Recaps

Harry asked Vernon about visiting the institute, and Vernon agreed to arrange a group visit for Harry and his friends. He planned to use the visit to show them how workplace rules and connections operated, leaving Harry uneasy as Vernon began making arrangements.

• Harry told Vernon that his uncle taught at the institute and his godfather was a sponsor, arguing that he could visit.
• Vernon explained that connections and contacts were part of how society worked, then decided Harry should visit the institute with his friends.
• Vernon set rules for the visit, including no robes, wands, owls, or causing trouble, and insisted Dudley come too.
• Harry worried the institute might refuse, but Vernon said he would call and contact Black if necessary.
• Vernon told Harry to write down the visitors’ names and surnames while he began dialing, insisting nobody would coast through the trip.

Douglas continued training Red Mist to interface with computers and read the network, using a modified motherboard for the twentieth experiment. The attempt failed, but Red Mist showed new abilities, and Douglas revealed he wanted to accelerate the spread of knowledge and transform what wizards could become.

• Douglas explained that he wanted Red Mist to act as an interface between a soul and the network, absorbing information directly into its soul.
• Douglas prepared a simplified core board and instructed Red Mist to attach to it, observe, and record without corrupting its logic.
• Red Mist perceived commands and directories, recognized a hierarchy, and encountered an identity-verification prompt, but the motherboard burned out after eleven seconds.
• Douglas recorded Red Mist’s progress and said it had moved closer to success despite the failure.
• Douglas told Red Mist he wanted knowledge to spread faster and wizards to become more than wizards, and Red Mist threatened to kill him if it escaped.

Voldemort prepared a ritual using a dismantled Golden Skynet core to amplify a blood connection and reach Holmes, while Lucius feared the danger and Voldemort suspected he had prepared an escape route. The ritual began as Voldemort pushed its components past their safe settings.

• Douglas left the red mist in the laboratory after warning that they would study network protocols the next day.
• Voldemort explained to Lucius that he planned to use the Golden Skynet to amplify their blood connection and establish contact with Holmes.
• Voldemort accused Lucius of fearing both failure and success, and revealed that Lucius had quickly installed an escape setup in the manor.
• Voldemort showed Lucius the modified altar core and ordered him to increase the red liquid's flow and turn the copper ring beyond its usual setting.

Voldemort used blood magic to glimpse Douglas’s hidden cave and discovered Barty Crouch Jr. and the Lestranges there. Douglas recognized the attempted connection and fed Voldemort a misleading image, while Voldemort returned from the damaged ritual convinced he had seen Holmes hide the prisoners.

• Voldemort began the blood ritual with Lucius’s help, channeling blood, hatred, and darkness through the Core Crystal.
• The ritual connected Voldemort to Douglas and showed him a cave where Barty Crouch Jr. recorded something near the Lestranges and a Stone Basin.
• Douglas sensed the connection and projected a false image of himself teaching prisoners in a cave before the link snapped.
• Douglas recorded that his Reverse Bloodline Perception could glimpse fragments, then returned to grading assignments.
• Voldemort told Lucius that the ritual had let him see Holmes in the cave and concluded that Holmes had hidden the prisoners there.

Voldemort succeeded in establishing a fragile connection that let him see Holmes, and he ordered Lucius to prepare a stronger ritual. He then summoned Snape to ask about Holmes’s memorial cave, but Snape could not tell him where it was.

• Voldemort told Lucius that the ritual had let him see Holmes, though the cracked crystal and weak channeling structure prevented him from following the connection further.
• Voldemort ordered Lucius to replace the core, double the materials, and set up the formation again.
• Lucius summoned Snape with the Dark Mark, and Snape arrived at Voldemort’s hidden Castle in the middle of the night.
• Voldemort asked Snape where Holmes had hidden the people who disappeared from Azkaban, and Snape said he did not know.
• Snape told Voldemort that Holmes had turned a cave by the sea into a memorial hall, but he did not know its exact location.

Snape confronted Douglas after learning that Douglas had deliberately leaked information about the cave and its imprisoned Death Eaters to Voldemort. Snape reported that Voldemort had taken the research seriously, leaving Douglas hopeful that it would keep him occupied for a while.

