The Girl Who Lived

Rita Skeeter

When I woke up on Sunday morning, it took me a moment to remember why I felt so miserable and worried. Then the memory of the previous night rolled over me. I sat up and, intending to talk to Mione, to force her to believe me — only to find that her bed was empty; she had obviously gone down to breakfast.
I dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment I appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating me like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow myself to be cornered by the Creevey brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to me to join them. I walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found himself face-to-face with Ron.
"Hello," he said. "Congratulations."
"You don't believe me either, do you?" I sigh.
"Bout what?"
"That I didn't enter my name into the Goblet." I state.
"Then how did you get picked?"
I sighed and walked away to the Great Hall.
I walked into the massive room and was rewarded with applause from the Gryffindor table, and glared from every other table. The only person that wasn't a Gryffindor that wasn't mad was Draco Malfoy, and he looked worried.
I shoot him a questioning look, and he shakes his head.
~*~*~
I had herbology next. I sigh. That's one of my least favorite classes.
The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold toward the whole lot of them. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that I had stolen their champion's glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff House very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch.Ron wasn't talking to me either. Neither was Mione. I thought even Professor Sprout seemed distant with him — but then, she was Head of Hufflepuff House.
Only Harry would talk to me, but his voice was stained with worry. I only wish there was something I could do to comfort him, and mend my friendship with Ron and Mione.
I would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins too — the first time I would come face-to-face with them since becoming champion.
Predictably, Malfoy arrived at Hagrid's cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place. But I could see past that, as if it was just an act to keeper his authority over Crabbr and Goyle.
"Ah, look, boys, it's the champion," he said to Crabbe and Goyle the moment he got within earshot of me. "Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt she's going to be around much longer. . . . Half the Triwizard champions have died . . . how long d'you reckon you're going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task's my bet."
Harry starts to say something, but I stop him.
When Crabbe and Goyle turn away, Malfoy gives me an apologetic look. I nod at him, smiling.
Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class's horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Malfoy completely.
"Take this thing for a walk?" he repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. "And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?"
"Roun' the middle," said Hagrid, demonstrating. "Er — yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus' as an extra precaution. Heather — you come here an' help me with this big one. . . ."
Hagrid's real intention, however, was to talk to me away from the rest of the class. He waited until everyone else had set off with their skrewts, then turned to me and said, very seriously, "So — yer competin', Heather. In the tournament. School champion."
"One of the champions," I corrected him.
Hagrid's beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under his wild eyebrows.
"No idea who put yeh in fer it, Heather?"
"You believe I didn't do it, then?" I said, concealing with difficulty the rush of gratitude I felt at Hagrid's words.
" 'Course I do," Hagrid grunted. "Yeh say it wasn' you, an' I believe yeh — an' Dumbledore believes yer, an' all."
"Wish I knew who did do it," I said bitterly.
We looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs — but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong and very hard to control.
"Look like they're havin' fun, don' they?" Hagrid said happily. I assumed he was talking about the skrewts, because my classmates certainly weren't; every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts' ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet.
"Ah, I don' know, Heather," Hagrid sighed suddenly, looking back down at him with a worried expression on his face. "School champion . . . everythin' seems ter happen ter you 'n Harry, doesn' it?"
I didn't answer. Yes, everything did seem to happen to us . . .
~*~*~
The next few days were some of my worst at Hogwarts. I think I could have coped with the rest of the school's behavior if I could just have had Ron and Mione back as a friend, but I wasn't going to try and persuade them to talk to me if they didn't want to. Nevertheless, it was lonely with dislike pouring in on me from all sides.
I could understand the Hufflepuffs' attitude, even if I didn't like it; they had their own champion to support. I expected nothing less than vicious insults from the Slytherins — I was highly unpopular there. But I had hoped the Ravenclaws might have found it in their hearts to support me as much as Cedric. I was wrong, however. Most Ravenclaws seemed to think that I had been desperate to earn myself a bit more fame by tricking the goblet into accepting my name.
Then there was the fact that Cedric looked the part of a champion so much more than he did. Exceptionally handsome, with his straight nose, dark hair, and gray eyes, it was hard to say who was receiving more admiration these days, Cedric or Viktor Krum. Harry said actually saw the same sixth-year girls who had been so keen to get Krum's autograph begging Cedric to sign their school bags one lunchtime.
Harry and I were walking after lunch, talking about God-knows-what.
"Still — never mind, eh? Double Potions to look forward to this afternoon. . . ."
Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but these days it was nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Snape and the Slytherins, all of whom seemed determined to punish me as much as possible for daring to become school champion, was about the most unpleasant thing I could imagine. I had already struggled through one Friday's worth, with Harry sitting next to me intoning "ignore them, ignore them, ignore them" under his breath, and I couldn't see why today should be any better.
