J. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Wouldn’t Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we’d seen the curses?” Harry asked as they approached the Fat Lady.

“Yeah, probably,” said Ron. “But Dumbledore’s always done things his way, hasn’t he, and Moody’s been getting in trouble for years, I reckon. Attacks first and asks questions later—look at his dustbins. Balderdash.”

The Fat Lady swung forward to reveal the entrance hole, and they climbed into the Gryffindor common room, which was crowded and noisy.

“Shall we get our Divination stuff, then?” said Harry.

“I s’pose,” Ron groaned.

They went up to the dormitory to fetch their books and charts, to find Neville there alone, sitting on his bed, reading. He looked a good deal calmer than at the end of Moody’s lesson, though still not entirely normal. His eyes were rather red.

“You all right, Neville?” Harry asked him.

“Oh yes,” said Neville, “I’m fine, thanks. Just reading this book Professor Moody lent me…” He held up the book: Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.

“Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I’m really good at Herbology,” Neville said. There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Harry had rarely heard there before. “He thought I’d like this.”

Telling Neville what Professor Sprout had said, Harry thought, had been a very tactful way of cheering Neville up, for Neville very rarely heard that he was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Professor Lupin would have done.

Harry and Ron took their copies of Unfogging the Future back down to the common room, found a table, and set to work on their predictions for the coming month. An hour later, they had made very little progress, though their table was littered with bits of parchment bearing sums and symbols, and Harry’s brain was as fogged as though it had been filled with the fumes from Professor Trelawney’s fire.

“I haven’t got a clue what this lot’s supposed to mean,” he said, staring down at a long list of calculations.

“You know,” said Ron, whose hair was on end because of all the times he had run his fingers through it in frustration, “I think it’s back to the old Divination standby.”

“What—make it up?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, sweeping the jumble of scrawled notes off the table, dipping his pen into some ink, and starting to write.

“Next Monday,” he said as he scribbled, “I am likely to develop a cough, owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter.” He looked up at Harry. “You know her—just put in loads of misery, she’ll lap it up.”

“Right,” said Harry, crumpling up his first attempt and lobbing it over the heads of a group of chattering first years into the fire. “Okay… on Monday, I will be in danger of—er—burns.”

“Yeah, you will be,” said Ron darkly, “we’re seeing the skrewts again on Monday. Okay, Tuesday, I’ll… erm…”

“Lose a treasured possession,” said Harry, who was flicking through Unfogging the Future for ideas.

“Good one,” said Ron, copying it down. “Because of… erm… Mercury. Why don’t you get stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend?”

“Yeah… cool…” said Harry, scribbling it down, “because… Venus is in the twelfth house.”

“And on Wednesday, I think I’ll come off worst in a fight.”

“Aaah, I was going to have a fight. Okay, I’ll lose a bet.”

“Yeah, you’ll be betting I’ll win my fight…”

They continued to make up predictions (which grew steadily more tragic) for another hour, while the common room around them slowly emptied as people went up to bed. Crookshanks wandered over to them, leapt lightly into an empty chair, and stared inscrutably at Harry, rather as Hermione might look if she knew they weren’t doing their homework properly.

Staring around the room, trying to think of a kind of misfortune he hadn’t yet used, Harry saw Fred and George sitting together against the opposite wall, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment. It was most unusual to see Fred and George hidden away in a corner and working silently; they usually liked to be in the thick of things and the noisy center of attention. There was something secretive about the way they were working on the piece of parchment, and Harry was reminded of how they had sat together writing something back at the Burrow. He had thought then that it was another order form for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, but it didn’t look like that this time; if it had been, they would surely have let Lee Jordan in on the joke. He wondered whether it had anything to do with entering the Triwizard Tournament.

As Harry watched, George shook his head at Fred, scratched out something with his quill, and said, in a very quiet voice that nevertheless carried across the almost deserted room, “No—that sounds like we’re accusing him. Got to be careful…”

Then George looked over and saw Harry watching him. Harry grinned and quickly returned to his predictions—he didn’t want George to think he was eavesdropping. Shortly after that, the twins rolled up their parchment, said good night, and went off to bed.

Fred and George had been gone ten minutes or so when the portrait hole opened and Hermione climbed into the common room carrying a sheaf of parchment in one hand and a box whose contents rattled as she walked in the other. Crookshanks arched his back, purring.

“Hello,” she said, “I’ve just finished!”

“So have I!” said Ron triumphantly, throwing down his quill.

Hermione sat down, laid the things she was carrying in an empty armchair, and pulled Ron’s predictions toward her.

“Not going to have a very good month, are you?” she said sardonically as Crookshanks curled up in her lap.

“Ah well, at least I’m forewarned,” Ron yawned.

“You seem to be drowning twice,” said Hermione.

“Oh am I?” said Ron, peering down at his predictions. “I’d better change one of them to getting trampled by a rampaging hippogriff.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit obvious you’ve made these up?” said Hermione.

“How dare you!” said Ron, in mock outrage. “We’ve been working like house-elves here!”

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

“It’s just an expression,” said Ron hastily.

Harry laid down his quill too, having just finished predicting his own death by decapitation.

“What’s in the box?” he asked, pointing at it.

“Funny you should ask,” said Hermione, with a nasty look at Ron. She took off the lid and showed them the contents.

Inside were about fifty badges, all of different colors, but all bearing the same letters: S.P.E.W.

“Spew?” said Harry, picking up a badge and looking at it. “What’s this about?”

“Not spew,” said Hermione impatiently. “It’s S-P-E-W. Stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.”

“Never heard of it,” said Ron.

“Well, of course you haven’t,” said Hermione briskly, “I’ve only just started it.”

“Yeah?” said Ron in mild surprise. “How many members have you got?”

“Well—if you two join—three,” said Hermione.

“And you think we want to walk around wearing badges saying ‘spew,’ do you?” said Ron.

“S.P.E.W.!” said Hermione hotly. “I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status—but it wouldn’t fit. So that’s the heading of our manifesto.”

She brandished the sheaf of parchment at them.

“I’ve been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can’t believe no one’s done anything about it before now.”