Disclaimer: Tim is not about to get as violent as you might like. But you know how Umbridge has that trauma in the books after getting taken away by the centaurs? Imagine that, but with Tim.
There was a moment of silence during which the entire room stared at Tim, slack-jawed. No one had expected this, not even Malfoy, and no one dared to speak, all waiting for Umbridge's reaction.
As for Umbridge, she seemed too stunned to speak. Her hand slowly trailed up to her mouth, fingers tracing the injury and coming back bloodied. Normally, Tim pulled his punches, avoiding injuries that could cause long-term damage unless the situation was dire. But he didn't hold back on Umbridge. No, Tim had attacked with intent to hurt. It wasn't the Batman way, at least, not what Bruce claimed the Batman way was (Joker was different, Joker had always been different), but Tim had the pleasure of not being Batman and therefore being able to follow his own slightly-less-strict moral code.
Tim's moral code was this: if it could be fixed by wizarding medicine and didn't traumatize onlookers, it was allowed. This fell into that category.
"T-T-T-Timothy…?" she stammered, voice modulated by her rapidly-swelling cheek.
And Tim, who was feeling such genuine relief and freedom now that he didn't have to suck up to this pathetic excuse for a human being, laughed. Not even a chuckle. He laughed, and he laughed hard. He cackled like Harley Quinn when she heard a particularly clever knock-knock joke.
"Oh my god," he wheezed, "I've been wanting to do that for so long, you have no idea!" He stopped to catch his breath but couldn't keep quiet for long, especially after witnessing the way Umbridge was too stunned to cast any spells at him.
"B-b-but—" she coughed. "But you—you were—I—" She spat out a tooth, and Tim burst out laughing again.
"Oh, this is so much better than I'd hoped," Tim admitted, savoring the confusion and betrayal on this woman's face. "This is the best day of my life."
Umbridge lifted up her wand shakily and barely started saying, "Cru—" before Tim kneed her in the stomach and yanked her wand out of her hand when she doubled over.
"Gee, ma'am," he snorted. "And here I was thinking you knew that I hated your guts!" With a flick of his wrist, he snapped her wand in half.
Surprisingly, it was Neville who took this as his cue to elbow Crabbe in the chin, yank the boy's arm away from his neck, and flip around so that he now was tugging Crabbe's arm behind his back, forcing the Slytherin to bend over.
Neville's action sparked a chain reaction. Suddenly, Ginny had a wand in hand and had Stunned Mathilda and Goyle, Luna had quietly disarmed Malfoy twice, forcing him to let go of both his own wand and Harry's, Hermione had finally remembered some of her self-defense training and knocked out Millicent with a pressure point, and Ron had Stunned Warrington. A nice combination of an Impediment Jinx by Neville and a Stunner from Luna had Crabbe on the ground, and Ginny pulled off a Bat-Bogey Hex (a personal favorite of hers, Tim had come to learn) on Malfoy, causing him to flee from the room to try to escape the horrid things bursting from his nose.
While Hermione led the others in tying up the members of the Inquisitorial Squad and confiscating their wands, Ron helped Tim lift Umbridge onto her chintz armchair and tie her down, the woman protesting the entire time.
"How dare you—how dare you!" she screeched. "After all I did for you, Timothy!"
Tim rolled his eyes and waved his wand, summoning ropes around Umbridge's body. "What, like refusing to teach us anything useful? I learned more from Harry in a week than I ever learned from you."
"If you do not release me this instant, I will have no choice but to expel the lot of you!"
"Oh no," Tim gasped sarcastically, "getting expelled from my fake school, what a nightmare." He grabbed one of the gags that had been used on his friends and began to tie it around Umbridge's mouth.
"Mmmff! Mmmm!" she growled back. Once Tim deemed her to be properly secure, he rounded the chair and leaned forward so that his face was less than a foot away from Umbridge's.
"Now, you listen closely, ma'am, because I've wanted to tell you this for a long time." He grabbed her chin. "Teaching is a privilege, not a right, and you've been abusing that privilege for far too long. You are one of the most intolerant, annoying pieces of shit I've ever met, and you don't deserve my mercy." He let go of her face. "Fortunately for you, I'm not in the business of killing every ignorant bitch I come across, so I'm letting you live. Just know that if you ever try to hurt anyone again, I won't be so merciful. Do I make myself clear?"
Umbridge's eyes were wide, and she was trembling in her restraints. Tim hadn't felt this satisfied since Jason had smashed Bruce's display case of his old Robin uniform with a crowbar last Christmas.
