Hogwarts Assignment #11

Epidemiology: Pandemics Task #2 Write about someone wearing a mask

AN AU look into how/why Dolores became the woman we all hate. Mask is figurative rather than literal. Quote comes from Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, "We Wear the Mask"

"We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our face and shades our eyes"

Dolores Umbridge was born into a world of masks. As a child, the approval of her Blood Quill-loving father was everything she could strive for, even as her mother and private tutor tried to show her another way. Back then, it was not so much she who wore the mask as those around her, causing reality to be seen through a darkened lens.

Just as the lens had begun to clear, however, her first sight into the world as it was showed her the dangers of going against her father's rule. Surely, her father had to have had another choice when he learned that her brother was a squib than to transfigure the rest of the family into ghouls to be locked away in the attic! Alas, almost-twelve-year-olds are not in a position to stand up to the iron fist of their parents, and with the only buffers against her father's temper locked away with the world none the wiser, Dolores had had no choice but to don the mask of the perfect daughter.

Going from believing the ideologies of one's family to simply pretending to do so is terribly simple, and in time, Dolores' mask almost felt real. The roots holding the persona together were even strong enough for her to shed legitimate tears when, at eighteen, she learned that her father had suffered a Magicardia Attack and would likely not be long for the world. While some part of her rejoiced at being that much closer to setting her family free (for her father had keyed the attic door so that only at his death could she enter the room) from their life of torment, another part of her was busy planning the next steps. She couldn't afford to alienate her betrothed, Barty Crouch, Jr., just yet, as his family's influence would be helpful in proving that her family was who she claimed them to be. As such, two days later, she went to an anniversary meal with the young man.

It would prove to be her downfall and the final nail needed to keep the mask in place.

She shouldn't have snooped after Barty had fallen asleep, but she had, and she'd found the corpse of one Prewett twin and the tortured body of the other beside it. Some carefully hidden part of who she was, the part that still all these years later wished to save her own family, could not leave the living twin to his fate.

And so, they'd run. Farther and farther into the night. Apparating here and there and everywhere, but always with Death Eaters on their heels. The ruins of an abandoned castle offered her the refuge needed to cast the one spell that might keep the young man safe. Surely, he could withstand a few days looking like a ghoul until she could reverse the spell, right?

Alas, moments after the spell was cast, Barty found her. Faced with the choice to kill his love or erase her memories of that horrible night, a panicked Obliviate felt like the only option.

Dolores Umbridge died almost twenty years before she ever taught at Hogwarts. What the world believed to be her was naught but a mask.