Hermione and the Watch Part 25

Harry ignored the looming shadow as he moved his knight to take Ginny’s bishop. “Take that.”

“Mister Potter,” McGonagall said sternly.

“Yes?” Harry asked absently, keeping his attention on the game. He knew it was being a bit petty but if she couldn’t spare a couple minutes to listen when he actually needed help, he didn’t see a point in giving her his attention when she wanted something that he didn’t care about and he seriously doubted she was going to say anything that he would actually care to listen to.

“How long have you been in the Tower?” McGonagall demanded, a bit annoyed that he was paying so little attention to her.

“Let’s see, it’s fifth year, so four years and change? Or more like three and change really, if you take out the summers I spent with the Dursleys.”

“I meant recently!” she snapped.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been playing chess and sleeping. You can ask Hermione and Ginny about the chess part, doubt they’ve been watching me sleep, why?”

“There were reports about you being out of bounds.”

“7 knuts I don’t have says it was a Slytherin,” Ginny offered as she moved her queen to put Harry in check. “Check and mate.”

“It could have been Seamus running his mouth,” Hermione added, knowing that Albus had probably put her up to it to make sure Harry was safely back. “I haven’t seen him all day, so he’s probably sulking around somewhere.”

Harry sighed as he looked at the board. “I’m not taking that bet. Cards?”

“You’re not taking this seriously,” McGonagall said with narrow eyed glare.

“Taking what seriously?” Hermione asked. “Someone obviously lied to you about Harry and you believed them. This isn’t exactly new behavior, why should we care? Now if you’ll excuse me I should find Ron and do a patrol unless you’ve decided to replace me as a prefect.”

“That might be for the best given your recent dislike of the administration,” McGonagall complained, a bit frustrated that they were making things harder than they should be.

Hermione reached into her pocket, grabbed the prefect badge, and tossed it to McGonagall. “Best of luck, I have better things to do with my time.”

Fred laughed. “I knew she’d come to her senses eventually.”

“She’s pretty sane compared to Seamus,” George replied as he pulled an ace out of his sleeve while Fred was distracted and swapped it for the two in his hand, “he acts like his mum is the final authority on everything.”

“She also hasn’t spent the entire day stuck to the ceiling,” Fred pointed out reasonably as he swapped the five in his hand to another seven with a touch of magic, “that may give her a leg up, as it were.”

McGonagall looked up then blinked as she saw Seamus was indeed stuck to the ceiling with a piece of grey shiny tape over his mouth. “What did you do?!”

“Why do people always assume it was us?” George asked, trying and failing to hide his amusement at an excellent prank.

“Because it usually is?” Fred replied as he studied the young man stuck to the ceiling. “That looks uncomfortable, it would probably would have been better to have stuck him up there with a pillow and some blankets.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke,” George said with amusement.

McGonagall waved her wand and tried to dispel the sticking charm on him then frowned as nothing happened. “Get him down!”

Hermione laughed. “Amusingly enough, it’s no longer my job to care.” She turned to look at Fred and George. “Does she always blame you without any proof?”

“Usually,” Fred said with a grin as he saw Colin Creevey snapping pictures of Seamus from behind McGonagall. “You should see the list of things she’s knicked from us as being prank items.”

“That seems a bit unfair,” Harry said, trying not to laugh at the rage filled look on Seamus’s face.

“To be fair, it is usually their fault,” Ginny pointed out, rather amused about her prank on Seamus. ‘You shouldn’t have been running your worthless mouth about being able to beat my Harry in a duel last night.’

It had been stupidly easy to grab Romilda’s wand off her nightstand then sneak into Harry’s room in the middle of the night, no alarms, no wards, no nothing… it had been a shame she’d been too busy to visit him. From there it was a simple matter of stunning Seamus then levitating him down to the common room where she’d slapped a couple spells on his clothes to keep them from ripping and him from making a mess that would get him discovered early. 

Levitating him up to the ceiling so that she could apply the permanent sticking charms had been a bit harder but she’d solved that particular issue by floating him up to the ceiling wandlessly, a talent she’d somehow developed just recently, so that she could apply the sticking charm with Romilda’s wand, before using her own wand to hide the traces.

