Death is but the Next Great Adventure

My Little Bird

In the last chapter:  Harry and Umbridge argue over the changed curriculum. Umbridge gives Harry detention. In detention, Umbridge makes Harry use the Bloodquill. Harry has Death steal the Bloodquills from Umbridge.

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Harry squinted down at the smooth stone floors beneath him as he walked, glaring at nothing every time he passed a window that brought in blinding pillars of morning light and caused a sharp stab of pain to flare up in his brain. He hadn't caught more than a few brief moments of sleep the entire night before. Either because of the tireless anger that he had to keep dismantling in the hopes of finally settling down for the night, or in the stretches of silence that Harry stared up at the darkened canopy above his bed and tried to think of the best solution to deal with Umbridge.

He couldn't just run into this mess blindly and hope that his efforts would prove fruitful. His anger and impulsiveness had already reared its dangerous head when he had Death confiscate the bloodquills. Harry didn't regret his actions, not when he knew what was at stake if he allowed her to keep them, but he did wish he had thought it through before-hand. Were Umbridge to discover Harry had taken her quills, he knew that her fury would hold no bounds.

It was in earliest reaches of the morning, while the sky outside the castle was still a lethargic and muted deep blue, that Harry sat up in bed and grabbed his school bag from the floor next to his nightstand. He pulled out all the quills he could spare and with a bit of transfiguration, he had an impeccable replicated set of quills that one wouldn't be able to differentiate from the bloodquills until they went to use them. He then had Death replace the bloodquills before Umbridge would notice their absence.

It wouldn't take much for her to discover that her quills no longer carved into flesh as it was supposed to, but either she would think they were broken or someone had tampered with them. It would help—even minutely—to abate her suspicions. Suspecting tampering was a lot better than plain theft, and the presence of the quills meant that there was a chance that they were just broken.

It was only a temporary measure and did little in the way of actually deposing Umbridge, which meant that even after replacing the quills, sleep was a fleeting creature for Harry.

Harry sighed and tensed as he neared the Great Hall, already hearing the loud buzzing of conversation and the jostling of plates and silverware. He was headed for the entrance to the main hall when his path was abruptly blocked by four third-year students he recognized from his own house.

"Can I help you?" Harry inquired politely, aware that he had been given the title of Prefect and no matter how irritable and sleep-deprived he felt, he had responsibilities he could not shirk. The third-years looked to each other, as if silently urging someone to take the lead. Just as Harry felt his patience begin to fray with another painful thrum of his head, a wiry boy finally spoke up.

"We just . . . we heard from a fourth-year that—that you helped out a few people a when Gilderoy taught here. We heard you helped them study since Lockhart was a bit of a sod. And we just wanted to know if you could, maybe, you know, do the same for us?" He ended with a meek shrug of his shoulders after having stumbled over his words and refused to fully look Harry in the eye.

Harry was surprised—though, on second thought he probably shouldn't be. Umbridge had made it clear to the entire school that they would only be learning 'risk-free' spells and wouldn't even be able to cast them. Theory of spells was such a small part of actually learning them. It was quite plausible that those worried about both their exams and just their learning in general, would be looking into alternative routes to getting what they needed.