The first thing Heather did after detention was head straight for Gryffindor Tower. There was still an hour till curfew for seventh years and she needed to speak to her brother right now. That boy had some explaining to do.
Stood in front of the Fat Lady, she requested the portrait to call Hadrian out. A few moments later, the entrance to the Gryffindor common room swung open to reveal him.
"Hello there Hadrian," Heather said sweetly, "how are you this evening?"
"Heather!" Her brother looked relieved to see her. She noticed that he couldn't help but dart his gaze towards her blood-soaked hand. His jaw clenched angrily at the sight. "I knew it! That sodding bitch!"
Heather sighed and pulled her brother out of the entranceway. She could already hear the curious murmuring of his housemates. Once the portrait hole had shut behind him, she set up a privacy bubble around them.
"Ahh, so you didknow about what Umbridge was doing."
Hadrian snorted. "Yeah, considering my thousand or so detentions with her, I reckon I did."
Narrowing her eyes, she said lowly, "So why am I only finding out now that my brother has been having his flesh carved like a turkey since the year started?" Her eyes tracked the unconscious way he rubbed soothingly over his hand. She was slightly mollified to see no scarring in the area. At least her potions had done their job.
"Err, about that," Hadrian trailed off nervously, hand coming up to rub the back of his head. "It was...no big deal?"
"You needed Blood Replenisher Hadrian," she forced out.
He groaned. "I didn't want to worry you okay?"
"Hiding the whole thing doesn't make things any better! Did you know she's been giving the other students detentions too? First years!" She waved her hands around wildly. "I had little firsties coming to me for potions to prevent scarring!" She could understand it if her brother didn't want to go to the other Professors for help, but what about her? If Hadrian had come to her in the first place, then she could have tried to put a stop to it much earlier!
Guilt flashed in his eyes for a moment before he straightened defiantly. "Well, what could youhave done? You've been half-dead the better part of the term! Or have you forgotten your stay in the infirmary already?"
Heather jerked back, stung. "I said I was sorry! I know it was wrong to try and do everything on my own. In fact, youwere one of the people who told me that! Why did you even continue provoking Umbridge anyway?" she demanded. "You should have kept your head low and avoided notice!"
"I couldn't just sit there while she spouted such lies! I was there.Voldemort almost killed me and Cedric! You want me to just listen to her nonsense?" He shook his head roughly. "No way!"
She made a frustrated noise. "I can't believe you! You're being so reckless, and ill-thought, and brash, and-and," she tried to find an apt description, "Gryffindor!"
"Well, hate to break it to you, Heather, but I am aGryffindor. Not all of us can be sly and cunning Slytherins," he sneered, "now can we?" Heather made to protest, but it was clear that her brother wasn't done.
"You really think I'm incompetent, don't you?" Hadrian scoffed. "I can't do anythingwithout you trying to stick your nose in."
"I'm just trying to help you!" she protested, reaching her hand out to her brother. Her heart gave a painful jolt when he immediately shrugged her off.
"Help me?Merlin, you'd think I was a helpless toddler, the way you hover. Just because you're my sister doesn't give you the right to interfere with everything I do and say. Newsflash, Heather, I'm perfectly capable of fighting my ownbattles, so why don't you just mind your own business and leave. Me. Alone!" With that, he turned and stomped through the portrait-hole, leaving her standing in the middle of the corridor.
Heather stood in that spot, staring blankly into thin air. The silence in the wake of that rant was deafening. Eventually, she forced herself to walk back to the dungeons, distantly aware of the impending curfew. The journey back was a blur. The image of her brother's sneer was seared into her mind, his words on loop in her ears.
"Miss Potter," a cold voice said, "it is a minute after curfew, what are you doing out of your room?"
Vacantly, she turned her head to see her Head of House cloaked in the shadows of the corridor. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came forth.
"Miss Potter!" His face showed alarm, for what reason Heather didn't know. "Miss Potter! Heather, did something happen?"
She shook her head, surprised to feel droplets of water fall onto her hands. The clear liquid diluted the dried blood caked on her right hand, making a larger mess. Lifting her uninjured palm to her face, she felt the wetness there.
