The 5th year Slytherins and Gryffindors didn't have DADA until the second day of classes. By then the gossip around school was already out about Professor Umbridge. Multiple seventh years had already had to go to Madam Pomfrey for Calming Draughts which did not bode well. From what Aria could gather, Umbridge seemed under the impression that one could succeed at Defense by just reading.

So it was with some trepidation that the 5th years filed into the defense classroom. They paused in the back of the classroom to stare at the desks. Normally they sat two to a desk, but now, the desks had been split so everyone had their own individual desk with the chair attached to the desk. It reminded Aria of the pictures she had seen of schools from the 40s or even 50s. Each row had the desks pushed up to the back of the chair in front of them, creating neat little rows that were the same length.

There were no ornaments in the room either. The walls were strangely blank. The teacher's desk was also pretty bare except for quills and parchment and a stack of books. The chalkboard, likewise, stood washed and ready to be used.

"This feels more like a hospital than a classroom," Ron muttered as the students all chose their spots, doing their best not to be left in the front. In the end, Crabbe, Goyle, Fay, and Sophie were all left to take the seats in the front row while everyone else jockeyed for the seats closest to the door.

Aria ended up sitting near the center of the classroom with Harry behind her, Hermione in front of her, and Ron diagonally behind her next to Harry. Daphne and Tracey took the seats on either side of her. The space between the seats was narrow enough that they could still pass notes if they were careful, which Aria was glad to see, but it felt so strange not to be sitting next to somebody. She set her wand at the top of her desk like she did for any class that required her wand and set up her inkwell and quills.

Then they waited.

As the clock struck the start of class, the door to the DADA professor's office opened and Umbridge stepped out. She smiled at them though Aria felt another shiver run through her seeing the smile. It was like she was looking at some kind of mechanical toy that was meant to mimic a human smile but was missing the element of being alive.

"Good morning, class," Umbridge greeted as she came down the stairs from the little overlook.

"Morning," several students muttered. Umbridge's smile disappeared, and Aria was even more unsettled.

"Now, that won't do at all," Umbridge insisted like they were small children. "When I greet you, I expect you all to say 'Good morning, Professor Umbridge'. Let's try again, shall we? Good morning class."

"Good morning, Professor Umbridge," the class replied mechanically.

"That's better. Wasn't that wonderful, starting the class off with a proper greeting? Now, I shall take attendance. When I call your name please raise your hand and say 'here'. I wish to know all of your bright smiling faces."

Aria hoped she did not have a bright smiling face. Looking around she spotted Blaise carefully arranging his own face into a lazy, bored look while Theo was doing his best to resemble an icicle.

"Bourne, Aria."

"Here." Aria raised her hand. Umbridge looked up from the parchment scroll.

"Ah, yes, you," she stated, marking Aria as present. "I hope we won't have any trouble in class. I have been told that you cause quite the bit of trouble, and you did get caught for underage magic this past summer."

"Wasn't that because of Dementors?" Daphne asked. "Father was telling me about the whole affair!"

Umbridge looked like she wanted to say something but didn't want to say it to the daughter of the Chief Warlock.

"Brown, Lavender."

"Here."

Attendance went smoothly from there until they reached Harry. Umbridge once again paused and stared hard at Harry.

"I hope, Mr. Potter, that you will not cause problems in class either," she stated. "Your behavior this summer was quite deplorable and your flaunting of the underage magic rules—,"

"Dementors wasn't it?" Daphne asked again. "You and Aria were together when it happened? At least, that's what my father said."

Aria really doubted that Lord Greengrass was going home and gossiping to Daphne about the days, events at the ministry, but since she had already filled Daphne in on what had happened, if Daphne wanted to through her father's name around a bit just to throw Umbridge off, then who was Aria to argue with it?

Umbridge cleared her throat and Daphne fell silent.

Attendance finally taken without any more incidence, Umbridge pulled out her wand and with a whispered spell, sent the books on her desk floating down the aisles where at each desk a book came to land in the center of the desk.

Theo raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Nott?" Umbridge called on him with her simpering smile.

"I think you've made a mistake, Professor," Theo said. "This is Introduction to Defense which appears to be a first year text. We're taking our OWLs this year."

"It is not the wrong text, Mr. Nott," Umbridge stated. "I would thank you not to question the knowledge of your professors again. It is my understanding that your years of Defense here at Hogwarts has been . . . rather chaotic at best and I'm afraid that most of your professors have been subpar."

