Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Forty-Five

They came for her at half-past seven the following evening. She was huddled in a corner, fortified against the encroaching cold with her winter robes and a mug of hot cocoa. Her Arithmancy book was open on her lap, and her quill was poised to make a notation in the cramped margin when the portrait swung open and Madam Toad and Dawlish glided inside. The former was wearing her customary saccharine smile, her stubby fingers curled possessively around her ubiquitous clipboard. She made a beeline for Rebecca. Dawlish hovered in her wake like a terrified fly, careful not to draw too near, lest she open her broad, amphibious mouth and swallow him without a second thought.

"Good evening, Rebecca," trilled Umbridge, and she bent so that her protuberant eyes were level with hers.

Rebecca blinked once, then twice. "Miss Umbridge, ma'am," she said slowly, and extended a cold, splay-fingered hand.

Umbridge's smile faltered for the briefest instant, and behind her bland, polite gaze, Rebecca leered in vicious satisfaction. So the old crone still remembered the feel of slick spittle on her fingers, did she? Good. Very good. The more uncomfortable she was, the better. She reached for her cocoa and took a long, indecorous, slurping sip while she waited for the woman to speak.

Umbridge's lips puckered in a reflexive moue of disgust. "Yes, dear, good to see you," she murmured faintly, and ignored the outstretched hand. "Do you mind if I sit? I thought we might chat." She gestured airily to the overstuffed chair opposite Rebecca and seated herself without waiting for a response. "Now then," she said briskly, and gazed at her in pleasant expectancy.

Rebecca gazed sedately back at her, her fingers tracing lazy, palsied figure eights over the pages of her Arithmancy book. If the old windbag thought she was going to fall for the tried and dismal motherly confidante routine, she was an idiot of the first order, and she was in for a very long night. She was young, not stupid, and she had already seen what lay behind her mask of solicitous concern. The bigoted old cow had refused to shake her hand for fear it was contaminated with an insidious diseases that devoured sinew and warped bone and left in its wake a helpless wastrel fit only for the charity and pity of her betters. Even the most bovine could but interpret that gesture one way, and it was not an interpretation that lent itself to confidence.

Umbridge cleared her throat. "What are you studying, child?" She craned her pudgy neck and peered at the book on her lap.

Rebecca counted to ten before she answered, and all the while, her fingers continued their languid ballet over the grain of secret and potent magic. "Arithmancy." Pirouette and serpentine slither.

"Oh?" A strained, rubber-lipped smile from Madam Toad. "How fascinating. Do you enjoy it?"

Another sip of hot cocoa. "Yes, ma'am."

Another protracted, awkward silence. "Splendid, splendid," Umbridge said diffidently. Her fingers drummed on the lumpy arm of the Common Room chair. Her pained smile broadened in conspiratorial invitation. Tell me your secrets. You can trust your Auntie Umbridge. Pay no mind to the hands so industriously fashioning your Potions Master's noose.

Rebecca returned the smile. Like hell, you transparent bitch.

Umbridge's smile was predatory now. "That's right, dear. No need to be nervous. I'm only here to listen." She uttered a tinkling, disconcertingly girlish falsetto giggle.

Rebecca's brow furrowed in ponderous concentration. "You mean, like a friend?"

Umbridge nodded, and her eyes flickered with malevolent triumph. "Exactly."

Rebecca brightened. "Oh! I'd like that. The boys are nice enough, you know, but sometimes-," she leaned forward in her chair until the cover of her Arithmancy book dug painfully into her stomach, "it's nice to have a female perspective."

"Of course it is, dear," cooed Umbridge, "and that's what I'm here for."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. You can tell me the things you wouldn't dare tell anyone else."

A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Well, there is one thing," she said earnestly.

"Yes?"

"Well, it's, you see-," she stammered, and her cheeks blushed rose.

"Come, come, child! Don't be afraid." Madam Toad was all but frothing in her impatience to wrest the secret from reticent lips, and in her haste, she had forgotten to inflect her words with the dulcet ring of maternal cajoling. It was greedy, eager, cold, a spider coaxing a wary fly to take the first, lethal step onto its ensnaring gossamer web.

"Well, all right." She cupped her hand to the side of her mouth and leaned further forward, until her breath tickled the shell of Madam Toad's ear and her nose was inundated with the dizzying, faintly cloying smell of cheap lavender perfume. This close, she could see her jowls quivering with anticipation. "I think Seamus Finnegan has a fabulous ass," she said, and sat back, a winsome, my-wasn't-that-a-wonderful-secret grin plastered on her face.

