As Harry and Hermione descended to the dungeons for Potions on Friday afternoon near the beginning of March, they were met with the Snake Nest all sniggering as they huddled together outside the Potions classroom door, reading something one of them was holding.

But a second later, Pansy spotted them, and giggled, "There they are, there they are!"

As the Snakes broke apart, Pansy tossed the magazine they'd been reading from to Hermione, saying loudly, "You might find something to interest you in there, Granger!"

Hermione caught the magazine and gave the Slytherin girl a bored look, before finally deigning to look down at the magazine she'd just been given. It was the latest issue of Witch Weekly. But before she had a chance to look for whatever the Snake Nest had been sniggering about, the dungeon door opened and Snape ushered them all into his lair of doom.

Hermione wasn't so stupid as to try reading anything other than the blackboard with the directions of the day's potion on it in the middle of Snape's class, as curious as she might have been at why either her or Harry or both were in Witch Weekly, so she stuffed the magazine deep in her bag to pull back out and read at supper, before following Harry to the rearmost table in the dungeon as always. Pulling out the necessary ingredients once Snape had written the ingredients and instructions for the potion up on the board, she and Harry quietly concentrated on brewing their wit-sharpening potion, ignoring all of the Slytherins constantly looking in her and Harry's direction like they seriously thought Hermione was going to try and read a magazine in the middle of any class, let alone Snape's, and waiting to see if she and Harry would be upset by the article.

But near the end of class, something occurred to distract the Slytherins' attention away from Hermione's continued not reading of magazines in the middle of class. There was a knock on the door, and once Snape had bid the guest enter, it opened and the Durmstrang Headmaster, Karkaroff, came stalking in and up to Snape's desk. From where they sat at the very back of the room, Harry and Hermione couldn't hear what Karkaroff was saying to Snape, but he clearly looked agitated about something and was twisting his finger around his goatee. He stood there talking to Snape for a minute, before Snape started ignoring him and the foreigner proceeded to just hover behind Snape's desk until the bell finally rang.

As Harry and Hermione packed up their belongings, they saw Karkaroff pull up the left-hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on his inner forearm, but from where they were in the back of the room they couldn't see what it was, or hear what the two were saying to each other. But having more important things to concern themselves with, such as food and the Witch Weekly article, they left the classroom with the rest of the class, leaving the adults behind to argue about whatever it was they were arguing about.

Finally sitting down in the Great Hall for supper a few minutes later, Hermione pulled the magazine out of her bag to see what all the ruckus the Slytherins had been going on about was. It didn't take her long to find the article in question, and she spread it out on the table between her and Harry to read.

~HP~

Harry Potter's Secret Heartache

A boy like no other, perhaps — yet a boy who has seemingly overcome every obstacle in his path. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter has found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, muggleborn Hermione Granger. But is his seemingly idyllic relationship really all it seems?

Miss Granger is a plain but ambitious girl, and it turns out it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured the TriWizard champion's interest. In fact, he might not even actually be interested in her at all.

Fleur Delacour, a fellow champion, was seen kissing Harry after the second task, but so far nothing seems to have come of it, despite the French girl being far prettier than Miss Granger, along with being a fellow champion, something Miss Granger can't claim. So could there be something to the anonymous source from inside Hogwarts claiming the muggleborn is using a love potion to keep the Boy-Who-Lived and youngest TriWizard champion trapped with her? It would certainly seem to be supported by what one of the girls at Hogwarts had to say.

"She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, 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. In the meantime, Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that he can break through this enchantment, and next time bestow his heart on a worthier candidate.

~HP~

Harry and Hermione looked up at each other, barely able to keep from bursting out laughing. It was the most ridiculous thing either of them had ever read.

But before they could actually collect themselves enough to say anything about it to each other, they heard a voice from behind them hiss, "I told you! I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of — of scarlet woman!"

Hermione burst out laughing, before turning around to look at the redhead.

"Scarlet woman?" she snorted, shaking with suppressed giggles. "Seriously, Ron?"

