"Did you see the notice—"
"That's right, Dumbledore's gone-"
"I heard that Fudge tried to—"
No matter where Katie went, there was only one topic of conversation, and that was Umbridge replacing Dumbledore as headmaster of Hogwarts. In the corridors, over breakfast, even in the loo, she couldn't help but over hear people telling their version of what had happened last night. Katie had by now heard some truly absurd versions, though the best had come from a Ravenclaw fourth year (who apparently had it from a fifth year) who had told a very long winded tale of Dumbledore beating back a army of aurors using nothing half a melted candle, and a over sized teddy bear.
Katie, Alicia, and Angelina had gotten a good laugh at of that last one.
Of course, they, with most of the Gryffindor D.A. members, had heard the true story from Harry when he had finally come back in, looking much more weary then he had just a few hours ago. The rest of the school however, had not yet been told the full story, so Katie was frankly surprised that they knew that Fudge, Umbridge, two aurors, and Percy Weasley had been involved.
The teachers seemed less than happy with Umbridge taking over; indeed, Sprout had been much less cheerful than usual when Katie entered the greenhouses, and almost snapped at poor Leanne when she had sent the Snargaluff pod they had been working with right through the ceiling of the greenhouses.
Umbridge, on the other hand, appeared quite satisfied with herself when she entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Katie had hoped that now that she was headmistress, she would stop teaching, but if course, no such thing had happened.
At long last however, just when Katie felt that the urge to scream, the bell rang and Umbrdge was forced to release them to lunch. Relieved that the lesson was finally over, Katie started walking down toward the great hall. Halfway down the stairs, she saw Fred and George going up, looking slightly shifty, and George even winked at her. Grinning to themselves, they kept walking up the stairs. Katie, with a feeling the twins were up to something that was going to get them into trouble, continued walking down the stairs, her hunger outweighing her curiosity to see what they were planning.
A minute or two later however, and Katie was still wondering what they going to do and was very much wishing that she had followed then when she entered the great hall and made her way to a seat next to Alicia.
"What do you reckon they are up to?" asked Katie, nudging Alicia when she was done filling her bowl with soup.
"Huh?" grunted Alicia, her mouth full. Swallowing, she swung her head toward Katie, arching her eyebrow. "Who?"
"Fred and George," said Katie. "I'm telling you, that's the look of someone that's just begging to get into trouble."
"You should have mentioned their names in the first place," said Alicia severely. "But no, I didn't notice them looking mischievous".
"Who? Fred and George?" said Angelina, sitting down on Katie's other side. "That's how they normally look."
"Okay, yes," admitted Katie. "But they looked like they were planning something more just now."
"C'mon, even they wouldn't dare to something the first day of Umbridge becoming headmistress," said Alicia. "It would just be begging for expulsion."
"Maybe they don't care anymore," said Angelina thoughtfully. "They've never really cared their classes, did they?"
"And let's be honest, it's Fred and George," said Katie, emphasizing their names. "Of course they're going to make trouble, it's just a question when."
"Yes, they're going to do something," said Alicia, shrugging her shoulders. "That's a foregone conclusion. I just don't think that they're going to do anything big today."
"C'mon," badgered Angelina playfully. "Think about it. They respected Dumbledore enough to lay off sometimes, but now…"
She sighed and left her sentence hang.
"With Umbridge here, they won't," said Katie, rushing forward to complete her sentence a few moments too late. When Angelina turned to her, a amused look on her face, Katie could only shrug, knowing that she deserved that look
Alicia just rolled her eyes, shaking her head wearily back and forth. "It doesn't matter what you say, I still don't think that they're doing anything today."
"yes they will," said Katie, feeling confident that she could win this argument.
"Nah," said Alicia, "Not yet. They wouldn't dare. Anyway, what would they do? They haven't had enough time yet to plan anything yet.
Angelina lifted her hands up, speaking in a loud and dramatic voice that made Katie snort into her soup, "Oh mighty Fred and George, masters of tricks, show your unbeliever your incredible daring!"
