There is nothing quite so satisfying as watching your adversary spiral into despair.
In the euphoric days leading up to the summer holidays, the Gryffindor students were practically floating. The imminent victory of the long-coveted House Cup was intoxicating. They weren't merely celebrating; they were gleefully rubbing their neighbors' noses in the eighty-point disaster.
The air in the Great Hall was thick with mocking whispers, exaggerated sighs of pity, and even spontaneous, cheerful little songs that somehow managed to rhyme "Snitch" with "Slytherin ditch."
Naturally, this relentless mockery pushed the tension to a breaking point. For Slytherin, losing the House Cup was not just a defeat; it was a fundamental assault on their identity.
Having already resigned themselves to failure, a core group of senior Slytherins decided to unleash a campaign of spite before they lost their points advantage entirely—they started using their knowledge of jinxes and hexes to cause chaos.
In less than twenty-four hours, the tide of the conflict turned dark. Three younger Gryffindor students were admitted to the Hospital Wing, nursing nasty, embarrassing curses—a second-year had his nose swollen to the size of a grapefruit, and a first-year girl was suffering from a stubborn case of the Hiccough Jinx that left her unable to speak. The game of pranks was over; Slytherin was fighting dirty.
A wave of ugly reality hit Gryffindor. Students couldn't walk alone anymore. They had to travel in groups, their wands subtly raised and ready. Fights and confrontations suddenly became frequent and violent. Crucially, as Gryffindor fought back and curses started flying, their own point tally began to wobble.
"If we keep this up," the Gryffindor Student Council President declared in a tense, hushed meeting in the Common Room, his face etched with grim determination, "Ravenclaw will overtake us by default. We worked too hard, we earned this lead, and those snakes are trying to drag us down with cheap, spiteful tricks!"
The fear of losing the House Cup to a technicality—or worse, seeing Ravenclaw snatch it from the middle of the chaos—fueled their fury. They had to strike back, and they had to do it with surgical precision and overwhelming, unforgettable humiliation.
"Right, what's the protocol for these clowns?" asked a muscular sixth-year, pulling off his Invisibility Cloak and looking down at a trio of immobilized Slytherins who had been ambushed and stunned near the dungeons.
The Student Council President, a usually jovial seventh-year named Angus, looked nothing short of icy. "We're escalating. Albert's original blueprint, but magnified." He spoke of Albert Anderson's subtle, yet devastating, past actions against their rivals.
"Strip them down to their underwear. Use a Levitation Charm to hang them upside down in a suitable location. And then, for pure psychological effect, stick their heads in the nearest toilet bowl."
Angus paused, a chilling intensity in his gaze. "They wanted a dirty fight? They'll get it. We won the Cup fair and square; they're trying to tear it down with curses. Don't you dare hold back."
The resulting "Toilet Incident" sent a shockwave of disgust and utter, humiliating comedy through the student body. Discovering senior students—stripped and suspended, their heads bobbing in lukewarm toilet water—was too surreal a spectacle to ignore.
But the Gryffindors were just getting started.
The following morning, the front hall became the site of the legendary "Statue Incident." Four more senior Slytherins, also clad only in their undergarments, were found magically enchanted to a famous marble sculpture of a long-dead Hogwarts Headmaster.
They were arranged in a tightly packed, enthusiastic group hug, their faces pressed together in expressions of exaggerated, permanent ecstasy, and fixed into place with a powerful Body-Bind Curse. To ensure maximum public exposure, they were positioned directly opposite the doors to the Great Hall.
To cap off the night's work, the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan—the acknowledged masters of undetectable mischief—had intercepted Argus Filch during his late-night rounds. The squib caretaker, incapacitated with a single, non-harmful Stunning Spell, was neatly returned to his bed in his cramped office. The aim was simple: no immediate adult intervention, allowing the spectacle to remain in place until the morning rush.
The sheer, spectacular visibility of the "Statue Incident" was the final blow. The students involved were high-profile members of the Slytherin Quidditch team. The photograph-worthy sight of them enthusiastically hugging a statue in their underpants was absolute proof that Gryffindor was not only fighting back but was strategically dismantling the Slytherin morale structure.
Professor Snape was incandescent with rage. The initial "Toilet Incident" had sent him into a black mood, but the "Statue Incident" was an open declaration of war—a direct, public insult to his house's dignity.
He dragged the bewildered victims—who were eventually released, shivering and traumatized—to his office for interrogation. The results were frustratingly identical: they had all been taken down without warning, without seeing a face, and without hearing an incantation. They were victims of stealth and non-verbal casting—hallmarks of highly trained or very cunning casters.
Snape, naturally, bypassed the need for evidence and went straight to the source of his misery: Gryffindor.
But the Lions were ready. A rumor—a bit of anonymous, very useful advice that spread like wildfire through the Common Room (sourced, one might guess, from a certain tactical genius)—had prepared them. Students approaching Snape kept their eyes strictly on the floor, avoiding any form of direct eye contact, which everyone knew the Professor used to penetrate thoughts and intentions.
Snape's interrogations of Gryffindor prefects and seniors were a masterclass in evasive, technical compliance.
"Did you attack these boys?" Snape would hiss, his voice a low threat.
