After a quick lunch, they separated to go to their respective afternoon periods, either Divination for the boys or Arithmancy for couple, and afterward, the fifth-years met back up inside the 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' classroom, taking their seats quietly.
"Good afternoon, class," Umbridge said, stepping behind her podium and smiling sweetly at them all, her pasty face blank.
Lucifer was quite honestly sick to his stomach of her fake, plastic smile; he thought to himself that it would at least be passable if there was some fresh blood splattered across her face, or if her bulging eyes were popping clean out of their sockets.
"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge."
The classroom chanted back in a dreary, synchronized drone, minus Lucifer, who said nothing, keeping his lips sealed as he stared at his desk.
"Wands safely away, please," she said, her voice high and sing-song. But no one in the room had even bothered to get them out of their robes this time anyway. "Please turn your texts to Chapter Six of 'Defensive Magical Theory' and continue reading the passages silently. There will be—"
"—no need for talking," Hermione, Harry, and Ron all muttered simultaneously under their breath, mimicking her rules perfectly.
Lucifer pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment from his pouch, using the boring hour to pass time by continuing his freehand lines and sketches.
xxxxxxx
By dinner time, the atmosphere inside the Great Hall was a bit unusual. A strange buzz of nervous excitement rippled through the Gryffindor table, as though many of the younger students were eagerly anticipating a hidden disruption.
Fred Weasley had managed to cause a massive, sudden commotion by accidentally setting off an experimental firework right behind the benches. A magnificent, roaring 'flaming' lion made of pure red and gold sparks streaked violently through the rafters, thoroughly frightening some of the first-year students, who screamed and dashed about the aisles.
In their panic, they overturned several large glass pitchers of pumpkin juice across table. Professor McGonagall, furious, immediately docked twenty points from Fred, who accepted his maternal punishment grudgingly, slouching over his plate.
Meanwhile, Lucifer was quietly mapping out a secure student route to the 'Room of Requirement.' He had asked Dobby for advice earlier, and the house-elves had confirmed that they couldn't legally transport a large group of teenagers directly to the seventh floor without triggering the castle's internal alarms.
They would have to go on foot in small, staggered groups. They couldn't risk using advanced stealth magic in front of the students unless they had the Headmaster's direct permission.
If this had been his original, unbothered timeline, Lucifer would have been bold enough to simply pay a direct visit to Dumbledore's office; the old man certainly wouldn't have minded breaking at least ten school rules to give Harry Potter a little extra leeway against the Ministry. But this specific, secretive Albus?
Lucifer wasn't so sure he could trust the plotting man with their plans.
After dinner concluded, he turned to Hermione, keeping his voice low. He told her he'd see her later in their private quarters because he had to go and manually 'Confundus' the security portraits in the hallways using their signed roster list. He instructed her to tell him later what Sirius had to say through the fire, since he would likely be busy casting the charms when the communication happened.
He stood up fluidly and casually walked toward the moving staircase. Lucifer wasn't afraid of either Dumbledore or Voldemort, but he knew he had to continue his formal education at Hogwarts to help Potter get rid of Tom Riddle once and for all.
But mostly... he was here at Hogwarts because of Hermione Granger, his girlfriend.
xxxxxxx
The next morning, Lucifer was the very first student up inside the Gryffindor Tower; he usually was, unless his mood decided otherwise. He descended the stairs into the empty Common Room at about six o'clock that morning, staring quietly outside the rain-washed window at the dark grounds.
"Umbridge... she grasped into the fireplace while we were in the middle of talking with Sirius last night. You were right about Harry's mail being read by her desk...."
It was almost seven o'clock when Hermione finally came down the girls' staircase, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion.
"Yeah..." She said sadly, her shoulders slumping as she sank onto the sofa beside him. "I ought to listen to you more, Lucifer. Before the intrusion happened, we talked about structure of the organization we are making. You also knew the Veiled Witch at the pub was actually Mundungus Fletcher, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I recognized him. I was going to confront Sirius about sending a thief to spy on us..." Lucifer said, keeping his voice neutral.
"Well, turns out he was sent there by the Order to keep a protective eye on Harry, big surprise," She sighed, rubbing her face. "And you were right about choosing 'Three Broomsticks' as a safer location... Also, Ron's mother passed a strict message to him through fire, stating that under no circumstances should he let himself get exposed if he joined an illegal club or group, otherwise he will be expelled for sure, and she'll personally disown him from the Burrow and send him to St. Catchpole to do manual gardening for the rest of his life."
