Chapter 10: Decree Number Twenty-Eight
~.~.~.~
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down at the breakfast table in moody silence. Harry's jaw was clenched tightly; Hermione was frowning pensively; Ron's ears were bright red.
"I can't believe her," Ron finally muttered.
"Well," sighed Hermione, "to be fair, it's probably more to do with Fudge than to do with Umbridge."
"I can't believe Fudge, then."
"Look at the way Umbridge is strutting around," Harry noted with disgust. They turned toward the High Table just in time to see Umbridge sashaying to her seat. She plunked into her chair, smirking fit to burst, her toad-like head held up high in triumph as she gleefully spread strawberry jam on her toast.
That morning they had descended the stairs into the common room to find an all-too-familiar notice pinned to the bulletin board:
—by order of—
THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
Dolores Jane Umbridge is reinstated as
High Inquisitor at Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The above is in accordance with
Educational Decree Number 28
Signed:
Cornelius Fudge
Minister of Magic
"What on earth do they think Dumbledore's up to?" Hermione wondered. After all, the notice had not come as a complete shock, not after all the little comments added into recent Daily Prophet articles. For some unidentifiable reason, Dumbledore's name was once again mud at the Ministry.
"Does Fudge think Dumbledore's after his job?" Ron asked. "You'd think he'd've realized Dumbledore doesn't want to be Minister last year."
"Fudge is an idiot," Harry proclaimed. Neither friend expressed dissent. Hermione gingerly unfurled a copy of the Daily Prophet, afraid of what it might reveal.
"Here's our answer," she stated grimly once she had read the headline.
"Wha' 'appened?" Ron questioned around his mouthful of sausage. He and Harry leaned over Hermione to read the article with her.
Hogwarts Headmaster Consorting with Criminal Cohort?
The Ministry of Magic has received tips that Albus Dumbledore,
headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is
involved in the escape of Bellatrix Lestrange from Azkaban this past
August.
"It makes sense, really," Defense Against the Dark Arts professor
Dolores Umbridge says. "Albus Dumbledore has always been after
the Minister's office. He would do anything to take Fudge down;
this is just another incidence of Dumbledore trying to spread
disorder and panic in an attempt to unseat the Minister."
Umbridge has been employed at Hogwarts since last year, when...
Harry stopped reading, too angry to continue. He stabbed at an egg viciously. Umbridge!
Hermione finished reading the article and folded the newspaper, shaking her head, as Susan Bones came up behind her. The Hufflepuff thrust her Herbology textbook in front of Hermione, pointing to a random page as she asked them, "Are we going to be having D.A. meetings again? Luna Lovegood said we would, but she rather often believes in unlikely things, and I hadn't heard anything..."
"Oh—yeah!" Harry answered. "Sorry, I've been meaning to set up a meeting, but I've been so busy with Quidditch, you know?" Tryouts had been held the week before, and Harry had been utterly exhausted by the time he had compiled his team, what with sore losers and large crowds and various injuries. Ron had made it back onto the team, though likely only due to a Confundus charm sent Cormac McLaggen's way by Hermione. Harry was rather pleased with his team (Chasers Katie Bell, Ginny Weasley, and Demelza Robins, and Beaters Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote), though he was a bit concerned about how Lavender Brown was acting toward Ron and how he, Harry, was getting increasingly-intense butterflies in his abdomen whenever Ginny was around. What with all this and schoolwork, the D.A. had completely slipped his mind.
Hermione nodded. "We'll probably be starting the D.A. back up within a week or so," she told Susan. "We'll let you know. Do you still have your Galleon?"
Susan smiled, nodded, and thanked them before picking up her book and returning to the Hufflepuff table, where Ernie, Justin, Hannah, and Zacharias bunched around her to hear the news.
Harry looked up toward Umbridge. She was frowning at Dumbledore, who had taken a look at the Daily Prophet proffered by a stern-faced McGonagall and let out several hearty chuckles. Harry watched him for a moment before letting his eyes wander over to the Slytherin table, where he found Malfoy staring at him intently. Harry's eyes narrowed as their eyes met; Malfoy sneered and returned to his breakfast.
"What's Malfoy up to, I wonder?" Harry muttered to Ron and Hermione.
"Probably angry with you for sticking his dad in prison," offered Ron wisely.
"But I didn't put his dad in prison! That was Snape's fault!"
"He does seem angry at Snape, too," put in Hermione. "But I bet he's ecstatic about Umbridge's little promotion."
"Yeah, I bet he's missed the Inquisitorial Squad," Ron said, glowering at the Slytherins.
"She'll probably get that set back up within a day," predicted Hermione. "So when can we have a D.A. meeting? It can't be a day that Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff Quidditch teams are practicing, nor can it be when Gobstones Club is meeting..." They chattered for a bit and decided upon a meeting time the following week.
Harry shook his head ruefully. "Guess I'm not going to get much sleep this year, what with Quidditch, the D.A., NEWT homework, and dealing with Umbridge and Malfoy."
"We'll manage," Hermione told him. "We always do."
~.~.~.~
On the evening of the scheduled first D.A. meeting, the three left the Great Hall after dinner.
"Do we have to go to the library?" Ron complained as they crossed the Entrance Hall. "Never mind," he added when Hermione gave him a glare, "I just wish we didn't have so much homework to do."
Harry nodded. "I can't believe how long an essay Snape's assigned us—"
"—Simon, no!" they heard someone squeal, and they turned. A little Hufflepuff girl, brown hair swinging in her face, was scrambling after her pet, a small rodent currently scurrying across the floor. She caught him, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione saw that "Simon" was a small brown rat who squirmed in the little girl's hands.
Before they could react, the girl darted a glance toward them, blushed scarlet, and fled toward the Hufflepuff common room.
