January 30th
"HARRY!!"
Harry leapt out of bed and was met face first with a thick shield charm, smashing his nose and knocking him backwards back on to his bed.
"What the...?"
Harry squinted through the shield and sighed. Susan was standing on the other side of it, a ridiculously huge smile on her face and her wand twirling in her hand.
Harry hadn't known how menacing Susan would look when he taught her how to twirl her wand.
"Sorry, but I knew you'd stab me if I screamed to wake you up," she said cheerfully, dispelling the charm with a murmured spell.
"So instead of not screaming, you chose to put up a shield?" Draco asked peering sleepily from behind the curtains of his bed.
"You're going to scream too when I tell you what happened." Susan's red curls were going crazy as she was bouncing in place with obvious excitement.
"Is Timmy dead?" Fred grunted from his place on Harry's bed.
"Almost as good!"
"Dumbledore's dead?" Harry asked.
"Not quite so good."
"Endless bacon for breakfast?" Ron said with a wistful smile.
"There's always endless bacon at breakfast," Susan rolled her eyes.
"Dumbledore's been fired?" Theo guessed.
"Bingo!"
Harry blinked at her. once. twice. three times. before his face split in to his own broad smile.
"You're joking," he breathed. "What happened??"
"I don't know!" Susan said. "Not for sure, but Parvati Patil said that Ginny and Finnigan got caught with their defense club—"
"Parvati Patil?" Draco interrupted Susan with a scrunched up nose. "Why were you with the boring Patil?"
"She's an excellent kisser," Susan said with a careless shrug. "Anyway—"
"I thought you were chasing after Lavender?" Fred asked.
"Been there, got that," Susan smirked. "Now shut the hell up so I can finish! Aaaanyway, Parvati said that those idiots named their defense club 'Dumbledore's Army' and Dumbledore got fired for it!"
Harry had no idea how one event was related to the other, but the announcement Susan thrust in his hand was undeniable.
"But Umbridge is Headmistress," Harry groaned as he passed Fred the newest decree. "She's terrible Sue."
"I don't care if they made Goyle the Headmaster," Susan scoffed, ignoring Goyle's quiet grunt of resentment.
Honestly, sometimes Harry forgot that Goyle and Crabbe even have beds in their dorm as often as Harry pulls his 'Heir of Slytherin' Card and kicks them out.
"Dumbledore is gone, Harry. Goneee."
Blaise jumped from his bed, already running a smoothing hand over his close cropped black curls. "You know what this means?" he said, throwing his arm over Susan's shoulder.
"Absolutely," Susan squealed.
Harry looked between the two of them, then glanced at Ron, Draco, and Theo and was reassured they were as confused as he was. "What's it mean?" he asked Blaise.
"We're having a party," Blaise said. "The biggest and best party this castle has ever seen!"
And so they plotted.
Susan ordered Fred, Ron, and Neville to acquire butterbeer, firewhisky, and food.
Luna, Draco, and Blaise were put in charge of inviting 'every bloody person in the castle'.
Harry was supposed to find a 'proper place to have the biggest party ever'.
And Hermione and Theo were told to quit protesting and help get decorations.
Privately Harry was pretty sure Susan just didn't trust either of the bookworms to put real effort in to illicit party planning, so she gave them their job as an afterthought. But as Harry had what seemed to be the most difficult task, he wasn't going to defend them.
"How am I supposed to find a place for a party?" Harry groaned at breakfast while the rest of the student body buzzed loudly over Umbridge's spot in Dumbledore's chair.
"Don't know, don't care," Susan said breezily, her face still glowing from her joy at Dumbledore being fired. "Just find one Potter."
Harry muttered darkly under his breath about bossy girls and why the hell had he decided to befriend Susan Bones when Theo caught his attention.
"Isn't there a secret room on the seventh floor?" he asked Harry. "Check your map, I heard Diggory talking about it last year. He said it changes its contents depending on who needs it."
"That sounds like just the sort of dumb thing Diggory would believe in," Ron scoffed, never having forgiven Diggory for beating Slytherin's quidditch team on a technicality in Harry's third year.
