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ACT3CH24 - Cruel Intentions
🕑 Added 2023-11-05 15:36:12 +0000 UTCIf there was one thing Cho understood about Draco Malfoy, it was his immense inferiority complex. That was just about the most prominent fact about his character, followed by his impossible desire for opulence. Not the wealth part, of course. Becoming wealthy was something everyone should aspire to, and being someone from a climber family, Cho understood it very well. The Changs had a rich ancestry back in China, but here in Britain, they held a middling position at best, and the pursuit of immense wealth was something that was always on the back of her mind.
No, it was the lavishness that set her on edge. The need for extravagance. The foolish need to possess things that should never have been worth anything in the first place. She had portkeyed to Malfoy Manor for the weekend so that they could confirm their plans, and seeing the over-the-top decoration almost made her want to snip something offensive. Every random wall was adorned with pieces of art worth small fortunes alone. Portraits too. Massive statues, inlaid with precious metals and gems, stood at the doorways, edifices that she was sure cost more than the average witch or wizard’s annual salary.
Too bad the guy was already engaged in a betrothal with that mug Pansy Parkinson. Cho could’ve at least digested having to deal with Draco’s inferiority complex and slowly and subtly train him to become a husband she could control, even if it meant having to withstand his bad breath. But she’d do it, if it meant landing the Lady Malfoy position. Maybe she’d have even made an attempt for it, shifting Parkinson to the sidelines, if not for the major complication on the table.
The Dark Lord.
No matter what the Ministry proclaimed, Cho was not idiotic or blind enough to not recognize the signs. Even if she had been obsessed with blaming Potter for everything that had happened to Cedric and by extension, her own dreams, she knew that he was speaking the truth. The Dark Lord was indeed back, and Malfoy just couldn’t stop talking about it. Even when they were frolicking like rabbits, he kept chanting about how he would regain all the power that Potter and Greengrass had snatched from him the moment the Dark Lord made a public reappearance. The funniest part was that for all his grand proclamation, he didn’t have the slightest clue where the Dark Lord was, or what he was doing out there. The more she understood the ponce, the more she came to the realisation that he was just a silly boy that had a lot to grow up.
She knew that if and when the Dark Lord made a public performance, Draco Malfoy would bend backwards to get one of those Dark Marks, and would probably get arrested for being too vocal about things. Especially with how Harry Potter and his associates were slowly making moves on the Wizengamot-level and at Hogwarts. For Merlin’s sake, Potter was their freaking professor now. The more she observed him, the more she realised that perhaps she’d have had a better chance at sticking to Potter back in fourth year instead of aiming for Cedric.
“This — this is preposterous!” claimed Malfoy junior, glaring at the letter in his hands.
“What is it?” asked Cho, still lying on the bed, covered by the satin bedsheet.
“Rosier’s sister is getting married to the Santos family, a well-bred Spanish name. Almost half of Slytherin House and most of the Sacred Eight are invited. Yaxley wrote to me that Rosier invited Potter and his whore to the wedding. Even that veela will be there. And that it was Selwyn that voiced support for it first.”
He crumpled the letter and glared at Cho. “He says that Nott, Fawley, Burke and even Rowle are in support of whatever nonsense Potter was blabbering about in the meeting.”
Cho perked up at that. “Meeting?”
“Yes,” spat Malfoy. “That whore Greengrass. She set up a meeting with some of the big names in Slytherin and Ravenclaw, thinking she’d get support for Potter. I know what she’s doing. This is her playing on the reactions of the last Assembly meeting.”
And his duel with Potter, Cho mused. She wasn’t an expert at Legilimency, and neither did she have access to a pensieve, so she hadn’t been able to watch the memories of that duel. But she had heard it enough from multiple people to know that Potter had not only defeated Malfoy, but actually humiliated him to the point of dehumanising him. As if Malfoy was nothing but a toy to demonstrate something before the class. And the best part?
