'Keep temper,' Lucifer thought to himself, a dry wave of amusement washing through his mind as he swirled his black coffee, adding Daphne's breast milk. 'If that pink creature pushes her luck today, Angelina's Quidditch roster will be the absolute least of this castle's worries.'
Lucifer and Hermione made their way up the spiraling stone steps to the 'Arithmancy' tower. When they entered the classroom, Professor Vector was waiting for them with a noticeably more pleased expression than usual, her robes freshly pressed, and thankfully, there was no sign of a pink cardigan anywhere near the blackboards.
"Good afternoon, class," Vector said firmly once everyone had taken their designated seats. "I am incredibly pleased with your holiday homework results. And as such, I will be transitioning the curriculum to significantly harder translation assignments, as I think you all possess mathematical capacity to handle the increase in difficulty."
Unsurprisingly, most of the class let out an audible groan, a chorus of complaints rippling through the desks. But Vector was remarkably quick to silence them, her sharp knuckles tapping against her desk. "Let me make myself entirely clear: if anyone gets below an Exceeds Expectations on the next numerical matrix, I will be personally assigning them mandatory detention. No exceptions."
Beside him, Hermione immediately pulled her heavy textbook closer, her eyes blazing with a fierce, academic focus. Lucifer merely leaned back against his wooden chair, a lazy smirk gracing his lips. Higher difficulty meant absolutely nothing to an eternal entity, but he appreciated Vector's lack of coddling. It was a proper, study environment.
The second the double period ended, they gathered their books and descended the grand marble staircase, meeting Harry and Ron near the heavy oak doors of Umbridge's classroom.
The corridor was packed with whispering fifth-years from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.
"Was she inside your classroom?" Hermione asked Harry immediately, her analytical mind tracking the time.
"Yeah..." Ron answered for him, his face a picture of total, unadulterated disbelief. "Firenze held his own brilliantly, though. He completely ignored Umbridge's clear, passive-aggressive disdainfulness for him, you know, her whole pure-blood nonsense about him being half-human and half-horse."
"What did she do?" Hermione pressed, her brow furrowing.
"She asked him to give her a direct, personal prophecy prediction right there on the spot," Ron explained, letting out a sharp scoff. "But the centaur just looked down his nose at her and explained that cosmic sight didn't work like a parlor trick. He told her that if she came back the next day, the alignment of the Moons and Planets might have an answer for her. She was rather angry after that, her face went completely purple before she stomped out."
"Good for Firenze," Hermione muttered, her jaw setting with a fierce pride. They all walked into the classroom and seated themselves at their usual desks. A heavy, anxious silence fell over the rows as everyone began taking out their copies of 'Defensive Magical Theory.'
Lucifer, however, didn't bother reaching into his bag at all. He sat with his bare hands resting flat against the clean wood, having cleanly torched his own textbook last week, leaving the useless Ministry drivel to ash.
A few hopeful Ravenclaws near the front had cautiously gotten their wands out, but their optimistic expectations were completely shattered the exact microsecond Umbridge opened her wide, toad-like mouth.
"Wands away, children," She instructed them smilingly, her high-pitched, sing-song voice scraping against the stone walls like a rusty nail. "As we successfully finished reading Chapter One during our last lesson, I would like you all to turn to page nineteen today and immediately commence Chapter Two, titled 'Common Defensive Theories and Their Derivation.' There will be absolutely no need for talking."
The entire class gave a synchronized, audible sigh of pure misery as thirty hands slowly turned the heavy pages to nineteen. Lucifer lazily pulled a small pad of parchment and a charcoal pencil from his robes, deciding to continue working on his freehand sketches.
He didn't get very far into tracing the stone arches of the window when he caught a familiar, rapid movement out of the corner of his eye.
Hermione had her hand thrust straight up in the air again.
Lucifer let out a low, internal groan, his pencil pausing. 'Here we go again,' he thought, his chest tightening with a mix of fond exasperation. 'My clever girl simply cannot help herself when confronted with a wall of stupidity.'
He glanced up toward the front podium. Umbridge had noticed Hermione's raised hand as well, but the tight, vicious look on her flat face explicitly said she had spent her entire morning preparing for this exact eventuality.
Instead of trying to play her usual game of pretending Hermione wasn't doing anything but reading, the High Inquisitor slowly got to her feet. Her short boots clicked rhythmically against the stone as she walked down the row, navigating around the heavy desks until she came to a halt directly in the narrow aisle between Hermione and Lucifer.
He promptly closed his eyes, his jaw tightening as the nauseating, suffocating scent of her lavender perfume drifted over his desk.
She unnecessarily leaned her short body forward over their divider, a completely redundant physical choice given that she was already quite short enough to be at eye level without bending.
"What is it this time, Miss Granger?" Umbridge asked, her sickly-sweet voice dropping into a patronizing pucker.
"I've already completely read Chapter Two," Hermione answered bluntly, her amber eyes locking onto the professor with a cold clarity.
"Well then, proceed immediately to Chapter Three," Umbridge countered, giving her that same, plastic, fake smile that didn't reach her bulging eyes.
"I've read that too," Hermione said, her chin lifting defiantly. "In fact, I've read the entire book from cover to cover."
Umbridge blinked at her, her plastic facade fracturing for a single microsecond before she quickly recovered her poise, smoothing down her pink cardigan. "Well, then... you should be more than capable of telling me exactly what Wilbert Slinkhard says regarding the deployment of counterjinxes in Chapter Fifteen."
"He says that counterjinxes are improperly named by modern society," Hermione stated promptly, her memory flawless. "He claims 'counterjinx' is just a comforting name people give to their own malicious jinxes when they want to make them sound more acceptable to the Ministry authorities."