"I SAID DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?" Tim roared, putting a little Batman gravel into him voice for added effect. This had the desired effect of scaring the living daylights out of Umbridge, and she nodded so emphatically that she looked like she was giving herself whiplash.
"Dude," Ron whispered, picking up Harry's wand from where Malfoy had dropped it and handing it back to his friend, "you are fucking terrifying, you know that?"
Tim smirked. "It's all part of my charm."
"Black is not in any immediate danger," Snape assured them from his position behind his desk. After securing Umbridge, Tim had convinced Harry that Snape had indeed understood his message and had most likely contacted the Order the moment he was able. Unfortunately, Tim and the Gryffindor trio weren't able to shake Ginny ("Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!"), Neville ("We want to help!"), or Luna (she just flat-out ignored any attempts to leave her behind), so the seven of them all squeezed into Snape's office to find him looking way too calm for someone who had just been informed that a coworker was potentially being tortured for information.
"How do you know?" Harry immediately countered, because why would he ever take Snape's words at face value?
"Because, Potter," he sneered, "he sent me a Patronus within the last five minutes assuring me that he was all right and asking if this was part of some kind of elaborate trick on my part."
"Patronuses can talk?" Neville blurted out.
Snape looked deathly close to kicking them all out of his office. He let out a long, pained sigh. "During the First Wizarding War, Professor Dumbledore devised a way to communicate via Patronus, which has since proven useful for those he considers his allies, as it is an extremely fast and reliable service."
"He's okay…" Harry breathed, wiping the sweat from his brow. "He's okay…"
Tim patted him on the back reassuringly. "That's right. He's okay. You did well."
"I didn't do anything," Harry muttered with a frown.
Tim shook his head, leading Harry out of Snape's office, as the man seemed ready to do it himself. "You told Snape, who checked in. And you told your friends, and we helped you manage your emotions. To come out of all that and still have your head on straight—that's a victory in my books."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Tim told him, "that the last time I believed something that no one else did, I ran halfway across the globe and teamed up with a supervillain and didn't contact my family for eight months because of my depression and anxiety. I think you're doing better than I did."
Harry let out a weak chuckle. "Well, when you put it that way…"
Neville took the news about the Order of the Phoenix surprisingly well. Apparently, his parents had been members during the First Wizarding War, and suddenly all those pictures in Neville's house made a lot more sense to Tim.
Luna was, well, Luna, and her response was pretty true to that.
"Oh. That makes sense," she said after a moment of silence. "I knew that someone had to be countering the Minister for Magic's heliopaths."
Hermione opened her mouth, but after Ron patted her back and muttered, "It's not worth it," under his breath, she shut her mouth and rolled her eyes with a huff of annoyance.
"So…what now?" Ginny asked. Apparently, the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and Tim, at least, was just realizing how hungry he was after a full day of exams and beating on Umbridge.
"Now," Tim announced, "we go to dinner."
Dinner didn't last long for Tim. He and Luna both decided to sit with the Gryffindors, and, after explaining that he was officially done with pretending to be Team Umbridge, the other Gryffindors accepted him with welcome arms. Tim was halfway through his French onion soup when Harry let out a blood-curdling scream and doubled over, clutching his scar. Everyone in the Great Hall shut up for a good two seconds, but when nothing else followed, the din quickly returned. It was remarkable how little people seemed to care about what went on around them.
"Harry!" Ron gasped, grabbing his friend by the shoulder. "Harry, are you okay?"
Harry's eyes were screwed shut, and he let out a very small whimper. Tim slid out off the bench to see if he could help. Neville immediately scootched over so that Tim could take a seat next to Harry. Tim reached out and started rubbing circles on Harry's back, like Bruce did when Tim had nightmares at the Manor.
"Hey, Harry," he said softly. "Did you have another vision?"
Harry nodded frantically, hands pressed to his forehead.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Harry shook his head just as quickly and mumbled something into his spaghetti.
"What was that?"
"Wanna see Sirius…" he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard over the other students. "Need to know he's not…"
Tim nodded, turning to the others. "He had another vision," he explained. "It was similar to the first."
Hermione winced. "Is he going to be okay?"
"I—" I don't know, he wanted to say, but that wasn't what she needed to hear, and that definitely wouldn't help Harry. "Let me talk to him."
The only time Tim had ever suffered from hallucinations (besides being dosed with Fear Toxin) was the now-rare occasion he found himself sleep-deprived for several days in a row, and Tim had never been particularly good at coping with those, but he could probably come up with some strategies to help Harry if it would keep the boy from leaving the only safe haven for him at this time.
