Harry pursed his lips as he entered the Great Hall the next day. The Magical Daily had reported the truth about the whole affair. The article had come two days later after the selection of the champions and had described what had happened that night. The three original champions were mentioned and later, Harry's unfortunate forceful participation was mentioned. Rita Skeeter had also reported the part where Harry thought he might die at the first task for violating the contract and his immediate emancipation the next day to prevent it. She had speculated who could have done it, but none of that mattered to several Hogwarts students.
The Hufflepuffs had taken to completely ignoring Harry; well, half of them anyway. Susan had told him privately that it was not the matter of Harry's forced participation; it was because Hufflepuff never got a chance to shine and they felt it was an attempt to take the limelight away from them. The Ravenclaws were happy that they were being represented, so they extended their support to him; mostly. He already had the loyalty of the Gryffindors because of his position as Lord Gryffindor, but there had been problems because Ron Weasley kept insisting that Harry was a glory hound. Slytherin was fine with it because they liked Harry better than Diggory.
However, Harry had also underestimated how many people at the school were jealous of him. To everyone at Hogwarts, Harry had everything and this was just something else he had that they didn't. Harry ignored them. Had they lived his life, they would know exactly how difficult it was to be Harry Potter. He had become colder in public, as he had before, during the Chamber of Secrets fiasco. Jealous people couldn't be reasoned with. Harry knew that fame was fickle; he had learnt that lesson the hard way. They would shun him today and praise him tomorrow. He didn't give a damn about what they thought of him anyway.
...
"Why don't you swear a magical oath?" asked Daphne exasperatedly.
"As I explained to you two years ago, I'm not risking my life for these idiots, just to prove that I was telling the truth," said Harry calmly.
"But they won't shun you anymore," she argued.
"Are you sure of that?" asked Harry, raising an eyebrow. "The Hufflepuffs only care about the limelight being on them. The rest who shun me are boys who are jealous of me. That's probably one-quarter of the school. The rest of them treat me just fine, even if they don't talk to me much. Why should I pander to those who don't like me or believe me? If they didn't believe me after they read that I could have very well lost my life thanks to this nonsense, they wouldn't care even if I give them an oath."
Daphne nodded in understanding.
...
Curiously, Harry's popularity with the girls hadn't suffered at all; in fact, it had increased if that was even possible. Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, and he already had an enormous fan following even before the Triwizard debacle. But what was more was that he was desired by nearly every girl from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang alike. Girls used to sigh and giggle every time they caught sight of him, and he had heard rumours from Astoria that the many girls now had large posters of him in their dorms. Tall, with a muscular frame, shoulder-length silky black hair, very handsome features and vivid green eyes made him the object of adoration for many and this annoyed Daphne. No one seemed to care that Harry was already engaged to be married.
Of course, Daphne wasn't faring any better. She had received several letters by owl from students from the other schools who asked her if she would like to go on a date with them. Harry was furious when he counted no less than twenty different letters from different boys, most of them describing how beautiful they thought she was. Daphne, of course, found the whole experience amusing and just vanished the whole lot of them, but their make-out sessions did get a lot more frequent and intense due to them wanting to prove to the other that they weren't interested in anyone else.
....
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