Ellie takes the same NEWTs, and switches to Care of Magical Creatures and Latin. That'll cover all the electives but Divination (which is only debatably useful without an inborn talent, in her opinion) between the pair of them. She's hoping they'll do some winged beings in Care of Magical Creatures so she can get a closer look at how they work for her own transformation.

While cuddling Anathema, she works out study guides for Potions and Herbology so they can keep the material fresh if they decide to go for NEWTs in those subjects as well.

Is Ellie aware Anathema loves her? Because Anathema loves her. 

The feeling is entirely mutual.

Kiss.

Kisses!

She giggles.

(Ellie also gets an owl offering her the position of school Prefect, though it notes she can turn it down. Included is a post script from Professor Flitwick that if she does turn it down, Anathema's next on his list, so if Anathema could include her acceptance or rejection in with Ellie's possible rejection he'd appreciate it.)

"D'you think I should take it?"

"I wouldn't. It'll be a lot of our free time, for not a lot more ability to move around... We could ignore curfew but we already do that sometimes anyways."

"Good points. A cloak's better than a badge. Want to write up your rejection too? I'll post them together."

"Sure."

So she dashes off a quick letter to Professor Flitwick explaining that she doesn't believe she will have time to adequately discharge the responsibilities involved, with regrets, and send that along with Anathema's letter back to him.

Good.

(Less good is the news - Fudge seems to be refusing to believe Voldemort is back, blaming the Hogwarts attack on a mixture of copy cats and French insurgents. The Prophet keeps slandering the French Minister for not keeping her country under control, and for permitting violent people in through the Tournament guest screening process. France is, to say the least, unhappy about this - but it sounds like France and in general much of Europe are discovering their own pureblood supremacist problems, distracting from any tiffs with the United Kingdom's Ministry.)

When is the next election, again?

...Hm, she's fairly sure there's no set election days or years, just an old law that elections can't be held more than seven years apart. She's pretty sure someone other than the Minister can force an election, though, but Fudge got elected in 1990 so has another two years before he'll be forced to hold elections.

Ugh. He's just- really bad and getting worse.

He hopefully would have trouble holding onto power if voted out... But, yeah. Maybe the Wizengamot can force an election? Dumbledore's got a vote, and she thinks Narcissa Malfoy actually has two... And Fudge has to have annoyed people...

They could test out their budding network on something a little less critical.

They could, though she bets it'll work best if they have someone lined up to challenge Fudge, first.

That's trickier. She doesn't really know who's in a position to replace him, politically speaking.

You need to be at least seventeen to run... But to win you'd need to be recognized by the community, yeah, or at least running against someone that everyone loathes... And they'd want to be cautious to run someone with a better chance of winning than anyone Voldemort could put forth as a patsy. Dumbledore's refused to run before... The adult wizards they know mostly have other stuff to do, like Fay, or aren't entirely trustworthy, like Narcissa Malfoy... An Auror would probably be good, lots of past Ministers have been Aurors - there's that Auror they met first year who Anathema's pretty sure secretly works for Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and that Auror Anathema stayed with before first year is nice and turned out to be Anathema's cousin through Bellatrix, weirdly enough...

They can run the idea past Fay, she might have more ideas.

Yeah. Sounds good to her.

She brings up the topic over dinner.

Fay hums. "A different Minister would make this much easier, yes - but it'll be easier forcing an election than getting someone friendly to us elected... But I suspect the longer this war goes on, the better Voldemort would be able to push through someone favorable to him. He's been avoiding rebuilding his base in the Isles up until now, we think, to avoid detection..."

"The problem would be someone to run against Fudge - the wizarding community here isn't very large, and Fudge won in the first place mostly out of a lack of challengers. Shacklebolt's a solid option, and he's very well respected, but he also has enemies, and he might hesitate to step out into the limelight that much... Someone young like Tonks - I could see her getting a lot of support, actually, she's charismatic and very not the establishment, but she's also inexperienced and not well connected. But... If she had people who were well connected endorse her, like Narcissa Malfoy or Dumbledore... Director Bones is also someone I'd support myself. She's the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She's got a keen mind and a spine of steel, and she impressed me last war in fighting Voldemort. She's not the most progressive person, and she's more 'rule of law' than my ideal, but she won't tolerate the sort of shit the last three Ministers have gotten up to and has expressed she wants to import several muggle legal structures - war crimes came up the most often when I was talking to her, but that was mostly context..."

"You're not allowed to rig the elections so you can get arrested, Fay."

She laughs. "I don't think they'd make the laws extend to before they were passed, anyways. But a government should think war crimes are bad and be generally good at enforcing not doing them."

Nod.

"Of course, she might not be willing to run... But it's something worth prodding people about, at least."

"We'll want to write a few more letters, then."

She nods. "I'll help."

"Thanks."

They can spend a couple days getting drafts for Fay to look over.

She has some suggestions to make, especially tailoring the letters to specific people, but - it should sound like it comes from the girls, and they have good instincts.

