Prankster Princess

“Hey! No! Let go of me!” I said loudly, struggling against the members of the Inquisitorial Squad who held me. They were big, burly seventh years, built much along the same lines as Draco Malfoy’s cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. And me? The petite, redheaded Veronica Henderson? Yeah, I couldn’t even budge in their grasp. It felt as though I was going to have bruises where their large hands were gripping my upper arms, and I decided that I probably would, they were holding so tightly.

I kicked one of them in the shin and his hold on my arm tightened like a vice, causing me to yelp.

“Shut up,” he said in a low, grunting voice.

“Oh, look at what we have here,” a sneering, condescending, and undeniably feminine voice rang out. With a surge of distaste, my eyes found the tall, thin blonde Slytherin girl who I’d accidentally ran into on my first day. A shiny new Inquisitorial Squad badge rested on her robes, and I scowled. “Are we taking this murderess to the High Inquisitor?”

The word ’murderess’ caused hatred deeper than I had imagined toward this girl. I’d felt a deeper sense of hate for Umbridge, but this Slytherin girl was starting to touch upon my last nerve.

“Yeah,” one of the guys holding me - the one trying to cut off my circulation, it seemed - said to her.

“She caused an uproar,” the other agreed, shaking me by the arm he held.

I laughed at his mention of my so-called uproar. I’d finally executed the plan I’d had in mind for a while.

First, red and gold glitter had blasted the Slytherins as they’d come upstairs from their little hidey-hole for breakfast. Nothing too extravagant about that, right? They did their best to brush it off, and went on with their day. Then, just a few minutes ago as lunch started, I walked by their table in the Great Hall, I asked in a carrying voice, “How do you like the glitter? I think it suits you!”

When the shouts of the offended Slytherins started, I took out my wand. Their shouts kind of cut off then, because they knew who I always hung out with, and I just grinned.

With a flick of my wand and a simple spell I’d devised beforehand, the glitter still all over them, and some of which was on the table, grew to about an inch tall and morphed into little red and gold griffins. The griffins began to tug at hair and robes and harmlessly freak out the Slytherins. Then I’d took off running like a bat out of hell.

Right outside the Great Hall, I’d run into the two brutes that practically decided to frogmarch me to Umbridge’s office.

And so, here we were. My big prank was still causing screaming downstairs - I could hear it - but the two brutes weren’t even flinching at the twenty plus little creatures on them.

At that moment, the blonde noticed.

“What are those?” her inquiry was nearly a disgusted shriek.

I grinned.

“They’re my uproar,” I said simply, only to be shaken again by the one who seemed to like to shake me even as the other made his vice grip tighter. I flinched, but didn’t act.

She turned her nose up at it contemptuously.

“Professor Umbridge might well have reason to get rid of you now. We don’t need a girl who lies about hurting a child in the school.”

“Like you care!” I spat out before I could stop myself. “The only thing you care about is how influential your boyfriend, or his friends are, and which one you can get to sleep with you!”

She turned her furious gaze on me.

“On second thought, the High Inquisitor needn’t be bothered by this rabble. Come. We’ll take her to the dungeons, boys, and handle this lying, deceiving piece of scum on our own.”

The only word running through my head kept repeating itself.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.