Chapter 19:
The rumours of Alicia and Harry's shouting match with Umbridge spread faster than any other rumour since their arrival. Even for Hogwarts standards everyone heard the news faster than expected. The muttering was now changed for talking and some raised their voices as if wanting Harry and Alicia to hear it. Alicia felt like they were trying to provoke them, as through their anger they had released some of the story first hand and hoped they'd hear more.
"He says they saw Cedric Diggory murdered…"
"He reckons they duelled with You-Know-Who…"
"Come off it…"
"Who does he think he's kidding?"
"Pur-lease…"
"But the dementors…"
"Dementors don't go wondering around."
"What I don't get," said Harry in a shaking voice, laying down his knife and fork (his hands were trembling too much to hold them steady), "is why they all believed the story two months ago when Dumbledore told them…"
"The thing is, Harry, I'm not sure they did," said Hermione grimly.
"Or the shock caused them to contemplate it at least until the prophet got involved." Alicia added as Hermione looked around.
"Oh, let's get out of here." She slammed down her own knife and fork; Ron looked sadly at his half-finished apple pie but followed suit. People stared at them all the way out of the Hall.
"What d'you mean, you're not sure they believed Dumbledore?" Harry asked Hermione when they reached the first-floor landing.
"Look, you don't understand what it was like after it happened," said Hermione quietly. "You arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching Cedric's dead body… None of us saw what happened in the maze…We just had Dumbledore's word for it that You-Know-Who had come back and killed Cedric and fought you."
"Which is the truth!" said Harry loudly. Alicia ground her teeth slightly. She was getting annoyed at Harry always trying to convince those who already believed them, especially Hermione and Ron. Besides, what was shouting at them going to do? But she reminded herself of the anger she felt and was trying to ignore and how he was probably feeling the same.
"I know it is, Harry, so will you please stop biting my head off?" said Hermione wearily. "It's just that before the truth could sink in, everyone went home for the summer, where they spent two months reading about how you're a nutcase and Dumbledore's going senile!"
Rain pounded on the windowpanes as they strode along the empty corridors back to Gryffindor Tower. Today seemed to have lasted forever and yet it wasn't finished, the mound of homework weighing down Alicia's bag over her shoulder reminding her of that. At least there was something to distract her from the thought of spending the rest of her evenings that week with Umbridge.
"Mimbulus mimbletonia," said Hermione, before the Fat Lady could ask. The portrait swung open to reveal the hole behind and the four of them scrambled back through it.
The common room was almost empty; nearly everyone was still down at dinner. Crookshanks uncoiled himself from an armchair and trotted to meet them, purring loudly, and when Harry, Alicia, Ron, and Hermione took their favourite chairs at the fireside he leapt lightly into Hermione's lap and curled up there like a furry ginger cushion. Harry gazed into the flames, feeling drained and exhausted.
Alicia couldn't stand sitting there doing nothing, staring around the common room and so she pulled out her potions book to get Snape's homework on moonstones out of the way. She'd hardly written one sentence before Hermione suddenly burst, causing Crookshanks to leap off her and Harry, Alicia and Ron all jumped.
"How can Dumbledore have let this happen?" Hermione cried, pounding the arms of her chair in fury, so that bits of stuffing leaked out of the holes. "How can he let that terrible woman teach us? And in our O.W.L. year too!"
"Well, we've never had great Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we?" said Harry. "You know what it's like, Hagrid told us, nobody wants the job, they say it's jinxed."
"Yes, but to employ someone who's actually refusing to let us do magic! What's Dumbledore playing at?"
"And she's trying to get people to spy for her," said Ron darkly. "Remember when she said she wanted us to come and tell her if we hear anyone saying You-Know-Who's back?"
"Personally I don't think Dumbledore had much of a choice." Alicia sighed "During Harry's hearing Dumbledore said the ministry had no influence over Hogwarts and what happens there. Fudge's reply sounds like he was taking on a challenge. Knowing Fudge he'd probably put Umbridge here to keep an eye on Dumbledore and change that fact." Harry nodded mutely in remembrance and Hermione just looked more annoyed.
