A/N: the following is just a apology. Skip it if you don't feel like reading my apology.

I owe a large apology to all who are following this. I know that it's been almost three(!) months since I've updated. I'm tempted to tell you that I was super busy, but I must not tell lies, so the truth was that I was just lazy. And then I had some hardware failure where I lost what little progress I had made, followed by a bout of procrastination, which led to a delay when I had problems uploading it to this site

Fred and George's Skiving Snackboxes proved so successful that Umbridge, shrieking in aggravation, had been forced to let out all of her classes due to the illusive "Umbridge-itis" that had infected her classroom. The upshot of this, among other things, was that the Umbridge that Angelia spotted trudging into breakfast Saturday morning had never looked as frustrated as she now did. As had become habit, heads turned to look behind her, but for a change, Peeves wasn't in sight.

Angelina turned her gaze back onto Umbridge, who had already sat down and started to scoop some porridge into her bowl. As always when she saw Umbridge, Angelina involuntarily felt her hands curl up to fists, and quickly hid her hands under the table. Never mind Umbridge, McGonagall would undoubtedly have be having words with her if she caught Angelina looking like she might throttle Umbridge.

Angelina started a little as Alicia suddenly slid next to her. She hadn't noticed that Alicia was even in the hall.

"Morning," said Angelina, turning her back on Umbridge and watching her friend pour coffee into the nearest cup.

"Morning," mumbled Alicia into her cup, "Transfiguration today?"

"It's the weekend Alicia," said Angelina patiently, well used to the effect mornings had on her friend. "No lessons today."

"I knew that," said Alicia, after a long pause where she registered what had been said. She rubbed her eyes and took another long drink from her cup. "Why are you up so early then?"

"Oh, I was just thinking about how I was going to get revenge on Umbridge for neutering my Quidditch team," said Angelina, watching Alicia closely for her reaction.

"That's good," said Alicia absently, still too asleep to be paying much attention.

"Speaking of which, practice today, after lunch" said Angelina, glancing at the dark clouds gathering outside the windows and deciding not to call Alicia's attention to them. "Not that it's going to matter, Ravenclaw's going to flatten us next match."

"Hmm," said Alicia, draining the rest of her cup.

"I mean, they're usually not too bad, but this time...you know that's disgusting, right?"

For Alicia had just spat her coffee on the table, looking suddenly much more awake.

"Revenge on Umbridge?" said Alicia, scrubbing at the brown stains on the tablecloth with her fingers, her attention too focused on Angelina to notice that all she was doing was spreading it further. "What's she done now?"

"She ruined my team," said Angelina hotly, though inside she was smirking. It had taken Alicia less than half a minute to react this time, which was better than most times Angelina had tried pulled her leg.

"Angelina," said Alicia, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving them a little shake. "Tell me what happened."

"She kicked Fred, George, and Harry off my team!" said Angelina so loudly that the latter of these people looked up from where he was sitting with Ron and Hermione. "You should know that Alicia, you were there!"

Angelina," said Alicia, letting of Angelina's shoulders and speaking in a tone one would use when they were talking to a dangerously unstable person. "That was months ago!"

"So?" asked Angelina.

"You can't still be angry about it," said Alicia. Underneath the table, Angelina heard Alicia's foot start to tap, either a sign that she was starting to think, or else that all the coffee was starting to get to her, Angelina couldn't tell.

"Why can't I still be mad about it?" demanded Angelina, brandishing her hash brown at Alicia. "I'm of age, I'm allowed to do to anything I like."

"No you're not," contradicted Alicia. "You're not allowed to touch any skrewts anymore.

"I thought we agreed never to mention the skrewts again," said Angelina sharply, glancing over her shoulder to look up at where Hagrid was sitting at the staff table. She took a moment to compose herself, and then asserted, "I'm allowed to still be angry at Umbridge."

Alicia didn't argue, but shook her head and said, "Didn't your mother ever say something about not holding grudges?"

"I must have missed that lesson," said Angelina cheerfully, watching her friend finish off another cup of coffee. "So are you going to help me?"

