WE'LL TAKE ON THE WORLD ; h.j.p.

24 | Seen and Unforeseen

Luna said vaguely that she did not know how soon Rita's interview with Harry 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's might have to wait for the following issue," Luna said.

It was quite obvious that Harry had not found it an easy experience to talk about the night when Voldemort had returned. Rita had pressed him for every little detail, and he had given her everything he could remember, of course, this was his one big opportunity to tell the world the truth, though Allison doubted that many of the people in favour of the Prophet would take the article for serious, especially if his story would be appearing alongside utter rubbish about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

"Can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public," Dean said, sounding awestruck at dinner on Monday night. Seamus was shovelling down large amounts of chicken-and-ham pie on Dean's other side, but Allison knew he was listening.

"It's the right thing to do, Harry," Neville said, 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," Harry mumbled, "but people have got to know what Voldemort's capable of, haven't they?"

"That's right," Neville said, nodding, "and his Death Eaters too...People should know..."

Neville left his sentence hanging and returned to his baked potato. Seamus looked up, but when he caught Harry's eye he looked quickly back at his plate again.

After a while Dean, Seamus, and Neville departed for the common room, leaving Harry, Hermione, and Allison at the table waiting for Ron, who had not yet had dinner because of Quidditch practice.

Cho Chang walked into the hall with her friend Marietta, but she did not look over at the Gryffindor table and sat down with her back to them.

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

And he told her what had happened at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop.

"...so then," He finished several minutes later, as the final bit of crumble disappeared, "she yells at me for not wanting to talk about Cedric for obvious reasons, says 'have fun on your other dozen dates' and runs off." He put down his spoon and looked at Hermione. "I mean, what the hell?"

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?" Harry said, 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," Hermione said, with the patient air of one explaining that one plus one equals two to an overly emotional toddler, "you shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet me halfway through your date. And that Allie was accidentally there as well probably didn't help either."

"But, but," Harry spluttered, "but - you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to do that without telling her -?"

"You should have told her differently" said Hermione, still with that maddeningly patient air. "You should have said it was really annoying, but I'd made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn't want to go, you'd much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please, please come along with you, and hopefully you'd be able to get away more quickly? And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too," Hermione added as an afterthought.