I stood in the courtyard by the twins who were both headless and selling their headless hats from under their cloaks just as Umbridge started making her way towards them.
"Guys" I said quickly drawing their attention as they quickly closed their robes and took off.
"Miss Potter" She said in her sickly sweet voice as she reached me.
"Yes Professor"
"What were you doing"
"Nothing Professor"
"Detention Miss Potter, my office tonight at 6 for lying" She turned on her heels and headed back to the castle. I looked down at my hand which was still throbbing from the previous night's detention. The twins reappeared.
"What did she say" George asked looking at me.
"Nothing just asked what I was doing" I decided to hide the detention from them knowing they would feel bad and blame themselves.
The week did not improve as it progressed, I ended up with a detention every night for one reason of another my hand refusing to even slightly heal as it continued to bleed threw the countless bandages I'd been changing.
We were stood in the entrance hall which was packed. Students had come flooding out of the Great Hall, where dinner was still in progress, to see what was going on. Others had crammed themselves onto the marble staircase. The onlookers had formed a great ring, some of them looking shocked, others even frightened. Professor McGonagall was on the other side of the hall; she looked as though what she was watching made her feel faintly sick. Professor Trelawney was standing in the middle of the entrance hall with her wand in one hand and an empty sherry bottle in the other, looking utterly mad. Her hair was sticking up on end, her glasses were lopsided so that one eye was magnified more than the other; her innumerable shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she was falling apart at the seams. Two large trunks lay on the floor beside her, one of them upside down; it looked very much as though it had been thrown down the stairs after her. Professor Trelawney was staring, apparently terrified, at something that seemed to be standing at the foot of the stairs.
"No!" she shrieked. "NO! This cannot be happening. It cannot. I refuse to accept it!"
"You didn't realize this was coming?" said a high girlish voice, sounding callously amused, Trelawney's terrifying vision was nothing other than Professor Umbridge. "Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable you would be sacked?"
"You c-can't!" howled Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her enormous lenses, "you c-can't sack me! I've b-been here sixteen years! H-Hogwarts is m-my h-home!"
"It was your home," Professor Umbridge said, the enjoyment stretching across her toadlike face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollably, onto one of her trunks, "until an hour ago, when the Minister of Magic countersigned the order for your dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this hall. You are embarrassing us." But she stood and watched, with an expression of gloating enjoyment, as Professor Trelawney shuddered and moaned, rocking backward and forward on her trunk in paroxysms of grief. Professor McGonagall had broken away from the spectators, marched straight up to Professor Trelawney and was patting her firmly on the back while withdrawing a large handkerchief from within her robes.
"There, there, Sibyll. Calm down. Blow your nose on this. It's not as bad as you think, now. You are not going to have to leave Hogwarts."
"Oh really, Professor McGonagall?" Umbridge said in a deadly voice, taking a few steps forward. "And your authority for that statement is?"
"That would be mine," said a deep voice. The oak front doors had swung open. Students beside them scuttled out of the way as Dumbledore appeared in the entrance. There was something impressive about the sight of him framed in the doorway against an oddly misty night. Leaving the doors wide behind him, he strode forward through the circle of onlookers toward the place where Professor Trelawney sat, tearstained and trembling, upon her trunk, Professor McGonagall alongside her.
"Yours, Professor Dumbledore?" Umbridge said with a singularly unpleasant little laugh. "I'm afraid you do not understand the position. I have here" she pulled a parchment scroll from within her robes "an Order of Dismissal signed by myself and the Minister of Magic. Under the terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts has the power to inspect, place upon probation, and sack any teacher she that is to say, I feel is not performing up to the standard required by the Ministry of Magic. I have decided that Professor Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her." Dumbledore continued to smile. He looked down at Professor Trelawney, who was still sobbing and choking on her trunk, and said,
"You are quite right, of course, Professor Umbridge. As High Inquisitor you have every right to dismiss my teachers. You do not, however, have the authority to send them away from the castle. I am afraid," he went on, with a courteous little bow, "that the power to do that still resides with the headmaster, and it is my wish that Professor Trelawney continue to live at Hogwarts." At this, Professor Trelawney gave a wild little laugh in which a hiccup was barely hidden.
