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Chapter Twenty-Six: The Inquisitorial Squad

(Before I begin I thought I should say the last time I read all 7 books all the way through was 2017, so when I started this series in 2019 it was all still fresh in my mind, and for each chapter I read one or two chapters of the canon version to make sure I'm not missing anything. However the further this went along the longer it has been since I have fully read books 5, 6, and 7, as in it has been nearly 6 years, but in those six years I have watched all 8 films numerous times, so starting with book 4 I started thinking thing that only happened in the movies also happened in the books. Because of all this I thought the Inquisitorial Squad was introduced in November at the earliest, Valentines day at the latest, and had many ideas planed out for conflict between D.A. Slytherins and I.S. Slytherins, but after writing chapter after chapter of them not appearing I finally looked it up and learned they aren't introduced until AFTER Dumbledore is gone and the D.A. has been caught, I had to change that. So I know I try to be as book compliant as possible, but when it comes to the I.S. I hope you excuse the more film leaning content.

Now please enjoy this chapter.)

Harry’s question was answered the very next morning. When Colin’s Daily Prophet arrived, he and Theodore only gazed at the front cover for a moment before Theodore gave a yelp that caused everyone in the vicinity to stare at him.

‘What?’ said Harry, Allison, Tracey, and Terence simultaneously.

For an answer Colin and Theodore spread the newspaper on the table in front of them and pointed at ten black-and-white photographs that filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards’ faces and the tenth, a witch’s. Some of the people in the photographs were silently jeering; others were tapping their fingers on the frame of their pictures, looking insolent. Each picture was captioned with a name and the crime for which the person had been sent to Azkaban.

“Antonin Dolohov,” read the legend beneath a wizard with a long, pale, twisted face who was sneering up at Harry, “convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett,” which Harry knew were Mrs Weasley's brothers.

“Augustus Rookwood,” said the caption beneath a pockmarked man with greasy hair who was leaning against the edge of his picture, looking bored, “convicted of leaking Ministry of Magic Secrets to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

But Harry’s eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. Her face had leapt out at him the moment he had seen the page. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture, though he had seen it sleek, thick, and shining. She glared up at him through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. Like Sirius and Andromeda, she retained vestiges of great good looks, but something—perhaps Azkaban—had taken most of her beauty. “Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom.”

Theodore nudged Harry and pointed at the headline over the pictures, which Harry, concentrating on Bellatrix, had not yet read.

"MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN MINISTRY FEARS NOTT IS 'RALLYING POINT' FOR OLD DEATH EATERS"

'They think its your father?' said Harry loudly. 'Not—?'

'Quite!' whispered Theodore desperately. 'Don't draw attention to us—just read it!'

"The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban.

Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening, and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.

'We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Peter Pettigrew escaped,'” said Fudge last night. 'However with Pettigrew's death in the spring of 1994, we have another prime suspect. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Morgan Nott, a Death Eater whose been avoiding authorities for nearly three years, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Nott’s old classmate, Antonin Dolohov, have rallied around Nott as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals and beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached.'"

'I don’t believe this,' said Harry in shock, 'Fudge is blaming the breakout on your father?'

Theodore looked pale, and taking a quick glance around the great hall Harry could see why. Just about everyone that knew Theodore's last name were sneaking nervous looks at him. They probably now saw Theodore as the relative of a man who just made the world ten times more dangerous, and being a Slytherin wasn't going to help. Harry was just greatful that everyone that actually mattered knew Theodore was nothing like his father.

Tracey tried to move the conversation away from Theodore's heritage, 'Fudge is committed to making sure the public still thinks You-Know-Who isn't back, so he'll say anything to try and preserve his lie, no matter how stupid.'

'Its getting dangerous though,' chimed Allison. 'The more the world is misinformed of who the threat is, the less prepared they'll be when attacks actually start to happen.'

