The Potter Twins and the Order of the Phoenix {5}

14. Detention with Delores

"Oh, what a time to be alive, wake up and smell the dynamite" ~ Happy Judgement Day, Neck Deep

Dinner in the Great Hall is far from a pleasant experience for Harry and me. The news about us shouting at Umbridge seems to have travelled exceptionally fast, even by Hogwarts standards. 
I hear whispers all around us as we eat, and the funny thing is that none of the whispers seem to care that I can overhear them. On the contrary, it is as though they're hoping that we will get angry and start shouting again so that they can hear out story first-hand. 

"They say they saw Cedric Diggory murdered..."

"They reckon they duelled with You-Know-Who..."

"Come off it..."

"Who do they think they're kidding?"

"Pur-lease..."

"What I don't get," Harry says suddenly, through clenched teeth, "is why they all believed the story two months ago when Dumbledore told them..."

"Thing thing is, Harry, I'm not sure they did," Hermione says grimly. "Oh, let's get out of here."

She slams down her own knife and fork, and Ron looks longingly at his half-finished apple pie, but follow suit regardless. People stare at us all the way out of the hall. 

"What d'you mean, you're not sure they believed Dumbledore?" I ask when we reach the first-floor landing. 

"Look, you don't understand what it was like after it happened," Hermione says quietly. "You two arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching Cedric's dead body...your father, who was supposedly dead, ran out into the open...everyone was shocked...none of us saw what happened in the maze...we just had Dumbledore's word for it that You-Know-WHo had come back and killed Cedric and fought you."

"Which is the truth!" Harry says loudly. 

"I know it is, Harry, so will you please stop biting my head off?" Hermione says wearily. "It's just that before the truth could sink in, everyone went home for the summer, where they spent two months reading about how you're nutcases and Dumbledore's going senile! It's hard enough for them to believe that James Potter is now back from the dead, let alone You-Know-Who."

Rain pounds against the windowpanes as we stride along the empty corridor back to the Gryffindor Tower. A dull pain is forming around my eyes, and I want nothing more than to sleep. I glance out the rain-washed window at the dark grounds as we turn into the Fat Lady's corridor. There is still no light in Hagrid's cabin. 

"Mimbulus mimbletonia," Hermione says, before the Fat Lady can even ask. The portrait swings open to reveal the hole behind it and the four of us scramble through it. 

The common room is almost empty; nearly everyone is still down at dinner, naturally. Crookshanks uncoils himself from an armchair and trots down to meet us, purring loudly as we take our favourite seats by the fire. I gaze into the flames feeling drained and exhausted. 

"How can Dumbledore have let this happen?" Hermione cries suddenly, making us all jump. She pounds the arms of her chair in fury so that bits of stuffing leak out of the holes. "How can he let that terrible woman teach us? And in our OWL year, too!"

"Well, we've never had great Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we?" Harry says. "You know what it's like, Hagrid told us, nobody wants the job; they say it's jinxed."

"Yes, but to employ someone who's actually refusing to let us do magic? What's Dumbledore playing at?"

"And she's trying to get people to spy for her," Ron says darkly. "Remember when she said she wanted us to come back and tell her if we hear anyone saying You-Know-Who's back?"