In the last chapter: Harry is made Prefect for his fifth year, along with Padma Patil. Umbridge makes an appearance and Harry realizes she was the one who sent the Dementors after him. His friends mention their prospective career paths, and Harry receives his first letter from Tom for the school year.
Author's Note:/
Alright! Question time:
So, I've recently had a bit of a persistent plot bunny hopping around in my mind and have managed to write a half-decent chunk of the story but I'm not sure whether or not to post it. It's another Tomarry story and I have a good five chapters written up so far. This one is a little more . . . 'out-there' than Death is but the Next Great Adventure, and might not be for everyone, but it's got lots of action, world building, some wholesome angst, chest-fuzzy-fluff, (and even pirates!).
Anyways, I don't know how long it will be, or how often I will be able to update it, but my question is: Would you guys be interested in checking it out? I know it might not be for everyone and you certainly don't have to, but I would like to know if you guys were even a bit interested.
Please let me know what you think! Or if you want to leave me a comment on the above chapter, I would absolutely love that as well!
A finger of dread hooked deep into his gut as he took his seat at the familiar richly stained wood desk, scarred and scuffed from years of use and students' carelessly aimed spells. Harry could feel the tension in the air as the last of the fifth-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs shuffled in under the unsettling watch of the newly appointed, Ministry-approved DADA Professor. It was the first Defense lesson of the school year for them, but talk had already been circulating the school about the woman's 'unique' way of teaching and now the students felt little hope for a reliable or competent curriculum.
Of course, they also didn't know what Harry knew. Didn't realize that the witch donning muted flamingo-hued wool and a tart smile was more ruthless than she seemed.
Tap. Tap. Tap. . .
The blunt tip of his nail came down against the polish surface of the desk at a steady beat, tapping like a droning metronome as the tension along his spine slowly tightened. Harry saw several of his peers glance at him from the peripheral, but he didn't look away from the hole he was boring into Umbridge's temple with his stare. He wasn't even fully aware he was doing it, or that his dower mood was subtly effecting the rest of the class.
Harry typically prided himself on how calm and collected he could be in most situations. There wasn't much that could ruffle the Ravenclaw's feathers. However, already this woman had raised his defenses and prodded a little too sharply at his patience. Even with every seat in the class filled, everyone quietly waiting for the lesson to begin, Umbridge stood there stiffly, obstinately refusing to speak until the hour officially began. And when all of the hands on the clock on the side of the room met under the eleven, as if she had suddenly been powered on, Dolores twitched into motion and greeted the class.
Harry's finger finally stilled against his desk top.
"Good morning, children!" Lifting her wand in her stubby little fist, Umbridge began to flick her wand and speak as neat text appeared on the black board behind her. "'Ordinary Wizarding Levels Examinations,' more commonly known as 'OWL's." She finished with a saccharine twist to her lips. There was a subdued murmur through the class, a mixture of complaints and worries at the mention of examinations on their first day of lessons. The woman at the front, however, went on as if she hadn't heard them.
"Study hard, and you will be rewarded. Fail to do so," the syrupy expression never slipped as she spoke her next foreboding words, "And the consequences may be—severe." She finished with a small scrunch of her nose, and another flick of her wand had the rigid stacks of text books gliding off of her desk and levitating out to the class. It had been the first time for any of them that a professor had given them their texts instead of them purchasing them over the summer for themselves. Because of it, most of the Ravenclaws had been quite curious to get their hands on the learning material for the year.
Though, considering the outdated cartoon pasted on the cover the seemed more befitting a children's book rather than a fifth year Defense text, Harry did not hold out much hope for a productive year. Harry looked up to see the reactions of his friends—Hermione looked as though the book had tried to bite her and was glaring at the cover, Anthony's brow was pinched and he was already leafing through the book, scanning its contents. Whatever he found, only seemed to deepen the boy's frown.