In quick strides, the man made his way right in front of her. Gentle hands took her bloodied one into their hold. In that moment, she broke and stumbled forwards into familiar arms.
Wrapped safely in the warm embrace, she cried.
~~~
The moment Severus saw the first tear fall, he started to panic inwardly. He had never seen Heather cry, not even during that disastrous occasion when he had accidentally seen her run in with Dursley. What could possibly have happened to her? Then his eyes honed in on the dull red mess on her hand.
He rushed forward, carefully picking up the appendage and inspecting it. He was able to see red gashes before Heather gave a pained sound and clutched the front of his robes with trembling hands. No further sounds were heard, though Heather now had her face pressed against the fabric of his cloak. His heart clenched at the silent sobbing that wracked her tiny frame.
At a loss for what to do (a common occurrence where she was involved), he gently led her in the direction of his office. Heather gave little reaction at the movement other than to press closer, so distraught she was. It was truly fortunate that they encountered no one on the way. There were few ways for him to explain the situation in a way that wasn't compromising.
Once in the privacy of his office, he tried to set her down into the plush chair she usually claimed for her own. However, she clung tighter still, reluctant to let go. Severus resigned himself to the situation and sat next to her. It was impossible to find a position which could not be misconstrued for something inappropriate, so he sighed and put the room on lock down. Even Albus would find it difficult to enter. He forcefully pushed aside the fact that locking them both inside the room would be even more suspect.
Sitting in the chair with Heather crying into his robes, however, would surely bring questions no matter whether the door was locked or not. At least now he would have some warning before any interloper were to enter.
Now that he had found himself in such a situation, he had no idea where to even go. He awkwardly patted her back, trying to soothe her. Perhaps he should just let her exhaust herself. He had heard somewhere that it was therapeutic to cry.
It felt like hours later that the shaking finally subsided. The tight grip on his robes loosened, though Heather remained pressed against him.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked softly. The tone came out oddly. His voice was unused to being so kind.
"...yes, thank you," Heather whispered hoarsely.
"Will you tell me what happened?" In truth, Severus had his on suspicions about the whole incident. Little could affect Heather Potter to such an extent. First on that very short list would be her brother. In fact, it could be argued that he was the only thing on said list.
"It's kind of silly. Don't even know why I broke down like that. It's just been an emotional week," she rambled, forcing a laugh. She probably wasn't even lying. What with her exhaustion, then the potions accident, not to mention her fight and subsequent make-up with the twin menaces.
He simply gave a look.
She crumbled. "It's Hadrian..."
Ahh, indeed. Anger burned in him at the thought of the thoughtless brat who was always causing grief for Heather. It seemed like not a moment went by that she wasn'tworrying about the dratted boy.
"We had a falling out." She took a shuddering breath. "We've had a few disagreements before, but we always got past them quickly. This is the first time...the first time we ever really argued so fiercely."
He continued stroking her back, wordlessly encouraging her to go on.
"H-he said some things." Finally, she looked up with her glistening green eyes. "Am I a bad sister? Do I hover too much? He thinks I'm overbearing and-and annoying."
He cursed mentally. That thrice-accursed, ungrateful, little wretch! He was just like his father, unappreciative of the treasures he had. He knew Heather had told him not to judge the boy by his own experiences with James-bloody-Potter, but when faced with such evidence, it was difficult not to.
Before he had realised it, he had her chin in a light grip. Tilting her face up to look at him, he pointedly looked her over. "I do not see anything but a protective and loving sister whose brother should be more thankful of. He should be counting his lucky stars for having been blessed with a sibling like you."
That elicited a weak smile out of Heather, which he counted as a victory for now.
"Mmm."
Now that she wasn't clinging to him like a limpet, he once again looked at her wounded hand. "And this?" He brought it closer to examine it. "What happened here?" He quickly summoned a wet cloth with his wand to clean the dried blood away. What he saw under that incensed him beyond belief. Actual words were written in her flesh, as if someone had taken a knife and sliced them in.
At this, she scoffed. "Detention with Umbridge, the bitch."
Slightly amused by the uncharacteristic cussing, it took a moment before he realised what she had said. "Excuse me?" He was horrified that it was a Professor that had done this. Not that the woman really counted as one.
