Now that they weren’t expecting someone to jump out at them from behind armoured suits, their attention turned to their DADA professor.
From the books, and movies, Lockhart was a charlatan. Unfortunately, his mum had told him, the ponies were not yet adept enough to pursue the leads provided in the books to see if he had really stolen the stories from others. All they could do was watch his every action as carefully as possible.
It wasn’t like traveling in Equesteria, unfortunately, where there were no restrictions. Here, they had to negotiate with multiple governments, not all of whom were all that friendly.
His failure to actually follow the order of the chapters in Miranda Goshawk’s The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 2) seemed to support the argument that he was a fake. Of course, his use of the situations in his books to get them to suggest various spells and tactics muddied the waters more than a little bit. Still, at the rate they were going, they would definitely not learn all the spells in the book. As a result, they had begun going through that book on their own, again — they had used part of their summer hols to read ahead.
With book-walking, it was surprisingly easy to revise the spells. That was especially true because they devoted more time than just the three days a week they had in classes. Which was probably a good idea, considering the end-of-year tests were coming up. Hermione was especially stoked about that. Pooling their resources made the written work in the other classes quicker and easier, so they had the time to spare.
Hermione, meanwhile, had started scanning through Lockhart’s books looking for inconsistencies and tabulating the results.
Professor Lockhart didn’t act or say anything out of the ordinary during his classes. That didn’t prevent the eight of them watching him like hawks searching for a mouse in a meadow below them.
Once more, Harry found himself reflexively, and extensively, checking his food for “poisons” at lunch. He had been slacking lately, just checking once with a simple is-it-safe spell.
The other Gryffindors saw him and his herd-mates doing that. The more suspicious ones hesitantly checked their own dishes. After all, if Harry Potter suddenly started using detection charms on his food, and the Twins weren’t in sight, maybe he knew something they didn’t.
Reinforcing that disquiet were Hermione’s actions. She was very busy that first week after Valentine’s Day.
It wasn’t that unusual for her to read during mealtimes. But for her to be diving in and out of the DADA books, rapidly switching back and forth between the open books spread around her? She was obviously, urgently, and actively searching for something. It didn’t make anyone feel better that she seemed to be getting angrier and angrier as she researched.
Whatever it was, it meant there had to be a reason for Harry’s abrupt wariness.
Harry could only shake his head as he noticed the spread of troubled students slowly ripple across the Great Hall. First to the Hufflepuff table, then a few Ravenclaws frowned at their neighbours, and followed suit. Finally, ironically, the very suspicious Slytherins began checking their meals.
The professors, those who noticed the rising anxiety levels in the Hall, looked around, puzzled. The Headmaster, by the way he was watching Harry, indicated he had noted where the disquiet had started.
By tea-time, that first day, the entire student body would be checking their food, Harry knew. Stories soon would be circulating about Harry or one of his friends or herd-mates being poisoned.
Hermione, wouldn’t have eaten at all if Harry and the others hadn’t forced her to take a bite of something every time she emerged from a book. That, too, was noted, as evidence that all was not to the good.
While she had read the books thoroughly at the beginning of the year, several times, she hadn’t really tried to place them in any chronological order. She had treated each book as a separate incident, individual and alone, except that of the order in which they were printed indicated when they had happened. She had not considered the actual dates as anything but markers for events in the book, so she hadn’t considered comparing the dates between the books.
Her conclusions? Two of the books took place on opposite sides of the globe at the same time — Walla Walla, New South Wales, Australia, and Bandon, Ireland. Without a prodigious use of international portkeys, he could never have done both. But the books never acknowledged that they happened simultaneously. Nor that he repeatedly used international portkeys during the course of the stories — even though he would have needed to use one almost every day, and several on certain days. Not to mention being awake for thirty-six or forty hours straight, several times.
She and Ginny glowered at Professor Lockhart throughout the DADA classes. They made it a point to inform the other students of her research. The Ravenclaws were especially upset at discovering their professor’s deceptions.
However, he was the professor and they were the students. From previous years, and what their older Housemates told them, complaining was useless. Plus, his approach to have the students bring up and discuss the various spells, and what to do with them, was engaging. It just wasn’t really following the DADA book.
