A case of the croaks
When Harry and Draco enter the Common Room their friends flock around them, babbling excitedly. Pansy and Daphne begin to speak over each other excitedly about having just returned from Hogsmeade when Professor Snape came striding past them, and more or less ran up the front steps and into the castle — ”Clutching a piece of paper!” Seamus cuts it rather loudly — and ever since the two girls got to the Common Room and told everyone about it, the wild theories about what could possibly have got their Head of House acting so panicked, have been flying apparently.
Seamus seems convinced that the piece of paper is the clue to the whole thing and that it’s something to do with the Order of the Phoenix and You-Know-Who, whereas Blaise is insisting that Professor Snape would hardly have survived as a spy during the war if he would freak out so obviously, so the only explanation is that he’s waiting for some rare potions ingredient to be delivered and it’s been lost in the post.
Harry can’t help but to laugh at his friends and that they seem think that it has to be one of those two things, that Professor Snape couldn’t possibly have any other interests or concerns. Harry has no idea what the man’s life outside of Hogwarts is like or what his interests actually are, but he’s not naïve enough to think that what they get to see of him at school is all there is to see, either…
”Why aren’t you more intrigued?” Pansy demands, narrowing her eyes at Draco when he drapes himself casually into an armchair, and he smirks at her.
”Because we know what was on the piece of paper”, Harry answers for him. ”It was a letter sent by my daddy… I finally told them about Umbridge and her blood quill—”
Pansy gasps and slaps her hand against her mouth dramatically, but her wide eyes glitter with excitement.
”They weren’t pleased”, Draco cuts in, as Harry squeezes down next to him in the armchair.
”No… My dad’s in a meeting with her and Dumbledore now, and Professor Snape too”, Harry says, then adds bitterly, ”She refused to see my daddy, so he’s waiting in the Entrance Hall.”
”Cow…” Pansy murmurs. ”This is fantastic though. She’s finally going to get it. Oh, I wish I could be a fly on the wall—”
”Oh, hey, speaking of which”, Draco says. ”Guess how Rita Skeeter got all that information about what was going on at school, even after Dumbledore banned her from the grounds?”
”How?” Blaise demands, dropping into the sofa next to them.
”She’s an animagus! She can turn into a bug and she’s been sneaking into classrooms and stuff”, Draco tells him.
”That explains so much — how’d you find out?”
”He didn’t”, Harry says. ”Granger did.”
”Granger?” Pansy repreats incredulously. ”Is that what she wanted to talk to you about?”
”No…” Harry shakes his head. ”She brought Skeeter along to the meeting, wanted me to have a chance to tell my side of the story of what happened in June, without embellishments or anything… and here’s the sick part — Skeeter had no choice but to agree, because Granger is blackmailing her!”
”What”, Pansy says, blinking. ”You’re joking?”
”Granger?” Seamus says sceptically. ”The bookbag-hunchbacked, goody-goody know-it-all? Blackmailing the most vicious reporter in Britain?”
”Yeah”, Draco mutters. ”I know…”
”Blackmailing her with what?” Blaise asks curiously.
”Oh, apparently Skeeter is an unregistered animagus, which I guess is illegal”, Harry shrugs.
”I can’t believe Granger would blackmail anyone!” Daphne says. ”She’s got a lot more nerve than I’d’ve given her credit for…”
”What does she get out of it, though?” Blaise says. ”Skeeter hasn't mentioned her in any articles since Krum, well, you know..." he trails off awkwardly and gives Harry an apologetic look. "So what does she care if Skeeter is sneaking into the castle to spy on us and write about it? And why go through all that trouble to get you a fair interview, Harry?”
”Guess she cares about the truth coming out?” Harry says and shrugs again.
”Oh, who cares about Granger!” Pansy exclaims suddenly. ”I want to know what happened when you told your dads about Umbitch! Was Professor Lupin really furious?”
She inches a little closer to Harry and pins him with a wide-eyed, glittery stare, her lips stretching in a malicious smile.
”Yeah, he was quite angry”, Harry says. ”But he kept it together, probably because me and Draco were there… if it’d have been just him and dad when he found out, he probably would have shattered all the glassware in the house…”
”I can’t believe you didn’t tell them sooner!” Pansy says, practically bouncing with excitement. ”We could have been rid of her ages ago!”
”What do you mean?” Harry frowns.
”Well, she’ll probably get the sack — don’t you think?”
Harry hadn’t thought so, but now that Pansy has brought it up he supposes it’s not inconceivable considering the use of a blood quill has been prohibited by law and she’s still continued to use it even after the law was passed… Harry would have to prove it, of course — but Professor Snape is his witness, he’s been supplying Harry with pain-relieving salve! And Harry knows his Head of House has informed the Headmaster, as well — besides, it’s not just Harry that’s been forced to use the blood quill, it’s Draco too. Even if it was only the once.
”I kind o’ don’t want her to get sacked”, Seamus says. ”At least not yet — not before we can carry out our prank!”
”I thought we agreed that would be reckless?” Blaise points out.
”I don’t care — I want her to suffer!”
”Well…” Draco says slowly. ”Unless she is sacked with immediate effect, she will… and it won’t be traced back to us”, he adds, with a nod in Blaise’s direction.
”What have you done?” Harry squints at the blonde suspiciously and receives a smirk back.
”I’ve enlisted the services of a… neutral party…”
”Taking a leaf out of Granger’s book, are we?” Blaise comments drily.
Draco shoots him a glare.
”Please”, he scoffs. ”If anything, that anomaly of gryffindorkish behaviour is clearly Granger channelling some repressed Slytherin tendencies…”
Blaise rolls his eyes.
”And no”, Draco adds. ”I tried blackmailing them, but they said the… secret… wasn’t worth the risk of expulsion. So I had to add a cherry on top. A very expensive cherry — but it will be worth it, if they turn out to be as good as they say they are…”
”Who are you talking about?” Harry demands, but a sneaking suspiscion is already curling in the pit of his stomach.
Draco and Blaise exchange a quick look, then turn their heads towards him and blink innocently. Harry scowls and jabs Draco in the side. He immediately squirms away, smirking. He said they, Harry thinks and his mind flashes back to that moment in the courtyard when he’d caught Draco staring at the Weasley twins thoughtfully. Could Draco have paid the twins to sneak some of their Skiving Snacks into Umbridge’s food or something?
I hope it’s something like that and not something worse, he thinks with a sinking feeling.
”Please tell me it’s not… anything criminal?” Harry begs worriedly.
”I promise — you’re going to love it!” Draco assures him and gives him a teasing peck on the lips.