• Snape burst into Dumbledore's office and told Douglas that Voldemort knew about the seaside cave and the prisoners' papers.
• Douglas admitted that he had deliberately leaked the cave's coordinates and details of the prisoners' research.
• Snape angrily described the danger of answering Voldemort's questions without warning and accused Douglas of putting him at risk.
• Douglas explained that real information about the prisoners and their research would hook Voldemort and make him focus on the work instead of killing people at random.
• Snape said Voldemort was not fully convinced but had begun taking the research seriously, and Douglas concluded that this might buy them time.

Snape confronted Douglas and Dumbledore over his exhausting schedule, while Douglas promised to remove Umbridge as soon as possible. After Snape left, Douglas explained his plan to erase the prisoners’ newly acquired knowledge, send them to Azkaban, and turn the cave into a trap for more Death Eaters.

• Snape returned from a Death Eater meeting and angrily protested that he had to supervise Umbridge’s morning exercises at six.
• Douglas told Snape to rest, and Snape demanded that Umbridge be removed from Hogwarts before leaving the office.
• Douglas told Dumbledore that the prisoners’ useful knowledge had run dry and that he planned to erase their new material while preserving their memories of imprisonment in the cave.
• Douglas planned to send the prisoners to Azkaban to work on production lines, where they would help meet the prison’s labor needs.
• Douglas said the cave would become an automatic trap for Voldemort’s teams, allowing him to capture more Death Eaters and send them to Azkaban.

After Easter, Umbridge’s new rules turned Hogwarts into a rigid, fear-driven institution, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione suspected Professor Holmes had designed the system. Harry led the others to confront him at the Defense Against Dark Magic Office.

• Douglas told Dumbledore he had been gentle with his grading, and Dumbledore hoped Snape’s temper would improve after Umbridge left.
• Harry, Ron, and Hermione saw new Ministry notices and students struggling under Umbridge’s standardized rules.
• The trio overheard McGonagall, Sprout, and Snape challenge Umbridge’s rules and her threats to cut teaching resources.
• Hermione concluded Professor Holmes had created the system to make the school dependent on rules even after Umbridge was gone.
• Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed to the Defense Against Dark Magic Office to ask Professor Holmes directly.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione confronted Douglas about his harsh assessment system, and he admitted he had imposed it to prepare Hogwarts for wartime. They left for evening study fearing that the pressure on the school would keep mounting and eventually provoke a breaking point.

• Harry asked Douglas whether he had devised the staff assessment standards, and Douglas admitted he was responsible.
• Douglas made Harry, Ron, and Hermione help mark exam papers while arguing that wartime education required pressure and could eliminate those who were not ready.
• Hermione challenged Douglas for using Umbridge to stir hatred, and Douglas said the scheme was meant to make students act faster and rely less on mercy.
• Harry warned Douglas that people might overturn the system, but Douglas said resistance would prove they had learned.
• Douglas dismissed the trio to revise, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the office expecting the conflict at Hogwarts to worsen.

Percy helped launch the Ministry of Magic’s June wartime competency assessment, defending the reforms when Arthur challenged their reliance on scores and efficiency. Percy left to brief the Minister, while Arthur kept the handbook and agreed to read it.

• The Ministry of Magic posted June assessment notices and distributed handbooks, forms, and new office procedures to employees.
• Percy handed out handbooks and collected feedback at a temporary International Affairs Office table.
• Arthur questioned why every employee had to be assessed, and Percy argued that the Azkaban incident had exposed serious gaps in staff competence.
• Arthur warned that efficiency scores could reduce people to replaceable parts, while Percy insisted employees had to learn to do their jobs properly first.
• Arthur examined the job-specific assessments and collaboration simulations, and Percy said the Ministry was trying methods already proven at the school.
• A messenger summoned Percy to brief the Minister, and Percy told Arthur not to throw away the handbook; Arthur said he would read it.

Percy presented Fudge with a June pilot scheme for wartime job competency assessments, and Fudge approved it as a way to restructure Ministry staffing through training and promotion procedures. At Hogwarts, Ron learned about the coming exams and panicked about what they would mean for him after school.

