She was still at her desk when he knocked on the open door. Her classroom had been redecorated since Moody's tenure - the defensive spell diagrams were gone, replaced by plates featuring kittens in various pastoral settings, which Blake found deeply sinister.
"Ah, Blake!" she said, with a small smile. "What a lovely surprise. What can I do for you?"
He came in, closed the door, and sat down in the chair across from her desk without being asked.
The smile stayed where it was but its quality shifted slightly.
"Something on your mind?" she asked, still pleasant.
"The Blood Quill," he said.
A beat.
"I'm not sure what you-"
"Professor Umbridge," Blake said, and his voice was very calm, "I'll give you one chance."
He looked at her directly.
"I'm going to say this once, and I want to be clear that I mean it. If my brother - or anyone else - comes to me again with anything written on their hand, I will go to the Prophet. I will give them a full account of every Educational Decree, every detention, every specific detail of what's been happening in this classroom, with names and evidence. And I will make sure that Amelia Bones has a copy before the paper even prints. You'll be in Azkaban for torturing children by the same day - if I don't kill you first."
Umbridge's smile had not moved. Her eyes had.
"That sounds very much like a threat," she said, softly.
"Not just a threat. A promise."
Silence.
"I don't know what you think you've seen on your brother's hand," she said, after a moment, "but I assure you-"
"Professor," Blake said, standing up. "I'm not here to argue with you about it. I'm here to be very clear about what happens if it continues. I think we understand each other."
He smiled at her, in a way that did not reach anything above his chin, and stood to leave.
"And one last thing."
Umbridge looked up at him.
"You're going to apologise to every single student individually for what you've done, and ask for their forgiveness."
Umbridge opened her mouth to speak.
"I'm going to dinner now. See you next lesson, Professor."
In the corridor, Charlotte was waiting.
"How nosy of you," he said with a small smile. She ignored him, rolling her eyes.
"How'd it go?" she asked.
"Fine," Blake said.
"Did you threaten her?"
"I made a promise," he said. "Come on, I'm hungry."
/
Connor's hand was clean at the next dinner, and the day after that.
"What did you do?" Connor said happily. "She literally apologised to me today! The Toad apologised, to all of us!"
"Don't worry about that," Blake said, smiling slightly. "Anyway, did you get the pictures?"
"I did," he said, handing him a small envelope.
"Good job. I'll see you later, Connor," he said, walking to his table.
"Where's Daphne?" Blake asked, frowning.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Tracey said, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Ew, don't do that," Charlotte said, weirded out. "And we don't know. She didn't show up to our room either."
"What lesson did she have last?" Zabini said.
"Divination, I think."
"Okay," Blake said. "I'll go find her."
Tracey cooed as he left, to which Zabini told her to stop embarrassing them. Blake rolled his eyes as he headed towards the Divination room. They never change.
He knocked on the door.
"Come in," an odd sounding woman said.
Blake entered the room, and looked around, immediately grateful that he hadn't taken Divination.
"Blake Renshaw," the woman said, not sounding sane in the slightest. "What brings you here?"
"Ah, it's nice to meet you, Professor Trelawney. I was just looking for Daphne?"
"Oh, Ms Greengrass," Trelawney said, as if in a dream. "She has much aura, a true talent."
"Uh, right," Blake said, confused. "Is she-"
"She left here, not too long ago," Tralawney interrupted. "She often stays behind after lessons, hoping to catch glimpses into the future. A true talent, indeed."
"I see," Blake said, inching backwards. This woman's a f*cking weirdo. "In that case, I'll head back to dinner, Professor. It was nice to meet-"
Suddenly, the wind shifted, and Blake felt the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stand up at once. Instantly, his wand was out, ready, but when he looked at the woman in front of him, she had gone rigid, her eyes milky and unseeing.
"Professor?"
"The Flaw of Slytherin rises to the Heir... born of blood the house would never claim, yet the house is his, and was always his… the curse upon that line was lifted by one who did not know that he lifted it, in the hour the last of that blood lay past waking… the Dark Lord rose a second time greater in his own power yet lesser in all he reaches for, and never learn the cause… what the Flaw holds closest shall be taken in payment for what he never agreed to owe, but his debt will be paid for in magic and blood… the Dark Lord will reach for him but know not that there is nothing to take, for what he strikes at will not all be there... and at the last, lives depend not upon the wand, but upon the blood of the Flaw of Slytherin, who rises to the Heir."
The woman's body collapsed, and Blake rushed to her side.
"Dear me…"
"Are you okay, Professor?" Blake asked, his heart racing.
"Apologies, my boy," Trelawney said, as Blake helped her to her feet.
"Uh… I'm got to go now. Bye, Professor," Blake said quickly, before rushing out of the suffocating room.
He didn't go back to dinner. But as he sat on his head, hands buried in his hand, mind rushing through what it could mean, there was one thing that Blake didn't account for.
In the room opposite him, Malfoy sat down at his desk, quill frantically scribbling.
Mother, he wrote. I've just heard something. Ask the Dark Lord for an audience, and bring me home. He will not regret it, I promise. He'll be pleased with us, and at last, we - you, father and me - will be free.
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