Potter's Twin

Chapter 4

A puff of smoke, indicating the picture was just taken. A woman appears from it and starts walking toward us.

"What a charismatic quarter. Hello!" She walks up to the four of us and shakes our hands. "I'm Rita Skeeter, I write for the daily prophet. But of course you know that don't you. It's you we don't know, your the juicy news. What quirks lurk beneath those rosey cheeks?" She grabs Fleur's face and gently hits her cheek. "What mysteries do the muscles mask?" She touches Cedric's hair. "Does courage lie beneath those curls? What makes a champion, tick? Me, myself and I want to know. Not to mention my rapid readers. So, who's feeling up to sharing? Mmm? Shall we start with the youngest?" She grabs my arm and pulls me away. "Lovely." She takes me into a closet.

"This is cozy." She says.

"It's a broom cupboard." I respond annoyed.

"Yes, well. Don't mind if I use the quill do you?"

"Oh, um no."

"So tell me Mia, here you sit, a mere girl at twelve. . ."

"I'm fourteen." I snap at her.

". . . about to compete against three students. Not only vastly more emotionally mature than yourself but have mastered spells that you wouldn't attempt in your dizziest daydreams. Concerned?"

"Uh, I dunno, I haven't really, thought about it." I glance at the quill.

"Just ignore the quill. Course your not just any ordinary girl of twelve are you?"

"Fourteen."

"The story's legend. Do you think it was the trauma of your past that made you so keen to enter a dangerous tournament."

"No, I didn't enter."

"Course you didnt." She winks. "Everyone loves a rebel Mia." She looks to the quill, "scratch that last." And it does so. She turns back to me. "Speaking of your parents, were they alive, how do you think they'd feel? Proud? Or concerned that your attitude shows at best a pathological need for attention, at worst a psychotic deathwish."

I look at the notepad and begin to read. "Hey! My eyes aren't glistening with the ghosts of my past!"

She looks me up and down and gives me a slight smile.

~*~

I walk into the Slytherin common room. "Draco?" I ask as I see him on the couch.

"Hey. I didn't see you this morning."

"Oh, sorry, I had to leave early for the interview."

"Yeah I saw." He says as he hands me the newspaper.

I read it. "Mia Potter, age twelve, suspect entrant in the tri-wizard tournament. Her eyes swimming with the ghost of her past. . . " I crumble up the paper and throw it in the fire.

"God! I can't stand that Rita Skeeter!" I say mocking her voice. "Nothing but lies!"

"I know, I know." He says as I sit down next to him on the couch.

"I can't handle it! I don't want to do it. I don't want to participate!"

"I know, I don't want you to either, but you have to. If you don't. Well I don't know what will happen, no one has ever gone against the goblet of fire. And I am not going to let you be the first." He says.

"But, I could die."

"Not if you play strategically."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"We'll figure it out. I'll help."

I sigh. "Thank you, Draco." I say as I hug him. He pauses for a second, this being the first time I had ever hugged him. Then hugs me back.