Aria took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Remus and Moody subpar? As if! She noted with satisfaction that multiple students took exception to that. And Quirrell hadn't been an awful teacher either. So, all in all, they had had only one year that was questionable, but Remus and Moody had certainly made up for it.

"I want you to spend the class period reading Chapter One of the book," Umbridge stated. "Then you are to write a summary of the chapter and turn it in to me."

"When will we begin practicing?" Blaise asked.

"Raise your hand!" Umbridge snapped. Blaise, taken aback by the sudden anger, slowly raised his hand. Umbridge's face relaxed into a smile, and she called on him.

"Yes, Mr. Zabini?"

"When will begin practicing spells?" he asked.

"There is no need for you to practice spells in my classroom," Umbridge stated. "That is asking for one of you to get hurt and for too long the safety of the students here at Hogwarts has been lackluster. If you have a firm grasp of theory, then there will be no need for you to practice the spells because you will know how to do them."

"But we get tested on the spells," Daphne cried. "Defense has a practical component to the OWLs!"

"Raise your hand!" Umbridge snapped again. Daphne didn't raise her hand. Umbridge cast a disapproving eye over the class.

"As I was saying," Umbridge continued, "there is no need for you to practice these spells. A solid grasp of theory will do you well. It is not as if you will need to use most of these spells in real life anyway. You are all perfectly safe here in Britain. Nothing will harm you."

Someone snorted. Umbridge glared in the general direction of the noise but could not locate who had snorted. Aria shared a long look of disbelief with Daphne. Not need to use defense? Did she think they lived in Utopia? That there weren't criminals running amok?

Aria flipped open her book as did her classmates.

It was positively dreadful. Not only was the reading material clearly for first years, but a glance through the rest of the book proved that the book was completely in line with Umbridge's philosophy of theory. In one chapter, Aria noted that it went into detail about the different types of wand movements which was interesting, and what movements went with what kind of defensive spell, but it didn't offer any examples of the different types of defensive spells.

Still, reading the first chapter and writing a summary of it was the easiest thing she had to complete in a long time. She and Daphne finished roughly around the same time and brought their summaries up to Umbridge who sat smiling at the class from the teacher's desk.

Umbridge accepted the parchments from the two of them, took a cursory glance at the paragraphs, and looked back at the girls.

"I do not suffer cheaters in my class," she said. This got the attention of the rest of the class.

"Yeah, Daphne," Theo teased, unable to help himself. "What've we said about cheating off Bourne?" Their classmates chuckled.

"I'm appalled, Mr. Nott, that you would assume Miss Greengrass is the cheater," Umbridge said. Aria's brows rose until they disappeared into her bangs.

"Well, I'm not going to assume it was Bourne," Theo stated. "She and Potter've battled it out for the last four years for the top spot in Defense."

"Yeah, Professor Moody had to give them harder work," Lavender said.

"I will ask for your opinion when I want it, Miss Brown," Umbridge stated. She looked back at Daphne and Aria who stood there awkwardly though Aria could feel anger rising in her chest at the accusation that she was a cheater. Pansy had said that in their first year, but Tracey had put her in her place, and none of her teachers had ever accused her of such of thing in her entire life!

"I find it difficult to believe that you understood the text well enough to write a summary to quickly," Umbridge said to Aria. "Defense is a complex subject."

"Well . . . it's a first-year text, ma'am," Aria pointed out. "I should hope all of us here were able to read, understand, and summarize without little trouble."

Umbridge straightened and Aria had the feeling that points were about to be taken.

"Ten points from Slytherin, Miss Bourne," Umbridge declared. "For backtalk. And detention with me. Tonight after dinner."

Multiple gasps filled the classroom. Aria took several deep breaths.

"I do not suffer cheaters, Miss Bourne," Umbridge said again. "I will take it up with your Head of House and with the Headmaster. You may find your position as prefect to be short lived."

Aria turned to go back to her seat, her hands shaking as she sat. How dare that toad of a woman . . . who did she think she was? She sat clenching and unclenching her fists while the rest of the class finished up their summaries and turned them in. No one else got accused of cheating, for which she was glad to see, but she did not that both Hermione and Dean waited until several other people had turned in their summaries before getting up and turning in theirs even though they had finished soon after she and Daphne.

