When FitzSimmons walked into the common room early the next morning, they discovered a large sign on the notice board put up by the twins hiring help of an undisclosed type.
"Think that has anything to do with the joke shop they're trying to start?" Fitz asked as they walked past it on their way out.
"The two-fifty we gave them from the TriWizard Tournament for their business would explain how they have gold to hire people, and resources for whatever the hires will be doing," Simmons answered.
"I really hope their business takes off when they start it, if they haven't already," Fitz said. "Always good to see a private small business thrive. And even more so now that the Ministry is sticking their nose where it doesn't belong in this school."
They continued talking about the twins' business venture as they walked through the halls, until a few minutes later they reached the Great Hall and started eating breakfast. A while later they received their class schedule and found out that they would have Defense Against the Dark Arts as their last class that afternoon, so they walked over to where Sara was eating with her friends by that point.
"Do you have DADA today? We have it last thing this afternoon, if you'll still let us borrow your book," Simmons said.
Sara immediately reached into her backpack and grabbed the book, holding it out to Simmons. "We don't have it until tomorrow, so go ahead." Looking back at her friends, she asked, "Any of you mind letting them borrow one of yours as well so they each have one for class?"
Seconds later another book was presented, Fitz graciously taking it this time. Two copies of the book in their possession, FitzSimmons confidently walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom that afternoon, despite not getting a chance to even start reading the book. But they weren't worried, as four years of experience had proven that at a minimum over half of the class wouldn't have cracked their books open yet either, regardless of the class in question.
Taking the two corner seats of the front row away from the door, FitzSimmons set their books neatly on top of their desks and pulled out their pencils and papers. Ever since the first summer they had always brought their own writing material from the normal world to jot what few notes they did need to take down on, only using a quill and parchment for assignments that they turned in to Snape or their professors, since pencil and paper were so much more convenient, less potentially messy, and could be erased and changed if they wrote something down wrong, unlike quills, ink pots, ink, and parchment from the medieval ages.
Once everyone was seated, Umbridge began her lesson. As they listened to Umbridge's command of "wands away", FitzSimmons highly doubted that she would approve of their wands being hidden in their concealed holsters on their hips — similar to the ones that they kept their night-night guns and/or S&W M&P Shield 9mm's in when they went into the field at Shield — but what she didn't know couldn't hurt them. Because they hadn't pulled their wands out when they had entered, since they knew that their wands could be in their hands casting a spell before anyone else could pick their wand up from their desk, so their wands were still safely hidden from Umbridge's sight.
And despite the fact that they were seated in the front row where she could easily see them, and they didn't pull out any quills when she followed "wands away" with "quills out", she apparently considered the paper and pencils that they did have out to be good enough. That, or she had bad eyesight and couldn't see that far to see that it wasn't parchment and quills that they had out, combined with being the only two students in the class to already have their books out on their desks, as she didn't say anything to them as everyone else in the classroom grudgingly put their wands away and pulled out quills, ink pots, and parchment.
She did however begin to insult their four previous teachers, specifically — though without naming names — the two who had actually taught them anything, Professors Lupin and Crouch Jr. She did get correct that their education in the subject had been disrupted and fragmented, but then she incorrectly informed them that the solution to this problem was the government, and specifically more of it.
"You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified," she simpered at them. "We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centered, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please."
FitzSimmons gave each other dark looks at this declaration before writing down the course aims that she had put up on the blackboard and told them to write down. After all, the only self-defense that tyrannical governments ever approved of was rolling over and dying, submitting to the will of their government masters. One of the first acts of every tyrannical government to have ever seized power, as they were building up their power and control, was to disarm their subjects so that the people couldn't fight back once the government started taking other rights away later. And while wizarding governments fortunately couldn't take their intended slaves' wands away, since wands were used for absolutely everything in a wizard's life, the next best thing was to make sure that the up and coming generation only knew how to use their wands for things that weren't threatening to the continued rule of the government, and didn't know how to use their wands for self-defense against said tyrannical government. And if you could brainwash them into believing that defending yourself and those around you, especially against the government, was morally wrong and highly illegal, then bonus points — you were well on your way to a tyranny that wouldn't be overthrown until long after you were dead, and it was the next generation of rulers' problem.
And the course aims that she was having them copy down didn't assuage FitzSimmons' sense of foreboding in the least. While theoretically acceptable course aims if they had been written by the likes of Professor Lupin or Professor Crouch Jr (or probably Alastor Moody had he ever had a chance to teach), who they knew would be teaching them practical self-defense and extensively practicing the spells that they were learning, coming from a Ministry stooge things like 'understanding the principles', 'recognize situations...legally be used', and 'placing...in a context for practical use' all sounded like they wouldn't be doing any practicing of what was a perishable skill, and the spells that they would be reading about would be the most watered-down options that the Ministry could get by with at the moment. As for practicing the perishable skills of defending oneself, be it magical spells, firearms, or hand-to-hand combat, FitzSimmons were particularly concerned that there would be none, but they had been through Mace's rule of Shield, they knew when to keep quite and observe from the shadows for a while before saying or doing anything.
