Chapter 322: Chapter 322
The door to the Hufflepuff Dormitory was pushed open once again.
Edgar, who was fiddling with a Quidditch figurine nearby, looked up and saw Lynn, who had left not long ago, walking back in.
"How long have you even been out? Why are you back already?" Edgar put the figurine on the table and asked in confusion.
He glanced at the sun outside the window; it was still hanging in the middle of the sky. At most, half an hour had passed.
Lynn casually placed his fishing rod in the corner. "Umbridge kicked me out."
Edgar’s eyes instantly widened. "Really?"
Lynn didn’t answer; he just nodded expressionlessly.
"She didn’t give you any face at all?" Edgar pressed.
Lynn still didn’t answer; he just silently jumped into his trunk.
Edgar and William exchanged a glance.
"Is he angry?"
"Even a fool can see that."
...
Lynn stayed inside the trunk for the entire afternoon.
Just as Edgar thought Lynn had fallen asleep inside, Lynn’s figure emerged from the trunk once more.
He looked to be in a great mood, holding a piece of parchment in his hand and grinning from ear to ear.
"You stayed in the trunk for so long just to find a piece of parchment?"
Lynn glanced at Edgar, walked over, and patted him on the shoulder.
"Wait for me to get back, and remember to thank me."
Then, without looking back, Lynn left the dormitory again and arrived at Umbridge’s office on the fourth floor.
Knock. Knock knock.
The sound of knocking echoed through the quiet corridor, carrying quite a distance.
The room remained quiet for a moment, and then Umbridge’s physically revolting voice drifted out from within.
"It is after office hours. Please return tomorrow."
Lynn didn’t care whether she was off duty or not. He looked down at the doorknob, drew his wand, and gave it a light flick.
Click.
The lock snapped open, and Lynn pushed the door open and walked straight in.
Umbridge sat behind her desk, looking completely stunned, like a dazed toad. She clearly hadn’t expected anyone to push the door open and enter without permission.
"Mr. Lynn!" Her voice rose, and that sickly sweet tone shattered completely, revealing the sharp, piercing quality of her natural voice. "What do you think this place is! The Three Broomsticks? This is a Professor’s office! Without permission—"
"Professor," Lynn interrupted her, "I told you beforehand that I was coming to collect the application form this afternoon."
He enunciated the words "application form" very clearly.
Umbridge’s mouth remained open, the latter half of "without permission" stuck in her throat.
She set down her teacup; it clinked sharply against the saucer.
"There is no application form here," her voice sounded as if it were squeezed through her teeth. "Even if there were, I wouldn’t give it to you."
She paused, as if something had occurred to her. The corners of her mouth suddenly curled up with undisguised malice.
"Since you trespassed into a Professor’s office without permission," her voice returned to that sickly sweet tone, "I shall now punish you. Write a few sentences—not with your pen, of course, but with this."
She produced a long, thin quill and tossed it to Lynn.
Lynn caught it and took a look, instantly amused.
"If I’m not mistaken... there seems to be Dark Arts on this."
"Dark Arts? No, no, no, this is merely your punishment." The physically revolting fake smile appeared on Umbridge’s face once again.
"No matter what excuse you use, Dumbledore will not allow you to use Dark Arts items in the school."
"Dumbledore has no authority over the Ministry of Magic!" Umbridge said viciously. "Besides, he won’t know. He’s long gone from Hogwarts; no one will know what happens here."
"I see..." Lynn nodded. "Then why the hell am I wasting my breath on you?"
He slowly drew his wand and gave it a casual wave.
In the next second, Umbridge was sent flying backward, slamming into the wall with a dull thud.
The decorations on the wall came crashing down to the floor.
Umbridge sat on the floor, her back against the wall, her eyes wide with shock.
It wasn’t until the pain registered that she realized she had been attacked.
"Damn you—!" Her voice was as sharp as nails on a chalkboard, every syllable carrying a long-suppressed, finally erupting malice. "You—how dare you—"
Crack.