"No no, I'll g-go, Dumbledore! I sh-shall l-leave Hogwarts and s-seek my fortune elsewhere"
"No," Dumbledore said sharply. "It is my wish that you remain, Sibyll." He turned to Professor McGonagall. "Might I ask you to escort Sibyll back upstairs, Professor McGonagall?"
"Of course," said McGonagall. "Up you get, Sibyll." Professor Sprout came hurrying forward out of the crowd and grabbed Professor Trelawney's other arm. Together they guided her past Umbridge and up the marble stairs. Professor Flitwick went scurrying after them, his wand held out before him; he squeaked,
"Locomotor trunks!" and Professor Trelawney's luggage rose into the air and proceeded up the staircase after her, Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear. Professor Umbridge was standing stock-still, staring at Dumbledore, who continued to smile benignly.
"And what," she said in a whisper that nevertheless carried all around the entrance hall, "are you going to do with her once I appoint a new Divination teacher who needs her lodgings?"
"Oh, that won't be a problem," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "You see, I have already found us a new Divination teacher, and he will prefer lodgings on the ground floor."
"You've found?" Umbridge said shrilly. "You've found? Might I remind you, Dumbledore, that under Educational Decree Twentytwo"
"the Ministry has the right to appoint a suitable candidate if and only if the headmaster is unable to find one," Dumbledore said. "And I am happy to say that on this occasion I have succeeded. May I introduce you?" He turned to face the open front doors, through which night mist was now drifting. Through the mist came a face with white-blond hair and astonishingly blue eyes, the head and torso of a man joined to the palomino body of a horse. "This is Firenze," Dumbledore said happily to a thunderstruck Umbridge. "I think you'll find him suitable."
In the next D.A. meeting we had started working on Patronuses which everybody had been very keen to practice, though as Harry kept trying to remind them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit classroom when they were not under threat was very different to producing it when confronted by something like a dementor.
"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," Cho said brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirement during the last lesson before Easter. "They're so pretty!"
"They're not supposed to be pretty, they're supposed to protect you," Harry said patiently as I sat there watching my wolf walking around not really paying much attention to Harry. "What we really need is a boggart or something; that's how I learned, I had to conjure a Patronus while the boggart was pretending to be a dementor"
"But that would be really scary!" Lavender said, who was shooting puffs of silver vapor out of the end of her wand. "And I still can't do it!" she added angrily. Neville was having trouble too. His face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver smoke issued from his wand tip.
"You've got to think of something happy," Harry reminded him.
"I'm trying," Neville said miserably, who was trying so hard his round face was actually shining with sweat.
"Harry, I think I'm doing it!" yelled Seamus, who had been brought along to his first ever D.A. meeting by Dean. "Look ah it's gone. But it was definitely something hairy, Harry!" Hermione's Patronus, a shining silver otter, was gamboling around her.
"They are sort of nice, aren't they?" she said, looking at it fondly. The door of the Room of Requirement opened and then closed again; Harry looked around to see who had entered, but there did not seem to be anybody there. It was a few moments before he seemed to realise that the people close to the door had fallen silent. I walked over to him just as he looked down, I followed his eyes to see Dobby the house-elf peering up at him from beneath his usual eight hats.
"Hi, Dobby!" Harry said.
"What's wrong Dobby?" I asked noticing his eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. The members of the D.A. closest had fallen silent now: Everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.
"Harry Potter, sir." squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot, "Harry Potter, sir. Dobby has come to warn you but the house-elves have been warned not to tell" He ran headfirst at the wall: Harry, who had some experience of Dobby's habits of self-punishment, made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats. Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.
"What's happened, Dobby?" Harry asked, grabbing the elf's tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.
"Harry Potter she" Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist: Harry seized that too.
