cclxiii. educational decree number twenty-four
Each blow of Filch's hammer against the iron spike rang in the entrance hall like the peal of a bell.
"She's absolutely lost her mind," Elara remarked as she watched the Squib nail the latest framed flier to the wall.
"Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four," it read. "All Student Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded. An Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students. Permission to re-form may be sought from the agent of the Inspectorate (Madam Umbridge). No Student Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the Inspectorate. Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled."
"'Three or more people?'" Harriet sputtered in disbelief where she stood next to Elara. "Umbridge has lost the ruddy plot. What—we're considered a group here, aren't we?" She pointed to herself, Elara, and Hermione on Elara's other side. "Is she going to honestly come around and cite people having a chat with their friends? When's it stop being considered a group? Do I have'ta stand three feet over there and shout to be out of the group?"
"Calm down," Elara told her, though the statement lacked conviction. She didn't expect Harriet to calm down in the slightest but she did want her to lower her voice. She couldn't see Umbridge, and yet she knew the loathsome woman had to be lingering close by, enjoying the upset her newest Educational Decree had wrought. "It specifies a meeting of three or more people. Should we happen to be in the same place, I would argue it's hardly a meeting."
Harriet made a garbled, annoyed noise of dissension, and Elara agreed in her own mind. They could argue semantics, but Umbridge would use any slight infringement against them, valid or not.
"Ridiculous," Hermione said, barely modulating her voice's volume. "What is the point behind this? What is she hoping to stymie?"
"D'you think she knows about the tutoring?" Harriet asked.
"If she has eyes she'll know about the tutoring," Hermione told her. Harriet's face scrunched into an expression dangerously close to a pout, and Elara smirked.
"I—no, wait over here." Harriet nodded for them to move along, and they descended the steps into the dungeon, leaving behind the angry buzzing of the entrance hall. She cracked open a door belonging to one of Snape's storage cupboards—a room they definitely shouldn't be in, but Harriet truly didn't understand her privilege when it came to the Potions Master. If Elara or Hermione had come here on their own, Snape would have all but flayed them alive.
Harriet tapped the base of one candle, then another, and they flared to life. She crossed her arms as she leaned a hip against the narrow, cluttered counter running the length of the room. "Krum spoke to me."
"Krum?" Hermione commented. "What did he want?"
"He talked to me about—y'know, the tutoring stuff." A light flush darkened her cheeks. "He saw me helping some younger students with Transfiguration, and he said he wants to be able to help with the lessons—or, well, not lessons, just the little revising thing we do—."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "The lessons," she clarified. "He saw you teaching and wants to help with the lessons. Well, that's very thoughtful of him, but did he mention why? It would be extra work on top of his undoubtedly already busy schedule."
"He said he needed the revisions."
Elara's brow creased as she considered that, her gaze drifting over the shelves packed with dozens of jars all labeled by the same slanted, spidery writing. "Ah. Durmstrang's lessons aren't the same as Hogwarts', and he plans on sitting his N.E. in this country. I had thought he might return to Durmstrang's jurisdiction, but he must truly seek to ostracize himself from there."
"Mhm. That's what he said—at least, the bit about taking his N.E. here." Harriet leaned back further, rocking ever so slightly on her heels. Where her hand was braced against her chest, she played with the end of her apprenticeship cord. "I was giving more thought to what Hermione said before. Maybe I could—I dunno, teach a bit more? Especially with Slytherin deciding to skiv off, I think it'd be a good idea for people to be better prepared for what's out there."
"For what's to come," Elara muttered, though she wasn't sure if Harriet or Hermione heard her. They didn't need for her to voice it, regardless. They knew better than most anyone else the horrors Voldemort was capable of and what monstrous deeds he was undoubtedly committing at that very moment. Elara had not forgotten about the missing Muggles being reported in their news. Droves and droves of them, vanishing one person at a time across the country.
"I was thinking—I could be a bit more structured about things, come up with a plan, and maybe we could use the Aerie for lessons," Harriet continued.
"That'd be careless of us," Hermione replied. "What with the kind of books that are available there, and how easy it is to get lost. A first or second-year could get hurt, not to mention we've located the Argonaut Atlas' brain there, for lack of a better term."
"I know, I know," Harriet placated. "Let me explain. In the past, it was used as a study hall of sorts, or an archive. As I thought about it, I considered how the burnt parts have all but disappeared, and I realized Ravenclaw kept her own workshop and different, private areas there as well, so she must have had a way to—I dunno—change the layout? Or, maybe the mode?" Harriet shrugged. "If we could figure out how to make the structure a bit more static and block off areas that are too dangerous and we don't want to share with others…."
"You have a point," Elara told her. "And, with Umbridge's new edict, it would be more secluded."
"I mean, it's just an idea—."
"It's brilliant." Hermione nodded, brown curls bobbing with her. "It really is. I could talk to the Founder's portrait and see what we could do, but we'd have to be clever about whose coming to the lessons."
"What d'you mean?"
"Harriet, if Umbridge were to discover you're teaching students forbidden magic, she'd have a ruddy cow. She'd have you expelled."
"Oh."
"Did you really not consider that?"
"Hermione, the bint would have me expelled for sneezing too violently, I can't keep track."
Elara stifled a laugh with her hand, ignoring Hermione's unimpressed look. "Give me a bit of time to think of something," Hermione said to Harriet. "Something that will keep us and everyone who wants to attend safe."