Lockhart, however, never noticed their hostility. He was too busy being the centre of attention.
Neither did he notice that most of the witches in his class were casting questioning glances on him as they tried to convince themselves that their professor wasn’t a scoundrel. Some were more successful than others.
^·_·^
Anne settled herself into her seat in the Wizengamot visitor’s gallery of Ministry Courtroom Ten. Several Wizengamot members had already arrived and were conversing in low tones as they clustered in small groups. The gallery had only a few spectators, as yet. The agenda for the day wasn’t anything earth-shattering that would garner more than a yawn from the general public. The reporter for The Daily Prophet looked bored. No doubt he was the lowest reporter in the pecking order at the paper.
If anything of real interest had been scheduled, a more senior reporter would have taken the chair so he could get credit for breaking a news-worthy story. It sucked to be low-pony on the totem pole, Anne knew.
It was only as the Wizengamot members began to take their seats a few minutes later that the more attentive people noticed that there were considerably more seats being taken than expected for a dull session. Most Wizengamot sessions had little more than the minimum number in attendance, just enough so that no bills could be suddenly introduced and passed by a majority from any of the different political parties. The only bills passed in such a nondescript a session would be those that both parties agreed upon — a rare occurrence.
Anne knew that three quarters of the Wizengamot were in attendance today. It had taken a bit of devious manoeuvring to arrange for that, without alerting their political opponents, but Sirius considered it galleons, and blackmail well-spent. A few touches of her “friendship” magic had helped keep her at a discreet, but very effective, distance — each lackey thought her “suggestions” were their ideas. The unsuspecting missing members who might have objected to the proceedings thought they had much more important appointments elsewhere regarding their families or businesses.
After several boring hours, the item she had been waiting for came up. Anne had to supress the grin that threatened to breakout on her face; their ploys had worked well. Only a few in attendance today would try to impede the scheme.
A Ministry employee had caught someone offering a bribe.
In the Ministry for Magic, bribery was a well-used means of doing things. Want something to go faster through the bureaucracy? Bribe the right person. Want something to go slower? Same thing. Want something “lost” in the bowels of the Ministry? Bribe several people, or offer a rather large, single bribe to the right person. Sometimes a donation to a certain charity would be involved. Nothing was sacred to those who idolized galleons and viewed the jobs as a way to enrich themselves at the expense of less-fortunate or “inferior” others.
Unless it was something really trivial, such as getting a floo-hookup or license expedited — those things could take months, you know — you had to get hold of a pure-blood to affect things. It was no accident that the jobs capable of providing the most bribe opportunities were occupied by pure-bloods.
A ministry employee “catching” someone in bribery usually meant only one thing: That a pure-blood wanted to get a non-pure-blood in trouble — either for general principles or for revenge. They would claim that the non-pure-blood had offered them something of value to influence a decision in their job. In truth, the pure-blood had tried to extort a wizard or witch, and the victim had refused. Sure, the pure-blood would lose a few galleons of off-the-book income, but fine paid and the time the victim spent in Azkaban more than compensated them — in their opinion. Not spoken of was that half the galleons paid in the fine would usually, under the table, be split between the accusing pure-blood and the Ministry. So, no money was really lost.
Naturally, the accused claimed that the Ministry official was lying, or that the official had tried to extort money from them. That argument almost always failed.
Pure-bloods couldn’t be forced to take veritaserum, the potion that forces one to answer questions truthfully. Asking someone, “What felonious crimes have you committed?” would force a defendant to confess their crimes. If they weren’t guilty of any felonies, they would remain silent.
Regrettably, if the accused had time to prepare, there were potions one could take to combat veritaserum, or memories of a crime could be obliviated from memory by a friend. Plus, some wizards and witches were powerful enough in magic and will that they could resist the potion.
As a result, veritaserum could only prove someone was guilty, not that they were innocent.
Because of things like Polyjuice potion, illusions, and metamorphmagi, witnesses to crimes were useless.