"Help you with what?" asked Alicia, refilling her cup again while giving Angelina a suspicious look, like Angelina was going to suggest something that she wasn't going to like.

"Help me get revenge on Umbridge of course," Angelina told her. "Haven't you been listening?"

"You're going to get revenge today?" said Alicia. Her only reaction to her suspicions being confirmed was a brief eye roll. "Why?"

"Because today's the day I get revenge," said Angelina, as though this was perfectly obvious.

"Why do you want to revenge?" Alicia clarified.

"Weren't you listening to me?" said Angelina.

"Is it because Umbridge ruined your team?" said Alicia. She rolled her eyes again and continued, "Even though that was ages ago?"

"You have been listening to me then," said Angelina, fighting to keep a smirk off her face as she said this. She really shouldn't get as much of a kick out of leading Alicia on like this as she did, but she figured that she had already spent too much time around the Weasley Twins to ever recover now.

"You're pulling my leg, aren't you?" said Alicia, her toe tapping stopping suddenly. "This is too nonsensical, especially for you."

"'fraid I don't pull legs," said Angelina seriously, though it was ruined a little by her chuckling halfway though. She relented when Alicia gave her an exasperated look. "Okay, so I'm not out for revenge."

"I hear a 'but' in there somewhere..." prodded Alicia.

Angelina grinned at her; Alicia knew her too well.

"But if I see the opportunity, I'm taking it," she finished.

"You really shouldn't," said Alicia, though very half-heartedly, slumping back down into her seat again now that it was clear that Angelina wasn't being serious. "Take a look at Umbridge, don't you feel bad for her?"

Angelina twisted around in her seat again to look up at the Staff table. Umbridge was sitting on the Headmaster's chair, looking down at her Porridge, the eyes that had once swept the hall for any trivial reason to dock points now focused only on the food in front of her. The lines in her face seemed deep, and the deep bags under her eyes revealed just how tired she really was.

"Nope," said Angelina, looking back at Alicia. "Not one bit."

"Me neither," admitted Alicia, taking another gulp out of her cup and refilling it one motion. "But if I know you, you don't have anything planned yet, right?"

"Nope," admitted Angelina offhandedly.

"Then why even bother telling me?" asked Alicia, throwing her hands up in the air.

"To wake you up, of course," replied Angelina grinning at her friend. When Alicia gave her another exasperated look, Angelina continued "Considering everything that's happening to Umbridge, I think I'm allowed to be in a good enough mood to rile you up."

"Wish you were this relaxed on the Quidditch pitch," said Alicia shaking her head while she reached for her cup again.

Angelina ignored this, instead focusing on the owls that had just come soaring into the hall. Angelina watched a grey one carrying a newspaper glide down to where Hermione was, knocking over Ron's juice as it landed, which fell and stained the tablecloth orange. It, Angelina reflected as she watched Ron jump up and start swearing so loudly that two first years looked around in horror, was not a good day if you were a house elf whose job it was to remove stains from the house tables.

"You know," said Alicia, finally setting her coffee aside (though still within easy reach) and pulling a plate of scrambled eggs toward her, "Ravenclaw might not beat us. Their Beaters are nearly as bad as ours."

Angelina snorted. The only way the Ravenclaw Beaters could be as bad as Kirk and Sloper was if they were blind and only had one hand, while flying brooms that were too old to fly in a straight line, and even than it would up for debate.

"Okay, but their hardly brilliant are they? And our Chasers are way better than theirs..."

That was true, Angelina thought, though their Keeper definitely played more—

"Peeves," said Alicia suddenly, nudging Angelina out of her thoughts. Sure enough, when Angelina twisted to look at the doors, Peeves had just entered the hall, grinning at people.

"What is he doing here?" Angelina heard Harry say. "He only comes during the feasts..."

The feasts, Angelina remembered with a jolt, that Dumbledore, who was widely acknowledged as the only teacher who could control Peeves, always presided over.

"Alicia, I believe the opportunity has come to make my discontent about the choice of headmistress clear," said Angelina, watching Peeves closely as he started slowly flying toward the staff table.

