The Umbridge Dragon
Umbridge was reasonably content. Dumbledore was exiled from the school – it bugged her that he had managed to flee, but the point was that he was out of the place, and after all you couldn't have everything. Now, she didn't really have any resistance or any protests regarding the Minister's plans for overhauling the school.
True, it was a fair amount of work to repair everything that Dumbledore had done wrong, especially allowing the little brats to run rampant and putting someone like Granger in prefect position. Unfortunately, Umbridge couldn't strip her of the position as she had yet to catch the girl doing anything nefarious, or anything that might show she wasn't taking her position seriously. In fact, from the few meetings she'd had with the prefects, Granger was behaving just as a prefect should.
It annoyed her. Just because the girl was smart and friends with the Brat-Who-Lived, didn't mean she had to be a prefect. At least, that would have been Umbridge's reasoning if it hadn't been for the girl's perfect marks and attendance. Even in her own class, where the students were more than likely bored to tears doing solely written work, day in, day out, Granger was always there, always attentive to the task at hand.
And yet.
Minister Fudge had been very pleased with how the school was working nowadays, what with the Educational Decrees being put up as necessary. He agreed that Umbridge could set in place as many as she liked, if it meant reforming the school to its former glory.
And oh, how she enjoyed it. Every evening, she sat down with a fresh pot of tea and a foot-long scroll of blank parchment, with a new bottle of bold fuschia ink and brainstormed. Every evening, she came up with some new decree that would be posted in due time.
Filch – good, loyal Filch, was the only one who didn't seem to loathe her. Ever since she'd agreed to some of the harsher punishments, he'd been fully supportive of her. He was more than willing to drag out the rickety old ladder and manually hammer in another decree, watching with no small level of delight the students as their faces fell and the scowls formed in response to the newest decree.
Maybe she should've been slightly concerned at his enthusiasm for whipping or flogging the students, but she couldn't bear hypocrisy and dismissed the thought with a flick of her gaudily-ringed fingers. After all, she was the one supplying her misbehaving students with a blood quill, slicing the words ever-deeper into their own hand.
Minerva, of course, disagreed, but the woman had stopped working for the Ministry years ago. Poor thing, Umbridge mused one Thursday evening, she just doesn't understand how the Ministry works.
She sipped her tea, pondering what else she was missing. The students were still being unruly. The staff was generally being indifferent to her plight; they just didn't seem to care that she had been tasked with redoing the school's rules and systems entirely.
Some sympathy would be nice.
Then, almost train-like, it hit her. Third-year was when the students were allowed to begin Hogsmeade visits. If she put a stop to it, they would be a little more subdued about how they weren't allowed to go and enjoy the same things as their older housemates.
Educational Decree Number Fifty-One. Hogsmeade privileges will no longer be given to any third-year.
Filch would be pleased too: less of the children whom he would have to check over to ensure they weren't trying to smuggle things in or out of the castle.
Maybe she would contact Lucius Malfoy too and see what his opinion was. It had been an unfortunate day for the Board of Governors when he'd been fired. Still, she didn't need to be told what to do. The Minister occasionally made suggestions, but otherwise, she liked to think she was competent enough to make changes on her own.
It was an early December 20th when Umbridge settled into her office, feeling quite content. The school was coming along nicely, even though Potter continued to defy her. Worse, she was sure he and his friends had come up with some little study group to practise defensive magic. She'd yet to find the evidence, but no matter; someone involved would surely break and say something.
At breakfast the next morning she noticed that Minerva was talking to the half-breed oaf about something, and darting little glances in her direction. She couldn't be sure, but the looks from Minerva looked almost sly, and that was alarming. Minerva was Gryffindor through and through, and she should leave the cunning to Severus.
As she reached for the pot of tea, her eyes locked with Minerva's. Minerva raised her teacup in a mocking sort of way, as if saluting Umbridge, and Umbridge couldn't quite repress the little shiver that ran down her back. Finishing her tea, she scurried out of the hall as unobtrusively as possible; luckily, there were no students about at this hour and she didn't have to worry that someone might find amusement in watching her leave.
Back in her office, she stared at the kitten plates, trying to calm down. The new idea popped into her head: Minerva was up to something. And if she had half the staff behind her, one of whom was a half-giant, Umbridge really wasn't sure about her chances. She remembered how when Minerva had taught her as a student: the older witch had always been powerful and clever, and Umbridge was sure that time had only increased the woman's knowledge.
