Harry avoids his friends in the dorm room, ignores the many accusatory stares and glares from his Housemates (claiming that Voldemort is back -- something he will continually and adamantly do -- has done some damage to his public reputation), and skips breakfasts.

He's got many things to do and all of them, he's destined to do alone. He spends the morning in the library, researching. He's looking into the ritual Voldemort used to resurrect himself. Voldemort is not without weakness, and Harry's intent on proving that.

He'd had an appetite -- for the first time in a long time -- after his fight with Malfoy on the train. It had left so quickly, Harry'd wondered what he did to deserve it.

(And then he remembers. He skips breakfast and as he sits at his library table, he could have sworn he felt Cedric Diggory sitting right next to him.)

They have Defense Against the Dark Arts first thing. It is exciting -- or it would be, had Dolores Umrbidge not been teaching it.

Harry sits with -- reluctantly -- Hermione by his side. She shoots him worried, angry glances and tries to speak with him in whispers. But Harry keeps his head turned toward the front of the classroom and does not respond.

Hermione stops trying to talk to him. She does keep glancing at him until the class starts and though it is not a surrender, it's a step closer to it.

Umbridge calls attention to herself at the front of the classroom with her signature 'hum, hum.' She smiles condescending to them. "Good morning, class." When everyone just stares at her, her smile tightens. "Say it back, now, don't be shy. 'Good morning, Professor Umbridge.' Come along now."

In a strained tone, the class repeats: "Good morning, Professor Umrbidge."

Harry stares at her. He does not even mouth the words and from the way Umbridge stares back at him, it's an obvious thing. Umbridge looks like she wants to make a big thing of it but, for whatever reason, is retraining herself.

Harry can only commend her effort.

"The Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum has, in the past, been best described as sporadic," she says, sadly. "With wizards so deranged as to practice Unforgivables on child--"

Ron snorts. "Moody was crazy, but he was fuckin' awesome," he says, laughing. "Let's be clear."

"Name?"

"What are you, a cop?"

Harry buries his giggle in his palm.

Dolores glowers. "Name?"

Ron sticks out his tongue. "Good ol' Ron Weasley."

"Well, Mister Weasley," she says, "it is considered common courtesy to raise your hand before you speak, yes? Otherwise," she giggles, saying, in a sing-song tone, "good children must not be seen nor heard. And I must also say, as a matter of well defined principle, that Professor Moody was a disguised insane criminal -- and it is not a matter of how cool or awesome you all might think he is. This type of belief system and lack of consistent acceptable teachers is the exact type of problem we, the Ministry, wish to correct. Remus Lupin was--"

"Are you going to trash on Remus?" Harry blurts out, incredulous. "He was one of the greatest teachers I've ever--"

"Hand, Mister Potter."

Harry sticks his fist in the air. "His teaching style taught us -- me! -- how to handle yourself in battle."

"He was a werewolf, Mister Potter," simpers Umrbidge. "One of the only reasons, I'd say, he knows anything about 'battle' -- something you school children have no need of."

Harry keeps his hand pointedly in the air. "Yeah, and Quirrel--"

"Professor Quirrel."

"-- had You-Know-Who on the back of his head, and I don't see you bitching about it."

"Ten points from Gryffindor for even insinuating such a thing." She turns up her nose at him. "Regardless of your falsehood opinions on other Professors, Remus Lupin was a violent maniac who spread his wayward and unorthodox beliefs to children."

"He was preparing us for the real world!"

"THERE IS NOTHING DANGEROUS ABOUT THE REAL WORLD!" Umbridge all but shrieks. She clears her throat and says, calmer, "And he is, as rumoured, an invert. His type of people protest things natural and sacred -- that is, children, why Ministry influence is so important. These things are in dire need of correction."

Dean Thomas throws his hand up. "If being gay made him such a good teacher, can I poltiely request for you to become a lesbian?"

The class snickers. She huffs at them, almost pityingly. "Again, a dangerous ideology is normalized. Do we not see, in our day to day lives, the disastrous impact of homosexual activity? Take Harry Potter, for instance." Harry feels eyes slide onto him and narrows his eyes. "A renowned gay man--"

"Literally not even true."

"Hand, Mister Potter, a kind reminder to raise your hand." She shakes her head, acting like his insolence is proof enough of her point. "Harry Potter is gay and he's here -- in this classroom and at his hearing -- spreading the absolute lie that You-Know-Who has returned, when the Minstry has conclusively determined this is an impossibility."

