A/N: I have finally returned!! And I'm back to writing Rebellion, although I do have to warn people that I'm now in college. Anyway, there's a better author's note in my profile, for those who are curious. Enjoy this chapter!
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All through Wednesday Harry, Ron, Neville, Draco, and even Hermione discreetly spread rumors about Snape and Umbridge. All kinds of rumors, from the ordinary rumors about Snape being a vampire, to the extreme rumors that Umbridge was going to conduct a survey on how much wood a woodchuck could chuck.
Harry had suggested to Neville and Draco, as an offhand remark, that it would be interesting to see what rumors about the two teachers the other students would accept. This added the two boys into the rebellion without them knowing about it. Ron had cheerfully gone about spreading rumors to different students once he was told about the next plan in the rebellion. Hermione had join in once she had heard Ron's first rumors that he told the other fifth year Gryffindors, having figured out the plan once Harry had joined in. So there was currently a group of five spreading mischief, instead of the two that normally did.
The students didn't believe most of the rumors that the five spread, who would believe that Snape was a spider in disguise? But some of them, especially the ones spread by Hermione, were believed by the student body.
Breakfast and lunch had students whispering to the other houses, comparing rumors. Most of the teachers managed to hear the rumors, listening to the whispering. The only teacher that hadn't heard any of the rumors was Umbridge. She was too busy talking loudly to the other teachers, who were ignoring her, to even notice that there was something going on with the students. Umbridge was so involved in her monologue about the greatness of Minister Fudge that she didn't even notice the funny taste to her food.
Neville leaned over to Harry and spoke right next to his ear, making Harry wince, since he didn't even bother to lower his voice. "I've got something to tell you?"
"What?" Harry asked. He leaned slightly away from Neville, and rubbed his ear.
"Not here, follow me." Neville got up and motioned to Harry. Harry made his excuses to Ron and Hermione and followed Neville out of the Great Hall.
"What is it?" Harry asked when they were in the Entrance Hall. He noticed that Draco Malfoy had followed them out, and was now swinging his arms while he waited."You know that potion that Malfoy and I are on?" Neville asked. His eyes glowed brightly in the morning light.
"What about it?" Harry asked. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he was fighting not to grin too soon.
Both Neville and Draco were now grinning widely as they spilled their secret. "We managed to brew more of the potion," Draco proudly proclaimed.
"After only five tries," Neville added.
"We used those to melt away Bumbridge's door knobs," Draco informed Harry.
"You should have seen it." Neville nodded in his excitement.
"Sounds like a good job." The grin had now appeared on Harry's face at what the two hyped up boys were telling him.
"We did something even better." Malfoy's grin widened. "Go on, tell him."
"We put the finished potion, the correct one, in Umbridge's food today." Neville clapped his hands together as he waited for Harry's reaction.
"You put the Dementiana potion in Umbridge's food?" Harry asked. Neville and Draco nodded furiously. "You just made Umbridge insane?"
"Sorry, Harry," Draco apologized, though he couldn't quite feel bad enough to get rid of his grin.
"What for?" Harry asked. He couldn't help thinking of the fun that would be had today.
"We know that you wanted to be the one to drive her over the edge," Neville answered.
"To be the one to make her go insane," Draco said with relish.
"If it makes you feel better, it is a sort of artificial way to go about it," Neville said.
"You two, this is great," Harry exclaimed. "All we ever wanted is to get Umbridge out of Hogwarts."
"Oh, we haven't quite managed that yet," Neville replied.
"We better get to work then, haven't we?" Harry asked.
"Yes, sir," Neville and Draco almost chorused together. They began to march back into the Great Hall. Harry shrugged, and started marching behind them.
Neville and Draco marched right up to where Umbridge was sitting on her 'head' chair. Umbridge stopped her rant on the moles in the ministry, who seemed to love to dig holes in her office, to peer rather cross eyed at the three boys. "May I help you?"
"May I see your wand?" Draco asked sweetly. His tone was so fake, but Umbridge seemed to buy that it was real.
"What for?" Umbridge asked as she started fumbling for her wand.
"It's a test," Neville answered.
"A test for what?" Umbridge finally yanked her wand out of her pocket, where it had been caught on her cardigan. There now was a very nice hole in her sweater, but Umbridge hadn't noticed.
"If you can still cast spells with it, it should only take a few days," Malfoy said. He took her wand and put it in a pouch before anyone could say anything. The teachers around Umbridge were watching this newest stunt curiously, but they didn't bother to interrupt. Umbridge could take care of herself, although, the fact that she had just given her wand to the insane students in the school did suggest otherwise.
