Umbridge now stood before the White List, looking at the pure-blood surnames among the bottom twenty.
There was a new light in her eyes.
She thought of someone.
Douglas Holmes.
Muggle-born.
Not a half-blood.
Thoroughly, utterly Muggle-born.
Yet not a single pure-blood family in the entire Wizarding World dared attack him openly.
During the debate over textbook reform, someone had tried to make Holmes a target.
Instead, those pure-blood aristocrats had stepped forward to speak for him-"We disagree with his ideas, but there is nothing wrong with the man."
She had seen it with her own eyes.
Heard it with her own ears.
A Muggle-born wizard had made pure-blood aristocrats defend him of their own accord.
Not because of blood.
Not because of money.
Because he had a voice that carried weight.
Umbridge's fingers unconsciously rubbed the Cat-Faced Brooch on her chest.
She had looked through Hogwarts' student blood-status statistics in the Academic Affairs Office's files.
Muggle-born students, together with half-blood students, accounted for sixty-seven percent of the school.
Sixty-seven percent.
More than two-thirds.
Pure-bloods accounted for only one-third.
That number had turned over in her mind all night.
If those sixty-seven percent were given a chance-an evaluation system that considered ability alone, not blood-whom would they support?
Would they support the pure-blood lords who had always trampled them underfoot?
Or would they support the person who gave them a chance to compete fairly?
Umbridge turned and headed toward the professors' table.
The footsteps of her pink low-heeled shoes echoed through the Entrance Hall.
She had not changed.
She was still someone who would stop at nothing for a position.
Only her direction had changed.
Before, she had climbed toward the pure-bloods.
Now she saw another path.
Holmes had already proved that this path worked.
All she had to do