When class ended, Aria was the first out the door.

"The bloody cow!" she hissed as her friends caught up with her down the corridor. "I can't fucking believe her!"

"She can't actually think her accusation will go anywhere once she brings it to Professor Snape and Headmaster Dumbledore," Hermione said hurriedly, though her eyes were wide with worry. "The burden of proof is on her. If she's going to accuse you of cheating, then she'd have to, logically, accuse me of cheating too since I've beaten you in the overall rankings of the class standings. Is she going to do that for every intelligent Muggleborn?"

"You'd better tell Professor Snape, so he's got a heads up," Blaise suggested. "He might not be able to get you out of detention, but he can prepare a better defense against the cheating accusation if he's got a heads up."

"What's he doing right now? Does he have a class?" Aria asked. She had a free period and then Charms. This early in the school year, none of her friends knew. She veered off for the dungeons while the rest of her friends went off to their electives.

Thankfully, Snape was in between classes. She had to wait for a seventh year Ravenclaw to finish having an early-in-the-year meltdown over NEWTs before getting to see Snape.

"Umbridge gave me a detention because I talked back to her," Aria said as way of greeting. Snape sighed.

"What part of keeping your head down did you not understand?" he asked.

"I, personally, don't feel like it warranted a detention."

"Children never do." Snape settled at his desk. "But since you very rarely get detention, much less complain about them, please inform me why you are coming to me about this."

"She accused me of cheating on my defense assignment in class," Aria stated. Snape sighed again, though she got the impression it was not directed at her.

"Go on," he muttered.

"Several of my classmates made light of the accusation at first," Aria said. "Thinking that she was accusing Daphne of cheating off me because we turned our assignments in at the same time and we were sitting next to each other. Anyway, Umbridge corrected the class and then said she was surprised that I could understand such a complex subject and write a summary on the text we read, and I said that it was simple because she was having us read a first-year text." She pulled out the Defense textbook and held it out to Snape. He took one look at it before throwing it straight into his office's fireplace. The fire gave a small burst as it consumed the textbook.

"Uh . . ." Aria stared wide-eyed at the hearth while Snape leaned on his elbows, rubbing his temples with his long potion-stained fingers. How . . . did one respond to a teacher burning a textbook?

"Are you going to explain to Professor Umbridge what happened to my textbook?" she finally asked. "I'd prefer not to get any more detentions."

"I'll take care of it," Snape assured her. "Don't worry about it."

Aria, however, could not help but worry.

It was known throughout Hogwarts that Aria Bourne had received a detention from Professor Umbridge. It was also known what had transpired to warrant the detention. Safe to say, most students were on Aria's side, which she was glad to see. Multiple people had given her condolences as if she were dying, which did nothing to soothe her nerves.

By now every year and house had had Defense. No one was impressed, especially since they were all being forced to use the exact same textbook. Multiple seventh years were near tears at the idea of not being prepared for their NEWTs and Aria had already witnessed a couple of Ravenclaw girls cry over the upcoming OWLs in May.

Hogwarts, therefore, was in an uproar.

The tension at the Head Table was palatable when the students came to dinner. The Heads of House all sat at one end of the table. In fact, to Aria, it appeared like the professors were all actively trying to sit as far away from Umbridge as possible who had decided to sit on the end of the Head Table. This made the view of the Head Table rather comical as the professors all attempted to sit on the other end of the table. Of course, they could not all fit, so some had to sit Dumbledore's other side between him and Umbridge. Poor Professor Sinistra got the short end of whatever stick the professors had drawn and had to suffer through dinner sitting beside Umbridge.

When dessert popped onto the tables, Dumbledore rose from his chair and called for everyone's attention.

"It has come to my attention," Dumbledore said, "that there has been some mix up with the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks."

From Umbridge's face there had been no mix up. No one believed Dumbledore anyway.

"Thankfully, you are all diligent, hardworking students," Dumbledore continued. "We professors have fixed the textbook problem, and you will all receive the new, correct, textbooks when you are next in class."

A collective breath left the students as they all began clapping. Umbridge's face became even more pinched, almost like she had stuck a lemon in her mouth.

"And finally," Dumbledore continued, "there has been a vicious rumor about cheating at Hogwarts."

Aria felt her face go bright red and super warm as people glanced in her direction. Harry patted her knee in encouragement.