• Percy outlined a pilot scheme covering legal rules, new equipment, job-specific cases, and cross-departmental coordination simulations.
• Percy recommended testing the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes first, then linking results to training and promotion recommendations.
• Fudge approved the pilot, ordered it rolled out immediately, and instructed Percy to publicize it as wartime restructuring and certification rather than a purge.
• An owl delivered the announcement to Hogwarts, where Ron erupted over the Ministry's June assessments and worried about facing more exams after leaving school.
• Ginny told Ron that shouting would not change the notice, while Hermione began reading the supplement and urged him to sit down.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny discussed Percy’s role in the Ministry’s new assessment and retraining system, recognizing that it adapted methods used at Hogwarts. As the trial provoked growing anger across the Ministry, employees identified Dolores Umbridge as the person who had introduced the school’s methods.

• Ginny read that the Ministry’s trial would assess employees through statutes, case analysis, and collaboration exercises, with results affecting training and promotion.
• Hermione argued that the Ministry was replicating the training, rankings, and procedures used at school, while Harry noted that Percy had become part of the system.
• Ministry employees complained about the paperwork and assessments, and the name Dolores Umbridge in an appendix spread through several offices.
• At a Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes meeting, employees argued over whether standardized tests and recorded scores amounted to training or humiliation.
• A clerical officer and an older wizard blamed Umbridge for bringing Hogwarts-style rankings and shame-based methods into the Ministry.

Barton and other Ministry staff resisted Dolores Umbridge’s role in the certification reforms, while Percy organized their feedback into distinct categories. Arthur joined the criticism by arguing that adults could be required to learn without being managed through a system that humiliated students.

• Barton argued with an Auror assistant about the certification manual, then urged staff to complain about Umbridge rather than oppose reform itself.
• The Auror assistant asked Barton for a complaint form, as feedback and signed complaints began filling the red box.
• Percy ordered separate boxes for certification suggestions, appendix feedback, and signed complaints, and told Barton to focus on facts.
• Arthur asked Percy why he had allowed complaints about Umbridge to build, and Percy said staff had to be free to name the subject of their concerns.
• Arthur submitted an appendix feedback form stating that adults could be required to learn but should not be managed through a system that humiliated students.

Percy and Ministry employees organized their anger over Umbridge’s wartime certification reforms into carefully worded joint opinions that challenged her influence without opposing reform itself. Percy sent the signed complaints to three offices, while Barton decided to apply for remedial training in report writing.

• Percy advised Barton to remove insults from his complaint and focus on Umbridge applying Hogwarts student-ranking practices to adult job certification.
• A clerical officer drafted a joint opinion opposing the use of Umbridge’s experience as a model and requesting an independent assessment group.
• Percy explained to Arthur that employees were directing their resentment at Umbridge because she had attached her name to the reforms.
• The clerical officer finished three boxes of signed opinions, and Percy registered them for delivery to the Training Coordination Group, the Plan Revision Office, and the Minister’s Secretariat.
• Arthur warned Percy not to become a box himself, and Percy said he would try to remember.
• Barton began a second application, seeking remedial training in standard incident reports.

Percy Weasley brought Fudge an organized summary of feedback on the June trial of the Wartime Job Competency Certification, showing that employees supported the reform but objected to its use of Dolores Umbridge’s Hogwarts practices. Fudge rejected the criticism as internal attacks and was left facing a dispute over how the reforms had been designed.

• Secretaries opened three boxes of feedback and found orderly submissions, including signed complaints about Dolores Umbridge.
• Percy Weasley presented a six-page report classifying the feedback as mostly supportive of certification, critical of the Hogwarts citations, and personally accusing Umbridge of misusing school practices.
• Percy told Fudge that employees supported the certification but objected to being humiliated by an Umbridge-style system.
• Fudge read the report, demanded to know who had led the criticism, and Percy said employees from several departments had written the comments.
• Fudge threw the report onto his desk and said he wanted reform results, not internal attacks.

Percy warned Fudge that Dolores Umbridge had become the focus of complaints about the reforms and advised separating her from the scheme by reviewing Appendix Three. Fudge agreed to issue a statement about an internal review, but the chapter left him recognizing that Umbridge’s prominence could eventually make him a target too.