There was a thunderstruck silence, broken only by the furtive turning of pages and the sussurating scratch of quills on parchment. Someone-a skittish first-year, perhaps-tittered, piercing in the stillness, and then the leaden silence descended again. Madam Toad's face was an ugly, mottled purple, and her jaw unhinged with an audible creak. She tried to speak, but all that emerged was a queer, gurgling rasp. Her fingers convulsed around the pliant fabric of the chair, and in her eyes, Rebecca could see the Herculean struggle between the desire to bellow in cheated fury and the necessity of continuing the charade. She stared at the spluttering woman in wide-eyed innocence.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

Did you really think I was so naïve, so starved for attention, old woman? I have lived inside a fortress of my own making for as long as I can remember, and I can do so forever if it comes to it. I was bred for solitude and secrecy, designed to thrive in the sequestered regimentation of the institution. I could go a thousand days and never see the light of the sun. And never think to miss it. You'll have to do far, far better than that, and I don't think you can.

"Ma'am?" She shifted in her chair, and her fingers resumed their delicate caress of the pages, back and forth in laconic strokes, the twitching tail of a cat that knows its prey must come to it sooner or later.

Aside from the harsh wheeze of Umbridge's breathing, sound had ceased to exist in the Gryffindor Common Room. Even the omnipresent skitter of Hermione Granger's parchment-devouring quill had stopped. Everyone was watching. Ron Weasley, who had shown interest in nothing save his shoelaces since his best friend's collapse, was goggling at Umbridge with diffuse, bruise-eyed curiosity. Dennis Creevey was peeking surreptitiously over the top of his Transfigurations book, a marmoset that had scented danger on the wind.

Dawlish, who had sunk unobtrusively into the shadows upon arrival, emerged from the gloom, his wand gripped in one hand. He started toward his superior, one hand raised as though to deliver a sharp blow between the shoulder blades. "Do-Miss Umbridge?" he said sharply.

He's back now, Rebecca thought suddenly as she watched the scene through half-lidded eyes. Not the sharpest tack in the drawer, and he never will be, but whatever was wrong with him the other night outside Professor's quarters has passed. No more fugue, no more glazed pupils, no more jerky rictus grin, just mean animal cunning and the complete and unwavering knowledge of where his bread is buttered. Such a stark contrast. He was so strange, so wooden.

Like Pinocchio? interjected her grandfather.

Yes, precisely like that. Almost as if someone else had climbed into the driver's seat for a spell. A marionette guided by a drunkard's hand. As she watched him stride toward Umbridge with the cool precision of a military official, an incredulous suspicion coalesced in her mind.

There were ways of bending a person's will and reshaping a person's mind to serve whatever whim one chose. They were neither just nor legal, but justice and legality had never been a requisite for existence. Killing was not countenanced by the law, and yet it happened every day. Stealing was forbidden, and yet every year, the governments under whose standard they gathered reached into their pockets and took a portion of their daily bread in tribute. So it was not surprising in the least that those who forbad the usurpation of an individual's God-given will demonstrated little compunction in doing so themselves.

Was it possible that Dumbledore, paragon of virtue, champion of free will, had resorted to such underhanded, amoral tactics as molding a man's will like so much potting clay? A sardonic laugh tickled her throat, and she covered it by taking a sip of lukewarm cocoa. Doubtless the sly old man would object; Gryffindors never wore hypocrisy well. If she summoned the courage to broach the subject when next she saw him, he would offer her a sherbet lemon, pat her on the head as though she were an obstreperous puppy, and tell her that he was merely doing what was best for all concerned, but the platitude would not reach his eyes. A game of semantics. As if she cared. Help was help, and if saving the good Professor meant crushing an Auror's self-determination, then so be it.

It wasn't as if the Headmaster was the only one to ever entertain such sordid thoughts. Countless men before him had done the same, and for lesser reasons. Some of the more impatient orderlies in the D.A.I.M.S. hospital ward had employed them against stiff-necked pupil who refused to be herded into the showers or submit to the restraint and the needle. Much easier to strip away the will of a shrieking, struggling cripple than waste time and energy reasoning with them or allaying their not unreasonable fear of the latest therapy du jour. There was no screaming, no kicking and flailing, no bothersome moral quandary, just swish and flick and it was over. The trembling, heretical prophet who had so brazenly espoused the radical doctrine of deciding for themselves when to bathe or whether or not to eat the lime Jello plopped haphazardly onto their cafeteria tray stepped dreamily into the shower or shoveled the jiggling concoction into their mouth without a whimper. No fuss, no muss, and certainly more fiscally responsible, as it saved the hospital budget several thousand dollars per annum in sedatives and disposable syringes. Legality was secondary to convenience and efficiency. It was the American way.

