Umbridge

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Next morning, Harry had a very downtrodden expression, and Ashlyn knew why. He must have had an argument with Seamus.

"What's the matter?" asked Hermione "You look absolutely — oh for heaven's sake."

She was staring at the common room notice board, where a large new sign had been put up.

GALLONS OF GALLEONS!

Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings?
Like to earn a little extra gold?
Contact Fred and George Weasley, Gryffindor common room, for simple,
part-time, virtually painless jobs

(WE REGRET THAT ALL WORK IS UNDERTAKEN AT APPLICANT'S OWN RISK)

"They are the limit," said Hermione grimly, taking down the sign, which Fred and George had pinned up over a poster giving the date of the first Hogsmeade weekend in October. 

"We'll have to talk to them, Ron."

Ron looked positively alarmed.

"Why?"

"Because we're prefects!" said Hermione, as they climbed out through the portrait hole. "It's up to us to stop this kind of thing!"

Ron said nothing.

"Anyway, what's up, Harry?" Hermione continued, as they walked down a flight of stairs lined with portraits of old witches and wizards, all of whom ignored them, being engrossed in their own conversation.

 "You look really angry about something."

"Seamus reckons Harry's lying about You-Know-Who," said Ron succinctly, when Harry did not respond.

Hermione, whom Harry had expected to react angrily on his behalf, sighed.

"Yes, Lavender thinks so too," she said gloomily.

"Been having a nice little chat with her about whether or not I'm a lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?" Harry said loudly.

"No," said Hermione calmly, "I told her to keep her big fat mouth shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down our throats, Harry, because if you haven't noticed, we're on your side."

There was a short pause.

"Sorry," said Harry in a low voice.

"That's quite all right," said Hermione with dignity. 

"Hermione, when did that happen?" Ashlyn asked.

"You were sleeping," Hermione deadpanned. Then she suddenly giggled. "Do you know you sleep talk?'

"I do?" Ashlyn asked genuinely surprised.

"Well, you didn't exactly talk. You were swearing, real bad. The vocabulary was really...um... colourful and elaborate," 

Apparently she had given Lavender quite the fright because they thought she was telling them off.

Ashlyn smirked. "Heh, today's not going to be a good day,"

The other three looked at her with expressions that said they wanted a further explanation.

"Let's say I saw something," Ashlyn sighed. "Harry, you're going to do terribly in Potions and get detention from Umbridge, and McGonagall is going to offer you a biscuit,"

"What?"

"Just what I said. Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't have said that. The initial shock's impact would now be considerably reduced. I don't like it. Harry, can I use obliviate on you?" Ashlyn mused.

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