Monday's Herbology lesson was rather awkward. Hufflepuffs usually got along with everyone, including Gryffindors, but with Gryffindor stealing their thunder and having their own champion over Cedric, the whole house had turned cold to all Gryffindors. Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, with whom Harry normally got on very well, did not talk to him even though they were repotting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray — though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harry's grip and smacked him hard in the face. Ron wasn't talking to Harry either. Hermione and Skylar sat between them, Hermione making very forced conversation, but though both answered her normally, they avoided making eye contact with each other. Skylar didn't bother, there was really no use until Ron apologised.
Care of Magical Creatures wasn't any better, given the class was taken with the Slytherins.
Predictably, Draco arrived at Hagrid's cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place.
"Ah, look, boys, it's the champion," he said to Crabbe and Goyle the moment he got 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 guffawed sycophantically.
"Draco, can you not, please." Skylar asked exasperated. Everyone looked at her rather surprised, including Draco. Whether he'd chosen to listen to her, or because Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin, he didn't respond.
Hagrid was balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class's horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would 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 was that it distracted Draco completely.
"Take this thing for a walk?" he repeated 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," said 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…"
It didn't take a genius to know Hagrid wanted to talk to Harry about being a champion.
The skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colourless, they had developed a kind of thick, greyish, shiny armour, but still without recognisable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong and very hard to control.
It was not fun to walk the monsters. The skrewts were stronger and pulled them around the grass, what was worse was, every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts' ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet.
Things didn't improve for Harry over the next few days. Not only were the Hufflepuffs angry, and the Slytherins spiteful, but the Ravenclaws thought Harry had put his name in the goblet for attention, well, except for Stephen.
"Skylar said you didn't do it." He said when he confessed this to Harry, much to Harry's surprise. "And she knows you better than anyone, doesn't she?"
Then there was the fact that Cedric looked the part of a champion so much more than Harry did. Exceptionally handsome, with his straight nose, dark hair, and grey eyes, it was hard to say who was receiving more admiration these days, Cedric or Viktor Krum. Harry actually saw the same sixth-year girls who had been so keen to get Krum's autograph begging Cedric to sign their school bags one lunchtime.
Meanwhile there was no reply from Sirius, Hedwig hadn't returned from the Rosenwalds, which may have been due to the owl's anger at Harry, and apparently Professor Trelawney was predicting his death with even more certainty than usual, and he did so badly at Summoning Charms in Professor Flitwick's class that he was given extra homework — the only person to get any, apart from Neville.
"It's really not that difficult, Harry," Hermione tried to reassure him as they left Flitwick's class — she had been making objects zoom across the room to her all lesson, as though she were some sort of weird magnet for board dusters, wastepaper baskets, and lunascopes. "You just weren't concentrating properly —"
"Wonder why that was," said Harry darkly as Cedric Diggory walked past, surrounded by a large group of simpering girls, all of whom looked at Harry as though he were a particularly large Blast-Ended Skrewt. "Still — never mind, eh? Double Potions to look forward to this afternoon…"
"You really shouldn't torture yourself like that." Skylar sighed.
Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but these days it was nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Snape and the Slytherins, all of whom seemed determined to punish Harry as much as possible for daring to become school champion, was about the most unpleasant thing so far. Not only that, but Hermione sat next to Harry intoning "ignore them, ignore them, ignore them" under her breath. It was unlikely today would be any better.
When Harry, Skylar and Hermione arrived at Snape's dungeon after lunch, they found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. They all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
Support Cedric Diggory —
The REAL Hogwarts Champion!
Skylar scowled.
"Like them, Potter?" said Draco loudly as Harry approached. "And this isn't all they do — look!"
He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green:
POTTER STINKS
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry.
"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, "really witty."
Ron was standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus. He wasn't laughing, but he wasn't sticking up for Harry either.
"Here Sky." Draco grinned, "Got one specially for you." Skylar glared so hard that Draco's grin dropped and there was a moment before she took the badge, pulled out her wand and with a mutter, the entire thing exploded in her hand.