"What are you going to do?" asked Alicia, and then paused as a thought struck her. "Angelina, do you know what he's about to do? Did you plan this?"

"I have no clue what's about to happen," said Angelina with complete honesty.

"Good," said Alicia fervently, "because Katie would kill you, she's still mad at him for dumping ink all over her, says she still hasn't gotten all the ink out of her books..."

"Bet you a Knut that Peeves does something before he wakes up Umbridge." Angelina heard Ron tell either Harry or Hermione; she wasn't stupid enough to take her eyes off Peeves to see which one he was talking to.

"You're on," said Harry.

"Excellent," said Ron. "On an unrelated note, Hermione, could I borrow a Knut?"

"You don't have any money and you're gambling?" Angelina could hear the indignation in Hermione's hiss even without looking.

"I have the D.A. Gallon," said Ron defensively

"Did you see that?" whispered Alicia suddenly, as Peeves unhurriedly lifted up his hat and pulled out a bag, transferring it behind his back.

"Yes I saw that," muttered Angelina, though she wasn't sure why she was trying to be quiet, since the array of hands suddenly pointing at Peeve's back made it clear that a lot of people had seen it.

Peeves continued to move slowly and dramatically toward the silent staff table, where all the teachers (except Umbridge, whom appeared to have dozed off some time ago) were watching him so closely that they looked like their eyes might fall out. By unspoken consent, none of the teachers had told Peeves off yet, likely because his campaign against Umbridge had given him a little leeway where trouble was concerned.

As Peeves got to the halfway mark, Angelina got a clear look at the bag he was holding. Though most of it was covered by his hands, the parts of it that were visible moved, as if something, or somethings, was trying to claw its way out.

By the time that Peeves had reached the front of the staff table, only a few feet away from where Umbridge was sleeping, most of the hall had noticed how much the bag was moving, and was watching it almost as carefully as the teachers were watching Peeves.

"Grubs to you reckon?" asked Ron in a clearly audible voice.

Angelina rotated in her seat, moving her legs to the other side so that she didn't have to twist her back to look up at the staff table. Far from the whispering and general air of expectant excitement of that was on many of the students' faces, most of their faces looked guarded. McGonagall's face was set in an expression that would have sent lesser poltergeists fleeing, and even Hagrid, the man who would face a crateful of skrewts armed with nothing but uncontained glee, looked wary.

Peeves, without as much as a glance toward the people looking at him, flew forward so that he was only a foot or so in front of Umbridge (still the other teachers did nothing), and blew a loud raspberry.

Umbridge jerked upright, glancing around the room wildly as Peeves backed out of arm's reach.

"PEEVES," she bellowed, any trace of her signature sweetness erased by the sheer amount of trouble he had caused since Fred and George left.

"Yes?" said Peeves innocently as he could, though that wasn't saying much.

"What do you want now?" Umbridge shouted, standing up in an attempt to look tall, an effort that was doomed to failure from the beginning, since she was at the same table as Hagrid.

Peeves let out a trademark cackle and adopted his most respectful voice—that is to say, the oiliest voice Angelina had ever heard.

"I have a gift, headmistress," he said, floating up a few feet, so that Umbridge had to look up at him.

"A gift?" asked Umbridge suspiciously.

"A gift!" said Peeves, flying backward, so that he was directly over the Hufflepuff table. He performed a half summersault, so that he was facing Umbridge from between his legs. He stuck the bag, also between his legs, as though offering it to Umbridge. "See?"

A few of the sharper Hufflepuffs saw what was about to happen, but by the time they had started to react, it was far too late to get out of the way. Peeves upturned the bag, and out tumbled about a dozen black objects that Angelina only recognized once they had hit the table. About a dozen Tarantulas, much bigger than the Muggle kind, all lay in a pile where they had landed, slowly standing up and walking a few steps toward the students.

The hall's reaction was more energetic. There was a suddenly a chaotic movement across the hall as all the students tried to simultaneously get far enough away to be very certain that they were out of reach of the spiders, but still manage to be close enough to see what was happening. Naturally, this led to a large number of collisions as people slammed into each other in their haste to get further away.