Professor Umbridge slowly raised her thin eyebrows. Lucifer reopened a single, dark eye, watching the interaction with a intensity. He could tell the woman was actively forcing a look of "professional impression" onto her face against her will, her fingers twitching against the clipboard.
But Hermione wasn't finished. She leaned forward slightly, her voice rising out of the whisper Umbridge was using, ensuring every student in the room could hear her. "But I think his theory is completely wrong. I disagree with him entirely."
Umbridge's expression turned distinctly colder, the false warmth vanishing from her features. "You disagree with a Ministry-approved author, Miss Granger?"
"Yes, I do," She said fiercely, her academic pride refusing to back down a single inch. "Mr. Slinkhard clearly doesn't like jinxes of any kind, does he? But I think they can be incredibly useful and vital when they are deployed strictly for defensive purposes to save a life."
"Oh, you do, do you?" Umbridge said loudly, completely forgetting to maintain her quiet whisper as she straightened up to her full height.
If there was a single student in the classroom who hadn't been paying close attention before, they were completely locked in now, the air thick with tension.
"Well, I'm afraid it is Mr. Slinkhard's professional opinion, and absolutely not yours, that matters within the confines of this classroom, Miss Granger," Umbridge snapped, her voice carrying a sharp, dangerous edge.
"But—" Hermione began, her mouth opening to cite another reference.
"That is quite enough," She cut her off ruthlessly. Lucifer watched her march with a triumphant strut back toward the front of the classroom, her pink cardigan swaying.
She turned on her heel to face the desks. "Miss Granger, for your continuous disruptions, I am going to take five official points away from Gryffindor."
An immediate outbreak of hostile muttering rippled across Gryffindor side of the room. Hermione almost 'never' had house points deducted from her record; it was an unprecedented insult to her status as a Prefect.
"What exactly for?!" Harry shouted out from the middle row, his voice challenging with a dangerous fury.
"Shut up, Potter," Lucifer whispered across the aisle, his voice slicing through the boy's anger like a knife. He shot Harry a sharp, warning glare, but the scar-headed boy was far too hot-tempered to listen to reason.
And, he could feel the volatile, reckless Gryffindor temper about to derail the entire room again, and he had promised Hermione he would keep the peace. But Harry didn't seem to be listening to a single word of caution.
"For disrupting my classroom with pointless interruptions," Umbridge said smoothly, her fingers interlocking over her pink leather clipboard as she surveyed the room with clinical satisfaction "I am here to teach you a strictly 'Ministry-approved method, Mr. Potter. A method that does not include inviting children to offer uneducated opinions on complex matters about which they understand very little... Your previous instructors in this subject may have allowed you more reckless license, but none of them, with the possible exception of Professor Quirrell, who did at least appear to have restricted his curriculum to age-appropriate, theoretical subjects, would have ever passed a standard Ministry inspect---"
"Yeah, well, Quirrell was a great teacher," Harry said loudly, his voice slamming into the front of the room like a physical blow.
"Shut up," Lucifer muttered once more through gritted teeth, his jaw tightly locking as he tried to get his stubborn, hot-headed friend to stop digging his own grave.
"There was just that one minor drawback," Harry continued, completely ignoring Lucifer's warning as his green eyes burned into the pink toad, "You know... the little fact of him having Voldemort physically sticking out the back of his bloody head."
Ron gasped. Lavender Brown let out a small scream. Neville nearly fell off his stool.
The heavy oak doors of the room seemed to rattle as the 'forbidden' name hit the air. Lucifer let out a long, heavy sigh, the deep sound acting as the only audible vibration before a suffocating, freezing silence fell over the entire class. 'Salazar's grave,' he thought to himself, a dark, cynical past curling through his mind as he twirled his charcoal pencil 'This boy genuinely possesses the suicidal balls of a true Gryffindor to use poor, possessed Quirrell as a shining example of pedagogy right in front of a Ministry executioner...'
Beside him, Hermione had gone completely pale, her fingers freezing over her open textbook as she stared at Harry in absolute, breathless horror. She knew the political consequences of using the name, especially with the 'fresh' High Inquisitor decree pinned downstairs.
The tense standstill lasted for exactly five grueling seconds. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Then, slowly, an evil, deeply wicked grin spread wide across Umbridge's wide, toad-like mouth, her bulging eyes crinkling with a triumphant malice.
"I think another solid week's worth of evening detentions would do your discipline a great deal of good, Mr. Potter," She purred, her sing-song voice dripping with a sickening, honeyed satisfaction. "Five o'clock tomorrow evening. My office. And I do strongly suggest you arrive with a much more cooperative attitude than the one you've displayed today."
Harry opened his mouth to bark back an aggressive retort, his chest heaving under his robes, but Ron forcefully kicked the back of his chair from the row behind, hissing, "Harry, don't! Just leave it!"
Lucifer adjusted his posture, his eyes locking onto the back of Harry's messy head. 'The idiot never learns,' he thought, a slow, predatory calculation running through his mind. 'He keeps throwing his fragile flesh directly into her teeth, expecting her to play fair. If he wants to bleed for his pride, I'll let him bleed for now... but the toad is getting far too comfortable swinging her little Ministry stick inside my territory.'
"Now," Umbridge said comfortably, smoothly clicking her quill as she turned back to the pristine blackboard, entirely unbothered by the thick aura of resentment rolling off the Gryffindor desks, "Let us cleanly return our focus to page twenty, paragraph three. Miss Granger, since you have so brilliantly memorized the material, you may begin reading the section aloud to your peers. No practical magic required."
Hermione let out a tight, shaky breath, her eyes darting briefly to Lucifer's calm, unreadable face before she cleared her hoarse throat and began to read the dull, meaningless lines, her voice echoing hollowly against the stone.