Before she could follow this line of conjecture further, Umbridge took a phlegmatic, gulping breath and spoke, hand pressed between her heaving bosom. "Erm, my, well, that was an illuminating revelation, Rebecca," she managed. "May I call you Rebecca?"

Her tone was light, amused, but Rebecca could sense the festering, flailing fury just beneath the surface. It was in the set of her jaw and the glint in her bulging eyes. Things were clearly not proceeding as she had envisioned, and the desire to pick her up and shake her until the fragile bones of her neck rattled and popped fluttered beneath the pouchy flesh of her face. Rebecca only blinked and smiled.

"Well, dear?" Umbridge persisted, her voice rising.

No. "Of course, ma'am." A lax smile.

"Good, good." Umbridge patted strands of flyaway hair back into place and heaved a sigh. "Well, then." She flashed a stiff, disingenuous smile. "Where were we?"

Rebecca smiled. "I was telling you that I thought Seamus Finnegan had a spectacular ass."

Dawlish, who was returning to the gloom from whence he had sprung, froze and gazed at the top of his superior's head, waiting for the inevitable relapse of speechless frothing.

Umbridge's knuckles whitened on the arms of her chair, and a muscle twitched in her eyelid. "Yes, dear." Kindness was an effort. "I'm flattered by such confidence, really, but I was hoping to discuss matters a trifle more substantial."

Rebecca's face fell. "Oh. All right. But boys are important, aren't they? I mean, we wouldn't be here without them. Unless the nurses were lying about that, too," she mused thoughtfully, scratching her nose with drugged care.

There was another flummoxed silence from her amphibious adversary, and from the corner of her eye, she saw that Dennis Creevey's nose had appeared over the dusty bookboard ridge of his textbook. She bit the inside of her cheek to quash a smirk.

Easy, warned her grandfather. Don't get too smart for your own good. You're treading a fine line between ruse and brazen theatricality, and if she catches on, even for a moment, the jig is up. Slow and simple, girl. You're in a dance for a man's life, not a damn Oscar, and don't you ever forget it.

The smirk withered.

"Now, Rebecca," began Umbridge, and she shifted in her seat. "I was wondering if you'd like to tell me what happened in the owlery yesterday morning." The motherly smile resurfaced, but her protuberant eyes were hard and calculating.

Ah, now we come to it. I thought we might.

She shrugged and scratched her head. "I don't know ma'am. I just went over funny. The next thing I remember, I woke up in the Hospital Wing."

"Funny?" Umbridge pressed. "Funny how?" The smile stretched imperceptibly, and her nostrils flared.

Not funny haha, you dumb twat. One, two, three, one, two, three. She pursed her lips in a show of careful contemplation. "I don't know, ma'am. I got dizzy, and everything went black."

"I see." She tapped her thumb on her clipboard. "What were you doing up there?"

One, two, three. Step. Pivot. Step.

The dance had begun anew, and she was exhilarated and terrified, for they were not gliding gracefully across a gleaming parquet floor, but mincing and prancing across a glistening strand of spider silk, delicate as breath. Each step could be their last, the one that sent them plunging into the abyss beneath their deft feet. Hesitate too long, and she would fall; move too quickly, and the tightrope would become a noose. There was no room for error, and the music beckoned her twitching, blue feet.

She smiled gormlessly at Umbridge and listened to the sibilant, rhythmic hiss of blood in her ears. That smile was maddening, insulting, and she longed to close her eyes and shut it out, but she dared not show weakness, even for a moment. She measured the passing of seconds by the pounding of her heart, and she waited. She had all the time in the world.

The tapping of Umbridge's thumb was a frenzied staccato. "Well?" Crisp. Taut with rapidly fraying nerves.

Rebecca furrowed her brow. "Mmm? Oh, I was visiting my owl." One, lunge, two, three.

"Your owl?" Umbridge repeated.

"Yes, ma'am." She gave a wobbly nod. "Philo. I wanted to see how he was doing. He only has one leg, you know."

