Snape knocked impatiently on Dumbledore's door. The old man calmly welcomed him in and Snape was amazed that the headmaster was not acting barmy; on the contrary, he looked uneasy and tired. Very tired. Who could blame him, thought Snape sourly to himself, what with Potter on the verge of being possessed by the devil and still acting like an arrogant idiot, only the Ministry of Magic was acting more reckless. Still, Snape decided he would add another problem to the headmaster's list of qualms.

"Sorry to interrupt you headmaster, but it has come to my attention that Professor Umbridge has taken to punishing students in a highly unprofessional manner." Lingering unusually long on the word unprofessional, he moved aside and motioned for Eliza to step into the office.

"Is that so?" Dumbledore looked over his half moon spectacles first at the slim girl before him and then at Snape. "Very well. Thank you Severus. Eliza and I will have a little chat and then decide on a course of action."

Snape started towards the door. So did Woods.

"Ahh, wait Severus. On second thought, perhaps you could stay a bit and help?"

Dumbledore was grinning and, to Snape's dismay, the mad twinkle had returned to his blue eyes. Snape mumbled in reply and sat down. Woods took the chair by the fire. Her behavior was elementary; Snape had not expected it and the discovery was bothersome. He was definitely not prepared to have a mentally unstable teenager follow him around Hogwarts for the next two years, but he also knew that right now he would have to control his temper- if only for that job.

Dumbledore was staring intently at Snape, so the professor began to speak.

"Woods, show him your wounds and explain the situation as swiftly as you can."

He doubted that the Gryffindor even understood the word 'swift'. She took all her bloody time showing him the scars. Thankfully, Dumbledore came up with a plan. It was somewhat unreliable, but at least it did not entitle the girl to speak more than necessary.

"Would you do something for me Eliza?" said Dumbledore softly. "Can you put your memory of the incidents into this pensieve and let all three of us enter it together?"

A few moments later, three forms were standing stationary around the little bowl, their owners tumbling silently into the past.

***

Umbridge's brightly lit class was silent. It was not, however, the type of silence that Snape held so dear to his heart. The aura was not one of fear or interest and it was nearing the border between boredom and death. Even pheromones did not seem to have any effect in here. Snape would not have been very surprised if he saw Miss Woods asleep, drooling over her robes. But she was not. On the contrary, her eyes were strained, intensely focused on the text of a book. The three walked over to her desk beside the window and Snape and Dumbledore bent down to read between the diminishing space that separated the ink from her nose.

There is only one simple and safe way to deal with suspicious activities. We must immediately inform the Ministry of Magic which, with specially trained aurors, will investigate the incident and instantly resolve the problem. There is nothing, up to this time, that the ministry has failed to rectify; most recently, the Dark Lord who gained power in the 1980s was destroyed under ministry supervision. Consequently, anyone who tells you otherwise is most likely one of his followers, straggling miserably along, attempting to bring another Dark Lord to rule. They will not succeed, of course, as long as every one of these persons is immediately identified. Remember: the ministry is better than any simple spells you could perform when it comes to destroying dark magic. Since ministry members are always right and always on the side of the white, let us help-

Snape stopped reading. Half of one paragraph of this brainwashing was quite enough to understand every student's dissatisfaction. At least if the author had made it interesting, some ignorant fool might have believed it; the ministry, however, was largely made up of ignorant tactless fools. That thought, nevertheless, was not what had distracted Snape's attention from the book. Woods had raised her hand in the air, but she had elevated it with more passion than he dared dream could occupy such a seemingly feeble body; he half expected her to faint from overexertion.

Umbridge dully motioned her hand for the girl to approach the teacher's bureau to ask her question. Woods forged an expression of confusion and forced Umbridge to sluggishly rise out of her chair and approach the girl.

"What is it Woods? If you have finished you may continue on to the next section." Umbridge strained her face into a weak smile.

"Actually, professor, I have a question on the material in this book. There are certain parts which are perplexing- to say the least." Woods' tone was polite, but she was not to be easily dissuaded.

"Well which part do you have trouble with? It all seems very clear to me."

Woods pointed to the passage. Umbridge skimmed it, her fleshy face giving in to gravity and drooping dangerously low as she bent her head.

"Dear, if you have trouble understanding all of this, just read the parts marked Remember. They are the most important. Surely you understand those?"

Snape looked at Dumbledore; he could not read the old wizard's expression, but the twinkling had definitely subsided from his eyes.

"It is not that I am confused necessarily by the text," her voice was getting weaker under Umbridge's stare and Snape felt a strong desire to just shake Eliza and make her get it over with, but when she continued after a long pause there was no more fear in her voice and Snape let his body relax in relief.

"I disagree with the text. It is too simplified. First of all, are we not the future members of the ministry? And how can it make a hero out of every person who works there?"

