Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
So it continues!
Chapter 58
The school was subdued. Three weeks of Umbridge's best attempts to stamp her authority over every student and teacher within the walls had worn most down, defiance had been dampened to sullen disgust.
It was simply easier to conform, or to appear to, than to run the risk of having to spend an evening in the newly minted Headmistress' Office. The room had formerly been the premise of the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, but Dumbledore had neglected to share the password to the gargoyle guarding the real office with Fudge or Umbridge, and the few teachers who Harry was sure must know it seemed to have mysteriously forgotten.
Harry was fairly sure that if he really wanted to get in he could stand there and list every item of confectionery known to either wizards or muggles and eventually the gargoyle would step aside. In fact he found the idea quite tempting, and on the brief occasions he found himself nearby he had taken to murmuring a handful of potential passwords while disillusioned.
None had granted him entry as of yet.
Idly he spun his wand around on the table, enjoying the brief flare of warmth it gave him when he touched his fingers to it.
For all of Umbridge's vaunted Ministerial influence she still had to run the school effectively in the manner the Minister instructed, or Fudge would replace her with another ambitious, suitably sycophantic servant.
The lessons continued as normal, even quidditch continued, something the Gryffindor still managed to win, much to Malfoy's growing discontent and Harry found he was no longer persona non grata. The much maligned Dumbledore had taken every measure of the guilt, and the poor, naive Harry Potter had been as trapped in his lies as everyone else, something a particularly sympathetic Fudge had often reiterated.
Umbridge, of course, still loathed him, and he suspected she was doing her best to take out her hatred on those close to him, because Neville and Katie were in detention with her almost every other night, something Dobby had taken great care to repeatedly interrupt in one manner or another. Most recently his preferred method was to lead Peeves into her office and leave him to wreak havoc, but Harry knew he'd also meticulously tidied the room away, after sticking it all the furnishings to the ceiling, and simply whisked students away from under her nose.
'Not hungry?' Harry glanced up at Cedric Diggory, who was taking something of a risk by sitting on a different house table.
'Not particularly,' Harry replied, catching his wand and returning it to its holster.
Further along the table Ron, Neville and Hermione got up to take new seats across from him. Ron decided to bring his plate of food with him, scattering carrots across the floor when he tilted the overloaded plate a little too far.
'I figured out who betrayed the DA,' Diggory remarked calmly, as if he was discussing the weather.
Harry tilted his head in interest, obviously Cedric wasn't completely right, or he wouldn't be talking to him, but it might prove useful nonetheless.
'Who?" Neville demanded, clenching his fist around his fork.
'Cho said that her friend Marietta Edgecombe hasn't received a single detention or so much as a rebuke from Umbridge or her squad of morons.' Harry smirked at the reference to the Inquisitorial Squad, Umbridge's attempt to counteract the prefects' unwillingness to assist her. 'Her mother works at the Ministry too, she's one of the officials who helps to monitor the floo network and fireplaces at the castle.'
'Marietta isn't part of the DA,' Hermione disagreed.
'She was at the first meeting,' Neville remembered. 'She left early, before signing the list. I'd bet she told Umbridge and that's why she was looking for us in the first place.'
'She wouldn't have known where to find the list,' Ron pointed out in a marginally more common moment of intelligence.
'Where was it?' Harry asked.
'We hid it in the Room of Requirement,' Hermione answered. 'I tested it. There was no way it could be found by anyone who didn't already know where it was.'
'Can you show me?' Harry inquired. 'I'm good at using the room, I might be able to figure out Umbridge managed to find it.'
'We tried everything already,' she dismissed. 'Neville is an expert of using the Room of Requirement.'
'Let's go,' Neville decided, ignoring the shock on Hermione's face at being overruled. 'Harry taught me how to use the place, it's a good idea.'
There was still half an hour of lunch left, and it was all too easy to avoid the pair of Inquisitors who constantly patrolled the seventh floor, unaware of what they were really guarding.
'Has anyone seen any hint of the jinx Hermione placed on the list?' Cedric asked quietly as they passed the staff table. Harry pretended not to notice the angry stare Umbridge sent him from where she perched primly on the headteacher's chair.
'No,' Ron shook his head, 'and we've all double checked every face. None of our members have shown any sign of it, and none of them have been absent, ill or gone home.'
'Could it have simply been removed?' Harry queried, fully aware that as the punishment for breaking a magical contract it could not be.