Lucifer casually reopened his sketchpad, his pencil scraping against the paper as the long, agonizing hour slowly ticked away toward the afternoon bell.
xxxxxx
The Defense class had remained silent for a moment before students began filing out, most deliberately avoiding Harry, but it was Seamus and Dean who came and patted his shoulder.
"Harry, we believe you. You wouldn't lie to us about something like this."
Harry felt a surge of warmth. 'This makes it all worth it, 'he thought bitterly with a smile inside.
Back on their way to the Gryffindor Tower, a conspicuous empty space formed in the front, but Harry didn't care, it made the path easier to navigate, 'There'll always be ignorant people,' he mused. 'Can't blame them really, it's the Ministry's propaganda that's at fault. Fewer people means more peace and quiet.'
"But we all know Quirrell was the absolute worst!" Harry went on the moment they stepped clear of the narrow turn, ranting furiously to his friends as they navigated the crowded, stone-walled corridor. His voice rose sharply, drawing nervous glances from passing third-years. "He literally let Voldemort attach himself right to the back of his head! How can she sit there and claim he ran a proper, Ministry-approved class?!"
"So you simply couldn't help but argue with her?" Lucifer asked knowingly, his hands tucked into his pockets as he matched Harry's frantic stride with an effortless, fluid grace.
"Yes!" Harry's voice grew even louder, his green eyes flashing beneath his messy fringe, "But everyone in this place is acting like I was completely wrong to contradict her. Professor McGonagall and the rest of the teachers keep telling me to just keep my head down, ignore her, and let her rant. Even Hermione says it!"
"And what exactly is wrong with that advice?" Hermione said evenly, her tone carrying a sharp finality as she adjusted the heavy strap of her school bag. "We're just trying to stop you from getting into more unnecessary trouble, Harry. Honestly, I think you should listen to us for once."
Harry froze dead in his tracks right on the first-floor landing, staring at the bushy-haired girl as though he couldn't believe his own ears. The crowd of students swirled around them like a river splitting past a rock.
"But... you argued with her!" He stammered, his chest heaving under his Gryffindor robes as he gestured wildly with his hands. "I thought you, of all people, would actually understand! Someone needs to speak up in that room and let the rest of the school know the truth!"
"Understanding your frustration doesn't mean agreeing with your methodology," She said firmly, her eyes locking onto his with coolish taunt, "And the truth isn't magically going to change anyone's mind just because you choose to shout it out in the middle... of a 'text-reading' period. Neither you nor I have that kind of political influence inside the Ministry."
Harry stood there completely at a loss for words, his jaw slack as he was taken entirely aback by her cold, pragmatism.
"Besides," She continued with a theatrical roll of her eyes, a tiny, protective smirk tugging at the corner of her lips as she shifted closer to Lucifer's side, "As I explicitly told you before, I don't want you blindly following my lead in class. Lucifer is not 'your' boyfriend. All your little outbursts will do is get you into another week of detentions, and for what?"
Ron let out a low, muffled snort at the sharp reminder of Lucifer's possessive nature, while Harry merely scowled, shoving his hands deep into his pockets to hide his internal humiliation.
"Oh, and in case you were wondering about the rest of her High Inquisitor rounds today," Ron chimed in as they resumed walking toward the Great Hall, desperately eager to change the subject away from detentions, "Dean told me, he had heard from RavenClaw's, Umbridge actually went up to the North Tower earlier. She cornered Trelawney and forced her to give an immediate.... prophecy right outside her bedroom door, before she could even finish collecting her new bottle of Red Gungar rum."
"Let me guess," Lucifer chuckled dryly, a mocking glint in his eyes. "The usual theatrical nonsense?"
"Exactly," Ron grinned to a bloody pulp, "You know how Trelawney is, always desperately making up horrific stuff on the spot just to terrify people and make her department look important... She apparently stared into her crystal ball, gasped, and told Umbridge that she was blindly walking into a lethal trap and would face a terrible, bloody danger before the term was out."
"Well," Lucifer murmured, his lips curving into a wicked, slow smirk as he thought of the bad-luck jinx he had left lingering on the Senior Undersecretary's coordinates, "For once in her life, the old 'fraud' might have actually predicted something completely accurate." Trelawney had been maintaining her genetic 'Inner Eye', for over an year now, surely it had improved somewhat?
Hermione shot her boyfriend a sharp, knowing look, her cheeks flushing slightly as she remembered the heavy dark magic book tucked safely away inside her dormitory bag. The storm inside Hogwarts was gathering its strength, and she knew Lucifer's silent plays were only just beginning.
What if I just skip detention? Harry'd been inspired by Sirius's approach in his own school years, if he stopped caring, Umbridge would have no hold over him, he decided to ask Ron who was slotting his newly bought card pack into his game bag. His face fell when he saw mostly common cards with just one rare purple one before answering, "Gryffindor would lose two hundred points. If Professor McGonagall's in a good mood, you'd get beaten half to death. If not... well, mate, you're in for a treat."
Harry couldn't suppress a shudder.
Umbridge didn't scare him, but Professor McGonagall, better go ask her first. Acting on impulse, he immediately left the Common Room to find his Head of House. Ten minutes later, he was unceremoniously ejected from her office, looking thoroughly chastened.
As expected, while Professor McGonagall clearly disapproved of Umbridge's punishment, she upheld the authority of the professor. "Not everyone has Black 'family's' privileges... If students start copying Sirius's behaviour, how are we supposed to maintain discipline? Do you even know how much trouble James's group caused?!"
Even after leaving, something still fell off to Harry. Writing using those Quills, and in class, Umbridge had looked almost excited at the end, not angry at being defied, as if she'd been waiting to give him detention! 'Oh, yes, everyone loves torture why don't you?!'
