Chapter 154: A Toad Arrives
5th October 1995, Hogwarts (Earth 2)
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
The last month was a breath of fresh air. I never realized how stressed I had been in my home dimension. For the first time in a very long while, I don’t care. I don’t care about this world’s future, where this universe is going. It’s not mine, after all. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this free.
Ever since I left Atlantis, I was always worried about changing the timeline too much. I felt Time affecting me, Fate screwing with me, to make sure that the timeline is stable. It was horrible. After I finally returned to my time, the long way round, I was worried about the mysterious entity that I was fighting, who ended up being fucking Entropy of all things. But in here, I just don’t have to care, I don’t have to worry about anything. It’s so freeing, so vindicating, to not be in charge for the first time.
It was nice, to only have to worry about teaching a few brats. Giving lessons all day, and tutoring Neville and Harry during the evening. They were doing fine. It was curious to see Harry’s instinctive grasp over magic. It wasn’t anything crazy in my world, but it was very impressive in this one. We were barely a month in, and the boy had caught up with the first four years of schooling and almost finished his fifth year curriculum. Although, he only finished his first year in runes and arithmancy. It was still remarkable for an average student, but nothing groundbreaking. After all, the Hogwarts curriculum is very minimal at this time. Although, it was ironic that the boy had a knack for potions, his most hated class. What do you know? A shitty teacher could make even potential prodigies hate their subjects.
Neville, on the other hand, had just finished his revision of his third year spells. The boy was talented in magic but was not even close to Harry’s instinctive grasp in magic. He would never be a great or even a good potion brewer, but he could make passable ones at the very least. Not that I see him pursuing anything other than herbology, which he had a scary intuitive understanding of. Anyway, the boy’s progress was notably noticed by his teachers, especially in his wanded subjects. Although, he’s still a bit behind, he should be fully caught up before the winter holidays.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. It took longer than I expected for it to happen; Dumbledore must have tried to delay it for as long as possible, but finally the Ministry had decided to intervene in Hogwarts by sending Fudge’s pet toad as the ‘High Inquisitor’.
It was announced in the Daily Prophet, and we finally had the misfortune of having Dolores Umbridge evaluating the quality of Hogwarts’ education. Trust me, in terms of safety, I’m all for protecting the students, especially with the last few years having possessed professors, dementors, basilisks and dragons. That’s just scratching the surface and not talking about the colony of giant spiders in the forbidden forest.
The day her position was announced, Umbridge strutted into the castle, in her nauseatingly pink outfit, like she owned the place. She gave her mind numbing little speech about progress and the ministry with such a patronizing tone, that I felt she was talking to toddlers not teenagers. Ignoring the fact that she was acting like she was talking to the press and not to students, she was immediately ignored by the student population two minutes in, to her obvious rage.
I still don’t understand why Dumbledore would allow this, considering how much her presence is going to distract students. Thank fuck, she’s not allowed to punish students, just evaluate professors, although, I don’t see it staying that way for long.
Now, I had to deal with her little inspection for my fifth year classes. I walk into the room and notice her in the back, scribbling in her little notepad. I ignore the bitch and keep walking to my desk. “Alright, today, we’re talking about shielding spells. Who can tell me the basics of shield charms.”
I look around and as usual Granger was raising her hand, “Ms. Granger.”
“Shielding spells are charms that protect the castor from spells and attacks.”
I nod, “a textbook answer, but then if things were that simple, then we would only need one shield charm that would protect against anything. So, why do we have so many?”
I look around to find Daphne Greengrass raising her hand. I gesture towards her to answer, “Is it because of the range and what they protect against?”
“A very good theory, Ms. Greengrass. Shield charms have been adapted to combat certain areas of magic more effectively. You can make a shield against an exact spell, or you can use the general shield charm, Protego. The narrower the specialty, the more efficient the shield charm. For example, the Contego shield, is a shield against jinxes and hexes. It is more efficient than Protego when dealing with them. It requires less magic to cast and is less likely to break from a jinx or a hex. Now there are multiple general shields, mostly against certain elements. With that said, who can tell me what a shield charm is composed of?”
“Hem, hem.”
Ah, the pink bitch is doing her obnoxious cough thing. I’ll just ignore her. It’ll probably piss her off, but who cares.
The students are visibly surprised at my dismissiveness of her. However, no one raised their hands. I don’t know if it’s in fear of Umbridge or because they honestly don’t know the answer. I choose to continue, “Alright, what you must know is that every shield must have a physical component and a magical component. The ratio does tend to change depending on the spell, but we need to make sure that a gust of wind or a sudden increase in ambient magic doesn’t break the shield. However, if you want a purely physical shield, I would suggest using transfiguration or conjuration, although that’s NEWT level skills.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Hem, hem.”
I still ignore her and continue, “Now, there are two types of shield charms, absorbing shields that absorb each spell that hits them and repelling shields that redirects or sends them back. Absorbing shields tend to be commonly integrated into wards, since they usually have a magic storing runic array which would make sure that the shield is not easily overwhelmed, so they’re uncommonly used by Aurors and duelers, since it’s more advantageous to redirect spells at their opponents, conserving their magic.”
“Hem, hem.”
