I have a sneaking suspicion that something's wrong here.

The next week not a good one for Dolores Umbridge. She did not enjoy having to supervise detentions. That did not mean she wouldn't give them out, especially if the child in question needed a little... straightening up. That was the case for young Harry Potter and Gilbert Beilschmidt (after having the latter's brother in one of her Wednesday classes, she could say that Gilbert was definitely the delinquent child of the family).

The first detention was the worst. They came into her office late afternoon. She sat them down and situated them with the quills and paper, and told them to Potter and Beilschmidt to write 'I must not tell lies' and 'I must not talk back to teachers' respectively.

"How many times, professor?" Potter asked.

Dolores smiled, "Oh, just until the message sinks in, that should do."

"But you haven't given us any ink." She was starting to find Potter rather annoying.

"You won't be needing any."

She heard Beilschmidt mutter an 'yes, ma'am' under his breath. Ignoring the sarcastic tone he used, she kept smiling as she sat down. Now all she had to do was to wait for the message to… sink in.

It didn't take long for Potter to cry out in pain. He looked dubious about continuing, but Dolores nodded and he seemed to get the idea. The albino boy, however, didn't cry out throughout the entire session. He definitely had the marks in his hand spelling out the phrase he was told to write, but it didn't seem to hurt him at all.

She stood suddenly and examined Potter's hand. It was bleeding a little, but there was still work to do. She didn't see the appeal of keeping the boys here for the whole night, though, so they were sent off and told to come back tomorrow.

-Linebreak-

Elizabeta was appalled.

How could that vile woman do something like this to anyone, let alone to her students? Umbridge was officially one of Elizabeta's least favourite people. The woman was vile, repulsive, horrible, cruel, and downright sadistic. Elizabeta would have to warn the others about her.

In the meantime, she had to figure out how to get Gilbert to sit down.

"I'm telling you, Eliza, she's the perfect target!"

"Yes, but she could also make the perfect enemy. Besides, didn't Arthur want to know if anything happened. We should write him a letter, come on Gil."

"He can wait, a few more minutes won't kill 'im. Don't you see, a few stink bombs would do her well. It might even make her room less of an eye sore."

"Arthur even told us to not get in trouble, Gilbert. Your hand's bleeding again, let me see it." She grabbed his right hand and bandaged it once more.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, but even Artie would want us to show her hell." He started to stand, pulling his hand away and ruining his bandages in the process.

"Sit down, Gilbert." She yanked him back down, none too gently. "You're being absolutely ridiculous. You will do nothing to her lest you want me to tell Arthur that you've been causing trouble. 'Do you understand me?'"

Gilbert sighed loudly,"You're no fun Eliza...". He made a pouty face.

"Oh, boo-hoo. Now, come help me write that letter."

-Linebreak-

Harry wanted to tell his friends what Umbridge had done, but Gilbert must have beaten him to it, because Hermione tried to comfort him.

"Oh, Harry, I heard what she did to you. Oh, that horrible woman, she know blood quills are illegal! She works for the Ministry, too, so she would know exactly how wrong she was! Oh, Harry, you have to tell someone-"

"No."

"I...what, Harry, you've got to. It's illegal." She sounded legitimately worried. Her brows were furrowed.

"No, no I can't. You can't. Please, don't any of you tell anyone." He could hear Gilbert and Elizabeta talking in the corner of the Gryffindor common room. They weren't being any quieter than Hermione was. Harry wasn't listening, but their talk must have ended, because they both stood up and went up the stairs to the boy's rooms.

"...Okay, Harry. I don't understand, but if you don't want us to tell anyone, we won't, right, Ron?" Ron, who was beside Hermione but had yet to say anything, nodded. Harry noted that Ron looked strangely pale as he looked at the words on Harry's hand.

"Why don't we get some rest, you two?" Hermione tried to ease the tension.

"Yeah, yeah we should." Harry agreed. They all stood simultaneously and he and Ron said good night to Hermione as she climbed the stairs to the girl's rooms.

-Linebreak-

England read their letter with an eagerness, he was looking forward to almost... experiencing Hogwarts again through the Germanics and Hungary. This eagerness was quickly dispelled when he got halfway through the letter.

Dear Arthur,

You told us to tell you what was happening, so that's what this letter is for. Gilbert and I were placed in Gryffindor, Roderich is in Ravenclaw, Ludwig and Lilli are in Hufflepuff, and Basch is in Slytherin. Gilbert has gotten somewhat close with Harry and his friends in the past week, but he says that Harry doesn't seem like anything special yet.

He and Harry did manage to get themselves into detention with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge. I think you'll be interested to learn that she's a Ministry witch. I don't know why she's here, but anyway, Gil and Harry had to do lines. The only problem is that she had them use quills that wrote the words into the backs of their hands. I heard Hermione call them 'blood quills' or something. Gil came back with his hand bleeding.

That's pretty much all that's been going on lately. It's been a fairly eventful first week or so. I hope you're still doing well over there.

I'll keep you up to date on new happenings.

Elizabeta

The so called Arthur was shocked. He had many, many questions.

First of all, what is a Ministry witch doing at Hogwarts? As the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?

Secondly, what was she doing using blood quills? Anyone from the Ministry would know that they were illegal and cruel.

Thirdly, although significantly less important, why were Harry and Prussia in detention? It wasn't even one month into the school year.

Lastly, he could have sworn he told them everything about Harry Potter, so why did Prussia not see anything in the boy? Although, no, he definitely told about Harry. This question was extremely trivial, and England knew it. He just felt slightly insulted, as if Prussia thought his teaching wasn't sufficient.

He was not hoping that the letter he received would make him this confused. He was hoping for a normal year, despite the small problem of Voldemort's return.