Editorial
Defense Against the Dark Arts with Ravenclaw went more or less the same way in every class. With O.W.L.s coming up, this class was the chief worry of nearly every fifth-year in the school. Students studying preparation texts for the exam would spend the class period bringing up examples of questions or practical components that could possibly be on the test and drill Professor Umbridge on how she planned to prepare them with her revolutionary teaching style. It had started out of true desire to be ready for the exam, but now the fifth-year Ravenclaws had made it into a game. They would take turns asking question after question, watching Professor Umbridge stutter and stammer her way through the answers, the longer the better. The successfulness of a day was measured by how little time Umbridge had to ‘teach’ the nonsense she spewed at them.
Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein were especially aggressive on this particular day (they had been taking this game very seriously as of late), but it still wasn’t doing enough to keep the class from ‘learning’. Namely because none of the Ravenclaw girls aside from Padma”Lisa, Morag, and Mandy”were playing today. Not that it really mattered, but their minds were elsewhere: the discussion that had occurred in the common room last night…and the copy of the Quibbler that was still there.
Normally, nightly discussions wisped through the common room like smoke; substantial while still fresh, but then hazy as they drifted out the window, never to be seen again. But last night’s was one that still lingered.
Bored, Lisa pulled her composition book from her book bag and began to doodle on a fresh page of paper. Morag flicked her quill left and right, watching the feathered tip flutter between her fingers. Eventually, Lisa’s scribbles led to actual words; observations and thoughts flowing naturally.
Lisa blinked her eyes rapidly, as though she could not believe what had just come from the tip of her quill. But Lisa was curious and Umbridge wasn’t paying attention to her. She put her quill back to the paper and continued to write.
Everyone in this school has had to suffer through Dolores Umbridge’s lesson plans for months now. It bores into the mind and can be enough to drive a person mad. All they students have their own coping strategies for dealing with these dreaded times of the week, although we never get to hear what these methods are because all the different years and different houses rarely speak to one another, mainly through a lack of opportunity to do so. But the fifth-year Ravenclaws have a game they like to play through Defense Against the Dark Arts that helps them to keep their sanity. It is called the Question Game.
The premise of the Question Game is very simple. The trick is to keep Umbridge occupied by taking turns asking questions, one after another, to keep her from actually getting to her lesson plan. Umbridge hasn’t figured out this game we play yet, but all the same, there is a set of rules in place to make sure it stays that way.
To start with, you need to keep your questions at least somewhat on topic with the subject of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Umbridge has not discovered how this game is played, but we have no reason to assume she is an idiot
Wow! That last sentence alone would be more than enough to get her expelled.
Second, no person should ask too many questions in a row. If a single students becomes the class know-it-all, Umbridge will remember their face and, at best, get annoyed and never call on them, or, at worst, she will begin to notice that a game is being played and the whole system comes crashing down. At the same time, the pattern should not become too obvious, or the same problems apply.
It is a very simple, yet magnificent game we play. It is one that anyone can play, as long as the rules are followed. Remember them well, and you will not have to suffer through anymore of the nonsense that Umbridge has been spouting.
Lisa was sure she could still write more, but she held her quill off to the side so she could examine her own words. She still wasn’t quite sure what to make of this piece. It was certainly amusing, even to her, though she couldn’t show any emotion for risk of calling attention to herself. She was sure it would be entertaining to others as well. Besides, she knew the words rang true and that if Umbridge read even one sentence of this while she was walking past Lisa’s desk, Lisa would likely be expelled. The feeling gave her a rush, and she liked it.
Suddenly, on an impulse, Lisa tugged at Morag’s shoulder to get her attention. “Here,” she whispered, shifting the page across the tabletop. “Read this.”
Morag didn’t look down right away, but Professor Umbridge was looking right at their section of the room. However, as soon as the woman turned her attention to Padma Patil, who had been whispering to Terry Boot during the lecture, Morag took the opportunity and ran with it. She snatched the paper right out from underneath Lisa’s hand and allowed herself to become completely absorbed in it. Lisa could see her tablemate’s eyes shifting back and forth at lightning speed, as though she were trying to take in the entire piece as fast as she could before Umbridge could notice anything was amiss.
It seemed like a matter of seconds before Morag swiped the paper back across the table and shifted her eyes back up to Umbridge before the woman even saw something was off. Morag didn’t say anything about what she had just read, but while she still had the chance, she offered Lisa a soft smile and the tiniest nod, letting the girl know she approved and agreed.
