Chapter 17

Striking Back

Despite September's disappointments. I was determined not to let the rest of the year become consumed by it. Second year was busy and there were far more important things to worry about. Professor Umbridge, for example had been appointed to be the Hogwarts High Inquisator; pretty much meaning that she had the authority to handle any problems she saw fit in the school which was virtually everything. It's only a matter of time before she completely decides to control everything.

"This is the most useless subject ever!" Vanna complained. It was a dreary October day and Vanna, Karina, Cheyenne and I were in the library slaving away at the mountain of useless work Umbridge had assigned.

"You're telling me," Karina muttered, "I swear I could recite this entire textbook off by heart. It's not even real Defense Against the Dark Arts!" She slammed the textbook Umbridge had given her shut and went on to read the real defense book, the one that I had used in class last year.

"And even this! I've been through this entire book about a hundred times!"

"How can you? The year's barely started!" Vanna argued.

Karina shrugged, "I like keeping on top of things and as a matter of fact, I find defense to be absolutely fascinating,"

"You said that about Charms too. And Transfiguration. And Astronomy. And-,"

"Well maybe she just finds everything interesting," Cheyenne put in

"That's right. I do. But I'd like to learn more,"

"The take this," I pushed my useless Defense Against the Dart Arts textbook that Umbridge gave me towards her. She flipped it open.

"Well, at least this discusses the dangers and consequences of dark magic,"

I shrugged, "it's all yours,"

We worked for a while. Then Karina got up to go get a book. However, we couldn't all help but notice that she was stopped by the bookshelves by none other than one of the Weasley twins.

"Why is she talking to him?" Cheyenne whispered.

"I don't know. But she was talking to one of the twins- George I think- when I first met her on the train,"

"He's a seventh year!" Cheyenne exclaimed.

"And so?"

"So: first years and seventh years don't usually stand around chatting!"

"That's just a stereotype,"

"Correction: Fred and George Weasley do not stand around talking to first years!"

I glanced over to Karina and George (was it?). They were chatting away, Karina laughing about something he said and she was looking at him with a certain glint in her eyes.

"They're usually tricking first years into testing they're products if they're talking to them!"

'We've got to warn her!" Vanna exclaimed, rising from her seat.

"Wait! No, just wait!" I grabbed her arm and looked back to George and Karina. He didn't seem to be offering her anything. Instead, he reached up and grabbed a book from the top shelf and handed it to Karina, who thanked him before he left and she headed back to our table.

"Ok, what was up with that?' Vanna asked.

"What was up with what?" Karina asked nonchalantly.

"You were just talking to a Weasley twin!"

"So?"

"He's a seventh year!"

"And your point is?" she raised an eyebrow.

"First years don't talk to seventh years!"

"So, he's just a friend," Her voice didn't give anything away. I decided it would be in my best interest to back her up; after all, I knew how it felt all those times when my friends would tease me about Seamus.

"Of course she talks to him with you who cousin is," I said, backing her up.

There was more to Karina then a lot of us knew. For one, her cousin was none other then Harry Potter himself. It was a shock for everyone because it was believed that pretty much all of Harry's family was dead. But on his Mums side, there turned out to be a second cousin to Lily Potter; that being Karina's mum. When Karina started Hogwarts, the ministry became aware of this and the fact became known that Harry Potter had a magical relative.

"Harry Potter is best friends with Ron Weasley, who is George's brother," I said.

"Exactly. And anyways, he's really nice!" said Karina.

"He's never offered you anything?" Vanna asked.

"No!"

"Cuz Alina got overdosed on puking pastries from them," Vanna said.

"Then I will have a word with him on testing their products on other people," Karina snapped, "they shouldn't be doing it anyways after what happened at the last Quidditch game!"

The last game had been terrible to say the least. Oh, the game itself was good, however it had resulted in the Gryffindor team almost being disbanded. The game had been Gryffindor vs. Slytherin and if there wasn't a big enough rivalry there, then there was a massive one between Harry and Draco. Draco Malfoy. I had come to despise the kid, in all honestly. I couldn't believe that once upon a time, I had made such a big deal about him. In any case, it was well known that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy did not get along. As a result, Draco provoked Harry which led up to the point where Harry, Fred and George all launched themselves on him. Fred was held back from the fight, but George and Harry managed to break free and attack Draco. Apparantly, Harry and George were supposed to get only one weeks' worth of detention. However, due to Umbridge's newfound status as the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, it now gave her the right to decide how all disciplinary matters were handled at the school. As a result, Harry, Fred and George were kicked off the team.

"That was ridiculous though," Cheyenne said, "McGonagall wasn't even going to kick them off!"

"Yeah, well I suppose now Umbridge is all powerful, thanks to our stupid government," Vanna sighed.

"How much longer can this go on? We can't do anything! We're not learning anything, she's imposing ridiculous rules on everyone and there's no way that we're going to be able to defend ourselves in the real world,"
"Which is why I have a solution to that," Karina spoke up.

"What?"

"Well, we could learn how to defend ourselves on our own," said Karina, "Harry's offered to teach us,"

"Are you serious?" Cheyenne asked.

"Yes, but you can't tell everyone! If Umbridge finds out, we will be in huge trouble!"

