Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

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Chapter 42

The classroom emptied all but immediately, nobody wanted to stay behind and speak to Umbridge. A lesson spent copying up the best ways to avoid conflict had dulled the enthusiasm to live in every other student. Harry had been anticipating the end of the lesson for completely different reasons. Defence was the last lesson of the day, Friday, and that meant a whole litany of more exciting things were now about to happen. The first of which required his invisibility cloak and family heirloom.

Colin Creevey had a tendency to speak up for himself and Dumbledore, and a habit of napping in front of the common room fire. Harry's legilimency was nothing to be particularly proud of, but a sleeping fourth year was a soft target and he'd eventually extracted enough fragments of memory and feeling to deduce that whatever Umbridge was using to harm the other students was connected to that quill he'd seen in Colin's recollections.

A very short trip to the library had revealed nothing, but a long technical conversation with Fleur about detecting the enchantments on objects had given him enough to start with.

'How's Katie?' Neville popped up beside him just before he pulled his cloak from under his robes.

'Still in the hospital wing,' Harry replied. 'If you hang around for a few minutes I was about to go and visit her.'

Neville gave him a serious look. 'You're about to break your promise to her, aren't you?'

'I promised not to get caught,' Harry told him. 'And how do you even know about that?'

'Katie mentioned it to Angelina and Alicia in the hospital wing. I overheard them talking to the Weasley twins about it and your little stunt with Malfoy.' Neville shook his head. 'I don't know what you thought you were doing, that wasn't some school corridor jinx.'

'It was meant to be the water-conjuring charm,' Harry shrugged, 'I got carried away.' He unfolded the cloak, knowing that Neville and most of the school already knew of its existence, if not the fact that it would hide him from any detection wards that might have been placed around a teacher's office.

'I'll wait out here,' Neville agreed. 'I doubt Umbridge is coming back too soon, but if she is I shall try and delay her.'

'Thanks, Nev,' Harry grinned, vanishing under the cloak. 'I'll be quick.'

He re-entered the classroom, striding down the rows of desks and into Umbridge's office.

It's hideous.

The woman needed a whole slew of lessons, one of which had to be interior decorating, there was just too much pink. It was turning his stomach.

Harry carefully made his way round to her desk. He knew from Colin's memory that she kept the quill in the bottom draw of her desk in an unobtrusive wooden box.

It was silver-tipped, black-feathered, made of something soft as down, and as long as his hand. Harry was more interested in the enchantments that must be on it than how it looked, even if it did appear like quite an impressive writing implement.

Running the tip of his wand over the quill he repeated the words that Fleur had taught him, and had to fight the urge to destroy the object. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Umbridge was far worse than he'd thought. She'd made this herself, enchanting it to take the blood of whomever was holding it as ink and then inflicting it on children, forcing them to write in their own blood and carve the words into their own skin.

Time for a little taste of her own malice.

A simple, if powerful, Confundus Charm on the warded quill was all it took and then he was able to pick it up and tweak a few things. Umbridge only supervised single students in detention and had but one of these quills, Harry had checked the other drawers to make sure. It was fairly easy to predict the outcome of any actions he took.

He slid the quill, no longer finding it nearly as attractive as he first had, back in the box. The quill's enchantments were unchanged, but, instead of taking the blood of the nearest person, it would only ever find its ink in the veins of its owner. Harry permitted himself a cruel, satisfied smile. He hoped Umbridge enjoyed the next detention she set; it might not go quite as she planned, but it would certainly make its mark.

He had added a few additional spells, enchanting was not his forté, Fleur had proven that while he was competent he would never be as good as someone with a true gift for it, but these were simple spells. One to reduce the pain felt, in case Umbridge ever managed to use it against a student again, and a ward to let him know if the magic on it was ever tampered with again. It seemed unlikely, from its crude design, that Umbridge would notice either.

Tucking his wand away he carefully replaced the quill's box exactly as he had found it, and left, leaving the door open as he'd found it.

'What did you do?' Neville asked, when they were safely on their way to the hospital wing to visit Katie.

'Nothing much,' Harry smiled innocently, 'just altered her detention plans a little.'

'The quill?' He whispered his question, even though the corridor was all but empty.

'What do you know about it?' Harry was going to be a little annoyed if he could have just asked Neville about it instead of spending hours trying to wring something useful from Colin Creevey's mind.

