Ethereal

♦ 048 ♦

The Order of The Phoenix

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"You and Umbridge have got something in common," Sadie told Hermione quietly when they met again in Defence Against the Dark Arts. "She obviously reckons Trelawney's an old fraud, too. Looks like she's put her on probation.:

Umbridge entered the room as he spoke, wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of great smugness.

"Good afternoon, class."

"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," they chanted dully.

"Wands away, please."

But there was no answering flurry of movement this time. 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," Harry, Ron, Sadie and Hermione said together, under their breaths.

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"No Quidditch practice," said Angelina in hollow tones when Harry, Ron, Sadie and Hermione entered the common room after dinner that night.

"But we kept our temper!" said Harry, horrified as Sadie nodded. "We didn't say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, we. . . ."

"I know, I know," said Angelina miserably. "She just said she needed a bit of time to consider."

"Consider what?" said Ron angrily. "She's given the Slytherins permission, why not us?"

But Sadie could imagine how much Umbridge was enjoying holding the threat of no Gryffindor Quidditch team over their heads and could easily understand why she would not want to relinquish that weapon over them too soon.

"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 Ron stared incredulously at Hermione. "No Quidditch practice, and extra Potions?"

Harry slumped down into a chair, dragged his Potions essay reluctantly from his bag and set to work. There was also an incredible amount of noise in the room: Fred and George appeared finally to have 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 spectacularly 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 cease. Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily Vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry's potions.

What with the regular sounds of retching, cheering and the sound of Fred and George taking advance orders from the crowd. Hermione was not helping matters; the cheers and the sound of vomit hitting the bottom of Fred and George's bucket were punctuated by her loud and disapproving sniffs.

"Just go and stop them, then!" he said irritably, after crossing out the wrong weight of powdered griffin claw for the fourth time.

"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."