*
Harry takes deep breath and knocks on the Potions Master’s office door. He’s not sure why he feels so nervous; he’s seen Professor Snape several times during the day and the man seemed in a relatively good mood, and as much as Harry’s progress in Occlumency is non-existent, at least he’s not getting any worse…
”Come in”, the unmistakable timbre of the Potions Master can be heard from the other side of the door and Harry takes another quick, deep breath and pushes the door open. ”Good evening, Harry…”
”Good evening, Professor”, Harry says and shuffles inside the office.
The Potions Master is standing with his back to the room, re-organising some potion phials on a shelf.
”Come on in, have a seat”, he murmurs absent-mindedly.
Harry takes his usual seat in front of the desk and has to fight a very strong sense-memory induced impulse to hang his head, and reminds himself sternly that he is not in trouble.
Professor Snape whirls around and swoops down in the seat opposite, fixing him with a piercing look.
”How… are you… feeling… Harry?” he asks slowly, the words seemingly punching their way past his clenched jaw and out of his mouth.
”Sir?”
”How are you feeling?” the man repeats firmly.
His eyes narrow in a half-hearted glare, seemingly defiant as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that he should be asking Harry such a thing — and that it is Harry that is acting weird by being surprised by it — even though Harry can’t remember ever having been asked that question by his Head of House before, and if he has, it’s been directly related to an incident and the word ’feeling’ has alluded to his physical well-being, not emotional — but now, Harry is almost certain that’s what the man is asking him how he is feeling, emotionally.
”I’m… fine, I guess”, Harry shrugs. ”A little… worried, I suppose.”
”Worried?” Snape repeats, his eyes narrowing further into tiny slits.
”Yeah. About what’s going to happen. With everything. Umbridge. Me and Draco. Everything else — You-Know-Who-and-What-and-That — My dads haven’t told me anything about the meeting yet, and Draco’s not heard from his parents so I don’t know what’s going to happen with that either, but the interview hasn’t been published yet I suppose so—”
”Wait, stop”, Professor Snape says, waving a hand to emphasize. ”What are you talking about now? What interview?”
”Oh, ehm. Well, mine. I met with a reporter and gave an interview about what happened last summer—”
”You… did? What reporter?”
”Ehm, well, Rita Skeeter… it’s okay though!” he adds hurriedly. ”She’ll write it up exactly as I’ve said it and then it’s going to get published.”
”Impossible”, Snape mutters. ”The Daily Prophet would never—”
”No, not the Prophet… The Quibbler”, Harry admits.
Professor Snape blinks, but says nothing. Then he staples his hands in front of him again and speaks in a rush of words, telling Harry the abridged version of the meeting with Umbridge, adding wryly that he only had to physically restrain his dad once and Harry huffs out a laugh.
”There will be an internal investigation”, Snape continues seriously. ”But she has been granted by the Minister to continue teaching while it’s on-going… Unfortunately…” he pulls a face and glares down at his own fingertips. ”As for what’s going to happen with… The Malfoys and… Everything else, I cannot begin to speculate.”
”That’s okay”, Harry says sardonically and gives him a pinched smile. ”I don’t really want to speculate about it, anyway.”
”In this interview, did you reveal the identities of the Death Eaters that were present in the graveyard?”
”Yeah, I did”, Harry nods. ”I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but… It’s done now.”
”Indeed…” Snape nods as well.
They sit in fairly uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Then Professor Snape pushes to his feet with such a sudden movement that Harry jumps slightly, but when the Potions Master moves the Pensieve aside and brandishes his wand, he eagerly gets to his feet as well.
He plants his feet firmly apart and grabs his own wand, relieved for once to delve into his Occlumency lesson, if only to avoid any more awkward heart to hearts with his Head of House.
”Prepare yourself…” Professor Snape murmurs and Harry nods. ”One… Two… Three… Legilimens!”
A rush of memories flash before Harry’s mind’s eye, but almost immediately the corridor outside the Department of Mysteries appears and Professor Snape swiftly breaks the spell again.
Harry sucks in a deep shuddering breath as he feels the invasion of his mind subside and Professor Snape’s office reappears around him. He pushes to his feet again, his knees a little weak but nowhere near as shaky as usual after a mental attack. Maybe I’m getting used to this, finally, he thinks hopefully.
”What was that?” Professor Snape demands.
”What?” Harry asks.
”Are you still dreaming about the Department of Mysteries?”
”Well, ye—”
”Are you not clearing your mind before bed?”
”I am—!”
”Don’t lie to me!” Snape says grimly, his piercing eyes flashing with warning.
”I’m not… I’m not, I swear!”
”Well clearly it’s not working.”
”Well, that’s not my fault—!” Harry snaps, throwing his hands up in exasperation and then catching himself just in time and adds a hurried Sir.
Professor Snape’s eyes narrow further and he presses his lips together tightly. Pocketing his wand again, he reaches for a quill and a piece of parchment and begins to scribble something furiously. Harry barely resists craning his neck to sneak a peek, but instead looks down at the wand in his hands… And here I thought I was getting better… He’s probably writing to Dumbledore to say he refuses to teach me anymore —
”I am devising a small program for you”, Snape says in his strictest teacher’s voice, still scribbling furiously. ”It consists of three simple yet effective relaxation exercises that will help you clear your mind. You are to do all three of them, every evening before bed, and if you don’t, if you skip one or two, or you skip them all even for just one evening, or you hurry through them in your usual lackluster way, I will know…”
He finally stops writing and snaps his head up to fix Harry with a threatening look and Harry sighs, nodding his understanding. Professor Snape tosses the quill aside and thrusts the piece of parchment into Harry’s hand.
Harry looks down at the neatly written set of instructions — complicated instructions, he notes bitterly — and feels his stomach sink. Between revising for the O.W.L.s, Quidditch practise and Occlumency, he hardly gets to spend any quality time with Draco and their friends anymore. And now this… He sighs again.
”Would you prefer to start taking the Dreamless Sleep again instead?” Snape snaps.
Harry quickly shakes his head, ”No. No, Sir. This is… I’ll do these, every night, I promise… I really do want to get better, Sir.”
The hard look in the professor’s eyes softens slightly and he gives Harry a curt nod.
”Good. You can start tonight.”
”Yes, Sir.”
His friends all look up at him in surprise when he returns to the Common Room and he tells them with a sigh that he’s doing so badly that Professor Snape dismissed him early and told him to get an early night instead. Their surprise morphs into understanding and sympathy, and Harry pulls a face. He hates this feeling — like he’s a failure and a disappointment. Draco reaches out and brushes his fingers against the inside of his wrist.
”I’m going to go get ready for bed…” Harry mumbles.
”You okay?” the blonde asks quietly.
