"What do you mean, Dolores is out of the office today?" Mimi snapped at the guard manning the Visitor's Desk. Since no one knew who she was in this universe, trying the front door first seemed like a reasonable approach. Yes, the Ministry had tightened security, but they did still ostensibly exist to serve the public and carry out all the functions a government was expected to perform. She'd taken an ageing potion and transfigured her robe to resemble something much finer than her average daywear, just in case they posted a decent occlumens somewhere between her and the frog's office, but so far she hadn't encountered one. "It's Monday." And it was only half past three! Honestly! "I was told that she was one of the few people in this institution whom we can rely upon to take her job seriously! That is, I assure you, the only reason she was retained from the previous administration!"
"And...who are you, exactly?" the guard asked suspiciously.
"My name is immaterial." She gave the man a haughty sneer, tilting her head slightly toward her left and twisting her arm just enough that he would get the message. "I'm the witch who urgently needs to address the language in a certain pending publication with the Head of the Muggleborn Registration Commission. I can't believe Pius let that lazy mudblood oversee such an important project."
"Mudblood? Madam Umbridge?" the guard muttered, aghast and absolutely delighted to have received this delicious nugget of gossip from a Death Eater on first-name terms with the Minister.
"Indeed. Madam Umbridge," she drawled. "The only magical child of one Orford Umbridge. You may remember, he used to work in Maintenance, married a muggle — complete disgrace."
The intelligence Harry and his friends had gathered over the past month on the comings and goings of Ministry employees was somewhat less than useful for Mimi's purposes, but it hadn't taken much work to find a few disgruntled current and former Ministry employees in Charing who were more than eager to bitch about the Senior Undersecretary to the last three administrations over lunch or an early afternoon pint, coincidentally drawing all their knowledge of the overgrown toad to the front of their minds. A bloke called Cattermole, who had worked with Dolores's father, had been an absolute gold-mine — apparently his wife was supposed to stand some sort of trial for being a muggleborn tomorrow. He'd been dragging together everything he could, putting together a defence that basically came down to, people living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Dolly. (And also here's a copy of her official OWL certification record. As the Ministry itself has attested herein, Mary is a fully qualified witch.)
"Only— No! You don't mean..."
"That her dear muggle mummy gave little Dolly a baby brother, who happened not to have a drop of magical blood in his veins? Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Why do you think she was never able to make a good match, despite her supposed connection to the Selwyns?" Apparently she'd been telling people the 'S' on Slytherin's locket (the horcrux) stood for 'Selwyn'. "As if the House of Selwyn would ever recognise any relation to that up-jumped mudblooded commoner, no matter how distant. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to leave a very pointed message with the supposedly dedicated Undersecretary's office regarding the advisability of ducking out early if one wishes one's own family tree to remain unexamined and one's loyalties unquestioned," she muttered, stalking past the desk.
"I— You— Um, that is—"
The poor man stuttered to a halt as she whirled back around to glare at him with an air of yes, peon? "Spit it out, man, I don't have all day!"
"I, um. Need your name. And, er... You'resupposedtocheckyourwand," he squeaked out, wincing.
She gave him a very polite smile. "Very good, Mister...?"
"Chester, Ma'am."
"I do appreciate that there is someone around here who at least knows what their job is. Diligence — wizards these days seem to have forgotten the meaning. And to attempt to fulfil it even in circumstances such as these is admirable." He swallowed hard, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "My name is Calytrix." People couldn't be trusted to recognise Mira as a traditional Black name (especially since Mirabella Zabini was the Director of Education in this timeline — at home, she managed the Diplomatic Corp), but Calytrix sounded enough like Bellatrix to make the resemblance between them obvious. "I am a daughter of the House of Black, and I will surrender my wand over my dead body. You are, of course, welcome to try to take it from me, or even call the nice Hit Wizards lurking in the corner over there to do so, but then I will be forced to proceed to Level One over your dead body. And theirs," she added, casually raising her left hand to tuck a non-existent stray hair back into place, letting her sleeve slide down enough to bare her mark. "And quite possibly any number of others. Do you know what you have to do to earn this mark?" she asked conversationally.
The terrified man shook his head.
The polite smile shifted slowly to a wry, smirking grin. "Would you like to see?"
He shook his head again, practically trembling.
