Increasing Injustice
Hermione waited for poor Harry until past midnight. The common room fire had died down, and only glimmering embers remained. Hermione's foot rustled through the detritus of crumpled parchments, used quills and sweet wrappers that the other Gryffindors had left behind that evening. Ron had been waiting for Harry too, but he had fallen asleep hours ago and now lay sprawled over one of the squashy armchairs. Harry had been subjected to detentions with Umbridge on a nightly basis. But these were no ordinary detentions. Umbridge had forced Harry to use a blood quill on his own hand. A dark magical object, most likely borrowed from Lucius Malfoy, the quill carried a curse that cut into the flesh of anyone who tried to write with it and channelled their blood onto the parchment.
Hermione had really wanted Harry to complain about this, but Gryffindor House was a clique with its own strange rules. The Gryffindors believed that bravery was what mattered. Harry had got it into his head that it would be a show of weakness or cowardice to complain about Umbridge's cruelty and flatly refused to tell McGonagall or Dumbledore. Probably McGonagall did not have any power over Umbridge, but Dumbledore should! Wasn't he supposed to be the greatest wizard in the land? Shouldn't he act like it?
Harry came trudging miserable in, his green eyes downcast, his black hair dishevelled. He had wrapped his hand in a scarf that was now stained with blood. Hermione stood and led him to a pair of armchairs around one of the little round tables, on which stood a small bowl of murtlap essence. Harry gratefully lowered his bleeding hand into the bowl.
"You really should tell Dumbledore," said Hermione, not wishing to beat about the bush. "This is the kind of thing he should care about."
"The only part of me Dumbledore cares about is my scar," said Harry sullenly, not meeting her eye. Why couldn't he look at her? She was beginning to feel so wretched. She would have to do something. But what?
"I care," she whispered in his ear. "You must know that I'll always be here."
When Hermione went up to her dormitory she found the other four Gryffindor girls were sitting in a small circle, a silvery lunar lamp hovering just above them, lighting up their faces with its pale glow. Lavender was telling the other three ghost stories or something similar. Hermione smiled to herself. In Gryffindor it was normal to try and prove you did not scare easily. Lavender was the gifted story teller in their dorm, but her stories were often not to Hermione's tastes.
Lavender had widened her blue eyes for dramatic effect as she recited in a hushed voice; "And so, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named created Infestix! An abomination that should never have been. Made from a pile of muggle corpses plied with the darkest of dark magic. The horror had the head of a cockroach, hard and black as obsidian, with constantly grinding mandibles and grotesquely bulging compound eyes…"
The four of them glanced round as Hermione entered the dorm.
"Look who's been making out with Harry 'til one in the morning," said Shirley, one of the four, pushing her long black hair away from her face, "Lavender was telling us about the last time You-Know-Who campaigned. Do you still think your boyfriend is right and that he's back again?"
If only Harry really were her boyfriend. They were as close as they could be without being an item, but it was Cho Harry liked.
"Shirley…" cautioned Carly, another of the four.
"You're interrupting the story, isn't it?" said Parvati Patil severely, frowning at Hermione, "and Lavender tells it so well."
"Well practice makes perfect," said Lavender, brushing her long blond hair away from her face.
"But Hermione really prefers the muggle kinds of entertainment – like Sky TV, with its hundred or so channels, isn't that right Hermione?" said Shirley, her black eyes glinting, "no doubt she has no time for story-telling."
"Really Hermione, you should not be such a snob," scolded Parvati.
Hermione had learned that she shouldn't try arguing with them. Shirley was too good at making trouble for that to end well. She raised her hands in a placatory gesture.
"I'm sorry to barge in so late, but Harry is really not well at the moment and I had to stay up in the common room with him."
Carly looked concerned. "What's happened, Hermione?" she asked, cocking her head to one side.
"Ssh! Don't talk about it!" said Shirley in a stage whisper, waggling her index finger beside her head, "it's to do with all the media attention."
"How dare you!" said Hermione, feeling her temper rising despite herself.
"Indeed! You shouldn't back bite. Harry is in our house and we should try to be his friend," said Carly.
"If you're loyal he might actually learn your name," said Shirley with a sneer. Carly's round face flushed.
"All this arguing is putting me off," said Lavender, "thanks a bunch, Hermione."
