Nico, Voldemort's Older Brother (Being Rewritten)

Nico XXII

  As we entered March, the weather became drier, but cruel winds skinned our hands and faces every time we went out onto the grounds. There were delays in the post because the owls kept being blown off course.

  Serena and Selena found out that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were going to see Sirius at two o'clock, on Saturday. Serena concluded, that we should go with them.

  Me and Hermione hurried to our last class of the day: Double Potions, with Severus.

  Crabbe and Goyle were standing in a huddle outside the classroom door with Pansy Parkinson's gang of Slytherin girls. All of them were looking at something I couldn't see and sniggering heartily. Pansy's pug-like face peered excitedly around Goyle's broad back as me and Hermione approached.

  "There they are, there they are!" she giggled, and the knot of Slytherins broke apart. I saw that Pansy had a magazine in her hands — Witch Weekly. The moving picture on the front showed a curly-haired witch who was smiling toothily and pointing at a large sponge cake with her wand.

  "You might find something to interest you in there, Granger!" Pansy said loudly, and she threw the magazine at Hermione, who caught it, looking startled. At that moment, the dungeon door opened, and Severus beckoned us all inside.

  Hermione and I headed for a table at the back of the dungeon, next to Draco. Once Severus had turned his back on them to write up the ingredients of today's potion on the blackboard, Hermione hastily rifled through the magazine under the desk. At last, in the center pages, Hermione found what they were looking for. Draco and I leaned in closer. A color photograph of Harry headed a short piece entitled:

Harry Potter's Secret Heartache

  A boy like no other, perhaps — yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he had found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.

  Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. She was seen at the Yule Ball with Draco Malfoy, Slytherin house.

  However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys' interest.

  "She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it."

  Love Potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims. In the meantime, Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart on a worthier candidate.

  Draco snorted, "A love potion? As if. I love you for real." He placed his hand on Hermione's.

  "If that's the best Rita can do, she's losing her touch," said Hermione, still giggling, as she threw Witch Weekly onto the empty chair beside her. "What a pile of old rubbish." She looked over at the other Slytherins, who were all watching her and Draco closely across the room to see if they had been upset by the article. Hermione gave them a sarcastic smile and a wave, and she, Draco, and I started unpacking the ingredients we would need for their Wit-Sharpening Potion.

  "There's something funny, though," said Hermione ten minutes later, holding her pestle suspended over a bowl of scarab beetles. "How could Rita Skeeter have known . . . ?"