Being legally able to refuse veritaserum made it nearly impossible to convict a pure-blood — it was the word of a trusted Ministry employee against that of a common citizen, usually an inferior half-blood, half-breed, or muggle-born. The pure-blood had to be caught in-the-act by aurors, and kept isolated to remove the possibility of potions or obliviations. Special detection spells could remove the possibilities of illusions and metamorphmagi.
Sadly, even if they were caught in the act, the pure-bloods could claim they had been mind-controlled with a spell such as the imperio. For many things, that meant they had an effective defence.
Of course, using the imperio defence had its own difficulties, as it implied the accused had a weak mind, which could backfire spectacularly in the cut-throat competition higher up in the Ministry. After all, if you were so weak-willed, how could anyone trust a decision or opinion from you as your own?
In any case, the Wizengamot members sat up a little straighter at the thought of someone getting their comeuppance. At the very least, it would be entertaining — anything to relieve the tedium.
She couldn’t help but grin, both at the reaction of those in the Courtroom and at the beginning of the culmination of six months of scheming and planning. The last two months had been simply been arranging this event.
When Madam Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and a square-jawed witch with close-cropped grey hair and a monocle, walked in with Arthur Wealsey and his two-auror escort, the entire hall quickly descended into excited whispering. Her appearance of a serious person matched her personality perfectly. Mr. Weasley had bright red hair, and was going bald. He wore glasses and had blue eyes, and also possessed a tall, thin build.
Mr. Weasley was the head of The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry for Magic, and a pure-blood from a family of longstanding. While his office wasn’t that important to the rest of the Ministry, the man himself was well-liked as a goodhearted, reasonable, and competent wizard. It took considerable work to anger the man.
Some in the Ministry, and the so-called polite society, considered him a blood-traitor because of his principles. Mr. Weasley was strongly opposed to discrimination against muggles, muggle-borns, half-bloods, half-breeds, and cursed beings such as werewolves. He felt that how you acted was more important than who your parents were. The law, he reasoned, should apply evenly to everyone — no one should be treated better, or worse, simply because of their parentage. He did not think highly of those who advocated otherwise.
Last year he had even introduced The Muggle Protection Act which had drawn the ire of the conservative members of the Wizengamot, most of whom were former Death Eaters or their supporters. They hated the loss of legally harassing the “beastly” muggles at their whim.
That someone had tried to bribe the wizard known for his unwavering principles was astounding to those in the courtroom. That Arthur had taken it to the aurors was almost as amazing. Whomever had tried to bribe the wizard must have taken things to the extreme, was their only conclusion. Otherwise, the affable wizard would have shrugged the matter off as a mere misunderstanding, or, considering his stories about his sons and their escapades, a prank.
With the accuser being a pure-blood Department Head, it was only natural that the Head of the DMLE would be involved. She wouldn’t foist this onto an underling.
The case, once Mr. Weasley was seated and Madam Bones had begun questioning in her loud, booming voice, involved possession of a questionable unregistered potion, and selling a cursed, goblin-silver tea-set, which the accused had stolen.
It was no wonder that the accused wizard had tried to bribe his way out of a stay in Azkaban.
“It started when Mary Twist . . ,” Mr. Weasley began.
“A muggle-born witch?” interrupted Madam Bones.
He blinked in surprise, “Well, yes. Anyway, she came into my office in a rush. There was an incident at her mother’s house regarding a cursed tea-set. After steeping, if a muggle began to pour a cup, the teapot would spray alternating streams of ice-cold and steaming hot tea all over the muggles in the room.” He sighed and shook his head.
There were titters of amusement from both the Wizengamot members and the watching gallery.
The red-headed wizard frowned and looked around the room.
“Fortunately,” he continued, “Miss Twist happened to be there and was able to get things sorted, but she wanted something done about the tea-set.
“She had acquired the tea-set for her mother as a birthday present, you see, and her mother had had a tea party with her muggle friends the following weekend.
“I removed the curse, it was rather simple, actually. Then I began tracking down the wizard responsible. Fortunately, she knew the wizard who had sold her the tea-set — Mundungus Fletcher.” He sighed.
“Once I had Fletcher in custody, it came up that the tea-set had been stolen, and that he was in possession an unregistered potion.
