Oh hey, look, another Christmas present. Just call me Santa Claus.
Ellie smiled. It felt like a lie.
Not that she wasn't legitimately amused — her friends were being very silly, she thought. But despite herself, despite thinking there was no real reason for it, dread coiled in the pit of her stomach, stiff and cold and distracting.
There wasn't any reason to be afraid, not really. Corporal punishment had been banned at Hogwarts for some time now — anyone who'd spent any length of time around Filch at all would know that hadn't always been the case, but it was now. It wasn't like a professor could actually do anything too unpleasant in a detention. At least, not without facing serious legal consequences afterward.
Ellie didn't care how good of friends Umbridge was with the Minister, even she wouldn't be able to get away with beating the Girl Who Lived in detention. Or hexing or something, she didn't know, it didn't really matter, she couldn't actually do anything that bad.
Still, her stomach turned and her skin tingled with a faint, vague sort of fear, her smile feeling all too much like a lie.
Megan and Justin and Sophie and Hannah and Wayne didn't seem to quite believe her reassurances it would be fine any more than she did, Susan glaring up at her, something cold and distrustful in her eyes. "I don't like that woman," she said.
Of course, Susan would know. Her mother — aunt, technically, but Susan called her her mother in private — was the Director of Law Enforcement. Meaning she reported directly to Fudge, and had run into all of his staff at one point or another. Umbridge had been around for years, Susan had been a small child the first time she'd met her. When they'd found out Umbridge would be their new Defence teacher, Susan had told the rest of them what she could, but she didn't have much to say, really. Her mother and Umbridge disagreed politically, but they had little personal contact. Not enough to have much to point to. She'd never done anything, really, just...
"Yeah, I know." Ellie couldn't say she liked her much herself, honestly. And she always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, at least until she had reason to suspect otherwise, but from the beginning Umbridge had just... She didn't know. She was just kind of vaguely...unsettling. Ellie couldn't even say why. "I'll be fine. She's just one little Ministry bureaucrat, I can take care of myself."
A few cold smiles flicked across faces — not just her close friends, but other students around the common room eavesdropping, kids older and younger than her. They'd seen her charm people to a standstill, dance circles around dragons, they knew she'd escaped the Dark Lord. She could handle a petty Ministry official, they knew that.
So, while they let her leave the common room alone, and without further protest, she was certain some of them would still be up when she got back. No matter how long Umbridge kept her, they'd be waiting. And they'd raise holy hell if anything happened.
Hufflepuff had pretty much always had her back since the moment she'd been Sorted here. (Lucky break, that, she'd almost been sent to Gryffindor instead, might not have gone quite so well for her.) Whether it was Draco picking his stupid fights, or the rest of the school freaking out over the talking to snakes thing — of course, she could talk to all kinds of animals, people just tended to focus on the snakes — or inexplicably assuming she was attacking muggleborns because she could talk to snakes — she was friends with half the kids who'd been petrified, honestly — or when the other three houses, save for a few Gryffindor hold-outs, had decided to shun her during the Tournament, no matter what it was, Hufflepuff had always had her back. In a way, especially since the graveyard.
Peter Pettigrew had killed Cedric. And Voldemort had nearly killed her. When she'd told them, practically every single kid in Hufflepuff had believed her, without reservation. It didn't matter what the Prophet said, it didn't matter that Fudge's supporters were trying to make her out to be some kind of lying, manipulative problem child, their faith in her hadn't been shaken, most of them, not for an instant.
It'd actually made some political problems for Fudge. See, her classmates believed her. And they told their parents. And their parents believed them — or, some of them did, at least. And their parents talked to other people about it.
Some of them, their parents happened to be important people.
Susan's mum in particular — Amelia Bones was doing her best to mobilise her Department to deal with another Death Eater insurrection, around whatever obstruction Fudge threw in her path. Not that she was making that much progress. Fudge couldn't get rid of her — he would need approval from the Wizengamot, and the Bonses were one of the Seventeen Founders, Amelia herself very popular — but he could slow her down with distracting red tape, mess with her budget. Dora said she was doing a little good, the DLE was more prepared than it would have been if Ellie hadn't warned them, but Fudge was making it far more difficult than it had to be. Though she was also managing to make headaches for Fudge in retaliation.
So Fudge, acting through Umbridge, was retaliating through Hogwarts. For some reason. Ellie had no idea why.
If Umbridge were putting pressure on Susan somehow, to try to use that as leverage against her mother, that would almost make sense. She guessed. But they weren't doing that. They were putting pressure on Dumbledore, through these Educational Decrees, which was...odd. Dumbledore might be the Chief Warlock, yes, and he was continuing to insist Voldemort was back, which Fudge didn't want him to do...for some reason. But, Dumbledore didn't actually have a vote on the Wizengamot, the allies he could organise to oppose Fudge weren't really that many. Amelia was, Ellie thought, the far bigger threat — and Lady Scrimgeour and Lord Eirsley and Lady Monroe — but they seemed to be focused on Dumbledore.
And on Ellie.
For some reason. It was completely unfathomable.
She could only assume they thought putting pressure on her was also putting pressure on Dumbledore, which...almost made sense? Like, sure, she and Dumbledore were still associated in the public consciousness, and they were both saying Voldemort was back...but they weren't nearly as close as people thought they were. They never had been, but especially not recently.
Honestly, she...just didn't like Dumbledore that much. He meant well, but...
She was closer to Amelia, really — she'd even changed her proxy once she was old enough to someone who'd vote with Common Fate, she wasn't even politically allied with Dumbledore anymore. But neither were she and Amelia close enough for going after Ellie to be going after Amelia. It didn't make any sense.
Turning the odd, confusing nature of Fudge's politics over in her head, she came to the door to Umbridge's office in something of a daze. She knocked, waited to be invited in before opening it, politely closing it again behind her.
Ellie had a complicated history with Defence professors, so she'd actually seen this office as it had been under all four previous instructors they'd had. Umbridge had certainly made it its most...colourful. (Unless she counted all of Lockhart's portraits, which she didn't. Damn creepy, that.) Every bit of furniture, desk and cabinets and side tables, had been covered with cloth, smooth and silky, trimmed along the edges with lace, all in whites and purples and pinks. Where these flat surfaces weren't taken up with books or parchments or framed photographs were vases bearing flowers, carefully preserved for longevity, an entire wall covered with ornamental plates, clearly not intended to be eaten off of — the rims chased with delicate weaves of gold, the centres displaying little fluffy kittens.
The kittens were, Ellie noticed, animated — which was interesting, those had to be glazed ceramic, and that was a pain to enchant. They were bouncing around and playing, batting around little feathered toys, darting into neighbouring plates to pounce at each other. One of them, mostly white patched with gold, a little black ribbon tied around its neck with a bow, was stretching as Ellie watched, its little feet clenching and unclenching on the illustrated carpet...
"Miss Potter?"
"Oh! I'm sorry, Professor." She turned to find Umbridge seated behind her desk, still in the brightly colourful, flower-patterned robes she'd been wearing at dinner. "I was just looking around, I must have trailed off for a moment there. The kittens are very cute, I'm sorry." She thought the office was rather pretty overall, though she couldn't say she would have picked the colour scheme herself. Too much pink.
