Chapter 21 Extreme Umbridge

When the morning edition of the Daily Prophet landed haphazardly in Maggie's cornflakes, she was already feeling like someone had cancelled Christmas. By the time she had managed to wrestle the sodden newsprint from Sirius' frantic grasp and read the foreboding front page headline, Christmas might as well never existed. The front page of the Daily Prophet boldly proclaimed "Werewolf arrest rights overhauled!" The article which followed, set out Dolores Umbridge's 'radical' reforms designed to uphold the security and wellbeing of the wizarding world by allowing Aurors to detain suspected werewolves without trial and use 'reasonable' restraint and force in their interrogation. It spelt out in black and white that the torture and kidnapping of Remus Lupin was being deemed acceptable by law.

Maggie swallowed, her guilt making her as limp as her soggy cornflakes. If she hadn't got herself into a stupid situation trying to make a self-serving political point, Remus would right now be sitting at the breakfast table, blinking tiredly over a cup of coffee and trying to encourage Tonks to wake up. Instead he was stuck in a cell in Azkaban being subjected to the foul imagination of Dolores Umbridge. Across the table, Bellatrix and Sirius's argument had escalated to curses and had resulted in a intense duel on the front lawn, after Narcissa had insisted that they weren't allowed to duel anywhere near antique vases. Three muggles had to be obliviated after coming into contact with a rather nasty stinging jinx and three different hair lengthening curses and Regulus had ended the duel by transfiguring both Sirius and Bellatrix into guinea pigs and threatened to feed them to Nagini. Finally, he had settled for shutting them in a cardboard box instead.

Maggie's father meanwhile had begun a long, quietly tense debate with Voldemort about the intervention Remus deserved from the dark lord. "The point is, Black, that I do not provide rescue missions to werewolves who are only basely affiliated with my plans," Voldemort said coldly.

"Basely affiliated? For Merlin's sake! Remus Lupin abandoned the sanctuary that Albus Dumbledore provided him with because he believed that he was doing the right thing helping Maggie and by extension, you. The least he deserves is to be rescued from whatever hell-hole Umbridge has chucked him in to!" Marius responded sharply.

"I fail to see your point. I did not madly drop everything like some kind of brainless Hufflepuff in order to rescue Bellatrix, and she is at least moderately more helpful than Lupin."

Maggie was bewildered. "But didn't you do just that for me? And Harry?"

Voldemort scowled. "That was to the benefit of my own aims. Remus Lupin is of no consequence."

Tonks, who up until that point had been huddled quietly over a cup of tea with limp mousey brown hair, leapt at the dark lord. Her hair exploded into an angry red colour as she grabbed the front of Voldemort's robes, jamming her wand into his temple before anyone had seen more than a flash of brilliant colour. "No consequence? Remus Lupin means a damn sight more than you will ever know, and I refuse let him rot in Azkaban for a single second longer than he has to!" It seemed this was the first time a subordinate had challenged him in this manner, because Voldemort hadn't so much as reached for his wand but merely stared at the metamorphmagus. "Now if you've finished playing petty politics with Maggie, there's an actual bloody war starting out there and you are not leaving Remus Lupin to rot in a cell in Azkaban! Because I swear if you do not start planning a raid to get him out of there, then I bloody will, regardless of whether or not it benefits your aims!"

Voldemort blinked.

Marius's mouth was set in a smug line. "There you have it, Remus Lupin will be rescued from Azkaban, unless Tom you would like another demonstration of why Alastor Moody selected Tonks as his protégée?"

Voldemort's lipless mouth contorted in a grimace and he slowly nodded his head once in consent.

"Excellent, I'll start drawing up a plan of attack; Tonks, you'd best lend me a hand, there must be maps of Azkaban somewhere..." Her father walked off muttering to himself, followed by a still fuming Tonks.

As soon as Tonks was out of earshot, Voldemort regained the power of speech."It appears that our next move will be to launch an attack on Azkaban, regardless of my opinion on the matter. Regulus, untransfigure Black and Bellatrix there of no use to me as rodents." Voldemort said coldly and swept out of the dining room without glancing to see if he was being obeyed.

Regulus sighed and reluctantly transfigured his brother and cousin who scowled at each other and went and sat at opposite ends of the room.

Now what? Maggie thought. An angry dark lord, a frustrated Tonks, and Remus trapped in Azkaban facing god knows what. What had she done?

Azkaban

Remus Lupin had long been aware of the crushing sense of loneliness and desperation that was felt when a dementor came into close proximity with a living thing. He had been all too aware of the feeling during the first few months following James and Lily's deaths. Yet now, as the hooded black figure glided past, he felt only numbness and pain. The welts that crisscrossed across his back stung furiously and his arms and legs felt somewhat detached and trembled violently every time he tried to move them. Dolores Umbridge had been extremely thorough in exacting her sadistic desires; every inch of his body was either rather painful or absolute agony.

