Chapter 2

"Terry, man, get over it." Terry shrugged moodily as Michael punched his arm. Anthony and Michael had been trying to cheer him up since he missed tryouts, and he was determined to sulk. He had found ways to vent, though. He had taken to bringing out his wand in Defense Against the Dark Arts and using it to levitate bits of parchment into Professor Umbridge's hair. His acts had earned him detention that night at eight, but he hardly cared.

By now Terry was entirely fed up with the Ministry witch, and he was certain that Harry Potter was in the right. He and the other Ravenclaw boys were walking to Double Transfiguration with the Gryffindors, and Terry spotted the Potter kid standing outside the classroom, frowning and looking at the floor as the Weasley boy and Hermione Granger muttered to each other and shooting glances at him. Terry had heard that Harry was very snippy lately, but he approached him anyway.

"Harry." He said. Potter's head snapped up. Terry ploughed on. "I just wanted to tell you that I believe you. It's easy to tell that the Ministry are morons with one glance at toad-face."

"Thanks, Terry." Potter said, with a small smile. The smile faded in an instant though as he saw something over Terry's shoulder. Before he could turn around, terry felt thick fingers gripping him at the part of his body where his neck met his shoulders. It is an extremely painful place to be gripped, and Terry shuddered quickly out of the grasp of Umbridge and spun around to face her.

"We'll make that another two days of detention then, shall we?" She simpered. Terry longed to run his fist right into her flabby face, but he settled for throwing her a filthy look before turning back to his friends.

For all of Transfiguration Terry was distracted, wondering what on earth Umbridge could have in store for him. From her reputation, he assumed that it would be something boring and repetitive, like filing papers or lines. But no teachers did lines anymore. The student would just zone out and not remember what they were writing over and over again, and so the teachers found it ineffective and dropped the punishment years ago.

Terry found himself dragging his feet across the common room towards the door at five to eight silently cursing Umbridge and the whole Ministry. He and Michael had been having a heated game of chess when Anthony pointed out the time. Leaving Anthony to his homework and Michael clearing away the chess pieces, Terry left the room. When he opened the door he found a second year boy begging the door knocker to let him in.

"I don't know, okay! I honestly—" he broke off as Terry pushed the door open. "Oh, thanks!" he said to Terry before scurrying past him.

"Ravenclaw's aren't what they once were, boy." The door knocker called to Terry as he started down the stairs. "I can tell you, since the days of the founders, standards have gone down, yes sirree." He continued babbling until Terry was out of earshot.

On the way down the Umbridge's office, he passed Professors Sprout and Flitwick, who in the middle of a conversation. Terry caught snippets of it as he walked by.

"Yes, I saw her dashing up the Dumbledore's office with the paper just now!" Sprout was saying.

"High Inquisitor, I say!" Flitwick exclaimed. "This Ministry ordeal is going to be the death of all the staff here!"

Terry knocked on the office door when he got there, but there was no answer. He tried the handle and when that didn't work he used his wand, but even Alohamora didn't open it. He suspected that Sprout and Flitwick were talking about Umbridge, so she would probably still be in Dumbledore's office. He sat down with his back against the door and dug through his bag until he found his Charms textbook, which was very interesting for a textbook. He started to read, wishing he had objects to try out spells on with him.

He had lost track of time when Umbridge finally showed up with an evil grin on her hideous face. She spotted him and stopped in her tracks.

"Oh, Boot! You had detention, is that right?" She looked happier than Terry had ever seen her. "Why don't we just wave tonight's detention until tomorrow? It's too late now."

"I also have a detention tomorrow."

"Then push that one to Friday, Boot." She sounded irritated now, as if he should have assumed that himself. Of course, Terry had, but he wanted to clear it with her first.

And so it was nine o'clock on a Wednesday night that Terry finally started on his homework. He had only been back at Hogwarts for a few weeks, and he already had work to do in every subject. Arithmancy was particularly difficult this term, from what he had heard from older students, and so he started with that and worked his way through to the easiest subject: Care of Magical Creatures.

*

As September faded away, and October took its place, the weather became windier. There were some days when Terry almost didn't envy Bradley and Chambers as they soared around the Quidditch pitch, trying not to be blown off course.

However, Terry's anger was now turned full time toward Umbridge and her new position as High Inquisitor. He was now having his wand confiscated at the beginning of every DADA class, and so he spent his time plotting ways of getting her sacked rather than read the stupid textbook.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Anthony raised his hand for silence and Michael and Terry stifled their laughter. "We could take one of the Thestrals in the forest and have it grab her and carry her away! I bet she's never seen death so it would be invisible to her!" Terry snorted and Michael choked on his butterbeer. It was a cold mid-October Friday night, and the three boys were sitting round the fire at four in the morning, drinking and eating sweets, doing homework, and most importantly, hypothetically torturing Professor Umbridge.

The Ravenclaw common room had long cleared, and all the candles were out except for the fire. Terry had his Herbology textbook open in his lap and was half labeling a picture of a Brazilian vanishing shrub and half trying to open a new packet of cauldron cakes with one hand and his teeth as he wrote with the other. He was leaning against the blue armchair that held his cloak and tie, which he had taken off an hour ago. Michael was lying on his back on the sofa in front of the fire and scanning a book of complicated runes and holding a tankard of butterbeer. Anthony was sprawled on the rug so close to the fire that one half of his face was flickering orange in the light and digging a hand into a bag of Bertie Bott's Beans. He was the only one not doing homework because he was the hardest working of the three and usually did his work t breaks so he could devote the rest of his time to half-hearted prefect duties.

"We could do tons of stuff to her." Terry said, finally ripping open the cauldron cake packet and sending the cakes flying in every direction. "But we'd need more people. I wish we could gather a bunch of people and just make this place hell for her and stuff."

"It'd be too hard to keep under the radar." Anthony pointed out, tossing up a bean and catching it in his mouth, only to gag and spit it back out.

"Yeah, 'cause having Thestrals carry her off would go totally unnoticed." Michael countered.

"Bugger off." Was all Anthony said in reply. Terry decided to jump in before it got out of hand.

"We couldn't do that anyway. We'd have to find the Thestrals, and only Hagrid knows where they are, and he isn't here. So unless you want to go scouting the forest for them…"

"You're taking it too literally, Boot." Michael said, slapping his runes dictionary shut and sitting up to put it back in his bag. Terry threw a cauldron cake at him, but then suddenly froze. Footsteps were coming down the staircase to the boys' dormitory.

All three of them stared at the foot of the stairs until the person came into view. Terry knew him by sight as a seventh year and a prefect, but couldn't think of a name to match the face, just like he'd forgotten Cho Chang's friend's name.

"Good Lord!" the prefect exclaimed. "Why aren't you in your rooms?"

"Because it's a weekend." Anthony pointed out, sitting up. The firelight caught a silver gleam on his chest and the prefect spotted it.

"And you're a prefect! A fine example you're setting here. Get to bed, all of you!"

"No way!" Terry could hardly believe this guy. It was Friday night, and they were at Hogwarts, there was no curfew once they were in the common room! "We aren't going anywhere just because some wanna-be Head Boy tells us to!"

"You will if you don't want me telling Professor Flitwick about this!"

Terry didn't really believe that this guy would go to Flitwick, and he also doubted that the head of his house would give a toss if a few students stayed up late at night, but Anthony was looking a bit guilty about not living up to the badge on his chest, and Michael was yawning anyways, so Terry packed up his things, grabbed his cloak and tie and headed up the stairs.