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Alright.

First order of business, I need to know exactly where Umbridge stands in this political shenaniganry. No point trying to play her without info, after all.

But before that.

"Harry, use the mirror Sirius gave you and call him."

Harry is understandably surprised that we knew about it. He opens his mouth for rebuttal, then thinks better of it, shrugs, and does as he's told.

Good boy.

…though strictly speaking this is less valuable than a more canonical timeline, since technically Sirius can just show up in the castle if he really wanted to.

I mean, I'm pretty sure McGonagall will kick his ass if he does, but he still could.

Anyhoo, let's do some research.

…

So first things first, I need to know what I'm going to do.

Canonically, the ministry raised holy hell when Harry made it public that Voldemort had returned. They all but destroyed him politically in an effort to preserve their own good standing, until finally Truth prevails and finally shit was gotten together.

So…let's start from here.

First off, Harry Potter was the brick wall that Voldemort shattered his head against.

He was then hailed as the 'Boy Who Lived', which…in retrospect is admittedly a little odd. The speed of information isn't instant. Even if Harry was born 20 years later with Twitter, it still wouldn't be instant.

How did people know that he was the boy who lived?

Dumbledore knew about the prophecy and definitely would have had the family placed under watch.

If memory serves, that is indeed what happened. So Dumbledore alerted the prophet after Tom killed himself with a baby, and then…

…and then the Prophet spun the story?

Hmm.

I need to do some research.

But we have class first.

Bah.

…

[Defense Against the Dark Arts]

…

Why does this class have to be first?!

Umbridge is…the very mask of a sweet, friendly lady. Like the book, she begins by telling us to read a book on theory.

Not gonna lie, I've read the book she assigned and it's actually quite good. Some of it is dated, but the chapters not about averting a conflict are pretty accurate with regards to tactics and movement.

…Well, it's like early World War One tactics being described by someone who's never heard of World War One, but still, pretty interesting.

But of course Harry has beef with it because it's not really teaching him to fight.

It's like if Binns was teaching DA, only more evil. Or something.

Hermione begins the dispute by asking for more substantial lessons, but Harry's the one who gets it heated. Umbridge begins to seethe.

I'm very keen to just let this play out according to canon, but…

I raise my hand and borderline shout. "Question, professor."

"Yes?" Umbridge turns to us with her simpering sweet and very much so angry tone.

Since she's pissed off right now, let's be professional about this. "I would like to know if the methodologies presented in the book have been vetted by the Ministry's Aurors."

The room descends into confused silence.

"I'm not sure what you mean." Umbridge replies. "This book is ministry approved, and all contents within are thus as well."

Hmm. "I see. So there should be no problems if we recommend the tactics as dictated to the Ministry at large?"

…Huh. That's new.

Umbridge may have just turned a slight shade of pale.

"It is not up to the Hogwarts student body to dictate the working doctrine of the Ministry, I'm afraid." She says sweetly. "But it is nice of you to ask."

That's not the defense I was expecting. "I understand. Is there a possibility that we can see the actions as presented in the book in a live demonstration?" I was expecting her to go 'This is the working doctrine of the Ministry'.

She thinks on it (or pretends to). "I will contact the ministry and see if they can spare some Aurors. Showing all of you how the Ministry works is certainly not a bad thing."

Hmm again.

With that, we've successfully defused the situation enough that Harry and Hermy no longer tries to directly engage Umbridge. That said, the class is still wasted time, as we basically do a glorified version of self-study where Umbridge more or less reads from the book and offers no other insight.

She's not good at faking teaching, is she? Even Lockhart was more engaging. Hell, Binns is more engaging, if only because he's reciting from memory.

What?

I had Fred and George 'replace' his textbook last year once. He didn't notice.

Anyways, Harry and Hermy aren't too happy (or rather, just Harry isn't too happy) about us interfering on Umbridge's behalf (more or less), so the trio hunt us down after class.

"What the hell was that?" Harry demands. "Why did you go along with what she said?"

Well. "Because we don't know what she's trying to do." I reply calmly. "And given what she said today, there's a little more at work here than I first thought."

"She's working for someone besides Fudge." Hermione says darkly. Hey! She picked up on it.

"She is?" Ron is…less picked-up on it.

