AN: So I'm back!

So for the past month or so, I've really been feeling the itch to write again, but mainly caused due to the multitude of plot bunnies in my head that I just had to get out.

So I did, and those stories are all saved away for another day.

I had to go back and re-read everything I've already written before, and it still felt... 'foreign' to me as I wrote this chapter. It took much longer to churn out than what I was going back before I stopped writing.

Anyway, I hope people still want to read this fanfic, so here it is!

Chapter 36

Things were a little off between David and Hermione following the revelations regarding his Malediction. They still hung out and studied together, but there was a little tension and their conversations didn't flow like usual.

Both sides were to blame really. David should have told Hermione long ago about his medical issues, whereas Hermione shouldn't have run off after the revelation of the said medical issue.

Of the two, Hermione was probably the one that felt the most guilt regarding her actions, but David refused to play the blame game or hold it over her. They'd long since apologised, and both had sincerely meant it.

Alas, words couldn't fix everything, for they were both making awkward attempts to rectifying their mistakes. Hermione being overly polite when asking questions, David going out of his way to tamper down on the benign teasing they used to engage in.

Just little things, that both were entirely preceptive of that added to the aura of awkwardness that followed the young couple.

It was about a few weeks following the event with Draco that David and Hermione found the answer they were looking for in overcoming their little hiccup in their relationship, heavy snogging and groping while hidden away in one of the unused Hogwarts classrooms.

"D-don't stop," Hermione breathed huskily, breaking off their deep kiss for a fraction of a second.

Nodding rapidly, David re-engaged their tongues and continued to rub Hermione outside of her panties, in just the right spot. Legillimency definitely had its alternate uses David thought to himself in humour.

A couple of minutes later, Hermione was bitting into David's shoulder as she muffled an overly large scream and grasped him tightly to keep herself steady in his lap as she lost control of her body for a good thirty seconds.

Following the post-orgasmic bliss, Hermione started blushing as she came back to her senses and looked up at David slowly, gulped, and asked, "Your turn?"

"Yeah…" David said quietly in anticipation.

Hermione swiftly, in what was becoming practised ease, moved from David's lap to straddle him further down his leg on the comfortable couch they had transfigured for their, sessions in intimacy.

Her chest was already on display, so she didn't need to worry about any of her buttons, only her boyfriends.

Quickly, she unbuttoned his trousers and got to work.

Following the embarrassment of the group of Slytherin's which David had dealt with, quite a lot of the members of the house were sneaking quick looks his way whenever they saw him. Be it in classes, the Great Hall or the Library.

While the attention was definitely unneeded, David ignored it all and it seemed to work, for the most part.

One particular member of the House of Salazar that didn't seem to give up was, the Head of House himself, Severus Snape.

It started benign, with the man simply paying extra attention to David in Potions. If it was an attempt to intimidate him, David did not know. There wasn't a chance in hell he was going to risk looking into the man's mind.

"David," Sue whispered, as they worked on their Ageing-Potion in tandem. Something the Weasley twins had used earlier in the year in an attempt to fool Dumbledore's age line.

"Hmm?" David asked, making sure to give the potion the correct amount of attention it needed.

"Why is Snape glaring at us?" she asked, not looking at David, when asking so, but rather crushing some ingredients as the directions instructed.

"Talk later," David answered quickly, not wanting to discuss this topic when the man was literally a couple of tables over, eyes glaring into David, and what Sue assumed, her also.

Puffing in annoyance and acceptance, she petulantly said, "Fine," and added the crushed banana slices, rather than merely sliced banana.

Potions was a weird subject David thought, as Sue dropped the last of the fruit into the cauldron.

~ Weird, but all so very interesting… Wonder how Mel's coming along with the Thief's Downfall? ~

After Snape gave David and Sue a reluctant Outstanding, she and David took a detour to talk about their Potion's Master sudden nefarious interest in David.

"So?" she asked, looking behind her to see if anyone was following or listening.

While it was better to ease her into the revelation that he was attacked by a few students, David was feeling a little reckless and decided to just blurt it out to her.

"I was attacked by several Slytherin's awhile ago, I think word spread in their House and Snape overheard," David explained, looking forward and continuing his brisk walking pace.

"What?" Sue asked in confusion, stopping for a good few seconds and was soon left behind by David.

She quickly caught up and fired off in worry, "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the Infirmary? We can go straight there, David."

"It was a while ago, Sue. Besides. I won. I didn't get hurt," David explained, thinking of other, more important things than the duel he was in.

Sue was a little speechless as David revealed he'd duelled a group of Slytherins and walked away the winner.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah. Right as rain, Sue, right as rain," said David with a cheeky smile as they continued to walk down the halls of Hogwarts.

"Right," she mumbled with a shake of her head. She was going to definitely have a chat with Padma about this later tonight.

As they got closer to the Great Hall, Sue remembered she forgot to ask just why they decided to attack her friend, "David, why did a group of Slytherin's suddenly ambush you?"

