Brontide

Sturgis Podmore, a longtime member of the Order, was sentenced to six months in Azkaban prison, according to the Daily Prophet that came Friday morning. It said he’d been caught trying to break into a secured door in the Ministry of Magic on the thirty-first of August, which baffled me. I smelled an Imperius Curse; it would be a logical explanation. I tossed aside the paper, thankful that I only had two classes that day. It gave me plenty of free time, which I valued very much.

On top of that, I woke up not feeling very well. Every few minutes I was sneezing, my head felt woozy and I felt like I had a boulder wedged in my throat. I rethought my plans of meeting with everyone later on because I’d be napping once we were done with Double Herbology. I felt like complete and utter shit.

Saturday I woke up feeling sicker than before. I threw back my covers, sweat causing my pajamas to cling to my body. It was far too hot for clothing, never mind sheets. I coughed a few times and grabbed the box of tissues Rae had put near my bedside, using about twenty of them in a failing attempt to properly breathe through my nose again.

I felt miserable and disgusting. I didn’t even have the strength to go to the infirmary to see what Madam Pomfrey could do about this nonsense. I rolled around on my bed instead, pushing my hair out of my face and trying to get in a comfortable enough position to go back to sleep. I was happy that the room was empty, although I did wonder where Rae had gone off to. I sneezed once, twice, three times. More tissues were thrown about my bed and floor. They could stay there for all I cared; I hadn’t wanted to spend the weekend on my deathbed.

Sitting up a little, I looked out the window. Of course, it had to be a beautiful day, not a single bloody cloud in the sky. Even the Giant Squid was having fun, letting the students tickle its tentacles and feed it. This made me feel even worse, if possible. I grumbled and threw the covers over my head, trying to focus on getting better.

When I woke up again, someone was in the bathroom using the shower. Rubbing my eyes and sniffling, I sat up and looked at the clock, which read 2:15 p.m. I couldn’t believe I’d slept that late.

I hopped out of bed, sending a pile of tissues flying and causing me to grab onto the wooden bedpost, my legs feeling like jelly. I’d gotten up too quickly, my head still rather uneasy, but I was determined to get on with my day. It was too nice outside to be sick. It was then that the bathroom door opened, revealing Rae wrapped in a scarlet towel, her short brown hair dripping all over the floor as she hummed to herself. She stopped once she saw the state I was in, my face greatly resembling the color of parchment and my hair a knotted blonde mess.

“My God, Cassie,” she muttered, walking over, careful to step over my army of discarded tissues. She held onto my arm, clutching the top of her towel with her free hand, and directed me back to my bed. I collapsed onto it, groaning nasally.

“Once I get dressed, I’m taking you to Madam Pomfrey,” she said, searching frantically through her trunk for clean clothes. I grumbled some more.

“I don’t want to go, I think I’m getting better,” I said, sniffling. “I just want to take a bath.”

“Here.” She put a small pile of clothes on my bed: a pair of jeans, a grey tank top, and a dark purple sweater. “Change into those after your bath, I’ll be down in the common room in a few minutes.” With that she carried her own garments with her, retreating to the bathroom.

My bath took longer than it normally did, but that was partially because I didn’t feel like getting out. The hot water felt like it was washing away all the sickness and the steam temporarily cleared up my sinuses. Putting on the clothes, I reluctantly made my way downstairs. Rae was waiting patiently in the near-empty common room, watching from a distance as the twins tested out their Puking Pastilles on some vulnerable First Years.

The sight of them relentlessly puking into their buckets caused me to run right back upstairs and wretch myself hoarse over a toilet. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. Brushing my teeth until my mouth hurt, I went back downstairs, careful to avoid looking at the ongoing experiment in the corner and the sounds and smells that came with it. Rae hurried me out of the common room, waving to the boys when they looked at us skeptically.