"How shrewd of her..." Lucifer tsked, a slow smirk playing on his lips. The woman's institutional views had clearly changed after her brief stint teaching at Hogwarts; instead of denying him permission to join the club outright like he had expected from her personality, she wanted him to learn the defensive spells, he just couldn't get caught.
"Sirius wholly, approves of the club as well," Hermione said, her voice dropping. "He also asked where we were planning to hold the practical meetings, but I didn't tell him about the 'Room of Requirement' yet. Then, a few moments after that, Umbridge's ash-covered hand appeared right in the flames and made snatching motions for Sirius's throat, but he had already broken connection... I ran straight back to my room to sleep for the night."
"Interesting... so Umbridge was watching the Floo Network connections, like we thought she would," Lucifer said, letting out a small yawn as he leaned back against the plush cushions. "I guess it took her some time to manually sort through each house fireplace's ward line."
"It seems like it," Hermione said softly. She stared at his lips, suppressing a sudden, intense urge to just lean forward, close his mouth with her own, and act as his direct supply of oxygen to let him inhale her breath while she took the poisonous carbon from his lungs straight inside of her.
She looked down at her hands, voice a guilty whisper. "Or she did actually read Harry's mail from Sirius before it arrived... I am so sorry for doubting your warning yesterday, Lucifer."
"True, my initial assessment of the situation was likely correct," Lucifer said, his face sighing as he looked out at the breaking dawn, "We just have to be ten times tighter with our movements from now on."
xxxxxx
That morning, they had Charms right after breakfast, so the group used the time to talk more about the escalating situation. The classroom was incredibly loud, as usual, but the chaos was amplified twofold today because of the constant, deafening croaking of dozens of bullfrogs, the harsh cawing of ravens, and a torrential rain pounding against the glass windows.
They were set to practice the 'Silencio' Charm. However, Lucifer only had to lazily flick his wand just once to completely silence his raven, satisfying Professor Flitwick's lesson criteria within seconds.
The instructor knew for a fact that Lucifer faced zero trouble with ordinary school magic, so he warmly told the boy he could simply sit idly by and watch his peers for the remainder of the period.
"I've been suspecting Umbridge of this ever since Argus Filch loudly accused you of ordering Dungbombs last week," Hermione whispered to Harry, her face tightening with a dark expression. No one truly knew what kind of strategic plans she was currently thinking through inside her mind. "It was obviously a bogus lie to corner you... But what if Filch had been deliberately tipped off by Umbridge just to provide a legal excuse to read your incoming mail? Obviously, after opening the parchment, it would be glaringly clear to him that you weren't smuggling contraband. But I highly doubt a man like him would care about that; he'd have simply kept the letter anyway. He has never cared about students' rights before... If Umbridge asked to see the contents after he confiscated it, I'm sure he'd turn it over to her in a heartbeat."
Harry looked thoroughly perturbed by the calculating look written across her face.
"It sounds like it was a very, very close call for you last night," Lucifer murmured, reaching out, his fingers casually touching the skin of his bullfrog, which startled the creature into a jump. The movement made the boy ponder quietly to himself why the Hogwarts professors had suddenly been using common toads and frogs in their lectures so much more frequently this term, even McGonagall had done so last week, and now it was the Charms department following the trend.
"It truly was," Hermione asked, her voice seething as she checked the surrounding desks. "I wonder if Umbridge actually knew just how close she was to nabbing Snuffles?"
Before she could finish the sentence, her bullfrog gave a sudden lurch and nipped her firmly on the index finger. "Silencio!" she snapped, her wand flicking. The spell hit the creature dead on, causing the bullfrog to stare back at her look of reproachful misery mid-croak.
The bushy-haired girl had half a mind to expose Dolores's academic fraud to the Board. Back in August, she had discovered that the woman had published numerous educational papers in minor journals, packaging herself as an International Education expert solely to secure the professor's position. These days, it seemed anyone could call themselves an expert and spout nonsense to public.
Hermione highly suspected those published papers were either plagiarized or ghostwritten by Ministry interns, a deep betrayal that reminded her of Gilderoy Lockhart, leaving her traumatized.
"If she had actually caught him in the fire..." Ron started, his eyes widening.
"He'd be dragged straight back to an Azkaban cell and reduced to soulless husk by the guards," Lucifer ended, showing no care for his friend's fragile mood. He casually leaned back, figuring he was doing an excellent job acting as Harry Potter's professional nanny this term anyway.
Harry, distracted and rattled by the blunt reminder of the danger, performed rather poorly with his subsequent silent charms, and Ron was simply being his usual, sloppy self with his wand movements.
By the time the bell rang, both of them were aggressively assigned a mountain of extra homework by Flitwick because of their lack of focus.
xxxxxx
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