Ah, well. She summoned a quill, ink and parchment to her desk and began another letter to the Minister. Just to show goodwill, she'd decided to allow her colleagues and students celebrate Christmas. While she wasn't especially worried about people liking her, she didn't necessarily want them to hate her. Banning Christmas would have the opposite effect, so she may as well be generous and allow them to have one day of pleasantries and fun. Of course, she probably wouldn't have anyone wanting to sit by her at Christmas dinner, but she could try to make peace.
The next days passed peacefully. Students who were going home for the Christmas break went, and in a bid to be slightly more pleasant over Christmas, Umbridge merely grit her teeth and held back the expletives at the news that Potter, Granger and the Weasleys were all staying at school.
Christmas morning arrived and an anonymous owl from the Hogsmeade post office – Umbridge didn't recognize it as a school owl – swooped into her office, deposited a large parcel on her desk and swooped out without waiting for payment.
One small bit of parchment read, in impersonal square capital letters, DO NOT SHAKE THIS PARCEL.
Probably highly valuable, Umbridge realized as she carefully slipped one finger under the tape. Once she revealed the heavy wooden box underneath, the box dissolved and revealed an egg of some sort. She couldn't be sure, but she almost thought it looked like a dragon egg. Most likely, it was some attempt to get her to speak to Hagrid… then again, Hogwarts was home to conspiracies and the like, it wouldn't and shouldn't surprise her if there were conspiracies.
In fact, it was possible that the conspiracies had conspiracies. It was the domino effect… one conspiracy spawned another, spawning another, and so on.
Umbridge's eye twitched as she pondered all the different conspiracies and possibilities. She added a healthy two shots of sherry to her tea and downed it, giggling her faux-girlish giggle as the drink warmed her throat and made her mind a little fuzzy.
Two days later she entered her office to see an explosion of some kind. Upon further inspection, the Christmas gift of mysterious origin had proved to be a dragon egg; there was now a baby dragon perched on her desk, chirping happily. A small bow tie hung around its neck and when she turned it over, it read Breed: The Umbridge Dragon.
As she finished reading, the little dragon appeared to be undergoing some kind of metamorphosis. Soon enough it had become pink and fluffy, and its eyes were glittery –almost as if it was wearing eye makeup. When she thought about it, it bore some resemblance to her, if she were a dragon. Almost as if on cue, the dragon hopped around on the desk before looking at the Blood Quill and spitting fire at it.
Once she recovered from the surprise, she smiled down at the dragon and stroked a finger over its head. It was rather cute, and it'd fearlessly destroyed the dreaded Quills. She'd enjoyed having them at first, because they instilled fear into whoever used them, but then she began feeling the guilt. It wasn't a conscious thing; one night, she'd dreamed that Potter was taunting her, making a number of blood-related puns while the Minister looked on in confusion. Finally, the Minister had caught on and sent her directly to Azkaban, where she was forced to sing to the others – and she had a terrible voice.
Then the guilt had crept in over her waking hours. When dining in the Great Hall one morning, Minerva had been putting some tomato sauce on a piece of bacon, and Umbridge had jolted terribly in her chair before remembering that Minerva was not indeed a vampire. A little later, she'd been meeting with the Minister in a rather nice restaurant to discuss plans for the school. He'd ordered a glass of red wine, and she'd cringed at how much closer to blood it looked. She'd made a flimsy excuse about trying to cut back her alcohol intake, before in her dismay ordering a glass of chardonnay. At the time, she'd wondered why he'd given her such a strange look.
Then came Christmas, and with it came red decorations. The Gryffindors wore red insignias on their robes, and their ties were red. It was as if the whole of Gryffindor House was mocking her, trying to make her feel a guilt they didn't even know she felt. In fact, the ties enhanced her guilt futher: gold was the opposite of silver.
Unicorn blood was silver.
She found herself dreading Valentine's Day.
Christmas came and went fairly non-eventfully, though she made a point of not eating any kind of red food. It was rather a pity, as she did enjoy cranberry sauce with ham, but unfortunately for her, the cranberries were red.
Secretly, she feared the quill. She was always worried that she would, in a hurry to write something down, forget which quill was which and grab the wrong one, not realizing until she sliced her hand open in the most painful way possible.
Classes resumed, and Umbridge still didn't quite feel that she could relax. One morning, she was walking down the hallway when she overheard Malfoy snapping at Granger for being a Mudblood. Granger didn't look surprised, and Umbridge later learned that Malfoy had been recycling the same old insult since second year.
