Minister Petranova Umbridge

## Academic and Professional Career

Petranova Umbridge has a true gift for administration and can run a bureaucracy better than anyone. She is ruthless in her leadership and brutal in her enforcement of rules. Because of her mother’s manipulations, Petranova is utterly immune to flattery. Unlike her mother, Petranova is fiercely loyal to those she considers competent. Question her authority, and hell’s fury would be better, but show competence at executing her commands, and she would protect you with her own  life. She cares about most of her allies, although there are a few she wishes only to use.

She believes strongly in rules. Unfortunately since she has become minister she is, in her mind, the law itself and therefore able to break the law in order to enforce it.

She dislikes anything ‘outside’ the norm, like werewolves, muggles, etc.

Convinced the world is out to get her, she is quite willing to take a preemptive strike against the world and this means obtaining the power to crush opposition before it can form.

Petranova has an iron will forged from the fires of her hardships. She is almost unbreakable physically, mentally and emotionally.

Petranova Umbridge is both the youngest and the first female Minister of Magic.

After Argon’s attack Minister Umbridge felt that Hogwarts was being poorly run; for a properly run school wouldn’t be having such problems. She descended on Hogwarts with several teams of Aurors to investigate. She immediately issued anti-werewolf and anti-Muggle school staffing and housing policies. Professor Redthorn ‘retired’ due to these policies. She also banned American reporters from Hogwarts. She then started a re-evaluation process for each of the professors. Resistance was not tolerated and several professors were either thrown straight into Azkaban or detained for further questioning.

## Personal Life

Petranova’s mother, Delores Umbridge, casts a long and dark shadow on her life, so it is fitting her story start there.

Delores was always interested in power. Despite her impressive political and bureaucratic skill she was a small minded woman (as evidenced by her exceptally stunted wand), seeking power above all, despising anything she didn’t understand. Slytherin are said to be ambitious, but Umbridge’s thirst for power put others to shame. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to gain it; and gain it she did. Shamelessly flattering those above her and mercilessly crushing those below, she rose through the ranks quickly, having entered the ministry at age 17 and becoming senior undersecretary to the minister of magic by age 30.

Delores achieved this meteoric rise to power by a most surprising method. Addicted to power, Delores had, on multiple occasions, attempted to garner the affections of her ministry superiors to further her career, and those who were the objects of her advances usually refused the offer, finding her difficult to like.

Much to Delores’ delight, her ambitious affections eventually found a willing recipient. The minister’s closest friend, a Hufflepuff, was also his closest adviser, and Delores greatly desired that power. The Hufflepuff, being kind natured, and not having had the affections of many, was smitten with this unexpected idea of romance, and the two were married, eventually having two children.

But the marriage was entirely for convenience. Delores, cementing her influence through her new position as wife of the Minister’s best friend, would move up the ranks at an unprecedented rate. Whispering in the ear of her husband the exact things she wanted whispered into the Minister’s, she became senior undersecretary. Now that her husband was no longer of use to her, Delores immediately sabotaged the relationship between him and the minister; not only ending her husband’s influence with the Minister but also ending their friendship. She then quickly shuffled her unwitting husband off the political scene, as she had done with her own father in years past. Petranova was raised almost entirely by her father alone, with her sister, Roxie. Delores provided only financial support, and precious little of even that.

Despite the tumultuous history of those days, Petranova lived a happy childhood, sheltered from the horror of the war by her loving father. Being a kind and big-hearted soul like her dad, Petranova spent countless hours roaming the local countryside and neighboring towns helping total strangers: sweeping an old ladies shop, feeding hungry kittens, carrying a load to a farmer’s truck. Several elderly widows started calling her ‘Big Heart’ in recognition of her consistent kindness to all, even total strangers.

Sheltered by her father, Petranova remembers little about her mother’s trial other than her father stood by Delores when everyone else seemed to hate her. Being a kind child, Petranova did not understand the hate.