Once everyone had finished copying down the Ministry's goals for the class, Umbridge asked if everyone had a copy of the book, which led into her forcing everyone to give her a cult response of 'Yes, Professor Umbridge' or 'No, Professor Umbridge' to every question that she was to ask them for the rest of the year. FitzSimmons, of course, vowed in their heads to never give her more than mouthing what she wanted them to say to her unless they were having to answer something by one of their selves, which they also vowed to do their best to never have to do, so that they would never have to say what she demanded that they say.
As soon as Umbridge was satisfied with her subjects' following of her cult responses to everything that she said to them, she told them to read chapter one of the book, and returned to her seat and settled in as if she had no intentions of moving again until the bell rang signifying the end of class. FitzSimmons immediately began reading, while not excited about the prospect of possibly spending most of class time during the year just reading out of a book, that day slightly thankful for it as they hadn't been able to get the book and read through it before the year began like they normally did. Of course, they did much more than just read the first chapter that had been assigned, reading through the entire book before the bell rang ending class, but as they kept their heads down and subtly flipped the pages, Umbridge either never knew that they were reading past chapter one, or didn't care so long as they were being quiet.
After the bell had rung and FitzSimmons were walking away from the classroom, as soon as they were out of earshot of any innocent ears that didn't need to be hearing them swear any more than absolutely necessary, Fitz looked over at his wife and said, "Well, that book's complete bullshite."
"Yes, well, it's the government — what do you expect?" Simmons sighed in agreement. "And it appears as if the class will be the same. We've had useless DADA classes before — first and second years both, for the most part — but this is the first time that we've had a professor in this class actively give her students harmful information that will get them killed in real life situations, or enslaved by their government that is supposed to be serving them, not the other way around. Lockhart gave bad information, but his was so obviously bad or the spells weren't actually named in his books, that he kind of stopped being dangerous because he was such a joke. Now, I'm a sure a few people do consider him to be their hero, and he's dangerous to any of them who try to copy what he did, but for the most part he was just a sad, arrogant joke. Umbridge, however, is actively trying to brainwash everyone in at least this class, and I would assume the entire school, into believing things that will harm them in the future when they're adults. Or possibly before then if they're ever in a situation like Dumbledore claims that Krum was at the end of last year during the third task, when he disappeared and most likely did die."
~FS~
For the first time since they had arrived at Hogwarts four years earlier, Tuesday morning one of their professors finally talked to them about their future careers.
It was Professor Flitwick in his Charms class, and while he was far from the first professor whom they'd had talk to them about their upcoming OWL exams at the end of the year, he was the first to connect said exams' importance to everyone's future, telling them that, "These examinations may influence your futures for many years to come! If you have not already given serious thought to your careers, now is the time to do so."
Of course, in true Scottish fashion, though with a very good point, Fitz couldn't help but grumble quietly into Simmons' ear, "If they're that bloody important — which as someone with two Ph.D's and graduating Shield Academy I'd say they probably are — why didn't the professors bring all this up when we were picking additional classes for third year, and help us then? Because you can't very well get the bloody OWL necessary for a job if you never knew to take the bloody subject to being with."
Simmons simply rubbed her husband's hand soothingly, agreeing with him completely but also knowing that there was nothing she could say that would change the adults' actions of two and a half years before, or even that would change the adults' actions that upcoming spring and the ongoing future, without a lot of fighting to make the adults finally grow some common sense and then apply it. And anyway, that wasn't something to try to do during Charms class even if they did decide to tackle that particular problem — which was honestly probably more difficult than convincing the Ministry that Voldemort was back or Umbridge to actually teach them how to defend themselves against dark arts. But otherwise Charms class went well, an easy for them review of the Summoning charm that also for them turned into practicing its opposite charm, the Banishing charm, since Accio was such old hat for them — they had used it to summon Harry Potter's Firebolt for the third task, after all.
Once class had let out they had a fifteen minute break before Transfiguration class started, and they wandered down to the courtyard to spend it outside, where two official Hogwarts owls soon fluttered up to them. Taking the letters that they were carrying, FitzSimmons found that they were in fact their expected booklists that hadn't made it halfway across the globe in time for them to receive before returning to school. And sure enough, the only two books on there were the normal spell book and Umbridge/the Ministry's propaganda piece. But they had already ordered their two copies of that steaming pile of shite on Sunday night, and didn't have Defenseless Against Everything again until the following Monday, so in the end it didn't really matter that they hadn't received their booklists over the summer.
By that point the bell was ringing them on to Transfiguration, so they stuffed their booklists in their backpacks and headed back inside the castle. Having practiced all of the spells in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five over the summer before coming back to school, FitzSimmons had no trouble with the Vanishing spell that they were assigned to practice that class period, but they were the only ones. In fact, they were the only ones to successfully make their snails vanish completely during the entire class period, and therefore the only ones not assigned homework at the end of class, much to the irritation of everyone else in the class, who were all sulking and grumbling as they headed down to lunch about how much homework they already had in just a day and half of classes.
