Richie stared down the crowd of young wizards, his face set in a hard scowl.
"Well, it looks like your brains haven't completely shut down after all."
"Too bad they're completely useless right now. You can't even tell basic right from wrong. You're acting dumber than a napping troll!"
Channeling his inner Snape for that little dose of mockery did the trick. The sheer venom in his voice sobered the kids up a few more degrees. After all, they'd just survived Potions; the psychological trauma of being roasted was still fresh.
Seeing that he had their attention, Richie struck while the iron was hot.
"So, let's break this down and figure out exactly who's in the wrong here!"
He swept his gaze across the crowd, pointing a finger sharply up at the sky.
"Those two up there—regardless of their reasons—blatantly ignored a professor's direct warning. They were wrong right out of the gate. Does anyone have a problem with that logic?"
Behind him, the Hufflepuffs all shook their heads in unison. "No problem here."
Richie turned to the Gryffindors. They shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his eyes. He looked over at the Slytherins. They just sneered and looked away, but nobody talked back.
"Since we're all on the same page..."
"They were the ones who started this mess!"
"Which brings me to my next point." Richie lowered his hand. "Is talking trash behind other people's backs something a Hogwarts student should be doing?"
The Hufflepuffs aggressively shook their heads again. "Definitely not!"
"Do you guys realize you were out of line?" Richie asked, glancing back at the Ravenclaws.
They hung their heads in shame.
"We were out of line!" Padma Patil spoke up from the crowd, raising her hand slightly.
Richie nodded, then turned his crosshairs back to the other two houses.
"You all know the difference between standing up for a friend and taking a joke too far. I refuse to believe you're that dense!"
"You completely disregarded a professor's authority just to blindly defend your own housemates! You were defending people who were actively breaking the rules!"
"Do you seriously think you're in the right?!"
The lions and snakes all looked incredibly guilty at that.
Put like that... yeah, they messed up.
Richie looked around at the thirty-something kids who were suddenly finding their shoes incredibly interesting.
"And instead of realizing you were wrong, you started pointing fingers and screaming at each other!"
"And then what? You were actually going to start a brawl? You were going to use magic on your own classmates?!"
"Did you want the upperclassmen to come down here and treat us all like a joke?!"
"Or maybe you wanted the school to call your parents so they could hear exactly how you've been acting?"
"This whole thing is more ridiculous than Merlin's holey socks!"
The kids from all four houses flushed bright red.
Richie was right. If a full-blown fight had actually broken out, every single one of them would have been thoroughly humiliated.
"This isn't how we handle things. We're wizards, not cave trolls."
"We all need to take a hard look in the mirror," Richie finished, his voice dropping to a quiet, heavy tone.
Just then, Harry swooped down from the sky, a massive grin on his face as he held up the Remembrall. But the second his feet hit the grass, he noticed the dead silence.
Everyone was staring at him, their expressions incredibly complicated.
Harry's smile vanished. He slowly lowered his arm. "Wh... what's going on?"
A second later, Malfoy landed next to Crabbe and Goyle, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"You just got lucky, Potter..." Malfoy started, before noticing his bodyguards. "What's wrong with your eyes?"
Crabbe and Goyle were blinking frantically, trying to silently signal him, leaving Malfoy completely confused.
"Mr. Harland is absolutely correct!"
A terrifyingly furious Professor McGonagall materialized from the shadows of the castle courtyard.
"You have all given me quite the surprise today!"
"Blatantly ignoring Madam Hooch's explicit warnings."
"Shouting matches. And nearly inciting a full-scale riot on school grounds."
"You are, without a doubt, the most chaotic and worst-behaved class of first-years I have ever seen!"
The kids collectively shrank back, practically trying to use Richie as a human shield against McGonagall's wrath.
"For Mr. Harland's timely intervention in stopping this conflict, twenty points to Ravenclaw!"
"For Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy's blatant disregard of a professor's warning, twenty points will be taken from Gryffindor and Slytherin!"
"And for this unacceptable mob behavior, thirty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin! Twenty points from Ravenclaw!"
"Every single first-year will submit a ten-inch essay reflecting on their behavior by tomorrow evening!"
"Harry Potter, you come with me!"
The three houses groaned in absolute despair as they watched McGonagall march a terrified Harry off the pitch.
"Ten inches?! That's longer than my face!"
"I can't even write one inch of homework!"
"Merlin, just strike me down now!"
The Hufflepuffs, despite getting caught in the crossfire of the essay punishment, were actually in incredibly high spirits.
Gryffindor and Slytherin had just lost fifty points each. Ravenclaw gained twenty but lost twenty, breaking even. Since Hufflepuff hadn't lost a single point, mathematically speaking, it felt like they'd just surged fifty points ahead.
It was a massive win!
---
"Oh man, we are so sorry, Richie."
"We really didn't mean to start anything."
"We'll never do it again."
Terry and the guys huddled around Richie, apologizing profusely, still looking a little shaken.
They hadn't expected a few passive-aggressive comments to escalate into a near-riot. If spells had actually started flying, it would have been a bloodbath. Thank god Richie had stepped up to defuse the bomb.
But because of them, the twenty points Richie had just earned the house were instantly wiped out...
Richie honestly wasn't as mad as they thought he was. He had deliberately played up his anger earlier just to shock the kids into listening to him. If he hadn't shouted, he never would have reigned them in.
As long as nobody got hurt, he didn't really care.
Looking at his three shell-shocked roommates, Richie imparted a bit of ancient Eastern wisdom.
"Just remember one simple rule: loose lips sink ships. Trouble always comes from running your mouth."
The three of them nodded vigorously. Yeah, they were definitely keeping their mouths shut from now on.
---
Nearby, Hermione was fuming.
"I told him he shouldn't have gone after him!" she complained to Ron. "Now we've lost fifty house points! Fifty! Do you have any idea how many questions I have to answer in class to make up fifty points?!"
"And now I have to write a ten-inch essay! This completely ruins my study schedule for the evening!"
Ron looked a little embarrassed, but he still dug his heels in. "I still say Harry didn't do anything wrong."
Hermione shot him a lethal glare.
Ron averted his eyes but stubbornly kept going. "Look, I know what Harland said makes sense, but nothing bad actually happened, right?"
"Plus, Harry got Neville's Remembrall back in one piece! Neville is going to be super grateful!"
"Honestly, with a friend like you encouraging him, Harry is going to end up going down a very dark path!" Hermione finally snapped, rolling her eyes in sheer disbelief.
With a huff, she flipped her bushy hair over her shoulder and marched straight toward Richie.
"Hey! What is that supposed to mean?!" Ron yelled after her, his face turning red.
Hermione didn't even look back.
"Harry is lucky to have a friend like me!" Ron muttered to himself, nursing his bruised ego.
---
"Richie."
Richie, who had been planning to just chill by the sidelines until Madam Hooch got back, turned around to see a very stiff-faced Hermione marching up to him.
"Oh, you know what? I just realized there are a few highly debatable sections in The Flying Broomstick Manual," Anthony suddenly announced, loudly clearing his throat.
Stephen caught Anthony's subtle wink and immediately pushed his glasses up. "Now that you mention it, I had a few questions about it myself."
"What? The Flying Broomstick Manual? What is there to even talk about..." Terry started, looking at them like they had lost their minds.
Anthony and Stephen didn't bother explaining. They just grabbed Terry by the arms and dragged him away.
"Let's go brainstorm over there," Anthony said smoothly.