The next morning was awkward for everyone in the dormitory. Lavender kept shooting Bryt odd looks, and Bryt was glad when she finished dressing and could head out of the room. Shortly after, Hermione came down the stairs just has Harry and Ron came down from the boys' dormitories. Bryt blinked as she noticed Harry seemed as if he were ready to hit something. Before Bryt could ask, though, Hermione gave out a frustrated groan and started towards the notice board. Bryt followed Hermione, reading the poster Hermione had obviously found offensive:
GALLONS OF GALLEONS!
Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings?
Like to earn a little extra gold?
Contact Fred and George Weasley,
Gryffindor common room,
For simple, part-time, virtually painless jobs
(we regret that all work is undertaken at applicant's own risk)
"They are at the limit," Hermione hissed, tearing down the advertisement, as she turned back to the others, "We'll have to talk to them, Ron."
"Why?" Ron blurted, looking horrified at the idea.
"Because we're prefects! It's up to us to stop this kind of thing!"
"So, what's wrong, Harry?" Bryt asked before Ron and Hermione could go further with their argument as they left the common room. Though she made a mental note to talk to Mike and Natalie later and warn them against doing any type of work for Fred and George.
Harry didn't answer Bryt, staring straight ahead with the same sour look she saw earlier.
"Seamus reckons Harry's lying about You-Know-Who," Ron said. Bryt and Hermione both sighed.
"Lavender does, too," Bryt said.
"Been having a nice little chat with her about whether or not I'm lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?" Harry snapped and Bryt glared at him.
"Actually, I told her to keep her opinions to herself," Bryt shot back.
"It would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down our throats, Harry," Hermione added, "Because if you haven't noticed, we're on your side."
Harry looked away quickly and was quiet for a moment before muttering an apology.
"We all have bad days," Bryt said with a shrug.
"Don't you remember what Dumbledore said at the end-of-term feast last year?" Hermione asked.
"Something about standing together..." Bryt said slowly. Hermione sighed in annoyance.
"When he was talking about You-Know-Who," she said, "He said, 'His gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust—'"
"How do you remember that stuff?" Ron and Bryt asked.
"I listen."
"So do I," Ron replied, "But I still couldn't tell you exactly what—"
"The point," Hermione cut in, "Is that this sort of thing is exactly what Dumbledore was talking about. You-Know-Who's only been back two months, and we've started fighting among ourselves. And the Sorting Hat's warning was the same—stand together, be united—"
"I'm still not befriending Slytherins," Bryt said sharply as they reached the foot of the marble staircase. A group of Ravenclaws a year below them were a little further ahead. When they noticed Harry, they moved closer together and nearly tripped over each other in their rush to get into the Great Hall.
"Yeah, we really ought to be trying to make friend with people like that," Harry spat.
The four made their way into the Great Hall, but before they could get to the Gryffindor table, Angelina Johnson made her way over to them.
"Good summer?" she asked, but before they could answer, she continued, looking at Harry, "Listen, I've been made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. We need a new Keeper now Oliver's left. Tryouts are on Friday at five o'clock and I want the whole team there, all right? Then we can see how the new person'll fit in."
Bryt glanced towards Ron from the corner of her eye and could see he was already starting to look nervous, though he was obviously trying to hide it. Angelina headed off and the four made their way on towards the Gryffindor table, sitting about halfway along.
"I'd forgotten Wood had left," Hermione said as she picked up a couple of pieces of toast, "I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team?"
"I s'pose," Harry replied, "He was a good Keeper."
"Still, it won't hurt to have some new blood, will it?" Ron asked and Bryt grinned at him.
"'Course not," she said as hundreds of owls came flying in overhead with the morning mail. Bryt paid for her usual Daily Prophet, then unfolded the paper to scan through it.
"What are you still getting that for?" Harry asked, "I'm not bothering...load of rubbish."
"I think she has the right idea," Hermione said, "It's best to know what the enemy are saying."
Bryt ate slowly as she went through the newspaper, looking for any sign of Harry or Dumbledore being mentioned in the paper. When she finished, she pushed the paper in her schoolbag and noticed the others staring at her.
"Nothing today," she said, picking up another piece of bacon as McGonagall passed them, handing out their schedules. Bryt groaned as she noticed their Monday involved History of Magic, double Potions, Divination, and double Defense Against the Dark Arts. Definitely the worst line-up they could have gotten.
Apparently, Ron agreed, beginning wondering out loud if Fred and George were done with their Skiving Snackboxes.
"Do mine ears deceive me?" Fred asked in an air of mock-superiority as he and George sat down next to their group, "Hogwarts prefects surely don't wish to skive off lessons?"
"Look what we've got today," Ron replied, showing Fred the schedule, "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."
"Fair point, bro," Fred said, "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."
"Why's it cheap?"
"Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't gotten an antidote yet," George said.
"Thanks," Bryt said with a snort, "But I'd rather be bored to death than bleed to death."
"And speaking of your Skiving Snackboxes," Hermione spoke up, "You can't advertise for testers on the Gryffindor notice board."
"Says who?"
"Says me. And Ron."