'No,' Hermione smiled, raising her chin, 'nobody could betray the group and avoid my jinx.'
Well that's not quite true, Harry smiled to himself, you left too many loopholes in the intent of your enchantment.
Had Hermione been a bit more specific about the definition of betrayal he would not have been able to indirectly betray the group without suffering the penalty Hermione had prescribed.
'So Marietta seems likely,' Cedric commented.
'Yeah,' Ron nodded. 'I'll set the twins on her if she did, they'll make her life as miserable as everyone else's is now Umbridge is in charge.'
'I still don't see how Marietta could have told Umbridge about the list,' Hermione cut in.
'She knew it existed,' Neville reminded Hermione. 'Maybe she followed us to the room.'
They hurried up the steps in silence, pausing on the sixth floor.
'I'll distract them,' Ron offered, pulling his wand out.
'Let me change your hair first,' Hermione ordered briskly, casting several enchantments over him. Ron's red hair darkened to a jet-black like Harry's own, his freckles faded, leaving his skin pale and the bones of his face seemed to shift upwards slightly, giving his face a noble lilt. The new countenance was oddly familiar, but Harry couldn't quite recall where he had seen it before.
Ron inspected himself in the window for a moment. 'Blimey, Hermione,' he gaped. 'How did you do this?' Even his voice sounded different, smoother and higher.
Hermione swelled up with pride, about to burst into explanation, but Harry shook his head and pointed upstairs. If she really wanted to share everything about the spell then she should do it later.
Ron darted up the stairs, the echo of his footsteps fading until there came a distant cry. 'Stupefy, stupefy,' Harry heard, before Ron came back round the corner.
'I thought you were going to distract them,' Hermione hissed.
'Well it seemed easier to just stun them,' he shrugged. 'They're not hurt, they didn't even see me.'
'Fine,' she cancelled her enchantments with a wave of her wand, and Ron winced as his face rearranged itself.
'That's bloody uncomfortable,' he swore quietly. Hermione shot him a glare for using foul language.
'Let's go,' Neville decided, leading the group on towards the Room of Requirement. He paused before the entrance, concentrating briefly, before the unremarkable door to the Room of Hidden Things appeared.
'Wow,' Harry feigned admiration upon entering. 'You hid it here?'
'Yes,' his friend smiled.
'It seems like a lot of people have found this place,' Cedric noted. 'If Marietta ever followed Cho, or any of us, she could well have stumbled across this place.'
'Perhaps,' Neville's face darkened. Ron and Hermione led the way towards to the bust of the warlock where they'd hidden the list. Harry hung back, making sure it was clear that he was following them.
'We left it here, under the bust,' Hermione informed him, looking around with a frown.
Harry inspected the surroundings, almost everything was as he'd left it, the only differences were the absence of the list and the tarnished diadem he'd used to mark the bust out more clearly. He was almost disappointed to see the circlet was gone, it had been a curious thing.
'It's not very far from the entrance,' Harry pointed out. 'Umbridge has had a month or so to search this place, possibly with help. She might have just come across it.'
'You think she just got lucky?' Ron asked incredulously.
'What other explanation is there?' Harry countered. 'Nobody on the list betrayed us, or whatever jinx Hermione used would have come into effect, and only the three of you knew exactly where the list was in the room.'
'Harry has a point,' Cedric nodded. 'Marietta's a smart girl, she could have easily followed us to the room if she wanted to. Cho says she wouldn't have expected her to betray us, but she's not so sure now with things the way they are.'
'It hardly matters now,' Harry insisted, eager to move on now his version of events was established in their minds. 'It was found, Dumbledore's gone, but you heard what he said, Fudge isn't likely to be Minister for much longer and he'll be back. We do what he said. He's Dumbledore, I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing.' Harry just managed to bite back the sarcasm he longed to speak that sentence with.
'S'pose you're right,' Ron said at last. 'We'll just have to endure Umbridge.'
'Hopefully not for too long,' Harry agreed, brushing lightly at the edges of Ron's mind when he red-head met his eyes. He found no suspicion there, and Cedric and Neville readily agreed with him. Hermione would not stop trying until she knew the truth, but Harry doubted she would ever find anything that would lead back to him. Even confronting Marietta would only direct her further from him.
'Let's go back,' Cedric suggested. 'It's lessons soon.'
