Umbridge didn't know what the club was and who is leading it.
That, more than anything else, infuriated her.
She sat behind her wide oak desk, fingers drumming in a rigid, irritated rhythm, the pink bows on her cardigan twitching with each precise movement. Information had reached her in fragments—whispers carried by eager mouths and fearful glances. A gathering in Hogsmeade. Too many students. Too much excitement. Too much silence afterward.
Silence always meant resistance.
"Something is happening in my school," Umbridge said sweetly, her smile tight enough to crack porcelain. "And I do not tolerate secrets."
Across from her, Draco Malfoy stood straight-backed, pale and attentive, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle like obedient statues. He preened under her attention; being summoned like this meant importance.
"You will find it," Umbridge continued. "This… club. You will tell me who leads it, where it meets, and what they are doing."
Draco's lips curled.
"I already know who it is, Professor."
"Oh?" Umbridge tilted her head. "Do tell."
Draco didn't hesitate. "Harry Potter."
That name tasted deliciously bitter in the air.
Harry realized the hunt had begun the moment he rounded a corner near the fourth-floor corridor and found Draco Malfoy leaning against the wall as if he had always been there.
"Lost, Potter?" Draco drawled.
Harry didn't slow his stride. "No."
Crabbe and Goyle fell into step behind him.
From that moment on, it became obvious.
Wherever Harry went, Malfoy followed.
Not openly—not yet. Draco was subtler than that now. He didn't confront, didn't provoke unless he had an audience. Instead, he observed. Lurked. Watched from the ends of corridors, from behind statues, from staircases that conveniently shifted to keep him nearby.
Harry noticed everything.
He noticed Malfoy pretending to study the notice boards when Harry passed. Noticed the way the Inquisitorial Squad seemed to "randomly" appear wherever Harry happened to be. He noticed the forced cheerfulness of their voices, the way they clutched their newly issued badges like talismans of authority.
And he smiled.
Because fear made people careless.
"Malfoy's tailing you," Hermione whispered one evening as they walked toward the Great Hall.
"I know," Harry replied calmly.
Neville glanced over his shoulder. "He followed you from the library."
Harry shrugged. "Let him."
Hermione stopped walking. "Harry."
He turned, meeting her eyes. Calm. Controlled. Dangerous.
"He want to find the club," Harry said quietly. "He wants me to slip. That's what Umbridge wants too. So I won't."
Neville swallowed. "What if they catch someone else?"
Harry's expression darkened for a heartbeat—just enough.
"They won't," he said. "Not if you are careful."
Hermione studied him, then nodded slowly. She trusted him. Harry didn't make empty promises.
Draco, meanwhile, grew increasingly frustrated.
Harry was infuriatingly boring.
No secret meetings. No suspicious disappearances. No whispered conversations that didn't end the moment Draco stepped closer. Harry went to class. Went to meals. Walked the corridors as if he had nothing to hide.
Which meant he was hiding everything.
"He's mocking us," Draco hissed to Pansy Parkinson one afternoon. "Walking around like he owns the place."
"He probably does," Pansy muttered. "With that money of his."
Draco clenched his fists. "He's running it. I know he is."
"We have to prove it," she said.
And that was the problem.
The first near-miss came two nights later.
Harry had just finished a long detour through the seventh floor—nothing suspicious, just enough to unsettle anyone tracking him—when he sensed movement behind him.
He didn't turn.
Instead, he slowed.
Footsteps stopped.
Harry smiled faintly and continued on, counting silently. Three… two…
"Potter!"
Harry turned at last.
Draco stood at the end of the corridor, wand loose in his hand, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. The torchlight painted sharp shadows across his face.
"What is it?" Harry asked mildly.
"You've been wandering," Draco said. "A lot."
"So have you."
Draco sneered. "Careful. You're starting to look suspicious."
Harry stepped closer—just enough to make Draco instinctively stiffen.
"Funny," Harry said softly, "I was thinking the same about you."
The silence stretched.
Neither moved.
Then footsteps echoed from a stairwell—Professor Flitwick's voice drifting closer.
Draco backed away first.
"This isn't over," he spat.
Harry inclined his head. "No. It isn't."
By morning, new decrees adorned the walls.
Educational Decree Thirty
Students found loitering in groups of three or more without written permission will be subject to disciplinary action.
Whispers erupted across the castle.
Hermione read the decree with clenched teeth. "She's escalating."
Neville nodded. "She's trying to isolate us."
The castle woke to whispers.