The uproar at the staff table was calmer. Most of the teachers remained seated, eating calmly, though they were obviously keeping an eye on the situation in front of them, making sure it didn't go too far. Hagrid was the exception, descending into the mess of students, yelling "Don' hurt em', don' hurt em'."

"Watch out, their venomous," shouted Angelina helpfully, standing up and raising her own wand, as everyone else on her side of the table jumped, leaped, vaulted, or crawled under the table toward the wall in order to as far away as they could from the spiders. Angelina had little doubt that at least some of them would be trying to get out of the room, if only the whole area in front of the doorway wasn't blocked by students already.

Alicia, vaulted back over the table, any annoyance for having to do it twice in a less than ten seconds kept remarkably well concealed.

"They're not venomous," she said, readying her wand. Angelina felt a surge of affection that Alicia would join her in what was bound to be an obvious recipe for possible detention, but decided to thank her later.

"Shush," Angelina told her she pointed her wand at the spiders, and, after checking that the path in front of her was reasonably clear of Hufflepuffs (after all, not checking would have been irresponsible) and whispered, "Engorgio"

She winced as her spell almost hit Justin Finch-Fletchley, but managed to get over it in time to see her chosen spider grow bigger than a dinner plate.

"Angelina," said Alicia in a warning tone. Apparently her going along with this plan did not involve massive spiders being mutated to be larger.

Before Alicia could say anything else, Angelina used a simple levitation spell to make the spider fly up in the air, and then, as Peeves started to swoop down to grab it, sent it flying toward Umbridge.

Even over the noise of people shouting at their friends to move, the warnings of them being venomous and Hagrid's apologies as he knocked people over, Umbridge's scream could be heard quite clearly. In a display of agility that surprised Angelina, Umbridge managed to beat the spider away with her hand, hitting it with enough force to send it clear over to the far side of the Gryffindor table, right in front of where Ron was cowering next to the wall.

Ron's response was violent. With an astonishing amount of speed, he leapt forward, sized a pan of bake beans, and brought it down on the spider with as much force as he could muster, sending beans flying over those closest to him.

Angelina managed to get the spider out of the way before the pan hit it, but her quick wand movement jerked the spider further than she meant to, sending gliding through the air until it managed to cling onto Ernie Macmillan's back, who was trying to shepherd people toward the doors. Hannah Abbot, directly behind him, screamed and smashed at it with a plate, while Justin whipped out his wand and pointed it at the spider.

Angelina wasn't quite able to follow what happened next, but it ended with Ernie on the floor, groaning, and the spider, somehow turned purple and now larger than ever, landed near the end of the Hufflepuff table, near where some of the other spiders were still lying in a pile. Before Angelina could levitate it for round two, Peeves had swooped down and seized it and two more, floating up again and pelting them at Umbridge, who had the sense this time to levitate them down to the floor, where she hexed them, yelling furiously all the while.

Angelina, giving up on the spiders now that Umbridge was prepared for it, had another bright idea. Taking careful aim, she shot a Jelly-Legs Jinx toward the spiders. Sadly, it 'missed' and managed to hit Warrenton, a Slytherin Chaser, and a prominent (mostly because of his large size) member of the Inquisitorial Squad.

"Oops," said Angelina, grinning at the sight of Warrenton collapsing to the ground, his legs no longer supporting his weight. She glanced around at her fellow Gryffindors still backed up against the wall, and another, brighter idea came to her.

She turned back to Alicia, who saw her grinning and paused in the middle of her own Levitation Spell to mumble, "oh no."

"Gryffindors!" called Angelina, in what she liked to call her captain voice. "GET THEM."

With a roar that would have scared the pants off of a troll, her fellow Gryffindors fumbled for their wands and shot large variety of jinxes, hexes, and other imaginative spells Angelina wouldn't have thought to use. About three quarters of them actually aimed for the spiders, but about a dozen or so spells flew right toward the Inquisitorial squad members.

