Chapter 123 - Mary Etta — Words Unspoken

Mary's face had gone pale. Instinctively, she reached for flattery. "My mother has mentioned you as well. She often says that Professor Umbridge takes especially good care of her subordinates."

"Is that so? But I see—" Umbridge's expression crumpled into something wounded. "You don't seem to have much respect for the Ministry of Magic's policies, little Mary. Hmm?"

"How could that be!" Mary shot to her feet. "Professor Umbridge, you must have misunderstood!"

Mary was no longer a child. She knew exactly what it cost to offend her mother's powerful superior, the woman who was, at this moment, very much in the ascendant.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Umbridge shook her head, placed her hands on Mary's shoulders, and pressed her firmly back into the seat. "What's the rush! What's the rush!"

"Little Mary," Umbridge said with syrupy sympathy, "am I some sort of monstrous villain?"

"I certainly believe—" Umbridge began to circle the uneasy Mary Etta, looking down at her from above. "You are a good child. But students with so little experience of the world are always easily swept along by the crowd into doing things they shouldn't. Isn't that right?"

Mary stiffened, unease and something caught between conflict and fear flickering in her expression. "Professor Umbridge, I—"

"Toward students, the Ministry of Magic is always lenient." Umbridge cut her off cleanly. "As long as you are willing to talk with me about what you were all discussing at the Hog's Head."

A drop of sweat slid down Mary's temple.

"Your mother will be proud of you, won't she?" Umbridge smiled. "This is in keeping with the Ministry's guidelines. It's for safer education. For the order of Hogwarts."

Mary stammered, "Could you — could you let my friend Cho Chang go? She was lured into it."

Umbridge agreed with barely concealed impatience. "Of course."

This girl was a member of the DA, Cho Chang's friend, and she knew full well about the curse on the parchment. She nodded anyway.

Heavily.

Praeris frowned and stopped her spell.

She turned to Draco. "That Ravenclaw. What happened?"

How did Umbridge know Mary Etta was in the DA?

"She came on her own." Draco played idly with Praeris's fingers. "Wants to get ahead, I suppose!"

That evening, Draco had been in Umbridge's office reporting that the Slytherins had finished posting the new notices.

Then Mary Etta knocked on the door and said she wanted to have a word.

Umbridge's face lit up immediately. "Good child, I told you there was nothing to agonize over! You'll thank yourself for this decision! Draco, call in some trustworthy students!"

Draco had barely finished his account when Umbridge pushed the door open wide.

"Come in, children." She smiled. "Little Mary, tell everyone, you have a secret society, isn't that right?"

Mary nodded slowly. "Yes, we have a secret society, called the DA, Dumbledore's Army... Ah!"

Mary screamed. Purple pustules erupted one after another across her face.

The Slytherins all startled, heads turning, voices dropping into urgent murmurs about what was happening to Mary's face.

Mary clutched her face and shrieked in panic. "No! My face! What's happening to my face! Granger, it must be Granger!"

Pansy "helpfully" supplied an answer. "It looks rather like Bubotuber pus right now—"

"Ah, " Mary screamed again, full-throated and frantic, pressing both hands to her face, trying to bury her head in her collar.

Umbridge wanted to press further, but Mary had gone completely silent.

Umbridge had no choice but to give up. She shut Mary's sobs behind the door, turned to the Slytherin students, and said, "My dear students, certain individuals have committed illegal acts that grieve both me and the Ministry of Magic deeply."

"Now, in order to cover up their wrongdoing, they have gone so far as to persecute a girl who had the courage to speak up for justice. Let us go together and put a stop to them, and restore proper order to Hogwarts!"

Had Mary Etta lost her mind? She knew Hermione had cursed that parchment. She knew. And she still went to inform on the DA?!

For her mother's job, Praeris thought. Well. Mrs. Emmott's position might be safe now, but the DA was very likely about to be wiped out entirely.

When she walked into that office, did she not stop to think about what would happen?

The Slytherin students fell in behind Umbridge and headed upstairs. Praeris's right hand moved slowly over the two-way mirror in her pocket, but she could find no opening to send a warning.

Draco beside her was practically vibrating. "See? Harry Potter is in for it now!"

Before they even reached the eighth floor, they heard running footsteps.

Umbridge shrieked, "Someone tipped them off! Catch them!"