She also after about a week requests Ellie write a few short letters to a small list of people she suspects would be influenced by her - either by the memory of her parents, or by her fame, or by her role against Voldemort.

Still... She wants the girls to keep in mind their psychological health amid all this. She keeps encouraging them to take breaks, to play, to enjoy magic - to meditate and keep up their Occlumency, too.

Yeah, um, speaking of that. Ellie's been noticing some weird emotions kind of poking around her edges? She doesn't think they're, uh, hers, strictly speaking.

...Fay is trying to maintain an even expression and helpful demeanor but that is potentially alarming. She does caution that it might be psychological or hormonal, but it might also be a result of magic.

She checks if Ellie wants to talk in private, then asks a series of questions about the emotions: how long has she been noticing them, did anything precipitate them, when and how frequently do they happen, do they have any consistent triggers, what emotions occur most frequently, how strong or insistent are they, does she have physical symptoms associated with them (fatigue, headache, vision or hearing changes, chest pain, altered heart rate, sweating, chills or hot flashes, other pain, muscle twitches, shaking, or weakness...), and does she have other psychological symptoms (obsessive, racing, intrusive, or unpleasant thoughts, strange dreams, hallucinations, restlessness, inability to focus, feeling like she's not in control of her thoughts or actions, feeling like she's detached from or numb to her body or self, memory loss...).

She's only been noticing them since a bit after they came home for the summer. Which. Gives a guess for a precipitating event, but she hasn't noticed any common immediate triggers. She mostly gets a kind of- anger or irritation? Like a frustrating problem. It happens most often when she hasn't done the Occlumency meditation for a bit and clears up afterwards, which is why she mentions it. The only physical symptom is a bit of a headache.

Frown.

That sounds - plausibly hormonal, but Fay's concerned enough to want to check for magical influence, if Ellie's willing.

Better safe than sorry, right?

Nod.

Detection methods - Legilimency would be fairly direct, but has privacy concerns. There's non-invasive ways of detecting foreign magic on someone, but most of them require specialists, especially if the magic is subtle. Ellie might also be able to detect the issue herself, though the most likely way to do that would be if she's actively meditating when an emotional burst begins.

It would be... fine, if Fay wanted to do Legilimency on her.

"Alright."

"I'll be careful not to intrude on anything irrelevant to this," she says, "As much as I can be."

"I trust you."

Soft smile. "I'll try to be worthy of that."

And, once Ellie's ready, she makes eye contact and softly casts the Legilimens spell.

Her touch through Ellie's mind is gentle, and carefully obvious about where she is and what she's looking at.

Ellie's mind is... decently well organized, for a girl her age. In particular, there's a firm distinction between what's her and what's not, her core thoughts and motivations and things she doesn't endorse or want.

Which makes this one sort of snakey tendril coiling around somewhat odd, the way it's almost completely ignored by the broader structure.

Very odd.

She doesn't touch it - does set highlights around it - and carefully begins following it, noting what parts of her mind it's passing through.

It seems mostly contained, but is poking feelers towards getting access to the senses.

Gently, delicately - she shows Ellie what she's seeing, cautions her not to touch it yet - warns Ellie and then places small baffles, the same way she'd place a false memory, to slow the feelers down without alerting them.

And then that's its end... Back along it, tracing it to its source, through the historic growth through Ellie's mind... It seems to have been almost cautious in avoiding detection, with no significant ripples - it hasn't touched on her memories, but it's plausibly sensing her emotions - Fay can't easily and quickly fool that, but she notes how it's accessing them so they can figure out a way.

Back more - and it's rooted in memories, growing from them, patchy things - Ellie's memories of her parents' deaths as dredged up by Dementors most centrally, anchored as well on the ritual at the graveyard, the burning circlet on her head and Anathema's gold eyes -

Fay can't enter or see past those memories without risking disturbing the tendril enough to be obvious, but, well.

There's not a lot this can be.

Carefully, gently, she withdraws.

That was surprisingly stressful.

Hug?

Hug is good.

"So what does that mean?"

"The unpleasant but unfortunately probably not worst case scenario is Voldemort has established some kind of link to your mind, which he's trying to use to spy on you, which is mostly hiding and therefore not producing effects except some emotional overflow on accident."

"Well. Fuck."

Aggressive hugs.

"I don't think he's gotten anything yet except maybe some idea of your emotional state, though I think it's likely low-fidelity. His level of caution means it's not advancing quickly."

"So what can I do? Just keep my barriers up?"

Hum. "He might escalate if he realizes he's been noticed or if he just takes too long - which could cause damage. We should be able to reinforce the areas around the probe, keep it from getting any farther, minimize the fall out - and depending on where the opening is I might be able to just remove the tendril and prevent it from coming back, or at least aggressively contain it."

"We might be able to contain the tendril and lash back at him, causing damage. We might be able to turn it around - steal information from him - but that'd be risky."

"There's a possibility we can feed him false information, and keep him from noticing anything's going on that way - and use that to slowly trap the tendril in a metaphorical box not connected to your mind proper, so it can't hurt you."

