By Monday, Melania had still not contacted Alduin about what had happened the previous week, and she had not answered his owl.
Alduin forced himself to put it out of his mind, as much as he was able. He had laid out the situation clearly in the letter, and now the decision was up to her. He would respect whatever she chose, and he would not pressure her in any way by writing any more owls, let alone doing anything more dramatic like showing up at her work, however much he was sometimes tempted.
Besides, he had more important things to do.
Melania's anger with him had managed to distract him from what had occupied him before – the possibilities of Riddle making another Horcrux, and the particularly troubling one of him already having made one, in fact.
Because the question was...did Riddle know that living Horcruxes were a possibility? And if he did, what did ti imply about Harry's situation?
Making a living Horcrux seemed stupid, on the face of things. The whole point of it was that it would last forever and so guarantee your immortality, which living things, by nature, did not. You could cast various protections on them, naturally, like you would on objects, but they would not change their essential mortality – that's why you needed the Horcruxes in the first place, after all.
But...but, if Riddle really believed that seven Horcruxes, specifically, ensured him extremely powerful protection, and if his destruction had come, to his mind, just before completing the final one...would he not be particularly motivated to make the last one as soon as possible? Without waiting for a precious object to find?
And the worst part was that there was, in fact, some supporting evidence to be had. It was, specifically, in Harry's dreams that were almost certainly the result of the Horcrux in him. Because, a thing Alduin had somehow not realised until now...none of those dreams had been from Riddle's point of view.
He had no idea why it hadn't struck him until now, but it certainly did in this context, with its full force.
Because Riddle's pet snake would have been in the perfect position to observe what Harry did in his dreams...and it could also, quite likely, be what regularly came to spy on the corridor in the Department of Mysteries.
After all, Riddle would hardly go there in person. Until now, Alduin had simply assumed that Harry was sharing dreams with Riddle, that it was a reflexion of his fixated thoughts, but...well, if that was the case, there would have probably been a little more murder in there.
No, the snake explanation, sadly, was much too likely.
It all fit just too well, and so there was no helping it: Alduin would have to speak with Snape again, once more somewhere outside Hogwarts, and ask him to somehow do a few detection spells without Riddle taking notice. On a pet snake he kept particularly close to himself.
Snape was going to simply love that.
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Sophie returned from her detention with Umbridge looking strangely pale, and tense in a way she only ever got when her biological father came up in conversation.
There'd been some arguments among the group of Harry's yearmates about what kind of punishment Umbridge would give. There were big differences between teachers, they all knew, but Umbridge seemed like a very by-the-book kind of person, and so Harry rather thought Sophie would be left writing lines.
Given her expression, though, it didn't seem likely.
Her friends immediately gathered around her, hustling her to the most comfortable free armchair they could find, and then Ginny, who had joined them when she saw Sophie was in trouble, asked: "What happened?"
"Nothing," Sophie said in a tone that was extremely unconvincing.
"Come on," Dean said. "Something very obviously did."
"We just want to help, Sophie," Harriet, who had wormed her way into the group moments before, said beseechingly.
Sophie hesitated a bit more, then said: "I was writing lines," and, before anyone could express their confusion about how that related to her mood, showed them the back of her hand.
They all drew away in horror.
"What did she do to you?" Harry asked angrily.
"She had a special quill she gave me," Sophie whispered. "It was...it was writing with my blood."
A few people gasped.
"There must be something we can do about this," Neville declared, looking at Parvati as his fellow prefect.
"We will go to McGonnagal," she agreed decisively. "We will go now."
They both left, and Ginny, Harriet, Dean and Seamus devoted themselves to consoling Sophie as Harry pulled Ron aside.
"Do you know what kind of spell that is?" He asked.
"No," Ron replied, shaking his head. "I've never heard about it, but...I'm pretty bloody sure it's dark."
Harry nodded. He rather thought so too, and to that end, decided to ask Draco about it as soon as he could.
