The Tale of Jamie Devereaux

Just What a Girl Wants to Hear!

Chapter Thirty-Six: Just What a Girl Wants to Hear!

Albus Dumbledore paced the Headmaster's study. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was practically abandoned, with the exception of a few professors. The grounds seemed to buzz with energy that summer evening. It was as if Hogwarts could sense something was coming and was trying to prepare itself. The old wizard clutched a letter in his hand, tightly. On the parchment was a message from the ministry with plans to instate Dolores Jane Umbridge as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor the following term. The ministry felt as though Dumbledore's outspoken opinion that Lord Voldemort had returned needed to be monitored more closely. The Headmaster could only see this resulting in a disaster. Umbridge had been outspoken against Muggleborns, Half-breeds, and the like since she began her reign of terror within the ministry. Albus also couldn't rule out the possibility that the ministry was taking it upon themselves to investigate exactly what happened during the third task.

The rumors about Jamie Devereaux Bruce that were flying around the wizarding community were too powerful to be ignored. Far too many witnesses experienced the ringing sensation when Jamie shouted, and far too many recognized it to be more than just natural magic. Jamie had been exposed as something more, and it was up to Dumbledore to debunk these suspicions about the young witch. Currently, his only plan was to make it so that everyone believed Jamie to be extremely gifted with non-verbal spells, and that Minerva McGonagall had been tutoring her for the past two years. The only problem was, while Jamie was an excellent student and worked hard, she wasn't particularly gifted at any one subject. And the professors at Hogwarts would know this.

There was a quick knock on his office door and Dumbledore turned to see the bellowing black robes of Severus Snape. Snape looked pinker than usual, probably flushed from the warm weather, and rather strung out. The potions professor and headmaster stood many feet apart from one another. "Severus." Dumbledore said in greeting.

Snape's eyes flitted to the note clutched in the old wizard's hand and he swallowed, "Is it from the ministry?"

Dumbledore nodded, "Yes. They will be, as we feared, on the grounds next semester. Umbridge will be reforming Hogwarts curriculum in regards to Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Severus's jaw clenched at the news of the vile, pink toad getting the position he had been coveting for years. "What about the girl? What will happen to her if someone like Umbridge is watching her? The ministry already suspects something is off, but if they were to uncover she is half-male veela she'd—"

"Be, at the very worst, sentenced to Azkaban. At the very best, live a life of isolation far from the wizarding community." The headmaster finished for him. Jamie was not aware of the life that awaited her. She knew, certainly, that whatever had happened during the third task was not something good—but nothing could have prepared the little witch for just how corrupt and awful the wizarding world was to anyone remotely different from themselves.

Snape looked at the headmaster with worry and confusion. The brash way the older wizard spoke of Jamie's future was as if he was preparing for the girl to live a life of unhappiness. Severus Snape was not one to often sympathize, but seeing the little witch walk like a ghost through Grimmauld place reminded him of his younger self. How he felt holding Lilly Potter's limp body in his arms in Godricks Hallow reminded Snape, uncomfortably so, of the scene of Jamie Devereaux collapsed on top of Cedric Diggory, refusing to be removed by even his parents. Only until Fred Weasley had scooped the tired and defeated blonde into his arms did Jamie stop fighting for Cedric's life. The sympathy that Snape felt for Jamie was not something he wanted to continue, but every time he saw her un-brushed head of hair sporting a forced smile around the rest of the order, a part of him reached out to her. Grief was not an emotion that could easily be defined. Most people who were grieving felt better being left alone or treated as if nothing had happened. Jamie was one of those people. "Umbridge will find out. The second she sees Jamie, she's going to know what the girl is. Umbridge has studied darker creatures than even Male Veela's in her life time."