Sherlock's voice was not, in fact, particularly loud.
And yet, in that moment, it landed crisply like a sliver of thin ice on a scorching stone slab, carrying clearly to Umbridge and every student in the room.
The classroom fell deathly silent in an instant. Everyone held their breath. Gazes shuttled back and forth between Sherlock and Umbridge as though pulled by invisible strings, and even blinking became something careful and slow.
Harry and Ron exchanged a look of barely contained delight. It's starting. It's finally starting.
The King of Comebacks is back.
In the back row, Dean and Seamus were turning purple, their shoulders were heaving as they fought desperately to smother their laughter, only a few strangled gasps escaped their throats.
Hermione, however, pressed her lips together tightly, her lower lip was going white where her teeth dug in.
Her hands, folded in her lap, were clenched so hard that her nails were nearly cutting into her palms.
In this moment she both longed for Sherlock to land a crushing blow against Umbridge's high-handedness, and could not help but dread the consequences. However, one looked at it, Umbridge was a professor at Hogwarts and one sent by the Ministry of Magic at that.
She herself had just contradicted Umbridge in front of the whole class, and it had felt rather like walking a tightrope. The only reason she'd done it was because she'd seen how Sherlock was behaving and feared he might go head-to-head with this woman.
She never imagined it would happen anyway.
Sherlock had already spoken. There was no stopping him now.
"What did you say?!"
Sure enough, Umbridge whipped her head around as though someone had stepped on her tail. Her fat cheeks had swollen to a livid, puce-like kind, and those gummy little eyes glared at Sherlock with vicious malice, the whites shot through with ugly red veins.
She had never imagined that a student would dare address her in such a tone of contempt.
Who did he think he was? Mad-Eye Moody?
"I said," Sherlock replied, tilting his head slightly, the corner of his mouth were curling into a flippant smile, "that you were spouting filth—that you hadn't the faintest idea what you were on about."
His grey eyes sent two cutting glances sliding across Umbridge's face, each word pronounced distinctly: "The fact that you'd actually want someone to repeat an insult to your face—I have never, in all my life, heard such a request."
Buzz!
The classroom erupted.
Suppressed gasps burst free like punctured balloons. The sound of sharply indrawn breath rose and fell around the room, followed by a wave of wild cheering from the corners.
Harry felt his blood boiling in his veins, the heat was almost numbing his fingertips.
Ron was so worked up he nearly shot out of his chair, his cheeks went as red as his hair.
"Ten points from Gryffindor."
But Umbridge's voice doused the excitement that had begun to rise in the room. Those small eyes pinned themselves to Sherlock. "You—what is your name?"
"Holmes. Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock's tone was utterly calm, plainly indifferent to the point deduction.
"Mr. Holmes, in my class, students who wish to speak must first raise their hand."
"That applies when someone actually wants to speak to you."
Rather than raising his hand obediently like everyone else, Sherlock laced his fingers together beneath his chin, leaned back slightly, and settled into a posture that was somehow even more relaxed than before. "I have no desire to speak to you. You are the one who addressed me with a question."
"Mr. Holmes!"
Professor Umbridge shot to her feet, leaning forward over the lectern with both of her short-fingered, pudgy hands pressed flat against the surface. "You have already cost your House ten points. Don't make this any worse."
"Isn't the one making things worse you yourself?"
"What exactly do you mean by that, Holmes?"
At this, Umbridge actually let out a sharp, piercing shriek.
"Since you've had the sincerity to ask," Sherlock said, his manner entirely at ease, "I'll be magnanimous enough to tell you."
He extended three fingers slowly and began to speak. "First: the Ministry of Magic installed you in Hogwarts to serve as a mouthpiece—nothing more.
And yet you seem to have genuinely convinced yourself that, with your particular qualities, you have the right to come in here and call the shots."
Another round of perfectly synchronized sharp intakes of breath swept through the classroom like a cold wind gusting through an empty hall.
Every face stared at Sherlock with fresh disbelief; eyes turned as wide as tea cup's saucers.
