Dinner in the Great Hall that night was not a pleasant experience for Harry. The news about his shouting match with Umbridge had travelled exceptionally fast even by Hogwarts' standards. He heard whispers all around him as he sat eating between Ron and Hermione. The funny thing was that none of the whisperers seemed to mind him overhearing what they were saying about him. On the contrary, it was as though they were hoping he would get angry and start shouting again, so that they could hear his story first-hand.

'He says he saw Cedric Diggory murdered . . .'

'He reckons he duelled with You-Know-Who . . .'

'Come off it . . .'

'Who does he think he's kidding?'

'Pur-lease . . .'

'What I don't get,' said Harry through clenched teeth, laying down his knife and fork (his hands were shaking too much to hold them steady), 'is why they all believed the story two months ago when Dumbledore told them . . .'

'The thing is, Harry, I'm not sure they did,' said Hermione grimly. 'Oh, let's get out of here.'

She slammed down her own knife and fork; Ron looked longingly at his half-finished apple pie but followed suit. People stared at them all the way out of the Hall.

'What d'you mean, you're not sure they believed Dumbledore?' Harry asked Hermione when they reached the first-floor landing.

'Look, you don't understand what it was like after it happened,' said Hermione quietly. 'You arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching Cedric's dead body . . . none of us saw what what happened in the maze . . . we just had Dumbledore's word for it that You-Know-Who had come back and killed Cedric and fought you.'

'Which is the truth!' said Harry loudly.

'I know it is, Harry, so will you please stop biting my head off?' said Hermione wearily. 'It's just that before the truth could sink in, everyone went home for the summer, where they spent two months reading about how you're a nutcase and Dumbledore's going senile!'

Rain pounded on the windowpanes as they strode along the empty corridors back to Gryffindor Tower. Harry felt as though his first day had lasted a week, but he still had a mountain of homework to do before bed. A dull pounding pain was developing over his right eye. He glanced out of a rain-washed window at the dark grounds as they turned into the Fat Lady's corridor. There was still no light in Hagrid's cabin.

'Mimbulus mimbletonia ,' said Hermione, before the Fat Lady could ask. The portrait swung open to reveal the hole behind it and the three of them scrambled through it.

The common room was almost empty; nearly everyone was still down at dinner. Crookshanks uncoiled himself from an armchair and trotted to meet them, purring loudly, and when Harry, Ron and Hermione took their three favourite chairs at the fireside he leapt lightly on to Hermione's lap and curled up there like a furry ginger cushion. Harry gazed into the flames, feeling drained and exhausted.

'How can Dumbledore have let this happen?' Hermione cried suddenly, making Harry and Ron jump; Crookshanks leapt off her, looking affronted. She pounded the arms of her chair in fury, so that bits of stuffing leaked out of the holes. 'How can he let that terrible woman teach us? And in our OWL year, too!'

'Well, we've never had great Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we?' said Harry. 'You know what it's like, Hagrid told us, nobody wants the job; they say it's jinxed.'

'Yes, but to employ someone who's actually refusing to let us do magic! What's Dumbledore playing at?'

'And she's trying to get people to spy for her,' said Ron darkly.

'Remember when she said she wanted us to come and tell her if we hear anyone saying You-Know-Who's back?'

'Of course she's here to spy on us all, that's obvious, why else would Fudge have wanted her to come?' snapped Hermione.

'Don't start arguing again,' said Harry wearily, as Ron opened his mouth to retaliate. 'Can't we just. . . let's just do that homework, get it out of the way. . .'

They collected their schoolbags from a corner and returned to the chairs by the fire. People were coming back from dinner now. Harry kept his face averted from the portrait hole, but could still sense the stares he was attracting.

'Shall we do Snape's stuff first?' said Ron, dipping his quill into his ink. ' "The properties. . . of moonstone. . . and its uses . . .in potion-making. . ." ' he muttered, writing the words across the top of his parchment as he spoke them. 'There.' He underlined the title, then looked up expectantly at Hermione.

'So, what are the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making?'

But Hermione was not listening; she was squinting over into the far corner of the room, where Fred, George and Lee Jordan were now sitting at the centre of a knot of innocent-looking first-years, all of whom were chewing something that seemed to have come out of a large paper bag that Fred was holding.

'No, I'm sorry, they've gone too far,' she said, standing up and looking positively furious. 'Come on, Ron.'

'I — what?' said Ron, plainly playing for time. 'No — come on, Hermione — we can't tell them off for giving out sweets.'

'You know perfectly well that those are bits of Nosebleed Nougat or — or Puking Pastilles or — '

'Fainting Fancies?' Harry suggested quietly.

