Delirium

Chapter 33 - Adapt

~*~

The stunned silence of the Great Hall lasted for one, two, three seconds.

One voice ended it—a Hufflepuff boy Jolie did not recognise, in maybe his third or fourth year.

"Hope it was bloody worth it, you redheaded tossers!"

What immediately followed was a riotous, furious rampage of students, the enormous dining room exploding in a storm of shrieks, wails, and shouts.

The majority of students were standing now, blocking Jolie's view of the Gryffindor table. She went to rise, but Pansy pulled her back down.

"Sit down! Keep out of fray for once, will you?"

Jolie couldn't think of a response, bellowing insults echoing from each House all around her and actual wads of food beginning to fly through the air.

A handful of girls screamed from the next table as bits of corn rained around them.

Professors began shouting, their voices amplified from their wands. But as all of them spoke over the other, their pleas were unintelligible.

Hateful words and spitting insults continued to fly.

The Slytherins offered up the worst and the bulk of the verbal abuse, each of their cries and roars of rage and revulsion layering over the next.

Some were pelted at the Gryffindor team as a whole. Some, from the bravest of students, were hurled right to Professor Dumbledore.

But the majority, to Jolie's dismay, were hurtled at George and Fred, personally.

'Redheaded maggots!'

'Worthless piles of flaming dragon dung—'

'Go cry to yer lard-arsed mummy, ye lanky streaks of orange piss!'

'You lot should've been sent back to that rickety slum you call a house!'

'There go the blood traitors, ruinin' the fun for the rest of us!'

By now, Jolie had wrenched Pansy's grip from her wrist and stood.

She saw who had said that last one.

Vincent Crabbe.

He was giggling with Goyle, all too chuffed with himself for, arguably, one of the weakest insults Jolie had heard.

But he was the only one she had witnessed herself.

Her wand was out, a jinx flying from it before she'd even fully thought of one.

Jolie watched with intense satisfaction as Crabbe toppled over from her Leg-Locker, his chin slamming against the wood of the table and his head smacking against the bench before he rolled fully to the ground, crying out in pain.

Draco, quite smartly having not said anything, just looked to his friend wailing upon the stone as Goyle tried to figure out the counter curse, then back at Jolie, his silver eyes wide.

Dumbledore's booming voice cut through the mayhem.

"SI-I-I-LE-E-ENCE!"

For the umpteenth time that evening, the Great Hall obeyed, falling wholly silent.

Dumbledore peered over them all, looking both disappointed and incensed. He raised his hands.

"Be seated!" he shouted. "At once!"