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The Daring Win	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 8180 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Thirty-Two—Restrictions
“We have made our decision.”
Dolores’s spine felt stiff with sitting up so straight, but she only nodded in response to the Wizengamot speaker. This wasn’t Madam Greengrass, but another woman who looked old enough to be her contemporary. She had white hair that was braided around the crown of her head and then hung down in the back, and a pursed expression. She also had her arms folded and a scowl on her face aimed at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore, of course, didn’t look affected by that at all. He smiled blandly at the old woman, who narrowed her eyes.
“I’m glad you have,” Dumbledore said in the rich, rolling voice that was probably a strong indicator of how he had managed to hang onto his political power for so long. “The children of Britain deserve an answer as to what will become of their education.”
The older woman only sniffed at him, and then turned back to Dolores and Alfred and Snape, as if she assumed they would make more sense. “We agree that Albus Dumbledore cannot be allowed to remain Headmaster with unlimited power. Therefore, we have placed restrictions and sanctions on him that will limit his power. If he does not comply with them in the next year, then he will be stripped of his post.”
Dolores nodded slowly. She hadn’t been foolish enough to hope for a complete victory over Dumbledore. And anyway, at least that meant he would either be changed or gone by the time Harry attended Hogwarts.
The woman opened a scroll to begin reading from it. “First, Albus Dumbledore is forbidden from seeing and approving applications for professors by himself. The Board of Governors will aid him, and they will make sure that no candidate with Legilimency or carrying the Dark Mark on his arm is approved again.” The woman stared at Snape.
Snape gave no twitch. The Wizengamot member rolled her eyes and went on. “Second, the Board of Governors will visit with Headmaster Dumbledore every month and use a diluted form of Veritaserum on him. It won’t compel him to answer every question asked of him, but it will ensure that he answers a round of common questions completely.”
“This violates my rights as a human being,” said Dumbledore. His tone was almost casual. Dolores glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He doesn’t believe this is really happening. He doesn’t believe they can really enforce it.
“No more than you violated Mr. Potter’s rights by having your minion read his mind,” Madam Greengrass growled, stomping the floor with a carved ivory cane that Dolores thought she hadn’t had when she went up to her seat.
“All parts of this list of restrictions are non-negotiable,” said the woman who had been reading them so far, with a slight nod of her head. “Unless, of course, you wish to surrender your power right now, Headmaster Dumbledore, and allow us to choose another professor of Hogwarts to fill your position. That would save us all some trouble.”
Dumbledore tightened his lips. Dolores thought she might have heard his teeth grinding if she’d been standing closer. “No. No, I quite see your point.”
“Very well.” The woman returned to reading. “Third, Headmaster Dumbledore will agree never to use his own Legilimency on students for the next year. Any violation will come out when he is dosed with Veritaserum. That will be one of the regular questions asked.”
“How am I know when one of my students is about to do something dangerous?”
“How did previous Headmasters without mental magic cope, other than by having portraits and ghosts who reported to them? Ask the previous Headmasters you have unparalleled access to for clues!”
Dolores had to fight to keep her face grave at Madam Greengrass’s words. She glanced sideways and saw the way Harry was smiling at her. But he was a child, and would be forgiven that breach of protocol in a way that she would not. She clamped her teeth down on her lip, and stared straight ahead.
“Fourth, Headmaster Dumbledore will agree to tell the Board of Governors about any other professors he hired for political reasons only. They will review the records of the professor’s success in teaching their subject and decide whether those hires should stay on.”
“That may not be possible. I might not remember all of them, or the reasons for which I hired them.”
“That is why there is also a provision that Headmaster Dumbledore will show the Board of Governors the original contracts that he signed with all professors he hired. Where necessary, potions to test the age of the parchment and ink will be provided.”
Dolores studied the ceiling this time so that she wouldn’t smile.
“Fifth, Headmaster Dumbledore will agree to cease any contact with Harry Potter that is not strictly related to his attendance at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he is eleven. All such contact must come through letters addressed to his guardian, Dolores Umbridge.”
That rather neatly closes the loophole that he might try to communicate with Sirius or Lupin, Dolores thought. She thought Sirius would probably burn Dumbledore’s letters rather than read them, but Lupin was a weak link.
“Sixth, when Harry Potter attends Hogwarts—assuming that these sanctions have worked and Headmaster Dumbledore is still in the appropriate role for him to play when it comes to one of his students—there will be no unsupervised meetings between the Headmaster and Harry Potter. At least three other adults must be present, and one of them must be either Dolores Umbridge or her chosen representative.”
“That will make it impossible to have normal meetings—”
“Most of the time, Headmaster Dumbledore, why would you need to meet with a student?” The old woman peered down at him. “Only for disciplinary measures, and I have to admit, we had problems with the idea that you could be unbiased in your treatment of Mr. Potter when you have done so much to him already. So the unbiased observers are a good idea, for you as well as for him.”
Dumbledore clamped his jaws shut, and his nostrils flared like an angry camel’s. Dolores knew what he wouldn’t say. He wanted to speak to Harry for political reasons, for the same reason he had wanted to leave him to the Dursleys and then gain custody of him.