"Pity. It's been ages since I've been in a real fight. Still. I do have places to be. And these are new shoes." She sighed, as though genuinely disappointed that she wouldn't have an excuse to kill anyone today, but perhaps it was for the best. "Good day, Mister Chester," she added, nodding politely before turning sharply on her heel and stalking away again.
This time, he didn't object.
The Parkinson girl on Dolores's outer desk was equally obliging, taking down her very snide message (basically, How dare you not be in your office on a Monday afternoon when I wished to speak to you. If you value your position, this will not happen again. Remember, Dolores, anyone can be replaced — as the late Minister Scrimgeour can attest.) and outlining her boss's schedule for the remainder of the week.
Not that Mimi really needed Wednesday through Friday. She was supposed to be overseeing that muggleborn inquisition trial thingy all tomorrow morning, down in one of the courtrooms on Level Ten. That sounded like a perfectly fine party to crash.
In fact...
Oh, this would be good...
"Oi! Maïa!" she shouted, slamming through the back door into the kitchen — someone had put apparation wards over the whole bloody house, as a stop-gap, presumably, since the proper defensive wards were out of commission. This did wake up that awful portrait of Walburga in the entryway just outside, screaming about mudbloods and blood traitors in her house, but Mimi was always up for a good shouting match. "Shut your filthy mouth, you mad old harpy!"
"Shameless doxie! Thief!"
Thief? Oh, right, she'd transfigured her robe to resemble the one in the mad old harpy's portrait. "Looks better on me, you jealous cow!"
"Mira?" Hermione said, appearing at the top of the stairs. "What is it?"
"Jealous? Jealous? What is there to be jealous of, big-mouthed, hag-faced, blood-traitor's spawn! Fraternising with mudbloods and—"
"Ooh, hang on," Hermione muttered, casting a charm to tug the curtains closed and stifling the portrait under a pile of muffling spells. "Try not to make too much noise when you come in, or you'll wake her up. Come on, up here..."
"You do recall I live in this house in my timeline, right? I'm well aware of the noise threshold that wakes dear Wally. I like to think of it like having a foul-mouthed budgie or something. Vaguely amusing, sometimes slightly annoying, good to practise profanities and quick comebacks on. Except, you know, better, since portraits can't fly around and shit on you."
The muggleborn categorically could not tell if she was taking the piss, which was itself vaguely amusing. She led Mimi into the room she was clearly occupying at the moment, the desk covered with notes, a pile of mouldering spellbooks from the library downstairs strewn across the bed. "What did you want to ask me?"
"Ah, well, not asking, really. Proposing. There's supposed to be some sort of trial for muggleborns tomorrow, something about stealing wands or not being real mages or something? Dotty old Dolly's out of the office today, but she's part of the Muggleborn Inquisition or whatever they're calling themselves. I figured we could ambush her there."
"And, what? You want me to turn myself in or something to get in the door?"
"What? Gods, no. I want to polyjuice myself as you and turn myself in to get in the door. If we time it right, it might actually wear off in the middle of her interrogation of me, which should be fucking hilarious."
Hermione stared at her for several long, speechless seconds before asking the one coherent question echoing around her mind. "Are you insane?"
She giggled. "Well, probably. But anyway, you don't even have to come, I just need a dose of polyjuice out of your stash and a hair. Please," she added, in case that made a difference. (It didn't, really.)
"Let's...see what Harry and Ron think about this..." she muttered, doubtful and suspicious, but relieved that, at the very least, Mimi wasn't asking her to endanger herself.
What Harry and Ronald thought about this plan was that Mimi was completely mental, but at least she had a plan. She'd been able to confirm that yes, Umbridge did keep the necklace on her, and knew where she'd be at all times for the next week. And all three of them agreed that these muggleborn sham trials should absolutely be derailed for Mimi's entertainment. Er. For the good of the muggleborns of Britain. Yes. That. Of course that's what I meant, Hermione, don't get your knickers in a twist. (Damn it, Black, stop thinking about Hermione's knickers!)
Unfortunately, they'd had a good point that polyjuicing herself as Hermione — while entertaining insofar as the Ministry morons would think they'd managed to capture one of their most wanted individuals, and would probably flip out when they discovered they really hadn't — would sort of make it obvious that Mimi was in contact with these three (or someone else who just happened to have one of Hermione's hairs), so they might just lock her up and torture her until she gave up the trio of truant students. Not that she would — they seemed to think she wouldn't be able to, actually, due to some soul magic ward Dumbledore had put on this place — but she was on a timeline here, and she really couldn't spend potentially weeks or even months escaping from wherever they took her to play with. (She couldn't assume they'd terribly underestimate her, even though they probably would.) And more importantly, they might not give her a sham trial at all.