Why, oh why? Why couldn't Potter have demonstrated even a quarter of this personality last year?
It was so unfair!
“What happened at the meeting?”
“As if I care!” snapped Draco, throwing the letter near the fireplace. Cho noted how it didn’t actually hit the flames, but stayed just inches away from the fireplace. She’d have to summon it quietly later. Information was power after all.
“Perhaps it could affect our plans?” she offered.
“No,” said Draco petulantly. “It doesn’t. Selwyn and Rosier are being idiots if they think they’ll achieve anything but a complete disaster by inviting Potter to the wedding. It’s a place for purebloods like us. Not for mudblood lovers like him.” He barked, a malevolent shine in his eyes. “In fact, that’s even better. Let him go to that wedding. Everyone will see how stupid Daphne and her blasted father was for getting her betrothed to that loser! Yes! It will be for the best.”
Cho rolled her eyes.
“Are you attending?”
“Of course I am!” boasted the idiot. “I’m a Malfoy! And my grandmother was Druella Rosier.”
“I see,” she said, wondering if she should try to get an invitation out of him to this event. Even in the odd chance that their plans failed, attending this wedding would introduce her to a multitude of witches and wizards from the continent. It would expand her horizons, and who knew? Perhaps she could find someone rich enough to enchant them with her exotic beauty.
“I heard about what happened in Potter’s first class,” she began, inwardly smirking at the way his expressions changed.
“What about it?” He snapped.
“Nothing, I just couldn’t help but notice Parkinson’s reaction. A lot many people were saying that Pansy was actually speaking in Potter’s support, instead of being on your side.”
His face resembled a thundercloud. “Nothing like that happened.”
“Didn’t it?” Cho pressed, pulling the satin covers and slowly sauntering towards him. She noticed the way his gaze flickered all over her body, and knew the effect she was having on him.
“She was actually participating in his lessons, like a diligent student, even after you loudly proclaimed that Potter was a terrible teacher.”
“She just didn’t want to lose points,” Draco defended. ‘House Parkinson is a lesser House. Unlike us, it does not have the clout to do whatever it wants.”
Cho almost laughed at his boasts. “True, but she is betrothed to you, isn’t she? That means she’s a Malfoy bride, and from what I see, there are no morals in the quest to protect one’s own House.”
She stepped forward until she was pressed against him, her breath hot against his face, her skin touching his. “It’s not my place to comment, but there’d be nothing I wouldn’t do for you if I were your wife,” she whispered. “Nothing could be too immoral, nothing too unethical, nothing too wrong if it means serving my husband.”
“....Yes,” said Draco slowly, shivering. “As you should.” He laughed uneasily. “Too bad you set your eyes on Diggory and ignored the real deal.”
“I know, and there is not a single day I hate myself for my actions,” Cho said, thinking of Potter. If only… if only….
“But perhaps,” she whispered, “you should teach Pansy a lesson this one time? Show her where her allegiance should lie? Give her a little taste of the reality that she could just lose everything as easily as she had gotten them?”
“And…” Draco nuzzled the top of her head. “How do you suppose I should do that?”
“Oh I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps you could… you know, take me to this wedding? Not only am I a better sight, hanging on your arm, I will also be your eyes and ears there. You can be the Man of the Malfoy House, doing the important stuff. Not many people know me, but I can use your introduction to move into the different circles, and gain information about what they think and feel about Potter and whatever idiocy he commits there?”
“I’ll admit it does sound tempting,” said Malfoy. “You’d do better than Pansy ever will. Girl has been crying ever since the day I made her attack Greengrass. Silly girl doesn’t understand that Greengrass chose her side the moment she chose Potter.”
“Exactly,” said Cho, smiling at her ensnared prey. “Perhaps we should use Pansy in our plans to wreck Potter’s relationship with Greengrass? Have her commit the deed, looking in the eye of her once best friend and all. It would be poetic.”
