I slept in the next day until one in the afternoon, and then I lazed around the common room for another hour, fully relishing the complete lack of obligations for my last day without them. That isn't to say that I didn't have obligations. At two-fifteen, I ate a ham sandwich while reorganizing my things. All my non-textbook books were carefully lined up on the shelves on my wall, the clothes I'd actually wear in the imminent four months folded and put away in the armoire, the others in boxes under my bed. Finally able to use magic, I tidied up the dormitory, dusting the furniture and steam-cleaning the rug.

Another obligation that was important was my mum, who was still organizing her extra supplies in the greenhouse. I finally convinced her to retire the embarrassingly pink ear muffs and helped with the Chinese Chomping Cabbages (or did the very best I could). We had just finished up with the cabbages and were heading into the castle for a late tea when a short, fat woman with a ridiculous pink bow in her hair pulled up the driveway in a Ministry of Magic car. There were a large number of pink trunks that the driver kept pulling out of the boot. As each was carefully placed on the ground, she waved her wand and they disappeared, presumably to her office.

"Mum, who's that?" I asked, turning to look at her face. It had paled, and she looked angry. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, I'm sure," she replied, marching up the steps and through the heavy oak doors into the Entrance Hall. Before we were inside, however, the ugly woman turned to us with a look of interest on her frog-like face. "Hello," she said in an unexpectedly sweet voice—sickeningly sweet. Neither of us said anything, and she continued, a broad smile spreading across her face, "And you are?"

"Pomona Sprout," Mum replied stiffly, one hand on my shoulder. "Herbology professor?" the woman said interestedly. "Yes." "Charmed," the woman said, waving her wand again as trunks began accumulating at her feet. "You may have been notified of my arrival. I'm Dolores Umbridge."

Dolores, I thought, resisting the urge to smirk. What a fitting name. "I had not been," Mum said flatly, turning and marching into the Entrance Hall. I was close at her heels.

We didn't speak until we were in Mum's sitting room in the basement and I'd poured out the tea into her china. "Megan, I hope you'll promise me something," Mum said, her voice still shaking slightly. I nodded, sipping my tea—no cream, lots and lots of sugar—and wondered how horrible this Umbridge woman would really be. To me, it seemed like she'd just be a pushover, and an unlikely pick for the DADA post. Maybe Dumbledore's playing it safe, after the fake-Moody scandal last year, I contemplated.

"Don't listen to a word that woman says. I'll teach you Defense Against the Dark Arts myself if I have to," she said resolutely, gulping her scalding tea. "W-well, okay," I said, taken aback. "The Ministry's been trying to derail Dumbledore all summer, and now they're trying to infiltrate Hogwarts," she continued, almost as if she were thinking out loud. She may have been, because she didn't address me again. "We've tried to resist, but Fudge was determined. Plus, Dumbledore's presence at the Potter hearing probably pushed him over the edge. Minerva's always telling him to tone himself down, but you know he never will. In the end it'll surely be his demise."

I silently sipped my tea and got biscuit crumbs all over my lap and the carpet as she continued. "…whether the new security measures worked, I've no idea. Severus, as always, gave a negative report, but I don't think that he has much regard for anybody except Dumbledore at this point…"

She fell into a thoughtful silence, which I finally interrupted—after listening in confusion for nearly fifteen minutes—when my watch alerted me that it was nearly time for my schoolmates to arrive on the Hogwarts Express. "Oh yes," she said, trying to smooth her flyaway hair back in vain and downing the remains of her tea. "We'd better go, haven't we?"

I nodded, leading the way up the stairs to the Entrance Hall and down the drive to Hogsmeade Station, arriving just as the scarlet Express pulled in with a cloud of steam.

"Meg!" Susan shrieked, jumping from the train into my outstretched arms. We hugged fiercely for nearly a minute, all the while screaming about each other's hair and tans and new makeup techniques. "Hannah!" I exclaimed next, running to embrace my next-best friend, who'd just led a group of wayward first-years to where Professor Grubbly-Plank was waiting near the boats by the lake. "Congratulations!" I said, pulling away and throwing my arms around my friends. "Let's walk back, shall we? I'm feeling extremely energetic all of a sudden."

