By breakfast the next day Ron's and Hermione's bad moods had burnt out, and to Harry's relief, Ron's dark predictions that the house-elves would send substandard food up to the Gryffindor table because Hermione had insulted them proved false; the bacon, eggs, and kippers were quite as good as usual.
"They're not going to punish all the students and disappoint Dumbledore because they were offended." Skylar said. "That wouldn't be the mark of a good house elf now would it," she put on a voice to imitate a house elf, earning a smirk from Harry and a huff from Hermione as Ron had food in his mouth.
When the post owls arrived, Hermione looked up eagerly; she seemed to be expecting something.
"Percy won't've had time to answer yet," said Ron. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."
"No, it's not that," said Hermione. "I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."
"Good thinking!" said Harry, also looking up at the owls. "Hey, Hermione, I think you're in luck —"
A grey owl was soaring down toward Hermione.
"It hasn't got a newspaper, though," she said, looking disappointed. "It's —"
But to her bewilderment, the grey owl landed in front of her plate, closely followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny.
"How many subscriptions did you take out?" said Harry, seizing Hermione's goblet before it was knocked over by the cluster of owls, all of whom were jostling close to her, trying to deliver their own letter first.
"Do you suddenly have a fan base for something we don't know about?" Skylar frowned.
"What on earth — ?" Hermione said, taking the letter from the grey owl, opening it, and starting to read. "Oh really!" she sputtered, going rather red.
"What's up?" said Ron.
"It's — oh how ridiculous —"
She thrust the letter at Harry, who read it before passing it to Skylar. It was not handwritten, but composed from pasted letters that seemed to have been cut out of the Daily Prophet.
You are a WickEd giRL. HarRy PotTER desErves BeTteR. GO back wherE you cAMe from mUGgle.
Skylar frowned and passed it on to Ron as Hermione was opening more letters.
"They're all like it!" said Hermione desperately, opening one letter after another. " 'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you…' 'You deserve to be boiled in frogspawn…' Ouch!" She had opened the last envelope, and yellowish-green liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushed over her hands, which began to erupt in large yellow boils.
"Undiluted bubotuber pus!" said Ron, picking up the envelope gingerly and sniffing it.
"Jeez, extreme much?" Skylar frowned.
"Ow!" said Hermione, tears starting in her eyes as she tried to rub the pus off her hands with a napkin, but her fingers were now so thickly covered in painful sores that it looked as though she were wearing a pair of thick, knobbly gloves.
"You'd better get up to the hospital wing," said Harry as the owls around Hermione took flight. "We'll tell Professor Sprout where you've gone. . . ."
"I warned her!" said Ron as Hermione hurried out of the Great Hall, cradling her hands. "I warned her not to annoy Rita Skeeter! Look at this one…" He read out one of the letters Hermione had left behind: " '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.' Blimey, she'd better watch out for herself."
"Well, at least there's one thing." Skylar said, turning to Harry. "There are a lot of people who care for your emotional wellbeing and romantic lovelife."
Harry rolled his eyes.
"If Rita keeps going for a while, anyone who dates you better watch out." She looked a little worried as Harry's eyes slid over to the Ravenclaw table.
Hermione didn't turn up for Herbology. As Harry, Skylar and Ron left the greenhouse for their Care of Magical Creatures class, they saw Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle descending the stone steps of the castle. Pansy Parkinson was whispering and giggling behind them with her gang of Slytherin girls. Catching sight of Harry, Pansy called, "Potter, have you split up with your girlfriend? Why was she so upset at breakfast?"
Harry ignored her; he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how much trouble the Witch Weekly article had caused.
Hagrid, who had told them last lesson that they had finished with unicorns, was waiting for them outside his cabin with a fresh supply of open crates at his feet. Skylar's curiosity peaked, though most looked worried at the sight of the crate. The skrewts had definitely stressed her classmates out. As they got nearer however they all were looking at a number of fluffy black creatures with long snouts. Their front paws were curiously flat, like spades, and they were blinking up at the class, looking politely puzzled at all the attention.
Skylar beamed, nifflers! "Oh how adorable." she found herself muttering.
"These're nifflers," said Hagrid, when the class had gathered around. "Yeh find 'em down mines mostly. They like sparkly stuff… There yeh go, look." One of the nifflers had suddenly leapt up and attempted to bite Pansy Parkinson's watch off her wrist. She shrieked and jumped backward.
"Useful little treasure detectors," said Hagrid happily. "Thought we'd have some fun with 'em today. See over there?" He pointed at the large patch of freshly turned earth Harry and Skylar had watched him digging from the Owlery window. "I've buried some gold coins. I've got a prize fer whoever picks the niffler that digs up most. Jus' take off all yer valuables, an' choose a niffler, an' get ready ter set 'em loose."
