High Inquisitor

They all woke up at five in the morning, mostly because their right hands hurt them too much. They wore their uniform and sat near the fire. Olivia came shortly after a while with a small cauldron in her hands (it had a blue solution inside). 

‘Soak your hands in that. It’s a solution of strained and pickled Multrap tentacles, it should help relieve the pain,’ she said. 

‘You’re amazing,’ Albert said as he immediately dipped his hand in the solution. 

Olivia rolled her eyes and grinned. Amelia and Isabell also placed their right hand in the blue solution, so that they didn’t feel much pain as before. They decided to go down to the Great Hall after thirty minutes, which was quite deserted since it was early. They sat on the edge of the Ravenclaw table. More students started to arrive after ten minutes and the usual chattering filled the Great Hall. Unexpectedly, hundreds of owls with matching orange eyes started flying around the hall, with golden collars on their necks. There were parchments with pink ribbons tied around their legs. An owl stood in front of every student and extended their leg that had the parchment. They untied it and the owls started flying out. Amelia removed the pink ribbon and looked at the parchment: 

To all students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 

I am pleased to announce that you now have a High Inquisitor. 

Your new High Inquisitor is Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge. 

I wish you all a joyous school year.

Cornelius Oswald Fudge

Current Minister for Magic 

‘She’s the High Inquisitor?’ Amelia said, shocked. ‘It can’t be!’

The trio and Albert glanced at Umbridge, who apparently already knew about the news, for she had a very wide smile on her toad-like face. 

‘Great, I bet you she will start creating some ridiculous rules,’ Isabell said, munching on toast with marmalade. 

Umbridge had indeed started to create some rules. Everyone was surrounding the wall near the Great Hall, where Mr. Filch was climbing on a ladder and hammering on the wall. He got down and on the wall was a pink frame: 

Proclamation

Educational Decree No. 1 

Any student found in possession of a spell-check charmed quill will be severely punished

Dolores Jane Umbridge,

High Inquisitor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

‘No spell-check charmed quills? But those are really useful!’ Isabell groaned.

‘By severely punished, does she mean torturing us in detention?’ Amelia asked angrily.

‘Maybe even worse than that torture she gave us!’ 

Days passed by, and some people went to detention with Umbridge, such as Lee Jordan, a seventh year Gryffindor. The next day, his right back hand was badly reddened and there were pale words on his hand: “I must not fake skipping class”. 

The Multrap solution that Olivia, with a little help from Hermione Granger, made had been used whenever someone went to detention with Umbridge. 

‘She’s ruining our records by giving us these useless detentions! “You will finish when the message sinks in.” Well, guess what? It will never sink in because I know that You-Know-Who is back and regained a body!’ Amelia said. 

‘Next, she’s going to be the headmistress for all we know!’ Isabell replied. 

Snape had been making their situation worse than it already was. In Potions, he would always breathe down their necks and criticise the simplest things. He gave them piles of homework and they never had time to review what they took that day. 

‘The important thing is that the potion does what it’s supposed to do! Why does he care how we did the instructions?’ 

‘Because potioneers need to be accurate to make the potion more effective,’ Olivia simply replied as they were walking to their common room. 

‘I finally found a teacher I loathe more than Snape,’ said Amelia as she glared at a walking Umbridge.

There was a couple kissing on a bench. Umbridge approached them and with her wand, simply separated them from each other. And because of that, a new decree was on the wall near the Great hall:

Proclamation

Educational Decree No. 31

Boys and girls must be at least 2 metres away from each other. Students aren’t allowed to be in an unnecessary relationship, and their disobeying will not go unpunished. 

Dolores Jane Umbridge,

High Inquisitor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

‘You two, you need to be two metres apart,’ Isabell said, pointing at Olivia and Albert. ‘Now that is a decent decree.’

‘Shut up,’ Olivia said. 

Olivia and Albert walked away from each other as soon as Umbridge walked towards them, so that they were exactly two metres apart. 

‘Can you hear me?’ Albert yelled. 

Isabell laughed.

‘A little!’ 

‘This is ridiculous,’ Amelia said. ‘Why is the Ministry doing this-! OH!’

‘What-’

‘I just realised that my father works in the Ministry… what if he is part of this as well?’

‘All ministry employees are part of this nonsense, Ms. Clearwater,’ a voice said.

They looked around and saw Professor Mcgongall, standing there and looking furious.

‘This foul woman just added another educational decree. She has to inspect every lesson and has the authority to sack teachers!’

They looked at their timetable. Their next lesson was, unfortunately, Defence Against the Dark Arts.

They unwillingly walked towards the D.A.D.A classroom to find the door already open.

‘Wands away. There will be no need to talk.’

Everyone started arriving and sat in their seats, without bothering to take out their wands in the first place.

‘Why don’t we use magic?’ Amelia asked.

Everyone looked at her. 

‘I don’t see your hand up, Ms. Clearwater.’

Amelia raised her hand. Umbridge cleared her throat.

‘Hem, hem. Well, now your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn’t it? The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your O.W.L. year. You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centred, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. The only teacher who I think actually taught you something is Professor Quirell.’

‘Oh, yeah, definitely. Apart from the fact that he had Voldemort sticking out of his head!’ Harry yelled.

‘Another whole week of detention, Mr. Potter. I expected that the message had sinked in. You must not tell lies.’ 

Hermione let Harry sit on his seat before he would throw all his fury on Umbridge, who giggled in her girlish voice. 

‘We have wasted thirteen minutes of our important lesson. Please continue reading the pages.’

Olivia and Hermione raised their hands. Umbridge ignored them and adjusted her black tie, so that it looked more like a fly and made everyone imagine her as a large pink frog with hideous short curls as hair. Olivia and Hermione’s hands were still raised. Umbridge couldn’t ignore them anymore.

‘Yes, Ms. Dragonheart?’

‘I finished reading.’

‘So did I,’ Hermione said. 

‘Proceed to chapter three.’

‘I read that. I finished the whole book.’

‘All of it?’

They both nodded in unison. 

‘You can re-read them to answer any question I will throw at you.’

Olivia and Hermione eyed each other and continued reading the book, while Albert just opened the book and didn’t read a word of it. Amelia was reading the last page, as well as Isabell, though they weren’t concentrating well. 

‘Alright! Time for questions! Whoever has the answer will kindly raise their hand up.’ 

Everyone didn’t like the fact that Umbridge was still treating them as though they were five year olds. Umbridge was about to ask the question, but Albert spoke loudly, rudely interrupting her:

‘What’s the use of this book that literally has pages of wand movement and we don’t even use wands!’ 

‘Mr. Foxglove-’ Umbridge began

‘Just because you’re a toad doesn’t mean we all have to eat flies like you do!’ 

‘ENOUGH!’ 

Albert sat down, his body twitching badly. 

‘Another week of detention will do it,’ Umbridge said, straightening her pink dress. 

They went out of the lesson in a hurried manner and went towards their next lesson, which was Charms.