***

Madam Pomfrey gave me some sort of potion to help me feel better and it wasn’t long before I felt like myself again. We returned to the common room, where Hermione had stepped in on the twin’s testing session and threatened to tell Mrs. Weasley what they’d been doing. The grateful first years scurried off, and rather begrudgingly the twins went upstairs to grab their brooms for Quidditch practice. I had nothing better to do since Rae was busy serving her last detention with Flitwick, so I walked down to the Quidditch pitch with them and Lee Jordan, wearing a thick red jacket and my Gryffindor scarf, the latter wrapped tightly around my neck.

It was cold for a September afternoon, with the occasional wind picking up here and there, causing me to shove my hands deeper in my pockets and pull the scarf tighter around my neck. I settled next to Lee high up in the wooden bleachers, the two of us huddling together to stay warm. Looking around us, more and more students began to fill the seats. Lee and I exchanged looks. Quidditch practices usually weren’t observed by so many people, and some of the people watching weren’t even from Gryffindor House.

And then it hit me; Harry Potter was the Seeker. Of course, people would want to watch him play, especially after what happened during the Triwizard Tournament the previous year. I felt annoyed for him because I knew if I were in his position, I would’ve yelled at them all to leave me the bloody hell alone and stop staring at me like some freakish animal in a damned zoo. To some it might’ve been considered rude, but if I knew Harry the way I thought I did, he was probably thinking something similar to that. He was just too nice to say it aloud.

Fred and George were two red blurs, using their Beater’s bats to hit the bludgers with perfect precision. I watched as one narrowly flew by Harry’s shoulder, and another one got Katie Bell’s left arm. Angelina Johnson, the Captain, had to accompany her down to the Hospital Wing about an hour into practice. I stifled a laugh when I saw Lee watching Angelina leave, a slight twinkle in his eye. He’d had the biggest crush on her for years, but every time he’d ask her out she would turn him down, only making him try harder and harder.

I’d admit Lee definitely wasn’t bad to look at, being almost as tall as the twins with bright brown eyes and a wide smile. He’d ditched the dreadlocks during our fifth year and usually kept his hair pulled up into some sort of puffy ponytail. He was funny, definitely funny, but he had a sweet side to him as well. Unlike most of us, though he joked around a lot, Lee actually tried when it came to school work. We were alike in this way.

I nudged him in the side, watching as Harry caught the golden snitch for about the fifth time in an hour. By then the crowd of people on the bleachers had thinned out a bit. “When are you going to give up on her?”

He looked at me and shrugged, shifting around a bit in his blue jacket. “A large part of me knows she likes me, she just won’t admit it yet. I’m confident that it’ll happen though, trust me, Cassie,” he smirked and watched as I rolled my eyes. I was focusing my attention on Ron, who had let in far too many goals to count. In my head, I was slapping him and telling him to get rid of his bloody nerves. He’d always had a problem with nerves.

“Sometimes I think you’re only wasting your time,” I sighed, pulling the scarf up over my nose and mouth. The twins were now doing loops around each other, waving at us and looking like imbeciles.

Lee shrugged. “She’s worth it.” Lee glanced around quickly before muttering something to me. “Look, I sort of need your help. Fred doesn’t think I’ll ever take Angelina on a date, so we made a bet. If I do, he has to do something that would really embarrass himself.”

I was suddenly very interested in our conversation. “Oh really? What would he have to do?”

“I haven’t determined that yet, but I assure you it’ll be worth it. Would you be willing to help?” he asked.

The idea of Fred doing something embarrassing for once was just too good to pass up. “I’ll help you,” I agreed, shaking on it.

“Alright, cool. I have an essay for McGonagall to get working on so I’ll catch up with you later,” he smiled, getting up and heading back to the castle.

I could honestly say that I couldn’t remember the last time I was so excited about something.

All throughout dinner that night I was in a chipper mood, so chipper that I was unknowingly smiling. Rae was concerned and asked if I’d inhaled something recently. I waited until we got back to the common room and the boys had gone upstairs to tell her.

“We could both talk to her, it’d be completely worth it to see Fred make a fool of himself,” she agreed, “we’ll start working on it tomorrow?”

“Definitely,” I nodded. “How was your last detention?”

“I’m bloody thrilled it’s over, really. All those lines were giving me hand cramps,” she sighed.

