Adrian was only half-listening to what was being said, focusing instead on remembering all he could about Dolores Umbridge. She had come up in quite a few interviews over the summer; her name nearly always closely linked with the Minister's. She had spearheaded a few laws for the restriction of werewolves, and had publicly commented on Hagrid's outing as a half-giant the year before. None of these had mentioned her annoyingly high voice or tittering laugh—which, at the moment, were the most irritating things about her. She cleared her throat once more and began to talk in a more business-like voice, and Adrian immediately zoned back in to listen.
/
"The ministry of magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever."
Hestia Carrow smiled at the phrase. "Unique to the Wizarding community" was right. She didn't really like the looks or sound of Professor Umbridge, but she might have the right ideas, at least.
"She may not be so bad," her sister Flora murmered to her, probably thinking along the same lines as Hestia. Hestia shrugged and kept listening, reserving her final judgement until she'd heard all Umbridge had to say.
/
"…for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering."
"Try saying that five times fast," Cho whispered to Marietta, giggling. Marietta forced a smile, seething at the Professor's words. Even if her mother hadn't told her about the ministry sending someone, she would've realized why Professor Umbridge was there, with all this nonsense about discouraging progress in favor of tradition. It was a paper-thin excuse to interfere, and the professors seemed just as irritated about it as Marietta felt. Ignoring her friends laughing beside her, she continued to listen as the speech continued to get worse.
/
"…perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
Over the course of the speech, Cedric's mood had darkened considerably, mostly due to the fact that, once you got past the face of the speech, which was practically propaganda, the message was that the Ministry was preparing to make changes at Hogwarts. Historically, this was a bad idea. Every time the Ministry decided to put their paddle into business, things went wrong—just two years ago the Dementors they'd sent had almost given the kiss to Harry Potter! Shaking his head in disbelief, he rose with the rest of the students to head back to the dormitory. Whatever else she'd intended, Professor Umbridge had certainly given him a lot to think about.
/
"So what're your thoughts on the ministry's professor?" There was no real need for Andrew to ask the question so just Jack and Adrian could hear him, but he did anyway. Jack Bagley shook his head, his expression dark.
"She can give a hell of a speech." Adrian let out a dry laugh.
"How long do you think it took to phrase all the propaganda they've been filling the prophet with so it applied to Hogwarts?"
"Who knows. The worst part is to think how effective it's going to be," Jack replied, opening the door to their room as he did so. Any response the other two might have given was cut off by the sight of their three beds spread equally around the edges of the round room. It looked…empty. There had always been fewer Slytherin boys in their year, but the missing bed and the empty space made it even worse. What was missing was a constant reminder of who was missing. Andrew was the first to move, dragging his trunk from where the house elves had set it by the door to the foot of the bed straight ahead. The others followed suit, and as they unpacked and the room became a little less empty it also became a little less sad, and instead more bittersweet.
Their unpacking was interrupted about halfway through by the arrival of Zoe Accrington, a fellow seventh year, and Nerissa Brody, a sixth year and frequent participant in their pickup quidditch matches.
"Oh," Zoe said softly, her eyes scanning the room.
"How's unpacking?" Andrew asked mostly to break the silence which had fallen heavily over the room once more. Nerissa shook her head slightly as though shaking herself out of a memory.
"Good. Yeah it's going well. I still have a lot but I thought we should talk. And I met Zoe in the hallway, so we came together. And now we're here." The end of her talk trailed off in a way that made it clear that she knew she was overexplaining. Andrew nodded
"Talk about Umbridge's plan for Hogwarts." It wasn't a question of if that was the reason but an understanding that it was.
"What do we do?" Zoe seemed to have totally recovered, although Andrew—and, he was sure, all the others—knew her well enough to know that her feelings were only repressed, not gone. "We obviously can't follow along like sheep; not while the ministry's pretending Cassius wasn't murdered." Jack nodded.
"We also can't just give in to all the nonsense of "pruning practices that ought to be prohibited"—as if they don't just mean shutting down anyone who thinks differently than they do."
"So we need a plan." Adrian finally joined in, and Andrew felt some relief. Adrian had come back from the summer different. Still himself, but with a recklessness humming beneath his every motion and every phrase, a recklessness that had never been there before June. Now, for the first time that day, that recklessness had died away a little, and he sounded far more like himself. "We can't go along with it all, but we can't really openly rebel either. That would mean painting a huge target on our backs, because we know how Warrington died and we're willing to fight, but there's plenty of people in our house that are still loyal to their parents and their pasts."
Nerissa nodded in agreement. "We need to find out who we can trust. I know there are others who don't believe the ministry, and some of them will be willing to stand up with us. It's not right that our whole house isn't angry about Cassius, but some of them are, and we can't leave them hanging."
"It's more than that though. We can't unite as just the Slytherins. You-Know-Who is back, and there's a war coming. It's time for us to choose a side, and that can't just be 'the side of Slytherins that aren't death eaters'." Jack looked at them, seeing the skepticism. "I know they might not accept us right away, or maybe never fully trust us. But we have to try." No one came out and agreed, but all gave mumbled approvals of the fact.
"So. How do we do it?"
"We'll need a connection," Adrian replied. "Someone who we can trust and who trusts us. Someone willing to stick their necks out in front of their housemates to trust us." Nerissa raised an eyebrow.
"You say that like you know someone who'd do it."
Adrian shrugged. "I've got an idea or two. Just need to check some things first."
There was an air of excitement in the room as everyone said their goodbyes, albeit an excitement with underpinnings of the fear, uncertainty, and the lingering mournful sadness—the kind of excitement that comes after you've made a choice but don't yet know how it will play out. Because for better or worse, they'd made their choice, and something was bound to change.