"She has this quill. I suspect it takes the user's blood to write with."
A Blood Quill. Bloody Umbridge was using a Blood Quillon the students. How the devil had this happened without the other teachers finding out? He could hardly believe that the woman (and he used this term loosely) was torturing Hogwarts students right under their noses!
Heather screwed her expression into one of utter loathing. Severus suspected his own not far off. "She's been making all the students she has detention with use it. You don't know how many students have come to me for potions. Oh, that reminds me..."
Heather reached into the bag she was carrying and removed a phial. It looked to be Murtlap Essence, judging by the hue and consistency of the potion.
"You mean to say that all the students who have had detention with Umbridge now have permanent scarring on their hands?" The sadistic trollop had a lot to answer to.
"Oh, no, thank Salazar! Well, not the students who got potions from me, at least." She held up her hand and smeared a dollop of the paste over it. "I reworked the formulation and added a rune to it. It removes scarring more effectively and works faster than normal Murtlap Essence."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Severus could not help his intrigue at Heather's work. He scooped a little of the paste with his finger and sniffed it. "You added marigold?"
She nodded. "And replaced basil with poppy seed."
"Nicely done. Perhaps you could try stewing it until the mixture is cyan instead of mint before adding the poppy seeds next time. It should make the paste easier to wash off. This is a tad too viscous."
"I'll do that."
They fell into a comfortable silence after that, as Heather worked the paste into her skin. He began to unconsciously stroke soothing circles on her back, which he only realised he was doing when she leaned into the touch. Clearing his throat, he said, "If you are feeling better, I believe that you should be heading back to your dormitory now."
"Of course. Thank you again, Professor." She shot him a shy smile as she got to her feet.
"Rest assured, once Albus hears of this, Umbridge will not be allowed to stay in Hogwarts," he promised. In fact, he would personally make sure by escortingthe damned witch off school grounds.
Heather paused, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Could I request that you hold that off for a while. A month maybe? I have a few more detentions with her that I should see through."
The gleam in her eyes told him that she had certain plans of her own in mind for Umbridge. Well, who was he to stand in the way of that? He inclined his head wordlessly, earning a bright, wicked grin from Heather in return.
In the meantime, he supposed he could reassign all of Umbridge's other detentions to Argus instead.
~~~
It was a rare day that Heather allowed herself a lie-in, even if it was a weekend. Well, she felt she deserved it after yesterday's mess. She lay flat on her bed, idly twirling a black quill which glinted a malevolent red in the light. She held it up above her face and stared intently at the seemingly-innocuous writing implement.
She'd relieved the wretched toad of the quill from right under her nose. All it had taken was for her to 'accidentally' drop it on the floor and switch it out with a conjured facsimile when she bent to retrieve it. Her desk had easily blocked the switcheroo from Umbitch's sight.
To think, such a little thing had caused her so much grief. She grimaced at the memory of last night's crying jag. Professor Snape always seemed to catch her at her worst.
Since then, Heather had experimented a bit with the quill. It was a heavily cursed object and definitely illegal. Umbridge was a fool for even possessing it in the first place.
Not only would it cause permanent scarring if the wounds were not treated quickly, Heather suspected that prolonged use would also affect the psyche of the user.
Blood was a very potent substance, especially for magicals. Various kinds of creature blood were used as the main ingredient in potions. Unicorn blood could bring blessing or curse depending on how one obtained it. A wizard's blood was used in many spells to make them more binding.
A quill that used your own blood to write in, and not only that, but carved the words into your flesh?
Etch the words deep enough and it might form a sort of magical contract or compulsion.
So if Umbitch had a student write 'I must not disobey Professor Umbridge', then they would feel urged obey the woman. Like a watered down Imperius. And that was just one example. There were countless other students in Hogwarts who had served detention with Umbridge. Who knew what they had written?
It wouldn't be enough to just stop the use of the quill. No, that wouldn't be enough comeuppance for the bitch. But what to do? What to do? Hmm...
She definitely needed to do more research into the object. Well, she still had several detentions left. She'd think of something.
~~~
By the next time Heather stood outside of Umbridge's office for detention, she had an inkling of a plan. She just needed to check a few things first.
