An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Thirty-Five

As soon as I caught sight of Rita Skeeter, the article about the Quidditch World Cup came rushing back. Phrases like 'Ministry blunders' and 'rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods' floated through my mind, and I saw red.

I started marching towards Skeeter, honestly not entirely sure what I was planning to do. Mostly I just wanted to scream at her, to tell her just what it felt like to read articles in the middle of a crisis that made people more afraid for no good reason, to give her a piece of my mind like I'd been thinking about doing ever since the World Cup. I'd only made it a few steps, however, when a hand wrapped around my upper arm and pulled me back.

"Alexa, what are you doing," Cedric hissed, barely above a whisper in my ear.

"Giving that horrible woman a piece of my mind!" I whispered back. I turned to start towards Skeeter again, but Cedric wouldn't let me. He was being a subtle as he could, and he definitely cheated by using the fact that we're dating to make wrapping an arm around my waist look more normal.

"Alexa, you can't. The judges are all coming for a wand weighing, they're all ready to take pictures and everything..."

I barely managed to stop myself from screaming across the room in frustration, but I kept quiet. I relaxed, and Cedric kept a cautious arm around my shoulder. I wasn't going to follow through on attacking Rita in the middle of this room, right here, and right now, but my blood was boiling just looking at her.

In my anger, I hadn't heard a word Bagman said. I expected to have to play catch up as we got started with whatever we were doing here, but instead Skeeter stepped in to take Harry somewhere for a one on one interview.

I had an incredibly bad feeling about that.

I started heading for the door where Harry and Skeeter had disappeared, but Cedric stopped me again. I turned around to face him.

"Ced, I'm not gonna go after her or anything, I just don't think we should let her go off with Harry like that."

Cedric looked hesitant and incredibly nervous to let me out of his sight like this, but every minute I stood here was another one Rita could use to manipulate some ridiculous out of context quote out of Harry.

"Alexa, I really think you should just wait here with the rest of us..."

"I have so much experience with people like her it's not even funny," I said, my tone deadly serious. "Who knows what she's gonna do or say if she gets the chance to talk to Harry alone for too long? Journalists like her are masters of twisting people's words around. Why do you think I was so excited to hear you wanted to be a journalist? It means one more actual reporter in the world and one less like her!"

"Still, Alexa, I don't think Bagman would be too happy to let you just walk out..."

I scoffed. "Oh please. I don't care about what he thinks, and I could talk my way past him any day of the week."

We continued our argument for a little bit longer in quiet voices. Before I could get away to go save Harry, all the champions were ushered into chairs to wait for the Weighing of the Wands to officially begin. Any shot of me getting away was definitely gone now.

The other judges arrived shortly, all except Professor Dumbledore. A minute later, Harry came back through the door, looking extremely happy to have escaped Skeeter. He sat with Cedric and I, and I was a little worried until Dumbledore came through the door with Skeeter, and I realized he must've rousted her.

After this and being so calm about Harry putting his name in the Goblet, I was liking Dumbledore more and more every day.

Skeeter settled down in a corner of the room with some parchment and an acid green quill as Dumbledore took his place at the judges' table.