"It's what my mum calls them," Ron growled back at her, offended at what he perceived to be an insult about his mother.

"Well, if that's the best Rita can do, she's lost her touch, along with possibly her mind," replied Hermione, as she rolled up Witch Weekly and stuck it back in her bag to glance over the rest of later. "What a laugh."

She then looked across the hall at the gang of Slytherins who'd given her the article, and who were once again watching her and Harry closely to see if they had been upset by the article. She gave them a sarcastic smile and wave. Then turning back to Harry, she asked him what he thought they should do the next day in Hogsmeade, giving the article no more of her time.

But the article, unfortunately, wasn't done giving her any more of its time. Three days later, as Harry and Hermione were finishing up breakfast and watching the owl post fly in, waiting on her daily copy of the Prophet, a grey owl followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny all landed at her plate, where Harry just barely saved her goblet of orange juice from getting knocked over in all the jostling. But none of them were carrying the Daily Prophet.

Hermione gave Harry a curious look before opening the letter from the gray owl. As she read it, her eyebrows rose slightly, before she rolled her eyes and handed the letter over to Harry to read saying, "People are such sheep — believing completely unsupported claims about people they don't know anything about or have any connection to."

Harry took the letter from her and read, YOU ARE A WICKED GIRL. HARRY POTTER DESERVES BETTER. GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM MUGGLE.

"The rest the same?" asked Harry as he set it back down on the table.

"Yep — 'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you….', 'You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn….'," began Hermione, before exclaiming, "Ouch!"

The last envelope she'd opened contained undiluted bubotuber pus, and her hands erupted in large yellow boils.

"Quick — get to the hospital wing!" exclaimed Harry. "I'll tell Professor Sprout what happened."

Harry had just begun gathering up the letters to toss in first fire he came across, when Ron sat down next to him and said pompously, "I warned her! I warned her not to annoy Rita Skeeter! Look at this one..." he said grabbing one of the letters out of the pile, and reading it out loud: "I read in Witch Weekly about how you are playing Harry Potter false and that boy has had enough hardship and I will be sending you a curse by next post as soon as I can find a big enough envelope.' "

Snatching the letter away from the redhead, Harry stuffed them all down in his bag (except the one with the pus, which he just left on the table for someone with actual authority to take care of), and said, "Why are you so obsessed with Hermione's fight with Rita? It's not like it affects you in any way."

And then he grabbed his bag up and strode out of the Great Hall towards the greenhouses, not giving Ron any chance to reply.

Herbology was a lonely affair without his best friend and plant partner, and he spent most of the class hoping she was okay — Madam Pomfrey was usually quite quick about healing injuries, no matter how extensive. But eventually the bell finally rung, and he headed down towards Hagrid's hut praying she'd be along soon.

As he walked past the stone steps coming down from the castle, Pansy, who was descending with the rest of the Snake Nest, caught sight of him and shouted, "Potter, have you split up with your girlfriend? Why was she so upset at breakfast?"

"You really have no human decency, do you?" replied Harry, disappointedly shaking his head, even though inside he felt like replicating what Hermione had done to Draco the year before for Pansy's part in sending Hermione to the hospital wing with her quote to Rita — and speaking of Rita, he wouldn't mind slapping her as well, or at least charging her in the Wizengamot as an accessory to assault and possibly attempted murder, or something along those lines, for her article that had led to all this. But as that unfortunately wasn't actually feasible as a fourteen year old, or in the magical world in general, he simply continued on, "And my girlfriend isn't the least bit upset with me — you, on the other hand, might want to ask your pal Malfoy what happens when someone pisses off the brightest witch of the age."

As Draco visibly shuddered in remembrance of the humiliation he'd suffered at the hand of the mudblood, Harry turned his back on them and continued walking down to Hagrid's like nothing had happened. But as the Snakes walked up to where Harry was already waiting for class to begin a few minutes later, he saw Draco and Pansy arguing in a whisper, and guessed that Draco had never informed his girlfriend of his getting slapped into tomorrow by Hermione the year before. Unfortunately, this did nothing to keep him from starting to get seriously worried about Hermione when she still wasn't back from the hospital wing as Care of Magical Creatures class began.