One by one, as though hit over the head with an invisible mallet, the first-years were slumping unconscious in their seats; some slid right on to the floor, others merely hung over the arms of their chairs, their tongues lolling out. Most of the people watching were laughing; Hermione, however, squared her shoulders and marched directly over to where Fred and George now stood with clipboards, closely observing the unconscious first-years. Ron rose halfway out of his chair, hovered uncertainly for a moment or two, then muttered to Harry, 'She's got it under control,' before sinking as low in his chair as his lanky frame permitted.

'That's enough!' Hermione said forcefully to Fred and George, both of whom looked up in mild surprise.

'Yeah, you're right,' said George, nodding, 'this dosage looks strong enough, doesn't it?'

'I told you this morning, you can't test your rubbish on students!'

'We're paying them!' said Fred indignantly.

'I don't care, it could be dangerous!'

'Rubbish,' said Fred.

'Calm down, Hermione, they're fine!' said Lee reassuringly as he walked from first-year to first-year, inserting purple sweets into their open mouths.

'Yeah, look, they're coming round now,' said George.

A few of the first-years were indeed stirring. Several looked so shocked to find themselves lying on the floor, or dangling off their chairs, that Harry was sure Fred and George had not warned them what the sweets were going to do.

'Feel all right?' said George kindly to a small dark-haired girl lying at his feet.

'I — I think so,' she said shakily.

'Excellent,' said Fred happily, but the next second Hermione had snatched both his clipboard and the paper bag of Fainting Fancies from his hands.

'It is NOT excellent!'

'Course it is, they're alive, aren't they?' said Fred angrily.

'You can't do this, what if you made one of them really ill?'

'We're not going to make them ill, we've already tested them all on ourselves, this is just to see if everyone reacts the same — '

'If you don't stop doing it, I'm going to — '

'Put us in detention?' said Fred, in an I'd-like-to-see-you-try-it voice.

'Make us write lines?' said George, smirking.

Onlookers all over the room were laughing. Hermione drew herself up to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her bushy hair seemed to crackle with electricity.

'No,' she said, her voice quivering with anger, 'but I will write to your mother.'

'You wouldn't,' said George, horrified, taking a step back from her.

'Oh, yes, I would,' said Hermione grimly. 'I can't stop you eating the stupid things yourselves, but you're not to give them to the first-years,'

Fred and George looked thunderstruck. It was clear that as far as they were concerned, Hermione's threat was way below the belt. With a last threatening look at them, she thrust Fred's clipboard and the bag of Fancies back into his arms, and stalked back to her chair by the fire.

Ron was now so low in his seat that his nose was roughly level with his knees.

'Thank you for your support, Ron,' Hermione said acidly.

'You handled it fine by yourself,' Ron mumbled.

Hermione stared down at her blank piece of parchment for a few seconds, then said edgily, 'Oh, it's no good, I can't concentrate now. I'm going to bed.'

She wrenched her bag open; Harry thought she was about to put her books away, but instead she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill and stood back to admire the effect.

'What in the name of Merlin are you doing?' said Ron, watching her as though fearful for her sanity.

'They're hats for house-elves,' she said briskly now stuffing her books back into her bag. 'I did them over the summer. I'm a really slow knitter without magic but now I'm back at school I should be able to make lots more.'

'You're leaving out hats for the house-elves?' said Ron slowly. 'And you're covering them up with rubbish first?'

'Yes,' said Hermione defiantly, swinging her bag on to her back.

That's not on,' said Ron angrily. 'You're trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You're setting them free when they might not want to be free.'

'Of course they want to be free!' said Hermione at once, though her face was turning pink. 'Don't you dare touch those hats, Ron!'

She turned on her heel and left. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls' dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats.

'They should at least see what they're picking up,' he said firmly. 'Anyway . . .' he rolled up the parchment on which he had written the title of Snape's essay, 'there's no point trying to finish this now, I can't do it without Hermione, I haven't got a clue what you're supposed to do with moonstones, have you?'

Harry shook his head, noticing as he did so that the ache in his right temple was getting worse. He thought of the long essay on giant wars and the pain stabbed at him sharply. Knowing perfectly well that when the morning came, he would regret not finishing his homework that night, he piled his books back into his bag.

'I'm going to bed too.'

He passed Seamus on the way to the door leading to the dormitories, but did not look at him. Harry had a fleeting impression that Seamus had opened his mouth to speak, but he sped up and reached the soothing peace of the stone spiral staircase without having to endure any more provocation.