Theodore borrowed the newspaper for his full use and began to read the report inside while Harry continued to look around the Great Hall. Some were still looking at Theodore menacingly, but Harry could not understand why his fellow students were not looking scared or at least discussing the terrible piece of news on the front page, but very few of them got the newspaper every day like Colin did. There they all were, talking about homework and Quidditch and who knew what other rubbish, and outside these walls ten more Death Eaters had swollen Voldemort’s ranks...

He glanced up at the staff table. It was a different story here:

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were deep in conversation, both looking extremely grave. Professor Sprout had the Prophet propped against a bottle of ketchup and was reading the front page with such concentration that she was not noticing the gentle drip of egg yolk falling into her lap from her stationary spoon. Meanwhile, at the far end of the table, Professor Umbridge was tucking into a bowl of porridge. For once her pouchy toad’s eyes were not sweeping the Great Hall looking for misbehaving students. She scowled as she gulped down her food and every now and then she shot a malevolent glance up the table to where Dumbledore and McGonagall were talking so intently.

‘Oh no, I can’t believe it—‘ said Theodore wonderingly, still staring at the newspaper.

‘What now?’ said Harry quickly; he was feeling jumpy.

‘I don’t have words...it’s terrible,’ said Theodore, looking shaken. He folded back page ten of the newspaper and spread it out for the whole group to see.

“TRAGIC DEMISE OF MINISTRY OF MAGIC WORKER

St. Mungo’s Hospital promised a full inquiry last night after Ministry of Magic worker Broderick Bode, 49, was discovered dead in his bed, strangled by a potted-plant.

Healers called to the scene were unable to revive Mr Bode, who had been injured in a workplace accident some weeks prior to his death. Healer Miriam Strout, who was in charge of Mr Bode’s ward at the time of the incident, has been suspended on full pay and was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokeswizard for the hospital said in a statement, ‘St. Mungo’s deeply regrets the death of Mr Bode, whose health was improving steadily prior to this tragic accident.’

‘We have strict guidelines on the decorations permitted on our wards but it appears that Healer Strout, busy over the Christmas period, overlooked the dangers of the plant on Mr Bode’s bedside table. As his speech and mobility improved, Healer Strout encouraged Mr Bode to look after the plant himself, unaware that it was not an innocent Flitterbloom, but a cutting of Devil’s Snare, which, when touched by the convalescent Mr Bode, throttled him instantly.’

St. Mungo’s is as yet unable to account for the presence of the plant on the ward and asks any witch or wizard with information to come forward.”

‘Bode...’ said Harry. ‘Bode. It rings a bell...’

‘That’s because we saw him, Harry,’ Theodore whispered. ‘When Lockhart invites us for a visit, Mr Bode was the man in the bed opposite to Lockhart’s, he was the one just lying there, staring at the ceiling. We even watched the Devil’s Snare arrive. Strout—the Healer—she had said it was a Christmas present...’

Harry looked back at the story. A feeling of horror was rising like bile in his throat.

‘How come we didn’t recognize Devil’s Snare..? We’ve seen it before...we could’ve stopped this from happening...’

Colin took his boyfriends hand in his but looked at both Theodore and Harry as he spoke.

‘Neither of you guys could have known, it’s not your fault, so don’t blame yourselves for even a second. It says in here it looked just like a regular plant. Whoever sent it is the one to blame, not either of you.’

‘What jerk gifts someone Devil’s Snare?’ said Tracey in disbelief.

‘Tracey, no offence, but this was no gift,’ said Allison, quite stone faced. ‘This was one of the most deadly plants in the magical world made to look harmless. It was also sent to a Ministry worker who had already barely survived an “accident”. This was murder. Someone learned not only had he survived but was recovering and wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.’

‘Bloody hell, and I’m guessing it was gifted anonymously or with a false name,’ said Theodore. ‘The aurors are going to find it near impossible to find who’s responsible.’

Harry was not thinking about Devil’s Snare. He was remembering taking the lift down to the ninth level of the Ministry on the day of his hearing, and the sallow-faced man who had got in on the Atrium level.