After four years of being screwed over by 'Defence Against the Dark Arts' professors, especially Moody, Harry had sort of become numb to such pain, and didn't feel it at all.
You ask where Hermione had gone, she had dragged Lucifer to the library to accompany her revision. Now in her 'fifth' year, the young witch had become more diligent than ever, studying late every night. Even when serving as her boyfriend's pillow in the private quarters, she'd have a book in hand.
One might think she was struggling with most subjects, but Lucifer knew she could easily achieve 'Outstanding' in most of her chosen courses if exams were held now. She simply had an "innate anxiety" about tests.
xxxxxxx
Meanwhile, the days leading up to Harry's second round of detention had not exactly been a splendid walk in the park for Dolores Umbridge either. She was gradually noticing that something was deeply, fundamentally amiss within the gears of her new system.
For the two days prior, nearly every single professor had marched up to her office door demanding individual approval slips. The requested amounts were never large, at most a few dozen Galleons from the school vault so, adhering to her precious 'Educational Decree', she had greedily approved them all to flex her financial muscles.
But today, right before her scheduled 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' period with the fifth-years, those same exasperated professors came knocking again. They were still requesting handful amounts of gold, and many were demanding requisitions for the exact same items they had ordered forty-eight hours before.
Umbridge's patience snapped. She pinned her bulging eyes onto Professor Flitwick, who stood serenely before her desk.
"Why exactly did you fail to mention needing these specific charms supplies when you came to my office yesterday, Filius?" She questioned, her high-pitched voice carrying a sharp, dangerous edge.
Professor Flitwick remained perfectly calm, balancing his heavy ledger as he squeaked back politely, "I simply didn't realize the department's water balloons were entirely out of stock yesterday, Dolores. I only discovered the shortage this morning while preparing the practical components for next week's advanced lessons."
She reluctantly accepted the squeaked explanation and signed the parchment. Yet, within half an hour of his departure, Professor McGonagall arrived at her threshold, and Umbridge found herself forced to ink her signature yet again. Then came Snape. Then Sprout. Then Sinistra.
Finally, after the grueling fifth-year Gryffindor class was over, she had successfully found her personal emotional outlet by slapping Harry Potter with another week of detentions. But the ink on the boy's schedule had barely dried when Professor McGonagall marched straight back into her office, making it her second disruptive visit in a single day.
Umbridge entirely lost her temper. She slammed her hand flat against her desk, her fake smile fracturing into a snarl. "Minerva, are you deliberately making fun of me?! Do you honestly think I have absolutely nothing better to do all day than look at your face? How is what you're asking for right now any different from the administrative request you brought me this morning?!"
"What on earth are you talking about, Dolores?" Professor McGonagall looked utterly, flawlessly astonished, her sharp accent echoing off the stone walls. "Isn't handling these files your explicit job as High Inquisitor? I simply miscalculated the required classroom quantities for the second-years. There is absolutely no need for you to display such a volatile temper over a few pieces of parchment."
'They are trying to wear me down with this relentless paperwork method,' A sudden, terrifying realization dawned upon Umbridge. Convinced she had brilliant transparency and had seen right through the faculty's collective scheme to drown her in ink, she coldly pushed the requisition list away from her pink cardigan. "I am sorry, Minerva. I cannot approve what you are requesting today."
Professor McGonagall shrugged her shoulders with total indifference. "Very well. If you are going to deny a basic educational necessity, at least have the professional courtesy to give me a legal reason?"
"I will note the exact administrative justification in my formal report. You may leave my office." Umbridge smiled falsely as she saw the Head of House out the door. That evening, her knuckles white with resentment, she sent the formal rejection report down to the 'Transfiguration' tower by a swift school owl.
After that grueling task was done, she returned to her private bedchamber, finally allowing herself to enjoy a small day's success of breaking Harry Potter's spirit. But the exact moment she reached up to change her heavy clothes for the night, a loud, violent rustling echoed from her open window.
Dozens of massive postal owls came swooping through the glass in a chaotic, dark wave, thoroughly startling Umbridge as thick parchment envelopes began raining down across her carpet like a storm of hailstones. Having completed their heavy delivery, the school owls turned and departed contentedly into the misty night.
Only then did she dare to cautiously approach the mountain of letters littering her floorboards. Initially assuming this was urgent, late-night Ministry business from Fudge, her heart sank into absolute panic upon recognizing the distinct, elegant signatures of the Hogwarts professors scrawled across every single envelope.
As she tore into each letter, her toad-like face contorted violently into a mask of pure fury, her fingers trembling with a desperate urge to shred the parchment to pieces. Not a single missive contained a single line of polite pleasantries, just stark, cold requisition forms with identical, mocking notes appended to the bottom:
"Please sign and return the attached list if approved. If denied, return both the explicit legal explanation and the original list immediately."
Catching sight of Professor Sprout's individual request for merely 'two' rusted greenhouse shovels, Umbridge literally saw stars, her vision blurring as she nearly fainted on the spot from the unchecked audacity of the faculty. This was a blatant, highly organized mockery of her station!
Yet, as she stared at the mountain of mail, she realized she couldn't devise an immediate, legal retaliation. As Minerva McGonagall had pointed out with a smirk, this tedious, duplicate-filled system was her own creation, her precious, Educational Decree.
These applications demanded processing under Ministry law. Imagining the professors' smug, knowing grins the moment she signed her name, Umbridge's deep resentment hardened into a stone-cold malice.
'Not even two shovels!' She thought savagely, her jaw locking as she hunched over her desk under the flickering candles. 'I will reject their requests for handfuls of common dirt if I must! I will bury them in their own regulations!' Seething with a volatile hatred, she spent the rest of the dark night desperately composing formal refusals.
xxxxxx
The following morning at the Gryffindor table ended up going exactly as George Weasley had predicted during their lunch talk. Angelina Johnson had charged up the aisle like a rogue Bludger, her face red with fury as she began loudly yelling at Harry right in the middle of his breakfast.