"No there's really a secret room on the seventh floor, it's next to a painting of ballerina trolls," Fred said, looking more lively today than he had in weeks. "But I don't think it changes, it just appears and disappears sometimes. George and I hid in it in our first year from Filch, but then we never found it again."
Harry flat out refused to pull out his map, not wanting to risk any of the professors seeing it and trying to confiscate it, but he did think hard back to his second year...
"Beside a painting of trolls in tutus?" he asked Fred. "I've been there, but it was a playground."
"A playground?" Hermione asked. "Why were you in a playground?"
"None of your bloody business, that's why," Harry said, his neck heating up at the reminder of why he'd been in there. Snape had definitely taken him to a room on the seventh floor that led to an indoor playground. Harry hadn't questioned it much at the time, being rather miserable and determined to kill himself, but it warranted some investigation.
"Lue? Wanna come with?" Harry offered, getting to his feet.
"Alright." Luna took a last drink of the orange juice she always has for breakfast and pecked Draco on the cheek quickly before grabbing Harry's hand and gliding beside him out of the Great Hall.
"You didn't eat much today," she said as they strolled up the back staircase together.
"Mm, guess not," Harry agreed. He didn't know how Luna always noticed small details like that, not just about him, but about all of their friends.
"You don't seem as happy as Susan is," Luna said after Harry didn't expound on his previous answer.
"I don't think anyone can be as happy as Susan," Harry said with a small grin. Susan hates Dumbledore more than almost any of them, Harry wasn't surprised one bit by her jubilant emotions today.
"Probably not, no," Luna laughed, waving to one of the portraits they passed. "Aren't you happy that Dumbledore's gone though?"
Harry considered it as they neared the portrait they'd been looking for.
"I would be, if Umbridge didn't replace him," he said slowly. "McGonagall? Sure. But Umbridge? She's..." Harry struggled to find a word to describe the way his insides felt like ice every time Umbridge looked at him. "She's creepy, isn't she?"
"She's super creepy," Luna agreed immediately, dancing forward to trail her fingers lightly over the painting of the ballerina trolls. "But she's also very scared of you, so I don't think you need to worry."
"I am not worried," Harry sneered, insulted that she thinks he'd be worried about anyone.
"Silly me," Luna said airily, backing up so Harry could inspect the wall. "You'd never be worried about the intentions of an adult."
Harry gave her an exasperated look, sometimes resenting the way she saw through him so well.
"How do you think this works?" he asked, blatantly changing the topic.
"Hmm." Luna hummed loudly in what sounded to be some sort of lullaby as she trailed her fingers over the wall and squinted at it. "Did you ask it what you want?"
"Did I..." Harry trailed off as he watched Luna pace in front of the wall a few times before a door popped in to existence, just as it had for Snape a few years ago.
"You brilliant witch," Harry impulsively grabbed Luna and gave her a tight hug. "What would I do without you Lue?"
"Burn the world to ashes," Luna quipped confidently. "C'mon."
Harry nudged the door open slowly, poking his head in and letting out a startled laugh at the form the room took.
"It's a forest," he said, letting Luna in behind him. He spun around and looked at the tall trees filling the room, the golden sunrise filtering through them, even inhaling the scent of fresh grass. "How did you do this?"
"I asked for it," Luna said. "You know magic responds when you ask it to do things for you."
Harry had a sudden memory of being young, really young, and sitting in a dark cupboard. He'd wanted so badly to be special, to be something other than a 'worthless freak'. He'd ripped a sheet of paper and had begged his magic, not that he had known at the time what it was, to fix it. And eventually, when Harry was nearly in desperate tears, it had.
"I love magic," he sighed.
"Me too." Luna smiled at Harry and they had a shared moment of understanding between them. Luna knew how it was to be different, to be called a freak. And she knew now, just as Harry did, that being different, being special, was worth every insult thrown their way. "Do you know how to climb trees?" she asked.
Harry smirked and grabbed her smaller and softer hand. "Lue, I'm London's all time tree climbing champ, aren't I?"