She was almost getting flashbacks to Puddifoot's, which was not pleasant. She preferred not to remember her absolutely disastrous first and only date with Cedric if she could help it — and not just because he was gone now, it'd been very awkward and very humiliating, just a terrible idea from the off. Thankfully, he'd agreed they worked better as just friends, because, yeesh. Anything that reminded her of Puddifoot's was a no thanks in her book.
The flowers and the kittens were nice touches, though.
For just a second, Umbridge looked taken aback. (Did other kids she'd had in here not like the kittens? But they were adorable!) And then, her eyes slightly narrowed, her lips shifted into that familiar, sickly-sweet smile. A fake smile, in this particular case...suspicious. Of what? Did she think she had some kind of agenda, saying the kittens were cute? What did Umbridge think she could possibly have to gain from something like that?
Umbridge had been in Slytherin, she'd heard, which did kind of explain it. But Ellie simply didn't have the head for Slytherin mind games, she couldn't even begin to guess what was going on in there.
After a brief second of smiling, she said, "Well, have a seat." She nodded toward a table near her desk, where waited a piece of parchment and a narrow black quill.
Ellie obeyed, taking in the flowers arranged in the vase on the little table as she sat. They were quite pretty, she thought. She recognised the lily and the petunia instantly, for obvious reasons, one a striking orange and the other a soft purplish-white. The others were also purple-adjacent, though rather more reddish...oh, she knew this, what was it... Geranium! They were geraniums, okay.
...Wait a second. Orange lily, petunia, and geranium — hatred, resentment, and stupidity? Huh. That had to be intentional...
By the way Umbridge's smile turned wider, sharper, Ellie suspected she knew the message had been received. (If only Ellie knew what it was supposed to be, exactly...) "Now that I have you here, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Miss Potter."
Despite herself, Ellie was a little surprised. She knew Umbridge couldn't really have had anything too unpleasant in mind, but... Lines? Really? Okay... "Yes, Ma'am. What am I writing?" she asked.
Umbridge smiled, sweet and self-satisfied, mocking. "I will respect my elders."
Ellie felt her eyebrow twitch, wanting to form a Snape-ish look of unimpressed amusement, but she managed to restrain herself. "Yes, Ma'am." She picked up the quill sitting on the little table — it felt weird, all cold and tingly and...slimy. It didn't quite feel like she was sensing some kind of spell on it, but she couldn't imagine what else that could be. "Oh, um..."
"You won't be needing any ink." Umbridge sounded like she was trying to hold in a giggle.
...Okay. Because that wasn't creepy at all. Pushing back her remaining unease, Ellie straightened the parchment quick, wrote the sentence out in methodical, smooth cursive — if she was going to be forced to write the same thing over and over, she might as well use the opportunity to work on her penmanship.
Once she finished the phrase, the instant the nib of the quill lifted from the page, there was a flash of dark magic, ice slashing through her hand. Ellie hissed, twitching at the pain, then relaxed as it vanished an instant later. That was...odd. There was some kind of curse on this quill, apparently. The chill of dark magic had faded, so it clearly wasn't a lingering effect of any kind. A pain hex, maybe? It hadn't really felt like one, but Ellie was particularly sensitive to dark magic, her experience of minor hexes tended to be unusual. For example, she'd gotten hit with a nightmare curse in dueling practice once, and it'd made her feel exhausted and depressed and very cold — she hadn't felt the intended terror at all. So, maybe it was supposed to be a minor pain hex of some kind, but she only felt the chill of the dark magic, because Ellie was weird.
She glanced up at Umbridge quick — the professor was watching her, smug but also somehow expectant, as though waiting for Ellie to object. Though, Ellie wasn't even surprised. Making someone do lines with a quill that hurt them every time was closer to the sort of thing she'd been expecting.
So, shrugging it off, Ellie turned back to the parchment. I will respect my elders. She sucked a breath through her teeth at the splinters of cold shooting through her hand, but probably quietly enough Umbridge hadn't heard it.
I will respect my elders. Ellie's cheek twitched, but after a couple times she was starting to get used to it already.
I will respect my elders.
I will respect my elders.
And so on, and so on.
There was something odd about this ink, Ellie thought. It was a deep red, darker than red ink was usually made, and...thicker, somehow. Over a dozen lines in now, and the one at the top was still shiny and wet, not sinking into the parchment as easily as ink should. Her pinky bumped the tails of a couple of her Ps and her Ys, the little turn she put on the final S, and it was smearing a little, which didn't normally happen.
Though, that could be because her hand was getting a little stiff already. Not from writing too much, she hadn't been at it nearly long enough for that to be a problem yet. It wasn't a tired kind of stiff, but a cold sort of stiff — like when she'd been out in the winter too long, her fingers going numb and clumsy. It wasn't that bad yet, just enough to make her cursive look slightly sloppier, her hand rubbing against the parchment when it shouldn't, the chill lingering longer and longer after each line, tingling and stinging.
After twenty-five lines, Ellie took a breath for a moment, dropped the quill to try to rub some warmth back into her hand. As she'd expected, her skin wasn't cool to the touch. Her hand wasn't actually cold, the repeated exposure to dark magic just sort of felt like it to her. Resolving herself with a long, thin breath, Ellie got back at it.
How many times was Umbridge going to make her do this? She hadn't given Ellie a number to shoot for, she'd assumed the professor would cut her off at some point — which did make sense, she thought, since people wrote at different speeds going for a duration of time instead of a number of repetitions was logical — but she didn't know how long she'd be able to keep writing. It wasn't that bad yet, but she was certain it'd only get worse, and eventually her hand would be too numb to form the letters. It wouldn't do permanent damage, she didn't think. She'd been fine a half hour after that nightmare curse, and that had been...awful, she'd never felt that cold in her life, she'd been half-convinced she was dying for a bit there. But she'd been completely useless until she had recovered, presumably a similar thing would happen with her hand now. She wouldn't be able to write for the whole hour, or however long Umbridge intended to keep her.
Also, it was actually starting to hurt.
It started as just a numb sort of stinging, a lingering echo after the flash of cold — sort of similar to being swept with an icy breeze, actually. But with each pulse it built, a sharp, cold pain focused on the back of her hand, growing worse and worse with each line.
It wasn't until she made out the shadow of the words, I will respect my elders, faint, blurry lines hardly visible on her pinked, irritated skin, that Ellie realised what was happening.
She wasn't writing with ink. She was writing with her own blood.
Her stomach churning with nausea, Ellie closed her eyes for a moment. She took a long breath, her throat thick with sick and a numb sort of horror. And then she put the nib of her quill to the parchment again.
I will respect my elders.
I will respect my elders.
I will respect my elders.
And so on and so on, again and again.
Ellie tried not to see the lines of script, her handwriting growing gradually more shaky as she went on, not at all helped by not looking directly at what she was doing. But it didn't do any good, the letters of blood, dark and vibrant and shimmering, burned in her vision, she couldn't not see it, the unavoidable knowledge of what she was looking at sinking in, much as it sank into the parchment, slowly, bile crawling up her throat, Ellie started feeling shaky and sweaty and sick.
She hated the sight of blood. She always had. Her own wasn't nearly as bad as someone else's, but she still... She hated it, it made her ill.