/
People who knew Seamus Finnegan wouldn't call him a calming person. He was always at one extreme or another, always ready to make a passionate argument for some thing or another. That passion was what so attracted others to being his friend. It was also, unfortunately, the reason he was currently sitting in his bed with the curtains drawn, silently fuming about Harry Potter.
He'd only asked what had happened—really happened, not the partial story Dumbledore had told at the feast or the news the Prophet had been filled with all summer, the real story. The truth was, Seamus hadn't believed the newspaper like his mum had. He'd known Harry for years, and he was pretty sure people weren't inclined to suddenly go insane. Still, a whole summer of reading the news and having your mother talk about your classmate and Headmaster as though their insanity was a definitive fact was plenty of time to raise doubts, however unwelcome. Her brief consideration of not letting Seamus come back to Hogwarts had only put him more on edge.
So Seamus wasn't too happy with his summer or his mother. Still, that didn't give Harry the right to insult her or to blow up, especially not when all Seamus'd done was ask for information.
He didn't know how long he sat in that same position, but it was long enough for his fuming to turn into a complicated mess of anger, confusion, and a bit of regret. The world, he thought, wasn't meant to be this complicated when you were fifteen.
/
Usually, when you were secretly meeting your best friend's boyfriend in the middle of the night in a classroom chosen specifically because it was out-of-the-way and therefore you were less likely to be seen, it was because you were doing something that you definitely shouldn't do with your best friend's boyfriend. Marietta liked to think that she was a pretty good friend, and whether or not she was right she was, in this case, not doing anything worse than sneaking out of her house after curfew.
What they were talking about, of course, was what had been working its way into every conversation anyone had had since the feast: Dolores Umbridge.
"She's a piece of work, that's for sure," Marietta said, and Cedric laughed lightly.
"She is. Unfortunately, she's bound to be wonderful at her job—her ministry one at any rate. I doubt she'll be much good as a professor."
"No, she won't. And I suppose that's just what the ministry wants, isn't it." Cedric didn't reply, but if his expression was anything to measure by, he quite agreed. "I understand why they would choose her, and I get why they'd do it now. After everything they said this summer, it's clear they're trying to cover up everything Professor Dumbledore and Harry are saying about Cassius' death. I just don't understand why she's here as a professor. Why not just send her as an observer or something? Do they want us to fail?" Cedric ran his hands through his hair with a deep sigh.
"Unfortunately—kind of, yeah. From what I've been able to get out of Dumbledore's letters, they're scared that he's going to train us for war or something. But since they don't believe that You-Know-Who is back, they think he's planning to come after them or something." Marietta snorted.
"If Dumbledore had wanted to take over the ministry, he would have become minister when everyone wanted him to, and Fudge never would've gotten the job."
"Yeah, I know that, but try telling Fudge."
"Fair. But what do we do? We can't just not learn Defense. We have to know it, the world's going mad behind the ministry's back. Anyway, it's your N.E.W.T year, you can't rely on Umbridge to pass you."
"And it's my O.W.L. year, and I certainly don't plan to rely on her either." Marietta and Cedric both whirled around to face the newcomer.
"MERLIN, Terry, would it have killed you to knock?" Marietta groaned, her heart still pounding.
"Nah, but you wouldn't've stayed put if I had."
"And why exactly are you here in the first place?" Cedric asked, confusion and annoyance mingle with relief on his face. Terry lifted a bag he'd set on the desk next to him upon speaking.
"I was grabbing some snacks from the kitchens, and I had to the the long way back to avoid Mrs. Norris." Marietta felt panic begin to build again.
"She isn't around here, right?" Terry waved aside her alarm.
"Nah, lost her a while back. I only came this route to make sure she was gone. When I heard you talking about Umbridge, I thought I'd pop in and give you my thoughts."
"Thanks," Marietta said drily. "Can we get back on topic now? What are we going to do about Umbridge?"
"I'm sure the Gryffindors will be up in arms immediately," Cedric noted.
"They probably already are," Terry agreed. "I bet Potter, Granger, and Weasley will do something, because when have they not?"
"That's true. But I don't want to rely on them alone. We need to do something ourselves. I just don't know what yet."
"So we take a break. Brainstorm. Meet up again later." Marietta nodded in agreement, and Terry looked thoughtful.
"Take a break and brainstorm yes. Meet up—risky. Hear me out. This summer I found this spell for long-distance communicators that was really elite back fifteen, twenty fiveish years ago. The ministry used it, mostly, but they stopped when Patronus messages resurged. The spell's really complicated—it's why not many conversation units were made—but if done right you can directly communicate with whoever has the other members of the communication set." Marietta looked intrigued and Cedric thoughtful.
"Okay, so what are the units?"
"They can be anything you choose to enchant that reflect—a shiny bowl would work, or even a spoon, but a real mirror would be best. You can technically make loads that are all connected, but research showed that any more than four got pretty unreliable." Cedric nodded.
"That would definitely be helpful. Could I see the spell, sometime?" Terry nodded. "Great." Cedric straightened up and took a rather pompous pose that was quite unlike him. "Now as Head Boy, I really have to tell you both how disappointed I am in you for being out of bed so late. And on the first day, too." Marietta rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, whatever you say. Come on, Terry, I don't feel like figuring out a riddle, so this one's on you." Terry protested, but not too strongly, and the three parted ways.
/
Choices had been made, quarrels had emerged, plans had been formed. Already, things had changed; past, present, and future all felt uncertain. But for now, Hogwarts slept.
Woah, it has been a while. Enjoy this next chapter, it's nice and long :) Let me know if you have questions, comments, or confusions!