Luna laughed and the two of them spent their morning scaling the trees Luna had imagined for them. They left behind thoughts of Umbridge, worries about the war, and all their other problems firmly on the ground as they climbed higher and higher.
"This is perfect," Susan laughed joyfully when Harry led her to the Hidden Room (Luna called it the Room of Secrets, but that was a mouthful in Harry's opinion) a couple hours before the party was meant to begin. Harry had done what Luna did, keeping his fingers on the wall as he paced back and forth a few times and asked the room to become a party room for him.
He hadn't expected the magic to take him quite so literally, but this was the same magic that once painted every fence in Surrey red because Harry hadn't specifically requested it to only paint the Dursley's fence. So he shouldn't have been so surprised.
The Hidden Room had expanded to some sort of ridiculously large area. Half of it was flashing with colorful lights and Harry could hear loud music once he entered that area, and the other half was filled with comfy sofas, red benches, and dark wooden tables. Enough seating space for a hundred students to sit and hang out. There was even a long line of tables covering the back wall, empty aside from silver goblets, plates, punch bowls, and other empty serving trays.
"Let's get to work." Susan rolled up the sleeves on the tight white blouse she wore and started levitating boxes that Fred, George, Neville, and Ron began sneaking in beneath Harry's invisibility cloak.
Harry had rolled his eyes at Theo, amused by Susan's continuing bossy tone, but after thirty minutes of arranging, rearranging, moving, and decorating, he'd decided that Hufflepuff's were truly brutal when it came to hard work.
"I swear the Dursley's were more lenient than Susan," Harry muttered to Draco.
Draco curled his lip up at the mention of Harry's muggle relatives. As did Susan, who was apparently shamelessly eavesdropping as she levitated an obstinate banner across the wall above the refreshments table.
"For one, I am very lenient," Susan called to him in a haughty tone. "For two, what are we doing this summer?"
"Killing Nagini and Bellatrix for sure, maybe Timmy if Barty figured out how to kill him," Neville answered automatically.
"Can we add the Dursley's to that list?" Susan asked.
"Yes!" Hermione cried, immediately summoning the to-do list from Susan's bag by the door. "Ugh, I've been dying to add them to the list."
"That's the spirit!" Susan turned to give Hermione a rare smile of approval. "If Harry doesn't want to go, you and I could do it ourselves?"
"Ooh, can I help?" Luna asked.
"The more the merrier," Hermione muttered distractedly.
"Girls night!" Susan squealed as she put the finishing touches on the banner.
Harry and Theo shared a horrified look.
"You've created monsters," Theo murmured as Hermione scribbled away on the list.
"Me?" Harry was surprised. "It's your girlfriend plotting a triple homicide mate."
"Nah, that's all on you love," Fred laughed. "You breed psychopaths."
"Uncle Sev says that Harry 'fosters feelings of violence and vengeance that overtake all senses of morality'."
Everyone stopped what they were doing to look over at Draco where he was arranging balloons above each table in the quieter section of the room.
"What?" Draco said defensively, noticing the peculiar looks he was getting. "That's what he said!"
"I like it," Blaise grinned. "I think that should be the slogan for the gang."
Harry played with it in his mind for a bit, as everyone got back to work. After thinking on it he decided he liked it too.
Snape definitely had a way with words.
And, after an hour and a half of work in the Hidden Room, and half of hour of Susan, Draco, and Blaise disapproving and approving their outfits, Harry had to admit that Susan was an excellent party planner.
"I still think that the banner's a bit macabre," Theo said as the group admired their handiwork.
"I honestly don't see what's not to like about it," Susan said. "I'm keeping it for the party we'll have when he's dead too."
'REST IN PIECES DUMBLEDORE'
"That is exactly what's so macabre," Hermione said, smoothing down the pleats in the skirt Susan loaned her. "How long have you had it?"
"I had it made the summer before third year," Susan shrugged. "It wouldn't do to not be prepared in case he oh so tragically died."
"Wouldn't do at all," George chuckled. "Are we ready then?"
