Dawn Rivera

Grawp

The story of Fred and George's flight to freedom is retold so often over the next few days I can tell it will soon become the stuff of Hogwarts legend: within a week, even those who were eye-witnesses are half-convinced they saw the twins dive-bomb Umbridge on their brooms and pelt her with Dungbombs before zooming out of the doors. In the immediate aftermath of their departure there is a great wave of talk about copying them. I frequently hear students saying things like, "Honestly, some days I feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place," or else, "One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley."

Fred and George have made sure nobody is likely to forget them too soon. For one thing, they have not left instructions on how to remove the swamp that now fills the corridor on the fifth floor of the east wing. Umbridge and Filch have been observed trying different means of removing it but without success. Eventually, the area is roped off and Filch, gnashing his teeth furiously, is given the job of punting students across to their classrooms. I am certain that teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick could remove the swamp in an instant but, just as in the case of Fred and George's Wildfire Whiz-bangs, they seem to prefer watching Umbridge struggle.

Then there are two large broom-shaped holes in Umbridge's door, through which Fred and George's Cleansweeps smashed to rejoin their masters. Filch fits a new door and removes Harry and Danny's Firebolts to the dungeons where, it is rumored, Umbridge has set an armed security troll to guard it. However, her troubles are far from over.

Inspired by Fred and George's example, a great number of students are now vying for the newly vacant positions of Troublemakers-in-Chief. In spite of the new door, somebody manages to slip a hairy-snouted Niffler into Umbridge's office, which promptly tears the place apart in its search for shiny objects, leaps on Umbridge when she enters and tries to gnaw the rings off her stubby fingers. Dungbombs and Stink Pellets are dropped so frequently in the corridors that it becomes the new fashion for students to perform Bubble-Head Charms on themselves before leaving lessons, which ensures them a supply of fresh air, even though it gives them all the peculiar appearance of wearing upside-down goldfish bowls on their heads.

Filch prowls the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem is that there are now so many of them he never knows which way to turn. The Inquisitorial Squad is attempting to help him, but odd things keep happening to its members. Warrington of the Slytherin Quidditch team reports to the hospital wing with a serious skin complaint that makes him look as though he has been coated in cornflakes; Pansy Parkinson, to Hermione and I's delight, misses all her lessons the following day as she has sprouted antlers.

Meanwhile, it becomes clear just how many Skiving Snackboxes Fred and George managed to sell before leaving Hogwarts. Umbridge only has to enter her classroom for the students assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers or else spout blood from both nostrils. Shrieking with rage and frustration, she attempts to trace the mysterious symptoms to their source, but the students tell her stubbornly they are suffering from "Umbridge-itis". After putting four consecutive classes in detention and failing to discover their secret, she is forced to give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating and vomiting students to leave her classes in droves.

But not even the users of the Snackboxes can compete with the master of chaos, Peeves, who seems to have taken Fred's parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soars through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he shuts Mrs Norris inside a suit of armour, from which she is rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker. Peeves smashes lanterns and snuffs out candles, juggles burning torches of the heads of screaming students, causes neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows; floods the second floor when he pulls off all the taps in the bathrooms, drops a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancies a break, spends hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she speaks.