"Could we- use that to get him away from Bellatrix?"

Pause.

"We'd have to set a trap - it'd be tricky, and risky, and harder than just providing him uninteresting humdrum, but..."

"Maybe. If we lure her out separately from him."

"I want to try."

She nods. "It's your choice. I'll help."

"Thanks."

"Just - "

"I can't tell you never to take risks. But. Please stay safe, as best you can."

"This is- for Anathema. I have to, if I can."

Squeeze. "I understand entirely."

Hug.

"We'll have to think about what sort of trap to lay - and get more information about what's currently going on, ideally, but..."

"It doesn't have to be now, and... I think we should involve Anathema, too."

"Yeah. We can do some thinking. And I'll try not to let anything in, in the meantime."

"There's some specific techniques that might help with that..."

Helpful. Ellie is ready to learn, as always.

She walks Ellie through them, though most of them will require a lot of practice to get to second nature.

So she'll practice. This is important.

Of course.

Does she want to read Anathema in right after?

Yeah. No sense putting it off.

"Everything alright?"

"It turns out I may have a small bit of Voldemort in my head."

" - Oh no are you okay - "

"Mostly. It's under control for now, and I've got some new Occlumency exercises to help."

Hug. "I don't like that he's anywhere near your head. Can we get him out?"

"Not trivially. But we were thinking- we could use it to trick him. Show him bad information. Maybe in a way that gets Bellatrix away from him."

" - You shouldn't risk yourself. Nothing's worth that."

"You're worth that."

Tight hug. "I'm happiest when you're safe."

"I know."

"I - "

"Just. Let me help."

"Always."

Quick kiss.

"Thanks, for - doing this for me."

"Yeah."

Next is probably just - brainstorming their approach. How they should lay the trap, how they should convince Voldemort of it, are they luring Bellatrix or Voldemort in...

They'll have to consider a lot of aspects. And make backups.

She nods.

There's a lot, but - between the three of them, and Sirius once he wakes up from his nap, they can make at least the start of an outline.

That occupies Anathema's mind a lot leading up to the start of term, interrupted only by the news that while the Wizengamot is considering calling for elections, Fudge still has a decent coalition - and has gotten it to pass several Educational Decrees affecting Hogwarts. One of those apparently lets him appoint professors if Dumbledore doesn't find someone to fill a slot quickly enough, so their History professor this year will be a Ministry appointee.

Bets on this not being a trashfire? Ellie will give you quite good odds.

Anathema wouldn't take that bet.

Yyyep.

Sigh.

Well. At least Ellie and Anathema aren't doing NEWT History this year. Though she feels bad for their year-mates, it's everyone else's OWL year...

They can pass their notes around, maybe.

Yeah. Maybe some of Lyra's year-mates can sit in on the tutoring sessions, too, if the History clubs start back up like they had for Lockhart...

Those ought to become like, a permanent thing. It'd be more consistent quality.

Yeah. Though in second year it sounded like the professors didn't really have the free time to do that unless really needed, and while there's more History TAs than they had in second year there's still not a ton... Though maybe Dumbledore can bring back Professor Lupin for some minor elective or something and have him run history clubs, so he doesn't get hit by the curse.

If he agrees.

It sounded like that chronic illness he had made holding down other jobs hard... He'd still be teaching kind of irregularly, but they have the History TAs to fill in for him anyways, and he was super good - there's also that mousy professor they had last year who knew her stuff, though she also did just leave (after getting pregnant, and she'd probably wanna actually have a maternity leave and all... But maybe she could be a substitute for Professor Lupin on his sick days).

But hey. Maybe everything will be fine. For once.

Maybe Voldemort will get hit by a truck.

Several trucks. In succession.

Muggle trucks so he's embarrassed about it, except maybe the last one can just banish him to another universe if it can't destroy his immortality.

Poetic, or something.

Yeah.

Still... Nothing for it now, except getting their textbooks (their History textbook is - basic, stripped down, and blatantly biased) and boarding the Hogwarts Express.

They can get something nice off the tea trolley, at least.

Yeah. Sometimes they have newly invented sweets, too, which can be a fun experiment.

Until you can't stop speaking in limericks for three hours.

Fun to experiment with giving to someone, then.

Yes, the most important qualification in a test subject: not you.

Might depend on the test a little.

Psh. Details.

Well... Kissing experiments definitely should involve her...

Anathema will have to make her case for that then, won't she?

Perhaps submit a research proposal...

She'll need to present a proof-of-concept for consideration.

Documentation of suggestive experiments, perhaps?

That might be acceptable. It depends on the review board's mood.

Well... Knowing who the review board is is an important first step then.

That would be Ellie. Obviously.

Being on the review board for your own experiments seems a bit unethical...

They're not her experiments though, are they? They're Anathema's. Technically.

Fair, fair.

So about that proposal...

Well, they'll have to collect data for the basics first... Establish a firm baseline to expand on for later experiments, you see.

She's on board so far.

