ACT2CH35 - Mutiny (Patreon)

Dolores Umbridge strolled into the classroom, a wide smile across her face.

Her plan had worked. She had finally been able to accomplish what her dear Minister sent her for. She had finally been able to secure a position to openly confront the bane of Cornelius’s existence — that damned Harry Potter.

Honestly, even she was surprised at how easy it had been. After the way that damned lying, attention-seeking brat had taken her own words and made an open mockery in front of the fifth-years, Dolores had had to reevaluate her position. The way the Potter brat had egged Mr. Malfoy’s son, in attacking him in front of everyone, spoke of the cunningness of a quintessential Slytherin. It was a far cry from the Gryffindor Golden Boy image she had gotten from the dossier Mr. Malfoy had sent her. No doubt all of this was part of Albus Dumbledore’s plan. The old coot had gotten paranoid ever since Minister Fudge had stopped listening to him and instead found a wiser counsel in the rich and royal Lucius Malfoy and his associates. Senile old fool was probably thinking that it was still the Grindelwald-era and everyone should bow down before him to please his frail ego.

Dolores smirked. Not on her watch.

She had read the files. The old fool could hide behind the wise old man facade as much as he wanted, but it was a known fact that he was Gellert Grindelwald’s best friend, and once upon a time, Albus Dumbledore shared Grindelwald’s plans of world domination. The entire world was burning, and Dumbledore had been content to stay at Hogwarts, operating under Grindelwald’s shadow. It was only after Torquil Travers, the then DMLE Head, found out about his history with Grindelwald that Dumbledore had been forced to fight against the man. Dolores had read reports about the violence he had commanded, the rain of powerful spells he had showered upon the unfortunate witches and wizards that came across his path. And despite the world demanding Grindelwald’s death, Albus Dumbledore had used his position as the Supreme Mugwump to instead lock the Dark Lord up in Nurmengard. Not because of some sentimental desire to prevent loss of life, but to save the life of his lover. Dolores had the sneaking suspicion that Travers’s death right after Grindelwald’s defeat was arranged by Dumbledore — yet another casualty to keep his own dastardly secrets.

In hindsight, it was pathetically clear what had happened on the night of the Third Task. Every single dead body had been part of Mr. Malfoy’s alliance, all of them respectable members of the august Wizengamot body. All of them owned profitable businesses and wielded political and economic power of their own, and would have certainly contributed to pushing Wizarding Britain into a perfect pureblood utopia.

Albus Dumbledore must have realised that threat. Dolores had no way to prove it, but she was certain that Albus Dumbledore had been behind the kidnapping of all those upstanding men and gotten them to the graveyard, probably under the Imperius. And then, he had staged the entire event, and scapegoated Amos Diggory’s son to take the fall. No doubt the brave and talented Cedric, the real Hogwarts Champion, had realised his dastardly plans, which was why he was killed. Dolores had read enough to know that the man had probably forgotten more dark and esoteric magic than most people even knew these days.

And Harry Potter? He was just a stooge. Albus Dumbledore’s stooge. Or at least, that was her initial impression.

By Circe was she wrong! Harry Potter wasn’t his stooge. He was a budding Dark Lord rising beneath Dumbledore’s nose. The brat was a parselmouth, known worldwide as a dark trait, and somehow knew how to steal the magic from others — no doubt learnt through all kinds of forbidden rituals taught to him by the wily old man himself. Why else would Dumbledore display such blatant favouritism to him since the very first year?

Immolation of Quirinus Quirrell.

Obliviation of Gilderoy Lockhart.

Hiring of that werewolf Lupin.

Hiring a crackpot Auror, who was also Dumbledore’s friend.

The signs were all there. The old man had fooled the world, but not Dolores. She had heard the stories about something being hidden at Hogwarts in Potter’s first year. No doubt the old man was carrying out something abstruse. For all Dolores knew, it was part of his preparing Harry Potter for his eventual role as a new Dark Lord. Quirrell must have found out, which led to his demise by immolation.

Dolores had laughed herself hoarse when she had read the excuse. DADA professor believed to be possessed by a dark spirit.

And then year two, and the Chamber of Secrets. Just in time for the boy’s parselmouth powers to be revealed in public. Dolores wasn’t sure of the mechanics, but Dumbledore must have been after the petrifactions. And really, a twelve-year-old fighting a basilisk? Perhaps the old man had begun to believe in those stupid Boy-Who-Lived stories and wanted to create a larger than life image for Potter. Gilderoy Lockhart must have figured it out, but he was too famous a personality to kill off, so Dumbledore had skillfully obliviated him.

