Let's Try Again

Chapter Twenty-three: Fourth Year (Part 2)

January 10, 2005

Eventually winter holidays came to an end, and the students had to return to class. Although most huffed and groaned, not liking to have to get up early for class again, Hadrian was happy. He really did like learning this time around since he was able to access his full intelligence and power, and he didn't have the traitors making him miserable. Plus, it served as a distraction for the other students.

Over the past few weeks, Rita had been continuously publishing different articles, most of which involved him in some way. The part that surprised Remus, who was the only one in their family that even bothered to get that paper any more, was that none of them were attacking him, or even slandering him in the slightest.

One of the major articles, titled 'Bullied Beauty', was about what happened with Fleur during the ball. It went into the blatant bullying the girl was being subjected to while at Hogwarts. About how there were certain students going out of their way to insult her, claiming the only reason she had the things she did was because she was beautiful.

Hadrian was more than annoyed when the article directly quoted him about what he had told Fleur after he found her outside during the ball. It even included Rita's memory of the event. Hadrian was really annoyed that he hadn't thought to keep an eye out for the woman. He should have known that she would be spying.

The good thing was that it made people like him more. He had been receiving dozens of letters ever since complimenting him on being such a kind boy and good friend. But, it also made things more uncomfortable for him because now over half the female population of the school was looking at him with puppy love in their eyes. Some had even started to come to him with their problems, like he was supposed to make them better. Amongst those girls was of course, Ginny Weasley.

Another of the more important articles was titled 'Harassment at Hogwarts'. Rita hadn't just been spying on Hadrian, but his dad as well. She wrote about how James, who she called Sebastian was dealing with near constant harassment by Lily, who she referred to as Rose.

Well this didn't directly affect him, it did result in him getting plenty of looks and people were back to whispering behind his back. There was plenty of theories floating around about what Lily was doing. Many thought she just wanted to have some sort of connection to Hadrian given how closely she watched him during every charms class.

The other articles were smaller, and less dramatic, but they all made some sort of mention of him. It seemed that the Prophet was trying to get on his good side by not writing anything negative about him. He didn't think it would last all that long, but he did understand why they were doing it. After what they had done to his papa and Lucius the paper was under investigation for corruption, had already been fined for their involvement in the false imprisonment, and the editor and upper level staff were all being watched by the DMLE for any other criminal involvement.

Thankfully, with classes starting up again, he hoped that the other students would focus on class work a little more. He didn't hold out much hope that it would stop them from talking about him completely, but by this point any form of distraction, no matter how big or small, was preferable.

Study Nook

As the official classes came to an end, Hadrian made his way to the study nook to work on his self study. While he was exempt from the exams in his regular classes, he still had to take the ones for his self study courses. Since the only grade that mattered when it came to self study of the non core classes was the exam if he didn't do the exams he wouldn't be able to test for his OWLs.

Sure, he could take them at the ministry after, like he was planning for a few other subjects. But, if he took them at the school he would be able to do a majority of his tests at once, and without having to pay for them. It would also give him extra time to devote to the other courses that he was planning to test for at the ministry.