Sorry this chapter is more Rowling. Wasn't much to work with. I shall make it up soon.
Chapter 135: Fire Trouble
"Maybe I'll skive off Divination," Harry said glumly, as we stood in the courtyard after lunch, the wind at our robes and hats. "I'll pretend to be ill and do Snape's essay instead, then I won't have to stay up half the night."
"You can't skive off Divination," said Hermione severely.
"Look who's talking, you walked out of Divination, you hate Trelawney!" I pointed out.
"I don't hate her," said Hermione defensively. "I just think she's an absolutely appalling teacher and a real old fraud. But Harry's already missed History of Magic and I don't think he ought to miss anything else today!"
She had a point, which is why Harry ended up following me into the stuffy tower classroom. Hr plopped down on one of the pouffes next to me, not looking like he gave a fuck about interpreting a dream.
It seemed, however, that he was not the only person in Divination who was in a bad mood. Professor Trelawney slammed a copy of the Oracle down on the table between Harry and I and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the Oracle at Seamus and Dean, narrowly avoiding Seamus's head, and thrust the final one into Neville's chest with such force that he slipped off his pouffe.
"Well, carry on!" said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high-pitched and sounding completely mental, "you know what to do! Or am I such a substandard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?"
"I think she's got the results of her inspection back." Harry whispered to me.
'Professor?" said Parvati in a hushed,and timid voice, "Professor, is there anything-er-wrong?"
"Wrong!" cried Professor Trelawney emotionally. "Certainly not! I have been insulted, certainly ... insinuations have been made against me ... unfounded accusations levelled ... but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not!"
She turned away from Parvati and began to cry. Not out of sadness, but out of anger.
"I say nothing," she choked, "of sixteen years of devoted service ... it has passed, apparently, unnoticed ... but I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!"
"But, Professor, who's insulting you?" asked Parvati.
"The Establishment!" said Professor Trelawney, in a deep, dramatic voice. "Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know ... of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted ... it is-alas-our fate."
She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, then she pulled a small handkerchief from her sleeve, and blew her nose so hard, it sounded like Peeves blowing a raspberry.
I couldn't help but snicker. Apparently Lavender didn't approve, because she shot me a disgusted look.
"Professor," said Parvati, "do you mean ... is it something Professor Um-?"
"Do not speak to me about that woman!" cried Professor Trelawney, stopping Parvati from even finishing the name. 'Kindly continue with your work!'
And she spent the rest of the lesson crying, mumbling threats about what she wanted to do to the old lady.
"... may well choose to leave ... the indignity of it ... on probation ... we shall see ... how she dares ..."
"You and Umbridge have got something in common," Harry told Hermione quietly when we met again in Defense Against the Dark Arts. "She obviously reckons Trelawney's an old fraud, too ... looks like she's put her on probation."
Hermione, to our surprise, actually looked uncomfortable at that statement. Trelawney may have been a cook, but she had a good heart, and loves her students.
Umbridge entered the room wearing her black velvet bow and looking like a smug asshole.
"Good afternoon, class."
"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," we chanted dully.
"Wands away, please."
Nobody had bothered to take out their wands.
"Please turn to page thirty-four of Defensive Magical Theory and read the third chapter, entitled 'The Case for Non-Offensive Responses to Magical Attack'. There will be-"
"-no need to talk," the three of us said together, under our breaths.
"No Quidditch practice," said Angelina when we entered the common room after dinner that night.
"But I kept my temper!" said Harry, horrified. "I didn't say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, I-"
"I know, I know," said Angelina miserably. "She just said she needed a bit of time to consider."
"Consider what?" I said angrily. "She's given the Slytherins permission, why not us?"
Harry gave me a look that indicated that I had asked a dumb question. Which he was indeed right. She didn't like Harry, nor any Gryffindors, so she was having a go, taking delight in hanging her permission over our heads, the sodding witch.
"Well," said Hermione, "look on the bright side-at least now you'll have time to do Snape's essay!"
"That's a bright side, is it?" snapped Harry, while I gawked at Hermione. "No Quidditch practice, and extra Potions?"
Hermione shrugged as we took our books and parchment out and began to work. It was very hard to concentrate, however, as there was also an incredible amount of noise in the room: Fred and George had finally perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd.
First, Fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit into a bucket they had placed in front of them. Then he would force down the purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately stop. Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was Vanishing the vomit with the same Vanishing Spell Snape used.
What with the regular sounds of retching, cheering and the sound of Fred and George taking advance orders from the crowd, it was very hard to focus on anything else. Hermione was not helping matters with her loud disapproving huffs.
"Just go and stop them, then!" Harry snapped at her.
'I can't, they're not technically doing anything wrong," said Hermione through gritted teeth. "They're quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves and I can't find a rule that says the other idiots aren't entitled to buy them, not unless they're proven to be dangerous in some way and it doesn't look as though they are."
"You know, I don't get why Fred and George only got three OWLs each," said Harry, watching as Fred, George and Lee collected gold from the eager crowd. "They really know their stuff."
"Oh, they only know flashy stuff that's of no real use to anyone," said Hermione.
"No real use? Hermione, they've made about twenty-six Galleons already." I said, taking up for them.
