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"I'LL BET YOU wish you hadn't given up Divination now, don't you, Hermione."
A few days following Trelawney's sacking, the Gryffindors sat in the Great Hall eating breakfast. Parvati smirked as she looked up at Hermione, taking her eyes off of the spoon she was currently using as a mirror.
"Not really. I've never really liked horses."
Hermione was preoccupied, her nose buried deep in the Daily Prophet as she scanned through the pages, and Lavender gasped, "He's not a horse, he's a centaur!"
"A gorgeous centaur . . ." Parvati sighed dreamily, and Hermione shrugged, "Either way, he's still got four legs. Anyway, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?"
"We are!" Lavender said. "We went up to her office to see her, we took her some daffodils — not the honking ones that Sprout's got, nice ones . . ."
"How is she?" Harry asked, and Lavender frowned, "Not very good, poor thing. She was crying and saying she'd rather leave the castle forever than stay here if Umbridge is still here, and I don't blame her. Umbridge was horrible to her, wasn't she?"
"I've got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible," Rory said.
Ron, who had been preoccupied with eating, shook his head, "Impossible. She can't get any worse than she's been already."
"You mark my words, she's going to want revenge on Dumbledore for appointing a new teacher without consulting her," Hermione closed the Daily Prophet. "Especially another part-human. You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze. . . ."
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The stress from classes became more severe as the months passed: March now drifting into April. Almost every fifth year felt the same way, and Hannah Abbott was the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey ( she had burst into tears in the middle of Herbology ). If it weren't for D.A. and Harry, Rory would've fallen into the trap of her seemingly endless depression.
Nights were rough; she hadn't had a peaceful sleep in more than a month, and she felt the effects. Iris didn't end her visits, probably as a means to torment the girl even more.
It felt like a never-ending cycle of torture.
Rory forced a smile upon her tired face, happy to see everyone interacting with their Patronuses for the first time. She hadn't produced one herself yet, too drained to even work up the effort to cast it.