• Percy told Fudge that staff complaints were directed at Umbridge and proposed revising the limits on citing Appendix Three.
• Fudge learned that formal complaints had reached the press office as an index, and Percy explained that procedure required their processing.
• Fudge read Umbridge’s letter proposing that she lead a Ministry team to promote rankings, remedial training, and schedule pressure.
• Percy warned that Umbridge personally explaining Appendix Three would double complaints because employees understood it and objected to it.
• Percy advised separating Umbridge from the June reforms, and Fudge planned a statement announcing an internal review while keeping the certification direction unchanged.
• Fudge realized Umbridge’s name had become a target and that he was too closely connected to it.

After Ministry employees publicly questioned Umbridge’s school ranking and remedial systems, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Neville organized evidence for a joint student letter. Sirius and the Hogwarts professors began preparing a separate formal response, leaving both efforts focused on opposing humiliation and unsafe oversight without rejecting training itself.

• Ron found a Daily Prophet report saying Ministry employees had questioned applying Hogwarts’ trial practices to adult job certification and called for a review of Umbridge’s systems.
• Hermione proposed a joint letter that supported training but opposed public humiliation, and Harry insisted it include evidence rather than insults.
• Neville reported that younger students feared making mistakes and shared incidents involving Dennis falling asleep after a morning run and Euan avoiding the Hospital Wing because he feared being marked as a failure.
• Hermione outlined the letter’s points, including harms from the public White List, fatigue-related accident risks, and the need for an independent complaints channel.
• Sirius, Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Professor Sprout discussed a professional response, with Sprout presenting seventeen Herbology risk cases.
• Snape entered the Academic Affairs Office as the professors prepared their response.

Sirius and the Hogwarts Heads of House drafted a joint letter challenging Umbridge’s authority over teaching reports, evaluations, and resource quotas, then planned to use her reaction to expose her overreach. In the Gryffindor Common Room, Hermione began organizing students to write a careful response of their own.

• Sirius, McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and Snape agreed on safeguards for teaching data, reports, evaluations, and potion ingredient quotas, then signed a joint letter.
• Sirius decided to send Umbridge a sealed copy before submitting the original to the Ministry, hoping her response would reveal her misuse of authority.
• Snape warned Sirius not to do anything too stupid, and Sprout and Flitwick remarked that Snape had been unusually polite.
• Hermione gathered Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and other students in the Gryffindor Common Room to organize a letter opposing unfair measures without demanding the end of training or assessments.

Hermione organized a joint student letter that acknowledged improvements in training while documenting its harms and demanding independent complaint channels. She planned to deliver it to Umbridge first, forcing her response to complete the evidence against her.

• Hermione, Harry, Ron, Neville, and Ginny organized student accounts about the White List, fatigue-related accidents, and complaint procedures.
• Hermione rejected Ron’s suggestion to send the letter to the press and explained that they would first present their lawful demands to Umbridge.
• Harry, Ginny, and Hermione agreed that Umbridge’s refusal or retaliation would strengthen their case before they approached a reporter.
• Hermione sealed the joint student letter and delivered it alongside supporting documents to Umbridge.
• Umbridge read statements from the Ministry, the Academic Affairs Office, and the students, and found that all three supported reform while opposing her methods.

Umbridge responded to criticism at Hogwarts by imposing rules that restricted complaints and external communications, but Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny sent the notice to the Daily Prophet, fueling opposition to her. As pressure mounted, Umbridge proposed a public demonstration of Hogwarts’ reforms to Fudge, hoping to bind her leadership to their results.

• Umbridge drafted rules requiring Hogwarts feedback to be registered with her office and restricting staff communications and access to school information.
• Hermione told Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Neville that their earlier statement had already been sent, and Harry and Ginny arranged to share a copy of Umbridge’s notice.
• Rita Skeeter used the notice and accounts of students’ experiences to publish a Daily Prophet front page questioning whether Umbridge was interfering with complaints at Hogwarts.
• Ministry employees increasingly questioned Umbridge’s methods, while Fudge received clippings warning that she was becoming a liability to reform.
• Umbridge presented Fudge with a proposal for a Hogwarts reform demonstration the following Wednesday, inviting Ministry leaders, the Daily Prophet editor, and Wizengamot representatives.

Fudge approved Umbridge’s plan to showcase Hogwarts reforms, while Sirius and McGonagall forced her to include a representative range of students, including Hermione. Hermione accepted Umbridge’s scripted speech but planned to use the briefing to speak in her own way.