Grumbling, the girls got ready for bed. Hermione felt she really needed to talk to someone about Harry's trouble however and waited until Carly had finished in the bathroom. After a while Carly emerged. She had slathered her face with a thick, green paste as a beauty aide.
"Carly, I need to talk about Harry," said Hermione, wringing her hands together.
"Of course," said Carly and they sat on the side of Carly's bed.
"It's these detentions with Umbridge…" Hermione began and she told Carly about Umbridge's crime with the blood quill. Carly's blue eyes widened at the mention of a blood quill and then she looked thoughtful, running her delicate fingers through her mop of chestnut curls.
"Harry should tell Dumbledore, but he won't. I-I want to tell Dumbledore myself," said Hermione, "it's this idea that Harry has that he can't be seen as a coward. I'm going to see if Dumbledore will stop it."
Carly's green face was thoughtful for a moment. "You know of course that Umbridge is reporting to the Ministry," she said, "I don't think even Dumbledore has power over them. He's come down a very long way. His influence at the Ministry is over. I know he used to be Head of the Wizengamot. We consider that to be the second most important position after the Minister."
"I know, I read about it years ago," said Hermione.
"But now he's been demoted," said Carly. "I've a feeling that Umbridge can get away with it."
"But I can't bear just doing nothing!" said Hermione, feeling frustration rise in her.
"No no," said Carly, hastily patting her shoulder. "By all means try telling Dumbledore, just don't be disappointed if it does no good."
The next morning as Hermione went down to the common room to meet Harry, the sound of a riot rose up the tower steps to greet her. She opened the oaken door to the common room and saw the Gryffindors gathered in a circle around Ginny and Cormac McLaggen.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" roared the Gryffindors.
"Ready to taste my bat bogey hex, McLaggen?" said Ginny, with a somewhat unsettling grin, "think your high connections in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement can help you here?"
"Ginny! I'm a prefect and I can't allow fighting," called Hermione.
But the Gryffindors simply booed Hermione. Shirley, who was standing nearby, elbowed her in the ribs. "Can't you see it's going to get interesting? Look at that mad gleam in Ginny's eye! I've never seen her like this."
When had Ginny suddenly got like this? Hermione remembered that the previous year she had seemed like a mild mannered girl – at the world cup she had actually found watching Quidditch to be too rough for her. And suddenly she was an aggressive girl with a mucus fixation? And her clothes – she wasn't wearing Hogwarts robes, but an elegant black dress that hugged her form rather more tightly than Hermione thought appropriate. How could this have happened? She had never tried to stand out before.
There was a flash and Ginny's bat bogey hex flapped into the air. McLaggen blasted it with his hex, causing it to explode and shower him with mucus. He made a disgusted sound and then Ginny pounced on him, wrestling him to the ground.
"Submit, or I'll have my way with you!" she shrieked, grabbing McLaggen by the pants.
"Ginny, stop!" cried Hermione, but her voice was drowned out by the general uproar.
"I submit, just get off!" said McLaggen.
Ginny stood up. "You should have been glad that someone like me took an interest in you," she said, twirling around so that her fiery hair fanned out around her like that of a veela.
Ginny might sound conceited, but Hermione was observant and could tell if another girl was attractive. It didn't seem fair… she was perfect in all respects. Fiery red hair, bright brown eyes, a bold, freckled face, her whole body lithe and graceful. Hermione glanced at Ron who was watching the scene. Ron on the other hand was not perfect. He was of lanky build, with awkward features and appeared gangling and clumsy. Was Ginny truly his sister? Molly had boasted to her just before their third year that she had conceived Bill by enslaving a handsome muggle with a love potion. This kind of depravity was considered perfectly acceptable in the magical world, however creepy it might seem for a middle aged mother to be giggling about a potion that turned people into lust fuelled zombies. Perhaps Ginny had been conceived in such a way as well.
Many of the Gryffindors surrounded Ginny and congratulated her. She was giving out fragments of parchment. "Invitations to a party I'm holding in the dungeons," she called, "a way of showing that we won't lie down and take orders from an old hag like Umbridge."
"I'm not sure if this is a good idea…." said Hermione.
"What are you going to do, put us all in dentention?" jeered Shirley, who had just taken an invitation.
Harry came pushing his way through the crowd. "Don't talk to Hermione in that tone," he warned, "we're both going. We don't let Umbridge scare us."
