𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 | 𝐡. 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝟏𝟏𝟖 - 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐲

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙬𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙍𝙤𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙙𝙖𝙮, but it did not cause the sensation that Katie's attack had done and wasn't nearly as interesting as the rumour that Ophelia Le Fay kicked the shit out of Romilda who had since been pulled out of school by her parents.

People seemed to think that it might have been an accident, given that he had been in the Potions master's room at the time, and that as he had been given an antidote immediately there was no real harm done — and no one seemed particularly sore about Romilda's vacancy, in fact no one seemed to notice at all — except for Professor McGonagall who as head of house was aware of the rumours that surrounded the incident but was acutely understanding of Ophelia's frustration and given Romilda adamantly refused to speak the name of the person who assaulted her Ophelia remained unpunished but terribly scolded.

In fact, the Gryffindors were generally much more interested in the upcoming Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, for many of them wanted to see Zacharias Smith, who played Chaser on the Hufflepuff team, punished soundly for his commentary during the opening match against Slytherin.

Harry, however, had never been less interested in Quidditch; he was rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy.

Still checking the Marauder's Map whenever he got a chance, he sometimes made detours to wherever Malfoy happened to be, but still, there were those inexplicable times when Malfoy simply vanished from the map altogether.

Ophelia, however, had told him plain and simple that Malfoy was not a threat so long as they avoided him and actively insisted to leave behind his obsession with Malfoy getting irritated every time she saw him scouring over the map which took most of his attention these days. It had become of source of contention between them, Harry finding Ophelia's lack of concern for it concerning if not mildly suspicious while she found his obsession overbearing and hyperfocused as their alone time seemed to be filled with talks about the boy.

Eventually they'd made a quiet pact to not talk about it anymore, at least not alone, because Ophelia threatened to trim his hair in his sleep if he mentioned it again much to his annoyance and had taken to pouring over the Half-Blood Prince's text book which had also began to irritate her a little more than she'd care to admit.

Since the Malfoy Topic was now forbidden in their presence Harry found it be incredibly difficult to remain focused in his day to day work considering Ophelia had become his main distraction: everything about her had him mesmerised, as proven a while ago when he couldn't stand not touching her for more than an hour so having her within arms distance meant that he was aware of any person(s) looking at her at any one time, though most were deterred by his solemn death glare Malfoy at the very least seemed unfazed, and the thought of this would be Death Eater staring at his girlfriend made him visibly angry.

So he would think rather loudly about everything dirty he could think of that he and Ophelia did, and that seemed the strongest way of getting him to look the other way.

Which not only made Harry grin proudly but sometimes put him in the mood when he would catch Ophelia looking particularly delicious in certain lightings, many a time in the past week had he snuck off with her to slip into broom cupboards, deserted annexes... the trophy room and do several things that would make a nun blush.

However, as much as he would love to keep sneaking off to do unspeakable desirable things with his girlfriend he was now being dogged wherever he went by Cormac McLaggen who had cornered him the next day after the news broke about Ron and insisted upon becoming keeper which he accepted begrudgingly. McLaggen kept up a constant stream of hints that he would make a better permanent Keeper for the team than Ron, and that now that Harry was seeing him play regularly he would surely come around to this way of thinking too; he was also keen to criticize the other players and provide Harry with detailed training schemes, so that more than once Harry was forced to remind him who was Captain.