”Yeah”, Harry shrugs. ”I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me… Good night…”
He drags his feet over to the dorms and gets his toiletry bag and towel from his trunk and goes to the communal boys’ bathroom to brush his teeth and on his way back again, he makes another beeline for his friends’ little study camp in front of the fire to kiss Draco good night, before crawling into bed.
He takes a deep breath and unfolds the piece of paper with the exercises on, squinting at Professor Snape’s tiny handwriting and reading every instruction twice, to make sure he’s read it right, just like he always does in Potions, determined to do the exercises right, and by the end of it, his head is tight with a tension headache and it takes him a long while before he can relax enough to begin to drift off…
Suddenly he becomes aware of a warm body pressed up against his back and slender but strong arms hugging him tightly from behind… Draco… Harry can’t see a thing in the darkness inside the closed bed hangings, but he just knows that it’s Draco behind him, embracing him, nuzzling the back of his neck — he can’t put his finger on what it is, if it’s the way their bodies fit together, or how he feels safe and at home, but he just knows that Draco is behind him —
Then suddenly, he’s not.
Harry begins to feel for the other boy’s arms and hands that was roaming all over his chets a moment ago, but they’re gone. He twists around and feels for the other boy’s body next to him in the bed, but the sheets are cool and he his definitely the only one in the four-poster bed.
’Draco?’
He sits up, staring out into the darkness and seeing nothing.
’Draco?’ he calls out a little louder.
Kicking the covers off, Harry hurries to pull the bed hangings aside and scrambles to sit on the edge of the bed, ready to get up and go look for his boyfriend —
But instead of coming face to face with the gleaming black window facing the bottom of the Black Lake and the green and silver tapestries on either side of it, Harry finds himself staring at a large torch, its glow glimmering in the black tiles of the wall it’s mounted on.
Of course, he thinks turns his head slowly.
He swallows a sigh as he sees the damned door to the Department of Mysteries to his left… But… His heart lurches inside his chest and begins to pump frantically as he spots a strip of blue light along the right-hand side of it… It’s open!
Barely resisting the temptation to break out into a run, Harry begins to walk towards the door with quick, long strides. He stops right in front of it, his breath shallow with excitement as he stares at it. He can hardly believe his luck. The door is open, left ajar — it’s actually open!
He reaches out and gives it a firm push and it swings wide open —
A sudden gust of cool night air rushes in under Harry’s covers and he startles awake.
In the next second, the bed dips and Draco slithers in next to him.
”What…” Harry croaks, but the blonde hushes him.
He hears Draco’s muttered Silencio charm, then a muffled clatter as he puts his wand down on Harry’s bedside table before pulling the hangings closed again with a soft whoosh.
”What—” Harry begins again, but stutters to a stop when he feels slender fingers push past the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. ”What… what are you doing?”
”Shhh… I just want to try something…” Draco murmurs with his lips brushing Harry’s.
Several ideas fly through Harry’s mind, each filthier than the next and he nods eagerly. He feels the lips pressed against his own twitch into a smirk and then disappear completely as the other boy shimmies down the length of his body, pulling down his pyjama bottoms and pants as he goes. Draco settles between his legs and Harry instinctively spreads them a little wider to give him room. When Draco begins to trail kisses and little licks down the thickening length of Harry’s prick, he has to remind himself to breathe and he he presses his eyes shut, focusing on nothing but his own breathing and the sensations that spark up inside him.
He is steeling himself for the inevitable moment when Draco will envelop the leaking head in his hot mouth and begin to suck, and gasps in surprise when the inquisitive mouth ventures further down and mouths at his balls instead. Draco’s slender but strong hands knead the insides of his thighs, gently but firmly pushing them further apart while his tongue continues to swirl around Harry’s scrotum —
Gasping for a second time, Harry nearly sits up in shock as he feels the tip of the tongue flick at the sensitive skin behind his balls.
”Shhh…” Draco hushes softly, his fingers digging into the flesh of Harry’s thighs and Harry forces himself to relax against his pillows again.
The tongue continues to lap at his skin, moving in lazy but determined circles, further and further down… Harry’s face is burning and his mind screaming, but at the same time pleasure like he’s never felt before is pulsing through him, almost painfully… He feels his prick twitch and his balls tighten… And as the tip of Draco’s tongue dabs at the sensitive entrance of his hole, the most intense orgasm Harry has ever experienced rips through him and his vision explodes.
When he comes to again, Draco has joined him at the top of the bed and is resting his head over Harry’s racing heart.
”Was that okay?” he whispers.
Harry can’t quite get his voice to work and simply nods.
”Can I stay here with you?”
Harry couldn’t tell Draco no even if he wanted to. Not after that. But he still can’t find his voice, so he nods again instead and hugs the other boy closer. A small part of his mind worries that the experience, as amazing as it was, might have cancelled out Professor Snape’s relaxation exercises and he should do them again. But then he thinks he’s never actually felt more relaxed in his life, so what would be the point?
He still feels bonelessly relaxed, not to mention ridiculously happy, when he slumps over his porridge bowl the next morning and judging by the small smiles Draco keeps throwing his way, he’s not the only one.
Finally, Seamus lets out a loud groan and tosses half a bread roll at the two of them. It narrowingly misses Draco’s head and bounces off the wall behind them, but the blonde still spends the rest of breakfast stabbing at his eggs rather aggressively while shooting the Irish boy significant glares. Harry’s happiness can’t be swayed however, and it’s not just Draco and their amazing night together. But he just feels rested and happy and hopeful… and relieved, even though he knows he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t be dreaming about the Department of Mysteries at all — but he can’t help the dreams that come to him during sleep, he tells himself. And after months and months of feeling frustrated at having to stand staring at a locked door, overwhelmed with longing to get to the other side, when it finally opens, who wouldn’t feel relieved?
He pushes that thought away and hopes that Professor Snape won’t weasel it out of him during their Occlumency lessons.
Finishing up his porridge, Harry reaches for the coffee caraffe and refills his cup while he waits for Draco to finish eating, but it only takes him a few minutes longer than Harry and the others. It’s amazing to see the change, Harry thinks. Less than a year ago it would take Draco at least an hour to finish his breakfast and almost two hours to pick his way through the larger meals at lunch and dinner. Now he’s almost as fast as the rest of them and he probably would be as fast, if it wasn’t for his incessant fussing with napkins and cutlery and aligning goblets and plates and whatever else he has in front of him — which is less to do with stalling, Harry has come to realise, and more to do with nearly obsessive-compulsive table manners.
They’re all finishing up their coffees when Seamus elbows Harry in the side and nods towards the Head Table. Professor Umbridge has finally arrived for breakfast and although her cool smirk is in place as always, it’s looking less smug than usual.