After lunch they had their first Care of Magical Creatures class, and just like Dumbledore had said at the Starting Feast, Professor Grubbly-Plank was teaching it. Odder, though, was the fact that from their arrival on Sunday night all the way through to then, Tuesday afternoon, they had never seen hide nor tangled mass of hair of the half-giant gamekeeper, at meals or wandering around the grounds doing his gamekeeper duties. Something that Malfoy was very quick to point out to Harry Potter as he and his two bodyguards took the spot on the grass right next to where FitzSimmons were working with Sally-Anne on sketching and labeling their bowtruckle.
"Maybe the stupid great oaf's got himself badly injured. Maybe he's been messing with stuff that's too big for him, if you get my drift," the Slytherin bully said in an undertone so that only Fitz, the two chicks with Fitz, Fitz and the two chicks' bowtruckle, and of course Crabbe, Goyle, and their bowtruckle, could hear him.
"No, we don't 'get your drift'," Fitz answered politely, but also quietly, having no interest in drawing Grubbly-Plank's attention to them. "We have no clue what you're talking about, like normal. And also like normal, we don't really give a flying fuck, because you've never actually had anything interesting to say to us in four years."
This took Malfoy by surprise, but after four years of practice being surprised every single time he tried to taunt Harry Potter and it fell on deaf years from his intended victim, he quickly recovered and sneered back, "And here I thought as Dumbledore's favorite, he would keep you up to date on what his precious Order is doing, and what he has his people foolishly trying to do."
"Nope," Fitz shook his head indifferently. "We haven't talked to Dumbledore since shortly after the third task, and that was for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with Hagrid, though looking back on it it did have to do with the Order of the Phoenix, though we actually only learned of its existence from Ronald Weasley on Sunday night. So he might know what you're talking about, if you want to go ask him, but we sure as hell don't. So either enlighten us if you want to have any hope that your taunts and jabs and bullying will have any effect on us, or leave us alone — we really don't care which."
And with that he turned back to working on his sketch of the bowtruckle that they were studying, and Simmons resumed expounding all of the chapters on bowtruckles from all of the magical creatures books that she had bought over the years for him and Sally-Anne to hear, since Grubbly-Plank hadn't actually told them anything about the creatures.
For a short while Malfoy seemed so shocked by Fitz's indifference that he actually left them alone, but soon enough he drawled out loudly enough this time for all of the class to hear, "Yes — Father was talking to the Minister just a couple days ago, you know, and it sounds as though the Ministry's really determined to crack down on sub-standard teaching in this place. So even if that overgrown moron does show up again, he'll probably be sent packing straightaway."
"Wouldn't he just return to only being the gamekeeper?" Fitz asked Simmons, loud enough that his voice would carry over to Malfoy five feet away from them, while not being so loud as to give the Slytherin sympathizer, Grubbly-Plank, an excuse to become bitchy because Fitz was dual-tasking by doing the assignment and talking to his wife and Malfoy at the same time. "If it really is about sub-standard teaching, of course, since the gamekeeper doesn't teach anyone. Though speaking of which, who is keeping the game at the moment? Or is the game just all running wild and free until Hagrid returns?" Looking directly over at Malfoy, he asked, "What do you think all of the game is doing at the moment, since there's no one here to keep it? Are we going to have game just randomly come sprinting through Care of Magical Creatures class here any minute?"
The pure genuineness of Fitz's tone as he asked the question (and maybe a little the absurdness of it) seemed to shock Malfoy so thoroughly that he just stared at Fitz for several long seconds, his mouth opening once or twice but no words coming out, before turning back to his own bowtruckle and leaving FitzSimmons alone for the entire rest of the class period, when they could finally be free of him as they headed up to Herbology and Malfoy headed they cared not where since it wasn't the greenhouses.
~FS~
Friday evening Ron came bounding up to where FitzSimmons were studying in the library, his broomstick slung over his shoulder.
"Harry, I did it, I'm in, I'm keeper!" he exclaimed as soon as he was close to them. "I made it! I'm the new Gryffindor keeper!"
"Congratulations," Simmons replied sincerely as she knew how much quidditch meant to him, and despite his own less than stellar behavior towards them over the previous four years, she still wished the best for him.
She was more than a little concerned about his ability to keep up with his schoolwork while also practicing several times a week, as he had appeared rather more lazy than otherwise about homework over the previous four years, but perhaps with him now being on a sports team, Professor McGonagall or one of the other professors would be watching his grades more closely to make sure that he remained academically eligible to compete on the team.
Of course, in reality nothing could be further from the truth, as there were no academic requirements to play sports at Hogwarts. As long as you remained in the school — which was nearly impossible to get thrown out of for poor grades, or anything else for that matter — and were playing quidditch well enough to remain on the team, you could play. Quidditch, and winning the Quidditch Cup, was literally more important to most of the teachers than their own classes were. But Simmons was blissfully unaware of this, never having taken a close look at who was on the quidditch teams and what she guessed that their grades might be, so she was genuinely happy for the redhead, and even hopeful that it might make him a better student and therefore better wizard because he had made the team.
