The next week passed with much suffering. My professors were all trying to run me to the ground. We learned vanishing spells in Transfiguration, which I found nearly impossible. Morgana and I had stayed up until the small hours of Wednesday morning until I could vanish a mouse properly. Then, we reviewed summoning spells in Charms class, which I'd promptly forgotten how to do after exams last year. In Herbology, at least, the shrubs and I had reached an agreement of sorts where if I didn't talk loudly, they wouldn't try to eat me.
The weekend had been much appreciated. Sunday had been dedicated to homework. Evie and I worked our arses off trying to finish our Herbology essays on time. Neville longbotto,, came into the common room at four in the morning to find Evie and me crying over our parchments, and even though he was outstanding at Herbology, Neville stayed to help us finish in time.
Monday morning, Evie and I dragged ourselves down to the Great Hall for breakfast. We were running on less than three hours of sleep.
"You look beautiful," said Morgana, grinning at us over her morning cup of pumpkin juice.
Evie mumbled something in response and nibbled on a croissant.
"Look at this." Morgana shoved her copy of the Daily Prophet under my nose.
"I'm too tired to read," I said, making myself a cup of tea and almost forgetting to add the hot water.
"'Ministry Seeks Educational Reform'," said Morgana, reading the article title aloud, "'Dolores Umbridge Appointed First Ever "High Inquisitor"'."
"Hold up?" asked Evie through a mouthful of croissant.
"Get this," said Morgana, leaning forward in her seat, "They interviewed Percy Weasley—you know, the older brother—and he's anti-Potter and anti-Dumbledore."
I glared at Morgana. She knew mentioning Potter meant I couldn't join the conversation.
"Listen," said Evie before continuing, "'Educational Decree Twenty-Three…creates the new position of "Hogwarts High Inquisitor". This is an exciting new phase in the Minister's plan to get to grips with what some are calling the "falling standards" at Hogwarts… The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect her fellow educators and make sure that they are coming up to scratch… The Ministry's new moves have received enthusiastic support from parents of students at Hogwarts—"
"Not my parents," I scoffed. "I told Mum about Umbridge last week, and she sent back a letter, saying she was going to complain to Dumbledore and that I can't have a teacher like that during my OWL year."
"As long as it's anti-Dumbledore," said Morgana grimly, "my dad's all for it."
"They have a quote from Lucius Malfoy," said Evie, turning her attention back to the article. "He says, 'I feel much easier in my mind now that I know that Dumbledore is being subjected to fair and objective evaluation… Many of us with our children's best interests at heart have been concerned about some of Dumbledore's eccentric decisions in the last few years and will be glad to know that the Ministry is keeping an eye on the situation.'"
"Aw," said Morgana, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. "Lucius Malfoy is just so concerned about our well-being."
"It was dangerous to have a werewolf as our teacher and that half-giant has proven to be an inconsistent professor."
"Lupin actually taught us stuff," snapped Dean. "Unlike Umbridge."
"Hagrid has the occasional good lesson," added Evie. "I liked the hippogriffs."
"Wasn't that the lesson where Draco's arm got slashed open because he insulted the hippogriff?" I asked. That hippogriff was my hero.
"I can't believe Umbridge is going to be inspecting other professors."
"Government regulation of schools isn't unusual," said Morgana. "But the inspections aren't usually done by another professor."
"Imagine her inspecting Snape," said Evie with a laugh.
"Or McGonagall," I added.
The rest of breakfast was spent imaging different teachers being inspected by the High Inquisitor. We had Herbology first period, but much to our disappointment, Umbridge was not in the class (we would've enjoyed watching one of the plants try to eat her). Instead, we moved on from self-fertilizing shrubs to Chinese chomping cabbages. By the time the class had ended, I had bite marks all over my forearms.
Afterwards, we had double potions with the Slytherins. Morgana and I had barely settled in our seats when Snape swept into the classroom and handed back our graded homework assignments from last week.
"I have awarded you the grades you would have received if you presented this work in your OWL," said Snape. "This should give you a realistic idea of what to expect in your examination." He reached the front of the room and turned to face the class. "The general standard of this homework was abysmal. Most of you would have failed had this been your examination. I expect to see a great deal more effort for this week's essay on the various varieties of venom antidotes, or I shall have to start handing out detentions to those dunces who get D's."
Malfoy released a barely concealed laugh. "Some people got D's!"
" Keep interrupting my class and ill give you a D Malfoy"
I examined the black E at the top of my paper on moonstones and breathed a sigh of relief. With a teacher like Snape, it helped to be in his house, but he was known for giving credit when credit was due . I glanced over at Morgana and saw the O in the corner of her parchment.