They backtracked from the room, though Hermione seemed slightly reluctant to leave, glancing around her in wistful confusion as if she longed to stay, but wasn't quite sure why. Harry watched her curiously all the way back to the Great Hall.
The bruises beneath her eyes had faded, or she'd learnt to heal or cover them. Harry suspected the latter from the way she had disguised Ron, but her usual attempts to be cordial with him had stopped, and her eyes adopted only a cool distance when they fell on him.
'Hermione?' Harry called as they reached the hall, catching her eye and gently forming a connection between their minds as they retook their seats on the Gryffindor table.
'Are you ok?' He inquired bluntly. She seemed taken aback by his question, before blinking and nodding.
There was a brief flutter of fears through her mind, exam results, loneliness, loss, but nothing untoward. Her feelings and thoughts were distinctly hers. Harry severed the connection once he felt her decide Harry thought she might know something they didn't and before she realised anything was amiss. Hermione was certainly bright and intelligent enough to have picked up the basics of occlumency on her own, so even using passive legilimency was a slight risk.
One of the silver-badged Junior Inquisitors hurried across the hall, his robes creased and a large bruise forming on the side of his face. He stopped in front of the staff table to speak to Umbridge, whose face turned a mottle red with rage.
'Tell me we don't have Defence Against the Dark Arts next,' he muttered to Neville.
'I could,' his friend groaned, 'but I'd be lying to you.'
'Wonderful,' Harry commented dryly, watching Umbridge out of the corner of his eye as she glared furiously at him. 'I have a suspicion she will be doing her utmost to place me in detention.' 'Like every lesson,' Neville grinned. 'That's nothing new.'
'I think she might try a little harder than normal,' Harry warned. 'Don't say anything, and try and make sure nobody else does either.'
'Ron won't listen,' Neville sighed, 'not if she makes him angry enough.'
'He might listen to Hermione,' Harry suggested.
'It's worth a try,' his friend agreed, collecting his bag from under the table as lunch came to an end and striding across to speak urgently with Hermione.
Harry followed after them at a marginally slower pace, dragging his heels on the way to Umbridge's class and the inevitable period of inescapable boredom.
'Books out and wands away,' she instructed. The girlish voice she usually adopted was gone, the pleasure she seemed to take at their suffering in silence did not spread across her wide face. Indeed she seemed rather indifferent and uninterested in it.
'We will be recapping the chapters on defensive theory from now until your exams,' she announced. 'Study hard and you will succeed.'
Harry opened his pristine copy of Wilbert Slinkhard's worst and only publication, pushing his hand along the spine to try and keep the book from closing itself.
There were so many better things he could be doing with the time, even Hermione, who normally found a clever way to make use of this lesson seemed to have run out of ideas and was writing in the margins of the book every few minutes. Ron's eyes had glazed over, and Neville had fallen asleep with his nose in the pages.
Fortunately Umbridge had not seemed to notice anything.
If he did not know that he was able to use his time-turner to reclaim at least some of these wasted lessons, then Harry had little doubt he would not be here. As it was he could easily slip off to the chamber the moment lessons ended for the day and make better use of the extra hours his time-turner allowed.
There was a muffled thump as Neville fell of his stool, and a light titter ran around the room. Umbridge looked balefully, surveying the room, but seeing nothing amiss returned to whatever she was writing at the front.
'Are you alright, Nev?' Harry whispered, as his friend slid back onto his stool.
'Fell asleep,' Neville rubbed his shoulder ruefully, then suddenly burst into a wild grin. 'What is that mark on your neck?'
'Mark?' Harry turned to look at him innocently, shielding the fading, purple blotch on his neck from Neville's view. It was only the size of his smallest fingernail now, and quite faint, so he'd abandoned his scarf. Evidently he'd made that decision a little too early to be safe.
'Nice try,' his friend grinned, 'but after all those remarks about Hannah I'm not going to show any mercy, especially when I'm this bored.'
'Shall I liven up the lesson?' Harry offered, steering the conversation away from the almost faded love bite under his jawline.
'What will you do?' Neville took the bait.
'Watch,' Harry smirked, flicking his wand into his palm under the desk and pointing it towards Parvati's textbook further along their desk.
Concentrating very hard he carefully transfigured it into a large iguana, chuckling under his breath when the girl shrieked loudly and threw herself backwards of her stool away from the lizard.
