The Last Peverell

Chapter 28

Sorry, it's been a while. I really need to be consistent with this.

Chapter 28

The school year started back up without much fuss. Or, at least, it began with significantly less than what Jasmine had started the term with. The students that had assaulted her were no longer attending Hogwarts and the board of governors forced an anti-bullying mandate that the school was going to have to follow, or else. The "or else" was extremely vague, but the threat was still there.

Brightbark was still teaching and didn't seem like he was going to be leaving his position of power anytime soon. Jasmine wasn't that surprised, OWLs were coming up and there was no way that Dumbledore was going to hire a new teacher this far into the term.

The Marauders had been planning something against the defense professor, since they still needed revenge against him for outing Jasmine's past, but they needed to work their way around the new bullying code. It wasn't too strict, but it was revolutionary for its time. Harassing other students was forbidden, whether it was verbal abuse or physical, by magical or muggle means. Any attempts on another student's life will be met with swift expulsion, unless there are extenuating circumstances, like self-defense. All accusations would be brought to the Head of House. Dumbledore mostly had the final say, which Jasmine thought was daft on the board's part, but the Heads of House have more control over what goes on within the different houses if certain students were to act out against others.

It was a start to stopping what could happen to Luna in the future, or what happened to Harriet in nearly all of her different lives. Severus may finally get some peace since the professors were also going to need to look into inter house bullying as well. Hopefully, the future potions master would get away from the upper years that followed him around like oversized body guards. Lily was overjoyed to hear about the new rules and was ready to enforce all of them by the second day of classes. Jasmine's dear roommate had memorized them all.

The Marauders had carefully poured over the rules to make sure they could still play their pranks without getting expelled. Naturally, they found at least six loopholes they could jump through to avoid severe punishments for their special brand of shenanigans. The main loophole being that they weren't going to target one person. Everyone was fair game to them and therefore, no one was bullied.

In the brief time they were back at Hogwarts a Quidditch match occurred. Gryffindor played a match against Hufflepuff...and Jasmine used the term "match" loosely. Jasmine felt like massacred was more accurate to describe the game. The Hufflepuff team had apparently lost most of its players this past year and was rebuilding, they only had one senior player, the rest of the team were new to the competitive Quidditch scene. Gryffindor won by over three hundred points, before Jasmine caught the snitch to end the game.

It wasn't until the end of January that the Marauders finally unveiled their prank against Brightbark. As always, it happened at in the Great Hall, this time during breakfast. They needed a large audience after all.

At first Jasmine wasn't sure what was going on. One minute everything was quiet, she was reading over her homework when a large crash sounded from the Head Table. She had wondered for a moment if Dumbledore finally had a heart attack and dropped dead, but when she looked up, where Brightbark sat, there was a rather large, bright orange...ostrich.

The professor turned ostrich opened his mouth to say something, but only a small, but very pervasive squeak came out.

For a moment it was silent, then the entire hall burst out laughing. It was almost if a collective sigh had been let out from the student body. Brightbark had set students against each other in a crusade to rid the world of anything other than light magic. And, if by seeing him, in all his ostrich glory, made the students feel like they had control again, then so be it. Jasmine brought a hand up to cover up a very unladylike snort that escaped her mouth.