“Yes,” agreed Malfoy. “And then Greengrass will be mine, unequivocally. It would be perfect.”
He kissed her.
Cho made herself look pleased instead of appalled.
“When is the wedding?”
“The fifth of December.”
“That’s… barely more than a week away,” she murmured, before a smile lit up her face. “Perfect. If Potter makes a fool out of himself in front of all those people, no doubt Greengrass will be pissed off at him. It will only make what follows much more convincing.”
Draco grinned. “You’re quite devious, Chang.”
“Well, I am a Ravenclaw. Nobody knows how to work information like we do.”
She brushed her hair behind her ears. “And then Potter will be all mine.”
“And Greengrass, mine,” laughed Draco. “We do make quite a compatible pair, you know.”
“That we do, Draco,” said Cho, smiling. “That we do.”
.....
.....
.....
Yet another day had passed, and Hermione was back for her detention with Professor Umbridge.
“Go on dear,” said the nasty toad woman, sipping her tea. “Last time you mentioned how Potter discovered the Chamber, no doubt using his dark parseltongue powers. The more I listen to your tales, the more I'm convinced that the boy has something terrible festering within him. To be able to obliviate the powerful and charismatic Gilderoy Lokhart after he defeated Slytherin’s basilisk, and then to take credit for it…. No, diabolical things are happening at Hogwarts. And to think Dumbledore was sweeping all of this under the rug.”
Hermione felt the blood surge to her head and heard a thumping noise in her ears. She couldn't believe just how despicably evil this hag was. She had gotten her to sit on the table, under false pretences, and gotten her to drink that tea laced with Truth Serum, and gotten her to vomit out everything she knew about Harry and Daphne and everything else that was going on.
She didn’t know whether to be appalled at the knowledge that Umbridge had done this to her before, and probably obliviated her of the deed, or to laugh at the way the delusional woman kept taking every word that came out of her mouth and running in the opposite direction.
“Go on, go on,” the hag coaxed her. “Tell me more about what Harry Potter was up to in his third year. No doubt he has been up to spreading more of his nasty, attention-seeking stories around.”
And if that wasn’t enough, Her Wickedness had cast a sticking charm on the chair, making it impossible for Hermione to even try to get up, at least without tearing her own clothes off. And even if she did, her hands were sealed against the wood, and with her wand inside her robes, she had zero chances of breaking free.
And to think, she had told Harry off about his being unfair by trying to change the system using his gold. If vindictive, bigoted bitches like Dolores Umbridge stayed in power, nothing would change for the better. Absolutely nothing.
“Harry does not spread any nasty, attention-seeking lies,” she spat. “He’s the only one telling the truth. It’s just too bad that you and your Minister are too much of a coward to accept the truth.”
“Miss Granger—” Umbridge began in a shrill voice. “Potter is a liar and a traitor, and he deserves to get sent to Azkaban for his transgressions. A filthy little half blood like him, claiming that a dead man is back, when all he wants is —”
“To speak the truth,” Hermione shot back. “And make no mistake, Professor. Even if you were twenty times the witch you are now, you’d still be less than a fraction of Harry.”
“Talking in disrespecting tones to the High Inquisitor?” Umbridge squealed. “That will be another week of detention for you, miss Granger.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Whatever Harry does, whatever he is doing, and whatever he ends up doing in the future, it will be for the good of Britain. It will be for fighting against Voldemort.”
“All lies! Delusions of a lunatic!” Umbridge screamed. “The Dark Lord is dead, and DO NOT USE HIS NAME OUT LOUD!”
“Why?” Hermione challenged. “If he’s dead, and you know that for sure, why are you so mortally afraid of a dead man?”
The woman fumed. “Do not try to exert your little head too much, little mudblood. This is beyond you.”
