Chapter 1065: Just Deserts
Chapter 1065: Just Deserts
As everyone gradually adapted to the chaotic situation at Hogwarts, they were surprised to find that the original college life had undergone earth-shattering changes.
The professors turned a blind eye to the frustrating things happening in the castle; even if the students blatantly played Wizarding Chess in class, they wouldn't comment, let alone bother with giving out points.
Ever since the formation of the investigation group at Hogwarts, no one really took points seriously anymore.
During one Charms class, Professor Flitwick even went to watch Fred and Lee Jordan play Wizard's Chess, chatting with Albert about the latest issue of Charms Innovations magazine, leaving many students dumbfounded.
No one ever thought that even Professor Flitwick would start slacking off.
Although classes had become very casual, Professor Flitwick's lessons were still well-liked, especially when he occasionally felt like discussing various interesting topics with the class, such as his travels abroad when he was younger. Once, he even had Albert come up to the front to talk about the International Wizarding Dueling Competition, taking the opportunity to increase everyone's general knowledge.
In fact, after Professor Dumbledore was forced to leave the school, the entire Hogwarts faculty completely disregarded the new headmistress, and they were all too happy to watch her make a fool of herself.
Whenever something minor happened, the professors would send for Umbridge to handle it, as if no one else could deal with the situation without the new headmistress.
Thus, Umbridge's life as headmistress suddenly became very busy.
Every day, there would be a classroom or two where the howls of the Wolfsbane Fangs could be heard, after which Umbridge and Filch would have to hurry over with large bug-catching nets to help the professors deal with the problem.
Since they couldn't use spells against the Wolfsbane Fangs, they had to come up with other solutions. If they couldn't handle something as minor as this, it would show her to be incompetent.
So, at Filch's suggestion, Umbridge got herself a large bug-catching net. As long as she used it to trap the Wolfsbane Fangs, the problem would be easily solved, right? Things weren't quite as simple as Filch made them out to be, but at least it was a solution.
There would always be onlookers cheering Umbridge and Filch on, and the scene was always particularly amusing.
Because this scenario occurred frequently, Albert changed the Wolfsbane Fangs into cheaper fly toys.
The toy flies had a toad's head and liked to fly around people's heads, constantly making an annoying buzzing sound.
Thus, the unfortunate Umbridge wore herself out before she even had the chance to enjoy the power of being headmistress.
Every day, she had to run around with Filch, dealing with various unexpected events, and her silhouette became a familiar sight at Hogwarts.
Everyone knew that the professors were capable of solving these problems themselves, but they also had very good reasons to pass the problems on to Umbridge. Since they couldn't be sure if they had the authority to deal with these issues, it was simpler to just ask Umbridge to come and help.
Now, everyone in the school was laughing at Umbridge, and even the professors were happy to play along and give Umridge things to do so she wouldn't be idle. Otherwise, Umbridge would just continue to stir up trouble.
Many people agreed with Albert's earlier statement, "The toad only has time and energy to bother us because she's too idle."
So, they were all helping her find things to do.
No one sympathized with Umbridge's plight. Who let her turn Hogwarts upside down and try to climb over everyone's heads?
Since she liked to stir up trouble, let her do it. After all, the toad's troubles were far from over, and there was a poltergeist in the castle who loved to stir up even more trouble than she did.
Speaking of the poltergeist, everyone now had a love-hate relationship with it.
In recent times, the poltergeist had indeed been invaluable. Whenever it caused trouble for Umbridge, it brought laughter and joy to the students. Nowadays, most of the humor at Hogwarts was provided by the joint efforts of the poltergeist and Umbridge.
However, if one was affected by the poltergeist's pranks, it was definitely not a pleasant experience, and no one wanted to personally go through what Umbridge had.
This mischievous fellow opened a can of herring in front of Umbridge during lunchtime and poured it onto the plate in front of her. He then enthusiastically invited her to enjoy this traditional Swedish delicacy.
The moment the can of herring was opened, Umbridge's face darkened, and the unique "fragrance" of the herring almost made Umbridge and the professors on the teachers' platform vomit up their food.
"Don't be shy, go on and taste it."
The poltergeist giggled, picked up a herring, pretended to put it in his mouth, and then held it out to Umbridge, seemingly considering whether to stuff it into her mouth.
Under the complex gazes of the other professors, the plate of herring was accidentally knocked over onto Umbridge's face.
"Luckily, I have another one here."
The poltergeist produced another can of herring, opened it, and chased after Umbridge, insisting that she try this "delicacy".
The "fragrance" gradually faded away amidst a mixture of screams and giggles, and everyone stared dumbfounded at the entrance hall.
The next moment, many people covered their mouths and pretended to retch.
There was no helping it; the smell was so wonderful that it completely took away their appetite.
George turned to look at Albert and suddenly understood why his friend wasn't eating. He regretted not being more vigilant.
"What a terrible smell. It's hard to believe that such a smell could come from a can," said Lee Jordan, feeling unwell.
"Herring in a can is said to be a traditional Swedish food. But even in the Muggle world, not many people would try to taste it," said Shan Na, looking at the remaining food in front of her with no appetite.
"If you can get past the smell, herring in a can is actually quite tasty," said Albert, deciding to ask the house-elves to prepare some extra food for him later.
"Have you tried it?"
Everyone looked at Albert, their faces full of shock.
"No, I haven't tried it, nor do I plan to," Albert shook his head. Although he liked to taste delicious food, he had no interest in bizarre foods.
"I remember you gave the poltergeist a whole box of those cans!"
George suddenly realized a serious problem. What if the poltergeist opened a can of herring every day in the Great Hall? Would they even be able to eat?
An eerie silence fell around them.
This was undoubtedly depressing news, and everyone could only silently pray that Umbridge would not come to the Great Hall for meals anymore.