Several Slytherin students scattered at once, sprinting after fleeing DA members.

Praeris let out a quiet breath. She prayed the DA members could run fast enough and not get caught.

The entrance to Gryffindor Tower, like the Room of Requirement, was on the eighth floor. If they got caught over that short a distance,

"Look, over there!" Praeris pointed sharply at a corner. "Someone just ran past!"

The Slytherins charged in that direction. Praeris ran with them, the picture of urgency, while the corner of her eye caught a flash of red hair disappearing past the eighth-floor girls' lavatory.

"Professor!" Draco shouted. "I've got one!"

Umbridge cried out in delight, announcing fifty points for Slytherin.

Praeris leaned in to look.

Harry Potter's green eyes stared back at her.

That was, indeed, worth fifty points from Umbridge.

Umbridge seized Harry by the arm and marched off, ordering the rest of the students to keep searching.

"What's left to search for!" Pansy curled her lip. "Everyone's already gone."

Praeris agreed. "True enough. I'm going to have a look inside that room."

"Let's go together!" Pansy said. "Maybe they left something interesting behind."

Praeris blinked. "Didn't Umbridge tell you to check the lavatory?"

As prefect, Praeris had made a careful habit of being useless when it came to targeting the opposition, and of playing convincingly oblivious in front of Umbridge whenever Dumbledore's people were involved.

Umbridge had filed her away as a bookworm and rarely bothered directing her. Pansy, by contrast, had become Umbridge's right hand.

Which was entirely Praeris's doing. The art of flattery she had coached into Pansy had found exactly the soft spot in Umbridge's vanity.

The moment Pansy turned and left, Praeris stepped back, turned, and pushed open the door to the Room of Requirement.

She kept her back to the door and pulled it shut behind her, then swept the room with a sharp gaze.

Dark Arts defense books. Thick foam mats. Sneakoscopes. Praeris's eyes moved quickly over all of it and stopped on the wall.

A familiar piece of parchment was pinned there.

She pressed close to the door and listened. Nothing approaching. Not yet.

She crossed the room in a few quick strides, rose onto her toes, tore the parchment free, rolled it tight, and shoved it into her pocket.

Praeris drew a slow breath. Damn it. She would have to keep Draco's hands out of her pockets for the rest of the day, on any excuse or none.

Left pocket: the parchment. Right pocket: the two-way mirror. Either one was enough to bury her.

"Well?"

Praeris stepped out of the Room of Requirement and nearly walked into Pansy coming back.

The girl spread her hands wide. "Nobody else caught, but we have Harry Potter, so that's enough. What about you?"

"Just some common Dark Arts defensive items." Praeris's expression didn't flicker. "They were careful. Nothing left behind."

If Praeris said there was nothing, Pansy wasn't going to bother going in herself.

"We should search Potter's person." Pansy nodded, working it through. "Odds are he let himself get caught on purpose, to cover the others. Yes! Let's go to the Headmaster's office and tell Professor Umbridge."

Praeris fell in behind the enthusiastically scheming Pansy, eyes lowered, and rolled her eyes inside her own skull.

Oh, please. Harry Potter had not only run last, he hadn't even put the list away. The group name "DA" was written right there on it, plain as day.

The Headmaster's office was not far from the Room of Requirement. Before long they spotted the stone gargoyle at the entrance.

At the corner near the stone beast, they ran into Umbridge, who looked furious, with Mary Etta still clutching her face beside her.

"Professor Umbridge!" Pansy called out.

Pansy laid out her theory. Umbridge's eyes moved with quick calculation. "Excellent! Miss Parkinson, Miss Prince, come with me!"

Praeris walked into the Headmaster's office and immediately saw that the room was far too crowded.

Dumbledore and Fudge, obviously. Deputy Headmistress Professor McGonagall. An unknown man who was probably one of Fudge's subordinates. Fudge's secretary Percy Weasley. And Harry Potter himself.

The moment Umbridge entered, she turned her attention to Mary, coaxing her to testify against the illegal DA organization.

But when Mary raised her face, everyone in the room flinched.

Purple pustules covered her skin entirely. And they weren't random. They spelled out a word across her face:

SNEAK!

Let it be said again plainly: Hermione Granger is capable of extraordinary things. Her precision, her ruthlessness, it had shaken even the adults in that room.

Could Mary's actions be understood?