“There is a fine for selling a muggle-baiting item, stiff, but not that terrible. Plus, this was his first offense. He hadn’t known that the set was cursed, but he should have checked, first.
“That it had been reported as stolen, however, made the case a bit more severe. Now it included a several week’s stay in Azkaban, and a much stiffer fine.
“The potion, on the other hand, was not such an easy problem. First, he should have surrendered a sample of the potion to the Ministry Potions Department. They would have analysed the potion for harmful side-effects, and its efficacy at doing what the potion was supposed to do. Only if it did what it was supposed to do — and nothing harmful — and had only temporary and mild side-effects would it be allowed to be produced and sold or shared with others.”
Most of the Wizengamot members were nodding in agreement.
“As you know, producing, selling, or possessing an unregistered potion is forbidden. If the potion’s properties are severe enough, the inventor of the potion might be punished for inventing and producing it, up to and including being forbidden to make any potions whatsoever. That would be in addition to any fines or time in Azkaban.” He leaned back in his chair.
“That was the sticking point for Fletcher. He knew that if a Ministry potion master looked at his potion, they would discover that it affected the minds of the drinkers — nothing dangerous, mind you, they would merely think whomever was playing an instrument or singing was a better musician than he really was. Which could influence them into giving him more money for him playing. It had the potential of being abused if it were to get out into the public.
“But he swore it was only because he wanted people to like his music, and he never used the potion with a wizarding audience.” Mr. Weasley stopped a moment.
“Which was when he tried to bribe me with one hundred Galleons.”
The whole room gasped. That was the equivalent of a year’s wages for the average Ministry worker.
“I immediately hit him with a stupefy, and notified the auror department,” Mr. Weasley concluded.
“Thank you for your assistance in this matter,” said Madam Bones, dismissing the man. “I’m sorry we had to take up your valuable time.” After the exchange of a few pleasantries, the red-haired wizard made his exit from the chambers, only to return a few minutes later wearing his Wizengamot robe, and take a seat.
The room descended into outraged whispering and debates as to how long the wizard should be incarcerated. Not being able to pay the fine in full immediately would increase his stay at the wizarding prison by more than a few weeks.
Now it was Fletcher’s turn. His treatment was decidedly different, with an escort of four aurors and his hands chained to his back. The noise level rose as he came through the prisoners’ door from the holding room.
Mundungus was a short, half-blood wizard with bandy legs and long, straggly ginger hair. He had bloodshot, baggy brown eyes and hadn’t shaved in several days. His hands were quite grubby, Anne saw, when his arms were chained to the arms of the prisoner’s chair centred in the chamber.
Dumbledore had to set off a cannon blast from his wand to get the room settled again.
Madam Bones was quick to tell them that Mundungus had been involved in many illegal and questionable activities, and that he had a notorious disreputable reputation as a petty criminal. He had had a number of scrapes with the aurors in the past, and even one serious incident which had almost seen him in Azkaban for a rather lengthy term.
The veritaserum dose he received made him verify all the information reported by Mr. Weasley.
Normally, that would be the end of the interrogation with a vote on his being innocent or guilty. If he was voted guilty, then a discussion for the proper sentence and another vote would take place.
This time, though, there would be an additional question asked, Anne knew, almost as if it were an impulsive afterthought. It wasn’t; but no one beyond Madam Bones, Dumbledore, Sirius, Fletcher, and herself knew that the trial had been carefully planned and choregraphed for this moment.
Even the aurors in the chamber had been carefully selected.
“Administer the antidote,” she ordered one of the aurors who was several paces away.
Just as he was about to tip the vial into Mundungus’ mouth, she stopped him, saying, “Wait.” She frowned as if she had had a sudden thought.
Staring impassively at the chained wizard, she asked, “Do you know of any other bribery cases by a half-blood that need investigation? Not your own, of course?” She raised her eyebrows in sudden thought. “Or, perhaps, someone who might know of unreported bribery cases?” It was a crime to know of a bribery incident, or attempted bribery, and not report it to the aurors.
The noise level in the courtroom had been steadily rising as it appeared the case was sorted and all that was left was sentencing. For a normally dull Wizengamot, this session had been surprisingly interesting. At the very least they had some interesting gossip for the tea table this evening.