”Not looking very happy, is she?” Seamus murmurs with relish and Harry nods in agreement.
Suddenly, Professor Umbridge turns her head and her bulbous eyes unexpectedly flits over and meet Harry’s head on. He blinks startled, but before he can look away, the woman turns her head away again and her small smirk flickers out. As if trying to hide it, she grabs the cup of tea in front of her and takes a large sip from it.
When she leans in to engage a rather unwilling Professor Flitwick in conversation casually, Harry looks finally away.
However, his attention is almost immediately pulled back when a loud croak cuts through the early morning quiet of the Great Hall, followed by confused murmurs as the students all turn their half-hearted attention away from their breakfasts and look around them curiously.
”What was that—?” Pansy mutters.
Another loud croak permeates the confused atmosphere and the murmurs around the Hall rise in volume as well as excitement.
”Ho-ly…” Seamus whispers, his voice quivering with repressed laughter.
”What—?” Harry says.
His eyes scan the Great Hall for the source of the croaking and just are skirting past the Head Table when a third one rings out, louder than the previous two and he catches Umbridge slap both of her hands over her mouth. Wait —
”Was that…? Did she—?”
Umbridge scrambles to her feet, both hands still pressed against her face — a face that is rapidly growing red from holding her breath, Harry notices — her bulging eyes desperate and glistening with tears. Just as she reaches the side door another croak literally explodes out of her mouth with such force that her hands fly away from her mouth, and she more or less dives out the door to a deafening roar of laughter that erupts from the students (and some teachers) behind her.
Harry lets out a shocked guffaw and whips his head around to stare at Seamus and Draco. The delight on the Irish boy’s face as he claps his hands and laughs uproariously, is enough to tell Harry that he had no idea that was about to happen. Likewise, the proud smirk on Draco’s face tells him that the blonde knew exactly.
”How?” He asks him.
”I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Harry just shakes his head and grins at his boyfriend.
The group leaves the Great Hall with a decided spring in their steps, chatting and laughing amongst themselves. Their good spirits carry them through the day and only reach new heights when it’s announced that Professor Snape will be taking their afternoon lesson in Defence Against the Dark Arts, since their regular teacher is stuck in the Hospital Wing… Clearly, whatever made the witch croak like a toad, wasn’t that easy for Madam Pomfrey to fix.
”What was it?” Harry asks Draco again as they’re getting ready for bed later that evening. ”Come on, you can tell me!”
”I don’t know”, the blonde says earnestly. ”All I know is that Umbitch’s life will be a living Hell for the foreseeable future and it won’t be traced back to us. That was the deal.”
”The deal”, Harry repeats with a grin. ”With the Weasley twins, right? How much did you pay them?”
”A lot… But it’s actually more of an investment. At least that’s what I’ll tell my parents—”
”What, in their mail ordering business?”
Draco turns to him in surprise.
”You know about that?”
”Yeah, they tried to sell me some skiving off sweets when I saw them in the summer…”
”You saw them in the summer?”
”Yeah — I told you!” Harry frowns. ”The Order headquarters, where my dad grew up?”
”You didn’t say the Weasleys were there”, the blonde counters, matching his frown.
That’s right, I didn’t, Harry thinks, remembering suddenly that he’d made the decision not to tell Draco about the Weasley children and Granger being there when he was, because he didn’t want the blonde to get angry about him hanging out with Ron.
”I didn’t?” Harry says now, feigning confusion and avoids the other boy’s eyes under the guise of putting toothpaste on his toothbrush. ”I thought I did… Or maybe I just assumed you’d assume that, seeing as their parents are in the Order as well… But anyway, it was only one afternoon, and we didn’t really do anything, I mean, the twins tried to sell me skiving sweets, Granger kept asking me about bugs, and then I went home with me dads again!”
”Granger? She was there too?”
”Er… Yeah?” Harry says, feeling a light layer of sweat break out along his hairline. ”I think she and Ron might be a couple!”
”So Ron was there too?” Draco says, looking less than impressed when Harry finally looks up to meet his eyes again.
”Please, don’t be mad—”
”I’m not.”
”You’re… Not?” Harry frowns, studying the other boy’s face intently.
He doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t look angry either, Harry observes. More resigned, than anything.
Draco raises his eyebrows at him.
”You’re not”, Harry says again.
”No. I’m not.”
”Oh… Well, good. Because you have no reason to be”, Harry mumbles and resumes brushing his teeth.
”I know…”
Draco gives him a tight smile and returns his attention to assembling all his toiletries into his silver toiletry bag.
Harry frowns. Something is not right. Draco is never not angry about him hanging out with Ron, or mentioning the redhead’s name, or even looking in his general direction… And yet, he really does seem fine. Usually he’s quite good at shuttering his face, but his eyes are open books to Harry. And now, they seem… Fine. Totally fine.
Maybe he’s got a lot better at hiding his feelings, Harry thinks.
”Are you almost done?”
”Huh?” Harry says around the half-forgotten toothbrush shoved into the side of his mouth.
Draco raises his eyebrows at him again.
”Oh…” Harry removes the toothbrush from his mouth and spits into the sink. ”Yeah. I’m done.”
He straightens up again and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Draco scrunches up his nose, but says nothing.
When Umbridge’s seat at the Head Table in the Great Hall remains empty during breakfast the next morning, Harry thinks hopefully that the woman is still holed up in the Hospital Wing with a case of the croaks and makes his way towards the Defence classroom with a considerable spring in his step, feeling almost like he’s floating — but as soon as he steps through the door to the classroom, he’s rudely reminded of the presence if gravity again, because behind the teacher’s desk Umbridge sits waiting for them with her wide, insincere smile firmly in place.
Harry stifles a groan and drags his feet to the front desk, where Draco has once again chosen to sit.
Umbridge has got another mindnumbingly boring lesson planned for them and Harry is struggling to stay awake by the end of it, the only thing keeping him from drifting off entirely being the nagging sensation of having someone stare at you — And not just anyone, he thinks sourly. But an evil, toad of a woman — Because it’s Umbridge staring at him. He’s looked up and caught her several times, so he knows it’s her. And she seems unfazed and surprisingly unapologetic about it, as well. In fact, whenever he meets her gaze head on, she only narrows her eyes suspiciously. But she doesn’t look away.
It makes Harry’s skin prickle and he comes very close to snapping, a furious ’What?’ trapped in his throat growing bigger and itchier by the minute, but he manages to restrain himself before he spits it out.
Finally the bell rings and Harry gratefully shoots to his feet, grabbing his books and fleeing the classroom without a backwards glance.
”Harry?” Draco calls after him.