People started screaming, partly from the spells now whizzing around the room (for some others, getting the idea, had drawn out their own wands and were now whipping out spells like Umbridge was detentions) and partly because Peeves, finally abandoning his efforts to land a spider on the now well prepared Umbridge, had started picking up the spiders who looked like they were still moving and dumping them directly onto the middle of the crowd.

"ENOUGH PEEVES" screamed Umbridge, so angry that she was actually jumping up and down on the spot, rather as if she had a full bladder. It was remarkable, thought Angelina, how when she got angry, her voice reached just the right pitch to carry even over a crowd like this. "STOP THIS INSTANT, OR I SHALL—"

What she was about to do, the room never found out, for a Stunner somehow managed to miss the spiders (by a margin of forty feet) and hit Umbridge right in the chest. Still in mid-rant, she slumped down into her chair.

There was a brief cheer at this, but many people were too busy dealing with the spells now filling the air, or else handling whatever minor jinx they had been hit with, to really notice Umbridge going down. Angelina winced a little as she saw some not so minor jinxes being used, but it was too late to take back her actions, which, she had to admit to herself, really had been rather inspired.

Up at the staff table, the teachers finally seemed to decide that the spells where getting a little out of hand, and McGonagall stood up with her wand at the ready. With a single wave, she extinguished all the candles, plunging the hall into a semi-dark state, with the only light now coming from the dim light filtering through the dark clouds outside.

The spells died down as quickly as people tried to get used to the relative darkness of the hall. The last few spells bounced around, looking a lot like one of Fred and George's fireworks. The hall quieted down as people started whispering, wondering what had happened.

"Where are they?" Angelina heard Ron ask, only a slight quiver in his voice.

"I think they're gone mate," said Harry soothingly, the beans in his hair making it lie flat, a sight which Angelina thought was the most disconcerting thing she had seen all day.

"Thank you Peeves, I daresay that you've caused quite enough trouble for the moment," said McGonagall, voice ringing out in the suddenly much quieter hall.

Peeves stuck out his tongue, but went out through the crowded doors, throwing the two spiders that were in his hands up in the air before leaving. Angelina had little doubt that he had left more because his supply of spiders was nearly gone than any real urge to obey McGonagall.

"Prefects, if you would take charge and take any of your jinxed classmates to the hospital wing," said McGonagall, relighting the candles with another wave of her wand. "Filius, if you would be so kind as to take out Headmistress to the Hospital wing as well?"

Flitwick looked a little disappointed, but almost as soon as he had turned toward Umbridge, a thought appeared to come to him, for he eagerly turned back to McGonagall, much as toddler to a parent would.

"Yes Filius, I think that you should tell Madam Pomfrey to make sure she stays overnight before she gets up again," said McGonagall, a rare smile on her face.

There was a cheer at this as the people who could still move celebrated. Soon after, a line had formed at the doors as the people who had been jinxed started toward the Hospital wing, Flitwick bringing up the rear, floating Umbridge behind him in a conjured stretcher.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," said Angelina as she sat down to finish eating breakfast.

"You could have warned me about what you were about to do to the spiders," said Alicia reproachfully. "I almost screamed when you made that one bigger."

"Why didn't you? It would have scared everyone more," said Angelina.

"And why did you yell at everyone to start shooting spells?" demanded Alicia. "People could have gotten hurt for real."

"Because it gave me a chance to Stun Umbridge," said Angelina, taking a bite of her now cold hash brown.

"That was you?" asked Alicia eagerly, before she made a conscious effort to look disapproving. "I mean...you shouldn't have done that."

"C'mon, you enjoyed it," said Angelina, nudging her friend in her ribs.

There was a long pause while Angelina watched her friend struggle to not let a smile through.

"Maybe a little," admitted Alicia, after a long pause. "I said a little!" she added as Angelina broke into laughter.

Alicia glared at Angelina long enough for Angelina's laughter to subside to chuckles before Alicia finally allowed a grin to break out.

This, thought Angelina as she burst into renewed laughter, was the start of a very good day.

A/N: that's it for now, though I have hopes that I'll start updating on my semi-regular basis. Again, please accept my apologies for this taking such a long time for this to come out.

And if you've made it this far, thanks for reading.