In the dull monotone that all prisoners dosed with veritaserum exhibited, Fletcher replied, “Dolores Umbridge . . ..”
Abruptly, the courtroom dropped to dead silence as the prisoner’s words cut through the noise. Then it burst into an uproar, yelling and shouting as members demanded to know if Fletcher was lying, if they had misheard, or that he had to be mistaken.
Several objected that this was an illegal line of questioning.
Drowning out any other names he said was the thunderous roar as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic leapt to her feet and bellowed, “WHAT!?”
The Minister, Cornelius Fudge, was seated beside her in the Minister for Magic’s box in the Wizengamot section. They were below and in front of the Chief Warlock’s podium. He looked on with an expression of sheer shock, gobsmacked at the revelation.
“THAT’S A LIE!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, pointing at Fletcher.
The room was in pandemonium as members tried to outshout each other.
The Daily Prophet reporter was taking notes furiously. A dull day that normally would have seen his story placed on the very last page had just given him front-page news. It didn’t matter if it was true, just the accusation in such a forum as this was enough.
The Chief Warlock, Albus Dumbledore, silenced the room with a tremendous cannon blast from his wand. “Order, please,” he said slowly.
Madam Bones had already stopped Fletcher, who patiently waited for the next question.
“HE’S LYING!” declared the Undersecretary, still pointing at Fletcher in outrage. Dolores Umbridge was a short squat woman resembling a large pale frog. She had a broad, flabby face, a wide, slack mouth, and nearly non-existent neck. Her eyes were bulging and pouchy, with mousy brown hair adorned with a black velvet bow. She wore a green tweed dress with a pink fuzzy cardigan on top, giving her greater frog-like qualities.
Anne had never seen a human who so closely resembled a member of the frog family. Considering some of the half-breeds she had discovered in the witchery world, and some of the things she had heard stories about in some of the more disreputable pubs, she couldn’t help but wonder on the witch’s ancestry.
Primarily, how?
Still, that didn’t matter. What did matter were her truly offensive personal views of non-pure-bloods that she wanted to force on the witchery world. Views which would block some of the things Anne wanted to pass.
Dumbledore looked down at the witch. “This is the Wizengamot. Silence! Or you will be silenced.”
“But that half-blood is spouting lies! I’m a pureblood!” she pronounced imperiously, “I demand he be arrested and sent to Azkaban for slandering a pure-blood!”
Dumbledore tilted his head down to look at her over his spectacles, and raised an eyebrow.
The toadish-witch crossed her arms angrily and sat back down, scowling darkly.
Madam Bones turned back to the prisoner. “Madam Umbridge, the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, is a pure-blood, is she not?”
Continuing in the same monotone, Fletcher said, “Dolores Umbridge is a half-blood.”
Anne’s research had discovered that Madam Bones had been in the Ministry for several decades, almost as long as Umbridge. Madam Bones had watched and listened as the Dolores had risen through the hierarchy after graduating from Hogwarts. The toad-like woman was a real nasty person, and had no problems letting those whom she felt were beneath her know how she felt about them — and used that higher Ministry position to take advantage of them. People who wanted to remain on her good side, both inside and outside the Ministry, tried to avoid her at all costs. Doing so wasn’t a guarantee that she wouldn’t savage them, anyway, but it did reduce the odds enough to make it a worthwhile effort.
Those that did fall prey to her need to feel superior tended to have terrible things happen to them or they disappeared. In her first days of getting a job at the Ministry complaints had been many, but they rather quickly fell off as she retaliated in underhanded methods.
Umbridge had been extremely careful in covering her tracks, which had made things difficult for the DMLE to rein her in. She used her pure-blood status as a shield to stymie investigations, claiming any accusations were untrue. She sharply criticized both the complaints and the people making them — always those who were beneath her. To her superiors, she was always polite and subservient to a sickening degree. She almost grovelled to stay in their good favour, and rode their coattails as they climbed the Ministry hierarchy. She was not afraid to drop names to halt questions into her conduct. The officials tentatively investigating always had to retreat, until it became well-known to not even try.
