Snape rolled his eyes. "Now then," he said firmly, getting down to business, "about Madame Umbridge. Surely this episode demonstrates her complete unsuitability тАУ"
"Now, Severus, this was not precisely her fault."
"What!" Snape barely managed to avoid shouting at the old idiot. "She terrorized Har- Potter to the point where he was running away in a blind panic! She тАУ"
"She had excellent reason to believe him guilty of attempted cheating," Albus pointed out gently. "She is a new instructor, and perhaps that is why she feels she must establish herself as a stern disciplinarian. With time, I am confident that she'll learn that such tactics are inefficient, but for now we must be sensitive to her understandable insecurities."
"Insecurities!" Snape scoffed. "She's too stupid to be insecure. That would require a degree of insight and self-awareness wholly absent in that cretinous toad!"
Dumbledore hid a smile. "There is a rather unfortunate resemblance," he admitted, "but that is all the more reason we should be tolerant. I am certain that the students have also noticed the resemblance and that perhaps gives Dolores even more reason to be somewhat strict with them."
"Albus, you are being deliberately obtuse! That witch has no business teaching children! She threatened Potter with expulsion!"
Albus raised his eyebrows. "And you have threatened students with evisceration," he pointed out.
Snape couldn't precisely argue with that. "She openly states her support of corporal punishment!"
Albus stroked his beard and wisely forbore from pointing out that Snape had just administered corporal punishment, choosing instead to focus on a more distant event. "Hmmmm. I seem to recall a certain Head of House voicing similar opinions after a prank last year involving showers and paintтАж"
"She torments Potter in class," Snape argued, growing desperate. "She plays favorites and тАУ"
Dumbledore merely looked at him, and Snape blushed. "Well, yes, I suppose that some other faculty have been less than fully impartial at times, but her excesses are тАУ"
"Severus, I can hardly dismiss Dolores for doing nothing more than certain other faculty have done and, frankly, are well known outside Hogwarts for doing," Dumbledore said firmly, giving him a pointed look. "How could I possibly explain that to the Minister?"
"Fudge is an idiot!"
"He is also the duly elected Minster of Magic and a person I see no value in antagonizing needlessly. He recommended Dolores for the post, and dismissing her without cause would be an insult to him. She may not тАУ yet тАУ have impressed us with her teaching style, but neither has she done any real harm."
"And if her vicious remarks had actually driven Harry into the Forest, would you still be so convinced as to her harmless nature?"
"Now, Severus, as I said before, Dolores is just as much of a victim in this as is Harry. She was tricked as well."
"Oh? We should be worried about that moronic cow? Was she about to run off to the Forbidden Forest?" Snape demanded. "What injury did she suffer from this 'trick'?"
"Severus," Dumbledore was adamant, "I am aware that Dolores is having a difficult adjustment period, but you are letting your personal opinion of her cloud your judgment. While she was perhaps more harsh with Harry than she needed to be, all she did was order him from class and tell him to meet her in my office. That is hardly grounds for dismissal. It was Harry's own fears тАУ fully understandable though they were тАУ that nearly turned today's misunderstanding into a tragedy. I cannot blame an inexperienced teacher for not anticipating that a student would react in a wholly unexpected way. Surely even you were taken unawares by Harry's decision to bolt?"
Unwillingly, Severus nodded.
"Then I do not see how we can blame Dolores for being unaware of the potential effect of her words." Albus' tone, though kind, was final.
Snape glowered. "So she gets off without so much as a warning, while Harry was smacked and traumatized?"
Albus sighed. "It does seem unfair, but as you yourself pointed out, Harry was smacked for his foolish plan, not for having Dolores' notes in his bag. It is hardly appropriate to blame her for Harry's own recklessness."
Snape ground his teeth, but he could see that the headmaster was going to prove intransigent on this point. He spun on his heel and stalked for the door, pausing only long enough to fling his parting shot over his shoulder: "I'm telling Minerva!"
The sound of Albus' pained "Oh, dear" made him feel quite a bit better as he stomped down to the dungeons.
##
"Harry!" Ron and the others greeted him with open relief as he rejoined them in time for their next class.
"Are you okay? What did the Headmaster say? Did your da find you? You're not really expelled, are you?" Questions flew thick and fast, and Harry had to grin at how worried his friends had obviously been on his behalf.
"No, I'm not expelled тАУ they believed me when I said I didn't do it, even as a prank," he explained. "And my da caught me before I left," he said to Ron, who heaved a sigh of relief. "An' yeah, I got whacked for bein' dumb enough to think about running away," he added, forestalling his best mate's next question.
"Merlin, Potter, do you think you can make it through a single term without getting walloped?" Draco said, shaking his head. "At least the rest of us don't have to worry about getting clouted when we're at school. It must be awful having your guardian right here at Hogwarts, watching everything you do."
"Well, it's not all bad," Harry said consideringly. "There are plenty of times when it's nice to have him around. An' I only get smacked when I deserve it. My da's really good about that."
"Yeah? Then you're lucky," Draco said shortly. The others exchanged glances, but no one pressed the Slytherin.
"But, Harry," Hermione тАУ as usual тАУ brought them back on topic. "If you didn't take the notes, then how did they get in your bag?"
Harry looked grim. "I don't know, but if I find out who did it, they're gonna be sorry!"
Hermione nodded, but Ron still looked a bit dubious, as did several of the other children. Nobody openly disputed Harry's story, but it was clear that more than a few doubted his word, and given the circumstantial evidence against him, it was hard to blame them.
##
Snape made good on his threat to Dumbledore and told McGonagall what had happened. Like him, she was furious with That Woman, but grudgingly agreed that Albus had a point. To Snape's great relief, McGonagall was polite enough to refrain from saying "I told you so" and pointing out how his own past excesses were now making it harder for them to remove the Pink Toad.
In truth, Minerva had found it difficult to keep a straight face as Severus indignantly described Umbridge's behavior towards Harry as well as his outrage at Albus' refusal to sack her. It was not unlike many of the conversations she herself had had with Albus, only in those Severus had been the teacher under discussion. Still, the entire event served to further heighten her determination to ensure that Umbridge was no longer in a position to harm her little lions.
What Snape didn't tell McGonagall was his growing conviction that someone was out to get Harry. He hadn't given much thought to the missing homework тАУ it was all too easy to blame such things on an 11 year old boy's natural state of disorganization тАУ but when that occurrence was coupled with the test notes, it began to look as though someone were trying, and succeeding, to make Harry's time at Hogwarts very uncomfortable indeed. A campaign to discredit a child sounded ridiculous, but this was no ordinary child. Harry was The Boy Who Lived and, intentionally or not, he held a very special place in Wizarding society. Snape could understand why there would be people тАУ including very powerful people тАУ who might want to blacken Harry's reputation for reasons of their own.