He pressed his lacerated back against the cold stone of the cell wall, using it to soothe his inflamed wounds and prop himself up. Every time he had tried to sleep, his mind had jumped with staggering clarity to the sight of the short toad-like witch brandishing her stubby wand at him causing his world to explode with pain. Her malevolent voice echoed over and over again in his mind: "I'll ask you this one more time, you filthy half-breed, what is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named planning against the ministry?" He handed responded, over and over again, through cracked bleeding lips, that he was not a Death Eater, that Voldemort did not discuss plans that didn't involve Maggie with him. Umbridge had not considered this a satisfactory answer and become increasingly brutal with her torture methods—whips, curses, jinxes—before finally subjecting him to the cruciatus curse and leaving him to wallow in his own filth and agony. Yearningly, he cast his mind back across the years to the first time he had sat on the Hogwarts express, nervous but so full of hope that he was finally going to find somewhere that he belonged, when Albus Dumbledore seemed a saint who had taken pity on a poor young werewolf.

So much had changed since 1st September 1971; he was no longer that naive young boy who thought that perhaps the world had suddenly righted itself. He knew that Maggie's interference, whatever good it may have brought to Harry and the long term future of squib rights, had forced Albus Dumbledore to ally with women like Dolores Umbridge for the 'greater good'. Again he wondered that a woman so sadistic and pro-pureblood wouldn't have been much more closely allied with the death eaters. Voldemort had allied with giants, werewolves and hags last time around as well—Dolores Umbridge, he thought, would have fit in that crowd, after losing her pink cardigan and kitten heels. He shifted his weight slightly to allow himself to press his shoulders more closely against the cool wall;, he groaned as every millimetre of movement caused pure agony to shoot up his spine. For just a moment he allowed himself to picture the occupants of Riddle House planning a daring raid on Azkaban to come and rescue him but he brushed the thought aside almost as quickly as it had come.

Who on earth would bother to rescue him?

Riddle House 1st September

Despite the court case and the reluctance of all four fifteen year olds, Voldemort had insisted they return to Hogwarts. More accurately, Voldemort had insisted that Harry returned to Hogwarts.

"Dumbledore will pose no threat to your wellbeing whilst you are at school." Voldemort said coldly.

"How can you say that?" Harry retorted angrily. "After everything he's tried to do? Kidnapping me and Draco, the court case, Remus is still missing for god's sake!"

Voldemort looked Harry straight in the eyes. If he had been anyone else, his tone would have been labelled one of paternal affection. "Because, Harry, neither side will take the war directly to Hogwarts until there is nothing else left to fight over. You are safer at Hogwarts; whilst you are there Albus Dumbledore can delude himself that he has regained control of the conflict. Moreover, as Snape is still chained up in the gardens I will require some assistance gaining inside knowledge of Dumbledore's plans"

Harry still looked ready to explode, but his anger had lessoned slightly, "So you want us to spy for you?"

"When your schoolwork allows, yes" Voldemort said silkily

"You promise that Remus will be found soon?" Harry asked slightly accusingly

"As I am frequently informed," Voldemort said darkly, looking at Marius, "this is not my decision. Now, ensure that you are ready to depart for the station. I will not have any of you missing the train; anything that you leave behind will be fed to Nagini."

"I'll make sure that Crookshanks accidentally gets misplaced then," Ron said with a grin.

Hermione hit him with a heavy copy of Natures Nobility: A Genealogy.

Draco grinned sadistically. "Of course, Weasley, Nagini would probably be just as happy eating your flying feather duster."

Ron's ears reddened but he continued smiling. "Then again, Malfoy, I'm sure that Nagini would love albino ferret for dinner as well."

"Draco, Ron, both of you stop it and get your stuff up together, no one is feeding anything to Nagini," Maggie said sternly.

Both boys rolled their eyes and hoisted their trunks into the awaiting car. It was long and black with armour plating. It bore, Maggie noted with a grin an unmistakable resemblance to the batmobile—albeit one that could carry twenty passengers and fly at a top speed of three hundred miles an hour. Lucius and Narcissa approached the car rather disdainfully and lowered themselves into the very backseats, attempting to touch the interior of the car as little as possible, whilst the children went for the greatly expanded front seat. Maggie took one look at the controls and sat next to Narcissa, while Sirius, with a touch of his usual enthusiasm, decided to drive.

The engine roared as Sirius started it up. "Say goodbye to Uncle Tom, Harry!" Harry said a much more sedate goodbye to Voldemort, Nagini winding her way up Voldemort's neck as they hissed at each other. Hermione, Ron and Draco waved goodbye to Tonks, Bellatrix, and Barty; the latter two smirked back at them and promised to teach them joint-reversing curses at Christmas.

It took Sirius less than forty five minutes to land outside the station and park the car under a disillusionment charm. As soon as they passed onto platform nine and three-quarters, they were assaulted by the Weasleys and Grangers. There was a loud "Mum Geroff!" as Molly Weasley practically wrestled her youngest son into a hug. The Malfoys quietly extracted themselves from the chaos and said goodbye to their son quietly but affectionately. Maggie and Sirius quickly escaped from the swarm of red hair and as they were contemplating disillusioning themselves before Molly Weasley could notice their presence, they found themselves under the quietly intense scrutiny of Chris and Jackie Granger.

