A/N – Still in the editing process. Fixing dates, times, blah blah. More later.
The students were walking out of the Great Hall after dinner on a very confusing, but overall happy Monday three weeks after the Gryffindor party, or at least happy until they saw that plaque swinging from the rusty nail that Filch had gladly put up.
Umbridge was the first "High Inquisitor" of Hogwarts.
Mutters and growls passed through the mouths of the passing students, and many of them stayed to further inspect the plaque.
Danny let go of Sam's hand to walk closer, pushing his way to the front, Harry and Hermione directly behind him.
"What does that even mean?" Danny muttered allowed.
"It was in the paper earlier today, remember?" Hermione answered. "'The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect her fellow educators and make sure that they are coming up to scratch.'" She recited off memory.
Scowling, Danny and Harry backed away from the plaque and continued walking, disregarding their friends behind them in frustration. The same thoughts were streaming through all of their heads.
There was no one who could have possibly told her about the party. Whoever said something would just get into as much trouble as anyone else, just for being there.
But someone did say something. There was no other alternative possibility.
Perhaps Filch? He did walk around at night patrolling the corridors, but was there any chance that he had bothered to walk past the Gryffindor common room? The castle was huge, and he could've been anywhere. Then again, he checked up on the Gryffindors most often, given their history for wandering out at night and meddling into everyone's business.
So who could it have been?
"She found out," Ron growled. "It was probably Filch, the cockroach."
Most of the 5th years were sitting in the boys' dormitories with except for Danny, who was stuck in detention, and Seamus and Dean (Seamus left because of Harry; Dean left because Seamus grabbed him).
"You have no proof of that, Ronald," Hermione said patiently.
He rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like he cares much for any of the students anyways. Remember our first year? He complained because he wasn't able to hang kids from their thumbs. He's a git—"
"I wonder what she's doing to Danny," Sam interrupted. "He's probably ironing her disgusting pink cardigans or some other form of torture," she shuddered.
"Either that or forcing him to read some of the garbage in the Daily Prophet." Ron said. "They haven't announced anything about recent deaths, and there's been loads according to Dad."
"Well, of course." Hermione said, "the Ministry is trying to control everything, and they're trying to get people to calm down. Fudge doesn't want to believe that You-Know-Who's back, no one does—"
"That doesn't exactly make him disappear, does it?" Harry said angrily.
They all turned to him. He was leaning against the headboard of his four-poster, his arms resting on his knees. His scar was throbbing in pain, but he made no motion to try and stop it. It's supposed to hurt more now that Voldemort was alive, right? He was angry though, and he didn't know why. Maybe Voldemort was angry or something. He has felt Voldemort's feelings before; maybe it was him that was making him this mad.
"Fudge is going around telling people that Voldemort's not back, that I'm going mad, and that Dumbledore's going senile! If Fudge were anything close to intelligent he'd do something about the new army Voldemort's building up, instead of being a bloody coward."
They all sat in silence for a couple of minutes, Sam and Tucker being the only ones making noise, whispering back and forth about Danny's own problem. That was another thing; Harry not being able to control his temper is not too much of a big deal, unless it lands him in detention. But if Danny were to lose it that quickly, it could not only get him into trouble, but it could also cause him to flash into evil-jerky-older-self mode, and it was a matter of time before he didn't flash back.
Sam sighed silently. "We have to make sure he keeps his temper under control," she whispered to Tucker, "Danny won't do anything stupid if he's not thinking about the dream, and there's plenty of stuff here that'll make sure of that. All we have to do is be ready when he does lose control with the weapons to capture Dan, and get the other piece of Dan out of Danny…ugh, this is giving me a headache."
"Don't worry, Sam, Danny will be fine." Tucker said. He hesitated, but continued. "Just one problem: if Danny does flash to evil…how are going to fight him? Not only is he our best friend, but all of the ecto-weapons are too weak for him."
Sam and Tucker looked at each other, then groaned rather loudly, causing everyone to turn their heads. They plastered on a great big fake smile, and continued to sulk in their seats.
Danny walked slowly to detention in Professor Umbridge, being in no mood to be early. Besides, if he was close to being late, he could always just fly his way to her office, there was no one around to see him.
He reached the end of the hallway and turned into the hallway of Umbridge's office. He checked his watch, still not knowing where he had gotten it from, and groaned. 'Damn, I'm almost there, and I'm five minutes early. Of all times in my life, I choose NOW to be early?'
He walked, or more like dragged his feet all the way to Umbridge's office, his only intention wanting to be to sleep for hours and hours with no interruptions. There goes that wish…
His hand touched the cold doorknob, and he slowly turned it, not knowing which to expect: medieval torches and pitchforks, or fluffy bunnies and bows. He wasn't too sure which he was ready for, either.