“You could try summoning him down or get Flitwick if you can’t figure it out on your own,” Harry said absently as he started putting the chess pieces away. 

“What is wrong with everyone?!” McGonagall demanded.

“What do you mean?” Hermione asked as she pulled her attention off the asshole stuck to the ceiling.

“You’re fine with someone sticking one of your housemates to the ceiling?” she sputtered as she tried a second time to cancel the magic, putting a bit more umph into it than she usually did.

Harry snorted. “If it was anyone else, we’d care. As far as I know, he stuck himself on the ceiling for sympathy. Either way, Seamus being stuck on a ceiling or tossed out of the window or whatever the hell happens to the dumb shit is none of my business.”

“We can probably help,” Fred offered.

“How?” McGonagall demanded.

“Easy, accio gag!” Fred said cheerfully as he pointed at the piece of duct tape covering Seamus’ mouth.

Harry smiled as Seamus screamed bloody murder as the piece of tape was ripped off. “That sounds like it hurt.”

“Fuck you, Potter!” Seamus shouted.

“Now he sounds like Malfoy. Seriously, I’ll tell you the same thing I told him, I’m not interested in being friends with traitors and spineless shits and I am certainly not interested in sharing a bed or broom closet with them.”

“Get me down!”

Harry sighed dramatically. “How am I supposed to do that? I didn’t put you up there.”

Seamus glared at Harry. “You know who did!”

“Nope, care to enlighten us?” Hermione asked, a touch curious who to thank for sticking the idiot on the ceiling.

“I didn’t see them but I know it was your fault!” Seamus screamed.

“Mr. Finnigan, the screaming isn’t helping,” McGonagall pointed out.

Harry did his best to hide his amusement as he shook his head. “He seems a mite bit unhinged. Best of luck.” He smiled as Hermione handed him a deck of cards. “Poker?”

“Sounds good,” Ginny replied. 

McGonagall turned to look at Fred and George. “All five of you with me, we’re going to Dumbledore’s office!”

“Good I can file a grievance for abuse of power,” Hermione said primly as she stood up.

“Not sure it would help but we might as well,” Harry agreed as he stood up.

“What about me?!” Seamus demanded.

“Hang around, I’m sure someone will manage to get you down eventually,” Harry replied with amusement as he headed for the door.

0o0o0

Dumbledore looked down his nose at the collection of students in his office. “What happened?”

Harry shrugged. “McGonagall came into the common room demanding to know how long I’d been in the Tower. I said four years and change or three if you discounted the summers. She wasn’t impressed with my sense of humor.”

“At which point we were told we weren’t taking things seriously,” Hermione explained. “Which is when I asked her why we should. She never took us seriously when we had actual problems, why should we extend the same courtesy?”

“Because she’s a teacher and your head of house,” Dumbledore offered.

“I’ll give you the teacher part but after at least four defense teachers have tried to kill my best friend, I’m less impressed by that title than I used to be. After that, we asked who had told her Harry was out of bounds, she refused to answer so we assumed it was Seamus being a piece of shit and blew it off.”

“At which point the twins pointed out Mr Finnigan was stuck to the ceiling. I attempted to dispel the sticking charms keeping him on the ceiling and failed,” interjected Mcgonagall.

“At which point she accused us of doing it,” George said.

Fred sighed. “Which is why we’d like to request our father’s presence. We’d like to lodge a formal complaint against her for theft by taking and slander.”

“Theft by taking? What are you talking about?” McGonagall sputtered.

“You’ve confiscated several pieces of our property over the years, you’ve never given any of them back nor were they on any banned list,” Fred explained.

“I confiscated prank items, generally after you used them or tried to sell them!”

“Nothing illegal about making prank items.” George pulled a list out of his pocket and set it on Dumbledore’s desk. “A partial list of the stuff we can remember from this year and last year with an estimated value for prototypes and charmed magical items. You’ll find that the amount is substantial.”

“This is ridiculous. I’m a teacher, your products were a disruption, I’m allowed to confiscate them.”