'Ron says that Umbridge made him write lines with it,' Neville explained, struggling to keep his disgust to a minimum. 'It takes the blood from the back of your hand when you write, he's got scars from it.'

Serves him right for being so stupid as to keep getting detentions from her.

Harry had only made one mistake, and he'd escaped without detention, but he wouldn't be repeating his mistake again, not now he knew what the woman was capable of. The quill was only a few rungs down the ladder from the Cruciatus Curse.

'It doesn't anymore,' Harry smiled. Neville looked a little taken aback by the satisfaction he was displaying.

'What did you do? If you destroyed it she'll just make another one.'

'I didn't destroy it,' Harry assured him. 'I… improved it.'

'I don't think I want to know,' Neville decided. 'Just, make sure it doesn't end up with someone getting hurts who doesn't deserve it.'

'Umbridge is the only one who will get harmed,' Harry responded firmly, 'and she definitely deserves it. That quill is an instrument of torture, handing it to a child is no better than casting the Cruciatus Curse on them.'

Neville flinched, Harry hadn't forgotten how he felt about that curse and he felt a little guilty for reminding Neville of his parents' suffering. He was right, though, and Neville must have realised it from the way his eyes caught alight with anger.

'I hope it's painful,' he gritted eventually.

'I tried to remove the pain it causes,' Harry explained, 'in case she manages to use it on a student again.' He didn't mention that it also made it more likely to leave permanent scarring, since Umbridge wouldn't notice the effects until it was too late.

I do hope the next words she chooses make a student write are appropriately ironic.

'I suppose that makes sense,' Neville conceded, 'but she'd deserve every iota of agony she got.'

'Yes she would,' Harry agreed, pushing open the doors of the hospital wing.

Katie was still in her bed, propped up with a copy of next year's charms textbook looking distinctly bored and miserable.

She perked up when she caught sight of them.

'Hi Harry,' she beamed. Harry gave her a smile and took a seat on the edge of her bed. Neville hovered slightly off to one side.

'What did you bring?' she asked.

'This is Neville,' Harry replied, patting his friend on the cheek. 'He's a who, not a what, Katie, and I'm sure you know each other.'

'I meant for my get well present,' she scowled.

'He got you revenge,' Neville noted, stepping out of Harry's reach.

'You shouldn't have done that,' Katie told him. 'Rita Skeeter devoted the entirety of her column to your attack on Malfoy.'

'Did she?' Harry pulled the copy of the Daily Prophet out from under Katie's pile of chocolate boxes and well-wishing cards.

Boy-Who-Lied attacks student in vicious, unprovoked assault. Wonderful.

'Look on the bright side,' Katie said sympathetically, 'either Fleur sees this and murders you, in which case you don't need to worry about anything, or you'll still be able to run off to France.'

'Thanks, Katie,' Harry answered sarcastically. 'I've missed you so much over the last few days.'

'He has, actually,' Neville piped up.

'It's true,' Harry admitted, 'the firsties are all but in revolt without you to terrify them into submission. Black times are ahead without Gryffindor's Dark Mistress to keep order.'

'I'm out of here by the end of the weekend,' Katie informed him happily. 'I'll soon have those little tykes back where they belong.'

'It's the way she says it so seriously and genuinely,' Neville shook his head, 'I'm never quite sure you're joking.'

'She isn't,' Harry grinned. 'Katie is evil, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.'

'Did you read the rest of the article?' Katie tapped the copy of the paper he was still holding.

'No,' Harry shrugged. 'It's certainly all nonsense about me being a murderer and attacking students and the like.'

'Some of it makes no sense,' Katie pointed out. 'It says that Skeeter interviewed Malfoy yesterday, but he was still in here with me, complaining to himself about his injuries, and I never saw her at all.'

'Maybe she got the date wrong,' Neville suggested. 'She got pretty much everything else wrong by the look of it.' He was reading the article over Harry's shoulder. 'It says here that Harry just cursed him in the middle of practice when he stopped to show his concern for an injured friend.'

'Perhaps, but the quotes do sound a lot like what Malfoy was saying in here, so she must have spoken to him at some point.' Katie tugged the paper back out of Harry's hands.

'I was reading that,' Harry frowned.

'Get your own,' Katie laughed. 'This is mine to frame as proof I was once heroically defended by Harry Potter. Girls dream about that, you know.'

'It didn't sound all that heroic to me,' Neville remarked solemnly, wilting slightly under Harry's raised eyebrow. 'Sorry, Harry, but you did kind of curse him in front of a teacher for doing nothing more than opening his mouth like he always does.'

