Chapter 8
The last time George had sat at this table was last year’s Leaving Feast, when the Great Hall was draped in black, no one was eating much of their food, and Dumbledore told the school what happened to Cedric Diggory.
As soon as he stood from the staff table all the students seemed to instinctively move closer to one another, knowing what was coming. George found he could not quite meet Dumbledore’s eyes behind those half-moon spectacles as he began to speak, as everyone toasted to Cedric. Glancing around the room as they sat back down, he saw the Hufflepuffs were holding each other’s hands, and even the Slytherin table was subdued.
“... you have the right, therefore, to know exactly how it came about.” Dumbledore said. Harry was sitting down a few places from George, and he lifted his eyes from his plate for the first time.
“Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort.”
A sort of collective flinch rippled through the hall at the name, followed by a flurry of panicked whispers and horrified exclamations.
The twins knew already, as Bill had left Harry’s room in the hospital wing late last night and told them what was going on, so by now Lee knew too, as did the Quidditch team. Though they were too tired for a proper meeting, Katie Bell had managed to call Oliver Wood up into a fireplace in the common room upon finding out and most of the team gathered there, kneeling on the hearth. Wood tried hard not to show his tears, and instructed them all in a hoarse and quiet voice to “protect and comfort Harry at all costs, and if you get the chance, tell him… tell him if he ever, er, needs to talk to someone, or consult about Quidditch, or something… tell him he can owl me, alright? I miss you lot, really”.
Now the team had managed to station themselves close around their Seeker, and as Dumbledore went on and began to speak of Harry, at least one set of eyes flicked to him every few seconds.
“... and for this, I honor him.” The whole hall was rising again, toasting towards the Gryffindor table this time. Harry stared at his plate, and as they settled back into their seats George realized he was shaking slightly. Ron had evidently noticed this as well, because he was nudging Harry with his shoulder and whispering something in his ear. Harry shook his head slightly, and George watched Ron lean a little closer, covering Harry’s hand where it was pressed against the bench with his own. Harry’s shoulder relaxed, and he leaned on his friend in return. Alicia Spinnet was sitting across from George, smiling a little, and he caught her eye and smiled too, until she glanced quickly at Harry again and her expression changed.
George shifted to look at him again and found that he was shaking worse now, lips pressed so tightly together they’d gone white. Ron was still holding his hand but his brow was furrowed, and the rest of the team was noticing. Fred’s thumb tapped gently on George’s elbow; he was gesturing toward the Ravenclaw table behind them, where several nosy second-years had turned to stare in Harry’s direction. But Lee glared at them and they shrank back, and Alicia and Katie had caught on and sat up a bit taller to shield Harry from view. Angelina Johnson was sitting next to Hermione, and when she looked up at George for help he mouthed, panic attack. She got Hermione’s attention to whisper in her ear, and Hermione leaned out behind Harry to pass the message on to Ron, who said something to Harry, who nodded. The whole team seemed to operate around the fourth-year trio like a well-oiled machine, communicating now perhaps better than they ever had on the pitch. Ron had taken Harry’s hand again and pulled it to his chest, whispering again until Harry nodded and began to mouth the numbers—good, he’d told him to count heartbeats, which Fred had taught him—and the team watched in silence as his breathing slowed, as he eventually took his hand from Ron’s chest.
When Harry wiped the sleeve of his robes across his face and raised his head, he was met with more than a few pairs of eyes watching him. But everyone smiled and as they began turning back to their plates, he smiled back. George knew, and Harry did too—if anything in the world was certain, it was that the Gryffindor Quidditch team was always going to support their Seeker. Maybe someone would even get around to telling him Oliver Wood sent his love.
Now, he was here again, this time watching as an unfamiliar woman in an obnoxiously pink dress stood up from behind the staff table in the middle of Professor Dumbledore’s announcement.
“Hem, hem,” it was Professor Umbridge, and despite her girlish voice she vaguely reminded George of a toad.
Fred leaned in behind him and hissed in his ear. “What on earth is she doing?”
