Chapter 305: The House Rules of Russian Roulette

Dolores Umbridge stared at the matte-black metal barrel leveled directly at the bridge of her nose. Her wide, pouchy face remained completely, utterly blank.

She had no concept of firearms. To a pureblood-conditioned bureaucrat who had spent her entire adult life insulated within the plush, velvet-lined corridors of the Ministry, the object in Orion’s hand looked like an obscure, dark artifact—a mechanical wand of unknown, horrifying intent.

Orion looked at her vacant expression and let out a long, disappointed sigh.

"You don’t even know what a gun is, do you?" Orion murmured, shaking his head at the sheer, suffocating ignorance of the magical world.

He rested the weapon lightly against his palm, twirling it once before taking aim again.

"Allow me to educate you, Dolores," Orion drawled, his voice carrying the smooth, instructional cadence of a professor addressing a rather dim first-year. "In the Muggle world, there is a very famous, exceedingly dramatic game called Russian Roulette."

Umbridge’s eyes twitched, but she remained silent, trembling.

"The traditional rules are simple," Orion explained. "You take a mechanical weapon containing a revolving cylinder designed for six projectiles. You place a single bullet into the cylinder, spin it blindly, and close the mechanism. Two participants sit opposite one another. They take turns pressing the muzzle against their own temples, or each other’s, and pulling the trigger."

He smiled, a dark, razor-thin expression.

"A game of pure, chaotic chance. A one-in-six probability of instantaneous, catastrophic death."

Umbridge gasped, her breathing turning shallow and ragged.

"However," Orion continued smoothly, his tone shifting into something significantly colder, "I am a strategist, Dolores. I am an engineer of reality. And I am fundamentally not a person who leaves matters of survival to chance."

He leaned forward over the wooden table, bringing the black barrel inches from her face.

"So... we are not going to play Russian Roulette."

He tapped the barrel against the wood with a sharp clack.

"Instead, we are going to play my personal variation of the game. The house rules are remarkably straightforward: I will ask you a question. You will answer it. If I like your answer—if it is comprehensive, accurate, and devoid of bureaucratic drivel—we move smoothly onto the next inquiry."

Orion tilted his head, his indigo eyes boring into hers.

"If I do not like your answer... if you lie, if you obfuscate, or if you attempt to play the indignant politician... I shoot you."

Umbridge’s chin trembled violently. "You... you cannot—"

"The benefit of this specific weapon, Dolores," Orion interrupted over her weak protest, "is that it is technically classified as non-lethal. It will not blow your skull into fragments. But... it hits with the kinetic impact of a bludger fired at point-blank range. Do you understand the terms?"

Umbridge stared at him as if he had grown entirely mad. Her small, wet eyes darted toward the dark shadows of the Chamber, searching for an escape that did not exist.

"Now," Orion said brightly, cutting off whatever excuse was forming behind her lips. "I am sure a clever woman like yourself must be wondering: ’What about the taking-turns part of the game? When do I get to pull the trigger?’"

Orion chuckled, a quiet, chilling sound that echoed off the damp flagstones.

"The answer is simple: since this is my variation of the game, Player Two skips their turn."

He winked.

"Always."

Umbridge choked on a sob of pure, helpless rage. "You are insane! You are an arrogant, psychopathic little—"

"Now then," Orion spoke over her, his finger resting firmly on the trigger. "Let us begin with the very first question. The primary data point I require."

His expression turned to stone, all humor evaporating from his features.

"Tell me, Dolores... why did you arrange the escape of Peter Pettigrew on Halloween? And why, precisely, did you orchestrate the mass Azkaban breakout of high-profile Death Eaters?"

Umbridge stiffened instantly. The shock of hearing the accusation out loud seemed to briefly paralyze her terror, triggering her deeply ingrained, reflexive political conditioning.

"I... I have no idea what you are talking about!" Umbridge spat, her voice shrill, attempting to summon a shred of her former authority. "Pettigrew’s escape was an unprovoked riot! The Dementors went rogue! You have absolutely no proof of my involvement! You cannot make these baseless, slanderous accusations against the Senior Undersecretary! The Ministry will—"

"Wrong answer," Orion said.

He didn’t hesitate. He shifted the muzzle down, taking deliberate aim squarely at the center of her pink-clad sternum.

He pulled the trigger.

BANG.

There was a sharp, concussive hiss of violently compressed air. The condensed, pressurized kinetic water bullet erupted from the barrel at blinding speed, striking Umbridge directly in the chest.

The kinetic shockwave was colossal.

It didn’t pierce her cardigan; it hit her with the concussive force of an iron battering ram.

The air was violently driven from Umbridge’s lungs in a loud, wheezing gasp. And because the heavy wooden chair she was tied to was resting on the slick, algae-covered flagstones of the Chamber—completely unbolted to the ground—the kinetic energy transferred instantaneously into the furniture.

The chair tipped violently backward.

Umbridge let out a terrified, strangled yelp as gravity claimed her.

CRASH!

The chair slammed hard onto the stone floor, the wood groaning under the impact, sending Dolores Umbridge crashing flat onto her back, her tied limbs splayed out, her breath completely knocked out of her body, gasping like a stranded fish on the wet flagstones.

Orion remained seated. He didn’t jump.

He slowly stood up, leaned over the edge of the wooden table, and peered down at the fallen, gasping form of the Senior Undersecretary lying in the puddle.

He placed a hand lightly over his chest, his expression one of profound, exaggerated, and entirely sarcastic concern.

"Oh dear," Orion murmured, clicking his tongue softly. "I completely forgot to anchor the chair to the floorboards. That must have hurt a lot."