Harry sent one last look over his group, all dressed in posh party clothes, and looked over the Hidden Room. It was decorated lavishly with black and silver decorations, the food and drinks were set up (Hermione grumpily put up a complicated rune ward to keep any student under fifteen from getting alcohol much to the complaints of Susan), and everything looked a bit like Harry imagined muggle bars and clubs would look.
"Ready," he told George.
And then, Harry got to experience what was truly the most insanely chaotic night of his life.
It started when it seemed as if the entire student body really had shown up. Including Ginny Weasley and Seamus Finnigan, who Susan gave a whistling and clapping standing ovation to.
"Our heroes!" she cried, amidst loud laughter from the Slytherin's. "Without your idiocy, none of this would have ever happened!"
Then Harry was bullied in to taking shots with Blaise and Ron. Bullied might be a strong word to use, but his arm had definitely been twisted.
"Here's to... well," Blaise twisted his lips in thought before laughing, "anything!" He lifted his tiny glass in the air, clinking Harry and Ron's before throwing it back like a professional.
Susan and Luna then drug Harry and the twins to the music and flashing lights section of the room, where Susan made short work of finding out how to control the music and turning it to the loudest pop song Harry had ever heard. Harry had attempted to dance with his friends, but he was sweating. He could feel all the bodies of other students pressing up against him, causing his skin to crawl and his stomach to revolt. Thankfully, Fred stomped on Susan's foot with a pointed look before asking Harry to go with him to get another drink.
"You're a lifesaver Fred," Harry said appreciatively.
"Well I'm no Boy-Who-Lived, but I like to think I'd make quite the dashing hero," Fred winked. "Water or butterbeer?"
Harry eyed the options before rolling his eyes at Fred. "Firewhisky is fine," he said.
"If you get drunk and pass out again, I'm leaving you on a sofa again," Fred warned him, passing over the requested drink.
Harry smirked and impulsively leaned up to kiss Fred. "You wouldn't," he said confidently.
"Nah, I wouldn't," Fred agreed. "But if we get caught by a teacher again, I'm blaming you."
"Deal," Harry laughed.
Despite Harry's cocky confidence that they wouldn't be busted by a teacher this time, they were.
It had taken a few hours, as it was well past midnight at that point, and Harry was very drunkenly trying to explain wandless magic to a group of giggling fourth year girls (much to the annoyance of Fred, who was glaring the girls down) when the Hidden Room door was thrown open and the music and conversations abruptly fell immediately silent.
"What is the meaning of this?" Umbridge thundered, looking around at the students with her chest puffed out indignantly.
Nobody said anything, nobody even dared to breathe. Harry was considering how furious Snape was going to be to find out Harry had attended yet another alcohol fueled party on Hogwarts grounds.
Maybe it won't be so bad since I'm not high and half-dressed, he thought with a hopeful naivety brought on by his drunkenness.
"Surprise!" Susan suddenly yelled, drawing Umbridge's beady eyes to her.
Harry picked up on Susan's idea quickly. "Look!" he pointed at the banner on the back wall. "We're cel'bratin' your promotion Headmistress!"
"'Rest in pieces Dumbledore,'" Umbridge looked as if she were torn between fury and glee as she read the banner.
Theo, Hermione, and Luna were hastily asking the room for hidden exits, shuffling as many students out of the tiny dark tunnels as they could while Umbridge was distracted by Harry and Susan. Neville and George subtly tossed Harry's cloak over the drink table, attempting to hide the alcohol that was not only 'disallowed' in school, but was actually illegal.
"So you thought that a party during curfew hours was the best way to honor my position?" Umbridge said, taking a step closer to Harry.
"Is it past curfew?" Susan asked, her eyes going wide in surprise as she placed herself between her best friend and the Headmistress. "We had no idea, ma'am. This silly room doesn't provide us with a clock."
