A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been busy. But I'm back! As always read and review !
Harry did not even bother to get up to talk to Osborn. He was feeling too numb to do so anyway. He did not answer her. She raised her eyebrow and glanced inside the room. She must have seen something because she then put her hand on his shoulder and sat on the floor beside him. At Harry's raised eyebrow she snorted.
"Hey. I'm not old. I can still sit on the floor. So, Umbridge already got under your skin already. ?"
Harry's fists clenched at once.
"Yeah. She said my parents' died for no reason." He could still hear his heart beating in his head. He had rarely felt so angry.
"And how did you react ?" Osborn asked calmly.
"I raised my wand on her. So I got detention." He said darkly
"And for good reason too. What were you thinking, raising your wand at a ministry official. Because that's what she is Potter. A weapon from the Ministry. She will get under your skin because she needs you to loose control. If you pull a stunt like this again, you know what will happen ? You'll be sent to St Mungo's, and when they find out nothing's wrong with you, the Ministry will use this to discredit you. And you'll loose everything. Watch your temper Mr Potter. Especially with Umbridge." At this words, she got up and left Harry alone with his thoughts. He wasn't left alone long however. Pretty soon, his classmates were getting out and Harry got up to follow Ron and Hermione. Hermione rounded up on him quickly.
"Harry, I know what that woman says is wrong. But you can't let it get to you. Raising a wand to a teacher. Do you know what that could do ?"
Harry silenced her with his hand. "Don't bother. I know. Osborn just lectured me about that. Can we just, not talk about that. Please."
Hermione and Ron had silently agreed to drop the matter because neither of them talked about it for all day long. Seven came too early for Harry and he made his way up Umbridge's office. He knocked.
"Come in" said Umbridge in her sweet voice.
Harry came in and took the seat Umbridge was gesturing to.
"You are going to write lines for me." She said and Harry moved to retrieve his quill from his bag. "Not with your quill. You will be using one of mine." She gave him a long, red feathered quill and Harry stared at the parchment before him. "I want you to write "I must not tell lies""
"How many times ?" asked Harry through clenched teeth.
Umbridge smiled broadly at him. "As many times as it takes for the message to sink in. You won't need any ink." She sat down in front of him and started reading.
Harry began to write. I must not tell lies. He felt a sharp pain on the back of his hand and realized that the red on the parchment actually came from his own hand. The back of his hand read "I must not tell lies". He started at Umbridge in disbelief.
"Yes dear ?" She asked sweetly. Harry shrugged and kept on writing for what seemed hours. When Umbridge finally let him go, he felt a feeling he had not felt since his departure from the Dursleys. Shame, guilt and embarrassment. He could not show anyone how the boy-who-lived let himself being mistreated like this. It was a good thing he had thought of packing his Invisibility Cloak with him. He did not want to be seen like this. In pain and ashamed. He wrapped himself in his Cloak and began walking towards Gryffondor Tower. He took the long way up to let the pain subside a bit before joining his friends. He suddenly heard noise in the corridor, his instinct quicker than his brain, he ducked behind a statue and waited. He heard footsteps coming his way and he tried to breath as quietly as he could. He heard the footsteps become louder and louder as the person came closer and closer to him. It was Snape. Of all the people in the castle the greasy bat would of course be the only one rooming the corridors at night. Harry held his breath and waited for Snape to pass the statue he was ducking under. At Harry's horror, Snape suddenly stopped and stared right to where Harry was hiding.
"You are getting too big for this cloak Potter." He sneered crossing his arms on his chest. Harry stared at his feet and realized one of them was not covered by the cloak. He took off the cloak, he had been caught, denying it would only make it worse. Harry met Snape's eyes. He looked amused by the situation. Harry on the other hand was not as amused. His left hand was still killing him, and he was pretty sure it had started bleeding again. He stepped out from behind the statue, his cloak in his right hand and the left one hidden behind his back.
"May I ask Potter, what you are doing out at this hour and not studying with your little friends?" Snape sneered watching him intently.
"I had detention sir." Harry said. Snape raised an eyebrow and checked his watch.
"Until 10 pm ?" He asked suspiciously.
"Yes. Umbridge kept me" Harry tried to silence a hiss of pain at the mention of Umbridge. His hand was not getting better. Snape caught that unfortunatly.
"What are you hiding behind your back Potter?" He asked taking a step closer to Harry.
"Nothing" Harry replied quickly, very aware of how odd he was looking, hiding his hand behind his back.
Snape raised his eyebrow. "Show me your hands Potter."
Harry showed him his palms hoping it would be enough to get rid of Snape. This of course was the moment his hand decided to bleed again. A drop of blood left his hand and came crashing to the floor.
"Are you injured Potter? Show me your hand, I can mend it for you." Snape seemed annoyed now. As if helping an injured student was an inconvenience for him. When Harry made no move to show his hand, Snape sighed and took forcefully, making Harry winced. He looked at the words written on the back of his hand and Harry saw the man's eyes widening.