"I've got to get up to the common room, the twins are throwing a party, but I just wanted to tell you first," Ron said with a bright smile, before bounding off again, leaving FitzSimmons alone once more.
"Looks like he'll have his spotlight he's always wanted," Fitz said when the redhead was out of earshot. "Question is, will it be as a hero, or a spectacular failure? Not saying he can't play goalie, no clue one way or the other about that, but one bad game will make him the laughingstock of three-quarters of the castle — I seriously doubt he's considered that in his quest for undying fame. Infamy is as much a type of fame as esteem is."
"Maybe he'll work hard and do well," Simmons answered. "Either way he'll learn a valuable lesson in the fact that you get out of something what you put into it. Or, well, he'll at least be presented with an opportunity to learn that — whether he actually learns from it or not is up to him."
The following afternoon FitzSimmons were enjoying a casual fly on Harry Potter's Firebolt when they spotted the Gryffindor team taking to the skies over the quidditch pitch on their own brooms, and decided to fly over and watch for a bit, having nothing better to do. What they saw and heard was not pleasant.
The arseholes that they were, Malfoy and his gang of Slytherin bullies were sitting in the stands ridiculing, jeering, and insulting the Gryffindor team, from the moment that the Gryffindors walked out of their changing room. Insults that only increased when the new redheaded keeper played terribly, missing the first two warmup passes to him, and then after finally managing to catch the third one, hurling it so hard at his teammate that he broke her nose with the quaffle. Apparently deciding that Ron passing the quaffle around was a bad idea, the team captain, Angelina Johnson, got practice started for real, sending Ron to go guard the goal posts, the twins to set the bludgers free, the seeker to set the snitch free, and she and the other two chasers to start taking shots at Ron. Not that the youngest male redhead did any better guarding the goals than he had passing the quaffle around, drifting off to one of the outside hoops instead of staying in the center or circling the three hoops, and therefore letting quaffles go soaring past him through the rings.
All the while, the Slytherins in the stands were having an absolute field day with Ron's less than stellar performance. FitzSimmons would have reported the Slytherins' behavior to a professor, but they weren't actually doing anything illegal. Cruel and morally despicable, sure, but nothing unlawful. Freedom of speech gave them every right to yell insults at the Gryffindor team, as they weren't slandering them or yelling fire in crowded quidditch stand where there was no fire. And everyone on the Gryffindor quidditch team would have to face far worse in their lives as they moved into the real world in a few years, so they might as well get used to ignoring it now when it was just snide comments about their admittedly poor performance.
The only 'redeeming' thing for the Gryffindor players was the fact that whatever the twins had given Katie Bell to stop the nosebleed that their younger brother had given her had only made the nosebleed worse, and so Angelina had to call practice for the day so that the twins could rush Katie up to the hospital wing so that Madam Pomfrey could fix her up right again before she bled out, and they all had to go away before the Slytherins could taunt them a second time.
On Monday of the second week of school, FitzSimmons were sitting in their normal spots eating breakfast when Sara walked over to them holding the morning's Daily Prophet.
"You two might want to see this," she said, holding out the Ministry's daily propaganda to them. "Maybe think twice before standing up to Umbridge like you have the other professors here over the years."
"Thanks — we're already well aware of keeping our heads down, we've had to deal with her type before, but thanks," Simmons answered as she took the paper. "Always good to know exactly what the enemy of the people is saying, what lies they are spreading this time and trying to repeat often enough that it becomes believed to be the truth."
Looking at the front page article as Sara returned to her friends, FitzSimmons saw that it was about Umbridge, and new tyrannical powers that she had been given by the Ministry.
"The Ministry 'gave itself an unprecedented level of control' — is it just me, or is that the literal, dictionary, textbook definition of tyranny?" Fitz asked rhetorically as he read the first sentence of the article. "No legitimate government can give itself anything — all of its limited, specific powers are granted to it by the people whom it serves."
"Yes, well, when has any government ever actually obeyed that on their own?" Simmons answered equally rhetorically. "When has a government ever limited its own power? It requires the people limiting it by force, what Umbridge is trying to make sure that this upcoming generation is incapable of doing."
"Also, is it really a 'surprise' move?" Fitz questioned. "I mean, they sent their person in here to begin with, it's not exactly much of a surprise that they would give her more power. And a government giving itself more power and control certainly isn't a surprise move — a horrifying one, an illegal one, sure, but not a surprising one. They all do it every day."
"Wordsmithing, though I'm not sure to what end," Simmons replied. "They don't exactly seem to gain emotional support by saying it's a surprise move as opposed to a move long in the works. In fact, I'd almost say they would have been better off saying that they've been trying to take this control for a long time but have constantly met resistance from the headmaster, because that would enable them to further their summer-long libel campaign against Dumbledore, and make themselves look better in the process. But really it's of no major consequence which way they phrase it. Although I suppose it might be surprising if you're completely oblivious to the way that governments always work, which given our four years of magical history so far, most students probably are if they have no contact with the real world."