“Technically yes, but you’re not allowed to dispose of them,” Hermione spoke up as she pulled a scroll out of her pocket. “I did the research.” She dropped the scroll on Dumbledore’s desk. “Anything of measurable value must be returned to the proper owner at the end of the year or be delivered to the parents of said student within 72 hours.”

“Measurable value? Now you’re going to claim that I can’t confiscate charmed paper airplanes,” McGonagall sputtered.

Fred snorted. “We have a business, we’ve sold our products and we did original research for a fair number of our products, which means they count as family magic.”

Hermione cut in, “Which means that unless you can prove the potential for immediate harm to themselves or other students you can’t leave the room with it or do more than a basic analysis spell on it. You can’t legally take it, the most you can do is summon the head of their family and have them take possession of said item of importance.”

McGonagall stared at Hermione like she’d grown a second head. “Where did you find that?”

“In one of the older editions of Hogwarts a History and buried in the back of the student handbook which is buried on a back shelf in the library for anyone to read. In short, I doubt you kept any of their inventions which means you owe them a lot of money.”

“You’re claiming pranks are family magic?” McGonagall asked in disbelief.

Dumbledore sighed. “Technically speaking the law for family magic covers any new research a witch or wizard does that they choose not to release to the public. It was put in place nearly seven hundred years ago when several corrupt teachers had a habit of attempting to steal family relics on rather flimsy excuses.”

McGonagall stared at the list. “How much of a fine are we talking about?”

“The fines aren’t the problem, it was written almost seven hundred years ago and not worded to adjust for inflation. Two galleons used to be far more painful. The real problem is that you’ll probably be sent away for several decades if they can prove even a third of this list,” Dumbledore said gravely, as he read Hermione’s scroll. 

“Decades?” McGonagall asked in growing horror.

“The law was put in place to protect family treasures and secrets. Given the current political situation with Fudge and the ministry, they’ll likely toss the book at you without someone bribing the court.” Dumbledore turned to look at Fred and George. “Perhaps we could settle this without involving the courts?”

Fred glanced at George then looked at Dumbledore. “I want everything she stole returned or replaced with notes freely given on a transfiguration version of the various pranks if she can’t figure out how we created them in the first place.”

“In short, we’re giving her homework,” George said smugly.

Dumbledore sighed in relief as he realized the Weasley Twins weren’t hell bent on ruining Minerva’s life.

“You expect me to recreate everything I confiscated?” McGonagall asked warily.

Fred nodded. “The alternative is we can deal with this in court.”

“I’m quite prepared to lobby rather hard to make sure you see the inside of a cell if it goes to court,” Harry added helpfully.

McGonagall stared at Harry. “You’d ruin my life because I didn’t listen to you back in first year?”

Harry snorted. “The Stone was just the tip of the iceberg. Any attempts to get your assistance over the years, regardless of the problem, has been more than useless, often just making the situation worse. And just so you know, in the first year when you threatened us with the loss of points so Voldemort could steal the Philosopher’s stone uninterrupted it was annoying, but it wasn’t nearly as annoying as you taking 50 points apeace from us for being out of bounds one night and then letting our ‘housemates’ harass us about it for the rest of the year.”

“Again, sorry about our part in that,” Fred said.

“It’s ok, at last you two had the courage to apologize and admit you were wrong,” Harry said with a smile. “I’ve noticed no other student has ever had that many points taken from them for being out of bounds before or since, in fact it was the exact same amount of points I won for facing a teacher possessed by Voldemort. So yes, if you take the coward’s way out, I will crush your life and bury the remains in a soul sucking pit. Summon up your courage, admit that you were fucking wrong and move on.”

Dumbledore cut in as he noticed Minerva’s face tense, “Don’t Minerva. Even if Harry doesn’t understand how to carry out his threat, Sirius does and he is more than vindictive and wealthy enough to make it work.”

“Fine. That still doesn’t excuse the prank on Mr. Finnigan,” McGonagall snapped.

“How is that our fault?” George asked.

“We didn’t put him up there,” Fred added.

“What about him turning green in class yesterday?” McGonagall demanded.

“We might have a product for turning people green, but that doesn’t mean we personally slipped it into his drink,” George defended himself. ‘So much easier to just offer free pranks for people that wanted to torture the arse. He’s such a prick there was actually a small line waiting for the chance.’

