Harry Potter
and the
Secret Prophecy

Alternate Universe Remix
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars

Chapter Fifteen
Educational Emergency

Strangely, the Head Table was empty at lunch. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Umbridge, and a few other teachers were missing, and Professor McGonagall's face looked even sterner than usual in Transfiguration that afternoon. Whatever the reason for her mood, it caused her some trouble in demonstrating the day's teapot-into-rooster project, but she remained firm and fair as ever and treated the students just the same.

When the students gathered again for dinner, all the Professors were once again present, but the food was not. Harry was just beginning to wonder about it when Dumbledore stood and addressed the great hall. "It may not have looked it from where you all are sitting," he announced. "But this has been an historic day in the history of this historic institution, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For further details on these historic events, I will now yield the floor to---"

The bottom fell out of Harry's chest even before he said the name.

"---Our esteemed Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts and Senior Field Minister for Education, Madam Dolores Umbridge."

The student body had fallen into befuddled silence, except Ginny, who pulled Sirius's present out of her pocket and whispered "record" to it. Harry saw the tape-reels begin to whir slowly as she tucked it back; would it really record from in there?

Umbridge unrolled a twin of the dreaded scroll from the start-of-term feast. "I have here an announcement to make on behalf of the Ministry of Magic," she said. "In light of concerns raised by the Field Minister's Interim Report, the Ministry hereby declares a State of Educational Emergency. While the said emergency persists, various emergency measures are to be in effect at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to be overseen by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, a title hereby granted to the Field Minister of Education for the duration of the State of Educational Emergency and which may be delegated at her discretion. The exact nature of emergency measures will be announced throughout the emergency period; notices will be posted for the benefit of Hogwarts students and staff." Surprisingly, she stopped at that and rolled up the scroll.

"Short and to the point," Dumbledore said as Umbridge sat back down, "but I believe it's certainly given us all something to digest. Now for the bit that fills the stomach!" With a clap of the Headmaster's hands, dinner was served at last.

But the announcement already felt to Harry like "the bit that fills the stomach." He picked at his baked chicken slowly, trying to work through it. Many of his classmates seemed to have let Umbridge's announcement breeze by, but the more Harry thought about it, the more alarmed he became. The Ministry was declaring an "Educational Emergency"? He was sure that Dumbledore's worrying of the word "historic" had been a joking jab at Umbridge's scroll, but the Ministry parroting "Emergency... Emergency..." gave him a chill. Special measures to be announced from now until the Ministry decided the "emergency" was past? Umbridge overseeing those measures as "High Inquisitor"? Unless Harry was mistaken, Umbridge had just been tapped to practically run the school!

"Hermione, do you know anything about this Emergency business?" Harry asked her desperately. "Has there been anything about it in the paper?"

"No, not that I've seen," she said. "I don't like it, though... I want to see what the Daily Prophet says about this in the morning..."

"They'll say it's the best idea ever! Duh!" Ron snapped, but his anger was clearly not directed at his friends.

"If they don't mention it at all, it'll scare me even more..." Hermione said.

She had forgotten her food and fallen to toying numbly with her fork, but then, Harry realised, he was doing the same.

After dinner, the Gryffindors went up to the dorm. Not only Hermione, but also Parvati, Lee, and several of their other housemates seized an opportunity to hear Umbridge's announcement again and analyse it further when Ginny produced Sirius's cassette. She commanded it to "play," and indeed it played back the new High Inquisitor's comments just as clearly as if Umbridge were there in the Gryffindor common room speaking.

Every repeat of the announcement struck Harry more as more disturbing than the one before, and at last he fell to distracting himself with the recorder itself. Its enchantments, Harry thought, showed a great deal of skill and cleverness on his godfather's part. There was no need to "rewind" to restart the recording from the beginning once it had played all the way through, and although the reels turned whenever it operated, neither one ever ran out of tape. Noticing it all made him feel rather proud of Sirius, but also a bit jealous of Ginny as the device made her the center of attention.

Asking Sirius to make him one like it was the furthest thing from his mind, however, when he thought of his godfather's letters. Not even daring to let them leave his person, he kept them both in the pockets of his robes until he went to bed, and he slept with them in his pyjamas.

On the way to breakfast in the morning, a crowd of students had already gathered around the announcement board. Harry and his friends wedged their way close enough to it to see what was written:

"Be it known henceforth:

"In keeping with the State of Educational Emergency, the
following measures are in effect until further notice:

"1) Persons wishing to form Clubs, Organisations, and similar
groups consisting of three (3) or more students or two (2) or
more students plus one (1) or more staff members meeting on
a regular and/or prearranged basis must apply to the Senior Field
Minister for Education for Organisational Dispensation."

