Emma Potter; Going to War

37: Promoting The Quibbler

Luna said vaguely that she did not know how soon Rita's interview with Harry and me would appear in The Quibbler, that her father was expecting a lovely long article on recent sightings of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. "And, of course, that'll be a very important story, so Harry and Emma might have to wait for the following issue," said Luna. 

I had not found it an easy experience to talk about the night when Voldemort had returned. Rita had pressed me and Harry for every little detail, and we had given her everything we could remember, knowing that this was our one big opportunity to tell the world the truth. 

I wondered how people would react to the story. I guessed that it would confirm a lot of people in the view that we were completely insane, not least because our story would be appearing alongside utter rubbish about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.  But the breakout of Bellatrix Lestrange and her fellow Death Eaters had given me a burning desire to do something, whether it worked or not. . . . 

"Can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public," said Zoe, sounding awestruck at dinner on Monday night. 

"It's the right thing to do, Princess," said Draco, who was sitting opposite him. He was rather pale, but went on in a low voice, "It must have been . . . tough . . . talking about it. . . . Was it?" 

"Yeah," I said, "but people have got to know what Voldemort's capable of, haven't they?"

 "That's right," said Nicholas, nodding, "and his Death Eaters too . . .People should know. . . ."Nicholas left his sentence hanging and returned to his baked potato.

"Dray" I whispered "I'm sorry, but. . .I had to give them your father's name."

Draco froze in the motion of putting a baked potato in his mouth. 

"I--I'm sorry. " I whispered "but I did see him."

Draco sighed. 

"I'm proud of you, Princess" he sighed "but--well we'll see

Draco and Nicholas bid us goodbye to go to the common room.

"I need to ask my brother how his date went" I said getting up with smirk. 

"Your brother had a date?" giggled Zoe, following suite. 

"Hey Harry" I said, going over to the Gryffindor table. 

I caught Hermione's eye

"Oh, I forgot to ask you," said Hermione brightly, glancing over at the Ravenclaw table, "what happened on your date with Cho? How come you were back so early?"

 "Er . . . well, it was . . ." said Harry, pulling a dish of rhubarb crumble toward him and helping himself to seconds, "a complete fiasco, now you mention it."

 And he told us what had happened in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. 

". . . so then," he finished several minutes later, as the final bit of crumble disappeared, "she jumps up, right, and says 'I'll see you around, Harry,' and runs out of the place!" He put down his spoon and looked at us. "I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?" 

Hermione glanced over at the back of Cho's head and sighed. 

"Oh,Harry," she said sadly. "Well, I'm sorry, but you were a bit tactless." 

"Me, tactless?" said Harry, outraged. "One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out, and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid tea shop — how was I supposed to feel about that?"

 "Well, you see," I said, with the patient air of one explaining that one plus one equals two to an overemotional toddler,"you shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet Hermione halfway through your date."