"Okay, I can see it being a surprise based on that," Fitz agreed. "Four years — fifteen and sixteen year olds now — and we still haven't studied Grindelwald, Voldemort, or any other wizarding tyrant. And we certainly haven't studied wizarding governments giving themselves null and void powers to more easily subjugate and enslave their people with — you know, now that I think about it, are we sure that the Ministry hasn't been running Hogwarts this entire time, at least in rewriting or severely limiting history? I seem to be getting vibes of a certain 'those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it' warning."
"Look at the next sentence," Simmons said. " 'Responding to concerns voiced by anxious parents, who feel the school may be moving in a direction they do not approve of.' Isn't that what the Board of Directors is for, not the government? I mean, that's literally what a Board of Directors exists for, to set the direction of the school, as they appoint and fire the headmaster who makes the day to day decisions."
"Yeah, but it sure emotionally sounds good to claim that you're doing what 'anxious parents' want," Fitz replied. "Who would ever complain about someone doing something to help 'anxious parents'? Though I'm pretty sure if parents actually knew half of the things that go on in this school — like Snape, now Umbridge, Harry Potter being enslaved in the tournament last year, Lockhart second year, and all of the bullying that the teachers do absolutely nothing to stop — and they genuinely cared about their children's education — well, half of them would be homeschooling instead of letting this school educate their children in the first place, but that's an entirely different point — but if they did know everything that goes on in here, they wouldn't be voicing their concerns to anyone, they would be knocking down the gates to citizens arrest the child abusers, those that knowingly allow the child abusers to remain and therefore make themselves complicit and supporters of said child abusers through inaction, and the remaining completely useless teachers. There's a time to voice concerns, but I'd say in certain areas, especially Snape and now Umbridge teaching that self-defense is morally wrong, we're way past that point. That line in the sand can't be seen even with a telescope anymore it's so far back. If parents actually knew what was going on here, and cared."
"I certainly wouldn't let our daughter come here before she was an adult and I knew that she could think for herself and see through the adults here's bullshite, cowardice, felonies, and complicitness," Simmons answered. "But speaking of things that should be the Board of Governors' responsibility, and certainly not the government's, is appointing professors when the headmaster can't. Now, I'm not saying I would trust the Board to do that either, but I certainly don't want the government doing it — because they'll do exactly what they did, and put an Umbridge in the position. Also, what are the first twenty-one 'Educational Decrees'? Because I've never heard of such a thing before — something else we haven't covered in history class that we really probably should."
"I wonder how hard the people running all of this had to work to make sure that Dumbledore couldn't find a new DADA professor so that they could appoint their own person," Fitz said. "This wasn't something they did at the last minute because Dumbledore couldn't find anyone, in order to make sure that there was a professor for the new year — this was deliberate sabotage and usurpation, long planned out and very carefully executed. Which means that they had make sure that the position would be open. And also this exact position, as their plan wouldn't work nearly as well if they replaced Hagrid in Care of Magical Creatures — not being able to defend yourself against hippogriffs, or not knowing how to approach hippogriffs and unicorns, or not knowing how to utilize a niffler isn't exactly the biggest catastrophe ever, or going to increase their slavery over the sheeple."
"You're completely right, but you do have to admit that this position is also the one that's the easiest to take," Simmons answered thoughtfully. "Five years, five professors, and if I'm not mistaken it was Professor Quirrell's first — and only — year teaching the subject, which makes six consecutive years with different professors that we are aware of. That is not statistically normal. And in this particular subject, very, very not good either. You want someone who knows what they're doing to teach self-defense, a good consistency across all seven years that the students are here, not someone new every single year creating the fragmentation that Umbridge very correctly pointed out last week that we've had."
"So has the Ministry been shadow-interfering in the subject far longer than this year's blatant subterfuge?" Fitz asked. "Or is something else going on that just so happens to benefit a tyrannical Ministry? How deep does this conspiracy really go? And who has the red pill for us to take to figure it all out? This is Hydra hiding in Shield for seventy years level of preventing the people from being able to overthrow a tyrannical government if people inside the Ministry have really been behind this for a long time."
"No idea, and we'll probably never know," Simmons answered with a shake of her head as they continued to read on. A few paragraphs later, she said, "I wonder who the Ministry is trying to fire by giving Umbridge the ability to 'review' the professors."
"If we're lucky she'll take out Snape, and by accident actually do some good in this world," Fitz answered. "I wonder how much the Ministry thinks he's connected to Dumbledore. Because this is obviously about taking out professors who will support Dumbledore's factual statements about Voldemort being back."
"Ron said that Snape was at his house over the summer, as well as many of the other professors," Simmons replied. "But that doesn't answer the question of what the Ministry believes, which is all that matters here. It also doesn't answer how good any of them are at appearing to be good little, loyal government puppies. Act like you support Umbridge and the Ministry, and it doesn't matter what you're doing in secret, your position will be safe. Everything is always about perception."
After the very next sentence of the article, Fitz said dryly, "Don't you just love how media cherry-picks people who support their narrative to quote? Where's the counterarguments by people who believe this to be a gross infringement of governmental power? New is supposed to be facts so that people can make their own judgements, not 'here's the one side that we desperately need you to believe, with none of the facts or arguments that would support the side that we need you to reject'."