"How did you injure yourself?" He asked quietly. He looked dangerous. Of course Harry was going to be punished for this. He was going to be punished for having let his wound attract attention, just like when he was at the Dursleys. He would get hit more if he made a sound or if he bled out on the nice carpet. Snape was looking at him impatiently.
"I fell." Harry knew it was not a believable lie.
Snape sighed even more.
"Follow me." When he saw that Harry made no move to follow him, he grabbed his arm and took him to the dungeons. It was the first time Harry saw Snape's office, it was a great room, covered in shelfs where different potions ingredient were stored. Snape threw him on a chair and began searching through the shelf in search of something. As he was working he asked again "How did you injure yourself?" Harry knew he was defeated. He sighed and aswered quietly. "Umbridge. During detention. She made me write lines with this weird quill." Snape nodded and put Harry's hand in a bowl full of a yellow content. It burned at first but quickly it became soothing. Harry could feel the pain melting away. Snape sat on the other side of the desk and took out a chess board. He set the board and motioned for Harry to start. Harry did not understand and just stared at him.
"Murtlap essence takes a while to heal injuries. As much as I enjoy small talks, I often prefer the quiet conversation of a game of chess. Your move."
Harry shrugged and made a move. He had gotten better at wizard's chess since being at Hogwarts but had never been excellent. They played for a while without talking. Snape broke the silence first.
"You do realize what Umbridge is doing is highly illegal?" Harry simply nodded in response. Snape continued.
"I need to inform the Headmaster of this."
Harry's head shot up.
"Sir. Please. Don't tell anyone. I don't want the Headmaster to worry. I'll watch my temper and she won't have to punish me again. The Ministry won't believe the Headmaster anyway and I doubt they would listen to an ex- Death eater."
Snape's eyes locked with Harry's. He stared intently at him.
"You are lucky to have miss Granger explaining you politics. I would tend to agree with you. The headmaster would probably dismiss Umbridge and the Minister will want to take over the school. Very well Potter. I will not tell on you. But if she ever tries something like this again, please come to see me. I will see that she no longer try anything like this."
At his words, his knight made the final move to destroy Harry's king and he got up to check on Harry's hand. The pain was gone and the scar was almost invisible.
"It will take a few days for the scar to disappear completely but you should not feel any more pain. You may go. Use your cloak, you don't want Filch catching you."
Harry was surprise that any teacher would advise him to wear his cloak, especially Snape, but he did and left the office wrapped in his cloak.
When he arrived in Gryffondor tower he was not surprised to see his two best friends sitting on sofas waiting for him. He quickly reassured them, telling them that Umbridge had kept him to write lines until he could not write any more. They seemed to buy it and Ron and him went up to bed.
Lying in his bed, he went over his first days. It had been an odd first week. Snape had not been a jerk to him too much, Osborn was cool and Umbridge was definitely someone to watch. Afraid of nightmares, he took a bit of Dreamless Potion and was quickly asleep.
The next few weeks passed without much noise. Osborn decided that Harry needed to talk to someone so she kept on giving him detentions during Defense against the Dark Arts for no reason. Once Harry had just dropped his quill and that earned him a detention for the night. He did not mind really. He knew it was to cover for their sessions. He enjoyed helping Osborn to find reasons to punish him. He became very clumsy. He kept on dropping things during Osborn's classes so she would give him detention. Her attitude with him during class was diametrically different from the one she had when they were alone. She made Harry think of Snape. She played her part so well that even Ron and Hermione , who were in on the joke, began to wonder if Osborn did not really hate Harry. Umbridge's class was another matter. Harry managed to keep his temper most of the time. He just ignored her and kept on reading her awful book as a joke. It helped to think of the all thing as utter nonsense. When it all became too much, he would just try a few of Osborn's techniques to calm himself. Osborn was very helpful in that matter. She would never try to make him talk about his relatives. He did not think he was ready yet anyway. She would ask him about school, his parents, his friends and the nightmares he was having. The dreamless sleep potion helped a lot but lately, it had not been enough. He was sometimes having visions even during the day, mostly in History of Magic when he was falling asleep. He only heard the ice cold laugh of Voldemort but the laugh itself was enough to put Harry's teeth on edge. It did not help that Umbridge was slowly starting to take control of the school as High Inquisitor. She had of course banned Harry from the quidditch team to make him lose it, Harry had actually managed to stay calm, Fred and Georges had not unfortunately. They ended up in detention. Harry had helped them mend their injuries but it had meant telling Ron and Hermione about his detention with Umbridge. Harry had expected Hermione to be outraged by Snape's lack of action on the matter, but she had apparently understood it much better than Ron who kept insulting Snape. Harry felt conflicted about it. Snape was a git, but he had been really fair to Harry the night he had ducked under the statue. After a night of arguing, they all decided that it was indeed better to not let anyone know about Umbridge's methods, especially now that she was High Inquisitor. The week before the Christmas vacation seemed unending. The teachers had apparently all decided to give the fifth years enough homework to bury them. Harry felt even more tired now, the nightmares were coming back at full strength and Harry was beginning to feel afraid of going to sleep again. He could not wait for the term to end.
A/N: Sorry I haven't uptated in a while. I've been busy. But I'm back. As always read and review!