The classroom emptied all but immediately, nobody wanted to stay behind and speak to Umbridge. A lesson spent copying up the best ways to avoid conflict had dulled the enthusiasm to live in every other student. Harry had been anticipating the end of the lesson for completely different reasons. Defence was the last lesson of the day, Friday, and that meant a whole litany of more exciting things were now about to happen. The first of which required his invisibility cloak and family heirloom. Colin Creevey had a tendency to speak up for himself and Dumbledore, and a habit of napping in front of the common room fire. Harry's legilimency was nothing to be particularly proud of, but a sleeping fourth year was a soft target and he'd eventually extracted enough fragments of memory and feeling to deduce that whatever Umbridge was using to harm the other students was connected to that quill he'd seen in Colin's recollections.
A very short trip to the library had revealed nothing, but a long technical conversation with Fleur about detecting the enchantments on objects had given him enough to start with.
'How's Katie?' Neville popped up beside him just before he pulled his cloak from under his robes.
'Still in the hospital wing,' Harry replied. 'If you hang around for a few minutes I was about to go and visit her.'
Neville gave him a serious look. 'You're about to break your promise to her, aren't you?'
'I promised not to get caught,' Harry told him. 'And how do you even know about that?'
'Katie mentioned it to Angelina and Alicia in the hospital wing. I overheard them talking to the Weasley twins about it and your little stunt with Malfoy.' Neville shook his head. 'I don't know what you thought you were doing, that wasn't some school corridor jinx.'
'It was meant to be the water-conjuring charm,' Harry shrugged, 'I got carried away.' He unfolded the cloak, knowing that Neville and most of the school already knew of its existence, if not the fact that it would hide him from any detection wards that might have been placed around a teacher's office. 'I'll wait out here,' Neville agreed. 'I doubt Umbridge is coming back too soon, but if she is I shall try and delay her.'
'Thanks, Nev,' Harry grinned, vanishing under the cloak. 'I'll be quick.'
He re-entered the classroom, striding down the rows of desks and into Umbridge's office.
It's hideous.
The woman needed a whole slew of lessons, one of which had to be interior decorating, there was just too much pink. It was turning his stomach.
Harry carefully made his way round to her desk. He knew from Colin's memory that she kept the quill in the bottom draw of her desk in an unobtrusive wooden box. It was silver-tipped, black-feathered, made of something soft as down, and as long as his hand. Harry was more interested in the enchantments that must be on it than how it looked, even if it did appear like quite an impressive writing implement.
Running the tip of his wand over the quill he repeated the words that Fleur had taught him, and had to fight the urge to destroy the object. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Umbridge was far worse than he'd thought. She'd made this herself, enchanting it to take the blood of whomever was holding it as ink and then inflicting it on children, forcing them to write in their own blood and carve the words into their own skin.
Time for a little taste of her own malice.
A simple, if powerful, Confundus Charm on the warded quill was all it took and then he was able to pick it up and tweak a few things. Umbridge only supervised single students in detention and had but one of these quills, Harry had checked the other drawers to make sure. It was fairly easy to predict the outcome of any actions he took.
He slid the quill, no longer finding it nearly as attractive as he first had, back in the box. The quill's enchantments were unchanged, but, instead of taking the blood of the nearest person, it would only ever find its ink in the veins of its owner. Harry permitted himself a cruel, satisfied smile. He hoped Umbridge enjoyed the next detention she set; it might not go quite as she planned, but it would certainly make its mark.
He had added a few additional spells, enchanting was not his forté, Fleur had proven that while he was competent he would never be as good as someone with a true gift for it, but these were simple spells. One to reduce the pain felt, in case Umbridge ever managed to use it against a student again, and a ward to let him know if the magic on it was ever tampered with again. It seemed unlikely, from its crude design, that Umbridge would notice either.
Tucking his wand away he carefully replaced the quill's box exactly as he had found it, and left, leaving the door open as he'd found it.
'What did you do?' Neville asked, when they were safely on their way to the hospital wing to visit Katie.
'Nothing much,' Harry smiled innocently, 'just altered her detention plans a little.'
'The quill?' He whispered his question, even though the corridor was all but empty.
'What do you know about it?' Harry was going to be a little annoyed if he could have just asked Neville about it instead of spending hours trying to wring something useful from Colin Creevey's mind.
'Ron says that Umbridge made him write lines with it,' Neville explained, struggling to keep his disgust to a minimum. 'It takes the blood from the back of your hand when you write, he's got scars from it.'
Serves him right for being so stupid as to keep getting detentions from her.
Harry had only made one mistake, and he'd escaped without detention, but he wouldn't be repeating his mistake again, not now he knew what the woman was capable of. The quill was only a few rungs down the ladder from the Cruciatus Curse.
'It doesn't anymore,' Harry smiled. Neville looked a little taken aback by the satisfaction he was displaying. 'What did you do? If you destroyed it she'll just make another one.'
'I didn't destroy it,' Harry assured him. 'I… improved it.'
'I don't think I want to know,' Neville decided. 'Just, make sure it doesn't end up with someone getting hurts who doesn't deserve it.'
'Umbridge is the only one who will get harmed,' Harry responded firmly, 'and she definitely deserves it. That quill is an instrument of torture, handing it to a child is no better than casting the Cruciatus Curse on them.'
Neville flinched, Harry hadn't forgotten how he felt about that curse and he felt a little guilty for reminding Neville of his parents' suffering. He was right, though, and Neville must have realised it from the way his eyes caught alight with anger. 'I hope it's painful,' he gritted eventually.
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