However, their wishes were destined to be dashed, as Peeves the Poltergeist always seemed to appear whenever Umbridge was having a meal. No matter what she did, she couldn't escape his antics unless she stopped eating at Hogwarts altogether. While she might be able to avoid him once or twice, it was simply impossible to do so in the long run.
With a "misery loves company" mindset, Umbridge continued to eat in the Great Hall, dragging everyone else down with her. As a result, many students would quickly finish their meals and leave whenever they saw her enter the dining hall, to avoid being put off by Peeves' food pranks.
It was said that Peeves once served Umbridge a bowl of cockroach soup.
Many people couldn't understand Umbridge's persistence, wondering why she continued to cling to her position as Headmistress despite her miserable life at the school.
Within the walls of Hogwarts Castle, the only one truly willing to lend Umbridge a helping hand was Filch.
Perhaps it was because Umbridge made Filch feel valued, and she had also passed the 'Decree for Justifiable Confiscation', giving Filch the power to discipline mischievous students with his whip.
Ever since then, Filch would wander the corridors with his whip, eagerly awaiting the chance to catch those troublemakers.
However, the problem was that Filch seemed to have forgotten that he was a Squib, and thus posed no threat to students who could cast spells. Moreover, with Albert's 'Anti-Toad Manifesto', the students were more united than ever before.
Filch was no match for them, and he couldn't catch anyone.
Of course, the students didn't go too far, often using the Full-Body Bind Curse to have dear Mr. Filch stand in the corridors for a few hours as punishment, leaving him clueless about who was responsible.
"Umbridge has banned the three of us from playing Quidditch again, and Angelina is about to blow a gasket," Fred said as he sat down next to Albert with his food, bringing up what had just happened. "She even dreamed of confiscating our brooms, but I told her Peeves had taken them, and she actually considered searching our dormitory..."
"We think she might be targeting you," George added in a lowered voice. "The toad may suspect that you're the one providing Peeves with those cans, and apparently, Umbridge has searched the Room of Requirement, looking for evidence."
The outcome was predictable—Umbridge was unable to enter Gryffindor's common room as everyone had conveniently forgotten the password.
The Fat Lady's requirement for entry was simple: speak the password and you shall pass.
Without the password, no one was allowed in.
"After that, she went to ask Professor McGonagall for the password," Fred continued, finding the situation amusing. "But Professor McGonagall claimed she had forgotten it."
"In the end, the toad gave up."
"You should have made her come to me for the password," Albert said with a smile.
"Would you have told her?" Fred asked curiously, as they didn't expect Albert to be that kind.
"I would have let her stumble and fall as she entered the common room," Albert shrugged. "Hopefully, she would knock out a few teeth, and I doubt Madam Pomfrey could make them grow back quickly. Maybe she'll have to get some gold teeth."
"We're planning to give the toad a big surprise soon," George said, glancing around and lowering his voice.
"Yeah, a big one?" Albert looked at George, confused. "Nowadays, there's a big surprise every day. As long as we can keep everyone smiling, that's enough."
"You're right. But this time, it's an operation by the Anti-Toad Alliance. We're planning to turn the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom into a swamp, so we won't have to attend her classes. The portable swamp we made will come in handy," Fred shared their plan with Albert.
"Anyway, no one really likes her class," George chimed in.
"If the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom becomes unusable, the Skiving Snackboxes might not sell as well," Albert said, feeling a bit exasperated as he looked at Fred and George. He kindly reminded them, "If you want to give Umbridge a surprise, you can turn the corridor outside the classroom into a swamp. That way, they'll have to use small boats to get to class, and Filch will have something to do as well. He's been wandering around with his whip all day, and he doesn't look like a proper caretaker."
"You're right, we got a bit carried away," Fred and George agreed, as they wouldn't want to lose out on the money. Umbridge's presence was a surefire way to boost sales of their Skiving Snackboxes.
"You'll probably have to delay your plan," Lee Jordan butted in, appearing out of nowhere.
"What's up?"
"I just heard from Nearly Headless Nick that Umbridge has passed an Educational Decree to expel Peeves, and she intends to get help from the Ministry of Magic to deal with him," Lee shared the latest news he'd heard that day. "Will your swamp be able to withstand the Ministry folks? They might just get rid of it."
"Then we'll do it after that mess is over. Maybe by then, we'll have developed a new stinkier version of the portable swamp," Fred and George replied.
The Weasley twins weren't too confident in their swamp, believing that while Umbridge might struggle to deal with it, the professors could easily get rid of it with a wave of their wands. As for the Ministry's elite Aurors, their capabilities were undoubtedly impressive.
"This is a good opportunity to show the Ministry folks how pathetic Umbridge is," Albert said softly. "Let's bring out the toad statues as well!"
"Are we finally going to bring out the toad statues?" George looked excited, as they had crafted the Umbridge statues long ago, intending to display them in the entrance hall for everyone's enjoyment.
Albert had also cast various protective spells on the statues, making them difficult to destroy, and with the Permanent Sticking Charm, even the Ministry's Aurors would have a hard time removing them.
"I think it will definitely give everyone a big surprise."
Fred smiled mischievously, looking forward to that day more and more. When that time came, the entire castle would surely be in chaos, but what did he care?
Thanks to Lee Jordan's deliberate spreading of the news, everyone soon knew that the Ministry had issued an order to expel Peeves.
The most excited person was, without a doubt, Filch. He finally had a chance to get rid of his arch-nemesis from Hogwarts.
However, most students didn't share Filch's optimism about the Ministry's involvement, remembering how Umbridge had tried and failed before, only managing to resolve the issue with the headmaster's intervention.
If it were truly that easy to expel Peeves from Hogwarts, he wouldn't still be there causing trouble.
(End of Chapter)
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