The Manipulative Toad

AN: Warning for reading what one of the villains' dialogue.

They had crossed her again, the little annoying youngsters. She might even call them creatures, and some of them might even be creatures in disguise. How much she would like to find those with creature blood and wring them out dry, and what a shock that would be to the rest who gathered around and protected them.

She, of course, was forgetting the creature blood coursing through her own veins, the blood of the frog peoples. Not a species that interbred with humans much, as they tended to breed only among their own kind, but she was a descendent of one of them, and so she looked like a frog. She hated it. She despised, loathed it, and ignored it to the best of her abilities, as after all, it was only a great-grandparent that had been a creature, not anything closer.

A truce. Hmmph.

That only meant that they would fall together.

Her mind drifted to another problem of hers, and of course, the Ministry's.

Potter, sweet, daring Harry Potter, whom she could count on finding the buttons to push sometime throughout the day, and then give him a detention. She was wringing him out dry, slowly, so slowly, and his body was fighting it. She could tell. It wasn't too obvious yet, but he was not healthy. She smirked. He would still insist that Voldemort was back? Well, in that case, she would wear into his body the inability to lie bit by bit, as the blood was scratched however unwillingly onto the parchment and into his hand. How long, how many secrets would Potter start sharing before he would finally share the truth, that Voldemort was not back, that it was all a lie?

The fact that it could be the truth still and that Minister Fudge, while knowing which backs to scratch, was very good at ignoring the truth, unless it was good for his current state of health, was completely lost to her. The fact that it could render Harry completely truthful, unable to even try to be tactful, when applied constantly was none of her concern either.

She paced back and forth across her office, slowly.

The whole student body had to be in on this, of course. There was no way that it couldn't be. She had already tightened curfews, put many of the teachers under the stress of being thrown out, no matter how fake the stress was. She had put down a set of guidelines that made it really hard to not get point loss, for what teenager, who sitting and writing, doing potions, or doing practical wand work, would have an easy time of being always nice and pressed. Of course, they were hard to pin point as being nasty on paper, but that was the brilliance of it all.

She had done something similar with Fudge.

...memory start...

"Minister Fudge, I have a hard request for you. However, I believe it is within your power to do it."

"Hello, Umbridge, my Senior Undersecretary, what can I help you with?"

"Well, you know how I've been assigned to teach DADA..."

"Yes..."

"I want to use a Blood Quill in detentions. Something that will hopefully keep the children out of my office as it is painful."

"You won't abuse the privilege, will you?"

"Oh, no. Just a few lines, after all."

"Only a few will be okay. There's a reason why they are restricted after all."

"No, it will be fine. If they keep ending up in my office, they'll have a reason."

"We should put a clause in there about complaints."

"I'm not having them complain about every single time they have detention."

"No, but we'll have something. It is legally required, you know. It would also give the ones constantly in your office a break before their magic is affected."

"I will make sure not to need to put students in the hospital wing for the blood quill."

"Excellent. Let me write this out for you then."

"Thank you very much, Minister Fudge. I hope you have a good day."

...memory end...

Well, in terms of strategy, so far she wasn't doing too badly. She had gone straight for the leader and cut him down verbally, and continued to do so. He was no wimp and hadn't crumbled. Well, she wasn't expecting anything less from someone who was a Champion from last year, but still! He could have been nice and crumpled by now! It had been almost two full months of almost daily quill use. The student body had countered that attack on their moral, showing that they were more than one person, and formed a truce. In response, she had gone harder on the teachers, and set up the whole step-above-the-Headmaster thing with rules and students answering directly to her. It was a test to try to break up that unity the school body had responded with.

She thought over the next plans. Well, she couldn't starve the kids. Even if she wanted to, that was breaking the whole "don't irreparably harm the children" thing, "they are the future". No, she couldn't starve the kids. She had cut down some on the support the kids got from the teachers. There was also all the little clubs the children had going. Cut them off once, make them come to her to start them again, which to be honest most of the clubs of those that came to her she would, but that would be less than before because she already was not to be trusted, cutting off again another support. What other support was there that she should get rid of? Oh yes, there was the seer. Trelawney may not be all that accurate, but she would be a place of hope. She was one of the ones not too far put out by herself to try to see something to scare Umbridge away, so she had to leave. She could not touch the Heads of Houses unless they interfered. Not only were they certified, but they had their Masteries in their fields.

She finished her tea, placed her hat just so, straightened her clothing, and left the room. The kittens couldn't tell anyway.