"I came to return your book, professor," Daphne said.
She dipped her shoulder so that she could reach into her bookbag. When she let go of her knuckle, she turned her body at the same time. Daphne held out the animation book that Harry had loaned her, holding it by the back cover with only her thumb on top.
"I gave you that a day ago. You're done with it?" Harry asked.
"I'm a fast reader."
"I knew you'd be like this if I didn't come," Blaise said. "Tell him about Umbridge."
"What about Professor Umbridge?"
"Nothing. I made a mistake," Daphne said. "I didn't think about my station."
"The half-blood bint caught her reading and drawing outside the library. Caught her, I say, as if it's a crime. She stole Daphne's pen and assigned her a detention, where she—"
"Blaise!" Daphne said.
Harry finally touched the book Daphne was holding out. He didn't take it from her, though, just held it at the same time. "What was done during that detention?"
Daphne wouldn't answer.
Harry twisted his wrist. He flipped the book, finally exposing the back of Daphne's hand. Lines cut across it in the shape of faded letters. You could read them if you squinted. I will think about my station.
"What was done, Daphne?" Harry repeated.
"I was punished," Daphne said softly.
"The woman told her that art is a waste of time. She said that Daphne's head was filled with damaging Muggle ideas when she should be thinking about family duties, the way a good pureblood would. Then she made Daphne scar herself. Her hand shakes when she touches a quill," Blaise growled. "Fix this, professor, or I swear to Morgana that odious shrew won't survive. I'll make her scream and I'll make it look like an accident."
"For talk like that, I'll have to assign you detention," Harry said. He went on quickly, before Daphne's face could fall. "However many Umbridge assigned you sounds like a good number. As for the days, we'll go with the times that she chose. I'll expect to see you then. If she has a problem with that, tell her to find me."
Professors weren't given the power to reverse the punishments their coworkers had given out. Harry could, however, double-book the students' schedules. If you were watching closely, you could see Daphne's shoulders relax.
"Thank you," she said. "We should go, Blaise. It's already late."
She pulled Blaise behind her as she left, possibly to stop him from saying or doing more. But when Daphne went around the corner, Blaise took his hand back, stopping to look at Harry. "You don't seem to be going into your room, professor."
It was true. Harry was staying in the hall outside his door, making no move to grab the handle.
"I have a brief errand to run," Harry said.
Blaise smiled. "Good luck."
"I don't think luck will have much to do with it," Harry said, but Blaise had already moved on.
Harry turned away from his room and instead went down the hall. It was a roughly two-minute walk to get to Dolores Umbridge's door. Harry knocked.
There was some music coming from within. When the door opened, Harry identified it as a sort of magical opera he wasn't familiar with. Dolores Umbridge had curlers in her hair and her face slathered in Salamander Cream, a warm white substance famed for keeping witch's skin blemish-free. She was wearing a robe that was as garishly pink as the rest of her wardrobe. Her smile got sweeter and nastier when she saw Harry.
"Ah. It's you," Umbridge said. "Unless it's quite important, please be brief. I'm in the middle of something. Skin this clear doesn't come to those who slack."
"I heard that you had a detention with Daphne Greengrass."
"I said important," Umbridge chided. "A professor disciplining a misbehaving student hardly qualifies. We both have our own methods, Professor Potter. Not all of us allow children to misbehave without a care in the world."
Harry put his foot forward as Umbridge attempted to shut him out. Umbridge glared, but he didn't even flinch when the door struck his toes.
"You took it too far. I saw her hand."
Umbridge laughed indulgently. "What about the thing? Is there something wrong with it?"
"It's scarred."
"Such things fade quickly," Umbridge said. "If you're so concerned about this, you should be consulting the resident mediwitch, not a busy teacher such as myself."
She was proud. Gloating, practically. She was daring him to go to McGonagall or Dumbledore. Even if the headmaster passed a rule, she'd come back with an educational decree a day later that declared child torture legal. He refused to play along.
"Apologize," Harry said.
"Excuse me?"
"Apologize to Daphne. If you do that, and you mean it—"
"Is this about her ridiculous art?" Umbridge asked. "Please, spare me your preaching. I'm not sure how your parents raised you… If they even stuck around, which I'm unsure of, given the way you've turned out… But I was raised to care about proper things. A perfectly promising Slytherin bride-to-be has no business wasting her time drawing pictures. This is for her own good, Mr. Potter. I'm correcting the course of her life. What do you say to that?"
"Daphne's art means more than anything to her. You can't keep down hopes and dreams."
