Chapter eight
Using Dark Magic to Find Dark Magic
Cynder insisted that Spyro stayed awake that night, and once she was certain that everyone should be asleep, Cynder flew out the window, with Spyro close behind her. Once they were in the great hall, Cynder opened her paw and let a single strand of hair drop to the floor.
"Cynder!" Spyro hissed, trying to both shout and be quiet was hard, "what are you even doing?!" Cynder gave him a serious look before saying,
"I am going to find out who forced Harry to use the Black Quill, right now." She then tapped the strand of hair she had brought with them, "this is a strand of Thestral hair, and when I was under Malefor's influence, I learnt a form of magic that requires parts of other magical creatures. I am going to use a dark magic tracking spell to find the owner of the Black Quill, now please be quiet so I don't mess up the incantation." She then slammed her front right paw down on the hair, sending a booming echo to sound across the room, she then closed her eyes and muttered something like, "lliuq kcalb eht etacol" when Cynder opened her eyes, they were black as night, which soon faded to show her normal, jade-green eyes, she was panting like she was out of breath, she then raised her right paw from the ground to reveal the hair which had thickened and had a dark purple aura around it. Spyro watched, open-mouthed, as the hair hovered about a centimetre off the ground before starting to grow longer and longer, its end sneaking out of the open doors of the great hall. Cynder smiled at this, "we better follow it, the end with us will follow us, shrinking the hair until we arrive at the rough location of the quill", she and Spyro took off, flying through the castle without making a sound, following the trail of the hair until they finally reached the end right at the door of…
"The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom?" Spyro questioned whilst the strand of hair disappeared, "that could only mean one thing…" they shared a look of fury at each other before saying through gritted teeth,
"UMBRIDGE!"
The next morning, Spyro and Cynder decided that enough was enough. School had only just started, and that woman was using a forbidden form of dark magic as a punishment for children! So, during breakfast, when they saw her heading up the grand staircase, they headed her off before she could get away,
"What is the meaning of this?!" she demanded in her annoyingly high-pitched voice, "stand aside, reptiles!"
"Not until you hand over that quill" Cynder stated with a look that longed to kill, "it is forbidden for a reason, so hand it over"
"Parden me, dragoness, but what exactly are you insinuating?" they were gathering a bit of a crowd at the bottom of the stairs now,
"All we ask is that you give us that Black Quill you are using to torture students in your detentions and stick to the prescribed disciplinary actions from now on, Delores" Spyro announced, without any sign showing of a joke. He and Cynder were being deadly serious.
"So silly of me," Umbridge tutted, "but it sounds as if you're questioning my authority in my own classroom." At this point, Cynder lost it,
"We aren't questioning your stupid authority, you ugly toad, only your cruel, vile, medieval methods that would make MALEFOR cringe!" all the students gasped at this, and the dragons could see that Umbridge had been taken aback by this outburst, but she clearly wasn't going down without a fight.
"I am so sorry, but to question my practices is to question the ministry, and by extension, the minister himself!"
"Your minister is the worst person we've ever heard of!" Spyro blurted out, "but if you expect us to believe that he is ok with this use of dark magic, then you don't know anything at all!"
"I am a tolerant woman," Umbridge announced, "but the one thing I will not stand for is disloyalty!" she turned to face the horde of students who had gathered behind them whilst this argument had taken place. "Things at Hogwarts are far worse than I feared, Cornelius will want to take immediate action!"