”Hey, wait for us!” Seamus cuts in.
Harry doesn’t slow down or look back. He shoves his way past a couple of Ravenclaws and dives out of the classroom, but as soon as he’s in the safety of the hallway and out of Umbitch’s line of sight he stops to wait for his friends.
”What’s got into you—?” Draco says as soon as he catches sight of him next to the door.
Harry just shakes his head angrily and starts walking off again, hoping Draco and their friends will follow suit without any fuss. He can’t exactly explain it, but he just needs to get as far away from Umbridge as possible or he’ll do something stupid —
”Harry!”
”What?” he snaps angrily, wheeling back around. ”Can we go already? I want to get out of here!”
”Fine…” Draco frowns, but picks up his pace a little as does the rest of their friends, much to Harry’s relief.
At least that was the last DADA lesson of the week, so he won’t have to see the woman again until next week, he tells himself.
But when they walk up the step ladder to the Divinations classroom, she’s there as well, waiting with her clipboard and smirk.
And still shooting me looks, Harry thinks furiously.
It’s not until later that night, when he’s trying and failing to sleep, that it hits Harry. She must think he’s behind the prank!
The mass breakout from Azkaban had been a major set-back for Fudge and the Ministry, but an even bigger one for Umbridge, at least on a personal level, judging by her increased desperation to gain full control over Hogwarts in the weeks following the news. But that was nothing compared to the days that follow the croaking incident.
Since that morning, the woman has begun to roam the hallways looking for reasons to put students in detention, much like a vulture circling a dying man. She has also begun to supervise every single Divination and Care of Magical Creatures lesson, clearly hoping to sack one, if not both, teachers before Easter. Which is why, despite her now avoiding all meals in the Great Hall, they still see her several times a day and Harry is constantly on edge, expecting her to pop up around every corner.
It’s very obvious who is on her list of suspects for the prank, he thinks. Because he never catches her narrow her eyes suspiciously at Draco or Blaise, nor Pansy and Daphne, as she does at him. He does catch her do that to Seamus, though. And the Weasley twins and their friend, the Quidditch commentator, Lee Jordan.
He voices this theory with the others one evening in the Common Room, but they don’t seem at all surprised and Harry figures they must have noticed too. After all, she’s hardly discreet about it.
”Think the twins will be able to carry out any more pranks now that she’s keeping an eye on them?” Seamus says.
”They better”, Draco mutters.
Harry isn’t the only one on edge. Professor Trelawny has taken to venturing outside of her tower lately, walking up and down the corridors, wringing her hands and muttering to herself. Harry meets her on his way to meet up with Draco in the library one day and attempts to give her a polite smile, but she hardly seems to notice him because she’s too busy looking over her shoulder and when he passes her, he gets a whiff of cooking sherry that seems to be oozing off her.
Hagrid is just as close to cracking, acting even more distracted than normal and even jumpy during lessons, and he’s constantly losing the thread of what he’s saying and answering questions wrongly, his eyes darting between the Dark Forest and Umbridge’s clipboard anxiously.
Seamus has started smuggling popcorn into the lessons, stating that if he’s not learning anything, he should at least get something out of it, ”Such as entertainment!”
”But what are the popcorn for?” Harry asks again, even more bewildered than before Seamus answered him the first time.
”What do you mean, you eat popcorn when you watch a show—!”
”You bring food to the opera?” Draco says shrilly, having overheard them.
”I don’t go to the opera”, Seamus says and rolls his eyes.
”Opera, theatre, same difference”, Draco says dissmissively. ”You bring food—?”
”No, I don’t bring it, they sell it there!”
Draco stares at him, horror-struck and speechless.
”Well, they do in my theatre…” Seamus adds.
”That’s barbaric—”
”Oh, don’t be such a toff… I bet you bring snacks when you go to a Quidditch game?”
”That’s different, and no I don’t”, Draco says firmly.
*
The end of their Friday afternoon Transfiguration lesson with the Gryffindors, their last lesson of the day as well as the week, couldn’t have come sooner in Harry’s opinion and he slumps in relief when the bell finally rings, despite the essay that Professor McGonagall decides to add to their already staggering mountain of homework. He’s got a massive tension headache from being on edge all week and can’t wait for the weekend to start.
Dodging a group of gossiping Gryffindor girls lingering in the corridor just outside the Transfiguration classroom, Harry and his friends hurry across the Middle Courtyard and into the Entrance Hall. Since it’s too early for dinner, Draco suggests they all head to the library so that they can start to chip away at the homework mountain, but Harry just wants to lie down and rest his mind for a while and says as much.
”You okay?” Draco murmurs quietly, brushing his hand over Harry’s wrist discreetly.
”Yeah, I’ll be fine”, Harry nods. ”I’ve just got a headache. You guys go ahead, I’ll see you later for dinner…”
”All right, if you’re sure…”
Harry nods again and gives them a half-hearted wave, before making his way over to the spiral staircase to the dungeons.
According to the Marauder’s Map (that he’d had in his possession for all of five minutes before his daddy confiscated it) the staircase actually has a name — Slughorn’s Stairs — who Slughorn is and why the Map thinks the stairs belong to him, the Map didn’t divulge. At the time, Harry had thought maybe it was the name of the person who built the staircase.
But now that he thinks about it, it doesn’t make much sense for a person to have built just one staircase in all of Hogwarts, and nothing else. Besides, even if that was the case, then all the other stairs should be named after whoever built them as well, and they’re not, as far as Harry is aware.
Oh, who cares anyway, Harry thinks tiredly, as he totters off the last step.
The Slytherin Common Room is completely deserted, but Harry can hear muffled voices coming from one of the girls’ dormitories. The boys’ side seems quiet though and Harry is immensely grateful for that. This is just what he needs right now: peace and quiet — and a bed.
He trudges down the stone steps towards the Fifth Year boys’ dorm and more or less collapses on top of his four-poster. His persistent headache keeps tapping against his skull and pushing on his eyes, from the inside, making it impossible for him to actually fall asleep, but the semi-darkness and the quiet allows the tension pain to at least simmer down, so that by the time he joins the others in the Great Hall for dinner he feels less like the walking and grumpy dead, and more like the tired Fifth Year that he is.
Despite the mountain of homework, a nail-bitingly close Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff game in combination with little exposure to Umbitch who has apparently decided to avoid the Quidditch Stadium as well as the Great Hall, makes it a good weekend — so Harry is far from ready for it to be over by the time Monday morning rolls around, which he tells Draco firmly when the blonde tries to rouse him. Or at least that was his intention, but it might have come out sounding more like a half-choked wail.
”Oh, don’t be such a grump! Come on, we’re going to miss breakfast—!”