(And scared, if she was being honest, a black, animal sort of horror, but she tried not to be honest about it. Mostly because it was just kind of pathetic. It was only blood, honestly, it wasn't like it was hurting her...)
At some point, after she didn't know how many lines — she'd stopped counting a while ago — she came to a spot where there were already spots and smears of blood on the page. She blinked in confusion, before realising her hand was leaking. She could hardly even feel it anymore, almost too cold and stiff to write properly, the back of her hand so cold it burned, like a knife made of ice pressed against her skin. The words had been carved into her, from just between the knuckles of her pointer and middle fingers to around where the tip of her arm bone stuck out a little, I will respect my elders. The letters were weeping thin trails of blood from the corners, the angle her hand was held at writing making the first half of the sentence run down and right, toward the base of her thumb, the other half down the other side, over the curve of her wrist—
Ellie was hit with a flash of nauseating warmth, she squeezed her eyes closed. Bending to press her forehead against the desk — carefully at an angle her hair wouldn't get into the lines of blood — and took long, slow breaths, struggling to force the sick back down her throat. The cool wood of the desk felt wonderful on her hot, sweaty forehead, but the relief only lasted for a moment, and she sat there shivering, trying to work up the nerve to sit up, to keep going, but she recoiled at the idea, the blood burned into the back of her eyes, she couldn't...
"Miss Potter, are you quite alright?"
"I'm fine," she gasped, her voice thin and weak. She forced herself to sit up right, her head going fuzzy and dizzy, it took some effort to get her swirling vision to focus on Umbridge, managed to get it to settle down after a second. Still felt light-headed, though. "I'm fine, I just... I don't like blood, is all. I'm fine." Sucking in another long, shaking breath, she put the quill to parchment.
A thick, short fingered-hand snapped down onto the page — Umbridge was probably getting Ellie's blood on her hand, she realised with another shiver of hot nausea. "Miss Potter."
Ellie frowned. There was something odd on Umbridge's voice, she couldn't tell what it was, and her face was too blank to read. (Also too out of focus, but that was on Ellie.) She was rather closer than Ellie had expected too, she'd slid her chair just across from her. "Yeah?"
Umbridge hesitated for a brief moment, blankly staring back at her. "You don't look well, Miss Potter."
No, she suspected she didn't, probably all pale and sweaty and awful. "I really don't like blood, ma'am."
"You don't—" Umbridge cut herself off. Her brow stitched with a narrow frown for a moment, her eyes flicking away from Ellie, clearly thinking about something. Couldn't guess what. There was something going on here, Ellie had been thinking about how strange the politics of Umbridge's presence at Hogwarts was just on the way up here, not so long ago — whatever was going on in Umbridge's head was probably related to all of that, but Ellie didn't get that in the first place. Finally she jerked into motion, whipping the parchment out from under Ellie's hands, held her hand out for the quill.
Ellie surrendered it — which was more difficult than it had to be, Elile's fingers almost frozen around the damn thing — and slumped back into her chair with a weak sigh. They were done, then. Good. Ellie doubted she would have been able to keep going much longer.
She started, her eyes snapping open again, when a sharp pop suddenly echoed through the room. Oh, house elf apparation. Right. Umbridge was asking...hadn't caught the name, but she was pretty sure the elf was a girl, at least — it could be hard to tell, Ellie wasn't even certain how she knew. Anyway, Umbridge was asking her for a bowl of warm water and a flannel and a roll of bandages, and also some tea. Ellie blurted out a request for ice water before the elf could pop away again, a warm drink right now would just make her queasier.
A moment later, the vase of flowers on the little desk had been replaced with a sizeable bowl of water. Umbridge took Ellie's frozen, aching hand and started mopping away the blood, with sudden gentleness that honestly rather surprised Ellie. It wasn't showing on her face at all, still cold and blank, but.
Ellie was immediately suspicious, of course — she assumed Umbridge wanted something from her, she'd just rethought her approach. At least she wasn't writing anymore, though, she'd take it. She let Umbridge fuss over her hand, pressed her glass of water to her forehead, the sudden chill against her feverish skin making her shiver.
"I hadn't heard you had such an aversion to blood, Miss Potter." And what was that supposed to imply, that she wouldn't have picked this particular punishment if she'd known? Ellie wasn't so sure about that.
But that was fine, Ellie could just run with that. She was still too light-headed to think about it too hard, anyway. "I always have, but I don't really make a big thing about telling people. I'm even vegetarian and everything."
Both of Umbridge's eyebrows tipped upward in obvious surprise. Which, yeah, that wasn't really a thing to British mages — it was even possible Umbridge didn't know the word, just reasoned it out from the roots. "Really."
"Yep. Don't eat meat at all. Makes me sick. I don't even take potions that have blood in them." And that was bloody strange, when she thought about it. One of the potions she'd been given after the Chamber of Secrets fiasco had made her very ill, it took some experimentation for Pomfrey (and Snape) to come to the conclusion that she reacted badly to potions that used blood of any kind as an ingredient. But Ellie, obviously, hadn't known the potion had blood in it, so it couldn't just be a psychological, psychosomatic kind of thing. They had no idea what was going on with that, they'd just been rolling with it ever since.
Snape had actually ended up inventing a unique variation on the Blood-Replenishing Potion — the standard one had a few drops of human blood in it, Ellie hadn't ever taken one but she assumed it'd make her very ill. And it was a good thing he had, because she'd needed one after escaping from the graveyard.
Umbridge's fingers tightened on Ellie's hand, just for a second. "Forgive me, Miss Potter, but I find this very hard to believe, with the sort of messes you've been known to get into."
"Well, none of that is my fault, is it? I hate fighting, but what am I supposed to do when someone is messing with me or one of my friends? Just stand there and take it?" Her personal philosophy was to never start a fight herself, but if someone was fucking with one of her friends she would damn well finish it — that explained all the scuffles she'd had with other students over the years easy enough. And then there were the potentially deadly situations she'd ended up in a few times since she'd started at Hogwarts, of course. She didn't go looking for these things, but obviously she was going to fight back if someone was trying to kill her. It wasn't like she wanted to die, come on.
"For someone so adverse to violence, you seem quite concerned with learning to duel."
Ellie sighed — that was what had gotten them here in the first place, arguing with Umbridge over the merits of practical lessons in Defence. (Apparently, a child questioning a professor like she had was disrespecting her elders, which was somewhat legitimate. She guessed.) But really, she thought the problem with that was bloody obvious. "I'm the Girl Who Lived, Professor." Umbridge's eyebrow twitched at the displeasure Ellie put on the title, but she didn't interrupt. "There are plenty of people out there who hate me for something that happened when I was an infant, something I can't control and don't even remember. Or, more to the point, what they assume about what happened when I was infant, or what they've heard from other people about it. I'll have to deal with people trying to hurt me over that nonsense for my whole life. I don't enjoy it, but I'm not in a position where I have any choice but to learn to defend myself."
"The Department of Law Enforcement exists for a reason, Miss Potter."
