The Cruelty of the Writers (Previously 'Bleh to lazy to think of a catchy title)

"I do not like it," the guy said, "but it is my job to do so. And for the record, Miss Malfoy is not a child, as she is of legal age." This made Lyssa angry. "She may as well be a child, or do you not see what this is doing to her. She hasn't gotten a chance at anything," she snarled."

Cj:

The guy looked at them. "I have no say in what happens," he said. "I'm sorry, but I have to do my job."

"You don't have to do anything," Lyssa said. "You could always refuse. It might get you fired or demoted, but you could." Then she stopped for a moment, her face going thoughtful. Nicole noticed this and wondered just what her mum had up her sleeve. Then Lyssa answered her question, "Gather up the Wizengamot now," she ordered the ministry guy, using the authoritative tone she only used when she meant business. "I-I," the guy tried to say something, but Lyssa's tone was quite intimidating. "Now," she barked at him, causing the guy to scurry from the room. The other ministry people who had shown up as well just sort of stood there. "I want all of you out of my sight," Lyssa said. They complied quickly, not wanting to invoke her wrath any further. An angry Malfoy was a bad thing to be dealing with.

Nicole leaned up from where she had fallen to lean on Vena, looking at her mother. "Mum," she said warily, wiping her eyes. "Just what are you planning to do?" Lyssa didn't reply, and as grateful as Nicole was for the delay she also knew that it would make separating that much harder later, because Nicole knew enough of the wizarding world laws to know that a final ruling in anything wasn't changed for anyone or for any reason.

Vena was wondering what Malfoy was going to do, gathering up the Wizengamonet again. They probably wouldn't anyway. But she did have some nerve ordering Ministry people about and telling them to sumone the wizengamont.

(it fails meh)

Lyssa sat down on the end of the bed, tapping her fingers on her knee, which caused everyone to look at her warily. She looked really pissed off. Even more than when Nicole had done stupid stuff as a child. The ministry guy showed back up and said something to Lyssa that no one else could hear. She said something back and got up, leaving the room without a word.

Laurie watched as Lyssa exited the room. "What is she doing?" She asked sitting down on the bed. "No Idea," Vena said with a slight frown. "It'd be nice if she told us about these things before disapearing to do whatever it is she's doing."

Nicole sighed. "She's only going to tell us what she's gone and done if it works," she said. "That's how she works if I remember things properly." She leaned against the wall and ran her hand through her hair.

"Hm," Vena said still frowning slightly, she didn't like not knowing what was going on. Which did make her hypocritical sometimes, as she generally didn't tell people what she was doing when she did something.

Some hours later, Lyssa came back to the room. She had an odd air of accomplishment around her and looked in a marginally worse mood than when she had left. But, dealing with the Wizengamot would do that to a person.

The small group looked at Lyssa, wondering what had happened with the Wizengamont and if Lyssa had acheived what she had been trying to.

Lyssa looked at them all. "I have good news and bad news," she said.

Well get on with it, Vena thought running a hand through her hair. Laurie looked at Lyssa, wondering whether the good outwayed the bad, or whether the bad was worse then the good was good.

"Okey then, bad news first," Lyssa said. "Quite obviously the bad news is Nicole is still going to Azkaban. But the good news is she isn't going to be there nearly as long as she would have been." Nicole blinked at her mum for a moment, somewhat in shock.

"How long would she have been?" Laurie asked quietly, having the odd want to know these facts. "And how much will she?"

Nicole answered the first question for Laurie, instead of her mum answering it. "It....It would have been for life, Laur," she said, getting a little teary just about the thought. "But," Lyssa said picking the sentence up, "now it's only for ten years." Nicole looked at her mum. "That's still a really long time..." she muttered.

"That's, that's a lot," Laurie said, she really didn't even want to think about that. Ten years. That was a lot. "Better then life," Vena said. "Aren't you sympathetic," Laurie muttered at her under her breath. Vena rolled her eyes slightly, she wasn't that much of a sympathetic personand to be frank, while ten years was a while it was quite a lot better then life.

Nicole ran her hand through her hair. She still couldn't quite believe what was happening. "And how long til I go there?" she asked her mum with a resigned tone, looking at her. "That's what I don't know. It could be any time from now."

A few minutes or so later, a bunch of ministry people came down to outside the cell thing. (I totally just realised that it would squishy in that cell with 4 people in there..) Some arguement appeared from people about not wanting to go and that crap but eventually and after everyone said bye to Nicole and gave her a hug along with some other message they were literally marched out of the cell area thing. "I can walk," Vena snapped pulling her arm out of this guys hand.

Nicole gave everyone a hug back, but she didn't say anything back to them, for fear she would end up starting to cry again. Then once everyone was out of the room she looked at the two remaining ministry people in the room, who were quite obviously meant to be her escorts to Azkaban. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at them with a blank face.


(Tsuki thinks....we should time skip....like the ten years....cause I think that would be fun...plus I don't actually want to write her being there....)

Lyssa took Laurie back home at that stage.

And Vena went somewhere. Back to Riddle House would be my first guess.

(I guess so)

And so....the ten years went by and the world changed. Then on the day she was expecting to, Lyssa got a call from the ministry telling her she could go and collect Nicole. Which she promptly hastened to do.

Life went on, In the course of the years Laurie slowly forgot Nicole, life just got in the way. She became an artist and worked at a cafe to support her drawing. When she was twenty five she had a little girl called Ava, and though she and the guy (who needs a name, why do these fathers never have names?) didn't marry they still continued being together and still are now. A few years after Nicole was sent to Azkaban Vena left England and as far as I'm aware is still oversea's somewhere.

So, Nic had been back home with Lyssa for a month now, but it still almost seemed like day one to Lyssa. Nicole hadn't said a word since she's brokenly said, "Mum," the day Lyssa had gone to get her from the prison. She had gotten so used to living in silence, it was almost like she didn't know how to or just couldn't talk anymore. And being cooped up somewhere small didn't help her any. Lyssa had tried getting the girl to open up again, but she wasn't making any progress. It probably wasn't helping that Lyssa was the only person Nicole had seen. So, one day, Lyssa got Nic ready to go out and do something, or see something that wasn't within the confines of her house (and that's where the cafe comes in).

George (that still amuses me) dropped Laurie off at the cafe she worked at. "Thanks," She said kissing him before getting out. She looked in the back seat at the sleeping Ava. Who had thankfully fallen asleep before they got there, because otherwise she'd be having a fit about mum going. "Seeya later." She said shutting the car door. George waved at her before pulling out back into the road. Laurie sung quietly to herself as she entered the cafe. She said hello to Immy, who usaully worked the same shifts as Laurie and she grabbed her note-pad pen and apron thingy.

Lyssa took Nic out in London, noting that not once did the girl seem interested in anything it had to offer. She just walked, almost in a zombie-like state. It made Lyssa's heart wrench. They carried on with that for a few hours until it was roughly lunch time. She led Nic over to a cute, and tasteful looking cafe and they walked inside, heading to one of the booths lining the sides, since the table weren't too good an idea. As they sat down, Lyssa on one side and Nic on the other side, Lyssa noted something else. Nic immediately curled up when she was sitting down, and she never took out her headphones which were always attached to the music player Lyssa had bought her. They only came out when the battery died and was charging again. The younger Malfoy kept looking at the table, at least until someone walked up to the booth. Then she looked up.