"She could be." I correct Hermy. "What we do know is that there was pushback when I brought up the idea of contacting the Ministry, which makes me think that either she's working as a minor party, or else her actions are not considered to be in line with what they're trying to do." More likely, what she's doing is good for Fudge, but bad for Fudge if his competitors got wind of it.

"Do you really think she'll bring Aurors to the class?" Hermy asks.

"Can't say." I shrug. "Though I'll be surprised if it happens."

"Are they really not going to teach us how to fight?" Harry is exasperated.

Heh. "If it bothers you that much, then learn on your own time." I yawn. "Now let's get a move on."

The rest of the classes were pretty normal, and now I have free time.

…

[Free Time]

So, first things first, let's go to the library.

We walk up to the librarian's table, staffed by Madam Pince.

"Can I…" Madam Pince frowns upon realizing that it was us, the walking flashbang. "…help you?"

"Does this library have and keep old copies of the Daily Prophet?" I ask somewhat harshly.

She immediately relaxes, because whenever I'm asking for material in a polite tone something invariably goes weird. "We do not. Is there a particular reason you're asking?"

Bah. "I'm looking for information from immediately after You-Know-Who's downfall."

"Now that, I have." She opens a drawer in her table and pulls out an immaculately preserved copy of the Daily Prophet. The big title reads DARK LORD DEFEATED and underneath is a picture of…Cornelius Fudge celebrating.

Interesting.

Madam Pince will not let the copy leave her sight.

She's kept it as a memento, apparently. I read it and then excuse myself.

So…I think I see what the problem is. Or at least, what the problem is from a high level.

In a nutshell…

Wait, step back a second.

So, first off, Tom's reign lasts fo-puahaha oh my god that sounds stupid

Like who the fuck is the Dark Lord Tom

But eh. Tom's reign lasted for fifty years (give and take a few days), so it's fair to say that the entirety of the Magic world's current working population was born with the knowledge and expectation that an evil and malicious force exists somewhere. What with the zombies, happiness-sucking reapers, mind control, and sudden death, it stands to reason that life sucked in those fifty years.

So…for the people who had the world view that their life sucked underneath a dark lord, but knew of nothing else…if someone told them one day that their life has suddenly changed because Tom shot a baby and died in the process…

My point is: would you believe it? If one day someone told you that suddenly and for no explainable reason, your worldview was suddenly 100% wrong, and that the reality is actually going to be puppies and sunshine, would you take that at face value?

I know I wouldn't. If anything, most people should have looked at the return of Voldemort with something akin to expectation. I mean, the Ministry that everyone knew was under Tom's thumb reporting on Tom's death would be…at best weird, at worst utterly bullshit.

Either way, this is my point. For Harry Potter to be hailed as the Boy Who Lived, there had to have been an outside source that peddled this story hard. An outside source that's considered to be immaculate and is, in many ways, beyond reproach. No points for guessing who we're talking about.

…This might also be why Dumbledore gets a pass on the morally grey shit he did when he was younger, too. It's hard to mark someone as evil when he's actively working to make sure the actual evil people out there are legitimately trying to kill you.

Either way, judging by that edition of the Prophet, my guess is reasonably accurate. While I can't speak for subsequent editions of the paper, the one released the day after the fall of the Dark Lord celebrated the bejesus out of Harry Potter. Like, the Prophet went to extreme lengths to peddle Harry Potter as the Savior of Mankind.

Moreover, they tacked themselves onto Harry's coattails. There are just pages upon pages of Ministry Task Force reports about raids on Death Eater Hideouts, counterspell plans, arrests. Since this is the Prophet, the accuracy of the information itself is suspect. Plus it's all released on the back pages of the big blocky headlines, as if to say "even if we were mind controlled this is what we were doing behind the scenes", which…again, reeks of total bullshit.

Still, I think the general idea holds.

The Boy Who Lived suggesting that the Ministry has failed in its One Job is inherently upsetting to national stability, and crushing a lone teenager is a lot easier than trying to crush the Death Eaters. If you recall correctly, squashing the death eaters was something the Ministry was terrible at doing.

…So…where do we go from here?