• Fudge showed Umbridge Douglas’s note approving her proposal and agreed to let her prepare a public showcase of the reforms.
• Sirius and McGonagall rejected Umbridge’s plan to feature only top Red List students and required a broader selection, including Neville Longbottom.
• Umbridge initially refused to let Hermione speak, but Sirius used her rankings to argue that excluding her would undermine the briefing’s credibility.
• Umbridge agreed to let Hermione represent the students, provided she read a speech Umbridge approved.
• Hermione showed Harry, Ron, and Ginny the Ministry’s pink script, then said she would take it onstage and acknowledge the points Umbridge wanted to hear.

Hermione planned to acknowledge the reforms’ academic gains before exposing the harm caused by Umbridge’s methods. Sirius and the professors assembled evidence for the Ministry briefing, and Snape’s warning that the pressure could prove lethal left them ready to confront Umbridge the next day.

• Hermione told Harry, Ron, and Ginny she would recognize the reforms’ results before showing how Umbridge’s methods harmed students.
• Sirius asked the Heads of House for data proving that the high-pressure regime was damaging students and their subjects.
• McGonagall and Flitwick described students’ declining understanding of Transfiguration and lack of flexibility in defensive spellwork despite improved test results and reaction times.
• Sprout presented reports showing that fatigue had increased Herbology accidents, including a student nearly crushed while pruning Devil’s Snare.
• Snape presented Potions accident data and warned that similar procedural mistakes in advanced brewing could produce lethal fumes.
• Sirius gathered the professors’ evidence for the Ministry briefing scheduled for the following day.

On the eve of the Ministry briefing, Umbridge prepared to present Hogwarts’ reforms as a success while Hermione finished a speech arguing that even effective measures needed limits. At the briefing, students began demonstrating their skills, and the story left off with Ron completing a difficult spellcasting test under the Training Rings.

• Umbridge reviewed her briefing speech and prepared to claim that Hogwarts’ reforms were under Ministry control.
• Hermione wrote the closing message for her own speech: “Even things that work need boundaries.”
• Ministry officials, reporters, parents, and students gathered in the Great Hall as Umbridge praised strict management and obedience.
• A young Hufflepuff student used an alarm clasp and cork shield to defeat an alchemical imitation bat without a wand.
• Ron endured the Training Rings and deflected three incoming spells with a Shield Charm, earning a nod from Flitwick.

Students demonstrated their defensive training while Harry led a team through a simulated evacuation, then Hermione and several professors presented evidence of the training program’s harms. The public review ended with Umbridge facing growing criticism from students, officials, and teachers.

• Umbridge defended weighted training to an official, who recorded a note about the lack of oversight.
• Harry directed Ginny, Neville, two Ravenclaws, and a Slytherin through a group evacuation exercise, and the team protected one another in the mist.
• Hermione praised the training’s measurable benefits before presenting data on sleep loss, injuries, missed classes, and suppressed complaints.
• McGonagall and Flitwick acknowledged that training could be effective but warned that speed-focused methods risked danger and failed to teach sound judgment.
• Sprout showed the accident log and argued that fatigue caused mistakes, joking that anyone who expected mandrakes to follow rankings should talk to them first.

Snape, Sirius, and a Ministry employee challenged Umbridge’s harsh implementation of reform during a briefing, while Sirius argued that reform needed boundaries. Later, Fudge asked Douglas how to contain the backlash without abandoning the reforms, and Douglas proposed removing the most resented target while preserving the changes.

• Snape presented evidence that Potions errors, wasted materials, and dangerous incidents had increased, and blamed Umbridge’s sleep-depriving methods.
• A Ministry employee from the Job Certification Pilot Group supported reform but called for Umbridge’s practices to be separated from it and reviewed.
• Umbridge accused her critics of fearing standards, and Sirius said reform needed people to carry it out as well as boundaries.
• After reading the briefing’s coverage, Fudge asked where Holmes was and ordered his secretary to bring him in if he was absent.
• Fudge told Douglas that political and public opposition threatened the reforms, and Douglas warned that abandoning them would make Fudge seem weak.
• Douglas said the reforms should be preserved while their most resented target was removed, and Fudge worried that discarding Dolores would cost him the Ministry’s trust.