“A… And I told Flitwick and he said he’d handle it. And then three weeks later Preston and his friends hexed me and left me petrified in an abandoned classroom for hours. And they burned up my homework so I had to rewrite them all too! Flitwick must have thought that a few detentions and telling them off would make them stop…”
Luna had been telling them all the things that Preston and his friends had done to her over the last three years. Fred and George were nodding with serious expressions while Ginny, Jack, and Alexa were more sympathetic and helped Luna keep talking when she started getting too emotional.
Eventually Luna finished up.
“Alright,” Fred said, “We’re with you, Luna. Make sure to stick with a buddy at all times so none of Preston’s goons can ambush you. That means you’ll be hanging out with one of these three for the near future before and after class. Sounds good?”
Luna nodded shyly.
“Preston’s a prefect, so we have to take this carefully. But we’ve got a few ideas of what we could do. Just give us a few days to brainstorm and plan some things before we get your revenge, Luna. Ginny, Alexa said you have a list of names?”
Luna stared at Ginny in confusion as she nodded and took out the scrap of parchment that Eric had given her. She handed it to Luna first.
“Are these right, Luna? Just let us know if you need to add or take somebody off.”
Luna stared at the list for a moment.
“No, that’s all of them,” She said, “How’d you get this, Ginny?”
“I did someone a favor,” She said with a grimace as she took the paper gently from Luna again and handed it over to Fred and George.
“Can we keep this?” George asked, “We’ll have to hit all of these people at once. Even if no one else knows, if we hit everyone at once then they’ll know what we’re punishing them for after they’ve had some time to puzzle it out.”
“I made a copy,” Ginny said, “Go ahead, take that one.”
“Great. Remember Luna, stick with a buddy at all times. Don’t let Preston intimidate you. By next week this whole thing should be behind us. It’s only Wednesday, we’ll try to hit them next Monday or Tuesday once we’ve got a good plan set up.”
“Right!” Ginny said encouragingly, “All over. They’ll know not to mess with you after that, Luna.”
Fred and George and the rest of them split ways. Luna was awkward as she followed the rest of them around mostly silently. But the three of them tried to be welcoming as best as they could even if their conversation was a bit more stilted compared to normal with Luna always there listening in on them.
— — —
“Don’t you all just love Fridays?” Eric asked as he carefully centered the chandelier in the center of the abandoned hall and floated it down from the ceiling. This was one of the largest abandoned rooms in the castle; it used to be an old ballroom, but it was largely abandoned these days. Such a shame.
Eric had removed the spiky black gothic chandelier as it gently came to rest on the floor.
Eric glanced around at the fifteen people around him that he’d stunned unconscious and brought here.
“I do,” Eric said as none of the unconscious boys around him answered, “End of the week, no classes until Monday. Weekend ahead of you. I told Ginny about your little bullying campaign almost two weeks ago, did you know that? I really thought that she’d leap into action like some knight in shining armor. Challenge you all to a duel, slip you some laxatives in your drinks. Go tattle to Flitwick or one of the other teachers. Something interesting. But all she’s done is hang around Luna Lovegood so you can’t bully her more in the future. Chased her around a bit... I’m starting to doubt she had any revenge planned for you lot at all! Now, that just can’t do. I’ve had to take matters into my… own hands.”
Eric levitated Preston, the ringleader himself, over to the spiky chandelier.
“I got this idea from Fred and George’s Ton-Tongue toffees actually,” Eric said conversationally, “I looked it up, it’s based on the engorgement charm. Really amazing they’ve managed to create a candy that can do the same thing without anyone casting a spell for it. But we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way now that I’ve learned the spell myself…”
Eric used his magic tendrils to open the unconscious Preston’s mouth and stuck his wand in there.
“Engorgio!” Eric cast and Preston’s tongue grew longer and longer. Eric kept it going until Preston’s tongue was over fifteen feet long.
“That should be enough,” Eric said, “Don’t want you to drag on the floor if I do it too long.”