Satisfied with the response, Lisa took up her quill once again to add to her writings. The whole time she wrote, Lisa never once looked down at her paper. Instead, she kept her eyes focused on Umbridge, watching for any sign that the woman was paying too much attention to Lisa and her quill. Lisa knew her handwriting would be an awful mess, but she could always rewrite it when she was alone in her bedroom. A person could always read their own handwriting, no matter how bad it was.
Later that night, all the Ravenclaws had retreated up to their dormitories early. There had been none of their lively debates; the students did their night’s studying without speaking and then raced up to hide in their rooms as soon as they possibly could. Nobody could remember a time when this had ever happened before and nobody liked it. But certainly no one was going to say anything about it.
In the fifth-year girls’ dormitory, Lisa and Morag were all by themselves. Morag had three different textbooks open to readings that she was working her way through. She was going to ruin her eyes from the poor light in the dormitory, but like so many of the other Ravenclaws, she did not want to study in the common room and listen to the dead silence.
Of course, Lisa was also more than likely going to go blind from the work she was doing in the dimly-lit dormitory. A carefully balanced bottle of ink rested on a stack of textbooks, and her composition book was open to a page covered in her messy script. Off to the side, a crisp piece of parchment lay with the ink still drying, covered in the quill’s writing from Defense Against the Dark Arts.
But that was not all. Now Lisa was working her way down a brand new piece of parchment, with a brand new essay.
As Hogwarts students well into the school year, we do not need anyone to tell us we have been receiving an inadequate education in Defense Against the Dark Arts. In fact, quite the opposite word can be used instead of education. When the students haven’t been needlessly taking up space in their heads with the useless fluff in our texts, we spend our time having Ministry propaganda drilled into our skulls. It is no way to learn, and it is no way to live.
Even the physically blind have the ability to make the connections between what is happening in our immediate lives as students and the trickle-down effect coming from Ministry policies. Our leaders are scared, from a danger that may or may not be there, but this seems to make little difference to those at Hogwarts. It is our lives that are being thrown into chaos by this paranoia, our freedoms that have been stripped, and we, who remain locked away, far from the political environment, who are the only ones who do not seem to have a voice in this manner.
This must change!
Lisa allowed her quill to drop to the messy first-draft of her composition, creating a giant blotch in the center of her composition book. Rubbing her sore wrist, she could actually feel her bones clicking against one another. While the ink was drying, Lisa took up her first essay and stared up and down over the words once again. And once again, her heart began that wonderful racing, the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end, and every part of her felt electrified.
“Morag!” Lisa shouted, suddenly snatching up the parchment from her first essay. “I finished it!”
Startled, Morag looked up at the interruption of the quiet. “Finished what?”
“The piece I was working on in Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Lisa explained, rushing over and taking a seat on her roommate’s bed. “Here! Read!”
Morag spent a long while first staring at Lisa with a confused look on her face before finally remembering. She shifted the mess from her books further down the bed to create more room for Lisa. Finally, though, she took the piece of parchment from her roommate’s hand and held it up to read herself. While Lisa glanced down at her hands, she saw that her fingertips were smudged with ink. It must have been still too early to pick up the parchment, but Lisa didn’t care. As soon as she was certain Morag was actually reading remainder of the essay, she raced back to her own bed and snatched up the other parchment.
“I wrote another one too!” she exclaimed, rushing back to Morag’s bed. “Here, take a look!”
Morag looked up from the first essay, which she had just finished reading. An amused smile was spreading across her face, and a few airy giggles escaped on her breath as she took the second piece of parchment from Lisa. But as her eyes traced down this paper, her expression became a lot more somber. Lisa had to admit that composition was a much more serious one, more of a rant than anything else. It had been a great deal of fun to write, but now she was unsure of how many people would actually find such a piece amusing to read, much less read it willingly.
After what seemed like ages, Morag finally set the parchment down and looked up to meet Lisa’s eyes.
Morag’s expression was an unsure one this time. “They were good and all, Lisa, but what do you plan to do with them? It certainly doesn’t look like either of these are school assignments, and Umbridge catches you with them, you’ll be skinned alive!”
“I’m not worried about that,” Lisa said, taking the piece of parchment back. “If I were, I wouldn’t have written them in the first place.”
“What is it that you’re worried about?”
Both girls looked up to see Mandy Brocklehurst standing in the doorway of their room. Neither of them had seen her all night. They hadn’t even bothered themselves with thinking where she might be.
Lisa held the parchment close to her chest as though it were an infant. She wasn’t quite sure she really wanted to show either of her essays to Mandy. The third Ravenclaw girl was a nervous sort, working herself into giant fits over the smallest of things. Last night, reading The Quibbler had gone fairly well, considering. But Lisa wasn’t sure of how Mandy would react to seeing such a deliberate act of rebellion.