“She looks like a toad, right?”
“Oh, absolutely.” George could hear Lee laughing behind him too. Most students were still listening, but with an air of confusion now instead of attention—no one had interrupted an address by Dumbledore before.
“... and I’m sure we’ll be very good friends!” Professor Umbridge was saying now. On the other side of the table, Parvati snorted and Lavender lapsed into silent laughter, ducking her head. Next to them, Alicia Spinnet’s eyebrows had drawn together, and Ron’s face had already gone slack.
“Hem, hem,” She simpered again, and Fred snickered.
“I don’t think any hemming job could save that cardigan.”
George turned to meet his brother’s twinkling eyes, trying in vain not to let laughter bubble through his whisper. “I mean, it’s gotta be pretty hard to dress up a toad, yeah?”
Angelina Johnson choked on her pumpkin juice, and Katie Bell dissolved into hysterics over her plate. Ginny and Neville were studying his new cactus, and Harry was absentmindedly stirring gravy into his cranberry sauce instead of the potatoes. Hermione, of course, was the only student at this part of the Gryffindor table who was listening. Her expression was getting progressively more grim, but George didn’t have the will to tune back in.
Fred was reading his mind. “She’ll explain it to us all later, y’know.”
“Yeah.”
“Fancy a noughts and crosses tournament, anyone?” Lee asked, and every Quidditch team member in the vicinity perked up. “Two-of-three moves to the next round, alright?”
George didn’t remember anything from Umbridge’s speech after that.
In the common room later that night when most of the younger students had gone to bed, George and the rest of the group crashed at one of the tables, where Hermione was reading. She looked up when they surrounded her, but rolled her eyes and smiled anyway. “I take it you want a run-down of what Professor Umbridge said at dinner?”
Lee grinned. “Knew we could count on you, ‘Mione!”
Really, George knew she didn’t mind explaining all that much—his third year, when she was in first, she’d often sit in the common room annotating a textbook from one of her classes, and if he had cramps too bad for Quidditch practice, he’d join her with a heating pad on his tummy and she would eventually start to talk. Honestly, George didn’t remember much of those conversations now, but he did remember feeling grateful that she could take his mind off the pain and dysphoria without acting weird. He also remembered how she lit up as she talked about whatever subject it was that day, needing only a few encouraging prompts or noises to ramble on for hours, explaining every part of the subject in as many different ways as there was time for. That year, there hadn’t been many people for her to talk with about those things, but by now most of the Gryffindors in their social circle depended on her for information from school events or the news. She acted tired of it, but then every time the discussion actually began her eyes would light up exactly the way they had four years ago, and everyone listened until they understood.
“Alright,” She shut her book and straightened her spine a little. “What Professor Umbridge was talking about was a whole lot about the Ministry’s educational philosophies and how they interact with Hogwarts’s. Specifically, which practices the Ministry approves of, and which ones they don’t, and how we must get rid of those outdated things Ministry doesn’t like, to ensure that the school remains great and whatnot. But most of what she said was really vague, and that seems to me like it’s totally on purpose—she probably doesn’t want to just start spewing lies her first night here, even though in the long run she may not have much against it, so she’s keeping all the details so minimal that no one can call her out on this before it even starts. She’s not dumb, that one. But she’s told us one thing for certain: the ministry is going to be interfering at Hogwarts, imposing their political beliefs on our education. And I don’t agree with that for many reasons I could talk about later, but I can tell you right now I don’t think the process’ll be pretty. Does that make sense?”
There were nods, and murmurs of satisfaction. Lee grimaced. “Yeah, sounds unappealing.”
“She’s a rather unappealing woman, really.”
George looked up. “Do you think she looks like a toad, then?”
For a moment, Hermione only looked taken aback, but then a grin began to take over her face. “Yes, she does. Really a lot like a toad.”
“Not Trevor, though,” Fred interjected. “That’d be an insult to him, and to Neville.”
The group burst out laughing at that, and Hermione was barely concealing her own mirth as she ushered them all, grinning, off to bed.