When Harry and I arrived at Snape's dungeon after lunch, we found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment I thought they were S.P.E.W. badges — then I saw that they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
Support Cedric Diggory-
The REAL Hogwarts Champion!
"Like them, Potter?" said Malfoy loudly as we approached. "And this isn't all they do — look!"
He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green.
Potter stinks.
"Wow, is that the worst insult you could come up with, Malfoy?" I sneer.
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around me. I felt the heat rise in my face and neck.
Mione walked up.
"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, "really witty."
Ron was standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus. He wasn't laughing, but he wasn't sticking up for me either.
"Want one, Granger?" said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."
Some of the anger I had been feeling for days and days seemed to burst through a dam in his chest. Harry had reached for his wand before he'd thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.
"Harry!" Hermione said warningly.
"Go on, then, Potter," Malfoy said quietly, drawing out his own wand. "Moody's not here to look after you now — do it, if you've got the guts —"
For a split second, they looked into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted.
"Furnunculus!" Harry yelled.
"Densaugeo!" screamed Malfoy.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles — Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy's hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.
"Hermione!"
Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione's hand away from her face. It wasn't a pretty sight. Hermione's front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.
"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice.
Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, "Explain."
"Potter attacked me, sir —"
"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.
"— and he hit Goyle — look —"
Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. "Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly.
"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "Look!"
He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back.
Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, "I see no difference."
Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron started shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however.
"Let's see," he said, in his silkiest voice. "Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside, or it'll be a week's worth of detentions."
My ears were ringing. The injustice of it made him want to curse Snape into a thousand slimy pieces. Harry passed Snape, walked with Ron to the back of the dungeon, and slammed his bag down onto the table. Ron was shaking with anger too — for a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them, but then Ron turned and sat down with Dean and Seamus instead, leaving Harry alone at his table. On the other side of the dungeon, Malfoy turned his back on Snape and pressed his badge, smirking. POTTER STINKS flashed once more across the room.
I glared at Malfoy.
Technically, the class hasn't started yet, so he came out to talk to me.
"What is wrong with you?" I whisper-shriek.
"I was defending myself." He shrugs. I sigh.
"Why do you always have to pick a fight?"
I turn around, but Malfoy catches my hand. "After dinner tonight, meet me outside at the edge of the forbidden forest. We'll talk then." He walks back into class.
I quickly decide to skip potions and go after Mione. She stood up for me, this is the last I can do.
I run through the halls and find her in the bathroom, crying.
"Mione?" I ask softly.
"Go away," she whimpers.
"Hey- it's me. Heather. Are you okay?"
She shakes her head.
"Come on, I'll take you to the hospital wing."
She reluctantly stands up.
We walk through the hallways, hoping a teacher doesn't come out and give us detentions for being 'late' to class. Thankfully, no one does.
We get to the hospital wing and I leave Mione. Madame Pomphrey writes me a pass and I walk back to potions.
"Well, well. Look who decided to join us. I hope you have a good excuse for being late." I hand him the pass and sit down.
"As I was saying, Antidotes!" said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. "You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one. . . ."
Snape's eyes met mine, and I knew what was coming. Snape was going to poison me. I imagined picking up my cauldron, and sprinting to the front of the class, and bringing it down on Snape's greasy head —
And then a knock on the dungeon door burst in on my thoughts.
It was Colin Creevey; he edged into the room, beaming at me, and walked up to Snape's desk at the front of the room.
"Yes?" said Snape curtly.
"Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Heather Potter upstairs."
Snape stared down his hooked nose at Colin, whose smile faded from his eager face.
"Potter has another hour of Potions to complete," said Snape coldly. "She will come upstairs when this class is finished."
Colin went pink.
"Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants her," he said nervously. "All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs. . . ."
I would have given anything he owned to have stopped Colin saying those last few words.
"Very well, very well," Snape snapped. "Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote."
"Please, sir — she's got to take her things with her," squeaked Colin. "All the champions —"
"Very well !" said Snape. "Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!"
I swung my bag over my shoulder, got up, and headed for the door. As I walked through the Slytherin desks, POTTER STINKS flashed at me from every direction.
"It's amazing, isn't it, Heather?" said Colin, starting to speak the moment I had closed the dungeon door behind him. "Isn't it, though? You being champion?"
"Yeah, really amazing," I said heavily as they set off toward the steps into the entrance hall. "What do they want photos for, Colin?"
"The Daily Prophet, I think!"
"Great," I sighed dully. "Exactly what I need. More publicity."
"Good luck!" said Colin when they had reached the right room. I knocked on the door and entered.
I was in a fairly small classroom; most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle; three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Ludo Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a witch I had never seen before, who was wearing magenta robes.
Viktor Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Cedric and Fleur were in conversation. Fleur looked a good deal happier than I had seen her so far; she kept throwing back her head so that her long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy man, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Fleur out of the corner of his eye.