They slid through corridors before breakfast, crept along the moving staircases, and pooled beneath the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall like mist that refused to lift. By the time the owls arrived, the rumor had already taken shape—every single Educational Decree was gone.
Dolores Umbridge discovered it herself.
She arrived at the notice board just outside the Great Hall precisely at seven thirty, her heels clicking sharply against the stone as she carried a teacup delicately between two fingers. The pink bow on her cardigan quivered with each step. She stopped short.
The wall was bare.
For a long moment, she simply stared.
No decrees.
No curling pink-edged proclamations announcing what students could not do, must not do, would be punished for doing, or would be punished for thinking about doing.
Her smile froze.
Slowly, she set the teacup down on the nearest windowsill.
"Filch," she said, in a voice so calm it trembled.
Argus Filch appeared moments later, breathless and suspicious already, his one good eye darting across the empty wall.
"Yes, High Inquisitor?"
"Where," Umbridge asked softly, "are my decrees?"
Filch blinked. "Beg pardon?"
"My Educational Decrees," she repeated, turning to face him. "All of them."
Filch swallowed. "I—well—I was polishing the suits of armor on the third floor last night—"
"That was not the question."
Her voice sharpened like a blade wrapped in lace.
"Do you see them here?"
Filch shook his head quickly.
"Then someone," Umbridge said, lips curling into a thin, dangerous smile, "has committed a crime against the Ministry."
Harry Potter ate his breakfast in peace.
He sat at the Gryffindor table with Hermione and Neville, buttering toast as if nothing in the world had changed. Around them, students whispered and craned their necks toward the now-infamous wall.
"They're really gone," Seamus muttered from further down the table.
"All of them," Dean said, sounding almost reverent.
Hermione kept her eyes on her porridge, stirring slowly.
Neville leaned closer. "Did you—?"
Harry didn't look at him. He took a bite of toast, chewed, swallowed.
"I went for a walk last night," he said calmly.
Hermione's spoon paused for exactly half a second.
Neville's ears turned red.
"That's… all of them?" Neville asked.
Harry finally glanced up, dark eyes unreadable. "Every last one."
Hermione closed her eyes.
Merlin help us all.
Umbridge's fury arrived by lunchtime.
New decrees appeared on the wall—fresh parchment, thicker ink, stamped with aggressive pink seals. Students watched from a distance as Umbridge personally nailed them into place with sharp, precise taps of her wand.
She stood back, hands clasped.
"There," she said sweetly. "Order restored."
She turned.
Harry watched her go.
That night, the decrees vanished again.
This time, Umbridge screamed.
By the third day, Umbridge was unraveling.
She called emergency staff meetings.
She interrogated prefects.
She accused professors openly.
Professor Flitwick raised an eyebrow.
Professor Sprout looked offended.
Professor Snape sneered outright.
"I assure you," Snape drawled, "that I have better uses for my time than vandalizing your… décor."
Umbridge smiled tightly. "Of course, Severus."
But her eyes were wild.
Students began placing bets.
"How long until she starts nailing them to the walls inside her office?" Fred whispered.
"Three days," George replied. "She'll charm them to scream if touched."
Draco Malfoy was not amused.
"This is you," Draco hissed, stalking alongside Harry in the corridor with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him like shadows. "You think you're clever."
Harry didn't slow.
"You're behind the club," Draco continued. "Behind the decrees. Behind everything."
Harry stopped.
The suddenness of it made Crabbe nearly walk into him.
Harry turned slowly, looking Draco up and down as if assessing a poorly made wand.
"You follow me," Harry said quietly, "because you want it to be me."
Draco sneered. "Careful."
Harry stepped closer.
"So do something about it."
For a heartbeat, the corridor felt tight—like the air itself was holding its breath.
Then footsteps echoed, and Draco backed away, jaw tight.
"This isn't over," he spat.
Harry watched him go.
"No," Harry murmured. "It's just beginning."
Harry had no intention of removing the decrees anymore—not because he had grown tired of it, but because he had already achieved what he wanted.
Chaos.
He liked infuriating her.
Watching Umbridge's face at breakfast as she stared at the blank notice board had been deeply satisfying. She had looked smaller then—tight-lipped, pink cheeks blotchy with rage, fingers trembling as she gripped her teacup too hard.
Now, though, Harry understood something important.
Umbridge wasn't confused anymore.
She was hunting.
And Harry wanted her gone—not embarrassed, not undermined, not merely inconvenienced. Gone.
What she was doing in her detentions was illegal. The blood quill was not a gray area, not a questionable punishment—it was outright forbidden. Dark-adjacent torture disguised as discipline. Harry knew the law well enough by now, and more importantly, he knew precedent.