"Hogwarts holds to the highest standard of integrity in education," Dumbledore told them. "We also have many safeguards in place to encourage fairness and hard work when it comes to school and exams. Never, in my tenure here at Hogwarts, has a student ever successfully cheated. All grades and class standings are accurate and without error. I congratulate all those who received top marks in the last school year, and I wish you all well for this year. That is all." He sat down, blue eyes twinkling as he turned to hold a conversation with Professor Grubbly-Plank.

"So do I still have to go to detention?" Aria wondered. Tracey muffled a laugh. A note popped up beside Aria's bowl of ice cream. She immediately recognized Snape's spiky scrawl.

Detention cancelled for tonight.

DO NOT GET ANOTHER ONE.

"Oh, praise Merlin!" Aria cried, flopping bonelessly against the table. Harry plucked the note from her hand.

"So how are you going to avoid getting another detention?" he asked.

"Apply to self-study," Aria muttered, only half-joking. "You know, I could've transferred to Durmstrang. It might've been less stressful."

"Don't make jokes like that," Daphne scolded. "We would miss you here."

The next morning there was a large, framed poster hanging by the doors of the Great Hall. Aria and her friends paused to read it.

EDUCATIONAL DECREE NO. 1

STUDENTS MAY NOT BE FOUND IN POSSESSION OF A SPELL CHECK QUILL

Aria glanced at Tracey who was a notoriously bad speller. Tracey's eyes were wide and she thought her friend's face had paled a little too.

"I'm going to fail!" Tracey cried. "Professor Snape'll take off more points on my essays! McGonagall will 'tsk' at me and Flitwick will shake his head!"

Aria nodded, certain that she too would probably want to crawl into a hole and die if that happened to her too.

"But," Daphne said, trying to be supportive, "your essays still won't be as poorly spelled as Neville's."

"Now that's just mean," Harry cried.

"No, it's true," Neville said, startling them. While the Slytherins had been chatting, the Gryffindors had appeared to read the Educational Decree over their shoulders. "But what exactly is an Educational Decree? Is like a new rule at school? I can't believe Headmaster Dumbledore would have approved of something like this."

"That is because he did not have a say, Mr. Longbottom."

Aria withheld a groan as Umbridge's voice. The Slytherins and Gryffindors turned to find their Defense professor wearing a pink dress that would not have been out of place in the 1950s, with a collar bow and everything, smiling smugly at them.

"I am here at the bequest of Minister Fudge," Umbridge stated. "And I have his permission to make changes as needed to benefit the students." She trotted into the Great Hall, her heels clicking against the stone floors.

"I seriously doubt she actually has real permission," Daphne said.

"So is Dumbledore just giving Umbridge more leeway than what she actually has?" Dean questioned.

"I would," Daphne said with a shrug. "Especially if I were trying to appear as if I didn't have anything to hide. At least I won't have anything boring to put in my letters home." She slipped into the Great Hall and her friends had to hurry to catch up. Aria did have to agree with Daphne, there was definitely a lot she could put into her first letter home.

Within a few more days, two more Educational Decrees were put up. One forbid students from possessing sweets and other food confections from "unauthorized suppliers" which most students found funny and a bit extreme. Students were already not allowed to eat during class, but did that mean they weren't allowed to buy food on Hogsmeade weekends? What about food that was homemade and sent in care packages? Who was an authorized supplier? No one seemed to have an answer for that, not even Mr. Filch! On top of that, students found with unauthorized food products could be subject to detentions, suspensions, or expulsion, which most found very extreme. Like the wrong brand of chocolate could get someone expelled?

The third Educational Decree was much more concerning than the wrong brand of chocolate. Aria, Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at Educational Decree No. 3, a group of students gathering with them, whispers ran through those gathered, tension and worry settling over the Hogwarts students.

EDUCATIONAL DECREE NO. 3

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is to be subject to an informal Ministry investigation into the habits and standards of professors and subjects under an approved member of the Ministry.

"Let me guess," Hermione said snidely. "Umbridge is the approved member of the Ministry?"

"Why couldn't it be Percy?" Aria whined. "Or Madam Bones?"

"Auntie's too busy," Susan said from behind Aria. "Besides, she has real problems to deal with, not with whatever problems Minister Fudge thinks is happening at Hogwarts." She stomped away, Hannah, Justin, and Ernie trailing behind her.