‘I met Bode,’ he said slowly. ‘I saw him at the Ministry with Mr Weasley...’

Tracey’s eye’s lit up for a moment, ‘Now that you mention it Harry, I think my mother has mentioned Mr Bode once or twice. I believe he was an Unspeakable, so he probably worked in the Department of Mysteries. This can’t be a coincidence.’

They looked at one another for a moment, Theodore eventually gave Colin his newspaper back, but then Allison suddenly stood up despite not having finished her breakfast. She looked serious and determined.

‘Where are you going?’ said Harry, startled.

‘I need to send an owl or two,’ said Allison, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. ‘It might not work so I am not going to get any of your hopes up...I’ll see you all in class...’

‘Hopes up or not,’ said Tracey, ‘I wish she would tell us.’

They finished eating, Colin and Terence went their separate ways, while Harry, Tracey, and Theodore started making their way towards the Great Hall exit.

‘Morning Hagrid, how are you?’ said Tracey.

Hagrid was standing beside the doors into the entrance hall, waiting for a crowd of Ravenclaws to pass. He was still as heavily bruised as he had been on the day he had come back from his mission to the giants and there was a new cut right across the bridge of his nose.

‘All righ’, you three?’ he said, trying to muster a smile but managing only a kind of pained grimace.

‘Are you okay, Hagrid?’ asked Harry, following him as he lumbered after the Ravenclaws.

‘Fine, fine,’ said Hagrid with a feeble assumption of airiness; he waved a hand and narrowly missed concussing a frightened-looking Professor Vector, who was passing. ‘Jus’ busy, yeh know, usual stuff—lessons ter prepare—couple o’ salamanders got scale rot—an’ I’m on probation,’ he mumbled.

‘You’re on probation?’ said Tracey very loudly, so that many students passing looked around curiously. ‘Sorry—er—so you’re on probation?’ she whispered.

‘Yeah,’ said Hagrid. ‘’S’no more’n I expected, ter tell yeh the truth. Yeh migh’ not’ve picked up on it, bu’ that inspection didn’ go too well, yeh know...anyway,’ he sighed deeply. ‘Bes’ go an rub a bit more chili powder on them salamanders or their tails’ll be hangin’ off ’em next. See yeh, Harry...Tracey...Theodore...’

He trudged away, out the front doors and down the stone steps into the damp grounds. Harry watched him go, wondering how much more bad news he could stand.

The fact that Hagrid was now on probation became common knowledge within the school over the next few days, but to Harry’s indignation, hardly anybody appeared to be upset about it; indeed, some people, Draco Malfoy prominent among them, seemed positively gleeful. As for the freakish death of an obscure Department of Mysteries employee in St. Mungo’s, Harry and his friends seemed to be the only people who knew or cared.

There was only one topic of conversation in the corridors now: the ten escaped Death Eaters, whose story had finally filtered through the school from those few people who read the newspapers. Rumors were flying that some of the convicts had been spotted in Hogsmeade, that they were supposed to be hiding out in the Shrieking Shack and that they were going to break into Hogwarts, just as Peter Pettigrew had done.

Those who came from Wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these Death Eaters spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemort’s; the crimes they had committed during the days of Voldemort’s reign of terror were legendary. There were relatives of their victims among the Hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors: his old friend Susan Bones, who had her parents, an uncle, aunt, and cousins all died at the hands of one of the ten, said miserably during History of Magic that she now had a good idea what it felt like to be Harry.

‘And I don’t know how you stand it, it’s horrible,’ she said bluntly. It was true that Susan had lost more people to the war than Harry had, and yet up until now she had never once been treated differently than any other student at Hogwarts.

And yet despite some of the attention being diverted, Harry was the subject of much renewed muttering and pointing in the corridors these days, yet he thought he detected a slight difference in the tone of the whisperers’ voices. They sounded curious rather than hostile now, and once or twice he was sure he overheard snatches of conversation that suggested that the speakers were not satisfied with the Prophet’s version of how and why ten Death Eaters had managed to break out of Azkaban fortress. In their confusion and fear, these doubters now seemed to be turning to the only other explanation available to them, the one that Harry and Dumbledore had been expounding since the previous year.

