(Enchanting Melodies) Chapter 320: Of Cruel Feathers (Patreon)

Chapter 320: Of Cruel Feathers

2nd September 1995, Hogwarts (Earth 2)

The smooth way Smith delivered this little speech silenced the entire classroom, and Umbridge simply stated, “You will see me after class, Mr. Smith.”

“Of course, Professor Umbridge,” he replied with a smug grin, “After all, you still haven’t answered my questions yet…”

Harry was smiling as the entire classroom left the frankly boring Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, relishing at the glares Umbridge was giving him, especially as he took out his notebook once more after his little speech and continued his research without any interruptions…

His counterpart and his friends gave him worried looks, but he simply rolled his eyes. To be fair, they were all leaving him alone in the company of a woman who wanted to set him aflame with just her glare. That woman had to have some very serious attachment issues regarding Fudge, especially considering all he did was make a few comments on ways the ministry would handle this…

Meh, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t deny that it wasn’t satisfying just putting her in her place.

Finally, the last student left the classroom and Umbridge closed the door with a swish of her wand, “Thank you so much for staying, Mr. Smith...”

Harry simply shrugged, “You’re the professor after all.”

The woman’s smile grew, “Oh, I’m glad to know that you remember this, especially considering how insolent you were during class.”

“Was I insolent? I thought as the Minister’s undersecretary, you would have known more about his future plans for the country. I was just preparing myself, making my plans, considering the changes he was planning on implementing. After all, he has to be implementing something to balance the scales again. No administration would be incompetent enough to make such drastic changes to the future generations' education and not plan for the consequences. A decision this severe can’t be done rashly, after all.”

Umbridge got redder and redder the more he spoke, “You go too far, boy!”

“And how is that?”

The woman spluttered, “You called the minister incompetent. How is that not going too far?”

“I said, he would be if he didn’t have a plan in place. Are you saying that the minister made such a drastic change in his country’s education, without having even considering the consequences of his decision?”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed, mostly out of instinct.

“Then the minister is not incompetent, is he? Now, I’m more curious as to what his plans are. You should be privy to the minister’s plans, right? I assumed so since he trusted you for this very important job. You must be quite the confidante.”

The woman preened and Harry had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Still, her reply was at least somewhat smart, “Of course, I am one of Cornelius’ most trusted advisors. However, the minister’s plans are still in motion, and I can’t really say any specifics. What I can say for sure is that he has more than a few contingencies in place to avoid this decision having any negative consequences to Magical Britain in any way. He simply didn’t publicize them because certain undesirable individuals would attempt to interfere.”

Harry pretended to be ashamed, “Oh, then I suppose me blurting out the possible solutions was a bad idea. Now everyone could know, especially since a lot of my classmates have family in the Ministry and the Wizengamot. The entire thing probably spread all over the school.”

Umbridge paled at that. She probably didn’t think this through. Harry knew perfectly what he was saying in the classroom and the consequences of giving suggestions the way he did. Even if it was a little speech around a few students, Fudge would be forced to pretend that he was planning on implementing one of the solutions Harry spoke of, to not look very incompetent. And that would cost gold… A lot of gold, really. Harry expected the DMLE’s funding to skyrocket soon, which would increase the influence of one of Fudge’s political rivals.

Harry suppressed a smirk at Lucius Malfoy’s gold being used to fund the Aurors that his master would fight against. He didn’t expect Voldemort to be happy with the man, especially after the diary fiasco.

Still, the woman was able to steel herself pretty quickly. She had to, especially with a career in politics. Her fear slowly morphed into anger, which Harry was able to analyse easily with his Arcane Hearing. She gave him a sickly-sweet smile, “Now, onto the matter of your punishment, Mr. Smith.”

“I am being punished?”

“Well, of course, you disturbed my classroom and put the ministry’s authority into question. That is a punishable offence, don’t you think?”

Harry really wanted to roll his eyes for the third time in just five minutes. The bitch was just being sadistic. No professor – other than Snape, maybe – would have punished a student for asking questions. But she was frustrated and wanted to take it out on the source of her anger, even if he didn’t deserve it.

He knew where this was going and decided to go with the flow. Already a small plan started to form inside his head. He could probably hit three birds with a single stone… He liked that.

Of course, he pretended to be ashamed of his actions, “Of course, professor. I submit myself to whatever punishment you deem to be fit.”

“Well, since this is only the first day of school, I’m going to be lenient. You will simply write a few lines. I believe you have an hour until your class with Professor Snape, correct?”

Harry nodded and took out his quill, “Yes.”

“Oh, you won’t do it with your quill. You’ll be using a special one of mine,” Harry could hear the excitement at the thought of seeing him in pain.

She opened one of her drawers and took out a long black quill that was unusually sharp. Harry immediately knew what it was. He could hear the malice used to create it in the first place. She gave him a sharp look, “Now, I want you to write ‘The ministry’s decision are beyond my judgement’.”

“How many times?” he asked.

“Until the message sticks, of course. Oh, and don’t worry, you won’t need any ink.”

Harry looked at the black quill and used his Arcane Hearing on it. It was a curious thing, really, a cursed version of a Blood Quill. They were not supposed to really cut into people’s hands, at least originally. They were actually designed to do the complete opposite of that, to sign agreements in blood without having any cuts. They were outlawed long ago alongside blood contracts after people just kept binding each other, which created an entire political mess.