That much was true. Philoctetes-Philo, for short-was a one-legged, Trans-Atlantic owl. The shopkeeper in Hogsmeade had tried to dissuade her from buying him, saying he was lame and intractable and quite obviously useless, and offering to show her faster, stronger, younger owls. It had never occurred to him, bless and damn him, that such an unflattering assessment might offend a crippled, surly patron who had been called the same for as long as she could remember, and only when she asked him if he thought her lame and useless did he desist. In the end, his cavalier dismissal of the owl had only served to whet her appetite, and twenty minutes later, she had left the shop with an iron cage containing Philo, who had hooted and puffed his feathers as if to say, So long, asshole.

She smiled at the memory.

"You didn't go there to write a letter?"

She shook her head. "No, ma'am."

The tapping ceased. "Are you certain, dear?"

Behind her relaxed façade, Rebecca's stomach dropped to her knees. Umbridge was far too smug for her comfort; in the flickering firelight, the treacle smile was a lupine leer.

One, two, three. The dance has grown more intricate now, the steps more exact. Round and round we go; where we stop, no one knows. No more lazy minuet. We're in a foxtrot, and the tempo will go faster still by the time the music fades. Will we rumba? Tango? I think so. Before all is said and done, you and I will jitterbug and Charleston until one of us falters, and I promise you that it won't be me.

She nodded. "Yes, ma'am, I am." Step.

"So the quill that was found under your hand wasn't yours?" A belladonna purr.

Her stomach abandoned her knees in favor of the matchstick confines of her ankles. Guilt over her dark contemplations while in the seductive sway of the Story and the opiate addiction of forbidden Arithmancy had clouded many of the details of the incident in the owlery, and she had forgotten about the quill. There was no question of denying ownership or claiming she had found it there. She was, insofar as she knew, the only student at the school who used Dicta-Quills. She took a deep breath and counted to ten before she responded.

"Yes, ma'am, it was." Her jaw throbbed with the effort of keeping her dazed, muddled expression in place.

"But you said you didn't go there to write a letter," Umbridge countered, and her voice held the slightest tinge of irritation.

"Yes, ma'am. And I didn't."

"Then why was the quill under your hand?" She was so eager that she was leaning forward in her chair, and her hands were folded tightly in front of her, opening and closing in eerie approximation of a heartbeat.

She blinked and forced herself to remain silent and still. Haste now would be catastrophic. "I wasn't. I-,"

"She was letting me borrow it, ma'am." Neville's small, nigh-inaudible voice was deafening in the watchful, sepulchral silence of the Common Room.

Thank you, God, for the Gryffindor in Neville Longbottom. If I ever get elected as Grande Dame of Wizarding Britain, I'm throwing him a parade and marching the brass band right down the main thoroughfare. She willed her shoulders not to sag with profound relief.

Umbridge rounded on him, furious that her moment had been snatched away. "And who might you be?" she snarled, and there was nothing sweet about it now. It was the savage, guttural growl of a wolf whose kill had been pried from its jaws. Rebecca flinched.

Neville turned the color of blanched whey, but he put down his Herbology book, rose from the sofa, and folded his hands behind his back. "Neville Longbottom, ma'am," he said quietly, and though his voice quavered, his rounded chin jutted in unconscious defiance. "I was with her in the owlery."

"Were you, indeed?" Umbridge's eyelids drooped speculatively, and she twisted a pewter signet ring on the second finger of her right hand in a laborious circle.

Neville swallowed with an audible gulp and shuffled his feet, but he held his ground, and his gaze did not waver. "Yes, ma'am."

Oh, yes, a parade down the main thoroughfare and an edict declaring that all firstborn sons shall be called Neville. Rebecca shoved her hands into the concealing folds of her robes and crossed her fingers.

"Splendid! Then perhaps you will be able to shed some light on what happened." Umbridge clapped her squat hands together. "Why did she lend you her quill?" she demanded.

Blanched whey was giving way to sun-dried grout. "Because I wanted to write something down before I forgot. I have a dreadful memory, ma'am."

"And she just happened to have a quill?" Umbridge sniffed.

Neville blinked. "Yes. It's good to have one on hand in case you need it." Perspiration beaded on his upper lip and glistened in his hairline. Rebecca added Neville Longbottom Day to the list of decrees to be passed once she was in office.

