62 | Fred and George's fireworks
Marley Macmillan was always excited about D.A.'s meetings in the Room of Requirement. Now the whole group was practicing how to summon Patronus because everyone had expressed a desire to learn it. Today was also the first meeting of Seamus Finnigan. Harry had shown them the charm and now they had to practice alone and try to summon their Patronuses.
Marley had managed to do the charm, and a silver glittering Ibizan hound was running around her. There was a silver stream around Cho Chang that formed a swan, and Hermione's Patronus was a small otter. Fred and George had also summoned their Patronuses, and now two silver magpies were flying around.
"I think the hound is really appropriate for you." said George with a smirk.
"Why do you think so?" asked Marley, enjoying how happy her Patronus was running around her. "Because I look sweet outside but inside I can fucking kill you?"
"You're reading my mind." George grinned and Marley stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Damn it, she was still too short or he was just extremely tall.
Harry was going around the students and greeting them for the successful Patronus charm, when Marley heard a noise. For a moment her heart jumped, but the next moment she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Dobby the house-elf. But his frightened expression also didn't bode well. Dobby stopped at Harry, and a few girls shouted.
"Hi Dobby!" said Harry. "What are you-- What's wrong?"
The elf's eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. The members of the DA closest to Harry had fallen silent; 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 head-first 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... she..."
"Who's "she", Dobby? Umbridge?" asked Harry, horrified. Needless to say, Marley knew perfectly well what Dobby was talking about.
"She revealed us! Harry, damn it, she revealed us!" Marley yelled and Harry looked at his older sister with fear in his eyes. If Umbridge catches them in the Room of Requirement, that was the end of everything.
Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head on Harry's knees. Harry held him at arm's length.
"What about her? Dobby--she hasn't found out about this--about us--about the DA? 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!"
Marley swore under her nose angrily. Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Harry bellowed. "RUN!"
They all pelted towards the exit at once, forming a scrum at the door, then people burst through. The group was printing along the corridors and Marley hoped they had the sense not to try and make it all the way to their dormitories. It was only ten to nine; if they just took refuge in the library or the Owlery, which were both nearer--
Marley was just running along with the others and didn't know how, but she had managed to get out and was already away together with Fred, George, Angelina and Lee from the eyes of all the students and teachers. And they were near the common room. Marley paused for a moment, trying to catch her breath as her lungs screamed for it and her throat burnt.
"What the bloody hell happened?" Lee Jordan asked, trying to take a breath. "But I think we got rid of them."
Marley heard fast footsteps a few corridors behind them.
"No, we better go to the common room, right now." she said. "Let's hope the others also ran away from Frogface."
They were still very tired when they reached the Fat Lady and told her the password. She let them in. The common room wasn't full of students but there was a group of first-year and forth-year students. Marley saw in the common room the familiar faces of Ginny Weasley and Katie Bell.
"Wow, I haven't participeted in such an adventure since my last Quidditch match." said dreamily Fred and collapsed heavily on the sofa, followed by George and Marley. The sixteen-year-old girl let out a deep sigh.
"I'm scared for Harry and the others." said Ginny worried. "I don't know if they ran away but I hope Umbridge will not catch them."
"Me too." exhaled Marley. By midnight, eventually, the common room filled with every Gryffindor student in DA. At some point, Harry returned and Marley asked him what happened. Harry just quickly told her the story in Dumbledore's office - how Marietta Edgecombe betrayed them and Dumbledore wasn't Headmaster of Hogwarts anymore. This news left Marley wordless.
The next day, on the Gryffindor board, Marley saw the advertisement about the new Headmistress of Hogwarts, signed by (not surprises here) Dolores "Frogface" Umbridge. At breakfast, Marley was talking with Angelina when she saw Fred and George coming with the look we-just-did-a-joke-and-it-was-funny. Meanwhile, Harry, Ron and Hermione had an argument with Draco, Crabbe and Goyle.
"What's happening there?" asked Lina with mouth half-filled with food. Marley just shrugged shoulders.