It was not only the students’ mood that had changed. It was now quite common to come across two or three teachers conversing in low, urgent whispers in the corridors, breaking off their conversations the moment they saw students approaching.

‘I think it’s because the staff room isn’t safe for them now,’ said Tracey in a low voice, as she, Harry, Allison, and Theodore passed Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout huddled together outside the Charms classroom one day. ‘Not with Umbridge there.’

‘Do you think they have information Sirius hasn’t gotten to tell us yet?’ said Theodore, looking back at the three teachers for a moment longer.

‘If they do, we’re not going to hear about it, are we?’ said Harry angrily. ‘Not after Decree...What number are we on now?’

For a new sign had appeared on the house notice board the morning after news of the Azkaban breakout:

“—by order of—

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts

Teachers are hereby banned from giving students any information that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-six.

Signed:

high inquisitor Dolores Umbridge”

This latest decree had been the subject of a great number of jokes among the students. The Weasley twin’s friend Lee Jordan had pointed out to Umbridge that by the terms of the new rule she was not allowed to tell Fred and George off for playing Exploding Snap in the back of the class.

‘Exploding Snap’s got nothing to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor! That’s not information relating to your subject!’

When Harry next saw Lee, the back of his hand was bleeding rather badly. Harry recommended essence of murtlap.

Harry had thought that the breakout from Azkaban might have humbled Umbridge a little, that she might have been abashed at the catastrophe that had occurred right under her beloved Fudge’s nose. It seemed, however, to have only intensified her furious desire to bring every aspect of life at Hogwarts under her personal control. She seemed determined at the very least to achieve a sacking before long, and the only question was whether it would be Professor Trelawney or Hagrid who went first.

Every single Divination and Care of Magical Creatures lesson was now conducted in the presence of Umbridge and her clipboard. She lurked by the fire in the heavily perfumed tower room, interrupting Professor Trelawney’s increasingly hysterical talks with difficult questions about Ornithomancy and Heptomology, insisting that she predict students’ answers before they gave them and demanding that she demonstrate her skill at the crystal ball, the tea leaves, and the rune stones in turn. Harry thought that Professor Trelawney might soon crack under the strain; several times he passed her in the corridors (in itself a very unusual occurrence as she generally remained in her tower room), muttering wildly to herself, wringing her hands, and shooting terrified glances over her shoulder, all the time giving off a powerful smell of cooking sherry. If he had not been so worried about Hagrid, he would have felt sorry for her—but if one of them was to be ousted out of a job, there could be only one choice for Harry as to who should remain.

Unfortunately, Harry could not see that Hagrid was putting up a better show than Trelawney. Though he seemed to be following Theodore and Canini’s advice and had shown them nothing more frightening than a crup, a creature indistinguishable from a Jack Russell terrier except for its forked tail, since before Christmas, he also seemed to have lost his nerve. He was oddly distracted and jumpy in lessons, losing the thread of what he was saying while talking to the class, answering questions wrongly and glancing anxiously at Umbridge all the time. He was also more distant with Harry, and his friends than he had ever been before, expressly forbidding them to visit him after dark.

'If she catches yeh, it’ll be all of our necks on the line,' he told them flatly, and with no desire to do anything that jeopardized his job further, they abstained from walking down to his hut in the evenings.

It seemed to Harry that Umbridge was steadily depriving him of everything that made his life at Hogwarts worth living: visits to Hagrid’s house, letters from Sirius, his Firebolt, and Quidditch. He took his revenge the only way he had: redoubling his efforts for the D.A.

Harry was pleased to see that all of them, even Zacharias Smith, had been spurred to work harder than ever by the news that ten more Death Eaters were now on the loose, a pleasant landmark in Harry's hard work paying off was when the very first successful Patronus Charm was cast, unsurprisingly by Tracey. For about a minute she was able to produce a silvery Monarch Butterfly that fluttered around her and the room.

