The Gloriana Set

Badger Power

"Puh-leeese," Leila said. "The Snitch buzzed around his head and hovered in front of his chest. It practically fell in his lap!"

"You're just bitter!" Imogene said. "It was a brilliant catch!"

"BADGER POWER!!!" Percival shouted, and the others took up the cheer. "BADGER POWER!!!"

"Wait a minute," Ginny said. "Are you lot saying that the Hufflepuff Seeker caught the snitch in the first five minutes?"

All the Squeaky Mice nodded.

"Billy Froom, the Hufflepuff Seeker?"

"That's right, Miss Weasley," said Bertie. Cupcake was on his shoulder, wearing a tiny yellow scarf. Bertie started jumping around, pretending to ride a broom. "Billy went like this, and the snitch went like that, and then Billy went like this ..."

"There wasn't anything Mr. Malfoy could do," Leila explained. "Mr. Froom dropped a glove, and was hovering down near the pitch looking for it, and Mr. Malfoy was higher above the hoops. The Snitch flew right at Mr. Froom's face, and he still almost missed it!"

"You're just a sore loser!" Percival yelled. "BADGER POWER!"

"BADGER POWER!" shouted all the Mice except for Leila.

"I like the yellow coloring," said Ginny, who had been inspecting the children more closely. "How did you do it?"

"It was Miss Granger!"

"That was brilliant!"

"Thank you, Miss Granger!"

Ginny turned to Hermione. "You turned them all yellow?"

"We're not all yellow," Leila said.

"It was a rainbow hex." Hermione looked at the children sternly. "You lot were trying to break into the Potions Lab again."

"You and Mr. Malfoy spend a lot of time in there," Imogene said. "We wanted to know what you were doing."

"I told you what they were doing in there!"

"You are a pig, Percival."

Ginny burst out laughing. "Yes, Hermione," she choked. "What do you and Malfoy get up to in that little Potions Lab?"

It took all of Hermione's self-control not to blush ("terribly desperate"). Instead she glared at all of them. "We are brewing a complicated and dangerous experimental potion," she said in her best McGonagall voice. "For a very serious purpose. If any of you disturbed it, you could have wiped out months of work and suffered severe injuries."

"So you turned them all yellow?" Ginny asked. Leila opened her mouth. "And green?"

Hermione frowned. "No, they should be all different colors."

"We were!" Bertie cried. "I was purple, and Percival was red and Imogene was—"

"We get it, we get it," Ginny said, grinning.

"It was Leila's idea, actually," Percival said, giving the little Slytherin a reluctant nod of approval. "It was brilliant. She got us into the Potions dungeons with an Achoo spell—"

"Alohara," Leila and Hermione corrected.

"I researched the Rainbow Hex," Leila went on, "and discovered that the colors change every time you—"

"So we went back to the lab and kept hitting the door and changing colors until we were yellow!" Imogene yelled.

"Or green," Leila said.