"Does this mean we can't study in the library after dinner like always?" wondered one of a nearby group of young Ravenclaw girls.

"Well, I guess it is 'regular' and 'prearranged'..." another said worriedly. "But we're not really 'forming' it, are we?"

Fred and George Weasley, leaning in to peer over Harry's two shoulders, had a different view: "Oh, sweet! It takes the Senior Field Minister's permission to have us both in detention now!"

"Yup, detentions are 'prearranged,' and I think we've got 'regular' in the bag."

"I doubt Umbridge's permission will be too hard to get for that," Ron reminded them.

"Yeah, but we'll bet like Kaana just won't bother," Fred said.

"You know this one's to snub Flitwick too, plus she's already been into it with McGonagall," George pointed out and whistled. "Boy, if I could pick two teachers not to have mad at me..."

"Well, one would be Snape just for the sheer novelty of it, but other than him..."

Harry shook his head and almost chuckled at the twins milking the unintended but quite likely results of the new rule, but when he stretched to read further the second Emergency Measure blasted the first from his mind:

"2) Mail may be monitored to assure student safety".

"Yeah, 'safety.' Sure," Ron echoed cynically.

But Harry was stuck on the first four words: Mail may be monitored.

A snap and a flash of light startled him, and he turned to find Colin Creevey there with his camera. "Can't hurt to have," he said with an apologetic shrug.

"Ooh, good idea!" Ginny agreed; she had been scribbling in her "plucky reporter" notes. "So much for my owl to Tonks, though. I wanted to see what the Aurors think about our Defense textbook."

Several people liked that idea, and as conversation burst out around Ginny, Harry crossed his arms to surreptitiously squeeze Sirius's letters against his chest. "Let's go," he said, and Hermione and Ron followed him to the table.

The announcement already made everyone intensely conscious of the mail as the owls came in. Draco Malfoy's great eagle owl brought him his usual generous package of treats from his parents; probably Umbridge wouldn't molest that. Parvati got a package as she had several times before, but this time Harry noticed it emblazoned "Owl-Post OWLs Prep." Harry himself was for once relieved to get nothing, although letters did arrive for Ron and Ginny --- from Percy. Surely he had nothing to fear from Umbridge's sweeps, either, but Ron tore the envelope in four pieces and threw it away without opening it, and Harry didn't see Ginny open hers, either.

For Hermione, there was only her usual Daily Prophet, but when she unrolled it, she gasped and turned white, and she squashed her marmalade-topped muffin with the paper as she leaned over it staring.

"What is it?" Ron asked. "Can the High Inquisitor order summary executions or something?"

"No, no, it's... Harry, I think you'd better look at this."

"What?"

Hermione handed him the newspaper. "I don't think she waited."

As Harry took it, he immediately saw what she meant and didn't even notice the headline. There, in a lower corner of the front page:

"BLACK BACK IN BRITAIN, SAYS MINISTRY SOURCE

"An unnamed source at the Ministry of Magic told the Prophet Monday that 'compelling evidence' places fugitive Sirius Black, convicted of the murder of Peter Pettigrew (Order of Merlin 1st Class, posthumous) as well as numerous Muggles, once again in Britain, where he was previously believed to have fled the country.

"Our reporter asked if this was a reason for the just-declared State of Educational Emergency, as Black haunted Hogwarts following his escape and attempted to attack Harry Potter, but the Ministry source denied that this was the case. 'After all, Potter now maintains Black's innocence,' the Prophet was told. 'Why should he want to harm his only defender? It's worth wondering if his interest in Potter was ever what we thought it was.'"

Ron read over Harry's shoulder, then gently pried the paper from his friend's hands and folded it away. "Deep breaths, mate. Keep it together. She's right there where she can see you." He nodded toward the head table, where Umbridge was looking too smug to notice Harry's distress.

He gripped the edge of the table and finally took a long draught of milk to steady himself, but it was still too much... "I... I forgot some Charms homework," he lied firmly. "I'll see you later."

"Hurry up with it," Hermione called after him as he rose from the table and hurried away, but she said it in a tone one would more usually use for "good luck."

