Faith .|. H. J. POTTER ✔

Chapter thirty-eight

"You talked to her?" Faith asked surprised. Weren't only people from the Order allowed to know about him?

"Yes, she and your father came, thanking us for taking care of you during summer. Dumbledore reached out to them to ask if they wanted to join the Order, they refused but promised to help if we needed any," Sirius told her. Faith smiled. Her parents really changed the way they thought about the Ministry. Edith Diggory already had her doubts but after labelling Cedric's death as an accident, they lost all trust in them.

"And Remus knows her too?" Harry then asked after giving Faith a smile.

"No," Sirius said, "but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job," 

If Faith could dislike Umbridge anymore, she did now.

"What's she got against werewolves?" Hermione asked angrily.

"Scared of them, I expect," Sirius smiled at Hermione. "Apparently, she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year, too. Imagine wasting your time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toerags like Kreacher on the loose," Ron and Faith laughed at that but Hermione frowned.

"Sirius!" Hermione exclaimed. "Honestly, if you made a bit of an effort with Kreacher, I'm sure he'd respond. After all, you are the only member of his family he's got left, and Professor Dumbledore said -"

"So what are Umbridge's lessons like?" Sirius interrupted. "Is she training you all to kill half-breeds?"

"No," Harry said. "She's not letting us use magic at all!"

"All we do is read the stupid textbook," Ron added.

"Ah, well, that figures," Sirius said. "Our information from inside the Ministry is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat,"

"Trained in combat?" Harry repeated loudly. "What does he think we're doing here, forming some sort of wizard army?"

"That's exactly what he thinks you're doing,"

"That ridiculous!" Faith said. "He's scared of students doing their exams and actually succeeding?"

"Technically, yes, he's afraid that Dumbledore's making an army out of you to take down the Ministry,"

There was a pause until Ron spoke up what everyone was thinking.

"That is the most stupid thing I've ever heard, including all that stuff that Luna Lovegood comes out with,"

"So we're prevented from earning Defence Against the Dark Arts because Fudge is scared we'll use spells against the Ministry?" Hermione asked.

"Yep," Sirius stated. "Fudge thinks Dumbledore will stop at nothing to seize power. He's getting more paranoid about Dumbledore by the day. It's a matter of time before he has Dumbledore arrested for some trumped-up charge,"

That reminded Harry of what Percy had written in his letter.

"D'you know if there's going to be anything about Dumbledore in the Daily Prophet tomorrow? Ron's brother Percy reckons there will be -"

"I don't know," Sirius said. "I haven't seen anyone from the Order all weekend, they're all busy. It's just been Kreacher and me here ..." Faith noticed his tone. He hated it there.

"So you haven't heard about Hagrid, either?"

"Ah ..." Sirius began. "Well, he was supposed to be back by now, no one's sure what's happened to him," Sirius saw the expressions on the four students' faces. "But Dumbledore's not worried, so don't you four get yourselves in a state; I'm sure Hagrid is fine,"