"Your previous instruction in this subject has been disturbingly uneven. However, you will be pleased to know that from now on you will be following a carefully structured, Ministry Approved course of Defensive Magic." Anthony's hand was in the air before she had even finished speaking, still bent over his book when Umbridge called on him with a pert 'yes?'
"There's nothing in here on using defensive spells." It wasn't a question, and Harry immediately picked up on the thread bare note of accusation in his voice. Everyone was watching him curiously, as Anthony was usually quite quiet in class and often was off in his own world, learning things at his own pace and only ever really asking Harry if there was something he was stuck on.
Umbridge turned towards Anthony and took a step forward.
"'Using spells?'" She tittered a disbelieving laugh and continued to approach. "Well I can't imagine why you would need to use spells in my classroom!" She stated, as if such a thing were obvious. Harry's jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed on his 'professor.'
"We're not going to use magic?" A Hufflepuff student inquired, incredulous voice conveying just how ridiculous that sounded. It was exactly how every young witch and wizard there were feeling in that moment: confused, affronted, and indignant. Umbridge pivoted to seek out the student who had spoken before answering. Her sickly gaiety never faltering.
"You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free environment." Her gaze slid over the class, taking in their stricken and harried faces with a deep breath as if she were basking in it. It all felt wrong and morbid under such innocently construed pretense. Then, her eyes settled on Harry and he didn't miss the twitch at the corner of her mouth before she was turning to walk back to the front of the class and speaking once more.
"The Ministry has stood by long enough and watched the education of our future be put in the hands of the unqualified, the immoral, and the unclean. Children should not be taught by degenerates and criminals." As she faced the class once more, there was a sour pinch to her usual smile and a pointedness to her gaze as it fixed on Harry. The implications of her words were clear. She was not speaking of Quirrell's disappearance, Lockhart's self-inflating ego, or Moody's daring lessons on dark magic. The way her eyes bore into Harry, he knew that her jabs were aimed towards the man you had become a beloved parent to him. The one who's past had been dug up spread to the people like the latest piece of gossip, preventing the afflicted man to find work elsewhere and keeping him mostly bound to Grimmauld Place each day.
Remus.
Harry was speaking before he could think to restrain himself.
"If the Ministries' concern is the safety of students," —it wasn't— "Then is it not better to allow us practice and perfect our casting here, in a safe environment, before we face a very real, and very dangerous situation outside of school? The point of school is to prepare us as best as possible to enter the adult world as a witch or wizard." Harry stated coldly, keeping his voice as even as possible, all the while his anger burned like ice-chips under his skin and had his hair practically standing on-end.
"Students will raise their hands when they speak in my class." Umbridge responded fiercely, her tone both scolding and something more dangerous and loathing underneath her words. The sharpness of her words took a few people off guard, her persona slipping for a moment before, in a split second, it was back as she smiled down at them sweetly—even if it was more strained than before.
"It is the view of the Ministry, that a theoretical knowledge would be sufficient to get you through your examinations. Which, after all, is what school is all about!"
"I'd hardly consider that 'sufficient!'" Harry snapped, his frustration fraying his nerves and eroding at his temper. His peers sat stiffly in their chairs, unaccustomed to the raven-haired boy being so outspoken. The tension in the room was clotting and only becoming more dangerously charged with unchecked magic as Harry's aggravation grew.
"Theoretical knowledge is only half of learning a spell, and only a fraction of using it. Practice and experience are the only way to know for certain that a spell will work in your time of need. No matter what field of work we go into after this, everyone needs to know how to properly cast the spells that may just save their lives—" Umbridge interrupted him mid-rant.
"Who could possibly wish to hurt children such as yourself?!" Her voice was pitched high and shrill, her glassy eyes bulging and wide, silently commanding Harry to back down.