A crisp sound rang out. A vase floated up from a shelf, drifted slowly over her head, paused for a second, and then dropped.
The vase shattered over her head, shards flying everywhere.
Water drenched her head and face. A few withered flowers hung from her shoulder, and petals scattered all over the floor.
Umbridge’s scream was choked back by the water.
She coughed, wiped the water from her face, and looked up—
One plate after another flew over and fell onto her head.
Only then did she remember to resist.
But just as she reached out to draw her wand...
Lynn gave his wand a light flick.
An invisible blade shot from the tip of his wand, too fast to see or hear. There was only an extremely faint sound, like cloth being torn.
Umbridge felt her right hand suddenly go light, as if something had been removed from her body.
She glanced down.
From the wrist down, the hand holding the wand was gone.
The cut was as clean as if it had been made by the sharpest blade. Even the blood didn’t gush out immediately—the cut was so precise that the blood vessels and muscles hadn’t had time to react.
Then, the blood surged.
A red fountain erupted from the stump, splashing onto her pink cardigan, her pink skirt, and the porcelain shards in front of her.
She opened her mouth and let out a piercing, miserable scream.
"Aaaaah—!!!"
The sound echoed through the office, making the windows rattle.
She clutched the stump of her hand, curling up on the floor as blood seeped through her fingers, pooling into a small puddle.
Her face visibly turned from red to a ghostly white.
"Please—" her voice became humble once again. "Please—let me go—I’ll agree to anything—anything—"
Lynn picked at his ear.
"We’ve only just begun. Weren’t you about to punish me just a moment ago?"
Umbridge shook her head frantically.
Her lips trembled as she tried to say something, but the sound was stuck in her throat, leaving her only able to make a wheezing "he-he" sound.
Lynn looked down at her for several seconds. Then he crouched down to meet her gaze.
"Giving you a pass..." he drawled, "isn’t out of the question."
Umbridge’s pleas for mercy faltered.
Lynn pulled the folded parchment from his pocket, unfolded it, and spread it out over the porcelain shards in front of her.
The paper was large; once spread out, it was nearly the size of a desk.
"I have a piece of parchment here," he said, taking Umbridge’s quill from the desk and placing it by the paper. "I’ll speak, you write."
Umbridge looked at the quill, her eyes filled with terror.
"Listen closely," Lynn stood up, looking down at her. "I say a sentence, you write a sentence."
He cleared his throat.
"Rule number one." His voice echoed in the quiet office. "I, Dolores Umbridge, voluntarily abolish Educational Decree Number Twenty-Two, returning a beautiful and free learning environment to the students of Hogwarts."
Umbridge’s hand was trembling.
The moment the tip of the quill touched the paper, a burning sensation shot from her fingertips, as if she had been scorched by fire.
She gritted her teeth and began to write.
Every word felt like it was being carved with a knife. From her fingertips to the back of her hand, and from the back of her hand to her wrist, glowing red lines spread beneath her skin.
"Rule number two," Lynn continued at a leisurely pace. "I permit Mr. Lynn to do anything in my class, including but not limited to—sleeping, reading, doing homework, daydreaming, eating, leaving early, arriving late, not submitting assignments, not answering questions, not using textbooks, and not following classroom discipline."
Umbridge’s quill moved across the paper.
Her hand shook even more violently. The burning sensation spread from her fingers to her palm, and from her palm to her wrist, like a red-hot wire crawling under her skin.
By the time she finished writing "not following classroom discipline," several more red welts had appeared on the back of her hand.
"Rule number three. I allow Mr. Lynn to fish in the Black Lake. Methods of fishing include but are not limited to—Stationary fishing, Lure fishing, Fly fishing, Ice fishing, Night fishing, using nets, using harpoons, and using magic to blast them. No application is needed, no approval is required, and no one’s permission is necessary."
She continued to write, every word feeling like she was carving her own flesh with a knife.
