Chapter X: The Impossible With Ease

The rest of the weekend was horrific with agitation. The Sonder mansion was quiet and composed for the first time in almost three decades. None of the males dared do anything but toe the line; move an inch out of the realm of permission and the punishments were harsher than ever. And half of it was dealt out by little sister. For once in their lives, the men in the family were tiptoeing around, afraid of Delphia's wrath, rather than it being the other way around. The set of her eyes, the thin line of her mouth of late was disconcerting, especially with how much it resembled mother. They had found out fast that she wouldn't be trifled with and that her long-lasting patience had, at last, come to an end.

Most of the time Delphia was lost in her mind, deep in thought. The urge to speak with Fenrir and the clenching of her chest were mere background to the issues facing her. She had no more tolerance for the foolhardy games of her siblings. Not right now; perhaps, when this unattainable task was dealt with, she would return to normal. As of the present, however, she was a tempest. Everything about her was frayed, from her emotions to her mind; her nerves were completely shot and she found herself leaping at random shadows, ready to tear into whoever might be there, teeth bared.

Thankfully, her brothers learned fast when it came to pain. They would give her the space she needed to deal with what was on her mind. Especially after a stern lecture from their mother. They weren't little boys anymore, and had to respect the fact that she was earning her way into the ranks they had so easily jumped within. If they crossed her, Preia pressed, she would not stop Delphia from taking out her rage. Her eyes had gone to Makrin, who had taken the brunt of Delphia's ire. His arm was still smarting, though the large gash she had left was healing nicely. Even, Preia had stressed, scowling at him, if her rage took the form of a knife rather than a wand.

Though, she did switch between the two. Still, the weight of a blade, the comfort knowing it had belonged to someone so powerful, someone who would teach her his art, called to her more than her wand did. It was as if the Dark Lord Himself had handed her His wand, scoffing as He waved her off, saying He "just didn't need it anymore". Her admiration was that deep, her reverence reaching even further. There was nothing she wouldn't do to get what was hers, what she felt she was owed. What she had earned through her life and by the simple fact of her birth.

She also knew she had to act fast. As the weekend came to a close, she was restless and tense, the sight of her sitting in a chair, clutching the armrests with white knuckles as she ground her teeth not uncommon. Her eyes were constantly focused on some unseen point, so lost in her mind she could no longer see her surroundings. This was awful, what she had to do. If those in the Dark Lord's service couldn't find a way, how was she, a teenager out of Hogwarts with a minor secretarial job in the Ministry, supposed to trump them all? Her mother had better have done some quick thinking to get her out of this one, because Delphia could see no freaking window, let alone a door. Giving up wasn't even an option. It wasn't the Sonder way. She would fret and gnash and brutalise until the solution came, or she died from the stress.

Food . . . food? Her stomach growled loudly, ripping her from her deliberations. She was of half a mind to tear the damned thing from her body, her eyes wild and unfocused. Eye twitching slightly, she realised the stupidity of her thoughts and threw her head back against the chair with a laugh. Then she kept laughing and couldn't stop, until she was balled up and nearly falling over. Coming to, she wiped her eyes and stood. She had needed that break in her mind. It brought her back to reality. Going to the kitchen, she fed herself as she thought, wondering how she could approach Umbridge about Potter.

Her mother had mentioned the toad Delphia worked for, saying influencing her was as good as influencing the Minister himself. But why? How the hell could officials weave their way through the defences surrounding the boy when, at the moment, it seemed they loathed him just as much as the Dark Lord did? They had power, she told herself as she frowned, plopping down into one of the simple, wooden kitchen chairs. Thinking about all the papers she had been writing out mindlessly, she realised that the Ministry had power, true, but more importantly, they saw all. Any illegal or shady use of magic was documented and passed onto the proper authorities. Oft times it was hell to prove it directly, but that wasn't her job, was it? That didn't matter. The only point was that with power, and knowledge, they had the ability to do anything they wanted.

