Katrina & Harry (Books 1-7)

Rita Skeeter's Scoop

Katrina's POV

I stayed the night with Hermione. After crying all the water in my body out, I just didn't have the energy to move. Thankfully everyone got up late on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor common room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy conversations and I sat with my friends with my head held low.

Ron and Hermione seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement not to discuss their argument. They were being quite friendly to each other, though oddly formal. Ron and Harry wasted no time in telling Hermione about the conversation they had overheard between Madame Maxime and Hagrid, but neither Hermione or I found the news that Hagrid was a half-giant nearly as shocking as Ron did.

"Well, we thought he must be," she said, shrugging. "We knew he couldn't be pure giant because they're about twenty feet tall. But honestly, all this hysteria about giants. They can't all be horrible...It's the same sort of prejudice that people have toward werewolves...It's just bigotry, isn't it?"

Ron looked as though he would have liked to reply scathingly, but perhaps he didn't want another row, because he contented himself with shaking his head disbelievingly while Hermione wasn't looking.

It was time now to think of the homework we had neglected during the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling rather flat now that Christmas was over - everybody except Harry, and I, that is, who were starting (once again) to feel slightly nervous.

The trouble was that February the twenty-fourth looked a lot closer from this side of Christmas, and we still hadn't done anything about working out the clue inside the golden egg. We therefore started taking the eggs out every chance we got, opening them, and listening intently, hoping that this time it would make some sense. I strained to think what the sound reminded me of, apart from thirty musical saws, but I had never heard anything else like it. Thankfully, with all our attention focused on the eggs, Harry didn't have time to plot revenge on Malfoy; though I had my own plan in the works. I had gone up to Fred and George and demanded that they stay out of my way and let me handle things and they had begrudgingly agreed to do so after so arguing. I smiled as I went over the details in my head. Everything was all set, all there was left to do, was wait till the time came.

I closed my egg, shook it vigorously, and opened it again to see if the sound had changed, but it hadn't. Harry and I tried asking the eggs questions, shouting over all the wailing, but nothing happened. Harry even threw his egg across the room - though I hadn't really expected that to help.

Harry and I had not forgotten the hint that Cedric had given us, but Harry's less-than-friendly feelings toward Cedric just now meant that he was keen not to take his help if he could avoid it and I didn't want to test our rocky relationship anymore than it needed to be. With everything that had happened at the Yule Ball and then the need to focus on the eggs, we hadn't had any time to discuss the fact that he, Harry, had kissed me! Not once...but twice! What did that mean for us! Had he done it because maybe just maybe he returned my feelings or was it just because he wanted to break Malfoy's hold on me?

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And so the first day of the new term arrived, and I went down to breakfast in high spirits as I eagerly awaited the fruits of my labor. Hermione, who I had told my plan to, sat next to me snickering in anticipation. Every time someone entered and sat down at the Slytherin table we would look up - but it wasn't until breakfast was almost over that the main event finally arrived.

I was drinking pumpkin juice when my eyes landed on a sight for sore eyes and I could help but spit my drink out as I bent over in laughter. In fact, the entire student population, and a number of the teachers were as well once they spotted the pair of idiots as well.