Crookshanks leaped gracefully onto her lap, curling into a perfect circle of ginger fur and rumbling with contentment. Orli gazed into the dancing flames, feeling as though the day had wrung every ounce of energy from her bones.
Six months ago—hell, even two weeks ago—her heart would be hammering against her ribs after tonight's revelations. She'd witnessed Snape's transformed Patronus with her own eyes. What clearer proof could she possibly need? It should have felt like lightning coursing through her veins, like discovering buried treasure.
Instead, the specter of Umbridge hung over everything like a funeral shroud, casting long shadows across even her brightest moments of hope.
Dawn broke as gray and sodden as the day before, rain drumming steadily against the castle windows.
The four friends had barely descended the marble staircase when they stopped dead in their tracks. The entrance hall writhed with students—every single one of them packed into the space outside the Great Hall like sardines, arranged in rigid House formations. The four Heads of House stood sentinel at the front, and Professor McGonagall's sharp eyes found Hermione and Ron immediately, beckoning them forward with urgent gestures.
"What in Merlin's name is going on?" Harry whispered as he and Orli dissolved into the mass of older Gryffindors.
"Three guesses, and the first two don't count," Orli muttered, her gaze settling on a particularly offensive shade of pink. Umbridge prowled back and forth like a caged animal, her face plastered with thick white cream that couldn't quite disguise the angry boils still festering beneath.
"Form orderly lines! Present your wands for inspection!" Professor Sprout's voice cut through the morning air as she methodically cast Prior Incantato on a nervous second-year Hufflepuff's wand.
"Is this theatrical display truly necessary?" Professor McGonagall's voice could have frozen the Black Lake solid. Her lips formed a razor-thin line, emerald eyes blazing with barely contained fury. "These children will miss breakfast entirely, and they have a full schedule of lessons ahead! Surely the first-years could be excused—they arrived yesterday evening. What possible spells could they have cast?"
"Out of the question." Umbridge attempted what might charitably be called a smile, but the movement stretched her cream-covered skin painfully, transforming the expression into a grimace. "Every student must be examined. I am an official representative of the Ministry of Magic, and I was viciously attacked on my very first day! This was no childish prank—this was a calculated assault on the Ministry itself!"
"Headmaster Dumbledore has already provided you with a perfectly reasonable explanation," Professor McGonagall replied with arctic politeness, waving three trembling first-years toward the Great Hall before beginning a cursory examination of a fourth-year's wand. "You simply triggered some ancient defensive mechanism in the Defense classroom. These things happen in a castle this old."
"Do you honestly expect me to believe such nonsense?" Umbridge's voice rose to a shriek that could have shattered glass. "I wasn't born yesterday, McGonagall!"
The inspection line moved with surprising efficiency. When Harry's turn arrived, Umbridge's bulging eyes fixed on him with the intensity of a hawk spotting a particularly plump mouse. She'd barely glanced at the Slytherins and given only perfunctory attention to the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws—her venom was reserved almost exclusively for the Gryffindors.
"Transfiguration Charm, Full Body-Bind Curse, Patronus Charm..." Professor McGonagall rattled off Harry's recent magical activity with professional detachment, then pressed his wand back into his palm. "Off you go. Don't let your breakfast get cold."
Umbridge watched Harry's retreating figure with the expression of a predator whose prey had just slipped through its claws—frustrated, hungry, and already plotting the next attempt.
Then came Orli's turn. She stepped forward with practiced calm, extending her wand toward Professor McGonagall, when Umbridge suddenly pounced like a striking snake.
"This one requires my personal attention!" she declared, snatching the cedar wand with enough force to make Orli's fingers sting.
Umbridge's casting was brutal and invasive—the Prior Incantato charm erupted from her own wand like a physical blow, making Orli's beautiful cedar wand actually shudder in the woman's pudgy grip. The magical backlash was so violent it made several nearby students flinch.