"Cedric Diggroy died," Harry says. The room simmers to a tense quiet. "Cedric Diggory died by Voldemort's hand -- and you have the fucking gall to sit here, alive and well, and tell me he died of his own accord?"

"Oh," she titters. There is an annoying look in her eyes. "I'm not saying that at all, no -- I do believe he was murdered. I am not ignorant enough, however, to assume that it was a long dead Dark Lord who did the deed."

Harry is not that dense -- he's fully aware what she means to imply. "So you think I killed him, is that it?" he scoffs.

Umbridge tilts her chin up at him. She avoids his eyes. Coward, thinks Harry. You're a coward. "I'm not saying anything, Mister Potter, without a proper trial. But I do have my thoughts."

"And your thoughts are that I killed my friend?"

Umbridge tilts her head. "I've no comment."

Suddenly, Draco Malfoy bursts into laughter.

He nearly doubles over in his mirth. When he notices people staring, he laughs, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry," he says between breaths. "It's just that -- do you really think Golden Boy Potter could hurt anyone? How he avoided being Sorted into Hufflepuff is a mystery to me. And, anyway, he was totally shagging Diggory--"

Harry rises to his feet, face red. "Hey!"

"So," continues Malfoy, "it's a bit presumptuous, don't you think, to say he was the culprit here?"

"As much as I hate agreeing with anything Malfoy says," Harry says, crossing his arms over his chest, sitting back down in his seat, "he's right. I'm no killer. Keep me in this room with you any longer, though, and that's liable to change."

"Harry!" gasps out Hermione.

"Detention tonight!" Dolores snaps. "At my room after dinner -- the both of you! I will not take this type of disobedience in my class."

Malfoy scoffs. "You're joking, right?"

"I am not!" Umrbidge smooths down her skirt and takes a seat on her desk. "Now, if that will be all in the name of time wasting nonsense, I'd like to get started with class, hm? Please open your textbooks to chapter one and begin reading--"

Hermione finally has her say. She holds her hand in the air and says, politely, "I have a question."

"Question time is over," says Umrbidge, a disgusting type of kind in her voice. "And it is a right I have decided, henceforth, to provoke. Talking out of turn brings, I'd say, the worst out of everyone."

Hermione doesn't lower her hand. "It's about the chapter."

"Well, you'll have to read it first."

"I have," says Hermione. "I've also read the rest of the chapters -- and I have a question."

"What did I just say about question time, hm?"

Hermione ignores her. "There's no practical demonstrations. It's all theory."

"Yes," says Dolores, raising an eyebrow. "It is all Ministry approved coursework."

"It's just theory," stresses Hermione.

"Why, of course. There's no need for you to use such dangerous magic in my classroom."

Harry simmers in his rage and snaps, rising again out of his seat. "What about outside your classroom? What about, I don't know, Voldemort?"

"I have already clarified that there are no threats in the outside world," she says. "As I also have clarified that there is no more You-Know-Who."

Harry sees Hermione at his side, silently begging him to step down. She can sense his growing rage and wants to prevent an outburst -- and Harry might have allowed it, might have conceded, if Hermione Granger was his friend.

And that's the thing.

Harry Potter is not allowed to have friends.

"You're full of shit, Dolores."

Umbridge blinks up at him, offended. "Excuse me?" He thinks that he already has one detention with her -- what use is restraint when it has already been thrown to the wind?

"Full. Of. Shit -- that's what you are. And so is the Minister and so is damn near everyone in this room -- you'd all rather blame a fifthteen year old boy for the murder of his close friend than accept something scary. What's next, huh? I crucio'd myself?" He leans forward, hands planted on his desk. "You're cowards -- all of you. I know it and Dolores, the numbskull up here, well, she sure as shit knows it too. And who else knows it? Who else is going to? Voldemort.

"He's back. He's back and he's back in fucking business -- and everyone who denies it -- everyone who has seen the records, heard my accord, absorbed all the evidence just to spit it back out? There's a name for that type of people and it sure as Hell isn't 'invert.'

"It's 'coward.' Dolores Umbridge, you're a coward.

"But that's okay. You'll be fine. I've noticed something, really." Harry grins. It is not a kind expression. He says, lowly, "Voldemort likes cowards."