'What is going on?' Umbridge demanded, standing up.
'There's an iguana, professor,' Harry announced loudly. Drawing his wand he approached the conjured lizard slowly, watched by the entire class. 'I'll take care of it.'
Carefully and deliberately he raised his wand, then paused and frowned as if in thought before placing his wand on the desk in front of the iguana and stepping back.
'What are you doing, Mr Potter?' Umbridge asked incredulously.
'Avoiding conflict with a dark creature, professor,' he answered, somehow keeping a straight face. 'Should I flee now?'
The rest of the class, with exception of Parvati, broke out into laughter. The iguana stoically ignored the noise, choosing to drag itself slowly over towards Neville, who immediately surrendered his wand as well to further chuckling.
'That's quite enough,' Umbridge ordered furiously.
She dug angrily around in her handbag for her wand, pulling the short, stubby looking piece of wood out in a flash of silver and sapphire.
'Evanesco,' she proclaimed with disturbing delight, vanishing the lizard that had once been Parvati's textbook. Harry caught her eye innocently as she stowed her wand away and, unable to resist, wordlessly and wandlessly cast the legilimency spell.
Umbridge was beyond angry. Her thoughts were an incoherent tangle of rage, and flickering, flashing images. He pulled out only a few impressions, a clear, odourless tasteless liquid, veritaserum, himself, and a strong desire to use the Cruciatus Curse.
She's growing more malignant, he realised.
The blood quill had been a disgusting, amoral thing to use. Torturing children with such a thing had been a clear message about her character, but the psychological ramifications of forcing a child to hurt themselves over and over was far from the cruelty required to cast the Cruciatus Curse.
I have to act as soon as I have the polyjuice, Harry decided.
'What's veritaserum?' He whispered to Neville, leaning across to reclaim the wand he had surrendered to the iguana.
'A very powerful truth potion,' his friend replied, mystified. Harry felt he rather should have guessed that from its name. 'It's very tightly controlled by the Ministry and very hard to brew. Gran told me that it can't be used for trials in the Wizengamot because it can be resisted.'
'How can you resist it?' Harry asked quietly. Judging by Umbridge's expression it might be something he needed to be able to do.
'I'm not sure,' Neville answered apologetically, 'she said it produces a powerful compulsion to speak honestly, so maybe if you're strong-willed. There's an antidote you can take too, and like the serum itself it's undetectable so nobody would know if you took it before the trial.'
'Thanks,' Harry murmured gratefully. He'd wager quite a lot that knowing the mind arts would enable him to resist and what better way to convince Umbridge to follow his treasure trail to Aragog than to spill its supposed secrets under the influence of the truth serum.
She would never even dream of suspecting.
He just needed a way to provoke her into drugging students, the former DA members would be at the top of her list of suspects, so he could simply impersonate one of his least favourite members with the polyjuice.
Quietly he thanked Fleur for agreeing to get it for him, and whatever had given him the inspiration to ask for the potion in the first place.
He spent the rest of the lesson keeping his head down and enduring Parvati's glares. She had clearly realised that the iguana's appearance and the loss of her textbook were connected to him.
'Well that was a better lesson than normal,' Neville remarked, when Umbridge finally released them.
'Amazingly there were no detentions,' Harry agreed. 'Normally at least one of Ron, Seamus or Dean finds themselves in Umbridge's detention schedule.'
'The iguana made a marvellous distraction,' his friend agreed. 'Well done, that's NEWT level transfiguration too.'
'Thanks,' Harry grinned, 'I thought distracting Umbridge worked well.'
'Umbridge?' Neville laughed. 'We both know you did that to stop me asking about the marks on your neck as much as alleviating out boredom.'
'Perhaps,' Harry admitted. Neville knew him well.
'Seeing as you don't want to speak about it, and I'm nicer than you I'll only make one comment about them,' Neville promised, turning to the portrait of the Fat Lady.
'Really?' Harry asked, surprised.
'Yes,' Neville grinned. 'I'm going to tell Katie.'
'That seems cruel,' Harry complained. 'Can't you just pretend you never saw it?'
'I believe in revenge,' Neville replied. He wasn't joking either. If Neville ever came across any of the Lestranges Harry fully expected him to do his utmost to kill them.
'Can't I owe you a favour instead?' Harry tried. Katie would tease him about it mercilessly.
