Present

“I know all the students remember Professor Umbridge’s introduction, but for the reporters sitting in the back of the room I’ll give a little more detail about what happened.  

“Everything about the feast this year was odd. The Sorting Hat’s song was the first thing that we noticed to be off. Normally, the Hat sings about the different qualities of the different Houses and why no one is better than the next. They each have a kind of person that fits in and what those kinds of people are. This year, however, it decided it was going to branch out a bit. Instead of singing about the different qualities, it chose to give us a warning. It told us about how the founders had all been really great friends. But then the school founders started fighting one another and Slytherin actually leaving the school. The hat told us that we need to unite when we were facing an external threat. It was a little weird to say the least.”

“The next part was even weirder.  Professor Dumbledore had introduced the new professors, Umbridge and Grubbly-Plank. That’s normal, sort of. Hagrid was missing, so that was why Grubbly-Plank was there. The weirder thing was Umbridge interrupting Dumbledore when he was giving out the announcements about Quidditch tryouts. We had never had anyone interrupt the Headmaster like that. But here was this brand new professor; she obviously had no clue as to how things worked at Hogwarts.”

“Umbridge went on to give this long winded speech that boiled down to the Ministry was going to be interfering at Hogwarts this year. After my run it with them this summer, that was probably the last thing that I wanted, or needed to hear.”

Severus listened as his son described Umbridge’s introduction to the school.  Harry was correct the woman’s introduction was odd.  She had done little to endear herself to the students.  Then she put out the warning.  This aggressive behavior only continued as the school year went on.  

“If that introduction wasn’t bad enough, there was the first day of class. The day wasn’t going all that well to begin with. We had already been assigned a massive amount of homework. Professor Snape had tried to trip us up with really difficult stuff coming right off a two month break. It was just not good.”

“Things went even further downhill when we got to Umbridge’s class. She was still talking to us like we’re five year olds.  She asked us to copy some stuff down from the board, but that only got us to start asking questions.  See, there was nothing on the board about using magic, just studying theory and how to recognize acceptable times to use it. This isn’t what students in their O.W.L. year want to hear.  We asked about that. Of course we were told that there was no reason that we should need to study the material in a practical manner. That we should just read the material well and all would be fine. This was enough to get several of my classmates annoyed.”

“When we asked about the class preparing us for the real world, we got a really great response. ‘School isn’t the real world and really who out there would be out there waiting to attack children?’ This wasn’t the smartest thing to say to me. It had only been a few months since I had faced Voldemort in the graveyard. I had meet him two occasions before that, that’s without the night he killed my parents by the way.”

“Now, with all that Umbridge was saying, I got upset.  I admit it.  She called me a liar to my face.  I had enough and told her she was a liar. I got detention and sent to see Professor McGonagall.

Harry chuckled slightly. “I was lucky that my dad and I weren’t acknowledging our relationship at that time because if we were, I’d probably still be gutting frogs for it, even if it was Umbridge that I smarted off to. Dad doesn’t accept any excuses for that sort of disrespect.”

Harry turned back to look the Deputy Headmistress offering her a small, warm smile. The older witch let her lips twitch slightly upward in return, before nodding her head to Harry to continue with his story.

“Professor McGonagall was much cooler about the whole thing than I would have expected. She told me to be careful and gave me a couple of biscuits. However, nice it was to see Professor McGonagall as something other than her incredibly strict Transfiguration professor self, it was not worth the detention I got in exchange for it.”

“I’ve been set to write lines in the past. It was never a big deal. Your hand cramps after a while, but you solider through it and by the time that it really starts to hurt, I mean really starts to hurt you’ll be done for the night. Your arm will be killing you in the morning but, you’re done for the night and that’s all that matters at the time. So, why am I talking about writing lines?”

“That was the task I had in detention that night and all the other detentions I had with Umbridge that year and that was quite a few.  Like I said, I could normally do lines no problem. The thing with Umbridge was that she used a blood quill.” 

As Harry suffered his first detention with the blood quill Severus and the other Heads of House prepared for their first weekly meeting in the Headmaster’s office.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

September 1995

“I can’t believe you hired that horrid… horrid toad Albus,” Minerva McGonagall complained.  Severus folded down the corner of his paper as his colleagues filed in.

“Who are we missing,” Albus asked taking his seat at the head of the meeting table.

“Just Filius, Headmaster,” Severus said returning to his paper.

“Albus,” Minerva asked.

“We will discuss it when everyone is here Minerva,” Albus placated.

“Good evening,” Filius Flitwick greeted squeakily as he entered the room.  “I apologize for my tardiness.  I found madam Umbridge lost in the Charms corridor.  She mistakenly was trying to enter my office.”  Flitwick said climbing into his usual chair beside Severus.

Minerva let out a snort of disbelief.  “I would not be so sure it was a mistake Filius,” she told the tiny wizard.  “The woman cannot be trusted.”

“Aren’t you being a little harsh Minerva,” Pomona Sprout asked.

“No,” Minerva said crisply.  “We all heard her at the feast.  This afternoon Mr. Potter was sent to my office.  She outright accused the boy of lying.”

“Oh my, Potter lying, how so out of character.”  Severus said.

Minerva gave the wizard a dark glare.  “She accused Mr. Potter of lying about You-Know-Who’s return Severus, not some trivial class matter.”

Severus frowned at the clarification.  The witch could be more disruptive if she outright refused to accept the Dark Lord’s return and did her best to keep the students ignorant.

“How could you hire her?” Minerva asked again.

“It was not my choice,” Albus told them.  “Dolores was placed at the school under the actions of the Ministry and the Board of Governors.  She is here to ensure the students receive an education in accordance with Ministry guidelines.  Some of the Governors have become concerned after what happened with the last several individuals who held the position.”

Albus continued, “I need not warn you we must be more cautious of our actions over the coming months.  Voldemort’s powers will only continue to grow.  We must do our best to counter him.  We must too make sure the students’ educations do not suffer.  I have heard Dolores refuses to let students practice their Defense skills in class.”

“Might we restart the Dueling Club,” Filius suggested.

“Ah, a brilliant idea.  Let us bring a bunch of out of practice teenagers into a room to fight one another.  Longbottom will be dead within the first three minutes,” Severus commented.

“Severus,” Minerva and Albus scolded together.

“I believe we should wait to see how the year progresses,” Pomona suggested.  “Dolores might change her mind about practical magic.”

Pomona’s laissez-faire attitude won out, even if none of the professors, Sprout included believed Umbridge’s attitude would change.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Present

Severus let his attention return back to the present in time to hear his son’s pained comments about Umbridge’s detentions.

“I’ve had a lot of painful things happen to me in my past. I was thrown into the cabinet under the stairs by my uncle, beaten up by my cousin Dudley on a regular basis, and half-starved when living with my family. When I got to Hogwarts I had to regrow all the bones in one of my arms, deal with a bite from a giant spider, and I had been possessed Voldemort. None of these however had anything on Umbridge’s quill.”

Harry rubbed unconsciously at the scars that adorned the back of his hand. The thin white lines still stood out in sharp contrast to the slightly tanned flesh. “It was painful when the words were being cut into my hand.  The bigger pain was actually afterward.  I’ll have the scars for a long time, if not the rest of my life. It’s a monument to the fact that people refused to believe what I was saying about Voldemort coming back was true. That was hard, I knew the truth and I kept saying it over and over again, from the night Cedric died to the night I killed him. It was only on that last night however, that the Ministry believed what I had to say.”

“So, I had a rough time with those detentions, but wouldn’t be the only thing I would have a hard time with.”