Chapter Seventeen
His second detention passed much the same as his first, except more painfully. He had asked Severus about a potion, but after explaining the situation, the potions master said he would have to modify an existing potion, which would take a few days as he had other tasks to complete first. The man offered to take him for his detention, but Tom declined.
As for Hermione, once he'd related the entire conversation leading up to the detention, she was beautifully indignant with a side of concern. "How can a Ministry official get away with such blatant bigotry?" she fumed. "And I really don't like the idea of you attending those detentions. What if she does something worse? Honestly, it's clear she's just looking for excuses. You've only ever been… well, mostly polite." Apparently, Hermione considered him thinking a decapitation would improve Umbridge's personality a bit rude.
As threatened, she dragged him to Professor McGonagall's office first thing Tuesday morning. The professor listened to their story and, by the time they were finished, her eyebrows were drawn in tight and her mouth pinched. However…
"I'm afraid that there's little I or the Headmaster can do for you, Mister Potter," she told him apologetically. " All I can say is to keep your head down and hope the curse removes her sooner rather than later." Tom smirked at Hermione, pleased that even McGonagall agreed with him about the proper fate for Umbridge.
"What do you mean?" Hermione demanded.
The professor sighed. "While the Headmaster can make small adjustments to the school's rules in practice, the official rules remain unchanged. In other words, there remains nothing within Hogwarts' charter preventing her from using this as a punishment. At the same time, it is, I believe, a bit of a gray area legally. With Mister Potter and the Headmaster's current political position, it's hard to say whether any accusations would even be investigated."
While Hermione gaped, Tom bowed his head slightly. "Thank you for your time, Professor." He gently tugged his friend out of the classroom and, after a moment's thought, toward the Room of Requirement.
It didn't take long for Hermione to start demanding answers. "Did you know that would happen? What are we going to do? You can't possibly be planning to go to tonight's detention! And if she starts using it on other students, can we even do anything about it? Where are we going anyway?"
Tom let her get out all her questions without answering, pausing as he realized the room was already visible. He opened the door and blinked once, slowly taking it in, before entering.
"Luna," he greeted cordially. "This is… interesting." They appeared to be standing on a stormy gray, marshmallowy cloud. Of course, if it were really a cloud, it would just appear as a fog rather than a somewhat solid object, but the intention was clear. He pulled Hermione, who remained at the doorway peering inside owlishly, into the room and shut the door.
Luna herself laid on her back with her head hanging off the edge of the cloud. Strands of her hair waved in the wind below her, and she had her bare feet in the air doing some sort of… dance? She lifted her head. "Hello, Tom," she chirped before letting her head fall back down. "This is a lovely room. However did you discover it?"
"...I really couldn't say. It was quite a long time ago after all." Despite saying that, Tom frowned at the absent memory. He generally prided himself on his ability to retain information, so having some of that information go missing was concerning. He shook himself. Now was not the time to be worrying about that, so he set the matter aside and asked Luna, "Would you mind asking the room for chairs? I was planning to speak with Hermione about some things."
The blonde hummed an affirmative, and a moment later plush, satiny cloud chairs rose from the cloud. With an exasperated sigh, Tom brought Hermione over to one and sat her down. She looked as though her mind had frozen, overwhelmed by the sheer number of questions germinating within it.
Tom cast a light stinging hex to bring her back. "This is the Room of Requirement," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the brunette's protests. "It can turn into, apparently, an infinite number of different rooms, depending what you ask of it. To make the room appear, you must walk past that portion of the wall three times while concentrating on the type of room you desire."
He paused, letting Hermione take that in, then continued. "To answer your other questions… Yes, I suspected that nothing would get done even if we brought Umbridge's actions to attention. She is not, after all, a complete moron. Even she can think far enough ahead to expect that she would be discovered. She wouldn't have done it if she thought that would be a problem." He sighed. "Ministry workers like her tend to know their way around the law better than anyone."