Once out of sight from the great hall, Harry broke into a run and dashed up to the Gryffindor common room and collapsed to a seat on the hearth rug; the fire was already burning. He looked around to make sure he was alone, then took Sirius's letters out of his robes. Before he even dared to put them in the fireplace --- in case the Floo was being checked too --- he tried Umbridge's trick of casting Obliviate on the papers, and indeed it wiped them clean, then he crumpled them and threw them into the fire. He reserved only the freepost envelope and reply card from the most recent letter and found a quill and ink in his bag. With a deep breath and a trembling hand he wrote on the card:

"I am not interested in your sweepstakes.
Do not send anymore mail to this address
or else legal action WILL be taken."

He stared at it as long as he could bear to, then stuffed it in the envelope and sealed it. He didn't know if even that message would be safe, but what could he do?

There was no reason not to cut History of Magic that morning; Hermione could tell him what had been covered better than Binns could. He just sat there with his forehead on his hand, watching the fire consume the white paper and hoping that somehow he could be ready in time for Charms.

At first, Harry was shocked at how unaffected his classmates were by Umbridge's new title and powers, but within days he noticed that an odd hush had fallen over the school. Students were quieter in the hallways, as if afraid of being overheard by the High Inquisitor. Having the ability threatened inspired more of them to write home than ever before, and they kept the Educational Field Ministers staffing the owlery busy. With them there, however, Harry was at a loss for how to send the warning card to Sirius, and he kept it in his pocket and slept with it in his pillowcase.

As for the staff, Dumbledore seemed perfectly unruffled, although McGonagall's sterner-than-usual expression never quite faded away. Flitwick of course was dejected at his Student Duelling League being shot down again before even getting started. Filch, on the other hand, responded with rare high spirits and was heard muttering brightly about "maybe finally some discipline around here!" All the students knew and dreaded his hopes for the "Emergency Measures."

When Professor Snape was back in Potions on Thursday --- wearing an all-concealing hooded robe amid rumors of feather-plucking sessions with Madam Pomfrey --- he had other things at the forefront of his mind. Citing the accident, he made Harry throw out every drop of his Catalytical Potion and offered him no opportunity to make up the lost work. Left without the catalyst to test the strength of ingredients for that day's project, Harry could only look at what Hermione was doing and make guesses, and Snape then proceeded to use him as an object lesson in why one should not attempt to eyeball the heart of moke in a Micronising Potion. Hermione had to use a thick magnifying lens to find him between two stones in the Potions Dungeon floor and help him out of the crevice with the point of a quill so that Snape could douse him with the antidote and return him to normal --- Malfoy and his friends laughing all the time, of course.

The following day was Defense, and Umbridge, with her new High Inquisitor's badge, acted so pleased with herself that she didn't even see a need to give reasons for House Point penalties. Ron lost twenty when his Guided Practice again ended in carnage, and Seamus even more when he proved helpless to stop himself laughing at Ron's performance.

When class was finished and it was again time for Harry's detention, Umbridge shrilly called him back from the door of the side office. It was too small to support all the critical duties of the Senior Field Minister and High Inquisitor during the Educational Emergency, she said, and she led him out of the classroom and to the Hogwarts Trophy Room, of all places. Her desk had been set up there --- at least Harry thought it was the same desk; she kept it too clean to be distinguishable --- as well as various other tables, files, and devices. Again she sat Harry down in front of her desk, and she offered him first the same confession, then, when he refused to sign it, the same blank parchment, the same V-ended black-and-red quill, and the same line to copy: "I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies."

By the time he had written it ten times, the cuts on Harry's arm throbbed as badly as they had when he'd gotten back to the dorm the previous Friday night. He tried writing it as slowly as possible, pausing between each letter, but Umbridge sharply insisted: "I don't see your quill moving, Mr. Potter." Again, also, no mention was made of food as the hours wore on, but Harry hardly thought about that this time as he clenched his jaw and wrote with the Cutting Quill.

Again, Umbridge Obliviated every page of lines he handed her and insisted that Harry do it again, and this time his handwriting deteriorated even more terribly the longer he continued. By the time she dismissed him, his lines were looking like nursery scrawl and messily overlapping each other to get Umbridge's required twenty repeats.

But finally she let him go with his hall pass, and he made his way back to Gryffindor tower. As soon as he said the password and the Fat Lady's portrait opened, Hermione ran to meet him and took his bag for him. "Ron's upstairs already," she said softly as she ushered him across the common room and followed him up the stairs to his dorm. "We brought you back some stew from dinner, and Ginny fetched some pizza from the newspaper, too."