Reaching for an apple and munching slowly on it, Delphia's eyes narrowed, deep in thought. Quite the monopoly they had, the little dictatorship, wasn't it? Really, they weren't so different from the Dark Lord; perhaps He would even have a ministry of His own, ruling the wizarding populous in that way. As her mind began drifting comfortingly, she screwed up her eyes and shook her head roughly. No, she had to stay on track, she was so close, she could feel it. It was right there, tantalising in its closeness, so near she could brush it with her outstretched fingertips. Her body followed her mind and with her eyes closed, enacted the scene, forcing her body to relay physically so she could better comprehend mentally.

At that moment, Jaeger was entering the kitchen for a snack. Seeing his sister this way was disconcerting, but he knew better than to interrupt her. Edging around her outstretched hand, he headed to the icebox, flickering his glance at her every so often. Making his way carefully back out, his eyes still on her, watching her with her face all tight and her arm hovering in the air, fingers clawing at something he couldn't see, he pitied her. The poor kid was being put through the wringer, and for what? So she could prove that she deserved the Mark, when she shouldn't have to?

He left the room and Delphia never even had the inkling he was there. In fact, she wasn't really in the kitchen herself. She was in the office, scanning through the mounds of parchment she herself had written. Knowledge and power, knowledge and power: it kept repeating itself. She made it her mantra, hoping it would keep her on track. That was her crux, she knew it. But how to exploit it? Knowing the law, and what happened through their world was one thing, and having the power over everyone's actions was quite another. To combine them . . . she'd need a breach in regulation. Something . . . something that would trigger the knowledge. That would instigate the immediate response of power. Yes, yes! She was finally getting somewhere.

Her arm ached and she cracked open a brown eye to see it reaching into nothingness. Feeling like a fool and glad no one had seen her in such a state, she lowered her limb into her lap, nursing the hurt that had started in her muscles. What now? She had to set off the motions, get everything rolling. That's all her mother had asked. To start that though, she had to see the end, didn't she? Or, did she just have to know the general idea of how things would end up?

Get Potter into trouble. That's the only way she could do it, with the resources available. Flush him out like prey. She paused, thinking back. Perhaps werewolves did have ways of dealing with situations other than merely killing the opposition. Yes, she would be like a wolf on the hunt. If she couldn't find an opening to Potter, she would create one.

How? How, how, how?! Ready to beat her forehead on the table in frustration, she screwed up her face again in a snarl. Flush him out; but she was just a youngling. A whelp she thought, the sound of the word coming to her mind in his voice, giving her a slight shiver. It wouldn't be her job to flush him out, no, it couldn't be. Reminding herself that he duty was just to create the opportunity, she realised it didn't have to come to fruition. Nor did she have to take part in any of it; she just had to set the idea in the minds of those above her. This was still a problem: she had no voice. She was nothing, a low-sector worker, below the radar of the ones who mattered, those who made the decisions.

The realisation hit her as a searing jab in her back, her spine tensing as an animal ready to spring. That was her advantage. She wasn't sure how, but she was sure that she could make it so. Anything said by her would be unimportant and fluffed aside, but it would still take root in the backs of the minds of others. Those who would remember and act, without quite knowing where this idea came from, thinking it was theirs all along.

If she could just say something to Umbridge to get her to act rashly, make her so enraged about Harry Potter that she felt she had no recourse but to take action . . . Create the opportunity for him to do something that would lock itself into knowledge. Then power would take over and flush him out. That would be an opening to him, create a gap, even briefly, to seize their moment.

It was complex, winding and twisted; the sort of thinking that did her mother proud. But on the execution, was it feasible? Could she really do anything to harm the boy if he was constantly protected? That was the variable, wasn't it? What if there was no opening, and they had to deal with what was there? Even if everything followed through as it should, the wizard on Potter's tail would be there to help, lend hand, and even lend witness.

