Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's except Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.
Chapter 15-On the Outs Again
Harry didn't come back until later that night. I still wasn't quite sure what to think about all of it, except for the fact that one of my best friends was going to be apart of a dangerous life-threatening tournament, and that there's nothing that I can do to help him, so all in all a sucky feeling.
All of Gryffindor is lounging around the common room waiting for Harry to return. I'm not sure what the predominant feeling is yet anger or excitement. When the portrait hole opens up to let Harry in all hell breaks loose.
Harry is being wrenched inside the common room by about a dozen pairs of hands, and is facing the whole of Gryffindor House, all of whom are screaming, applauding, and whistling.
"You should've told us you'd entered!" bellows Fred; he looks half annoyed, half deeply impressed.
"How did you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!" roars George.
"I didn't," Harry says. "I don't know how —"
But Angelina has now swooped down upon him; "Oh if it couldn't be me, at least it's a Gryffindor —"
"You'll be able to pay back Diggory for that last Quidditch match, Harry!" shrieks Katie Bell, another of the Gryffindor Chasers.
"We've got food, Harry, come and have some —"
"I'm not hungry, I had enough at the feast —"
I watch as Harry slowly gets more agitated as time goes on. Everyone wants to know how he got his name in the goblet. I am curious about that as well, but there is something wrong with this whole picture. Finally Harry breaks. He declares that he's going to bed, but I have to talk to him before that happens.
I get up from my place in one of the chairs and weave over to my friend grabbing him by the arm before he can reach the steps. "I told you— Jamie!" Harry cries a relieved look spreading across his face at the sight of me.
"Are you all right Harry?" I ask him seriously. It only takes me a second to judge by his relieved look that he is not holding up so well.
"You're the first person to ask me that through all this." Harry says shakily. I bite my lip and give him a long look.
"Just tell me Harry. You didn't put you're name in the goblet right? Please tell me that you didn't." I say searching the face of one of my closest friends. Harry looks me in the eye and sighs.
"I didn't do it. I promise you that Jamie. Dumbledore has a theory, but not tonight. I just need to pretend that all of this didn't just happen for a little while." Harry tells me exhaustedly. I nod my head and release his arm slowly.
"I don't know what it is about you exactly Potter that seems to attract danger. You're like a bad penny, maybe I should get rid of you." I muse softly. Harry grins at me disparagingly.
"Well that's the thing about bad pennies Jamie, you never can seem to git rid of them— no matter how hard you try." He says, and with that turns and finally climbs up the stairs to his dorm. I blow out a long breath of air and shake my head. I couldn't just have one normal year at school. I guess that really was just too much to ask.
I make my way up to my dorm and when I get into the room I check on Hermione to see if she's still up. I know that she was upset about all this. I just hope that she's okay after all of this. I have a feeling that the four of us are going to have to be a united front in all of this, and right now it looks like Ron's going to be a problem.
Early next morning a frantic Hermione wakes me up. She's totally freaking out about how Harry will feel when he goes down to the Great Hall for breakfast. My stomach turns just at the thought of having to face all those people after such a public event as the one that happened last night.
"Let's just get him some breakfast then. That way he can avoid the crowds for a little while longer. I know that I'd hate it if I were in his shoes." I say with a shudder. So after quickly dressing Hermione and I hurried down to the Great Hall to get some breakfast us, and some for Harry.
"I still can't believe that really happened last night. I mean— we've been with Harry almost constantly so there is no way that he could have done that, so how did his name get in the goblet?" Hermione puzzles chewing furiously on a piece of toast. I shrug my shoulders and push around my porridge.
Ron is a few seats down but we're ignoring him at the moments since he's being a right awful git to practically everyone at the moment.
"Who knows? All that really matters is that he's in the tournament now for better or for worse. What we should really be worrying about is keeping him alive to see next year." I say grimly. Hermione blanches at the thought.
Hermione grabs a few pieces of toast, and I manage to transfigure a napkin into a cup so that I can bring him some pumpkin juice as well, and we start back up the stairs to the tower. We're barely back at the portrait when it swings open, and Harry comes barreling out like he's being chased by Fluffy the hellhound back in first year.
"Hello," Hermione says, holding up a stack of toast, which she is carrying in a napkin. "We brought you this. . . . Want to go for a walk?"
"Good idea," says Harry gratefully.
We go downstairs, cross the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and are soon striding across the lawn towards the lake, where the Durmstrang ship is moored, reflected blackly in the water. It is a chilly morning, and we keep moving, Harry munching his toast, as he tells Hermione and me exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before. To his immense relief, Hermione and I accept his story without question.
"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," she says when he's finished telling us about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody's right, Harry . . . I don't think any student could have done it . . . they'd never be able to fool the goblet, or get over Dumbledore's —"
"Have you seen Ron?" Harry interrupts. Hermione hesitates and I scoff.