But Professor McGonagall was incredibly quick to stop the racket, her sharp voice cutting through the din as she stepped down from the staff table. "Miss Johnson! How dare you make such an unprofessional, loud racket in the Great Hall! Five points from Gryffindor!"
"But Professor, he's gone and landed his stupid self in a brand-new week of detentions again!" Angelina complained loudly, pointing an angry, trembling finger at Harry's chest. "Right before the first match!"
"What is the meaning of this, Potter?" McGonagall rounded on quickly, her stern eyes narrowing into cold slits as she stared down at him. "Detention? From whom? Didn't you explicitly tell me your previous sessions ended this morning?"
"It's from Professor Umbridge, ma'am..." Harry muttered under his breath, completely refusing to meet her sharp gaze as his fork idly traced his plate.
"Are you honestly telling me..." McGonagall began slowly, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet, low resonance so that the curious group of Ravenclaws who were leaning over the aisle to listen in could not hear her words, "...that after the explicit, serious warning I gave you last Monday, you lost your volatile temper in Umbridge's classroom again?"
"Yes," Harry muttered, speaking directly to the wooden floorboards.
"Potter, you must get a grip on yourself! You are heading straight for serious, permanent trouble in this school! And another five points from Gryffindor!"
"But, what?! Professor, no!" Harry yelled back, jumping up from his bench, absolutely furious at the staggering injustice of the double punishment. "I'm already being actively punished by her every evening! Why do you have to take house points away from me as well?!"
"Because detentions do not appear to have any corrective effect on your behavior whatsoever, Potter!" She said tartly, her lips pressing into a thin, unyielding line. "No, not another single word of complaint from you! And as for you, Miss Johnson, you will confine your shouting strictly to the Quidditch pitch in the future, or I will personally see to it that you forfeit the team captaincy entirely!"
With that final, strict warning, she turned her tartan cloak and marched rigidly back up to the staff table. Angelina shot Harry one last, deeply venomous look of pure resentment. But just as the furious captain turned on her heel to walk away, Lucifer smoothly spoke up from his seat.
"Johnson," he called out, his deep voice slicing through the lingering tension. She paused, turning back to face him with a heavy frown. "I'd like to officially reapply for the position of Reserve Seeker."
The volatile anger radiating from Angelina's posture vanished in a fraction of a second, her eyes widening with a sudden, ecstatic joy. "Lucifer, thank you!" She lunged forward, giving his shoulders a quick, grateful embrace before he could even adjust his posture. "You're a lifesaver! Practice will be held tomorrow and Friday evening sharp. You didn't toss your old Gryffindor Quidditch robes out, did you?"
"I outgrew my old second-year gear, so I had to get resized at 'Madam Malkin's' over the summer, but no, I've not tossed them," Lucifer said easily as her smile grew wider. "But the exact moment Harry comes back and out of detention for good, I'm only going to show up on Mondays and Fridays for standard practice."
"Great! I'll see you on the pitch tomorrow afternoon!" She bounded off happily down the Great Hall, her dark mood completely reversed.
Lucifer lowered his cup and turned a cold, piercing glare directly onto Harry. "You had better learn to control your volatile temper in Umbridge's class, Potter. I had absolutely zero desire to rejoin the roster this term, but I won't sit idly by and let the Slytherins dominate our matches just because you can't keep your mouth shut."
Beside him, Hermione merely rustled the heavy pages of 'The Daily Prophet' with an elegant flick of her wrist, remaining completely silent as she ignored the boys' posturing.
The total lack of defense caused Harry to round on both of them, his voice tight with humiliation. "You both think McGonagall was completely right to treat me like that, do you?"
Hermione slowly lowered the newspaper, her eyes looking at him with a mix of deep pity and reason, as if she were speaking to a small child who was still in his primary school years, "I wish she hadn't taken the house points off you, Harry, I truly do. But I think she is entirely right to warn you not to lose your temper with Umbridge again. The woman is looking for an excuse to break you." She turned her face slightly to look at her boyfriend. "To be completely honest, I was actually very surprised you managed to not lose yours yesterday, Lucifer."
"Yeah, mate," Ron chimed in through a mouthful of eggs, his eyes wide. "I was fully expecting you to blow her blackboard to smithereens, or turn her fluffy pink cardigan red and golden when she deducted points from Gryffindor just because Hermione was speaking actual facts."
Hermione gave Ron a rare, highly appreciative smile, pleased that his emotional maturity had finally graduated from kindergarten standards up to primary school levels, successfully catching up with Harry's reasoning before turning back to look deeply into Lucifer's dark eyes.
"I promised you on the bathroom stairs that I'd control my anger this year, unless something horrible was explicitly said or done to you, pet. So I kept myself in check," Lucifer said with a simple shrug of his shoulders, "Believe me, I wanted nothing more than to cast a non-verbal 'Crucio' on the toad until she bled out through her ears or went completely insane, but I didn't."
"Well, I am incredibly proud of you, Lucifer," Hermione whispered, a warm smile breaking through her worried features as she leaned over and pressed a soft, lingering kiss against his cheek.
Harry didn't speak a single syllable to either of them during their subsequent 'Charms' period, his jaw remaining set in a furious pout. But by the time they marched down the corridor to 'Transfiguration', the dramatic scenery waiting inside the classroom made him completely forget his childish anger.
Tucked rigidly into the very back corner of the room sat Dolores Umbridge, her leather clipboard clutched tightly against her pink cardigan.
