Lotty gave an exasperated sigh.

"Shh!"I said, anxiously.

There were so many of them, I didn't want them to know we were in the tree-tops above them.

"You won't apologise,"Silas said, grimly.

"I won't!"Dominic insisted,"you can't frighten me!"

Silas laughed when he said that, a quiet, sort of sinister laugh.

"Very well,"Silas said, motioning to the two boys that had dragged Dominic in.

Now they dragged him again, this time to the wooden pillar, which I realised was some kind of - stake.

They shackled him to the pillar, his hands above his head.

Dominic struggled and cursed and threw around random insults.

"Shut up!"Silas ordered.

I felt like my heart was going to pound right out of my chest. What were they tying him to a post, for? Surely they weren't going to hurt him? Lotty clung onto my arm.

"You are Carrow in every aspect, I see,"Silas said.

"What? I'm supposed to take that as an insult?"Dominic said.

"A Carrow,"Silas went on, ignoring him,"just like Alecto and Amycus Carrow who served Lord Voldemort!"

Here there were gasps, as Silas mentioned the name.

"At this very school,"Silas continued,"Do you know one of the things they did? They would use the Cruciatus Curse on students as detention, as practice! Imagine that! We've seen from your attitude, that if you were in their place, you would have done all of the same things as they did!"

"My aunt and uncle have been in Azkaban since before I was born!"Dominic answered.

Silas ignored his response and went on,"so we have decided on a fitting punishment for you."

He looked at his 'gang' members. Some of them nodded, some of them had no response.

"It is decided that your punishment will be to experience the pain of the Cruciatus Curse, for as long as it is necessary to make you understand,"Silas turned around.

I stifled a gasp. Lotty leaned forward, about to jump down from the tree, I pulled her back.

"We can't let them!"Lotty hissed.

While we were whispering to each other in the tree, we didn't hear Silas utter the dreaded word, but we did hear the blood-curdling scream that followed.

I almost fell out of the tree.

The screaming died down into gasps and whimpers.

"Now - do you apologise?"Silas asked.

"No!"Dominic responded, angrily.

"Crucio!"

Dominic screamed again, and I was beginning to wonder if we should jump down and try to stop them, when Lotty took action. She jumped down, and I realised I had no choice but to follow.

She ran up to Silas and shoved him with all of her strength. He turned to her.

"What the...?"he began, then angrily at the others,"why did you let her through? She's a Carrow!"

"Stop it!"Lotty yelled,"I'm going to report all of you! Using Unforgivable Curses! Torturing!"

That was the point when I jumped down. Kenneth Brass was already pointing out the trees to Silas.

"You Carrows are like wasps!"Silas greeted us,"squish one and the whole swarm comes after you! Got any more of you up in those trees?"

He actually got Castellanos to check.

"We're going to report this!"I said.

"Report what exactly?"Silas asked,"what for? What exactly were we doing?"he turned to his gang.

"Nothing,"was the general murmur.

"Now, what were we doing, Carrow?"Silas addressed me, in a voice that sent shivers down my spine.

"Oh, I don't know - torturing a fellow student using an Unforgivable Curse,"I said.

Silas shrugged,"no we weren't, were we?"he asked his gang.

"We weren't,"was the general murmur.

I noticed Julia Brown (Lotty's friend from last year) was amongst the group. She didn't participate in the response, and she was looking at the ground.

"I want to hear EVERYONE say it!"Silas demanded,"what were we DOING? Come on!"

"Nothing!"everyone said this time, Julia included.

"See,"Silas said,"report us and no one will believe you. There's only three of you, and there's eleven of us. All of you are Carrows, and mostly Slytherins!"

I was going to report it right away, but they barred the way out.

"Where do you think you're going?"Silas taunted,"you're going to stay and watch! You too, Charlotte Carrow! You're going to remain here until we've finished teaching your cousin a few well-needed manners!"

Two students grabbed me and held me back. The same thing was done to Lotty (though she put up a better fight).

Silas resumed torturing Dominic. Hearing it from up in the trees was bad enough, but down here... It made me want to throw myself up from the inside out. I don't know how else to put it into words. I closed my eyes, but I couldn't shut out the sound of it, and it went on and on.

Finally, Silas stopped. I opened my eyes. Dominic was gasping , his face was tear-streaked and there was a terrified look in his eyes as Silas approached him. Silas placed his wand under his chin and tilted his face up towards him, then looked him in the eyes (though Dominic was avoiding eye-contact, and blinking).