Harry was baffled. Did she seriously expect them to just soak up the Ministry's mindless, 'risk-free,' propaganda bollocks?! Ever since the summer, the Ministry had begun to wield its iron fist. For the first time in Fudge's administration, he has been utilizing the power he held, and not in a good way. If Fudge was truly as paranoid of Dumbledore as Harry suspected, who was to say he wouldn't suspect his students as well? Keep students from learning how to use defensive magic and you start producing generations of witches and wizards who can't defend themselves—and more importantly, who can't move against the Ministry. Fudge was trying to bind both their hands behind their backs.
Harry obstinately hated politics, but to keep life-saving information from students—they being in fifth-year meant that they wouldn't be harmed too badly by this change, but what of incoming first-years—was unacceptable.
'Most agreeable, my little necromancer. I believe that this year may be one of very unbefitting-Prefect behavior.' His companion whispered into his buzzing ear.
Harry resigned himself to that fact as well, though, he couldn't help but say one last thing, knowing it would get under her skin.
"The Ministry has no right meddling with the education of children for their own blasted agenda!" His tone was low and seething, but in the deadly silent room, it was heard by all.
"ENOUGH!" The horrid screech was enough to make several students closest to her flinch back. Her face had turned furious and a faint shade of purple. Her frame trembled slightly with rage and reigning in her anger was a slow process.
She spoke again once she had composed herself—her face returning to a normal shade of peach once more, but her ghastly smile didn't come back.
"Detention, Mr. Potter. Be in my office after dinner tonight or you will face a whole week of detention." She said resolutely.
The class was shocked into silence as Dolores finally began their first DADA lesson. Though, nobody could focus on the watered-down drivel, because Harry Potter just received detention! On the first day, no less! The strange occurrence would be the talk of the school by lunch.
Harry was pulled from his silent, blistering conversation with Death by the gentle hand on his wrist. Turning, Harry was met with the soft, comforting gaze of his friend. The little smile on the other Ravenclaw's lips melted away enough of his anger to no longer feel like there were hot iron bands wrapped around his chest. It reminded him that he wasn't alone anymore and had people willing and eager to help and support him no matter what.
Anthony gave his wrist a light squeeze before pulling his hand back. Though, Harry briefly brushed their shoulders together, silently promising to talk to him later about what was going on. The rest of the hour was quiet and tense.
"Come in." Harry didn't give himself a moment to hesitate, quickly entering the office before his reluctant thoughts could consume him.
He had done his best, throughout the remainder of the day, to calm down and keep a level head about him in preparation for what was surely going to be a dreadful hour spent with Umbridge after supper. It had been a . . . tentative process, so Harry had made sure to put some space between him and his friends so that he didn't snap at them or say anything untoward.
Harry had seen the office above the DADA classroom many times over the years—especially during his third year when Remus still taught—but the wasn't a single familiarity about the office he now stood in. The pale stone had the faintest hue of pink, and the walls were nearly entirely covered in novelty kitten plates, emitting soft squeaks and mewls every so often. The stone floor was now taken up by a stiff lilac rug and the usual leather chairs had been replaced by uncomfortable wooden chairs, painted white with the backrest in the shape of a heart. Harry also immediately noticed just how warm the room was—uncomfortably so—heat already staining his cheeks and perspiring on the back of his neck.
Honestly it looked like the stale aunt of Madam Puddingfoot's in Hogsmeade.
"Welcome Mr. Potter." Umbridge drew his attention away from the room itself as she slowly stood from her desk. "Why don't you have a seat." It wasn't a request, her stubby little hand gesturing towards the single, plain desk shoved up against the wall and the wooden chair there that somehow looked even less comfortable than the ones stationed in front of her desk.
Reminding himself that, at the moment, there wasn't much he could do and needed to behave like a normal student, Harry gave a silent nod and took his seat. Harry was a prefect, after all. Even if he had publicly argued with the woman just hours previous in her own classroom, there was only so much Harry could get away with—and he'd really rather not be forced to sit yet another detention with the woman.
Harry tried not to tense visibly as he heard her moving around behind him, keeping his eyes locked on the seldom bare stretch of wall before him until a hand entered his field of vision and neatly placed a piece of parchment on the desk before him. Writing lines, how . . . mundane. . .
