UnExpected

Chapter 59

'Did you hear? Did you hear? Umbridge banned Buffy from flying!' There it was, and it was everywhere, another piece of juice to oil up the gossip mill.

"Forever?"

"For-freaking-ever!"

"That seems a bit overly, doesn't it?"

"Overly?"

"Shut up."

Ginny seemed to be sponging all the slang Buffy had a tendency to dish out. Kudos to that.

"It's extremely overly, and right up her alley."

"Isn't there something Dumbledore can do?" asked Neville.

"According to Educational Decree number twenty...number twenty...twenty something or other, no there isn't. His hands are tied by the Ministry which means my feet are firmly planted on solid ground for the time being."

"You know," Ginny began in a pensive tone, "putting things into perspective now, Umbridge's ban kind of makes our reactions about your flying a bit –"

"Overly?" teased Neville.

Ginny pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and shoved Neville just enough for him to topple slightly to the side, but not enough for him to overly fall over.

"It's so unfair," Susie said. "I can't believe she'd do that to you. Someone jinxed your broom to go out of control. It wasn't even your fault."

"It's not fair but that's the whole point of this," Buffy replied, continuing to braid Susie's hair. "She's just trying to prove that no matter how many times I smart mouth, in the end, she's still the one with the power in this school."

"It's a bit scary, isn't it?" said Ginny. "To think that kind of person has that much control."

"I don't think scary is the word," Neville said.

No, scary definitely falls short because Buffy knew Umbridge wasn't scary, she was dangerous. With each passing day, she pushed her limits inch by inch until one day those limits will break and there will be nothing standing in her way.

"Hagrid seems to be limping again," observed Ginny, her eyes narrowed in hope of clearing up the image of the half-giant's form that was coming out of the forest.

Buffy paused in the middle of crossing Susie's strands and looked over to Hagrid. She hadn't spoken to him yet concerning Firenze's warning, not with Umbridge present in every one of his lesson,s which did not bode a good sign for his teaching position. Quickly finishing up her work on Susie's raven hair, Buffy rose from the grass and made her excuses.

"There's something I've gotta talk to Hagrid about. I'll catch up with you later, okay," she said and hastily walked away.

Ginny was right, Hagrid was limping. No mystery there as to why. She reached him just as he was entering his hut and as they both walked inside Buffy relayed all the information Firenze had requested of her.

Hagrid gazed at her for a moment through his puffy, blackened eyes, apparently taken aback. Then he seemed to pull himself together.

"Nice bloke, Firenze," he said gruffly, "but he don' know what he's talkin' abou' on this. Everythin's comin' along fine."

"Oh, yeah, real fine," she sarcastically rolled out, eyeing his broken features. "You have to be more careful, Hagrid. Umbridge has already sacked Trelawney, and she's likely on a roll. Maybe you should rethink –"

"There's things more importan' than keepin' a job," said Hagrid, though his hands shook slightly as he said this.

Buffy was handling this wrong. He was becoming defensive which meant he wasn't going to listen. She eased back her confrontation and calmed her voice.