However not even Tracey was improving more pronouncedly than Neville. The news of his parents’ attacker’s escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him. He had not once mentioned his meeting with Harry, Theodore, and Canini on the closed ward in St. Mungo’s, and taking their lead from him, they had kept quiet about it too. Nor had he said anything on the subject of Bellatrix and her fellow torturers’ escape; in fact, he barely spoke during D.A. meetings anymore, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and countercurse Harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents, working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only Tracey and Hermione Granger mastered the charm faster than Neville.

In fact Harry would have given a great deal to be making as much progress at Occlumency as Neville was making during D.A. meetings. Harry’s sessions with Snape, which had started badly enough, were not improving; on the contrary, Harry felt he was getting worse with every lesson.

Before he had started studying Occlumency, his scar had prickled occasionally, usually during the night, or else following one of those strange flashes of Voldemort’s thoughts or moods that he experienced every now and then. Nowadays, however, his scar hardly ever stopped prickling, and he often felt lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness that were unrelated to what was happening to him at the time, which were always accompanied by a particularly painful twinge from his scar. He had the horrible impression that he was slowly turning into a kind of aerial that was tuned in to tiny fluctuations in Voldemort’s mood, and he was sure he could date this increased sensitivity firmly from his first Occlumency lesson with Snape. What was more, he was now dreaming about walking down the corridor toward the entrance to the Department of Mysteries almost every night, dreams that always culminated in him standing longingly in front of the plain black door.

'Perhaps it is similar to working out to gain strength?' said Allison, looking concerned when Harry confided in her and the others. 'How you get very sore, or even tare a muscle before you can get strong.'

'Maybe, but it’s lessons with Snape that are making it worse, and I don't feel any stronger yet,' said Harry flatly. 'I’m getting sick of my scar hurting, and I’m getting bored walking down that corridor every night.' He rubbed his forehead angrily. 'I just wish the door would open, I’m sick of standing staring at it—'

'Harry...that isn't good,' said Tracey sharply. 'Dreaming about that hall and door was why Dumbledore asked Snape to give you those lesson in the first place. You have to truly try to master this skill.’

‘I am trying!’ said Harry, nettled. ‘You attempt to do Occlumency sometime, Snape trying to get inside your head, it’s not a bundle of laughs, you know!’

‘Perhaps...’ said Theodore in a depressed voice.

‘Perhaps what?’ said Allison curiously.

‘Well, perhaps there is a reason Harry isn’t making much progress in his lessons,’ said Theodore down heartedly, and Harry suspected where this was going. ‘What is Professor Snape purposely not teaching Harry correctly so that his mind stays vulnerable to You-Know-Who, maybe even making him more vulnerable than he was before?’

Theodore had always looked up to Snape, he respected him, he had before his father abandoned him, and almost more so afterwards. When he learned however over a years ago that Snape had also been a Death Eater just like his father, Theodore felt betrayed, similar to how he felt about his father. Since then Harry thought Theodore had slowly regained his trust in Snape after learning he was apart of the Order of the Phoenix, and perhaps he had somewhat, but it was clear now that some of that animosity was still there.

‘You’re wrong,’ said Tracey, a little irritated. ‘Dumbledore trusts Snape and entrusted this task to him. We’ve been wrong about not trusting Snape so many times before, it would be silly to go down that spiral once more.’

‘She is right,’ said Allison stoically, ‘If we can not trust Dumbledore’s decisions, then we are truest lost.’

With so much to worry about and so much to do—startling amounts of homework that frequently kept the fifth years working until past midnight, secret D.A. meetings, and regular classes with Snape—it was the end of January before anyone had realized. On its final day came a new decree.

“—by order of—

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts

Those wishing to join the Inquisitorial Squad for extra credit may sign up in the High Inquisitor's office.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven.