She will pay for this, he promised himself, cold and absolute.
Hermione and Neville approached him that evening in the common room, their faces tense in that way Harry had come to recognize—a mixture of urgency and suppressed fear.
"We can't delay again," Hermione said quietly, lowering her voice even though the room was crowded. "If we miss another meeting, people will start to lose interest."
Neville nodded. "The patrols are everywhere now. Malfoy's squad—three corridors at once. Staircases too."
Harry leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes half-lidded. "She's tightened the net."
"She's convinced there's a club," Hermione continued. "She doesn't know where. Or who runs it. But she knows it exists."
Harry stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder with deliberate casualness. "I'll help. But you do exactly what I say."
They exchanged a glance but nodded.
As they walked through the corridor next day, Draco Malfoy and his inquisitorial squad appeared almost immediately, pretending—badly—not to watch. Crabbe and Goyle loomed like poorly trained guard dogs, while Pansy whispered something behind her hand, eyes glittering.
Harry did not look at them.
He didn't acknowledge their presence at all, as if they were dust on the stone floor.
As they passed, Harry spoke casually, pitching his voice just loud enough.
"Tell them I'll be late today for the meeting."
Neville hesitated for half a second, then caught on. "Right. Late."
Harry made sure Draco heard it.
He didn't need to look back to know what happened next. He could practically feel the shift—the sharpened attention, the sudden certainty snapping into place inside Malfoy's head.
Got you.
Draco straightened, lips curling into a satisfied grin. He turned to his squad, whispering urgently. One of them broke away at once, heading in the direction Harry knew Umbridge would be.
The hook was set.
By the time Harry reached the outer grounds, he was certain.
They were following him.
Desperately.
He slowed his pace, letting the anticipation build, letting them think he was unaware. The air grew cooler, the grass damp beneath his boots. Hogwarts loomed behind him, its towers glowing softly, unaware of the game being played just beyond its wards.
Behind him, cloaks rustled. Footsteps multiplied.
Harry turned slightly, just enough to confirm it.
Draco. Crabbe. Goyle. Several others.
And farther back Dolores Umbridge herself, puffing slightly as she marched, wand clenched in her short hand like a judge's gavel.
Perfect.
Harry veered toward the Forbidden Forest.
The moment he crossed the tree line, the air changed.
The forest breathed.
Branches creaked like old bones. Leaves whispered secrets. The ground dipped unevenly, roots clawing up through the soil like grasping fingers. Even Harry felt it—the ancient weight pressing down, the sense that the forest was aware of him.
Behind him, the inquisitorial squad faltered.
"Are you sure?" someone whispered.
Draco hissed back, "He wouldn't come this way unless—"
Umbridge's voice cut through them, sharp and commanding. "Continue."
They obeyed.
Harry walked deeper, unhurried, every step deliberate. He could feel the events unfolding behind him, students slipping away unseen, the Room of Requirement opening like a breath held too long.
He kept going.
The trees thickened.
The darkness deepened.
Fear began to seep into the cracks of the squad's confidence.
Crabbe stumbled. Goyle swore under his breath. One of the Ravenclaws lagged behind, breathing hard.
"Professor," Draco muttered, his voice no longer smug. "Maybe—"
"Silence," Umbridge snapped. "This is exactly what we've been waiting for."
Harry stopped.
Slowly, he turned.
The forest ahead opened into a clearing—and at its edge, something massive shifted.
A low, rumbling sound rolled through the trees, deep enough to vibrate in the chest.
A giant stepped forward.
He was enormous—far larger than any human should be, shoulders brushing the lower branches, skin like weathered stone. His eyes reflected faint light, slow and curious rather than immediately hostile.
The inquisitorial squad froze.
Someone whimpered.
Harry felt the tension spike, sharp and dangerous.
He had wanted to lead them away. He had wanted to waste their time. He had not wanted this.
Umbridge, however, stepped forward, her face pale but twisted with stubborn fury.
"There!" she shrilled. "You see? Illegal gatherings! Dangerous creatures! This proves—"
The giant tilted his head.
The forest held its breath.
Harry turned his head slightly, speaking without looking back. "You should leave."
Draco didn't argue.
He ran.
Crabbe and Goyle followed, panic breaking loose at last. The rest scattered, fear overriding authority, discipline dissolving into survival.
Only Umbridge remained, rooted in place, staring up at the giant with a mixture of terror and denial.
Harry didn't wait to see more.
He turned and and ran away fast, the forest closing behind him as if swallowing the moment whole.
Author's Note:
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