Harry's a big deal for the Ministry because he was the source of their political support for the years immediately following Voldemort going down. Canonically, this is the year where Dunny says Voldemort's back, and Harry's in his corner. If their support is based on the 'Boy Who Lived' saving the world, then they can't risk having him speaking a different message, so they tried to smack down 'Harry Potter' as much as possible.

Obviously the two are one and the same, but politics being politics, an image is easier to keep clean when it's separated from the person. Hell, the article mentioned Harry Potter's name precisely once, and referred to him as the 'Boy Who Lived' in all other instances.

It also helps the ministry's case that Harry makes it damn clear that he is 'just' Harry Potter, not some mythical hero. This lets the ministry hold onto the mythos and image of the Boy Who Lived, and gives them a certain amount of influence that might not hold up very well to scrutiny, but is very effective when placed correctly. I don't have enough political experience to know how precisely that will work, though.

…That aside, what's Umbridge's role in this? She apparently has an ulterior motive that's not tied with the Ministry. I mean, I'm still guessing Fudge, but a guess is not insurance.

Hmm.

…Well, it's a bit too early for me to tell.

…

[Time Goes By]

…

So obviously Harry doesn't have detention with Umbridge.

I have detention with Umbridge.

Wait what

I'm half kidding. Umbridge is inviting me in a very Slughorn-esque way to "attend to matters that interest the Ministry" and I don't really wanna but I must. Hence detention.

Given I'm not being told to scratch words into the back of my hand I'm pretty ok with this.

The meeting is really just Umbridge trying her spiel as best as she can manage, and she's a pretty decent orator when not full of shit. Pity her message sounds over-rehearsed. For the record, her talking point is basically "the ministry is good for you so do as they tell you".

One interesting point is that she constantly uses titles rather than names (so if she's talking about Fudge she would say "The Minister" instead). It's interesting, but at the moment I can't say for what reason.

Um…what else?

Cho Chang isn't insane from PTSD and is communicating regularly with Cedric via mail. Though I don't endorse underage sex I really hope she got some from him during the summer. Every sketchy comment I make from now on should be prefaced with "Though I don't endorse" from now on.

All your sentences will now double in length.

No kidding. What else?

The…uh…guy. Sturgis Podmore. I don't know who he is but apparently he was a part of the Order, got arrested for trying to break into the Ministry. I don't remember this part of the story at all, so I assume this is fairly close to canon.

Also, this means that the Department of Mysteries is still the focus for this year…how come? Harry wasn't the one that mowed Peter Pettigrew down with an assault rifle…

Disclaimer?

…I don't endorse wholesale murder of people with black market Soviet armament. Unless they're related to an underground paramilitary force hell-bent on whatever the fuck they're doing.

Anyway.

Ron's playing Quidditch, and his nerves are…not as bad as they are in canon, but still pretty crippling.

His nerves are actually as bad as they are in canon.

I don't actually see any of this, since I'm not affiliated with the Quidditch team. The time that I'm not spent on this is divided between listening to Umbridge's bullshit and my own development.

I'll get to that in a bit.

What else?

Percy's happy that Ron became a prefect, though he doesn't tell Ron to disassociate with Harry. He does tell Ron to associate with us instead, though. Likely because he thinks we're on surprisingly good terms with Fudge.

"He's bonkers." Ron had said upon receiving the message. "No offense, but you're bonkers too." He says to me as an afterthought. At this point that's just a statement of fact.

Next…

Harry's in constant contact with Sirius, obviously. Sirius also makes it a point to visit the castle at every opportunity (which is basically every weekend) and nobody really stops him, because he's motherfucking Sirius Black.

"Motherfucking Sirius Black" is also extremely polite to McGonagall while on school grounds.

He is also a bit of manchild (unlike us, who is a literal manchild) which endears him to the more rambunctious side of the school populace. It also makes the story that he and James were troublemakers way more likely to believe.

Also, I think Dumbledore may be inviting him to the castle on purpose. For exactly what I don't know, but it seems too…strange, that he and no other doting parent would show up at all without some kind of ulterior motive. Yeah he cares for Harry, but he never really struck me as the doting Godfather kind of man. He's more like the Worryingly Volatile Uncle.

…We'll see what happens on that front.

Um…

Umbridge gets made "Official Ministry Liaison" of Hogwarts. Which…functionally speaking is the same as High Inquisitor. The difference here is that I think she was given this post in direct response to Sirius Black, but I have no proof to back it up.