Umbridge laughed in his face. "Watch me."
She kicked his toes out of the way and slammed the door. Seconds later, the music was turned up, preemptively drowning out further attempts to knock.
Harry stood outside, his face unchanging. Only after a full minute did he turn away. He returned to his room with measured steps. The first detention was tomorrow, and he had things to prepare.
O-O-O
Harry met Daphne and Blaise in his classroom. He'd prepared seats for each of them at the two front-most desks. They settled in, awaiting the task that would fill their detention.
Harry smiled at the two of them. He hadn't been doing official work, but was instead putting the finishing touches on two small items that were lying flat on his desk.
"I'm not a potions professor with useful busywork like cleaning cauldrons to assign," Harry said. "Just consider this a work period. You're free to do your own projects as you like. Ah!" As if remembering something, Harry abruptly continued on, just as it seemed like he would leave them to their own devices. "I do have one requirement. When you work, use these."
Harry stood up and approached their desks. He laid a quill in front of each of them— both as black as ink from the spine to barbs.
Blaise picked up his. Daphne hesitated.
"Professor," Daphne said. "This—"
"Daphne."
She looked at him. Harry met her eyes. "Trust me."
She took the quill.
Bringing out her notebook, Daphne flipped past old sketches to reach an empty page. She hovered the quill tip above the paper. Like Blaise said the night before, there was a tremor in her wrist. Harry leaned against his desk and held the corner with both hands, to stop his fingers from curling into fists. Daphne forced the quill down.
She slid the tip across the page without dipping it in ink. Blaise watched curiously. The line wasn't straight the way hers usually were, but the quill left a rich red trail. It was the color of fresh blood. Daphne's eyes darted between the line and her own hand, unmarked except for the almost imperceptible scars from the day before.
She made another line. Then another.
Move by move, the tremor fled from her hand. Harry watched her relax. Her breathing evened out. She even cracked a smile. The ease she usually felt when drawing made a quick return.
"Thank you," Daphne said.
She didn't look at him when she said it, which made Harry think she meant it more. Daphne wasn't the kind of person who found it easy to express gratitude. Especially when it was genuine.
"Think nothing of it," Harry said.
He returned to his desk. For a while, he was content to watch his students. Daphne was drawing at an ever-increasing pace. After investigating his new quill from multiple angles, Blaise started to write. Harry smiled.
Eventually, he looked at the analog clock above the door. Harry stood and announced, "I'll be stepping out to handle a short errand. Carry on as you were."
Daphne, increasingly lost in her work, offered only a slight nod, while Blaise gave Harry a piercing stare.
"Understood," Blaise said.
He was writing again by the time Harry left the room.
Harry whistled to himself as he traversed the castle. It was the song Umbridge had been blasting in her room the night prior— a catchy thing that effortlessly lodged in Harry's brain.
After a bit of a walk, Harry reached the residential portion of Hogwarts. He moved through the same hallway he'd been in yesterday, whistling that tune. When he came to Dolores Umbridge's door, a different kind of music was playing.
Shrill screams.
No sooner had Harry arrived than the door was hurled open. The owner collapsed out, falling to her hands and knees, revealing herself to be the sole source of the cries. Umbridge bellowed and squealed and hollered. She held her arms out and stared at her forearms.
Along the right side of her body, maddeningly detailed illustrations were being etched into her skin. Among them, Harry recognized a handful of Disney princesses and characters— animated tea pots and dwarves and fish with faces.
The left side of Umbridge's body was being covered by words. Scrawling sentences came one after another. On both sides, the etchings disappeared soon after they formed… only so more could take their place. Umbridge watched with horror, and when she lifted her head toward Harry, he could see that even her face wasn't being spared.
"What is this?" she screamed.
Harry bent forward. "Hopes and dreams, Umbridge. Hopes and dreams."
She finally registered who was there. Through the pain and the horror, he spotted anger. "You! You're behind this—"
Harry booted her in the chest with the sole of his foot. Umbridge was thrown onto her back and forced into her room. Harry followed her inside, closing the door behind him. He locked it. Then, he silenced the room.
Umbridge wheezed. "You did this," she said. But more than angry, she was starting to sound scared.
"I'll be doing the talking." Harry knelt in front of her. Umbridge went for her wand— Harry didn't draw his. He knocked it away silently and wandlessly. Harry grabbed her hair and yanked up, forcing her to keep her head raised as the Blood Quills did their dirty work across the castle.
