A Change in Fate || Cedric Diggory [1]

Chapter 25: Looming Dread

"So, Snuffles said to ask Percy about Crouch?"

"Yeah, Ron wrote him a letter about it and we just sent it recently," Harry clarified.

Following the last Hogsmeade trip, Harry, Ron, and Hermione relayed the information they got from Sirius to Analeigh. It seemed that they had gotten a lot from that man within the span of a few hours during their Hogsmeade visit, a lot of it revolving around Barty Crouch — one of the judges of the Triwizard Tournament, which only made the whole ordeal fishier. They learned that his house elf Winky may have been the one to steal Harry's wand during the Quidditch World Cup; that he was the one who sent Sirius to Azkaban without a trial; and that he even sent his own son, Barty Crouch Jr. into that rotten prison, though he supposedly died soon after his imprisonment. Moreover, they brought up what Harry witnessed between Snape and Karkaroff, which Sirius found very interesting. Analeigh had to admit that after being so focused on the tournament and her own escapades, she almost forgot that a lot of suspicious things had been happening around them since summer.

"Enough about that for now. People might overhear," Hermione said in a low voice. "How was your date with Cedric, Leigh?"

Analeigh blushed at the sudden attention, the three other Gryffindors now looking at her attentively.

"Well?" Harry pressed.

"Bet they just snogged the entire time," Ron snickered. Analeigh lifted her buttered croissant and made a motion to throw it at the redhead boy.

"I'm joking, joking!" he said quickly, raising his hands up in defense.

"Keep joking like that and I'll crush your croissant," Analeigh threatened, making Ron gulp in fear. "But, if you must know, we did not do that."

"You don't need to know all the details of it even if she did," Hermione backed her up.

"Thank you —"

"But I do." Analeigh stared at Hermione in surprise. "What? I'm still a girl. I do like hearing the juicy details once in a while."

By then, Harry and Ron were looking uncomfortable at the topic of snogging. It was Ron's fault anyway.

"Nothing big happened, okay?" Analeigh decided to say, wanting to keep it short. "We just ate lunch and had a nice time. We got Butterbeer afterwards and — oh, we bumped into Rita Skeeter at the Three Broomsticks."

"You what?" Ron said incredulously. "Don't tell me you annoyed her, too."

"Of course no —" Analeigh stopped short when she realized that she did, in fact, say something to annoy the woman. Instead of finishing her sentence, she just shut her mouth. It was enough for them to know her answer.

"Leigh! Do you know what's going to happen to you now? She's going to spread rumors about you just like she did with Hermione."

"No, she won't," Analeigh insisted, though she was secretly a bit concerned. "I'm not as a interesting of a topic as the Harry-Hermione-Krum love triangle."

Harry and Hermione sent the girl pointed looks, making her shrink back.

"Sorry," she said, though she was clearly not sorry. "It's true, though. People are eating up her gossip about you guys."

"What did you say to that woman, anyway?" Hermione directed the subject back to her.

"Well, Cedric and I were on our way to Madam Rosmerta when she blocked us. She said something about how two of the Triwizard champions were on a date."

"What's wrong with that, then?"

"She kind of brought Harry up..."

"Not again," the aforementioned boy groaned. "What was it this time?"