Umbridge didn't look impressed by Susan's answer, so Harry shrugged carelessly and offered Umbridge a lazy smile. "We got a bit carried away with our cel'bration, suppose we'll head to bed now. Thanks for bein' so understanding, 'm sure Dumbledore would've been a dick about it, yeah? Not you though, I'll tell Cor- Corn- Fudge how brill you've been."
Harry was pleased when Susan and Fred got on either side of him, as he wasn't actually as steady on his own two feet as he wanted to be. The other students, taking their cue from Harry, began slipping out past the Headmistress in large groups, eager to escape without punishment.
And everything would have been fine. Probably. Since Umbridge looked truly torn on if she was going to punish them or not with the threat of Harry writing her boss hanging over her head, he was pretty sure everyone was about to escape without so much as losing a single point.
But then Umbridge had to go and open her mouth before Harry, Fred, and Susan had made it out the door.
"Lovegood!" she barked at Luna, who was assisting one of the younger Ravenclaw boys to the door. "Get to bed! You stupid girl."
And even in his fairly inebriated state, Harry knew from the look that he shared with Susan that Umbridge had made her first mistake as Headmistress.
Because no one insulted their friends, especially not Luna. And especially not in an effort to seem in control of a situation that they had already manipulated to suit their current needs.
"Bit uncalled for," Fred murmured with a frown as they watched Luna run to catch up with Hermione with the younger Ravenclaw boy in tow.
Harry nodded vehemently. "We made her look st-stupid, so she insulted Lue."
It wasn't something that Harry himself wouldn't have done, it was just Umbridge calling Luna a stupid girl was absolutely unforgivable. Especially as Luna's soft and kind eyes had seemed hurt when the other students still in the room sniggered quietly.
"As soon as you're sober, we start planning," Susan hissed as she deposited Harry and Fred at the Slytherin common room entrance.
"Aye, aye, captain." Fred gave Susan a sloppy salute before sighing down at Harry, who was slowly sliding to the floor. "Don't suppose you'd help me drag him to his bed?" he asked hopefully.
Susan just laughed as she pranced away, that was 100% Fred's problem, she had a poltergeist to find.
If someone had asked Harry a week ago if Fred and Susan would ever be friends, he would have laughed and sent them to the Hospital Wing to be examined for a head injury.
But that was before Umbridge publicly made Susan Bones and Harry Potter her unknowing enemies.
It started simply enough. Harmless graffiti and stink pellets flung at Umbridge's back at every turn courtesy of Peeves, who had apparently bonded with Susan back in her second year.
Harry and Susan took shifts beneath his cloak to follow her around and charm her hair a sparkling pink.
Then it escalated a bit as Fred and George decided to prove that they were better pranksters than Harry and Susan were.
The two of them set about the castle getting most of the portraits to agree to belch loudly every time that Umbridge passed them— which had driven Umbridge to actually rip a painting of an old warlock off the wall and chuck it down the staircase.
Susan grinned at Fred when they witnessed this fit of rage and mouthed 'game on'.
Harry was bemused as Susan gave him specific instructions that night, but he obediently repeated them to the tiny army of snakes that they conjured.
"Find the woman that looks like a toad," he hissed at the snakes. "Don't let her sleep."
Umbridge had looked both exhausted and terrified as she twitched at every hiss Harry subtly made near her the next day. Umbridge had given Harry a look of suspicion, but he just smiled blandly and congratulated her once more on her promotion.
Fred and George levitated nifflers in to the Defense Classroom, smiling in satisfaction at the utter destruction.
Theo and Hermione had to step in as Harry questioned if the Skrewts were still in the Forbidden Forest and what the likelihood of them doing him another favor was.
The war between the twins and Harry and Susan, with Umbridge as the sole target of their rages, continued to the point that the other inhabitants of the castle were no longer phased by the oddities that surrounded them.
Professor Flitwick patiently taught all his students the Bubblehead Charm when a swamp Fred and George designed filled the defense corridor with horrible smells.
Professor Sprout cheerfully showcased how to keep bowtruckles from destroying the students' belongings when an infestation of them were set loose in the castle.
Tonks had elevated herself in Harry and Susan's eyes when she spent a good part of her day strutting around, disguised like Umbridge, declaring her romantic love for Dumbledore.