”I d’n’t c’re”, Harry grumbles, so tired and annoyed that he can’t even be bothered with vowels.
”I will go to breakfast without you”, Draco threatens in a loud and clear voice, punctuating each word by jabbing his finger rather painfully into Harry’s shoulder.
”Gggggnnnffmmmpphh…”
”What’s that?”
”GGGGNNNMMNN—!”
”Harry”, Draco says sternly. ”Quit being a baby and get out of bed this instance!”
Harry finally flops over onto his back and glares up at the blurry blonde blob.
”Merlin’s pants! Who do you think you are, my daddy?” he croaks moodily.
”Get. Up—”
”All right!”
Harry gets dressed with jerky, agressive movements, managing to get twisted up in his own shirt sleeve for a second and getting even more annoyed than he already was.
Draco and the others give him a wide berth and wait silently for him to finish his struggles with his school uniform and his shoes, then continues to stay patiently silent alongside him all the way up to ground floor, even when he mutters darkly in their general direction.
Finally, as they slide into their seats at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall and Harry gets a couple of mouthfuls of coffee in him, some of his mood is lifted and he grumbles out an apology to whomever feels they should have one — and is met with a chorus of six voices all accepting the apology in varying degrees of sincerity, before he’s ignored again.
Harry shrugs to himself and takes another large gulp of coffee.
He’s just refilling his cup with the post arrives and he quickly scans the ceiling for a flash of white, but Hedwig is nowhere to be seen, which is hardly surprising since he completely forgot to send her home to his dads with a letter yesterday like he’d planned, so it would be quite remarkable if she were to show up with a reply anyway… What is surprising however, is that another owl lands in his empty porridge bowl and gives him an important hoot. Harry blinks.
”Who are you for?” He asks, reaching out for the note attached to the owl’s leg. ”Oh, you are for me… That’s weir—”
Suddenly two more owls come fluttering down, jostling the first one aside and fighting over Harry’s attention.
”Er…”
”Harry, why are you receiving so much post—?” Draco starts and before Harry can even begin to think of an answer, the three owls are joined by another five. ”What is going on?”
”I… I don’t know!” Harry says, trying fruitlessly to get the excited Parliament of owls to settle down by flapping in his hands in a wafting manner which they completely ignore. ”Hey, what’s that? That brown one is carrying a parcel — Hey — Ow!”
One of the owls at the front had nipped his finger quite hard when Harry tried to reach out for the parcel, most likely feeling that since they were more or less queuing up before him, Harry ought to adhere to their order and not start at back. Harry sucks his injured finger into his mouth and eyes the affronted owl warily.
”Seamus, can you pass it here?” Draco asks the Irish boy sitting opposite them.
It’s a rather long, cylindrical-shaped parcel and quite light. Harry turns it over a few times curiously, but there’s nothing written on it besides his own name and his current location — Great Hall, Hogwarts — so shrugging to himself, he opens the end of the cardboard tube and shakes out a rolled-up magazine.
Harry is shocked to see a photograph of himself scowling back at him from the front cover and trying to hide behind the headline: ”HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST — THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN”
It’s the March edition of The Quibbler.
”It’s good, isn’t it?” a dreamy voice drifts over to him and he tears his eyes away from the magazine to blink at Loony Lovegood suddenly stood in front of him.
Pansy and Daphne who are sitting opposite him both flinch and twist around to scowl at the girl standing behind them, but unsurprisingly Loony seems completely unaware of their intentions. In fact, she seems to take their acknowledgement of her presence as some kind of invitation, because in the next moment, she squeezes down between them on the bench.
Harry looks between the three girls warily, wondering what’s more likely to happen, Pansy clawing the Ravenclaw’s eyes out or Daphne hexing her into oblivion, and whether he ought to prevent it seeing as the girl has more or less done him a favour — but before either of the girls can make a move, the oddball between them starts to speak again and what she says is interesting enough that they let her continue, albeit reluctantly.
”It came out yesterday, so I asked dad to send you a free copy… I expect these—” she gestures towards the remaining owls, growing more and more impatient with Harry. ”Are letters from readers, you know?”
”Oh, right”, Harry mumbles, looking at the owls with renewed dread. ”Well, tell your dad thanks, I guess.”
”All right, I will”, Loony says pleasantly. ”See you around, Harry.”
They all watch bemused as the girl hops off the bench again and totters back to the Ravenclaw table and returns to her breakfast. Harry is not surprised per se, but a bit sad to see that the Ravenclaw table is quite crowded except for the seats surrounding Loony, which are resolutely left empty. She’s definitely an oddball and Harry can’t say for sure that he would sit with her every meal if he was in her house, either. But she’s not that bad.
”Ow!” Harry yelps as one of the owls bites him again. ”Fine, hang on…”
He starts untying all the letters hurriedly and one by one the owls take flight again, until he’s left with a pile of parchment and a table littered with feathers and droppings.
”Are you going to open them?” Seamus asks curiously.
”No, I don’t think so”, Harry shakes his head. ”It’s probably just people who think I’m barmy and wants to tell me so… I get them at the house all the time, except my dads get rid of them for me… I hope this won’t happen every morning from now on, though.”
”I’m surprised it hasn’t happened earlier”, Blaise says. ”After everything the Prophet has been writing. Not to mention last year with the Tournament.”
”Yeah… I always assumed the wards of Hogwarts kept them out somehow. But apparently not—” Harry cuts himself off suddenly as Bertram, the Malfoy family’s owl, carrying a neatly rolled-up letter sealed with the Malfoy family crest, lands in the middle of the table.
Draco’s face drains of colour and his hands shake slightly as he reaches out and unties the letter. With a shallow breath, he breaks the seal and begins to read. Harry feels his insides crawling as he watches him and waits for his reaction.
When the blonde finally looks up from the letter again, there is a hard look in his eye. It’s the look of grim resolve that he gets whenever he’s faced with an unpleasant situation that nevertheless needs to be dealt with and decides to deal with it. Harry recognises it well, because he has seen it plenty of times before — has even been the cause of it a couple of times, first when he decided to go after the Philosopher’s Stone and then again when he was determined to rescue Ginny Weasley from the Chamber of Secrets — and now once more, Harry thinks as he watches his boyfriend roll up the letter neatly again.
”What does it say?” he asks him quietly.
”Just what you’d expect…” Draco says and tucks the letter away in his robes. ”But it doesn’t matter.”
”It… doesn’t?” Harry asks tentatively.
”No. It doesn’t”, Draco says firmly and drains the dregs of his coffee. ”They’re not here and what they don’t know won’t harm them. So there’s no problem.”