A toothy, malevolent smile from Umbridge. "Where was your quill, then, since you are so clearly an advocate of preparedness?"

Rebecca wished for the hand of God to strike the woman dead where she sat, but she didn't keel over in a macabre reminder of the power and fury of God. In fact, she rose and took three stumping strides toward Neville.

Neville retreated half a step, but then his face hardened, and he stayed his foot. His hands balled into fists at his side. "I didn't have one. I told you, ma'am, my memory is atrocious. Professor Snape says I'd forget my own head if it weren't screwed on, and he's right. Even my Gran thinks so. She sends me three Remembralls every term, and I manage to lose every blasted one. You can ask her if you like."

He was trembling with fear and his own unprecedented audacity, but his eyes were blazing inside his face, and his shoulders had shrugged off their defeated slump. He was straight and proud, and though the difference was no more than half an inch, Rebecca would have sworn it was a foot.

"Oh, I shall, Mr. Longbottom," Umbridge murmured. She was looming over him, her beefy jowls casting a diseased shadow over him in the dancing firelight. "I'll be speaking with you later, Mr. Longbottom, after I search Miss Stanhope's possessions."

"Search my possessions?" she blurted before prudence could stay her tongue.

"Why, yes," Umbridge murmured, turning her salted sugar leer on Rebecca once more. "You don't mind, do you, dear?"

She made no answer, but she most certainly did mind. Umbridge and her boot-licking toady had no right to paw through her things like so much bric-a-brac, upend her drawers, riffle her rucksack, and sneer at her tatty underwear while Winky cowered in the corner and tugged fretfully on her leathery ears. They were bits of her life, however insignificant, and they had already been inspected and dissected with clinical efficiency. No sordid plot had been uncovered, no nefarious machinations discovered in the thread of her quilt. Everything had been found innocent, and everything was as it had been on the night of the first inspection, down to the crease in her coverlet.

Except for the silver and jade serpent pin stuffed into a pair of socks at the bottom of her trunk.

The Head of House pin entrusted to her by the Headmaster was hidden in a pair of knobbly, iridescent pink socks. The very thought of putting such a precious object into such an ignominious hiding place appalled her, and the guilt still gnawed at her bones, but she had seen no alternative, and she had assuaged her constant, nascent shame by clutching it in her hand in the dark watches of the night, fondling the jade eyes and the tiny, pointed fangs and watching the doubts and terrible suppositions of her heart cavort in the heavy folds of the hangings around her bed. It was her talisman against the nightmares, and she gripped it until her knuckles throbbed and her palm was sticky with sweat. When her eyelids grew heavy with sleep, she slipped it beneath her pillow, and in the morning, it was returned to its woolly nest beneath her bras and socks.

Her palm tingled with the phantom weight of it, and she rubbed it against her robes to quell the sensation.

"No, ma'am," she heard herself say, "I don't mind." Faint and far away.

"No, I thought not," Umbridge said, and she strode to the stairs that led to the girls' dormitory. When Dawlish did not immediately follow suit, she scowled and cleared her throat. "Why are you still standing there, Mr. Dawlish? We have work to do," she said impatiently.

Dawlish started and shook himself, as though he were emerging from a deep fugue. "Mm?" he croaked groggily, and then, more sharply, "Oh, yes, ma'am. Sorry. Afraid I was woolgathering," he muttered, and hurried to join her.

I'll just bet you were, Rebecca thought wryly, but she was too tired and too terrified to dwell on it for long, and her shoulders drooped with an audible pop of tendon. As soon as Umbridge and her faithful, wand-waving crony reached the top of the stairs, all her subterfuge and carefully laid plans would disintegrate like spun sugar. A spike of pain plunged into the base of her spine, and only the surety that she would vomit if she opened her mouth kept her from crying out. The dance was about to come to a grossly premature end.

Umbridge tutted and shot him a scathing glare. "Indeed," she huffed.

She had one foot on the bottommost riser when the portrait hole swung open and the Headmaster entered, seconded by McGonagall.

"Ah, good evening, Miss Stanhope. You're looking much better. Did you have a restful night in the infirmary?" He beamed at her.

She nodded. "Yes, sir." No point in bemoaning the abysmal, concrete slabs that served as infirmary beds at this late date. "Good evening, Professor McGonagall." Come to see for yourself that I haven't been reduced to ash and lamentation? She fought not to roll her eyes.

