Emma Potter; Going to War

44: Hagrid's Brother

The story of Fred and George's flight to freedom was retold so often over the next few days that I could tell it would soonbecome the stuff of Hogwarts legend. Within a week, even those whohad been eyewitnesses were half-convinced that they had seen thetwins dive-bomb Umbridge on their brooms, pelting her with Dungbombs before zooming out of the doors. 

In the immediate aftermathof their departure there was a great wave of talk about copying them,so that I frequently heard students saying things like, 

"Honestly,some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving thisplace," 

or else, "One more lesson like that and I might just do aWeasley. . . ."

 Fred and George had made sure that nobody was likely to forgetthem very soon. For one thing, they had not left instructions on howto remove the swamp that now filled the corridor on the fifth floor ofthe east wing.

 Umbridge and Filch had been observed trying differentmeans of removing it but without success. Eventually the area wasroped off and Filch, gnashing his teeth furiously, was given the task ofpunting students across it to their classrooms. 

I was certain that teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick could have removed the swampin an instant, but just as in the case of Fred and George's WildfireWhiz-Bangs, they seemed to prefer to watch Umbridge struggle. 

Then there were the two large broom-shaped holes in Umbridge'soffice door, through which Fred and George's Cleansweeps hadsmashed to rejoin their masters. Filch fitted a new door and removedHarry's Firebolt to the dungeons where, it was rumored, Umbridgehad set an armed security troll to guard it. 

However, her troubles werefar from over.Inspired by Fred and George's example, a great number of students--led my me-- were now vying for the newly vacant positions of Troublemakers-in-Chief's [me] apprentice. 

In spite of the new door, somebody managed to slip a hairy snouted niffler into Umbridge's office, which promptly tore the placeapart in its search for shiny objects, leapt on Umbridge on her reentrance, and tried to gnaw the rings off her stubby fingers. Dungbombsand Stinkpellets were dropped so frequently in the corridors that it became the new fashion for students to perform Bubble-Head Charmson themselves before leaving lessons, which ensured them a supply offresh clean air, even though it gave them all the peculiar appearance ofwearing upside-down goldfish bowls on their heads.

 Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands,desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there werenow so many of them that he did not know which way to turn.

 Meanwhile it became clear just how many Skiving Snackboxes Fredand George had managed to sell before leaving Hogwarts. Umbridgeonly had to enter her classroom for the students assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers, or else spout blood from bothnostrils. Shrieking with rage and frustration she attempted to trace themysterious symptoms to their source, but the students told her stubbornly they were suffering--as I called "Umbridge-itis." After putting four successive classes in detention and failing to discover their secret she wasforced to give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating, andvomiting students to leave her classes in droves. 

But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with thatmaster of chaos, Peeves, who seemed to have taken Fred's partingwords deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through the school,upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, and toppling statuesand vases. Twice he and I shut Mrs. Norris inside suits of armor, from whichshe was rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker.

 He smashedlanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over theheads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchmentto topple into fires or out of windows, flooded the second floor whenhe pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever hefancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridgeand blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.