Hmm... Repeating each sort of kissing of course, and she needs to get out her notebook to take measurements... Perhaps track these variables here...

Nodnodnodokayproposalacceptedtimeforkisses.

Kisses!!!

The Hogwarts Express is always a good time.

They're making it so.

Yes, they are.

Getting many excellent notes.

Then Ellie needs to try harder.

But science is important!

So is kissing.

They'll have to start over, though, if the experiment gets interrupted.

Oh dear. What a shame.

Anathema, of course, gets distracted.

All according to plan.

Evil anti-science girlfriend.

It's less anti-science and more pro-kissing her girlfriend.

Fair. Kissing her girlfriend is very excellent.

Mmmyep.

Heeeee.

Eventually, of course, the trip ends.

Hogwarts is as grand as ever.

Though during the welcoming speech, Professor Umbridge - the Ministry appointee - interrupts Dumbledore to inform the students that standards have been slipping, and she'll make sure their classes all get up to Ministry standards, and things are certainly going to change, isn't it great?

No one seems to think it's great.

No, it's really not. Especially if she means all the classes, and not just the ones she's teaching.

A lot of people are unsure if she can do that - and they like their professors, anyways, most of them are great and the rest are still pretty good, it's only the History professor that's either evil or incompetent or both - this isn't fixing that.

"She can if the Ministry lets her," Anathema says, quietly.

"The Ministry isn't interested in fixing problems at Hogwarts."

"Well, bet they consider Hogwarts being independent a problem."

"Yeah."

Sigh.

"Well, we'll oppose her as much as we can, I guess."

"As it becomes necessary."

"Yeah. Look into getting history clubs started up again in the meantime..."

"That's already necessary, based on the trash book."

"Yup. And talk to Dumbledore about pulling back in Professor Lupin or someone just for that."

"Even just someone part-time."

She nods, firmly. "We can bring it up with Professor Reynolds first, I guess."

A quick stop there before bed, then?

Sure.

Fay doesn't get back to her rooms right away, but when she does - "Good evening, girls. Train in go okay?"

Slight blush. "Um, yes."

Much deeper blush! "Yeah, very."

She smiles, a bit knowingly.

"Good."

"Anyway! Uh."

"We thought this year might be a good time to resurrect the history club. And were wondering how possible it would be to get a new professor, who nominally teaches something else, to oversee that. Professor Lupin, maybe, if he's willing. Even part-time."

"Not a bad idea... He does often struggle to keep down a normal job - Hogwarts was the best one he's had in a while. He's got a fairly broad specialty, too, and Dumbledore could bring him in as a guest lecturer and floating teacher's assistant - or just as a teacher's assistant for me, Amy decided to move on in her career..."

"Oh, good for her. I liked her."

"Yeah. I'll miss her, though."

"Yeah now you might have to actually read the fifth year's essays."

She snorts. "I'll survive, somehow."

Solemn nod. "Struggle through somehow."

"Professor Lupin would help, though. I'll make the suggestion to Dumbledore tomorrow."

"Great."

Smile. "Though I think you two should be getting off to bed, now."

"Probably. Good night, Professor."

"Good night."

And off to bed with them.

The little bit before the start of classes goes okay, though Umbridge is lurking everywhere. 

The NEWT classes are really fun, and promise to be super intense in a way Anathema's looking forward to. They have two sessions a week for each of the three classes, for one, and the practicals are a lot more intense. McGonagall has them in with the seventh years for now, with some review guides if they need to catch up on sixth year teachings. She settles into Music, Astronomy, and Ancient Greek well, befriending the lower years fairly easily. 

History class, though -

They're not in it, fortunately. But it sounds from their yearmates like Umbridge gave a speech about poor standards and misinformation, and the syllabus is half 'review of mistaught information' and half 'accomplishments of Wizarding Britain.' 

Anathema frowns, borrows copies of the different years' books, then stares into the distance with a troubled look on her face. 

"That bad, is it?"

"I - "

"So Fudge and Umbridge are evil, but I don't know they're very good at it?"

"But... These books were written by - I think someone really, really good at being evil. It's not... Like Quirrel was biased in tone? He kept implying or saying that morals were different in history so we can't judge, or 'well we'd consider this immoral now but it's very effective.' But this is..."

"It doesn't even mention any bad things British wizards have ever done, or good things muggles and magical creatures and non-wizard magical humans and foreigners have done, unless it's in the context of - like, shared heritage. And it's... Subtle. There's some damning with faint praise, and some - exalting with faint condemnation - but always in a 'we know better now' way. Like everything is already fixed. Like everything is great."

"I don't - I don't think you'd catch this if you didn't already know a lot of history. Like, Quirrel told us about everything, he just also argued for his shitty positions, but - you could argue back - there's nothing here to argue with, and it sounds like Umbridge isn't even teaching so there's not even her - "

"And it's all. Ways of thinking about things, and ways of looking at history."

"I - in second year the school really focused on teaching the upper years to prepare for their exams."

"I think we need to focus on teaching the lower years, so they don't get caught."