We'll never find out, but Umbridge's assignment is unrelated to Sirius Black. She doesn't like him, Fudge doesn't like him, but trying to move against a man publicly freed by the Ministry is a poor move. Rather, the assignment is a counter to us, so if I become uppity she can draw resources from the Ministry and stop me without having to get caught off guard again.

And Umbridge is of course still not showing magic. She did invite an Auror into the class to do a little show and tell, but it was very heavily leaned towards the 'tell' part and wasn't all that informative.

And Umbridge is of course judging the teachers for political reliability, and of course Hagrid gets the short end of it. We don't see the exchange and thus do not get to interfere because we took Arithmancy at the time.

Which is…

Magic numbers. In a way. It's basically trig and geometry with a lot of magical implications thrown in. I'm…not overly fond of the class, but it makes me a better spellmaker, so I can't really complain. My Prismatic Ray hits even harder now (and I can cast it faster) thanks to the ability to reliably draw perfect circles while moving, for example.

…

[The Establishment of the DA]

…

Oh we're going straight to this?

Need to pad out the word count because you keep shortcutting things.

Huh.

Harry teaches magic.

How's that?

Ahem.

Ah, fine.

So, during Hogsmeade weekend, Harry, Ron, and Hermy go into a seedy bar and talk about making an organization for teaching combat magic in a very active way. They are, in a sense, creating a paramilitary force. Were this ten years later, we would have very reasonable grounds to accuse them of fostering domestic terrorism.

We're a part of the 'second group' that enters the Hog's Head after the three of them (the group that Hermione has invited before she talked to Harry proper). I agree with Sirius that hosting a meeting like this in a seedy bar is sketchy as all fuck, but I can see that Hermione's on an adrenaline rush, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

They get to chatting about teaching. With Voldemort's return being common knowledge (insofar as it's not immediately being denied) the conversation goes a little differently.

The topic comes around to who's teaching. Currently, Harry's adamant about just teaching defense.

"But You-Know-Who's back, right?" A student (Justin Finch-Fletchley) says nervously. "Is it really fine to just defend?"

"I can teach offense." I volunteer. "But it takes a lot of time, so I'll likely just be working with a few people at a time."

Justin looks very pale at the idea of us teaching.

"Dude, I don't bite." I make myself sound offended.

"Just don't go overboard." Hermione sighs. For the record, she had asked us to teach offense before this meeting and I had agreed (under the proviso that Harry chooses to do this).

A little more conversation goes afterwards, but ultimately it's decided that the group will meet in the Room of Requirement.

We didn't volunteer the Chamber of Secrets?

It would get revealed as our hideout if 30-odd people go back and forth. Instead, we're setting a connection point from the RoR to the Chamber's bathroom (which is now permanently closed—Snape erected a wall over the entrance that only he and I can pass through).

Seems odd that Snape would do something so…polite.

I blew the shit out of the first five walls he tried. And then I revoked his license to get in, so he got bombarded by Winds of Sleep until he gave up. It was just a lot easier to be nice, really.

Anyhoo…

…

[First Day of Training]

So…like I said, our class size is about thirty. The named NPCs from canon are obviously there, and the rest are unnamed NPCs (like the Little Ravenclaw Girl).

Harry lines them up for disarming training (with a little bit of scoffing from Justin).

Fred and George immediately bounce over to us.

"Hello there, Ash." Fred says brightly. "We're ready to learn."

"Is it going to be similar to the thing you had made for Triwizard?" George asks.

So as expected we had some time to prepare (to the tune of 4 days).

"In a way." I nod. "But in this case we're training against known threats; that is, our enemies are basically smart, so obstacle courses are neato but not really a priority."

"O…kay?" Fred senses something wrong. "So how are we doing this?"

"Easy." I pull my wand. "We practice."

"Oh shit." George mutters.

…

[3rd Person Camera]

Ash and the Weasley twins move to a separated side room.

"For starters, we're going to be doing some drills." Ash says and waves his wand. A series of targets rise from around the room and float lazily at around waist height.

"Um." Fred felt like he knew half of what he was expected to do.

"Each one of these target boards will charge a water spell." Ash explains. "Each board has a wind-up time of around 20 seconds, and it'll glow green when it starts charging. If you don't intercept it with a spell of some kind, it'll shoot water at you."

