Chapter 1250 The Abandoned Child

After an emergency high-level meeting at the Ministry of Magic, Fudge went alone to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Injuries.

On the surface, he remained the incredibly wise Minister of Magic, but inwardly he was filled with frustration due to the setback in his plans.

After greeting the doctors warmly, he pushed open the door to Umbridge's private ward.

The room was filled with the mixed scents of potions, and an unmistakable, sweet pink odor.

Umbridge was curled up in the hospital bed, wearing a pink bathrobe, her hair greasy and messy.

She was no longer the arrogant special education commissioner; she was more like a frightened, overweight pink mouse.

Her wide eyes were bloodshot as she stared intently at the corner of the room. Her lips trembled uncontrollably, her voice hoarse and choked with sobs: "He's there...he's there again...in the shadows...watching me..."

Fudge frowned, then patiently stepped forward.

"Dolores, it's me, Connelly. Look closely, there's no one else here."

Upon hearing Fudge's voice, Umbridge turned around abruptly, her bewildered eyes flashing with an almost frantic light, like a drowning man grasping at a straw.

"Minister! It's you! You've come! You've finally come! You have to help me clear my name! That bitch is a liar! She's slandering me!"

She burst forth with astonishing strength, leaping out of bed and clinging to Fudge like a giant pink koala, burying her tear-streaked and drool-covered face in his expensive suit jacket.

"You...you'll help me clear things up, right? Just like before, once I'm better, we'll go back, we'll go back and together we'll take complete control of Hogwarts."

Fudge stumbled from the impact, a clear look of disgust flashing across his face.

He didn't mince words as usual; instead, he used all his strength to tear her off him, like throwing away a piece of expired, melted, and sticky candy.

"Clarify? Dolores, look at what you've done! 'Special Education Commissioner despises his Muggle blood and abandoned his own parents to curry favor with the powerful'—now, the entire wizarding world is laughing at us! Laughing at me!"

Umbridge's voice trembled, filled with grievance and anger. "You...you blame me? Wasn't everything I did according to your instructions? You wanted me to go to Hogwarts to establish authority, you wanted me to suppress Dumbledore's arrogance! Now that something has gone wrong, you want to push all the blame onto me?"

Fudge's face contorted with rage. "My instructions were for you to stabilize the situation, not to humiliate the professor like a madwoman and have your dirty secrets exposed! Your foolish vanity and out-of-control behavior have ruined all my plans!"

“Vanity? Loss of control?” Umbridge screamed, her voice shrill and piercing. “What I’ve done wasn’t to consolidate your power? I’ve made myself the object of everyone’s hatred so that you can rest easy!”

She tried to grab him again, her nails almost digging through his suit jacket and into his arm. "Now you think I'm useless and want to kick me away? Let me tell you! Cornelius Fudge, you're kidding!"

"Don't touch me!" Fudge pushed her away violently, his face turning extremely pale.

He took a step back, regarding Umbridge as some kind of plague. "Look at yourself, Dolores! A delusional madman, a wretched woman who doesn't even recognize her own parents! What use do you think you are now? The Ministry of Magic doesn't need a mentally unstable, disgraced burden!"

The word "burden" was like a poisoned dagger, precisely piercing Umbridge's psychological defenses.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment, Fudge's face, filled with disgust and abandonment, overlapped with the blurry faces in her memory that mocked her pink dress, her Muggle mother, and her ambition.

She always thought she had changed; that she had power, that she set the rules, that she made everyone afraid of her.

But it was only at this moment that she realized with despair that she had never changed.

She was still that pitiful creature hiding in her room, wearing a pink dress mocked by the pure-blooded children, hugging herself tightly, longing to be recognized and accepted, yet forever excluded because of her birth.

"Deep down, you're a screaming... unwanted child..."

That deep, hoarse voice, as if it came from the depths of hell, rang in Umbridge's ears again.

"You're using the rules to cover up your incompetence..."

"Using pink as decoration is ugly..."

"You are the most pathetic tyrant I have ever seen..."

Umbridge cried out incoherently, "It's him! That... Batman! He's not a hallucination! I know he isn't! He's right here, in this room!"

She clung tightly to Fudge's leg. "He said...he said my power was stolen...Connelly, you have to protect me! You have to catch them all! Especially that Batman!"

Fudge shoved her roughly to the ground. "Dolores, calm down! There's no Batman here!"

Umbridge looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. "No, Connelly, he's right here, he's in that shadow!"

Fudge looked in the direction she was pointing, but there was nothing in the corner of the ward.

"Enough! Dolores, I've had enough of you!"

These words were like a bucket of ice water poured straight down Umbridge's forehead; she froze instantly, her pleading and hope frozen in place.

Fudge straightened his wrinkled coat, his tone devoid of any emotion, "Your... excessive enthusiasm, and your current... unstable mental state, make you no longer suitable for a position in the Ministry of Magic."

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He looked down at her, his eyes cold. "Rita Skeeter's show has put us in a very passive position. The department's senior management has decided that you will be on indefinite leave, and your position as Senior Deputy Minister will be filled by someone else. Dolores, you... better watch yourself."

Umbridge's face drained of color at a visible speed, turning deathly pale. She seemed not to understand Fudge's words, her lips trembling violently.

“Indefinite leave…” she repeated the word, looking at Fudge’s hypocritical and heartless face, and then at the empty ward around her, where only her imagined Batman existed.

The pillars of power upon which she had always depended for survival, the beliefs for which she had given everything, all collapsed at this moment.

She stopped screaming and instead emitted a chilling sound that was somewhere between a sob and a maniacal laugh.

She collapsed to the ground, curled up in a ball, her short fingers digging into the floor, her body convulsing uncontrollably.

"Batman is right... My power is borrowed... My dignity is stolen... Pink... It's all pink... Lies..."

She was completely immersed in her own world, sometimes crying, sometimes chuckling, and repeatedly muttering "Batman," "pink," and "lies."

Fudge took one last look at his former subordinate, who was now insane and of no use whatsoever.

There was no pity in his eyes, only a relieved indifference.

With a "click," the door closed.

In this empty hospital room, only Umbridge remained.

……

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