And, with incredible timing that Katie would wonder about for years to come, her wish was granted.
BOOM! An explosion rang through the castle, shaking the very floor. Katie flinched so badly that she sent her soup bowl across the table, spilling soup all over the white table cloth. For a moment, there was a shocked silence over the entire hall.
"I didn't do that, did I?" asked Angelina in a small voice, breaking the silence. Her quip had broken the spell; suddenly everyone was jumping up and yelling, pointing and waving every which way, while the teachers descended in a completely futile attempt to restore order.
"C'mon," said Katie, jumping to her feet and yelling loudly to be heard over the roar of the crowd. "Let's go and see what Fred and George did."
Angelina jumped to her feet as well, a large grin spreading across her face. Alicia, a small smile on her face as well, followed, bellowing, "You, know, Technically, We don't know that's Fred and George who did this."
"Who else could it be?" yelled Katie, fighting her way through the crowd. With some time, and a lot of effort, the three of them managed to get through the doors, joining the crowd that was streaming out in the entrance hall.
To her very great disappointment, Katie could not immediately find the source of the commotion. Everything looked like it usually did. The portraits had not suddenly changed color, there was nothing on the floor, there was no headless Umbridge running around screaming (Katie doubted the last one could happen, but she figured she could always dream.) Now that the crowd could all see what had happened, or rather, the lack of what happened, they quieted down.
"I thought it would be more exciting," Katie heard one first year telling another.
"That was dramatic," said a fifth year coolly.
Katie turned to Angelina and Alicia, both who looked as disappointed as she felt. Fred and George and let her down for the first time.
"Maybe that's the joke," said Angelina half-heartily. "That there is no joke."
And then, out of nowhere, the crowd suddenly erupted again. Turning back, Katie let out gasp.
At least dozen of the biggest, nosiest fireworks she had ever seen were racing through the air. There was massive dragons, banging loudly, Rockets where shooting everywhere, making people duck to avoid having their head taken off, some sparkler's had taken it on themselves to right some extremely rude words in midair, and a truly enormous amount of firecrackers had entered the hall and were exploding like small bombs everywhere they looked.
"There's more coming from over there!" yelled Lee Jordan, pointing up at the marble staircase.
"They're escaping outside!" bellowed McLaggen. Sure enough, some of the fireworks had taken advantage of the open door and make a break for the outside. Everywhere Katie turned, there were people yelling and pointing every which way. More bangs were issuing from the fireworks, drowning out most of what could be heard. The crowd thundered its approval of the fireworks, screaming in delight as more came flying down the stairs.
A sudden upsurge of noise made Katie wrench her eyes to where the crowd was pointing. It was easy to see what the crowd had started yelling at. Umbridge had entered the scene, and was running down the stairs as fast as her short legs could carry her, wand her hand and ash on her face, screaming something that could not be heard over the roar of fireworks. Filch was following her, carrying a still smoldering handle of a broomstick.
With a flick of her wrist, Umbridge shot what Katie recognized from her time with the D.A. as a fully body bind at a dragon. For a moment, it seemed to work; the dragon froze. It gave Umbridge just enough time to think that it might work, then gave the loudest bang yet and shot straight at Umbridge, who barely managed to avoid getting hit.
Umbridge got back to her feet, shouting something that Katie was quite sure was something that shouldn't come out of a teacher's mouth. With a snarl, she waved her wand again, and this time, a firecracker started to fade from sight, then suddenly, with a bright flash, there were ten more.
The crowd cheered at this lack of process, as Umbridge looked aghast at what she had done. Her broad face blotchy with anger, she pointed her wand at her throat and burst out, her voice magically amplified.
"GET TO YOUR CLASSES NOW!
With much disappointment on their faces, the crowd broke up hastily, most of them walking toward the stairs, where their next classes where. A few students pushed their way back into the great hall, and Katie made to follow them, when Angelina grabbed her arm and motioned to follow her. Slightly nonplussed, Katie let herself be led away.