Yes, the actual point was to get the locket horcrux from Umbridge, but the fun part was going to be making her look like a fucking idiot while doing so. It was possible she'd picked up some of Harry, Ron, and Hermione's incredibly negative opinion of the woman, sifting through their memories of her (not to mention Cattermole and all the others she'd talked to before visiting the Ministry, or Umbridge's current staff, none of whom liked working for her). She doubted she would've liked the bitch anyway. Career bureaucrats were literally the worst.
So instead, she was going to get herself arrested for attempting to buy a portkey ticket to Boston without whatever little certification card they were giving people to confirm that they were gold-star purebloods or whatever, using the name Mimi Black (because it wasn't like there weren't plenty of muggles called Black) and feigning ignorance about all this Blood Status nonsense, while unconvincingly insisting that she wasn't a muggleborn, but refusing to give any proof that she was related to any other mages...not that she easily could in this universe. She wasn't concerned about getting out of custody when she eventually chose to reveal that she was, in fact, the same Death Eater who had attempted to speak to Dolores the day before, she'd just had to check whether her performance was as lax as her schedule, and congratulations, Dolores, you've failed your surprise audit with flying colours. You couldn't even identify a marked Death Eater as a witch.
Harry was inexplicably concerned on her behalf, however, so he and the others were planning to sneak in as employees, in much the same way they had intended to do before Mimi had arrived in this universe, to attempt to provide backup. He was also irrationally upset that Umbridge had somehow managed to acquire the All-Seeing Eye, and was using it as a bloody door ornament. That was almost as weird as Alastor Moody (one of the more distinctive Senior Aurors in her timeline, apparently recently deceased here) having acquired it in the first place. At least he'd put it to good use, though. Umbridge's underlings clearly thought she was using it to spy on them, but Mimi was pretty sure you had to actually replace one of your own eyes with the Eye for it to work properly. Obviously Moody had lost an eye in combat, he hadn't plucked it out Odin-style, but she suspected Umbridge would have to if she wanted it to do anything other than look pretty. Harry definitely wanted to steal it back, even if he hadn't said as much aloud (concerned that Hermione would shoot him down, telling him it wasn't worth it, let it go).
Mimi anticipated that they would just get in the way, probably make it much harder to extricate herself, since she would almost certainly have to help them get out as well, but they were rather insistent — they still didn't trust her, and were concerned that if she got the horcrux she might take it for herself or something — and she'd decided that her time would be better spent pretending to be an innocent muggleborn girl attempting to flee the country and getting arrested than trying to talk them out of crashing the party as well.
"What do you mean, Blood Status Confirmation? Since when do you need papers to leave Magical Britain?!"
"I'm going to need you to wait over here while I deal with these other customers, Miss."
She stepped aside with a huff, glaring at the man in the ticket booth, pretending not to suspect, when he called a Hit Wizard over a couple of seconds later, that it was anything to do with her. He and his partner 'casually' circled around to come up from behind her, stopping her from fleeing a DLE Patrol Officer who came over a minute later, demanding to see her papers, and then, when Mimi told the witch she had no idea what she was talking about, detaining her. Not that she actually tried to flee. Being arrested was the point of the whole exercise.
She hadn't anticipated that they'd have actual dementors guarding the Ministry holding cells.
That was annoying, though more because she had to let them affect her while she was being processed and escorted to a cell (already occupied by a handful of 'other' muggleborns awaiting 'trial' in the morning) than because she couldn't function around their aura of misery. She didn't like dementors, really — the only (sort-of) person she knew who did was Angel, which made sense — but she was one of the most talented, most powerful mind mages at Miskatonic. (Not the most, but definitely in the top five.) If she wanted to keep them out of her mind, she just had to keep herself entirely closed off. They could get at her when she was using legilimency in their presence, especially when she was talking to them directly, mind-to-mind (which she'd thankfully only had occasion to do twice), but she didn't really have truly bad memories for them to force her into (or, none of her own, at least), and keeping herself from reacting to their emotional manipulations was a very basic occlumency trick. (Just, it had to be performed with much greater focus and force of will than most non-legilimens were capable of maintaining for more than a couple of minutes.)
