Imagine: The List
Fic posted by members of Vo's Imaginings YahooGroup


 

Ron whines when he's locked back in the room after they return from Hogsmeade without a word, he throws himself onto the bed with his arms behind his head. His stomach starts growling an hour later and he calls out for a house elf but nothing happens. There is a vial on the desk where his plates had been placed though.

"What the . . ." Ron recognizes the vial immediately, it's one of the nutrition potions from the hospital wing. Aren't they even going to feed him tonight? He's whimpering as dinner comes and goes according to his watch but no food appears in the room. He's sssssoooo hungry. The door opens and Madam Umbridge comes in, sitting in a chair and pointing at the desk.

"You can't mean to make me work?" he whimpers. She points at the chair again and he crosses his arms . . .yelping as she moves across the room and grabs him by the ear, twisting it. "Sit your useless arse down in that chair and start working on an essay before I beat you." She hisses. She's not in a good mood, as she'd threatened she'd called in the Aurors to 'deal' with the shopkeeper who'd dared make her leave his store and had been laughed at. Her! Laughed at. How dare they. She'd ordered Bones to put complaints in their records for not doing what she wanted and the Bitch had dared tell her no. Don't they know she's the undersecretary? She'd gone whining to Cornelius, after all he's got to take her side and been told no. She'd had to actually get her hands dirty and curse the annoying man herself. The nerve of people not doing what she wanted. Don't they know she's the undersecretary and will be taking over as Minister just as soon as Cornelius hands the reins of power over to her. They'll be lining up to kiss her feet when she becomes Minister of Magic.

Ron is ennervated five times as he tries to nod off in the chair instead of doing any work and he's whining for food.

"But I'm hungry."

"Drink your damn potion and get back to work."

"But it's the middle of the night."

"The first year astronomy students haven't left their dorms yet."

"But this is . . ." A hex has him yelping as he tries to get away and just ends up hitting his leg on the table.

"But I've been working forever and I'm sssssoooooo hungry."

"Drink the damn potion before I pour it down your throat and you choke on it."

Ron gulps at the look of absolute hatred in her eyes, popping the vial open and drinking it in one gulp.

"Good, now get back to work." She goes back to filling out the paperwork for an international portkey to a wandmaker in Ireland. The quill stops scratching on the parchment and she hexes him without looking.

The next morning she silences him when she drags him out of the room, handing him another potion before they go to the Headmaster's office where Percy sneers at his brother and hands her the portkey.

"No, I refuse." The wandmaker she drags him to says, arms crossed over her chest. It would be more impressive if she wasn't barely five feet tall and heavily pregnant.

"But you have to." She bleats.

"No I do not have to sell to you. I trained with Ollivander. He told all of his former students what Ronald Weasley had done and we're all refusing to sell to him."

"Okay, where do I have to go to get somebody to sell to me? He's got to have a wand by next week."

"There's a store that sells used wands down the alley, if you don't find one there try Bulgaria. The United States has stores where you can have wands made to order by choosing the foci, they're not as good as our wands but they'd work."

Madam Umbridge drags Ron off again. Three long hours later and ten repair and cleaning spells leaves Ron still without a wand and having a fit in the middle of the road about not getting anything to eat. Doesn't that fool woman know he's hungry? And everything smells ssssssoooooo good. She silences and immobilizes him before putting the portkey in his frozen hand and triggering it once she's touching it too.

Ron is silently screaming when Madam Umbridge walks to the Great Hall, letting him see everybody eating dinner.

"I am going to release you, after dinner you will be working on your remaining essays then I have potions assignments for you." She releases him and he immediately runs to the Gryffindor table, finding a spot on the end and starting to shovel his food in.

Severus is sniggering silently in his office as he hears Weasley whining about 'it's late, I should be sleeping' as Madam Umbridge drags him into the potions classroom.

"These three potions. You have two hours to make them." She sits in the chair and glares at him as he looks at the parchment in front of him, then yelps when she hexes him.

"Get.To.Work.NOW!" She says through gritted teeth. He sulks for a minute. . .crossing his arms over his chest. An object impacts with his head.

"You hit me." he whines.

"And I'm going to hit you again if you don't GET TO FUCKING WORK." Ron starts to complain but Umbridge glares at him. "If you don't start working in five seconds I am going to beat you like a rug." She conjures a beater bat.

"You can't do that." He yelps.

"Yes I can."

"But you're a teacher. . ."

"No, I'm not. I'm the fool woman who thought that your teachers were incompetent and that's why you're repeating the first year for the third time. Instead they're saints for not having beaten you to death for being too stupid to live years ago." In his silenced room Snape cackles.

"I'm going to tell my Mummy you threatened me." he bleats like a billy goat.

"If your Mum doesn't know you're stupid after failing your first year three times you come by your stupidity honestly." She snorts. "Now. . .get to work." He starts to argue and she lifts the beater bat in a threatening move and he sullenly starts getting to work. In his office Snape grins, maybe instead of flowing robes intimidation he should think of 'beat your stupid ass to death' intimidation tactics with the more annoying students. No, he thinks with a sigh, it wouldn't be for Albus's precious 'greater good'.

"I don't like this." Ron whines.

"I don't care if you're so miserable you turn blue with pink and purple polka dots, do it anyway." Umbridge snaps.

Ron whines, whimpers, complains, and threatens to leave the entire two hours. The minute he'd actually started for the door she'd held the bat again and he'd subsided gracelessly. By the end of the two hours there's three vials in front of her.

"Are you going to grade these?" She asks Snape when he comes out of his office.

"Weasley is your student Madam, as a personal tutor you should at least have an idea of what you're doing."

"But I'm not a potions expert." She bleats. "I don't even know what these are supposed to look like."

"That is not my fault Madam. But to make it easier to you, the ministry offers a service for home-schooled students where you can send in potions to be graded." He writes down an owl address. "For twenty galleons they will sell you a container to send them off to be examined, after a week you will get the results back. Each potion you send in is two knuts."

"Will the school pay for it?"

"Why should the school pay for it Madam? After all they already have a potions master on the payroll. You will need to make sure the potions are clearly labeled and the student has to write down what they did when they prepared the potions. None of which you did tonight."

"You mean I gotta do this again?" She wails. "Wait, the Potter brat is taking his potions classes by personal tutor. I can make them grade them."

"Not likely, the man tutoring them is Sirius Black, who you tried to ordered Kissed instead of apprehended, then tried to throw through the veil rather than give a trial because sending an innocent man to Azkaban might make the Ministry look bad."

"Shit."

You must login (register) to review.