"You're the one who sent us that letter, aren't you?" Jackie asked.

"Well, I think Hermione was the one who…." Maggie began.

"You are Mediea Black aren't you?" Jackie said more firmly.

"Yes, yes I am, please call me Maggie." Maggie gnawed on her lower lip as she assessed the Grangers cold expressions.

"You are responsible for the extremely limited contact that we have had with our only daughter this summer."

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Granger—"

Hermione's mum had a glare to rival Narcissa Malfoy's. "I wasn't finished. In addition, my daughter was being held under duress for at least the beginning of her stay with you. If it wasn't for the fact that her letters home have said how much she's enjoyed the rest of her stay with you and how much she has learned, then, trust me, the wizarding world would be discovering precisely why so many muggles fear going to the dentist." Jackie said threateningly

"Mr and Mrs Granger, I am well aware that the way your daughter arrived at the Riddle House and who she spent a fair proportion of the summer with was not exactly…orthodox. I apologize sincerely. The wizarding world is still stuck in the eighteen hundreds and it has major issues which are vastly disproportionate to the wizarding population. I am very sorry that your daughter has been used as a pawn by us as well as Albus Dumbledore. We did originally intend to return Hermione to you, but she and Ron chose to stay with us."

Jackie softened slightly. "Yes, we saw from her letters—something to do with Muggle-borns being unfairly discriminated against and disproportionate tuition fees."

"Yes, children who have one or more wizarding parent have their tuition fees covered by income tax. Muggle-born children are expected to either have the fees paid by their parents or are expected to pay back the money at a highly inflated rate and muggle-borns are frequently paid lower wages than those who have at least one magical parent."

"As fascinating as this is, Miss Black, I don't particularly care about the political crap about why you felt imprisoning my daughter was necessary," Chris Granger interrupted. "Is Hermione safe? A number of strange letters from the school in the past—trolls, petrifaction and which we weren't notified about until the danger was past. Will Hermione be any safer on your Lord Whats-His-Name's side rather than Dumbledore's?"

"No." Maggie licked her lips. "But no one in the wizarding world is safe, particularly not when they are close to Harry Potter, and it will get more dangerous until one side has been destroyed. I can't do anything to stop that. If you want your daughter to be safe, you should have kept her at home rather than sending her to Hogwarts in the first place."

Hermione ran over and tugged on her mother's sleeve. "Mum, the train will be going any minute."

The Grangers paused their interrogation in order to make the most of the brief time that they had with their daughter, whilst Sirius left Maggie's side in order to have say goodbye to Harry. All too shortly they saw the children onto the train and waved the red steam engine away and the couple turned back to Maggie.

"Hermione relishes the opportunity to learn; she always has," Chris said, the shadow of a soft smile still playing over his lips. "Whatever danger your wizarding world has to throw at her, she would never be happy if she couldn't learn to use her abilities, even if she went to Cambridge. What sort of parents would we be to deny her happiness? Loathe as we are to put her in any sort of danger, we would never keep her from her friends or her school. But—" and here his smile was completely wiped off "—if we ever find out that you or anyone else is intentionally putting Hermione in danger then there will be problems, Miss Black. I expect that we will see you at Christmas"

With that the Grangers strode back through barrier, leaving Maggie standing there, stunned. The shock of red hair approaching and the lights shooting towards her barely registered; by the time she was sluggishly moving she was already on the ground, skin scraped off her knee. Her hands, nose and lips were several times their normal size and her skin had turned orange with purple pustules.

Molly Weasley stood over her. "This is," she said, her loud voice trembling, "a tiny fraction of the pain you have caused me by keeping my son locked away. I know that we never have never even remotely liked each other but I would have expected at least the kindness to send Ron and Hermione home where they belonged once you had Harry back." She leaned down, eyes blazing in her pale face. "You disgust me and I hope that one day you will truly see how stupid and selfish everything you have done has been."

Maggie flinched when Arthur Weasley approached, but he merely gave her a long, cold stare, and then took his wife's arm and led her away from the prone Maggie. Sirius sighed and cast the counter curses on her, helping her up.

"Come on Maggie, you can't blame yourself, what's done is done." He laughed bitterly. "Besides before any of us can wallow in self-pity, we've got to rescue Remus."

Maggie glanced over at Molly Weasley's departing back and for the first time in her life was filled with an acute sense of dread. There was no turning back; in all probability, she would be mourning far too many people before long. Would it have happened anyway if she hadn't have interfered or was she going to be responsible for the bloodshed of far, far too many people?

Sorry for the incredibly long gap between updates and the potentially appalling nature of this chapter. I was spending some time with the dementors and therefore was unable to write this for rather a long time. Thank you to my amazing beta UniquelyMi for continuing her incredible work on this story despite my huge delay in writing it, I am extremely grateful!

~TheRealRitaSkeeter