Sighing, David answered, "It was a private matter Sue. Please. Don't ask about it."

She eyed him off with her peripheral vision and saw the grim look on his face and decided to drop the question.

"Oh, also promise me you won't tell anyone in Ravenclaw about it?" David asked, before adding, just to make sure, "You know what, make that anyone, at all."

She nodded after a moment to deliberate, but then asked, "Sure… but can I tell Padma at least?"

"Just… make sure she doesn't talk about it with anyone either, okay? If word got out, people would call me a liar and I'm pretty sure the Slytherin's would go after me again, just for potentially making them a laughingstock," he asked, with a hint of pleading coming through.

"Yeah, of course, David, I'll make sure," Sue promised.

Honestly, she wouldn't have believed anyone else if they told her they'd been attacked by a group of students from a rival house and walked away fine. But this was David… literal genius, who, she suspected was going to be making some waves once he was finished up at Hogwarts.

Not to mention, he was fit as well. She'd noticed him going out for runs in the morning on the rare occasion she was also up at the brink of dawn.

As they made their way over to their House table, which was filled with an assortment of Ravenclaws, Beauxbatons students, they found their clique of friends and dug into lunch.

Halfway through her meal, Sue realised she never asked what year his attackers were in, so she, making sure no one was paying any particular attention to them, leaned closer to David and whispered, "Hey, what year were they in?"

Gripping his fork tightly, David blinked slowly, to calm himself and gave Sue a glare for talking about his attack at lunch, surrounded by students.

Seeing that he didn't appreciate that question, Sue gulped, and whispered, "Sorry…"

Things were settling down around Hogwarts, February was just about to start and while the Second Task would be occurring towards the month's end, it was still a while away.

David was slowly making progress on his spell work in the Room of Requirement, along with making rough outlines for his plan of turning a part of the Chamber of Secrets into his own personal room once he told Hermione about it.

He'd have until October of the next school year to use the Room as much as he wanted. But he was thinking about telling Hermione about it during the beginning of their fifth year, for things were really heating up between them, but Hermione seemed to be uncomfortable with progressing any further in an empty classroom.

Which he completely understood and would sacrifice his personal use of the Room for the greater good.

Not everything was settling down though, Snape was still on his case and had recently use Legillimency on him while attempting to rile him up, just like he would do with one Harry Potter.

David was annoyed immensely by his Potions Professors distaste for him.

All he'd done was protect himself, but he was sure that the 'victims' spun it in such a way that once that information made its way to the Professor, he was probably thinking David in a fairly negative light or he was just a dick. Both were probably true.

Hopefully, his skill in Occlumency held up and he'd manage to convince him with altered 'thoughts' that he wasn't going to allow himself to be put into detention or lose points for his House haphazardly. Even if he couldn't care less for the House Cup, Sue, Padma and Luna all did. And while he was fairly certain they wouldn't even blame him for losing points via Snape, why dash his friends hope of winning the House Cup?

"Father mentioned that he was closing in on a deal with Fudge," Astoria mentioned after their usual Monday morning potion regime.

David replied in an indifferent tone, "That is good news. Excited?"

Rolling her eyes, she replied, "Of course I am. And don't. For a second, David, claim you aren't too! I know that whole stoic act regarding the curse is a front!"

Snorting, he nodded, "You know me too well, Astoria. Any other deductions you've made regarding the inner machinations of my mind?"

Quiet for a moment, her eyes eventually turned tender, and she said in a surprisingly warm and caring tone, "David, I heard about the attack on you awhile back… I didn't want to say anything, because, well I don't know why. But I'm really sorry people in my House attacked you."

Long having stopped caring regarding that confrontation, David answered Astoria truthfully, "Hey, I'm over it. I wasn't hurt and haven't been bothered since. No need to apologise."

Silence engulfed them for a bit, but eventually, Astoria spoke up again, "I just, don't want you to think we're all like that David."

David dared a quick look into her mind, he found she was worried David thought she might have certain prejudiced opinions regarding him for being a muggle-born and didn't want to him to think she or her entire House was like that.

It was sad, Astoria really was a gem in the rough. David had yet to find anyone other than her and her sister that didn't harbour at least some sort of bigoted views regarding those of muggle birth from the House of Slytherin.

If there were, they were soon stamped out by the peer pressure the House used to remove that sort of thinking, even without ever really meaning to. An example, David thought, of this titbit of information was the fact that not a single Slytherin student participated in the final war on the winning side.

Changing the subject, David turned to her and asked, "Want to get breakfast with me? The Hall is going to be pretty empty."

Smiling, she nodded in agreement, her cheery self, back.

Patting his pocket, David made sure the very slight, delayed-release, muscle relaxant he'd brewed was there and made his way to the Great Hall with Astoria.

David sat with Hermione in the freezing stands. Bored.

In fact, everyone was bored. This was most certainly the worst event the organisers had come up with.

It was an interesting event on paper. Following the theme of Fire, there was Water. The only issue was that no one could see what was happening, great planning there by the event organisers.