“Well, c’mon,” Mandy pressed, taking the last bit of available space on Morag’s bed. “What is it?”
Morag sat between the two girls, shifting her eyes left and right, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, she must have gotten tired of waiting. She snatched the paper out of Lisa’s hands and handed it over to Mandy. Lisa squirmed as Mandy took the piece of parchment and began reading over Lisa’s words. Mandy’s eyes gradually grew larger and larger as she began reading over Lisa’s words and her lips parted, as though she couldn’t get enough air otherwise. Lisa sucked in a deep breath of air and fought to suppress a groan. No matter how this played out, she was certain she wasn’t going to like it.
Mandy peered up over the parchment and was near shaking when she met eyes with the other girls. “Oh, Merlin…”
Lisa cringed back. She was worried what Mandy might do now that she had been confronted with such damning pieces of writing. Now Mandy was beginning to shake even harder. “Oh, Merlin!”
“Stop saying that!” Lisa pleaded. At this point, she was starting to become more nervous than Mandy could have possibly been.
Mandy stood up and began pacing, her breathing becoming more ragged. The whole time, though, she continued to hold the parchment directly in front of her face.
“This…is…GOOD!”
Lisa and Morag both blinked back their surprise. Mandy was still pacing the room and breathing hard like an animal, but for once, it wasn’t out of nerves or fear. She was excited, happy-excited.
“Oh, Merlin! You just know this is what everyone in the school is thinking, what they have been thinking for months! But of course, no one will actually say it because they’re all so afraid of the Ministry and that damned quill! But, Lisa, you actually said it! You wrote it all down and it was perfect! Perfect, perfect, perfect!”
Lisa shifted from side to side, afraid of what reaction she would get to any response she gave. “Um…thank you.” Then, she reached down and held up the first story she had written earlier in Defense Against the Dark Arts. “I have another one here too.”
Without asking for permission, Mandy snatched the story out of Lisa’s hand and held it up to read. Once again, Mandy began her frantic pacing and reading that disturbed Lisa and Morag so. It was almost as though the girl were manic, the way she was behaving.
“Wonderful!” Mandy shouted suddenly, racing back to the bedside. “This one is great too!”
There was only a small bit of space on Morag’s bed, but still, Mandy took it.
“More people should read these!” Mandy dropped the stories onto the covers. “Both of them!”
Morag dropped her hands into her lap and began to chew on her bottom lip. “How exactly would we do that? Are we going to take the parchment and run around the school showing it to anyone who will sit still long enough?”
“How long will it take before Umbridge notices that?” Lisa piped.
“Well, there are duplication spells,” Mandy answered. “We could make copies of the story. Enough for the whole school to read!”
Lisa remained on her perch atop Morag’s bed, still holding herself in a painful state of awareness. But Mandy’s words were starting to cause the little wheels to turn inside Lisa’s head. When she had first written her stories, she hadn’t really thought about how many people she would allow to read them. She knew she wasn’t afraid of Umbridge finding out when it was just her and her quill. The rush had been much too great. But she couldn’t quite decide her feelings on this matter.
“And how long do you think it would take for Umbridge to notice that?” Morag quipped. “Hundreds and hundreds of papers with Lisa’s name on it?”
“No one would have to know it was Lisa,” Mandy said in a sly manner that her roommates hadn’t known she was capable of.
“It doesn’t really seem fair, though,” Lisa commented. “If we get caught, you will probably just get a slap on the wrist, but since I actually wrote the story, I’ll be the one who gets in the most trouble.”
“Alright,” Mandy replied, “so we’ll write stories too.”
Morag’s ears perked. “We? Who’s we?”
“Well, I’m going to write a story,” Mandy explained, “and so will you. Won’t you, Morag?”
Morag began chewing on her bottom lip once again. “I don’t know. Do you know how much trouble we’ll all get in if anyone ever finds out it was us?”
“That’s the whole point!” Mandy said. “It’s the rush of it all. I feel it right now, and I haven’t even done anything yet! Lisa, you can’t tell me you didn’t feel it when you were writing these, can’t you?”
Even if Lisa wanted to lie about it, there was no way she could have on such a sudden request. She nodded. And then the both of them turned their eyes on Morag. She never quite said yes in any recognizable way, but both girls could tell just by the look in her eyes that Morag was in on whatever was to come as well.
Lisa pushed herself up off Morag’s bed and made her way to her trunk. She extracted two pieces of fresh parchment before returning to the other two girls. She didn’t take her previous seat, but did drop the pieces of parchment in the laps of the Ravenclaw girls.
“You better get started, then,” Lisa told them. “I’m going off to look for more lanterns. We’ll need them.”