'I was angry,' Harry explained. 'I probably should have made sure there were no witnesses, though.' Neville gave him a look that stated quite clearly he thought he shouldn't have done it all, let alone do it with the forethought to worry about witnesses.

'And now you're banned from quidditch for life,' Katie reminded him. 'It's a good thing Ginny Weasley wanted to be seeker or we wouldn't even have one in time for the first training sessions.'

'I'll try to keep my temper in the future,' Harry promised.

'You better,' Katie ordered sternly, 'you promised me, remember?'

'I won't break my promise,' Harry reassured her.

'What did you do to Malfoy?' Katie asked. 'I didn't really see, but Pomfrey had to grow back a lot of his shoulder and arm, keep him under warming charms, and he was on blood replenishing potions for most of the next day.'

'A dark adaption of the water conjuring spell according to some,' Neville explained. 'I heard there was ice involved, but I also heard that you transformed into a giant serpent and bit him, so really nobody knows and those who saw aren't saying. Malfoy's been quite quiet recently.'

'That rumour must have come from Hufflepuff,' Harry decided. 'It has Ernie Macmillan all over it. He's still scared from second year.'

'I did overhear it from Cedric Diggory,' Neville replied. 'He was laughing at how ludicrous it was in the library until he and Cho were kicked out for kissing by Madam Pince.'

Harry was glad to hear that Cedric remained on his side. The Hufflepuff owed him, even he didn't know it, it would have grated to learn of his ignorant betrayal of Harry after he'd put himself in the way of Skeeter's poisonous pen to make sure Diggory didn't end up in Azkaban with Bagman.

'So what have you been up to while I've been stuck in here?' Katie asked, tucking the Daily Prophet back under her collection of chocolates, most of which had already been eaten.

'Lessons as normal,' Harry told her, 'nothing exciting.' Neville shot him a pointed look. 'I might have tampered with an item of stationary in Umbridge's office,' he confessed.

'The quill?' Katie gasped.

'How does everyone know about this?' Harry demanded. 'It took me ages to figure out what she was doing.'

'A lot of Gryffindors have got detention from her,' Katie shrugged, 'word gets around.'

'Then why hasn't anyone done anything? It's a torture device!'

'They're scared of what Umbridge will do to them.' Katie looked a little abashed.

If they're that scared of Umbridge then Voldemort might as well just announce he's back and we'll lose instantly.

It was ridiculous. Umbridge was a cruel, malicious woman with very poor taste in clothing and decor, but hardly anything to be afraid of if you weren't stupid enough to repeatedly provoke her.

'What did you do to it?' Katie whispered, looking around for Madam Pomfrey, who was fortunately too far to have overheard any of their conversation. Harry was fairly sure she would have commended him anyway, she would loathe something created to cause injury or pain.

'I improved it,' Harry answered simply. Katie wasn't as easy to dissuade as Neville; she stared at him until he eventually gave in. It wasn't like she was going to betray him to anyone.

'I may have altered the enchantment on it so its ink source is the creator rather than the user,' he admitted.

'And you reduced the pain it caused,' Neville added quietly.

Katie grinned rather vindictively. 'Good,' she beamed. 'I hope it leaves a permanent scar'. Then she turned to Harry and punched him firmly in the stomach. 'That's for breaking your promise, even if she did deserve it you don't break your promises to your friends.'

'I didn't break it,' Harry gasped, winded. 'I promised I wouldn't get caught.'

'Oh,' Katie looked a bit guilty, 'I did say that didn't I.'

'Yes,' Harry smirked, 'just after offering me a chance to check your injuries.' He gave her a faintly suggestive look and she flushed crimson.

'Let's just pretend I never said that,' Katie groaned. 'I can't believe I thought that would be funny.'

'I'm rather glad you weren't serious,' Harry smiled.

'Do you have to talk about this when I'm right here?' Neville asked plaintively. His face was almost as red as Katie's.

'Sorry, Nev,' Harry smirked. 'Watch out for Katie, though,' he winked, 'she's very forward.'

Katie dragged the blankets back up above her head. 'Go away,' she muttered from underneath, 'go away and let me die of shame under here where I can't be seen.'

'No,' Harry told her cheerfully.

After a few moments she reappeared, glaring and no longer red-faced. 'Why are you still here?' She demanded.

'I don't have anything to do until this evening,' Harry replied honestly.

