The Boy I Love -HEDRIC (2)

38.(HC) my favorite distraction

HARRY

V

Considering that Mrs. Weasley would sometimes look at Harry and Hermione with curiosity during their visits to the Burrow (and at Ron and Hermione at other times, as if not quite deciding where to place her suspicions), it wasn't the first time someone had thought that she was his girlfriend —but it was the first time someone thought he had his heart broken. The closest Harry had come to something like that happening was when he saw Cedric and Cho together in the halls, almost convinced that the day when they would become a real couple would arrive.

His heart wouldn't have broken completely while they were still friends.

Cedric was the only person who could hurt him romantically.

For a split second, Harry wondered if he ever would.

He dismissed it too quickly. Cedric was a sweet and caring boy. 

It was Harry who had to be cautious, because he didn't want to ruin it.

He definitely shouldn't be almost grateful that they'd decided to keep it private. That it wasn't their photos that decorated the infamous article in Witch Weekly. Especially when letters for Hermione started showing up at breakfast.

Harry Potter deserves someone way better than you.

How could you hurt someone who has already been through so much?

Among other messages, such as threats of curses and various insults referring to the condition of her heart ( you don’t have a soul was the exception, since it had some sort of spiritual tinge instead of quasi-biological). Harry, who swore no one inside Hogwarts would believe it, hadn't considered the outside world.

Why was he always forgetting that there was something else beyond those walls?

It would not have occurred to him that he would get some kind of strange sympathy from strangers. Enough for so many to take the trouble to send mail about it. Hermione acted as if she didn't give a damn what her letters said, and Harry hated knowing that he had put her in this situation. 

“I'm so sorry,” Harry let out, even though it didn't help.

"It's not your fault," she tried to reassure him.

"Skeeter is the one responsible here," Ron pointed out. “And I don't think you should apologize, Harry. I don't see Krum doing it, and he is just as famous or maybe even more famous than you.”

Perhaps that was what Viktor spoke with Hermione when they ran across each other. 

Even though Harry was pretty sure Viktor would if he knew about the letters she was receiving, he couldn't bring himself to disagree with Ron. Every time Viktor stopped to talk to her in the corridors, Ron would ignore the scene and walk past Harry, and Harry would jump to distract him with any other topic of conversation. 

This was how they were keeping the peace. 

VI

Hagrid finally received them on Friday afternoon.

“You should be studying, not knocking on my door.”

He would almost sound annoyed, if not for his sad expression.

They managed to remind him how much they didn't care at all whatever that had been written about him —by that Skeeter woman, of course. Hermione seemed more annoyed by what Skeeter had done to Hagrid than by the article with her name on it, and she was even angrier to learn that he, too, received daily letters just as nasty as hers.