Dolores Umbridge stared down the black, unblinking barrel of the pistol. The cold metal looked alien, mechanical, and utterly indifferent to her political standing. Her chest ached with every shallow, terrified breath she drew, the bruised bone screaming from the previous kinetic impact.
She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked into Orion's deep indigo eyes. She found no pity there. Only a void of calculating, absolute intellect.
The dam finally broke.
"It was a plot to get Fudge and Amelia out of the picture!" Umbridge blurted out, the words tumbling past her quivering lips in a frantic, desperate rush. "That's it! That is the whole truth!"
Orion's eyebrow arched slowly, his hand holding the weapon with rock-solid stability.
"Fudge and Amelia?" Orion repeated, tilting his head with genuine, dark amusement. "Amelia Bones I understand completely. You two cannot stand the sight of one another. Her strict adherence to the letter of the law directly constrains your desire to build a personal police state. But Cornelius? I thought you two were practically two peas in a pod."
A sudden, virulent sneer twisted Umbridge's flabby, tear-streaked face. For a split second, her terror was eclipsed by a deep, festering bitterness.
"He is a lapdog!" Umbridge spat, venom coating every syllable. "A weak, spineless, pathetic lapdog! The moment your father strolls into his office carrying a pouch of gold, or the second Albus Dumbledore raises an eyebrow and speaks in that patronizing, gentle tone... Cornelius immediately falls to his knees to lick their boots! He bends! He cowers!"
She strained against the ropes, her voice trembling with manic outrage.
"He abandons the very people who actually keep his administration running! I draft the legislation! I coordinate the departments! I do the dirty work! And the moment a crisis occurs, he cowers behind Malfoy money and Dumbledore's reputation, leaving me with nothing! He is completely useless to me!"
Orion sat quietly, watching her chest heave. He didn't speak immediately. His Level 2 Mind Arts effortlessly assembled the scattered puzzle pieces of her confession, weaving them into a horrifying, brilliant political tapestry.
"I see," Orion murmured softly, the pieces locking into place with terrifying precision.
He leaned back, lowering the gun by a fraction of an inch, his eyes glittering.
"You intended to use the Hogsmeade attack as a public, catastrophic failure of national security," Orion deduced aloud, tracing the steps of her conspiracy. "An escaped Death Eater openly deploying a swarm of Dementors on a village full of children? It would have incited a riot in the press. You were going to use that sheer, unadulterated panic to push for an immediate Vote of No Confidence in the Wizengamot. You were going to oust Fudge from the Minister's chair entirely."
Umbridge didn't deny it; she merely swallowed hard, staring at him.
"And you knew," Orion continued, his voice sharp as a razor, "that with Fudge removed in disgrace, the singular, undisputed favorite to replace him was Amelia Bones. The public would naturally look to the uncompromising, battle-hardened Head of the DMLE to restore order."
Orion smiled, a slow, deeply disgusted expression.
"Which is why you intervened in the security deployment. You were the one who quietly influenced the rosters, pushing for only trainee Aurors to be stationed at Hogwarts and Hogsmeade during a national crisis. You deliberately ensured that green, inexperienced recruits were on the ground when the attack landed."
He tapped the barrel of the gun against the wooden table.
"If the trainees panicked... if they were massacred alongside the students... the blood would fall squarely on Amelia's hands. The public would cry that she sent children to do soldiers' work. Her credibility would be incinerated overnight, disqualifying her from the Minister's office. Leaving the seat wide open for the 'dependable, order-loving' Senior Undersecretary."
Orion shook his head, letting out a dark, mocking chuckle.
"A delightfully ruthless plan, Dolores. Truly Machiavellian. But... you made two catastrophic miscalculations."
He leaned forward, his gaze hardening.
"First: you failed to account for the fact that Amelia's trainees were not merely inexperienced school-leavers. They were personally trained by Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody. And you do not survive that paranoid bastard's curriculum without developing instincts that allow you to hold the line under fire. They didn't break."
He shrugged slightly.
"And second: you failed to account for the vigilante who cornered Dolohov in the Shrieking Shack. Though, to be fair to you, that was more of Dolohov's tactical headache than yours."
Orion leaned in closer, his expression wiping clean of all amusement, returning to the cold, dead stillness of an inquisitor.
"Which brings us to the final, treasonous thread. What was your deal with Antonin Dolohov? Because there is absolutely no way that seasoned killer was honoring Pettigrew's pathetic little promises."
Umbridge flinched, shrinking back into the anchored chair. "Him... him and Augustus Rookwood," she whispered, her voice cracking. "They made contact after the Halloween breakout. In exchange for staging the disruption... in exchange for creating the chaos I needed to break Fudge..."
She looked down at the table, unable to meet his eyes.
"I promised them classified information from the Ministry. I promised to feed them the deployment schedules of the Auror strike teams, the locations of active surveillance posts, and inside scoops on the Wizengamot's closed-door defense committees."
"A magnificent deal for them," Orion concluded, his tone dripping with sheer disdain. "They receive high-level state secrets to rebuild their operations, sow terror across the country, and the moment push comes to shove? They abandon you without a second thought, because a desk-bound toad is completely worthless to them once the chaos starts."
He set the Hydro-Kinetic Pistol down on the table with a sharp, heavy clack.
He folded his hands over the charcoal waistcoat, staring across the small expanse of wood at the trembling woman.
The atmosphere in the Chamber of Secrets shifted violently. The cold, analytical detachment Orion usually projected vanished, replaced by a sudden, suffocating density of pure, predatory intent. His indigo eyes turned pitch black, reflecting the yawning shadows of Salazar Slytherin's statue.
"Your little political coup was an absolute, unmitigated failure on every strategic metric, Dolores," Orion said softly, his voice dropping into a register that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up.
"You failed to oust Fudge. You failed to break Amelia. You gave away state secrets to murderers, and you are currently tied to a chair miles beneath the earth."
He stood up, towering over the table.
"All of that makes you a pathetic, treasonous idiot. But that is not what seals your fate today."
Orion stepped around the table, his dragon-hide boots splashing softly in the shallow water.
"Your stunt caused the deaths of two promising, brave Trainee Aurors. And worse... it resulted in severe, critical injuries to several others."
He stopped beside her chair, leaning down until his lips were inches from her ear.
"Including my favorite cousin."
Umbridge's breath hitched. Her eyes darted wildly. "C-Cousin...?"
"Nymphadora Tonks is family to me, Dolores," Orion whispered, the words dropping like lead into the frozen air. "She is Black blood. She is Malfoy kin. And you deliberately orchestrated an ambush that left her unconscious on a stretcher, fighting for her life in a hospital ward."
He straightened up, looking down at her with absolute, merciless finality.
"You endangered my family for your petty, bureaucratic ambition. And for that, Madam Underwear... you are bound for severe, unforgettable retribution."