Faced with Umbridge's relentless pressure, Hermione showed no expression, not even moving an inch.
"Answer me! You despicable little bitch, was it you?!"
The short wand pointed straight at Hermione, almost touching the tip of her nose, as though it could unleash a terrifying curse at any moment.
Seeing that Hermione remained unmoved, Umbridge's hand gripping the wand began trembling uncontrollably again.
"Not answering, are you? I'll make you answer."
Hermione saw not only an utterly chilling smile, but also the short wand viciously lashing toward her face.
Unlike last time, Umbridge actually dared to physically punish—no, abuse a student.
Hermione swiftly reached out her small hand as though she had practiced it thousands of times in her memories, precisely grasped the middle of the short wand, and twisted it hard to the side.
"Ah—" Umbridge, who had been gripping the wand tightly, had her wrist bent outward at a grotesque angle.
Clearly, her wrist had been dislocated.
Her eyes widened even further, not only from the pain shooting through her wrist, but also from her shock at the physical Disarming Spell.
Before today, she had always scorned the idea of disarming someone barehanded.
Wizards weren't fools. Why would they let an enemy get close?
But now, the "enemy" was right before her. It turned out she herself was the fool.
"You—" Umbridge staggered back in terror. "You... you ignorant, filthy little Mudblood!"
Her voice was filled with pure hatred. "Attacking a professor! You and Wayne are both antisocial elements of the Wizarding World! Festering sores that need to be eliminated immediately!"
Hermione's already cold gaze became incomparably sharp. She viciously struck that twisted, deformed toad-like face with the short wand she had taken.
The wand handle smashed through at least five layers of Umbridge's foundation, and the accumulated fat rippled outward in rings.
With a smack, Umbridge fell onto the floor.
Her eyes were so wide that they looked ready to pop out, unable to believe any of this was real.
Hermione tossed aside the slightly warped short wand, her icy gaze seeming to look upon a corpse. "You are unworthy of being a professor, and even less worthy of being human."
Umbridge lunged at her with a savage expression, only to be kicked flying onto a table covered with a lace tablecloth.
Perhaps she was too heavy; the table could not bear the weight and split in two.
What Hermione gave her was not only physical pain, but endless humiliation.
The dignified Senior Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Magic, the Ministry of Magic's Special Education Commissioner, had actually been beaten by a Muggle-born Mudblood.
"Hermione Granger!" Umbridge roared, her entire face twisted beyond recognition. "I swear! I will make sure your name is put on record!
Not just at Hogwarts! I will make sure every department in the Ministry of Magic knows who you are! I will personally send you before the Supreme Wizarding Court! Your future, your life, it's all over!"
"Heh—" Hermione suddenly sneered.
She had never hated anyone as much as she hated this person now. She wanted to use a vicious curse—no, a venomous curse—without regard for anything else and teach this person another brutal lesson.
But in the end, she calmed down. This mentally twisted freak was not worth dirtying her hands over.
"My life and my future are not for you to decide."
Hermione slowly walked over to Umbridge and looked down at her. "You even dared to utter forbidden words. I suggest you think about your own life and future first."
Possessing Dark Magic items, abusing students, and verbal insults—conduct this vile was more than enough to qualify for the Supreme Wizarding Court.
The venomous look in Umbridge's eyes flickered, but quickly became even more malicious. "Threatening me? Granger, who do you think you are? Do you think your grades represent everything?"
She grabbed half of a broken table leg and swung it viciously at Hermione like a madwoman.
However, she overestimated her own strength and underestimated her opponent's reaction speed.
The half-table leg stopped motionless before Hermione. Umbridge's twisted, deformed toad-like face was filled with horror.
Nonverbal spells and Wandless Magic, and even a Shield Charm—an "advanced spell" that not even Aurors could necessarily cast perfectly.
How could a mere student, a Muggle-born student, possibly master such profound magic? They should have been forever beneath Pure-blood Wizards.
A blurry figure suddenly surfaced in Umbridge's mind.
"Only a brain stuffed full of fat like yours could come up with such a hole-ridden lie... Calling you pig-brained would be an insult to pigs..."
It was that person, Vincent Wayne, the man who openly defied the authority of the Ministry of Magic and could see through her lies at a glance.
Muggle-born, yet repeatedly shattering wizards' deeply ingrained bloodline beliefs. If he had been willing to properly cooperate with the Ministry of Magic, he could absolutely have reached Dumbledore's heights in the future.
"What's so surprising about that?" Hermione snatched the half-table leg Umbridge was clutching. "You can't even handle a student like me. What right do you have to serve as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"
With a clatter, the half-table leg was tossed onto the floor.
"The facts prove that your theories are completely useless. Go back to the Ministry of Magic and keep being your Senior Deputy Minister, or else—"
There was no expression on Hermione's face—no anger, no contempt. She was as calm as a lake without a single ripple. "I will expose everything you have done at this school. I guarantee that when that time comes, you will lose everything you have now."
Umbridge stood there with her mouth agape, gasping for breath. The Hermione before her slowly began to overlap with that figure in her mind.
"Those with malice in their hearts see conspiracies everywhere... What you see is only what you want to see... Such narrow-minded thinking will only hinder the development of individuals and society..."
She had graduated from Slytherin, but her family was not as "respectable" as she claimed.
Her father, Alford Umbridge, was a wizard who held a lowly position in the Ministry of Magic and had never been promoted. He was not the distinguished Wizengamot wizard she claimed he was.
Her mother, meanwhile, was a Muggle, and her younger brother was even a Squib.
From childhood to adulthood, she had always regarded her father as a failure lacking ambition and ability. The existence of her mother and brother was an even greater lifelong shame to her.
So after becoming an adult, she severed all ties with her family and began systematically fabricating an identity as a pure-blood wizard. Anyone who dared question or mention her true family background would always suffer various "unfortunate accidents" afterward.
To ingratiate herself with those in power, she flattered her superiors without limits. The praise she received for her ruthlessness and scheming earned her multiple promotions.
What did the "misfortune" of her family of origin matter? Everything Umbridge possessed now had been earned through her own "hard work." No one could destroy it!
She did not take Hermione's threat to heart at all, and Hermione did not care about those eyes filled with pure hatred.
Before you continue