"But how would they ever convince anyone of their detrimental and often false narrative if they provided both sides of the issue?" Simmons wryly chuckled back. "Provide the facts, and every logical, free-thinking person will see the truth, not what the government needs everyone to believe in order to stay in power. But what I really want to see is a quote from someone in their hovel instead of mansion. I mean, really, what makes someone poor's thoughts inferior to those who have some wealth — but you almost never see quotes from unknown people in clearly poorer neighborhoods. Unless they're supporting the narrative and it's emotionally beneficial to the media and government to show poor people, to garner sympathy."
"Well, they do actually have a quote from someone who doesn't support their propaganda," Fitz said, reading ahead a few paragraphs. "Right before making sure to make the person out to be someone no one should trust. 'For a full account of Madam Marchbanks' alleged links to subversive goblin groups' — isn't that for all intents and purposes a false rape accusation? She can be 100% innocent, or the goblin groups 100% in the moral right, but because the Daily Prophet wrote it like that in a front page article, she has already been condemned in the court of public opinion, and will forever be considered guilty by a significant portion of the public, no matter how false it turns out to be — assuming that it's not complete lies made up by the Ministry/Daily Prophet to begin with, and the only people making those allegations are themselves, right here and then in their own article on page seventeen."
"It's definitely libel that in the real world could bring Madam Marchbanks a multi-million dollar settlement," Simmons answered. "And yes, it's the terrorist version of a rape hoax — a false terrorism accusation. And if the Ministry has a terrorist watchlist, she definitely just joined Dumbledore on it — I wonder if there's a broomstick no-fly list? A no-portkey list? No-apparation list?"
As this libel against the honorable and brave Madam Marchbanks was finally the end of the attempted brainwashing, Fitz folded up the newspaper and put it away in his backpack to look through the rest of later when they didn't have class to attend in a few minutes.
"Ministry good, Dumbledore bad, all praise your lord and savior the government, and for the gods of big government's sake, whatever you do, don't use your brain, common sense, and logic to question the narrative that we are force-feeding down your throat to brainwash you and turn you into obedient little sheeple slaves — did I miss anything?" he said sarcastically, looking back up at his lovely, and smart, and definitely not at all taken in by the Ministry's manipulations, wife.
"No, no — that about sums it up," Simmons chuckled sardonically.
~FS~
History of Magic that morning still didn't cover Voldemort, Grindelwald, or government usurpation, and soon it was time for Potions class.
As Snape returned their first homework of the year, he sneered at them, "The general standard of this homework was abysmal. Most of you would have failed had this been your examination."
'Isn't that also an indication of the teacher's ability to teach their subject?' Fitz psychically asked Simmons with a glance.
'Sure is, and in this case means that Snape failed to the extent of all of his failing students combined', Simmons answered also psychically. 'A few students failing is the students' lack of trying or inability to learn — most of the students' failing is the professor's lack of trying or inability to teach, and most definitely grounds for firing. The only exception would be the school requiring the teacher to teach something too early, that is above the students' current education level, but that is definitely not the case here. Also, he's probably lying his arse off about how everyone really did, based on four years of experience.'
"Most disappointingly, only two students achieved an 'O' grade," Snape continued on, refusing to admit out loud that his mortal enemy Harry Potter, and his mortal enemy Harry Potter's mudblood girlfriend had been the two to achieve said 'O's. "I expect to see a great deal more effort for this week's essay on the various varieties of venom antidotes, or I shall have to start handing out detentions to those dunces who get a 'D'."
After that he set them to making a strengthening potion, still not actually giving them any real instruction or teaching them how to properly and safely do chemistry. It set Simmons' nerves on edge every single class watching all of the unsafe lab practices going on around her, and all of the potential chances for catastrophe, great injury, and even death, but all she could actually do was hope that whenever a disaster did occur it would take the child-abusing not-teacher out with it, and they could get an actual teacher for the class — hell, she'd take the class over for a few weeks if the adults would let her, and teach everyone in the castle a thing or two about proper lab procedure that they should have been taught week one, year one and reminded of every year since then.
But eventually Potions ended, and Simmons' stress levels could return to normal again until the next Potions class, and she and Fitz headed upstairs to lunch before their afternoon classes.
A couple of hours later Umbridge began their second Defenseless Against the Dark Arts class by telling them all, "As we finished Chapter One last lesson, I would like you all to turn to page nineteen today and commence 'Chapter Two: Common Defensive Theories and their Derivation'. There will be no need to talk."
She turned around and started to head back to her desk, clearly planning on twiddling her thumbs again for the entire hour and a half like she had the week before, but from her front row seat Simmons innocently and politely said, "Excuse me, professor Umbridge."
Umbridge turned back around to look at her. "And your names is?"
"Hermione Granger," Simmons answered.
"Well, Miss Granger, did you want to ask something about the last chapter, dear?" Umbridge asked sickeningly sweet, as if addressing a child but in a way that would make even a child feel like they were being patronized and disrespected.
"We've already read the entire book last class period," Simmons answered politely while motioning between herself and Fitz, ignoring Umbridge's question and jumping straight into her own question, as it was still a completely relevant question even if it wasn't about Chapter One.