“Obviously. Unlike you, I’m not some delusional bitch that thinks she can just ignore the truth and it will go away. Go on,” she egged her. “If you truly believe the Dark Lord is dead, say his name. I dare you! VOLDEMORT!”
“Shut up!”
“VOLDEMORT!”
“Shut… Up!”
“VOLDE—”
SLAP!
Hermione’s head snapped to the left as the searing pain from the slap flared against her nerves. Her cheeks were burning, and she was sure she’d have a bruise from that. Had this been any other professor, she’d have reacted differently.
Instead she smiled. Yes, the first couple of minutes or so had been traumatic, as the draught, which was a combination of the truth serum and some kind of compelling draught, made her regurgitate out everything she knew about Harry, no matter how much she wanted to fight against it. But after hearing Harry’s trial through the WWN, and studying about it, no thanks to Greengrass jumping on the ‘I’m getting married to Harry Potter’ bandwagon, Hermione had too much time and motive to understand exactly what was going on.
So when she realised that she was perfectly able to express her emotions, she knew that this version of the truth serum wasn’t quite as effective as the standard version. Perhaps the addition of the compelling draught lowered its potency to this degree, or perhaps it was created at a much lower potency to allow better fusion with the draught? Hermione didn’t know, but she had quickly figured out how to use this to her advantage.
Yes, she was compelled to speak the truth. But if she could provoke Umbridge into reacting, drawing her into an argument, well then, she’d only be compelled to be truthful in terms of the new argument, and not what Umbridge wanted.
“This…” seethed the woman. “This is why I detest you mudbloods. People like you have absolutely no place in our society. You — you are all trash. You — you don’t deserve being born.”
“Wow,” Hermione drawled. “You’re no longer mired in your hypocrisy. You’re drowning in it.”
“That will be another detention for you, you filthy little mudblood.”
Hermione almost smiled. “Please. Fleur Delacour revealed your heritage on the Wireless. Your father was a floor-mopper, and probably nothing more than a squib himself. Your mother, Ellen Cracknell, was a muggle. By your logic, you shouldn’t even have been born.”
“Now see here, Miss Granger,” spat Umbridge. “I’m a tolerant woman, but I will not allow anyone to slander me like that. Everything that the half-breed claimed in the Wizengamot was a LIE!”
“Just like how McGonagall claimed about you failing your OWLs?”
“ALL. LIES!” thundered Umbridge. “ALL OF THEM! ARE LIES!”
Her wand was throwing out sparks of violent purple. “My father was a prestigious member of the Wizengamot! My mother was a descendant of the Selwyn family, and I’m a pureblood. Everything else is nothing but lies.”
Hermione didn’t hold back any longer. “I’m not even sure if I should call you a pathetic liar, or just psychotically deluded beyond reason.”
SLAP!
This time it hurt worse. Hermione felt the sharp tang of blood inside her cheeks, the coppery taste all over her tongue. The more she stayed in her presence, the more Harry’s words came to mind. This… this wasn’t a teacher. This was a twisted, delusional politician that was torturing students. People like her… people like her deserved Azkaban.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she had been foolish to call Harry’s actions unfair. Yes, she held the moral high ground and defined Harry’s efforts as manipulation, and painted him in the same shade as Lucius Malfoy, but the more she stayed in Umbridge’s presence, the more his words came to revisit her.
Compromise with those who are willing to compromise.
But people like Umbridge? They were a menace. Like a cursed appendage, they needed to be amputated. Not because they needed to be eliminated, but because of the threat faced by the larger society because of their corruptive presence. The woman had been an absolute nuisance to every single person at Hogwarts except for Malfoy and his ilk, and she and she alone was the reason for half the troubles at Hogwarts. Had Harry been completely successful in his coup, Umbridge would have been gone for good. Hermione, like a silly little ignorant girl, had challenged him, claiming that he was changing, and not for the better, when he and he alone was the only one acting out of everyone’s interests. She didn’t agree with his methods, yes, but unlike everyone else, she had blindly challenged him in front of everyone, and he had trusted her enough to reveal everything.
