Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 48 - The Quibbler

I was sitting in the Great Hall with Hermione while Harry, Neville and Dean talked about his interview. Luna had told us she knew not when the interview would be published exactly and Hermione and I could hardly wait to see the effects of it. I watched as Neville left and made eye contact with Cho as she made her way toward her table. I rolled my eyes as I turned toward Hermione again, but noticed an unpleasant expression lingering on Harry's face. He had been looking at Cho.

"What exactly happened on your date with Cho?" I said looking at the remains of my dessert in front of me, ignoring Hermione knowing look.

"Er, well..." he said as he took a second piece of pie, "it was a complete disaster."

"What?" Hermione said as I tried to suppress my smile.

Harry told us about how she had asked about Cedric and started crying and then shouted at him because he had told her he was coming to meet us and left him there.

"I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?" He asked.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed, "I'm sorry, but you were a bit tactless."

Although I despised Cho, I knew she was right.

"Tactless?"

"Well, you shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet us halfway through your date," Hermione told him.

"But — you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to do that without telling her — ?"

"You should have told her differently," she told him, "make it seem like you really did not want to but we had made you promise you would come or something."

"But why?"

I sighed. "She tried to make you jealous because you upset her. She was just trying to figure out how much you liked her!" I said irritably.

At this moment Ron sat down beside Harry in front of me and filled his plate. He gave me a knowing look at seeing me so irritated by this everlasting talk about Cho. Harry and he then talked about Quidditch and how awful the Gryffindor team had become.

By the time we were watching the next match, we saw just how bad they really were. Ron looked miserable after the fourteenth time he let a goal in. The only one who perhaps looked even worse was Harry beside me. Fortunately, Gryffindor only lost by ten points thanks to Ginny who caught the snitch at the very last second.

"Don't bum yourself out, Harry," I said as we were walking back to the common room. "The team will get better again once you're back on the team—"

"I've got a lifelong ban, Elizabeth."

"You're banned as long as Umbridge is here," I told him, "there's a difference."

***

The next morning, we were sitting at the Gryffindor table when a dozen owls came in and dropped letters for Harry.

"What's going on?" Ron said.

"Harry!" Hermione said as she pulled out a package. "I think I know what this means."

She handed the package to him, and as he opened it we saw that he was holding a copy of The Quibbler with his face on the cover.

"I guess these are letters from the readers."

"Do you mind if we —?"

"Help yourself," Harry said as looked through the newspaper.

"This one's from a bloke who thinks you're off your rocker," Ron said with a shrug.