She was just really bad at faking emotions. She couldn't pretend to be scared and/or miserable while actually keeping herself tightly contained and not feeling much of anything, other than pleased the plan was going...well, according to plan. So she actually had to let the dementors sway her, at least a bit. If she didn't, it would look suspicious.
As soon as she was alone with the other prisoners, she pushed their influence away. No offence, but I'm not dinner. All three of the muggleborns in her cell (in spite of there being four open cells — presumably the guards had wanted to make the prisoners as uncomfortable as possible without actually hurting them) were well within her range of influence, which meant if she didn't pull herself in completely and hide behind solid occlumency barriers, she'd have to deal with feeling everything they were feeling all night. It was sort of a toss up which was more uncomfortable. Damn it, Past Mimi, I'm starting to not like this plan...
Between being surrounded by anxious, dementor-affected civilians all night and an older witch called Elsie Campbell, who had been caught setting up an impromptu school for a handful of pre-OWL kids whose parents didn't want to send them to Hogwarts for the year, trying to make herself feel better by 'comforting' Mimi (she wasn't curled up in a ball in a corner because she was freaking out because of the dementors or because she was worried about what would happen the next morning, she'd been trying to sleep), Mimi wasn't in the best of moods by the time she and the others were paraded out to wait in the corridor outside the courtroom they'd be using, along with a dozen or so who'd apparently come to be sent off to Azkaban voluntarily. (How they could not have seen this new government programme as anything other than a signal to get the fuck out of the country, Mira didn't know.) Several of them had brought their families, though Mary Cattermole was alone. Wonder what happened to her husband...
One of the Yaxleys — Ambrose, he was an importer/exporter in New Avalon; here he was running the DLE, apparently — appeared shortly after they were brought in. He stalked through the narrow space between the terrified prisoners (and/or naïve idiots who'd come here of their own volition) and the handful of dementors sweeping up and down the corridor, keeping watch. He clearly didn't want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary anywhere near the dementors — obviously he wouldn't be able to cast a Patronus Charm, too light — barely lingering long enough for Mimi to realise that they were planning on bringing people in one at a time to be summarily sentenced and slip the idea into his head that it would be amusing to bring them all in at once, make the mudbloods down the list watch all their dirty little friends be dragged off to Azkaban first. (He was actually pretty good at occlumency, but she was familiar enough with his counterpart in her universe that such a superficial intrusion was only too easy.) Dolly's humiliation wouldn't be nearly as sweet without an audience.
A few minutes later, Umbridge appeared, escorted by a pair of Hit Wizards and a witch she believed to be Mafalda Hopkirk, assigned to act as a stenographer for the proceedings — must have proper records of the sham trials, after all, and Umbridge's assistant was currently attempting to figure out who the hell this "Calytrix" person was who'd left such a rude note for his boss while she was out yesterday afternoon — a silvery, cat-shaped patronus winding around their ankles. Unlike Ambrose, they took their time, allowing Dolores to savour the sight of all these poor wretches at her mercy. The horcrux, Mimi was pleased to see, was prominently displayed, emeralds glinting in the torchlight.
Hermione, disguised as one Mafalda Hopkirk, was visibly uncomfortable, cringing away from both the dementors and the toad-like little witch at her side. Dressed all in pink, with a bloody bow in her hair... I wonder if no one's ever told her she looks like an enormously fat twelve-year-old because they're afraid she'll have their jobs, or because they like seeing her walk around embarrassing herself just by existing, she thought at the muggleborn. (Hermione did not think Mimi was nearly as funny as Mimi thought she was.)
A quick peek at her memories of the past few minutes revealed that Mister Cattermole was puking his guts out at Saint Mungo's. (Possibly literally, Merlin's balls, what did they put in those sweets?) Ronald was attempting to reverse a sabotaged atmospheric charm in Ambrose's office, while Harry, in direct defiance of Hermione's better judgement, was on his way up to steal the Eye, and possibly torch Umbridge's office while he was at it. Just because. She'd tried to stop him, reason with him, once she realised he had no intention of heading down to Level Ten, but Umbridge had waylaid her, allowing him to escape, ironically ensuring the destruction of her own office. (Poetic.)
"Hey," she whispered to the wizard beside her, loudly enough that she was sure Umbridge would overhear her. "Who's the toad-looking bitch? Important, is she?"
