I Must Not Mess With Mr Lee Jordan, Prankster Elite

I Must Not Mess With Mr. Lee Jordan, Prankster Elite

by Raine Lionheart

"How dastardly!"

"How foul!"

"Fair is foul, dear George."

"And foul is our game, my good Fred."

"Only when that horrid beast is concerned."

"Ugh, calling her a beast is an insult to all beastkind."

"Too true. I'd rather throw a Dungbomb at a manticore."

"Much more pleasant, those manticores."

"It's been nearly three months, of course you'd rather get chummy with one of those."

From his stretched out position on the couch of their shared dorm, Lee Jordan poked Fred Weasley in the back of the head with his quill. "Shut it a second will you two? I'm almost done this question."

"Better not upset him, Fred," snorted George, the identical twin of said Weasley.

"Why not George?" Fred asked.

"Because, he might lose his head."

With that, George reached up and shoved a hat over Lee's head.

"Night Lee," Fred grinned.

There was a slight pop, and Lee's head, hat on top, disappeared. When he closed his eyes in exasperation, he found that his eyelids had too disappeared.

"When did you two doofuses finish these?"

He pulled the hat off and shoved it down onto Fred's head, which too disappeared.

"Last night, while yoooou were studying," Fred's voice said. Lee burst out laughing at the sight of his headless body, which made gestures as he spoke.

"While you were cramming your head with the useless junk about... stuff," George put in.

Lee frowned at his friends, who just stared back, almost amused.

"I still can't believe you guys are really going to just pack it up and cruise through the year. NEWT's are pretty damn important."

"Well yeah. To those with plans and well trained minds," George said airily. "We, we have plans--"

"--and we've lost our minds," Fred added.

"So naturally, we're out of the running," George concluded.

"Well do me a favor," Lee said with a bite of irritation, "and let me put myself back in the running. You two may want a Joke Shop. I want a Ministry job, which means that I've got to get as many NEWTs as I can before I start cheating."

"Ministry job," Fred tsked. "Haven't you learned anything from us over the last seven years Lee?"

"The Ministry's full of loons and arseholes."

"Your dad works for the Ministry," Lee pointed out.

"So does Percy," George shot back darkly.

"Too many smegging prats to deal with," Fred muttered.

"Not me," Lee grinned. "I plan to do an inside job, bring the house-o-cards down from the inside."

"With yourself in the middle," Fred said.

"Preferably not," was all he could muster. Really, he had no idea what he could do from the inside. But there was always time to find out. "What are you two butchering Shakespeare over this time? What'd Umbridge do today? You two didn't get detentions or nothing."

"No, but she had Filch strip us of all our merchandise in the hallway today."

"How humiliating," George moaned.

"And how underhanded," Fred fumed.

Lee prodded Fred with his quill again, and this time, the Weasley red hair he was famous for shimmered and turned bright pink. George's eyes widened, but merely said, "Uh, had a thought," when his brother asked what the matter was.

"Painful, I hope."

Smirking, Lee continued on with his work.

The news of the Azkaban break-out shook most of the Gryffindors for one reason or another. Neville Longbottom, the fifth year who shared a dorm with Fred and George's brother Ron, his parents had been tortured into insanity by the Lestranges and an accomplice. Antonin Dolohov had participated in the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett, who were, as Fred and George revealed later, their uncles and their mum's brothers.

But the rest of the Gryffindors, at least those who had grown up in the wizarding world, they had grown up hearing the names of these depraved followers of You-Know-Who. Names that meant to them what Jack The Ripper, Ted Bundy or Charles Manson meant to Muggle-born wizards like Lee.

Of course, Lee felt this development to be something more than just a spectacle that he could watch, via the Daily Prophet. After all, he was a Muggle-born wizard, and was therefore a target to the Death Eaters who had broken free with the help of Sirius Black. But nevertheless, he felt safer behind the walls of Hogwarts Castle than anywhere else in Britain.

This didn't make him feel any more comfortable, however. Safer, yes, but not in the least comfortable.

With the arrival of the Daily Prophet came the subsequent arrival of a new Educational Decree (#26).

BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISTOR OF HOGWARTS

Teachers are hereby banned from giving students any information

that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach.

The above is in accordance with Education Decree

Number Twenty-six.

Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor

Feeling rather piqued about yet another Decree (the fifth since August, which was more than there had been in the last century), many of the students merely uttered under their breath about the new rule.

Lee, on the other hand, made the mistake of trying to foul up Professor Umbridge.

Fred and George, as uncaring as usual about their grades and the rules overall, had set up a game of Exploding Snap in the back of Umbridge's Defence Against The Dark Arts class, making as much noise as they could, despite the toadish professor's constant hem-hem's.

At last, with every head in the room staring back at the twins, Professor Umbridge smartly moved down the middle aisle to their seats, where she gave another, rather loud hem-hem.

