It was, while completely useless, a fascinating book. The pictures and instructions reminded him of the emergency procedure cards and demonstrations on planes, and the absurd lack of any practical magic in the only class Hogwarts taught that covered offensive magic was very interesting. Has someone convinced Fudge that we might rise up to overthrow him?
'I have a question,' Hermione, like several of the class, had opened the book to scan its contents.
'Is it about the book, Miss…?' Umbridge queried, adjusting her lurid, pink cardigan.
'Granger,' entirely.'
Hermione
responded,
'and
not
'Well, if it isn't about the book, perhaps you can wait to see me at the end.' The suggestion was sugar sweet.
'My question is about the aim of the course,' Hermione continued, staring hard at the squat professor. 'It's our OWL year, Professor Umbridge, and I'm not convinced this book is sufficient to enable us to pass.'
At least she was intelligent enough not to directly challenge her in her own classroom.
'The Ministry has consulted the opinions of several very experienced witches and wizards, Miss Granger, there is no need for concern. I can assure all of you that this will be completely unlike previous years where you have been exposed to some very dangerous creatures.' Harry had the feeling she wasn't referring to Grindylows and Boggarts. A small plume of anger rose at her bigotry towards Professor Lupin, his only good teacher in three years. 'There's no mention of using magic,' Dean called out, confused and more than a little horrified. Nobody wanted their favourite, most practical lesson, to transition into another repetition of theory.
'Please raise your hand if you wish to speak…' she trailed off, not knowing the muggle-born's name.
'Dean Thomas,' he replied stiffly.
'Why on earth, Mr Thomas, do you think you will need to use dark or dangerous spells in a classroom?' Umbridge tittered. 'It's quite ridiculous.'
'How else are we going to be prepared for what's out there?' Ron demanded.
'Raise your snapped, her
hand, Mr unnatural
Weasley,' girlish
Umbridge demeanour vanishing for an instant.
She recognises noted quietly.
the
pure-bloods,
then, Harry
Professor Umbridge was quickly making herself unpopular with his classmates, and she was revealing more of herself than she should. An obvious advocate of pure-blood supremacy and, if his assumption was correct, none too fond of werewolves either. Harry leant back in his chair and watched, hoping to see more.
'There is nothing out there,' she simpered. 'The Ministry is merely concerned for the safety of the children of our society.'
'Then they should teach them defensive magic and let them practice it,' Ron burst out, 'or You-Know-Who is going to wander across this country killing who he bloody wants.' 'Ten points from Gryffindor,' Umbridge breathed furiously. 'I will not tolerate such language or such lies in my classroom. The rumour and fear-mongering of a few questionable individuals is not to be listened to. The Ministry clearly stated the truth of events.'
Every eye in the classroom turned to him.
'I agree,' Harry shrugged, suppressing a grin. 'You shouldn't swear in class, and listening to baseless rumours is ill-advisable.' Professor Umbridge's surprised expression was worth the betrayed looks of his fellow students. 'It's obvious that to dismiss the rumours we simply need to find evidence that they aren't true. I'm sure the Ministry are doing their utmost to discredit them,' he finished innocently.
Hermione understood what he was saying straight away, and a ripple of realisation slowly crossed the classroom. It was the first step to ensuring nobody believed anything the Daily Prophet wrote about him. Professor Umbridge was only going to become more unpopular and by associating the rumours written about him with her, Harry would render them toothless.
Umbridge herself could only fix her simpering smile more firmly on her face and pretend that Harry was agreeing with her.
'Turn to the first chapter of your books, please,' the Pink Professor, as Harry had now mentally dubbed her, instructed.
There was a reluctant rustle of paper. Harry picked a point about midway through the first chapter and ran his hand along the spine to keep the book open there. He still needed a way of practising his abilities with the mind arts. The library had no books on the subject, though a few mentioned it briefly in passing, and none of his research had turned up anything remotely useful. I'll have to ask Salazar, he realised.
The painting would probably be able to offer something useful, perhaps the founder knew how Riddle had mastered it.
Harry couldn't wait to get started, passive legilimency would be an incredible advantage for him, especially if the mind arts were as obscure as Slytherin seemed to believe.
He turned a few pages further, just in case Umbridge was watching, and pushed his wand up the inside of his sleeve, catching it when it fell. The small surges of warmth he got from touching it were a pleasant distraction from the verbose, uninspired meanderings of Wilbert Slinkhard.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched Ron, Dean and Hermione muttering subtly between themselves while the Pink Professor watched them maliciously. Harry would not be first in the line of fire, it seemed.
'There's no way I'm going to pass this class' OWL exam now,' Neville fretted in a panicked whisper.
'You aren't going to learn anything useful in here, no.' Harry agreed. 'But I promised to help you, didn't I?'
'You'll help me pass?' Neville abandoned his book to stare, and Harry pointedly tapped its pages until he returned to his pretense.
'Of course I will,' Harry assured him.
'Nobody else would ever do that for me,' Neville murmured gratefully. Harry nodded, stifling the uncomfortable feeling welling up within him.
Why couldn't he have expressed his gratitude in a manner less like Bertha Jorkins? A brief image danced before his eyes. The curly-haired witch laughing hysterically as she died, killed by a transfigured butterfly. Bertha Jorkins had been seduced, used and abandoned by her uncaring master.
Is that what I'm doing to Neville?
Harry hoped not. He liked Neville, understood the shy Gryffindor and what had made him how he was. He would never abandon him, not how he had been left by those he had thoughts friends last year.
I care about him, Harry decided, refusing to agonise over it. That's the difference.
He turned back to the pages of Umbridge's textbook, flipping through the last few to the end of the chapter. 'We can go up to the Room of Requirement again, Nev,' he muttered. 'We need to find a copy of the curriculum first, though. I learnt lots of practical spells, but I don't know everything about dark creatures and the like.'
'I'll ask Hermione,' Neville responded, then they were both forced to pretend to read in earnest as Umbridge stood up from the front, gaining enough height to see all the way to the back.
Harry returned to thinking about his brief experiences of legilimency. The sphinx had left no impression but pain, and Harry suspected that was because it had managed to see everything it wanted in an instant. Voldemort, however, had jumped through a list of his memories, some of Harry's worst ones, and even shared a few of his own, though Harry was not sure if it had been by accident or design.
The only deduction Harry had made was the moments had all been linked by a common feeling or state of mind and Riddle had somehow followed that, but it only meant he really needed to go to the Chamber of Secrets and speak to Salazar's portrait again
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