"Do you apologise?"Silas asked, quietly.

Silence.

"Well, do you?"Silas asked again.

"Y-yes,"Dominic stammered,"I apologise. I'm - I'm sorry I said that. I won't say it again."

"Well, that I am pleased to hear!"Silas said,"see, that wasn't so difficult now, was it? What do you say, Max? Should we accept his apology?"

I noticed Max was looking uneasy, and seemed slightly shaken,"um, I certainly don't believe it to be a genuine one,"he said, a few grim-sounding laughs followed this remark,"but I'll take it. You are now absolved, Carrow."

"You'd better watch there isn't a next time,"Silas warned Dominic, as he turned back to him,"what do you say? Will there be a next time?"

"Y- yes,"Dominic said.

"Yes? You're saying there WILL?"Silas said, in a tone that I can only describe as being full of evil delight.

"N-no! I mean no! I meant no!"Dominic pleaded,"there won't! I won't!"

"Well, that's lucky for you, I was about to give you another bout!"Silas said, and Dominic flinched.

Silas unshackled Dominic. He slipped down to the ground and lay on the floor, covering his head with his hands.

"Let's go,"Silas said,"release them!"

They left us with Dominic, who was lying on the floor, not moving, completely silent.

I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, attempting to comfort him, but he violently whacked it away, then got up and shoved me backwards!

"Dominic, it's ME!"I said.

"GO AWAY!"he yelled,"LEAVE ME!"

"We're not leaving you,"I said .

"Leave me alone,"Dominic pleaded, this time in a less loud voice, his voice was hoarse from all the screaming.

"Please come back with us, Dominic,"Lotty begged.

"YOU shut up!"Dominic yelled at her.

"There's no need for this!"I yelled at him.

He got up and ran at us, then past us, out of the ruin, in the direction of the castle.

"He's going back by himself,"I said,"let him go."

"I don't care about what Silas said about us not being believed,"Lotty said,"I'm going to report this."

I agreed.

But things weren't so simple as that. Lotty and I told Headmistress Wells, and she did listen to us, she asked all of the right sorts of questions, she even seemed to believe us - but the VERY person to go and ruin everything and make us look like a bunch of liars, was Dominic!

Wells called Dominic to see her, and when she asked him about what had happened, he told her none of it did, that we made it all up! Even worse than just that, when Wells was being skeptical about his answers, he told her he was somewhere else when it happened - he told her he was with Antonius WHO BACKED UP WHAT HE SAID! Also Antonius KNOWS about what happened!

I just couldn't understand why Dominic and Antonius would do this! So I decided to confront Antonius. I asked him why he backed up Dominic in his lie. Silas and his gang can't be allowed to get away with doing things like this!

Antonius looked at me with that usual perfectly calm, irritating expression, his hands behind his back, and replied very simply,"you should have asked him first."

"I know, yes, I should have done that, but still!"I said,"Dominic lying about it has just made things worse!"

"Maybe things need to get worse,"Antonius said quietly,"sometimes things have to get worse, before they can get better."

"What do you mean by that?"I asked.

"This is war, Catherine,"he answered, grimly,"they've started a war, and this is our war to fight. The last thing we need is teachers getting in the way."

"Teachers getting in the way is EXACTLY what we need!"I said,"you're planning on retaliating?"

"Of course we are going to retaliate,"Antonius answered.

"But what will you do?"I asked.

"Well, we won't do anything that could get us into trouble,"Antonius said,"all we need to do, is set a trap. They've already made it clear they're not going to report Dominic for petty things, and Silas will do the rest for us. He will damn himself."

"So, you're going to use my cousin as bait to lure Silas Warren into a trap!"

"Yes,"Antonius continued,"but we have to plan this well. We don't just want him expelled, we want him sent to Azkaban."

"But in order to get him sent to Azkaban, Dominic could be put into real, serious danger,"I said.

"Dominic understands that,"Antonius responded,"and it is a risk he is willing to take."

"But..."I tried to say.

"That's the end of it, Catherine,"Antonius said, coldly,"I have nothing more to say to you."

He walked off, I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand his or Dominic's reasoning for this strategy. What Silas did in the 'Courthouse' is already so serious, he would get into enough trouble just for that.