'No plans for the weekend, then' Katie deduced, incorrectly.

'Death by fire,' Harry informed her.

'Ah,' Katie beamed. 'You're visiting Fleur,' she whispered.

'What about you, Nev?' The shyer of his two close friends often drifted out of the conversation if he wasn't dragged back into it.

'I promised I'd help Hermione, Dean, Seamus and Ron again,' he confessed. 'I'm sorry about telling them about the Room of Requirement, Harry.'

'Why? I'm not sleeping there anymore, and it's part of the school, to be used by the students capable of finding it, which you did.'

'It still feels a bit wrong after last year,' Neville shifted guiltily. 'You taught me how to use it, and it always sort of felt like it was your room.'

'It isn't.' Harry decided not to tell him that pulling the sword out of the Sorting Hat did technically make him the heir of Godric Gryffindor in a convoluted vague manner.

'What are you helping Hermione Granger with?' Katie giggled, biting her lip suggestively.

Neville went very red and squeaked, prompting Katie to dissolve into giggles. 'Nothing like that,' he managed to reply indignantly after a moment, 'just some of the spell we are going to need but not learn in class.'

'It's turning into a bit of a regular thing now,' Harry remarked. 'It'll be good for you to teach, you'll know if you can understand and do it if you can teach it.'

'Hermione said that they're not the only ones who want help, either,' Neville told him gloomily. 'Apparently everyone's struggling without someone to teach them.'

'I'm sure you'll figure something out, Nev,' Harry said sympathetically.

'He's upset he might have even more people there when all he really wants to do is give Hermione some one-on-one lessons,' Katie quipped. Neville flared crimson again.

'She is evil,' his friend bemoaned. 'I don't even think of Hermione like that. It's just weird.'

'I know what you mean really,' Katie told him. 'Some people are just more like siblings than anything else.' She cast a glance at Harry when she thought he wasn't watching. He didn't react, but inside he felt more than slightly relieved.

'I don't have any siblings,' Neville remarked rather miserably. He was obviously thinking about his parents.

'Neither do I,' Harry told him at the same time as Katie, and all three of them smiled. Neville looked quite a bit more cheerful.

'No,' Neville grinned, 'don't even think about saying something touching about surrogate siblings. I don't need to be associated with the Gryffindor's Dark side anymore than I already am.

'I wasn't going to,' Harry shrugged. 'Katie would make a terrible older sister, look at how she treats the first years. I've never heard the words human sacrifice so many times in one explanation of how to get into Gryffindor Tower.'

'Katie would be our younger sister,' Neville agreed. 'She's not responsible enough to be an older sibling. Harry's probably the eldest.'

'Harry's the youngest,' Katie disagreed, 'his birthday is the last of ours and only the youngest sibling has a temper like that.'

'So we've agreed that Neville's the middle child, then,' Harry grinned.

'The one that gets picked on and then blamed for everything,' Katie nodded, 'definitely.'

'It's a good thing we're not actually related,' Neville decided. 'You two are a terrible influence.' He threw a glance down the ward to where Madam Pomfrey was eyeing them sternly. 'I think we're about to be thrown out,' he remarked.

'It does look that way,' Katie agreed, slightly sad. 'I'll be out of here in a few days, so I'll see you then, Neville. Harry, I'll come to your funeral, since Fleur is going to kill you the moment she hears about what happened I likely won't see you again.'

'Every cloud has a silver lining,' Harry agreed, laughing. 'Besides, once I'm dead she's coming straight for you, so I'll be seeing you soon enough.'

'She won't actually be angry with me, will she?' Katie asked quietly, as Madam Pomfrey approached. Neville stepped away, not wanting to hear.

'Maybe a little bit,' Harry confessed, 'but it's nothing personal, you're just part of the reason I got myself in trouble.'

Fleur was just slightly possessive, and wouldn't much like the idea of him defending Katie, even if she wasn't going to make an issue out of it. Harry was fairly sure her little sister, Gabrielle, had reaped Fleur's temper for throwing her allure at him when they had first met, and she doted on her baby sister.

Speaking of Fleur's temper, it's almost time for me to leave.

It wasn't entirely coincidence that he'd recently learned to perform the flame-proofing charm.

'Out you go, Mr Potter, Mr Longbottom,' the nurse ordered them. 'Visiting time is up, and don't let me catch either of you sneaking back in later.' She was looking rather specifically at Harry.