The Lion King is absolutely fearless.
He's just yanked down the trousers of both the Ministry of Magic and Umbridge for all to see.
"Ten more points from Gryffindor!"
Umbridge's voice had begun to tremble. Her cheeks were so red they looked fit to bleed; her fingers dug into the edge of the lectern until the skin between them went white. "Holmes, you—"
"Second: for all your constant invocations of the Ministry, the moment any discord here leaks out, you will be discarded like a filthy rag that's been used up—tossed straight into the rubbish bin by the very people you serve."
"Gryffindor loses thirty points!"
All pretence of that saccharine, put-on voice was gone. Umbridge was hysterical now.
Sherlock was utterly unmoved. He raised his third finger and continued. "Third: Professor Moody gave you a lesson just last night, and you still haven't managed to grasp the point. Which means you are not merely bad—"
He paused. In the face of Umbridge's stunned stare, he delivered the final verdict: "You are stupid and bad."
"Detention, Holmes!"
Umbridge finally snapped. She glared at him, grinding her teeth so hard they clicked. "Tomorrow evening. Five o'clock. My office."
Sherlock smiled. There was nothing concealed in it—only cold, open contempt.
And then he did something that left the entire class thunderstruck.
He reached, slowly, into his robes and drew out his wand.
"And who gave you the confidence," he said quietly, "to believe that, inside this classroom, you are beyond the reach of attack?"
The whole class went stiff.
In that moment, it was as though their minds had simply stopped. Even breathing became something forgotten.
A student drawing a wand on a professor—and saying that.
This had surely never happened in the entire history of Hogwarts.
It was absolutely terrifying.
It was Harry and Hermione, sitting at Sherlock's side, who came back to themselves first.
Hermione reacted almost on pure reflex—she shot out her hand and seized Sherlock's arm, her fingers pressing so hard they nearly sank into his flesh. "Sherlock! Don't be rash!"
Harry grabbed his other arm immediately, a faint tremor in his voice. "Don't—you'll be expelled!"
And then it happened.
BANG
A blinding jet of red light sliced through the air so fast it left no traceable arc.
Umbridge's heavy body was swept clear over the heads of the entire class like a burst sack of grain, crashing to the floor at the back of the room with a thunderous, hollow impact.
THUD
Desks and chairs went flying in every direction.
Several students cried out and scrambled sideways; there were shouts from the boys, sobs from the girls.
Everyone turned toward the source of the red light.
Mad-Eye Moody stood in the doorway, his wand thrust out, aimed directly at Professor Umbridge, who lay crumpled on the floor.
A terrible silence gripped the classroom. A pin could have been heard dropping from across the room.
No one but Moody dared move a muscle not even a finger for fear of becoming the next target.
That, at least, was how it appeared on the surface.
Moody turned his ordinary eye toward Sherlock. There was something in his gaze, perhaps a flicker of approval. His magical eye spun once in its socket, then disappeared back into his head.
"Did she hurt you?"
Moody's voice sounded low and gravelled, filled with suppressed anger like a heavy quietness before a storm.
Sherlock gave a laugh, and his wand was somehow already gone, tucked away. He patted Harry and Hermione's hands, signalling them to let go. "She was knocked flat before she could get to me. Thank you, Professor."
"Good."
Moody turned his gaze slowly toward Umbridge, who was still struggling to push herself up from the floor.
"A teacher," he said with contempt, "drawing a wand on her own students in the middle of class?"
His voice came out rough and blunt, the enchanted lens were beginning to rotate again. "Umbridge, you are a filthy, despicable, shameless—"
Just as something truly rough seemed imminent, a mild voice cut through: "Would someone care to tell me what has happened here?"
Remus Lupin.
Hogwarts' universally beloved Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had appeared in the doorway.
His gaze swept the classroom—taking in the shocked, rigidly frozen students, then settling on Umbridge, who lay dishevelled and humiliated on the floor at the back of the room and his forehead creased sharply in genuine bewilderment.