Dolores didn’t know if she knew all those political reasons right now. But she would find out.
“Seventh, Headmaster Dumbledore will make copies of all documents detailing his dealings with professors, including contracts for non-political hires and messages to the ones who were part of his Order of the Phoenix, available to the Board of Governors—”
“That would violate their privacy!”
“The contracts are, or should be, a matter of public record,” the Wizengamot witch said, and rattled the parchment she held with a shake of her hands. “Headmaster Dippet used to send them to us as well as to the Board of Governors for revising. That you don’t is a pity, but we’re only resuming an old tradition, not creating an entirely new one. And the messages to your Order of the Phoenix members fall under the same conditions as you disclosing those professors you hired for purely political reasons.”
“May I remind you that, during the last war, the Order of the Phoenix was the only effective resistance to Voldemort?”
The witch gasped sharply, but kept her calm other than that. “Perhaps we would have managed a more effective resistance if you had shared the information you held, Headmaster, instead of keeping it secret.”
Dumbledore did grind his teeth, audibly, this time. Dolores caught the smile Harry sent her, and nodded, the safest thing she could do right now.
“In the meantime,” the Wizengamot woman said, and folded the scroll she held up with a snap, “we will try these sanctions for a year. If you obey them acceptably, Headmaster Dumbledore, then we will relax the ones about the revising of past documentation and we will cease the questioning under Veritaserum. All others will remain in effect. It is disgraceful that you have ever used Legilimency on students, Dumbledore.”
Dumbledore would have opened his mouth to protest again; in fact, Dolores was absolutely sure he would. But he only turned pink, and, after flushing and straining while his throat bobbed like a frog’s, he managed to stay silent.
“Is there anything that you wish to add to this list of punishments, Madam Umbridge?”
Dolores turned back to the woman and shook her head. “These sanctions are just and fair.” She paused. “But might I know your name? I don’t, and it would be awkward to simply refer in interviews to ‘the sanest member of the Wizengamot.’”
The woman smiled a little. “I am Janet Ilchester. You may refer to me as such.” She turned and gestured with the scroll towards Dumbledore. “Perhaps think before you do something as political and interfering as this, Headmaster. Leave politics to the Wizengamot.”
Dumbledore nodded, deeply enough that someone could mistake it for a bow if they didn’t know him as well as Dolores was beginning to. “I understand now. Thank you for outlining the boundaries of acceptable behavior, Madam Ilchester.”
Dolores narrowed her eyes as he turned away. That sounded like an acknowledgement of the Wizengamot’s power to punish him, but she was sure that it had other things going on under the surface, and Dumbledore would still find a way to evade what he was supposed to do.
The thing was, she couldn’t worry that much about it. Harry was free from the man’s influence for at least a year. And the Veritaserum interrogations and the supervised meetings and the fact that all letters had to come through her meant that Harry would be protected as far as possible.
As far as possible without wrapping him up in blankets in a darkened room. And I would be no better than his relatives if I did that. Then Dolores paused and considered. Well, all right, they probably wouldn’t have allowed him the blankets.
“We need to talk about you keeping your promise to purchase me the space for a shop.”
Dolores nodded to Snape. “We will. For now, though, I need to talk to Sirius and Harry.” She turned and walked over to them for the first time since they’d entered the courtroom.
“That was wonderful.” Sirius’s cheeks were flushed, and Dolores thought he might have grabbed her and hugged her if things weren’t so strained between them right now. As it was, he did pat her shoulder. “I never thought that a legal punishment could be so satisfying.”
Dolores smiled. “You would have preferred pranks?”
“They’re more satisfying. Generally.”
“In this case, we had all the proof we needed. Pranks might be more satisfying when you can’t demonstrate wrongdoing. But we could.” She looked down and saw Harry’s small face tilted back to meet her own, his green eyes intense. “Are you satisfied, Harry? Do you fell well-protected?”
Harry turned the thought carefully over in his mind. Sirius stopped almost-cheering when he did that and looked at him in concern. Dolores shot him a glance when he opened his mouth to speak. No. They were going to let Harry handle this on his own.
Sirius huffed out loud and crossed his arms. Harry still didn’t turn to glance at him, though. His eyes had never left Dolores’s face.
“Yes,” Harry said finally. “I know that he might find a way past some of the restrictions that I can’t see right now. But you taught me that I can’t live in fear of what my enemies might do. I can only take reasonable precautions and try to be ready for them when they break free.”
Dolores nodded and said, “Then we will go back home, and try to explain what happened today in a way that Lupin will understand.”
“Remus doesn’t sympathize with Dumbledore as much as you think he does,” Sirius said under his breath as Harry led them towards the entrance. “I know he said something about Dumbledore the other day, but that was only because…well, Dumbledore was kind to him and let him attend Hogwarts. Remus finds it hard to forget anyone who was kind to him.”
Dolores glanced at him briefly. “But he was lying to me from the minute he met me.”