Parvati and Neville returned from McGonnagal in about an hour – Sophie was calmer by then, and clearly beginning to feel embarrassed about how shaken she'd been – and they did not have particularly good news. McGonnagal had been horrified and promised to take it to Dumbledore, but at the same time alluded to the difficult political situation at the moment and pointed out that the easiest way to arrange this would be with the family protesting, only with Sophie being Muggle-Born…
Harry was considering whether Alduin could solve this in some way when Harriet said firmly: "I'm writing home. She won't get away with this."
Harry let out a relieved breath, and focused on meeting up with Draco.
He did so the following day over lunch, and while they spent the first bit of their time together by more pleasant activities, as they sat in the corner of their empty classroom afterwards, leaning on each other, he said: "So, have you ever heard of a quill that uses your blood to write?"
Draco whipped his head around to look at him, tensing: "Where the hell did you find such a thing?"
"Umbridge uses it for detentions, apparently."
Draco cursed.
"That's dark magic. There's no borderline, grey stuff about that, it's the most straightforwardly kind of dark that can be. It's..." He shook his head. "Is the woman insane?"
"Maybe," Harry conceded. "But at any rate, I hope she will soon be gone."
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In the following days and weeks, Harry discovered a few interesting things.
For example, adoption, in the wizarding world, apparently worked differently from the Muggle one. It wasn't this complete replacement of old parents for the news ones. Instead, it was simply an...acknowledgement of responsibility, that gave the adoptive parents certain rights on behalf of the adopted child. It didn't even usually include inheritance of the bulk of the family property, except for special cases where the adopted child was a close blood relative. It was, effectively, the situation he was in with Alduin: guardian and ward, only it could be done when the parents were still living, too.
The reason he suddenly knew all this? Because the Bulstrodes, after hearing what happened to Sophie, exchanged a flurry of letters with her that resulted in precisely that: Sophie being pronounced the ward of the Bulstrode family.
Which gave them some rights – namely, the right to bring before a closed session of the Wizengamot, where they had a seat, the fact that their ward had been tortured by dark magic at school, and that they demanded recompense.
It would have been more complicated if Sophie's detentions had only happened before the adoption went through, but bolstered by everyone's support as she had been, Sophie refused to be cowed by Umbridge, which led to more detentions, including one that took place after all the paperwork was done.
One was enough.
Not even Alduin's intervention had ever led to such a quick sacking, once that happened – but then again, Lockhart had been merely incompetent, not malevolent, and Quirell hadn't been stupid enough to leave such glaring evidence as the scar on the top of Sophie's hand.
So Umbridge was arrested by Giacomo Proudfoot in the Great Hall at dinner the same day the Bulstrodes had made their complaint, and Harriet and Sophie were the new heroes of the school.
It was an amazing scene. Umbridge had been declared Hogwarts High Inquisitor by Fudge's decree just a few days before that, with the power to inspect and sack teachers who failed her standards of teaching – Harry didn't wish to imagine what those were – but before any actual inspections could happen in Harry's class, there was this spectacle instead.
Giacomo Proudfoot clearly had a good sense of dramatics, too. He and his people marche dinto the Great Hall at dinnertime, when the whole school was gathered, throwing the doors open with what must have been a spell, because they flew apart and hit he walls as the Aurors marched in in a neat procession – Proudfoot and four others behind him, which was surely an overkill for bloody Umbridge, but looked pretty damn impressive.
The school watched them in absolute silence as they marched through the central line between the tables and then split in front of the head table, a pair going in each direction to neatly entrap Umbridge while Proudfoot stood in front of her, announcing: "Dolores Umbridge, you are under arrest for the repeated use of the Dark Arts on a minor. We ask you to come quietly, or force will be used against you. What is your response?"
Umbridge made a sort of panicked squeak that Harry wished he could have recorded so that he could play it whenever he was sad.
"This is outrageous! This is a rebellion! I am the Minister's Undersecretary!" She protested.
"I have the decree in which the Minister dissolves are your ties to the Ministry right here," Proudfoot replied, pulling out a parchment, "but it is irrelevant. You are beign arrested on the authority of the Wizengamot, which supersedes the Minister. Will you come quietly?" There was a distinct threat in his voice this time.
"I refuse-" Umbridge began, and the two Aurors around her took a step closer each, and drew their wands.