"This disgusting creature attacked a student!" Moody jabbed a finger at Umbridge, his voice was still seething with fury.
"What?!"
Professor Lupin's expression changed instantly. The usual gentleness in his eyes sharpened keenly to dangerous. A dormant, predatory air began to radiate from him, and the air around him seemed to drop several degrees.
"Y-you're lying!" Umbridge had finally managed to drag herself up. Her robes were coated in dust, her hair was a dishevelled wreck, but she refused to back down and began waving her hands furiously to explain.
"It was that student who drew his wand on me first—"
She got no further. Moody cut her off like a thunderclap: "And you know he's a student! So, what if a student drew his wand on you in class?"
Umbridge was stunned.
So was the rest of the class. They looked at each other, reading the same disbelief in every face.
Was Professor Moody openly defending Sherlock?
Moody pressed on, entirely unapologetic: "You're a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. If you can't handle a student, pack up your things and go home. Don't take a seat that you're not using!"
"Professor Moody," Sherlock added in perfectly timed interjection, "Professor Umbridge maintained that we would not be subjected to attack in her classroom."
"Is—that—so."
Moody turned back to Umbridge, his one working eye was on her with a gaze of menace as the enchanted lens resumed its rapid spinning.
A moment later, in a perfect mirror of what Sherlock had done moments before, he raised his wand and aimed it directly at her.
Umbridge flinched—her whole body was shaking but she kept her grip on her own wand, clinging to it as though it were the last rope keeping her from a fall. "Moody, you dare—"
"Expelliarmus!"
A dazzling burst of red light, brighter and sharper than the first.
Struck by the force of the spell, Umbridge who had barely managed to get back on her feet was hurled backward again, her back slamed into the rear wall of the classroom.
With a dull, heavy crack, she slid down it and crumpled to the floor, curled up in agony, jaw clenched against the pain.
Her wand, of course, was Summoned straight out of her hand by the Disarming Charm. It sailed through the air, and as it fell, Moody reached out and snatched it effortlessly.
"I gave you ample time to react," Moody said, looking down at Umbridge as she lay on the floor again, his voice was flat with contempt. "If I had used the Killing Curse just now, you'd already be dead."
"Moody, you—you lunatic—"
Umbridge lay on the floor, her voice was faint and still venomous. Her eyes tracked Moody with cold unblinking hatred like of a snake.
"Lunatic? Save that word for the Death Eaters."
Moody turned his head, glanced at the three sentences written on the blackboard, and let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh.
He looked at the young Gryffindors. "And she's been teaching you this?"
"Professor Umbridge stated," Hermione said reciting with flawless accuracy, "that the Ministry of Magic believes theoretical knowledge will equip you more effectively for your examinations. After all, helping students pass their exams is the true purpose of a school."
"What absolute rubbish!"
Moody exploded at the same time. "Cedric Diggory had excellent marks—and he couldn't last a single encounter with an enemy! What good is passing exams if you can't use what you've learned? What are you going to do when you face You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters—wave your O.W.L. results at them and say, I got an Outstanding in Defence Against the Dark Arts?"
"Pfft—"
The young Gryffindors couldn't hold it together any longer. Laughter broke out across the room, scattering the last of the tension that had smothered the class.
"That's quite enough, Alastor."
As Moody launched into his tirade against Umbridge, Lupin had quietly gathered the full account from the other students.
Judging that the moment had run its course, he said mildly, "Today's two periods were originally meant to be taught by Professor Umbridge but given her current state, I'll take the remaining period. Professor Umbridge, I trust you have no objection?"
"I—"
Umbridge opened her mouth, met the combined gaze of Moody's two eyes—one real, one spinning and immediately deflated. Through gritted teeth, she said: "I have no objection."
"Wonderful. Then let's take a ten-minute break."
Remus's warm smile returned as he swept his gaze across the class.
"In ten minutes, everyone comes with me to the staffroom. We'll be having a practical lesson."
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