Katie, Angelina, and Alicia joined the crowd pressing up the stairs, Umbridge still shouting jinxes at the fireworks which all reacted in various and exiting ways, which made the crowd turn and look, so that going up the stairs was excessively slow.
Katie, Alicia, and Angelina had made it part way off the stairs so that they were very near Filch, who was cradling a very shell-choked Mrs. Norris, When Umbridge shouted "Impedimenta!" Turning around to see what new effect this would cause, the three of them saw the jinx hit the firework, which slowed down and lost most of its energy, before slowly running into a wall and bursting into a cloud of sparks.
There was a great murmur of disappointment at this, as Umbride, looking gleeful starting jinxing every firework within range. Katie sighed, the joyful feeling that had come with the fireworks diminishing slightly. Angelina however only hurried forward, a gleam in her eye.
"I was hoping that she wouldn't be able to figure out how to stop them," said Katie, dodging as a slightly drunk looking firecracker exploded with a small pop over her head. "At least it'll take her a while to get rid of them all.
"And at least we don't have class," Alicia said, watching as Umbridge hit one of the dragons with the jinx; it slowly glided out into the grounds, where it faded into a trail of sparks that was quickly extinguished by the wind. "It could be worse."
Katie nodded, still watching Angelina as she climbed up the stairs. Something in the gleam of hers made Katie think of the wink George had thrown her. Angelina certainly wasn't acting as though anything was amiss, but Katie couldn't shake the feeling that she was planning something.
"Down here," said Angelina suddenly, turning down the mostly vacant second floor corridor. Looking nonplussed, Alicia followed and Kate trotted after, the feeling that Angelina was planning something only increasing as the quickly made their way down.
"Angelina," said Alicia, shaking her head and puzzled. "What are we —"
"In here" said Angelina, ducking into an empty classroom. "Quickly" she added, looking up and down the corridor.
Still looking bewildered, Alicia walked into the classroom, and Katie followed. Angelina, with one last sweep of the corridor, closed the door behind them and sat down on the closest desk.
"We can't let Umbridge get all the fireworks," said Angelina without preamble. "Fred and George put too much work into making those damn things for it all to go to waste."
"You want us to stun Umbridge?" asked Katie hopefully.
"Actually," said Angelina, frowning at her, "I was more thinking along the eyes that we could multiply them."
"You mean make more," said Alicia. "How? It took the Weasley twins months to make those."
"Did you see what happened when Umbridge tried to Vanish them?" asked Angelina, leaning back on the desk. "They multiplied."
"And you want us to do the same thing," said Katie, understanding dawning on her. "We can totally do that."
"Are you sure?" said Alicia. "If we get caught…"
"So we'll be careful," shrugged Angelina. "Anything to make more trouble for Umbridge."
"C'mon Alicia," wheedled Katie. 'It'll be fun."
Alicia let out a sigh, shaking her head. "You two are going to be the death of me, you know that?"
'You'll do it?" asked Angelina, a grinning spreading across her face.
"Fine," Alicia said, sighing again. "I guess that I now I've started joining secret societies, breaking few more rules can't hurt."
"Great," said Katie enthusiastically. "Let's go find some fireworks!"
The three of them strode out, Alicia closing the door behind them and started searching for fireworks to Vanish. Whether it was due to Angelina's sixth since, good fortune, or that fact that the firecrackers were really loud, they found some almost as soon as they set out.
Katie suspected that it was the third one; the firecrackers were really loud.
They turned the corner and found themselves starting at corridor with a massive amount of fireworks at it already. At second glance, Katie realized that there were only three of them. The relative tight confines of the corridor made it seem like there were many more.
"Ready?" Katie asked the other two. When the nodded, she raised her wand, and, with a flick, she "Vanished" the dragon gliding along the corridor. With a loud POP! The dragon glowed and suddenly burst into ten more dragons, filling the corridor with dragons. Next to those, there were suddenly ten more firecrackers, positively filling the hall with the sound of their banging. Squinting through the mass of sparks (Alicia had hit a sparkler, so that there were several swearwords blocking her view) Katie realized that that there was slight flaw in their plan: The fireworks could only escape in two directions; toward the other end of the hall, and toward them.
