Lost Memories

xii. gryffindor balls

Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly coloured life story of Harry. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harry; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harry, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelt) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all.

"Harry, it can't be that bad—" I tried.

"No, it's as bad as you can think!" Harry groaned. "Look!"

The horrible woman had reported him saying an awful lot of things that he couldn't remember ever saying in his life, let alone in that broom cupboard. Small tidbits made him seem like a spineless baby:

"I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now..." a portion quoted.

"Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it..." She wrote as an answer to her question of whether or not Harry missed his parents. "I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament because they're watching over me..."

But Rita Skeeter had gone even further than transforming his "er's" into long, sickly sentences: She had interviewed other people about him too.

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.

From the moment the article had appeared, Harry had had to endure people — Slytherins, mainly — quoting it at him as he passed and making sneering comments.

"Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?" Draco called out.

"Can it, Draco," I snapped back.

"You're just mad because you wish you had Hermione's spot in his heart," he pretended to rub his eyes, mimicking a cry.

"At least he has a heart," I rolled my eyes, walking away from Draco.

"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 Slytherin girl teased.

"Hey — Harry!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Harry found himself shouting as he wheeled around in the corridor, having had just about enough. "I've just been crying my eyes out over my dead mum, and I'm just off to do a—"

"Harry," I stopped him.

"No — it was just — you dropped your quill."

It was Cho. Harry felt the colour rising in his face.

"Oh — right — sorry," he muttered, taking the quill back. "Er. . . good luck on Tuesday," she said. "I really hope you do well."

Hermione had come in for her fair share of unpleasantness too, but she hadn't yet started yelling at innocent bystanders like Harry. Coming out of our Arithmancy class, Pansy Parkinson laughed as she walked past us.

"Stunningly pretty? Her?" Pansy had shrieked. "What was she judging against— a chipmunk?"

"Ignore it," Hermione said in a dignified voice, holding her head in the air and stalking past the sniggering Slytherin girls as though she couldn't hear them. "Just ignore it, Lottie."

"No," I breathed, my blood boiling. I couldn't stand to ignore it and allow someone to be so blatantly rude to my friend. I spun on my heels, facing Pansy, "how pathetic and insecure do you have to be to be this rude to someone?"