This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter universe, which are trademarked by J.K. Rowling. I do not claim ownership of these characters nor the locations such as Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, etc. that are Rowling's creations. This work also includes Pokemon, which belong to the Pokemon Company, and I again claim no ownership of these characters.
I thank both Rowling and the Pokemon Company for the universes they have created that allows me to do something like this for my own entertainment and, hopefully, the entertainment of the readers.
The rest of the journey passed in comfortable companionship from then on. In many ways it was quite a relief. Harry hadn't realised how tense and on edge he had been over the summer, even after joining up with the others at Grimmauld Place, but now that he was heading back to the familiar comfort of Hogwarts he started to feel truly at peace.
Hermione and Ron had to leave again after a while, under instructions to occasionally patrol the train, much to Ron's annoyance, and so he grumbled his way out of the compartment with the condition that Hermione promised they would not be out for too long. For the most part she kept to her word.
They reached Hogsmeade station without incident and indulged themselves in the familiar routine of disembarking the train and heading towards the Zebstricka pulled carriages, waving to Hagrid as they passed, Norbert the Shelgon standing patiently at his side as they waited for the new first years to gather.
They were forced to split up once they reached the carriages, Neville joining Harry, Ron and Hermione in one while Ginny and Luna headed off to where the Creevey brothers, fourth year Colin and second year Dennis, were clambering into a carriage themselves as Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville were whisked away along the path and up towards the castle.
So caught up was he in the comfort of tradition that Harry was completely oblivious to his task as he moved to sit down at the Gryffindor table until he swung his bag from his shoulders and was reminded what was in it.
"Damn," he whispered, drawing the attention of his friends. "I was supposed to deliver this to Madam Pomfrey."
"Won't she be at the feast?" Ron pointed out.
"She's not here," Harry told him. A quick scan of the staff table, his eyes, for now, skipping over the woman sitting in the Pokémon Battling professor's spot, showed him that the Hogwarts matron was not there.
"Maybe she's waiting for you," Hermione suggested. Harry nodded.
"I'll be back as quickly as I can," he told them, jumping to his feet and lifting the bag back over his shoulder. "Save me a seat." And he hurried out of the Great Hall.
It was an unusual feeling, rushing through the familiar castle with the knowledge that he wouldn't bump into anyone, all staff and students, barring, it seemed, Madam Pomfrey, heading for the Great Hall and not going anywhere near the upper floors. He was grateful for it to be over and was even more grateful to find Madam Pomfrey waiting for him in the Hospital Wing.
"I've been expecting you, Potter," she said in greeting, her no nonsense attitude as familiar as the room itself. "You've got the egg?" Harry nodded, lowering the bag from his shoulder and passing it over to the matron.
Madam Pomfrey accepted it without question and peered inside before setting it down lightly on a bed. Reaching inside she lifted the egg, jar included, from its confines and laid it out gently on the soft sheets. A moment later the jar, too, was removed and the egg lay bare for the world to see.
"I see what Mr Lupin was talking about," Madam Pomfrey commented. "For an egg found abandoned in the wild it is in remarkably good shape. I have high hopes that this egg will be able to hatch a very healthy Pokémon."
That was good news to hear and Harry watched as Madam Pomfrey gently lifted the egg into the air and carried it a short distance to where a set of pillows had been plumped up on a trolley. Madam Pomfrey lay the egg down in the centre, snuggling it up into the fabric, before pulling away.
"You should get down to the feast," she informed Harry, done, it seemed, for now in her treatment of the egg.
And Harry did, hoping that he hadn't missed much. He'd probably missed the sorting, unless there were an abnormally large amount of new first year students, but if he was lucky the feast itself might not have started yet.
As it was he was lucky. The sorting had finished, as expected, but as Harry snuck in the door and hurried down to his place with Ron and Hermione the new professor, dressed all in pink, was in the middle of some sort of speech.
"Who's that?" Harry muttered quietly as he took his seat. Hermione was listening intently so did not answer but Ron, looking incredibly bored, was happy to fill him in.
"New battling professor. Professor Umbridge," Ron told him, sounding quite unimpressed. "She had some nerve interrupting Dumbledore, she's been talking for five minutes already."
"What's she saying?" Harry asked, but Ron shrugged. He didn't seem to be listening much, if at all, and a quick glance around the hall showed that he was far from the only one. Only Hermione, her brow furrowed in a frown, was providing Professor Umbridge her full attention.
"… old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
She sat down.
The end of her speech had come so suddenly, with so few people having followed it, that it took some time for a round of applause to sound unenthusiastically around the hall. Dumbledore applauded politely from the head of the staff table whilst tellingly Hermione didn't applaud at all, a frown fixed upon her forehead.
As the lukewarm applause faded Dumbledore stood up, smiling widely at the students and showed no signs of noticing whatever it was that bothered Hermione. "Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating."
"Illuminating? Was he listening to the same thing we were?" muttered Ron.
"But now that we've dispensed with our talking it is time for the feast. Tuck in."
Professor Umbridge's speech was forgotten as quickly as it finished as the hungry students were distracted by mounds upon mounds of food, delivered to them with the professional efficiency of the Hogwarts Pokémon caterers, and for a few minutes there was silence but for the clinking of cutlery and the sighs of satisfaction before conversation brewed once more.
Hermione, however, was poking at her food uninterestedly.
"What's the matter?" Harry asked as Hermione moved from her starter to her main with little enthusiasm.
"Come on, Hermione," Ron agreed. "Food. Aren't you starving?" But Hermione shook her head.
"Is it about Professor Umbridge?" Harry wondered. She'd been quiet since the speech. "I only came in halfway through."
"Then you didn't hear what I heard," Hermione told him. "That speech was… terrifying." Harry and Ron shared a look.