Before he could bend down to retrieve a quill and ink pot from his bag, however, a pristine-looking black feather quill was set down beside the parchment and the hand quickly retreated. Frowning, seeing as it wasn't a muggle pen and he had not been given ink, Harry turned to question the Ministry worker when his fingers accidentally bumped against the quill and any words that had been blooming on the back of his tongue dissolved when he felt a vicious pulse of dark magic from the seemingly innocuous item.
The oppressive heat cloaking Harry was suddenly chased away by a familiar, comforting cold. However, the chill was also accompanied by an ominous rattled of bones and a vicious anger that he rarely felt from his otherwise passive friend.
'A Bloodquill?! To use such a vile device on children. . .' Death seethed, the veil around Harry blanketing his shoulders as if trying to protect him from the quill still sat atop his desk.
Harry knew little about the illegal item that had been outlawed more than a century ago, but what he did know about bloodquills had his stomach turning over nauseatingly. The original intent behind their creation had something to do with using them to carve runes into the body with precision—he only knew of them because they were yet another disastrous attempt at necromancy by wizards who knew nothing of the craft—but they had eventually become a horrific tool for self-inflicted torture.
Harry knew from his encounter at the end of summer with the Dementors, that Umbridge was an extremist and was willing to do dreadful things in the name of her beliefs and furthering her own agenda. He had not, however, foreseen that she would go so far as to use such a disgusting object on children in some twisted version of corporal punishment. Just the thought of some younger boy or girl sitting in that very seat, forced to carve words into their own bodies over some miniscule offence such as speaking out of turn, caused his head to swim and bile to rise in the back of his throat.
It may have been Harry's first day of class with her, but the fifth-years had DADA at the end of the week. There was no telling if any students had earned a detention before him, and whether or not this was a punishment chosen specifically for Harry, or if there were children out there in the castle right at that moment, tending to healing cuts.
He had not heard anything about this from the staff or students, but it honestly wouldn't be the first-time professors had undermined or flat out ignored the complaints of students. On top of that, Dumbledore seemed to have disappeared not even hours after the welcome-back feast, absent from every meal in his pointless venture to gather support from old allies. Or it could simply be that Umbridge had not been brazen enough to try such a thing on other students.
Clenching his jaw hard at the anger that threatened to boil over within him, Harry didn't so much as touch the quill on his desk. Instead, he quietly reached down and pulled out his own quill and ink pot. What Umbridge had attempted to do was barbaric and sickening, and he would be having words with Dumbledore as soon as he left the office if he was available—if not, he would find someone else. But in that moment, he couldn't just jump up and attack the woman behind him. She was looking for any excused to use her wand on him, and it could not be ignored that she was still Undersecretary to Fudge.
Fudge had, essentially, seized control over Hogwarts and with Dumbledore's little disappearing act, it would be so easy for him to run amuck of the school. Fudge was looking for any reason at all to publicly crucify Harry. By now, everyone in the school knew Harry was currently serving Detention with Umbridge, and anything that happened to her right then would be put on Harry's shoulders. It was one thing for the public to speculate and shoot aimlessly in the dark about what nefarious activities he got up to, and it was something else entirely to put himself in a position where people had an actual reason to be suspicious of him. Umbridge wasn't stupid, if she was acting this bold on their first one-on-one encounter, then she had some form of insurance in case anything happened to her.
Doing his damnedest to keep his voice even and neutral, Harry spoke up over his shoulder, his own quill poised in his hand.
"What do wish for me to write?" There was a slight strain in his voice, but Umbridge only turned from where she had been straightening a few items on her immaculate desk and smiled at him. Until she spotted the quill in his hand and it faltered with a little tick of her right eye.