If anyone could understand Percy Weasley, then they ought to understand Mary Etta.

Percy Weasley had stood against the Weasley family for the sake of advancement, serving the Ministry of Magic, though he had never leaked family secrets.

Mary Etta had stood against the DA for the sake of her mother, serving Umbridge, and she had not done it for herself.

Ordinary people have selfish impulses, selfish desires, and the full capacity to make mistakes.

It was understandable. But she did not deserve sympathy. The disfigurement was exactly what she had earned.

Just as Praeris, secretly working against the current for the sake of her family, had earned her own inner torment.

She would pay the price for what she had done. But she would not weep and regret, the way Mary was weeping and regretting now.

She did not regret.

What surprised her was this: when Umbridge asked Mary whether she had attended meetings over the past 6 months, Mary shook her head.

Praeris narrowed her eyes. Mary's gaze had shifted. An excellent non-verbal spell, but not Dumbledore's work.

Interesting.

Their mole?

Yes. Another mole. Not Percy Weasley this time. It was that subordinate of Fudge's.

"I don't care whether there were meetings before, there was a meeting tonight, wasn't there!" Umbridge gripped Mary's shoulders and shook her. "Isn't that exactly what you told me tonight!"

Mary stared at her, blank and glassy, as though Umbridge had frightened the sense out of her.

Dumbledore rose immediately. "Dolores. I will not permit you to treat my student this way."

Umbridge shot Mary a vicious look for her last-minute reversal.

She thought of what Pansy had said and had been about to demand a search of Harry Potter's person. But if Dumbledore wouldn't tolerate her being rough with Mary, he certainly wasn't going to allow her to search Harry Potter.

Wait. Parkinson,

She reached out and pulled Pansy forward. "Of course, Miss Mary has changed her story at the last moment. There is nothing to be done about that. But I have more than one witness. Miss Parkinson, Miss Prince, isn't that right?"

Harry looked sharply at the two Slytherin girls, unable to work out how Parkinson and Praeris Prince could possibly be witnesses. He prayed silently that Prince might say something, anything, in their favor.

"Yes!" Pansy said without a moment's hesitation. "I heard Mary Etta say it myself. They have a secret society called Dumbledore's Army!"

Targeting Gryffindor was second nature to her. And Umbridge was only asking her to tell the truth.

"She's a Slytherin!" Harry said flatly. "Slytherins have always had it out for me. Why would she tell the truth? Her testimony means nothing!"

"That testimony happens to be the absolute truth!" Umbridge said. "Bring in any of the other Slytherins who helped with the capture tonight, every single one of them will say exactly the same thing. Headmaster Dumbledore, name anyone you like. We'll send for them right now."

So Mary wouldn't testify. So what?

As long as every Slytherin called in could repeat Pansy Parkinson's account, this would be settled.

Praeris looked up.

She met Dumbledore's eyes. They held each other's gaze for a moment.

Praeris turned to Fudge. "Yes, Minister Fudge. Professor Umbridge is correct. I can recite Miss Mary's exact words. Miss Mary said: 'Yes, we have a secret society, called the DA, Dumbledore's Army...' And then she screamed, and the curse erupted across her face."

Harry stared at her. The word "traitor" nearly came out of his mouth before he caught it.

He'd known. He had known he couldn't trust Praeris Prince. She was Snape's apprentice, and Brown had been a Death Eater. Who knew whether the Death Eaters had actually captured Madam Purnell, or whether it had all been an excuse to pull their double agent back in and have her feed false intelligence to the Order of the Phoenix?

Harry watched Praeris Prince help build the case against Dumbledore, and the hatred behind his eyes was very close to the surface.

"Well." Dumbledore smiled pleasantly. "It seems there's no way around it. Shall I write a formal statement?"

Fudge stared at him. "What statement?"

"Did the Minister not hear?" Dumbledore said, entirely composed. "It's DA, not PA. Dumbledore's Army, not Potter's Army."

Fudge's eyes went wide.

Dumbledore admitted it cheerfully, fully, without a moment's hesitation. Kingsley made sure Mary confirmed every word.

Then things moved very quickly.

Fudge, practically gleeful, moved to arrest Dumbledore. The room erupted. And in the chaos that followed, Dumbledore knocked all 4 Ministry personnel out cold.

➤ Next: The Missing Montague