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She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, and then pulled a small, embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, into which she blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves blowing a raspberry. Ron sniggered. Lavender shot him a disgusted look.

“Professor,” said Parvati, “do you mean … is it something Professor Umbridge … ?”

“Do not speak to me about that woman!” cried Professor Trelawney, leaping to her feet, her beads rattling and her spectacles flashing. “Kindly continue with your work!”

And she spent the rest of the lesson striding among them, tears still leaking from behind her glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.

“… may well choose to leave … the indignity of it … on probation … we shall see … how she dares …”

“You and Umbridge have got something in common,” Harry told Hermione quietly when they met again in Defense Against the Dark Arts. “She obviously reckons Trelawney’s an old fraud too. … Looks like she’s put her on probation.”

Umbridge entered the room as he spoke, wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of great smugness.

“Good afternoon, class.”

“Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,” they chanted drearily.

“Wands away, please …”

But there was no answering flurry of movement this time; nobody had bothered to take out their wands.

“Please turn to page thirty-four of Defensive Magical Theory and read the third chapter, entitled ‘The Case for Non-Offensive Responses to Magical Attack.’ There will be —”

“— no need to talk,” Harry, Ron, and Hermione said together under their breaths.

“No Quidditch practice,” said Angelina in hollow tones when Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the common room that night after dinner.

“But I kept my temper!” said Harry, horrified. “I didn’t say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, I —”

“I know, I know,” said Angelina miserably. “She just said she needed a bit of time to consider.”

“Consider what?” said Ron angrily. “She’s given the Slytherins permission, why not us?”

But Harry could imagine how much Umbridge was enjoying holding the threat of no Gryffindor Quidditch team over their heads and could easily understand why she would not want to relinquish that weapon over them too soon.

“Well,” said Hermione, “look on the bright side — at least now you’ll have time to do Snape’s essay!”

“That’s a bright side, is it?” snapped Harry, while Ron stared incredulously at Hermione. “No Quidditch practice and extra Potions?”

Harry slumped down into a chair, dragged his Potions essay reluctantly from his bag, and set to work.

It was very hard to concentrate; even though he knew that Sirius was not due in the fire until much later he could not help glancing into the flames every few minutes just in case. There was also an incredible amount of noise in the room: Fred and George appeared finally to have perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd.

First, Fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit spectacularly into a bucket they had placed in front of them. Then he would force down the purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately cease. Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry’s potions.

What with the regular sounds of retching, cheering, and Fred and George taking advance orders from the crowd, Harry was finding it exceptionally difficult to focus on the correct method for Strengthening Solutions. Hermione was not helping matters; the cheers and sound of vomit hitting the bottom of Fred and George’s bucket were punctuated by loud and disapproving sniffs that Harry found, if anything, more distracting.

“Just go and stop them, then!” he said irritably, after crossing out the wrong weight of powdered griffin claw for the fourth time.

“I can’t, they’re not technically doing anything wrong,” said Hermione through gritted teeth. “They’re quite within their