She had clearly come down to McGonagall's domain seeking absolute bureaucratic revenge for the late-night bedroom disaster. But her appearance was a complete mess; deep, dark baggy circles hung heavily beneath her bulging eyes, her face carrying a pasty, yellow pallor that clearly indicated she hadn't slept a single wink and was completely overworking herself against the avalanche of mail.
"Excellent," Ron whispered giddily into Lucifer's ear as they took their usual seats near the front row. "Let's watch Umbridge get exactly what she deserves."
Even Hermione found herself re-evaluating the audacity of the woman, her eyes narrowing in pure academic disgust. "How dare she..." she whispered under her breath to Lucifer, her voice carrying a deep disbelief. "Does that arrogant woman genuinely think she is intellectually qualified to evaluate Professor McGonagall?" Anyone who had been at Hogwarts for more than a single term knew exactly what Minerva McGonagall meant to the preservation of the school; without her endless hard work maintaining the internal framework, this broken institution would have 'fallen' apart into ruin long ago.
"Excellent," Lucifer murmured back, completely contrasting his girlfriend's shock. His eyes glinted with a wicked, predatory excitement as he leaned back. "Fight, fight, fight."
Hermione rolled her eyes at the irresponsible boy, her fingers catching the sleeve of his robes to pull him into proper alignment at the front desk.
A few moments later, Professor McGonagall strolled into the classroom with a sharp, brisk stride. She gave absolutely zero physical indication that she saw, or even knew, that Umbridge was tucked into the corner of her room, completely sweeping past the Senior Undersecretary's existence as if she were nothing more than a dust mote.
"Looks like Umbridge has bitten off a hell of a lot more than she can chew today," Harry whispered eagerly from the next bench over, his voice tinged with a newfound joy that made the hidden pain in his hand feel temporarily numb. "Professor McGonagall isn't someone to mess with."
"Agreed," Ron chuckled, struggling to suppress a loud laugh into his sleeve.
"That will do," McGonagall's sharp voice barked out across the room, and a dead, absolute silence immediately befell the classroom. She stood tall behind her wooden podium, her stern eyes scanning the fifth-years. "Mr. Finnigan, kindly come up to the front and hand back the graded holiday homework. Miss Brown, please take this wooden box of mice down the aisle—don't be silly, girl, they are common mice, they won't hurt you—never mind your squeaking. Mr. Morningstar, distribute one mouse from this box to each student."
Lucifer didn't even bother to stand up. With a lazy, elegant wave of his bare finger, his pupils briefly turning a darker shade of abyssal black, the entire box of mice automatically flew out into the air. The small creatures glided across the classroom in perfect, telekinetic alignment, landing precisely and gently in front of each person's inkwell.
Ron barely restrained the impulse to punch his designated rodent to death out of hatred for Scabbbers. Professor McGonagall secretly glared at the lazy, wandless display from the arrogant boy, her jaw tightening for a fraction of a second, but she wisely chose to say absolutely nothing more, turning her chalk back to the board to begin the demonstration.
xxxxxx
"Hem, hem."
Dolores Umbridge gave that stupid, high-pitched little cough that she had 'first' unleashed on the opening night of term when she had interrupted Dumbledore's speech.
She had stood up in her corner, her short posture incredibly stiff, as if preparing to deliver a grand proclamation to the room. Professor McGonagall completely and ruthlessly ignored her, sweeping past her existence without a single blink, which instantly earned a wide, highly satisfied smirk from Lucifer.
Seamus Finnigan walked down the aisle, handing Lucifer his graded holiday scroll, who unrolled it, his eyes catching the massive, silver-inked O stamped squarely at the top. He let out a low hum, a strange, fleeting thought crossing his mind. 'I fear that maybe the coursework at Hogwarts is becoming far too easy...' He was, after all, light-years ahead of his current fifth-year peers, and his practical understanding easily surpassed every single Seventh-year student inside the castle walls.
"Right then, everyone, listen closely," McGonagall's sharp voice barked out, drawing everyone's eyes back to the front. "Dean Thomas, if you dare to execute that sloppy movement on that poor mouse again, I shall put you in detention before the clock strikes the hour.... Most of you have now successfully vanished your snails, and even those of you who are still left with a certain frustrating amount of shell have at least grasped the basic gist of the spell. Today, we shall—"
"Hem, hem," Umbridge interrupted, coughing two more times, louder this time.
"Yes?" Professor McGonagall asked, halting her lecture. She turned around slowly to face Dolores, her sharp eyebrows drawing so closely together that they seemed to form one long, thin, lethal line across her forehead.
"I was just wondering, Professor," Umbridge started, her voice dripping with a sickeningly sweet affectation as she stepped out of her corner, "Whether you actually received my official note informing you of the exact date and time of your scheduled inspec—"
"Obviously I received it, Dolores. Otherwise, I would have actively asked you what you are doing creeping around in a dark corner in my classroom," Professor McGonagall said smoothly.
An absolute, beautifully satisfying silence filled the room for two solid seconds as the students struggled to hide their grins.
"As I was saying," She continued, turning her back on the High Inquisitor without another word, "Today we shall be practicing the altogether more difficult vanishment of mice. Now, the Vanishing Spell—"
"Hem, hem."
"I wonder," Professor McGonagall said in a tone of cold, absolute fury, her tartan robes rustling violently as she spun back around to face Umbridge, "how exactly do you expect to gain any real idea of my usual teaching methods if you continue to relentlessly interrupt me? You see, I generally do not permit people to talk while I am talking. Surely you are aware this has always been the standard rule of this school, even if you were never qualified to be in my advanced classes?"
