A week had passed since the first task. I wasn't quite sure how long it would be until we had the second one. I found out that pretty much as soon as the task was done, I had to register as an Animagus with the ministry. I didn't know how I did it. I had only done it once since because I couldn't exactly sneak around as a cat when everyone had seen me transform. Also, some of the Slytherins had decided to tease me with catnip, which I definitely did not appreciate. I was pretty sure that they hated the fact that a halfblood was in the tournament. They really were a racist bunch. I couldn't help but wonder if they were any Slytherins who weren't racist. Actually, I was pretty sure that Snape wasn't considering that his was best friends with a Muggleborn. At least they weren't using cat toys on me.
I was currently walking with the girls to Care of Magical Creatures. I couldn't wait to see what Hagrid was going to teach us today. I was also pretty sure that he was thrilled that none of the dragons were harmed during the task. I wasn't sure why we would harm then. All we had to do was get past them.
However, as soon as we got there, we found that Hagrid wasn't there but rather an old woman. That was not something that I was expecting.
"Where's Hagrid?" I asked.
"Professor Hagrid is on a leave of absence right now." The woman declared. "I am Professor Grubbly-Plank and I will be filling in while he is away."
It was then that I remembered why Hagrid left for a little while. There was an article about him being half-giant in The Daily Prophet. I also remembered that she was supposed to be the teacher of the class before Hagrid, but she never showed up prior because Harry didn't have the class until Hagrid started teaching it.
"Why did he leave?" Mandy asked.
"When will he be back?" Upton added, because I was pretty sure that she knew someone had to ask.
"We are not here to talk about his absence right now." The woman replied. "We are here to learn how to care for magical creatures. Now I'm not sure where you left off because he didn't leave me any instructions, but I have brought a special creature with me today."
At that point, a unicorn stepped out. I felt like such a girl being excited to see one, but I couldn't help it. I never thought that I would get to see a real, live unicorn, even though it shouldn't have been as exciting considering the fact that I had just faced down a dragon. Maybe it was something that it didn't like it was as dangerous as a dragon despite the fact that I knew horses were dangerous.
"Now who can tell me why you should never approach a unicorn suddenly?" She asked. Upton raised her hand.
"Because the unicorn may become startled and attack you with its horn." Upton answered. I knew that I definitely didn't want to be impaled on its horn because it would probably hurt a lot, but I was not dumb enough to threaten it. "You should always wait for a unicorn to approach you."
"You must be Miss Granger. I just had your sister in one of my previous classes, though I'm surprised that she isn't a Ravenclaw like you." The teacher explained. The two of them didn't look that much alike, so I couldn't help but wonder how she determined such a thing. "10 points to Ravenclaw. Now who can tell me the easiest way to get a unicorn to approach you?"
I decided to go with my gut and think of the way to get any animal to approach you. Yes it was a magical creature, but I was pretty sure that the same rules applied.
"With food." I answered confidently.
"That is correct Miss Corner." She replied.
"Would you like a nice mouse as a prize?" Daphne quipped. I was pretty sure that she of all people shouldn't be making fun of me. At least I had changed of my own free will…accidentally but I wasn't transformed.
"Only if you get a chew toy out of it." I retorted.
"Alright, settle down, girls." The professor replied. "Miss Corner, would you like to feed this creature?"
I nodded and took the apple from her. I didn't know unicorns liked apples. I would have thought it would eat similar things to what horses ate. I held it out and the equine animal came over to me and took a bite out of it. It was really amazing. As much as I liked Hagrid, I really liked the class The fact that it would only be temporary also made me feel better about it.
Later, Mandy had to go to a different class. In the meantime, I decided that Upton and I should find out what happened to Hagrid, even though we already knew. We still had to find out for the sake of the story.
"So, who do you think we should talk to about Hagrid?" I asked.
"I think if anyone knows about it, it would probably be my sister." She replied. Hermione did seem to have the most insight on what was going on. "Fortunately, she has a free period right now."
