Remember the Name
A Naruto x Harry Potter Crossover
By
EvilFuzzy9
"It is my belief... that the truth is generally preferable to lies."
- Albus Dumbledore
A/N: This chapter introduces another, mysterious player in the intrigue, one who is by all appearances allied with Umbridge.
... yes, yes, I'll get to the results of Dung's negligence in the next chapter, don't worry. I'm just setting some things up, here...
It was getting late. It had been a slow day at the Ministry of Magic, and some of the luckier, lower ranking day shift employees were already starting to wrap up their work and punch out on the clock. Few people truly enjoyed the sort of mindless pencil pushing that comprised nearly ninety percent of the jobs in the ministry, and so most ministry workers were only all too glad for the chance to actually punch out when their shifts ended for once, as opposed to only when all their work was finished (which was usually an hour or two overtime).
No matter where in the world you went, bureaucracy was a pointlessly tedious thing, a paradoxical monolith of efficiency and wastefulness that eroded away the spirits of all but the most outright banal individuals.
And Dolores Jane Umbridge just so happened to be one such person. She was an unpleasant, condescending woman who was as at home in the world of bureaucracy as Cryptococcus neoformans was in the shattered, irradiated hell of Chernobyl reactor four. And much like C. neoformans, Umbridge was also capable of metabolizing intense, otherwise lethal levels of gamma radiation to fuel her growth in the place of regular sunlight.
Now, surprisingly, this pudgy, pink-clad protozoan was one of the most politically powerful people in all of Wizarding Britain. Yes, I know it's shocking, but as the undersecretary to the minister of magic, Miss Umbridge wielded a considerable level of influence over ministry policy and legislature, a level of control that worried the more moderate factions within the ministry. The woman was well known, among certain circles, as being very... extreme... in her views and agendas, and no amount of sugar-coating on her part could hide this.
She was ruthless. You had to be, if you wanted to make it in the cutthroat world of politics, but that woman thrived in the arena of backstabbing and lies, flourishing there as only a demon could.
Dolores J. Umbridge was not a nice person. She was the sort who would do whatever it took to ensure the security of her power, and by association the power of the ministry. She adored cute things, and fancied herself as feminine and charming, but at her core was a pulsing heart of darkness. She was ambitious and ruthless, willing to do whatever it took to protect her interests.
Even if it meant potentially signing the death warrant of a fifteen year old boy.
Umbridge smiled sweetly at this thought as she walked through the halls of the executive level of the Ministry of Magic, headed in the direction of her office. Yes, she thought, soon that child would be silenced. One way or another, his lies would cease. Even if the dementors she had sent out somehow failed to achieve anything to that end, her... ally... would not.
Already, his agents had done her a great deal of good, quieting the complaints of any number of rabble-rousers and taking many of her strongest opponents out of commission... a couple drops of weak poison here, a few careful threats there, and voila! No more obstacles in her way. And all she had to do in return was make that man a few meaningless promises and funnel a few hundred galleons his way – a pittance of an amount, with her considerable resources.
Her smile widened as her thoughts turned to the contents of her ally's most recent correspondence, which she held in her hand along with a small stack of forms and papers that needed to be filled out and filed.
'Your concerns, I have concluded, are not without merit,' he had written, 'That boy must be silenced. However, I question the efficacy of the plan you outlined... Whilst undermining his credibility might dissuade others from listening to him, there are nonetheless more permanent, and more effective, ways of dealing with the Potter boy's sort...need I remind you, that dead men tell no tales...?'
Now, Umbridge was admittedly a little put off at her ally's insistence on having that nuisance assassinated, even if her chosen plan was admittedly playing it a bit fast and loose with the target's chances of survival. She knew her ally meant well, but the man was too quick to choose death... there was, in her opinion, a time and place where outright assassination might be justified, but her ally did not see eye to eye with her on what justified such extreme measures, frequently saying she was too lenient...
Umbridge giggled sickeningly at that thought as she walked past the minister's office, knowing full well that a number people would be horrified at the thought of her being considered lenient. She was so caught up in her imaginings that she did not notice when the door to the minister's office opened, nor when Lucius Malfoy stepped out of it.
She did, however, notice when she crashed into him and the papers in her arm went flying, getting scattered across the floor in a great mess.
"Ah!" she squeaked, dismayed at the mess and fumbling for her wand. "My apologies, Lucius..."
"No matter," Lucius said smoothly when he saw who it was who'd run into him. Seeing Umbridge's distress, he produced his wand with a flick of his wrist. "Allow me," he said, sounding deceptively chivalrous as he swished his wand and caused the papers to fly up off the ground.
The forms and notices levitated briefly in the air, fluidly arranging themselves into the order in which they had been before the collision, only to pause momentarily when Lucius's eyes fell upon a certain piece of parchment – the letter.
"Well, well, well..." he muttered, eyes flicking over the note, "Interesting..."
Looking up from the letter, flicking his wand so that the papers finished sorting themselves, he met Umbridge's eyes, an umistakeable glint in his own. Umbridge knew that look, she had seen it any number of times over her years of working with the man. It was the look he had whenever he found blackmail to hold over some poor fool's head.
Umbridge blanched, having a bad feeling she knew where this was headed.
"I would suggest, Madame Undersecretary," Lucius said with a voice as smooth as poison as he handed over the stack of newly resorted papers, "that you be more careful in the future. After all, we would not want... sensitive documents... falling into the wrong hands, now, would we?" he said, his words loaded, before turning on his heel and walking away.
Umbridge was barely even conscious of her actions as she raced the rest of the way to her office. Her mind was stuck on what had just happened, terrified beyond rational belief.
She'd been found out, and by Lucius Malfoy, of all people! Oh, this was horrible. She had to do something... she needed to do something. If he told anyone, it would all be over for her. And even if he didn't, the thought of him using that knowledge, holding it over her head for the rest of her days...
No, she couldn't let that happen. She had to do something...
She needed help.
Tearing into her office, sealing the door shut behind her with the strongest charm she could manage, Umbridge scooped a handful of floo powder out of the flowery ceramic jar atop her fireplace. Flicking her wand to conjure a decently sized fire in the pit, she tossed the powder in and stuck her head into the fireplace.
She felt the familiar sense of vertigo that came with doing a firecall, and as her head spun through the flames she found herself thankful she had managed to convince her... associate... to let her connect their fireplaces. The man was paranoid, but she had assured him that her fireplace was not monitored – one of the privileges of her position at the ministry. Still, he had been adamant that she not contact him via this method unless she absolutely had to.
But she felt this situation warranted it.
She opened her eyes to darkness. Shadows bathed the room in oblivion, making it impossible to discern its size. The light cast by the fireplace seemed to be actively stifled by the gloom, and only made the shadows that much more pronounced.
Before her eyes, near the center of the room where the darkness seemed thickest, the silhouette of a man stood alert. A single dark eye opened, the fire reflected in its sclera.
Seeing that she had his attention, Umbridge spoke, her tone carefully controlled, not betraying any of her nervousness or anxiety.
"We have a problem."
TTFN and R&R!
translation notes:
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