Since Acacia had a fondness for restoring antiques, mostly as a way to connect with her mother, Sirius took her to a little used storage room before she returned to Hogwarts to pick something out.
Acacia had a feeling it was going to be a rough year, so she picked something she felt would be easy enough to at least clean up. It was a carpet with an absolutely gorgeous pattern on it and was still in very good condition (no frays or loose ends) and just needed a proper cleaning for it to be presentable.
Hermione certainly didn't have an issue with the carpet being left in the dorm room, as it would brighten up the room. Especially once Acacia cleaned it up properly.
Fortunately she had found a decent expanded suitcase that fit inside her old school trunk, which was keyed to her and was her new go-to bag. The carpet fit snugly inside along with the books she had bought.
The second she entered the school and saw exactly who the defense teacher was, she knew this year was going to be hell.
Especially when Seamus casually commented on how his mother almost pulled him from school because of the articles.
"Articles?" repeated Acacia dumbly.
"You know, the articles where you claim You-Know-Who is back?" said Seamus.
Acacia was stunned.
"The what?!" she said horrified. "I never claimed he was back! I told the aurors that someone who said he was Voldemort had attacked me, not that he was actually back!"
That got everyone's attention.
"Could you repeat that?" said Angelina.
"When I was questioned by Madame Bones, I told her exactly what happened. That someone I recognized from my parent's old photos had held me hostage and used me for an obvious dark ritual, and some abomination calling himself 'Voldemort' came out of the cauldron. I never stated it was him, because there isn't any pictures of him in any of the books about what he looked like and I was only an infant so there's no way for me to remember his appearance. Whenever the Dementors forced me to remember that night, I only focused on my parents, not him," said Acacia clearly. "I was out of the country all summer break, so I've certainly never held any interviews or made public claims he had returned... I had no idea that someone was using my name to do so."
Neville was frowning.
"This is serious... if someone has been using your name, your reputation can be destroyed very quickly if you don't get a handle on this."
Acacia was angry, but it was too late to send a letter to the Sisterhood.
The next morning, the second she was dressed and awake, she headed straight for the Owlry.
She had stayed up a bit late to write a letter to Fleur and the Sisterhood, explaining the situation and asking for her legal options regarding slander and misuse of her name.
Hedwig took off without a word, and Acacia was still fuming over the entire situation.
Hermione said nothing, as she knew Acacia wouldn't appreciate any 'advice' at the moment. She was beyond pissed that someone had done this without her permission and caused so much damage to her reputation. There was a reason she had carefully worded what happened under oath and veritaserum about the events in the graveyard!
Acacia's mood was beyond foul. Not only was the complete hag of a woman teaching defense clearly out to get her (she had narrowly avoided a detention by staying silent), but it was clear the Minister had decided it was a brilliant idea to target an innocent victim rather than deal with the possibility Voldemort had been brought back.
Madam Bones had sent her an official letter stating she would get to the bottom of who had been using her name, and that she would give her answers. She was also fuming because she had been so busy of late dealing with the sudden deaths of multiple high ranking officials that the matter had gone unnoticed until now.
What put Acacia in a foul mood was that when Madam Bones got back to her, the name given was all too familiar alright.
Albus bloody Dumbledore was the source of those damn articles.
It had taken every ounce of restraint for her to not walk up to the teacher's table and yell at him for doing this to her. It would have solved nothing, to her disgust.
Either way the Sisterhood was already writing 'cease and desist' letters to the Daily Prophet with a note that Acacia had become recognized as a legal adult after the events of the tournament.
Britain couldn't afford to piss off the French ministry...especially since the Malfoys were French and still had ties to the community.
France recognized her as an adult, and she was a full member of the Sisterhood. That meant she finally had legal options to deal with this nonsense that would make people take her seriously.
After all the crap she went through second year and last year, she was going to go full force on these imbeciles.
The expression on Dumbledore's face was hard to explain when he received the letter at breakfast with a very firm (and fully legal) cease and desist letter.
He left rather quickly to respond to it, but in the end it didn't matter. The articles finally stopped, and a single page was dedicated to the matter. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
However Dumbledore clearly didn't appreciate having a mere student behaving maturely enough to tell him "No" in clear terms.
The second she left detention under the flimsiest excuse she had seen in her life with McGonagall, she went to her special room and started cleaning the carpet she had found in Grimmauld with a fierce drive.
Oddly enough the smell of cleaning chemicals, the almost mechanical method of using them to clean out the worst of the dirt and grime and the monotony of it all did wonders to clear her head. She was still pissed as hell though.
As she cleaned out the worst of the dirt and Merlin knew what else was in the fibers of the carpet, the colors began to properly emerge. The pattern was even more vibrant than she originally thought, though her limited senses were telling her that there was a strange magic on the carpet.
Jafar, who was lounging outside the lamp as per usual, decided to look at her 'project' a bit closer when she mentioned this.
And he was torn between laughing at the sheer irony and groaning in annoyance, because he recognized this particular piece of fabric.
Acacia looked at him expectantly.