McGonagall gave a curt nod. "Good evening, Miss Stanhope." Her sharp eyes appraised her, looking, no doubt, for signs of imminent relapse, and finding none, drifted over the other occupants of the room in a silent head count. Her lips thinned when she caught sight of Neville, pale as milk and swaying drunkenly on his feet. "Mr. Longbottom, what in Merlin's name is wrong? Are you ill?" She started forward.

Neville made an incoherent mewling sound, and his eyes darted to the stairs to the girls' dormitory, where Umbridge was still poised like a gone-to-seed sprinter waiting for the strident pop of the starter's gun. Both professors followed his gaze, and McGonagall's eyes narrowed. The Headmaster's genial smile faltered, and he pushed his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose.

"Ah, Dolores," the Headmaster called jovially, "what a surprise to see you here. Were you looking in on young Miss Stanhope as well?" His blue eyes twinkled, but beneath the merriment was the cold glint of calculation. Rebecca could almost see the fine gears of his mind clacking furiously, linking the unseen threads of coincidence and probability. His eyes flickered from Umbridge to Neville to Rebecca to the rest of the Common Room and back again.

"Headmaster Dumbledore." Umbridge removed her foot from the riser, and Rebecca was momentarily dizzy with relief. "How unexpected. Yes, I had come to call on Miss Stanhope. One of the Aurors informed me of her mishap this morning." She turned to Dawlish. "Go along, Mr. Dawlish." Dawlish started up the stairs.

"And where do you think you're going?" McGonagall called shrilly.

"I-we-," Dawlish mumbled, and gestured vaguely at the top of the stairs.

"I thought he might have a look around Miss Stanhope's things," Umbridge offered smoothly, but there was a hint of challenge in her voice.

McGonagall's eyes narrowed even further, as if to say, We'll see about that, and she fisted her hands on the bony jut of her hips. "What on earth for? You've already turned this entire dormitory inside out and found absolutely nothing. Surely you don't think she had anything to do with Potter's collapse?" She fixed Umbridge with a baleful, accusatory stare. Dawlish ventured another hesitant step up the stairs, and she turned her escalating temper on him. "Not another step. Not one." She jabbed a finger at him. "It'll be a sorry day indeed when I countenance a man pawing through a young lady's delicates."

Rebecca bit her tongue against an incredulous howl of laughter. Her underwear had been called many things, but delicate had never been one of them, and the hard evidence of her Head's suspected prudery on the heels of such cloak and dagger tension struck her as surreal.

The Forces of Evil thwarted by the stodgy Victorian mores of my Head of House. She nearly suffocated on another guffaw.

"Really, Dolores, I must agree with Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore said mildly. "The Gryffindor Common Room and dormitories have already been searched most thoroughly, and I see no reason to cause such disquiet and upheaval again. It has proven most upsetting to the Slytherins, who, I'm sure you'll agree, have been through a very trying ordeal in recent weeks."

"I was merely trying to ascertain whether or not Miss Stanhope was inadvertently in possession of something that might bring her harm," Umbridge countered a trifle petulantly. "Perhaps one of her Housemates gave her a toxic plant or a jinxed sweet in a bit of malicious sport. She would hardly know any better, the poor, sheltered dear." The false sweetness in her voice was sickening, and Rebecca's stomach lurched.

Rebecca wished a pox upon her head, but said nothing. It was, after all, exactly what she wanted-needed-the overbearing battleaxe to think. She rolled to Neville and patted him on the back. "Why don't you sit down, Neville? You look a bit peaked."

Neville goggled at her in dull incomprehension for a moment before the fog lifted. He nodded. "Right. I think I will." He tottered to the nearest sofa and sank onto it with a grateful sigh. She followed him and parked herself alongside him.

"The Slytherins," Umbridge continued, and now there was no trace of even feigned sympathy in her voice, "were under the auspices of Snape. That and the heretofore documented propensities of a number of their parents, therefore, makes it reasonable to treat them as suspects."

"While I most appreciate your concern for young Miss Stanhope's well-being, I should think it would have proven more helpful and illuminating had you simply gone to the infirmary and asked to see Madam Pomfrey's account of the affair. She is an excellent Mediwitch and keeps meticulous records. You could have spared yourself and my students a great deal of time and stress, and I'm sure the Ministry is anxious to ensure that their investigation causes no undue distress." Dumbledore paused. "It is entirely possible that Miss Stanhope's blackout was not precipitated by youthful malfeasance. She is undoubtedly unaccustomed to such disruptions to her daily routine." He turned his beneficent gaze on Rebecca.

