The rest of April was a politically-tense time for Harry. The Slytherins didn't let up on their whisper campaign that Harry had deliberately killed all the prisoners in Azkaban. Some of them even seemed legitimately angry about it, rather than simply trying to score points against the Boy-Who-Lived. Just when he thought they might be winding down, some reporter for the Daily Prophet named Rita Skeeter started "investigating" the story, which seemed to mean creating a forum for anyone with an ax to grind. As long as she was just quoting the conspiracy theories of other people, she couldn't personally be held to libel standards.
Not that the Wizarding World had much in the way of libel laws.
Dumbledore was actually the focus of most of the articles, rather than Harry, as the one that had led the trip and then been soundly defeated by an ancient dark wizard. Even if the old man had been inclined to provide no comment to the press, Dawlish knew enough to share with his superiors, and then the Ministry leak machine really got started. Among the fanciful explanations for what had happened, the paper did have the core facts that Harry knew the password to a secret door in the prison that nobody else had ever found, they'd descended without calling for auror backup even after discovering a room full of inferi, and then the greatest wizard of the age had been soundly defeated with Harry somehow bringing down the prison afterwards.
They manifestly didn't print that the country had definitely been saved from a centuries-old dark wizard. After all, there was no remaining proof that Ekrizdis had been anything other than an unknown opportunist that had found a back door into the prison and made use of the hidden resources there. And had Harry actually defeated him, or made a deal to let him escape and then brought down the prison to cover his tracks?
The veiled personal attacks had big enough holes to drive the Knight Bus through, which was probably why the population wasn't more irate. After all, finding an ancient evil and defeating it all on his own while the adults did nothing was the plotline of basically all of the fictional Young Harry Potter stories that everyone had been reading to their kids since the early 80s. Wizards weren't much for common sense, but Occam's Razor did suggest that, "Harry Potter discovered a secret threat in Azkaban and narrowly defeated it," was the simplest explanation. Plus, there was a widespread rumor that Harry had also killed a basilisk earlier in the year, and there was even proof of that.
But the populace was still fickle, especially at school. Harry had avoided getting ostracized all year by not revealing he was a parselmouth during an ongoing monster attack, so maybe it was just pent up desire to tear down their celebrities. By early May, Slytherin was fully against him, at least a quarter of Ravenclaw was looking for some kind of justice for Mr. Macdougal and a few other small-time criminals that were relatives to members of the house, and even Hufflepuff had its members that specifically weren't talking to Harry and might be quietly harboring some kind of resentment.
And with the quidditch match against the badger house coming up, Ron and Lee were of the opinion that Harry needed to do some kind of damage control. In the current climate, instantly getting the snitch (or, worse, getting it after running up the score) might fully turn Hufflepuff against him.
"But is this the only actual way?" Harry worried, as the Marauders walked toward the empty classroom they'd picked.
"The Quibbler has been completely fair to you, when no other paper has," Lee shrugged. "And the reporter is friendly, which counts for a lot."
"They think that he prevented an explosion of dark magic gum disease," Hermione countered, having had a crash course in the whimsical 'zine. "They've been trying to get Ministry employees to track their dental health to prove that the threat has been defeated."
"You should get your parents to help with that study," Ron joked. "Anyway, too late now. We're here."
Seated with a view of the door was one Luna Lovegood. Rather than sitting at one of the tables in the room and using it as a writing surface, she was awkwardly perched on the table, with some parchment on a book precariously balanced on her knee. Even with Harry's maxed-out Agility and nearly-maxed Finesse, he wasn't certain he could hold that pose for long.
"Harry James Potter (twelve)," Luna started, without preamble, though she wasn't really looking their way, "this interview is on the record. Can you please start us off with a quote about whether you believe Sirius Black is currently hiding out under the identity of Stubby Boardman, former singer for the Hobgoblins?"
Hermione Granger replies: You agreed to this.
"I, uh, don't really know who that is," Harry said, dragging one of the other tables over and sitting on the edge so he'd be at eye-level with Luna. "I can tell you that I think Sirius Black was probably framed. Obviously he hasn't come after me. Turns out he never got a trial."
"Interesting," she said, furiously scribbling the quote to the best of her ability in what was either some kind of shorthand or just her handwriting becoming very messy as she tried to write quickly. "In your adventures, have you ever encountered a crumple-horned snorkack, umgubular slashkilter, blibbering humdinger, or any variety of heliopath?"
"Not that I know of," he shrugged. "But if I do, I'll tell you as soon as I can."
"Acceptable," she agreed, making another note. Suddenly shifting gears, she finally looked directly at him and asked, "Who was it that you fought in Azkaban?"
Reply to Hermione Granger: Maybe this will go okay after all.