Even so, the insult rang in Umbridge's ears as she started her second years reading chapter nineteen of the textbook. It seemed everything came back to blood, and Umbridge was beginning to get increasingly paranoid that someone would find out what she was going to great lengths to conceal.
One evening in January she was stressed out and fearing that someone might figure it all out. Severus was maybe the biggest liability; he was a talented potions master, able to make Veritaserum if he so desired, and he was able to use Legilimency so subtly that no-one noticed. Maybe he already knew, and was just biding his time, using it as blackmail material to get her to do his bidding.
On that paranoid and worried note, she agreed to venture out to the Three Broomsticks with a few other teachers. True, it had been Filius who asked, and true, he had only asked to be polite, but she was desperate for some form of escape from the thoughts that constantly harangued her.
Once in the pub, she downed three shots of Firewhiskey in quick succession, ignoring the amazed looks of her colleagues. The alcohol burned her throat and she coughed, gratefully accepting the cough drop Minerva offered.
She was busy enough enjoying the cooling peppermint taste of the lozenge that she didn't notice Pomona and Severus surreptitiously handing a few coins to Filius and Minerva.
Somehow, she managed to drink enough that she nearly passed out and had to be carried back to Hogwarts by Hagrid, who was all too happy to drop her – literally – in her quarters to sleep it off.
The next morning she awoke with a raging headache and a dry throat. Unfortunately, it proved to be a Thursday and she didn't happen to have enough skill to create a hangover remedy. When she greeted Severus in his office, he seemed perfectly fine. He was as grouchy as ever, but he didn't have red-rimmed eyes, he wasn't drinking goblets of water and he wasn't clutching his head in the way one does when one has a particularly vicious headache.
The worst of it was that he didn't have any hangover potion left, as he'd already distributed the remaining few vials among the other staff members. Umbridge rasped out her thanks, too exhausted to be angered, and went off to visit her colleagues in search of the precious little vial that would relieve her headache.
Filius was first, and he was almost indecently cheerful. He confirmed that no, he didn't have any potion, as he'd already drunk it. And wasn't Severus a talented brewer, and wasn't it such a beautiful morning?
This, despite the fact that she could see that the curtains were still closed, which meant that he could really not tell what the weather was like. She strained her ears to see if there was any rain falling, but stopped when she fell up the stairs. Focus ,she reminded herself. Focus on walking. Left foot… right foot… left foot… wasn't that Pomona's door back there?
She doubled back and peered hazily at the door. It certainly looked like it, and she lifted her hand to knock, cringing as her rings clinked noisily against the door. They sounded like the clop-clop of centaurs' hooves.
Pomona too didn't have any potion remaining, and Umbridge growled something that could've been 'twenty points from Hufflepuff for smiling' and stalked out, as quickly as she could. Grateful that it was still too early for the students to be up and about, she sat woozily down on the nearest horizontal surface, which turned out to be the foot of a statue. The statue shifted its foot back and forth a little bit, and Umbridge found herself toppled to the ground in a most undignified heap. For a few minutes, she just lay on the ground, admiring the ceiling.
Finally she gathered her composition and hauled herself to standing position, wondering why the statue beside her had crashed to the ground and clanged loudly enough to wake the castle.
Oh yes. The potion.
Umbridge went in search of Minerva, who was sitting in her quarters drinking coffee and looking quite well-rested.
Umbridge suddenly felt very angry for no apparent reason, and Minerva lowered her book in apparent concern. The scent of the coffee was turning Umbridge's stomach, and she scowled, making Minerva smile slightly. Apparently the scowl didn't have any effect… oh yes, scowling didn't look quite so impressive when one was also blinking red, dry eyes.
Was this what it felt like to be Voldemort?
She croaked out her request for the potion, and Minerva nodded wisely, as if she'd anticipated this request. She probably had, and stood regally (Umbridge watched with a pang of envy, she was too short to do regal), gliding to the kitchen. A lot of clinking and clanking later, Minerva returned with a miniscule bottle about an inch high and offered it.
Puzzled, Umbridge refused the bottle; it might have been enough to cure a pixie of its hangover, but it was certainly not enough. Minerva shrugged one shoulder, as though to say what Umbridge thought really wasn't important. Reaching over her desk, she picked up a quill and twirled it in her hand, smiling serenely. As she picked up some parchment, apparently to write to someone (or fill out a prescription, Umbridge wasn't sure which) Umbridge felt the familiar guilt rise in her throat. Hastily, she choked out an excuse and fled.