"Of course she's here to spy on us all, that's obvious, why else would Fudge have wanted her to come?" snapped Hermione.
"Don't start arguing again," said Harry wearily, as Ron opened his mouth to retaliate. "Can't we just… Let's just do that homework, get it out of the way…"
Alicia turned her face back to her books and parchment as the other three grabbed their schoolbags from the corner and returned to her side just as people began to return from dinner. Alicia kept her head down as she felt the stares, reading over a paragraph to reinterpret.
"Shall we do Snape's stuff first?" said Ron, dipping his quill into his ink, glancing at Alicia and her start on the homework. "'The properties… of moonstone… and its uses… in potion-making…'" he muttered, writing the words across the top of his parchment as he spoke them. "There." He underlined the title, then looked up expectantly at Hermione.
"So what are the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making?"
But Hermione was not listening. Alicia looked up when the girl did not reply to see she was squinting over into the far corner of the room, where Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were now sitting at the centre of a knot of innocent-looking first years, all of whom were chewing something that seemed to have come out of a large paper bag that Fred was holding.
"I guess they found their volunteers to test on." Alicia mumbled. Hermione looked at her with scrutiny and Alicia bit her lip.
"No, I'm sorry, they've gone too far," she said, standing up and looking positively furious. "Come on, Ron."
"I — what?" said Ron, plainly playing for time. "No — come on, Hermione — we can't tell them off for giving out sweets…"
"You know perfectly well that those are bits of Nosebleed Nougat or — or Puking Pastilles or —"
"Fainting Fancies?" Harry suggested quietly.
One by one, as though hit over the heads with invisible mallets, the first years were slumping unconscious in their seats; some slid right onto the floor, others merely hung over the arms of their chairs, their tongues lolling out. Most of the people watching were laughing; Hermione, however, squared her shoulders and marched directly over to where Fred and George now stood with clipboards, closely observing the unconscious first years. Ron rose halfway out of his chair, hovered uncertainly for a moment or two, then muttered to Harry, "She's got it under control," before sinking as low in his chair as his lanky frame permitted.
"Sure…" Alicia muttered to him.
"That's enough!" Hermione said forcefully to Fred and George, both of whom looked up in mild surprise.
"Yeah, you're right," said George, nodding, "this dosage looks strong enough, doesn't it?"
"I told you this morning, you can't test your rubbish on students!"
"We're paying them!" said Fred indignantly.
"I don't care, it could be dangerous!"
"Rubbish," said Fred.
"Calm down, Hermione, they're fine!" said Lee reassuringly as he walked from first year to first year, inserting purple sweets into their open mouths.
"Yeah, look, they're coming round now," said George.
A few of the first years were indeed stirring. Several looked so shocked to find themselves lying on the floor, or dangling off their chairs, that Harry was sure Fred and George had not warned them what the sweets were going to do.
"Feel all right?" said George kindly to a small dark-haired girl lying at his feet.
"I-I think so," she said shakily.
"Excellent," said Fred happily, but the next second Hermione had snatched both his clipboard and the paper bag of Fainting Fancies from his hands.
"It is NOT excellent!"
" 'Course it is, they're alive, aren't they?" said Fred angrily.
"You can't do this, what if you made one of them really ill?"
"We're not going to make them ill, we've already tested them all on ourselves and Alicia." Alicia looked up horrified and Hermione turned to give her a glare. Alicia flinched looking more than guilty before she looked a the twins with a murderous look that made Harry and Ron share a very worried glance. "This is just to see if everyone reacts the same —" Fred continued
"If you don't stop doing it, I'm going to —"
"Put us in detention?" said Fred in an I'd-like-to-see-you-try-it voice.
"Make us write lines?" said George, smirking.
Onlookers all over the room were laughing. Hermione drew herself up to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her bushy hair seemed to crackle with electricity.