The wizard, who obviously knew exactly who Umbridge was, went white as a sheet, pretending he hadn't heard her, his back ramrod straight, eyes firmly facing forward as the toad-looking bitch shot a venomous glare at Mimi. She didn't even have to nudge the witch into deciding to promote her to the top of the docket. "You! What is your name?" she snapped.
"Oh, you can call me Mimi, Miss. I have a feeling we're going to be gweat fwiends," she answered, mimicking the older witch's habitual breathy, babyish tones.
Umbridge looked like she'd swallowed too large a fly, and was trying not to choke on it.
Mimi grinned.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure we will," the bitch managed to spit out, shooting for sarcasm but not quite hitting the mark. Sounded more aggressively positive than ironic.
Hermione was horrified, which was almost as funny as ruining Umbridge's little moment by pointing out that not all of her prisoners were properly cowed. And also that she looked like a toad.
I don't sub for toads, she informed Hermione. (Hermione had no idea what that meant, and she truly didn't want to. Pity.)
It took a few more minutes for them to get situated in the interrogation room, but the Hit Wizards came back to usher the lot of them in relatively quickly. They formed a little huddle at the back of the room, as far from both Umbridge — sitting on a raised platform with Ambrose on her right and Hermione, terrified, on her left — and the dementors posted in the corners of the room furthest from the Ministry officials. The cat patronus paraded smugly along the front of the platform, protecting dear Dolly from their aura. Not that she had much to fear with so many terrified muggleborns between her and the dementors. The Hit Wizards stayed as well, presumably to help control the small crowd, if necessary. They posted themselves in the corners nearest the platform, in a move Mimi couldn't help but interpret as an attempt to hide behind the patronus.
In the centre of the floor was an interrogation chair. There were chains hidden in the arms and legs, enchanted to bind a prisoner in place for their trial. The enchantments weren't particularly complex, and there was very little danger of an unarmed prisoner posing any threat to their interrogators, but it was meant to make the prisoner feel small and trapped. Insignificant, under the judgmental gaze of those who had literally placed themselves upon a pedestal. (Fucking Britain, honestly...)
Behind the interrogator's platform, there was a small, curved rank of seats. Only thirteen, this room clearly wasn't intended for a major trial. Not that it mattered, every one of them was empty. So we have the Head of the Muggleborn "Registration" Commission and the Head of the DLE, stripping muggleborns of their citizenship and shipping them off to Azkaban with no oversight to speak of. Lovely.
"Mimi Black!" Umbridge sneered. "Please. Have a seat."
She did, at the very edge of the chair, slouching back and stretching her legs out in front of her, crossed at the ankles, practically reclining, hands folded across her stomach. She smirked up at the toad as the chains wrapped themselves harmlessly around the armrests and front legs of the chair, nowhere near her limbs. "Lovely to meet you, Miss. But you seem to have me at a disadvantage."
Though not nearly as much of a disadvantage as she'd like. "Peters! Johnson!"
The Hit Wizards moved in to force her arms and feet into position, the chains re-wrapping themselves in a matter of seconds. As soon as they retreated, she used a silent, wandless charm to slice the tip of each index finger, tracing a release symbol in her own blood on each armrest, though she didn't activate them yet. Wouldn't do to give away the game too quickly.
"Do you know why you are here today, Miss Black?"
"Nope."
"Really."
"Really. I was just trying to buy a ticket at the keyport in Leeds, and a couple of goons from your Ministry walked up and told me I'm under arrest for not having the proper papers. To which I responded, what the bloody hell are you talking about, since when do you need papers to leave Britain? One of them accused me of being a mudblood, which was quite rude, and when I corrected him, demanded that I prove I'm not muggleborn, which is frankly absurd. They patted me down, took my wand and my purse, and dragged me here and left me in a dementor-guarded cell for twelve hours, all with no explanation of what I'm accused of having done. Do I match a suspect description or something?"
"No, no, Miss Black," Umbridge purred, smug and sanctimonious. "Tell me, young lady, how old are you?" She clearly thought Mimi was about fifteen, and was planning on finding her truant, regardless of whether she was muggleborn or not. Sending her up to Hogwarts and advising the Carrows to keep a close eye on her wouldn't be quite as good as dumping her with the dementors, but it would be something. "Why aren't you in school?"
"I'm of age and have taken my Proficiency exams," she said flatly.
"Do you have some proof of this claim, Miss Black?"