Harry took off his watch, and stuffed it into his pocket. Skylar did the same with a bracelet on her wrist and a necklace around her neck before moving to the crates. The niffler she picked shifted as she cradled it before hunkering down in her warmth. She cooed and gave its tummy a tickle as she moved to the earth patch.
"Hang on," said Hagrid, looking down into the crate, "there's a spare niffler here…who's missin'? Where's Hermione?"
"She had to go to the hospital wing," said Ron.
"We'll explain later," Harry muttered; Pansy Parkinson was listening.
It was easily the most fun they had ever had in Care of Magical Creatures. The nifflers dived in and out of the patch of earth as though it were water, each scurrying back to the student who had released it and spitting gold into their hands. Ron's was particularly efficient; it had soon filled his lap with coins.
"Can you buy these as pets, Hagrid?" he asked excitedly as his niffler dived back into the soil, splattering his robes.
"Yer mum wouldn' be happy, Ron," said Hagrid, grinning. "They wreck houses, nifflers. I reckon they've nearly got the lot, now," he added, pacing around the patch of earth while the nifflers continued to dive. "I on'y buried a hundred coins. Oh there y'are, Hermione!"
Hermione was walking toward them across the lawn. Her hands were very heavily bandaged and she looked miserable. Pansy Parkinson was watching her beadily.
"Well, let's check how yeh've done!" said Hagrid. "Count yer coins! An' there's no point tryin' ter steal any, Goyle," he added, his beetle-black eyes narrowed. "It's leprechaun gold. Vanishes after a few hours."
Goyle emptied his pockets, looking extremely sulky. It turned out that Ron's niffler had been most successful, so Hagrid gave him an enormous slab of Honeydukes chocolate for a prize. The bell rang across the grounds for lunch; the rest of the class set off back to the castle, but Harry, Skylar, Ron, and Hermione stayed behind to help Hagrid put the nifflers back in their boxes.
"What yeh done ter your hands, Hermione?" said Hagrid, looking concerned.
Hermione told him about the hate mail she had received that morning, and the envelope full of bubotuber pus.
"Aaah, don' worry," said Hagrid gently, looking down at her. "I got some o' those letters an' all, after Rita Skeeter wrote abou' 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.' "
"No!" said Hermione, looking shocked.
"People really have nothing better to do don't they." Skylar grumbled.
"Yeah," said Hagrid, heaving the niffler crates over by his cabin wall. "They're jus' nutters, Hermione. Don' open 'em if yeh get any more. Chuck 'em straigh' in the fire."
"You missed a really good lesson," Harry told Hermione as they headed back toward the castle. "They're good, nifflers, aren't they,"
"So adorable, but they do tend to turn houses upside down, stealing anything and everything shiny. Wouldn't work in my house. I believe there are lots of valuable shiny objects on shelves littered about that my dead aunt would not be happy about." Skylar muttered.
Harry turned to Ron for his opinion. "Ron?"
Ron, however, was frowning at the chocolate Hagrid had given him. He looked thoroughly put out about something.
"What's the matter?" said Harry. "Wrong flavour?"
"No," said Ron shortly. "Why didn't you tell me about the gold?"
"What gold?" said Harry.
"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?"
Harry had to think for a moment before he realised what Ron was talking about.
"Oh…" he said, the memory coming back to him at last. "I dunno… I never noticed it had gone. I was more worried about my wand, wasn't I?"
They climbed the steps into the entrance hall and went into the Great Hall for lunch.
"Must be nice," Ron said abruptly, when they had sat down and started serving themselves roast beef and Yorkshire puddings. "To have so much money you don't notice if a pocketful of Galleons goes missing."
Skylar frowned and glanced between the two boys.
"Listen, I had other stuff on my mind that night!" said Harry impatiently. "We all did, remember?"
"I think Death Eaters is more important than a pocket of gold, especially after the thrill of the cup." Skylar said, though her voice was quiet about it, after all, her words would not do much to soothe when she wasn't in Ron's living position and was in fact in the opposite.
"I didn't know leprechaun gold vanishes," Ron muttered. "I thought I was paying you back. You shouldn't've given me that Chudley Cannon hat for Christmas."
"Forget it, all right?" said Harry.
Ron speared a roast potato on the end of his fork, glaring at it. Then he said, "I hate being poor."
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Neither of them really knew what to say. Skylar just pursed her lips.