Adrian Pucey pushed his way through the crowd.

"Potter," he cried, "you're going to be at Quidditch tryouts this afternoon right?"

"I'd planned to be," Harry assured him. "There's a Chaser spot open right?"

"I don't want you to try out for Chaser. I want you to try out for Seeker."

"What about Malfoy?" Harry asked. Draco, who had just been passing by with Theo, glanced in their direction, pausing in his walk seeing his Quidditch captain.

"Draco originally wanted to be Chaser, but there was only a Seeker position open," Adrian stated.

"Ah, tryouts," Draco said. "I assure you, Potter, that if Pucey thinks you'd be a better Seeker than me, then I will happily take the Chaser position. Unless, of course, you want to try out for Chaser?"

"Can I just try out for both?" Harry asked.

"Fine," Adrian said with a put-upon sigh. "If you insist. But you're small and have a Firebolt which is perfect for a Seeker position!"

"Aren't Seekers supposed to have good eyesight?" Aria teased. Harry nudged her sharply with his elbow.

"Please," Adrian cried. "Potter will be fine. I'm sure of it. But we are not letting Gryffindor win another Quidditch Cup!" He hurried off, seeing someone else from the Quidditch team going past.

"I was also thinking of trying out for the Quidditch team," Ron commented, watching Adria disappear down the corridor. "Keeper though."

"You'd make a good Keeper," Harry agreed.

"Possibly," Draco drawled. "But I wouldn't trust a school broom, Weasley."

"I'm not going to try out on a school broom," Ron snapped, more heated than necessary. "I've got my own broom. The newest Cleansweep."

"Ah," Draco replied. "And how did your family afford that, Weasley? What did they have to sell?" Aria rolled her eyes. Really, if Draco was going to be insulting, he could at least try. She had heard him give more creative insults than that!

But it seemed to be enough for the people eavesdropping because multiple people tittered though an astute observer would have noticed Ron's face was not even turning red as he began to retort,

"Listen, Malfoy, I don't—,"

"Hem, hem. Is there a problem?"

Ron put on a sullen face as Umbridge strolled up to their group. Today's pink ensemble included some kind of fuzzy suit jacket that could have been made with the feathers of a boa.

"No problem, Professor," Theo assured Umbridge. "We were just discussing Quidditch tryouts today."

"Exciting," Umbridge simpered. "Will you be trying out, Mr. Nott? I believe Mr. Malfoy is already on the team?"

"Goodness, no!" Theo cried with a laugh. "I haven't an athletic bone in my body. My sport of choice is chess which I personally think Weasley should stick to instead of trying out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but what do I know?"

Umbridge turned to Ron.

"You'll be trying out for Quidditch?' she questioned. "On what broom?"

"On my own broom," Ron said, this time with a real bite to his voice.

"On your father's salary?"

Aria and Draco managed to share a look of disbelief. Ron, thankfully, managed to rein in his temper.

"It was a gift for becoming prefect," he told Umbridge.

"Still seems like quite the expensive gift for your family."

Theo shot Ron an apologetic look.

"I do hope your father hasn't been . . . taking resources that don't belong to him."

Aria started coughing, choking on air. Ron's face was now turning red. Hermione grabbed his elbow to keep him from shouting at Umbridge. Both Draco and Theo were having a hard time keeping their masks on, staring with open disbelief at Umbridge.

"Miss Bourne," Umbridge snapped. "Do you need some water?"

"Yes," Aria coughed, chest heaving. "Sorry." She grabbed Harry's hand as she turned for the Great Hall and he grabbed Ron who grabbed Hermione and the four hurried to the Gryffindor table where Neville, seeing their approach, poured Aria a glass of pumpkin juice.

"The nerve of that woman!" Hermione hissed, hair nearly standing on end in her indignation. Lavender carefully patted it down for Hermione.

"What did she do this time?" Lavender asked.

"She basically accused Mr. Weasley of embezzlement to afford Ron's new broom!" Hermione cried.

Multiple people gasped.

"Impossible!" Dean cried.

"Yeah," Neville agreed. "If Mr. Weasley were to embezzle Ministry funds, he wouldn't be so stupid as to spend it on something like a Cleansweep."

"Thanks, Nev," Ron drawled. "I appreciate your undying belief in my dad's intelligence."

Neville raised his teacup in salute.