After two years of repeated issues, Dumbledore must have grown paranoid, which explained his hires — the werewolf Remus Lupin, and the crackpot Auror, both of them eating out of his hands and probably ready to do whatever harebrained plan he wanted to set. And now, after eliminating Mr. Malfoy’s support base in one decisive manoeuvre, Dumbledore and Harry Potter had used the entire world as their stage, and resurrected the myth of an old enemy — the dead Dark Lord. In one methodical stroke, they arranged for the public to leap from being horrified at the dead purebloods to eating out of the Boy-who-Lived’s hands — their saviour.

Unfortunately for them, neither Cornelius nor Mr. Malfoy was easy to fool. Which was why they brought in the notorious mass murderer Sirius Black into the ploy, and convinced Amelia Bones that he was innocent. The devils plotted against the Malfoys, stealing young Draco’s fortune, and brought the Greengrasses into their mix, possibly bribing them with a rank in their New World Order.

But they had underestimated Cornelius’s Ministry. They had underestimated her. And that would be their folly.

The smile deepened further as Dolores entered the DADA classroom, her breathing controlled, her thoughts focussed, a single bead of sweat dripping down her temples.

Potter was smart. She’d give him that much.  Dolores would even concede that Potter was a formidable duelist — but after private training with Albus Dumbledore, even modest talents could grow teeth. Plus, he had the advantage of private training, while the rest of the students faced one incompetent teacher after another. Albus Dumbledore was pulling all the stops  to make the Boy-Who-Lived look like a messiah figure, one he could use to his benefit after proclaiming the return of the dead Dark Lord.

Little did he know that his duel had given Dolores all the ammunition she needed to convince Cornelius of the danger he posed. He had also shown exactly what sort of monster lurked beneath that child’s face. He had openly used Dark Magic and frightened off an entire class of students. Dolores had no doubt that the students had already written to their parents, fearing for their safety within Hogwarts.

Really, Cornelius was being too nice, too soft for what needed to be done. Had he been more like her, he’d have recognized the filth festering within the system and uprooted it in one go. Dolores had even considered the idea of sending a pair of dementors to eliminate the Boy-Who-Lived for once and for all, but she didn’t know where the illusive Black Mansion was.

But no matter. She’d make things right. It was her job. Especially now, when she had become High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. And the changes would begin from this class itself. If Potter would not attend her classes, she’d make his best friends — the blood-traitor and the mudblood suffer, until he came at her like a wounded dog, and then she’d reveal him for being the attention-loving, fear-mongering dark wizard that he was, and get him expelled from Hogwarts. Maybe thrown into Azkaban for good measure.

Dolores regarded the students sitting on the benches and cleared her throat.

“Good morning, Class.”

Stony faces looked back at her.

Dolores frowned. “Good morning, Class.”

Still no reaction.

“Tut, tut!” she exclaimed. “I believe we already went over this, haven’t we? You should all say, ‘Good morning, Professor Umbridge’ or ‘Good morning, High Inquisitor Umbridge’. Now, let’s try again, shall we? Good morning, Class.”

This time she got a reaction, if from a select group of people. Malfoy Junior, and his friends stood up and wished her properly, followed by another couple or two from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. The rest just stared at her stonily.

What was going on?

As much as she hated to admit it, the cold attitude from the children had thrown her off her game. Their silent, judging faces, surveying her like she was somehow on trial… It made her feel uneasy. She had thought that with her powers as the High Inquisitor, she’d have them bend backwards to acknowledge and fear her. Instead she had… this.

“Uh, well,” she cleared her throat, loudly, hoping to gain some semblance of control over the situation. Hopefully this was just a one-time thing, and she’d soon put it behind.

“Right, wands away and quills out, please.”

To her relief, the class silently complied with her order. Just to be safe, Umbridge drew out her own wand, and placed it on the desk, before grabbing it and flicking it at the blackboard, as the agenda for the day’s class began to appear.

“Now, I’d like you to read Chapter six, page fifty-four. There will be no need to talk.”

Again, the students complied.

Well, except one.