"Yeah, to arrest and prosecute people after they've committed a crime. They don't stop crimes from happening in the first place." Ellie let out another sigh. "Think about it, Professor. My cousin Dora, she's an Auror, she told me the normal response time to get someone from the D.L.E. on the scene is usually twenty to thirty minutes. Maybe closer to fifteen, for large-scale emergencies, like someone setting fire to Charing or something. And someone has to get the call to them in the first place, which can take as long as a minute, depending on the content and who's picking it up. But if someone's trying to curse you to death, it probably won't even take ten seconds. Calling the D.L.E. and waiting for help simply isn't a practical option, in most cases."
"Yes, that is a valid argument, all things considered." Which meant she'd been aware of that, but had been pretending as though it wasn't an issue, presumably for her inscrutable political reasons. Umbridge paused for a moment, the roll of bandages in her hand, frowning down at the table. Turning something over, clearly. After some seconds, she took up Ellie's hand again, dabbing at the cuts with a potion she'd pulled from her desk drawer before starting to wrap it up. "I wonder, Miss Potter...if you could help me with a problem I have. That the Ministry has, truly."
Umbridge was trying to be nonchalant, but she wasn't doing a great job of it — there was a sort of excited tension about her, as though she thought something very important might be about to happen. Not that Ellie had any bloody idea what. "What problem is that, Professor?"
"The Minister is concerned about what motivation might be behind...some claims Dumbledore has made lately."
She was referring to the Ministry's official denial of the Dark Lord's resurrection, wasn't she. Well, Umbridge probably expected Ellie to argue the point, but she wasn't going to take the bait. "You'd have to ask him, Professor. But, trying to get former Death Eaters out of positions of influence and hiring more Aurors and Hit Wizards isn't really out of character for him, is it? That's pretty normal for his politics, really."
It might have been her imagination, but she thought Umbridge was a little annoyed. She was smiling, but it didn't really seem like a nice smile, too fake and toothy. "I would ask you to not try to play me for a fool, Miss Potter."
"Er. How?"
"I know you and Dumbledore are close. You're not doing yourself any favours pretending otherwise."
"Um, but we're not, though." Umbridge's smile grew sharper, and she moved to say something, but Ellie jumped out ahead of her. "I know everybody talks like we are, I honestly have no idea where people get that from." Well, Ellie suspected Dumbledore had allowed the association between them to form for political reasons, but she had no proof of his involvement in the development of the whole Girl Who Lived story thing. He must have made the whole thing up, but she couldn't quite draw the line between Dumbledore finding her alive in the house in Godric's Hollow and the myth everybody knows. "Honestly, Professor, I've barely had any interaction with him at all. I'd never even seen him until my first day at Hogwarts, and I could count the number of times we've spoken on the fingers of one hand."
The fake smile had vanished, a dark light of fascination in Umbridge's eyes. "Truly? I'd been under the impression the seeming distance between you two since my arrival here was for the sake of appearances."
Ellie's lips twitched with a smirk. "No, Professor, that's not some kind of scheme, that's normal. The Headmaster hasn't spoken to me since the end of the Tournament. Which, honestly, I'm fine with that — we don't get along very well, I find him kind of irritating." Mostly, his consistent inability to approach anything or anyone seriously, the constant "grandfatherly" condescension and the performance of aloof carelessness seriously got on her nerves. "I'm not exactly chasing after a meeting or anything, put it that way."
"Really? I'd heard nothing like this before." There was a soft sort of glee on Umbridge's voice, almost ridiculously pleased.
"Most people assume Dumbledore and I are thick as thieves, and, honestly it's very irritating. We're not even political allies anymore, you know."
"No?"
"Not since I was old enough to control my seat on the Wizengamot myself. I'm part of Common Fate, I'm backing Amelia Bones."
Umbridge's smile dimmed somewhat — she obviously had some personal loyalty for Fudge, and while Amelia didn't like Dumbledore she didn't like Fudge either — but she hadn't slid back into her previous cold sweetness, so it was probably fine. Not that Ellie thought that made much sense.
She thought Amelia was obviously the greater threat to Fudge's political career, she might even be taking over as Minister in the not-too-distant future. But okay.
Fixing the wrap around Ellie's hand closed, Umbridge was clearly turning something over in her head, occasionally shooting Ellie's face a considering glance. "If I tell you something, can I trust it won't be getting to Dumbldore or any of his people?"
So, they were finally getting to the real reason Umbridge was here, then. "Yes, ma'am."
Leaning over the table a little, she muttered, "The Minister suspects Dumbledore is gathering certain individuals personally loyal to him, with the intention of overthrowing the Ministry and investing all executive power in himself. You wouldn't happen to know anything about such a nefarious plot, would you?"
...Well, she hadn't seen that coming. It did sort of explain a lot, though, when she thought about it — Fudge, and Umbridge by extension, wasn't worried about the ordinary internal politics of the Wizengamot, but concerned the head of the Wizengamot might attempt to violate the limits of the power of his office. Make himself a Lord Protector in all but name, like. It wasn't a completely ridiculous concern, given the history of the relationship between the Wizengamot and the bureaucracy that surrounded it.
And Dumbledore probably wasn't helping. He did have a long history of meddling in Ministry business, mostly through maneuvering his people into positions of influence or persuading people to essentially work for him under the table. He wasn't the first Chief Warlock to engage in that sort of influence peddling, but it was, technically, inappropriate — and he'd gotten away with more than most other Chief Warlocks could, what with his fame for his defeat of Grindelwald, and later as the most effective counterweight to Voldemort. With how his star had waned over the last decade or so, especially as the commoners and the muggleborns drifted toward Common Fate, Dumbledore's political influence was slowly crumbling before their eyes. It hadn't been enough to become a true crisis of legitimacy, but Dumbledore's shrinking importance in the politics of their country was obvious to anyone who paid attention.
It wasn't...completely insane for someone to worry Dumbledore might do something extreme to prevent his faction, and himself personally, from losing their grip on power. It was a surprisingly rational motivation for how Umbridge had been behaving since she'd shown up here.
So...how should she handle this? She was in a uniquely advantageous position, she thought, to influence the relationship between the Ministry and the Order with only a few words in the right ear. Personally, she'd be fine with sabotaging the Order if she could do it in a way that left Amelia the space to prepare to deal with Voldemort — that shouldn't be too hard to do, if she could separate Dumbledore's political interests from Voldemort's return. (Which should be easy, the two subjects really were unrelated.) She honestly thought Dumbledore's spy games were just making everything worse. Ending this pointless struggle between people who were supposed to be allies would certainly be better in the long run.
But she also didn't want to mark the members of the Order as all traitors either. She meant, they were...sort of — magical law was weird about these things, she wasn't certain they were even doing anything illegal...mostly — but their hearts were in the right place. The only thing they'd done wrong was trust Dumbledore, and even that wouldn't have necessarily been a bad decision, if Dumbledore weren't so determined to convince Fudge he'd been right about Malfoy all along he came off as a bull-headed, partisan arse.
Also, she was related to some of them, so, definitely didn't want to see them sent to Azkaban for sedition or something.
Ellie was certain that, in ordinary circumstances, it wouldn't have been difficult for her to weave together a pretty, clean story about the whole thing, and walk that somewhat muddy and contradictory line. But she was slightly delirious from the dark magic and jittery from the blood, she worried she wasn't quite thinking straight.
