New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|82| Chapter Eighty-Two

E I G H T Y  T W O 

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Hermione was putting her utmost into exposing Rita Skeeter and the illegal tactics she was using to get scoops but as they made their way into the Easter Holidays, Hermione was no closer to finding out what it was Rita was doing. She had concluded that Rita wasn't wearing an Invisibility Cloak, after having consulted in Professor Moody seeing as they knew he could see through them. That was the only crack she had made into the case but Saffron had no doubt that Hermione would slowly weather away at it and get the truth in the end. It would be very out of character if she didn't.

Easter itself fuelled Hermione more than ever to unlock the truth as Mrs. Weasley had taken it upon herself to send Saffron and Hermione both very tiny eggs in comparison to those she sent to Harry and Ron. Of course, Saffron was appreciative of the fact that she had been given an egg by her in the first place but she found Mrs. Weasley's actions to be frankly quite pathetic and immature. She was taking Skeeters' words at face value and acting upon them which was far worse than simply believing them.

Seeing the disheartened expression on Hermione's face upon discovering the egg made Saffron genuinely mad at the woman. She should have just sent them nothing at all rather than being petty about it. For a woman who came across as such a strong, independent woman, she was highlighting her insecurities and flaws. Them being her weak-minded attitude and the clear anti-female values that she subconsciously held. As Saffron knew for a fact that if the roles were reversed, Mrs. Weasley still would have viewed her and Hermione as the antagonists in the situation.

"Here, take it," Saffron offered her little duck egg to Ron, who readily accepted it. She then said to Hermione so that Ron couldn't hear. "This just shows her immaturities, not either of ours. I honestly couldn't care less what someone like her thinks about us because she's exactly the type to send you hate mail. Nothing better going on in her life, clearly, it's pathetic,"

Hermione sighed but nodded in agreement with Saffron. The only difference was that Hermione was allowing Mrs. Weasley win by letting the woman's actions get to her.

The break passed in a flash and soon the Summer term commenced and with it came the feeling that the Triwizard Tournament was back on. That feeling had never been more apparent when Harry was called down to the Quidditch field at nine o'clock to learn about what the third and final task was going to be.

"I can't think of anything worse than what they've already gone through, so what on earth could they possibly do for this one?" Saffron voiced her thoughts aloud to Hermione and Ron, as the three of them sat around a table in the Gryffindor common room. About an hour had passed since Harry had left for the big reveal. Saffron and Ron were working on a Divination essay together, whilst Hermione was hard at work researching Rita as she was so often found doing all this time later.

"Maybe they'll make them fight two dragons," joked Ron, making Saffron chuckle. "I could see it being some kind of race though, like the last task. First-person to get to the cup wins, so I'm guessing Harry will get to start first, then Krum, Maya, Fleur..."

"I actually wouldn't mind being put into another enchanted sleep during it," Hermione said, looking over her file that she had been keeping on Rita. In it, were fact files, timelines and possible mechanisms that the woman could have been using. Hermione was insistent that she was getting closer to the truth but everything hadn't quite fallen into place to give it to her yet. "Avoid all the stress of it,"

"I'm not sure what would be worse, being able to see what's happening or not," said Saffron thoughtfully, thinking about the contrast between the first and second tasks. "Because they couldn't see what was happening under the water, meaning it was just an hour of suspense unlike the dragons where we could see everything,"