We talked by the fire for awhile until Rae decided to go to bed. I decided that I’d procrastinated my schoolwork long enough and grabbed my rucksack, tossing it onto the nearest table. Upon impact, I heard glass break. There went my inkpots.

It was around twelve and the common room had emptied out. Thankfully, it hadn’t been my inkpots that broke. It was an old Remembrall that didn’t even work anymore, but I liked to keep it with me. Mrs. Weasley had gotten it for me during my first trip to Diagon Alley. I was instantly brought down from my good mood when I tried over and over again to repair it, only to fail. I put all the shards aside, unable to just toss them out. They held a lot of meaning for me.

I unwillingly started doing my homework, and I was a good portion of the way through when footsteps sounded from above me. Shortly afterward Fred appeared at the bottom of the boy’s staircase, rubbing his eyes sleepily. I glanced up from my Herbology essay as he sat in the chair in front of me, clad in a pair of red plaid pajama bottoms and an old black t-shirt. We didn’t say anything at first; he just watched as my quill scratched away at the parchment in a messy scrawl, occasionally dipping into the ink pot between us.

I couldn’t help but look at him every once in awhile, with his red hair all messy and his brown eyes tired yet awake at the same time. I caught him eyeing the Remembrall shards, watching as he carefully picked up one of the pieces, turning it over in his fingers.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said after a bit, scratching the back of his neck and smiling at me tiredly. I nodded, not looking away from my essay. “What’s this?” he asked, holding up the fragment of broken glass. My eyes lingered on it.

“It’s my old Remembrall, I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve tried all the mending spells I know,” I sighed, putting down my quill.

“Is that the one my Mum got you in Diagon Alley? Before our first year?” he asked curiously.

“The very same,” I smiled faintly, running my finger along the inside of the curved glass.

He put the piece he was holding back on the table. ‘‘You surprise me sometimes,” he said, “I never knew you could be this sentimental about a glass sphere.”

“I’m not usually sentimental about most things, but this was important to me. It was one of my first connections with the Wizarding world and a present from your mum,” I said, looking him in the eyes.

He looked back into mine for a while, something within him changing. “Here, let me try something,” he said, taking out his wand and muttering something incoherent. I watched in amazement as the glass rose off the desk, reassembling itself as though it’d never broke.

I held the orb in my hands, a small smile breaking across my face. “You surprise me sometimes,” I said, repeating what he’d said to me.

He shrugged, his cheeks slightly flushed. “It’s not a big deal. It won’t work properly again but at least it’s intact. It’s important to you, so…” He ended his sentence with another shrug.

I met his eyes again. “Thanks, Fred. Here, you can copy my homework now. I figured that’s why you came down here in the first place,” I said, pushing my parchment towards him.

He looked as though I might’ve caught him by surprise with my actions. I normally put up more of a fight when it came to letting him copy my work. “Er, thanks, Cass but I already finished Sprout’s essay,” he said apologetically, “I honestly just came down here because I couldn’t sleep. George is snoring like a bloody giant up there, the tosser.”

I rolled my eyes at this. “Of course he is, when is he not? Don’t you two share a bed or something? How are you not used to it by now?”

Fred gave me a very pointed look. “No we don’t share a bed, what are you, some kind of pervert? Don’t tell me you have fantasies about my twin brother and me, because if you do I swear I’ll drop our friendship quicker than I drop dung bombs in Filch’s office.”

I started laughing so hard I began to wheeze, trying hard to find my voice. “You must be joking, right? No, I have much better things to fantasize about, thank you very much.”

We changed the subject to something less awkward and just talked for awhile, reminiscing over the good old days when I first met the Weasleys. From day one Fred and I loved to bicker with each other, not in an angry or hurtful way, it was just how we always communicated with one another. We couldn’t go long periods of time without one of us pushing the other one’s buttons, and the other one would do it back, Fred usually initiating it. George was quieter and didn’t argue much with me, he was quite calm for the most part. But something about Fred and the way we’d go back and forth made me feel closer to him than I did to his twin.

