Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [5]

⚡️ Chapter 58 ⚡️

Just by mid-morning of that fateful Monday enormous signs had been put up all over the school, not just on House notice boards, but in the corridors and classrooms too. Everywhere that one went, there was the same thing glaring at them from all directions, and it was clearly something that Vega had been expected and hoping for –

— BY ORDER OF —

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts

Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven.

Signed:

Dolores Jane Umbridge

HIGH INQUISITOR

The sight of it filled Vega with vengeful satisfaction and even Hermione beamed with pleasure whenever they came across it, something that Harry could not understand, "What exactly are you two so happy about?"

"Oh Harry, don't you see?" Hermione breathed. "If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!"

"It's a reverse psychology thing," Vega spoke up. "If you're stopping the students – children – from doing something, they are going to do it, for better or for worse,"

And it seemed that Vega and Hermione were quite right.

By the end of that day, though they could had not seen so much as a corner of The Quibbler anywhere in the school, the whole place seemed to be quoting the interview at each other.

Vega felt good whenever she heard people whispering about it as they queued up outside classes, discussing it over lunch and in the back of lessons, while Hermione even reported that every occupant of the cubicles in the girls' toilets had been talking about it when she nipped in there before Ancient Runes.

"And then they spotted me, and obviously they know I know you two, so they were bombarding me with questions," Hermione told Vega and Harry, her brown eyes shining. "And I think they believe you two, I really do, I think you've finally got them convinced!"

"I'm good as long as they don't converge or group around me," Vega said smiling lightly – very relieved that she had not gone anywhere alone.

Meanwhile Professor Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and demanding that they turn out their books and pockets. Vega knew without a doubt that she was looking for copies of The Quibbler, but the students were several steps ahead of her.

The pages carrying Vega's and Harry's interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to peruse it again. Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it.

Of course, the teachers were forbidden from mentioning the interview by Educational Decree Number Twenty-six, but they found ways to express their feelings about it directly to Vega and Harry all the same.

Professor Sprout awarded Gryffindor twenty points each when Harry passed her a watering can and when Vega helped her with the plants; a beaming Professor Flitwick pressed a box of squeaking sugar mice on Vega and Harry at the end of Charms, said "Shh!" and hurried away.