It was a long while before the crowd around the Weasley twins dispersed, then Fred, Lee and George sat up counting their earnings even longer, so it was well past midnight when the three of us finally had the common room to ourselves. I was dozing lightly in an armchair, when I spied a face in the fire
"Sirius!" I said.
"Hi," he said, grinning.
"Hi," we said, kneeling on the rug in front of the fire.
"How're things?" said Sirius.
"Not that good," said Harry, as Hermione pulled Crookshanks back to stop him singeing his whiskers. "The Ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams-"
"Or secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?" said Sirius knowingly.
There was a short pause.
"How did you know about that?" Harry demanded.
"You want to choose your meeting places more carefully," said Sirius, grinning still more broadly. "The Hog's Head, I ask you."
"Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" said Hermione defensively. "That's always packed with people-"
"Which means you'd have been harder to overhear," said Sirius. "You've got a lot to learn, Hermione."
"Who overheard us?" Harry demanded.
"Mundungus, of course," said Sirius. "He was the witch under the veil."
"That was Mundungus?" Harry said, stunned. "What was he doing in the Hog's Head?"
"What do you think he was doing?" said Sirius impatiently. "Keeping an eye on you, of course."
"I'm still being followed?" asked Harry angrily.
"Yeah, you are," said Sirius, "and just as well, isn't it, if the first thing you're going to do on your weekend off is organize an illegal defense group."
"Why was Dung hiding from us?" I asked. "We'd've liked to've seen him."
"He was banned from the Hog's Head twenty years ago," said Sirius, "and that barman's got a long memory. We lost Moody's spare Invisibility Cloak when Sturgis was arrested, so Dung's been dressing as a witch a lot lately ... anyway ... first of all, Ron-I've sworn to pass on a message from your mother."
"Oh yeah?" I said nervously.
"She says on no account whatsoever are you to take part in an illegal secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group. She says you'll be expelled for sure and your future will be ruined. She says there will be plenty of time to learn how to defend yourself later and that you are too young to be worrying about that right now. She also advises Harry and Hermione not to proceed with the group, though she accepts that she has no authority over either of them and simply begs them to remember that she has their best interests at heart. She would have written all this to you, but if the owl had been intercepted you'd all have been in real trouble, and she can't say it for herself because she's on duty tonight."
"On duty doing what?" I asked.
"Never you mind, just stuff for the Order," said Sirius. "So it's fallen to me to be the messenger and make sure you tell her I passed it all on, because I don't think she trusts me to."
There was another pause in which Crookshanks, mewing, attempted to paw Sirius's head. I felt conflicted. I wanted to do the training. It was extremely important. But I has already done so much and kept it a secret from Mum. This would only add to the long list of lies.
"So, you want me to say I'm not going to take part in the Defense group?" I muttered finally.
"Me? Certainly not!" said Sirius, looking surprised. "I think it's an excellent idea!"
"You do?" said Harry, looking chipper.
"Of course I do!" said Sirius. "D'you think your father and I would've lain down and taken orders from a cunt like Umbridge?"
"But last term all you did was tell me to be careful and not take risks-"
"Last year, all the evidence was that someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill you, Harry!" said Sirius impatiently. "This year, we know there's someone outside Hogwarts who'd like to kill us all, so I think learning to defend yourselves properly is a very good idea!"
"And if we do get expelled?" Hermione asked.
"Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!" said Harry, staring at her.
"I know it was. I just wondered what Sirius thought," she said, shrugging.
"Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in school without a clue," said Sirius.
"Hear, hear," said Harry and I enthusiastically.
"So," said Sirius, "how are you organizing this group? Where are you meeting?"
"Well, that's a bit of a problem now," said Harry. "Dunno where we're going to be able to go."
"How about the Shrieking Shack?" suggested Sirius.
"Hey, that's an idea!" I said excitedly, but Hermione made a noise that suggested otherwise.
"Well, Sirius, it's just that there were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you were at school," said Hermione, "and all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you could all have squeezed under a single Invisibility Cloak if you'd wanted to. But there are twenty-eight of us and none of us is an Animagus, so we wouldn't need so much an Invisibility Cloak as an Invisibility Marquee-"
"Fair point,' said Sirius. "Well, I'm sure you'll come up with somewhere. There used to be a pretty roomy secret passageway behind that big mirror on the fourth floor, you might have enough space to practise jinxes in there."
"Fred and George told me it's blocked," said Harry, shaking his head. "Caved in or something."
"Oh ..." said Sirius, frowning. "Well, I'll have a think and get back to-"
He stopped talking abruptly. His face was suddenly tense, alarmed. He turned sideways, apparently looking into the solid brick wall of the fireplace.
"Sirius?" said Harry anxiously.
But he had vanished. We looked at the flames and then at each other, bewildered.
"Why did he-?"
Hermione gave a horrified gasp and leapt to her feet, still staring at the fire.
A hand had appeared amongst the flames, groping as though to catch hold of something; a stubby, short-fingered hand covered in ugly old-fashioned rings.
We ran for it. We look back and saw the toad's hand saving around in the fire, as if she knew exactly what she was trying to grab for.
"We're fucked." I mouthed.