She bristled at being painted as a fragile wallflower unable to cope with life's unforeseen exigencies, but she knew a prompt when she heard one. "Well, sir," she said, modulating her voice into shamed, reluctant confession, "it has been quite hard for me; I'm far from home, I don't seem to fit in, one of my Housemates has fallen ill, one of my professors is under suspicion, and everywhere I turn, Aurors walk the halls and dissect my every twitch for an ulterior motive. It's daunting."

"There. You see? Nothing sinister about that."

There was an incredulous snort from Seamus, who wisely kept his nose buried in his Defense Against the Dark Arts book, and who thus missed the look of molten indignation McGonagall spared him over the rims of her spectacles. Dumbledore ignored it and continued to gaze at Umbridge with an air of sedate authority.

"No, indeed," he went on almost cheerfully, "I think it a rather understandable reaction, all things considered, and much more plausible than a poisoning or the burden of a dark and terrible secret hidden from governmental authorities, don't you think? "After all, she is hardly the only one in the room to look a trifle worse for wear." As if to prove the point, Neville emitted a silent but very sour belch.

Umbridge merely glared at him.

"As for your assessment of the Slytherins, I'm afraid I cannot agree," he said, and the gently needling merriment was replaced by sudden solemnity. "They are doing their best to find their way, and as such, it is in the best interest of all concerned to treat them no differently than the other Houses."

An incredulous sniff from Umbridge. Nor was she the only one. In his chair beside the hearth, Ron Weasley was nearly apoplectic with disbelief. His eyes bulged from their haggard, puffy sockets, and only Hermione Granger's soothing, restraining hand on his forearm prevented a histrionic verbal essay on Why All Slytherins Are Evil: A Treatise on Vengeful Hysteria in Three Parts, Or, Why There Is a Special Circle of Hell Reserved for Professor Snape. As it was, his clawed fingers were digging divots in the lumpy upholstery of his chair.

Umbridge drew herself up. "Your sentimentality is commendable, Headmaster, if ill-advised," she said stiffly. "I assure you, the Ministry has things well in hand."

"Indeed," the Headmaster responded drily.

"Now, if you don't mind, I shall proceed with the search of Miss Stanhope's belongings."

"I thought we had established that I very much do mind, Dolores," McGonagall spat. "There's no reason for it, and I'll not have you harassing one of my Gryffindors." All civility had been dispatched in favor of ill-concealed contempt.

Rebecca stared at her Head of House. One of my Gryffindors. Inclusion rather than tacit, well-intended exclusion. Not "the cripple" or "the helpless child". Just simple recognition of status. One of my Gryffindors. The phrase echoed inside her head with a divine resonance, and though she still thought the woman an overbearing prude with a nauseating martyr complex, the first diffuse stirrings of respect kindled within her. A prude McGonagall may be, but she was a prude with the untarnished brass to tell Madam Toad to catch the next handcart to Hades.

Gryffindor to the marrow, she thought, and alongside the familiar contempt was a grudging admiration.

"I am well within my rights to search, your objections notwithstanding," Umbridge snapped officiously.

"Indeed," Dumbledore conceded. "However, my objections carry a bit more weight, and I agree with Professor McGonagall. I will not permit an unfounded search."

Umbridge flushed an unbecoming purple. "Of course you do. Why shouldn't you? Everyone knows-," she began.

"Enough." His voice was soft, but the command was as abrupt and decisive as a thunderclap. Slouching students straightened in their chairs, eyes widening and fingers clutching textbooks their minds had long since forsaken, antelopes scenting blood on the wind.

Umbridge must have sensed it, too, because her face softened, and she raised her plump hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Forgive me, Headmaster. I did not mean to speak out of turn. I am tired," she simpered, and offered him an ingratiating smile. The Headmaster appeared unimpressed. "You do understand that I will be going to Cornelius with this matter?"

"Quite. But until the Minister informs me otherwise, Miss Stanhope and the other students-including those of Slytherin House-are to be left alone. Is that clear?"

Umbridge's expression soured. "Exceptionally, Headmaster Dumbledore," she muttered. She spared Dawlish a surly, put-upon glower as she turned toward the entrance to the Common Room. "You will be hearing from the office of the Minister shortly," she told Dumbledore as she stalked away.

