McGonagall's POV
It had been a long day, and it was only halfway through. She had been getting angry glares from most of the student body. She huffed at that thought, who did these children think they were, judging her. After all the hardship they put Potter through, they had no cause to throw stones. She had watched as they vilified the Boy-Who-Lived to the point where he hid from them. And now they thought that she was wrong. The nerve.
She was sitting at the Staff Table, with her coworkers, eating her lunch when the first howler came. She quickly banished it, and the one the followed, and the one that followed that. However, they were starting to come faster then she could swish her wand, and the other teachers were trying to keep up with the deluge of letters. Soon enough it was clear that they would not be able to clear them all, so she transfigured a box from a napkin and directed them into it. There was no way she was going to sit and be ridiculed by people who had no idea what she had had to put up with from that boy.
As the letters flew into the box, it began to swell and smoke. As each letter opened and started shouting, the box grew until it burst at the seams. The noise that followed was deafening. Everyone in the Great Hall screamed, running from the room with their hands over their ears. The foreign students and staff vacated the school altogether, going to their lodgings. The Hogwarts teachers put muffling spells over their heads and moved away from the table, waving their wands to try and stop the noise.
It took ten minutes and finally it all stopped. The quiet was just as deafening as the noise had been.
"I told you that you would regret making the Potter boy leave," Sprout said, breaking the silence. "I warned you that you needed to do something to bring him back."
"What would you have me do?" Minerva asked, sniffing indignantly and cringing at the smoky smell. "I have no idea where he has gotten off to. I thought he was bluffing and would come back on his own. He needed to learn that he was to respect the staff of this school. After everything we have done for him, he had no right to disparage us so."
"And pray tell, just what have we done for the poor lad?" Pomona asked, glaring at her fellow teacher. "I don't recall anything out of the way. As a matter of fact, I don't recall lifting one finger to help the lad," she added sadly, remembering all the times they were told to turn away from the tormenting and ridicule the boy suffered. Albus had told them that Harry Potter needed to learn to stand up for himself, or to come to them directly. That the boy was not to get a 'big head'. That they were not to feed his ego by giving him special treatment. She regretted doing that to this very day. It went against her sense of fair play. Still Dumbledore was her boss and she did as he requested.
"We brought him back from the street, where he was eating from the garbage bins. We treated his wounds, and sheltered him," McGonagall pointed out.
"Severus was the one to cause his problems in the first place, it was our duty to do those things," was the rebuttal.
"And he scorned every bit of help we tried to give him," she snapped.
"I don't know why I'm trying to make you understand, Minerva. You are just as pigheaded as Albus," Sprout huffed and walked away.
Flitwick looked at the transfiguration professor and said, "She's right you know? No matter what we say, you just won't change. I'm not even going to bother. I just hope it doesn't hurt the school." He shook his head and he too walked away.
"That boy need to learn to respect his elders," she called to the diminutive professor's back.
"Respect is earned, and from what I've seen neither you or Albus had done that," he said over his shoulder as he left the room. The other teachers silently followed, looking at the Deputy Headmistress with sad eyes.
McGonagall stood in a circle of shredded paper and smoke as she thought on what they had said. Shaking her head that they just didn't understand, she started to clear the mess.
Neville's POV
"Well, that was fun," Neville said, with a small chuckle as the group walked down the passageways, wands cast on Lumos, so they could see down the dark tunnels. They decided not to take the main hallways, they didn't want to hear all the gossip and misinformation that was surely spreading down the Hogwarts grapevine.
"Yeah, and we didn't even have to wait until the end of the day," Fred agreed, with a big smile, leading the way, holding on to his brother's sleeve.
"I don't know if I'll ever be able to hear right again," whined George, who had been closer to the box when it exploded. "That's worse than ten of Mum's howlers." He shook his head to see if it would stop the ringing, it didn't. He was just thankful they were in a tight space, so the others didn't have yell for him to hear them.
"You'll be fine," Luna said airily, placing a hand on his back to steady him. "I wish Harry were around he would have loved that," she added with a wistful smile.
"He would have probably been blamed," sniffed Hermione, bringing up the rear. The others nodded in agreement as left the tunnels on the seventh floor. They made their way to the Room of Requirements, called up the Room of Lost Things and sat in the circle of chairs Harry had left. It was now the place they talked the most. It was familiar and comfy, and best of all no one could hear them.
"Besides the Ball, what else have we got planned?" Neville asked looking at the twins, who always had something in the works.
"We're not sure, really. We were working so hard on our Animagus transformations, that we haven't planned anything," Fred confessed, looking at his brother. "Maybe we should ask the Marauders," he suggested, getting nods from the others.
"Yeah, let's get together, at the Shack, after classes and think of something. This needs to be done. The school spirit is shot," George stated firmly, again getting nods from everyone, including Hermione. His hearing was better now, the ringing was more muffled than before, for which he was thankful.
"Let's," was the resounding rejoinder.
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