The Ripple Effect

Well, except to Harry Potter. Potter could lose points just for showing up for class on time with his homework in hand. And he could get a detention over which hand held that homework assignment. But for everyone else, Professor Snape was completely fair. Hard to please. But fair. He also seemed to genuinely care about them. Which made the student body want to please him.

Because if they did, they knew they'd done well. More than once he'd caught someone out after curfew trying to reach the infirmary. Instead of giving a detention or docking points and going on his way, as so many other Professors would do, he'd escorted the student to the infirmary personally, getting a symptoms list along the way to inform Poppy of why they were in her domain while they just crawled into the first available bed. Sometimes he just gave them a potion from his robes and escorted them back to their dorm seeing them inside safely before going on his way.

He'd even been known to escort a student to their dorm and tuck them into bed personally a few times. Some said he even carried the most commonly need remedies in his robes just in case he ran across a student needing one. Because of that, he was the most respected teacher in the school though he didn't know it.

Therefore, the students in the Hall had heard the entire conversation between the staff. Those who remembered the aforementioned detention gladly explained what he had been talking about to their nearest neighbors who might still be in the dark about it, ensuring all the students knew he hadn't been lying.

Those who knew about the quiditch ordeals explained about that aspect just as eagerly. All in all every word the students said cast further aspersions on the character of Minerva McGonagal. As a result, Professor McGonagal found herself losing the general respect of the student body who were all now almost universally behind their hero, Harry Potter once again.

Which was completely normal for the time of the year. But this time the students meant it. Things were different this year. This year Harry Potter had made the first strike. This year he had struck before any of his detractors could begin their malicious behavior against him. And this year the student body understood what was going on. At least, they thought they did.

To the students, it was bad enough his so-called friends had been using him and trying to kill him but that she, their teacher and his, had been a part of his problems here was just not acceptable at all. Needless to say, yet another wave of letters would be leaving the Castle that night bound for parents waiting to learn what the students now knew. And because Albus still didn't know what was going on in the school, he hadn't locked down the Owl Loft to prevent it.

By the time Albus finally arrived for dinner, that long ago detention was being rehashed along with other stories they had heard about over the years. All the stories were being recounted and debated once again with a new eye to whatever truth might also be concealed in them

. He had no idea why the students were rehashing old news but assumed it was because he hadn't yet enacted this years plan to further ruin the name and reputation of his chosen puppet. Students did like to gossip and tear each other down after all. And with nothing new occurring yet, well perhaps it was understandable they turned to old news for entertainment.

But then he really couldn't enact anything this year. Because this years plan really revolved around when Cornelius' woman would begin her campaign of terror on Harry and the other muggleborn or halfblood students. He had no idea she had revised her plans given what the boy had already done and the turmoil surrounding the event. Nor did he understand why she was sitting there so prim and proper smirking at him.

Because he'd been preoccupied with other matters to this point he also didn't realize Harry hadn't actually challenged her in the classroom when she touted the party line. Harry hadn't claimed Tom was back and gearing up to be a viable public safety threat. So Madam Umbridge had nothing to target his puppet over.

He was her sole target at this point in time. But Albus had no clue. Because it never occurred to him, Harry didn't believe in him and trust in the goodness he proclaimed to represent to all and sundry. And therefore wouldn't defend his honor when it was called into question by another.

But at the student tables, rehashing history had a point. If the Forest story had been true when they had all been told it wasn't, then who knew just how many of the other stories, discounted as lies or exaggerations, were also nothing but the truth?

After all, those stories all had the Unwelcome Trio as the story tellers also. And the students all knew now those three were nothing but liars taking credit for actions not their own while blaming others for things they themselves did or said. So if they were known liars who had lied about one story they all believed was true, then who was to say they hadn't lied about the other stories as well?

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