Dolores Umbridge

"As I told you once before, Mr. Potter, naughty children deserve to be punished."

- Dolores Umbridge

Dolores Jane Umbridge was Senior Under-Secretary to Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. In her ambition for glory, she climbed her way to Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, High Inquisitor and Headmistress of Hogwarts. During the height of the Second Wizarding War, Umbridge ran the Muggle-Born Registration Commission while Lord Voldemort was in control of the Ministry, and sadistically prosecuted many innocent people. She is currently incarcerated at Azkaban for her crimes against Muggle-borns.

Early Life
Little is known of Dolores Umbridge's early life. However, in her ambition for power she quickly grew to powerful positions in the Ministry of Magic at a relatively young age.

Career at the Ministry
"You have no business here centaur, this is a Ministry matter!"

- Umbridge tries to use her Ministry position to warn off a Centaur

Senior Under-Secretary
As Senior Under-Secretary to the Minister for Magic in 1995, Umbridge used her power to intimidate Harry Potter during an interrogation before the Wizengamot. Harry was to be punished for inadvertantly violating the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery; however, thanks to the efforts of Albus Dumbledore, he was released without punishment.

What Umbridge did not reveal at the time was that she herself had ordered the Dementor attack on Harry and his cousin Dudley Dursley, leaving him no choice but to violate the Decree by casting a Patronus Charm. She claimed such an order was impossible. However, in June the next year, she revealed to a crowd of Hogwarts students she had in fact made that order.

However, the information regarding to her sending the Dementors was omitted from the film version.

Working at Hogwarts


In 1995 after Alastor Moody resigned, Professor Dolores Umbridge was placed at Hogwarts as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher by order of the Ministry of Magic without Albus Dumbledore's consent. She was supplied by the Ministry mostly as a spy and wasn't fond of children.

D.A.D.A. Professor
She taught according to a politically-restricted curriculum which entailed learning strictly the theory of Defence Against the Dark Arts without any practical applications. She, and the ministry for that matter, believed that "a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examinations..." and that "As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells...".

Most students were concerned and felt they would be left defenseless against the Dark Arts. Some spoke out openly in class, such as Hermione, Ron, Harry, Dean Thomas, and Pavarti Patil, but were immediately silenced or punished by Umbridge. For instance, when Harry contradicted the Ministry of Magic's official position that Lord Voldemort was dead, Umbridge punished him with torture. She forced him to write the phrase "I must not tell lies" repeatedly with a special quill that caused those words to be carved into the back of his hand and transfer his blood to the pen to be used as ink, eventually leaving him scarred.

High Inquisitor
"Having already revolutionized the teaching of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Dolores Umbridge will, as High Inquisitor, have powers to address the seriously falling standards at Hogwarts School."

- Cornelius Fudge

After working at Hogwarts for a short while and having a discussion with the Minister, Hogwarts was appointed Educational Decree Number 23, and Umbridge's power was increased as she was appointed the first-ever "Hogwarts High Inquisitor". She used this position to evaluate and harass the teachers at Hogwarts. When Harry formed a group to teach practical Defence Against the Dark Arts, Umbridge abolished all student groups of three or more members, meaning students weren't allowed to be seen together in a larger number of three or they'd be suspected of rule breaking. When Harry gave an interview about Lord Voldemort to The Quibbler, Umbridge then banned possession of the magazine. Umbridge also went on to make ludicrous restrictions such as boys and girls not being allowed to stand within a certain limit of one another.

These actions were sanctioned by the Ministry of Magic in the form of Educational Decrees, but students merely found ways to circumvent them. With her new power, she dismissed Sybill Trelawney as Professor of Divination, however when she attempted to send Trelawney away from the school, she was unable to because Albus Dumbledore still had the power to keep Trelawney on school grounds and chose to do so.

Umbridge was horrified when Dumbledore replaced Trelawney with a centaur named Firenze, and considered him, a mixture of human and horse, a "filthy half-breed" which her strong opinion of centaurs would later get her into trouble.

Headmistress
"You know... I really do hate children."