And now Umbridge knew it.
It was all her fault. Because Hermione Granger couldn’t keep control of her big, fat mouth.
Umbridge was shaking. “You — you little bitch! Why do you keep telling those lies? Why do you keep making me angry? You — you —” her purple face was now gaining a tinge of pink. “Ah, I see. Very clever. You want to taunt me, goad me into getting angry, so that I forget about what to ask, and instead waste the ten minutes of time the potion gives me.”
Hermione flinched.
“I see,” said Umbridge, looking like a hungry cat staring at a particularly juicy mouse. “Very clever, filthy little mudblood. Just like the others, too smart for your own good. You’re — you’re just like Agatha Hagglethorn. That bitch, daughter of a muggle, and she had the audacity to challenge my heritage? And then, and then — Sprout made her Prefect? Me, a daughter of House Selwyn, and I got overlooked for her?”
Hermione was beginning to think that there was something very wrong with the woman. Her obsession, her constant claims about being a Selwyn felt too focussed to be dismissed as mere lies. No, either she truly believed that her father was a Wizengamot member, and her mother was a Selwyn daughter, or….
— Or she had crafted a lie for herself and internalised it to a degree that she had accepted it as her identity.
Neither seemed like a good prospect.
“...they… they challenged my heritage! Even at the Ministry! And you — you’re just like them. You’ll meet the same sticky ends they met. Yes! Yes, you will. I will not let liars escape punishment. Not you, not Potter, not Dumbledore, NO ONE! And it’s all — it’s all your fault.”
Hermione was trying to level best to try to reach her wand. She had already determined that the woman parading around as a professor was a mental patient at best and a deranged psychopath at worst. Unfortunately, her arms were still stuck to the chair. She was trying to push herself up, even at the cost of her robes tearing apart. Umbridge was a monster, a cruel monster that could do anything, and Hermione needed to get out of there, and she needed to do it fast.
Then, as if she hadn’t already been freaked out already, Umbridge’s angry expression twisted into that sickly sweet smile.
“You know, little mudblood, I see a lot of Agatha Hagglethorn in you. She was just like you. Just as pretty, just as arrogant, a perfect know-it-all that just loved to show off how good she was. Slughorn was always charmed away by her smile, even though I was so much better in Potions than her. He’d never believe it, when I complained about Hagglethorn cheating. There was no way she could be better than me. It was clear to anyone with eyes, but no! Everyone just saw that know-it-all’s marks. She was made Prefect, even though I was more worthy. And she— that mudblood had the gall to claim that I was just like her? A mudblood? I — I threw it away! I walked away from Hogwarts, from that place where I would never get justice.”
“Oh,” said Hermione. “You mean after you failed in your OWLs, and had to leave Hogwarts to get independent testing for your OWLs and NEWTs in France? Where Fleur’s mother got your father the job of a floor-mopper?”
“LIES!” Umbridge screamed. “LIES! ALL OF IT IS A BIG SHAM! JUST ONE LIE AFTER ANOTHER! All those people, they never gave me what I deserved! I deserved the Prefect position! I deserved the Head Girl position! I deserved the name Selwyn, as was my birthright. But never! Never! Hee-hee! But that’s alright. I have power now. I have ALL the power! Senior Under Secretary to the Minister! High Inquisitor at Hogwarts! Not even Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter could do anything to me.”
And then her expression changed again.
“Did you know, mudblood,” she asked sweetly. “I just got a new degree authorised by the Minister? Educational Decree Number 25 - The High Inquisitor is in Charge of all punishment at Hogwarts.”