As with last time, she was handed a black quill and parchment to use. A quick check showed that it wasn't the replica that she had conjured last time. So Umbridge definitely had more of these cursed things. It was a simple matter to switch out the quill for something harmless again and it only took an illusion spell to fool the old toad into believing the quill was working just fine.
Heather certainly wasn't going to subject herself to using the quill again.
She started to wonder why her brother hadn't done the same, but pushed it aside. This wasn't the time to mope about her fight with Hadrian.
Instead, she struck up a conversation with the nasty bitch in front of her. "I apologise in advance, but it's been a tiring day. My hand might just slip and snap your delightfulquill in half." Heather sneered up at the toad, eyes locking with hers.
As expected, Umbridge was looking right at her, clearly enjoying the sight of her student mutilating herself. Well, that just made things easier.
Umbridge replied with some equally insincere reassurance, but Heather wasn't paying attention. The moment they had made eye contact, Heather dived right into her mind without making so much as a ripple in her consciousness. The idiot's mind was utterly defenceless, ripe for the picking.
As Professor Snape had mentioned many times before, the mind wasn't simply something to be opened and read. Legilimency didn't offer the user telepathic powers as many believed, but a tiny window into someone's mind at the time of casting. Heather couldn't simply ravage Umbridge's mind for the information she wanted, not without rendering her little more than a vegetable. And that was much too merciful a fate for what she had done. She wanted the bitch to be fully aware and conscious to experience the vengeance Heather would wreak.
Thus the sentence she had spoken to provoke the woman. Each person's mind was unique, so only they had a clue how to navigate their own. If Heather were to try and uncover specific memories, she would require either much more time or an in-depth grasp of Umbridge's psyche. In the absence of both, what Heather coulddo was nudge Umbridge's mind to bring up certain memories by triggering them with external stimuli.
Heather's words had reminded Umbridge of a certain memory of one of Hadrian's detentions with her.
The wretched little boy glared up at her from where he sat, hand trembling in pain. It delighted Dolores to see the menace brought down a peg. Certain children just needed to be disciplined more firmly. His so-called guardian certainly wasn't going to. Imagine that! A little girl playing at being the Head of the family! Utterly ludicrous. All those delusions about mad men coming back from the dead. Bah! Touched in the head, the lot of them.
A sharp sound brought her attention to the boy again. Dolores couldn't help but titter the sight. Did Potter really think that just by breaking the quill he could get out of his punishment? Relishing in his furious glower, she reached into her drawer and took out another of her little quills. She handed it to him smugly. She was much smarter than to only have one of them at hand. Children were destructive little beasts, after all.
The reminder of her brother's suffering at the hands of this crazy bitch made her itch to curse her, but she stayed her hand. Revenge was a dish best served cold, as any self-respecting Slytherin very well knew. She grasped onto the memory and followed its trails to other related ones. A few other detentions with Hadrian, one where Umbridge secured her drawer containing the quills with a locking spell so painfully basic that any NEWT student could open it and some of her attempting to dye the quills a nauseating pink colour. Finally, Heather traced it back to the memory she wanted.
Dolores laughed gleefully when she caught sight of the treasures inside the trunk. It was truly fortunate that she had decided to conduct a random spot check on the Department of Magical Law Enforcement today. It wasn't quite in her jurisdiction, but she was a dedicated employee and often went out of her way to step up when there was a need. These incompetent fools decidedly made this needful.
And she had been rewarded for her diligence of course. For inside the chest of confiscated items from a raid yesterday had included rare and highly dangerous Blood Quills.
Not merely one or two, but ten!
Truly a gift.
Dolores quietly liberated the lot of them from the storeroom, already plotting of ways to keep the little Hogwarts hellions nice and obedient.
Heather pulled out of Umbitch's mind, hiding a smirk. The toad didn't suspect a thing. While the spell seemed to have lasted for quite a while, in reality it was just a few seconds. Everything that happened in the mind always felt much longer, after all.
Perfect. So Umbridge had ten of the cursed things, eight when considering the one Hadrian had broken and the one she had taken. And she stored them all in that drawer of hers behind a standard locking spell. Getting to them would be all too easy, especially if she enlisted a little help from Fred and George.
Now she just needed to work out the proper spells for what she was planning.