"Oh no, that won't be necessary." She waddled over and plucked the quill from between his fingers. "I would like for you to use a rather special one of mine." She iterated with a gesture towards the bloodquill, as if scolding a daft child. She watched him pointedly, not even blinking as she nodded encouragingly at him. His teeth audibly ground together as he slowly reached for the wretched quill. He was stuck, at the moment; drawn taut between his silent rage and the wrongness of the entire situation, and his conflicting need to keep out of trouble and try to salvage the situation he had put himself in because of his temper.
Umbridge had only been there for a few days, and she already had her fingers on the pulse point of Hogwarts. Harry needed to tread very carefully in every future interaction with the woman. Because, she was not only facing off Harry alone, there were also hundreds of innocent students at her mercy and Harry knew it would not be so simple as to make the woman disappear in the night. Fudge might not be fully aware of her extracurricular activities, but she still had his backing—which meant the backing of the entire Ministry—so he would need to remove her publicly and without killing her. And he had no guarantee that he would be able to do it quickly enough to prevent her from harming anyone in retaliation if he acted out. Harry couldn't afford to be suspended or expelled either, not with a beast residing in the castle now.
Inwardly, Harry sighed resignedly. Removing Umbridge would take patience, wit, and most importantly—politics. Harry hated politics. But at the moment, he was stuck. His biggest concern was the other students—even if Harry wasn't much of a 'people person' and thought of most of them as sodding brats—he wasn't all too worried about himself. There was little left in the world to personally fear when one could not die. Harry found that fear for his vulnerable loved ones, was far more potent than the fear of a little pain.
And so, with that resolve in his brain, Harry finally grasped the cursed quill and attempted not to shudder as the dark magic spread through his opposite hand with a dull throb before disappearing.
Smiling approvingly, Umbridge turned and walked back towards the window.
"I would like you to write . . . 'I will know my place.'" She eventually answered and Harry prickled at the message.
"How many times?" He gritted out, bracing himself for the unpleasant experience to come. When Umbridge spoke again, her tone was dripping with amusement, which only made what she said all the more disturbing.
"For however long it takes for the message to . . . sink in."
With hatred fueling his nerve, Harry took a deep breath and wasted no time into pressing the quill to the parchment and beginning to swipe the crimson letters into its soft surface. It didn't happen immediately, just a breath of heat under his skin at first. Then scratching at the skin on the back of his hand that immediately irritate his smooth pale skin. By his fourth line, Harry stopped in order to watch the deliberate, quick tears appearing on the back of his hand.
It felt like his hand was on fire as the words began to take shape along the gentle ridge created by the bone under his skin. The blood that surfaced was bright and fresh against the surrounding inflamed skin. There was a slight tremble to his hand as the pain continued to worsen until it felt like he had plunged his hand into the bright white coals of a fire and let it stay there as the flesh charred and flaked away.
Clenching his hand into a fist, determined not to make a noise and feed the horrible woman's mounting delight, Harry returned the quill to the parchment and continued writing.
Eventually, he had nearly filled the parchment with repeated statement. Scarlet rivulets trailed over the back of his hand, sliding down his wrist and his long, thin fingers to create violent smears against the wooden surface. The pain had steadily worsened until it began to slowly turn to static in his nerves and a sharp, buzzing numbness that he welcomed. He didn't know how long he sat there writing, but Harry came to the conclusion that Umbridge would not willingly end the session until he either yielded to the pain and let her devour his suffering like some sort of dementor-like creature, or until the quill succeeded in what it had been trying to do for the last twenty minutes and severed the tendons in his hand. Causing what might have been permanent damage were Harry not who he was—or more like 'what' he was.
And so, when Harry reached the bottom of the parchment and wrote the last line that would fit on the page. He set the quill down, grabbed his school bag from the floor, and stood up. Umbridge turned to look at him, glancing first that his dripping hand, and then to the full parchment. There was a flicker of disappointment in her eyes that her brutal power play had not succeeded in breaking him, but she seemed satisfied enough to not demand he sit back down and continue.
"Good evening Mr. Potter." Umbridge dismissed him, moving back to her desk where a cup of tea was waiting under a stasis spell.