They were already pretty expensive back then. But after being banned, they became extremely so. This quill must have belonged to one of Umbridge’s ancestors, something that she either refused or couldn’t sell, and instead decided to curse into an instrument of torture than anything.

Yeah, Harry wasn’t about to let someone have any of his blood. He discreetly transfigured one of his self-inking quills to look like the one Umbridge gave him and altered it slightly to make the ink red.

With that done, he pretended that his arm hurt, and the woman just looked satisfied. Harry rolled his eyes and instead put an illusion of himself being in pain while enchanting the quill to write the lines on its own.

After around half an hour, she turned to him and asked, “Hand!”

Harry raised an eyebrow, “Why would you need to see my hands, professor?”

That seemed to confuse her to no end, “Do you wish to write even more lines, Mr. Smith? Give me your hands!”

Harry raised his unblemished hand, watching with satisfaction as the woman’s face reddened in frustration when she realized nothing had happened. Her eyes narrowed, and she quickly strode forward, snatching the quill from the desk. “This isn’t my quill. What did you do to it?”

“Whatever do you mean, Professor?” Harry replied, his tone innocent.

Her voice grew harsher. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, boy!”

“Are you referring to that strange quill that cuts people and uses their blood as ink? That one?”

“Yes!” she hissed.

Harry shrugged casually. “Never seen it in my life.”

Her face twisted in anger, and she raised her wand at him, but her hand froze in mid-air. Harry smiled calmly, “Now, now… No need to get violent.”

“I’ll call the Aurors,” she threatened, her voice low and dangerous.

Harry tilted his head slightly, feigning curiosity. “And tell them what, exactly? ‘I’m sorry, but I had this banned item that I cursed and planned to use on students to torture them during detention, but this boy somehow got hold of it.’ What do you think they’d say? Who do you think they’d arrest—me, or you? And what would that do to Fudge’s reputation? After all, you are his representative at Hogwarts. Every move you make must have his approval, right?”

Her face contorted with rage. “Get out!” she barked.

Harry’s smirk grew wider as he leaned in slightly. “It’s sad that you actually think you have any authority here. Your one play is gone. You’ll never hurt anyone in this castle again. You won’t hurt Harry Potter or his friends. We both know I could probably take you in a fight, and let’s be honest—you’re too broke to afford another cursed item to use on students.”

The Defense professor stiffened, her eyes narrowing, and Harry continued, his voice soft but cutting. “Oh, did I strike a nerve? You are poor, aren’t you? You probably found that quill somewhere, or maybe you even stole it. You can’t even afford to replace it, can you? It’s pathetic… clawing your way to the top while others, with more gold than you, were born into privilege. After all these years, you probably couldn’t even buy a single cursed artefact…”

With each word, Harry subtly cast a compulsion charm, planting seeds of doubt and resentment deep within her mind. He knew she would feel the need to prove him wrong, to show she wasn’t as poor as he implied. She would go to Gringotts over the weekend, then make her way to Knockturn Alley, intent on buying the most painful magical item she could afford, just to use it on him in another detention.

It was so easy. She was too angry, too humiliated, too vindictive to even realize she was being manipulated. He honestly expected more from her, but to be perfectly fair, she was probably not used to people acting this way. She was a ministry worker and an administrator. There were rules that everyone followed and she relied on Fudge's protection when she broke those rules. She never really confronted someone like Harry, who could just ignore these rules and didn't care about making any future enemies. He didn't care that Umbridge would probably complain to Fudge about him being an enemy. Why would he?

After all, he wasn't planning on staying in this dimension, was he? Why should he really care about angering some administrators?

Harry shook his head in disappointment, “Oh, look at the time. It wouldn’t do to be late to Professor Snape’s class, would it? I suppose you have a measure of luck. I heavily suggest that you don’t push it…”

He turned, grabbed his bag and left towards the dungeons. He was smiling at the small piece of hair that he subtly cut from her while he was intimidating her. Yes, everything was going according to plan. He would probably be able to destroy the cup in the weekend.

Harry hadn’t really planned on breaking into Gringotts so early, but Umbridge was just so accommodating that he didn’t have it in him to refuse her gracious sacrifice. He carefully put the hair in his trunk, in the Gryffindor common room, and walked down to the dungeons.

From the looks of things, he was late. His classmates, Gryffindor and Slytherins alike, were sitting in pairs and looking at the professor. As for Snape, he was in the middle of a dramatic speech about their OWLS. The entire classroom, Snape included, turned to him at once.

The potion master looked at him as if he was a stain on the floor, which Harry met with a smile, “You are late, Mr. Smith.”

Harry simply shrugged, his smile still on his face, “I’m sorry. There was this toad that asked me to find the perfect Lilypad. It turns out, finding the right one is a lot harder than you’d think.”

The entire classroom froze at his frankly outrageous response. Even Snape looked surprised by Harry’s audacity, “That will be twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr. Smith. Please take a seat next to Longbottom.” Snape’s lips curled into a thin, almost cruel smile as he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m sure sitting beside Mr. Longbottom will be… a fitting experience for someone with your apparent talents.

Neville whispered to him, “I’m sorry mate…”

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Everything alright with Umbridge. Gran told me that she’s pretty horrible.”

Harry gave him a smug smile, “Oh, she’s horrid, but don’t worry. Everything went perfectly.”

AN: I'm not sure how I handled the conversation with Umbridge. I wanted Harry to essentially make her lose control and press her buttons enough that she wouldn't notice the compulsions to go to Gringotts. I don't know if it landed like I wanted it to, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.