"'Cause - you can disagree with stuff you know about, even if the opinions you're always being told are very one way. You can't form opinions on stuff you've never heard mentioned. And you can't - have politics based on that."

"And... We were talking about getting Fudge out of office, and making sure a Death Eater doesn't replace him - I. Think there's more people to be nervous about them leading the government than Death Eaters."

"That's... insidious."

"Yeah."

"It's - easy to spot that Voldemort's evil, even if he's also a really good fighter and general and stuff. And it's easy to spot that Fudge is incompetent - or - looks incompetent. And not quite as easy to spot that he's evil, but you can if you're paying any attention."

"I... Think I see Fay's point about wanting a government that makes war crimes aggressively and loudly illegal, even though it might get her in trouble. I don't want a government that's quiet and polite and - evil in the omission. Because. That's harder to get rid of, I think."

"It would be, if no one else agrees it needs to go. Because things that are quiet are easier to ignore, I know that."

"Yeah. It's - easier to hurt someone no one thinks about ever."

"So. History club. Maybe I've should've taken the prefect badge, I could make attending a requirement for the younger Ravenclaws at least."

"Lisa got fifth year girls' Prefect instead, didn't she? And Oliver got boys' Prefect. Lisa's mostly going for friendly and approachable but I think people'd listen to her, and Oliver's still on his civil rights tear... Bet he'd get the younger years to attend. And I ran into Sophie earlier, she's one of the Hufflepuff Prefects - I think she's been thinking about how much trouble she can cause for Umbridge already, so. She'd be into getting her lower years to attend." Oliver has maintained his streak about arguing with Ravenclaw's statue about civil rights instead of answering questions. Ravenclaw's statue seems delighted, and they sometimes have to interrupt the latest debate to answer magic theory questions to get into the dorm. Sophie's also in their year - the Hufflepuff was the one who organized getting Snape fired first year. "And Lyra said that Serpens somehow got Slytherin Prefect, though she's squirrely enough she might not really do much... It sounded like her mom's got some kind of long running feud with Umbridge, though."

"That's probably enough to start with. Gryffindor'll be in even just to tweak Umbridge's nose, I bet."

"Heh, yeah. Getting consistent attendance might be hard, but - even a little bit should help. And maybe spite will motivate the slackers."

"As long as we get it to the point where the knowledge is there to be passed down, I think it'll work."

She nods. "And the library still has copies of the old textbooks - and so do most of the upper years, and not everyone's a book hoarder like us."

"We can start another pool of copies."

"Yeah, definitely."

"Maybe we could pick apart the anti-copy hex for our Defense NEWT and just gemino a bunch."

"Bet we could, yeah."

"It's technically illegal, though, so Professor Reynolds might not actually go for it."

"If we do it as an extracurricular she doesn't have to have her name attached."

"Loopholes!"

Giggle.

Now just to get those balls rolling...

And then it's mostly up to other people.

A bit unfortunately, though it does reduce the work load on them...

They have well more than enough to keep them occupied, even so.

Seriously.

(Speaking of... They need to not fall behind on their NEWT work with all of this... Or on Occlumency, or. Anything, really.)

Coursework is starting to be challenging. Which is kind of a refreshing change.

Super. Anathema likes it.

Yeah. It's fun. Definitely getting her money's worth on the day planner. And the tea set.

It's nice when gifts pay off.

It sure is.

Their hard work pays off, too, with the History Club. Headmaster Dumbledore hires Remus Lupin as Profesor Reynold's replacement second teaching assistant, to general good cheer from everyone old enough to have had him as their history professor, and he settles in to helping them run a history 'special projects' club easily enough. He insists they can call him Remus - he's no longer a professor, just an assistant - but most of the students keep up with 'Professor Lupin.'

Rumors filter around about Umbridge being free - and unfair - with detentions and points losses. Some of the other professors seem to be responding by cutting students more slack, especially after Umbridge begins doing random, unannounced 'reviews' of classes, involving going over their curriculum and sitting in on several classes. She seems to be harassing Professors Reynolds, Flitwick, and Hagrid a lot - all of Ellie's classes with them end up sat in on, and the grapevine whispers that Umbridge has been kind of in general focusing on their classes. It sounds like the Government and Law plus Magical Cultures professors are also feeling Umbridge breathing down their necks.

Umbridge makes a show of announcing when she's submitted 'reviews' to the Ministry of classes, and 'suggestions for changes' to the professors themselves. (Professor Reynolds rips hers up.)

She mostly just seems to be acting obnoxious, right now, and she doesn't stop the History Club from arranging meetings - Professor Lupin creates four club blocks, one for first through third years (the club supposedly focuses on 'Fun With History'), one for OWL prep, one for NEWT prep, and one for 'Special Topics' (open to all years, focusing on muggle and international history; he incorporates some of the lesson plans their teacher last year made, it sounds like). Captain Davies coordinates with the other Quidditch captains so none of them have practice during the younger years' History Club, and then requires the younger players attend said club.