'No.' Neville shook his head, taking a seat across from Katie, who was working alone at one of the study tables in the common room. Harry took a seat on her left, making sure Fleur's memento was on the other side to her.
'Have you seen the beautiful, purple mark on Harry's neck?' Neville asked her, not even trying to sugar coat it.
Katie's essay was immediately forgotten.
'Oh,' she favoured Harry with a sultry smile, 'and who was the lucky girl?' Harry gave her a flat stare, before showing his unmarked right jaw line.
'There's nothing there,' she sulked, turning to level an accusing stare at Neville.
'It's on the other side,' Neville grinned.
'That was more than one comment,' Harry pointed out, as Katie none too gently turned his face round.
'This is old and fading,' she beamed, 'and I know you haven't been able to visit her since Umbridge took over. She must have been enjoying herself a lot for it to last this long.'
'How would you know?' Harry countered. 'Been sneaking off for secret meetings in broom cupboards again, have you?'
'Again?' Katie's voice slipped up an octave. 'The only meeting I've had in the last two years with a boy ended in disaster,' she confessed lightly. 'It's a shame really, I've heard his current girl really appreciates him.'
For once a retort, witty or otherwise, didn't spring to mind; mainly because Harry was busy remembering just how much Fleur had appreciated that evening, and was desperately trying to control his flush.
'Are you blushing?' Katie giggled. 'So did she give you those for fun, or is little Harry no longer innocent.'
'I guarantee she gave me these so everyone, especially you,' Harry added pointedly, 'would know that I was hers.'
'You didn't answer the whole question?' Katie reminded him coyly.
'No I didn't,' Harry agreed. 'I'm also wishing that I'd never told her the marriage contract between us was just a joke so she'd come and hunt you down.'
'What marriage contract?' Katie demanded, dropping her quill and staring at him.
'I paid a visit to Gringotts with her to check anything that might affects us in the future, such as old marriage agreements,' Harry grinned, recalling the look of perfect horror on Fleur's face when he'd told her Katie would have to be his wife. 'I told her that we were engaged,' he sighed nostalgically, 'you should have seen the look on her face. I thought she was going to immolate me on the spot, kiss me, or both.'
'That was a horrible joke to play,' Katie cried, swatting him on the head with her rather hefty transfiguration text. 'No wonder she was so determined to mark you as hers if you keep baiting her about me.'
'That was the only time,' Harry placated, relieving Katie of her weapon.
'It better be,' she warned, 'or I'll spend my free time terrorising you.'
Neville watched the trouble he had caused with mild amusement, no doubt feeling vindicated after all the times Harry had happened to mention Hannah, either Hannah, in Herbology.
'Oh,' Katie remarked suddenly. 'I worked out what was happening with Umbridge's detentions,' she beamed.
'What?' Neville leant in. As both he and Katie suffered more than most, and had been repeatedly saved by Dobby, they had decided to try and track down the cause.
'It's the house elves,' she announced triumphantly. 'Normally the room gets re-arranged, or things start moving around, but last time she tried to get me to clear out this horrible, old looking closet. It was covered with black stains,' Katie shivered, 'and then there was a crack and I was in the courtyard. I only realised it was a house elf because I saw it's reflection in Umbridge's window.'
'Does Umbridge know?' Harry asked swiftly.
'I don't think so,' Katie shook her head, and Harry suppressed his relief. 'It happened fast and she was busy talking to Filch about the next decree.'
'Hear anything interesting?' Neville cut in.
'Only confirmation that Umbridge is every bit as depraved as we thought,' Katie sneered. 'She's given that vicious old man free reign to punish as he pleases. I heard him muttering gleefully to himself about flaying students.'
'That's torture,' Neville said, sickened and pale.
'That's Umbridge,' Katie spat.
Harry frowned to himself. The woman was vicious, spiteful, bigoted and thoroughly detestable, but recently she was becoming disturbingly malicious. The thoughts of the Cruciatus Curse and her new decree were extreme even for her, and if Dobby had needed to physically apparate Katie out of her office then he doubted the cupboard had contained her cardigan collection.
Her sudden increase in cruelty didn't make sense. It was unpredicted, unprecedented and inexplicable. Harry didn't like what it might herald at all, but there was nothing he could do but continue with his plan to remove her as quickly as possible.
AN: Please read and keep on reviewing, thanks to everyone who does. Did someone request four more Fleur chapters before the DoM arc? ;)