Dumbledore had been reticent to spread the information around, but had grudgingly agreed that it was Harry and the Marauders' quest and his decision what to tell the public. Thus, Harry simply explained, "He was called Ekrizdis. We think he was the dark wizard that built Azkaban in the first place. He certainly looked like he'd been down there for centuries."
To her credit, Harry could glance over and see that Luna had actually slowed down to make sure she spelled the name correctly in the rest of the incomprehensible handwriting. "Apologies. I don't have a dicta quill," she said, after taking the better part of a minute actually writing all of what he'd said down. "Please describe him for our readers."
Harry gamely began to describe the lich, realizing that he needed to speak slowly and leave pauses for the younger girl to catch up as he went. He finished the description with, "but he was fast for all of that. He only beat the Headmaster because he was so quick and surprised him."
"And you said his teeth were very white?" she asked, consulting her writing.
"At least it seemed that way. Maybe it was because he was all dried out?"
She just nodded, underlining that passage but not following up further. Instead she asked, "And why did the prison come down?"
"It turned out the basement of the building was full of all this machinery. You see, Ekrizdis was crazy and thought he was going to fly the tower into space. And he was going to use explosions that might have wiped out Britain and most of Northern Europe…"
At the end of the interview, Harry felt like he'd gotten all the major points out. He'd told the truth, though he'd continued to leave out the game system. He'd also really downplayed Remus being there: for whatever reason the Daily Prophet hadn't mentioned him either, and being a secret werewolf meant he was happy to keep it that way. Luna looked like she had some idea that Harry was skirting certain subjects, but decided not to press (at least in her role as reporter). After about twenty minutes of talking and several feet of barely-legible parchment, she decided, "My hand hurts. I'll send this to Daddy, and we'll see if it makes the paper. Thank you for advancing British journalism, Harry Potter." She then rolled up her report and wandered out of the classroom.
Out of some strange professionalism, she hadn't acknowledged any of the other Marauders while they were there. Not even Ginny.
The short interview left Harry a couple of hours to check the library. In the weeks since the spring holidays, he'd mostly been going back to all of the books he'd been unable to use because he wasn't at NEWT level. Was he going to get much use out of a few points in magical artwork and alchemy without even a third-years's grasp of the practicals of runes and arithmancy? Maybe not. Was he going to need the couple of points he'd gotten in occlumency from the books Remus and Sirius had sent with his maxed-out Willpower? It was too early to tell. Was he excited about the smattering of points he'd gotten in his NEWT-level class skills, particularly the point in Combat Magic? Definitely.
Unfortunately, the dwindling number of shelves he hadn't gotten to yet were yielding fewer and fewer results. In the twenty of them he'd managed to get through since crossing into NEWT skills, he'd picked up another rank of Conversational French and two more ranks of Basic Creature Harvesting. The library had seemed so vast at the beginning of the year, but now he was looking down the barrel of five more years of school without any skill books. He'd have to learn things the way everyone else did.
He was entering his third year with the skills of a genius sixth-year, but still. Would he even be able to get skill-ups from class for the next few years?
Fortunately, he didn't have to think too much about that or the impending Quibbler article due to Oliver Wood's crushing last-minute practices. Despite the 210 points they'd racked up against Gryffindor in the first match of the year, Slytherin had lost to both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff once everyone was on Nimbus 2001s (the Minister had come through on improving the school brooms). So they were only at 370 points for the year.
Hufflepuff had won their match against Slytherin but lost against Ravenclaw, and were only at 240 points for the year before going up against Gryffindor. But Ravenclaw had won both their matches and were sitting at 380 points before their final match with Gryffindor. And Gryffindor had only the 30 points they'd scored before the dementors showed up.
"Tis still doable!" Oliver Wood insisted. "Harry gets th'snitch in both matches. But ainlie after we've got sixty points aff Hufflepuff. An we gotta meet Ravenclaw goal fur goal."
Angelina frowned, considering the math. "So draw it out. Make sure Hufflepuff's seeker doesn't get the snitch while we rack up as many points as we can. It's okay if they get some points too, as long as we win."
"I can't just get the snitch as fast as possible?" Harry asked, trying to rack up points having backfired against him in his last match.
"No way we're picking up sixty points over Ravenclaw," she confirmed. "We're probably better, but they're still good."
"But you can get the snitch right away against Ravenclaw," George figured.
"And you should! In case we're not better," Fred smirked at Angelina.
"Hush, you. Go hit some bludgers," she joked back.
The new Quibbler came out on Friday, and Luna had ensured that Harry got a copy. The article took up two pages of the magazine-shaped "newspaper," and was remarkably free of editorializing or quote-picking. That is, it basically told the story in a way that lined up with the facts that Harry had explained in the interview.
