Rita Skeeter's article about the Triwizard Tournament is finally published.
It can be seen that she ignored Maka to the greatest extent, who should have written a lot about her. In this article, information about Maca is limited to just one name.
Correspondingly, Harry is somewhat doomed - this is not so much a report on the tournament as it is an exaggerated depiction of Harry's personal life.
A large amount of space on the first page of the newspaper was taken up by a photo of Harry, and the entire article was spread across the second, sixth and seventh pages, all about Harry.
Of course, the above content is all false, but it has to be said that those things look very eye-catching and can cause various misunderstandings among uninformed people.
As for Beauxbatons' Fleur Delacour, her name was squeezed into the last line of the article along with Maka, and even her name was spelled wrong.
As for the specific content of the article, apart from the unfounded conjectures and strange descriptions, there was a certain paragraph in it that made Hermione feel very uncomfortable.
Rita Skeeter writes:
"... Harry finally found his first love at Hogwarts. His close friend Colin Creevey said that Harry was inseparable from a girl named Hermione Granger - yes, she She is the famous fourth warrior of this competition. Miss Granger is stunningly beautiful and was born into a Muggle family. Like Harry, she is also one of the top students in the school."
This narrative is not too newsy. Presumably Rita Skeeter just wanted to give the article a little pink lace to make it look more gimmicky.
This is just one of countless things about Harry's daily life, but it makes Hermione completely intolerable.
If it was in the past, she might just ignore it—it wasn't true anyway, and it didn't matter to her. But now, after she discovered her thoughts, this text became very glaring.
"Amazingly beautiful? Her?" Pansy Parkinson of Slytherin said strangely when she first met Hermione after Rita's article was published. "What is she judged on - chipmunk ?"
"Keep your voice down, Pansy!" Another girl said exaggeratedly, "She is the girlfriend of the savior!"
Then, the group of Slytherin girls started giggling.
Hermione was shaking with anger, but when she heard this sentence, the first thing she did was look around. Seeing her guilty look, the Slytherin girls couldn't help laughing even more.
"Harry and I are just friends!" Hermione yelled angrily and left quickly.
She couldn't let Maka hear these unreasonable rumors, even if she thought that Maka wouldn't believe such nonsense at all. But…
"Oh - what's wrong with me, I need to calm down." Hermione retreated into the dormitory again, and she decided not to go out if it was not necessary.
What if people make fun of her about that again... What if they happen to meet Maka when they call her "the savior's girlfriend" again... What should she do
Hermione felt like she was always panicking recently, which was a bit bad, since Maka had obviously warned her to be careful. This is the current situation...
"Well..." Hermione scratched her hair in frustration, "It's Maka again."
…
On the Saturday before the first project, the school approved students from third grade and above to visit Hogsmeade. Hermione told Harry that taking a walk outside the castle might make him feel better.
In fact, Harry was eager to go out and relax for a while, and there was no need for her to persuade him.
"But where is Ron?" he asked. "Don't you want to go with him?"
"Oh... that's right..." Hermione blushed slightly, "I think you can meet him at the Three Broomsticks Tavern..."
"No way! I don't want to... wait," Harry said strangely, "won't you go with me?"
"No, I... I still have something to do." Hermione hesitated.
"What's the matter?" Harry said, "I can do it with you. You know, I just want to relax, nothing else."
"no!"
Hermione yelled out subconsciously, and then was startled by the sound of her own voice. She looked around and then continued: "No, I mean... there are some things that I can only do alone... "
But Harry said dullly: "Then I'll be alone again... That's awesome!"
Hermione raised her head helplessly. She thought for a while and then reluctantly said: "Okay, okay... Then you must stay quiet and don't ask anything!"
She repeated again with emphasis, "Remember, don't ask anything!"
"Why-" Harry half-asked subconsciously. When he saw anger immediately appearing on Hermione's face, he couldn't help but hold back the words.
"—I don't ask, I don't ask anything." He immediately changed his words.
In this way, Harry put on his invisibility cloak in the dormitory, came downstairs, and set off to Hogsmeade with Hermione.
