"Have you noticed,"
Harry lowered his voice.
"the professor hasn't personally responded to a single article from beginning to end."
Hermione's highlighter paused.
She looked up.
"Of course."
Her tone was as calm as if she were describing the weather.
"He doesn't need to."
Harry looked at her.
"Umbridge is fighting that battle over principles for him."
Hermione set down her highlighter.
"Think about it. Who's writing articles defending the textbooks? Umbridge. Who's responding to the criticism? Umbridge. Whose name appears in every statement? Umbridge."
She tapped the booklet's title page with a finger.
Printed there was a line: "Approved by Dolores Umbridge."
"Where does the professor's name appear?"
Harry thought for a moment.
"Nowhere."
"Exactly."
Hermione picked up her highlighter again.
"So whether this battle is won or lost, none of the fire will hit him. If it's won, the textbooks stay, and the students benefit. If it's lost-"
She paused for a beat.
"It can't be lost."
Neville sat at the other end of the long table.
A booklet lay open in front of him too.
But he hadn't turned to the chapter Hermione was studying.
He had turned to chapter five.
The Cruciatus Curse and the science of pain.
His nails had scraped the edge of that page so many times that the paper had become fuzzy.
His gaze rested on one passage.
"The consequences of prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse: the brain's pain circuits are permanently rewritten."
Beside it was a line of small print.
"Discussion question: drawing on this chapter, discuss the irreversible neurological damage caused by prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse and the limitations of existing treatments."
Ron finally swallowed the bread in his mouth.
He put down the booklet and glanced around the Great Hall out of the corner of his