Eric took the slimy tip of Preston’s long tongue and carefully gripped it in his magic tendrils. He carefully lifted it so it was hovering above the center of the chandelier sitting on the floor. With one firm motion, Eric pressed the tongue down on the central spike in the center of the chandelier and pierced all the way through the pink flesh. Eric carefully wiggled it to make sure that the tongue was firmly impaled on the central spike of the chandelier.
Eric turned to the remaining fourteen bodies scattered about. How to mount the rest…
As he mounted each of the bullies to the Chandelier by the ends of their engorged tongues, Eric made sure to shorten the tongue lengths each time. Preston should be near the bottom, but for a proper display Eric had to make sure that all the bullies would be visible as they hung there in a circle at various heights so they'd all be visible and on display when the chandelier was fully hung up.
It was night time of course. It seems that no one had noticed when none of these boys returned to the Ravenclaw tower for the night after Eric ambushed and stunned them after class.
After Eric was done, he looked at the arrangement with pride. He carefully lifted the whole assembly and carried it with his magic tendrils out of the abandoned ballroom and into the hallway. He walked through the dark halls and effortlessly broke through the enchantments keeping the doors to the great hall closed.
Eric took the rope that he’d bought and carefully fastened it to the ceiling of the great hall. He hoisted the chandelier up making sure that none of the boys dangling below would bump into each other and get bruised.
He didn’t want people to lose the plot and think that he had been hitting them when they thought about whoever was punishing them. He had learned from the cocoon incident when all people could keep scolding him about was for hitting Ginny in the face and giving her some bruises. Well, they scolded him for the rest of it too but it was mainly the bruises that they had focused on from his perspective. Especially Ron and Hermione. They were the people whose opinion he actually should be caring about probably.
Eric tied off the rope using his magic tendrils to fasten the knots when the Chandelier was high enough in the air.
Preston was low enough that his feet would dangle just a few feet above Eric’s head if he tried to walk under him. The rest of the bullies hung by their tongues from the chandelier at various heights in a circle. All fifteen of them were dangling there and waiting for the morning feast. Eric’s stunning spells should wear off sometime around six or seven in the morning. So they should wake up just in time for the very earliest of the people coming for breakfast to come in and see them.
Eric was glad that Ginny had taken so long for her revenge. He was sure that everyone’s reaction to this little setup would be absolutely hilarious. This was one of his best pranks yet. Eric almost left the great hall before he remembered one last thing. Oh right, he had forgotten about what he had done to Fleur last year. And how he had messed it all up and hadn’t even been able to apologize to her about it before she left to go back to France.
Eric went to each of the unconscious boys and cast a numbing spell on all of them. They shouldn’t feel any pain at all for the whole thing. Eric thought about it harder for a few more seconds before nodding to himself.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
There, everything was all good now. Good thing that he had remembered that last bit. How would Ginny and Luna react to Eric stealing their thunder? He was sure they’d be impressed enough that they’d let him stealing their punishment slide for just this once.
He was rather proud of the solution he had come up with, and he was sure that none of the bullies would dare bother Luna again after tomorrow morning.
— — —
Ginny and Jack went back to the common room on Saturday morning after having their morning swim with Alexa using heating charms to stay warm in the freezing water. After cleaning themselves off with some cleaning charms they waited for a bit so they could go to breakfast with Luna.
Preston had been shooting glares at them as he seemed to realize what was happening over the course of the week. At one point Ginny and Jack had just barely reached Luna before him after class. But with them around Preston had just stopped and walked away instead of confronting them about it.
Luckily Ginny hadn’t seen any of him or his friends in the common room last night. They must have all gone to bed early. What a relief, dealing with them all glaring at Ginny and Jack for the last few days had been such a pain.
When the three of them arrived back at the great hall, there was a crowd gathered around the open doors. Ginny tried to stand on her tiptoes to see over everyone’s heads to no success. Billowing out her magic sense, she could just barely feel somebody floating in the air inside. Several someone’s actually. What was going on, had something happened?
Ginny found Alexa with her magic sense and guided Luna and Jack towards her where Alexa stood at the edge of the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Ginny whispered to Alexa, “What’s happened?”