"Harry, you want to hear a story?" Tim said brightly, taking the boy's hand and giving it a squeeze. "Ask me anything, and I'll answer it. Promise."
Harry whimpered, grabbing his hair and trying to pull it out. Tim carefully helped his hands back into his lap.
"Harry, listen, you need a distraction," Tim told him frankly. "Ask me something you've always wanted to know about me."
Harry's response was to grip Tim's wrist so tight that the charms on his bracelet made indents in his skin. Suddenly struck with inspiration, Tim slipped his hand out of Harry's grasp and took off his bracelet, handing it over to Harry, who grabbed it limply.
"Steph gave me this bracelet for my eighteenth birthday, and I've collected a ton of charms since then to fill it up." Tim guided Harry's fingers to the plate in the center. "It has my name and emergency contact information on it because I have a weak immune system and could get very sick very easily." He helped Harry's fingers travel to the first charm, a black bat shaped in the classic Batman logo which the world had now merchandized the hell out of in the past six or so years after Batman was finally confirmed to not just be an urban legend.
"Steph gave me this charm. This is the symbol all the Bats wear, in some form or another. See, when Bruce was younger, he was really scared of bats because of a traumatizing experience he'd had with them, so, when he grew up to become a vigilante, he based his whole theme on the one thing that had terrorized him for years to prove to himself that he could conquer any fear, and the logo has stuck since then." He let Harry twist the charm around between his fingers for a minute before moving them to the next charm.
"My friend Ives gave this to me. It's a mini twenty-sided die from a game we like to play called Spells & Serpents. It's a game Muggles invented because we wanted to pretend we were in a world where wizards and centaurs and phoenixes existed. What a fantasy, huh?"
This got a weak laugh out of Harry, which at the very least let Tim know that he was listening.
"My best friend, Kon-El, gave this to me. It's a Superman charm. I know I've told you guys about Superman before, but Kon is kind of like his son and kind of like his brother. See, Kon is a clone of Superman—oh god, you probably don't know what cloning is, that's a Muggle advancement. Um, so basically, it's like Superman gave Kon some of his genetic material, like parents do to their children, but Kon was made artificially, not in someone's womb." Harry shot Tim a confused expression. "Okay, okay, yeah, it's confusing. All you need to know is that Bruce used to not be a fan of Superman, so Kon gave me this charm as a jab at that."
"This little silver robin was given to me by my brother Dick, and you can probably guess why—"
The doors to the Great Hall burst open dramatically, and Snape practically flew through them, searching around the room before his eyes landed on Tim. He gave the boy a piercing look that said, "This is important," and then promptly left the hall.
All the students went quiet for a moment before bursting into even louder conversation.
"What the fuck was that?" Ginny said, her eyebrows furrowing.
"That," Tim said, "is my cue." He took a moment to take in Harry's hunched-over position, the boy still twirling the bird charm around in his fingers, but now he stared at Tim like he was afraid to be left alone.
"Keep that," Tim told him, pointing to the bracelet. "I'll be back soon, I promise. Until then…" He needed someone who could distract Harry, keep him busy with some mindless stories…
Tim nearly tripped running over to the Ravenclaw table. This time, he remembered not to touch Cordelia without warning her, so he made sure he was in her field of vision and said, "Hey, Cori!"
The aforementioned witch looked up from her dinner. "Oh, Tim. Hello!"
"Hey, um, so I kind of have a favor to ask of you," he started.
"Sure, sure, I'll do it," she immediately agreed, and Tim felt a surge of affection for his fellow Ravenclaw.
"So, Harry's having something like a panic attack right now, and I need someone to go talk to him to keep him busy. Do you think you could go talk to him about, like, Quidditch regulations or something?"
Cordelia looked over at the Gryffindor table nervously. "Oh! Um…it's…kind of crowded over there."
Right. Tim had learned over the months that Cordelia was not big on physical contact from others, especially being squished between two strangers.
"Luna's over there, she can help you," Tim said, eyeing the doors nervously. What did Snape need him for so badly?
Cordelia looked extremely relieved at this, which was when Tim was finally able to recognize the progress those two had made in their relationship. If Cordelia found the idea of Luna, someone she'd previously written off as 'loony,' comforting, that really said a lot about how the two had grown closer together. Tim wasn't particularly surprised; Luna had that effect on a lot of people. He felt bad about rushing Cordelia like this, but she really was the best person for the job, and Tim was kind of on a tight schedule right now. Snape was not someone to be left waiting.