She threw the curtains of Harry's bed open for him, releasing a little bell that had been Sticking Charmed to the edges and now jingled loudly as it hit the floor. Ron leapt up from his own bed and looked out at the sound. "How'd it go? How do you feel?"

"It went just the same as last time," Harry told him with measured words as he sat down.

Hermione handed him some pizza for his left hand and reached for his right; he drew back. "Let me see it!" she insisted.

He gasped through his teeth as she caught hold of his wrist and rolled back his sleeve. The words were written on his arm darker than ever; the lines were wider now to reveal the glisten of blood.

I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies.

"Your skin feels hot," Hermione said. She pressed her fingers near the wound, making his arm throb and squeezing the blood in the scratches closer to the surface.

"Don't touch it!" he hissed.

"Mate, that looks awful!" Ron breathed. "Hospital Wing sounds like a good idea to me."

"I really think you should," Hermione concurred.

"No!" Harry dug in his heels.

"Well, you can't just keep doing this!" she insisted.

"You can't let Umbridge get away with it!" Ron snapped.

"I'm not letting her 'get away with it,'" he shot back, then struggled to explain himself. "It's just... Well, raising a big fight with Dumbledore is probably just what she wants!"

"If so, I say let her take her chances!" Ron argued.

"I can handle it!" Harry declared. "I'm not going to drag Dumbledore or McGonagall or whoever into it, and if you try, I'll tell them you're lying!"

"Harry!" Hermione protested.

"Just... just promise me you won't drag them into it," he said.

They stared at him for a moment. "Hey, it's your Snitch hand; you do what you want," Ron said with dark resignation, and he flopped back down in his bed.

Harry then turned to Hermione, who held back for several moments but at last gave him a soft "All right."

Suddenly he heard the door open, and Fred and George came into the room. "Hey," George called, "what kind of party are you guys having up---?"

Harry tried to pull his sleeve down, but the twinge it gave him slowed him up and he was too late. The twins' smiles fell and they blinked at his arm.

Fred at last found his voice. "Oy."

Before the weekend was over, all of Gryffindor Tower knew about Harry's injury. It pained him at every movement, so he spent Saturday morning in bed while Ron and Ginny went to Quidditch Practice. Hermione stayed behind and fussed over him; she fetched him porridge from the kitchen, apparently even putting aside any polemics to the house-elves for the moment, and he almost had to insist that she refrain from spoonfeeding him.

Even before breakfast was done, he was having other visitors. Parvati and Neville joined forces with Hermione, and he had only just managed to talk them out of asking Madam Pomfrey for salve without letting on what it was for --- too awkward, too many questions --- when Ron and Ginny got back.

Ginny proudly announced that her brother had made a very strong showing as Keeper in practice that morning, then she sat on the edge of Harry's bed and read the new Hogwarts X-Press issue aloud for him. There were of course reactions to the "Educational Emergency" declaration, although no one really knew what to make of it just yet. Most of this issue was devoted to the special tribute for Cedric, which included all sorts of contributions: anecdotes, poetry, pictures, and even a bit of sheet music from a second-year Hufflepuff whom Cedric had taken time out from classes and the Triwizard Tournament to give lessons on the pipe-organ to. Harry blushed as Ginny read his own mercifully-short essay, but then she went on to read a poem Cho had written, and Harry thought it very lovely, albeit terribly sad.

As the day wore on it seemed all his housemates came to look in on him with help, advice, and so many questions he couldn't keep straight whose were whose. Everyone wanted to know one detail or another. "How many times did she make you do the parchment?" "What did the quill look like?" "The trophy room!? Tell me you're kidding!"

Everyone had ideas about what to do, also. The Weasley Twins absorbed his answers to everyone's questions, surely for use in planning revenge on Umbridge. Somehow medicine should be gotten for the wound, surely, but the Hospital Wing was out as a source, and raiding Professor Snape's potion supplies was an even less inviting option. With several more Fridays ahead before the first Hogsmeade weekend, shops in the village were only a last contingency, and Harry and Ron seriously doubted that an Owl-post order to Ludmilla Healy's would get through Umbridge's mail checks. Nonetheless, when Harry finally ventured out for dinner, Ginny did pass him carrying a jingly envelope, and she darted away down the hall before he could stop her.

Sunday his arm was still sore, and Hermione let him rest it by transcribing his homework for him; on some of the harder questions, he couldn't resist the temptation to take advantage of the situation and try wheedling answers out of her. While she firmly refused to write anything he didn't tell her himself, he knew to stop and "discuss" an answer with her if she shrugged before copying it down.

