Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)

88. Seen and Unforseen

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

It had not been a pleasant experience for Y/n to have to remember everything about the night when Voldemort had returned. He could tell Harry had not enjoyed it either as Rita had pressed them for every little detail and they had given her everything they could, knowing that this was their one big opportunity to tell the world the truth. Y/n was careful to omit the fact he was an animagus and simply said the Death eaters were too distracted to deal with him. He made up for this by reluctantly showing Rita Skeeter the scars that had been left upon his back and eye.

Harry wondered how people would react to the story. He guessed that it would confirm to a lot of people in the view that he was completely insane, not least because the story would be appearing alongside utter rubbish about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. But the breakout of Bellatrix Lestrange and her fellow Death Eaters had given Harry a burning desire to do something, whether or not it worked...

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

"It's the right thing to do, Y/n, Harry." said Neville, who was sitting opposite them. He was rather pale, but went on in a low voice. "It must have been...tough...talking about it...was it?"

"It was not pleasant Neville. But sometimes doing the right thing is not pleasant." Y/n said.

"Yeah." mumbled Harry. "But people have got to know what Voldemort's capable of, haven't they?"

"That's right." said Neville, 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 Y/n's silver eye he looked quickly back at his plate again. After a while, Dean, Seamus and Neville departed for the common room, leaving Harry, Y/n and Hermione 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. Harry's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, but she did not look over at the Gryffindor table, and sat down with her back to him.

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

"A fiasco?" Y/n said as he and Hermione looked at each other. "What happened?"

And so Harry told them what had happened in Madam Puddifoot's teashop.

"...so then." he finished several minutes later, as the final bit of crumble disappeared. "She jumps up, right, and says, 'I'll see you around, Harry.' and runs out of the place!" He put down his spoon and looked at Y/n and Hermione. "I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?"

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?" said Harry, 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 teashop...how was I supposed to feel about that?"