(Umbridge does start hanging around the library a lot, though fortunately Ellie and Anathema always check out their books and take them elsewhere. It sounds like she's making the librarian give her copies of check out records.)

Interfering old baggage. She's all the worst qualities of a career bureaucrat and a nosy stay-at-home busybody rolled into one chintzy pink package.

Which just makes her more obnoxious.

On a bit of a hunch, Anathema knuckles down on circumventing the anti-copying hexes, managing it and then copying one each of the history books. 

Just, it turns out, before an Educational Decree passes allowing Umbridge to declare books 'dangerous' and force the library to put them in a part of the Restricted Sections that requires Umbridge's permission to access. 

And a solid half of the library is now inaccessible, one presumes.

The history books seem to be going first - the librarian is tying Umbridge up in an ungodly amount of red tape and 'being better at bureacracy than her.' In the time it takes Umbridge to file half a library's worth of forms in triplicate Anathema's arranged with the other Ravenclaws to check out all the threatened books - they have to return them within a day once the prohibition goes through, but Anathema successfully teaches some of the NEWT students her trick for circumventing basic anti-copying hexes. It doesn't get them all the books, but it gets a lot, and they can just hide the others in Ravenclaw Tower. (Owning dangerous books hasn't been banned yet, so it's not dangerous right now to remind other houses that Ravenclaw is open to anyone seeking knowledge and also has many books.)

Fortunately Umbridge herself will never be able to get past the door. As that would require a modicum of original thought.

She giggles. "I almost want to see her try... But then we'd have to walk past her to leave, so."

"Less than ideal. And she might get the idea to set up a siege or at least forbid other houses from visiting."

"Yeah, that'd be bad."

"So we should probably make a plan to- deal with that kind of thing."

"I - there's gotta be some other way out, or a way for Hogwarts to make one..." Frown. "...I mean, I think the Chamber's tied into some of Hogwarts' reshaping stuff, but, uh, that sounds risky to mess with..."

"Mm. We wouldn't want to accidentally fold Umbridge's office into the lake or anything."

"That'd be absolutely tragic."

"But not, strictly speaking, something we would get in trouble for..."

"Not like they could prove it was us."

"Exactly."

"And her office isn't really near anything important, so we wouldn't have to worry about precision."

"True, true."

She starts giggling and kisses Ellie.

Hee.

In less funny thoughts... They might not want to gossip too much about having the restricted books, though, just. Have them a bit quietly available at the clubs. In case Umbridge gets ideas about banning personally owned books, too.

It'd probably be harder for her, but - not impossible, probably, they already don't let kids bring dangerous artifacts.

Yeah. And make backup copies and so forth.

They could outright keep master backup copies in the Chamber of Secrets - so even if Umbridge confiscates everything they can rebuild the library.

They'll have to come up with a new solution before they leave, but Umbridge should be gone after this year too.

Yeah - but it'd be nice if future students had what they needed to stop this from happening again.

Though any generally accessible system risks one of the students turning on the others...

That's a problem with everything. So... checks and balances? A separate stash for each house and they decide on how they want to hide it internally?

Yeah. Different ways of hiding also reduces failure points, like, if you just had one person with the stash they might quit... And if the books can be generally copied, students could also make their own backups.

Nod nod.

Sigh.

Well, a lot of that they can delegate at least, now that other students know how to get around the anti-copying hex... She'll talk to some of the sixth and seventh years about making House libraries and at least one other full backup - and maybe try to get some books that students happen to own but that aren't in Hogwarts' library into it...

Fifth year seems to be the year of getting other people do the work for them. They're the idea girls.

Maybe it's preparing them to rule the world.

Fate itself is on their side!

It has good taste, then.

Or it's just bowing to the inevitable.

One of the two.

Either's good, really.

As long as the results are 'Ellie and Anathema in charge,' well, what do the means matter. (Kiss!)

Best girlfriend.

No, Ellie's the best.

Well, if Anathema insists.

She does! Anathema has the best taste, and Ellie's the best girlfriend. Facts.

Kiss!

Heee! Kiss!!!

At one of their regular meetings with Fay shortly thereafter, she brings up moving forward on the trap for Voldemort plan - "I think our best bet is to lure out just Bellatrix, offering something she'd find herself driven to see to, but that Voldemort won't be very interested in. I'm actually probably the best bait for that - Bellatrix likes fighting me, and in the first war she made a point of encountering me as much as possible. Voldemort has historically left me to her."

"Assuming she still remembers you."

She nods, tightly. "I think - that would cripple her usefulness as a fighter. Voldemort likely left at least her memories of opposing me intact, and..."

"I'm - operating under the assumption he couldn't just rewrite her mind and personality entirely, not without sacrificing the entire reason to keep her as herself and not as another body for him to inhabit. Obliviation is also imperfect, especially against magical targets - Bellatrix would've been weak to it, with her shields destroyed by prolonged Dementor exposure, but it's relatively easy to notice something is missing or off, and - especially if you resisted the Obliviation - it can often then be poked, even if not shaken free entirely."

