The Enemy of my Enemy

The Theories

Dinner that evening was a quiet affair.

Teddie sat at the Slytherin table eating her minced beef and onion pie, while all around her people chatted about their first day. Some people were whispering about the shouting match between Umbridge and Harry, the news had spread like wildfire around the school, but Teddie wasn't that surprised.

Other students, meanwhile, were staring at her and whispering, and she could only assume it was to do with her own confession in Defense Against the Dart Arts earlier.

"What were you thinking?" Blaise asked, breaking the silence.

Teddie looked up and found him staring at her. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"What you said in Defense. Why couldn't you have just kept quiet?"

"So, what, I'm supposed to just let Umbridge and the Ministry brush aside everything that happened?"

Blaise shrugged. "If you wanted to keep a low profile this year, then you've lost every chance now," he said.

"I don't want to keep any sort of profile," said Teddie. "I want people to know what happened, not just to me, but to Harry and Cedric, too. They aren't going to know that if the Ministry keeps brushing us aside."

Daphne swallowed her potatoes. "But what about last night?" she asked. "What about what the Daily Prophet has been saying?"

"About Faye?" Teddie asked.

Her friends nodded.

Teddie shrugged. "I don't associate myself with her," she said. "But what I said was the truth. Avery tortured me so that I would remember my life as Faye, but I had no life as her, at least not one that I should remember."

"What do you mean?" Theo asked.

From the corner of her eye, Teddie spotted Parkinson and Malfoy casting glances in her direction. She paused and set down her knife and fork. "I'm going to get a start on my homework," she said, standing up.

Daphne, Blaise and Theo shared a look, put down their own utensils and followed quickly after their friend.

On the way out of the Great Hall, the Slytherin quartet passed the Golden Trio. Harry stopped as Teddie passed and turned to face her.

"About what you said," he started.

"Don't worry about it," said Teddie, cutting him off and shaking her head.

Harry held tighter to her wrist. "I'm sorry," he said. "Not just for what you went through, but for getting detention."

"You're not the reason I got detention, Harry," said Teddie. "It would only be a matter of time. I stand by what I said, sure, I wish it hadn't come out the way it did, but if it makes even one more person alert to what happened last term, then it proved its worth."

Harry stared at her and then released her hand. "I'm still sorry," he said.

Before dropping her hand to her side, Teddie squeezed Harry's hand and then stepped away. "Why are you leaving dinner so early?" she asked.

"Can't handle the stares and whispers," said Harry. "You?"

Teddie shrugged. "Malfoy and Parkinson were listening in to my conversation," she explained. "They seem to think that they're my new best friends and deserve to know everything happened to me last term. I mean, you saw Parkinson step in this morning."

"Yeah, I was wondering why she did that," said Harry. "I mean, you two have never been close."

"I think their parents have told them to try and get close to me, if I honest," said Teddie. "I mean, it would their families a great deal if they were in big with Avery and Voldemort, don't you think?"