”Right…” Harry says slowly, adding silenty to himself: no problem — for now…
”Well, what am I going to do with these?” He adds, looking at the huge pile of letters in front of him again. ”Think I can just leave them here for the house-elves to get rid of? Or do you think someone might take them and read them if I do? I’m not sure I care either way, to be honest, but…”
”It would be a shame to just get rid of them though”, Pansy says. ”Some of them might be positive. You never know.”
”I’m not going through them all on the odd chance that a few of them might be nice…”
”Well, what if we all just read a few”, Daphne suggests.
”Fine”, Harry sighs. ”I’ll take them to the Common Room and we can sift through them later, if there’s time…”
He scoops up the huge pile, muttering a thanks as Pansy and Draco pick up the few that tumble out of his grasp and making sure that Seamus has got the copy of the Quibbler, he starts to make his way out of the Great Hall again, with his friends following behind.
They’re halfway across the Entrance Hall when a familiar little cough rings out in the silence and Harry stops dead in his tracks.
”Mr Potter…” a sickly sweet voice says behind him.
Swallowing down the bile that immediately rises in his throat, Harry turns around and glares at the woman. She smiles back at him.
”What is all this?” she asks, gesturing towards the many letters.
”Fan mail”, he says curtly, smirking when he hears Seamus stifle a snicker behind him.
Umbridge’s smile flickers out and her eyes harden.
”Excuse me?”
”Fan mail”, Harry repeats. ”Mail, from fans.”
”Fans?” Umbridge says sounding the very opposite of sweet suddenly.
”Well, maybe they’re not all fans, but they’ve all written to me because of an interview I’ve given about what happened to me in June. Want to read it—?”
No sooner are the words out of his mouth than Seamus thursts the copy of the Quibbler into Umbridge’s hands. She goggles at it, her flabby cheeks turning a blotchy red.
”When… did you do this?” She asks, her voice slightly shaky with barely controlled rage.
”Last Hogsmeade weekend—”
Umbridge’s head snaps up and she fixes him with a furious look, the Quibbler crumbling in her trembling fists.
”There will be no more Hogsmeade trips for you, Mr Potter—” she hisses.
”What?” Harry frowns.
”How dare you… How you could have… You…” she takes a deep breath. ”I have tried again and again to teach you not to tell lies, Mr Potter, but apparently the message has still not sunk in… Fifty points from Slytherin and another week’s worth of detentions—”
”What do you mean I can’t go to Hogsmeade anymore?” Harry demands.
”Hogsmeade visits are a priviledge”, Umbridge snaps. ”Priviledges can and will be taken away from those students who continue to break the rules and disobey—!”
”What rule has he broken?” Draco cuts in. ”There’s no rule that says you can’t—”
”Silence!” Umbridge snaps shrilly. ”Another fifty points from Slytherin! That’s two weeks worth of detentions for you Mr Potter, and no more Hogsmeade visits for any of you, for the rest of the year!”
”But”, Harry splutters. ”But that’s not — I live in Hogsmeade — my dads —!”
”Well you should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you, Mr Potter! Maybe now, finally, you will learn that your actions have consequences!”
And with those final words shouted shrilly and echoing around them, Umbridge stalks off.
”Professor Snape is going to have a fit…” Pansy comments drily.
They all turn to follow her line of sight to the four massive hour-glasses, showing the house points, mounted on the wall opposite the entrance to the Great Hall. The hour-glass on the far right, which is the Slytherin hour-glass, which had been closing in on the Gryffindor one only moments ago, now barely have any emerald green marbles left in its top half.
Pansy is right, Harry thinks. Snape is going to blow his lid, and then he’s going to kill me, slowly, with a spoon.
Less than an hour has passed when the signs start popping up all around school. Massive signs with enormous, glaring letters on every wall. Not just on the house noticeboards in the Common Rooms, but in the hallways and classrooms as well and they immediately become the topic of conversation throughout the castle amongst students and teachers alike.
”BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS”, each sign bellows with bold, capital letters. ”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 Umbridge, High Inquisitor”
Funnily enough, even though Harry doesn’t see a single copy of the Quibbler anywhere in the school all day, by late afternoon, students seem to be quoting the interview to each other or discussing the content in excited whispers all over the place.
Professor Snape walks up to Harry during lunch and asks to have a word with him in private and Harry obediently trails after him. Remembering the house points, he glances down at the man’s hands half expecting to see the glint of a spoon handle, then sternly tells himself to stop being silly.
They stop just outside the doors to the Great Hall and Professor Snape turns to face him again. Harry can see the house hour-glasses over his shoulder and feels his stomach lurch unpleasantly.
”I’m sorry, Si—” he starts, but the Potions Master cuts him off with an impatient wave.
”Whatever it is, I don’t want to know”, he says firmly. ”I just wanted to let you know that if you should start to feel at all unsafe in the dorm, or the Common Room, from now on, then you come to me immediately, understood? I don’t know exactly how yet, but we will figure out a solution, should we need to.”
Harry blinks in confusion.
”If Vincent and Gregory give you any grief”, Professor Snape clarifies slowly, giving him a perplexed look.
”Vincent and…”
Oh shit, Harry thinks with a pang. Crabbe and Goyle! And Theodore!
He’d been so worried about the Malfoys’s reaction when he gave the interview that he completely forgot about the other Death Eaters he’d named.
Professor Snape stares at him.
”Ehm…”
”This hadn’t already occurred to you?” the man says incredulously. ”You didn’t take into consideration that half the boys you share a dorm with are sons of Death Eaters before you made the decision to out these Death Eaters?”
”Er…”
”Merlin on a Nimbus”, Snape mutters and looks up into the ceiling as if hoping to find something there that will give him strength or patience.
”Sir—?”
”No”, Snape mutters immediately and snaps his head back down, scowling at the floor instead. ”No, I need a moment — I need coffee and peace and quiet —” and then swirling around dramatically, he stalks off down the corridor. ”Just stay out of trouble!”
In the following days, random people come up to Harry and shakes his hand, or they greet him casually in the hallways then mutter quietly under their breath that they believe him, before happily continuing on their way. The attention, and the fact that it’s positive for a change, makes Harry feel invigorated and almost hopeful about the future for the first time since last summer.
Umbridge and Filch have begun stalk the corridors and performing random spot checks on the students, demanding they turn out their book bags and pockets, obviously hoping to confiscate copies of The Quibbler, but they never find any.
Blaise manages to procure another copy for all of them to read, since Umbridge confiscated the one Loony’s dad sent to Harry, and rips out the pages with Harry’s interview and shows them all a spell that makes the pages appear like a homework essay to anyone else but the person reading them.
”How d’you learn that?” Harry asks, impressed by the spellwork.
