I Must Not Tell Lies

"I think it rather a good thing that you are missing something you really want to do." ...

He let out a gasp of pain. ...

She was watching him, her wide, toadlike mouth stretched in a smile.

"This woman's a monster," thought Harry. Abuse he had known--from his aunt and uncle, from his cousin. He'd met the most dangerous Dark wizard of the age and fought him. But a smile like Umbridge's he'd never seen.

"I must not tell lies." You must not tell lies, thought Harry--I was telling the truth.

"I must not tell lies." The blood was smearing on the page under his hand. The pain was beginning to annoy him.

"I must not tell lies." What was that sound--whistling? Yeah, it was. Harry looked up at Umbridge. She was straightening the pictures on the wall of her office. She was doing it by hand, Harry noted, and he saw that her wand was sticking out of her handbag on her desk. He gawped for a full minute before she realized he was staring at her.

"Your lines, Mr. Potter!" she said, the false sweetness gone from her voice.

He took a deep breath. "No, no lines."

"That is not a tone in which to ask for mercy, Mr. Potter."

"I'm not asking for anything." Harry stood up and carefully crossed his arms--carefully in that his throbbing right hand was not so firmly held in place as it might have been.

Umbridge's hands went to her hips. "Mr. Potter, you are already in detention, are you trying to get yourself expelled?"

Harry turned around and moved back toward the table. Even with Umbridge, this was the only home he'd ever really known. He had to control his temper.

"Much better, Mr. Potter," said Umbridge with a laugh. "So we'll only make it fifty points from Gryffindor." She turned back to her pictures.

The next thing Harry said, he said very softly as he turned to face her again: "Petrificus totalus!" Umbridge fell backwards. The gloating expression hadn't left her face--she hadn't heard what he was doing--but there was terror in her eyes.

"Professor Umbridge, listen to me. I know more about fighting evil than you ever will. It seems to be my job, for some reason--I don't have any choice about it, for some reason, evil just keeps finding me, and I have to fight it.

"Voldemort did come back at the end of last year, and you did get one thing right: I must not tell lies--not about that. I don't.

"But I will give you one free lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts: Never leave your wand six feet away from you while your enemy has his. If you want to learn more, ask Hermione--she knows more than you do, too." He smiled and added, in a much lighter voice, "Finite incantatem."

Umbridge got up. Her voice bristling with rage, she threatened again to expel Harry. But he only laughed. "I'm 15. You were trying to provoke me. You knew I was mad--you wanted me to be. And you just said I should control myself better. I can see the look on Snape's face now. You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. If you knew what you were doing, I'd have been the one on the floor! Just remember: I'm walking out of here laughing because you don't have a clue how to fight. You're still standing because I'm not the sort of person to kill you. So since you're as bad at teaching as you are at fighting, I'll warn you: Don't try to break a student like me--he might become just that sort of person. And I don't want to."

Umbridge approached her desk. "You want your wand? You'll need it." She froze. Harry raised his wand over his head.

"Accio Bludger!" he said, and then left, locking the door behind him.