"Erm . . . yes . . . he was at breakfast," she says.
"Does he still think I entered myself?"
"Well . . . no, I don't think so . . . not really," says Hermione awkwardly.
"What's that supposed to mean, 'not really'?"
"Oh Harry, isn't it obvious?" I say despairingly. "He's jealous!"
"Jealous?" Harry says incredulously. "Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of himself in front of the whole school, does he?"
"Look," says Hermione patiently, "it's always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it's not your fault," she adds quickly, seeing Harry open his mouth furiously. "I know you don't ask for it . . . but — well — you know, Ron's got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you're his best friend, and you're really famous — he's always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many. . . ."
I understand where Ron's coming from but this is really not the time to have this sort of a breakdown. I just hope that this one will end quickly for I hate being put in the middle of these fights between my friends.
"Great," says Harry bitterly. "Really great. Tell him from me I'll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me he's welcome to it. . . . People gawping at my forehead everywhere I go. . . ."
"I'm not telling him anything," Hermione says shortly. "Tell him yourself. It's the only way to sort this out."
"Ditto for me as well Harry. I'm not an owl and I never want to learn what its like to be one." I tell him seriously.
"I'm not running around after him trying to make him grow up!" Harry says, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree take flight in alarm. "Maybe he'll believe I'm not enjoying myself once I've got my neck broken or —"
I wince. "That's not funny," says Hermione quietly. "That's not funny at all." She looks extremely anxious. "Harry, I've been thinking — you know what we've got to do, don't you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?"
"Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the —"
"Write to Sirius. You've got to tell him what's happened. He asked you to keep him posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. . . . It's almost as if he expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill out with me —"
"Come off it," says Harry, looking around to check that we can't be overheard, but the grounds are quite deserted. "He came back to the country just because my scar twinged. He'll probably come bursting right into the castle if I tell him someone's entered me in the Triwizard Tournament —"
"He'd want you to tell him," says Hermione sternly. "He's going to find out anyway —"
"How?"
"Harry, this isn't going to be kept quiet," I say exasperated. "This tournament's famous, and you're famous. I'll be really surprised if there isn't anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing. . . . You're already in half the books about You-Know-Who, you know . . . and Sirius would rather hear it from you, I know he would."
"Okay, okay, I'll write to him," says Harry, throwing his last piece of toast into the lake. We stand and watch it floating there for a moment, before a large tentacle rises out of the water and scoops it beneath the surface. Then we return to the castle.
"Whose owl am I going to use?" Harry asks as they climb the stairs. "He told me not to use Hedwig again."
"You can borrow Dionysus. He's a good owl and has good stamina. Besides it's not like I really use him all that much. Molly's really the only person who sends me letters." I tell him.
Hermione and I wait while harry scrawls out a letter to Sirius. When he's done, I whistle three short notes, and Dionysus swoops down with Hedwig by her side. Di lands on my shoulder and nips at my ear playfully. I grin softly at my owl. I really have missed spending time with him since I've gotten back to school. Looking between him and Hedwig though, I'd say that he's not lacking for company.
Harry shoos Hedwig away and I attach his letter to Sirius on Di's foot. With a soft hoot Dionysus takes off into the air and I shake my head with a sigh. I have a feeling that this is going to be a really long week.
Monday turns out to not be so good for Harry. The whole school seems to be going along the line of the Gryffindors with thinking that Harry somehow managed to get his name into the goblet. Unlike the rest of our house though, the rest are not as impressed with this deed.
The Hufflepuffs, who are usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, have turned remarkably cold towards the whole lot of us. One Herbology lesson is enough to demonstrate this. It is plain that the Hufflepuffs feel that Harry has stolen their champion's glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff House very rarely gets any glory, and that Cedric is one of the few who have ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch.
This class is one that I share with Ariana and the silence is beginning to kill me since we're partnered together. She's never this silent with me. "W-we're still friends correct?" I ask hesitantly chancing a look at the blond Hufflepuff beside me. Ariana Dumbledore looks up Bouncing bulb in front of her to look at me.
"What would make you ask that?" She questions softly. I bite my lip and push my bulb deep down into the soil of the pot in front of me.
"You usually talk to me… even when I don't really want to. So— yeah I'm wondering if we're still friends especially since everyone in your house now hates mine." I explain. Ariana turns her attention back to her pot for a second before sighing.
"I want you to listen carefully Pendragon for I'm only going to say this once. I don't care what the rest of my house thinks. You're my friend Jamie and have been so long before I've ever been a Hufflepuff. You mean more to me then stupid house rivalries, and I know personally that Harry couldn't have put his name into the goblet himself. So really this all is quite stupid and childish." She says.