"Why wouldn't my wand work?" Umbridge spooned another mouthful of food into her mouth. As she chewed, she wondered about the newest spice that the house elves seemed to be using and why they hadn't used it earlier in the year, it was so good.
"Any number of things," Harry spoke up for the first time.
"Bad plumbing seems to be one of the largest factors in whatever is causing this," Draco added.
"I was just in a bathroom last night," Umbridge said.
"Don't worry, your wand will be as good as new in a few days," Neville said.
"Have a good day," Draco called out as the three boys walked away.
Umbridge went back to eating, humming happily away as she ate. The teachers near Umbridge made their excuses and left, not wanting to start laughing around her.
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The next big stunt for the day didn't really happen until dinner, but that didn't mean that the day wasn't interesting. All day long students were deliberately prompting the insane Umbridge to do silly things. One person even got her to dance on the tables at lunch time. Mostly, people used the insanity to get out of classes.
Draco and Neville continued to run around the school like crazed chipmunks. This perplexed the teachers, as this was the day that the potion was supposed to wear off. What the teachers didn't know was that the boys had their own secret stash of the potion and were still taking it. Madam Pomphrey, Professor McGonagall, and Snape tried to get the boys to stand still enough so that they could find out what was happening, but they couldn't catch either of the two. So they just settled on watching the two teens closely, for any signs that something was wrong.
During dinner, Harry, Ron, and Hermione discreetly built up a spider web above the teacher's table. Most of the people in the Great Hall were distracted by Draco Malfoy throwing a temper tantrum because his house mates insisted that he eat actual food for dinner, instead of candy. This allowed the trio to build up a magnificent spider web, that gradually grew to envelope most of the Great Hall.
The spider web was brought to the attention of the students and teachers by Draco Malfoy. He abruptly stopped his temper tantrum by pointing dramatically at the spider web and exclaiming. Every one turned to look at what he was pointing to, knowing by now that there would be something good at the front of the room.
Most of the students started laughing, the Slytherins being the only ones who were quiet. Written in the spider web was "Property of Snape." Maybe there was something to the rumor that Snape was a spider.
The teachers looked up to the spider web above them and didn't do anything. The lot of them decided that this was another thing that Snape and Umbridge could handle. Unfortunately, Umbridge just looked up at the web and giggled, amused by the giant web above her head. Snape tried to vanish the web, but it didn't work. The irate teacher sent out curse after curse, but whatever the trio had did couldn't be dissolved by just any random spell. There was only one counter curse that would get rid of the spider webs and, unfortunately, Snape didn't know it.
Snape got up, shoving his chair back, and stalked out of the Great Hall. Harry was in place near the doorway, knowing that Snape's next move would be to leave the source of his irritation. He let Snape sweep past him and instantly started to follow along behind him.
"Wait," Harry called out, just meters behind Snape. "Wait for me, don't leave me behind."
Snape's only response was to growl at the Boy-Who-Lived. He didn't want to deal with the insane boy at the moment, even if he had agreed to give the boy lessons. Besides, it was at least an hour before those lessons were to start. Why Potter was following him, he didn't know.
"Wait," Harry wailed. He waved his arms in the air, almost hitting Snape's back as he followed close behind the teacher.
Snape continued to ignore the loud teen behind him. Harry continued to flail as he followed Snape, always pleading with Snape not to leave without him. The portraits along the way stared at the two wizards who were causing so much fuss. Hogwarts was so entertaining these days.
When they reached his office, Snape thought about slamming the door behind himself. But, Harry was too close behind him for Snape to shut the boy out if he slammed the door. While knocking Harry out with the door would be enjoyable, there would be too many angry people to deal with if he did so. So, Snape didn't bother with the door after opening it, letting Harry enter his office. Harry closed the door after entering the office, and took his customary spot before the desk.
"Let's get this over with, Potter." Snape held back a sigh, not wanting to show off any weaknesses. Although, at this point, it was mostly just boredom. No matter how hard he tried to teach the boy, he would just do the same thing over and over again. Snape was sure that Harry had a slight understanding of how his mind worked, given that the scenes Snape saw when he got through were almost always themed, but Harry didn't seem to fully understand the concept. Which is what Snape had suspected when he was first told that he had to teach the teen, but he was tired of trying to teach the insane boy.
"Would you like to take a nap first?" Harry randomly asked. He could tell that Snape didn't want to deal with him.