"And they're all around us." George looks to his left and right. "So this is reflex training?"

Ash nods. "Yep. A spell's worthless if it doesn't hit, so don't get hit. Use only stunners for this exercise because I don't want to make more."

"Got it." Fred and George say simultaneously and then take back-to-back positions.

Ash's eyebrow goes up. "Did I say you get to work together? Split. One at a time. Person who's not doing this exercise is sparring with me."

"Crap." Fred sighs. "Well brother, it's been nice knowing you." He says, leaving George to fend for himself in the circle of water-spewing targets.

Ash and Fred take the other half of the room, where a circular dueling ring had been set up.

"There are three skills we definitively need: Reflex, Offense, and Defense." Ash ticks off on his fingers. "Reflex is what George is doing. Offense is Harry, and Defense is me."

Fred blinks. "Wait, isn't Harry supposed to be defense?"

"You'd think so." Ash laughs. "But properly casting a spell, even if it's a defensive one, is an entirely aggressive training regime. It's all about casting time and preparation, and you win if you out-cast the enemy. Aggressive." He stretches and warms up. "So we're here to learn actual defense."

"How?" Fred instinctively takes some steps back.

"Disarm and recovery." Ash says simply. "All of you are super reliant on your wands, so we're going to practice how to take it away without the Disarming spell, and how to recover even when wandless."

"Ok." Fred gets ready.

He then feels his wand slip from his hand, and before he could react Ash had already closed the distance.

"You lose." Ash grins, his hand inches from Fred's face.

"What was that?" Fred says curiously and retrieves his wand…he then notices that his wand was unnecessarily slippery. "Oil?"

"Yep." Ash nods. "Transfigure the air around the wand into oil. It's all about removing their ability to cast…and then finishing them off if necessary." He removes the oil from Fred's wand.

"Hopefully we'll never come to that." Fred recovers his wand and immediately begins casting. "Exp—"

The bottom of his jaw was hit by a small blast of wind and the rest of his spell evaporated.

"Remember…you get to lose only once." Ash grins as Fred shakes off the hit. "So get scrappy."

"I'll keep that in mind." Fred transfigures some sand from the ground (the room actually provided it to him) and tosses it at Ash. Given it takes him longer than half a second to make a throwing motion with his arm…

Ash blows the sand back into his face with wind.

Fred had covered his face with his robes just in case something like this happened, so he guards against the sand but gets slammed in the back by a blast of wind, another on his shin, and one last in the back of his head.

"You really like the wind charm, don't you?" Fred says with his face into the ground.

"You have no idea how amazingly useful this is." Ash laughs. "I don't have to chant and I can just direct force at my target."

"Good to know." Fred rolls and successfully fires off a stunner. He had the distinct feeling that Ash let him.

A small card floats into the path of the stunner and expands to five times its size, eats the stunner, and catches on fire.

Fred immediately runs away from the fire. He trips on the smooth stone floor, and wind hits his back half a second later.

Yikes. Fred thinks as he stares at the ceiling. I hope George is having a better time of things. "What did I trip on?" He asks as Ash pulls him back onto his feet.

"I put ice under your shoe." Ash shrugs. "Easy."

"You should invite McGonagall." Fred laughs as the two return to their starting positions. "She'll give you all the house points you'd want."

Ash shares his laughs in response. "Who do you think gave me all these ideas?"

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

I'm not kidding, by the way. McGonagall's a scarily proficient scrapper.

We put Fred through the paces for about ten more minutes before letting him switch with George.

We put George through his paces too and then send both of them back to the main room.

The two of them immediately find a pair of plushy chairs that conveniently appeared from nowhere and sit down, exhausted. Everyone else, practicing with their disarming charms, stares at the twins with something like shock and horror.

The training isn't necessarily difficult, but being in a state of near-constant adrenaline is tiring, especially on the first day.

"Next." I grin like an evil bastard™.

Predictably, nobody makes a move in our direction.

"Oh come now, guys. I don't bite." I grin harder.

"Me." Luna volunteers enthusiastically.

Hmm. "Ok…I need two, though. Actually, no I don't. Everybody, follow me for a sec."

They do, albeit with a little bit of reservation.