Bagman suddenly spotted me got up quickly, and bounded forward.
"Ah, here she is! Champion number four! In you come, Heather, in you come . . . nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment —"
"Wand weighing?" I repeated nervously.
"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they're your most important tools in the tasks ahead," said Bagman. "The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there's going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet. . . ."
"Maybe not that small, Ludo," said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on me.
Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.
"I wonder if I could have a little word with Heather before we start?" she said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Harry. "The youngest champion, you know . . . to add a bit of color?"
"Certainly!" cried Bagman. "That is — if Heather has no objection?" "Er —" I started.
"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned fingers had my upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering me out of the room again and opening a nearby door.
"We don't want to be in there with all that noise," she said. "Let's see . . . ah, yes, this is nice and cozy."
It was a broom cupboard. I stared at her.
"Come along, dear — that's right — lovely," said Rita Skeeter again, perching herself precariously upon an upturned bucket, pushing Harry down onto a cardboard box, and closing the door, throwing them into darkness. "Let's see now . . ."
She unsnapped her crocodile-skin handbag and pulled out a handful of candles, which she lit with a wave of her wand and magicked into midair, so that they could see what they were doing.
"You won't mind, Heather, if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally. . . ."
"A what?" said Harry.
Rita Skeeter's smile widened. I counted three gold teeth. She reached again into her crocodile bag and drew out a long acidgreen quill and a roll of parchment, which she stretched out between them on a crate of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. She put the tip of the green quill into her mouth, sucked it for a moment with apparent relish, then placed it upright on the parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, quivering slightly.
"Testing . . . my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter."
Harry looked down quickly at the quill. The moment Rita Skeeter had spoken, the green quill had started to scribble, skidding across the parchment:
Attractive blonde Rita Skeeter, forty-three, whose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations —
"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter, yet again, and she ripped the top piece of parchment off, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into her handbag. Now she leaned toward me and said, "So, Heather . . . what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"
"Er —" I said again, but I was distracted by the quill. Even though I wasn't speaking, it was dashing across the parchment, and in its wake I could make out a fresh sentence:
An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Heather Potter, whose eyes —
"Ignore the quill, Heather," said Rita Skeeter firmly. Reluctantly, I looked up at her instead. "Now — why did you decide to enter the tournament, Heather?"
"I didn't," I told her. "I don't know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire. I didn't put it in there."
Rita Skeeter raised one heavily penciled eyebrow.
"Come now, Heather, there's no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all. But don't worry about that. Our readers love a rebel."
"But I didn't enter," I repeated. "I don't know who —"
"How do you feel about the tasks ahead?" said Rita Skeeter. "Excited? Nervous?"
"I haven't really thought . . . yeah, nervous, I suppose," I sighed. My insides squirmed uncomfortably as I spoke.
"Champions have died in the past, haven't they?" said Rita Skeeter briskly. "Have you thought about that at all?"
"Well . . . they say it's going to be a lot safer this year," I said.
The quill whizzed across the parchment between them, back and forward as though it were skating.
"Of course, you've looked death in the face before, haven't you?" said Rita Skeeter, watching him closely. "How would you say that's affected you?"
"Er," I said, yet again.
"Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because —"
"I didn't enter," I yelled, starting to feel irritated.
"Can you remember your parents at all?" said Rita Skeeter, talking over him.
"No," I stated.
"How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?"
I was feeling really annoyed now. How on earth was I to know how my parents would feel if they were alive? I could feel Rita Skeeter watching him very intently. Frowning, I avoided her gaze and looked down at words the quill had just written:
Tears fill those startling green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents he can barely remember.
"I have NOT got tears in my eyes!" I said loudly.
Before Rita Skeeter could say a word, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. I looked around, blinking in the bright light. Albus Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of us, squashed into the cupboard.
"Dumbledore!" cried Rita Skeeter, with every appearance of delight — but I noticed that her quill and the parchment had suddenly vanished from the box of Magical Mess Remover, and Rita's clawed fingers were hastily snapping shut the clasp of her crocodile-skin bag. "How are you?" she said, standing up and holding out one of her large, mannish hands to Dumbledore. "I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"
"Enchantingly nasty," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat."
Rita Skeeter didn't look remotely abashed.
"I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street —"
"I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, Rita," said Dumbledore, with a courteous bow and a smile, "but I'm afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our champions is hidden in a broom cupboard."
Very glad to get away from Rita Skeeter, I hurried back into the room. The other champions were now sitting in chairs near the door, and I sat down quickly next to Cedric, looking up at the velvet-covered table, where four of the five judges were now sitting — Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Mr. Crouch, and Ludo Bagman. Rita Skeeter settled herself down in a corner; I saw her slip the parchment out of her bag again, spread it on her knee, suck the end of the Quick-Quotes Quill, and place it once more on the parchment.