"Who's 'she,' Dobby?" I knew exactly what Dobby was going to say next. The elf looked up at Harry, slightly cross-eyed, and mouthed wordlessly. "Umbridge?" Harry asked, horrified. Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head off Harry's knees; Harry held him at bay. "What about her? Dobby she hasn't found out about this about us about the D.A.?" He read the answer in the elf's stricken face. His hands held fast by Harry, the elf tried to kick himself and fell to the floor. "Is she coming?" Harry asked quietly. Dobby let out a howl, and began beating his bare feet hard on the floor.
"Yes, Harry Potter, yes!" Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Harry bellowed. "RUN!" Fred grabbed me as he ran, pulling me after him and George to one of the hidden passages. We stayed there for a while until nothing could be heard before heading back to the Gryffindor tower.
It was the day after the D.A. was caught. I noticed Harry looking at the hourglasses containing the house points. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had been neck and neck in the lead that morning. Even as they watched, stones flew upward, reducing the amounts in the lower bulbs. In fact, the only glass that seemed unchanged was the emerald-filled one of Slytherin.
"Noticed, have you?" Fred said as me, him and George came down the marble staircase and joined Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ernie in front of the hourglasses.
"Malfoy just docked us all about fifty points," Harry said furiously, as we watched several more stones fly upward from the Gryffindor hourglass.
"Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break," George said as I smirked.
"What do you mean, 'tried'?" Ron said quickly.
"He never managed to get all the words out," Fred said,
"due to the fact that we forced him headfirst into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor." I finish as Hermione looked very shocked.
"But you'll get into terrible trouble!"
"Not until Montague reappears, and that could take weeks, I dunno where we sent him," Fred said coolly. "Anyway we've decided we don't care about getting into trouble anymore."
"Have you ever?" asked Hermione.
" 'Course we have," George said. "Never been expelled, have we?"
"Been close a couple of times" I added.
"We've always known where to draw the line," Fred said.
"We might have put a toe across it occasionally," George said.
"But we've always stopped short of causing real mayhem," Fred said.
"But now?" Ron said tentatively.
"Well, now" George said.
"what with Dumbledore gone" Fred said.
"we reckon a bit of mayhem"
"is exactly what our dear new Head deserves,"
"You mustn't!" whispered Hermione. "You really mustn't! She'd love a reason to expel you!"
"You don't get it, Hermione, do you?" I said, smiling at her. "They don't care about staying anymore"
"We'd walk out right now if we weren't determined to do our bit for Dumbledore first. So anyway," Fred checked his watch, "phase one is about to begin. I'd get in the Great Hall for lunch if I were you, that way the teachers will see you can't have had anything to do with it. You too Rory"
"Anything to do with what?" Hermione said anxiously.
"You'll see," George said. "Run along, now." Fred and George turned away and disappeared in the swelling crowd descending the stairs toward lunch. Looking highly disconcerted, Ernie muttered something about unfinished Transfiguration homework and scurried away.
"I think we should get out of here, you know," Hermione said nervously. "Just in case"
"Yeah, all right," Ron said, and we moved toward the doors to the Great Hall, but Harry had barely glimpsed today's ceiling of scudding white clouds when somebody tapped him on the shoulder and, turning, he found himself almost nose to nose with Filch, the caretaker. He took several hasty steps backward into me; Filch was best viewed at a distance.
"The headmistress would like to see you, Potters," he leered.
"I didn't do it," said Harry stupidly as I shock my head at the idiot. Filch's jowls wobbled with silent laughter.
"Guilty conscience, eh?" he wheezed. "Follow me." Harry glanced back at Ron and Hermione, who were both looking worried. He shrugged as we both followed Filch back into the entrance hall, against the tide of hungry students. Filch seemed to be in an extremely good mood; he hummed creakily under his breath as they climbed the marble staircase. As we reached the first landing he said, "Things are changing around here, Potter."
"I've noticed," Harry said coldly.