But Umbridge held knowledge. Wouldn't she know of even a moment's weakness? A time to strike and get to him, through the defence, flush him out when he realised it was too late? Her mind was truly wandering now, her face jumping from expression to expression, elated to moody, thoughtful to enraged. Again, she told herself, she just had to get it moving. Let the others do the rest. Insinuate something, plant the seeds; and then let the ideas grow.

All through the night Delphia was restless, tossing and turning in her sprawling bed. She couldn't completely drift off to sleep, nor was she awake; instead, some uncomfortable in-between, her thoughts still racing, her brain demanding repose. She had dreams, but not true dreams, more images floating through her mind. Dark figures descended on the boy with Umbridge perched on a throne, overseeing the proceedings. Then he was running as Delphia herself cut him down, awash with crimson; she could see her face clearly, oozing with tendrils of clotted blood against her pale features. She realised with a start, nearly awaking herself completely, that her face wasn't pale: she was wearing a mask. Her arm was burning and she let out a little shriek into the darkness. Her world crashed down on her, she was drowning in decaying flesh. Every breath was filled with putrefaction, the pressure building until she was trying to fight her way through. It was impossible and she was sinking beneath them, caught under their sickly-sweet weight, carried adrift in the softness of their mouldering. Now screaming as she heard a squeaking below her, watched as the dead grin of a child spoke, she bolted up in bed, eyes wide, hair mussed about her head. Staring down at the side of the bed as she breathed heavily, looking about to murder something, she realised it had been a house-elf talking to her.

"Miss must get up now," she nearly cried, wringing her hands. "Miss is being late soon."

Still gasping for air, Delphia clutched her chest and shuddered. If she never relived that, it would be too soon. She had the feeling, however, that this was just the beginning of her worries. An uninitiated soon-to-be Death Eater faced with this sort of monumentous task? What awaited her once within the ranks her family belonged to? Did she even wish to know, to dwell upon it? For now the dream was welling back up inside her, until the smell of rot was hinting itself in her nostrils. Throwing herself from her bed, Delphia dressed for work and tromped downstairs, demanding her bag from an attendant elf. Munching on her quick breakfast of dried fruit and sweet oats, she shook her head slowly, wanting to free her mind and body from the remnants of the night. What a way to start her week.

Appearing at the Apparation point inside the Ministry as she did every day, Delphia nodded to those in attendance and they gave her polite smiles of recognition as she continued to her office. Entering an elevator, then exiting on the correct floor (having to bat a few annoying memos to the side), she walked inside the office to find Katrine already there. She had a mug of tea in her hands and was gazing intently at the wall. Standing beside her, Delphia parked herself on the edge of the desk and stared with the other girl, until finally Katrine turned her head, sipping at her tea in wonder.

"Who's more foolish?" she asked with a tired, teasing voice, "the fool, or the fool who follows her?"

Snickering, Delphia hopped off Katrine's desk and went to her own, pulling a quill out of her drawer. "You look how I feel." For some reason, the words she uttered sounded almost familiar.

Grunting with a shrug, Katrine sat in her chair and leaned back, propping her feet up on the desk, continuing to drink her liquid breakfast. "I just don't want to be in today."

Setting her quill down primly, Delphia gave her a serious stare. "We could go on strike."

"Oh? What's our platform?" Katrine sounded almost as deadly serious, the slight twitching of the corners of her mouth betraying her true thoughts.

Lifting her shoulders, Delphia looked nonplussed. "Down with Umbridge?"

Laughing outright now, Katrine shot a smirk in her direction. "Somehow, I don't think that'd go over well." Both girls started laughing now, finding this hilarious in their hazed-over early morning minds.

