Chosen & Hated (HP) {Book 2 of the Wild & Free Series}

18. The Dragons

The prospect of talking face-to-face with Sirius was all that sustained Harry and me over the next fortnight, the only bright spot on a horizon that had never looked darker. The shock of finding ourselves school champion had worn off slightly now, and the fear of what was facing us had started to sink in. The first task was drawing steadily nearer; I felt as though it were crouching ahead of me like some horrific monster, barring my path. I had never suffered nerves like these; they were way beyond anything I had experienced before a Quidditch match, not even my last one against Slytherin, which had decided who would win the Quidditch Cup. I was finding it hard to think about the future at all; I felt as though my whole life had been leading up to, and would finish with, the first task...

Admittedly, I didn't see how Sirius was going to make us feel any better about having to perform an unknown piece of difficult and dangerous magic in front of hundreds of people, but the mere sight of a friendly face would be something at the moment. Harry wrote back to Sirius saying that we would be beside the common room fire at the time Sirius had suggested, and he, Hermione, Lucy and I spent a long time going over plans for forcing any stragglers out of the common room on the night in question. If the worst came to the worst, we were going to drop a bag of Dungbombs, but we hoped we wouldn't have to resort to that — Filch would skin us alive.

In the meantime, life became even worse for Harry and me within the confines of the castle, for Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly coloured life story of Harry and me. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of us; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about us, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all.

The article had appeared ten days ago, and I still got a sick, burning feeling of shame in my stomach every time I thought about it. Rita Skeeter had reported me saying an awful lot of things that I couldn't remember ever saying in my life, let alone in that broom cupboard.

I suppose we get our strength from our parents. We know they'd be very proud of us if they could see us now... Yes, sometimes at night we still cry about them, we're not ashamed to admit it... We know nothing will hurt us during the tournament, because they're watching over us...

But Rita Skeeter had gone even further than transforming our "er's" into long, sickly sentences: She had interviewed other people about us too.

Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school. Liana, on the other hand, has found love, according to Colin, in a Beauxbatons student called Rowan van Beek, an extremely handsome young man.

From the moment the article had appeared, Harry and I had had to endure people — Slytherins, mainly — quoting it at us as we passed and making sneering comments.

"Want a hanky, Potters, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?"

"Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?"

"Hey — Harry!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Harry shouted as he wheeler around in the corridor. I didn't blame him; I was also already sick of it.

"We've just been crying our eyes out over our dead mum, and we're just off to do a bit more..."

"No — it was just — you dropped your quill."
It was Cho. I chuckled as Harry's cheeks turned red in embarrassment.