The two of us then went to find Hermione. Fortunately, Upton was better at locating people than me. She knew how to do a locator charm. It took us to the courtyard where Hermione was. I couldn't help but wonder why people didn't use that more often.
"Hey Hermione, have you heard anything about Hagrid?" She inquired.
"You haven't seen the latest issue of The Daily Prophet?" Hermione asked. We shook our heads. She then took out the paper. I didn't even know where she got the paper. "Adelaide, before you read this, I need to warn you. There's something about you in here."
"It's probably just about the tournament." I replied as I took the paper. I then saw the front page and there was a picture of Mandy kissing me. At that point, an amount of rage I had never felt before filled my body. If Rita Skeeter had been there at the exact moment, it was possible that I could cast the Killing Curse on her. "I am going to kill that woman."
I couldn't believe that I got outed. What happened to ethics in journalism? Oh right, Rita Skeeter had no ethics considering what she did to Hagrid. Still, that seemed like it was crossing the line, even for her.
"Addie, you need to breathe." Upton told me. "The two of you look good in that picture."
"And the article really isn't that bad. The worst she can say about you is that you're a lesbian." Hermione added. I could tell that the two of them were trying to distract me from my rage, but it wasn't really working. "Everyone knows that there's nothing wrong with that."
"Let's just look for the thing on Hagrid." Upton suggested.
The story about Hagrid was on page 2. It did reveal that he was half-giant and also brought up the Hippogriff attack from last year. She actually put Malfoy in the story. Honestly, I couldn't believe that she was using Malfoy as a source. He was a world-class prat, and his family were Death Eaters. I wasn't sure how no one managed to figure that out sooner. His dad was basically waving a flag over his head saying that he was evil. Honestly, it was more surprising that he didn't turn out to be evil, just a jerk.
Still, I felt that I should talk to Dumbledore about the story. There had to be something that he could do. That was probably a better solution than me killing her because killing people was against the law and I didn't want to go jail.
"Miss Corner, what can I do about you?" He asked.
"Professor, have you seen the latest issue of The Daily Prophet?" I asked.
"I have." He confirmed. I was expecting more of a reaction than that.
"Well, there has to be something that you can do about this." I replied. "This woman is attacking me for being a lesbian and an Animagus. Not to mention that she is attacking Hagrid solely for his heritage. Not to mention, the incident from last year was completely Malfoy's fault."
"I am aware of these things, Miss Corner." He replied. Okay, he did seem like he was less lenient than I thought that he would be about it. "I will have you know that Miss Skeeter has been furthered banned from covering the Triwizard tournament and also banned from the Hogwarts campus, including Hogsmeade Village."
I was impressed to say the least. Though, I was pretty sure that she was still going to find a way around it. Scum like that always found loopholes. She was probably one of the worst people in the books that wasn't a Death Eater.
"I think that perhaps you and Miss Brocklehurst should talk about this amongst yourselves." He suggested. "One of the most important things when it comes to relationships is being able to talk to each other about difficult situations."
I couldn't help but wonder if he was going to tell me about his own sexuality here. I always thought that it was kind of a cheat to wait until after he was dead to reveal that he was gay. Why couldn't he find love while he was still alive? Did he believe that he needed to be celibate to go on with his plan or something?
He didn't tell me. I knew that I had to talk Mandy about it. If we were going to be in love, we would have to deal with stuff like that, even though I was pretty sure that I wasn't in love with her yet. I had never been in love before, but I also knew that some of my feelings were being dictated by the story.
I found out that Mandy left class because people were picking on her about the article. I headed back to the Ravenclaw tower and Cho told me that she had seen her crying as she went back up to the room. I didn't think that there was anything that could upset her so much.
"Hi." I greeted her as I walked into the room.
"Hey." She said. She had definitely been crying. The thing was we didn't really wear makeup, so there weren't any marks on her face.
"Cho told me that you were crying." I replied. "What did those girls say to you?"