"Terrifying?" Ron repeated with a laugh. "How can anything she says be terrifying. Look at her. I'm more scared of Dennis Creevey than I am of her."
"It's not about how scary she looks," Hermione said sharply. "It's what she said. If it's true then it really is terrifying."
"What did she say?" Harry wondered.
"That the Ministry is going to be paying a lot more attention to what is going on at Hogwarts this year," Hermione told him. "I spoke with Percy over the summer and he mentioned her. He said she was a bureaucrat and moreover a Fudge loyalist. I sincerely doubt that Dumbledore would have chosen to hire her unless he had no other choice."
"So, what, you think he couldn't find anyone for the job?" Ron wondered, glancing up to the staff table.
"Maybe," Hermione said. "We've had four teachers in four years. Job security doesn't seem particularly guaranteed."
"Damn," Ron muttered, stabbing dispiritedly into his chicken. "Wish Moody had stayed on."
"Me too because then the Ministry wouldn't have had an in," Hermione pointed out. "This is a power grab. Fudge doesn't like Dumbledore for daring to tell the truth so he's trying to remove his influence. Bad mouthing him in the press helped with that but there are still a lot of people that trust his judgement."
"Like Neville's gran," Harry said, remembering his conversation with the boy on the train.
"And the board of governors," Hermione agreed. "They removed Dumbledore after being threatened by Lucius Malfoy and a student almost died. They won't fire Dumbledore just cause the Ministry asked them to. So that means that the only way the Minister can control what's happening at Hogwarts is to have someone on the inside."
"And in a position of power," Harry realised. "Umbridge has all sorts of responsibilities over students. Who's to say she won't have them report to her about things."
"Like who believes that You-know-who is back," Hermione said darkly. "She can find out those who are loyal to Dumbledore and target them. Imagine if Mr Weasley wasn't already a known Dumbledore supporter. If the Ministry found out that Ron, Fred, George and Ginny all supported Harry then they could demote him or have him fired, or even arrested on a bogus charge."
"They could do that anyway," Ron said worriedly. Harry too felt sick. The situation Hermione had laid out seemed very realistic. Could these things happen to Mr Weasley if he refused to agree with the Ministry? Harry's gut instinct was yes.
"Anyway, I just think we should keep an eye out," Hermione said, turning to her food with a somewhat defeated posture. "Umbridge may look harmless but she reports directly to the Minister. And he's far from harmless."
The feast was far from enjoyable from that point on, Harry and Ron quickly discovering Hermione's lack of motivation to eat after hearing her take on Umbridge's speech. Eventually, thankfully, it finished, and the students were soon given their leave.
"Ron, stop," Hermione said frantically as Ron got up with Harry to leave. "We've got to escort the first years up, remember." The look on Ron's face quite clearly showed he hadn't remembered.
"Right. Of course," he said quickly, trying to cover for himself. "I was just, you know, standing up so they could see me." A moment passed before Ron looked quite impressed by his save. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I'll see you up there," Harry said quickly before he could get drawn into their discussion. Despite his gladness that he wouldn't be escorting first years the reminder that Ron was prefect and he wasn't was still a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Alright, see you later," Ron said, unaware of Harry's undesirable thoughts. "Oy, Midgets, over here!"
Harry left quickly as he heard behind him Hermione scold Ron for his comments, side stepping his way through the first years answering Ron's call. Several pairs of wide, awestruck eyes looked up at him as he passed and he did his best to ignore them, while silently wondering if they thought him mad or a hero. He reached the Entrance Hall, gaining some semblance of air from the claustrophobic melee in the Great Hall, and began his journey, on his own, upstairs.
"Hey! Watch it!" The shout from up ahead was familiar, coming from one of Harry's friends and dorm mates at Hogwarts, Dean Thomas, as a pair of second year Ravenclaws almost knocked him over in their rush to get to the tower.
"Hey Dean," Harry said as he caught up with the boy, noticing as he did so that he was accompanied by his other dorm mate, Seamus Finnegan, whose shorter stature had left him hidden in the crowd. "Hey Seamus."
"Hey Harry," Dean greeted back. "Good summer?" Seamus stayed awkwardly silent.
Harry shrugged. "Not bad," he admitted, though silently thinking that 'not bad' was a relative term when it came to summer with the Dursleys. "You?"
"Alright," Dean said, much in the same way Harry had. "Mum was a bit clingy. You know, overprotective. She believes Dumbledore, you know, so naturally she was sure Death Eaters would be out in the streets at any moment."
"And you?" Harry asked warily. He hoped that Dean, who was a sensible and level-headed bloke, would see the truth. Then again he didn't know Dean quite as well as he did Ron or even Neville, so for a brief femtosecond he held his breath.
"I agree," Dean told him, causing him to let out a sigh of relief. "We both do, though Seamus has had a bit of a hard time of it." He turned to look at the shorter boy, who had been unusually quiet during the conversation, and Harry looked too.
"Me Mam's been a bit difficult about it," he admitted, not meeting Harry's eyes. "She reads the Prophet, you know. Believes what they say about Dumbledore losing his touch and…"
"About me," Harry didn't need to be told the rest.
Seamus winced. "Yeah," he said guiltily. "Sorry."
Great, Harry thought, fighting to keep himself from saying it out loud. Really great.
But in the end it was better than it might have been, as Dean chatted away idly and the three of them climbed up to the seventh floor and Gryffindor Common Room. Dean believed him, and so did Seamus. And with Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny, Luna and Neville that more or less covered the people he truly cared about, with a few exceptions. He could deal with people not believing him. He could even understand it. Just so long as those who knew him, and understood him, did not believe he was lying to them.
And in the end it didn't make much of a difference. Eventually they'd all know. Eventually, when Voldemort made his move, they'd find out first hand just how right Harry was.