Hello, all!!! It's good to be back, which I shouldn't say because it was my own fault that I was on, what, a month-long hiatus?? I'm sorry, and I'm ashamed, but at least I was still writing!! A lot of you are reading Braids and Boils now, which is super cool!! Check it out if you already haven't!!!
Is everyone totally psyched for July 16th??????? I am!!!!!!!!! WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FANTASTICNESS, and then when I start to reread HBP I can add myself to that, too, thus making this fic longer still!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Okay, I'm hyper.
Anyway…here's chapter sixteen!! It won't be centered the whole time, I just had to make distinction between…we'll you'll figure it out.
Hermione, Harry, Ron and Tina headed for a table at the back of the dungeon as usual. Once Snape had turned his back on them to write up the ingeredients of today's potionon the blackboard, Hermione hastily rifle through the magazine under the desk. At last in the venter pages, Hermione found what they were looking for. Harry, Ron, and Tina leaned in closer. A color photograph of Harry headed a piece entitled:
"Harry Potter's Secret Heartache"
A boy like no other, perhaps — yet a boy surrounded by and suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he had found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Muggle born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.
Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Seeker and hero of the last World Quidditch Cup, Miss Granger has been toying with both boys' affections. Krum, who is openly smitten with the devious Miss Granger, ahs already invited her to visit him in Bulgaria over the summer holidays, and insists that he has 'never felt this way about any other girl.'
However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys' interest.
'She's really ugly,' says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, 'but she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it.'
Love Potions are of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims. However, concocting one's own possibly lethal potions is permissible enough, but sharing them with another such cruel mind is a crime in itself. Yes, Hermione Granger is not the only one making Love Potions at Hogwarts, she is joined in it by her best friend Tina Gupta, and it was easy for this reporter to see why they are so close.
'They do everything together,' offered Miss Parkinson, 'They share nearly everything and I wouldn't be surprised if they're creating all these potions together. I've seen them whispering and pointing in class; they must be planning something.'
Miss Gupta, an American born Indian girl with a thirst for attention rivaled only by Miss Granger's, is openly dating Terry Boot, a fourth-year student. But in her off hours when she cannot see him, she satisfies herself by flirting with Ronald Weasley, who is, ironically enough, Harry Potter's best friend. Ronald's father works at the Ministry of Magic, and seems to be unaware that his son's object of affections is somewhat less than reasonable. Miss Gupta seems an expert on Mr. Weasley's family background and have much in common. She even openly discussed all this with her boyfriend Terry Boot, lacking the slightest care of what she was saying. It has been learnt from Miss Gupta herself that she has several other boyfriends in various other countries, all of whom she mentions quite a bit.
It appears that in addition to the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts this year, there is also great competition for the boys available in the school. These cruel and clever girls continue to scan the halls for prey, leaving only heartbreak in their wake. In the meantime, Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his friendship and love upon worthier candidates.
"I told you!" Ron hissed at Hermione and Tina as they stared down at the article. "I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of — of scarlet women!"
Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laugher. "Scarlet women?" she repeated, shaking with suppressed giggles as she looked around at Ron.
"It's what my mum calls them," Ron muttered, his ears going red."
"Well, she's definitely made us out to be them," said Tina, her eyes back on the article. "I don't believe that stupid cow! And since when is she —" Tina pointed at Pansy, "— pretty and vivacious? How low do you have to be to write something like this? And how bored, for that matter? You know, somehow, I don't think Rita had very many friends as a child."
"If that's the best Rita can do, she's losing her touch," said Hermione, still giggling at Ron's remark earlier on as she threw Witch Weekly onto the empty chair beside her. "What a pile of old rubbish."
"We're not that similar that I'm gonna be completely unphased by this," Tina muttered to Hermione. She looked over at the Slytherins, who were all watching the four of them to see if they had been upset by the article. Hermione gave them a sarcastic smile and a wave, as did Tina, but she narrowed her eyes. The two of them, Harry, and Ron started unpacking the ingredients they would need for their Wit-Sharpening Potion.
"Oh, crap!" hissed Tina, dropping some beetles. "I just realized something…my mom reads Witch Weekly…my parents are going to see that article!"
Ron turned white. "Your mum's a Muggle," Harry said in a confused voice.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean she can't be hip to what the Magical World mothers are like," said Tina. "I hope they don't believe this." She picked up her supplies and got to work again.
"There's something funny, though," said Hermione ten minutes later, holding her pestle suspended over a bowl of scarab beetles. "How could Rita Skeeter have known…?"