Umbridge's pasty face instantly flushed a violent, deep red before turning stark white. The sharp implication was devastatingly clear to anyone listening in the classroom: when she had attended Hogwarts as a student, her grades hadn't been nearly good enough to take Professor McGonagall's advanced N.E.W.T. 'Transfiguration' club. The subtle, elegant dig hit its mark flawlessly, and low, delighted murmurs of laughter rippled through the rows of desks.
"I fear your sudden bout of pneumonia might infect my students," Then added dryly, her eyes locking onto the woman's clipboard.
Umbridge's face turned an even deeper shade of furious crimson as the entire classroom erupted into barely concealed giggling fits. Lucifer could've sworn Christmas had arrived early this year. The cold, clinical efficiency with which his Head of House handled the High Inquisitor was an absolute work of art.
The toad-like woman looked as though she had just been violently slapped across the face.
The words were incredibly blunt, and the atmosphere inside the room was practically crackling with a dense, freezing tension. Hermione noticed that Umbridge did not dare speak another word, but her stubby fingers violently straightened the parchment on her leather clipboard as she began scribbling furiously. She couldn't see what the ugly woman was writing, but she knew for a fact that her notes wouldn't be favorable.
This 'Senior Undersecretary' was so intensely irritating that it actually made her regret changing her Yule Ball dress from its original periwinkle blue to pink last year.
Looking supremely unconcerned, McGonagall continued her lecture, paying the scratching quill no mind whatsoever. The so-called High Inquisitor inspection was none of her concern; she knew that given Umbridge's limited legal influence over the school governors, getting any tenured professor actually expelled would be an impossibility.
"As I was saying," McGonagall's voice boomed over the snickers, "the 'Vanishing Spell' becomes exponentially more difficult with the physical complexity of the animal to be vanished. The snail, as an invertebrate, does not present much of a structural challenge; the mouse, a mammal with a defined, complex skeletal structure, offers a much greater one... This is not, therefore, an assignment you can accomplish with your mind lazily wandering to your dinner. You know the incantation. Let me see what you can do..."
Lucifer didn't waste a single millisecond. He casually picked up his wand, gave it a single, sharp flick toward his mouse, and executed the Vanishing Spell. With a soft 'swoosh,' the rodent disappeared entirely from desk, leaving behind absolutely no trace of the squeaking vermin.
Professor McGonagall, thoroughly impressed but entirely unsurprised, walked straight up to his desk. "Once again, Mr. Morningstar, you have successfully accomplished the assignment on your very first attempt," she said, a rare, genuine smile gracing her stern face. "I am well aware you are functioning well beyond even the N.E.W.T. level, which is why I have stopped using your classroom work as a visual comparison for your fifth-year peers. Instead, I use your scrolls as an example for my Seventh Years. Your 'Toad' into a Toadstool transfiguration from yesterday was so miraculously superb, and none of them managed it until at least their fourth attempt.... Fifteen points will be awarded to Gryffindor."
She patted his shoulder before walking away to check on another student who was loudly struggling with their incantation.
As the rest of the students practiced vanishing their rats, Umbridge aggressively intercepted Professor McGonagall just as she was about to patrol the back row.
"Don't you think the Vanishing Spell is far too advanced and reckless for fifth-years?" Umbridge asked loudly, her voice dripping with artificial concern. "It is highly dangerous, Minerva. If they accidentally point their wands at their classmates, it could have completely unpredictable, horrific consequences."
Hearing this desperate excuse for picking faults in her curriculum, Professor McGonagall actually let out a sharp laugh of sheer exasperation. "They are fifth-year students, Dolores, not 'five-year-olds.' If they were truly prone to making such elementary, foolish mistakes with their casting, they wouldn't deserve to have stepped through the front doors of Hogwarts in the first place."
"But can you personally guarantee there won't be any accidents in this room?" Umbridge pressed, her eyes widening.
"No, I cannot," She said, looking down at her with total, mocking contempt. "But I can absolutely guarantee that I have masterfully mastered the complex counter-charm for the Vanishing Spell. Whatever mechanical trouble these children cause, I am fully capable of handling it within seconds. Oh, I apologize. I had entirely 'forgotten' that you never actually made it into my advanced N.E.W.T. class, so you are entirely unfamiliar with sophisticated Transfiguration theories. My mistake, Professor Umbridge."
"Haha—mmph!"
The two professors happened to be standing right near Ron and Harry's desk during the exchange. The green-eyed boy had managed to firmly restrain his own amusement, but his ginger friend couldn't help but laugh out loud at the brutal shut-down.
Fortunately, Harry moved with blinding, panicked speed, clapping his hand directly over Ron's open mouth to stifle the sound.
But unfortunately, Umbridge had already heard the outburst. She spun around, glaring venomously at Ron with a look of pure hatred, before turning back to Professor McGonagall. Through tightly gritted teeth, she barked, "I shall record every single word you've spoken today and present it directly to the Ministry's educational experts."
"Suit yourself, Dolores. But stop following me around my room now; do not disrupt the normal progress of my lesson." With that sharp dismissal, Professor McGonagall turned her back and walked away to reprimand the usual disasters. "Mr. Finnigan, if you explode that poor rat one more time, I will personally put you in detention until Christmas! Miss Brown, it is just a common rat, there is absolutely no need for you to be so frightened---Miss Granger, do not patronize your rodent with that food trap!"
The remainder of the period went without any further interruptions from the corner. Umbridge sat completely stiff in her chair, her face growing darker and more pasty by each passing minute as her quill furiously scratched against her clipboard, though she looked as if she were desperately fighting the urge to doze off from her lack of sleep.
When McGonagall finally told them to pack up their bags and head for their final period of the day, Umbridge rose from her seat with a grim, tight expression on her face. As the teenagers walked out, she marched straight up to the professor's desk.
Lucifer slowly ushered those eager students out who were still whispering about the legendary verbal duel, and quietly enhanced his hearing to eavesdrop on the final confrontation.