Umbridge deflated. "This will not be the end of this," she muttered, but nevertheless she naded over her wand, and one of the Aurors took it while another waved their wand and her hands were tied behind her back.
Then, she was marched out of the Great Hall.
The door closed behind the group with another dramatic bang, and Fred Weasley let out a loud cheer.
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It was, Alduin had realised, sheer relief to realise that for once, he would not have to do everything himself.
When Harry had first written him about Umbridge's torture of Sophie, he'd already been half through forming a plan to try and do something about it when he got to the part of the letter where Harry explained that the Bulstrodes were taking care of it, and then he felt like going over to Bulstrode Park to offer them a profound thanks.
From then on, he had only watched as a bystander, following the story in Harry's letters and through his social engagements. George, Harriet's father, was particularly verbose on the topic, while Alduin knew it was his wife who was doing most of the work to pull of the adoption under Umbridge's nose while still managing to get her the punishment she deserved for using Dark magic on a minor.
And now she was finally gone from Hogwarts, meaning that the ball was back in Alduin's court.
There would still be an investigation, of course, and no doubt a number of other disturbing things would be revealed – Alduin particularly shuddered at the thought of her using the Blood Quill on the under-fourteens as well, and his only consolation was that she's lasted at the school for barely a month, so surely she couldn't have got to so many children – but the story of the previous night's arrest had broken than morning in the Prophet.
The outrage would begin, and Alduin had to be ready to capitalise on it.
It would have been bad enough for Fudge if he had simply put Umbridge there, but her being his right hand and him managing to name her Inquisitor just before...well, the situation would hardly get any more convenient.
It would, at least, come useful that Alduin had a little more free time now.
Melania had finally answered his owl about a week after their aborted argument, but she sent only a short letter letting him know that she needed to think about things, and there had been silence since then, for the last fortnight. Alduin missed her, there was no getting around that, but at the same time he was beginning to think that perhaps it was a good thing this difference in their view of their relationship was revealed this early on, before he could get more entangled.
That benefit of the additional time was proven the very same evening, when Alduin was in the middle of planning in detail how best to use the Umbridge scandal to his advantage when Litty popped in to tell him that Alexandra was taken to bed.
He immediately rose, called for Tobby to give some orders about the house for however long he would be gone, and Apparated to the safe house in Basque Lands.
It took three jumps, and he arrived quite exhausted, but it would rather defeat the purpose to have a portkey leading to a Fideliused house, so he would just have to deal.
He found Alexandra pacing her bedroom, Litty by her side – Binny, it seemed, was watching over the boys. As they were presumably both asleep at the moment, it should be plenty sufficient.
"How are you feeling?" Alduin asked immediately.
"I'm fine," she assured him. "It's progressing as usual, it seems to me, and if something happened Fabby knows to take me to Sorginak's – the closest hospital," she explained at Alduin's confused look, then groaned under another contraction.
Alduin had witnessed this twice already, and yet it never seemed to get any easier.
Fabby popped in at that moment, with some potions and accompanied by an elf Alduin didn't know, who was also carrying a number of bottles. He shot a look at Alexandra, but she didn't seem alarmed, simply focused on the elf as she said: "Just the one potion for now, Mistress, you need to feel the contractions."
Alexandra made a face, but accepted the potion, and and then did the new elf turn to Alduin. "Master," they said with a short bow. "I is Colly, future Mistress Rowan's personal elf, ancestors willing."
"Hello, Colly," Alduin replied, swallowing his interest in that 'ancestors willing' - he had never heard an elf call on any kind of spiritual assistance before, and he had many questions, but even his intellectual curiosity understood that this was not the time.
Instead, as always, he settled by Alexandra's side and asked: "What do you need?" And then did everything that was asked of him for the following six hours, until he held his first daughter in his arms.
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AN: My thoughts about wizarding world adoptions come from those 18th and 19th century arrangements where people took someone in to raise without actually conferring full family rights on them, except for some special cases. This is effectively what it is.
Umbridge, of course, would never be as stupid as to use the blood quill on an Ancient family child with living relatives...but she, with her deep-seated racism, never expected someone would adopt the Muggle-Born.