"This is the same carpet that fool Aladdin used to impress that idiot princess," he said sourly.
Acacia scrunched up her nose a bit.
"Are you telling me this is the 'fancy car' he used to impress a girl way out of his league? I thought that was a flying carpet though."
"It is. Some idiot must have tried to bind it's sentience and make it into a normal one since they've been banned by idiots," said Jafar.
Acacia almost hung her head.
"Why does my luck insist on doing this to me? There's nothing for it then... can you help me figure out what spells are binding it so I can remove them?"
While the deeper spells would take time to remove, the one binding it's sentience was the first thing to go.
The carpet recognized Jafar alright...but it was more interested in the girl who had been cleaning it for the first time in ages.
It was about as sentient as the armor in the halls of the school...it had been saturated with so much magic that it developed a 'will' of it's own, and was partial to certain types of masters.
While it didn't particularly like Jafar for good reason, it adored Acacia.
Acacia sighed and once she finished what she was doing, she started to draft yet another letter to the Sisterhood's personal lawyer (who already adored her for being able to stick on in Dumbledore's eye and for making the English dogs look like bigger fools than usual) regarding sentient artifacts.
As it turned out, there were a few laws regarding cultural artifacts which would allow her to circumvent the whole "no flying carpets" law.
Carpet was ancient, sentient and had deep cultural ties to the Arabic magical community. However as it was "just" a carpet, she wasn't being pressured to return it...after all, the only thing that would happen was that it would be stuck in some museum or owned by another rich family who couldn't use it for it's intended purpose anyway.
Acacia's hard work to restore and repair it with her limited skills put the matter in her favor. She paid a hefty sum (via the goblins who could care less) to the Arabic ministry and they considered the matter closed while sending her an official letter so that the English dogs couldn't destroy the carpet out of hand because of what it was.
In short, there was nothing Umbitch or the Minister could do about the artifact as it was legally protected. Not that Acacia was going to chance that unless she had to...she had her broom after all.
On the plus side, Flitwick was more than happy to help her remove the extra charms on the carpet with permission to observe the older spells that allowed it to fly. She was just glad she had more or less cleaned out the worst of the dirt out of the carpet.
Umbridge was beyond pissed about the way things were going. Potter had somehow joined that wretched Sisterhood and now had the full legal protection of the French ministry as an adult. Not even sending those dementors to her house of record had done anything beyond killing a muggle or two.
She was also unable to put Potter in detention as she had made her stance very clear regarding the events of the graveyard incident. Nothing she said could be used against her as libel or slander, and Potter wasn't backing down in the least. And her book was the same one everyone else was using, so she couldn't cite her for that.
And it was impossible to get anything on the brat's foreign boyfriend, as he appeared and disappears without a trace. Not even the aurors under her control could find anything about him beyond the fact that he had foreign blood and used unknown magics.
They had little to no ties to the Arabic Ministry, and what few they did have were extremely unwilling to look into the matter.
She was so frustrated that when she saw an opportunity to ban the brat from Quidditch games, she took it.
What she didn't know was that the broom she was using wasn't the infamous Firebolt the girl had gotten her third year. It was a borrowed broom from another member of her house after she had lost a bet to one of the older girls in a game of poker. Katie Bell had her broom, and was gleefully using it the entire game.
Potter refused to get off the broom when Umbridge attempted to claim it after the game, as she wanted to fly a bit more.
So Umbridge cast a hex that would snap the wretched thing in half and if she was lucky, do serious harm to the brat.
No one expected a carpet to come out of nowhere and catch the girl.
"Detention Potter! And I'll be confiscating that clearly illegal carpet of yours!" she said gleefully.
"You...are insane," said Potter.
"I'm afraid, Professor Umbridge, that it is impossible for you to claim or destroy that particular flying carpet," squeaked Professor Flitwick.
"What are you talking about? Even children know flying carpets are illegal!" she shrieked.
"Yes, but the one in Miss Potter's possession has been classed as a cultural artifact and is certified by the goblin nation as such. If you were to claim or make any attempts to destroy it, then the goblins and the Arabic nations will hold you, your entire bloodline and the Ministry liable for damages and will come after you without hesitation," said Flitwick.
He seemed entirely gleeful about informing her about this. Then again, the teachers (save for Filch) hated her far more than they ever had Lockhart.
Umbridge stared at him.
"If it's a cultural artifact, then why hasn't the Arabic Ministry reclaimed it?" demanded Draco.
"Because it's a flying carpet. They care enough to designated it as part of their heritage, but they don't want to deal with the English or French ministry in reclaiming it because the only thing that would happen is it would stay in a museum or some rich family's home, which is a waste of time, effort and more importantly money," deadpanned Acacia, getting down.
The carpet floated behind her like some sort of twisted puppy looking for affection.
It was obvious to everyone that it was similar to the school's armor, and thus rather old.
Acacia's smirk pissed Umbridge off.
"Why don't have a different discussion...namely why you fired a spell at a student with clear intent on making them fall?!"
Umbridge finally realized her error... namely there were entirely too many witnesses to what she had done.