"Known what?" said Ron quickly. "You two haven't been mixing up Love Potions, have you?" Tina slapped his arm.
"Don't be stupid," Hermione snapped, starting to pound her beetles again. "No, it's just…how did she know Viktor asked me to visit him over the summer?"
Hermione blushed scarlet as she said this and determinedly avoided Ron's eyes.
"What?" said Ron, dropping his pestle with a loud clunk.
"He asked me right after he'd pulled me out of the lake," Hermione muttered. "After he'd got rid of his shark's head. Madam Pomfrey gave us both blankets and then he sort of pulled me away from the judges so they wouldn't hear, and he said, if I wasn't doing anything over the summer, would I like to —"
"And what did you say?" said Ron, who had picked up his pestle and was grinding it on the desk, a good six inches away from his bowl, because he was looking at Hermione.
"And he did say he'd never felt the same way about anyone else," Hermione went on, going so red now that Harry could almost feel the hear coming from her, "but how could Rita Skeeter have heard him? She wasn't there…or was she? Maybe she has got an Invisibility Cloak; maybe she sneaked onto he grounds to watch the second task…"
"I missed all this because I was watching and then walking down a flight of stairs," Tina muttered, shaking her head.
"And what did you say?" Ron repeated to Hermione, pounding his pestle down so hard that it dented the desk. Tina snatched it from his hand.
"Well, I was too busy seeing whether you and Harry were okay to —"
"Fascinating though your social life undoubtedly is, Miss Granger," said an icy voice right behind them, and all four of them jumped, "I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Snape had glided over to their desk while they were talking. The whole class was now looking around at them; Malfoy took the opportunity to flash POTTER STINKS across the dungeon at Harry.
"Ah…reading magazines under the table as well?" Snape added, snatching up the coy of Witch Weekly. "A further ten points from Gryffindor…oh but of course..." Snape's black eyes glittered as they fell on Rita Skeeter's article. "Potter has to keep up with his press cuttings…"
The dungeon rang with the Slytherins' laughter, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape's think mouth. To Harry's fury (and to Tina's as well, judging by the way she was glaring at Snape), he began to read the article aloud.
"'Harry Potter's Secret Heartache'...dear, dear, Potter, what's ailing you now? 'A boy like no other, perhaps…'"
Harry could feel his face burning. Snape was pausing at the end of every sentence to allow the Slytherins a hearty laugh. The article sounded ten times worse when read by Snape. Tina allowed her head to rest in her hand that was sitting on the table, narrowing her eyes at the Slytherins and clenching her teeth. Ron had turned a magnificent shade of magenta; Even Hermione was blushing scarlet now.
"'…Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart upon a worthier candidate.' How very touching," sneered Snape, rolling up the magazine to continued gales of laughter from the Slytherins. "Well, I think I had better separate the four of you, so you can keep your minds on your potions rather than on your tangled love lives. Weasley, you stay here. Miss Granger, over there, beside Miss Parkinson. Miss Gupta, over by Zabini. Potter—that table in front of my desk. Move. Now."
Tina's POV (this switching thing is actually kind of fun…)
Tina took the opportunity to let out her rage by throwing everything into her Potions bag so hard that it clunked as it hit the desk. She stomped to the other side of the dungeon next to Blaise Zabini, threw down her bag and sat down. Zabini snickered; Tina seized her wand and put a Silencing Charm on him. He grabbed his throat, trying to make a sound come out, but the Silencing Charm lifted within the five minutes it took Tina to cool down.
"Pssstt!" she hissed. "Pssstt! Hermione!" Hermione looked up. Tina working on her potion again, quietly taking out a piece of parchment and a quill from her bag. She quickly scribbled:
That foul, low, evil, cruel, sneering, smelly, oily, greasy, loathing, biased, SCUM of a man! I swear, if he wasn't a professor I'd use one of Ron's choice names for him…WHY DOES DUMBLEDORE KEEP A GUY AROUND WHO HAS THE FAIRNESS OF A THREE-YEAR OLD?!?! As if darling Rita's article wasn't enough, he has to go and read it in that mocking voice…just once I'd like to see him dock points from Slytherin, even if it's for his own freaking image! I mean, it wasn't your magazine anyway…it belongs to that pug-faced loser. Just say anything, anything in reply, and stifle the giant ball of flaming verbal abuse that's sitting in my throat, waiting to explode for everyone in this dungeon that isn't wearing red or gold.