"May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?" said Dumbledore, taking his place at the judges' table and talking to the champions. "He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament."
I looked around, and with a jolt of surprise saw an old wizard with large, pale eyes standing quietly by the window. I had met Mr. Ollivander before — he was the wand-maker from whom Harry had bought his own wand over three years ago in Diagon Alley. I, myself, however, got my mother's wand.
"Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first, please?" said Mr. Ollivander, stepping into the empty space in the middle of the room.
Fleur Delacour swept over to Mr. Ollivander and handed him her wand.
"Hmmm . . ." he said.
He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton and it emitted a number of pink and gold sparks. Then he held it close to his eyes and examined it carefully.
"Yes," he said quietly, "nine and a half inches . . . inflexible . . . rosewood . . . and containing . . . dear me . . ."
"An 'air from ze 'ead of a veela," said Fleur. "One of my grandmuzzer's."
So Fleur was part veela, I thought, making a mental note to tell Ron . . . then he remembered that Ron wasn't speaking to me. "Yes," said Mr. Ollivander, "yes, I've never used veela hair myself, of course. I find it makes for rather temperamental wands . . . however, to each his own, and if this suits you . . ."
Mr. Ollivander ran his fingers along the wand, apparently checking for scratches or bumps; then he muttered, "Orchideous!" and a bunch of flowers burst from the wand tip.
"Very well, very well, it's in fine working order," said Mr. Ollivander, scooping up the flowers and handing them to Fleur with her wand. "Mr. Diggory, you next."
Fleur glided back to her seat, smiling at Cedric as he passed her.
"Ah, now, this is one of mine, isn't it?" said Mr. Ollivander, with much more enthusiasm, as Cedric handed over his wand. "Yes, I remember it well. Containing a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn . . . must have been seventeen hands; nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail. Twelve and a quarter inches . . . ash . . . pleasantly springy. It's in fine condition. . . . You treat it regularly?"
"Polished it last night," said Cedric, grinning.
I looked down at my own wand. I could see finger marks all over it. I gathered a fistful of robe from my knee and tried to rub it clean surreptitiously. Several gold sparks shot out of the end of it. Fleur Delacour gave me a very patronizing look, and I desisted.
Mr. Ollivander sent a stream of silver smoke rings across the room from the tip of Cedric's wand, pronounced himself satisfied, and then said, "Mr. Krum, if you please."
Viktor Krum got up and slouched, round-shouldered and duckfooted, toward Mr. Ollivander. He thrust out his wand and stood scowling, with his hands in the pockets of his robes.
"Hmm," said Mr. Ollivander, "this is a Gregorovitch creation, unless I'm much mistaken? A fine wand-maker, though the styling is never quite what I . . . however . . ."
He lifted the wand and examined it minutely, turning it over and over before his eyes.
"Yes . . . hornbeam and dragon heartstring?" he shot at Krum, who nodded. "Rather thicker than one usually sees . . . quite rigid . . . ten and a quarter inches . . . Avis!"
The hornbeam wand let off a blast like a gun, and a number of small, twittering birds flew out of the end and through the open window into the watery sunlight.
"Good," said Mr. Ollivander, handing Krum back his wand. "Which leaves . . . Ms. Potter."
I got to his feet and walked past Krum to Mr. Ollivander. He handed over his wand.
"Aaaah, yes," said Mr. Ollivander, his pale eyes suddenly gleaming. "Yes, yes, yes. How well I remember."
Did he sell my mother her wand?
"10¼", Willow, swishy . . . Your mother's, if I'm not mistaken?"
I nod.
"Thank you all," said Dumbledore, standing up at the judges' table. "You may go back to your lessons now — or perhaps it would be quicker just to go down to dinner, as they are about to end —"
Feeling that at last something had gone right today, I got up to leave, but the man with the black camera jumped up and cleared his throat.
"Photos, Dumbledore, photos!" cried Bagman excitedly. "All the judges and champions, what do you think, Rita?"
"Er — yes, let's do those first," said Rita Skeeter, whose eyes were upon me again. "And then perhaps some individual shots."
The photographs took a long time. Madame Maxime cast everyone else into shadow wherever she stood, and the photographer couldn't stand far enough back to get her into the frame; eventually she had to sit while everyone else stood around her. Karkaroff kept twirling his goatee around his finger to give it an extra curl; Krum, whom I would have thought would have been used to this sort of thing, skulked, half-hidden, at the back of the group. The photographer seemed keenest to get Fleur at the front, but Rita Skeeter kept hurrying forward and dragging me into greater prominence. Then she insisted on separate shots of all the champions. At last, they were free to go.
I went down to dinner. Hermione wasn't there — I supposed she was still in the hospital wing having her teeth fixed. I sat with Fred and George. They smiled at me.
"You're looking a little down today." George said.
"Yeah, how about you help us with our next prank?"