That morning, as far as Umbridge was concerned, the noise of the Great Hall seemed enough to fell a baby giant. Every person who was speaking – and there were quite a few – seemed to be conspiring to ruin her hearing, and her headache still had yet to subside. Lifting her head from her toast, her eyes caught on the mediwitch sitting a few seats down. Poppy! Dear, lovely Poppy would surely have some hangover remedy. After breakfast, she cornered Poppy with her request; unluckily, Poppy met her request with bemused eyes and the explanation that so few people got drunk in the castle, that the infirmary didn't stock remedies for hangovers.
There was nothing for it. Umbridge dragged herself to her classroom and stuck up a sign alerting her students that all classes for the day were cancelled.
In another part of the castle, Minerva sat down with a fresh cup of tea and a couple of biscuits. It had been an excellent day: Umbridge had been too sick to teach her classes, giving the students the day off. She'd also been too sick for the staff meeting, so that had fallen to Minerva to run. The meeting had only taken fifteen minutes, and then Minerva had gone to Severus for the hangover remedy. He'd happily supplied it to her, and she'd gone about her day. Her classes had been well-behaved today, perhaps due to the fact that Umbridge was temporarily out of commission. It was such a shame that he'd run out before Umbridge could get a dose.
The best part was that Minerva had been able to sneak into the old bag's office and (after destroying a few kitty plates) smuggle out one of the Blood Quills, just in case someone needed it as evidence. She'd also checked in on the little dragon, which she'd found shivering on the desk. Poor little thing didn't need to suffer just because its carer was currently burrowed in her bed. She'd fed it, then conjured a little bed by the fireplace and deposited it there, lighting a solid fire to keep the place warm.
It had chirped up at her, and she didn't speak Dragon, but she imagined it was thanking her. It had looked sort of grateful, when she thought about it.
Hagrid had told her about dragons: she could take care of a baby one when its carer was unable to do so, and if she did this often enough it would sway its loyalty from one person to another. It was rather cute, and she considered the benefits of having a dragon loyal to her. She could ask it to do things, and this particular breed, Hagrid had told her, wouldn't grow much larger than a Labrador puppy.
The next morning she paid a visit to the dragon again, feeding it and stoking the fire. It rewarded her with what could only be described as a purr and watched mournfully as she left. She counted her lucky stars that the portraits didn't like Umbridge any more than the living members of the castle and that they were happy to spy on her and report back.
A few evenings later she remembered seeing Harry's hand wrapped in bandages, and she knew the detentions with the Quill were going on again. Now furious, she decided to speak with the portraits and after that, bide her time. For now, she waited until the woman was out of her office – one of the nearby portraits had reported that Umbridge was going to dinner with the Minister again.
Dinner with the Minister, Minerva mocked in her head. As if that's such a great honour, considering what an idiot Fudge is.
Ah, well. It meant the old bat would be out of the office for a good few hours. Shifting flawlessly into her Animagus form, she padded along the corridors until she reached her destination. Once there, she carefully dismantled the wards, mindful of the fact that she would shortly have to set them back up and she didn't want to leave too much of a signature.
Then again, it didn't really matter. If all went well, the hag would shortly be out of the school for good. Upon entering the office, the dragon hopped over to her, weaving in and out of chair legs much like a kitten might. Minerva smiled and bent down to pet the dragon's head, murmuring in Gaelic to it.
The dragon seemed to like the sound of Gaelic.
Just as she was about to exit the office, the dragon –Umbrage, she'd decided to call it – rushed over to her and climbed up to her shoulder, perched there neatly. Closing the door behind her, she reapplied the wards, taking care to add a few changes, and left, enabling a Disillusionment Charm on the dragon as she walked.
Almost at her quarters, she encountered Filch and his cat. A quick spell had Umbrage spitting fire at them, which sent them fleeing. For a moment, Minerva pondered on the possibility of getting Umbrage to cause chaos in Umbridge's office. Entering her bedroom, she concluded that she very much liked that idea.
Umbrage was now loyal to her, and if it meant she had to cancel a class to see the ideas through, it would be well worth it.