“It’s Preston and his friends,” Alexa said grimly, “Someone’s punished them. It’s rather horrible, you don’t want to see it.”
“What?” Ginny hissed quietly, “But surely not Fred and George? They would have told us…”
“No,” Alexa whispered back as Jack and Luna leaned in to listen, “I think it must have been…”
“Inquisitors! Inquisitors coming through! Head Inquisitor here, make way!” Eric’s voice suddenly shouted from behind them. The whole crowd turned to see Eric standing there with a clump of the Slytherins that had volunteered for the Inquisitor squad.
Eric came right by where Ginny and her friends stood. He glanced over to Luna and then Ginny in sequence.
“You’re welcome,” he said easily to them, “Almost thought you’d be late for breakfast.”
Before any of them could react he turned away and started shouting about him being Head Inquisitor and pushing through the crowd again.
The crowd who grumbled at the Inquisitor’s presence as they moved forward. Someone stuck out their foot and tried to trip Draco Malfoy from where he stood just behind Eric. Eric was clearing the way with most of the other Slytherins following behind in a triangular formation.
“Hey!” Draco said as he whirled to the Hufflepuff who had tried to trip him. “Ernie McMillan! That’s a week’s detention for you! I saw you tripping me there.”
“Yes,” Eric said, “And another week's detention for you, Pansy Parkinson.”
The Slytherin girl, Draco’s girlfriend, straightened from the crowd and puffed up, looking offended.
“What did I do then? I was just standing here minding my own business!”
“Right. No ogling Draco, Pansy,” Eric said, “You can drool over his two big sacks of gold when you two are in private. Keep it to yourself out here please. As for the charge… Public indecency. Your robes came up while you were in the crowd and I saw your bare ankles. That’s practically indecent in some pureblood circles I’ve heard.”
Pansy turned bright red and started to stammer an incoherent response to Eric’s words. But Eric just ignored her and kept moving through the crowd. Draco looked furious.
“Eric, but he tried to trip me!” He said, “This is ridiculous! You can’t punish her for that!”
“Hey, you-” Eric said pointing to Ernie, “You’re still getting a week’s detention. With Pansy Parkinson. You’ll have to stare into each other's eyes silently for an hour a day. For a week. I think that should be punishment enough for the both of you. Is that fair enough, Draco?”
Draco opened and closed his mouth again, “Yes, Potter,” He said reluctantly.
“Great!” Eric said, “Now let’s get through and see what the commotion in the great hall is that’s causing such a hold up. I’m sure it’s something rather horrible that Umbridge will want our help with solving…”
Ginny had never witnessed one of Eric’s bizarre punishments before even if she had heard about them from other people. He really wasn’t even trying to disguise it anymore, it was just completely insane.
“Yeah, he showed those Slytherin’s all right,” A nearby Gryffindor muttered to his friend, “Arrogant creepy git, he is, but at least he gets the job done keeping those snakes from punishing us all the time. Keeping their heads down with all that junk that he throws their way.”
“Yeah, no idea why Umbridge even put him in charge,” the boy's friend agreed, “It’s like he’s a double agent trying to constantly destroy them from the inside with infighting. You think he’s doing it on purpose?”
“Nah, pretty sure he just tries to do that for anyone he meets. Likes poking people and seeing how they’ll jump. But at least he’s taking it to those snakes. I’ll respect anyone who manages to do that. But yeah, anyone who thought putting that guy in charge of anything would go well must be a loon.”
After a few minutes, Eric and the Inquisitorial squad returned.
“Alright everyone, git!” Eric said, “Umbridge said no breakfast again. They’re bringing in the Aurors, searching the castle again or whatever. Like they’re going to find anything if they do it just one more time. Feel free to complain and squeal in anger at dinner tonight. But for now… Disperse!”
Eric waved his hands in the air as if to push back the crowd.
“Disperse! Disperse!”
He began walking forward and gently poking and prodding the people gathered around the doors of the great hall.