Oh, well. "I'm sure you've heard of the Order of the Phoenix, Professor."
Umbridge's eyes went wide. "I have, of course. Are you suggesting they were never disbanded?"
"They were, but it's been reactivated recently. I was in the room when Dumbledore decided he would start it up again, actually, it was right after I'd told him about my kidnapping."
With a little, high, breathy huff, a scowl crossed Umbridge's face. "If this is all a ploy to spin your story of—"
"Professor," Ellie muttered, consciously keeping her voice low and even, "no matter what you think of what Dumbledore has been saying about the events of that night, you must admit there is absolutely no doubt that I was abducted and tortured by someone. Cedric Diggory was murdered by someone. Those facts are not in dispute."
Umbridge stared at her for a moment, her eyes narrowed in a considering frown, fingers idly tapping at the table. "Miss Potter, do you not believe as Dumbledore does?"
"If you mean to ask if I believe starting a feud with the Minister and three-quarters of the Wizengamot is the best way to hold accountable the people who killed Cedric and nearly killed me, no, I don't."
"That's not what I asked, Miss Potter."
"Respectfully, Professor, it doesn't matter. I want to see the people responsible for what happened that night brought to justice. Exactly who they are doesn't change that one bit."
For some reason, Umbridge actually seemed a little surprised, her eyes going wide again. She watched Ellie for a moment, though not quite looking at her, her eyes going slightly out of focus — turning something over in her head, no idea what. Ellie got the feeling that, over the course of this conversation, she'd completely shattered the image of the Girl Who Lived Umbrige had had in her head, badly enough the politician had to reevaluate all kinds of things. "That is a very...practical mindset, Miss Potter. Did the Hat offer you Slytherin, by any chance?"
Ellie almost laughed. "Ah, no. It did consider Ravenclaw for a second, but no. No offence to your old house, of course, Professor, but I really don't think I would have done too well in Slytherin. I'm too stubborn, you see."
"Of course," Umbridge agreed, smiling. "So, the Order of the Phoenix."
"Yes, the Order." How to say this? "I can't really tell you much of what's going on exactly — I'm too young, you see, they don't invite me to meetings. But I have talked to some of the members, and... Their hearts are in the right place, Professor, they think they're doing what is necessary to oppose the Dark Lord, and maybe risking their lives to do it. I think you and I can both agree that potentially sacrificing everything to stop radicals seeking to throw our country into chaos is an honourable thing."
Umbridge nose scrunched, just a little, as though smelling something unpleasant, but she didn't interrupt. Which Ellie had expected, however prone to pureblood chauvinism she could be — Umbridge's loyalty was to the Ministry and the Wizengamot, which Voldemort was indisputably a threat to.
"Most of the people in the Order, their only fault is trusting the wrong person. And, they're not the only ones, a lot of people trust Dumbledore. But Dumbledore is making this personal, a dispute between him and the Minister over his relationship with Lord Malfoy. Which honestly, Professor, is a huge mistake: Lord Malfoy truly has very little to do with this, Dumbledore putting all his efforts into trying to persuade the Minister to turn on Malfoy is...silly. This isn't what I wanted, when I told him what happened to me. He's just making everything worse.
"What I truly worry about, even more than what might happen if the people who killed Cedric and hurt me aren't brought to justice, is what might happen if Dumbledore takes this feud too far. Blinded by his enmity with Malfoy, if Dumbledore decides to do...something to neutralise him... I fear Dumbledore might act against the Minister. And the Order, because they trust him, think he knows better than they do... If we have a conflict with the Ministry on one side and someone as widely-beloved as Dumbledore on the other, it could easily escalate into civil war. That's what keeps me up at night, Professor, more than anything else."
And she wasn't even lying about that. The way it looked like to her, Dumbledore was more concerned with ensuring he was in a position to manage the response to Voldemort's resurrection than he was actually preparing the country to resist him. Badgering the Minister and playing with his little spies... He wasn't helping. It was very frustrating.
"And what would you suggest we do about it, Miss Potter?"
Ellie smiled. "I give you some names, people in the Order I know are not so blinded by Dumbledore's reputation that they can't think for themselves. You get someone they respect — Director Bones, perhaps — to talk to them about what they feel needs to be done, to get them to understand the Order is not helping by setting themselves against the Ministry. That we need to work together to deal with this threat. At worst, they simply leave the Order, weakening Dumbledore's ability to do something stupid; at best, they can be convinced to act as a moderating influence within it, preventing Dumbledore from using them to act against the Ministry at all.
"What I want from you, Professor, is your word that you will work with them, and not simply arrest them. I care about some of these people, I don't want to see them subjected to Azkaban simply for following their conscience."
Her face coming over with that sickly sweet smile again, Umbridge purred, "Now, Miss Potter, you know I can't just ignore treason."
"None of them have done anything treasonous yet, Professor. The entire point is to prevent Dumbledore from talking people, good people, into doing something unforgivable."
The smile vanished, Umbridge once again fixing Ellie with an empty, thoughtful sort of stare. Going almost unnaturally blank and still, her expression gave very little away, as she thought, one finger slowly tapping at the rim of her teacup.
But she didn't need to give anything away, Ellie already knew Umbridge would take the offer. She could only hope the Ministry toady would be smart about it.
(Hopefully Ellie could get through the rest of this conversation quickly — she could really use a nap...)
Youko fled.
She didn't think about it. It was automatic, animal instinct reinforced over the course of these last months. Once she started moving, it was like the breaking of a dam, and she didn't stop. She put her back to Goryou — the mass of travellers, dozens and dozens, some trampled and some slashed to ribbons, heaps of flesh and rivers of blood, the rent corpses of the monsters she'd killed, the soldiers now streaming through the gates (after the danger was passed, damn cowards) — and she ran.
And she ran.
And she ran and she ran and she ran...
She ran past groups of travellers, scattered here and there at the sides of the road, those who had fled at the appearance of the kochou in the sky, enormous beasts of talon and claw falling from above, all they could do was flee. (Youko couldn't blame them, really.) Some called out to her, she didn't hear the words, one woman even reached out to her, but she danced away, and she ran...
Soon, she left the crowds behind, she was alone, and still she ran, the fields around the city starting to turn rougher, the trees swiftly approaching. The sky turning to fire at her back, the sun falling below the horizon, and still she ran.
She came to an intersection, one which she and Rakushun had passed through, what, an hour ago or so. She didn't hesitate an instant, turned away from Goryou and also the road they had come here by, instead to the north, and she ran. A little bit slower, now that she had come so far — a glance over her shoulder showed no sign she was being followed — but she didn't stop, she couldn't stop, she had to keep running.
She was in the clear. She would be okay. She wasn't being followed. Those soldiers, even if they'd wanted to hunt her down, they probably couldn't just now — with the mess the kochou had made of those people outside the gates, before Youko had managed to kill them all, no, they would be stopped. She'd been out of sight for some time now, and the roads here were solid enough she wasn't leaving any tracks, certainly none that would be clear enough to follow in the night. Even if Rakushun told them which way they'd come from, they shouldn't have any reason to suspect she'd retrace their steps, and she'd turned off that road anyway. They wouldn't know where to look for her.
She was fine.