"I hate you," Harry said. "I'd call it loathing, in fact. I can think of… two people that I hate more than you, and one of those is borderline. You have no idea how much effort it's taken for me to be this decent to you. I gave you every chance. I made myself your worst enemy so you'd focus on me. But you had to get the kids involved. You had to cross the line. Don't you see how silly that was?"
"You… You'll pay!" Umbridge stammered. "I'm the Ministry!"
Harry smiled indulgently. "No, you're the Ministry's toady. I have no doubt Fudge would be livid if anything happened to you. Actually, he'd be thrilled, since it would give him an excuse to take things further, but he'd act livid. He'd make a big speech about your worthy sacrifice. And of course he'd bring the full might of the DMLE down on whoever did it." Harry tilted his head. "Except… who did it?"
His question sounded genuine. His face looked as if he truly didn't know. These two qualities unnerved Umbridge so deeply that she started to scream again, this time for help. Useless, of course. Harry had seen to it that not a whisper would leave this room.
He had to slap Umbridge across the cheek in order to keep talking, his palm striking a fresh imprint of one of the seven dwarves.
"I know every single method the Aurors have like the back of my hand," Harry said. "They won't find your body. Not even a little piece of it. And even if I let them have, say, a finger here or a toe there… They'll never suspect a Muggle Studies Professor, right? That would be silly. Ridiculous. Preposterous. Do you get where I'm going?"
Still holding Umbridge's hair with one hand, Harry reached into his Muggle trench jacket and withdrew a third black quill. He extended his arm and drew a red line across the wall in a place Umbridge would see everyday, each morning when she woke up.
An identical line carved slowly across Umbridge's throat.
"Anywhere, at any time, before you can scream, before you can blink, just like that. You don't want that, do you Umbridge? Then leave the kids alone. Get the fuck out of their lives, except to teach them how to defend themselves." Harry laughed. "Or maybe don't. Just leave. Since you can't even protect yourself. Do you understand now? Nod for me. But not too fast. We wouldn't want your jugular to rupture. No, that would be a tragedy. As fun as it would be to watch.
Umbridge started to gulp. She thought better of the idea halfway through, choosing not to tax her stinging throat. She gave Harry the partial nod he asked for. Harry let go of her hair, standing up and pocketing his Blood Quill. That did little to scrub the threat from Umbridge's mind.
She bent over, huddling into a ball. "G-Go away," she said between pained moans. "P-P-Please go away and m-make it stop… Please…"
Harry studied her, adjudged her to be as cowed as a woman like her ever could be, and snapped his fingers. Blaise's writing and Daphne's art ceased appearing on her skin. For now.
"If you're ever in the mood to forget what happened here… Don't," Harry said. "I assure you, the fallout will be far more uncomfortable for you than it will be for me."
He turned his back on Umbridge's slumped form, leaving her to sob. Despite all the places she had been carved, the Blood Quills' enchantments ensured that nothing stained the surroundings. The only visible blood in the room was the line Harry left on the wall as a reminder. Coincidentally, the line on her throat was the only one of Umbridge's wounds that had scarred. Harry's personal quill was a tad more potent than the usual fare.
"Good night Umbridge," Harry said. "Crawl out whenever you're ready to be a big girl."
He closed the door on her as her sobs intensified.
Harry didn't make it to the end of the hallway before he was stopped. Dumbledore was there. It was odd to see the tall man so quiet. If not for his colorful robes and flowing beard, he could've been mistaken for a suit of armor.
"A reckless choice," Dumbledore said. "Although, I understand why you've made it, given the past that you share."
"It's not risky," Harry said. "If she tries anything, they won't find her body. I'm more than capable of it."
"That, I believe," Dumbledore said. "But what comes after? The Ministry will target Hogwarts again. They will find new ways to lash out. Not at us, but at Neville. At those who cannot take it."
"I'm willing to cross those bridges if we reach them," Harry said. "Umbridge crossed the line. That is something I'm not ready to ignore. The only reason she's still alive is to avoid what you're worried about."
"You intend to scare her?"
"She's a coward at heart," Harry declared. "You saw the way the centaurs dragged her off in my time. She couldn't go near them for the rest of her sad life. So that's what I'll become— the centaur that always has her in the palm of his hand. She won't act up that way. She doesn't have the balls."
"I pray that you're right," Dumbledore said. "And I pray you can carry the burden of being another's nightmare."
Harry couldn't help letting out a dry laugh.
"People have been putting burdens on me since the age of one," he said. "After a while, you get used to the weight."