"Well how are we going to get away with it without getting caught?" I asked, "I mean, he can't just teach us anywhere out in the open. Umbridge will see,"

Karina leaned in closer, lowering her voice.

"There's this room on the seventh floor corridor called the Room of Requirement. Not a lot of people know about it because it only presents itself to those who have a great need for it. So in our case, it'll only be there when we need to attend the meetings,"

"That's awesome!" Cheyenne exclaimed, "who's all gonna be there?"

"I'm not sure. A bunch of people in fifth year, I bet. Plus whoever I invite. Harry said I could ask my friends to join. So if there's anyone else you think would want to get involved, just let me know!"

"I can already think of some," I said, "Allegra, Cheryl, Zetta, Mina, Magnolia, Alan, Patrick,"

"Well, let them know!" Karina smiled, "it'll be great!"

"I bet George will be there," Vanna swooned in attempt to annoy Karina again.

"I bet he will," Karina shrugged.

"Oh come on. He was so totally into you!"

"Yeah, George Weasley into a first year. Best joke I've heard in a while,"

"You never know," Cheyenne said.

"He's just a friend,"

"Alright, if you say so," Vanna looked at Karina skeptically. Karina rolled her eyes.

We returned to Ravenclaw tower, eager to share the news with everyone. Finally! Maybe we could escape Umbridge's decrees!

"Yo Katerina!" called Alan, "c'mere!" He was sitting in a pod of blue armchairs in the corner of the common room with Patrick, Jason and Stuart who were hunched around a table in the middle whispering amongst themselves.

"What's up?" I asked. I saw that the table was covered in pieces of parchment.

"See this?" Alan picked up the longest piece, "This, this right here is what we've been working on all week,"
"What is it?"

"The ultimate trap! The ultimate plot! The ultimate plan!" his voice dropped to a hushed tone, "To assassinate Umbridge,"

"What?" I asked in alarm, "Alan! You can't be-," Patrick, Stuart and Jason sniggered, along with Alan.

"Oh my god, You should have seen your face!" Alan exclaimed, "It was priceless! You really thought we were going to assassinate Umbridge!"

I blushed. I was so gullible.

"Ok you got me. But seriously. What are you planning?" I glanced down at the table which was covered in papers, which meant that they were indeed up to something.

"You know, as nice as assinating Umbridge would be, we really don't want to end up in Azkaban, so we've come up with a bit of pranks, you see,"

"Ahh, I see. What have you got planned?"

"Well, there's the water balloon drop that Stuart here set up outside her door,"

"Oh my god, did you really? How?"

"Magic," Alan winked.

"Well no duh. But seriously,"

"There's a spell," Stuart said, "for invisibility. It's in German. That combined with Wingardium Leviosa is what we used to get the balloons fastened outside her door,"

"That's genius!"

"Isn't it?" Alan said, "and then we staked out for a while until she opened the door. Waved my wand and WHAM! Wet Umbridge!"

I laughed.

"How mad was she?"

"Oh my god, you should've seen her face! Though we didn't see it for very long! We ran for it before she could see who did it!"

"Good thing! If she caught you, you probably wouldn't have gotten out alive!"

"Yeah, no kidding," Alan said, "she almost saw us. And you have to be super careful for when Filch is around,"

"Yeah, he's pretty much her sidekick,"

Alan shook his head, "how anyone could like Umbridge is ridiculous,"

"And now there's her stupid Inquisitorial Squad to top it off,"

"All it is is Slytherins," I said, thinking about how Malfoy and his pals pretty much walked around the school just looking for trouble and then doing anything within their power to take points from other houses (mainly Gryffindor). To top it off, Lisa and her posse had decided to get involved with it too, so they were always picking on Mina and Magnolia (though in all honesty they tended to be nicer to Magnolia, since she was still Mona's sister. But at the same time they hated each other).

"Very true. I swear, she's ruining this place,"

"Yeah, well I may have a solution to that,"

"Hmm?"

"Well, not a solution, but something that would make this whole situation at least bearable,"

"What's your idea?"

"Well, it's not really mine, but listen,"

Quickly, I explained to him about the lessons that Harry Potter was willing to give everyone.

"But you can't tell everyone!" I said, "if Umbridge finds out then we're screwed!"

"What are you talking about?" Alan played dumb.

"Seriously,"

"No, I won't say a thing. You know that. My lips are sealed,"

"Good. Karina said she's going to let us know exactly when the first meeting is going to be,"

"Sounds good. Keep me posted,"

"I will," I said. I looked down at the table, full of plans on how to annoy Umbridge.

"Really? Rubber duck infestation?" I asked.

"It's genius! See, we'll leave it in class and then we'll put a charm on them to start multiplying after a while and soon the entire classroom will be full of them! And you know how Umbridge feels about muggles, and since tuber ducks are from the muggle world, she's gonna hate this!"

"Where did you get one anyway?"

"Mina. See, her Mum sent her this bath set thing for her birthday, and in it there was a little rubber duck in it. So we made it bigger, and we have this all planned out."

"Are you sure you won't get caught?"

"Kat, we're Ravenclaws. We don't get caught," He winked.

"Well ok," I said, "best of luck with that,"

"Oh you know it,"

I hoped they would be successful.