"OK then Harry, I'll go with you," said Hermione. She took one of Ginny's slips of parchment. The words 'Madness and Mayhem Rave,' were emblazoned on it, along with a lion's skull with bat's wings. Ever tasteful, those Weasleys.
Hermione was determined to confront Dumbledore about the problems Harry was having and after Arithmancy, she hurried to the entrance to Dumbledore's tower.
The gargoyles barred her way, solid stone and immovable.
But Hermione remembered how Harry had said that the passwords usually revolved around sweets.
"Sherbert lemon, cockroach cluster, liquorice snaps," she recited. One of the gargoyles moved. It's gaping mouth contorted even further in what she feared might be a sneer.
"That bossy girl wants to get past us," said the other gargoyle in a reedy voice, "well get past this!"
The gargoyle struck the wall and at once, the stone appeared to bubble and stretch and a hideous stone creature pushed its way through. It was like a hideous stone dragon with two heads, one emitted a continuous, grinding shriek and the other cackled with hollow laughter. It shuffled towards her, its stone jaws snapping. But Hermione already knew that a spell that animated stone temporarily could be countered by a spell of lightness. She did actually read and do her homework, after all.
"Natare!" she cried, pointing her wand at the hideous thing. It froze in place. The second gargoyle gave a sigh.
"Alright, Miss bossy boots, you can bother the head if you want. A lot of good may it do you."
The gargoyles stood aside and the door to the tower swung open. Hermione found herself on a spiral staircase that revolved round and round, like an escalator, until she reached the top of the tower and stood by a highly polished oak door, with a brass knocker shaped like a griffin. Hermione rapped three times with the griffin knocker and the door swung open. She emerged in a beautiful, circular room, with various silvery instruments, whirring and puffing on spindly tables. The portraits of formed heads covering the walls, muttered gravely about intruders and upstarts. Behind the door, a magnificent red and gold bird the size of a swan dozed on its perch, its head on its wing. Dumbledore himself sat at a high backed chair behind an oaken desk, dressed as always in purple, star spangled robes. He was what Hermione would have called a moderately entertaining, but utterly generic white haired old mentor from muggle literature. He had a long silver beard which, despite its size was always immaculate.
He peered at Hermione from above his half-moon spectacles, those light blue eyes seemed to penetrate her mind. Hermione knew he was performing Legilmency on her, but didn't care too much. He should know what was on her mind.
"My dear girl, it is fortunate that you stopped by," said Dumbledore.
"Indeed it is professor," said Hermione.
"I know you come with a matter of grave importance," said the headmaster, "you have received an offer of a scholarship that is certainly bait offered by a Death Eater?"
"What?" said Hermione surprised, "I mean, sorry Professor, but I knew nothing about that."
"Ah my dear girl, although the Ministry is in denial, we both know that Voldemort operates among us once more. And what better way for him to harm Harry than for you to be removed from his life? That is why the Death Eaters wrote this," Dumbledore waved a sheaf of rolled parchment at her, "a scholarship, the terms of which are that you should attend Beauxbatons, all expenses paid and with a generous allowance and that the school in France receive a munificent donation – all on the condition that Harry cannot attend with you. Even if I had not traced this back to Lucius Malfoy, it would still seem remarkably suspicious, would it not?"
"Indeed it would," said Hermione. "I will stick by Harry through thick and thin. And I wanted to tell you something, headmaster. Umbridge has been using a blood quill on Harry. In the detentions she gave him, she forced him to cut into his own flesh and write in his blood. She should go to Azkaban."
Dumbledore sighed, "ah Miss Granger, how well I know."
"You knew?" said Hermione. "Couldn't you have stopped her?"
"I have no power to overrule the Minister for Magic," said Dumbledore. "And this had best be kept a secret, for if Minerva knew, she would be furious and protest, despite the fact that this would get her in considerable trouble."
"You want to keep this a secret?" said Hermione in disbelief. Carly had been right to caution her. Dumbledore didn't seem to care.
Hermione did not let herself get agitated. She averted her gaze so that Dumbledore couldn't use legilmency on her and learn her thoughts. She would have to find a solution herself. She would not leave Harry, but perhaps they could find another school that would take them both.
Author's Note: Which school does Hermione have in mind? Find out in the next chapter. Also featuring Ginny's madness and mayhem party.