Everyone was huddled around the Wizarding radio waiting for the results of the election. I could see anxiety on the faces of my classmates; although they were Slytherin, they had as much reason to worry about this as I did.

"The votes are in, folks," the announcer said excitedly. "A new Minister has been chosen."

It was only to be a temporary appointment until elections could be held at the end of the year, but the results of this election would affect everyone.

"Dolores Umbridge has been chosen as Minister for Magic!" the announcer shouted.

"Damn," I heard Bletchley say.

"I don't know her," I admitted. "Is she a Death eater?"

"No," Bletchley admitted. "Not as far as anyone can yell. That's probably why she was chosen. I doubt that Dumbledore had the votes to get one of his people in office, but he worked hard to block the Malfoy vote."

"There were a couple of others up for the position who would have been even worse."

"Is Umbridge that bad then?" I asked.

"She hates non-humans," Bletchley said. "She's tried to push several bills through the Wizengamot but she's never had any success, even as the aide to the Minister."

Most people were still shunning me, but the people I'd protected during the troll attack still spoke to me.

"The new Minister is going to speak!"

We could hear the sounds of the crowd quieting down as a woman spoke in an amplified voice.

"The Ministry of Magic exists to protect its citizens," she said in a prim voice. "A task that I fear it has failed in repeatedly under previous administrations."

Hadn't she been part of the previous administration?

"My administration will be different. No longer will rogue werewolves be allowed to attack our school; no longer will children be murdered and mutilated. Bloodshed has been allowed on the very threshold of Hogwarts itself, and it will no longer be tolerated!"

She paused.

"My first act as Minister will be to depose Albus Dumbledore from his position as Headmaster of Hogwarts. He has allowed children to be murdered on his watch, and he has failed his sacred duty! He was a hero in his day, and perhaps it is time that he retire to his well deserved laurels."

"My second act is to propose legislation to control the werewolf scourge that has been afflicting our nation. Werewolves have proven themselves to be traitors in addition to being monsters."

When several people turned to look at me, I stared at them with a cold look. Some of them paled and turned away quickly.

"We will root them out wherever they are, and we will contain the threat! I am giving all werewolves one week to leave Great Britain. After that, any who remain will be sentenced to Azkaban!"

Everyone was silent, staring at the radio.

Werewolves had always been looked down on by Wizarding society, but I knew that several of the Slytherins in the room had relatives who were werewolves. Some of them might even have people they cared about as werewolves.

"Anyone who would threaten the stability of this Great Nation must be prepared to pay the ultimate price, ahem!" she continued.

"We will once more have peace and harmony," she said. "But we must work together to eliminate disreputable elements. The muggleborn do not understand our way of life! They cannot be blamed for their weakness, but they cannot be allowed to disrupt our nation."

"A new class in Wizarding culture will become mandatory for all muggleborns at Hogwarts, effective immediately," she said. "And anyone who intends to hurt or threaten real wizards will be punished to the full extent of the law."

Real wizards meant purebloods in political doublespeak.

"We will not tolerate insurrection. We will not tolerate attacks on our values. Those who try to enter our world with bad intentions will be stopped! I pledge the full force of the Ministry to protect our way of life!"

"Thank you," she said.. "And we will speak again."

"It might not be so bad," one of the fifth years said to another. "Maybe if the muggleborns learn the right way to do things, then people won't have to fight so much."

His companion glanced back at me.

"You think she's going to learn the right way to do things?"

"We'd be better off if she was a werewolf," the fifth year said. "Werewolves are stupid. I think a werewolf who bit her would get sick."

"You think the Dark Lord was like her when he was young?"

"He was probably nicer."

When they saw me looking at them, they paled and hurriedly got up.

None of this was good. Things had been bad enough for the muggleborn and the werewolves before the death of Fudge. It sounded like Umbridge was planning to increase the pressure.

That was likely to force people to fight back, which would be taken as further proof that they were enemies of the state.

"Well, nothing we can do about it now," Flint said. He looked at me. "I've been meaning to talk to you."

"I'm not interested in being beater," I said. At his look, I said," I'd probably hurt somebody, and I've got more important things to do."

He stepped up close to me and spoke in a low voice.