Umbridge's eyes were squinting dangerously and the whole class had turned to watch the discussion. "Ministry wizards have been trained and they are, I assure you, extremely intelligent and capable. You are just a child."

"In training for adult responsibilities. Yet, this book does not train us in anything other than false idolatry and theory behind insignificant spells."

"This book was created by professionals who are, I repeat, extremely intelligent and capable. Now," there was a finality in Umbridge's tone and she turned, prepared to walk away, "if that is all, I suggest you continue reading and see me privately if you have any other questions."

"Professor, the ministry is composed of human beings. All human beings make mistakes at-"

"Miss Woods," her usually screechy voice was dangerously low, "DO NOT interrupt our reading time."

"You know that I will not come back to discuss this subject and I am sure, professor, that you would not want this type of disagreement to go unaddressed in a class of highly intelligent and capable young wizards." Wood's words were sharp, not with insolence, but vitality. Her cheeks were flushed, her sweaty hands had left dark smudges on the textbook, and she had just used a speech form similar to that employed by some of the finest Slytherin tacticians.

The whole class was looking quickly back and forth between Professor Umbridge and Woods, nearly falling out of their seats in anticipation (no doubt the pheromones had begun working again also- an undeniably horny Hufflepuff was eyeing Eliza greedily now).

"On page 236, line ten (there was a shuffling of pages) our textbook states 'The ministry members are always right and always on the side of the white.' How does that explain the treasonous activities during the 1980's that stemmed from ministry members working on the side of the Dark Lord? People have been killed by dark forces even when ministry members are present. It is a strong bureaucracy, but not a flawless one."

"I understand that you have some personal reservations simply because of your father," Umbridge used what she supposed was a sweet voice, "but as you saw then, those members have been dismissed and the staff is now much more reliable."

A deafening silence followed this statement; nobody had ever spoken of Eliza's father and while most students were not familiar with the story of her past anyway, they could almost taste the bitter tension in the room.

"Ironically, Miss Umbridge, I was not thinking of my father while reading this passage," Eliza's voice rang throughout the room, echoing over and over in everyone's head with crisp finality, "I was thinking of you. Some people are not fit to be teachers. Some people are not fit to be in the ministry. Certain facts are too dangerous to be overlooked."

Umbridge's puffy eyes were bulging, "Woods come here this instant!" Umbridge could not, as hard as she tried, manage to keep the stench of her loathing breath from attaching itself to the very atoms of air that circulated in the room.

The bell rang and Snape turned for the first time since they had entered Eliza's memory to look at the girl. She was slightly trembling, head down, ashamed . Snape's curiosity grew tenfold at the contrasting temperaments. Slowly, their surroundings blurred and the three wizards tumbled into another memory.

Woods of the past swiftly passed them and knocked on a door at the end of the corridor. A muffled assent was dimly heard. Snape and Dumbledore began following her, but Eliza did not move. When they turned around, she looked pleadingly from one face to the other, shaking her head.

"You saw how I acted. Detention was the proper course of action."

Sensing Snape's waning temper, Dumbledore placed a firm hand on the young man's shoulder and then whispered something in Eliza's ear, pressing firmly on her back to continue. Snape's cold comment about not further aggravating the situation, however, was responsible for her eventual consent.

******

Snape gagged. The Defense Against the Dark Arts office was drowning in lace. Rivets of pink and purple cloth hung limply from the ceilings and the walls. Lavender had engulfed the professor's bureau and turned it into a cloud of feigned gaiety.

Woods sat in a seat positioned as far as possible from the door and Umbridge. When they approached her crouched figure, Snape finally understood how the scar had come to appear. At the top of a nearly blank sheet of paper, "The ministry is always right" was neatly printed. Every letter she wrote on the paper was sliced into the back of her hand, droplets of blood trickling down the sides. Despite the extra pain, she was adding the word 'not' to every engraving and fighting against tears that were obviously threatening to fall.

Dumbledore placed his hand on Woods' shoulder and the three tumbled into Dumbledore's office.

"How many of these marks do you have, exactly?" Dumbledore's eyes were focused intently on the frail figure before him.

"Three"

It was after this short release of breath that Eliza felt the pain. She clutched her heart with both hands. One moment her scars had opened and blood was flowing freely and the next she had abruptly kneeled to the ground, tears streaming down her face. Bloody tears. Snape loathed the color red. It could only be associated with destruction. Dumbledore conjured a stretcher. She tossed and turned and Snape was forced to firmly hold her down. The corridors were so long. Every breath was labored. Seconds later she stopped fighting and lay motionless under his hand. The pain had obtained control over her soul. Too much blood; too much pain. The corridors were so long. Pomfrey was tense, terse. Dumbledore's eyes were burning like a sun, red and angry. He wanted to talk to Umbridge. Snape ran, but the corridors were long. Her flabby body could only move so quickly and the sands of time were slipping through his fingers, determined to not stop for anything. Not even death.