UNKNOWN | D.M (UNRAVEL BOOK 4)

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"Boys and girls are not permitted to be within eight inches of each other!" Umbridge's voice booms through the speakers and students across Hogwarts grounds groan at the new rule that only seems to have gotten even more ridiculous as the days went by.

"Those wishing to join the Inquisitorial Squad for extra credit!"

"Students will be submitted to questioning about suspected illicit activities. Any student in noncompliance will be expelled!"

 It was only the beginning of Umbridge's power over Hogwarts. Ever since the day Dumbledore had vanished with his phoenix, Fawkes, the Ministry had appointed Umbridge as Headmistress of the Wizarding school. 

The walls outside the Great Hall were filled with an utterly disgusting array of decrees that had a new one hammered almost every week. It was now gone to the point that it nearly reached the statue guardians of Hogwarts and the Headmistress was still ordering Filch to squeeze in another plaque in her atrocious collection.

It wasn't just the decrees that students had detested but even the moving portraits that had decorated the moving staircases for decades were being removed and relieved of their duties. Apparently, Umbridge had them taken care of because even the people in the pictures had shown their disdain for her control. 

As much as there are times those portraits have been overboard with their gossip and taunts,  Aine had found some of them rather pleasant. It made many upset now that the pictures and their occupants were completely eliminated. The stairways became disturbingly quiet as though all liveliness had been lost and put away.

Life at Hogwarts soon lost its cheerful spirit and every day became even more harrowing. 

Despite Dumbledore's bargain about imploring the Ministry to not punish the students of Dumbledore's Army, the newly reinstated Headmistress Umbridge, deemed otherwise. As soon as she had overtaken the post of Head of Hogwarts, the first thing she had done was to make sure the members of the secret organization she had recently found were disciplined. And what better form of punishment would be better than the old, usual writing lines?

Removed of all of the house tables were replaced with rows of wooden desks, and the Great Hall was used as a detention session for the members of Dumbledore's Army. Aine glared at the lines she had been tasked to write, nothing was new since it was something she had experienced before. Thus, she was used to the Black Quill and its properties of carving one's skin as one wrote with their own blood.

Even so, she couldn't hide the fact that it still hurt. The back of her hand was completely reddened and further scarred from her previous rounds of writing lines. Just when she had thought that the hideous scar was healing from the ointment from her Potion's Professor and her father. She winced silently, clenching her hand up as her body trembled from enduring the pain. It had been nearly three hours since she had started writing and she was only on her fifth page out of ten.

She took a short breather, allowing her hand to rest. Her lips had gone dry and her face was equally pale as the rest of her friends who had shared her punishment. Beads of sweat form across their foreheads as they struggle with their lines. There were grunts and whimpers, as well as sighs and a whole lot of tea sipping.

Sitting in front of the group was none other than their new Headmistress Umbridge, overseeing the lot of them as they carry out their lines. She had sat on the throne-like chair that had once belonged to Dumbledore, wearing a bright pink robe over her usual pink tweed dress. She crosses her legs and raised her chin with authority and pride as she casually sips the tea that she had prepared next to her seat. She simpers at the students, feeling the power of her reign in the air.