It was that Ravenclaw girl. The duelist. Lu Si, something.  She was staring at her, her hand raised. Dolores suppressed the urge to sneer and reminded herself to be polite to this uppity girl, for appearances’ sake if nothing else.

“Yes?”

“I’ve a problem, Professor Umbridge. I checked in with my elder sister, and with the International Duelling Association, and both agree that a sound knowledge of at least OWL-level Defence spells is a prerequisite to getting anywhere in professional duelling. Mr. Slinkhard’s text contains nothing about using spells, so I was wondering if you were going to teach the spells yourself at some point.”

“Miss…”

“Li,  professor. Sue Li.”

“Right, Miss Li. As I have said before, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot perform the spell under safely controlled conditions if you have read the theory properly.”

“But I’m not going to perform them in safe and controlled conditions, professor. I need to perform them in the blink of an eye in the duelling ring. Why, professor Flitwick says —”

“Hem! Hem!”

That shut her up.

“Let me be extremely candid, Miss Li,” said Dolores, composing her expression to look pleasant instead of an ugly sneer. “The new syllabus has been ordained by people more knowledgeable than yourself, and it has been set with your best interests in mind. I’m certain the International Duelling Association will understand why the British Ministry of Magic has changed certain aspects of your education.”

“But —”

“No buts, Miss Li,” Dolores went on. “Now unless there are any further questions —”

“How will we learn to fight dark wizards if we don’t learn to cast spells properly?” asked another boy, this time from the Hufflepuff table. From the mousy hair and brown eyes, Dolores wondered if he was a Macmillan.

She let out a frilly little laugh. “Fighting dark wizards? What on earth possessed you to think you’d need to do such a thing?”

“What else do you think Hit-wizards do?” said a third, this one from Ravenclaw. “Apart from guarding stupid politicians?”

“Hand, Mr —”

“Goldstien. Ernie wants to be a hit-wizard, and I want to join the Aurors. How will we move up in our careers if you’re going to sabotage our education?”

Her fingers twitched. Just attempting to reason with these dimwits was enough to make her want to cast the cruciatus curse. Here she was, trying to stop Potter and Dumbledore from sabotaging the Ministry? If she failed, Cornelius’s Ministry would fall, and wizarding Britain would be lost in darkness. Everyone would become puppets, dancing to whatever insane tune Dumbledore and Potter made them dance to. And all these poppets cared about was their little career plans?

Talk about selfish.

“Harry was right,” muttered the mudblood Granger, but before Dolores could say or do anything, the Bones girl stood up.

“I told you, Anthony, she won’t teach us anything. You just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Well forgive me for wanting to try one more time,” said the Ravenclaw.

“Now you know it,” confirmed Daphne Greengrass from Slytherin House. That one Dolores knew well. There was a lot she could forgive, but a woman of high pedigree choosing to debase herself for a half-blood lying sonofabitch? No, Daphne Greengrass held a special kind of hatred in Dolores’s heart, but the lack of interaction with her made it difficult to punish her.

“Professor Umbridge,” said Bones, taking out a furled parchment, and stepping out of her desk as she approached her table. Dolores gingerly took the parchment off the redhead’s fingers and unfurled it. Inside was a little note, written in formal tones, a collective notice from a list of students that were formally withdrawing from attending her class. Beneath it, were signatures of sixty-seven students distributed across the years, several of whom were purebloods or at the very least, had parents serving the Ministry of Magic. Before Dolores could digest what she was really looking at, and its potential implications, Sue Li stood up, followed by Greengrass and the Gryffindor mudblood, all of them holding similar parchments, and approached the table.

“What—” Dolores let out a little girlish laugh, hiding her growing anxiety within, “ what is this?”

“This is us withdrawing from attending your class, Professor,” said Greengrass, smugness rolling off her in waves. “You’ll find signatures of thirty-nine students, from firsties to NEWT students, who have found your teaching… unsatisfactory.”

“Seventy-three students in my case,” said the mudblood, “but overall, what she said.”

“Fifty-four Ravenclaws think the same, professor,” Li finished.

Dolores swallowed. Her mind instantly calculated and arrived at the sum of two hundred and thirty-three students. An absolutely scary figure since the current Hogwarts student population was two hundred and sixty two. The only people who had possibly refrained were probably intelligent people like Malfoy junior and his friends, and wards of loyal and earnest Ministry employees.