'Well, here goes nothing…'
Danny walked into the office. From what he had heard, the office was always different, every year. This year, the theme was pink. Sparkle-covered plants were seen resting around the room with a doily around each of the flowerpots. The walls were covered in portraits of mewing cats, the sound piercing his oversensitive ears. Once he mentally cursed his senses, he looked around for Professor Umbridge, who was at the moment, nowhere to be found.
"Great, she's not even—"
"Good Evening, Mr. Fenton, please have a seat."
Danny jumped. He looked more closely at the chair, which was being occupied by Umbridge, her outfit and rosy cheeks matching the room around her. He took a seat at the doily-covered desk, dropped his book bag and stared blankly at the piece of parchment that sat neatly on the desk.
"You are going to be doing some lines, just as Mr. Potter will do when he comes. You are to write, 'I must not tell lies'."
Danny sighed. He bent down and started to reach for a quill and ink, when Professor Umbridge interrupted him with another one of her signature coughs, and pointed to the black quill next to the parchment on his desk.
He picked it up and studied it curiously, wondering why he hadn't noticed it before, it stuck out completely.
"Uh, Professor, I have no ink."
"You won't be needing it." She replied with a smirk. "Go ahead, start"
He rolled his eyes and began writing in the red ink that he assumed came from nowhere, or at least that was before he completed the sentence.
'I must not tell lies.'
Danny winced as he felt a small prick. He looked over at his other hand and saw the words he had written perfectly etched into his left hand. The words rippled for a bit, then faded away, leaving the skin looking a little red.
He raised an eyebrow. 'Is this supposed to hurt?'
Danny smiled wryly, hoping to sneak a look of Umbridge's face when she realized he didn't feel any pain from the quill. After mentally thanking his ghost powers for his increased endurance, he continued writing.
Umbridge stared in disbelief and curiosity, and Danny could only guess at what was going on through her head: what was wrong with her quill? She could clearly see his hand being repeatedly etched with the words he wrote on paper, but why was he showing no sign of pain or disturbance?
This lady's a creep, Danny thought.
She frowned, and Danny smirked to himself, watching her failed detention lesson continue.
"So, we'd better get started on the 1000 pounds of homework we got, or at least I think we got." Sam said. She took out a piece of parchment and a quill & ink, and wrote her name at the top. She looked to Hermione, who was halfway through an essay for God knows what class. "So, what was homework for Potions?"
Hermione looked at Sam. "What, you didn't write it down?"
"Uh, no."
Hermione shook her head jokingly, pulling out a Muggle notebook and turned a few pages, looking for the page with the homework on it. When she found it, she handed it to Sam.
"Thanks, Hermione. Let's see here: a 6-inch paper on any ten uses of dittany. We actually have to measure our papers?"
"Yeah, it was really annoying at first, but once you get used to it, it's quite normal."
Sam groaned. "Alright, I'll measure." She dipped her quill in ink, and brushed off extra drips, and began to write. "10…uses…of…dittany." She looked at Hermione. "So, what are 10 uses of dittany?"
Hermione laughed, and continued writing her own paper, occasionally giving Sam a few hints for her to use in her paper. Hermione still helped Sam with her paper, even after she was finished with all of her homework, and they both realized how much in common they had, aside from Sam being a vegetarian Goth.
After about half an hour, Hermione decided to go down to the library to find something to read, while the others stayed behind and sat around the fireplace, swapping stories of past years at Hogwarts or old ghost fights that were important enough to remember.
Umbridge continued to stare at the boy, transfixed. No sign of pain, not even a frown. He just sat and wrote, his face showing no emotion.
Danny smiled. He knew he was getting to her, and he loved it. Maybe he could use this as an advantage…
"Professor Umbridge?"
She looked up from his hand, startled. "Yes, child?"
"What exactly does the 'High Inquisitor' get to do?" He asked innocently, his hand never leaving the quill, and the quill never ceasing to stop. 'I must not tell lies.'
Professor Umbridge looked at Danny with a small smile. "I've been appointed by the Minister of Magic to make sure that the teaching staff here at Hogwarts does what the Ministry approves of."
"Do you get to fire teachers?"
"Well, yes, I do. Why are you so interested in all of this anyway, Mr. Fenton?"
"No reason…"
On the outside, Danny may have seemed like nothing was bothering him, but inside he just wanted to rip the Minister's head off for appointing such an unqualified schoolteacher. According to what he had heard, the Ministry is doing everything they can to turn everyone against Harry. But if the idea of not letting the students be educated magically in Defense Against the Dark Arts was his, then there was probably some mental issue going on in Fudge's head…and to think they all thought that Umbridge's excuse for using textbooks was fake.
In the middle of his mental rant, Danny felt a strange sensation creep up his left arm. He looked at the words, which had not healed back yet, due to Danny pressing hard on the paper out of frustration, and writing too quickly for the cut to heal. But the feeling wasn't coming from the cuts. It felt like he was bringing up an ectoblast, but it didn't at the same time. He quirked an eyebrow at the cuts, seeing the hints of green in his blood, but paying no attention to them.