"Do you generally carry a notarised record of your academic qualifications with you on holiday?" she snapped, followed by a blatant lie: "I did have my apparation licence on me, but your so-called law-enforcement took it along with the gold I was planning to use to buy my ticket."
Obviously she could have suggested Umbridge use a bloody inquiry charm if she really wanted to know, but she didn't really want to know, she wanted an excuse to punish Mimi for pointing out her resemblance to a certain amphibian, and if she did tell the toad to use magic — was she a bloody witch, or not? — Mimi would have to forfeit the opportunity to accuse the Ministry of a crime they couldn't possibly have committed, in much the same way Umbridge was accusing muggleborns of "stealing magic".
The toad tittered. "Oh? It says here that you were carrying only a wand — twelve and one-half inches, oak and phoenix."
"Oh, so your officers failed to report that they were stealing my only identification and all of my money? Colour me surprised."
"You, Miss Black, are not in a position to be making accusations!"
Mimi rolled her eyes, driving Umbridge's annoyance up another notch. "I imagine the British Ministry doesn't think anyone is in a position to be making accusations against its officers. I don't expect I'll ever see any justice in the matter, since the only people to whom I might complain will certainly take their officers' word that I was in a keyport, attempting to purchase a ticket, without a single copper on my person, over mine. The fact remains, my purse was taken along with my wand."
Umbridge ground her teeth, attempting to regain her tone of false sweetness. "And would you be so good as to tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?"
"Are you hard of hearing, you old toad? I said my wand was taken from me."
"You will address your betters with respect!"
"Noted. If I happen to be addressing— Oh, you meant yourself? What are you going to do if I don't? Have me arrested?"
Oh, God, she's going to get herself Kissed... Hermione thought clearly.
"If you refuse to cooperate with this inquiry, you will be returned to Holding until you rethink that decision! Now answer the question: Where did you procure that wand?!"
Mimi raised an eyebrow at her. "Won it in a duel, actually, off an overconfident arse called...Kevin Masters? No, Colin, that was it."
"So you admit that you stole the wand."
"No, I won it fairly, in an honour duel regarding the autonomy of my arse and his violation thereof. We were in Salem at the time, where such duels are perfectly legal." That was actually true. She'd been touring Whately and the Salem Institute of Witchcraft while Thom attended the annual IDA Political Philosophy Symposium at the University. He'd been terribly annoyed that she'd let the situation escalate to the point of violence rather than simply compelling the boy who'd been bothering her to leave her alone, but that wouldn't have stopped him bothering other girls who couldn't teach him a lesson, so. The wand she'd won wasn't her primary, she usually kept it in a boot-holster as a hold-out, but as there was a good chance she wouldn't be getting it back, she hadn't wanted to actually surrender her primary. Which was currently in the boot-holster the Hit Wizard who'd patted her down had conveniently overlooked. (Legilimency really was cheating.) "What's it to you?"
Umbridge looked like she'd bitten a lemon. "Can anyone corroborate this story?"
"I'm sure they can."
"Their names, if you please!"
"Well, one of them would be Colin Masters," Mimi drawled, injecting a note of, obviously, you idiot. "I'm afraid I don't recall the names of the arbiter and witnesses. It was some time ago."
"Some time ago?" she echoed, clearly disbelieving that a girl she still thought was underage could possibly have won a serious honour duel, and was now attempting to fill out her lie with improbable details. "How long, precisely?"
"I realise it may not seem so from your...advanced perspective—" The toad's left eye twitched. "—but yes, three and a half years is quite some time when one is only seventeen. I'm certain Kelsey Smith, Principal of Liberty Salem—" Was she the principal in this timeline? Ah, well, didn't matter, really, Toadface didn't react, so if she wasn't, Umbridge presumably didn't know, either. "—will recall expelling a then-sixteen-year-old boy for complaining about me 'stealing' his wand, and consequently drawing attention to the fact that he had assaulted a thirteen-year-old visitor to the school." It was even worse than it sounded, because Mimi had looked all of eleven. Maybe twelve. Umbridge went as pink as her ugly little bow. "Is this relevant? I've yet to hear a reason for my assault at the hands of your government, Madam...whoever you are."
"My name is Dolores Umbridge," she bit out, finally. "I am the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, and Head of the Muggleborn Registration Commission!"