- Dolores Umbridge

In 1996, Umbridge and many other Slytherins found the D.A. in the Room of Requirement, after they were betrayed by Marietta Edgecombe, whose mother worked at the Ministry and whose job Umbridge might have threatened. She tried to prosecute Harry for forming the Defence of Dark Arts club, but Dumbledore took the blame and he disappeared from Hogwarts, after a minor scuffle with Aurors and the Minister for Magic himself. She soon after formed the Inquisitorial Squad, which rewarded certain students for reporting on others and sanctioned them to act as enforcement goons. Umbridge replaced him as Headmistress, but found herself in over her head as she became the target of numerous pranks, many of which are orchestrated by Fred and George Weasley. The teachers, who disliked Umbridge intensely, did as little to help her in her duties as possible. The teachers also lavished favours on Harry in the form of House Points and even candy, specifically Squeaking Sugar Mice from Professor Flitwick.

She later fired Gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid, as he was also of mixed race. When attempting to subdue Hagrid with four wizards, they seriously injured Professor Minerva McGonagall, who was protesting the force used to wrangle Hagrid.

Umbridge interfered with as much as she could while in her various positions at Hogwarts. She tried to prevent Harry Potter from contacting his godfather Sirius Black. She read all incoming and outgoing student mail, and Hedwig was even injured. It was suggested that Hedwig was attacked by a Thestral, but there is also the possibility that she was manhandled by Argus Filch, who gleefully assisted Umbridge in anything she requested of him.

Soon afterwards, Umbridge caught Harry trying to use the Floo Network in her office, and he and his friends and fellow D.A. members Hermione Granger, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood were held in her office by Inquisitorial Squad members. When Harry refused to tell her what he had been doing, Umbridge first attempted to dose him with Veritaserum, but Professor Snape told her he had no more. She then claimed that the Cruciatus Curse might "loosen his tongue". Hermione then spoke up, and tricked Umbridge into following her and Harry into the Forbidden Forest in search of an alleged "secret weapon" of the Order of the Phoenix. There, Umbridge was confronted by a herd of centaurs, whom she shamelessly insulted with racial slurs and arrogance. Umbridge then attacked one of the centaurs near her. She was chased and nearly killed by them.

Umbridge was ultimately rescued by Dumbledore, although how Dumbledore managed to rescue her from the human-hating centaurs without suffering any injury himself remains a mystery, though it is likely that Centaurs had respect for Albus after what they had seen how wicked Umbridge was in comparison.



Umbridge's Suspension
After Voldemort appeared in the Ministry of Magic and was seen by a number of people, including Cornelius Fudge—Dumbledore was restored as the Headmaster. Umbridge, who had been in the school's Hospital Wing, attempted to leave the castle without anyone noticing. Peeves the Poltergeist discovered her and chased her out, beating her over the head alternatively with a walking stick and a sock full of chalk, leading a crowd of students. Professor Minerva McGonagall expressed regret at not being able to chase Umbridge herself because Peeves had borrowed her walking stick and she was not fully recovered.

Return to the Ministry
Umbridge later returned to the position of Senior Under-Secretary at the Ministry and told the new Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour about Harry's wish to become an Auror. She was later seen at Albus Dumbledore's funeral at Hogwarts, though she did not speak.

Muggle-Born Registration Commission
Following Voldemort's takeover of the Ministry of Magic in 1997, Umbridge resumed her post as Under-Secretary and oversaw the registration and persecution of Muggle-born witches and wizards. She conducted trials with sadistic pleasure, subjecting innocent Muggle-borns to the presence of Dementors and sending them to Azkaban for supposedly stealing magic from "real" witches and wizards. She also wrote the propaganda pamphlet Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society.

Following Alastor Moody's murder at the hands of Death Eaters in the Battle over Little Whinging, Umbridge took possession of his "mad eye." Affixing it to her office door, she was able to terrorize all Ministry employees with the mere concept that she could observe their every move. This, in addition to her manner of causing general misery, would suggest that Umbridge was in league with Voldemort, though it was never explicitly stated until she was seen working with Death Eater Yaxley.