Umbridge stared at Simmons, blinking her eyes in clear shock, before quickly recovering her poise and saying over-sweetly — like she didn't believe the little girl and was going to correct her by showing that having simply sped-read through the entire book didn't mean that she actually knew it, and therefore needed to reread it more slowly and carefully, which was after all what her entire class was for — "Well then, you should be able to tell me what Slinkhard says about counter-jinxes in Chapter Fifteen."
"He says that counter-jinxes are improperly named, that they are really just normal jinxes that people have given another name to because they want to make them sound more acceptable. That all jinx-like spells are in fact truly jinxes, and should be treated as such, not given other names to make them sound less malicious," Simmons answered promptly and confidently, having a near-eidetic memory, especially on something she had just read the week before, and again the previous evening in case something exactly like this happened.
Umbridge's eyebrows rose, there being no way for her to hide how impressed she actually was, against her will.
"And what does Slinkhard say about retaliation in Chapter Thirty-Four?" she pressed, trying to find something that this non-conforming, non-sheeple student didn't know — even she herself didn't have the chapters completely memorized, after all.
"He says that you should always negotiate when someone uses dark arts against you. That retaliation is always a bad thing, and should never be done. Revenge has no place in the enlightened wizards life, it is the barbaricness of savages, muggles, and uncivilized wizards. And if negotiation does not work, then the witch or wizard should go to the appropriate Ministry department to rectify the situation for them, that is what the Ministry exists for."
Once again, Umbridge could think of nothing to say to this concise and precise summary of the chapter. So she gave one last effort to show Miss Granger that the girl still needed to read the book with the rest of the class.
"Alright then, what does the last chapter say?"
" 'Chapter Thirty-Six: Legitimate Defensive Spells And Their Appropriate Times Of Use'. Defensive spells should only be an absolute last resort for when absolutely all other options have failed, and then only the minimal spell necessary should be used to prevent death. And negotiation, as previously discussed in Chapter thirty-four, as well as other chapters, should be reattempted at every possible moment in the very rare instances where the use of some form of defensive spell absolutely cannot be avoided," Simmons answered, once more regurgitating the book word for word as best as she could, adding no commentary, facts, or corrections of her own for Umbridge to get all bitchy about.
This time it seemed that Umbridge was no longer shocked by Simmons' knowledge, or else was simply prepared for the disbelief and therefore able to cover it up much better, as she was able to quickly and back to her completely saccharine voice reply, "As impressive as that is, Miss Granger, read it again with the rest of the class. After all, it is the view of the Ministry that as long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions, and therefore get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. Now everyone, turn to page nineteen and begin reading — no more interruptions."
Having expected no less than Umbridge making them reread the steaming pile of government propaganda shit, Simmons had already charmed the alternating pages of her and Fitz's copies of the book to be one of the dozen previous years' fifth year DADA textbooks that she had found in the library since the week before when they had read the Ministry's propaganda and discovered how useless it was to them (and actually dangerous to everyone else who wasn't a well-trained Shield field agent and knew defense inside and out, backwards, forwards, and in their sleep, but simply useless to FitzSimmons because they were actual, literal spies), so she and Fitz began reading the first of these books while everyone else in the class dozed off with their eyes open because the propaganda was even more dull than Binns lecturing in History of Magic. And even though they couldn't practice any of the spells that they were reading about in class, FitzSimmons had entire dorms to themselves below their own that they had always used for practice, and would continue doing this year, especially as they weren't getting any practice in class.
Once class was over and the bell had rung letting them out of the brainwashing session, and they were a few hallways away from the Ministry agent, Fitz said to his wife in an undertone, "It turned out okay, but was that the wisest move to make?"
"Maybe not, but it was a risk I was willing to take," Simmons answered quietly. "I wanted to know what she would do with a quote unquote 'perfect' student. One who knew her book word for word front to back, and regurgitated it, and only it, absolutely perfectly. What can you do to an already perfectly brainwashed sheeple?
"But as for whether it was a real risk, challenging her in any way at all — we're not Dumbledore, and as far as the Ministry and Umbridge can be aware, we've never really shown any support for him, especially when it comes to Voldemort. We've never stayed with him or his over the summer, we've never said to anyone of Ministry aware that we believe Voldemort is alive — for all Umbridge knows, we believe and support the Ministry. Especially after I just regurgitated the book like I worshiped it as my Bible since I knew it by heart, I'm pretty sure even better than she knows it. Additionally, you have to remember that it was me, a complete nobody to these people, not the Boy-Who-Lived, the Harry Potter, most famous person in all the magical Isles, who interrupted her class — when it comes down to it, I was extremely low on her radar when I first spoke up. I'm more on her radar now, but like I said, I only said things that she approves of, so I don't think I put myself negatively on her radar with what I did today.