She let out another girlish laugh. “I’m afraid you’re confused, dears. Defence Against The Dark Arts isn’t some elective you can sit out of. It’s a compulsory course that you have to attend as part of your education. A tiny misunderstanding no doubt, but no harm done. Now go on,” she coaxed, “return to your seats, girls.”

“Oh we know that,” said Greengrass with mock sweetness. “We asked our Heads of House, and they said the same.”

“So you see,” Dolores went on, doing her best to smile and not sneer. “You must not always listen to whatever lies Mr. Potter tells you. Now if you can kindly all sit down and —”

“It doesn’t matter,” interrupted Bones. “I mean yeah, we can’t just walk out legally, but we realised we just don’t care.”

Dolores blinked. Had she just —

“Now look here,” she sputtered in outrage. “What do you think you’re up to? You cannot just stand up and leave—”

“But we aren’t,” said the mudblood, “We care a lot about the class. We are even going to study it ourselves from the proper textbooks. It’s only you we don’t care about.”

“But you can’t just — Fifty points from Gryffindor. Now go back to your seat before I deduct any more points or assign you detention.”

“She still doesn’t get it, does she?” said the mudblood condescendingly. Her fingers twitched, wanting to cruciate her to an inch of her life.

“Get what? A hundred points from Gryffindor, and detention! FOR TWO WEEKS!” Dolores shrieked. “YOU GET IT? NOW BACK OFF BEFORE I MAKE IT A MONTH!”

“It’s sad really,” said Bones airily. “Professor Sprout usually overturns unfair point losses.”

“She overturns point losses?” inquired the mudblood.

“WHY AREN’T YOU LISTEN—”

“Oh yes,” nodded Bones, utterly ignoring her. “How else do you think we manage to survive Professor Snape? We don’t have a Hermione Granger to score points in every class.”

“Damn it! I feel like I’m being cheated!” growled the mudblood.

“Win some, lose some,” chirped Bones. “Not that this one will be overturned. High Inquisitor and all that.”

“Our Head of House is a little strict that way,” admitted Greengrass. “But maybe Professor Snape can talk to the Headmaster?”

“TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY POINTS —” Dolores began, but her protests fell on deaf ears.

The Mudblood sighed, cutting Dolores off. “None of you have to deal with McGonagall. She doesn’t overturn point losses very much. She never did it for Professor Snape.”

“Point,” said Li, nodding.

“Even if the point loss stays, every House’s getting it, so it probably balances things off,” said the mudblood.

“Another good point,” nodded Sue Li.

“Think if all four Houses make an appeal, the Headmaster will get us a proper Professor?” asked Greengrass.

“Doubtful,” muttered Bones. “You know how difficult it is to get one.”

“And they don’t even last a year, thanks to the curse on the position,” added the Mudblood.

“Good thing that Harry requested a team of curse-breakers be hired to look for the jinx on the Defence position. Maybe now we can get a proper professor.” finished Greengrass.

Dolores’s jaw dropped.

“Oooh! So there is a curse?” Sue Li piped up. “I always thought it was a rumour.”

“No rumour,” added Bones seriously.

“A hundred points! Two hundred points from Hufflepuff!”

“No fair!” cried Susan. “Ravenclaw didn’t even lose any points yet!”

Li stuck her tongue out.

“FIVE HUNDRED POINTS FROM RAVENCLAW! DETENTION FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR!” Dolores kept barking like a mad dog, but no one paid her any attention. Most of the students had already packed their books and bags and were heading towards the door, while the four girls were busily conversing with each other, as they gathered their bags, utterly oblivious to how Dolores was waving her wand around, screaming like a child throwing a temper tantrum, as almost every student, save for Malfoy junior and a chosen few, departed from the hall.

“Good day, professor!” The Mudblood waved her hand at her, as she walked out.

Dolores stood there, seething, unable to believe what had happened, unable to speak, unable to yell, unable to do anything but stand and stare at what had just transpired. She looked at Malfoy junior and his friends, and the couple of Ravenclaws and the lone Hufflepuff that had stayed back. All of them were giving each other weird and uncomfortable looks, as if wondering if they should have left when they had the chance.

What the hell was happening? She — she was the High Inquisitor. She was the highest authority at Hogwarts. She was the Senior Under Secretary to the Minister of Magic. And these buffoons, these — these —

Panic stricken, she took an unconscious step back, her mouth moving furiously but unable to make an actual noise.

“Professor Umbridge?”