"How would I know, Professor? I was in the library," a seventh-year would reply, eyes fixed on the professor's worn boot.
"I suspect you," Snape would snarl.
"Suspicion, sir, is not evidence. I can provide witnesses and an airtight alibi. Furthermore, I believe your accusation amounts to slander, a matter I would be happy to discuss with my father, who is an influential solicitor in the Wizengamot."
The Gryffindors—especially the graduating seventh-years who had nothing left to fear from point deductions—were aggressively and legally prepared, adopting a stance of indignant innocence that drove Snape to distraction. He could see the veiled triumph in their postures, yet he lacked a single, usable piece of concrete evidence to pin the escalating chaos on them.
Meanwhile, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were having the time of their lives. Their days were spent poring over the latest gossip, charting the hospital wing admissions, and waiting for the next spectacular headline. The chaos was electric, turning their last days of school into a magnificent spectacle of rivalry and retaliation.
The Ravenclaw students, however, were caught in a tense, academic dilemma. They were now only ten points behind Gryffindor. If the war between the Lions and the Snakes continued, with both houses accruing massive penalties, Ravenclaw might actually win the House Cup by default—a dream scenario that required absolute neutrality and quiet observation.
They were, in effect, rooting for a mutual, catastrophic downfall. Their collective fingers were tightly crossed, silently willing Gryffindor to commit one last, glorious, 100-point blunder.
"You've been spending a lot of time with Professor Babbling lately, Albert," Lee Jordan observed one afternoon, tapping Albert on the shoulder. "Be careful, mate. You're still the biggest target. Slytherin isn't going to forgive you for the eighty-point drop."
"Yes, I'm quite aware," Albert replied, looking up from his book. He leaned in conspiratorially. "Lately, if I'm leaving the Gryffindor Tower or Professor Babbling's office, I've been applying the Disillusionment Charm to myself."
Fred blinked, impressed. "The Disillusionment Charm? That's seventh-year material, Albert! You can just… turn yourself practically invisible?"
"Not invisible, but certainly unnoticeable. It's a tedious piece of transfiguration, but highly effective," Albert explained. "When you sense someone is actively looking for you, making yourself physically difficult to perceive is a far superior defense than a Shield Charm. They can't hex what they can't find."
George slapped his knee, grinning. "That is classic! They're looking for the flashiest first-year, and he's just a shimmer passing them in the hallway! You are truly a cunning, treacherous little bloke, Albert."
"It's simply efficient security," Albert corrected him calmly.
"Do you think we're actually going to lose the Cup over this childish mess?" George asked, a genuine note of anxiety creeping into his voice. After all the work and the brilliant Quidditch win, failing at the finish line would be a crushing loss.
"I cannot predict the extent of Slytherin's madness," Albert conceded. "If they're foolish enough to risk expulsion, then yes, we might miss the Cup. But their point total is already so low, there's little left to target."
Just as he finished the sentence, an owl swooped down, a bulky, plainly wrapped package held firmly in its talons. It dropped the parcel neatly into Lee Jordan's lap.
"Is that the package Hagrid promised you?" Lee asked, examining the rough brown paper and the sender's scrawled handwriting, then handing it over.
"Ooh, open it, Albert!" George urged, leaning closer, already trying to guess the contents.
"Go on then," Albert said, ripping the paper.
Inside were two items: a clean, solid block of pale yellow beeswax wrapped in paper, and a tall, corked glass bottle containing a clear, odorless liquid.
"Alcohol and beeswax," Albert stated, confirming the contents. He carefully uncorked the bottle and took a cautious sniff of the potent, high-proof liquid. It was exactly what he needed for extraction.
"What in Merlin's name is all that for?" Fred asked, picking up the beeswax and examining it, momentarily pausing his universal tendency to put things in his mouth. "Don't tell me you're making some kind of bizarre polish?"
"No, no, the Garlic Amulets," Albert said, rolling his eyes. "The allicin extraction project. You two seem to have completely erased it from your memories."
Lee Jordan slapped his forehead. "The garlic! I almost forgot about that! The vampire repellent charm!"
"Almost forgot? You both completely forgot," Fred muttered to Lee and George, trying to defend his own lack of memory by dragging his roommates down with him. He picked up the bottle of alcohol again. "And you're going to distill the garlic juice with this? Why not just use magic?"
"Because magic can destroy the volatile compound, Fred. This is chemical extraction," Albert explained patiently. "We need the concentrated essence of the garlic—the allicin—to mix with the Guardian Tree beeswax. It has to be pure. The alcohol acts as a superior solvent to separate the compound before the heat of the wax sets it in place."
"Don't be ridiculous, I was the one who harvested and dried the garlic recently!" Lee grumbled, his pride wounded. "I may have forgotten about the alcohol, but you two didn't even remember the garlic existed!"
George, choosing his battle wisely, ignored the argument. "So, when do we get to see the first prototype of the Garlic-Scented Vampire Repellent Charm? It sounds absolutely dreadful."
"Soon," Albert promised, securing the cork on the alcohol. "Now that the exams are done and the academic chaos has subsided, it's time to focus on truly important research. But first, let's go get that butterbeer. I'm thirsty, and the extraction process requires a level of focused sobriety you three would not appreciate."