Just One Kiss


Dolores Umbridge had never been kissed in her life - not on the mouth, at the very least. A peck or sloppy smooch on the cheek from her mother and father, of course; showy air-kisses with her aunt and cousin; but beyond family, she really had no kisses to speak of.

It had never particularly bothered her - there were more important matters to attend to: Agendas to push, unsightly blemishes to eradicate, ladders to climb.

But now she'd fallen from the ladder, failed to stop the blemishes from popping back up - as they often did - and had been pushed over backwards by her own agendas... all on the road to her first kiss.

It was on a cool October night that she sat, irritable and bored, in a solitary confinement cell in Azkaban. Golden chains had snaked up around her arms, legs, and throat, binding her in place. The guard who had led her there had assured her that she would be tended to shortly.

Another interrogation, she thought warily. How pointless. Had they concerned themselves more with the necessary exterminations... what fools.

She didn't particularly mind being in Azkaban much, these days - it was certainly dull, and shamefully packed with innocents who were only doing their best to keep precious purity within their grasp, to keep their fine world prosperous and quality-controlled... but, she supposed, it was better than watching filth drive them into irretrievable ruin.

The door to the cell creaked open, and Dolores sighed. "Good evening. Shall we begi-"

Her words slid back into a clump in her throat, loathing flooding her veins as the tall, stern figure stepped in with a silent clack of her boots.

"I assure you, Dolores, it most certainly is a good evening for me," Minerva McGonagall replied with a tight, cold smile. "I daresay the same could not be said for you?"

"I see no reason," Dolores agreed, her voice taking on a sickly-sweet, roiling quality. "My, has the Ministry sent you to interrogate me? I trust that in their current situation, competence is a bother rather than a necessity, but-"

"It is no interrogation," Minerva interrupted, reaching into the sleeve of her tartan robe.

Dolores' wide, slack mouth stretched into a simpering smile. "I hadn't finished speaking yet, Minerva."

"What a pity." Drawing out her wand, Minerva pointed it at Dolores. "You've missed your chance. Silencio."

Dolores frowned as she felt her throat swell and dry up, and mouthed a particularly rude word at Minerva.

"Yes, with a capital 'C', if you would," Minerva responded dryly. "Now, Dolores, I believe I may begin explaining the reason for my presence this evening." She began to pace back and forth, rolling her wand between her fingertips. "You see, Dolores, I am a believer in the punishment fitting the crime. No more, no less. Would you agree?" She glanced at Dolores out of the corner of her eye, and sighed. "Ah, but I needn't ask, need I?

"You see, Dolores," she continued, her eyebrows drawing into her well-known, severe frown, "though your crimes were thankfully halted early on in their proceedings, the damages were done. You had tortured the just. You had persecuted the innocent. Mutilation, imprisonment... and..." She stopped pacing and shivered slightly. "We still didn't stop you soon enough..."

Dolores frowned slightly, but a small smirk couldn't help but to tug at her lips as she thought of how she'd dealt with the criminals, liars, and thieves. Repulsive, ungrateful souls... who needed them?

Minerva caught that smirk and felt her blood go cold. "And you still haven't learned. Perhaps you never will. Which is why... I have come to teach you your lesson." She closed her eyes and seemed to be drawing up her willpower. "Expecto Patronum."

A silvery tabby cat shot out of the end of her wand and began to pace around her, rubbing affectionately against her leg, ignoring Dolores entirely. She frowned. A Patronus? But there were no...

...There simply couldn't be...

As the temperature in the room plummeted and her blood began to feel like ice, Dolores' eyes widened and her breathing quickened, dovetailing with the ragged, wet breaths that the foul creature sucked in from its surroundings, leaching the very moonlight that had poured in from the high, barred window...

They were banned by the Ministry! Dolores thought frantically, her alarmed gaze flickering to Minerva for answers.

As if reading her thoughts, Minerva let out a humorless chuckle. "Dolores, I consider myself a relatively upstanding individual... given my present company. But the most inexcusable, deplorable actions... the depths of depravity to which you sank..." Her eyes flickered oddly. "Do you have a soul, Dolores?"

She wouldn't...

"Shall we find out?"

Please, no! You mustn't, you wretched, foul, traitorous-

Minerva gave the slightest of nods to the dementor, and uttered two words that sliced through Dolores' heart like icicles:

"Kiss her."

Above the screams rising in Dolores' head, the vivid images of the centaurs raping her, the memory of Voldemort's downfall, she felt a cold, slimy, scabbed hand grab her chin roughly and jerk her face upward.

But of course you would leave her alone, that sick, mad old spindle doesn't have a soul-

Screams that longed to escape her throat erupted unheard, her mouth simply gaping silently, comically, as the dementor clamped its face over hers. Her first and final kiss.

The memories, the screams, the images, all amplifying and fading at once, blurring and separating, spinning faster and faster, a powerful tearing feeling crushing her whole body-

"You have done well," Minerva called as the dementor pulled away from the blank, cold shell of Dolores Umbridge's body. "I no longer have use for you. We shall not meet again. Expecto Patronum."

The dementor cowered and flew off into the darkness, and Minerva smiled coldly at what was left of her adversary, now free from her chains.

"Farewell, Dolores."


Umbridge ending up in Azkaban was all well and good, but who hasn't dreamed of doing this to her? (And, I might guess, who hasn't written about it at this point?) I do realize Professor McGonagall was written quite out-of-character, but temptation is a mighty... temptress. Feel free to leave a review.