She gaped at the source of the sound, which turned out to be Malfoy Junior.

“Ye— yes?” she croaked.

“Are you not going to punish them?” asked Malfoy, with a conflicted expression on his face.

“Ye—yes, of course! I’ll — I’ll just head off and talk to the Headmaster! What do these unruly children think? I’m the Senior Undersecretary! I ‘m the High Inquisitor!”

Blabbering to herself, she quickly grabbed her purse and stormed out of the class. Dumbledore! Dumbledore was behind this! She’d get to the bottom of this and throw that old fool out of Hogwarts! She’d see this to the very end. She needed to send an owl to the Daily Prophet, and another to Mr. Malfoy, telling him of the drastic change that had happened seemingly overnight at Hogwarts. And when she was done with it, she’d make sure that the students would all be back for class and apologise to her on their knees.

She was the Senior Undersecretary and she’d have her due respect.

....

....

....

Albus Dumbledore did not like secrets. Oh, it wasn’t that he disliked keeping secrets, not at all. He just had a problem when someone else kept secrets from him. It drove him crazy, like an itch that just would not go away. A puzzle that he had yet to solve. At the same time, figuring the secret almost certainly caused his interest to wane on the subject, and at times, on the person involved, unless of course, there were other secrets to be discovered.

Like the secret recipe behind lemon drops. Originally created by an Italian that had come to visit Britain in hope of building a business out of it. The business failed, unfortunate as it was, but Albus had managed to coax the recipe out of him. It was a wonder how much one could get done with a little bit of passive legilimency and compulsion charms, though nothing he was too proud about. He had then set up his own mini factory unit that manufactured lemon drops for him and him alone. After all, it wasn’t as if he had any future generations to leave behind any fortune.

However, lemon drops weren’t the topic of concern for today. Something far more important was, not that lemon drops weren’t important. Those freshly prepared confectionaries with the right mix of sour and sweet were supremely delicious and had it been a perfect world, he’d have become the world’s largest confectioner of these delicacies. However, the world was far from perfect, and today’s agenda revolved around a young man who seemed to have become a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. A young man who went by the name Harry Potter.

Ever since the eventful end of the Triwizard tournament, the boy had changed. Albus had been absolutely elated to realise that the boy was hit by the killing curse, and he survived it, proving his theories about Tom using the boy’s scar as an unintended vessel for his horcrux were true. His magic had felt far more potent, though the bit about his Family Magic — the Peverell bloodline, was a curveball that had come out of nowhere. The Peverells were such an ancient name that most old pureblood clans could call themselves descendants, though the Potters always had a special value in that list, thanks to their direct descendancy from Ignotus Peverell through his grand-daughter Iolanthe. That James Potter, and his ancestors before him, still held Ignotus’s Cloak was proof. Despite that, no one in the family had shown any sign of the Peverell Family Magic — an utterly natural thing given the original family had perished over one and a half millennia.

And then Harry Potter demonstrated it out of nowhere.

Not just demonstrated, but he was a vessel. Enough for the Family Magic to recognize him as Lord. The Wizengamot could call it whatever they wanted, could force him to elevate House Potter to Nobility, but Albus knew that House Potter was no more. It was House Peverell, the original deal, and Harry was its Lord.

Harry James Peverell.

It was like discovering his ability to speak Parseltongue all over again.

At least that one, he could relate to Tom and the scar. That the boy could even feel Tom’s presence when nearby had given Albus the idea that the scar was more than just a residue of powerful, curse magic. Seeing the diary, and analysing its nature as a horcrux had further cemented the idea that Harry was a horcrux.

But the Peverell magic?

Where had that come from? How? He knew Croaker and the Unspeakables had performed all kinds of tests on the boy’s blood as well as his parents, back in 1981, trying to figure out exactly what had transpired that night, but without success. But not even their tests revealed any sign about a  Peverell lineage, and certainly not anything strong enough to manifest as a vessel in him.

So… how?

Albus had no idea, and it made it all the more unbearable.

His latest reports from Severus had been both elating and worrisome at the same time. The boy, according to Severus, had all the qualities of a natural war-wizard — extreme reflexes, a known factor given his performance in Quidditch, a significantly large magical capacity, reach Albus’s own levels with maturity, and tremendous spellcasting prowess. Albus had been shocked to hear that the boy had actually outperformed the standard Auror equipment, though Severus had hid that particular titbit from the boy. Albus didn’t mind though. It was better for him to underestimate himself and grow, than get overconfident and falter when it counted. His skill at spell-deflection was quickly approaching the level of a Hit-wizard, and he was getting faster and faster at constant apparition. By Severus’s estimates, Harry would be able to at least hold his own against any member of the Dark Lord’s Inner Circle by the end of the year if not outright win.