"No," she said, her voice quivering with anger, "but I will write to your mother."
"You wouldn't," said George, horrified, taking a step back from her.
"Oh, yes, I would," said Hermione grimly. "I can't stop you eating the stupid things yourselves, but you're not giving them to first years." Fred and George looked thunderstruck. It was clear that as far as they were concerned, Hermione's threat was way below the belt. With a last threatening look at them, she thrust Fred's clipboard and the bag of Fancies back into his arms and stalked back to her chair by the fire. Ron was now so low in his seat that his nose was roughly level with his knees.
"Thank you for your support, Ron," Hermione said acidly. She looked at Alicia who had her eyes on her book, turning to write some notes on her parchment.
"You handled it fine by yourself," Ron mumbled.
Hermione stared down at her blank piece of parchment for a few seconds, then said edgily, "Oh, it's no good, I can't concentrate now. I'm going to bed."
She wrenched her bag open; Harry thought she was about to put her books away, but instead she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill, and stood back to admire the effect.
"What in the name of Merlin are you doing?" said Ron, watching her as though fearful for her sanity.
"They're hats for house-elves," she said briskly, now stuffing her books back into her bag. "I did them over the summer. I'm a really slow knitter without magic, but now I'm back at school I should be able to make lots more."
"You're leaving out hats for the house-elves?" said Ron slowly. "And you're covering them up with rubbish first?"
"What the hell Hermione?" Alicia demanded "You're going to force them to accept clothes!?"
"Yes," said Hermione defiantly, swinging her bag onto her back.
"That's not on," said Ron angrily. "You're trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You're setting them free when they might not want to be free."
"Of course they want to be free!" said Hermione at once, though her face was turning pink. "Don't you dare touch those hats, Ron!" She left. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls' dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats.
"They should at least see what they're picking up," he said firmly. "Anyway…" He rolled up the parchment on which he had written the title of Snape's essay. "There's no point trying to finish this now, I can't do it without Hermione, I haven't got a clue what you're supposed to do with moonstones, have you?" Harry shook his head.
Alicia scratched at her scar on her neck as she wrote some more about the properties of Moonstones. A second later Harry was packing up his things and decided he was going to bed, running for the dormitory as Seamus opened his mouth to speak. Ron turned to Alicia.
"He's really not coping."
"Really?" Alicia asked without looking up, a sarcastic tone to her voice. "Can you blame him?" Alicia sighed
"What about you…?" he asked tentatively. Alicia glanced at him.
"I'm fine." she said "When I'm busy." and she continued to write her essay. Ron glanced at it before he reopened his own essay.
"So…?" he began "Does that mean I can lengthen your busy time?" he grinned and Alicia rolled her eyes but smile slightly.
"Fine." she said "But you have to put the properties into proper sentences." she warned. Ron shrugged
"As long as I have the properties."
"I don't know what Hermione's playing at." Fred muttered irritated as he moved over to the two and and glared at the girls staircase.
"Well you're the ones endangering students in front of her." Alicia rolled her eyes as she wrote down simple properties of moonstone for Ron, also writing down books that could help him find the information on them.
"We're not endangering." George defended
"You're experimenting in a way, which could lead to danger. Regardless of if you know they're safe, what proof does she have of that? Look, I'm not going to stop you but if you don't want your mother to find out, I suggest you don't do it in front of Hermione." she shrugged
"Can't you talk to her?" Fred asked her and Alicia looked at Fred like he was mad.
"Talk? To Hermione? The freshly made Prefect?" she asked "You do remember she was the closest person to Percy right?" the twins shared a defeated look.
"Just be smarter." Alicia shrugged "After all, we don't need Mrs Weasley stopping the Joke shop progress." she grinned and the twins nodded before getting up.
"I don't understand how they listen to you." Ron admitted
"I'm reasonable." she shrugged and he watched her, unsure how to feel about her power of control.