Protégée (George Weasley)

Chapter Thirty

To say Fred and George left with a bang was the understatement of the century, though Lisa did not expect them to do anything less than what they had done.

The day started out as normal as any. Students were having breakfast at the Great Hall, a steady volume of chatter in the air as Umbridge sat in the chair where Dumbledore used to, looking over the crowd of students with an unexplainable glint in her eyes. The peace was immediately disrupted with a series of loud bangs. It didn't take long for the twins' fireworks display to pan out, some of their larger firework displays bewitched to terrorize Filch and Umbridge, who were trying to stop the madness in a futile manner. The rest of the Professors look wildly amused, sitting back and not interjecting as they watched Umbridge scream and struggle.

As if the fireworks weren't enough, the twins found it absolutely necessary to create a whole swamp out of a hallway leading up to Umbridge's office, which was a diversion and a way to stall the Headmistress as they struggled to free their broomsticks from her confiscation.

The fact that all of it happened in a day—and was wildly successful— was very entertaining as well as baffling for some students. More than half of the student population watched as Fred and George rode their Cleansweeps down the hallways and out of the castle with a stream of fireworks in their wake. It was their legacy, something everyone knew would be talked about, and a story to be passed down to generations of new Hogwarts students.

George had said his proper goodbyes to Lisa the night before their big day, not disclosing the specifics of the impending havoc for the element of surprise. Lisa was not as upset as she had thought she would be when he left, the promise of spending the summer with him being enough to keep her on her toes for the remaining weeks of the school year.

She didn't feel as pressured about the end of term exams the same way she was with O.W.L.S. That was the beauty of sixth year, she thought, as it was a quick break of sorts in between to prepare for the two most important exams of her education. The thought of taking the N.E.W.Ts was enough to give her a mild headache, so she tried to avoid thinking about it until she actually had to deal with it. But Lisa being Lisa, anxiety got the best of her, so she found herself lightly reviewing N.E.W.T materials while trying to study for her exams that afternoon.

"A little too early to be reviewing for that I think?" she heard a voice semi-whisper, Lisa looking up to see a familiar brunette girl, her face almost disappearing from behind the large stack of books she was carrying. She chuckled, watching as Florence struggled to set the stack down, not being able to see the surface of the table. With a loud sigh and a momentary struggle, she was finally able to do so.

"Do you mind if I join you? Nic and Xander are somewhere and I don't really feel like waiting on them and looking like a loner at a table—" she paused, her eyes wide, realizing Lisa was by herself, "—not that there's anything wrong with being by yourself out in public, no, absolutely not..."

Lisa chuckled at the nervous look on Florence's face, waving it off, "You're good, I get called a loner by my siblings a lot—and in the most blunt ways possible—so I've built a tolerance for it. And yes, I would love the company, thank you."

"Great," Florence smiled, pulling out a chair and settling in. "So... N.E.W.Ts review this early? Makes you better than most Ravenclaws already. We try not to think about it until Seventh Year actually starts otherwise we'd drive ourselves crazy over the summer."

"Just got a little anxious for it, so I wanted to catch a glimpse of what I'm going to have to deal with." she replied, closing the book and setting it aside, "So how are reviews going for you?"

"Quite terrible," Florence chuckled nervously, "I dunno, I've been putting all my spare time towards it, but I haven't actually had a lot of spare time with other things like Quidditch and Umbridge's group detention... feels like I've been juggling too many things at once." She said, "Xander, Nic and I have fallen asleep here in the library one too many times. I don't think Madame Pince likes us very much because of that."