The Riddle Twins

Chapter 12

They had all finished their homework and had decided to go to the Room of Requirement one day. Ares remembered Sirius telling him about it and how they used it to hide from teachers if they were ever caught.

The boys headed down to the dormitory together, discussing about Quidditch.

A large sign had been affixed to the Slytherin notice board, so large that it covered everything else on there — the regular reminders of school rules from Argus Filch, the Quidditch team training schedule, the offers to barter certain Chocolate Frog cards for others, the dates of the Hogsmeade weekends, and the lost and-found notices. The new sign was printed in large black letters and there was a highly official-looking seal at the bottom beside a neat and curly signature.

— BY ORDER OF —

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts
All Student Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded. An Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students.
Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).
No Student Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor.
Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.

Signed:

Dolores Jane Umbridge.

HIGH INQUISITOR.

The boys read the notice over the heads of the nervous second-years.

"Does this mean they're going to shut down the Gobstones Club?" one of them asked his friend.

Ares walked up the stairs to the girls' dormitory to inform his sister. He knocked on the door and she opened it.

"What happened, Ares?" She asked.

"You better come see this." He beckoned her to follow him and he showed her the notice.

Athena's eyes slid rapidly down the notice. She became surprised.

"Let's go to the Great Hall. Maybe other Houses have this notice too,"

It was immediately apparent on entering the Great Hall that Umbridge's sign had not only appeared in Slytherin Common Room. There was a peculiar intensity about the chatter and an extra measure of movement in the Hall as people scurried up and down their tables conferring on what they had read.

Urquhart walked towards them and said, "You read the notice? We have to go and ask permission to re-form the Slytherin team!"

"Wait, what?"

"Yea, the notice said teams too. So, we'll have to re-form the Quidditch team and we have to ask permission."

"Well then let's go before class starts."

The Quidditch players headed to Umbridge's office. When Urquhart knocked on the door she said, "Come in," in a sugary voice.

He had known this office under three of its previous occupants. In the days when Gilderoy Lockhart had lived here it had been plastered in beaming portraits of its owner. When Lupin had occupied it, it was likely you would meet some fascinating Dark creature in a cage or tank if you came to call. In the impostor Moody's days, it had been packed with various instruments and artifacts for the detection of wrongdoing and concealment.

Now, however, it looked totally unrecognizable. The surfaces had all been draped in lacy covers and cloths. There were several vases full of dried flowers, each residing on its own doily, and on one of the walls was a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicolor kitten wearing a different bow around its neck.