While there were rumours that she wasn’t a pure-blood, she had been making the claim since she had first started at Hogwarts. Anyone who noted that one of the janitors at the Ministry was named Umbridge soon regretted it.
Bones, and Anne, knew the woman wasn’t really a pure-blood, despite the witch’s insistence, ever since she started Hogwarts, that she was. All the evidence in the Ministry of her true ancestry had “mysteriously” disappeared or been “lost” as misfiled. The Head of the DMLE knew that nasty things tended to happen to people who asked about Umbridge’s, or, as many preferred to call her, Umbitch’s parentage. Or anything else about which Umbridge did not like discussing. Which Anne also knew.
This, however, was a golden opportunity to destroy the witch’s influence. It was a crime to pretend to be a pure-blood, with a mandatory month-long stay in Azkaban. The issue of bribery was merely a gateway to that goal. The true objective was getting a chance to prove, once and for all, that Umbridge wasn’t a pure-blood and didn’t deserve the pure-blood protections. In all the other cases, there hadn’t been enough credible evidence to support what was about to happen.
It hadn’t been difficult to get Bones’ cooperation in this endeavour. She had been trying to catch the slippery bigot for years. The witch wasn’t going to win this battle. She was a major blockade to the reforms that Anne wanted in place. She had to be removed. The public discovering the witch was really a half-blood would quickly see her influence erode as pure-blood supporters departed in droves.
Plus, it opened up all the other investigations that had been stopped by her use of the pure-blood defence.
“The prisoner has made an accusation of criminal acts by another person while under veritaserum, as well as called into question their pure-blood status,” Madam Bones stated flatly. “That the prisoner believes the accusations to be true cannot be disputed. She must defend her status. Because the accused is present, and the Wizengamot Court is in session, we can summarily deal with the accusation.”
Madam Bones turned to two of the aurors in the room, and nodded at the Undersecretary. “Escort the Undersecretary to the ‘Accused Chair’.” She turned to two others, “Escort Mr. Fletcher to the Holding Room.” His case would be finalized later — a slap on the wrist for his cooperation in catching a much bigger fish.
By this time, the antidote had been given to the wizard and he was watching with a certain amount of glee.
Soon enough, Umbridge was seated, fuming, arms crossed on her chest in the chair. She was glaring malevolently at Madam Bones in front of her.
She didn’t even wait for a question, stating loudly, “I am a pure-blood, and I categorically deny knowing anything about bribery in the Ministry. That spineless thief is lying!” She stared defiantly at the Wizengamot.
Bones nodded genially. “We will know the truth in a moment.” She turned to the auror with the vial of veritaserum. “Three drops please.”
Umbridge started to jump to her feet, but Madam Bones hadn’t officially declared the questioning finished. The chair’s magic yanked her arms to its arms, and restraints immediately snapped into place. There were two each over her arms and around her ankles. A fifth restraint tried to snap around her neck, but caught the lower part of her chin on the nearly neckless woman. A last restraint wrapped around her forehead and held her head tight to the chairback.
Despite that, Umbridge managed to yell out in fury, “I’m a pure-blood! You can’t do this! Pure-bloods can’t be forced to take veritaserum!”
Before she could say more, Madam Bones silenced her. After realizing that she couldn’t say anything, the witch glared at the Head DMLE balefully.
Bones just stared at her. “Anyone can claim to be a pure-blood. For the purpose of determining the truth of that claim, though, the Ministry is allowed to administer veritaserum and verify that claim, if it is brought up by a subject under veritaserum in a court case or investigation.” She paused and looked around the room. “The only question I am allowed to ask is if either of the accused’s parents or any of their grandparents, or great-grandparents are a muggle, a muggle-born, a half-blood, a half-breed, or a cursed being such as a werewolf.” She returned her gaze to Umbridge. “If the answer given is ‘no,’ then the antidote will be applied. The accusation by the Ministry is dismissed with prejudice, and the accused is generously compensated for their treatment.”
From the expression on Bones’ face, and the way her eyes raked over Umbridge from her shoes to her hair, it was plain that she did not think the answer given would be a ‘no.’
^-_-^