Mimi blinked at her. "And you have nothing more important to do than interrogate teenagers about honour duels? Also, what do you need a Muggleborn Registration Commission for? The Department of Accidents and Catastrophes already keeps track of muggleborns born in the U.K. and Ireland for the purposes of Childhood Accidental Magical Incident containment and reversals," she noted, faintly curious as to whether the toad would admit that this was all just a farcical excuse to lock up all the mudbloods. "Does being the Senior Undersecretary mean you get to make up extra titles for yourself?"
"And how, precisely, would you know that, Miss Black?!"
Well, she couldn't not deliberately misinterpret that. She quashed the urge to giggle, instead putting on an expression suggesting that she was a bit embarrassed on the toad's behalf for having to have this explained. "Er. You do report directly to the Minister, right? I sort of guessed maybe you could just stick a piece of parchment authorising you to create a superfluous office in front of him, and he'd sign it without reading it or something..."
Hermione inexplicably continued to not find Mimi hilarious. She was, in fact, growing more and more anxious the longer Mimi let this go on. (She hadn't been informed of Mimi's developing Death Eater Audit con.) Breathe, Hermione. You're going to faint or something.
"NOT THAT! How would you know about the regulations and procedures of Accidents and Catastrophes?!"
Mimi shrugged. "One of those things I just picked up, I suppose."
"Picked. Up. Where?!"
"I'm sure I couldn't say. Why am I here, Dolly, dear?"
"You are here, MISS BLACK, because you have failed to provide any evidence that you are a registered mu— muggleborn!" Dolly shouted, her off-hand balled into a fist. If she hadn't had to keep up the patronus, she might have actually hexed Mimi in her irritation.
Obviously, the thing to do was to keep winding her up. "That would be because I'm not registered as a muggleborn."
"So you admit that you are an unregistered muggleborn!"
"No, I admitted that I'm not registered as a muggleborn. Because I'm not muggleborn."
"So you say! Can anyone corroborate that claim? Who are your parents?!"
"As I have no intention of courting you or any toad-like spawn you may have produced, I can't see that my parentage is any of your business," she drawled, dropping yet another hint that she was a pureblood — on top of being familiar with the practice of honour duels, having visited magical enclaves in other countries, and being unintimidated by both dementors and officials who could, if she were actually a muggleborn schoolgirl, make her future life in Britain very difficult. She'd also dropped several hints that she wasn't even a British citizen, which had likewise been ignored, though the toad had narrowed in on the suggestion that she'd had extensive interaction with Accidents and Catastrophes like a niffler scenting gold.
"If your parents were magical, you wouldn't hesitate to reveal their names!" Umbridge crowed, as though she'd actually proven something.
"What does it matter if they were or they weren't?"
"It matters, Miss Black — it was almost clever, claiming a relation to that particular House, how convenient there are none left to deny any knowledge of you! It matters because we have recently established that magic comes from magic! Any child of two muggles cannot, therefore, be a witch, and must, therefore, have stolen any magic she possesses!"
Ah, there it was. She'd hardly believed it when she'd picked it up off Cattermole — she'd actually thought he must have heard some rumour, investigating his wife's predicament, and gotten it twisted — but poking around the minds of the human guards last night (hit wizards assigned to keep the dementors in check) had confirmed: Umbridge had chosen the single stupidest possible reason to "legitimise" throwing muggleborns in prison. Anyone who thought about it for more than two seconds would realise that muggleborns couldn't possibly have stolen magic.
Hermione was appalled, though it seemed she'd already known about the ridiculous excuse. It had...been in the Prophet? Bloody Britain, honestly... It was all the muggleborn could do to keep herself from pointing out the obvious flaws with that logic. Remember, Maïa, you're in disguise. Just keep taking notes, or whatever. I'll take care of it.
Mimi raised an eyebrow at the toad, smirking. "Is that why you asked whether my wand was stolen? You are aware, are you not, that a wand is perfectly useless in the hand of a muggle? Or a squib, for that matter — if it weren't, there would be no squibs." You idiot. "If a person can use a wand to perform magic, they are, by definition, a mage, regardless of their parentage. That would be why muggleborn mages are a distinct category from muggles, you see," she explained, very slowly, as though speaking to a small child.
Umbridge attempted to interrupt with a newly-developed definition of citizenship, attempting to claim that was what she meant by 'witch', but Mira just kept talking. (There was an art to not letting oneself be interrupted. It was all about taking breaths at unexpected points in the sentence, so the other person couldn't anticipate them and thereby get a word in edgewise.)