"If he's overwritten her entirely... Then our necessary actions would change a bit dramatically."

"So it should be you doing something alone so he sends Bellatrix to stop you, but not so important he has to go himself if she's not an option. For whatever reason."

She nods. "Possibly something that'd get her worked up into insisting on going after me... Though if she has any of her old personality, I bet she's bored by now."

"I guess you'd know what would work for her better than us."

"I - "

"I don't want you being the bait alone."

"It'd be risky to include the two of you at - whatever scene we set."

"That's what we've been making allies for, isn't it? So we have other people. What about Elodie? She's not even in the country right now, they probably won't see her coming."

"She's talented, too, if you think she'd be willing."

Anathema bites her lip. "I can ask."

"I think it's worth doing at least that much."

"Yeah. And it wouldn't take long, and asking her couldn't be intercepted easily, since we have the mirrors..."

"Right. And then we can make further plans from there, or find someone else."

She nods.

"And ideally work on convincing Voldemort his spying is effective and trustworthy, first - which we might want to start today, I think it'd be realistic for him to only get flashes of information, especially at first, and it'll be easiest to feed him innocuous but true, just time-limited, information."

"So I guess we need to find some of that."

"The first bit can be just - flashes of everyday life. What my living room looks like isn't a great secret, after all."

"Makes sense."

"He'll be less likely to conclude it's faked as well, since most of your experiences are innocuous."

"I don't - want him to ever see me, though."

"I don't want him to see you either. We'll work around it."

"I don't mind if he sees me, though - we can arrange glimpses he gets to mostly involve either no one or me. As long as he never thinks he should be getting everything, that might seem strange but should be - the type of thing he can mentally excuse."

"So start the connection filtered and keep it filtered."

She nods. "And - I've never heard of this sort of connection before, so... Hopefully he doesn't have many expectations for it."

"Hopefully."

"We can start the experiment today, if you're ready."

"...Yeah. I think I am."

"I can - step into Fay's office or something, then."

Quick hug. "This shouldn't take too long."

Snug. "Okay." Quick kiss. "Be careful, though. I like your brain."

"I will return it to you in the same condition that you left it."

Small smile. "Thanks." Another quick kiss, and then she's stepping out, door clicking shut behind her.

Deep breath.

"I've been practicing those exercises. Any last minute advice?"

She sits next to Ellie. "If you seem too deep into Occlumency, it'll feel off. Set up a reflection on the barrier, like I walked you through, and then just - relax. Focus on genuine emotions, and we can talk about something innocuous. Stop trying to hold back the tendril - not entirely, but a little - and let it work forward naturally."

"Okay." She tries to put Anathema out of her mind, bring up more of what she feels for Fay, safety and trust and happiness, then gently, gently relax her mind just a little bit.

"So Professor Flitwick has assigned us about sixty inches of homework over the last three weeks..."

She laughs, leaning more into the couch. "NEWT years are like that, unfortunately. Charms especially gets to be really theory heavy. Advanced Transfiguration is mostly self exploration, understanding, and visualization, and advanced Defense is mostly drilling until everything comes naturally, but, well, NEWT Charms is really the basis of spell invention."

Teasingly: "Though maybe now that I'm back to my full set of TAs I can assign a bit more homework."

"Nooooo. You've got to ease them into things. Slowly. Very slowly. Possibly not getting back to a full load for another two years."

"Hm, you think so? I'm sure you could handle it, but you're right that perhaps my other students need a softer transition..."

"Absolutely. Think of the poor other students."

"Still... Perhaps some extra practice wouldn't go amiss."

"Well, practicals are a different thing, obviously."

"A bit more enjoyable?"

(Barely noticeable, with how she's relaxed - there's a soft wiggle in the back of Ellie's mind, a small mutter of frustration.)

"Yep."

"Hm, I could arrange dueling time outside of class, instead of the traditional pen and paper homework, I suppose."

"Or, y'know, in class..."

"I have little enough lecture time as it is, Miss Potter," she says, teasingly. "And there are theory points better explained in person."

(There's a little pressure behind Ellie's eyes. Barely noticeable.)

She laughs, and quietly squeezes her barriers back in.

The feeling fades and vanishes.

Fay meets Ellie's gaze, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"Still, if you want more practice time - we can always spar."

"Here and gone, I think."

She nods.

"Okay. Do you want me to double check?"

Nod.

Her brush through Ellie's mind is quick, this time, scope limited - she carefully overviews the tendril, then withdraws.

"It didn't get past the shield," she says, softly, "And it's withdrawn right now."

"So it worked."

"Yes. You did very well."

"Thanks." She rises to get Anathema back.

"Everything go okay?"

"Brain's still intact. It was a successful trial."

Hug.

"Don't like him being anywhere near your brain," she mutters.

Pat pat. "It'll be okay."

"'Cause we'll kill him."

"'Cause we'll kill him," she agrees.

"I'll hold him down."

"Then he won't be a problem ever again."

Squeeze. "We'll have so much free time we won't know what to do with ourselves."