"Show off," I muttered, shoving my essay into my bag.
As per usual, Morgana and I prepared our potions together, and by the end of the class, both of our Strengthening Solutions were the proper shade of turquoise. With a feeling of triumph, I placed my labeled flagon on Snape's desk and went to pack up my things.
"How'd you do on your essays?" asked Evie as we made our way to the Great Hall for lunch.
"Exceeds Expectations," I said.
"What did you get?" asked Evie.
"Outstanding," said Morgana.
"Same," said Evie cheerfully.
I vote to slip poison in your morning pumpkin juices."
Morgana laughed. "You can't even make a Strengthening Solution without me, Ashe, how do you expect to make a poison by yourself." As if on cue a ratty and tattered old Advanced potions making book fell from the shelf by the door and into my hands. " Interesting i said, i stuffed the book into my bag.
As we reached the entranceway for the Great Hall, there was a squeal, we heard shrill laughter to our right. I looked over and saw a group of fourth-year and one sixth-year Ravenclaw girls giggling amongst themselves. There were about four of them in the group, and they were all leaning on each other as they laughed, following their gaze i saw Evie who appeared to had been hit with what looked like a Jelly-Legs Jinx, and she clung to one of the stone pillars in an attempt to keep herself upright. When her legs collapsed beneath her and she landed on the hard floor, the Ravenclaw girls laughed even harder.
Pansy puffed out her chest to show off her prefects' badge and started making her way across the Entrance Hall. Pansy, of course, had no love for Ravenclaw or Griffindor, and I doubted she cared one bit about Evie being jinxed, she just loved showing off her power over others and this was the perfect chance to do so.
"Hey, horse-head," said Pansy.
To her shame, one of the Ravenclaws looked up in response to "horse-head".
"No spells in the corridors between classes," said Pansy. "And especially not spells against other students. Detention. All of you." She gestured to the Ravenclaw girls. "You should be glad it'll be with Flitwick instead of Umbridge." Pansy gave them a nasty grin. "I hear she makes you write in your own blood."
The color drained from the girls' faces, and they certainly weren't laughing anymore. However, Pansy was merciless as she asked "horse-head", "dog's-breath", "newt-face", and "flobberworm" their real names so she could report them. Then, with a smirk of triumph, Pansy turned around and rejoined her group of friends. Of course, throughout all this, she'd completely forgotten to undo the Jelly-Legs Jinx on poor Evie and I quickly cast the counter-spell before Morgana helped her up, we then headed into the Great Hall for lunch.
Students jinxing each other between classes was nothing new. In my opinion, it was the inevitable side effect of teaching a bunch of kids magic, and as much as the professors tried to control the students, we were all idiots and there was no stopping it.
Ravenclaws were the worst of the lot when it came to jinxing other students. They liked to be considered one of the "nice" houses and remained in most professors' good books, but in truth, Ravenclaws were a bunch of know-it-alls who often wanted to try out a new spell on some poor, unsuspecting underclassman. However, no one really held grudges against the Ravenclaws because at least they treated everyone the same: they hexed Gryffindors for being prats, they hexed Slytherins for being rude, they hexed Hufflepuffs for being too nice, and they even hexed other Ravenclaws for being know-it-alls.
Gryffindors and Slytherins didn't hex others nearly as often as Ravenclaws did, but people complained about them more. Occasionally, a "funny" Gryffindor will hex a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw for a joke, and an elitist Slytherin will throw a spell in the direction of a muggleborn, but for the most part, the two houses focused on each other. However, unlike Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Slytherin hexing battles reached a whole different level of mean. I still remembered the fights leading up to the final Quidditch match of the season in my third year. Two students ended up in the Hospital Wing with leeks for ears, Potter couldn't walk anywhere without tripping, Marcus Flint's head had been shrunk to half its regular size, and Angelina Johnson had been rushed to Madam Pomfrey with pus spurting from her nose. Needless to say, no one wanted to get involved in a Gryffindor and Slytherin fight if they could avoid it.
Hufflepuff was far and away the best house, or so Hannah Abbott liked to remind me on a regular basis. They very rarely started fights in the corridors, and often they wouldn't even seek revenge if another student did hex them something the other houses seemed incapable of doing. The only time Hufflepuffs ever really jinxed someone was when they'd seen that person bullying another student. I still remembered the time in third year where Cedric Diggory had stopped a Ravenclaw student from hitting Me with a Pimple Jinx. I would never be a Hufflepuff, but one had to admire them.
After lunch, it was time for our elective classes, and we parted ways. Ancient Runes was fun for me and torture for Morgana who could never seem to remember the runes. I think they were relieved when the class ended and we headed to Defense Against the Darks Arts—a subject they knew they were better than me at.