My life is just getting more fun by the minute.
Except for the boils. Lee swore 'cause he ruptured a few (I think) in Defense today, and Umbridge gave him a week's detention. Brilliant.
But, moving on to more important matters, Harry's Defense classes've resumed. Luckily Angelina didn't make us have practice today, bless her, so Dumbledore's Army had its first meeting. Well, actually, there was a large amount of chaos before that, revolving around the most unlikely of people: Trish.
I shouldn't talk like it was an exhausting day caused by someone else, because naturally, I started the fiasco.
"Angelina!" She was by the fire in the morning. "This is serious. Do you know Andrew Rimmer?"
"Ravenclaw in our year? What about him?" No eye contact again. Argh.
I glanced around the room. "I think…I think that he and Trish are dating."
Ang snorted. "Fred, that's absurd! She would've told me!" It didn't sound as grand or convincing to me as I'm sure it did to Angelina in her head.
"You didn't see them all…cozy in the library?" I asked. "And I know for a fact that someone else asked her out on a date and she rejected him." Ahem, that was me. "It could have been because she's dating Andrew."
"Wait," said Angelina. "Someone else asked her on a date? Anyway, if she didn't tell me that then I suppose it's…possible. I'll have to talk with her."
"No!" I said, almost too insistently. "She'll just blatantly deny it! You have to talk to Andrew."
"Why can't you do it Fred?" asked the Braids. "You're a boy, you'll get along with him better."
"Well you see, Angel dearest," I said, as though speaking to someone rather dim and not making a strange and bold remark, "I'm not Trish's best friend."
"I'll do it at breakfast," Angelina said.
And that's how I started a Muggle rollercoaster. (Dad taught us about those things when they fascinated him back in our second year)
At breakfast, when the six of us were going into the Great Hall, I kept throwing Ang fervent glances so she'd get the message to go talk to Andrew. Finally, she broke off from our little coterie and found herself a seat near him at the Ravenclaw table. I felt a strange little pang of jealousy somewhere deep in my stomach somewhere, but I ignored it because I knew I had no reason to worry.
Once we were all back in the common room, all hell broke loose.
"Where's Ang?" asked Alicia.
"Oh, she's talking to Andrew Rimmer," I said smugly. Trish's eyes grew wide.
"And why is she talking to Andrew?" she asked.
"Oh, no reason," I said, smirking more still. I should've known better than to consistently smirk at Patricia Stimpson. She got out of her armchair and came over to mine, pulled me out and twisted my arm behind my back.
"Ouch!" I cried.
"Why is Ang talking to Andrew?" She jerked my arm. Pain!
"I…asked her to!" Another jerk! "We thought…you two were dating…so I had Ang find out!" Trish was so shocked that she dropped my arm. Thankfully.
"You what?"
"Well Fred," said Alicia coolly. "You were wrong. I also am starting to think that you only started those ridiculous accusations after Trish turned you down."
My jaw dropped. How had she known--? Oh no, Trish must've let it out gossiping with her girlfriends in the dormitory sometime. Oh, that's just smashing. And to top it off, Angelina walked in just in time to hear that sentence!
"See?" cried Trish. "Why won't anyone believe that Andy and I are just friends? Not that bloody complicated of a concept!"
"Andy?" Alicia gave her a raised eyebrow.
"Oy!" said George. "My twin! You asked Trish out and she rejected you? That's hilarious!" Not the time!
"Wow, you're all so pathetic that I feel as though this would provide great commentary material."
"LEE!" That was all of us. No one spoke until our classes, and not much happened in them, except for Lee's little episode, which you heard of. His detentions actually don't start till Wednesday, so thankfully he could come to the meeting Ron found us and told us about. His instructions were to be on the seventh floor, near the statue of Barnabas the Barmy. When we got there, we found several people already there in a room filled with books, cushions, and lots of things that I'm sure I saw in Mad-Eye Moody's room last year.
"It's bizarre," I said, frowning around the room. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then…"
"Hey, Harry, what's this stuff?" asked Dean Thomas.
"Dark Detectors," Harry said. "Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't' want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled…"
First up, we elected a leader. Well, Harry was already unspoken leader, so Hermione wanted us to raise our hands and all to make it official and whatnot. That being done, we had to picka name.
"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" said Angelina hopefully.
"Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?" I suggested.
"I was thinking," said Hermione, frowning at me. Hey, Ang said one too! Frown at her! "More of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings."
"The Defense Association?" said Cho Chang. "The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"
"Yeah, the D.A.'s good," said Ginny. "Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?"
My sister the genius. Hermione wrote DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY across the paper we'd all signed at the first meeting and pinned it up on the wall.
"Right," said Harry. "Shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful —"
"Oh please," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes. Watch it, lad… "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"
"I've used it against him," Harry said quietly. "It saved my life last June."
George and I would've clapped, but under the circumstances we couldn't. Zacharias just sort of gaped.
Harry had us divide into partners, so naturally I was with George. Alicia was eyeing him a bit but I snatched him up first. Ang was with Trish, so Leesh was stuck with Lee. Haha. We practiced a few times, and since we had it down, George and I decided to wander.
Zacharias was at the other end of the room, trying to disarm Anthony Goldstein.
"Come on," I whispered to George, and we hid several feet behind him in the corner. As soon as he lifted his wand to disarm Anthony George muttered, "Expelliarmus!"
Zacharias's wand flew out of his hand; George and I doubled up in silent laughter and took turns doing the same thing over and over for several minutes. After that, though, Harry caught us and moved on. He blew a whistle in between then let us go off and practice more. That was fun, because I happened to be watching Harry when he was talking to Cho, at which point Terry Boot's nearby wand shot through the air past Harry's ear and hit Alicia in the nose. Hard, too. Everyone of the six of us except for Leesh was laughing.
Then the whistle was blown for the last time that evening. Harry wanted us to meet same time, same place, the next week, but Ang had to pipe in and talk about Quidditch practice. I love the sport, really I do, just not in our current conditions; we still don't know how to heal the boils! Anyway, in the end we decided on next Wednesday, so it ought to be fun. Then Harry pulled out — George and I swelled with pride — the Marauder's Map and let everyone out in shifts, looking at it. We left with Trish and Angelina.
"That was great!" I said, stirring up conversation. "Harry's a good teacher."
"Yeah," said Ang, nodding. "I noticed that too. He'd make a good Quidditch captain someday. After I'm gone, that is."
"Tomorrow then?" joked George. She punched him in the arm. The four of us laughed.
"But really," said Trish in her 'speculation voice'. "The boy's quite good at taking charge, and I saw a good many people improving their disarming. Looks like this group may work out after all."
"Trish," we all said in unison.
"What?" she asked.
"You're too negative sometimes," I said. "You don't even know Harry, you'd be surprised at what he's capable of."
"I never said he was incapable!"
Well, I wont' bore you with the details, but we argued comically all the way back to the tower. It was all in fun though, as it always is. Then George and I bid the girls good night and went up to the dormitory to wait for Lee. The three of us pondered how he can get out of detention with Umbridge, but decided to leave it. After all, detention's not a real big thing; we do it all the time. Scrubbing trophies, bedpans, helping teachers…not too challenging after years of experience. And Umbridge won't do anything different from those; it's standard detentions procedure at Hogwarts now.