"Oh dear," she muttered to herself, unheard by the other's in all the commotion. One of the dragons seemed to have heard her though; Katie could have sworn it was grinning at her. As its brothers banged into walls and belched fire and flew toward down the far end of the corridor, this dragon, banged loudly once, then starting flying toward them, intent upon getting them.
Katie stumbled backwards. She dully noticed Alicia and Angelina pause halfway through congratulating themselves. Though Katie couldn't see their faces, she was sure that they too had realized how much of a dilemma they were in.
"RUN!" yelled Angelina, bolting down the corridor, Alicia speedily legging it after her. Katie only paused long enough for to register that another dragon had started after the first, before fleeing the scene in a kind horrified trance. Everything seemed to slow down. Katie saw Alicia cast a terrified glance, her mouth opened in a expression that would Katie would ordinarily think was hilarious, but right now spurned her on to greater speeds.
"UP AHEAD," yelled Alicia, pointing at one of the doors that led to the same classroom they had so recently left, her hand shaking wildly as she ran. Katie could barely hear her over the dragons behind her. Though she didn't think that the sparks the dragons were comprised of would hurt her much, it didn't help stop the pictures coming to mind of her being squished by a sparking dragon.
Angelina burst through the door ahead, Alicia diving in right after her. Katie sprinted down the corridor, praying with all her might that she would make it…
The dragon was almost touching, she could feel the heat coming from it…
The classroom was so close now…
Katie could actually see the sparks flying past her as the dragon snorted… It was going to be too close… She wasn't going to make it.
And then, with one last effort, Katie jumped through the doorway, turning in midair to watch as the dragon soared past the doorway. It banged angrily as it passed, snorting in disappointment.
Gasping for breath, Katie rolled over onto her side, clutching a stitch in her ribs. After a minute, when her heart rate had dropped back to beating fast, she turned over to find that the other two were staring at her.
'What?" said Katie, climbing to her feet.
They looked at each other, and then burst out laughing; Katie couldn't help but feel slightly hurt.
"Nothing," gasped Angelina, snorting in an undignified manner. When Katie glared at her, she positively doubled over in laughter, holding herself up on a desk.
"What?" asked Katie, starting to get annoyed now.
"You," Alicia wheezed, clutching her sides. "Your face."
"What? Did it get burned?" Katie reached up for her face, frantically feeling it. Angelina, who had just managed to support her own wait, fell to the floor, she was laughing so hard.
"No, no," gasped Alicia. "You were acting like it was so dramatic, that's all."
"I almost died just now," said Katie forcefully, as Angelina continued to roll on the floor.
"Your right, It's not funny," said Alicia. "It's really not," she added, prodding Angelina with her toe.
"Your face," snorted Angelina. "That jump through the doorway. Your expression. You know that a firework can't actually kill you, right?"
"I know," admitted Katie in a small voice. At this, Angelina doubled over again, but Alicia had stood up straight.
"That," said Alicia, "Was a lot of fun."
"You bet it was," said Angelina. Katie only nodded her mind still on the dragon.
"Let's go do it again," said Alicia, marching toward the door. "You guys coming?"
Angelina was back on her feet very quickly for someone who had just been rolling on the floor.
"And you didn't want to do this," she called, as she jogged through the door after Alicia, leaving Katie sitting on the floor by herself.
Shaking her head, Katie followed, listening to Angelina and Alicia eagerly discussing where they should go next.
And so, the three of them wandered around the school making the fireworks multiply, secure in the knowledge that they were causing Umbridge massive amounts of trouble. At last, when they were sweaty, tired, ash covered, and the bell had rang to signal that it was time for them to go to classes, they stopped, satisfied that the amount of fireworks they had "helped" would keep their new headmistress busy for the rest of the day.
And at the end of it, anything that kept Umbridge unhappy was enough of a reason for Katie to risk life and detention.
.