The red marks spread up from her wrist, crawling past her forearm and reaching the crook of her elbow.
She had already bitten through her lip. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto her pink cardigan and mixing with the blood splashed there earlier, making it impossible to tell which was which.
Lynn finished reciting the third rule and paused.
He glanced down at what Umbridge had written. The handwriting was crooked and shaky, but legible. He nodded and continued.
"Rule number four..."
"Rule number five..."
"Rule number six..."
Lynn recited them one by one.
Umbridge wrote them one by one.
Her hand, wrist, forearm, and upper arm were covered in red marks.
The marks were lined up densely, like rows of branded words.
Her face was devoid of color, her lips ashen, and her eyelids drooped as if she might faint at any moment.
But her hand did not stop. The quill continued to move across the paper, stroke by stroke, crooked and shaky, but every word was completed.
"Rule number nine..."
"Rule number ten..."
"Rule number eleven..."
With every additional rule Lynn recited, Umbridge’s face grew a shade paler.
By the time she reached the teens, the burning sensation on the back of her hand was so intense she couldn’t even cry out in pain.
In fact, after the first three rules, everything Lynn said was just nonsense.
But Lynn ignored this.
He watched Umbridge’s near-fainting state, his expression unchanged.
"Don’t be in such a hurry, Professor," he said in a tone as casual as if they were chatting. "There are still a few more to go. Just hold on a bit longer."
"Rule number twenty. I promise to say ’I’m sorry, my previous attitude was wrong’ to at least ten students every day."
"Rule number thirty. I promise not to wear any pink clothing while at Hogwarts."
"Rule number forty. I promise to go to the edge of the Black Lake at least once a week to apologize to the fish."
Umbridge’s hand was no longer writing; it was scratching.
The quill dragged crooked marks across the paper. The words were unrecognizable, but the burning sensation remained, continuing its crawl toward her shoulder.
Her eyelids were completely closed now, and her breathing was shallow and rapid, as if it might stop at any moment.
It wasn’t until he reached the fiftieth rule and ran out of things to say that Lynn decided to wrap it up.
"Rule number sixty..."
"Rule number sixty-five..."
"Rule number sixty-eight..."
"Rule number seventy." Lynn’s voice finally stopped.
He glanced down at the densely covered parchment—from beginning to end, from rule one to rule seventy, every line was filled.
"I, Dolores Umbridge, shall maintain complete secrecy regarding the events that transpired in this office tonight. I will not mention them to anyone, file a complaint with anyone, or use any connections for retaliation. Only you and I shall know what happened tonight."
He paused. "Finally, sign your name."
Umbridge’s hand hovered over the paper. Her fingers were trembling, the tip of the quill only a millimeter from the surface.
The burning sensation had reached her shoulder; her entire left arm felt as if it were gripped by a red-hot iron band, the pain making her forget to breathe. But she still pressed the quill down and wrote, stroke by stroke.
Do. lo. res. dot. Um. bridge.
The moment the final stroke was completed, the parchment covered in writing suddenly flared up, as if something were burning inside the paper.
Then, the paper truly spontaneously combusted.
The paper curled, carbonized, and shattered in the flames, turning into flakes of black ash that drifted from between Umbridge’s fingers.
The moment the ashes hit the ground, a mark appeared on Umbridge’s wrist.
The mark was golden and thin, like a thread wrapped around her wrist.
It glowed for a split second before fading away, sinking beneath her skin as if nothing had happened.
But Umbridge knew it was there.
She could feel a continuous, pulse-like throbbing coming from the inside of her wrist.
Lynn stood before her, looking down. After confirming that the Unbreakable Vow had been successfully applied, Lynn revealed a satisfied smile.
With a wave of his wand, Umbridge’s severed hand was stuck back on. As for whether the hand would still function in the future, that was none of Lynn’s business.
Having finished all this, Lynn turned and walked toward the door.
The door closed behind him.
As soon as Lynn looked up, he saw Dumbledore standing at the corner, looking at him with a complex expression.
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