The twins played on.

"Four points! How about that?"

There was a small explosion as George countered his brother's last turn, and invariably blew Fred's eyebrows off.

"Hem-hem!"

Faking a start, Fred and George whirled about.

"Ah! Professor!"

"Come to join us in gameplay?"

"Only two Galleons a play!"

The calm expression upon the High Inquisitor's face was melting away with the fury that began to bubble inside her.

"You two are here to be learning, not gambling in a silly, not to mention dangerous game! Now give me those cards or I'll have detentions for the two of you."

Before he (or anyone) could stop him, a grinning Lee pointed out, "Exploding Snap's got nothing to do with Defence Against The Dark Arts, Professor! That's not information relating to your subject!"

His grin evaporated at as every pair of eyes in the room widened. Including Fred and George.

That was when he knew that he was in serious trouble.

"Detention, Mr. Jordan," Umbridge said in a deadly calm voice. "In fact, how about two week's worth?"

She whirled on her heel and strode back to the front of the classroom, leaving the students to gape at a pale Lee Jordan.

"Mmhmm," Fred said, "I reckon I'll miss you."

"Can I have your tarantula?" asked George.

Lee just buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Nothing he'd ever experienced before could compare to a night with Dolores Umbridge.

Being a Gryffindor, who seemed to take the brunt of Umbridge's wrath, Lee had heard about the detention sessions the vile woman held. He'd seen the aftermath from the likes of Harry Potter, Dennis Creevey and countless other sixth- and seventh-year students.

Nobody seemed to bother questioning how Fred and George avoided detention themselves.

Lee was shaking more from fear than anger as he knocked on Umbridge's office door. It opened by itself and Lee forced himself to step inside.

It was horrid, just as his fellow Gryffindors had described it. It was doily-covered, lace-ridden and dotted with dried flowers. Upon the walls were a collection of the gaudiest plates Lee had ever seen, decorated with moving kittens, each a different color of the rainbow, each wearing the same, stupid, ugly bow.

Like Umbridge herself, who was wearing a simpering smile that both disgusted and frightened Lee.

"Have a seat Mr. Jordan. I'll be having you write lines for me tonight."

She gestured to the straight-back chair on the side wall, which sat next to a lace-draped table. Upon it sat several sheaves of parchment and a long, thin quill. The quill that he'd heard tell drew blood from the user, and magically sliced into the back of their hand whatever it was they were writing.

He hesitated, but Umbridge's smile only widened, and he shook himself. He didn't want to look weak in front of this... toad. He took steady steps and sat down at the table, where he sat, awaiting instructions.

"Seeing as how you have a rather loose tongue," Umbridge was saying, "I want you to write for me, "I must not speak out of turn to Professor Umbridge, High Inquisitor of Hogwarts."

Lee paled. That was a long sentence, when you thought about it. Or had it etched into the back of your own hand.

But all he could do was pick up the quill and say, "Yes Professor."

"Excellent. I will tell you when you may stop... You may begin now."

Lee forced himself to take a deep breath and scratched the quill against the parchment.

Even with the warnings he'd gotten at dinner, and even having broken his arm playing Quidditch with the twins once, Lee wasn't prepared for the searing pain that tore across the back of his hand. He could barely make out the words through the tears that filled his eyes, couldn't contain a hiss of agony.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Jordan?" Umbridge's sickly-sweet voice asked from her desk.

"No Professor," he said through gritted teeth.

He finished the sentence, currying himself as he tried to adjust to the pain as he wrote. He began the second scarlet line and contained his pain better as he wrote.

One thought that somehow never made it onto the paper, but remained in his head to keep him going was this:

I am going to murder Fred and George Weasley.

Each session worked to perfection, as far as Umbridge was concerned. Barring the weekend, Lee spent more time in Umbridge's office than he did in the Gryffindor common room those two weeks. By Tuesday of the second week, his hand was wrapped in gauze, as the sentence wounds refused to close fully. This overjoyed the Professor immensely, but did not stop her from keeping him coming the rest of the week.

On Wednesday, Lee had the fortune of running into Harry Potter, who had been the first student to face Umbridge's wrath. He knew about Lee's stupid comment and could not sympathize more.

"At least you had something of value to say," Lee muttered as Harry examined his hand. "All I could get away with was shooting my gob off about one of her effing Decrees."

"It's still a small victory for us small people," Harry said with a grin. "Martyring ourselves for those who don't want to."

"Sounds like the DA's slogan," Lee snorted. He was a member of a covert Defence lesson group that Harry taught frequently. Their main objective was to secretly oppose the High Inquisitor and learn how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts effectively, as opposed to simply reading how to and hoping that they'd be able to perform well on their OWL's (or in Lee's case, NEWT's).

As Harry finished wrapping Lee's hand up, Lee noticed something about his own hands. "How'd you get the words to not scar over? You must've been at it more than me, you've had more detention this year than Fred and George."