'Bye, Katie,' Neville said, not willing to linger and risk Madam Pomfrey's wrath.

'Goodbye, Dark Mistress,' Harry bowed, earning a giggle from Katie and a slight purse of the lips from the strict nurse, who was waiting for him to go. He fled before Madam Pomfrey evicted him more forcefully, or worse, made him drink something from the potions cabinet.

'You're off to tutor?' Harry asked, as they reached the foot of the staircase.

'Yes,' Neville admitted. 'Dean and Ron still can't quite produce a full shield charm, and I need to work on mine. It's a bit off; it trembles.'

'I can have a look at it after the weekend?' Harry offered.

'Yeah,' Neville accepted gratefully, 'that would be great, thanks.'

He made his way quickly up the stairs towards the seventh floor, and Harry waited for him to move out of sight before turning and hurrying towards Myrtle's bathroom and the chamber.

The ghostly girl was there this time. She poked her head through the cubicle door, and gave him a smile and a wave which he cheerfully returned before disappearing down the stairs. Myrtle seemed to be taking her role in guarding the chamber quite seriously.

'Have you come to see if you can perform legilimency on yourself using the time-turner?' Salazar asked eagerly when he entered the study a few moments later.

'No,' Harry gave him flat look. 'If I wanted to die in a horrible, complicated way I'd go and find Riddle.'

'You probably wouldn't die,' Slytherin tried.

'If you can honestly remove the probably I might consider it,' Harry told him, 'but until then I'm only using the time-turner occasionally to help learn important things, or to rectify serious situations.'

'I suppose that's wise if you want to be overly cautious,' the portrait griped. 'It's inadvisable to constantly use something like a time-turner, all the extra time without sleep puts a lot of strain on the mind, and you can barely use it now everyone's watching you anyway. Someone would notice you were in two places at once fairly quickly.'

'I take it you came here to practise something then? Have you managed to get anywhere with your legilimency?'

'A little practice on a sleeping fourth year,' Harry told him. 'Nothing complex, but I'm getting the hang of casting the spell without an incantation and I know how much power I need to put into the spell to create a weak or strong connection.'

'That's better than nothing, I suppose,' Salazar grumbled.

'I can't do more than get better at casting it without a wand or an incantation as things are,' Harry shrugged. 'I'll have to wait until after asking Neville for more.'

He folded his invisibility cloak up and placed it on the desk next to his pile of Daily Prophet articles and the still unopened bag of winnings from the Triwizard Tournament.

'What did you need that for?'

'I carried out my revenge on Umbridge,' Harry told him. 'The advantage of owning an ancient family heirloom that hides my magic completely is that it makes it easy to get past any wards.'

Slytherin looked at the cloak thoughtfully for a moment, but his attention soon returned to Harry when he glimpsed him pick up the hand drawn picture portkey Fleur had given him.

'Oh,' he groused. 'I see. You came down here to go off to France, not to see me and learn anything important.'

'That's about right,' Harry nodded, sending him an innocent smile.

'Well before you go, tell me what you did to Umbridge. Was it something deliciously ironic? Irony is the most delicious form of vengeance.'

'She has a quill enchanted to use the user's blood as ink. It's painful to use and leaves scars, and she makes students write lines with it.'

The founder's face darkened, a savage, furious glint appearing in his eyes. The serpent hissed, baring its fangs. Harry had the distinct impression that had the basilisk still been sane and around Professor Umbridge might have been fortunate to find herself petrified.

'I altered the enchantment so it takes the blood from the creator rather than the user,' Harry grinned rather cruelly, 'she's going to get a surprise next time she hosts a detention. I reduced the pain to stop it hurting students, but it's going to all but ensure she doesn't immediately notice and gets scarred by it.'

'Good,' his ancestor spat. 'People like her disgust me, using something like that on a child. If my basilisk was still alive…' The painting trailed off his ire fading through vindication to pleasure as he contemplated the nature of Harry's little piece of justice.

'I'm off to France,' he said, waving the pencilled portkey gently to bring the painting back to the moment.

'Go on then,' the portrait, 'but don't say I didn't tell you when Riddle gets you because you weren't quite powerful enough.' He would have taken Salazar's words more seriously if the painting had been trying to conceal a pleased smiled. His ancestor knew how much he enjoyed his time there.

'Argent,' he whispered, and smiled a little nervously as he was whisked off to the willow tree and a French dusk.

AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who has.