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."
The two shook hands, and the deal was set.
After Harry left, Quinn looked at the table, which was missing both the tiny video recorder and the potion vial; Harry had taken both of them.
There was no need to include Harry in the plan. Quinn could've installed the camera by himself, and even now, he would be breaking into Umbridge's office with Recon to change the film reels. But he wanted Harry's detention to go well in Umbridge's eyes. She would definitely whip out the Blood Quill on everyone if she thought she could get away with torturing the Boy-Who-Lived. And that's what he wanted, for Umbridge to become relaxed and use the Blood Quill on every student she gave detention to; this way, he would have the overwhelming evidence he was looking for.
'Dolores Umbridge.. . I would take her out of the Ministry all together. It's time for her to retire,' he thought with a smile.
"But to think he didn't think of collecting himself," Quinn said, wondering about Harry's lack of action, "but maybe that makes sense; his father is an Auror after all,"
Aurors were essentially a mix of police detectives and armed forces of a magical community. They faced deaths, murders, homicides of magical and non-magical people caused by magical means regularly, and it wasn't strange that many Aurors chose not to share their work with their family members, especially not with children.
And with the way the British schooling system was set up, the children from the tender age of eleven only got to stay at home for at most three months spread throughout the year because of the boarding school policy at Hogwarts. Any sensible parent who worked as an Auror or Hit Wizard wouldn't share some hard facts with their children when they were younger than eleven because, after that, they were barely home long enough except during the summer break.
So it wasn't strange that James Potter didn't get enough time with his children to get past spending quality time with his children during their summer breaks and teach him some tips and tricks.
"Let's get to work," Quinn got up and headed into his workshop; there were many preparations to be made for this thing to go smoothly.
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- (Scene Break) -
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At five o'clock that evening, Harry knocked on Umbridge's office door for what he sincerely hoped would be the final time, was told to enter, and did so. The blank parchment lay ready for him on the lace-covered table, the pointed black quill beside it.
"You know what to do, Mr. Potter," said Umbridge, smiling sweetly over at him.
Harry picked up the quill and glanced around the office; it was as repulsive as yesterday. He couldn't wrap his head around how someone could like a decor like this. If he just shifted his chair an inch or so to the right. .. On the pretext of shifting himself closer to the table, he managed it. Now his left hand was just at the edge of the table, and if he let it dangle, it would be as far as Umbridge he could possibly be in his current seating position.
I must respect my betters, Harry wrote. The cut in the back of his right hand opened and began to bleed afresh.
I must respect my betters. The cut dug deeper, but unlike yesterday it didn't hurt at all.
I must respect my betters. Blood trickled down his wrist.
He chanced another glance at Umbridge. Harry looked up whenever he thought he could risk it when he could hear the scratching of Umbridge's quill or the opening of a desk drawer.
I must respect my betters.
I must respect my betters.
The parchment was now shining with drops of blood from the back of his hand, which seemed to be the right time to plant the bug, as Quinn had put it. He pretended to pull out a handkerchief to wipe some of the stray blood, and in doing, so pulled the spycam out of his pocket and let it fall onto the ground.
As the cube fell to the ground, it sprouted eight spider-leg-like protrusions, which it landed on. Harry watched with wide eyes as the cube spycam's lens suddenly turned towards Harry before redirecting its lens all around the room.
Harry suddenly heard Umbridge's voice and hurriedly turned his gaze towards the parchment.
"Mr. Potter, is there a reason why you stopped?" she asked.
"No, Professor," he said and started to write again: I must respect my betters. He did give one quick glance towards the floor, but spycam had disappeared to be seen nowhere.
Inside the AID office, Quinn's sighed deeply as he sat beside his desk, looking into a rectangle screen set up in landscape mode sitting on the desk.
"What the hell is that idiot doing," said Quinn, "he almost ended the sting operation before it started."
The cubical body of the spycam held things other than the film recorder. The lens of the spycam doubled as a transmitter that would send live footage to the screen sitting on Quinn's desk — it was based on the two-way mirror that Sirius Black and James Potter used to communicate with each other when they were in Hogwarts so they could talk each other while serving different detentions. The lens could send videos(not recordable) so that Quinn could control the spycam through the spider-legs.
Then there was an audio transmitter based on Quinn's own magical wireless eavesdropping earbuds. The difference was that Quinn was better at runes than last year and the space inside the spycam was a bit bigger than the transmitter he used in the original, so the transmission range was much wider than before.
"Now, let's plant it into a non-descriptive corner."
Back in Umbridge's office, the spycam got to the edge of the floor, and the lens pointed upwards towards the target. It stared at the pink wall for a second before a change appeared on the spycam, and the black cube turned invisible and began its climb up the wall towards an edge of the wall before planting right on the said edge.
Quinn from the AID office turned the lens towards Umbridge's desk with Harry and Umbridge in the frame. The next second, the small film roll inside the spycam started to turn as the lens let the light in, which then got concentrated into the tiny space, landing on the individual reels of the film as it spun on the two rollers recording the video at a low twenty-four frames per second for an extended recording length.
"Alright, that's done," smiled Quinn. "Now, High Inquisitor Umbridge, I wonder what sort of things would you show me. I'm truly looking forward to the dirt I'm going to detect," he chuckled, "I wonder if this is how Rita Skeeter feels when she's going her work. So exciting!"
The bug had been planted.
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-*-*-*-*-*-
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Quinn West - MC - My name starts with 'Q', so I'm perfect as the Quartermaster.
Harry Potter - Boy-Who-Bugs - Acting to feel pain is more challenging than he thought.
Dolores Umbridge - Umbitch - The amount of sugar she likes in her tea is being recorded.
