An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Fifty

A/N: Okay, so I still say we follow the books and not the movies for everything, but I'm going to make a little bit of an exception for the second task. In the books everybody goes into the lake starting from the shore, but in the movies everybody goes in where it's a little deeper, off of some docks just a little ways into the lake. Just this one time, we're going with the movies and everyone's starting the tasks from the docks.

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I was dead right about not having much time to relax in the coming weeks. Apparition lessons pretty much took up our entire Sundays, and Cedric only had about three weeks to get really good at scuba diving, so we were out in the freezing cold lake for a lot of our spare time. On February 12th, I registered online for the March 12th SAT, which just reminded me of a whole other level of things I needed to deal with. I was pretty much back to drinking coffee and running around the castle every minute of the day, but somehow I was managing to keep it together.

The one exception to my crazy schedule was Valentine's Day. It was a Sunday, and thankfully it was also a Hogsmeade weekend, so Cedric and I headed out of the castle after a late breakfast to go enjoy the day together in town.

We passed Adrian and Jackson on their way out of the castle too, but decided to give them some space. I kept hoping I'd see George and Angelina sneaking around somewhere too, but even though they'd been absolutely adorable together at the ball, they'd pretty much just gone back to being friends since then.

Oh well. It took me and Cedric a full year to finally start dating, so I definitely wasn't about to give up on them so easily.

Hogsmeade was pretty busy when Cedric and I got there; it was a popular spot for people in school on a normal weekend, but for Valentine's Day, the excitement to get out of the castle doubled. We made our way through the crowds and towards Madam Puddifoot's, intending to get some hot chocolate and tea before going somewhere a little less crowded to hang out, but before we could get through the door we were stopped by someone calling from behind us.

"Well well, this is adorable! Two Hogwarts champion love birds, out for Valentine's day. I'm sure my audiences will be happy to hear that you two survived the storm with Mr. Krum and Ms. Delacour."

I whirled around, my temper red-lining the minute I heard her voice. Rita Skeeter was standing before me, her long nails tapping on her notepad as that acid green quill wrote. She was looking at us with one eyebrow raised over her sparkly glasses, and the only thought running through my mind was how she had the audacity to stand there and talk to us after the story she ran last month.

"Care to make a statement?" she asked, apparently not sensing just how completely pissed I was. "I'm sure my readers would love to know-"

"I don't give a shit about you or your readers!" I yelled, unable to take another second of this woman. A few people glanced at me, but none of them stopped. They were all too caught up in their own days to care much about what was going on with me.

I noticed Cedric grimace when I yelled, but I didn't care. I was done with this horrible woman, and it was about time she knew to leave me and my friends the hell alone. I hadn't had a chance to speak to her all competition, and now I was going to make the most of this encounter.

It would be our last encounter, if I had anything to say about it.

"Well now, you don't seem to be handling all the media attention very well," she noted, recovering from her shock and going back to her notepad. "Care to give a statement on how your recent fame has-"

"Recent fame? HA! I've been dealing with this shit my whole life! I've been dealing with tabloid garbage since before I can remember, and I've seen some of the worst reporters in the world, but let me tell you right now, you take the cake! How dare you come over here and try to talk to me after the article you wrote about me and Cedric? And after everything you've written about my friends!"