Even if Rakushun told them everything he knew about her, what good would that do them? The level of technology in this world, they didn't have photographs here. What could he tell them, that they were looking for a teenage girl with red hair, dressed as a boy, carrying a sword without a scabbard? They'd already known all that, and she'd passed through towns undetected well enough more than once so far. Rakushun couldn't give them any details that would help them identify her more than they already could.
And, he probably wouldn't tell them anything anyway. He wouldn't want to incriminate himself, any more than he had to.
How long had it been, since she'd arrived in this strange world? It must be a few months now, certainly. She'd been plucked right out of her school, by a strange man calling himself her servant, flown away on the back of a talking wolf...thing, through some weird magical portal formed by the reflection of the moon on the sea, whatever the hell that had been. Here to this other world, an impossible world that seemed quite a bit like ancient China, but also not really, with magic and monsters and who knew what else — because of course there would be monsters, and of course they'd make a point of trying to kill her in particular, because apparently Youko's luck just worked like that lately.
After crashing in the woods — after Keiki, the big blond jerk who'd dragged her here, had abandoned her in the middle of nowhere all by herself — she'd wandered into a nearby town...and promptly found herself under arrest. Because, apparently, being dragged off to this other world, through no fault of her own, just being where she wasn't supposed to be, this was a serious enough of a crime, apparently, that it called for the death penalty! They were going to, just, chop of her head! She hadn't done anything...
She thought she should maybe feel bad about those wolf monster things showing up and eating the people ferrying her off to the local magistrate, but given they wanted to execute her, she really didn't.
Clearly, she couldn't go to what passed for the proper authorities in this place, and she had no idea where to find Keiki so she could make the bastard bring her home. Instead she'd just...wandered. Aimlessly, avoiding people as much as she could, stealing local clothes to wear (her school uniform had been conspicuously foreign), food to eat, when she could get it. And as she wandered through plains and forests and hills, she fought.
The monsters came for her, constantly, night after night after night, and Youko would fight them off, from sunset to sunrise. At least Keiki had given her a sword and the means to use it before running off (the ass), she'd surely be dead now if she'd been forced to protect herself from those things unarmed. She didn't know why the damn things kept trying to kill her. It wasn't normal, to be hounded by them constantly the way she was, both Rakushun and Takki before him had said as much. And if the natives of this world couldn't explain it...
Eventually, after she wasn't certain how long, she'd collapsed — wounded and starving and exhausted. Done. For a moment, she'd been certain she was about to die, there at the side of the road, alone and forgotten.
And Rakushun had found her. He'd brought her home, and nursed her back to health.
(She'd be dead without him.)
She hadn't thought he was a person, at first. He looked like nothing but a big rat waddling about on its rear paws, covered in thick grey fur, his beady black eyes only coming to a little above her waist. But he spoke, with the voice of a child, lived in a house with furniture and crockery and books. Rakushun was surprisingly learned, actually — she'd gotten the vague feeling he was older than he appeared, the way he knew so many things about far-off places (in this world, he knew nothing about the world she was from), how clever and perceptive he was, the way his mother (who was human, which was weird) had just let him leave with her, off to an entirely different country.
He was a smart guy. He wouldn't risk bringing too much attention onto himself, incriminate himself for aiding a fugitive. No, he was too smart for that.
She was still surprised, when she thought about, that he'd decided to travel with her. The countries here were huge, it took months to travel between them, it wasn't something ordinary people did on the regular. And yet, Rakushun had dropped everything, to go with her to En. He wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart, of course — people like him couldn't get into higher education in this country, Kou, but in En? In En people like him were allowed to study, much as people like her weren't hunted down like dogs, were even recruited into government at the highest levels, he'd admitted he'd dreamed of going to En for some time. But still, he'd offered to show her the way, and paid for room and board, and...
And...
Youko's steady jog trickled down to a walk, before she finally stuttered to a halt. True night had fallen, the stars peeking out of the black, still warm from the heat of the day, the scent of flowers carried on the soft breeze, the chirping of insects ringing in her ears. The thought occurring to her, slowly at first and then more and more, the weight increasing, like a ball of ice growing in her chest, until her breath was thick and hard...
Was Rakushun okay?
She... She thought so. Before the soldiers had started streaming out of the city, she'd caught a glimpse of grey fur, matted with blood, but... She hadn't gotten a good look, but it was possible it hadn't been his blood. There had been a lot of injured people, and he'd been caught up in it, it might have been from someone else, from one of the kochou. He might...
She grit her teeth — how many minutes had it been, and it hadn't even occurred to her to wonder if Rakushun had been injured until just now? What was wrong with her...
Go back. She should see if he was okay, at least. Just, check, make sure he was alive, or pay her respects if he wasn't, and then she could flee again. She could fight off the soldiers, if she really had to, just to know...
Too dangerous. She could only fight off so many, if they surrounded her, hundreds of them, how many could she fight off, really, before one of them got in a lucky shot? Besides, what good would it do? Even if she did go back and find him, what was that supposed to accomplish?
You have the jewel. Her hand went unconsciously to her pocket, tapping the fist-sized gemstone through the cloth.
The sword Keiki had given her before his vanishing act — very fancy-looking, the hilt accented with gold and rubies and the blade shimmering silver-blue, never bent and never dulled — had once had a scabbard, attached to it a jewel. Just holding it, she felt warmer, and softer, her hurts lesser, just holding it whatever injuries she had healed more quickly. The thing had been a lifesaver, she assumed that was why she'd been told to not separate sword from scabbard — she'd lost the scabbard, but slicing the jewel off and carrying it worked just as well.
It wouldn't be entirely pointless, going back. If Rakushun was injured, she could help.
Assuming he was injured. And not already dead...or in custody for collaborating with a fugitive kaikyaku.
Getting arrested and having her head taken off wouldn't do either of them any good.
Is your life truly so precious to you?
Why shouldn't it be? It wasn't like she had anything else to concern herself with anymore.
All he's done for you, and here you go stabbing him in the back.
He hadn't done it out of the kindness of his heart, he'd had his own interest in the matter. There wasn't really anything tying him to her. He would have betrayed her eventually, everyone here always does. This was a world where nobody asked anybody for anything — not their fellow man, not the government, they hardly even prayed to their gods. If a time came he saw a benefit to stabbing her in the back, he would have. Like Takki or the old man at the inn before him, they all do, given time.
So what if he had something to gain? He still helped you when you needed it most. And just because he had every reason to want to go to En too, it's okay to abandon him to die at the first opportunity?
Is that the kind of person you want to be?
Youko bit her lip, frowning sightlessly into the shifting nighttime shadows of the forest.
There had been so many injured, so many dead and dying. Had she become someone so cold, so hard, she could see something so horrible, so many suffering, and be entirely unmoved? Even when someone she knew was involved, someone who had helped her, had still been trying to help her... She wasn't a doctor by any means, but she had two working hands, and one rock with inexplicable magical healing powers. She could do something to help, even if it was only a little. Shouldn't she...
There's no reason to put on this show of morality now.
A show...
She'd put on a show all the time, back home. She'd tried to be what everyone around her wanted to be, all the time, as much as she could. The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect friend. She hadn't realised how fake it had all been until she'd come here, seen it all, the performance that had been Youko Nakajima, all of it stripped away...