“You know why.”
“Yes. But I was kind enough to both let him live in the house and pay him wages for teaching Harry, and how did he respond? With lies and whimpers. He didn’t even have the courage to face me for two days. And if he finds it hard to forget kind people, he might tell Dumbledore secrets about Harry and be convinced he was doing the right thing.”
Sirius only tightened his mouth and stomped away from her once they were outside again. Dolores rolled her eyes at his back and tilted her head back to breathe in the clean air outside the Ministry. Well, all right, it was fouled with the pollution that Muggles dumped everywhere in London, but it wasn’t conspiring to put Harry with abusive Muggles or take him away for the greater good.
She was reaching for Harry’s hand when she heard a sharp voice calling out Harry’s name, and a sharper one calling her own.
Although she hadn’t expected the Malfoys here, that was no reason to panic. Dolores turned calmly around, her fingers firmly wound into Harry’s. If someone tried to snatch him and Apparate away, they would have to take both of them along. And she had been training in defensive magic at the same time she was training Harry in it.
“Harry!” Draco Malfoy skidded to a halt in front of them, breathless. “I heard that the inquiry about Dumbledore was today! What did they do? Are you still going to come to Hogwarts? Do you think Dumbledore is going to try and take control of you?”
“That is enough, Draco.” Lucius’s face was pinched as he looked at all of them. Pinched was a functional expression, Dolores thought, hiding his fear. “That is an impolite and impolitic question to ask in public.”
“But I want to ask it.” Draco glared at his father and turned back to Harry. “What did they say? Are you going to come to Hogwarts?”
“I’ll come to Hogwarts if Dumbledore can behave himself.” Harry’s voice was earnest, but his eyes were on Lucius rather than Draco. Clever little sneak, Dolores thought, and her last suspicions that Harry might not be put into Slytherin went dashing away. “That’s what he has to do. Agree to visits from the Board of Governors, and to show them the contracts he has with the professors so they can make sure he’s not hiring someone like Snape. And he has to take Veritaserum. And he has to only communicate with Miss Dolores, not me, and always have three adults with him when he’s talking with me, and never use Legilimency on a student again.”
“Dumbledore was using Legilimency on students?”
The Malfoys asked the question in identical horrified tones of voice, which made Dolores want to chuckle. She supposed they were more like each other than she had known. In truth, she had more often compared Draco to Narcissa in her mind. “Yes, he was. And ordering Professor Snape to do the same thing.”
“Severus is loyal to our house,” Lucius said absently, probably meaning Slytherin instead of the Malfoy family. “That was not a concern. But the Headmaster…”
Dolores didn’t sigh, but she wanted to. Lucius Malfoy had been a master of political maneuvering for decades. He ought to consider anyone in the school who could use Legilimency, and would use it indiscriminately, to be a threat. Just because they might not threaten his family right now didn’t mean the tolerance of prying into students’ minds wouldn’t someday.
But she had come to accept that the adulation of Lucius Malfoy as a political mastermind was misplaced anyway. So.
“Is Professor Snape still going to teach Potions? I heard he was going away.” Draco glanced back and forth between her and Harry as if not knowing who would be more likely to answer the question.
“He is no longer teaching Potions. He found out Dumbledore intended to use him as a scapegoat before the Wizengamot, and left.” Dolores saw no need to mention the bargain she and Snape had made. Snape could do that later himself, if he really did feel loyalty to Lucius and Lucius’s son. “I assume someone else will be chosen as the new Head of Slytherin House.”
“But you’ll be in Slytherin with me,” Draco said, sounding disappointed that he wouldn’t get to associate with an unpleasant, mind-reading professor, and that Harry’s company barely made up for it.
Harry rolled his eyes and snorted. “I don’t know that, Draco. I’ve never met the Sorting Hat.”
“Where else could you be?” Lucius asked, and didn’t sound as if he meant it as a compliment.
Harry smiled at him. “When you put it that way, Mr. Malfoy, then I’m glad to defer to your expert opinion.”
Lucius gave Harry a narrow-eyed look. Dolores let her hand rest on top of Harry’s head for a moment, and smiled. He will be sorry that he did not harness his wagon to this rising political star.
“Yes, indeed,” Lucius finally settled for saying, which could have meant anything at all, and took Draco’s hand. “Come, Draco.”
“I hope Dumbledore behaves!” Draco called over his shoulder as his father dragged him off. Harry snorted again.
“He’s very different from the boy you first met, isn’t he?”
Sirius said it, but Harry paused and probed the question with his expression as if searching for traps—as if it was one Dolores had set him—before he nodded. “Yes. And I think that’s probably a good thing.”
“Probably? It’d be great if you were in Gryffindor, pup, and if you could get Malfoy away from his father, too…”
Dolores let Sirius talk all the way back home. He needed to, it was a release of tension for him, and Harry seemed content to listen.
But she did wonder whether Dumbledore would behave. And if Sirius would be disappointed if Dumbledore did and Harry did go to Hogwarts, and was Sorted into Slytherin.
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The Daring Win