𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 | Harry James Potter x Reader

YR 4 ☆•°~'* 14

A/N - Thank you to everyone who comments and votes - I see all of them and I appreciate them very much!

❈🌠➵9¾♌ ⚯ 🗲━━━━━★. *･｡ﾟ✧⁺

The day of the third and last task was upon them at last. The quartet was walking into the Great Hall for breakfast that day. The Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables were buzzing with excitement. 

Y/N was making her way past Professor Moody, who was clunking his way up to the top table. He looked very scruffy, his eyelid was drooping slightly. He pulled out his flask and took a swig from his green smoothie.

As he was about to close his flask, Y/N could smell the contents - and it smelled very familiar. She could tell Moody's swelling eye was watching her, and she made her way quickly to the Gryffindor table and sat down, trying to remember where she had smelled that before.

The post owls appeared, bringing Harry a good-luck card from Sirius and Hermione's morning copy of the Daily Prophet (she had taken out a subscription for it a few months ago). She unfolded the paper, glanced at the front page, and spat out a mouthful of pumpkin juice all over it.

'What?' said Y/N, Harry and Ron together, staring at Hermione.

'Nothing,' said Hermione quickly, trying to shove the paper out of sight, but Ron grabbed it.

He stared at the headline, and said, 'No way. Not today. That old cow.'

'What?' said Harry. 'Rita Skeeter again?'

'No,' said Ron, and he too tried to stuff the paper out of sight.

'It's about me, isn't it?' said Harry. 

Before Harry could demand to see the paper, Draco Malfoy shouted across the Great Hall from the Slytherin table.

'Hey, Potter! Potter! How's your head? You feeling all right? Sure you're not going to go berserk on us?'

Malfoy was holding a copy of the Daily Prophet, too. Y/N whipped out her wand and pointed it straight at him from across the Hall. Malfoy quickly ducked under the Slytherin table before Y/N could do anything.

'Coward,' she muttered, then snatched the Daily Prophet from Ron. She straightened it out to read and Harry leant closer to have a look.

There was a large picture of Harry, beneath a banner headline:

HARRY POTTER 'DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS'

The article stated that Harry was 'regularly collapsing' around the school, and would complain about pain in his scar. It also broadcasted that Harry was a Parselmouth, which gives him the ability to converse with snakes. Rita Skeeter was apparently implying that Harry was a Dark wizard and would use the Dark Arts to win the Triwizard Tournament.

Y/N rolled her eyes and folded up the paper before tossing it aside. 

'Gone off me a bit, hasn't she?' said Harry lightly. 

Over on the Slytherin table, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were laughing at him, tapping their heads with their fingers, pulling grotesquely mad faces and waggling their tongues like snakes. 

This time Y/N didn't pull out her wand, instead, she focused on the Daily Prophet Malfoy was holding in his hand. In a moment, it burst into flames and Malfoy let out a terrified yell. 

'Wish I could use it on his bleached hair,' said Y/N, as Ron and Harry laughed. 'Shame Snape was watching.'

'How did that Skeeter know your scar hurt in Divination, though?' Ron said to Harry. 'There's no way she could've heard-'