Signed:

high inquisitor Dolores Umbridge”

They didn’t understand what this meant when they first saw the new decree, but at their next Charms class it soon became quite clear.

The new charm they were learning was the Growth Charm, and it was rather tricky. Most were standing and practicing on small foot stools Flitwick had brought out, but Pansy and her gang were sitting in their chairs from the lecture, hardly practicing at all.

Then suddenly Ravenclaw Terry Boot, whose wand hand had been shaking slightly from nerves, accidentally missed his stool and his spell hit the chair Goyle was sitting on. The charm was successful however as the chair grew more than three times its normal size, and putting Goyle so high he nearly hit his head on the ceiling.

As Goyle slowly tried to descend from his chair, Pansy, Blaise, and Crabbe quickly surrounded Terry. Probably wanting to defend her second cousin, Allison was by Terry’s side in an instant, and sensing a potential fight coming Harry and his friends joined her.

‘Boot, Boot, Boot,’ said Pansy in a voice that pretended to be disappointed, but in reality she was smiling maniacally from ear to ear. ‘You nearly got someone killed. I’m going to have to take some points away from Ravenclaw.’

‘You’re being fooling Pansy,’ said to Terry’s defense, ‘you may be a Prefect, but only professors can dock House points.

‘Well it’s a good thing I’m not just a Prefect anymore,’ she said while tapping a tiny silver “I” upon her robes just beneath her prefect’s badge, and the rest of her gang included Goyle who had managed to get back to the ground all pointed at an identical badge they each had.

‘What even is that?’ asked Allison, quite annoyed.

‘It’s the badge of the Inquisitorial Squad,’ said Draco Malfoy, who had just half heartedly walked up to join the conversation. ‘And she is correct that members can take away points.’

‘And I’m their leader,’ said Pansy with pride. ‘Well, besides Umbridge. Anyway, I’ll be deducting five points from you Terry for what you did to Goyle.’

‘But I just missed my target, I’m sorry,’ pleaded Terry, ‘it’s not like anyone got hurt’

‘But you could have, another couple meters and he’d be squished on the ceiling. You aren’t very empathic to what you almost did,’ chimed in Blaise.

‘So yes, that’s five points, and I think another five points for questioning me, Boot,’ said Pansy while laughing and her and her group walked away.

‘Next time I’m going to hit her with the Fire-Making Charm,’ muttered Terry, pulling out his wand ‘and it won’t be an accident.’

But Allison grabbed his arm, ‘Just don’t, she’s not worth it.’

They soon learned that anyone could apply to be a member of the Inquisitorial Squad, but Umbridge was only letting the meanest and most bigoted Slytherins join their ranks. Besides Pansy and her squad and Malfoy, there were older students like Graham Montague, Cassius Warrington, and to Harry’s surprise many younger Slytherins like the duelist William Harper, Mafalda Prewett, Uchi Akimbo, Thomas McGruder, Agnes Monkleigh, blood purist Timothy Morcott, Zoe Accrington, Maxwell Lazenby, Selina Moore.

They targeted almost always Houses other than their own, and nearly entirely students who were half-blood, muggleborn, or had any non human ancestry. Poor Canini walked around like a nervous wreck always worrying one of its members would learn her secret.

The bad new kept pouring in as one lunch Terence broke some frustrating news at supper on Friday.

‘Adrian had been doing so well on the team, he was getting along well with most of the members and because he had been training on his own for years I was sure he was going to do great at our next match at the end of the month, but earlier today Warrington cornered me a said I should replace Adrian with that thug Graham Montague.’

‘You told him no, right?’ questioned Harry.

‘Oh I laughed loudly in his face—‘ this got a short giggle out of Tracey. However Terence’s then went quite serious. ‘—But he then implied if I didn’t replace Adrian with Montague that he would get Umbridge to kick me off the team and make him Captain.’

‘What did you say,’ Allison asked quietly.