"Well… the Ministry really screwed up with this one," David said out loud to Hermione, who was sitting with him and a few of his friends.

Eyes fluttering due to almost falling asleep while waiting for the task to end, Hermione nearly jumped from her seat once she heard David speak.

"What? Huh?" she asked, confused.

"The task, it's really boring. The Ministry messed up," David said over Ludo Bagman trying to keep people entertained with his commentary of… something or rather.

"Why do you say that?" she asked in reply, still a little disorientated from the back and forth from sleep.

David pointed to the stands near the judges, which sat guests from France, Bulgaria and other European nations.

"They're all incredibly bored and unimpressed," David answered.

Hermione seeing the looks upon the various European witches and wizards, hummed in response, but her eyes soon went over to the lake surface. Worry for her friend Harry setting in now that she was awake again.

After another twenty minutes of quiet chatter in the stands, a figure suddenly emerged from the lake.

People got up and started cheering unnaturally. David suspected the Ministry event organisers wanted to give some 'ambience' to the stands for the contestants and cheering charms and the like were probably used to make it look like people weren't sleeping in their seats.

Hermione didn't seem to notice and looked up over the crowd to make out who had emerged, obviously hoping to see Harry unharmed.

It soon became clear it was Krum and the girl he'd gone to the Yule Ball with were the first to emerge. Still outside of the time limit though.

"Ohhhhh! And it's Mr Krum who makes it out first!" Ludo Bagman roared in enthusiasm.

A few minutes later, Harry and Cedric appeared at the same time, with Fleur having been rescued a while back already.

Cedric had Cho in his arms, and Harry was helping Ron and Gabrielle Delacour in his.

Hermione let out a sigh in relief and started joining in with the applause after seeing her friend safe and sound.

"I'm going to go check on him, is that okay?" Hermione asked? Still just a tad worried about Harry.

"No worries," David said, giving her a kiss on the cheeks.

After watching Hermione leave, David ignored his friends chattering around him and focused on Dumbledore who was speaking with a Merman, trying to figure out what had happened exactly at the bottom of the lake.

"Wonder why Harry and Cedric came out at the same time?" Padma asked the entire group in curiosity.

"No idea, you see Fleur get rescued though? I thought she might have done quite a bit better than that if a fourth year like Potter didn't need rescuing," was the answer Goldstein gave.

After some more idle chatter, Sue added, "Maybe Cedric helped him?"

Before anyone could answer that line of questioning, Ludo Bagman's sonorous enhanced voice filled the stands.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! As Professor Dumbledore has finished conversing with the Mer-Chieftainess, we now know what occurred at the bottom of the lake and are ready to award the points!"

Quiet engulfed the stands as everyone was listening in rapt attention to the only details they would be getting of what happened during the Second Task.

Letting the suspense build for a second, he announced, "Miss Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, failed to rescue her target due to being attacked by Grindylows. We award her, twenty-five points!"

Applause filled the stands, it was more polite than any sort of actual enthusiasm for her.

"Mr Krum used an incomplete, but effective use of Transfiguration to be the first Champion to return with his hostage," Bagman said with enthusiasm.

The Durmstrang section of the stands was most certainly the loudest as they cheered on Krum for being first.

"However! Mr Krum was outside of the time limit by a full eight-minutes! We award him forty-two points!"

The boo's from this announcement were soon overtaken by the usual cheering, Krum's school mates not happy he wasn't given more points but the rest happy he didn't get more.

"Now, our final two contestants, a Mr Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory emerged from the lake together! Well outside the time limit! It was after conferring with the Merman that we understood what exactly happened down at the lake!"

"Mr Cedric Diggory used to the Bubble-Head Charm to great effect, and made it to his hostage, however, he was left tired and required the help of one, Harry Potter to rescue his hostage. We award him, thirty-two points!"

David ignored the cheers and listened in rapt attention to the final announcement. His plan seemed to have worked so far, with slipping the potion into Cedric's water a few days ago, changing events down in the lake to make him lose points. It wasn't perfect, the idea was for him to be rescued just like Fleur, but it seemed Cedric was made of sterner stuff.

"And last but not least! Mr Harry Potter ingeniously used Gillyweed to brave the dangers of the lake! And according to the Merman, Mr Potter was the first to arrive before the hostages but refused to leave the others, but rather stayed behind, determined to see them all returned safely!"

The Gryffindors roared in pride at the announcement that Harry had stayed behind to help everyone.

Chuckling, Bagman shook his head and continued, "Settle down, settle down! Now, most of the judges think that this shows a great moral fibre and deserves full marks. However! We are not all in consensus and thus, to Mr Harry Potter, we award forty-seven points!"

AN: So what do you guys think of David's plan to save Cedric? It basically sums up too, make him lose enough points he takes too long to get to the end of the maze, therefore only Harry goes to the graveyard. There's obviously going to be repercussions for this, but I think I got ways to overcome that thought out.