It was still sore even on Monday morning, but not so badly as to keep him from taking notes in Potions, where he learned that in Thursday's lab, he would once again be at a miserable disadvantage. Maybe post-ordered Catalytical Potion could get through the mail checks, although if Ginny had indeed sent off an order for Healy's salve, it never arrived.

Every morning, Harry desperately watched the owls come in, dreading the sight of his own Hedwig and another letter from Sirius --- but then, if Sirius had sent one, Umbridge's mail checkers would probably sift it out and Harry would never be the wiser. The last freepost envelope with the card inside sat heavily in his pocket under his robes; he tried to tell himself that surely Sirius saw the Daily Prophet, surely Ron's parents would see it and show it to him or at least warn him, but Harry could never put his mind to rest because there was no way for him to know.

A few people in the school might. Headmaster Dumbledore of course was the leader of the Order of the Phoenix and so surely knew how things were with Sirius. Professor Snape was a member of the Order as well, but even if Harry had been fully sure he trusted Snape --- which he had never in all his years at Hogwarts been --- he was the less approachable of the two.

Tuesday morning when Harry made up his bed, he surreptitiously spread his Invisibility Cloak under the blankets, and that night, he at last waited until all his housemates were asleep, took the note to Sirius, and wrapped himself in the cloak before slipping out of bed. He crept along the hallways until he came to the Headmaster's Tower, and he wedged himself close beside the gargoyle that guarded the door to Dumbledore's office.

"I need to see the Headmaster," he whispered to it.

It stood there in stony silence. He knew that it could talk, but now it said nothing even as he waited until his legs ached with fatigue and he was in danger of falling asleep where he stood. Finally he gave up and went back to bed, but he left the cloak in his bedcoverings and resolved to try again.

Wednesday he slipped away after Astronomy only to get the same response as the night before, and on Thursday he thought that if he was ignored a third time then he would take the hint, although he couldn't imagine why the Headmaster would turn him away at a time like this. Surely Dumbledore could understand how worried he was about Sirius, about Umbridge's Educational Emergency powers, about everything. Lupin had told him that the adults had their reasons for keeping him in the dark, but Harry couldn't imagine any possible reason that would justify this complete silent treatment.

He waited some time in the dark beside the gargoyle. He had just decided to count to one hundred and then leave when it silently edged to one side, making a gap just wide enough for Harry to slip past. Once he was through, the gargoyle slid shut again, and he ascended the stairs in the quiet darkness.

When he came into the office itself, the heavy curtains were all drawn over the tall windows, and the only light was a single lamp on the desk, casting a pool of warm amber glow around the middle of the room. Dumbledore was still in his fine robes from that day, although his flowing silver hair was uncovered as he fiddled with something in a tall cupboard; once again his back was turned.

Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, took one flap up from his perch and swooped in a close loop around Harry before returning to it. Along the way he shed three feathers, bits of ruby fluff that blew about the floor as Harry followed Fawkes back to the perch and stroked him. He seemed to sit more droopingly than Harry last remembered, and he stopped stroking after another of Fawkes' feathers came off in his hand.

"Welcome, Harry," Dumbledore said. From this angle, Harry could glimpse the object that Dumbledore had been working with; it was his Pensieve, where thoughts could be placed and stirred and sorted. He closed it up in the cupboard and began to turn around toward Harry, but then seemed to change his mind and headed toward a bookshelf instead. "I apologise if I am unable to receive you properly. Recent events have left me at a bit of a disadvantage. Now, what can I help you with?"

With Harry no longer petting him, Fawkes twittered and rubbed his head against Harry's pyjamas.

"I had a note for Sirius," Harry said. "I don't really have a way to send it to him..."

"He knows not to write to you anymore or to try contacting you through the Floo," Dumbledore said, "if that's what you wanted to tell him."

"Yeah..." Harry took the freepost envelope out of his pocket and set it on Fawkes' perch. That did make it a moot point, but he felt strange. He certainly had never wanted to say to Sirius "I am not interested ... Don't send anymore mail," but not having his own note delivered came as a disappointment rather than a relief, for no reason that he could understand.

"I had wondered if perhaps you had some concern with Madam Umbridge," Dumbledore said, leafing through a book off his shelves.

"No," Harry said hastily. "That is, I still don't know about this 'Educational Emergency' business..."

"I daresay the Emergency is everything but education," the Headmaster said.