They agreed, and we walked down the drive alongside the horseless carriages, waving and calling to people who passed us. I saw Parvati, Padma, and Lavender Brown riding with Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas; Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie MacMillan, and Anthony Goldstein; Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecombe, Roger Davies, and Eddie Carmichael; the Weasley twins, Fred and George, Lee Jordan, Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson, and Katie Bell. I felt a surge of complete happiness, glad that all my friends had returned to my favorite place in the world, especially the ones I didn't write to over the summer but that I loved talking with during the school year.

I took a seat in between Hannah and Susan at the Hufflepuff table, entering the Great Hall for the first time since the previous June, and was almost spastically excited when Justin sat across from me, shooting me a brilliant smile and opening his mouth to say something when Roger Davies came up to him from behind and clapped him on the back with a few words in hushed tones. Justin nodded and grinned at Roger, who looked at the surrounding Hufflepuffs with one of his famous debonair smiles—I could see every one of his white teeth—before retreating to the Ravenclaw table, where he sat next to Cho Chang.

"What a sleaze," Susan whispered to me, and I laughed loudly. "What?" Hannah asked, tugging on my sleeve. "I'll tell you later," I said, wiggling my eyebrows in a manner that broadcast the fact that what I would tell her was juicy and superficially interesting. Hannah, who was largely oblivious to girl code, furrowed her brow in confusion.

I looked back over to Justin, and he grinned again, about to speak, but again, he was interrupted, this time by Alex Summerby, our Hufflepuff seeker. "Charms Club president?" Alex asked in that way that means that he already knew the answer. "Maybe I'll join up this year. Then again…nah, probably won't." Lucy Stebbins, who was sitting a few seats down on my side, giggled loudly and flirtatiously, throwing Summerby a look that could only be described as "come-hither."

With all these interruptions, it was inevitable that the first years should arrive, ready to be Sorted. They timidly followed McGonagall up the center aisle to line up in front of the staff table. The Sorting Hat having been set down on its stool, and McGonagall standing back, it began its song.

This year, the song was rather different, and the Hat, rather than describing each House at length, told us all to unite in the face of our enemies. While the others at the House tables looked confused and whispers carried across the Hall, I had a strong feeling that the Hat and my mother both knew about something that the rest did not.

Susan and I whispered for the entirety of the Sorting about what the Hat may have meant—clapping with the other Hufflepuffs whenever a first year was sorted into our House—and came to the conclusion that something concerning the Ministry and Dumbledore was surely afoot.

As Rose Zeller took her place at the Hufflepuff table, Susan said, rather cheerfully, "Well, it's not a year at Hogwarts without something dark brewing. Pass me the chips?" I did so, glancing at Justin as I reached for the jug of iced pumpkin juice. He flashed that grin again and leaned in slightly to ask, "How was your holiday?"

I smiled back and said, "Pretty good. I spent some time with my dad in London, which is always exciting, and then I hung out here with my mum, which is always nice and quiet." Susan kicked me three times under the table, which is code for "I see what's happening, and don't think that I won't mention it later."

"London? That's where I live!" Justin said excitedly, knocking over Ernie's glass of water. This went unnoticed, so I had to suppress my giggles. "Really? Yeah, my dad does a lot of Muggle liaising with Gringotts," I said, "so I've got lots of Muggle friends there." For a while, we exchanged mutual friends, and then he said, "I'm Muggle-born, so all my friends at home are Muggles. It's kind of nice to go home and leave the Wizarding world behind at Hogwarts, you know?"

I agreed, but mentioned that I rarely felt completely comfortable in Muggle London. "Maybe it's because I've always known I wasn't one of them. I didn't see them as being like me, I saw them as another society entirely. I've always had something to hide."

Then we discussed the difficulty of hiding our magical ways from our oblivious friends. "Shannon's got no idea," I said sadly, taking a bite of apple pie. "So while we can share our love for the Spice Girls and Weezer, I can never tell her about the Weird Sister or WNN."

Our conversation ended only with Dumbledore's speech, in which he introduced Umbridge, who made a speech of her own, much to everyone's displeasure. Another notable item was the fact that Hagrid, Care of Magical Creatures professor and gamekeeper, was being temporarily replaced by Professor Grubbly-Plank, who often substituted for him and was, by and large, much preferred.