Harry felt particularly at ease under the Invisibility Cloak.
As they walked into the village, Harry watched the other students walking past them. Although there were no unpleasant comments directed at him, no one quoted the words of that stupid article.
But Harry found that many people were looking at Hermione and pointing.
"What are they talking about-"
"Stop talking, don't ask anything!" Hermione quickly blocked Harry's question.
They soon arrived at the door of Bee Duke Candy Shop, which they would visit first every time they returned to Hogsmeade. But this time, Hermione ignored this place without even looking at it and continued walking forward.
Harry really wanted to ask why, but due to the circumstances of the previous two times, he finally held back.
After they passed by Zuko's Magic Joke Shop again, Harry found that Hermione stopped at the door of Fuga Wizard Clothing Store.
"Wait here!" Hermione whispered and ran in like a gust of wind.
Harry stood at the door and blinked inexplicably, looking inside in confusion.
"Uh... I'm still wearing an invisibility cloak, so she can't see it." He hesitated on the spot, but in the end he couldn't hold back his curiosity and cautiously opened the door and followed in.
"jingle-"
An unexpected ringing of the doorbell made Harry freeze in his tracks.
"Oops!"
He didn't dare to take a breath, but the next second, he was hit by something and staggered.
"Ouch! What's in front of you?" A voice came from behind Harry. He hurriedly ran forward two steps and hid behind a vertical clothes rack hanging a coat.
At the same time, Hermione, who was talking to the owner in the store, also hurried to the door - she thought Harry had sneaked in!
But what she saw was a middle-aged witch.
"Oh... Madam, what's wrong with you?" Hermione said, looking around carefully.
"Um...it's okay, thank you." The witch smiled, looked at the door doubtfully, and then walked inside.
"Harry, are you in?" Hermione asked softly, but received no answer.
Of course Harry wouldn't say anything. If he spoke now, it would be a waste of the coincidence just now. Besides, no one would take the initiative to scold him, right
However, Hermione suddenly turned around and grabbed Harry.
"How do you know—" Harry lowered his voice in surprise.
But Hermione had no intention of explaining to him. She opened the store door and pushed Harry out.
"Does your coat stick up on its own when it's on the hanger..." She muttered in a low voice and hurried back to the store.
"Does she want to buy clothes?" Harry stood outside the door, looking at the clothes displayed in the window, and asked doubtfully, "But... the clothes here look quite expensive."
After a while, Hermione finally came out.
The two walked in silence for a while, and Harry finally couldn't help but speak.
"Well... I'm sorry, just now-"
"Stop talking!" Hermione said angrily, "Okay, please take off the invisibility cloak for a while. No one here will cause trouble for you."
"Oh, really?" Harry said, "Look behind you."
Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just come out of the Three Broomsticks. They were talking quietly about something and walked past Hermione without even looking at her.
Instead, Hermione clenched her fists and glared at her back angrily.
Harry was afraid that Rita Skeeter's crocodile leather bag would touch him, so he quickly hid under the wall of Honeydukes Candy Shop.
After the two people left, Harry said: "She is still in the village. I dare say she will come to watch the first event."
As soon as the words came out, he felt a burning sense of panic pass through his heart, but he did not say it out loud. He and Hermione rarely talked about what the first event would be.
He always felt that Hermione seemed reluctant to consider this matter.
"She's gone," Hermione said, looking through Harry at the end of the street. "How about we go to the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer? It's getting a bit cold, isn't it?"
Harry didn't answer, and she felt as if she was talking to nothing.
"I'm just going to have a drink, you don't need to talk to Ron!" She guessed the reason why he didn't speak and said irritably.
The Three Broomsticks was packed with people, mainly Hogwarts students enjoying the freedom of the afternoon, but there were also many people from the wizarding world whom Harry rarely saw elsewhere.
It's worth mentioning that they saw Maka in the corner. At this time, he was actually chatting casually with Fudge, the Minister of Magic, holding a large glass of butterbeer in his hand.
"...Don't worry, you've done everything you need to do, just wait." Maka raised the cup towards Fudge and said calmly.