From friends to this -Year six (re-uploaded) Book 1/4

Chapter 23

The day the article about the Triwizard tournament came out in the prophet, all truces that had been made between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor had been destroyed. This time, because the article was all about the chosen one, the boy who lived. Beauxbatons barely got a mention, along with Durmstrang (not to mention their students' names were misspelt) and Cedric hadn't even managed to squeeze his way into the paper.

This was something he was particularly grateful about. He wasn't a massive fan of Skeeter.

Again, whatever effort Cedric had made to keep his house as neutral as possible had been ignored, pushed to the side, when yet again their houses hero was tossed aside; apparently so unimportant that the so called real Hogwarts champion's name didn't even have the privilege of being misspelt. 

The team sat on the stairs leading to the boys dorms. Tara and Cedric sitting back to back, completely blocking the entrance to one of the sixth year boys' room.

"Yes," Tara read the newest article published by Skeeter in the prophet, "Sometimes at night I cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it." She sighed, "I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament because they'll be watching over me..." she read through quickly.

Mitchell scoffed, "I know I have my opinions of Potter but there's no way he said that!"

Cedric shook his head, "No way in Hell." He sat back, "Skeeter liked to dramatise everything, had to keep telling her to scratch half of the stuff her quill wrote about me."

"Then she doesn't even bother mentioning you." James scoffed, hitting him on the back of the head.

Cedric laughed, "I think it's better that way."

"You're too nice about all this." Sarah smiled, "I would be raging."

"That's because if you weren't a Hufflepuff, you'd be a Slytherin." Tara said, closing the paper, not even bothered to read the rest.

"And if I wasn't muggleborn." Sarah joked.

"I always think you're lying when you said that the hat would've put you in Slytherin if you weren't a muggleborn." Mitchell told her, "How?"

"Said my ambition often gets in the way of things, I let it burn bridges, to be fair I do." Sarah said with a shrug, "Anyways, at the end of the day I was also kind and patient enough to be put in here so..."

Cedric chimed in, "Tara you would've been a Slytherin too right?" He looked to his best friend, "If it weren't for your blood status?"

Tara shook her head, "Hat said I was a Hufflepuff through and through but my cunning, or whatever could well land me in Ravenclaw or Slytherin."

"I think you're a Huffledor." Observed James, "fiercely loyal, protective, brave..." he listed.

"But you can have those and still be a Hufflepuff." Cedric argued, "And if you want to go by that logic she probably would've been a Ravclaw since she's so smart."

"Lockheart was a Ravenclaw." Ciara butted in, "And he was far from the sharpest tool in the shed."

The group laughed.

"Hey, all that matters is she's here with us." Mitchell said, a tone of finality in his voice, "She's a Hufflepuff, end of."

Admittedly, the school was getting a little angsty. Not only were tensions running high between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff as per usual, but the Slytherins were constantly on Harry's arse about the article, making fun of the fact that he allegedly cried about his dead Mum. It didn't help that a handful of Cedric's friends, including Mitchell were jumping on that bandwagon.