A little later, the bell rang, to their relief. Hagrid seemed to be relieved too, because his shoulders dropped slightly when she left.

"Er... okay, that's it fer today... see ye next time." Hagrid said.

Megan and her friends watched Umbridge march away in with her revolting pink bow, her clipboard firmly in hand.

"Thank goodness," Megan grumbled. "I don't think I could stand to be within ten feet of her any longer."

"Yeah, I know..." Harry said.

"What d'you think she says in those notes?" Ron asked.

"Nothing good, you can be sure." Megan said darkly.

Hermione heaved a sigh.

"Come on, let's go."

So they returned to the castle. Megan, Harry, Ron and Hermione walked close together. Hermione was particularly furious with Umbridge.

"That foul, twisted, sickening gargoyle!" She burst out as they trudged up in the snow. "You know what she's doing? She's trying to make it sound like he's an asocial, bloodthirsty monster! And we all know that's about the farthest thing from the truth!"

Megan, mostly to quell her own ire on the subject, slid her arm around Hermione's and squeezed it.

"It's probably because he's half-giant, if you ask me..." Harry sighed. "They're not really popular, remember?"

Hagrid's heritage as a half-giant had been revealed during their previous year, thanks to Rita Skeeter who'd been listening on people in the school by using an illegal Animagus form. Hermione had eventually figured that out, but the damage had been done.

"Yes, but he's nothing like that!" Hermione replied. "Oh, I hate that woman! Even more than that stupid Skeeter witch! I mean, that lesson wasn't bad at all! They're really interesting, how some people can see them and not others! I wish I could..."

"Really?" Megan asked quietly.

Hermione gasped.

"Oh... Oh, I'm sorry, Megan, that was stupid of me to say... "

Megan shook her head with a small smile.

"It's all right." she said. "Don't worry about it. They are okay. It's just what seeing them means that's the trouble."

"Anyway... I really hope Hagrid watches what he shows us in class..." Harry sighed.

Hermione exhaled wearily, running a hand through her hair.

"Even if he does, it won't matter because what's dangerous in his book isn't the same as it is for us! And Umbridge is already prejudiced against him..." she said unhappily. "I'll go and talk to him after lunch. That repulsive woman got Trelawney, she won't get Hagrid too! I don't care if I'm expelled for it, but I'm not letting her, no I'm not!"

"I'll go with you", Megan said firmly. "I don't want to stand back and do nothing."

After the mass breakout, several people were getting their own share of fame. Indeed, several students had relatives that had been victims of the escapees.

"I don't know how you stand it..." Susan Bones, who had lost her aunt, uncle and cousins, told Megan in Herbology. "It's horrible."

"With difficulty," she admitted. "And you're getting the sympathy fame. I got it all. But you'll get used to it."

Megan too was the centre of renewed attention, though more curious than hostile, it seemed. People didn't appear to be satisfied with the Prophet's version of the breakout, and they were, as a result, in their fear and confusion, turning to the only other possible explanation: that Megan, Cedric and Dumbledore had been telling the truth all along. And the teachers' behaviour changed too. Several times, Megan spotted them in little groups, deep in conversation.

"What d'you think they're talking about?" Ron wondered one day.

"Well that's obvious, isn't it? They can't speak in the staff room with Umbridge around," Hermione said as they passed McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout talking together outside a classroom.

"D'you think they know anything?" Harry asked.

"They probably have theories we don't," Megan said. "I mean, they've got so much magical knowledge, haven't they?"

"Yeah, well we're not exactly going to find out if they do, not with the latest decree..." Ron sighed.

There had indeed been a new decree that morning.

BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS

Teachers are hereby forbidden to give students any information that does not concern and is not strictly related to the subject they are teaching.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree number twenty six.

Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor

It appeared that the breakout, far from dampening Umbridge's flare, had only intensified her furious crusade to total control of Hogwarts. Each and every one of Hagrid's lessons were in her presence, but thankfully, Megan and Hermione's urgency had gotten through, because he had showed them nothing more dangerous than a Crup, which looked like a Jack Russel except for the forked tail, and he was always slightly jumpy. He also proscribed them from visiting him after dark.

"If she catches yeh, we'll all be in trouble. And I ain't goin' to be the one to get yeh thrown out." he told them. "No, not s'long as I have a breath in me."

So, not wishing to put him in more of a jam than he was, they stopped visiting him and stuck to owl letters. Megan glared at Umbridge that evening at dinner. She had come to realise that ever since she had arrived, the High Inquisitor was slowly depriving her ands every other student in the school of everything that made being at Hogwarts worthwhile. Visiting Hagrid would get him fired or them expelled, writing to Sirius or anyone else for fear of it being read by the wrong people, her Firebolt and Quidditich, her favourite sport. She even had to sneak around to see her boyfriend, for Merlin's sake! So, she came to the conclusion that the only way to get her revenge was redoubling her efforts with the DA.