"If I wanted my ears eaten off and then spoken to like I was still figuring out how to say 'Mummy'," Zacharias then sneered, "I'd donate both ears and a fresh carving out of my brain to a starving zombie. At least then there'd be an excuse for her to talk as if she's so much more clever than the rest of us!"
"As opposed to how you talk like you think the same?" Sally-Anne had scoffed, leaning over to look at the book Luna was reading.
"You saying you want her hanging about?" Megan chimed in, wrinkling her nose and grimacing.
Sally-Anne flicked her braid off her shoulder.
"All I'm saying is that Granger is hardly the most offensive person around even if I don't want her here nattering at me."
"What about Ginny, or Ron, or Fred and George?" Luna suggested after that, turning a page. "Their brother, Charlie, works at a dragon reserve — they might know a thing or two about dragons."
Heri had regretfully shaken her head before any other comments could be made.
"Charlie's here as one of the dragon-tamers for the tournament. I don't want to risk getting him or Hagrid in trouble — they might let a comment slip in their common room, and I know a good many gossips in Gryffindor would have it around school before the end of the day."
"Yeah, never mind that Ginny's always gagging for it like the rest of the groupies," Megan then jeered, tilting her nose up.
"Oh, you wanna talk about gagging for it, do you?" Zacharias butted back in at the same time that Luna said, "Don't talk about my friend like that," her usual misty eyes sharpening with intent.
Neville didn't dare add anything other suggestion to add onto the team after that, not when more snapping and hissing followed. Luckily for him, the conversation soon devolved into fretting over the dangers of the First Task.
Heri could understand where her friends were coming from with their concern, so she didn't let it bother her that they were even more clingy than usual. Usually, she could slip away by herself every once in a while on a non-repeated day, but now they travelled in a pack literally everywhere — the boys even loitered outside the loo for them. It was even worse than the time in second-year when she was being accused of genocide!
It was annoying, but she knew it made them feel better to be in a large group; it was that pack mentality seemingly inherent to Hufflepuffs.
What did bother Heri was that Rita Skeeter woman and her constant hounding for an interview.
Heri had had the dubious pleasure of meeting the noxious Ms Skeeter at the Weighing of the Wands wherein Mr Ollivander had been brought in to check if the champions' wands were in working order.
"Ah, yes," Ollivander had said when it was Heri's turn. He greeted her with a bright grin and a gleam in his eyes. "Yes, yes, yes, I remember this wand well. Holly and phoenix feather with a pomegranate handle. A wand that will aid in much greatness. Did I inform you before that the feather comes from the generous Fawkes, Headmaster Dumbledore's marvellous familiar?"
Skeeter's enchanted quill went flying across her parchment at that. A predatory smile had alighted her face.
Ollivander then conjured a fountain of wine and returned it with a fond tilt of his lips.
"No doubt it has already witnessed a measure of the things you will achieve."
"Miss Potter, we haven't gotten an interview or an individual photograph of you yet!" Skeeter had cried when Heri had made her escape at the end.
"Terribly sorry!" Heri had said, feigning an apologetic look as she hurried away. "Bit I've already missed the end of my last lesson and I don't want to be late for my next one! If you really need an individual photo of me, contact my personal photographer, Colin Creevey!"
Colin was ecstatic when Heri found him later on and made her previous bluff a reality. With an actual contract that she then sent to be filed by Sirius' solicitor, she had him on record as the only person with the legal right to take professional photos of her and distribute them publicly.
Skeeter was not happy at all when Colin took advantage of his new position to deny Skeeter's request, citing the lack of an appointment and written inquiry as his reasons. Ever since then, the troublesome tart had been hounding Heri's footsteps.
Heri had read the drivel that passed as news articles that the woman wrote, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. On such occasions that Skeeter tried to approach her, Heri was enormously appreciative of how Hufflepuffs herded together to block out interlopers — after Heri had expressed her dislike of the woman and Cedric mentioned that she tried to get the champions to say derogatory things about each other for the articles, Skeeter never again managed to get within twenty feet of either Hogwarts champion.
It was all exhausting, so on that day, instead of getting bothered by the Tournament and the people that insisted on badgering her (hehe, 'badgering'), Heri was focusing on something entirely different. Since Quidditch was cancelled because of the Tournament, this left her with playing mad scientist (sorcerer?) on Iolanthe. Heri had packed up the necessary equipment for her work and found herself an empty room in a disused part of the castle where she would be unlikely to be disturbed; she ended up near the hall where Sir Nick held his yearly death-day party.
Heri had wanted Io to talk since she had first planned on animating her. While her rune of animation had worked up to point, it didn't succeed in giving the doll a voice. Understandable, of course, since talking wasn't a necessary part of being alive. It had been a little disappointing, but that just gave her the opportunity to get creative with another rune cluster. In any case, Iolanthe made up for her lack of speech through her expressive behaviour.
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