Chapter 656: Punished by Umbridge (Edited)

Umbridge howled for a moment before stopping and then looked at Fish and Harry in disbelief.

"Are you alright, nya?"

(??~??)

Fish asked, feigning kindness as he stuffed his mouth with snacks. "Do you need Fish to heal you?"

He raised his left hand, a cloud of green energy surrounding his fingers.

"No, that won't be necessary..."

Umbridge grimaced, scanning the faces of Fish and Harry. Although both seemed innocent and she had no evidence, Umbridge was certain they had done something...

To be precise, it was Fish who had done something.

But it was clear that there was no hope of punishing Harry with a quill this afternoon.

Umbridge narrowed her toad-like eyes and made up her mind.

Although she had some other torture devices, either they were less effective than the quill and likely wouldn't work, or they were too vicious to use on Hogwarts students...

"It seems there's a problem with this," Umbridge whispered with a fake smile back on her face. "In that case, Mr. Potter, you may use the other quills tonight."

She put away the two black quills and handed Harry a regular quill instead, and this time she also gave him ink.

"I believe that after copying it a thousand times, it will impress you a bit," she said with a smile. "Furthermore, starting tomorrow evening, you and Mr. McGonagall will take turns with my punishment, so you'll be the first tomorrow... Is that alright?"

"Fine, nya!"

(Φ~Φ)

Fish replied, his voice dragging with food still in his mouth.

Harry also nodded indifferently.

Seeing them both agreeing so readily, Umbridge became suspicious again...

Did I guess wrong? Has Harry really found a way to deal with my quill?

In any case, the title of "The Boy Who Lived" holds its reputation in English wizarding circles, so Umbridge was more than concerned.

In reality, Harry thought he had earned it by avoiding it once, and even if he got hurt tomorrow, Fish could treat him, so he wasn't scared at all.

Fish's idea was even simpler. It was just a petrifying spell on his skin, so he could give one to Harry before coming to the punishment, and it would last for two or three hours.

He hadn't thought about it before, but now that he had a solution, even if the others were being punished, Fish could provide them protection.

Unaware that her most effective punishment tool was about to fail, Umbridge grimaced and instructed Harry to write "I must not tell lies" a thousand times before sliding a large snack to Fish and dismissing both of them.

It wasn't until the following night that Umbridge felt truly depressed when she realized that Harry didn't fear her quill in Fish's absence.

There were other ways to punish Harry, but for Umbridge, who had made torment her pastime, it wasn't as satisfying to see him write with a regular quill even if he had to copy a million times.

If Umbridge hadn't been so busy searching for "The Quibbler" and trying to get Dumbledore into trouble, she would have taken the time to improve her quill.

For now, however, she had to punish Harry in the usual way, and apart from missing some Cat Order events and Quidditch team practices, it didn't bother him much.

As for Fish, Umbridge had soon given up on the idea of punishing him and imposed the punishment of "patrolling the castle," out of sight, out of mind.

So it had been two weeks, and although Fish and Harry's punishment was over, it was also Valentine's Day, February 14th, which was the day the school opened up for Hogsmeade.

Hermione had dressed early in the morning and was waiting for Fish in the common room, and when Fish yawned and came out of the boys' dormitory, she greeted him immediately and took him by the arm.

"Hermione?"

Fish, who had just woken up, was still a bit confused, tilted his head, and sniffed gently...

Then he sneezed.

"Achoo!" Fish rubbed his nose, furrowing his brow. "You smell really strange... Fish doesn't like that smell nya."

(?ω?)

Hermione, who had intentionally sprayed herself with the designer perfume Mrs. Granger had prepared for her: "..."

She had forgotten that Fish had a different sense of smell than regular people.

Hermione slapped her forehead in frustration, then pulled out her wand and used a spell to freshen herself up so that her scent wouldn't be so overpowering to Fish.

"Let's go have breakfast..." Hermione said as she dragged Fish outside.

After being dragged by her for a few steps, Fish suddenly turned to Hermione as if he remembered something and said, "By the way, Hermione, you look beautiful today nya."

"!!!!"

Hermione covered her mouth in surprise, her eyes widened, and she looked at Fish suddenly enlightened.

And Fish scratched his head in confusion and said, "Huh? That didn't work, did it? But Fred and the others said you'd be happy with a compliment like that? Did they trick Fish?"

(?ω?)

I see...

Hermione shook her head with a smile and replied, "No, I'm happy." With that, she tiptoed and leaned in to give Fish a kiss on the cheek.

"Come on, let's have breakfast." Hermione said cheerfully.

"Alright nya!"

(≧≦)

It was strange to see Hermione in a bad mood and then in a good mood, but for Fish, eating was more important!

When they arrived at the Great Hall, Hermione noticed that many people had dressed up like her, and the house-elves had decorated the Great Hall with flowers.

Couples were clinging to each other, whispering and murmuring.

The presence of Fish and Hermione attracted a lot of attention, some of the younger witches kept looking at Hermione, and some of the ones who already had boyfriends looked at her with envy... much to the displeasure of the boys around them.

Fish was used to this kind of attention, he took Hermione's hand, walked towards the long Gryffindor table, and sat down to eat his food.

Hermione, on the other hand, looked triumphantly around before sitting down calmly next to Fish.

Everyone had breakfast and talked about their trip to Hogsmeade, but Harry and Ron weren't very enthusiastic as Angelina had asked them to stay at school and train all day.

And she had a good reason: they would soon be playing against Hufflepuff. They had lost to Hufflepuff the previous year, and Wood had graduated that year, but Cedric, the backbone of the Hufflepuff team, was still there. And with the twins and Harry being punished by Umbridge in turns for a while now, it had been a long time since they trained together as a team, and they had to make the most of it.

"It's Valentine's Day..." Ron grumbled, stabbing his fork into his plate unhappily.

"Valentine's Day comes every year, but the Quidditch match only comes once a year!" Angelina, possessed by Wood, babbled, and then, before the rest of the team could respond, she pouted and said, "Besides, all of you are single, what a Valentine's Day!"