"Oh," Harry blushed. "I probably should have told you sooner. Hermione got a hold of some Murtlap tentacles and made a solution for me. Helped with the pain more than it did the cosmetics."

He pointed to a spot by his wrist where a white T was still visible.

"I'll see if I can get any from her," Lee said.

Which he did. After enjoying a cheery Prefect lecture, of course.

Lee hardly felt it was worth it.

Friday ended the torture sessions, and began the healing. Soon, pinkish scars stood out against the brown of Lee's skin, and he could hardly bear to look at the back of his hand, lest sympathy pains acted up.

He was good and furious with the twins over this, who kept pointing out that he had said that stupid thing. They hadn't made him.

"It's not like we waved a hand yelling, "Say something to draw her anger away from us!", if you remember," Fred said stoutly.

"You just had to run your gob, is all," George affirmed.

They then turned back to their quiet conversation.

They'd been having quite a few of these over the last couple weeks, and despite his being their closest friend, they told Lee nothing of what they were obviously planning. Every now and then he'd catch snatches like, "...that'd rile them both up really good... probably make Dumbledore laugh..." or "...too many tadpole tails mixed with algae could make it too thick, we want it nice and wet, with just enough sludge...". He supposed that this was their own way of keeping their minds occupied while their comrades studied for their NEWT's.

But nothing would have prepared Lee for what happened the Tuesday after Easter.

It had been a marvelous experience to watch now-Headmistress, still High Inquisitor Umbridge try to keep a firm hold of control over the students as they became more and more of a nuisance. Fred and George's spectacular fireworks display throughout the day, back in April had been the highlight of Lee's year - perhaps even career at Hogwarts - but even that marvel was nothing to the shock the twins gave the school this time.

Lee'd known that the twins were up to no good since their fireworks display had destroyed Umbridge's image of power. Their revenge for all the dirty tricks and heinous things she'd pulled against not only themselves, but their friends and fellow students. This overwhelming feeling of vengeance was building, Lee felt, and was one of the first to find the swamp on the fifth floor. He knew immediately who was behind the prank, and was set to congratulate them for a job well done when Professor Umbridge's foul roar tore through the corridor, standing the hairs on the back of every student's necks up.

The twins, of course, were hidden from view, watching from just inside the door of the nearest classroom, and would have stayed hidden had it not been for Draco Malfoy, who'd spotted them peering through the keyhole.

Still, this led to them shoving him into the swamp itself before bolting down the corridor, like bats out of hell. Lee and the rest of the student body present immediately made haste to flee the unmitigated fury of Professor Umbridge.

Lee would never forget the last words Fred gave to Peeves, the school poltergeist and king of chaos. He sat upon his broom, newly reclaimed by the twins, and looked straight into Peeves' grinning face, telling him, "Give her hell from us, Peeves." To which the poltergeist bowed. Or saluted. In any case, the twins then shot out of the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts and into the pages of Hogwarts history.

Which led to Lee's current mood: utter boredom.

He awoke a few days later to find a large package balanced on his chest.

A large package with holes in it.

A large package with holes in it that was moving.

A long snout poked through the hole nearest his face and snuffled the air before withdrawing. He felt the package shift and had to steady it, or else let the Nifflers he knew were inside tumble to the floor of the dorm.

Neither one of his remaining dorm-mates were still there, so Lee had a chance to hide the package away before opening the note tied under the twine.

It read:

Mr. Lee,

Get that ugly wretch for what she did to your hand.

Yours Fiendishly,

Fred and George

193 Diagon Alley

PS. We'll miss you.

During lunch, Lee snuck some food up to the twin Nifflers and discovered a second note within the package, this one longer. :

Lee,

Don't worry about getting caught with these guys. We sneaked them into the kitchens and had Dobby the house-elf leave them with you. And once they're done their work, they'll find a way out of her office. Dobby'll make sure they get a good home.

In any case, just remember this: The window of her office. That's the key.

We know you're wondering why we up and left without telling you. Frankly, it's better we hadn't. You probably would've tried to stop us. Not to worry, all will be explained when you come visit us.

Don't ignore on your responsibility to pranksters everywhere. Do what you know you must... young apprentice.

We have taught you all we know... or are willing to give away.

Hoping to test new products on you in the near future,

George and Fred Weasley

Lee hid both notes in his trunk immediately. He sat for a while, thinking on what they'd wrote, and slowly, a feral smirk broke over his face, as he realized that the time to act had come.

First, he removed all the gold and otherwise shiny objects he had on him and stowed them deep in his trunk. Then, quietly, he removed one of the Nifflers from the box and stroked its fur. The furry critter nuzzled against his hand and didn't object to being put under his robe.

"Come on Gred. We've got a job to do." He took a deep breath and said, "I'll show her not to mess with Mr. Lee Jordan, Prankster Elite."