“Disperse! Disperse! C’mon everyone, don’t make me do a musical number. Most great songs are protesting the police. Our boys in blue don’t have many good songs to jam to while breaking up the rowdy crowds. Police using tear gas and beating protesters with their clubs doesn’t sound nearly as heroic as sticking it to the big bad government for most artists, I guess.”
There was some grumbling but the tight crowd began to break up and drift away as the rest of the Inquisitorial squad stood back and watched by the doors to the great hall.
“And that’s how you break up a crowd, squad!” Eric said loudly as he poked a girl between the shoulder blades with his finger as she lingered and kept glancing back to the doors of the great hall. The Gryffindor girl huffed and angrily glared at Eric but hurried her pace and left quickly without saying anything.
“Hey Draco,” Eric said conversationally as Ginny and her friends walked away, “You know if you want we could forgive Ernie his detentions and you could take his place. Spending seven hours staring into the eyes of your girlfriend. Who knows what you’ll discover about each other? They do say eyes are the windows into the souls after all. It might even be romantic, rekindle your deep love for one another once more.”
Their voices faded behind them as Ginny kept moving, “...maybe,” Draco said, “So long as she doesn’t have to spend time with that Hufflepuff half-blood blowhard.”
“Draco, Draco,” Eric replied, his voice fading as Ginny and her friends turned the corner, “Ernie would be a blowhard no matter who his parents were. You’ve got to hate a person for who they are, not who you want them to be! If you’ve got to be such a hater all the time at all, that is.”
Draco said something else, but their voices were too faint now for Ginny to make out what he said. Ginny and her friends walked back to the Ravenclaw dorm, Alexa coming with them in her red Gryffindor robes.
“So, it was definitely Eric that did whatever it was that happened, right?” Jack said, “I’m about 95 percent sure it was him, but any other ideas?”
“Yeah, it was definitely the type of thing that he’d do,” Alexa said with a shudder.
“What was it? You didn’t say,” Ginny asked.
“Well, all I’ll say is that Preston and his friends definitely aren’t having a very good time right now,” Alexa said, “Their tongues were engorged like Fred and George’s Ton Tongue toffees and they were hanging down from a chandelier. Hanging below the Chandelier.”
“Hanging?” Jack asked, “By what? A sticking charm? Were they tied up? Why is that so horrible?”
“No,” Alexa said, “The Chandelier was spiky. And uh… it was dripping blood a bit onto the floor from where they were attached to it. By their tongues.”
“What?” Ginny said, “Spiky? Tongues? What do you… Oh. Oh gosh. Really?”
“Yeah,” Alexa said, “That was pretty much it. I’ll be thinking about that one for a while.”
Ginny put her hand up to her lips and briefly imagined her tongue being impaled on a spike. She shivered.
“Ugh. That’s just so Eric to do something horrible like that,” Ginny said, “He probably thinks he did us a favor because he dealt with Luna’s bullies before we did.”
“Well, I mean…” Jack said and all three girls' eyes fixed on him.
“He kinda did?” Jack said, “Not to say what he did was okay. But Preston will definitely know now to leave Luna alone. Which was our goal in planning so much for it. And it’s not like Eric will ever get punished for anything he does. He’ll find a way to squirm out of it somehow. Especially with whatever’s going on between him and Umbridge. So it all sort of works out? Maybe?”
There was a pause as Jack remained pinned under the three girls' gazes.
“He’s right,” Luna said suddenly, “I don’t mind as long as Preston and the other bullies aren’t permanently hurt. They hurt me several times with their spells. It’s not like any of us tried to make it happen or not.”
Ginny looked to Alexa for support. The girl shrugged.
“We don’t have to like it, Ginny,” Alexa said, “But you gotta admit it’ll probably get the job done.”
Ginny thought about that for a few seconds before letting out a long sigh.
“Ugh. You guys are right. Especially you, Alexa. I don’t like it, I don’t want to have to thank Eric for anything after everything that’s happened. Everything he’s done.”
“We’ll be fine,” Jack said as he grabbed Ginny’s hand in his. Ginny smiled at him.
“Yeah,” she said.
The four of them walked back, Jack and Ginny holding hands the whole way.