"It doesn't matter." She stated. I wanted to know who had been picking on her, but I would put money on them being Slytherins. "I feel stupid for crying like this."
"You shouldn't. Both of us got outed to all of Hogwarts." She replied. It was also the entire Wizarding World, at least the part that read The Daily Prophet. "However, we're not going to see her again. Dumbledore banned her from Hogwarts. So, what can I do to make you feel better?"
"Can I pet you?" She asked. What did she just say? Did she just ask what I thought she did?
"What?" I questioned.
"I know it's a bit of odd request but when I was little and I upset, I used to pet my cat Boots and it would make me feel better." Mandy explained. "You know what? You don't have to. That sounds too weird."
Even though it did sound weird, I decided to turn into a cat anyway and I jumped on her lap. It did feel really good to be petted. At the same time, I also knew it was really weird, and it was probably something that we shouldn't tell anyone. I probably wouldn't even tell Upton about it. Okay, I probably would tell Upton about it because I knew that she would only make fun of me for it a little.
After about ten minutes of petting, I returned to normal. I could see the smile on her face.
"Can we agree only to do that again in extreme circumstances?" I questioned. It was still weird, and I didn't want it to become a regular thing. I didn't know if I ever wanted to do it again personally. I was probably the weirdest thing that I had ever done.
"Yes." She agreed. "Still, thanks for doing that for me. You know I just thought of something. You remember last year when Professor Lupin bit you?"
"Yeah." I answered.
"It wouldn't have done anything to you. You can't be both an Animagus and a lycanthrope." She replied.
"Well, no one knew about me back then." I remarked.
"Hey, you know you never opened your egg." She said. "It's supposed to have a clue for the next task."
"I guess I can do that right now." I replied. I knew that I wasn't supposed to open it, but at the same time I was. I was supposed to open the wrong way. I was going to hate this.
I went and got the egg off of my nightstand. I couldn't covered my ears ahead of time because I needed my hands to open the egg. I slowly opened it and we were hit by the sounds of loud screaming. I then dropped it on the floor covered my ears as Mandy did the same.
"Repairo." She said after taking out her wand and the egg closed back up. "Some clue that is."
"There's probably some other way of figuring it out." She declared. "I don't think that they would give me something that is completely useless."
"Well, it's a good thing that you're a Ravenclaw because you're probably going to have to figure out what that is."
I then realized that there was still someone that I needed to talk to.
"You know I need to leave. I have to talk to my brother. He's probably upset that this is how he's finding out. Are you going to be okay?" I explained. I knew that I would be upset if I found out my sibling was in a relationship from a newspaper.
"Yeah." She answered before I left.
I wasn't sure why Michael hadn't been in the tent with me, but he wasn't.
Maybe he was collecting on a bet that he had made with another student. Actually, that was it. He told me that after he arrived a few minutes later. I couldn't help but wonder if he was going to have a gambling problem.
He didn't look too happy when he saw me.
"Hi, Michael." I greeted him. "Did you read the article?"
"Do you know the worst part about finding out that your sister has a girlfriend from the newspaper" He asked. "Having to deal with the fact that she didn't tell you about it herself first."
"Look, Michael, I'm sorry. I wanted to keep it a secret until the tournament was over because I didn't want people to think that I was being distracted. The only people that we've told so far are Upton, Luna, and Maria, and that's because we have to share a room with them." I apologized. "This was a new experience for me, and I wasn't sure how you would react to it."
"Did you think that I wouldn't love because you have a girlfriend?" He asked. I hoped he wouldn't at least.
"We've never talked about this stuff before." I admitted. "I was a little scared of it myself."
At that point, I realized something. The next task involved a hostage being taken by the mermaids. With Harry it was easy to determine because he only had Ron and Hermione and Hermione was already going to be taken as Viktor's hostage. With me I had a lot more people in my life and I had no idea who they were going to take. All I knew was that I had to be ready because it wasn't just going to be my life on the line.