As Petranova grew in age she also grew in kindness. While visiting her mother, Petranova would shower her with praises, and regale her with adventures in kindness, much to the annoyance of Delores. But her mother, ever the opportunist, feigned interest in the young girl’s tales, ever hoping to gain ‘allies’ wherever she can, even among her children. This delighted Petranova immensely. Roxie, being less like her father, saw through Delores’ fake smiles and phony laughter. In spite of her age, Roxie confronted Delores for her hypocrisy and her father for enabling it. In a fit of rage Delores disowned Roxie, vowing to never speak to her again, a vow she has since kept to this day. Roxie, disgusted with both her parents, asked to live with her uncle, a request that her father sadly granted.

Petranova and her father continued to visit Delores, and Delores continued to groom Petranova using false hopes of the love.

But tragedy would strike young Petranova’s life. Her father’s health failed rapidly and unexpectedly, and Petranova lost her loving hero. Before his death, her father made one last request; a request that would shape the rest of her life.

He told her Delores still had good in her and he wanted Petranova to find it. He asked that she never tell her mother of this request, truly believing that his daughter’s love for Delores would succeed where his love had failed.

Petranova has lived with the curse of her father’s last request ever since. Trying desperately to find good in a heart of pure evil, and needing love from a person so full of hate.

And Delores did began to change, but not in the way her late husband had hoped. Resigning herself to her fate, and seeing so much of her husband in Petranova, Delores no longer showed any compassion to her daughter, fake or otherwise, and became increasingly cold. Already heart-broken by the loss of her father, her mom’s cruelty devastated her. Tears fell on many nights as she mourned the loss of her father and the sudden cruelty of her mother. However, her heart was big, and her kindness undeterred. She resolved to find the good her father spoke of.

When the sorting hat was placed on her head she asked to be Slytherin. The hat protested, knowing that her true house was Hufflepuff. But Petranova’s determination was strong, and she begged to be a Slytherin. She imagined her mother’s happy smile, and dreamed of  once again receiving the warm embraces her mother had given her as a child. But instead of excitement, her mother barely seemed to notice as she spoke of her placement in Slytherin. Alone in the room, Petranova wept and her big heart broke a little more.

At first, Petranova was happy to be at Hogwarts, but eventually she found she couldn’t make any friends. The two people she most loved in the world, her dad and mom, were both hated. Her dad was hated for supporting her mom and her mom was hated for being Delores Umbridge. Many students avoided her intentionally. In her bed late at night, Petranova wept and her big heart broke a little more.

Always willing to show kindness, she was a consistent source of encouragement to others; but as the rumors of her heritage slowly spread, eyes that once looked at her in friendship turned to spite. In the hallways of Hogwarts Petranova wept, and her big heart broke a little more.

Her notoriety grew and she started having incidents with the older students, who treated her with distain, calling her names and even pushing her to the ground. Isolated and alone, Petranova wept, and her big heart broke a little more.

Petranova earned excellent marks in school, and eagerly showed her mother, not hoping to do anything more than to see a smile, but her mother just shrugged, calling her a disappointment. Outside the prison, Petrinova  wept, and her big heart broke a little more.

She visited her mother at Christmas, every year spending what little she had on a present, hoping each year her mother would open the gift. Yet each year an untouched present sat on the table as her mother left the visiting room. Walking out of the prison, Petranova wept, and her big heart broke a little more.

Teachers, students, colleagues- all saw one thing in her: Delores Umbridge. Her open offers of friendship were met with distrust; her honest attempts at aid met with scorn. Petranova wept, and her big heart broke a little more.

She became secretary to the minister, with the dream and ambition to become both the youngest and the first woman minister. She visited her mother, no longer expecting even a smile, just wanting even a slight nod: something, anything to let her know she was loved. All she got were a half vacant stares, but Petrinova no longer wept, because her big heart could break no more.

It is said that Hogwarts is a place for second chances, but Petranova Umbridge, the girl whose heart was too big, never got her first, and she decided to never weep again, for her big heart was no more.