"It is possible to steal magic, of course, but, correct me if I'm wrong, such rituals are considered anathema in this country, yes? As they are in nearly every magical nation, in fact. How, exactly, do you think small muggleborn children all around the world would, theoretically, have acquired the knowledge and means to execute them? Personally, I'd be inclined to say that any mage who manages to get their magic stolen by a small muggle child didn't deserve magic in the first place, but surely you don't think there's a secret cabal of six-year-old would-be warlocks scheming to acquire a power they are, thanks to the Statute, not even aware of before it manifests in them."
Ambrose narrowly managed to contain a snort of laughter. Point to Mimi!
Umbridge rallied on recognising a new potential angle of attack. "So you admit to knowledge of such anathema practices!"
"Of course I admit to knowing that they exist and are anathema. I have no knowledge of the specifics of any such ritual. I certainly haven't performed one. I have no need to. And both of my parents were mages."
"Yes, yes, that's what they all say! Unfortunately, we require proof!"
"That I'm a witch? Give me back my wand and I'll be more than happy to demonstrate any spell you like. Only a witch can use a wand, and by your own logic a witch must have at least one magical parent; therefore, if I can cast so much as a basic light charm, at least one of my parents must have been magical, no?"
"No! If you do not have at least one magical parent, you are not a witch!"
Mimi grinned. "Are you a witch, Dolly, darling?"
Hermione choked on a startled inhalation. Mimi suspected she was the only one who noticed her sudden coughing fit.
"WHAT?! You dare impugn my Blood Status?! Who do you think you are, you insolent brat!"
"Well, I can't say I've ever heard of a House Umbridge. What about you, Ambrose?" she asked, ignoring the question of who she was.
Ambrose, who had been alternating between leering at terrified muggleborns and trying not to laugh at Mimi handing Umbridge her substantial, pink-clad arse, startled to be addressed, especially so familiarly, but he agreed rather than question it. Mostly because he just wanted to see Umbridge squirm — literally no one liked her, it was sort of hilarious. "...No, come to think of it, I haven't, actually."
"Yaxley!" the bitch hissed furiously.
Ambrose's shoulders shook in silent laughter. "If your parents were magical, you wouldn't hesitate to name them, would you, Dolores?"
"No," Mimi agreed, not even trying not to laugh. "She wouldn't." I do love a good Icarian trial, she thought to the muggleborn, who was much more interested in the meaning behind that phrase than I don't sub for toads. If you fly too close to the sun, you get burned. If your hubris leads you to bring a case against someone who turns the tables on you so thoroughly that you end up being sentenced, that's an Icarian trial.
"I am related to the Selwyns!"
"How inconvenient there are still plenty of them around to deny any knowledge of you," Mimi smirked. The bureaucrat, now on her feet, leaning over the balustrade to shout at her, looked positively apoplectic, her thoughts racing through ways she'd like to punish Mimi for having the temerity to throw her words back in her face instead of cowering before the dementors and her authority like a good little teenaged mudblood. (Most of them were incredibly banal, no better than ordering Harry to inscribe I must not tell lies on his hand with a blood quill.) "You're certainly not a member of House Selwyn. And anyone can say they're related to anyone, can't they? I could say my parents were Lily Evans and Sirius Black, if I liked. You could say your father was Orford Umbridge, but you've been denying that fact for the past four decades, so I sincerely doubt that anyone would believe you. So. Are you a witch, Dolores?"
"NO!" she shrieked, which was frankly hilarious, even if she clearly didn't mean it as an answer to the question.
"You're not? Then I'm afraid you'll have to be obliviated."
Oh, God, really, Mira? What are you going to accomplish by making her angry?
Just wait for it, it's going to be good.
"NO! I'm asking the questions! You're in the chair!"
Mimi rolled her eyes. "Oh, if that's the problem here—" She forced power into the blood-drawn runes beneath her palms, scorching them deeply into the wood — probably permanently ruining the chair, but it wasn't very comfortable anyway. She shook the chains off, and then, since the chair was already ruined, set it alight with a handful of soulfire. (Not strictly necessary, she could have used a wandless charm, but soulfire was impressive as fuck.) She sighed dramatically, as everyone in the room — from Umbridge, Ambrose, and Hermione up on the platform, to the Hit Wizards, to the muggleborns awaiting their own questioning — gaped at her. "Well. I can't say I'm impressed, Dolores."