But at the very end of class, he finally spotted her walking across the grounds towards them from the castle. As she walked up, he noticed her hands were heavily scared and looked very sore based on how gingerly she was holding them. He also noticed Pansy Parkinson watching her beadily, though whether out of fear that she might be next on Hermione's slap list, or gloating because of the injury she'd caused the smarter, prettier girl, Harry wasn't positive — and he knew it was possibly both.

While Harry helped Hagrid put the nifflers in their cages after class was over, and Hermione stood nearby watching them, Hagrid looked over at her and asked, "What yeh done ter your hands, Hermione?"

Hermione explained to the half-giant all about the Witch Weekly article, and the hate mail she'd received that morning because of it, including the envelope with bubotuber pus in it.

"Aaah, don' worry," replied Hagrid, causing Harry to bristle slightly, as he felt it was very much something worth worrying over when people started sending you poisoned letters. But Hagrid continued on, "I got some o' those letters an all, after Rita Skeeter wrote about me mum. 'Yeh're a monster an yeh should be put down.' 'Yer mother killed innocent people an if you had any decency you'd jump in a lake' — things like that."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hagrid!" exclaimed Hermione, always thinking about others before herself. "I knew you said you'd gotten letters from people who wanted you gone, but I didn't realize just how mean people could be to complete strangers until seeing what I got the mail I got this morning!"

"I' is wha' i' is, and yeh two helped me realize something, Hermione," said Hagrid as he stacked up the niffler cages against the wall of his cabin. "And tha' is tha' they're jus' nutters, Hermione. Don' open 'em if yeh get any more. Chuck 'em straigh' in the fire."

And that is what Hermione promised to Harry is exactly what she would do with all the letters that they both knew would continue coming for the near future as they walked up to the Great Hall for lunch.

But no sooner had they sat down to eat, than Ron thudded into the seat across from them, looking thoroughly put out.

"Why didn't you tell me about the gold?" he demanded.

"What gold?" asked Harry in confusion. He couldn't remember ever talking about gold with the redhead.

"The gold I gave you at the Quidditch World Cup," said Ron. "The leprechaun gold I gave you for my Omnioculars. In the Top Box. Why didn't you tell me it disappeared?"

It still took Harry several seconds to remember what on earth Ron was talking about.

"Oh. Um…because I completely forgot about it?" replied Harry when he finally did. "In case you forgot, there was a Quidditch World Cup match, I lost my wand, and then someone let off Voldemort's mark with my wand. Gold, or lack thereof, was pretty low on my list of concerns that night."

After wincing at Voldemort's name like always, Ron growled, "Must be nice — to have so much money you don't notice if a pocketful of Galleons goes missing."

Harry just rolled his eyes, knowing nothing he could say would make Ron any less jealous or understand that Harry would much rather be poor with his parents than rich without them.

After a while, Ron muttered as much to himself as to Harry, "I didn't know leprechaun gold vanishes. I thought I was paying you back. I hate being poor."

"Forget it — seriously," said Harry. "It was a gift — gifts aren't meant to be paid back, anyway. They're gifts."

Ron continued to mutter to himself throughout the rest of lunch, but Harry and Hermione just tuned his whining out, Hermione telling Harry everything Madam Pomfrey had done to get her hands back to the reasonably usable condition they were currently in.

Hate mail, probably including more bioterrorism, continued arriving for Hermione over the next few weeks, but good to her promise to Harry, she gathered it all up each morning and threw it all in a fire as soon as she had the chance each day. But many of her haters had upgraded from regular hate mail to Howlers, which screamed their displeasure for the entire Hall to hear — not that everyone in the castle hadn't already heard the contents of the article from the Slytherins screaming their own heads off about it to everyone interested in hearing or not, so it didn't really make any difference.