The woman was pretty much having a stroke now, and it’s really starting to annoy me. I turn to her and raise my eyebrows, “Yes?”
“I was wondering if you got the message with the time and place of my inspection.”
I look at her incredulously, “Madam, if I hadn’t known about your inspection, I would have asked you to leave.” The bitch looked vexed at my dismissive tone, before she thinks about responding, I continue my lesson, “Now, where was I? Oh, right, another aspect of shields is layers. You can add layered shields, where one tends to fall back on another spell. You can even separate specialties for each layer, which would improve what you can defend against, but it would also mean that you would need more magic to cast it.”
“Hem, hem.”
I look at her again, and answer rudely, “what now?”
“I wanted to know why you’re not using the book recommended by the Ministry?”
“You mean the book that you recommended when you thought that you would be getting the job?”
The bitch nods, and I answer back, “Because the book is entirety useless and doesn’t contain a single spell?”
“Now, see here, I don’t see any reason for young impressionable minds to learn such dangerous magics. It’s more appropriate to teach them to remove themselves from a dangerous situation and not actively try to fight it. The Aurors have their jobs for a reason, after all.”
“I agree with that,” the human toad looked surprised, “I don’t think that anyone should involve themselves in a dangerous situation. But this is a school, future Aurors are being taught here. So, tell me, how do you expect Aurors to protect people if they don’t know about shield charms when they graduate?”
The woman started to protest, “They would receive training from the Auror academy. The Ministry doesn’t believe…”
I snap at her, “Look, I don’t care what the Ministry does and doesn’t believe. My goal is to teach these students how to pass their exams, which, by the way, are being written by the Department of Magical Education in your precious Ministry. Until I hear from them that their requirements for the OWL and NEWT exams have changed, I will not change my curriculum. Do take in mind, that changing the requirements, would pretty much make them useless in the eyes of the ICW and make magical Britain a laughingstock in the international scene. I am not going to take the opinion of a woman who hadn’t even passed her Defense OWLs on whether what I’m teaching is correct or not.”
“OWL results are classified information. I could have you arrested for this.”
I smirk at her, “I never looked at your file, but thank you for confirming my theory.”
I didn’t guess, really, I just took a look at her mind with my telepathy. The bitch was grasping at straws, trying to discredit me and take my position.
The woman looked thunderous, “what about your qualifications, Ms. Sayre?”
“I currently hold a mastery in Runes and Charms.”
The woman smirked at that, looking like she won something, “So no mastery in Defense, then?”
I tilt my head, “There is no such thing as a mastery of Defense…”
The woman looked like she wanted to talk, so I interrupt her, “Look, I don’t care about the Ministry’s little spat with Dumbledore. I’m telling you what I told him, I’m not getting involved. You want to fight him, go ahead, I don’t care. What I will not stand for, is sabotaging my student's education to do it. I will teach what’s in their curriculum, nothing more, nothing less.”
“But Dumbledore’s and Potter’s allegations…”
“I don’t care what his allegations are. He is my student, and while he’s in my classroom, you will not speak with him. Now, I don’t understand why the Ministry is so intent on attacking a fifteen year old boy, since all it does is show how fragile Fudge’s hold on it, really is. But what I do understand is that this is an inspection, not an interrogation. Now, that’s enough interrupting the classroom, I have a lesson to teach. If you want to ask any more question, you’re free to ask me after class. If you’re going to interrupt my lesson one more time, I’m going to ask you to leave. Is that understood?”
The toad woman looked like she wanted to say something but held her tongue and sat down, scribbling furiously in her notebook. I didn’t give a shit about what she was writing since there’s no way she has anything she could use to fire me, and she knows it. If she chose to try and fire me, she’d need to show her report to the board of directors, and I could ask for an audience to justify myself.
I ignored her childish behavior and the obvious awe the students were giving me and continued the lesson, “Now, the Contego shield is actually very effective against dark magic in general, but high level curses tend to break it. Casting it is very easy, with simply using three jabs of the wand that form a triangle. Make one jab for each syllable of the spell and try to make an equilateral triangle for the spell to be more effective. Now, everyone get up, get your wand out, and pair up. Take turns trying to cast the shield charm and when you feel confident in it, get your partners to send stinging hexes at you to perfect your control over it.”
Umbridge looked like she wanted to say something, but I glare at her and she stops herself.
The rest of the lesson continued with no issues and as expected, Umbridge didn’t stay to ask any questions. After all, all she wanted was to make a scene and discredit me in front of my students. She chose this classroom because it’s the one with the most family members on the Wizengamot, who would end up telling their parents about our altercation.
In the end, I didn’t care; the thought of Umbridge of all people being a threat to me, is laughable. Still, I think I stood my ground well enough. I heard that McGonagall and Snape did the same. Although, Trelawney was pretty much on the ropes by now, and will probably get fired soon. I knew that Dumbledore would try to do his best to keep her in the castle since she’s the one that gave the prophecy, but Umbridge was obviously on the warpath, and she wanted to fire any staff member she could to prove Dumbledore incompetence. With the first meeting of the Dueling club being this weekend, I don’t expect her to be any happier with me. Then again, she probably already hates me, and considering that Flitwick is a half goblin, she probably hates him as well. Anyway, it would prove to be an interesting meeting, to say the least.