Chapter 222: A Spy In Pink (1/2)
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After half a day of sleep to recover from the high-stress and high-performance all-nighter, Quinn felt refreshed and free from the nagging irritation that one felt when one wanted to sleep but couldn't.
He sat behind his desk, back straight once again, the patent smile returned to his face, staring at the Boy-Who-Lived who sat in front of him, looking mightily confused.
”Why did you call me here?” he asked.
”I heard you went to Umbridge's detention yesterday,” said Quinn and watched as Harry tensed up, ”what did she make you do?”
”.. . Nothing much, just some lines,” said Harry, not revealing how those lines were written.
”Come on, Potter.. . you reek of blood,” said Quinn bluntly, causing Harry to sit stiffen up more and showed a look of bewilderment.
”What?” said Harry.
Quinn simply sighed. He couldn't see any scarring on Harry's hands, but that didn't mean he couldn't see the usage of Blood Quill on him. To him, a practitioner of Blood magic, there was a strange linger of blood in the air around Harry.
”She made you do something out-of-ordinary, didn't she?” Quinn couldn't outright tell him he knew about the Blood Quill because without the knowledge he had, nothing pointed out to the usage of one; even he wasn't that good. ”Come on, be a lamb and tell me what did she do to you.”
Harry remained silent but continued to stare at Quinn, observing him and figuring out what Quinn was after. Quinn didn't say anything for a while, staring back, letting Harry take a good look.
”You don't trust Dumbledore, do you Harry,” said Quinn abruptly, startling the Boy-Who-Lived, ”and neither do you trust the Professors. Am I right?” There was still no response from Harry, but Quinn could see that his words had hit home.
Even though Harry hadn't gone through as tough of a time as that in the original timeline, he still had to face some harsh times while in Hogwarts. He had suffered through the same whispers and isolation during the Heir of Slytherin debacle. The slander cycle during the Tri-wizard tournament wasn't as severe as that in the original, but it was still turned Harry into a pariah for a good part of the year. Finally, this year, plenty of students weren't happy with what Dumbledore was doing because of what Harry had said and were swept by the Ministry's smear campaign on both.
But the crux of the matter was that this Harry Potter wasn't as forgiving as the original one. He wasn't brought up in the Dursley household but in one with good parenting. The amount of disrespect Harry had faced in his years at Hogwarts had affected his outlook on various things more than he showed.
”You don't want to go to your mother because you fear that she might lose her job if she goes against Umbridge,” said Quinn, ”and your father isn't an option because of the stress he might be feeling by working in the heart of Ministry in the Auror's Office with smear campaign going on in full force.. . Am I right?” he asked.
Harry finally relented and nodded in agreement. There was a part of him that was simply being stubborn for the sake of sticking it to Umbridge, but the other part of him felt trapped because he thought that there were no options for him.
”She made me use some sort of quill that drew blood by making cuts on my hand,” said Harry with a sigh and shared his experience of what it felt like write lines with the quill Umbridge provided. He spoke while gently rubbing the phantom cuts on the front of his hand.
”What you used is known as a Blood Quill,” Quinn was more than happy to provide the knowledge, ”well, at least a form of Blood Quill.. .”
”What do you mean by a form Blood Quill?” asked Harry.
”They're rarely used, so you might not know, but Blood Quills are used to sign documents with the blood of a signee as the binding agent,” blood after all was the part of the human body, tied closest to magic, ”people are averse in signing magical documents much less magical documents that ask for blood as the binding agents.. . literally, no one wants to sign those — but you see, Blood Quills don't cause wounds like the one you used. They simply feel like a needle drawing blood, even that wound is instantly healed, and standard Blood Quill draws blood only once because not much is needed to sign your name — I'm assuming that was a custom-made torture device.. . and something very dark and very, very illegal.”
A Blood Quill wasn't a traditional torture device as it required the target to willingly subject themselves to the pain by continuing to write.
'She must've made it herself,' thought Quinn.
”All of this doesn't matter,” said Harry, ”I can't go to anyone with this.”
”But you can go to literally anyone with this,” said Quinn, ”sure if you go now, it won't do much; there's no conclusive proof that Umbridge used a modified Blood Quill on you — your hand isn't injured, and I only noticed because of the lingering magic, which is already pretty much faded; even if it was strong, nothing is tying it to Umbridge because first, you wrote the line using the quill on your own accord, and second, it's from a magical item and not from Umbridge's wand.”
”In the end, it's useless.”
”Or you can lend me some of your time and effort to build a case against Umbridge that would, without doubt, nail her on the head so bad she wouldn't be able to hold her head high in the Ministry much less stay at Hogwarts,” said Quinn.
Harry was skeptical at the proposition. He couldn't think of a way in which Umbridge would get punished. Without the presence of any proof, it would be his word against Umbridge's, and currently, the value of his word was at an all-time low. Even if his father and Sirius rallied in the Wizengamot, the strength of the Light faction was flying low because of the defamation that Dumbledore was facing.
”.. . What do you have in mind?” Harry asked nevertheless.
Quinn smiled, opened a drawer, and took out a small vial with pale green liquid inside. He placed it on the table right in front of Harry.
”If you take this before you go to detention, you won't feel pain while the Blood Quill cuts into your hand. Day after day of bloodletting is also not good for health, so if you take this, it'll also increase your body's rate of blood replenishment,” said Quinn.
”So you want me to keep attending detention? That's your solution,” said Harry, not seeing how that would help.
Quinn nodded and reached into the same drawer to pull out a small square box that could fit in the palm of the hand but big enough that one couldn't hide it by closing their fist around it.
”What's that?” asked Harry.
”That's one of my latest inventions. It's the smallest video recorder.. . a spycam to be precise,” said Quinn, sounding all hype of a sudden, ”it has a shrunken down film roll inside on which we can record a video, and I have made it in such a way that it can record for hours upon hours of footage, which we then can expand down to full size and play on any projector.”
The truth was that Quinn had already found a way to record videos on things other than film rolls which was the only way to record video which wasn't electronic. But he had to create a recorder that used photograph film rolls because if he introduced something new, there was a possibility that it would be kicked out as evidence.
”All I need you to do is to sneakily drop this in her room, and I'll take care of it after it. This will record her office when she's in her office, whenever you're in there for your detention, and whenever anyone is there for their detentions.. . inside the walls of her office, where she feels safe and thinks no one is watching — we will be watching. Her every misdeed will be for us to see.. . So, are you willing to do this?” Quinn added at the end.
”Will this work?” asked Harry.
”Absolutely.. . if we can provide the Auror's Office with proof against Umbridge, they would literally put it as the top priority and direct all their available resources to her case.
”A court is a place of law, sure it's full of deception and manipulation, but in the end, if there's one thing that can ensure justice is proof and evidence. If one can provide enough proof, and present it decently, then the guilty party will get what's coming for them.. . Umbridge, with Fudge's support, will be a tough cookie to crack, but if we present overwhelming proof and put Amelia Bones as the prosecutor, then she will be deep trouble.”
”Alright, let's do it then,” said Harry, ”I'll give you footage of two weeks of writing lines.”
”Perfect,” said Quinn smiling, ”let's catch a toad.”