"And yes, we have fought with authority our entire time here, but we've fought against Dumbledore's people and staff most of that time — assuming the Ministry knows that Professor McGonagall supports Dumbledore — if they've even heard about any of that to begin with, which they probably haven't if we're being honest. And the one fight that they would most likely know about is us fighting back against Dumbledore himself when Harry's name came out of the goblet last year. Point being, even though I was in a sense challenging her, making her think on the spot, we don't really appear to anyone who can only know of us from the outside to be of any kind of threat to the Ministry. So I don't think it was actually as unwise as it might have seemed, 'challenging' the government plant as I did. And we learned a lot from it about her and how she thinks, that could come in useful later. Also, I think she might now actually consider us on her side because we know her book so well and appear to support it."
Despite having the power to inspect classes from day one of the new term, the first lesson that FitzSimmons were in that actually was inspected by Umbridge wasn't until Transfiguration on the second Tuesday of the term.
Personally, they were of the opinion that Professor McGonagall did a rather poor job of protecting her position in the school. It felt to them like her rudeness and dismissiveness towards Umbridge was just poking the bear and jabbing a stick into the hornets' nest, increasing the risk that Umbridge would fire Professor McGonagall simply for pissing her off, in addition to any connections that Professor McGonagall had with Dumbledore, while not actually benefiting the students of the castle in any way whatsoever. The Gryffindor Head of House definitely could have taken some lessons from Simmons on how to handle an unsavory character you weren't yet in a position to remove from power, since she'd had to manipulate Mace for months in order to protect their team inside and outside of Shield. But when it really came down to it, they didn't care what Professor McGonagall did or didn't do about protecting her job — while fine at teaching her subject of Transfiguration, from what they had seen over their four years there, she was just as useless as every other adult in the castle at actually taking care of the students she had a responsibility for, so her continued presence in the castle wasn't going to actually do anything for the students against the Ministry's attempted takeover.
After that questionable performance by Professor McGonagall, the next class that FitzSimmons had inspected was Care of Magical Creatures that very afternoon, and there really wasn't anything surprising to that one as far as the inspection itself went. Umbridge was disbelieving when Professor Grubbly-Plank said that she was receiving full support from the staff and that Dumbledore had been excellent to her (as Umbridge's own experiences so far had been anything but), and Umbridge heavily implied that Hagrid didn't know what he was doing in this class by emphasizing that at least Grubbly knew what she was doing, but neither of those could be considered surprising.
FitzSimmons did, however, learn that Professor Grubbly-Plank was still only a substitute for Hagrid, not the new professor like Dumbledore had implied at the Starting Feast, and that it was only supposed to be for a few weeks as far as Professor Grubbly-Plank knew. And unless she was an extremely talented actress she had no clue why Hagrid wasn't there, though based on Umbridge saying that Dumbledore wouldn't tell her anything about where Hagrid was, it probably wasn't anything that the Ministry would approve of, meaning either something in the war against Voldemort, or else another highly illegal creature like the dragon or blast-ended skrewts, only off-site this time instead of in or at his hut like those two beasts.
The third class that they had inspected was Potions, almost an entire month later, on the first Monday of October. Snape didn't do anything to make friends with Umbridge any more than Professor McGonagall had, but he also didn't intentionally antagonize the toad, simply answering her questions as shortly, curtly, and bitterly as he possibly could, like he was trying not to snap her neck with his bare hands. He clearly didn't like her, and was far from friendly with her, but he gave no answers that were likely to incense her, and said nothing of his own at all that wasn't just answering her questions — his job seemed completely safe, unfortunately.
As for the inspection itself, Umbridge simply made notes for the first half hour, implied that the Ministry thought that Strengthening Solutions were too threatening to their power and control for fifteen/sixteen year olds to be brewing (or probably any grade at school, or anyone period because additional strength would make any wizard a more formidable opponent to the government's enforcement thugs), then asked Snape her few questions, and finally spent the rest of the class time walking around asking only Slytherins questions about their Head of House's class, noticeably avoiding anyone who might possibly have a negative opinion about Snape and how he ran Potions. Which FitzSimmons found slightly odd, as in their experience Snape was protected by Dumbledore more than anyone except for Harry Potter himself, and therefore must be closely connected to Dumbledore in some way, but perhaps the Ministry was unaware of any of this, and for some reason considered Snape to be more on their side than otherwise. But it really didn't matter why Umbridge only asked people favorable of Snape questions, as unless there was something going on that they really weren't seeing, Snape would be going absolutely nowhere, by the Ministry or Dumbledore — to the detriment and continued abuse of every single student in the castle.
But while Snape's job might have seemed secure, not everyone else in the castle's seemed to be quite so based on a muttered conversation that they heard that afternoon right before the start of Defenseless Against the Dark Arts class while waiting for Umbridge to open the door. FitzSimmons had just walked up from their Arithmancy lesson to join all of the non-Arithmancy fifth year Gryffindors outside of the DADA classroom — if it could even be called a 'classroom' anymore when only brainwashing took place inside of it now, instead of learning — when they overheard Lavender muttering mutinously to Parvati.
"Who does she think she is to put Trelawney on probation? Divination is far nobler than any Ministry hag without the Inner Eye could possibly understand — you heard Trelawney."
FitzSimmons glanced at each other — Umbridge had apparently found her first victim.