"Yerse. I've been telling Dumbledore for years and years he's too soft with you all," Filch said, chuckling nastily. "You filthy little beasts would never have dropped Stinkpellets if you'd known I had it in my power to whip you raw, would you, now? Nobody would have thought of throwing Fanged Frisbees down the corridors if I could've strung you up by the ankles in my office, would they? But when Educational Decree Twenty-nine comes in, Potters, I'll be allowed to do them things. And she's asked the Minister to sign an order for the expulsion of Peeves. Oh, things are going to be very different around here with her in charge." Umbridge had obviously gone to some lengths to get Filch on her side and the worst of it was that he would probably prove an important weapon; his knowledge of the school's secret passageways and hiding places was probably second only to me and the twins. "Here we are," he said, leering down at us as he rapped three times upon Professor Umbridge's door and pushed it open. "The Potter's to see you, ma'am." Umbridge's office was the same as usual except for the large wooden block lying across the front of her desk on which golden letters spelled the word HEADMISTRESS; also Harry's Firebolt, and Fred's and George's Cleansweeps were now chained and padlocked to a stout iron peg in the wall behind the desk. Umbridge was sitting behind the desk, busily scribbling upon some of her pink parchment, but looked up and smiled widely at our entrance.
"Thank you, Argus," she said sweetly.
"Not at all, ma'am, not at all," Filch said, bowing as low as his rheumatism would permit, and exiting backward.
"Sit," Umbridge said curtly, pointing towards two chairs. She continued to scribble for a few moments. I noticed Harry watching some of the foul kittens gamboling around the plates over her head. "Well now," she said finally, setting down her quill and looking like a toad about to swallow a particularly juicy fly. "What would you like to drink?"
"What?" Harry said.
"To drink, Mr. Potter," she said, smiling still more widely. "Tea? Coffee? Pumpkin juice?" As she named each drink, she gave her short wand a wave, and a cup or glass of it appeared upon her desk.
"Nothing, thank you," I said as Harry nodded in agreement with me.
"I wish you both to have a drink with me," she said, her voice becoming more dangerously sweet. "Choose one."
"Fine tea then," Harry said, shrugging.
"And you dear" She looked at me.
"Nothing"
"Oh I think you will just have a tea like your brother then" She got up and made quite a performance of adding milk with her back to us. She then bustled around the desk with it, smiling in sinisterly sweet fashion. I looked at Harry mouthing to him.
"Don't drink it" He nodded.
"There," she said, handing one to each of us. "Drink it before it gets cold, won't you? Well, now, I thought we ought to have a little chat, after the distressing events of last night." He said nothing. She settled herself back into her seat and waited. When several long moments had passed in silence, she said gaily, "You're not drinking up!" We raised the cup to our lips and pretended to take a sip. Umbridge's smile widened. "Good," she whispered. "Very good. Now then" She leaned forward a little. "Where is Albus Dumbledore?"
"No idea," Harry said promptly.
"Drink up, drink up," she said, still smiling. "Now, Mr. Potter, let us not play childish games. I know that you know where he has gone. You and Dumbledore have been in this together from the beginning. Consider your position, Mr. Potter."
"I don't know where he is." Harry pretended to drink again.
"Very well," said Umbridge, looking displeased. "In that case, you will kindly tell me the whereabouts of Sirius Black."
"Why does that matter, he's innocent" I said glaring at her.
"Yes as that might be he would be the person to help Dumbledore hide seeing as he was able to hide for a year after his escape" She smiled at me "So I'll ask again where is he"
"Not sure" I said smiling back at her.
"What about you Mr Potter"
"No idea," Harry said loudly. "Haven't got a clue." She stood up.