"It's not that I don't like Hagrid," I told Hannah and Susan as we filed out into the Entrance Hall after we'd been dismissed. "Are you kidding, Jones? I don't like the oaf, and I'm not afraid to tell everyone!" Malfoy shouted from his cluster of Slytherin cronies. Pansy Parkinson, who'd always been after him but had as yet been unsuccessful, snickered more loudly than was probably natural. "Right," I said, rolling my eyes, and turning back to my friends as we descended the stairs to the common room. "It's not that I don't like him, it's that I think that Grubbly-Plank is probably better. I mean, let's not forget the hippogriff that was supposed to be executed. Sure, Malfoy brought it on himself, but then it ran away, which is kind of suspicious. And then let's not forget the dragon problem. And those bloody blast-ended skrewts!"

Hannah nodded and Susan looked inclined to agree. "I think that Hagrid isn't the best teacher, but he's one of the personalities that I've come to enjoy and expect at Hogwarts. It won't be the same here until he's returned," she said, in that way of always saying the perfect thing. "It's because you say things like that," I told her, "that we are best friends."

The common room was hustling and bustling with Hufflepuffs playing gobstones, pinning flyers on the notice board, reuniting with their friends, and writing anxious letters home about things that they'd forgotten. Lucy Stebbins, for all her annoying flirtatiousness, was comforting a distraught first-year who was dreadfully homesick.

Hannah massaged her forehead. "I'm coming down with a terrible headache," she groaned. "Care to join me in the dormitory?"

Susan and I followed her through the round passageway to the dormitory, which had been set up for my roommates' arrival, the bedcovers turned down, a fire lit in the small hearth, and trunks at the foot of each bed. "Do you want some Tylenol?" I asked, pulling the bottle out from my side table drawer. "Please," Hannah said, accepting two pills and swallowing them with some water from the pitcher. She sat on the leather couch in the center of the dormitory, gazing at the fire in the grate.

"So, Megan," Susan began, eyes dancing with both firelight and the mischief, "tell us all about your relationship with Justin." She drew out his name like it was a dirty word.

Of course, my cheeks reddened like they'd just been exposed to a dirty word, and I gasped, quickly soundproofing the room before saying, "Somebody might have heard!"

My two friends laughed. "You are such a girl," Susan said, and Hannah, headache apparently gone, nodded vehemently. "Well, thanks, I guess. I'd rather be called a girl than a boy," I said lamely, stalling for time. Susan, who, as my best friend, knew me far too well to put up with that, said, "Riiiiight. Back to the topic of conversation…please tell me all about when your first date is planned."

I rolled my eyes. "We're just friends, idiot," I said, throwing a pillow at her head. With my brilliant aim, it landed precisely in the fire. "You're worse than Seamus," Hannah said, laughing, as she pulled it out and restored it to its soft plumpness before tossing it back. "Ha-ha," I said, not laughing.

"Speaking of dates," I said, turning on the offensive, defending myself having not worked out very well, "How's Terry Boot been doing, Susan dearest?"

She stuck her tongue out at me, then slumped into the armchair. "I haven't spoken to him at all since June, and the word is that he's moved on to Astoria Greengrass."

"A Slytherin?" Hannah gasped, looking scandalized. Susan and I both shrugged. "Ravenclaws don't have as many problems with them as Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors do," I explained. "Plus, I'm pretty sure Astoria's not so bad." "Isn't she, like, thirteen? Am I the only one who think that's kind of weird?" Hannah continued, not willing to accept the news. "I was in love with George Weasley during our third year," I admitted, letting one of my best-kept secrets slip.

"What?" Susan exclaimed. "You've got to be kidding! You did not! You never told me!"

I grinned. "It was years ago!" I said, holding my hands up. "Plus, times have definitely changed." "Aha!" she replied, grinning. "So you admit it!"

"Admit what?" Lucy Stebbins, who just entered, asked with a look of interest. "I mean, we all know you like Justin, if that's what this is all about."

Hannah and Susan's faces shone with looks of triumph. "Fine, fine," I said, and Susan jumped up and smothered me with either a large hug or an attempt to tackle me to the carpeted floor. If it was the latter, she certainly wouldn't have succeeded, since she was certainly the shortest fifth year at about four-feet-seven.

That settled, everyone seemed to be suddenly sleepy and tired. Lucy, who hadn't really been involved in the scene, climbed into bed and closed the curtain that separated her alcove from the rest of the dormitory. I did the same thing, pulling my long dark hair into a ponytail and turning out my light.