Many of the Slytherins looked at her surprised, it wasn't normally Skylar that got angry like that.
"Want one, Granger?" said Draco, holding out a badge to Hermione, glancing at Skylar. "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."
Harry had suddenly reached for his wand before he'd thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.
"Harry!" Hermione said warningly.
"Go on, then, Potter," Draco said 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 looked into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted.
"Furnunculus!" Harry yelled.
"Densaugeo!" screamed Malfoy.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles — Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Draco's hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.
"Hermione!"
Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Ron dragged Hermione's hand away from her face. It wasn't a pretty sight. Hermione's front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.
"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice.
Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamoured to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Draco and said, "Explain."
"Potter attacked me, sir —"
"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.
"— and he hit Goyle — look —"
Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. "Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly.
"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "Look!"
He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back.
Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, "I see no difference."
Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron started shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however.
Skylar was glaring at Snape, that was just unnecessary.
"Let's see," he said, 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."
Skylar grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him into the dungeon, Ron with them. In his anger, Harry slammed his bag down onto the table. Ron was shaking with anger too — for a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them, but then Ron turned and sat down with Dean and Seamus instead, leaving Harry with Skylar. On the other side of the dungeon, Draco turned his back on Snape and pressed his badge, smirking. POTTER STINKS flashed once more across the room.
Skylar pulled her wand out. "Accio." The badge pulled from Draco's shirt and into her hand. "Flipendo." It smashed into pieces, and her wand was gone, along with all the evidence, before Draco could utter a word.
She simply watched Snape.
"Antidotes!" said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. "You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one…"
Snape's eyes met Harry's, Snape was going to poison him.
And then there was a knock on the dungeon door.
It was Colin Creevey; he edged into the room, beaming at Harry, and walked up to Snape's desk at the front of the room.
"Yes?" said Snape curtly.
"Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs."
Snape stared down his hooked nose at Colin, whose smile faded from his eager face.
"Potter has another hour of Potions to complete," said Snape coldly. "He will come upstairs when this class is finished."
Colin went pink.
"Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him," he said nervously. "All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs…"
Skylar sighed, Colin had to say those words, didn't he. She looked at Harry, but he was watching Ron, who was staring determinedly at the ceiling.
"Very well, very well," Snape snapped. "Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote."
"Please, sir — he's got to take his things with him," squeaked Colin. "All the champions —"
"Very well!" said Snape. "Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!"
Harry swung his bag over his shoulder, got up with a glance at Skylar, who shrugged, and headed for the door. As he walked through the Slytherin desks, POTTER STINKS flashed at him from every direction.
Skylar turned to Ron who glanced at her and she turned away from him with a glare.
As everyone began to brew their antidotes, Skylar set herself up at her table but stopped before looking up at Draco, he was whispering to Professor Snape who turned and looked at her.
"Rosenwald, up the front."
Skylar took a deep breath, and moved over to one of the Slytherin tables by the front. Draco worked at the table with Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy. She walked right up to the pig faced girl and smiled.
"You're in my way." She said,
Pansy scoffed before Draco nudged her. She gaped at him looking offended and he shot her a look. Upset and angry, Pansy stormed towards her girls with all her things and Skylar placed her cauldron where hers had been.
That had cheered her up somewhat.
"What do you want?" She asked with a sigh as she began to brew her potion.
"You just looked a little lonely."
"Wouldn't be if you hadn't been a prick." She said simply.
Draco scowled at her.
"After all, you are the one starting the fights, it's not like Harry goes out of his way to talk to you."
"Well it's not like there's much time left for him anyway." Draco said, Crabbe and Goyle snickering.
Skylar looked up at him and he paused at the expression on her face, annoyed and confused.
"Tell me, do you want me to hate you, like Harry does?" Skylar asked. Draco's expression dropped. "I mean, is that your goal, to have me shoot spells at you and call you a git and never ever want to see your face, or be within the vicinity of you? Because forcing me to your table and childly hurting my friends is a really good way to get such results."
Draco didn't talk to her for the rest of the lesson and at the end of it she left without a word.