They looked at each other. Hermione was frowning worriedly; Ron looked oddly blank. Harry's hand was at his wand; his jaw was clenched, and he was shaking slightly.
"I should have known. It's what he did last time, wasn't it?" Harry growled past gritted teeth, while Ron's ears turned pink.
"It's all right," Hermione soothed them. "We'll tell Dumbledore." But she bit her lip as she said it.
Harry made a mental note to tell Sirius this news as soon as he got back to the Gryffindor dormitory. He had already made use of Sirius' mirror several times that year—it was nice to be able to unload, whenever he liked, to a Sirius he could see and hear.
They walked to the library in tense silence and sat down at a table, pulling out their books, parchment, and quills. Hermione took a deep breath and seemed to force to encounter out of her mind; opening the book, she started scribbling notes. Ron opened his book but started staring out the window, still with that strange expression on his face, and Harry suddenly realized what was wrong: of course—Scabbers had, after all, been Ron's rat.
"It's all right, you know," Harry told him, quietly so Madam Pince would not yell at them. "About Wormtail. I mean, you didn't know he was an Animagus. None of us knew."
Ron looked at Harry for a moment. He nodded and exhaled rather heavily. "Thanks. I just—you know—I was harboring a Death Eater..."
"Yeah, but you didn't know. I thought Scabbers was harmless, too."
Ron nodded again, then grimaced. "I guess I'd better start this essay, then."
Harry looked at his own piece of blank parchment. "Yeah, me too."
Snape was being true to his word: NEWT Potions was proving to be substantially more difficult than OWL Potions. Ron and Harry were suffering due to their tables being Hermione-less, and Ron was incessantly grouchy about having to sit across from Malfoy and next to Slytherin Daphne Greengrass. Harry was irritated that every time he looked at Michael Corner, whom he sat beside, he remembered how Michael Corner had gone out with Ginny the previous year. Harry was not quite sure why this bothered him—it had not bothered him last year, after all...
Slowly their essays grew longer as the minutes ticked by, but suddenly Harry started. He glanced around, trying to figure out what was wrong. Soon he spotted it: behind a bookshelf he saw someone watching them, platinum blond hair framing his face as he peered through the bookshelf. Malfoy.
Malfoy saw that Harry saw him, so he stepped out from behind the bookcase. A silver I glittered on his chest—the Inquisitorial Squad was indeed up and running once more. Ron and Hermione looked up from their work. Ron and Harry scowled.
"What d'you want, Malfoy?" Ron asked aggressively.
Malfoy sneered and touched the I with a finger. "Just making sure everyone's behaving themselves, Weasley."
Hermione held up her parchment. "As you can see, we're working on our Potions essays here. She hasn't made that illegal, has she?"
"I didn't ask for your commentary, Mudblood," Malfoy snarled at her.
Harry and Ron were on their feet in an instant, wands pointed toward Malfoy. Madam Pince hurried over.
"Put your wands away at once!" She hissed. "This is a library!"
They grudgingly put their wands away, still glaring at Malfoy, who smirked and turned to leave.
"Hope you're having fun, Potter, while you still can," he remarked as he began walking away.
When Harry turned back to his friends, Hermione was reassuring Ron. "I'm fine, Ron, really. That insult doesn't hurt, at least not when it comes from Malfoy. I know what he thinks of me, and I know what I think of him. His words don't have the power to hurt me." It was true: she did not appear shaken up in the least. Ron, though, was still seething.
"Merlin!" Hermione exclaimed as she glanced at the time. "We'd better go. It's almost eight."
They packed up hurriedly and headed for the seventh floor corridor. Several people were already inside, so they stood and chatted as they waited for the rest to arrive. When the clock struck eight, Harry started the meeting.
"All right, everyone," Harry called, and the D.A. members stopped chattering and looked toward him. "Today we're going to do some review since it's been a while since we last met. We're going to start with Stunning, so if everyone would find a partner..."
Soon the Room of Requirement was filled with the sounds of their practice, and Harry moved about the room, offering advice and praise.
"Good job! It's Mandy, right?" He asked one Ravenclaw newcomer. She had overheard Terry Boot mention the D.A to Hermione on the way out of the dungeons after Potions class, and she had wanted to join. Mandy nodded and smiled as she helped her partner stand up.
Harry looked around the room. Nearly everyone who had taken part in the D.A. last year, minus last year's seventh-years, was still coming, plus Mandy Brocklehurst, with two notable absences: Cho Chang and her friend Marietta were no longer attending. Harry frowned uncomfortably as he thought of Cho. Their relationship had just sort of fallen apart, and they weren't talking to each other. Apparently she had decided she did not want to learn from him, especially since Marietta had never seemed particularly interested in the D.A.
At nine they filed out and made their ways back to their houses. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sank into chairs in the common room and pulled out their essays again. Harry sighed as he read through what he had already written. The D.A. meeting had gone well; everyone was learning new tasks almost as quickly as he could set them up. Neville, especially, was making wonderful practice, probably because Bellatrix Lestrange was on the loose. But this was precisely the problem: Harry didn't have the expertise to continue to teach the others. After all, he was struggling just as much as the rest of them to perform the nonverbal spells now required in other classes like Charms and Transfiguration. He just was not sure he was up to the task of teaching his peers Defense.
He pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and wrote a letter to Remus. He had taught Defense before—maybe he would know what Harry should do.
~.~.~.~
A/N: About the decree number, Let It Be's timeline kind of messed with what decrees were made, so 27 and 28 never happened. I decided that 27 would remove the post of High Inquisitor following Voldy's death, and thus the next decree would be number 28.
To the friend with the hubby named Simon, don't worry, the rat is not named after your hubby. He's really named after the disciple named Simon and called Peter...just thought that was fitting, you know?