Through The Veil「 The Veil Trilogy Part Ⅱ 」✔

[23] The Worst Defence Professor Ever

To say that Dolores Umbridge was the worst Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor we had ever had would not be a lie. Not only did she interrupt Headmaster Dumbledore's speech at the start of term feast but she also made it her incentive to be extremely nosy and insufferable.

She was intolerable to the extent that I would gladly endure Snape's lectures for two days if that meant never having to see her again. And that's saying a lot, trust me.

Her pink cardigan and sickly sweet attitude reminded me of Lockhart, no wait, she was like even worse than Lockhart with all that fakeness blown up to infinity. And believe me when I say that this year, I really looked forward to see what mess she would end up in since the post for DADA was said to be cursed and no Professor could keep it for more than a year.

In her first class, she presented the most absurd rule of DADA being based on merely theory. According to her, if we read from the books and knew the wand positions, we could easily perform the spell practically too.

And that in itself is a notion worth laughing at because I knew first hand that it won't be possible. It didn't take me simply reading the books to make a Patronus. I had to practice it multiple times. 

The sad part was that it was NEWTs year for me and the twins so to think that we would be giving the most important exams of our school life under her supervision made us feel very doubtful. There went my dream of becoming an Auror out the window...

Fred and George didn't have any problem with her newly implemented rule of just theory in the class but I did have a huge issue with that.

Well, it's not like I could do anything about it though.

However, her habit of meddling too much in the school's affairs had all of us irritated. Especially me, since I was the Head Girl and she had this weird habit of keeping an eye on all of us Prefects much more than it was necessary.

Just because she was from the Ministry didn't mean she could exercise her authority to that high extent at Hogwarts too.

The only thing that was good enough for me to not entirely deflate from annoyance were the Quidditch tryouts. Literally the only one thing I looked forward to in my last year at Hogwarts which is kinda depressing...

(Aside from Umbridge being jinxed out of her post, that's something I look forward to as well and wish that it happened soon).

Angelina got appointed as the Quidditch Captain since Oliver had graduated the year prior and we couldn't have Quidditch Season due to the Triwizard Tournament.

Quidditch tryouts however did not go as well as I had expected because even though Ron made it as Keeper, he ended up injuring Katie's nose with the Quaffle and she had to be taken to the Hospital Wing after which the training session had to be terminated.

Having nothing else to do and definitely not wanting to face Umbridge out on her patrols through the castle, I had retreated to the Common Room in search of some peace of mind. Harry, Hermione and Ron were there too though they had immediately left when I entered.

Normally, I would have asked what they had been up to but then I decided that us poor students got investigated by Umbridge on a daily basis. Me asking them as well wasn't going to be of any help so I let that slide.

Recalling that I hadn't yet opened the mail I had received that morning, I retrieved the letters from my satchel and sat down on my favorite arm chair to read them.

Ever since I got appointed as Head Girl, I had my own dorm and Common Room with the Head Boy but in my opinion, it wasn't as comfortable and home like as the Gryffindor Common Room.

Perhaps it was the distinct scarlet and gold palette that calmed me or the familiar feeling of spending a major part of my previous school years there, all I can say was that no other place at Hogwarts could equal the love I had for our house's common room.

Looking down at the letters, I was surprised to see a letter from Percy as well so obviously I took it out and read it first of all.

Four lines in and I knew I had made a mistake...

At first he had congratulated me on becoming Head Girl and that I appreciate but then again he was full of how we should stay away from Harry because it was going to make us end up in danger. Like I get it that he works at the Ministry and the number of times he hears Anti-Harry talk is enough to get into his head but still...

We had had a clear talk about it earlier and I expected that it wouldn't repeat. Yet here we were again, almost as if stuck in a loop that made us come back to square one.

I wasn't the only one who had received a letter from Perce though. A few minutes later, Ron came storming in and threw a letter in the fireplace. My guess being that he too received a similar lecture from our dear old brother.

"Letter from Perce?" I asked at which he took in a deep breath.

"Don't even ask me about it," he fumed.

I waved the letter that was in my hands, "you're not the only one to get to hear from him, Pumpkin."

As expected, a dash of red spread on Ron's face since I had addressed him as Pumpkin again; my favorite term of endearment for him which he found quite embarrassing.

"Assuming he gave you the same boring lecture of Harry being a bad influence, I would appreciate if you throw this in the fire too," he remarked sourly.

Now I know our Ronniekins gets irritated very easily because according to Hermione, he has the emotional range of teaspoon, but still it was somewhat amusing to see him all worked up like that over Perce's letter.

It temporarily distracted me from the otherwise bad day I was having.

"Like this?" I held the letter in my hand and a flame engulfed it, lighting it up till it fell to ashes.

Ron stared at it in shock and then mumbled, "woah... How did you do that?"

Distracting him from Perce's letter, check. Guess my mission has been accomplished. 

I winked playfully, "magic."

Thankfully, he did get distracted and Harry and Hermione joined him too so he didn't rant about Percy being mean again. I was listening to the three of them telling me about Umbridge's new post, something about High Inquisitor, which I frankly didn't care about at the moment.

And though I was listening to them, I was deviating towards another thought too. I had to knock some sense into Perce's head again before he made things worse with the family.

***