Quote 2
“Wands
only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch. I have your
responses to the questionnaire that was sent to you here—”
Dolores Umbridge speaks these words
to Mary Cattermole in Chapter Thirteen, at Mary’s hearing before
the Muggle-Born Registration Committee. The words perfectly express
Umbridge’s particular form of villainy—smug, bureaucratic, and hypocritical
rather than forthright or aggressive. Under Voldemort, the Ministry’s
new policy is that wizards and witches who do not have wizard parents
must have stolen their wands and magic, and thus may be persecuted
and imprisoned. Of course, this claim is false, and everyone knows
it, as wands have been choosing Muggle-born witches and wizards
for years. Umbridge’s lie is pointless—Mary Cattermole was weak
to begin with, and is now in a basement room guarded by dementors. Umbridge
uses the law to degrade her further, not only taking away her wand
but also her identity as a witch and her right to practice magic.
And she does so with relish, taking delight in the questionnaires,
orderly proceedings, and other bureaucratic machinery with which
she persecutes Cattermole.