"Just bags of it. We'll have to take up potionscraft in self-defense."

"We'll have to invent new fields so we don't get bored in a century."

"Incredible discoveries await."

"I think we should combine with muggle technologies and find out how magic affected by moon phase works on the moon."

"I think you have to train for years to be an astronaut."

"Which is why it's for entertaining ourselves a few decades from now. Immortality gives us plenty of time to retrain."

"We'll do everything."

Kiss. "Yeah."

Kiss.

"I'll contact Elodie in the morning," Anathema says. "Maybe drag the mirror down to the Chamber so the conversation's really secure..."

"Good idea. You don't want to be interrupted."

"Yeah."

"I'll probably want the cloak for moving it?"

"Sure. Do you want help?"

"Wouldn't hurt, yeah, it's kind of awkwardly sized."

"A bit, yeah."

"Okay."

She thanks Fay again, softly, and then - off to bed, then to haul the mirror down in the morning?

Bright and early. Ellie will leave Anathema to do the actual conversation.

She sets up the call to Elodie once they're settled. 

"Bonjour, Anathema. How are you?"

"I'm doing okay. How about you?"

"Well, thank you."

"So, we had something we wanted to ask for your help with, if you have time to talk right now."

"For you? Always."

Shy smile.

"Well... I told you about my mom. It looks like Voldemort's trying to spy on Ellie through legilimency, now, though we're not sure how he's doing that at a distance - we've got it sectioned off in her head, but Fay thinks we can feed Voldemort fake information, and - set a trap. To lure out my mom separately from Voldemort, and - hopefully get her back."

"Fay doesn't think Ellie or I should be there, and she thinks she'd be the best bait, but - I don't want her to have to go alone, and I was wondering if you'd be okay providing backup once we do get that set up?"

She hums and considers.

"That is a worthy goal. I do have concerns about the method by which you are laying this trap, of course, but I am sure your Miss Reynolds is taking appropriate precautions. I will need more details as they develop, times and places and so forth, but provisionally I am not opposed to helping."

"I'm... Concerned too. But Ellie wants to do this, and - it's as safe as we can make it. We haven't figured out times and places yet. Currently we're just establishing - kind of baseline 'Voldemort thinks this works.' Hopefully. Before we start feeding in outright false information."

She nods. "Keep me informed, then."

"I will. Thank you."

"Was this a purely business call, or do you have some time to talk as well?"

"I have free time, yeah."

"Oh good. I do enjoy these little chats. How are you finding Music?"

Wonderful! It's a bit slower in class than their discussions, but she's getting a lot more practice on the actual singing technique, especially since she's still keeping up with chorus club -

They can go on like this for a little bit, since Anathema's first class isn't until the afternoon, but sadly eventually they'll have to sign off.

The sad life of a student. Until later, then.

Until later.

The next few days go... Okay, though about a week later they learn Umbridge has been demanding new and more thorough background checks for some of Hogwarts' staff. Mostly the ones she likes least. 

Can they get a background check on Umbridge? Probably pointless, if it just goes through the Ministry...

Ugh, yeah. 

Professors Reynolds and Hagrid are the big ones among the professors being targeted, though it sounds like she's also harrassing Flitwick and some of the other elective professors. She's also going after a scattering of TAs - both the Defense ones, especially Lupin, one of the Charms, her History TA...

So she's going after the intersection of competent and vulnerable, for the most part.

And people purebloods dislike, for a lot of them. 

Right, the competent ones.

She starts giggling nearly uncontrollably. 

Very true. Sadly so for wizarding society.

Crusty and hidebound as it is.

Maybe after all this they can do a revolution. A little one. Bloodless. Entirely through the ballot box. 

And entirely deserved.

Of course, in the meantime they'll need to give Umbridge an entirely deserved boot out the door...

Progress on that is slow as ever, it seems.

There's gotta be some angle... Like obviously the History curse is going to hook on something, so - they just have to give it a little encouraging nudge.

There hasn't been a whole lot of commonalities- secretly Voldemort, a coward, chronic illness, new child...

Those were all already going on or threatening, though - Quirrel had Voldemort the whole time, Lockhart was apparently born a coward, Lupin's been sick for years it sounds like, Dunn had just gotten married... So it'll be something inherent to Umbridge that she's had going on.

Working for the Ministry already, maybe? Do they know if her contract is just a one-year?

Fudge doesn't seem like he'd want to give up this power after only a year. Could be - political falling out, if Fudge gets pulled and Umbridge is considered in his staff... Or she's got some secret going on that could get exposed...

Back to the background check idea.

The Ministry's unlikely to agree to do something themselves, though - but Ellie and Anathema could work on their own, maybe.

Add it to the list.

It's getting long.

Maybe they can delegate this, too... Isn't the daughter of the owner of the Quibbler in the year below them? Maybe she'd like a project.

Lovegood, yeah? Maybe, if they edit out the wrackspurts.

She snorts.

They can pitch it as a collaborative project with Lovegood as the investigator.

Could work.