Ron choked on his toast.
"Leave me out of it," he said and Hermione glared at him.
"You'll be singing a different tune soon enough, Hermione," Fred said, "You're starting your fifth year, you'll be begging us for a Snackbox before long."
"And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?" Hermione asked, irritated.
"Fifth year's OWL year."
"So?"
"So you've got exams coming up, haven't you? They'll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they'll be rubbed raw," Fred said simply.
"Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to OWLs," George added, "Tears and tantrums...Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint."
"Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d'you remember?"
"That's 'cause you put Bulbadox Powder in his pajamas."
"Oh yeah...I'd forgotten. Hard to keep track sometimes, isn't it?"
Bryt snorted into her pumpkin juice. She couldn't help but feel extremely sorry for the poor guys who shared a dormitory with Fred and George.
"It's a nightmare of a year, fifth," George said, "If you care about exam results anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow."
"Yeah, and you got, what was it, three OWLs each?" Ron asked.
"Even Sofí did better than that on her KAEs," Bryt said and Fred grinned at her.
"We just feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement," he said.
"We seriously debated on whether we were going to bother coming back four our seventh year," George said, "Not that we've got our OWLs. I mean, do we really need NEWTs? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."
"We're not going to waste our last year here, though," Fred said, "We're going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out exactly what the average Hogwarts student requires from his joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, and then produce the products to fit the demand."
'Wow, they've actually put a lot of thought into this,' Bryt thought, impressed. She had always thought Fred and George's idea of opening a joke shop was simply because they thought it'd be fun. Hearing that they were focusing so much on things like marketing and demand showed they were very serious about this career choice.
"But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop?" Hermione asked, "You're going to need all the ingredients and materials—and premises, too, I suppose..."
"Not to mention paying anyone stupid enough to be your test subjects," Bryt added.
"Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies, ladies," Fred said with an odd sort of grin, "C'mon, George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology."
Fred and George headed off and Bryt looked over at her friends and noticed Hermione looked worried.
"What did that mean?" she asked, "'Ask us no questions...' Does that mean they've already got some gold to start a joke shop?"
"You know, I've been wondering about that," Ron replied, "They bought me a new set of dress robes this summer, and I couldn't understand where they got the Galleons..."
Bryt glanced off towards the Great Hall doors, worried. She could only hope that Fred and George hadn't gotten into anything illegal to get that money—after all, last she knew, they were broke after losing their money to Bagman the year before. They had even tried blackmailing him to get that money back—and she knew Fred and George's money for those ingredients and paying students had to come from somewhere.
"D'you reckon it's true this year's going to be rough? Because of our exams?"
Bryt turned back to her friends as they got up and started across the Great Hall.
"If they're anything like the KAEs at Salem, most likely," Bryt said, "Sofí wrote a lot about how stressed Julio got during his KAE year, and how Astrid and Dante were practically insufferable last year."
"Not to mention OWLs affect the jobs you can apply for and everything," Ron said, "We get career advice, too, later this year. Bill told me about it. So you can choose what NEWTs you want to do next year."
"D'you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?" Harry asked as they started up the stairs for their History of Magic classroom.
"I'm still aiming for MCRS," Bryt said simply. Ever since Terry had told her about the Magical Creature Removal Squad, Bryt had been fascinated by the idea of working with magical creatures on a near-daily basis. Bryt looked over at Ron and Hermione. "What about you two?"
Ron looked a bit embarrassed, not meeting their gaze.
"Well, it'd be cool to be an Auror," he admitted, and Bryt knew Ron enough to tell that he was trying to make it seem like it wasn't that big of a deal, when he actually thought otherwise.
"Yeah, it would," Harry agreed.
Bryt admired the work of Aurors, especially after meeting Tonks, Emily, Moody, and Kingsley, but she knew well enough that a job like that wasn't for her. She was much better suited to MCRS—though Ron once said it was simply the 'magical creature version of Aurors.'
"But they're, like, the elite," Ron went on, "You've got to be really good. What about you, Hermione?"
"I don't know," Hermione said, her brow wrinkled in thought, "Julio and I talked about it a lot over the summer...I think I'd like to do something worthwhile."
"An Auror's worthwhile!" Harry said in the same offended tone he often had when Hermione criticized the others' enthusiasm over Quidditch.
"Yes, it is," Hermione said defensively, "But it's not the only worthwhile thing. I mean, Bryt wants to join MCRS, and Julio wants to be a Healer. Both of those are just as worthwhile as an Auror..." Hermione wrinkled her brow in thought again. "Bryt and I have talked about taking SPEW further once we're out of school..."
"But I'm still going to work with MCRS, too," Bryt said, "You can still have a career and work with SPEW."
Hermione nodded, but didn't say anything else as they entered the History of Magic classroom. Bryt found it surprising that Hermione—the girl who planned everything down to specific times for studying each subject, and took it upon herself to do the same for others—didn't have a plan for after leaving Hogwarts besides 'furthering SPEW'.
'Maybe she'll decide as this year goes on,' Bryt thought as she sat between Harry and Ron. They certainly had plenty of time to think on it.