"If you want people to follow you, you have to get them to like you," he said. "And nothing is more popular in school than a Quidditch star. The way you're going, nobody is going to want to get within a thousand feet of you. That's a bad place to be when people come gunning for you."

"People don't have to like you," I said. "Fear works just fine, and respect works even better."

"They'll be coming for you sooner or later," he said. "You'll need people to watch your back."

"Why do you care what happens to me?" I asked.

"You saved the team last year," he said. "Bletchley is actually my friend. Also, I like my intestines inside my body. A lot of us know you had a problem with Avery's da, and suddenly he's dead and scattered all over Hogsmeade?"

"I'm just a second year," I said. I forced myself to smile and he shuddered.

"Think about it," he said. "Tryouts are in a week."

"I would like to introduce you to the new Headmaster of Hogwarts," McGonegall said. She didn't seem particularly pleased.

The new Headmaster was an enormous man, so large that he dwarfed everyone else except Hagrid.

He was almost seven feet tall, and he was heavily muscled, which was unusual for Wizards.

"This is Finnegan Rowle," McGonegall said. "Your new headmaster."

The applause was muted.

The man stood, and he scowled.

"It is my understanding that your former headmaster was entirely too lenient with you all. He literally allowed some of you to commit murder."

He glared at me when he said that.

"That will stop immediately," he said. "Discipline will be enforced, and those who are sent to my office will regret it! The system has been entirely too lenient and that will be changing."

Was he a death eater, or just an ass? I'd find out eventually, but even if he was a death eater, killing him would bring the entire weight of the Ministry down on me.

"All detentions will be supervised by me," he said. He snarled. "And there are chains in my office."

He was actually making things worse for himself. I knew the professors, and even Snape wouldn't leave students to be tortured. That meant that professors would be reluctant to do detentions at all, and discipline would be worse than it would have otherwise been.

Dumbledore had been too lenient, but this man was making a mistake too. At the least he shouldn't have been so blatant about it.

"I will speak to Miss Hebert in my office," he said.

"She can't have done something already?" McGonagall said.

"No, but unless I lay down the law early, there is no telling what she is going to do."

"Miss Hebert," Gallstone said. "After dinner."

I nodded.

I wasn't close enough to hear their conversation, but Gallstone had assumed that I'd be listening. How much did she know about my supposed seer powers?

After dinner, I headed for the Headmaster's office.

Professor Snape stepped in behind me.

"I won't hurt him," I said. "But I won't let him hurt me either."

"I'd prefer not to trust your idea of self defense, Miss Hebert," Snape said. "And I wish to see his...methods for myself."

"He's not..." I began, then glanced at all of the paintings around us in the hall.

"Unlike you, I do not have the benefit of limited omniscience," he said. "And not all wizards know each other, as much as muggleborn might assume otherwise."

"There's only ten thousand of you," I protested. "And you all go to school together. There's a pretty good chance that you know him."

"I do not," he said. "But I must work with him. The Ministry has assigned him, in all of their Wisdom."

As I stepped into the Headmaster's office, I saw the chains hanging from the back wall first. There were several other objects whose purpose I couldn't be sure of, but they reminded me of trips to the dentist office.

"Miss Hebert," the man said. "Sit down."

I slowly sank into my chair. My hand was on my wand; this was an obvious attempt to intimidate me, but why?

"I don't like you," he said. "And would you like to know why?"

"Because you're a pureblood?" I asked. Playing the race card this early in the discussion was a sign of weakness on my part, but I really didn't know what he wanted.

"No," he said. "It's because I see you wasting your potential! You are violent much like a mad dog, attacking anyone who gets in your way. And you know what happens to mad dogs?"

I stared at him without speaking.

"Mad dogs get put down," he said. "And that's what will happen to you. I've seen your school records, and you are a gifted young witch, possibly the most gifted in our age."

"That hardly fits the whole muggleborn not having magic narrative, does it?" I asked.

"There are exceptional individuals in every walk of life," he said. "And the cream will always rise to the top. That does not mean that the rest are salvageable."

He stood up, looming over me.

"The Hogwarts curriculum is a joke. Every year a new defense teacher? Classes on music, on muggle studies?"

"Muggle studies might be useful," I said.

"How many wizards are going to live among the muggles?" he asked. "For every one who does, the Statute of Secrecy gets strained more and more. It's already strained to the breaking point, and you want us to send purebloods out among them?"