"It's rubbish," said Ron, still glaring down at his potato. "I don't blame Fred and George for trying to make some extra money. Wish I could. Wish I had a niffler."
"Well, we know what to get you next Christmas," said Hermione brightly. Then, when Ron continued to look gloomy, she said, "Come on, Ron, it could be worse. At least your fingers aren't full of pus." Hermione was having a lot of difficulty managing her knife and fork, her fingers were so stiff and swollen. "I hate that Skeeter woman!" she burst out savagely. "I'll get her back for this if it's the last thing I do!"
Hate mail continued to arrive for Hermione over the following week, and although she followed Hagrid's advice and stopped opening it, several of her ill-wishers sent Howlers, which exploded at the Gryffindor table and shrieked insults at her for the whole Hall to hear. Even those people who didn't read Witch Weekly knew all about the supposed Harry-Krum-Hermione triangle now.
Harry was getting sick of telling people that Hermione wasn't his girlfriend.
"It'll die down, though," he told Hermione, "if we just ignore it…People got bored with that stuff she wrote about me last time —"
"Yeah nobody has pestered me for ages." Skylar nodded. Though suddenly her heart sank more at the idea of it.
"I want to know how she's listening into private conversations when she's supposed to be banned from the grounds!" said Hermione angrily.
Hermione hung back in their next Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson to ask Professor Moody something. The rest of the class was very eager to leave; Moody had given them such a rigorous test of hex-deflection that many of them were nursing small injuries. Harry had such a bad case of Twitchy Ears, he had to hold his hands clamped over them as he walked away from the class.
"Well, Rita's definitely not using an Invisibility Cloak!" Hermione panted five minutes later, catching up with Harry, Skylar and Ron in the entrance hall and pulling Harry's hand away from one of his wiggling ears so that he could hear her. "Moody says he didn't see her anywhere near the judges' table at the second task, or anywhere near the lake!"
"Hermione, is there any point in telling you to drop this?" said Ron.
"No!" said Hermione stubbornly as Skylar gave him a look with a raised eyebrow. "I want to know how she heard me talking to Viktor! And how she found out about Hagrid's mum!"
"Maybe she had you bugged," said Harry.
"Bugged?" said Ron blankly. "What… put fleas on her or something?"
Harry started explaining about hidden microphones and recording equipment. Ron was fascinated, and Skylar horrified but Hermione interrupted them.
"Aren't you two ever going to read Hogwarts, A History?"
"What's the point?" said Ron. "You know it by heart, we can just ask you."
"All those substitutes for magic Muggles use — electricity, computers, and radar, and all those things — they all go haywire around Hogwarts, there's too much magic in the air. No, Rita's using magic to eavesdrop, she must be… If I could just find out what it is… ooh, if it's illegal, I'll have her…"
"Haven't we got enough to worry about?" Ron asked her. "Do we have to start a vendetta against Rita Skeeter as well?"
"I'm not asking you to help!" Hermione snapped. "I'll do it on my own!"
She marched back up the marble staircase without a backward glance. Harry was quite sure she was going to the library.
"What's the betting she comes back with a box of I Hate Rita Skeeter badges?" said Ron.
"No, I don't think so, if she starts broadcasting her hunt Rita might catch wind and be more on guard. Best to keep it between us." Skylar shrugged.
"I know you can get into her head, but it's like you're in her head." Ron gaped.
"And the fact you know that means you know how to get in there a little too." Skylar smirked. She flashed her gaze to Harry in a silent meaning to remember their conversation and Harry frowned, glancing between where Hermione disappeared and Ron.
Hermione, however, did not ask the three to help her pursue vengeance against Rita Skeeter, for which they were grateful, because their workload was mounting ever higher in the days before the Easter holidays. The fact that Hermione could research magical methods of eavesdropping as well as everything else they had to do was marvellous multitasking. Harry managed a small amount of multi-tasking also, as on top of his homework he made a point of sending regular food packages up to the cave in the mountain for Sirius. He enclosed notes to Sirius, telling him that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and that they were still waiting for an answer from Percy.
Hedwig didn't return until the end of the Easter holidays. Percy's letter was enclosed in a package of Easter eggs that Mrs. Weasley had sent. Skylar's, Harry's and Ron's were the size of dragon eggs and full of homemade toffee. Hermione's, however, was smaller than a chicken egg. Her face fell when she saw it.
"Your mum doesn't read Witch Weekly, by any chance, does she, Ron?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," said Ron, whose mouth was full of toffee. "Gets it for the recipes."
Hermione looked sadly at her tiny egg.
"Come on Mrs. Weasley, have more faith in the people you know than that!" Skylar spat angrily. "If the people who know you personally turn on you, who have you left? Listening to Rita, honestly." Hermione smiled ever so slightly at Skylar's irritants in her favour.