Harry slipped the parchment between his body and his school bag as he turned to leave. He wasn't going to leave the pink-clad monster a trophy of his pain.
The moment Harry was out of the office and back in the silent corridors of the castle, his mind was invaded by white-hot loathing—the kind that felt explosive and suffocating all at once. Needing to expend any form of energy, Harry broke into a brisk pace through the castle, his magic reached out around him and scrapped along the walls and ceiling like fearsome claws, fraying and eroding at the magic that had been embedded in the stone over centuries of harboring witches and wizards of all manner.
He didn't stop or slow until he stood before the familiar gargoyle statue, only to be informed by the stone beast that Dumbledore was not currently on school grounds. 'As I figured.' Harry growled and spun back around to storm away. He wanted to go straight to Flitwick, to show his kind head of house the wound still dripping on the back of his hand, to hand over the bloodied parchment he had slipped into his bag.
He wanted to thrust the matter into the hands of an adult—any adult—and try to trust that they would be able to handle it without him. Unfortunately, Harry had long since come to the conclusion that some things he just had to do on his own, and that some situations wouldn't resolve without his particular capabilities. Besides, Flitwick may be a good man and rather protective over his students, but he was not so willing to do what needed to be done and perhaps take a less-than-legal or morally-sound approach.
Harry, was.
After all, he was the game master. He held the cards and manipulated the pieces. Harry resided in grey and exhaled hazy clouds of smoke over the board. He could certainly handle this.
Changing routes, Harry began to slowly make his way back towards the Ravenclaw dorms. He needed to think.
Glancing down at his hand, watching the dark magic ravage the wounds, keeping them from clotting and doing its best to scar his flesh. He knew that it would not heal properly, even with the most powerful healing spell Madam Pomfrey had floating around inside her skull.
Luckily, Harry knew a bit of magic that the seasoned mediwitch did not. Trying not to think too long on his next set of actions, Harry lifted his hand licked a wet stripe over the wound, immediately spitting the dark magic-tainted blood out of his mouth and then lifting the back of his hand up to his lips, almost kissing it as he began to whisper in the language of the dead. A deep, relieving cool flooded his hand as he used necromancy to strip the wound of the powerful dark magic and begin to knit the flesh back together without a single trace of the words that had been carved there.
He didn't know much about the healing aspect of necromancy, but it was powerful and not only a wonderful contradiction, but also a fascinating conceptualization of magic. It was not something that had been explored in depth—as necromancy was used for very different purposes in the past—but the basics were there and Harry had been itching to delve into studying and expanding on the branch since the resurrection and he became freer to study what he wanted of the lost art. In that moment, he was just glad he knew even a basic necromantic healing spell.
If that woman had managed to leave such a horrid mark on him permanently, he wouldn't have been liable for his actions anymore.
'Death?'
Harry called to his friend, still feeling the tumulus displeasure rolling off of his long-time companion. Though, Harry was calmer now, and it seemed to do well in settling his friend as well—even if just a tiny bit.
'Yes, young one?'
'When she leaves, take the quills. I don't know if I'm the first she has used them on here, but I'll be damned if I'm not the last.' Harry knew that taking her quills would not be a permanent solution. There were more ways to hurt someone than with cursed quills, and he understood that Umbridge would know Harry had taken them the moment she found them missing. But it would buy him time, and those wretched things would likely cause serious damage to anyone else's hand. Harry would even be better off healing broken bones than trying to remove the powerful curse from their hands and still avoid their questions.
Even so, Harry would keep a keen eye out for any student that spent even a moment alone with that woman.
'Of course, consider it done.'
Harry sighed as he came closer to the dorms. A weariness slithered through his bones and clotted the flow of thoughts through his mind like the anticoagulation of venom. He felt like he was setting himself up for a long and exhausting fight, one that would surely take its toll on the young man before the year was through.
At times like this, he was tempted to kiss the verdant flash of the killing curse just to bask in a few moments of peace in the afterlife. Like meditation, only more lethal.