It was strange to feel this way because I cared about both of them more than I could put into words, but I’d told things to Fred before that I’d never told anyone else, not even Rae. We had our own little friendship woven within the larger web, and this was something I held very dear, more than he could’ve possibly known.

***

“Oh…my…God.” Those were the first three words Rae had said Monday morning during breakfast. She was staring at her own copy of the Daily Prophet with wide eyes and her mouth slightly agape. The twins and Lee on the other side of the table stopped whatever hushed conversation they’d been having and turned to look at her, their interests piqued. I quickly swallowed my mouthful of pumpkin juice, snatching the paper from her quivering hands and scanning the pages to find the article that’d left her speechless.

Ministry Seeks Educational Reform
Dolores Umbridge Appointed First-Ever “High Inquisitor”

I stared at the picture of Umbridge’s horrible smiling face and the headlines, the gears in my brain working quickly despite the early hour.

“High Inquisitor? What the bloody hell is that?”

“Read the article,” she said quietly, gripping the edge of the table and glaring at her bacon as though it’d offended her. Rather reluctantly, I read it aloud:

“In a surprise move last night the Ministry of Magic passed new legislation giving itself an unprecedented level of control at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

I stopped for a second as I felt my stomach drop and my blood begin to boil. This could only be bad.

“The Minister has been growing uneasy about goings-on at Hogwarts for some time,’ said Junior Assistant to the Minister, Percy Weasley.” At this, the twins looked more alert. “He is now responding to concerns voiced by anxious parents, who feel the school may be moving in a direction they do not approve.’

“This is not the first time in recent weeks Fudge has used laws to effect improvements at the Wizarding school. As recently as August 30th Educational Decree Twenty-two was passed, to ensure that, in the event of the current headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person.’

“That’s how Dolores Umbridge came to be appointed to the teaching staff at Hogwarts,’ said Weasley last night. ‘Dumbledore couldn’t find anyone, so the Minister put in Umbridge and of course, she’s been an immediate success, totally revolutionizing the teaching of Defense Against the Dark Arts and providing the Minister with on-the-ground feedback about what’s really happening at Hogwarts.”

I stopped abruptly and let out a cold, harsh laugh. “Oh yeah, success in what? Being a cruel tyrant? The paper’s gone to the dogs.”

The twins were going on about how much of a pathetic ponce their elder brother was, along with quite a few nicknames for him that would send Mrs. Weasley into a heart attack. I went on as Rae pulled at her bacon viciously with her teeth.

“It is this last function that the Ministry has now formalized with the passing of Educational Decree Twenty-three, which creates the new position of ‘Hogwarts High Inquisitor.’

“’This is an exciting new phase in the Minister’s plans to get a grip with what some are calling “falling standards” at Hogwarts,’ said Weasley. “The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect her fellow educators and make sure they are coming up to scratch. Professor Umbridge has been offered this position in addition to her own teaching post, and we are delighted to say that she accepted.”

Looking around at the other House tables, I realized nearly everyone seemed to be looking at the Daily Prophet, having hushed discussions, no doubt, about the same exact article. The five of us were silent. A few feet down our table, Hermione was already ranting about how outrageous it was that Umbridge had been given that much authority. Harry was looking at his maimed hand. Ron was talking about how he couldn’t wait until Umbridge inspected McGonagall.

I slammed the newspaper down and looked up at the High table, where a majority of the teachers looked disgruntled as they picked at their breakfast. Snape looked in an even worse mood than usual, which said something serious because he was always in a horrid mood. Umbridge, however, was sipping her tea silently, a rather smug toad-like smile on her face. It made me want to shove that teacup down her slimy throat and throttle her.

Trying to control my anger, I let out a heavy sigh, turning back to look at the seat in front of me, where Fred was jabbing at his eggs with a frown. We locked eyes for a minute, not needing to speak a word. We knew damn well what this all meant. It meant that the Ministry was, in fact, interfering at Hogwarts. It meant that Umbridge, Fudge’s little puppet, was going to do everything that she could to control us. It meant that, if someone didn’t do something soon, we’d all be damned under her rule.