"And of course I'm still grounded," Harry continued. He tried to make an indirect question of the remark.

But Dumbledore didn't acknowledge it. "And you're still having regular detentions with her," he said.

Harry didn't reply. Fawkes looked at him questioningly.

"Dolores is a difficult challenge, more difficult even than Voldemort in some respects," Dumbledore said. "I have been trying to manage her a bit delicately, and I do understand how it might look from your viewpoint as a student. However, Harry, I would not want you to hesitate in coming to me if she is causing you any trouble. Putting a stop to her actions may be a complex task, but there is nothing complex in my need to know about them. Whatever she may be doing," he repeated, "I want to know."

Harry stayed quiet for a moment. He still didn't want to mention his arm; if he did, he could now see that Dumbledore was sure to get himself involved over it in a way that could only cause him trouble in these "complex" attempts to deal with the Ministry... "She's not doing anything, really," he said. "She's just a bad teacher with a worthless book." Again, he feared that Dumbledore would turn around with his kindly yet mercilessly insightful eyes and see through the lie, but he did not.

"How is Sirius?" Harry asked, hoping to change the subject.

"Safe and well," Dumbledore said.

With that, it struck Harry fully the opportunity of being here talking to Dumbledore, to someone who knew all about what the Order was doing and about the larger fight that Harry couldn't see from here in school. "He said Lupin was going on a 'business trip'; where?"

"...A place where we may hopefully find some allies."

In fact, Harry thought, no reason not to try... "What is it that the Order's guarding? What happened to Dedalus Diggle?"

The Headmaster raised his head and absentmindedly closed the book in his hands, but he did not turn around. "The answers to those two questions are very much intertwined," he said to the bookshelf. "Dedalus is in the best possible hands at St. Mungos, and with regard to what it is that we are guarding, I understand that Sirius has already discussed the matter with you. On that point I must respect his judgement as your godfather... in both senses of the word."

The answer was only what Harry had expected, and he was struck instead by the gesture. He had already noticed; at the Wizengamot hearing, Dumbledore had never looked at him. When he had encountered him in the great hall, he had kept his eyes on a copy of the Hogwarts X-Press. Even when he had opened the door of the Black House's kitchen and found Harry there on the step, Dumbledore had immediately looked away, but in this moment more than ever, his failure to meet Harry's eyes seemed wildly unnatural.

Fawkes gave a questioning chirp as Harry left him and walked slowly toward his owner. His mind asked the question over and over, but he couldn't quite get his mouth around it, it seemed so strange. Why won't you turn around? Why won't you look at me?

"It's very late, Harry," Albus said all at once. "I will be sure to tell Sirius about your concern, but for now I think that we should both be getting to bed." With that he crossed to a side door, swept through it, and shut it behind him, leaving Harry and Fawkes alone in his office.

At that, Harry was more disturbed than ever by the question still looping his mind. Why won't he look at me? But for now there was nothing more to do about it, and Fawkes saw him off with a single breath of low, lyrical song.

to be continued in...
Chapter Sixteen: Finding Gaps

Author's Notes on Chapter Fifteen

A request: if you like this chapter, please post a review and name one specific thing in it that you liked. If you want to say more or give your own crit, that's great, but I realised that the "one specific thing" is a simple kind of comment I love to get, so I'd much appreciate if you would just do that.

Revisions: The version of Secret Prophecy I'm posting at this stage is open to change. Currently I'm polishing these chapters after they've cooled for awhile, but I don't have a full draft of the entire story, so while this isn't what I'd call a beta, I do foresee another round of revisions once I have a complete draft.

This chapter was born more from redistributing than production. I moved up some material that was originally drafted as chapter 14, moved back some material that was originally drafted here, and whoomp there it is. Shortest chapter in awhile I think, but I won't be too worried until I get one shorter than chapter 2 (about 3500 words), and not even then if the content seems to work well with breaks there...

I fear I might be underplaying the whole High Inquisitor business, but it also seems really realistic for the initial response to just be business as usual. It'll get more disturbing through the next chapter and begin to inspire more of a backlash.

In the pathetically long time between drafting and polishing this, it also developed that in my HP universe, Fred and George Weasley are not quite as alike as they seem: their behavior is very similar---made even more similar by the cohesion between them---but in terms of underlying motivation, Fred is more a rebel and trickster type who likes to needle people and shake up business as usual, where George has a more sociable desire to amuse and impress people. So in revising that can be a guide deciding which of them has which line of dialogue, where originally things were assigned between them more randomly.