Luna rolled over onto her stomach and slid around until she was facing them. "What did she do?" she asked. "She's always surrounded by so many wrackspurts and gulping plimpies and even creatures I've never seen before." She looked into space thoughtfully, then added, "I could probably look through my mother's journals and find out what they are though. I haven't yet because it's painful, but it's still an option."
Looking like she expected a very bizarre answer, Hermione asked, "Why is it painful?"
Tom wondered if Ginny was the only socially competent member of his new Inner Circle.
"Because I watched her die," Luna responded without hesitation. "She was researching a new spell, and it went quite wrong."
Hermione blanched. "I'm so sorry, I didn't -"
"If you wouldn't mind looking into that over Yule break, I'd appreciate it," Tom cut in.
Luna nodded.
"Returning to the previous topic," Tom said, "Madam Umbridge has been having me use a Blood Quill for my detentions."
At that, Luna sat up and joined them in a third chair that sprang into being. She held out her hand expectantly and, after a moment, Tom let her examine the affected skin. Her lips turned down as she traced the letters even though they had already completely healed. "I suppose you allowed it because it doesn't affect you," she commented.
"Naturally," Tom agreed, snatching his hand back. "If she'd been cleverer about it, I'd have cursed her then and there." Hermione hit his arm at that, but it lacked any force, so he expected it was more of a knee-jerk reaction than out of any expectation of changing his behavior. He would just have to work harder to desensitize her. "In any event," he continued, switching straight back to the previous discussion, "Even if it is technically allowed, the public would generally disapprove. Being a politician, Fudge will reign her in if it looks like her actions might lower his approval rating. All I need is evidence and Rita Skeeter."
"...And that'd be it? She'd just get asked to stop?" Hermione asked incredulously. "That's your plan?"
Tom shrugged. He couldn't very well tell her that his actual plan was to make Hermione angry enough to curse the woman of her own initiative. "It works best, naturally, if I pull this together after quite a few students have been... " Torture was the technical term, but it probably wasn't the best word to use just now. "Harmed by her," he decided. "I expect that you'd object to that though, so it'll just have to be a small step toward improving the public's perception of me."
The brunette frowned impressively at him. "Of course I'd object. All else aside, who knows what she could use it to make them do? We can't assume that she'll keep choosing lines that won't affect the student." She sent Tom a pointedly annoyed look. "Or rather that the students she targets will always be arrogant enough to avoid the geas."
Tom smiled brightly at her. She rolled her eyes and turned to Luna. "You know about Harry's… situation then?" she asked.
"I think my calling him Tom would make that rather clear," Luna said dryly. The blonde stood. "I'll be going now. Classes begin in a few minutes, and it wouldn't do to come in late and miss my essay going missing."
"Oh!" Hermione shot to her feet, the second half of Luna's sentence going over her head in her panic. "I can't believe I almost forgot about class. Hurry! We need to get to Charms!"
Like that, Tom found himself being dragged away past an amused Luna Lovegood. He sighed and allowed it. He hadn't forgotten, or lost track of time for that matter, but he'd been somewhat hoping to 'accidentally' skip class. Repeating school was so very boring.
They made it with plenty of time to spare. Once they were seated and settled, he tuned out Professor Flitwick and considered the Luna Lovegood situation.
The 'nickname' Loony Lovegood. Personal items gone missing. Homework sabotaged. She was being targeted by her fellow Ravenclaws, but she had yet to make her request. Was she waiting until she knew what it would cost her? Or could she perhaps be the sort of person who insisted on taking the higher moral ground, even when there was no benefit to themself? He didn't think that was the case, because he found those people dreadfully boring (not to mention annoying), and Luna had so far been rather interesting. If it was though, he'd have to find a better incentive.