"Don't you want to see what Percy's written?" Harry asked her hastily.
Percy's letter was short and irritated.
As I am constantly telling the Daily Prophet, Mr. Crouch is
taking a well-deserved break. He is sending in regular owls
with instructions. No, I haven't actually seen him, but I think
I can be trusted to know my own superior's handwriting. I
have quite enough to do at the moment without trying to
quash these ridiculous rumours. Please don't bother me again
unless it's something important. Happy Easter.
The start of the summer term would normally have meant that Harry was training hard for the last Quidditch match of the season. This year, however, it was the third and final task in the Triwizard Tournament for which he needed to prepare, but he still didn't know what he would have to do. Finally, in the last week of May, Professor McGonagall held him back in Transfiguration.
Skylar waited outside the classroom until he emerged.
"The Quidditch field tonight, apparently Bagman will tell me then." he answered when she asked.
So at half past eight that night, Harry left Skylar, Ron and Hermione in Gryffindor Tower and went downstairs.
"What do you think this one will be?" Ron asked both excited and worried.
"Well, they got passed a dragon, then passed merpeople, and both times they had to collect something, so perhaps something similar but different?" Skylar offered.
"You want to try that again in english?" Ron muttered.
Skylar sighed. "Likely they'll need to collect something from somewhere or something, if we're following patterns. If not, it's anyone's guess." she shrugged.
Harry didn't come back for quite a while, so long that Skylar almost started to worry. It turned out she had been right to. Harry clambered in through the portrait hole and hurried across the common room looking frantic.
"Crouch… Crouch was in the forest!"
"What?" all three of them asked.
Harry sat down and they put their heads close together, taking a quick glance to see who was possibly listening for Harry continued.
"We were at the quidditch pitch, Bagman told us the third task–"
"What is it?" Ron interrupted him, but both Hermione and Skylar shushed him, Hermione seeing Harry's urgency lead beyond the information on the task and Skylar hearing it, her face got more and more confused and frightened as Harry's thoughts whirled around.
"Krum wanted to talk… about you," Harry continued, looking pointedly at Hermione, "And then Mr. Crouch came out of the forest! He was rambling as though he was talking to Percy, saying 'Weatherby' and organising for the task. And then he changed. He staggered and grabbed my robes and started gasping."
"What did he say?" Skylar asked quietly.
"He wanted Dumbledore, wanted to warn him… said he'd done something terrible… something about his son… and that Bertha Jorkins was dead... and Voldermort. He said something about Voldermort getting stronger."
"Crouch did?" Hermione clarified, looking worried. Ron's mouth had dropped open and his face went pale at Voldermort's name.
"What happened?"
"I left Crouch with Krum and ran to get Dumbledore, Snape got in the way, but Dumbledore heard me and came out, we went straight back, but Krum had been stunned!"
Hermione gasped.
"By Crouch?" Skylar questioned.
"Dumbledore revived him and he said Crouch had attacked him from behind. Crouch was gone. Then Moody turned up and went looking for Crouch and Hagrid was there to get Karkaroff and Karkaroff insulted Dumbledore cause Krum was attacked…"
"So they haven't found Crouch?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know." Harry said and he glanced around the Common Room.
"But Crouch attacked Krum? And he thinks You-Know-Who is getting stronger? Sounds barmy." Ron had found his voice.
"What was he doing in the forest?" Skylar frowned.
"He wasn't talking straight, sometimes it was like he was back in the ministry making plans, and the next he was saying it was his fault and he'd escaped and things were bad." Harry continued.
"Sounds like he was very confused, what if everything he said was memory and not fact?" Skylar asked.
"But the change in him?" Harry pointed.
"It is very unnerving, how his mind must have been jumping like that… his confusion, perhaps he'd been confounded or something?" Skylar offered.
"But how did he get to Hogwarts?" Hermione asked. "And why ask for Dumbledore and then attack Krum?"
"If he did attack Krum." Skylar offered.
"Who else was there?" Ron asked.
"We don't know, it was by the forest where lots of spooky things happen, we know that better than anyone." Skylar reminded him.
They continued to discuss Krum, Mr. Crouch and the possibilities of what had happened long into the night, and long after the common room had cleared of students. Hermione had suggested they needed some sleep when Harry reminded them they had to tell Snuffles.
"Not now." Skylar yawned.
"Dumbledore said it had to wait till morning." Harry agreed.
"Early then." Hermione nodded, before they went to bed, minds all still reeling about Mr. Crouch and what had happened to him.