They were really in trouble now. They had gone and done it. Not only had they been out of bed after class, not only had they been out of the castle after dark, not only had they been in the Forbidden Forest, they had been destroying the home of the spiders, who could have most definitely killed them... at least in Professor McGonagall's view. No amount of persuasion could convince her that they could have gotten out at any time. Of course, the scratches on Morgana and Stormy were not exactly convincing anybody that there had been no danger.
On top of that, McGonagall refused to wake Dumbledore up at this hour, insisting that it could wait till morning. In the meantime, she took fifty points off both Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Both girls thought this extremely unfair. But McGonagall made them go to bed, saying once more that it could wait till morning.
Morgana left McGonagall's office very sulkily. She stalked back to Ravenclaw Terrace, told the mirror the password ("red radish"), ignored its comments (someone must have got the spell off of it), and proceeded right to her bed on top of Circe's bunk.
That had to have been the worst-fated of her outings, ever, thought Morgana. She should have taken the time to put an Invisibility Spell up; she should have been more careful; she should have checked to see if anyone was out there. But then, it wasn't as if she had had time to check anything, much less put up an Invisibility Spell; she had been fighting a score or so of giant spiders at the time.
The strange thing was that she wasn't blaming Stormy. She guessed that there are some things you just can't survive together without becoming friends, and being attacked by several dozen bloodthirsty giant spiders is one of them.
"Wake up, everyone! It's time for classes!"
Morgana groggily got out of bed and pulled on her extra school robes before she realized she was already wearing her robes. She had fallen asleep in them.
She disentangled herself from the robes and grabbed her wand, which she had summoned back from the Forbidden Forest, and her books. It was going to be a long day.
It turned out to be a lot longer than she thought.
Dumbledore sighed.
"I'm afraid I'll have to notify your parents," he told them. "About everything."
This was far worse than anything they had expected. Morgana's mother would simply kill her for getting into a fight, period. She had always wanted her daughter to be extra careful. Stormy's grandfather, Tom Riddle, would be furious she hadn't managed to kill Morgana, and now was (shudder) friends with her!
Yes, it was going to be a long week.
A red envelope floated down from the owl. It landed in Morgana's cereal.
"Oh no," she moaned. "Not another one!"
Across from her, another Howler had descended and landed on top of Stormy's head. It went off at the same time Morgana gloomily opened hers.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, YOUNG LADY? I WILL NOT HAVE YOU FIGHTING IN SCHOOL!! DO YOU REALIZE WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED? THAT WAS REALLY DANGEROUS..."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DIDN'T KILL THAT SORRY LITTLE RAVENCLAW? I SHOULD... I SHOULD... WELL, I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD... OR RATHER I DO KNOW, BUT WON'T SAY IT...."
The voices of Tom and Morgana's mother Violet battled, each a hundred times louder than in real life. Their victims were glad that the sniggers from the other House tables were drowned out by the noise.
When the two Howlers finally stopped, Morgana and Stormy looked at each other.
"It's reply time!" said Stormy, sounding not in the least remorseful.
"Right!"
They grabbed a piece of parchment each. Stormy wrote:
You know you wouldn't dare do a thing to me. Don't forget, I'm more powerful than you are!
Morgana's note read:
Sorry, Mum, but it's my life. I am not a baby any more. So will you please try not to treat me like one?
Of course, both of them knew that this was almost guaranteed to get them another Howler. But neither really cared.
Strangely enough, neither Morgana nor Stormy got another Howler from those sources. Nothing really exciting happened for a while, besides the Triwizard Tournament and the whole she-bang of stuff like that. But it would be too much time to relate them here. The real adventure began near Christmas time....
A/N: One word: review. A few more words: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