And then there was the matter of the workshop. While Albus was happy to see the boy develop a love for scholastic development, he was also curious how the boy was developing his unique ability to craft something unique for himself. The prophecy had claimed that Harry would have a power that the Dark Lord knew not, and the more time passed, the more Albus was beginning to suspect that Death was that power.

If things kept progressing at this rate, he might as well have to divulge the Prophecy to the boy by the end of the year. Preferably before he officially joined the Department of Mysteries.

But last evening, he had gotten a most surprising visit from Hermione Granger, Harry's best friend over the past four years but one that he was slowly moving away from if the rumours in the Hogwarts Mill were true. The young women had been absolutely distressed with what she described as a fatalistic outlook at life, and an impossibly dangerous training regimen that young Harry had put himself to, in hopes to level the gap between himself and Tom. It had taken a little coaxing, but he had gotten a memory of the event, and by his word, he had been surprised — both by the display of skill, and his thoughts about Wizarding Britain. He had seen The utter disregard and callousness with which he put forth his arguments reminded him of his old friend Gellert, especially with how he effortlessly tied his utter disdain for the current political setup with Britain’s own history, using Albus’s own situations as well as Tom’s to prove his point.

Harry had led the girls from one point to another like a seasoned barrister, and made them even empathise with his reasoning, while still maintaining his stance of remaining aloof, and letting them solve their own problems for themselves. Had Albus been there, he’d have probably tried dealing with the situation how he thought best. Not Harry though. Harry had simply offered alternatives and stayed back, content to watch it play out. In that one memory, he saw what Gellert Grindelwald ever was, as well as everything he ever wanted to become and all he never managed to become. And honestly, he wasn’t certain if he should feel proud or terrified.

That he was about to get engaged with the daughter of a well-known Grindelwald acolyte didn’t make things easier.

So Albus had done neither. Instead, he chose to focus on the most immediate concern.

Dolores Umbridge who was currently climbing up his stairs with the air of a rampaging bull.

“Come in.”

The door sprang open, and the woman stepped in, her face purple with rage and hysteria. Albus idly wondered if she was about to suffer an aneurysm and if Poppy was nearby, since Fawkes would clearly deny flaming her anywhere, even if it was to the Hospital Wing.

“HEADMASTER!” screamed the woman. “You have to stop this! RIGHT AWAY!”

She is rather entitled, Albus thought idly. One would think that being one of his most vocal opponents in the political spectrum, Dolores would be more conserved when it came to dealing directly with him. After all, he was the singular authority in Hogwarts that bypassed the domain of the High Inquisitor. And here she was, demanding him to take attention on whatever new trouble she was facing.

Then again, Cornelius hired her. Perhaps this was a case of Like attracting Like?

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, Madam Umbridge,” he said in his polite grandfatherly tone. “However, if I might be so presumptuous, would it not be better for you to get a calming draught first? You do look a little hysterical, if I might say so.”

“Stop it!” The woman barked. “I know you’re behind this! You’re inciting the students against the Ministry. We caught your act at the start of summer, Headmaster, when you lied about the return of You-Know-Who. And now you’re inciting them against me and the Ministry’s course of action!”

Definitely hysterical, Albus mused as he adjusted the sleeves of his lime-green robes. The glittery pink stripes that edges the garment in a random pattern made Albus smile. He really should get himself a couple more pairs of these. Then he realised that the woman was still not done yelling at him, and focussed back at her.

“I see,” he said, not seeing at all. He adjusted his half-moon glasses and peered at the frantic woman. “While I do not understand how anything you claim had anything to do with me, I'll try my level best to solve this issue. Could you please tell me exactly what happened?”