She crumpled it up and sealed it with a tap of her wand, then tossed it to Hermione the best that she could. Hermione unfolded it, her eyebrows rising as she did. Pansy Parkinson was trying to peep over her shoulder at it, but Hermione stepped on her foot. Tina chuckled. She finished pounding her scarab beetles and poured them into the cauldron as Hermione wrote her reply. When the parchment was tossed back to Tina, beneath her message it read:
I know, I know, and I have to agree with you, though perhaps I'm a little less intense about it? And I appear to calmer as well. Anyway, right now the problem isn't Snape…it's Rita Skeeter. We've got to find out how she got in here, and stop her from doing it again. Don't pass the note back; we could get in more trouble. Just work on the potion.
Tina nodded at Hermione's watching face, then folded the parchment up again and fed it into the flames beneath her cauldron. She cut up her ginger roots, concentrating on keeping them congruent and not thinking about anything to do with Rita's article. Blaise Zabini chuckled again, but Tina gave him such a dark look that he recoiled instantly and went back to slicing his own roots. Tina ignored him the rest of the lesson while she poured out armadillo bile and stirred it into the potion, focusing on it even when Karkaroff came bursting through the door. Finally, the bell rang.
"I think I'm almost calm now," Tina said proudly to Ron and Hermione. Ron narrowed his eyes and Snape and the other Slytherins as she put her things back into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
"Harry's spilled his armadillo bile," said Hermione. "Let's just get out of here and wait from him outside the door."
The other two nodded fervently, not wanting to spend any more time than necessary in the dungeon with Snape. The three of them followed the herd of the students out the door and waited for Harry to come out.
Voila! Shorter than some recent chapters, I'm sure, but I didn't want to go further because it's just Harry explaining what Karkaroff was saying to Snape. I could've skipped that, but then it goes ahead a day and I didn't want to get confusing. I've procrastinated ridiculously about putting this chapter up, and I'm ever so sorry to all my faithful reviewers.
Venus725- Yeah, the Tina/Terry thing was fun. As you can see, I had to make Tina talk about Ron a little extra, but not so much that it seemed unnatural, After all, she's still having a conversation with her boyfriend! Sirius is too cool. Short reviews are A-Okay, and I'm sure you'll make up for it in the future…hehehe. Thanks for reviewing Braids and Boils; it's was SO AWESOME to get twelve reviews at once!!!
xBlackMoon-y- If you waited for chapter fifteen, you must've fallen asleep anticipating chapter sixteen! Hmm…I'd have to say I think it's geniuses, and not just because I used that word, but I've heard it used on TV and in movies as well. Genii? Never in my life. It is a word though, so I supposed it works, just like lighted and lit both work. Am I making sense? Anyway, the geni-somethings were Tina and Ginny, sorry if I didn't make that clear. I do have a thing for mokes, they're so cool!! Um…yes, the 'on shouted over the nose' thing was not only unintentional but downright bizarre. It was meant to be 'Ron shouted over the noise'. Whoa, what a difference. You seem to have passed Divination. Goody-o. The task was fun, and I do believe it was your idea!!
Flagstonejester- Glad I made someone laugh. Sorry if it seemed…impersonal, I do know what you mean though. I may add some family in here—the letter from Ria was a good idea—but for the most part I think that'll be in Ocean of Muggles. I'm planning on updating that soon, so hopefully it'll be good. Happy to spark the 'inquisitive-ness' within you. I never thought of a thesaurus being a dinosaur…
SmileGirlVMV- You spelled it right, yet again, and I don't even know what you were referring to. Yeah you meant Rita, and Toronto does seem AGES ago!! Well, the rooming for D.C. came down to me, Pierrette, Carleene, Rawan and Ariel, or me, Pierrette, Rawan and Zarah. Frankly, I prefer the latter…one person I'm not too fond of is enough to have in the room instead of three. Hope you've solved your situation, I've given you ample time since it took me forever to update. Sidetracking ROCKS.
Tikvah Ariel- Ginny post-liking Harry was a much more likable character to me than the Ginny-liking Harry. Eurgh. I'm an H/G shipper, especially because she's all nonchalant and spunky now. Well, I may not be nearly as strong and H/G shipper as I am and R/Hr shipper, but Ginny's the one person I'd choose for Harry in our current situation. Their flirting wasn't really flirting anymore, Tina and Terry are getting to know each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. The keyword being friend, I decided to show that side of the relationship. Glad you liked it and I hope this one didn't rely on the book too much. The late review was fine! Ack, headgear and wires?? Not fun, not fun at all.
REVIEW PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! Also, I'm having a little poll here. I kind of want to change my penname--okay I really want to--to QuidditchMoke. Let me know what you guys think!!! (I may go through with it even if I don't have support, though)