I raise my eyebrow at her whole big speech. "Does that put your worries to rest?" She asks. I shift and pat down the soil on my pot.
"Yeah… that's good 'cause I happen to kinda like having you as a friend." I say grabbing another bouncing bulb. Ariana chuckles from beside me.
"I kinda like you as a friend too Jamie." She tells me, and right there a lot of my stress and worry leaves knowing that at least there's someone else who's on our side (and it doesn't hurt to still have Ariana as well).
At least I'm not poor Hermione. Ron isn't talking to Harry. So Hermione sits between them, making very forced conversation, but though both answer her normally, they avoid making eye contact with each other.
Care of Magical Creatures isn't going to be any better since we have it with the Slytherins.
Predictably, Malfoy arrives at Hagrid's cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place. "Ah, look, boys, it's the champion," he says to Crabbe and Goyle the moment he gets within earshot of Harry. "Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he's going to be around much longer. . . . Half the Triwizard champions have died . . . how long d'you reckon you're going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task's my bet."
Crabbe and Goyle guffaw sycophantically, but Malfoy has to stop there, because Hagrid emerges from the back of his cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class's horror, Hagrid proceeds to explain that the reason the skrewts have been killing one another is an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution will be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan is that it distracts Malfoy completely and saves him (unfortunately) from having my fist in his face.
"Take this thing for a walk?" he repeats in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. "And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?"
"Roun' the middle," says Hagrid, demonstrating. "Er — yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus' as an extra precaution, like. Harry — you come here an' help me with this big one. . . ."
As I pill on my gloves I eye Hagrid and Harry carefully. I'm worried about Harry truthfully and from the look on Hermione's face she is as well. We both wrestle with two of our own skrewts.
The skrewts are now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they have developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They look like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs — but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They have become immensely strong and very hard to control.
"Okay stinky it's just you and me now. So lets go over some ground rules. You're allowed to blow up only if Malfoy is near so that we can accidentally set his robes on fire. Deal?" I whisper to the creature. I get a small snorting sound in return so that's good enough for me.
With a small smirk I get up and start walking the creature like a dog.
The next few days are hard on Harry. He doesn't have Ron by his side and no matter how much Hermione and I are there for him its not the same. Harry has hoped that the Ravenclaws would be on his side but that's not the case. Most Ravenclaws seem to think that he had been desperate to earn himself a bit more fame by tricking the goblet into accepting his name.
Then there was the fact that Cedric looks the part of a champion so much more than he does. Exceptionally handsome, with his straight nose, dark hair, and gray eyes, it is hard to say who is receiving more admiration these days, Cedric or Viktor Krum. I actually see the same sixth-year girls who had been so keen to get Krum's autograph begging Cedric to sign their school bags one lunchtime.
This was getting to be out of control. So of course that leads me to cornering my brother in the hallway between passing periods. He had seen me coming and judging from the look on his face he knows what I want to talk about. He waves his friends on ahead of him, and when they pass me I'm greeted by scowls.
I roll my eyes at them and come to a stop in front of my brother. "Hey Jamie." He says. I glare at him not even bothering with the small talk.
"Are you seriously thinking that Harry actually put his name in the goblet? Even Ariana knows that he couldn't have." I say cutting to the chase. Luka sighs and shakes his head tiredly at me.
"I'm not daft Jamie of course I know that. Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell that but my housemates are just getting caught up in the moment that's all. Look I'll try talking to some of them later but Harry's just going to have to hold on. There's really not all that much that we can do." Luka says.
I let out a shaky breath and nod my head reluctantly. "Yeah I know… it just sucks is all." I tell him.
"Well you guys just hang in there, besides its just one year. Anything can happen in it." He says turning and starting down the hall to his next class. After a second I look and the time and hurry off to my class as well.
Professor Trelawney is predicting Harry's death with even more certainty than usual, and he does so badly at Summoning Charms in Professor Flitwick's class that he is given extra homework — the only person to get any, apart from Neville.
"It's really not that difficult, Harry," Hermione tries to reassure him as we leave Flitwick's class — Hermione and I had been making objects zoom across the room to us all lesson, as though we were some sort of weird magnet for board dusters, wastepaper baskets, and lunascopes. "You just weren't concentrating properly —"
"I know you have a lot on your mind right now its okay to struggle a little." I reassure him thinking of how I was last year when I was having trouble with my friends.
"Wonder why that was," says Harry darkly as Cedric Diggory walks past, surrounded by a large group of simpering girls, all of whom look at Harry as though he is a particularly large Blast-Ended Skrewt. "Still — never mind, eh? Double Potions to look forward to this afternoon. . . ."
Double Potions is always a horrible experience, but these days it is nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Snape and the Slytherins, all of whom seem determined to punish Harry as much as possible for daring to become school champion, is about the most unpleasant thing I can imagine. Harry has already struggled through one Friday's worth, with Hermione and me sitting next to him intoning "ignore them, ignore them, ignore them" under her breath, and I can't see why today should be any better.
