Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 13 - Rita Skeeter

The next morning, I began to read an article about the Triwizard Tournament written by Rita Skeeter for the Daily Prophet. The article, however, was complete rubbish, and she seemed more interested in Harry's personal life than in the actual tournament:

Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.

At first, this made me laugh — especially the part about Colin being Harry's close friend — but the sneering comments from the Slytherin quickly made me annoyed at Rita Skeeter.

"Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?" someone shouted and I looked up to see Harry walking toward the Gryffindor table where Hermione and I were seated.

Clearly, I wasn't the only one reading the article. Hermione huffed loudly beside me as she read over the part about her and Harry.

"That woman — "

"Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?" another voice shouted.

"Hey — Harry!"

It was Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw seeker. She bent down and picked something from the ground, but Harry seemed to think it was another Slytherin ready to throw insults at him.

"Yeah, that's right!" Harry snapped, causing Hermione and me to look up to him with wide eyes. "I've just been crying my eyes out over my dead mum, and I'm just off to do a bit more. . . ."

"No — it was just — " Cho began awkwardly, "you dropped your quill."

Harry faced her and turned bright red. "Oh — right — sorry," he muttered, taking back his quill. I heard her wishing him luck for the first task before he sat in front of us, strangely quiet and his cheeks still scarlet. Hermione and I exchanged a knowing look.

"Stunningly pretty? Her?" Pansy Parkinson said with a sardonic smile as she passed by us, staring at Hermione. "What was she judging against — a chipmunk?"

"No, just your ugly pug face," I said, causing everyone around to erupt into laughter. Harry choked on his pumpkin juice. Pansy glared at me before walking away toward the Slytherin table. "Honestly," I huffed.

"Just ignore them," Hermione said, trying to act as though she did not care what Pansy or any of them said.

"I will not!" I said. "You really think I'm going to just stand by and watch as people insult my best friend?"

Hermione did not say anything, but she gave me a grateful smile.

"Listen, I got a letter from Sirius last night," Harry began and then proceeded to explain that Sirius had asked him to come by the fire in the common room alone at one o'clock in the morning on the 22nd of November. Consequently, we began to devise a plan to make sure the common room would be empty at that hour. Hermione and I were to act as lookouts. If the worst came to the worst, we decided we would drop Dungbombs in the common room to force people out, but we hoped we wouldn't have to resort to that as the smell really was horrendous.

We went to the library next to finish up an essay for History of Magic. Hermione gave Harry some books to help him in Charms because he still hadn't mastered Summoning Charms. Krum was also in the library, and therefore groups of giggling girls kept walking past his table which was close to ours. Hermione kept complaining because she found the noise distracting.