We show them the reflex training room and explain it, that way I don't have to do it every time.

Ok, now we can get to work training with Luna.

…

Following the hour-long meeting, we've trained with Fred, George, Luna, Hermione, and Ron.

And Harry, though that's more of a showmatch. Ron was a bit salty I wiped the floor with him many times over, so he roped Harry into protecting his ego.

And in our showmatch…

I let Harry show off the power of solid spellcasting and then (proverbially) stomped him into the ground.

So, summary.

Fred and George kick serious ass together, but when split apart they're definitely less than effective. Fred's more mid-range, preferring stand-off attacks, while George is a little more melee, preferring to trade shots with his target. George takes to 'dirty' fighting a little faster, too.

Hermione's a straight shooter…boringly so, in fact. Her chanting is amazing and her spells basically come out at more than full power, but her casting speed is slow and she takes care to have her feet planted, which is real bad. After a session involving me kicking her ass with simple little spells repeatedly she caught on to the whole "don't stand in one place" idea and began moving around. She's still liable to plant her feet if she gets disoriented, which means that an ambush with people like me will end with her on the floor.

By comparison, Ron knows the value of being a moving target. He's very good at finding cover and returning fire, and in general is heads above the rest in terms of battle viability. His downside is tunnel vision. Like…he'll see you trying some shit and has no problems countering or getting out of the way, but if you set a simple trap on the ground at the same time he'll fall for it hook, line, and sinker. The training made him aware of the problem, but if you capture his attention and then forcibly divert it you get a massive opening on him. His casting in general is also somewhat poor, though that's a lot easier to fix.

Luna is…erratic. She's sometimes really good, sometimes really bad, so I don't have a good grasp on how good she actually is. When good, she gives me a run for my money. When bad, she can't stand up to a stiff breeze. I think it's more of a focus problem, but I think as we all know she's one of the more hardcore secondary characters, so I'm not that worried.

Lastly is Harry. Harry suffers from an over-reliance on Disarming, but he's so good at getting the spell into position that it no longer matters. I'm going to believe that he's finally showing off the magic power inherited from the Evans and Potter family. At this point, he's probably the most powerful member of the party, as befitting his protagonist status.

Everybody else is improving at a steady rate. We should put Neville through his paces at some point just so our secondary protagonist gets some chance to shine.

And how are we?

As usual, I'm all about getting out the small spells quickly, silently, and at odd angles. My weakness comes at dealing with multiple targets, because my current masteries don't give me a good midrange option–Wind of Sleep, Sucker Punch are good at one-on-one, and Prismatic Beam and Crystal/Bird Funnels are good at one-on-many. Not much in the one-on-two or one-on-three environments.

My mana tank is also smaller than everyone else's, but at this point that's pretty much a non-factor.

Any new spells?

Not really but yes. I've adapted the transparency spell (the one used to make Harry invisible at the beginning of book 7) and turned it into a kind of spell transparency. After a two-month period of practice, I can cast that transparency onto a secondary spell of low enough power, and make the whole thing invisible until it makes contact with the enemy.

Spells don't make noise when they're flying, and they don't make noise until they make contact, either, so…yeah. It's bullshit, and I love it. Most of my time is spent on practicing silent chanting so I can do all of the spells without making a sound or motion.

I can do Wind of Sleep without sound or motion now (I made it a priority) so I can literally make people pass out just by walking by.

That sounds like a rather damning praise.

…in retrospect, yes, yes it does.

The Little Ravenclaw Girl is decently good, but hasn't done much to separate herself from the crowd of NPCs.

Anyways.

…

[A day after the Meeting]

…

Umbridge calls us into her office.

We can't refuse since we've never had a reason to refuse, so we attend.

"Ash, dear." She says after getting her pleasantry preambles out of the way. "I have come across some frightening information about a group of schoolchildren creating a club for extracurricular magic." She simpers. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"

I don't know how much information she has, so no point lying about this. "Yes, I happen to be affiliated with this group." I say firmly.

"Is that so?" She shows no change. "I would hope that you keep an eye on the children, and make sure they are…ah, not placing themselves in any kind of danger."

Ha. "Rest assured, Professor. Though the students may be gathering outside the perjury of a school staff member, they nevertheless are following the Ministry's prescriptions on safe and responsible magic use." I am, of course, the primary reason why the above statement is blatant lies.