Harriet scratched at her cheek. "Seems an awful lot of effort for some bloody tutoring."
But it wasn't simply tutoring. Elara kept her thoughts to herself, but she realized Harriet truly didn't understand she'd started an unofficial class, and everything she taught flew in the face of Umbridge and Gaunt's blind authoritarianism. Gaunt couldn't keep the Wizarding world weak and stupid if people like Harriet and Dumbledore continued to educate and help others learn.
The latch on the door rattled, and all three witches froze like a trio of startled owls when it opened and admitted a surly Potions Master. For half a moment, Snape looked as startled as they did, and then he scowled, slamming the door as he directed his question toward Harriet. "What do you think you're doing in here?"
She leaned off the counter. "We needed somewhere to have a chat."
"My ingredient cupboard is not your personal lounge, Potter. Get out."
"You have at least four of the bloody things. How many cupboards does a bloke need?"
"Out."
Harriet filed from the room first, quickly followed by Hermione, though Elara lingered behind them. She arched a brow at Snape, who curled his lip in a wordless snarl, glaring as he pointed to the closing door.
"I seem to remember Iola Crowle getting suspended for a week after breaking into your potions cupboard last year," she commented. "Isn't it curious Harriet doesn't get the same punishment?"
Snape stiffened and straightened his spine, his glinting eyes little more than thin, dark slits in his pale face. He bristled with anger, and a distant part of Elara cringed with fear, but her expression remained cold and unimpressed.
He leaned ever so slightly forward, the ends of his long hair falling against his high collar. "Do not overstep," he said with such menace, whatever puckishness Elara had felt withered in an instant. She hurried to follow her friends, and at the threshold, Snape's curt voice bit at her heels. "And tell the girl to have her hand check!"
The door slammed shut.
xXx
The clock against the far wall began to toll the hour, and Elara looked up from the chess game she was playing with Astoria Greengrass.
"Oh," Astoria commented. "Is it time for you to leave now?"
"Hmm." Elara glanced about the common room. By the main hearth, Harriet slouched in the best winged chair, her eyes barely open as she worked on an assignment for Professor Slytherin. Hermione had nudged another chair closer so they could both study how the tiles inscribed with runes clicked together and formed various combinations. On the other seats of the main hearth's arrangement, Elara could see Adrian Pucey and the Carrow twins, along with their oldest Prefect Cengor Pendarves, who idly watched Harriet work as he leaned on his arm.
Elara pondered if Harriet understood how the dynamic had shifted in Slytherin House, how the arrangement had changed as those who supported Harriet shunted aside those who didn't. The older students had priority, but the younger ones filtered in and out. More than once, they tried to approach her—ostensibly with homework questions, or just wanting her attention, and either Pucey or Pendarves quietly turned them aside.
"Elara?"
She blinked, brought back to herself by Astoria's tentative question. "Oh. Yes, I have choir practice."
"We should call it a draw then."
Snorting, Elara stood, picking up her bag by the strap where it waited by her chair's legs. "It would have been a checkmate in three moves."
"What! Where?"
Elara adjusted the pieces accordingly, and Astoria frowned.
"But how did you know I would move that piece?"
"I didn't."
She departed, tugging her gloves on as she exited the common room. Elara didn't follow the typical route up from the dungeons, finding it safer to circumvent the main passage and go the long way through the outer hall. It brought up a steep set of stairs to the upper mezzanine that looked down upon the corridor below.
As she walked, she thought about Hermione's plans for the Wizengamot and how her plans to coerce and cajole certain families into siding against Gaunt were going. She thought about Harriet's idea for the Aerie, and though she couldn't say it pleased her to share the space, she could acknowledge how selfish it was to keep an entire wing meant for learning hidden from the other students.
"…hand-selected for this position, Mr. Lestrange."
"I understand."
"You come highly recommended by Minister Gaunt, you understand…."
Elara stopped in her tracks, her bag swaying on her arm from the sudden halt. In the passage below, Madam Umbridge came strutting through with Lestrange, who did nothing to modulate his long stride for the witch's stubby legs. She had to rush to keep pace.
Quiet as she could be, Elara eased into the shadow of a pillar, leaning into it to disguise her silhouette.
"You'll be in charge of the entire task force. Should any of your underlings give you any issues, you are to report directly to me."
"Of course, Madam Umbridge."
"I give you full authority to act as needed. And I expect the prefects to follow your lead or suffer the same consequences."
"You will be helping me with my task, yes?" Lestrange suddenly drew short, turning on the woman. "The one assigned to me by the Minister? If I'm expected to patrol the halls and catch out idiots, I will need assistance."
Umbridge balked, but then smiled—a smarmy, all too smug expression on a person of such ill-composure. Elara rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, Mr. Lestrange. Whatever our dear Minister requires of you, I'll be certain to help…."
Their voices began to fade, and though Elara considered following, she knew the click of her heels on the stone floor would give away her presence. The duo disappeared into the western tower, leaving a very puzzled Elara standing alone on the dim mezzanine.
A task? Gaunt had given Lestrange a task? And Umbridge was starting a "task force"? That didn't bode well. Just what is it that Gaunt expects Lestrange to do?
She ended up being late for choir practice.
A/N:
Pulled the text for the Decree from canon.
Elara: "So I see Harriet's getting special privileges."
Snape: "I will murder you in your sleep."