As if in perfect tandem, Hermione accidentally dropped her silver quill onto the stone. "Oops," she muttered loudly, bending down to retrieve it.
Lucifer, noticing from ahead, turned back to help his poor girlfriend, intentionally letting a heavy piece of parchment fall from his tight grasp to buy them more time.
"How long exactly have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" Umbridge asked, her tone sharp, probing, and deeply confrontational.
Professor McGonagall snapped her heavy textbook shut with a resounding 'thud,' her posture turning rigid as she replied, "Thirty-nine years. By this coming December, it will have been forty."
"Oh... almost forty years?" Hermione whispered in absolute astonishment, her eyes wide as she gathered her quill. "Has Professor McGonagall really been managing this school for that long?"
"Of course," Lucifer whispered back, leaning slightly toward her ear. "Don't forget, plenty of the current professors were once her students. Professor Snape, for instance, and even..." He gestured subtly with his chin toward the pink cardigan.
At that moment, Dolores finished scribbling something spiteful on her parchment and looked up. Her expression, as usual, was a sickening mixture of condescension and false politeness. "By the way," she began, "I've heard that many students have been severely injured in your class over the decades. Have you considered that there might be a fundamental issue with your teaching methods?"
Professor McGonagall's sharp eyebrows drew together in a tight, freezing line. Her voice, icy and perfectly controlled, was sharper than a razor. "I don't believe I require anyone from the Ministry to tell me how to teach Transfiguration, Professor Umbridge. And if you are referring to the minor mishaps of Mr. Longbottom or Mr. Finnigan, I must inform you that it is currently not entirely safe for either of them to even attempt a simple 'Wand-Lighting Charm' without supervision."
"Oh?" Umbridge said, feigning a wide, mock surprise. "Have you considered that the problem might be solved by simply not allowing the students to use their wands at all? For their own protection and safety, of course."
McGonagall's response came instantly, her tone laced with a dry, devastating wit. "I seem to recall you taking quite a violent tumble down the marble stairs yesterday morning when you rushed off-campus to visit the Ministry, Dolores. Should we suggest the 'Board of Governors' force you to remain locked inside your office for your own safety?"
The color instantly drained from Umbridge's face, leaving her looking completely ghost-like. She said absolutely nothing in response, her quill furiously scratching against her clipboard until the wood creaked. "Very well," she said after a long, tense pause, forcing an artificial composure back into her voice. "You will receive the final results of my investigation in ten days."
"I can hardly wait," She replied coldly. Her sharp eyes flicked briefly over Umbridge, and for a fleeting moment, her expression softened just a tiny fraction as she noticed the woman instinctively rubbing the top of her head. "And how exactly is your head?" she asked in a tone that could almost be mistaken for genuine concern.
She had, after all, overheard the rumors that a heavy enchanted deer's headpiece had mysteriously detached from the wall and fallen on her during her late-night packing.
Umbridge blinked, momentarily startled by the question. Misinterpreting the query as a veiled, mocking insult about the castle's structural integrity, she answered stiffly, "It is absolutely nothing, just a trivial matter. Perhaps I encountered something improperly enchanted while tidying up the old office files." She added with a venomous sneer, "I am entirely unsurprised. That office has never been occupied by a... normal, civilized person. Not even Alastor Moody, who was mentally unstable, or that... 'Werewolf."
She spat the last word out with undisguised, raw disgust. "I threw everything out of the cabinets, just as this school's irrational, antiquated systems should be discarded entirely."
"Really," McGonagall said evenly, giving Umbridge a look so pointed and lethal it made the very air in the room feel significantly heavier. She didn't waste another single word on the woman; she merely turned on her heel and strode toward the door.
As she passed the desks, she gave her wand a lazy, subtle wave, and the piece of parchment Lucifer had dropped fluttered up from the floor, landing perfectly back into his waiting hands.
"Ah, thank you, Professor McGonagall," he said with an easy, charming smile. "I couldn't seem to find this assignment notes anywhere."
Hermione lowered her head, her face tinged a deep pink with pure embarrassment. The parchment had been lying in plain sight right by the open doorway. How on earth could Lucifer say he couldn't find it with such a natural, unbothered face?
"Don't dawdle, you two," McGonagall said over her shoulder as she exited the room into the corridor. "You'll be late for your next class."
For a fleeting microsecond, Hermione thought she saw the faintest, rarest hint of a genuine smile on her favorite professor's face as she left the High Inquisitor behind.
As they made their way down the sloping lawns toward the 'Care of Magical Creatures' paddock, Lucifer and Hermione explained the exact details of the classroom showdown to Harry and Ron. Walking through the damp grass, Lucifer shared a piece of his calculations. "If Cornelius Fudge publicly acknowledged Voldemort's return on behalf of the Ministry right now, it would surely change the entire state of our 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' class. We would likely see the immediate arrival of one or several--reliable, battle-tested Aurors to train us properly."
What deeply surprised him, however, was just how long Fudge was managing to stay completely silent in the face of the mounting evidence.
Perhaps Cornelius was prioritizing all of his available political efforts to neutralize Dumbledore's public standing first. Or maybe the man was still wavering behind his mahogany desk. Announcing Voldemort's return carried both massive benefits and severe risks for his administration.
While entering an official wartime state would technically solidify his centralized leadership over the nation, it could also ignite a widespread, uncontrollable public panic. Mishandling the immediate fallout might cost Fudge his position as 'Minister for Magic' entirely.
Lucifer adjusted his bag, staring at the dark treeline of the forest. 'If the man can clearly see all of these potential outcomes,' he thought to himself, 'perhaps he simply isn't under enough dangerous pressure to act decisively yet....'
xxxxxx
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