Apparently it had been George's idea, but Harry quickly reminded Tonks that she was his cousin and couldn't be helping the competition out-prank him.
Even McGonagall seemed indifferent to the utter chaos of Hogwarts. At one point, early on in the war, she sighed wistfully and mentioned to Harry that it sure was a shame that Sirius and Remus weren't here, as she was certain they would have some brilliant ideas on how to prank someone. Then, in a moment that Harry still isn't sure if he imagined or not, McGonagall patted Harry on the cheek fondly and gave Slytherin twenty points because 'his hair was brushed neatly'. Which, Draco was quick to point out as soon as McGonagall walked away, it absolutely was not.
Snape had curled his lip at the book Sirius sent Harry, 'The Marauders Guide to Marauding', but Harry had casually mentioned how Umbridge insulted Luna, probably hurting her feelings, and suddenly Snape was much more amendable to looking the other way. In fact, he had even supplied Harry with the ingredients he needed for Marauders Prank #412: Uncloggable Toilets.
Harry wasn't sure if Sirius and Lupin expected the book back or not, but as he read over the various notes signed with 'JP', he decided that he was absolutely keeping it forever.
But all of that was before Susan learned that Fred and George's joke shop pranks were the perfect piece to her puzzle of revenge that she needed.
"How did you come up with this?" she asked happily as the four of them watched animal shaped fireworks bounce off every wall in the Great Hall before breakfast one morning.
"We just thought of what could cause the most chaos in a confined space—"
"Essentially tried to make a magical version of Harry."
"—and wound up with these," George said with a proud smile. "Let's slip out so they don't escape until breakfast."
It was worth waking up before the sun had risen to see Umbridge's already harried expression get that much more exasperated when the doors to the Great Hall were thrown open and fireworks exploded in her face before careening down the corridors.
Umbridge didn't scream, but she looked close to it.
"When I find out who is behind this, there will be consequences," she hissed to the surrounding group of giggling students.
"I imagine it was someone rather stupid, ma'am," Susan said with a polite smile. "Excuse us." She kept her arm secured tightly over Luna's shoulder as she made her way past Umbridge, Harry and the others following behind her.
"You lot are terrifying," Neville said admirably once they were all seated in their usual place.
"That's nothing," Susan said. "Wait until you see what Harry's done to her office."
"You reckon you guys can get her to quit?" Ron asked quietly as Umbridge was raging at the other professors to 'handle the situation'.
As if any one of the professors had the ability to control the level of reckless and absolute chaos that the Weasley Twins, Susan Bones, and Harry Potter were unleashing on the Headmistress.
Minerva was privately quite pleased with it all. She had once had a nightmare imagining what terrible mischief the son of the mischievous James Potter, godson of the charming Sirius Black, and child of the cunning Severus Snape could do when partnered with the brilliant Frederick Weasley. This transcended all her worst imaginings, but certainly in the most entertaining way possible.
She imagined that James was smiling down from the heavens at his son just as Severus smirked with approval at each new level of unlocked chaos.
"One week of pranks won't get that toad to give up her power," Hermione said with a dark look up at the Head Table on her typically friendly face.
"Two weeks then?" Fred asked casually.
Luna hummed and plucked a stray bit of ember out of Harry's hair. "She'll be gone within a month," she said confidently.
It was a pleasant thought, one that brought Harry almost as much joy as did Umbridge's fury during their defense lesson that day.
"Whatever student vandalized my office is going to sorely, sorely, regret it," she yelled at them all.
The exhausted bags under her eyes undercut her fury quite a bit, in Harry's opinion.
"Oh no, what happened Headmistress?" Blaise asked in a way that sounded almost concerned if you didn't know him well enough.
"Nevermind that," Umbridge snapped. "Open your textbooks to page 310 and start reading."
Harry scrawled a quick note to Blaise, sliding it surreptitiously beneath the desk to him.
Blaise had to fight down a laugh as he read Harry's note.
Replaced all her kitten pictures with toads.