A Change of Feeling

Umbridge's Demise - Part Two

"Shut the door behind you, Mr. Potter," said Umbridge with a girlish giggle.

Harry wrinkled his nose at the inappropriate giggles; did the woman have no decorum? Didn't she have some moral compass to realize that the prospect of carving a sentence into his skin was no reason to giggle? He clenched his hands and then relaxed them again. He looked down at his battered hand, where the text was still etched.

He sighed deeply and thought of his promise to Corvus, and his promise to Snape. He needed to relax, not to be provoked, and do something he later regretted. With a soft click, he let the door fitting slam shut.

He turned and surveyed the office he'd enjoyed coming to in other years. Even last year, when the professor had been a Death Eater in disguise, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office had been a safe haven. Harry grimaced, he would even love to sign Lockhart's self-aggrandizing photos. Anything was better than the pink parody the office is now of the usual Defense Against the Dark Arts' lair.

"What can I do for you tonight?" Harry asked politely as if he didn't know he would be spending the evening in agony.

Professor Umbridge laughed and gestured to the chair at the table opposite her desk. Harry moved automatically towards the chair, he had already made his way to the chair several times, he could find his way through the pink office with his eyes closed. He sat down and crossed his legs casually, as a final taunt for the professor. He watched with pleasure as her face fell and gave way to an ugly frown.

"You know what to do," she said with a fake, broad smile that looked more fragile than usual.

Harry picked up the Blood Quill and put the point on the roll of parchment.

"As long as it takes for the message to sink in, Mr. Potter."

She then resumed reading the piece of parchment in front of her. The document looked official, Harry could recognize the Ministry emblem at the top of the papers. He realized he'd been staring at the pink witch for too long when her bulging eyes looked at him reproachfully. He quickly turned his eyes back to his piece of parchment lying on a lace rug.

Harry put the tip of the feather on the parchment and wrote: I must not tell lies.

He gasped from the pain. The words reappeared in blood-red on the paper, before he saw his existing wound of the Quill reopen. As he looked at the shiny wound, the skin healed, but the spot continued to look aggressively red. Harry realized that the wound would begin to bleed soon and continue to do so until the end of the detention.

Harry looked at Umbridge, he knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't control himself. He felt his upper lip curl into a dangerous-looking grimace. Umbridge looked at him, her head tilted slightly, a renewed broad smile on her toad-like face. "Yes?" she asked Harry sweetly.

"Nothing," Harry growled, clenching his jaws.

He put the feather back on the parchment, wrote "I must not tell lies," and felt the familiar piercing pain in his hand. It went on like this until Harry bled so much that he couldn't read his sentences properly because of the blood on his parchment.

It was getting dark outside. Harry knew better than to ask if he could stop, after all, this question was always answered with the comment that he had to continue for another half hour. He knew that Umbridge had spent the last fifteen minutes staring at him, enjoying the blood spatter that adorned his piece of parchment.

He continued to write grimly until he felt the tip of the sharp Quill scrape against a piece of bone. A groan escaped him and couldn't help but glance at Umbridge in exasperation. The witch looked at him incessantly, smiling sadistically, waiting for Harry to break.