Two mornings later, Minerva had her opportunity. Umbridge was more paranoid than ever, and at breakfast Minerva entertained herself by charming a small butterfly to fly around and walk across Umbridge's hand and wrist. To her delight, Umbridge jumped quite noticeably in her seat before she noticed the butterfly and shooed it away. For fun, Minerva cast a quick multiplying charm on the butterfly, making it so that every time Umbridge shooed one away, it would multiply by fifteen. Soon enough, there were dozens of butterflies zooming around her head and one could barely see her face. Minerva drained the last of her tea and cleared her wand of any incriminating spells.
Umbridge entered her office for what felt like the first time in weeks. The first thing she noticed was that the dragon was not there waiting to greet her cheerfully, but it was gone. The second thing she noticed was that several of her kitty plates had been smashed, shards of porcelain crunching under her shoes and scattered over the desk.
Clearly, this had been done by magic. In frustration, she cast several spells to try and ascertain the vandal's identity, but it yielded nothing. Obviously, whoever had done it was intelligent enough to wipe traces of their presence from detection.
In a rage, she began smashing the rest of the kitty plates. Upon realizing what she'd done, she sank to the floor and began to sob. Almost a half hour later, she rose on shaky legs and picked up the biggest piece she saw, trying to decide if she might be able to put it back together. What she saw upset her more: the plate was cracked and jagged, and from what she could tell, it had been one of her favourites. Her hands began to shake and the plate slipped from her grasp, slicing her palm open.
She doubted Poppy would be in any hurry to fix it.
At the same time around the rest of the school, her colleagues were waiting for the last of the students to arrive in order to begin the day's classes, with the exception of Minerva, who was sitting in her office, pretending to read a Transfiguration journal.
Twenty pages in, she received a signal, much like that of the Muggle alarm-clock her father had used. Leaping up, she scooped up Umbrage, who was now a bit taller, and walked briskly to Umbridge's office. She set down the dragon and shifted into cat form, then darted down the hallway to watch the fun.
Umbrage stood up on her hind legs, made a funny sort of coughing sound and then blasted the door down with fire. The blood-curdling shriek that came from inside had Minerva's sensitive cat-ears twitching with annoyance, and she lay down so she could better cover her ears with her paws. Once she was certain the shrieking had stopped, she sat back up and began inspecting the portrait opposite, as if she – or a cat – would be interested in the paint job.
The dragon turned to look at Minerva, who nodded deviously. Umbrage then burnt away the rest of the door jamb and flew through the door.
Sirens flared throughout the school. Students and teachers streamed in to the corridor to the scene: Minerva, settled quite comfortably, looking smug in the way that only cats can. A dragon, battering Umbridge's office, and Umbridge, nowhere to be seen.
Several students inched forward, watching the chaos unfold. Umbrage leaped around the room, destroying everything in sight, just as she'd been told to.
Minerva crept forward on her paws, grateful that she didn't have long claws that could give her away. A few quiet mews later and the dragon swooped out, revealing Umbridge cowering in the corner. The woman was covered in dust and the bow she usually wore on top of her head had slipped down around her throat, looking rather like a bizarre necklace.
She grasped in her hand one broken quill and a bottle of ink – red, from the looks of it. One look at her hands and she shrieked, a sort of strangled sound that reverberated through the silent hall. She looked around, trying to ascertain if the dragon was gone. Satisfied that it apparently was, she teetered unevenly forwards on her broken high heels.
A triumphant sort of roar echoed and she looked up in terror. The dragon was now beginning to swoop down on her. Panicking, Umbridge kicked off her shoes, the better to run, and made a break for it. Conveniently, the students and staff watching moved to allow her to pass. Umbrage swept down, flying lower to her height and looking for all the world as if she were grinning, amused.
Umbridge clutched the quill and ink closer, running as quickly as she could barefoot over stone floor. The dragon gave chase and with one last shriek, Umbridge bolted. By now, the bystanders weren't even trying to suppress laughter.
Harry summoned his broom and decided to fly behind the dragon, others mimicking him quickly. The air was soon thick with flying students and one dragon.
The classes that day were cancelled.
That evening, Minerva was back in human form and walking to her quarters. She would have a celebratory Firewhiskey and then see Hagrid. Chances were good that he'd want to adopt the dragon; it really wasn't too practical for her to look after one full-time.
Meantime, in his office, Minister Fudge was dealing with a gibbering Umbridge who, for some reason, was raving about demon cats and Labrador-dragons. After two hours of incoherent sputterings, he finally ran out of patience and hexed her silent.
The wizarding world never heard from Umbridge again.