"Okay, then. Leave it to me!" she told him, holding two thumbs up, and she jumped out of her seat excitedly. "I've been meaning to talk to someone about the new shoulder-pad regulations implemented since the match between the Kestrels and Puddlemore…"
Tim sped out of the Great Hall and quickly came face-to-face with Snape himself.
"You took your time," Snape sneered, raising an eyebrow.
Tim, more than used to this kind of attitude, didn't take the bait. "Yeah, Harry's not doing so great right now, just had to make sure he was taken care of."
"Follow me," was Snape's reply, and he spun around on his heel, his cloak flaring behind him rather dramatically. Tim nodded as the man led him towards the dungeons.
"The Order has called an emergency meeting," Snape informed him on their way down. "I, as the only member currently on site, am unable to attend, but I was specifically told to send you their way. For what reason that choice was made is beyond me," he added in a low whisper that Tim barely picked up on.
"Who told you that?" Tim asked because he was curious as to who specifically requested his presence, seeing as he still wasn't technically a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
"Professor Dumbledore."
Tim did a double-take. "He's…back?"
"Obviously," Snape said, his articulation of the word immaculate. "A Portkey will be sent to my office in sixteen minutes. You will be taking it to Grimmauld Place."
"Do I need to bring anything with me?"
"Your gear."
Tim's gear, which was currently sitting at the top of Ravenclaw Tower. Snape had led him all the way down here just to tell him to go back in the opposite direction? That was a twelve-minute sprint at the fastest.
"Well then, excuse me as I go get that, sir," Tim growled, stepping out of pace and twirling around smoothly to head back in the direction he'd just come.
"Don't be late, Drake-Wayne," Snape snapped viciously, though Tim could hear the condescension in his voice.
Tim made sure to wait outside Snape's office until the last possible minute just so he could stroll inside with a smirk on his face and briefcase in hand, play a short game of 'I-Spy' to figure out where the Portkey was, and grab it before Snape could even tell him off for his blatant disrespect from earlier.
The man opened his mouth to say something stupid to Tim, but that was the exact time when the Portkey decided to activate, taking Tim out of his office and landing in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, Tim's second home. He immediately straightened up, brushing off the coat he'd slung on with one hand and setting down his case with the other.
"Evening," Tim greeted the room, which was packed with wizards, and he immediately took a seat at the table, despite the fact that everyone else was standing.
"Timothy," an old wizard smiled, "thank you for joining us."
"Good to see you're doing well, Professor," Tim greeted his former headmaster with a slight bow of his head. "Am I the last one here?"
To Tim's right, Kingsley nodded. "We apologize for taking you out of school on such short notice, but—"
"But you're about to raid the Department of Mysteries and want me to join you," Tim finished, because he couldn't stop himself. He'd been thinking it over on his way to and from the Ravenclaw common room, but that was the only logical reason as to why he would be summoned to headquarters along with his tactical gear at such a time as this. This was exactly the kind of opportunity Tim had been looking for when he sent that letter. He just hadn't expected it to come so soon, and he'd been too caught up in calming Harry down to realize how ideal the situation truly was.
"Exactly," Constantine agreed without missing a beat. "Nice to see ya 'gain, kid."
"Likewise."
"Once again, you are correct, Timothy," said Dumbledore, nodding his head sagely, making his beard bounce up and down. Tim noticed that it was even longer than the last time he'd seen Dumbledore, and there were dark circles under the man's eyes. "Unfortunately, there are many a member of the Order unable to attend the raid on such short notice. Only Kingsley, Tonks, Remus, Alastor, and I are available right now. We are in dire need of reinforcements if we are to successfully take on what is surely a great number of Death Eaters gathered at the Department of Mysteries."
Tim nodded, already drafting a message on his wrist computer and selecting recipients from his extensive contacts list. "I'll have to step out for a moment to get a signal, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," Dumbledore said. "I only ask that whoever you bring is prepared to fight magical enemies and has the capacity to interact with the Ministry without being caught in their Muggle-Repelling Charms. We leave in exactly one hour."
"Got it."
actual-leader; fav-jla; rachelgoth; annataz; mshazam; fshazam; pshazam; eshazam; dshazam
anyone available to fight a bunch of wizards within the next hour? Go to this location and I'll give more info. Thx
Did I want to include the battle at the Department of Mysteries? No, not really, I was hoping for something more unique, but I think Tim would not be the kind of person to hear that all his enemies were waiting to surprise him and not think, "Oh, I should totally Uno Reverse this," so that's what you're all getting.