He shook his head. "It's better for each kind to stay with their own; you may think I know nothing about the muggle world, but I do. How are Wizards going to live there without records, without a muggle education? They'd never be able to get a good job there, and the temptation to cheat would be almost overwhelming."

He did have a point, although I suspected that it could be done.

"Memory charms," I began.

"It's not safe for us to live among them either," he said. "Repeated obliviations can cause... problems. The only way to keep muggles and Wizards safe are to keep them separate."

"What does all of that have to do with me?" I asked.

"You're a natural troublemaker," he said. "Even if you weren't out murdering people, you think that Wizarding society should be more muggle."

"You don't know me," I said calmly. I'd pushed my anger and irritation into my bugs. "How could you know that?"

"Because that's what all of the muggleborn want. It's perfectly natural to want things the way you grew up, but if we made our world the same as the muggle world, then we'd lose something incredibly special."

I didn't agree with him. By it's nature the wizarding world would never be like the muggle world. Adding in the things that made the muggle world an improvement could only make things better.

There were things that the Wizarding World did better, and it wasn't just health care. There seemed to be no sexism here, and no prejudice against skin color. Because every Wizard could maintain a good status of living, there were no truly poor wizards, not in the way that the muggle world had. No wizard was ever going to starve.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Be a normal student for once," he said. "Don't kill anybody, and don't hurt anyone. If you do, I won't lock you in these chains; I'd be watching my back for the rest of the term. I will call the aurors, and I suspect that you know how well that would go for you."

Was he trying to say that I would be killed, or just that I'd end up in the Wizengamot.

"I won't have you being the standard bearer for those muggleborn terrorists," he said. "If I had my choice, you'd be expelled right now, but Dumbledore still has enough supporters in the school board that I have to show just cause."

He leaned forward.

"Please give me that cause," he said. The smile he was giving me wasn't particularly nice. "And should I go missing, everyone will know you did it. You'll end up in Azkaban then as well."

I stood up.

"I'm not sure why you think I'm some kind of terrible person," I said. "I just have terrible luck."

"Terrible luck?" he asked.

"Death Eaters tend to die around me," I said, glancing at his sleeve. His expression didn't change though.

"But except for that time with the troll, and the time with the duel, and a few schoolyard incidents, I've been a model student."

"And the rumors about your being a werewolf?"

"You can watch me next full moon," I said brightly. "I promise I won't eat your face or anything!"

He paused and stared at me assessingly.

"I don't take well to threats," he said.

"If I'm not a werewolf, it wasn't a threat," I said. "And I'm not. The Death Eaters on the train never touched us, and even if they had, werewolves are only contagious on nights of the full moon. Professor Travers taught us that last year as first years."

Travers had been an ass, but he'd been a good defense teacher.

"Move along, Miss Hebert," he said. "And reflect on what we've talked about."

"I've got to get to Defense class," I said brightly. "Don't want to miss my first day."

As I left I listened in.

"She's as bad as I had heard," Headmaster Rowle said. "I fear she is lost."

"Are you sure this is the best tact to take?" Snape asked mildly. "In my experience, Miss Hebert is capable of responding to reason, if it is expressed properly."

"That is the problem with this school," Rowle said. "Children think that adults should cater to them. That's not going to happen on my watch."

I frowned. It still wasn't certain that the man wasn't a Death Eater; there were pictures of former Headmasters in the office, and it wasn't smart for them to speak about anything truly damning.

I barely slipped into my seat on time.

A handsome man stepped into the middle of the room.

"I'm sure you all know who I am," the man said. "My fame extends from the shores of darkest Africa, to the Great Wall of China. I am the award winning author of over a dozen books, and I am your Defense Professor."

We'd been briefly introduced to this man this morning, before learning about the Headmaster.

"Gilderoy Lockhart is my name," the man said, bowing deeply.

He smiled and beside me a heard Hermione sigh dreamily.

I stared at him suspiciously.

"For our first lesson of the day," he said, "We will speak about the scourge of Wizardkind... Cornish Pixies."

Something in a covered cage was eating my bugs faster than I could send them. I tensed, and my hand went to my wand.

He pulled the cover off the cage and opened it.

After that it was chaos.