We had Charms that day, so I was able to see the effects of my prank in person. When it came time for us to perform the Cheering Charm, Granger was unable to do it. The expression on her face was priceless; it was all I could do to stop myself from bursting with laughter, as it was anything but cheery.
"Miss Granger, are you alright?" piped Professor Flitwick. "You're always so wonderful with spells, I expected you to be the first to accomplish this spell. I suppose even you are bound to have trouble with some things, eh? Nothing a little practice won't fix, I'm sure you'll get it!" Granger looked appalled as he pattered away to check on another pair of students.
"I don't understand!" she exclaimed. "Why isn't it working?" She shook her wand furiously, as though trying to shake some sense into it.
"Come on, Hermione, don't get upset," said Ron. "It's like Flitwick said, you're bound to run into a spell that stumps you. You're smart, but nobody's perfect at everything."
"Well, you may have low standards, but I plan on mastering this spell before class is out!" she responded furiously.
Of course, she didn't master the spell before class was out, because she wasn't even able to perform it. By the end of class, her face was red with fury. She tossed her book into her bag carelessly. I could hear her grumbling, "This has Fred and George written all over it. I'll give them a piece of my mind."
This made me uncomfortable. Although it had been Fred's idea, I had been the one to act on it. George had nothing to do with it at all. On the other hand, I didn't want to tell her that I had been wanting to do something like this for a while. Or did I? I only knew that I didn't want the Weasley twins to bear the blame for something I had done. Then I realized that Fred would probably take pride in the fact that the prank had been a success. George might be disappointed by the fact that he had no part in the prank, but I felt that he would probably be proud of his twin for helping me with a successful prank. I decided not to say anything at all and, nearly skipping, went to my next class. I would have to tell Lizzie about it that evening.
In the common room after dinner, Fred approached me. "Leliana, that was brilliant. Aren't you glad you have me for a friend?"
I pretended not to know what he was talking about. "What was brilliant?"
"The prank, of course! Hermione was furious; you should have seen the look on her face." He heightened his voice as he did an impression of Granger. "'I can't believe that even you would do such a thing. I mean, honestly, are you trying to humiliate me? I nearly died when the spell didn't work. You think it's funny, don't you? Well, I don't!'" He laughed heartily at the memory. "You should let her keep it. I mean, it's not like she knows you're the one who did it."
I laughed, too, glad that he was taking it just the way I expected. I considered taking him up on his advice when I heard a voice behind me say, "Excuse me?"
I whipped around. Granger was standing there, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. "Well, what did you expect?" I said. "Frankly, I think everyone's tired of your constant dithering about how smart you think you are and your Little Miss Perfect act. You think it's great, don't you? Muggle-born, top of the class, smarter and better than everyone else." My voice steadily rose as I continued. "It's about time you learned your place."
Granger responded with similar heat. "And what place might that be? A jealous Muggle-born who can't keep her head because someone is smarter and cleverer than her? That's laughable."
"Leliana," said Fred softly, cautiously placing a hand on my shoulder. I pushed it away.
"Just forget it. Here," I spat, shoving Granger's real wand into her hand. "Go back to being Miss Pretentious." I stormed off to the dorm, leaving a confused Fred and seething Granger behind me, as well as a small crowd of curious bystanders that I hadn't noticed before.
Elizabeth was there in the dorm. "Are you okay?" she asked. She sounded tired. "I heard yelling downstairs and I thought I recognized your voice. What happened?"
Without hesitating, I told her about the prank on Granger and the argument we'd just had about it. I did not leave out that Fred had given me the idea. "Well," she said when I'd finished, "I won't say that you shouldn't have done that; you probably feel bad enough about it. I do wish you had told me sooner about how you felt about her, though."
"That's the thing, Lizzie. I didn't realize how bad this had gotten. I've never really felt angry with her before, just slightly irritated. I don't know where this is coming from, Lizzie." I sat down. "I guess you're right. I really shouldn't have done that. It didn't really make me feel any better - it just made me feel worse." The colorful boxes from Zonko's caught my eye. "Oh, hey, I wanted to show you this stuff Fred and I got from Zonko's. You know, the joke shop? They've actually got some really funny stuff in there, look." I picked up an Extendable Ear. "You can eavesdrop on conversations you normally wouldn't be able to hear. Doesn't work if a silencing spell is up, though."
As I went through the items, I noticed that Elizabeth was watching me, but didn't really seem to be paying attention. I dropped the Frog Spawn Soap I was holding and sat next to her. "Hey, what's wrong, Lizzie?" I wrapped my arm around her.
She yawned. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just exhausted. All this homework, you know?"
"Is that all?" I had been assuming that had been the problem all along, but now that I brought it up, it didn't seem like the answer anymore. I had the strange feeling that she wasn't quite telling me the truth. At least, not the whole truth.
"What? Oh, yes, of course." The question seemed to make her nervous, as though I were trying to make her tell a deep secret. Which wouldn't normally be a problem, as we were as close as twins could be. "I just wasn't expecting fifth year to be so . . .difficult."
"I don't think we were expecting someone like Umbridge to be here, either." Umbridge was the evilest woman I had ever laid eyes upon. It wasn't so much her theology that learning the theory of defensive magic was enough, but that she was so oblivious to what was going on around her, namely Voldemort's recent rise to power. She had cruelly punished Harry for telling the truth about him and how Cedric Diggory had died, insisting that it was all a lie. In the process, she had made him look like a complete idiot - if he wasn't to be believed, he who had seen it all happen with his own eyes - then who could be trusted?
Elizabeth seemed even more uncomfortable at the mention of Umbridge. "Um, yes, her." She cleared her throat weakly. "Well, I think I'm going to turn in early. Good night, Ana." Without further ado, she slowly crawled under her blanket and closed her eyes.