It featured a number of sidebars where Luna's father had cross-referenced things Harry had said with fanciful theories like the Rotfang Conspiracy, Grindelwald Lives!, Death-Eaters-Literally-Eat-Death, Corpuscular Petards, Zauberdämmerung, and Prison Nargle Infections. But the article itself was straightforward and factual.
Thus, on that Saturday, enough kids were talking about Harry's version of what happened that he could check his faction scores and see that he'd gone back to at least Neutral with the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. That would have to do. They had no way of knowing that, with the basilisk defeated months earlier, there was not going to be a last-minute petrification to get Gryffindor out of the final two matches. If they didn't win the cup this year, it would all be on them (and, of course, on the dementors and Draco's poor sportsmanship).
Fortunately, similar bad behavior didn't seem likely from the Hufflepuff seeker. After losing to Ravenclaw in their first match, the upperclassman that Harry had played against the previous year had gone ahead and quit the team to focus on his NEWT studies. The replacement seeker was Cedric Diggory, a fourth-year that the twins and Lee said was a good bloke. He'd already beaten Draco to the snitch in the match against Slytherin, so Harry was wary.
"Nice day for it," Cedric said, conversationally, as he hovered near Harry above the pitch. He wasn't exaggerating. It was maybe the best day for quidditch Harry had seen during a match yet. Brilliant sunshine and a refreshing breeze played across the grounds.
Harry was keeping a wary eye on the snitch using his map, and marking Cedric just in case the older boy spotted it before Harry was ready. Gryffindor was already at 20 to Hufflepuff's 10, even a few minutes into the match. "It sure is," he agreed. "Might just watch the game for a while."
Cedric chuckled, "I know your team needs to run up the score. Mine does too. Whichever of us gets the snitch stands a good chance of getting the cup."
"Assuming we shut out Ravenclaw," Harry countered, pleased that Cedric didn't seem like he'd make a dash for the snitch to end the game before Gryffindor had time to rack up 60 points.
"There is that. They have a new seeker this year too. She was a lot faster than me." He considered for a second and noted, "Is it weird that you're basically the senior seeker at this point? You're the only one that played last year."
"I only got to play two matches, though," Harry demurred.
"Probably off fighting some other evil and had to miss, huh?" Cedric joked.
"Well, yeah," Harry shrugged. "Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort–" he glanced over to make sure Cedric didn't fall off his broom at the unconscious twitch purebloods seemed to have at the mention of the name, "and I wound up fighting him. I beat him, but it knocked me out through the match."
"You aren't even kidding, are you?" the older boy marveled. "My mum used to read me those stories about you, growing up…"
"Those are fake. My life started to get weird as soon as I got to Hogwarts."
Cedric just looked at him consideringly for a minute, then said, "Heck of a thing." They hovered in silence for a few more minutes until he pointed out, "Well that's sixty for your team, and forty for us. I think I'm going to go ahead and try to close this out, if you don't mind."
"Nope. Suits me. Thanks," Harry nodded. And gave a small grin as Cedric waved and chose exactly the wrong direction to fly off to start searching for the snitch.
Letting the older boy get enough of a lead that he wouldn't have much chance to catch up, Harry let himself drift in the direction of the snitch on his map. As soon as he was ready, he tilted his broom around and pointed it straight at the targeting brackets that showed exactly where the snitch was, floating not far above the Slytherins in the stands.
As he bore down on it, he sent an idle glance to see that Draco had clearly already seen it and was shouting in fury. But he couldn't hear the boy over the roar of the crowd and Lee's announcement, "Harry Potter's seen the snitch!"
There really was a definite amount of extra power on the Nimbus 2001. Harry regretted that he was having to pretend his Nimbus 2000 was destroyed, but he didn't hate the extra boost on the new broom.
"Diggory tries to correct but he's half a pitch away! Potter's diving!"
The snitch had started to shoot downward, and Harry had to make use of his dodging skills to avoid colliding with a chaser and getting hit by a bludger that one of the Hufflepuff beaters had sent his way. He wound up clapping his hand around the golden ball and pulling up just in time to avoid having to tumble on the dirt.
"It looks like Potter has the snitch? Show it, Harry! He does! Gryffindor wins!" The crowd was roaring as Harry brandished the snitch and floated back up toward the announcer's box. "That's 210 to 40! It's still anyone's chance at the Quidditch Cup in a month. Well, except Slytherin's!"
No matter how powerful he was getting from the game system, it turned out nothing beat the feeling of winning a quidditch match. Harry could tell he was grinning like a maniac. How much better would the feeling be if he could win the whole cup in a month?