Complete with questionable word choice.

"Is that so?" She still shows no change. "I find it difficult to believe that a student of Hogwarts would be safe at all times. Mayhaps there should be a teacher on the premises?"

Mm… "I'm afraid that would be seen as bias. There is no other club in the school that requires a teacher's attendance, and any teachers who choose to do so does so voluntarily." There's a potionmaking club staffed entirely by Slytherins. Snape attends it, but I don't think they ever do anything.

Also, what's going on?

Nothing is actually going on, despite the language being traded. As I have learned from our past two months of interaction, Dolores pays great attention to station, and thus doesn't listen to people who she considers to be beneath her.

I'm…what, 15, 16? Now? And I'm pretty low on the political social ladder, so she uses me as a sounding board to make herself sound smart. I think her argument goes like "since my argument has been debated, it is therefore sound and I am so smart."

…I may be giving her less credit than she deserves, but so far she hasn't shown me that her actions are indicative of something else.

Anyways, Umbridge lays out the rest of her plan (with us to play parrot) and all signs point to her wanting to ban the clubs 'just in case'. I'm not supposed to ask questions so I'll just smile and nod, but I am very curious as to who exactly benefits from this action.

She dismisses us after fifteen minutes.

Very curious, indeed.

…

[Day After]

…

Umbridge has now been given the power to oversee the actions of all teachers, under the pretext of ensuring that they would 'adhere to the rigorous standards of excellence as expected by the ministry of magic and the parental body.' So, not different from canon.

Likewise, she's also instituted a rule that says 'all formal clubs of the school must have a registered teacher guardian, and all clubs that do not have such a guardian will be banned a week after the rule's implementation.'

Again, very reasonable, and very problematic for our guys, who do not trust Umbridge further than they can throw her. The other clubs can just have their teachers/house heads register as the teacher in charge, which gives them zero pain.

Which means our group is going underground?

Ah…haha, fuck no. We're going to follow Umbridge's rules.

Y'know, for a given definition of 'following'.

…

We solve the problem the next day.

Yep.

So what was the solution?

Well.

…

"Ash this is not going to work." Hermione says exasperatedly as we walk to Umbridge's office.

"Sure it will." I have a stack of papers and overwhelming confidence.

We walk into Umbridge's office, with me at the front along with a rather high bounce to my step.

"Ah, if it isn't Ash. Welcome." Umbridge simpers. "Good day to you too, Miss Granger, Mister Potter." She adds…if I didn't know her tone so well I would have said she was sincere.

"I have a form of authorization I would like to submit concerning the formal creation of our club." I say. "I trust there should be no problems."

Umbridge scans our document and her eyes grow progressively wider before narrowing at the very end. "Is this the truth?" She seethes.

"Of course." I grin. "Is there a problem?" I have never lied (technically) in her presence.

"I find it hard to believe that the lot of you are simply doing this as research." She throws the paper onto her table.

Harry smirks slightly at the title of our new club.

"I can assure you that it will not be simple." I say. "But it is our goal to learn more about magic and its many different utilities from an international standpoint."

Umbridge glowers at us.

"I can call the guardian as listed here if you'd like to hear a more detailed explanation." I offer. "He'll do a much better job of convincing you than I can, I'm sure."

"That will not be necessary." Umbridge says icily. "Very well, I hereby approve of your…club." She stamps the paper and files it away in a fashion that suggests she will never look at them again. "Now go; I have work to do."

…

"That went well." Hermione notes. "A little too well."

"Diplomatic immunity has its advantages." I laugh. "Especially when our opponent cares."

I'm leveraging the fact that I have connections to Fudge against Umbridge. Now, obviously I can't use it (and I would only damage my standing if I tried) but I was reasonably certain that Umbridge would consider a refusal against me as a justification for a possible attack against her. I'm…well, I can't say I'm glad it worked out, because I was betting that she'd be overly paranoid, but…I'm glad it worked out.

In any event, we're now legitimate. For a given definition of 'legit'.

"Still, the Club for 'International Magic Research'?" Harry smirks. "Seriously?"

Hermione was also curious, though I wasn't about to give an answer. "How did you get Professor Binns to agree?"