But it wouldn't be a show! People were moved to do that sort of thing for a reason. Those sentiments, they were real, they weren't just...
How could she forget that? What was wrong with her...
"Even now — after all that has happened, after all you've done — even now you still cling to sentiment, little girl?"
Shock like a knife at her throat, Youko jumped, her sword whipping around to point behind her shoulder. She grit her teeth, glaring at the source of the voice, pale blue fur faintly glowing in the night.
Even now, little girl! Even now!
Out of all the monsters she'd encountered since she'd arrived here, she thought this monkey might be the one she hated most. It had never attempted to hurt her, or at least not physically. Instead it followed her, and it spoke, in its high, grating, teeth-grinding voice, only spoke — her own doubts, her fears, her hatred, her insecurities. Everything that ate away at her on the inside, this thing made real, put words to it, dragged them out into the light of day where she could no longer pretend they didn't exist.
There had been a time, wandering alone in the wilderness, that she'd almost come to appreciate the monkey's presence. She was alone, she had no one, she'd gone weeks without seeing another human being, speaking to anyone. The monkey, as unpleasant as it was, had been the only companionship she'd known. Until she'd noticed she could hear it even when it wasn't there, sick slithery whispers at the back of her head, and she'd started thinking in its voice, cold and cruel and...
She didn't like what this thing was turning her into. The thoughts she had, she scared herself sometimes.
"If that's what you want, fine." The monkey smiled, dark eyes sparkling, flat teeth shining in a demonic grin. "Go back and finish him off."
Youko jumped again, the tip of her sword dipping toward the ground.
"That was what you were thinking, eh? And look at you, prettying up the black in your heart with your blithering about sentiment. You! Even now!" The monkey threw back its head and cackled, long and high, the piercing noise bouncing up and down, ringing through the night.
"No."
No, she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't. That wasn't it, it wasn't just a show, she'd meant... Rakushun hadn't deserved...
"That's not it."
"Oh, I think it is. I think that's exactly what you were thinking."
Youko shook her head, rather more unsteadily than she would like. "I wouldn't do something like that." She hadn't hurt anyone, not yet — all the countless monsters she'd killed, she hadn't yet harmed a person. She didn't doubt that she would, if she was given a good reason to, to defend herself, but Rakushun hadn't done anything to her. Nothing worth killing him over, certainly.
"Don't be foolish, little girl, of course you would."
"No! I could never!"
The monkey laughed again, pointed canines catching the starlight. "Is that because the thought of committing murder so violates these principles of yours, or because you just don't have the guts to follow through? Still squeamish are you, even now? Ha!" The monkey let out a high screech, more animalistic braying than a human laugh. "Don't believe me, do you, little girl? That's okay. You'll manage it next time."
"Never!"
The monkey laughed, on and on, the sound of its ruthless humour stabbing into her ears, grinding into her skull, the skin at the back of her neck crawling. The accusation sinking in, because this was only a reflection, the monkey simply spoke her own thoughts back to her, she knew this — this was a caricature of her own ruthlessness given life, cruel and cold and...
"I'm going back."
"Why bother? He must be long dead by now."
"I don't know that." And it only knew what she knew, her twisted evil reflection, just because it said it didn't make it true. He could still be alive.
"And so what if he is alive? You show yourself to all those soldiers only to get captured and killed? What would be the point?"
"It doesn't matter. I'm going back." Turning on her heel, the monkey firmly to her back, Youko started walking. The gates would normally be closed after dark, but with all the injured on the road...
"Hmm, I suppose. Gotta do something about all that nasty guilt."
The words slicing through her, she froze.
"Oh, yes, this is good, I understand. You go and find the rat's broken body, feel all sorry, have a good cry about it. Why, you might even convince yourself you never considered murdering him at all!"
Youko turned, slowly, to stare at the monkey — still crouched at the side of the road, laughing and laughing and laughing. It spoke with her own voice, she'd realised this some time ago, those thoughts hidden and unacknowledged. She was talking to herself, nothing more.
Had she really become something so, so... Was this sick, wretched thing, was she truly...
"He will surely betray you, little girl. They all do in time. Best go back and finish him off before he can, hmm?"
Without really thinking about it, Youko stepped toward the monkey. Her hand clenched about the hilt of the sword, shaking, so tight her knuckles ached. "Shut up."
"The soldiers are probably already on their way! The rat ratted you out, for sure!"
"Shut up!" Youko darted forward, the blade slashing in at the monkey's neck—
The bush behind it shuddered, leaves and twigs raining to the ground. It had vanished.
"Still so naïve, little girl." She spun on her heel — the voice had come from behind her. There it was crouched in the middle of the road, leaning on its knuckles to smile up at her, that damn, nightmarish smile. "Running away to let him die is one thing, but doing the job yourself is quite another. Next time, then. The next time the moment comes, you'll do it then."
"Quite fucking with me!" Youko struck at the monkey, but it whirled away again, the blade sinking into the packed earth of the road.
She wouldn't kill Rakushun for, for— On the off chance he might do something to make getting to En harder for her, no, she wouldn't kill someone for something so small as that! And what if she had? What then? That shame she felt now, for leaving him behind — for making it so far before it even occurred to her to wonder if he was okay — surely it would be so much worse if she had, what, betrayed him before he could do the same to her? If she'd murdered him, no, she would feel awful, that, she couldn't do that, she couldn't.
Her life was all she had, yes, but there were certain lines that she wouldn't cross. What would be the point of going on, if she allowed herself to become something so wretched, so, so miserable?
"I'm glad I didn't kill him." The words came slow, soft, barely a whisper. But even so, she felt the certainty behind them as they left her lips, something warm and hard building in her throat.
The thought had occurred to her, yes. Fine. Fine, she could admit that. (The monkey only repeated her darkest thoughts back at her, after all.) For a moment, after the kochou were all dead, before the soldiers started pouring out of the city. She'd seen Rakushun, not far away, still and small, so small, and she'd thought... It'd been a fleeting thought, and she hadn't truly considered it that seriously, she'd fled before she could. But she was glad the fight had carried them so far apart, she was glad she hadn't the opportunity to act rashly, to do something unforgivable in a moment of blind madness.
If she had killed him, she would never be able to forgive herself, she knew.
The monkey cackled. "So you're just going to leave him behind to tell the soldiers everything?"
"And why not?!" The words came out slightly choked, the pressure in her throat crawling up, hot and thick. The stars above shimmered, distorted by tears burning in her eyes. "Let him. Let him complain about me to whoever will listen, look at me, I've certainly given him plenty to complain about! I hope he does! The trouble I've given him, he's earned it!"
"So naïve, little girl, so naïve..."
What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she trust anyone anymore? Why didn't she trust Rakushun, after all he'd done? If he'd wanted to betray her, there had been far easier moments to have done it in — that week or so she'd barely been able to stand, maybe! Rakushun had been perfectly upfront about who he was, what he was thinking, what he wanted, he hadn't hidden any of it. She hadn't had any real good reason to believe he'd been being disingenuous, at any point, it made more sense to believe he was exactly who and what he seemed. And yet she'd suspected him of duplicity at every turn, jumpy and defensive, and...