That led to a fifteen-minute dissertation of exactly what the students had done earlier, including the names of the students, and more importantly, how they were seen in close proximity to Harry Potter over the recent weeks. She rambled on about how it all started with Harry Potter openly defying her commands and walking out of her class, shaming her teaching and the Ministry’s recommended textbook and course syllabus. Then she threw four sets of parchment identical to the ones sitting on Albus’s desk, and asked him to abrogate them, and force the students to return to her class immediately with nothing short of a proper apology in person. Dolores had also managed to combine in a few not-very-subtle threats and accusations surrounding himself, Harry Potter and an anti-Ministry propaganda that involved resurrecting the ghost of a dead Dark Lord to gain control over Cornelius’s Ministry. From a neutral perspective, it did have all the makings of an excellent conspiracy theory, and in another life, he probably would have done something similar if his relationship with Gellert hadn’t shattered the way it had.

“I understand,” he said at last, stroking his beard. “What I am asking is what do you want me to do against it?”

“GET THE STUDENTS BACK OF COURSE!”

“Now that, I’m afraid, is beyond my level of control,” he admitted freely. He wasn’t even fibbing.

“What?” She croaked. “Why?”

Albus felt rather proud at being able to hide his smile at her distress. “Because of this.”

He held up a tiny piece of parchment. It was a notary sent from the Ministry, an Act that not even he could ignore.

“Educational Decree Number Twenty-three. None of the school staff, including the Headmaster, can directly interfere in the actions of the High Inquisitor,” he read out loud. “The Headmaster is, however, allowed to use his discretionary powers to override the High Inquisitor’s actions should they be in direct contention with the Hogwarts Charter.”

The way the woman fumed at his words made his day.

“So you see, Madam High Inquisitor,” said Albus, merrily chewing on a lemon drop. “My hands are, quite effectively, tied in this matter. Don’t want Cornelius to think I’m undermining him again, do we?”

“But the students —”

Albus smiled. “A majority of the student population have simply decided to not attend your classes, if those parchments are true. And unless I am wrong, point loss and detention have not quelled their efforts. What do you wish me to do, Madam Umbridge? The Imperius curse perhaps? Or maybe torture them? How about a trial?”

“You — you’re behind this! You—”

Albus sighed. This woman had a one-track mind, didn’t she?

“Madam Umbridge, regardless of your concerns, this is the first time I’m hearing of this. But what I’m truly afraid of, is what happens if those students start writing home to their parents. I mean, you know how that works, correct? Your own posting was because of such an action.”

“So you’ll do nothing?”

“My word, of course not!” said Albus, relaxing back into his chair. “This is a very serious issue and must be dealt with before it becomes something bigger. I can’t have the Governors thinking I’ve been lax again, can I? I’ll probably be booted out of the Headmaster post if that happens.”

Her face gained a little colour. “You mean you’ll help me?”

“Oh yes,” he said, beaming. “I believe I can offer you an extension of five days.  I shall, of course, start finding an alternative for your position instantly. If Cornelius is able to satisfy the concerned parents, whether through a better hiring, or through some new decree, as seems to be the fashion these days, then I have no problem in retaining your services. If not, I’m afraid you’ll leave to depart from Hogwarts and return to your role as the Senior Undersecretary.”

“This— this is all you're doing, Headmaster Dumbledore! Don’t think you — you’ve planned this! I’ll prove that you and that blasted Potter is behind this! I will see both of you out of Hogwarts! I — I need to send a letter to the Prophet right away, yes. The public needs to know exactly what dastardly events are happening here. You — You —”

She kept opening and closing her mouth, but had seemingly run out of words to say.

Albus sighed. “I understand your hysteria, and if I may be so forward, I do have a solution that resolves such tensions quite well.”

He held up a sweet in his right hand.

“Might I interest you in a lemon drop?”

....

....

....

Unknown to Dolores, the students had already employed all of Hogwarts existing owls, as well as their personal ones to send urgent mails to their parents and guardians. Some of them were more detailed and discerning than the others, but most carried a variation on the same basic theme.

‘Dolores Umbridge isn’t teaching us anything. She’ll destroy our careers.”.’

Interestingly, Harry Potter, who wasn’t even present during the student mutiny, had also sent two owls, which explained the absence of his snowy owl at the Hogwarts owlery. Two letters actually. The first was a letter to Account Manager Griphook at Gringotts, sent through Hedwig, asking for the earliest date available for hiring a party of curse-breakers for Hogwarts, funded from the Potter vaults.

The second letter was sent by a standard Hogwarts owl, carrying a shorter, unsigned message solely meant for the eyes of Lucius Malfoy. It consisted of a single sentence.

‘Turnabout is fair play.’