"Of that I have no doubt," he said, almost too low to be heard. He watched her until she disappeared from view and the portrait swung shut behind her. He stood for a moment, his lips pursed in pensive contemplation, and then he and said, "Are you all right, Miss Stanhope?"

She started. "Oh, yes, sir. Forgive me. I was lost in thought." She ran her fingers through her hair and stole a furtive glance at the portrait hole. Her escape had been a narrow one.

As though he could read her thoughts, he offered her a wan smile. "I'm afraid Miss Umbridge will make good on her promise to go to the Minister, which means that a search is inevitable. I trust you have nothing that would pique their undue interest?" He arched an eyebrow in inquiry.

She shook her head. "No, sir." She had heard the unspoken corollary to his query. If you do, for Merlin's sake, make sure it cannot be found.

He smiled and rested his warm, dry hand on her shoulder for a moment. "I thought not." He let his gaze drift to Neville, who was slowly regaining his color and equilibrium now that Madam Toad and her henchman had departed. "Ah, Mr. Longbottom, I was told you had something you wished to show me."

Neville looked at him blankly. "No, si-," he began.

Rebecca coughed and gave him a sharp jab in the tricep with her bony elbow.

"Ouch," he muttered, and rubbed at the stinging flesh. He opened his mouth to remonstrate, but sudden realization dawned, and he snapped his fingers. "Oh, wait!" he exclaimed. "Yes, sir, I do." He leaped to his feet and scurried up the stairs to the boys' dormitory, and Rebecca noted that McGonagall followed his ascent with a mournful gaze. Before she could ponder the reason for such an odd, maudlin expression to cross her Head's face, Dumbledore spoke.

"Before I forget, Miss Stanhope, have you managed to make sense of the spells Professor Flitwick gave you?" His eyes twinkled with knowing amusement.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure they will prove most useful. Thank you." Her lips curved in a secretive smile at the thought of the pair of spells the parchment had contained. The parchment itself was ash and smoldering memory, offered up to the Common Room fireplace as soon as she had memorized its contents.

She had no doubt that they would be invaluable. The first was the Disillusionment Charm the Headmaster had performed on her in his office. The second was the Incantatem Obscuri Charm, designed to conceal the evidence of spellcasting. Properly done, the wand on which it was performed could cast spells without detection for a short time. Because of its potential for abuse, it was classified as Restricted Magic, for use only by Aurors and Ministry Hit Wizards, which meant that every Dark Wizard worthy of the title and every two-bit shade who longed to earn it knew how to cast it.

"Splendid. You have already seen a demonstration of the first, have you not?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, but the second-,"

"The second," he interrupted kindly, "can be done by Professors Flitwick or Moody."

She goggled at him. "Professor Flitwick?"

The Headmaster chuckled. "He wasn't always a professor, Miss Stanhope."

Apparently not. The image of Professor Flitwick skulking through a shadowy hedgerow in pursuit of nefarious enemies of the state danced in her head. "Yes, sir." She giggled.

Neville's footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a moment later he appeared, a ball of crumpled parchment in one hand. "Here you are, sir," he said breathlessly, and he thrust the wadded paper at the Headmaster.

"Thank you, Mr. Longbottom." He deftly extricated it from sweaty, clutching fingers.

"You're welcome, Headmaster." He sounded perversely proud, and Rebecca felt a twinge of affection as he swiped his forearm across his forehead.

"Good evening, Miss Stanhope. Sleep well." The Headmaster inclined his head in farewell.

"Good evening, Miss Stanhope, good evening, Gryffindors," McGonagall said crisply, and then she and the Headmaster headed for the portrait hole, McGonagall marching in the wake of the Headmaster's beatific glide like a disgruntled heron.

"Good evening, Professors," came the dutiful chorus as they departed. One by one, heads dropped to books or turned to study the flickering flames.

When they were gone, Rebecca turned to Neville. "Neville Longbottom, you are absolutely brilliant, and don't you ever let anyone tell you differently, not even your Gran. Do you hear me?"

He gaped at her. "What?"

"You heard me."

"I did; I just don't believe it." He poked his pinky into one ear and jiggled it furiously, as if he suspected some auditory malfunction that sent impossible messages to his disbelieving ears. When she continued to stare at him, he shuffled his feet. "Erm, all right. Thanks," he muttered, and averted his gaze. A deep crimson flush stained his neck and cheeks.

Without another word, she spun her chair around and went upstairs to pay homage to the serpent with glittering jade eyes.