"Just get ready, Potter," Snape said, pulling out his wand.
"If you're sure you don't want to take a nap. I wouldn't mind a nap, it takes a lot of energy to eat dinner." Harry rocked back and forth on his heels as he got out his wand.
"Legilimens," Snape cast, not giving Harry any more time to prepare.
Harry had been kind of expecting that, so he quickly blocked the probe with a picture of Ron snoring on one of the couches in the Gryffindor common room. "I bet you can't guess what I'm thinking about," Harry cheerfully said when the spell was over.
"Potter, I was just in your mind, how can I not tell what you were thinking?" Snape demanded. The outrageousness of the question forced him to answer.
"But, can you tell what I was thinking?" Harry pressed.
"I am not taking a nap, so just forget about it." Snape brought his wand up again.
"You look like you could use one," Harry explained. "So you can dream up the solutions to your problems."
"You mean that if I dream, I'd know how to get rid of you?" Snape asked, pausing from casting the spell.
"Just remember that the logic in dreams is different than in real life, so setting loose a bunch of rubber duckies will not save you," Harry replied.
"Rubber duckies?" Snape raised his eyebrows at the absurd suggestion.
"Have you ever had a dream that Voldemort was attacking you with a giant wooden spoon?" Harry asked.
"A giant wooden spoon?" Snape repeated. He truly wondered about Potter's mind at times.
"A giant wooden spoon." Harry nodded solemnly. "Anyhow, the only solution to the attack in the dream is always to set loose all of those rubber duckies."
"This is pointless," Snape said to himself. He straightened his wand and cast the spell again.
Harry blocked the first spell with a picture of his bed and then he blocked the next spell with a scene from History of Magic class. His theme for the lesson was sleeping, so the next few spells were all blocked by sleeping images. Harry blocked each spell with as random an image as he could think of in the time allotted. Snape seemed to be too annoyed to give Harry any breaks, not wanting to follow another one of Harry's spiels.
When Harry sensed that Snape was getting tired of even the uninterrupted spell casting, he decided to try something new. Harry decided that he was actually going to try to completely block Snape's attempt in getting into his mind. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to succeed, but he should at least attempt to learn, right? So Harry smiled at Snape and said the first random thing that popped into his mind, in order to get Snape to give him a short amount of time to prepare.
"Your hair is blue," Harry blurted out, already trying to blank out his mind.
Snape looked suspiciously at Harry, but he did pause to check on the color of his hair. As he had suspected, his hair wasn't blue, but, with Harry the way he was, there was a chance that his hair had randomly been turned blue. Since his hair hadn't turned blue, he went back to the lesson. "Legilimens."
The small pause had given Harry enough time to stop thinking and clear his mind. So when the spell hit him, there was absolutely nothing in his head. He was concentrating on just listening to the sounds in the office, on his own breathing, and he was just one with the moment. The spell hit him, and Snape was pushing into his mind. Harry tried to block him out with the nothingness, but Snape got through. Instantly there was another picture of the Gryffindor dorm room filled with snoring boys.
Snape broke the connection and lowered his wand. "That's enough for today."
"How did I do?" Harry asked. Strangely enough, his breathing had stayed even throughout the whole spell, so he didn't even look like he had been trying anything different than his usual picture blocking.
"Pitiful as usual, Potter," Snape answered, dismissing him.
"I didn't win the prize," Harry said sadly. He gazed at the floor in apparent despair.
"The only prize to be won in these lessons is you finally learning what your supposed to, so I won't have to see you anymore," Snape replied.
"You mean, if I learn Occlumency, then I will know everything there is to know about Potions, too?" Harry asked about the double meaning that Snape's words had.
"You'll still have to go to Potions class, but I won't have to have you in my office again." Snape made his way around his desk to sit in his chair, still glaring at Harry.
"Does that mean I can act out in class without being lectured?" Harry found another double meaning in Snape's reply.
"Just get out of my office, Potter." Snape dismissed Harry, he was tired of the boy's antics.
"But we were having so much fun," Harry protested.
"The next lesson is at it's regular time on Sunday, be there at the exact time." Snape turned away from Harry, in an attempt at ignoring the teen in hopes that he would just leave.
Turning his back to his opponent really wasn't the brightest thing that the Potions Master could have done though. In his defense, he was really tired from staying up late the night before, informing the Order about the meeting with Voldemort. But, with his back to Harry, he couldn't have avoided the spell that Harry shot at him. When Harry left the office, Snape's hair really was blue.
- Chapter 21 - Spider Web. -