It took all of two days for Harry and Hermione to get sick and tired of having to tell people that no, Hermione was not in fact assaulting and kidnapping him by making him infatuated with her using a love potion (though oddly enough, no one except the muggleborns actually seemed to realize that it would be assault and mental kidnapping if she really was using a love potion), and that no, he had no romantic interest in Fleur whatsoever, no matter how pretty he did think she was, and how much time he and Hermione spent hanging out with her now that they'd become friends after he'd saved her younger sister's life in the second task.

"Not that you'd actually know that if I really was love potioning you, as the love potion would make you think you really did only have feelings for me and not for Fleur who you really had feelings for," commented Hermione to Harry one evening towards the end of the first week as they sat in front of fire on the couch in the Gryffindor common room. "That's the pure evil of love potions, and why it's completely despicable that they aren't entirely banned from any use, ever, by anyone — the only way for a victim to realize they have been kidnapped and are being raped is to stop being given the love potion, or else to be given a bad batch that doesn't work properly. It's essentially the perfect crime if you can keep it up — and people like Mrs Weasley and Ginny giggle about Mrs Weasley having made it when she was a young girl."

The one good thing about the article, however, was that it gave Harry and Hermione something to joke about when they hung out with Fleur. The veela loved teasing Harry about supposedly being madly head over heels in love with her but unable to express it because he was being potioned by Hermione, something Hermione had no hesitation in encouraging when they were together. Additionally, since no one actually really knew the Beauxbatons, and she was a champion and veela on top of that, no one bothered her about the rumor that Harry really loved her, so she didn't have to suffer the abuse of anyone inside or outside the castle like Hermione did.

Eventually, people finally got bored with the whole story, both adult haters outside the castle and fellow students inside, until like every other story that had ever been told and rumor that had ever been spread about Harry, this article faded into the background as well, and Harry and Hermione's lives returned to as normal as they ever were at Hogwarts.

~HP~

But Rita's article did still have one last act of vengeance to try to inflict on Hermione at Easter.

Towards the end of the Easter holiday, Harry and Hermione were sitting in the Great Hall eating breakfast, when they saw a large package being delivered by Errol to Ron where he sat a little bit down the table from them. As they watched him open it, they saw him pull out three chocolate eggs: two the size of dragon eggs and no doubt filled with homemade sweets like past years, and one smaller than a chicken egg.

He also pulled out a letter from inside the package that he quickly read over, before he stuffed it back in the wrappings, mumble something to himself that sounded to Harry and Hermione a lot like, "What they don't know won't hurt them."

"That seems like a lot of candy for one person, even if it is Mrs Weasley giving it to her son," commented Harry as he watched Ron hurriedly stuff the eggs in his bag.

"Based on what he just said, I'm guessing the other big one was supposed to be for you, and the tiny one for me," replied Hermione.

"Why wouldn't she give you one the same size as me, if she's giving either of us one at all?" asked Harry, confused. "And also, why would she be sending us anything since we're no longer friends with Ron?"

"Because she read the Witch Weekly article about me dating you, and the completely unsubstantiated claims that I'm poisoning you to do so," answered Hermione. "Remember what Ron said right after Christmas, about her wanting you for Ginny and me for Ron? You and I dating completely fouls up both of those plans. As for sending us anything at all, she probably still assumes we're friends with Ron — as I doubt Ron told her he's failed in his mission to befriend you, Ginny isn't going to admit that her only real connection to you — Ron's friendship — is gone, and the twins are smart enough to know to let their mum believe whatever she wants to believe."

"Oh. Okay, that all makes sense," replied Harry. "But shouldn't she at least give you a few points for the rumor that you're using a love potion to do so, when she made them herself as a girl?"

Hermione let out a wry chuckle. "Love potions are fine for her, and maybe Ginny to use — but certainly not for any girl taking her poor Harry away from her, or for any guy using the love potion on Ginny to take her poor Ginny away from her. Bluntly put, she's a giant hypocrite — like saying she's all for muggleborns and disagrees with other pureblood families that are anti-muggleborn, while still hating werewolves and part-giants and cross-species like that. Rules for thee, not for me."