"Very well, Potters, I will take your word for it this time, but be warned: The might of the Ministry stands behind me. All channels of communication in and out of this school are being monitored. A Floo Network Regulator is keeping watch over every fire in Hogwarts except my own, of course. My Inquisitorial Squad is opening and reading all owl post entering and leaving the castle. And Mr. Filch is observing all secret passages in and out of the castle. If I find a shred of evidence." BOOM!The very floor of the office shook; Umbridge slipped sideways, clutching her desk for support, looking shocked. "What was?" She was gazing toward the door. I could hear people running and screaming several floors below. "Back to lunch with you, Potters!" cried Umbridge, raising her wand and dashing out of the office. Harry looked at me and I smirked back knowing exactly what was going on. It was not difficult to find. One floor down, pandemonium reigned. The twins had set off an enormous crate of enchanted fireworks. Dragons comprised entirely of green-and-gold sparks were soaring up and down the corridors, emitting loud fiery blasts and bangs as they went. Shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like so many flying saucers. Rockets with long tails of brilliant silver stars were ricocheting off the walls. Sparklers were writing swearwords in mid air of their own accord. Firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere we looked, and instead of burning themselves out, fading from sight, or fizzling to a halt, these pyrotechnical miracles started to begin gaining in energy and momentum the longer they went on. Filch and Umbridge were standing, apparently transfixed with horror, halfway down the stairs. One of the larger Catherine wheels seemed to decide that what it needed was more room to maneuver; it whirled toward Umbridge and Filch with a sinister wheeeeeeeeee. Both adults yelled with fright and ducked and it soared straight out of the window behind them and off across the grounds. Meanwhile, several of the dragons and a large purple bat that was smoking ominously took advantage of the open door at the end of the corridor to escape toward the second floor.
"Hurry, Filch, hurry!" shrieked Umbridge. "They'll be all over the school unless we do something Stupefy!" A jet of red light shot out of the end of her wand and hit one of the rockets. Instead of freezing in mid air, it exploded with such force that it blasted a hole in a painting of a soppy-looking witch in the middle of a meadow she ran for it just in time, reappearing seconds later squashed into the painting next door, where a couple of wizards playing cards stood up hastily to make room for her. "Don't Stun them, Filch!" shouted Umbridge angrily, for all the world as though it had been his suggestion.
"Right you are, Headmistress!" wheezed Filch, who was a Squib and could no more have Stunned the fireworks than swallowed them. He dashed to a nearby cupboard, pulled out a broom, and began swatting at the fireworks in mid air; within seconds the head of the broom was ablaze. I grabbed Harry Laughing, as we ducked down low, ran to a door only we knew was concealed behind a tapestry a little way along the corridor and slipped through it to find Fred and George hiding just behind it, listening to Umbridge's and Filch's yells and quaking with suppressed mirth.
"Impressive," Harry said quietly, grinning. "Very impressive. You'll put Dr. Filibuster out of business, no problem"
"Cheers," whispered George, wiping tears of laughter from his face. "Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next. They multiply by ten every time you try."
"My idea" I tell Harry proudly as Fred throws an arm around my shoulder. The fireworks continued to burn and to spread all over the school that afternoon. Though they caused plenty of disruption, particularly the firecrackers, the other teachers did not seem to mind them very much.
"Dear, dear," Professor McGonagall said sardonically, as one of the dragons soared around her classroom, emitting loud bangs and exhaling flame. "Miss Johnson, would you mind running along to the headmistress and informing her that we have an escaped firework in our classroom?" The upshot of it all was that Professor Umbridge spent her first afternoon as headmistress running all over the school answering the summonses of the other teachers, none of whom seemed able to rid their rooms of the fireworks without her. When the final bell rang and the students were heading back to Gryffindor Tower with their bags, we saw, with immense satisfaction, a dishevelled and soot-blackened Umbridge tottering sweaty-faced from Professor Flitwick's classroom.
"Thank you so much, Professor!" Professor Flitwick said in his squeaky little voice. "I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn't sure whether I had the authority." Beaming, he closed his classroom door in her snarling face. Fred and George were heroes that night in the Gryffindor common room. Even Hermione fought her way through the excited crowd around them to congratulate them.
"They were wonderful fireworks," she said admiringly.
"Thanks," George said, looking both surprised and pleased. I was so proud of my bestfriends. "Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-Bangs. Only thing is, we used our whole stock, we're going to have to start again from scratch now."
"It was worth it, though," Fred said, who was taking orders from clamouring Gryffindors. "If you want to add your name to the waiting list, Hermione, it's five Galleons for your Basic Blaze box and twenty for the Deflagration Deluxe." Hermione returned to the table where Harry and Ron were sitting staring at their schoolbags as though hoping their homework might spring out of it and start doing itself. I smiled at the twins from beside Lee.