The pre-class interviews finally stopped when the bell rang.
With Umbridge's permission, the journalists were allowed to stay at the back of the classroom to observe a demonstration of the Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson.
However, there was no doubt that Umbridge's demeanor this time was far less commanding than during her first class.
That was because of the malicious grin plastered on Cohen's face, which made Umbridge feel sick and sent a shiver of fear through her.
"Good morning, Professor Umbridge (Pink Toad Hag)."
"Please turn your copies of Defensive Magical Theory to—"
Umbridge's words suddenly stopped in a peculiar way. The students, who were already starting to drift off, looked at her in unison.
"Professor, your hand—" Lavender's eyes widened as she shrieked, pointing at Umbridge's right hand.
Right now, Umbridge's wand-holding hand looked as though it had grown a layer of rough, grayish-brown, hideous skin, which made her already claw-like, pudgy hand even more disgusting.
"Silence!" Umbridge snapped, but her movements were frantic as she tried to hide her swollen hand behind her back.
"What is that—" another student whispered. "It looks like troll hide..."
"Maybe the effect of a curse..."
"Is this part of the Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson?" Cohen and the others sitting at the back heard the whispered conversations among the journalists.
"The students aren't running away, so they must be quite brave, eh? Then it must be part of the lesson. Quite innovative," one journalist nodded.
The journalist's voice was low, but everyone in the classroom heard it.
For some reason, the students who had been about to bolt now held their ground.
"Merlin's beard!"
More screams erupted from the students, as Umbridge's right hand was no longer the only thing changing.
"All of you, be quiet!" Umbridge shrieked hysterically. She had planned to leave immediately, but she couldn't. Half of her body had transformed from "human" into a "gigantic, hideous gray monster," making it hard for her to balance. She nearly stumbled when she tried to walk.
Her clothes were tearing as her right side contorted, with half of her face being replaced by a shark's head. She looked like a Boggart slowly reverting to its true form.
"Roar—"
Umbridge's curses were replaced by a strange roar. She no longer had any semblance of a human. She had become a bizarre shark with grayish-brown skin and limbs and a torso that resembled a human's.
She looked terrifying, but she was still on the lectern. With the quiet but clear conjectures from the journalists, most students were just scared, thinking this might be a new kind of lesson. The students in the front rows, however, instinctively began to move their chairs and desks backward, as Umbridge now looked like she was about to attack them.
"Dakuwaqa?" Hermione frowned.
"What?" Ron was so shocked he could barely speak. "But—she's a... what's the word—a monster?!"
"Do you know what that monster is?" Dean in the front row turned to ask.
"It looks like some kind of shapeshifter," Hermione said. "I've only seen drawings of these creatures in A Detailed Guide to Coastal Creatures—they can transform between shark and human forms, but..."
As Dean turned back to talk to his deskmate, Hermione shot Cohen a questioning look.
How did Cohen manage to turn a person into this?
"Looks like a cross between a human and a monster," Cohen said, raising an eyebrow.
The words "monster" and "crossbreed" reached Umbridge's ears, and she immediately let out another roar in reaction, baring her sharp, dense teeth and glaring menacingly at the students below, especially those in the second-to-last row.
She knew this was all Cohen's doing. Her anger drove the last shred of her sanity away. She wanted to rush down and grab Cohen by the neck, forcing him to restore everything to how it was.
"Roar!"
With a piercing scream, Umbridge, hunching her grotesque body, charged toward the back of the classroom. The students in the front who had held their ground because of the journalists' "courage" finally lost their nerve. Screaming, they scrambled past Umbridge's rampage, not even bothering to grab their school bags as they fought to get out the door.
"Help!"
"The old woman's eating people!"
"There's a monster!"
The chaos in the front rows caused an even bigger panic, and the whole class descended into a frenzy. The journalists at the back realized this was not part of the lesson.
Dolores Umbridge had genuinely turned into a hideous shark monster and was now trying to attack students.
Click—
One fearless journalist seized the moment while the others were jumping up to flee, quickly snapping a photo of Umbridge as she charged toward them.
As if triggered by some primal journalistic instinct, the other reporters who were about to retreat also pulled out their cameras, trying to snap a few shots.
The camera flashes made Umbridge completely lose her mind. Her last remaining thought was to prevent her ugly, filthy photos from ending up in the papers, no longer to go after Cohen.
Or rather, she couldn't see Cohen anymore.
At some point, Cohen had blended into the fleeing crowd with Harry and the others.
In a matter of seconds, she lunged at the first journalist who had taken a photo, her jaws agape, looking as if she were about to bite him to death.
"Stupefy!"
A journalist shouted in a panic just as Umbridge was about to bite down.
The red spell hit Umbridge, but it had no effect.
"Impedimenta! Protego!" Another, more skilled journalist successfully repelled Umbridge and contained her in the corner with an Iron Shield Charm.
"Will one of you go get the other professors?" Cohen asked the students, who were all trying to squeeze out the door at once and getting nowhere. "Tell them Professor Umbridge has mutated into a shark and is biting people in the classroom."
Click—
Click—
At the back of the classroom, after confirming that Umbridge was stuck in the corner by the Iron Shield Charm and couldn't attack again, the journalists started another round of photography.
"Is that really Umbridge?" Dean was squeezed next to Cohen and asked in a low voice. "I mean... was she always like this, or did some monster take her shape..."
"I can't feel any difference," Ron said wisely. "She's actually a bit safer to be around now..."
Some students had already managed to get out, and those who remained, seeing that Umbridge was trapped, gave up their fight for the doorway and looked on with curiosity.
Umbridge was ferociously slamming her head and claws against the invisible wall, and with every hit, the camera flashes went off in a blinding rhythm.
The more the cameras flashed, the more violently she thrashed. For now, Cohen didn't need to fine-tune the puppet's controls—Umbridge had completely lost her mind.
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