He felt his eyes go green for a split second, then back to blue. His ghost sense went off, and then very suddenly, a sharp pang hit him right in the center of the back of his head, causing him to bite down hard on his lip to keep quiet. Obviously, this quill wasn't ecto-friendly.
"Professor, can I ask just one more question?"
Umbridge looked up from her desk.
"What would happen if a Muggle got their hands on this quill and used it?"
Umbridge raised an eyebrow. "The same reaction, but what does that have to do with anything—"
"How about a Muggle ghost?"
She sighed. "After a Ministry-approved test with these quills on some odd ghost that called himself 'The Box Ghost', due to the powerful spells placed on the quill, the creature broke out into a cold sweat, and probably would've been destroyed completely, if it weren't for a simple spell that the Head of the Department of Spell Damage at St. Mungo's had cast on the thing."
Danny sighed. "Right. Thank you, Professor."
He hesitantly wrote the next line down on the parchment, now realizing why his arm was feeling a bit strange: the quill was destroying his ghost half little by little, starting with his left hand. Each time he finished a sentence, he'd feel the words being cut into his hand, and he'd feel more of the strange sensation creeping up his arm, becoming more and more painful with each passing second.
'I must not tell lies.'
He looked at his watch. '4:59. She should be letting me leave any second now…'
And as if she read his mind, she called him up to her desk. He walked up, and showed her his hand when she asked for it.
"Hm, not bad." She said, as she saw the words cut into his hand, drops of blood seeping through his fingers.
She was about to dismiss him, until she saw the faintest bit of green in his blood mixed in with the red. She blinked a few times, convincing herself she was just seeing things, but when the green had not disappeared, she was about to ask him about it until Danny quickly grabbed his hand back and gathered his things, trying as hard as he could without using his left hand. He wished Professor Umbridge a good night and bolted out of her office, immediately sticking his hand out to the wall for support. 'Man, the magic in that quill is really starting to get to me…I got to find somebody—'
"Danny?"
He looked up. At the corner of the hallway stood Hermione, clutching a book in her hands, her head tilted to one side. When she realized it was him, she ran to him and asked him what was wrong, while helping him stand.
"Umbridge's detention wasn't exactly ghost-friendly. It's destroying my ghost half."
"That sounds a bit familiar. Hold on, I think there's something in this book…"
She flipped through the book she was holding, stopping at a page when she thought she had found something, but then quickly turned when she realized it wasn't there. Danny looked up at the book and saw a familiar insignia.
'CW. Figures Clockwork's mixed up in this somehow.'
"Got it. Hold still for a second." She cleared her throat and reread the spell in the book 3 times. "Firmeza." (1)
Danny's arm rippled with pain for a few seconds, but almost immediately, the pain was gone, leaving Danny feeling better than before he had gotten into Umbridge's office.
"Thanks, that worked really well. Where'd you get that book, anyways?"
"I was in the library, looking through a pile of books that were on a table nearby, and this one sort of stuck out." She said sheepishly. "I was going to walk away, when a deep voice in my head told me to take it, and that it would help for something in the future, with emphasis on 'future'. So I took it, and here we are."
"I knew it was him." Danny muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing." He replied quickly. "So, where is everyone else?"
"They're all being lazy in front of the fire. I don't understand how they can be so relaxed when there's so much going on around here. I mean, on top of all the homework they haven't done, Umbridge isn't teaching us anything, and there's a big war that You-Know-Who's starting."
"Yeah, and not to mention I'm slowly turning evil and Harry's close to becoming possessed." Danny said humorously. "But that's nothing we can't handle."
Hermione chuckled. "Why should that be funny?"
"It's not. But the world looks a little bit brighter when I pretend it's all in my head."
Hermione side smiled before getting back on point. "We need to do something about the whole Umbridge problem. What did she make you do for detention, anyways?"
"Lines. But I had to use some weird quill thing. Anyways, I doubt she's going to teach us anything worth knowing anyways, right? I mean, we're seriously going to have to learn how to do all the spells on our own?"
"Yeah, I guess. Why would Dumbledore allow someone like her to teach here, and in our O.W.L. year, too?"
"Uh, sorry, what's an owl year?"
"O.W.L.s are Ordinary Wizarding Levels. At the end of the year we have to take the O.W.L.s in order to apply for the job we might want when we're older. And if we're going to get any O.W.L.s, we need to do something to learn the spells quicker."
"You said that Harry has most of the spells learned or something. Why don't we just ask him?"
"Because he won't want to do it. He'll probably say some nonsense about him not being able to teach or no one else wanting to learn from him."
"Well, lets ask him anyways." Danny said. When Hermione's face showed nothing but doubt, he continued. "Look, I've failed tests so many times, that's it's become a boring routine. It would be awesome if Harry was able to teach us some magic and stuff."
Hermione doubted that it would work, but after a few minutes of begging and pleading, she agreed to ask Harry to help them out.
A/N – K anyways, still editing. Working on small things. Keep reading :)