”Weasley twins”, he says with a shrug. ”They’ve been selling spells and invisible book bags and all sorts all week…”
Harry laughs.
Even the teachers find ways of showing their support, even though none of them can say anything to Harry out right, due to Educational Decree Number Twenty-six, but Professor Sprout rewards Slytherin twenty points when Harry passes her a watering can during a Herbology lesson, Professor Flitwick sneaks a box of squeaking sugar mice into his hand at the end of Charms and says, ”Shhh!” with a beaming grin and scurries off, and Professor Trelawny breaks down crying at the end of Divination, announcing dramatically to the whole class that Harry won’t suffer an early death after all, but live to a ripe old age, become Minster for Magic and have twelve children. The students blink at her in shock and exchange bemused looks, while Umbridge slams her clipboard under her arm and stomps out of the classroom.
Harry watches her retreating back with grim satisfaction. He feels oddly invincible.
Of course, it’s not all roses…
Harry had had a talk with Theo right after his short conversation with Professor Snape and stammered out an awkward apology for naming his dad in the interview — the truth is, it hadn’t even occurred to Harry at the time, when he rattled off the names of the Death Eaters present in the graveyard, that ’Nott’ was in fact his friend Theo’s father, but he doesn’t tell Theo that. Instead, he tells him that Rita Skeeter had said that if she was going to write up the interview then it would have to be there and then (which is true) and so Harry had had no way of checking with Theo (which is, kind of, true) and the only reason he could check with Draco was because he was there with him.
”It’s okay, Harry”, Theo says, shaking his head. ”You did what you had to do. Right?”
”Right”, Harry says awkwardly.
”My dad’s an arsehole anyway…” the other boy mumbles. ”My mum and I barely see him and when we do he’s… Well… Nevermind…”
But despite Draco and Theo being, if not okay with the situation then at least with Harry, the atmosphere in the Common Room is still tense and the atmosphere in the dorm outright threatening. Because Crabbe and Goyle, as it turns out, are not as fine about having their fathers’ Death Eater activities made public as Draco and Theo are. Crabbe has taken to cracking his knuckles meaningfully at Harry at every opportunity whereas Goyle growls at him whenever they pass each other, but so far it’s been all bark and no bite…
That is, until they’re playing Ravenclaw and Goyle ”accidentally” sends a Bludger into Harry’s back that nearly knocks him off his broom.
Winded and paranoid, Harry makes sure to stay as far away from the other players as possibly for the rest of the match and as a result, Chang beats him to the Snitch. Slytherin still wins, but only by a margin and Flint is furious afterwards. He yells at Harry briefly for disregarding the strategy that they’d come up with together, but most of his bile he directs at Goyle, threatening to throw him off the team if he ever tries anything like that again.
He then rounds on Crabbe and points an accusatory finger at his chest, ”That goes for you too!”
”I didn’t do anything…” Crabbe grunts.
”Do you think I’m stupid?” Flint barks back. ”Leave Potter alone, both of you, or you’re off the team!”
By the time they have all washed the sweat and grime off and changed out of their Quidditch robes and into their uniforms again, Flint has cooled off and the team can tentatively start to chat about their victory as they make their way back to the castle.
*
As usual, Umbridge’s seat remains empty throughout dinner and with her gone, and Crabbe and Goyle distracted by the bucket load of food on their plates, Harry can happily tuck into his shepherd’s pie without anything dampening his good mood.
He’s just polishing off his second helping of pudding when he hears the crack of thunder and looks up with a bemused frown. The sky had been clear when they left the Stadium less than an hour ago, but now the enchanted ceiling is growing steadily darker and as Harry watches, big fat drops of rain begin to fall from the curling storm clouds.
Except, they don’t look like any raindrops Harry has ever seen before. Instead of being transparent and shimmering in the light from the thousands of candles floating below them, they appear solid and dark… Harry squints his eyes, trying to make out the shape… But he doesn’t have to squint for long, because unlike the rain or snow that would normally fall from the enchanted ceiling, whatever is raining down on them now doesn’t magically evaporate into thin air just before they reach the floating candles, but keep falling —
There is a sudden tumult as heavy, squishy objects tumble through the overhead candles and land with loud floomps on top of the tables or bounce off the students’s heads or shoulders with squelchy smacks before tumbling to the floor. The students begin to yell and scream, bursting to their feet and jumping from foot to foot, trying not to step on any of the objects while simultaneously covering in their heads with their arms.
Pansy lets out a shrill shriek as one of the falling objects smack against her hand before bouncing off and falling out of sight.
”It touched me! It touched me! Oh, it’s disgusting!” She screams, scrambling off the bench. ”Morgan le Fay, I just stepped in one!”
”What the…” Blaise says, ducking to the side as another object comes hurtling thorugh the air and lands with a splash in his custard. ”They’re… They’re…”
Toads, Harry thinks with a jolt. It’s raining toads!
He staggers to his feet, careful not to trod on any of the creatures that have now begun to croak and jump around on the floor.
Pansy and Daphne grab a hold of each other desperately and hop hurriedly through the debris of amphibians, squealing and screaming whenever something falls on them or they step on something.
Harry watches their progress and that of the other students clamber over each other and the sudden pest to flee the Great Hall, in dumbstruck fascination. Draco grabs a hold of him and hisses something about getting out of there and Harry nods numbly, still staring at the crowd that is stampeding out of the Great Hall, past a very stricken-looking Umbridge standing in the door.
She stands with her wand at the ready, but seemingly petrified in the doorway simply staring at the mayhem inside the Great Hall as a cacophony of croaking washes over her. Harry feels his face break out in a massive grin and his heart begin to pound inside his chest, pumping adrenaline through his body. It feels like victory all over again, but a proper victory, like it would have felt if he’d caught the Snitch.
”Harry, let’s go! This is disgusting!” Draco gripes, pulling on his arm.
He allows himself to pulled towards the doors, but pauses right next to Umbridge. Only for a second. Draco keeps pulling on his arm, urging him to keep walking, but Harry stands his ground. He waits for the woman to notice him and meet his eyes, then he smiles.
That seems to jostle her out of her stupor, because with a sudden jerk she staggers back a step and blinks furiously.
”You…” she chokes out, her eyes flashing with rage. ”You… You dare…”
”Professor”, Harry says innocently. ”Something seems to be wrong with the Enchanted Ceiling. You might want to have a look at it—”
Then with a final, cool smirk he lets Draco pull him away. Glancing over at the house hour-glasses on the wall, he catches the last of the emereld marbles dropping into the lower half of the Slytherin one, just before Draco pulls him towards the stairs to the dungeons.
But it was worth it, he thinks.