Threatening her father would be easy enough, but given the nature of her talent, there was a high probability it would go poorly. There would be instances where she gave him information that he couldn't verify via another source, and she was too much of a Ravenclaw not to recognize and take advantage of that if she was working for him under duress. In general, he preferred for his followers to be there of their own free will, for efficiency's sake. Although toward the end of the last war… He frowned thoughtfully. When had he stopped caring about that? When had it become 'good enough' for them to follow out of fear?
"Hey, Harry."
Tom straightened and looked over his shoulder to where Ron Weasley sat. The boy appeared troubled. "Yes?" he asked.
Ron held out a letter. "I uh, got this over the weekend. I thought about it and, well, I know we're not so close now but… I thought I should let you know anyway."
Tom took the letter and opened it, skimming over the contents dispassionately. When he finished, he folded it up again and handed it back. "I see," he said, eyes narrowing. Then he smiled, wiping the irritation from his face. "Thank you, Ron. I appreciate it. I'm sorry if I've made things difficult for you and your family though." He did his best to look innocently troubled by the situation, but it wasn't an expression he used often (or ever), so he wasn't sure if it was quite right or not.
In any event, Ron smiled back hesitantly and nodded. "Yeah, no problem mate." He paused, awkwardly leaning forward still as though uncertain whether he should end the conversation there or not. "Um, are you doing alright?" he asked after a moment, ears reddening.
Tom appreciated the effort the boy was putting in, even if he wished he wouldn't. For such an emotionally immature person though, this was a step in the right direction, and he had a certain duty to nurture that, didn't he? So he laughed uncomfortably and nodded. "I guess you've probably heard I got kicked off the team. My eyesight's gotten worse and I just can't do it well enough now. That wasn't so good. But I've been learning a lot, and I've made some new friends, so… yeah. Overall, I'm good." He grinned. "But you made Keeper, right? Congrats, mate. When I saw you at tryouts, I knew you'd get picked." Tom was dying. Literally dying, he was sure. Small talk with teenagers would be his go-to torture in the future.
Ron beamed in pleasure. "Yeah… yeah, I did."
Just then, Flitwick called for everyone to be quiet, so Tom smiled at Ron once more, then turned to face front and sagged in relief.
Now that he had a chance, he considered Ron's letter. It was from his older brother, Percy, and full of self-congratulatory, Ministry-lackey bullshit. Once you cut through that, however, the main point seemed to be, 'good job for taking a step back from Potter, keep it that way because Umbridge is reporting on him to the Minister, and they're not too fond of him.'
This was truly startling news. Really.
But he supposed he could give Ron credit for attempting to be a decent former best friend, so Tom would take it in the spirit intended rather than point out that he didn't care. When Hermione questioned him about it at lunch, he gave her the nice version of events, and she beamed proudly in Ron's direction.
Tom would deny any involvement, but a few minutes later, when Ron went to stand up, he found himself firmly attached to the bench.
The day finished with Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology, both classes where simplicity was offset by spending most of each period on the practical. Unfortunately, detention with Umbridge came after dinner. Tom stood outside her door, frowning. What if Hermione never succumbed to the darker impulses he expected laid underneath her rule-abiding exterior? He'd have gone through this for nothing more than a pitiful improvement in public perception. He slid his wand into his hand and spun it a few times, considering his options. At last, he replaced his wand and knocked on the door. If Hermione disappointed him, he would just make Umbridge's end more painful. As she opened the door, a smile slid across his face unbidden. After all, he had almost a full school year to devise an appropriate demise.
AN: The good thing about NaNoWriMo is that authors are writing more, so the story proceeds faster. The bad thing is that this leaves very little time for editing, so while I suspect there are some issues, I won't have a chance to fix them any better than this until December, and sitting on chapters for a full month just seems rude. So… Sorry if there are problems. Please blame poor sleep and lack of editing.
Also, can I just say that it's so very weird and amazing to get reviews? Like, I got some reviews for things I wrote in high school, aka pre-2006, but the reviews typically didn't happen until I'd long since quit writing that story. So this is pretty awesome, and thank you so much.