Harry cut in, “We didn’t attack Seamus either, though I’m not going to shed any tears for the bastard considering his behavior.”

“Any suggestions for getting him down?” Dumbledore asked, curious if the pranksters had any creative solutions that wouldn’t involve ripping part of the ceiling out or hoping that the caster removed the charm on his clothes once they got Mr. Finnigan down.

George shrugged. “If the Fat Lady wasn’t screaming about adults and it wasn’t us, you’re looking at someone in the upper years that got annoyed enough to stick him on the ceiling. They probably didn’t have all that much time, so I doubt they charmed his clothes to resist being transfigured.”

‘He’s right, I didn’t bother though I probably would have if I’d known how.’ Ginny yawned. “You never explained what the rest of us are doing here.”

“You were adding fire to the situation,” McGonagall replied.

“Is it too late to jump ship to Ravenclaw?” Ginny asked. “I could hang out with Luna.”

Dumbledore shook his head then focused on Harry. “If I asked if you’d been to a beach recently, would you give me a straight answer?”

“Like a vacation? Yeah, I’ve never actually had one of those,” Harry replied. “What’s this about?”

“I saw you and Sirius in a tower on a tropical island not that long ago,” Dumbledore explained.

“With Sirius? As in one of the original marauders?” Harry laughed. “Did this alternate Harry ever actually claim to be me?” he asked with amusement.

Dumbledore frowned as he realized he’d just assumed that the person he saw had been Harry. “No, he didn’t.”

“In that case, I’d suggest asking Sirius if he was having you on,” Harry said, gleefully tossing Sirius under the bus. 

“Now that you mention it, he was rather amused about something.” Dumbledore stood up. “Either way, we shouldn’t leave Mr. Finnigan hanging around longer than necessary.”

Ginny was suddenly rather happy that Harry and Hermione had shared their occlumency book with her as Dumbledore swept his gaze over the group; she’d rather not get in trouble for pinning Seamus to the ceiling if she could help it, because it’d make her doing it again a bit more complicated. 

Hermione waited until they were out of Dumbledore’s office and walking down the hall to push the button on her stopwatch. “That went better than I was expecting.”

Harry turned to look at Hermione with a grin on his face. “When did you have time to look up the rules on confiscation?”

“I found it when I was looking for ways to get rid of Umbridge.” Hermione rubbed her face in frustration. “Would it kill her to say, I’m sorry or actually apologize when she’s wrong?!”

“You’re still hung up on this idea that teachers are useful, aren’t you?” Harry asked, thinking about all of the teachers that had turned a blind eye to Dudley’s crap when he was younger in addition to all the incompetent ones at Hogwarts.

“They’re supposed to be!” Hermione snapped. “Sorry, I’m just feeling a bit frustrated. Even when we’re not actually guilty we still get blamed for everything.”

“In that case, let’s take a break and have some fun, just for us. No family or friends or any of that, just us.”

“Doing what?” Hermione asked, looking for something to take her mind off McGonagall.

“Dragon hunting?” Harry offered with a smile.

“Dragon hunting?” Hermione asked curiously.

“Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting dwagons!” Harry replied jokingly, remembering an episode of Looney Tunes he’d seen at Mrs. Figg’s house.

Hermione laughed. “That was bad.”

Harry smiled as he reached up and touched her cheek. “It also made you laugh which was what I was aiming for.”

“I’ll admit, I needed that,” she put her hand over his. 

“Have things been moving too quickly?” Harry asked nervously.

“More the opposite really. I want... I don’t know what I want exactly. I like spending time with you and Ginny, I like some of my classes but I feel like we’re ignoring a problem. We can claim that Voldemort isn’t our problem and he shouldn’t be, but let’s be honest, him existing puts people at risk. I keep half expecting someone to tell me that my parents are dead or something, I mean all it would take is someone to look up their locations and…”

“In other words, let’s grab the dragons, enhance everyone that matters and then cut Voldemort’s head off while he’s frozen in time to find out where the rest of his horcruxes are. That would also give us a list of all of the Death Eaters and what they did for him.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Hermione admitted.