The Lost One: Harry Potter x Fem!reader

3

Dinner in the Great Hall that night was not a pleasant experience for
Harry. The news about his shouting match with Umbridge had travelled exceptionally fast even by Hogwarts’ standards. He heard whispers all around him as he sat eating between Ron and Hermione.

The funny thing was that none of the whisperers seemed to mind him
overhearing what they were saying about him. On the contrary, it was as though they were hoping he would get angry and start shouting again, so that they could hear his story firsthand.

‘He says he saw Cedric Diggory murdered …’

‘He reckons he duelled with You-Know-Who …’

‘Come off it …’

‘Who does he think he’s kidding?’

‘Pur-lease …’

‘What I don’t get,’ said Harry in a shaking voice, laying down his knife
and fork (his hands were trembling too much to hold them steady), ‘is why they all believed the story two months ago when Dumbledore told them …’

‘The thing is, Harry, I’m not sure they did,’ said Hermione grimly. ‘Oh, let’s get out of here.’

She slammed down her own knife and fork; Ron looked longingly at
his half-finished apple pie but followed suit. People stared at them all the way out of the Hall.

‘What d’you mean, you’re not sure they believed Dumbledore?’ Harry asked Hermione when they reached the first-floor landing.

‘Look, you don’t understand what it was like after it happened,’ said
Hermione quietly. ‘You arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching
Cedric’s dead body … none of us saw what happened in the maze … we just had Dumbledore’s word for it that You-Know-Who had come back and killed Cedric and fought you.’

‘Which is the truth!’ said Harry loudly.

‘I know it is, Harry, so will you please stop biting my head off?’ said
Hermione wearily. ‘It’s just that before the truth could sink in, everyone went home for the summer, where they spent two months reading
about how you’re a nutcase and Dumbledore’s going senile!’

Rain pounded on the windowpanes as they strode along the empty corridors back to Gryffindor Tower. Harry felt as though his first day had lasted a week, but he still had a mountain of homework to do before bed.

A dull pounding pain was developing over his right eye. He glanced out of a rain-washed window at the dark grounds as they turned into the Fat
Lady’s corridor. There was still no light in Hagrid’s cabin.

‘Mimbulus mimbletonia,’ said Hermione, before the Fat Lady could
ask. The portrait swung open to reveal the hole behind it and the three of them scrambled through it.
The common room was almost empty; nearly everyone was still down at dinner; however Y/n was in the common room, calling with the only phone in the common room.

'I – I don't know, Del! Okay, maybe I do know, but it just doesn't make sense! One moment I was –'

'Hi, Y/n,' said Harry out loud, making their presence known to her.

The y/h/c girl's eyes shot up to the source of the sound and her eyes widened for a bit, before she glanced back down. 'Oh, hi, Harry,' she said, before turning back to the phone. ', as I was saying... one moment I was there... but then I used that darned thing and... is he there?! Can you give the phone to him!'

Harry listened no further, feeling that he was intruding her privacy if he did.  Perhaps, it was also because he couldn't think of anything to say to her, and didn't want to make a fool out of himself.