At some point, Umbridge received a locket as a bribe from petty thief Mundungus Fletcher. This locket was, in fact, Salazar Slytherin's locket, the one once owned by Merope Gaunt as well as Hepzibah Smith. Although Umbridge was unaware that the locket was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes (or belonged to him at all), she chose to lie about the meaning of the cloisonné S, stating it was a Selwyn family heirloom, a name which she believed would bolster her Pure-Blood credentials, ( the family has dark connections as a Death Eater who responds to Xenophilius Lovegood was named thus, maning that Dolores chose the name as it commanded a degree of respect among the supporters of Lord Voldemort's regime). She boasted of this supposed connection to Hermione Granger, who was in the guise of Ministry employee Mafalda Hopkirk, during one of Umbridge's blood purity hearings. At that moment, full of rage, Harry Potter attacked both Umbridge and Yaxley. Umbridge was stunned, leaving Harry and Hermione free to snatch the locket from around Umbridge's neck and flee the scene. Hermione created a copy of the locket to leave with Umbridge, so that she did not become suspicious.

It is not clear exactly why Umbridge felt it necessary to emphasise her wizarding ancestry, though in the case of some other wizards this has been because they wished to distract attention from some non-wizarding ancestors. When the locket was in the possession of Harry Potter and companions, it exerted a malign influence on each of them when they wore it. Due to Umbridge's nature, the Horcrux, rather than impart a negative effect on her, actually strengthened her.

Incarceration at Azkaban
Following Voldemort's demise, and the cleansing of the Ministry's corruption, Umbridge was arrested, put on trial and imprisoned at Azkaban for her crimes against Muggle-borns.

Physical Appearance and Traits
Dolores Umbridge is a short, squat woman who resembles a toad. She was known to wear a black velvet bow in her hair that could remind one of a fly about to be caught. She was also known to wear head-to-toe matching pink outfits that would have been better suited for someone half her age. She has a high, girlish voice that has been described as sounding like poisoned honey.

Umbridge is fanatically prejudiced against non-humans, which she calls "half-breeds." It was her prejudice that caused her to pass a series of anti-werewolf legislations, which made it almost illegal for those afflicted with lycanthropy to hold jobs. Umbridge was ruthless in seeking and maintaining her power; she enjoyed having people under her thumb, and was willing to use any methods available to her to make people obey her, as indicated by her nearly using the Cruciatus Curse on Harry Potter and threatening innocent Muggle-borns with the Dementor's Kiss during trials.

Although she was not a Death Eater, she showed no qualms about indirectly supporting them with her work at the Ministry while it was under Voldemort's control.

Etymology
Dolores is a common Spanish name, although it also occurs as an English name. In Spanish, "dolores" is also the plural form of "dolor", which means pain. In English, the similar sounding word "Dolorous" means causing or expressing grief and suffering.

Jane is a sweet name for a girl, adding a cruel irony to her nomenclature. Because her middle name is "Jane," J.K. Rowling changed Hermione Granger's middle name (which was also Jane) to "Jean" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

"Umbridge", a pun on the English "umbrage" meaning "offense or insult", indicates that Dolores Umbridge is destined to do only harm and cause only unhappiness.

Behind the scenes

 * Professor Umbridge is one of the least popular Harry Potter character in the opinions of the main characters, sometimes even surpassing Lord Voldemort. But in Deathly Hallows, Neville Longbottom claimed that Umbridge seems tame compared to Amycus and Alecto Carrow; this is likely because the Carrows were completely unconstrained in their abilities to punish students, and in fact, were probably encouraged to use Dark magic against defiant students. J. K. Rowling herself has noted that Umbridge is "a nasty piece of work.".
 * Novelist Stephen King, writing as a book reviewer for the July 11, 2003 Entertainment Weekly, ||251753|0_0_,00.html noted the success of any novel due to a great villain, with Umbridge the "greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter."
 * Umbridge may be related to Death Eater Selwyn, as she claimed in Deathly Hallows that she was related to the Selwyn family, though this may have been a lie to "bolster her own pure-blood credentials".
 * In the movie adaptation of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge is portrayed by English actress Imelda Staunton.
 * It remains to be seen whether Imelda Staunton will reprise her role as Umbridge in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows film adaption or if the character will even appear at all.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Notes and references
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