"Snape..." George said, "is the sort of person who hates students thinking they're clever, so that's why your plan failed."
He held up a finger and wagged it in front of Seamus Finnigan and the others. "The more you try to get Snape's attention, the less he'll bother with whatever you're doing."
"Actually, he will bother..." Fred made a swatting motion, his palm smacking through the air with a "slap." "The way you'd swat a fly—smacking you aside with a reason to deduct points."
"You'll keep trying anyway..." He withdrew his hand and shrugged. "Maybe that's exactly how he wants to toy with you, making you lose points to him again and again."
Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and the others looked at one another, all sucking in a cold breath at the same time. "That's way too nasty!"
Fred let out a strange cry and clapped his hands over his ears exaggeratedly. "Oh! Stop telling us things everyone already knows!"
"So..." George concluded, "rather than counting on Snape to cooperate with you, you'd be better off creating an accident for yourselves—one Snape can't ignore, one he has no choice but to go along with."
Seamus Finnigan seemed to understand something, and his breathing began to quicken. "You mean..."
"What we mean is," Fred and George exchanged a look and said in unison, "you need to create an accident, then make a big scene out of it."
Fred leaned forward a little and raised one finger. "Think about it. What could you do that would make Snape lose patience the fastest?"
George leaned in from the other side, also raising one finger. "What could you do that would make him immediately drag you out of the crowd and turn you into a bad example?"
Seamus Finnigan and the others knitted their