I really wish that Ron would hurry up and get his head out of his arse and start being a friend to Harry again for this is ridiculous.
When he and Hermione, and I arrive at Snape's dungeon after lunch, we find the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment I think they are S.P.E.W. badges — then I see that they all bear the same message, in luminous red letters that burn brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
Support Cedric Diggory— The Real Hogwarts Champion!
"Like them, Potter?" says Malfoy loudly as Harry approaches. "And this isn't all they do — look!"
He presses his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanishes, to be replaced by another one, which glows green:
Potter Stinks!
The Slytherins howl with laughter. Each of them press their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS is shining brightly all around Harry. This is not going to be good and this whole situation is going too far.
"Oh very funny," Hermione says sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who are laughing harder than anyone, "really witty."
"Actually Hermione I rather think that's around their level of intelligence— that of a troll I mean." I quip. All the girls stop laughing and glare at me threateningly.
Ron is standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus. He isn't laughing, but he isn't sticking up for Harry either. I'm going to beat some sense into him sooner or later.
"Want one, Granger?" says Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."
Oh that's it he's dead. Harry reaches for his wand before me though. People all around us scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.
"Harry!" Hermione says warningly.
"Go on, then, Potter," Malfoy says quietly, drawing out his own wand. "Moody's not here to look after you now — do it, if you've got the guts —"
For a split second, they look into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both act.
"Furnunculus!" Harry yells.
"Densaugeo!" screams Malfoy.
Jets of light shoot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricochet off at angles — Harry's hits Goyle in the face, and Malfoy's hits Hermione. Goyle bellows and puts his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils are springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, is clutching her mouth.
"Hermione!" Ron hurries forward to see what is wrong with her; I turn and see Ron dragging Hermione's hand away from her face. It isn't a pretty sight. Hermione's front teeth — already larger than average — are now growing at an alarming rate; she is looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongate, past her bottom lip, towards her chin — panic-stricken, she feels them and lets out a terrified cry.
I quickly rush forward unclasping my cloak and holding it over the bottom part of her face so no one can see. That's the least that I can do for my friend. I attempt to calm her down as well. "And what is all this noise about?" says a soft, deadly voice.
Snape has arrived. The Slytherins clamor to give their explanations; Snape points a long yellow finger at Malfoy and says, "Explain."
"Potter attacked me, sir —"
"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouts.
"— and he hit Goyle — look —" Snape examins Goyle, whose face now resembles something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. I think that its actually an improvement from the original look.
"Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape says calmly.
"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron says. "Look!" He forces Hermione to show Snape her teeth they're now going past her collar and I will kill Ron for this later. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls are doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back. Ron will come just as soon as I dispose of their bodies.
Snape looks coldly at Hermione, then says, "I see no difference." Hermione lets out a whimper; her eyes fill with tears, she turns on her heel and runs, all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
It is lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron start shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echo so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it is impossible for him to hear exactly what they are calling him. He gets the gist, however.
"Let's see," he says, in his silkiest voice. "Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside, or it'll be a week's worth of detentions."
I glare at Professor Snape and refuse to move from my spot holding my cloak in my hand. "Excuse me professor but I am feeling ill and shall be going to the hospital wing." I say not even bothering to wait to hear if he's actually going to let me leave.
I know that Madame Pomfrey would never let me stay there just to be there for Hermione so unfortunately I can't see her, but I couldn't stay another second in that class for I feel like I'm going to explode any second here. Snape and Malfoy just make me so mad. One is a smarmy weasel who should be taught a lesson and the other is a sorry excuse for a teacher.
So to cool down, I sneak up to Gryffindor tower and into the common room. I'm not alone as I had hoped that I would be though. Fred and George are there at one of the table hunched over something. Curiosity getting the better of me I wander over to the pair.
George looks up first. "Oi Jame, aren't you supposed to be in class?" He asks me not caring about the class but about me.
"Snape's a git and there was no way that I'd be able to sit through an entire class period with him without saying or doing something that I'd regret." I say simply.
Fred nods his head knowingly. "We've had those days as well. I know just the thing to make you feel better though Lady Jamie." He says with a wicked grin.
I feel a smile slowly slip onto my face as well. "Oh, and what would that happen to be?" I question.
"Planning a prank. Not just any old prank though, one that will be able to get the stuck up French kids and the dunderheads of the North as well." George pitches. I blink at them for a second before letting my own wicked grin through.
"What are we waiting for boys? We've got some chaos to plan!" I exclaim and lean over the papers that they have already set up at the table. This is just what I need to blow off some steam. If only this situation could be solved before I'm unable to control my temper anymore. One can hope I guess.