"They wear some kind of badges." she narrowed her eyes to see the capital I on Draco, Crabbe and Goyle's chests. "I don't know what it means."
"Inquisitorial Squad." mumbled George, joining the girls. "Umbridge made some small army with her followers and those of the Ministry. Personally, it looks like a cult to me."
"She must be enviable that we were Dumbledore's Army." added Fred. "And much more than this stupid 'Squad'."
Draco, Crabbe and Goyle left Harry, Ron and Hermione. Marley looked at thе hour-glasses showing the points of the houses. Griffindor's had dropped by at least fifty. Suddenly Marley was wracked with anger, but she tried to calm down and just walked quietly to her brother, Ron and Hermione. Fred and George just looked at each other and hurried to follow her, grinning.
"Malfoy just docked us all about fifty points," said Harry furiously, as they watched several more stones fly upwards from the Gryffindor hour-glass.
"Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break," said George.
"Did he?" asked confused Marley. Why didn't she know about this? "But what do you mean with tried?"
"He never managed to get all the words out," said Fred, "due to the fact that we forced him head-first into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor."
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," said Fred coolly. "Anyway... we've decided we don't care about getting into trouble any more."
"Have you ever?" asked Marley with a smirk.
" 'Course we have," said George. "Never been expelled, have we?"
"We've always known where to draw the line," said Fred. "We might have put a toe across it occasionally but we've always stopped short of causing real mayhem."
"But now?" said Ron tentatively.
"Well, now--" said George. "--what with Dumbledore is gone-- 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?" said Fred, smiling at her. "We don't care about staying any more. We'd walk out right now if we weren't determined to do our bit for Dumbledore first. So, anyway," he checked his watch, "phase one is about to begin. I'd get in the Great Hall for breakfast, if I were you, that way the teachers will see you can't have had anything to do with it."
"Anything to do with what?" said Hermione anxiously.
"You'll see," said George. "Run along, now."
Fred and George turned away and disappeared into the swelling crowd descending the stairs. Harry, Ron and Hermione immediately glared at Marley but the girl frowned and raised her hands.
"Don't look at me like that, Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed. "I don't know anything. I've learnt my lesson with them long ago. You three should too."
She also left the Great Hall, walking toward her Transfiguration double class with Professor McGonagall. This lesson was kind of boring and it was almost the end of her second lesson, when something happened and Marley heard a loud BOOM! from the corridor.
"What was--?" muttered Katie Bell.
"Stay here." said Professor McGonagall and walked toward the exit of the classroom. "I'll go to check out what's happening."
Marley just chuckled. No one seemed to follow her orders and all the students followed McGonagall outside to see what the source of all the uproar was. It wasn't difficult to find. One floor down, pandemonium reigned. Somebody (and Marley had a very shrewd idea who) had set off what seemed to be 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 swear words in midair of their own accord; firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere Marley looked, and instead of burning themselves out, fading from sight or fizzling to a halt, these pyrotechnical miracles seemed to be gaining in energy and momentum the longer she watched.
"Hurry, Filch, hurry!" Marley heard Umbridge shrieking, "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 midair, it exploded with such force that it blasted a hole in a painting of a soppy-looking witch in the middle of a meadow.
Marley had seen enough; laughing, she ducked down low, ran to a door she 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 and Filch's yells and quaking with suppressed mirth.
"Was that the great thing that you said would stay in history?" she asked directly with the biggest smile on her face.
"Not exactly but yes." said Fred.
"It was really funny to watch Frogface and Filch, trying to Stun the fireworks. What's the secret?"
"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."
"You're genius." Marley exclaimed with a big grin. "This day is already better. Thank you so much."
"Everything for our favourite girl." George still couldn't stop laughing but he just hugged quickly Marley kissing her on the forehead. His face was red from laughter; Fred was holding his stomach with hands because he wasn't capable to stop laughing and later Marley also joined. The trio laughed for at least twenty minutes.