"Alright, alright," Delphia finally snorted, "work time." Looking consolingly at Katrine when she groaned unhappily, Delphia picked her quill back up and studied her desk. The usual paperwork to be sorted and filed. A couple parchments were stacked up to be rewritten in her concise printing, but other than that, nothing much. Thankfully today would be an easy shift, seeing as she still needed time to consider what had to be done. Hopefully they would have the chance to see Dolores that day and each receive a grace period in which to speak with her. As the day droned on, Delphia realised that was not to be. Stifling her groan at the situation, she picked up a discarded copy of The Daily Prophet and read, finished next to everything on her desk. She couldn't get in trouble for staying on top of daily events. Flipping the front page over and taking a peek, she rolled her eyes. Nearly daily. Returning to reading, her mind started to churn as she scanned over the inside pages. Subconsciously her brain began putting things together as Potter's name was smeared all over the news. Now she had to piece everything together and somehow, in some way, make it succeed.

Thankfully, the next day, as Delphia entered the office more world-weary than ever, she stared at an empty room. Katrine wasn't there and she heaved a sigh, not knowing if that was good or bad. One less person to see her in this state, but one less person to cheer her up. Turning about to just go for a walk before the day started, she halted for a moment, wondering who the hell the third desk in the office was for. Shrugging it off, she figured it was for someone in the night-shift or something. If they had a night shift. Damn it, what did it matter? She was obviously trying to remove herself from the situation, to deny what she had to do. Though it calmed her somewhat to have something else to consider, it didn't help with the job at hand. Yes, a walk would do her good.

Stepping out into the puerile, sickening halls, Delphia strode aimlessly, needing to work off her anxiety somehow. Catching glimpse of a large figure entering an office, Delphia realised this was her chance. It was early and no one was really here, so . . . Running to the office, she crept through the door where the receptionist usually sat. He wasn't there either. Breathing deep and forcing her muscles to relax (for she discovered she had become quite tense) she steadied herself and went over to Umbridge just before the door in the back shut. Sticking her foot in to keep it open and wincing as it hit her foot, squeezing it against the doorframe, she cleared her throat politely.

Umbridge turned around and glowered at her; when she better saw who it was, her face went saccharine and she smiled.

"Mrs Umbridge," Delphia gasped quickly, pushing the door open so she could step inside, "I've been . . ." she trailed off carefully, pretending to mull this disquiet over. "Well, I'm worried, really."

As she had hoped, Umbridges eyes narrowed as she took on a suspicious glower. "Worried? And what would you be worried about, dear?"

Putting her hand to her throat with a gasp, she let out a laugh. "Oh Mrs Umbridge, don't frighten me like that! It's just," here she lowered her voice and leaned in conspiringly, "I've been reading the paper."

Dolores's brows went up, looking a tad more curious now. "Yes, Delphia?"

"And well, all this talk with Potter is getting out of hand, isn't it?" Putting on a nervous show, she eyed the other woman. "I mean, I think we need to do something about it. Really do something."

Face returning to its sickening smile, Umbridge motioned Delphia into the room and shut the door behind her. Gesturing to a chair by her desk, the toad woman rounded the desk and sat in her own, very large, chair.

Sitting gingerly in the seat proffered to her, Delphia crossed her ankles and kept her hands in her lap, seeming a proper, well-bred lady. With what she knew of the way Umbridge thought, it would only help her to relay her blood and position in such subtle manners.

"You were saying, Delphia?" she crooned, passing over a bowl filled with chocolates. The girl declined with much thanks, looking overcome with Umbridge's kindness. Dolores seemed happy with this and took a chocolate for herself, putting the bowl away. Pleasantries now aside, they could get down to some serious talk.

"I know I haven't been here long," Delphia began, carefully choosing her words, "but I've tried to do well and done the best I could in all things." Smiling sweetly at Umbridge's nod of approval, she bowed her head slightly in thanks. "And, well, I also can't help but feel affected by everything that's going on, working in the Ministry as I do, even at such a low level. I mean, we're all a part of a whole, aren't we?"

Mulling this over with another chocolate, Dolores nodded again. "You're quite right Delphia. Quite right."