Why had she been so determined to believe the worst of him? Why couldn't she just take him for what he was?
"You better be careful with credulous thoughts like that, little girl. If you had trusted him, all the easier for him to take you for a ride."
"So what if he did?"
The monkey laughed, its screeches echoing in the night. "What a foolish child you are! Really? Being played for a fool is just fine with you?"
"If that's how it has to go, yes." With all Rakushun had done for her, if he needed to tell the soldiers whatever to get himself out of trouble, or for a reward, so be it. She would be dead if not for him. She owed him. And besides, "These people, they're cowards. Lying and sneaking, then stabbing me in the back when I'm not looking, they're pathetic. I'd rather be betrayed over and over than sink to their level."
She didn't want to be like that. That wasn't what she was, it wasn't.
"The traitor is a coward, yes, but in this world of demons and monsters and thieves, it is the traitor who comes out on top. That's what kind of place this is. Nobody here will show you the slightest, worthless bit of kindness, little girl. Such people do not exist here."
"Maybe they don't." Though Rakushun had, he was proof of the contrary, wasn't he? "Even so, that has nothing to do with me."
So she was hunted, by men and monster, pursued like an animal to be slaughtered. Should she leave her own humanity behind? So she'd been burned once by Takki, again by the old man. Should she push away people whose good intentions she had no reason to doubt — those syrup peddlers that time on the road, and then Rakushun? So Rakushun had had his own reasons to want to go to En, his motives in traveling with her hadn't been purely altruistic. Should she have braced herself for a knife in her back since the moment she'd met him?
"No," she muttered, her voice thick and harsh.
If the people of this world would show her not the slightest, worthless bit of kindness, was that reason enough to meet them with nothing but distrust and hostility?
The tears were spilling down her cheeks now, but she was smiling. Thin and harsh and shaky, but smiling all the same. "No. No, it's not."
She might be betrayed, but that didn't mean she must betray. She might be treated with cruelty, but that didn't mean she must be cruel. She was alone in this world, she had nothing and no one, nobody cared for her and nobody would grieve for her when she was gone. But that made no difference. She was not what happened to her, she was not what others did to her.
She'd been manipulated by cowards, but she need not become one. She needn't abandon anyone who needs her help, just because she had been abandoned. People had harmed her, but she needn't bring harm to defenseless strangers in turn.
People had tried to murder her, yes, but she needn't become a murderer herself.
"No."
She didn't want to be that, that wretched person. She didn't want to be what this world was trying to make of her. She wanted to be better than that.
"I want to be strong."
Her hand tightened on the grip of the sword — not with the shaky desperation she had before, but firm, determined.
This world, this alien world, it could throw whatever it had at her. All its grotesque monsters, all the weight of this paranoid, bigoted kingdom's armies, all the scheming and back-biting of its poor, desperate people. It had nothing to do with who she was, none of it.
Whatever may come, Youko wouldn't let herself be overwhelmed by her worst impulses. She wouldn't let herself become something so despicable.
She noticed, suddenly, that the monkey wasn't laughing anymore.
It'd inched a little closer, its inhuman face pulled into a cartoonish scowl. Its voice had gone hard, cold, hateful, without the eerie humour it usually held, deadly serious. "You will never go home, little girl. You will be hunted and deceived and betrayed here, in this alien land. You will die."
If she died here, now, the monkey was all she would ever be. Her selfishness, and her paranoia, and her self-hatred, those demons she carried that this mocking little jester gave voice too, that would be what she amounted to, in the end.
What a sad, pathetic thing.
It would be no great loss to the world if that Youko died here and now. One of the very first times the monkey had appeared to her, she'd been thinking something of the like, hadn't she? If this was all she was, this feral child, chased by men and hunted by monsters, desperate and cruel and alone, why should she live at all? The world would be better without such a thing in it, she would be better off freed from it.
But she hadn't given in then. If she'd killed herself then, she would have died a worthless coward. If she died now, she would die a lost fool. She didn't want to surrender to it all, not now, not ever. She wouldn't.
She would go on. She would never be that scared, desperate, monstrous thing she'd nearly become. She would be better than that. If she had to scrape and struggle for another season, a year or a decade, so be it. She wouldn't give in, and she wouldn't give up.
She wouldn't.
Sounding almost angry now, the monkey hissed, "You will die, foolish girl. You will starve, you will tire, you will lose your head, you will die!"
The motion smooth, almost casual, Youko turned, the tip of her sword sailing through the air. It struck something solid, her arm reverberating with the impact, before pushing through, swishing to a halt limp at her side.
With a splatter of blood, black in the night, the monkey's head dropped spinning to the ground, tumbled across the grass into the ditch, finally hitching to a stop. Its form blurred, pale blue fur dissolving into sparks, the lights soft and twinkling, a mirror of the stars above.
Youko let her head tip back, staring sightlessly at the sky, her vision still blurry from tears.
She wouldn't give up. Never.
After some minutes uncounted, she scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, shook her head. She felt strained, raw, and still all too full of...something, she didn't know. But she had to go back. Hefting her sword, she turned back toward Goryou, and—
Before hardly taking a step, she froze. Sitting in the ditch, surrounded by a patch of dark blood, something glinted in the starlight. Steel burnished a pale blue, accented with intricately carved gold, polished to a shine.
Numbly, moving without thought, Youko stepped down into the ditch. She bent over, picked it up. And she slid the sword into the scabbard, the two locking together with the faintest click.
Youko laughed, first just a little, but then she couldn't stop, high, breathless giggles echoing in the night.
She shouldn't separate the sword from the scabbard, huh? Well, maybe they should have been a little clearer about why exactly that was such a bad idea. Might have helped, just a little.
Shaking her head to herself, Youko stepped back up to the road, and started back toward Goryou.
[Umbridge's loyalty was to the Ministry and the Wizengamot] — Headcanon here, but I think this makes a lot of sense. The second time around, Voldemort decided to work through the institutions of power in magical Britain, assuming indirect control of the established government rather than seeking to overthrow it. I imagine Voldemort's people orchestrated a vote in the Wizengamot and everything, so the transfer of power might have seemed convincingly legitimate to people who weren't in the know. As far as canon!Umbridge was concerned, her genocidal work in the collaborationist Ministry was a legitimate project of the legitimate government. This also explains why the average person in magical Britain, who wasn't somehow a target of the Death Eaters, just went along with it and continued about their ordinary business: they didn't realise anything was wrong until it was too late. (Pretty much exactly how the Nazis took over, what a crazy random happenstance.)
For those who recognised it, yes, that second scene is a direct adaptation of a scene in the first book (Shadow of the Moon; Sea of Shadows). It's not a direct line-by-line rewrite, I changed some things and added a bunch of stuff, using it as an introduction to what's up with Youko, but it is pretty similar.
Those who didn't recognise it, don't worry about that too much. Youko is still pretty ignorant of the Twelve Kingdoms world at this point, and of course Ellie and Sirius are completely lost. You really won't need to know a fucking thing about it to keep up. Hopefully, this one scene here should be the most confusing of the bunch, and it's really included more for the character moment than anything. Which I hope got across the way I wanted? Dunno.
Right, one more chapter, lez do this.