‘At first I was going to say go ahead and kick me off and that I didn’t want to be on a team with three Inquisitorial Squad members, but I then realized if Warrington really did become Captain he would likely replace you, Scarlett, and Niall, so the team would end up being worse then it was while under Flint. I wasn’t going to let that happen so I reluctantly agreed,’ Terence’s head drooped in defeat.

Harry put a hand on his friends back and gave it a pat, ‘You did what you thought was right. At least this way you can try to impede Warrington and Montague’s harassment of other teams.’

Terence looked even more miserable though after Harry said that, ‘It’s not even just those two that are bullying the other teams. Even though he quit at the being of the year, I just learned that Miles has joined the Inquisitorial Squad. I knew he was a bit of a jerk but I never thought he was this bad. He’ll likely be joining Montague and Warrington on their quest to make everyone’s lives miserable.’

As though saying there names had summoned them, Cassius Warrington and Graham Montague has been walking up the isle along the Slytherin table, and when Warrington’s eyes caught sight of Theodore and Colin eating together, Harry knew that something bad was about to happen.

‘Hey Nott,’ said Montage as he and Warrington toward over Theodore, who rolled his eyes and reluctantly turned around to face them, ‘Are you happy your father has ten new friends to come and rescue you?’

‘Ignore them,’ Harry heard Colin whisper as a warning.

‘I plan too,’ Theodore quietly responded.

‘Or are you worried he might actually want to kill you after willingly spending all your time with the pathetic Harry Potter,’ continued Montague.

It was clear to Cassius though that this wasn’t working so he decided to change tactics.

‘It is a shame that a Pureblooded Slytherin like yourself Nott, with such powerful heritage, isn’t a part of the great Inquisitorial Squad—‘ said Warrington vilely.

Colin got to his feet and stood in Warrington’s way, although Collin had grown quite a lot since Harry first met in several years ago, he still was almost a head shorter than the older teen standing in front of him.

‘Leave him alone,’ said Colin, trying to sound as tough as possible.

‘—We’d ask Umbridge to let you join, but we don’t want someone who thinks a poor grimy mousey mudblood is worth snogging’ and to finish his statement he shoved Colin, who didn’t fall, but had to take several wobbly steps backwards to regain his balance. This act caused a lot students in the surrounding area to laugh, but none laughed as hard as Cassius Warrington.

Harry didn’t even witness Theodore stand up, but the next thing he knew Theodore had punched Warrington in the gut, who collapsed to his knees clutching his stomach. Theodore had started primal yelling at the downed bully, and looked like he was about to kick him but by this point Harry, Tracey, Allison, and Terence had all jumped to there feet and were trying there best to hold their friend back.

It only took a moment of them all holding him for Theodore to start calming down, they were even one by one letting him go, when they heard a frantic warning from Colin from behind them.

‘Look ou—‘

'Flipendo!' yelled a familiar high pitched voice. With a loud bang and a flash of white light Harry, Theodore, Tracey, Allison, and Terence all got knocked back and fell onto the ground hard.

Harry was a little disoriented, but even with his head still spinning he knew it was Umbridge who had cast the jinx.

'I have never seen such violence in these halls! Detention Mr Nott! A weeks worth!' she said furiously, then forcibly calmed herself and turned to Warrington. 'Come Cassius, lets get you to Madam Pomfrey.'

Harry wanted to protest that Warrington had started it by shoving Colin, but he knew Umbridge wouldn't care. Instead as the evil bat walked away Harry helped Theodore and Tracey to their feet. After quickly thanking Harry, Theodore went to his boyfriend who was rubbing his chest where Warrington had shoved him.

'Are you hurt?'

'No, so you shouldn't have done that,' Colin said while trying to sound mad, but his face kept showing he was impressed. 'Now Umbridge is going to torture you with that pen of hers.'

'Don't worry about me, I'll manage,' said Theodore, and a smile came over his face. 'It was worth it to defend you and to finally show those cowardly bullies what a true Slytherin is.'

Theodore may have felt his actions were justified, but Harry could help fear that conflicts like this within their own Hogwarts House were only going to get worse.

Broderick Bode

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