Another smile. "And after reading the paper over the past few weeks," past couple days, "I'm starting to become uneasy. Not because of the lies Potter has been spouting, or the way we deal with them – and in fact, we have been refuting him marvellously, if I may state my opinion."

Giving her a little wave of her pudgy hand, Umbridge merely nodded. "You may, Delphia."

"Thank you for being so kind and giving me the time to speak with you," Delphia added in a rush, absolutely mooning up at her, clutching her hands to her chest now, "and I know I'm rambling and wasting your time, it's just . . . not the fact that we deal with Potter, but the fact that we have to."

Now the little toad's face was absolutely probing, a slight frown turning her mouth. "What are you saying Delphia?"

She glanced away, only partially having to fake her nervousness. "Well, we're the Ministry, aren't we? We're the government. We know what is best for the people, right?"

Here Dolores nodded, her expression becoming more of its usual vapid serenity.

"Potter," she articulated carefully, trying not to furrow her brow and look as if she was reciting from memory, "did wonders for our world in the past. He vanquished the Da – You-Know-Who," she quickly covered, nearly stumbling with her own rhetoric. "Which was quite a feat, especially for an infant. We owe him a great debt of gratitude." Her eyes darkened somewhat as she leant in, licking her upper lip slowly. "But sometimes, heroes want more limelight than they're granted, don't they?"

Nodding vehemently to this, all her chins quivering, Dolores began to look enraptured.

"Instead of bowing out gracefully as he should have done, Mr Potter has decided to fervidly lie since his entrance into Hogwarts, and create more renown for himself. We thank him, but . . . its time that he be on his way now."

Surprisingly shrewd eyes took Delphia in, and she panicked a moment, wondering if she had just, not only over stepped her bounds, but misjudged Umbridge and what she could expect from her. Oh Merlin, she should have taken more time. This would be a lesson for the future, that no matter what one wanted, one couldn't get it if every piece on the chessboard wasn't just so.

"And all this worries you why, Delphia?" Umbridge wondered in an almost too soft tone.

Preventing herself from shifting uneasily, she stared Dolores in the eye. "Because my family is worried. Our friends, I'm sure you know them as many work in the Ministry – in fact, Lucius –" she gasped, blushing furiously clasping her hand to her mouth. Dropping it as she controlled herself, she continued: "I apologise for my rudeness. Mr Malfoy, got me this job. Anyhow, as a grown woman I'm now invited to the tête-à-têtes our families throw. I've heard much worry over Potter trying to relive his glory and how it is starting to tear apart our world, where the original act united us all."

"It's natural you would worry," Umbridge murmured as she reached out consolingly, having been put in her place. "And it is refreshing to see someone so young interested in politics and wanting to play a part, no matter how small, in our world."

Eesh, that one sort of stung. It was her turn to be put down a peg, but she nodded resolutely. "Thank you, Mrs Umbridge. I know I shouldn't really say anything, and that I have no place to, its just that I thought my voice should be heard on the matter, as I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Something more than informing people in The Daily Prophet must be done." She sighed wearily. "I only wish I could think of a way to take care of things."

Smiling so pleasantly now Delphia thought she would be sick to her stomach by the sight, or at least get a severe tooth-ache, Dolores reached out for her hand, which she gave over. The feel of the woman stroking her skin comfortingly left her feeling dirty and foul. Instead of allowing any of this to show, she equalled her boss's smile and politely made her leave.

There, she had given the idea, put it in her head. Something had to be done. The knowledge would come. Then the power. And then . . . She would be Marked.

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Wow! Thanks for the great reviews guys . They made me so happeh! Hope you enjoyed the chapter; I know, I know, plot chapter, BORING, but still . . . It had Umbridge and we all hate her, so it should have been interesting, at least o.O And ooohhhhhhh, just you guys wait for the next chapter. Fenrir's tugging at his leash and it's becoming frayed -- it just might break by the end of the week XP

Review? Bitte?

BL