“Your decree won’t be worth the parchment it’s on,” said Hermione, still trying to get off the chair. “The moment Voldemort—”
“STOP USING THAT NAME ALREADY!” Umbridge screamed. She grabbed Hermione by her hair and pushed her down on the ground in rage. The chair crashed as it fell, one of the arms creaked loudly. Hermione screamed in pain as the splintered wood dug under her skin, drawing blood. She tried to get loose, working her limbs methodically, testing against the sticking charm and trying to free her hands.
It hurt. A lot.
“The Dark Lord isn’t back!” whispered Umbridge like a delusional madwoman. “He’s dead! Dead! Dead! DEAD! You parroting the same lie again and again will not make it true.”
Hermione allowed herself to appreciate the irony behind her words. Just what was this psychopath doing as the Undersecretary of the Minister of Magic?
“I don’t need to,” she snapped, hissing as the wood dug deeper, her blood oozing down the broken shards. “But you definitely do.”
“You dare—”
“Yes!” yelled Hermione. “Yes, I dare. I’m fallen on the ground, injured, because of you! You hurt a student! You’re not a teacher. You’re a psychopath. You should wish that parroting those silly lies you tell yourself becomes the truth someday, because otherwise, that is exactly what’s going to happen. All that power you just boasted about? It will be gone. They’ll recognize you as the delusional bitch that you are, and throw you into Azkaban.”
She almost had the wand in hand now. Just a little bit more.
“You know…” said Umbridge, still shaking. “I… I absolutely despise children. Treasonous, poisonous, lying little things with not enough brain to distinguish fact from fiction. All my life, I’ve had to constantly repeat it over and over and over, that I’m not the daughter of a squib and a muggle. That my father was a Wizengamot member. That my mother was a Selwyn. Just how hard is that to understand?”
She stood just a little distance from Hermione now.
“But you are correct, little mudblood. If the Dark Lord is truly back, and people like Dumbledore and Potter are in power, then yes, they might pose a danger to me. So they have to go! They have to vanish! I originally wanted to send dementors after Potter in the summer, but the blasted brat was living in that unplottable Black Manor. Had he been with his muggle relatives, it would’ve been so much better!”
Hermione went cold inside. She remembered how much she disliked the fact that Harry had refused Dumbledore’s orders and lived with Sirius. Had Sirius not taken him in and he lived at the Dursleys, then without the ability to do magic in the summer…
It was a terrifying thought.
She began pulling her wand towards her faster. But she had to be careful. If Umbridge noticed it then, she’d be in a hell lot of trouble. She needed to get away from her as quickly as possible. The hilt was almost in her hand now.
“But that’s fine! That’s fine!” Umbridge kept saying, oblivious to Hermione’s inner turmoil. “Because you see, control is one thing that I’ve very good at. I always wanted to see those freaks suffer, always wanted to see them get tortured to their deaths for believing in those lies, but somehow, the cruciatus has always evaded me. Just can’t… get the feeling right. Lot’s of… righteous anger within me, and that fumbles up with the spell. But control? Now that’s something I’m really good at. You know, mud—”
Hermione didn’t wait. She raised her wand at Umbridge and yelled —
“EVERTE STATUM!”
The spell hit Umbridge in the chest and sent her flying. Her legs hit the table, and she toppled over it, causing the table and the chair on the other side to crash against her. Injured, bleeding and absolutely shaken, Hermione cast the strongest general counter-spell possible and undid the sticking charm. Pushing herself up, she pulled the wood splinters that were sticking into her arm with a loud wince, and dropped them on the floor, before rushing to the door, and —
“IMPERIO!”
She only had a second to feel a sense of shock and desperation before a wonderfully floating sensation erased both her fear and her power to resist.
“CLOSE! THE! DOOR!” panted Umbridge, yelling, as she slowly pushed herself up from the floor. Silently, emotionlessly, Hermione obeyed suit.
The door closed.
It would not open for the rest of the night.
Comments
Phæ
You're an asshole for the way this chapter ended...well done
Durdens Wrath
Jesus Hermione, have you learned nothing from defense, don't leave a downed opponent at your back.
