Harry was feeling slightly less confident the next morning when he woke up at around noon. The entire dormitory was deserted and everybody had gone down to breakfast. Harry really didn't feel like joining them. For one, he wouldn't be able to sit with Ron and Hermione as usual because Hermione most likely wouldn't want to speak with him, and Ron, well, he knew almost for a fact that Ron was down there either telling everybody about Krum's letter, or quoting it.

Either way, it wasn't an inviting prospect.

So he stayed in bed for another hour, staring at the top of his four poster, thinking about Krum and his impending visit to the library to 'talk'. Lovely.

How bad could it be? Krum may be twice his size, but he was better with a wand.

"I'll just jinx him" Harry said sleepily sitting up. "Or curse him. That works too."

Then he suddenly envisioned himself surrounded by 300-pound beaters from Krum's Quidditch team, and Hermione's comment about how they had sold wood bats. He groaned and buried his head in his pillow again.

Finally, he got up and slowly got dressed. He decided upon on sitting in the common room and doing some homework. When everybody came up from breakfast, he'd go back upstairs and hide out. Perfect. And eternal day on the run, dodging glances and comments.

He wasn't any stranger to that kind of thing anyhow.

He was able to enjoy the solitude of the still and silent common room for about an hour. Then he started to get very hungry, and people began to drift in form breakfast. It was only when he spotted the two Creevy brothers running in through the portrait hole that he decided to go down at last, and try to avoid anybody he knew.

He was cornered however, by both Creevy brothers and he didn't have the heart to throw them against the wall in a desperate attempt to escape.

He seriously thought about it however.

"Hiya Harry…guess what!"

Harry looked down at Colin and saw something clutched in his hands. He didn't need Dennis's explanation to figure out what it might be.

"Look Harry, you made the front page with those pictures I gave Ms. Skeeter. And a four page article too!"

"Oh wow." Harry said with no real feeling.

"We're famous too!" Dennis continued with a shriek. "It talks about us in the article and says we gave the pictures to her!"

"Everyone in school has a copy…more people to see our names!" They were jumping up and down in excitement.

Harry looked up at the people coming in the portrait hole and noticed they all had a copy of the Daily Prophet. And everybody seemed to be glancing over at him, giggling.

He snatched the paper from Colin. The headline read,

HARRY POTTER GETS REJECTED IN PUBLIC SCANDAL

"I didn't get rejected!" Harry exclaimed angrily. "I never even…."

He stopped midsentence and the paper back at the two beaming boys. Then he stomped down to breakfast.

There were a few people left at the Gryffindor table. All of them were sitting down, reading the paper. Harry felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. If people didn't know about the incident yesterday, they'd know about it now. He sat down and suddenly gulped.

Hermione was sitting two seats down across from him eating a piece of toast with some eggs. She didn't look up at him when he sat down. Harry sighed, and began to dish himself some eggs.

She hated him. That was almost certain now. There went any ideas he'd had of her maybe discovering she loved him too. As he was eating his breakfast a sudden horrible thought occurred to him. What if their friendship was gone too? Would it ever be a trio again? Himself, Ron and Hermione had been three best friends since first year…would all that be lost?

He took a deep breath and swallowed the last of his pumpkin juice and slid two seats over to be in front of her. She didn't look up.

"Hermione..."

She looked up at him. Her face didn't show any feeling or emotion, just a blank expression. "Yes?"

"Look…about yesterday…I really didn't mean for all of that to happen…"

"Harry?"

He blinked. "What?"

She gathered up her books and slid off the bench. "I really don't want to talk about this right now, ok? Just…just give me a few days and then I'll be ready."

She left, her robes swirling around her. It was only then that he realized that everybody in the entire hall was staring at him.

As soon as they figured out that he knew they were all watching there was sudden outbreak of chatter as they turned back to their own conversations.

"Smooth" He muttered to himself, imagining Ron saying something along the lines of, "Sucked that did."

He finished his breakfast and went back upstairs to do homework until dinner. Then he was going to sleep for a century.

He didn't sleep for a century. He woke up at about 7:00 the next morning, worrying about the meeting with Krum again.

Ron sat up in bed and looked over at him. "Today's the day of your sorry suicide Harry. Are you ready?"

"Shut up. I feel awful as it is already. You don't think you could maybe go see Krum and tell him that I'm really sick?"

Ron stared at him. "Sick?"

Harry groaned. "Yeah, ok, I know, it's stupid."

Ron clucked his tongue sounding very much like Hermione.

"Just go and get it over with. You're in Hogwarts, what can he possibly do?"

"A lot. Trust me. He really likes Hermione. If he thought I was trying to steal her or something…"

"Which you were." Ron interjected. "Just go. Trust me on this."

Harry glared at him. "All right, all right, I'll go."

A few hours later, Harry was standing outside the library, pacing. He didn't want to go in, but he didn't want to stay out here, wondering what Krum had to say to him.

He shook his head. "I must be insane. This is without a doubt the craziest thing I've ever done. Including all the stupid things I do at the end of every year."

Ron's face popped into his head, wishing him farewell before his inevitable execution.

"Good bye never to say hello again."

He gave a wry grin and opened the door

(A/N Hey to all! I'm really glad that you guys like it so far! It's been so much fun to write and now I've gotten it all down so I'll be updating a lot more! And now, in the light of Book 6 out, I'm also gonna start a new story along with this one, so that'll be fun to. Allright, well keep reviewing! Thanks for everyhting. Goodbye to say hello again! )