'Harry Potter: The Unexpected Champion
All of you will be familiar with the tragic tale of the Boy-Who-Lived. He saved us all and lost everything in the process, left orphaned and alone. Now he's grown and at Hogwarts, and appears to be making waves once more.'
Without any real quotes from Harry though she'd thrown plenty in that Harry didn't recall ever saying in his life she'd apparently interviewed several people about him. Harry almost choked on his pumpkin juice when he reached the part about his 'close companion and rumoured girlfriend, Hermione Granger'.
"Well, this is a load of bollocks," Cedric declared cheerfully from the Hufflepuff bench behind Harry, raising his wand and setting his issue of the Prophet on fire. "Alright there, Harry?"
After Harry's little stunt with the badge, Cedric and the other Hufflepuffs had warmed considerably to him. The Slytherins had stopped wearing the badges — apparently they weren't funny if Harry wasn't upset by them — but Harry still had his attached to his school bag. "Yeah, just wondering if it's possible to sue for this," Harry replied, frowning at the article. Surely he could get her for something — defamation of character, or slander, or misrepresentation of a minor. Surely it couldn't be legal to publish that amount of information about him.
"You should ask Susan," Neville piped up from the other side of the table. "Her aunt's head of the DMLE, she'd probably know."
Harry kept that in mind, though he didn't run into Susan until his second class of the afternoon. That meant he spent the whole day listening to people — mostly Slytherins — quote their favourite parts of the article at him, laughing.
"Just ignore it, Harry," was Hermione's helpful advice, as if it was that simple. As if he should just let Skeeter write whatever she wanted about him. This wasn't some silly little school-wide paper, this was a national newspaper.
Finally they had Charms with Hufflepuff, and Harry made sure to get that early, grabbing Susan as soon as she and the other Hufflepuff girls rounded the corner. "Hi, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what's up?" Susan was one of the few Hufflepuffs who hadn't hated him for even a little bit of time, and Harry would be forever grateful to her for it. Even now, Sally Anne Perks and Megan Jones were glaring at him over Susan's shoulder.
"I was wondering if you knew if it was possible for me to sue Rita Skeeter for that article in the Prophet. I didn't provide any of those quotes — you'll have several witnesses who can assure you that I didn't consent to any sort of interview — and half of what she's said is so wrong it's downright insulting, for me and for the other champions. Can I get her for slander, or something?"
Susan's brow furrowed. "Technically it would be libel, since it's written," she mused, thinking. "If you didn't consent, and your guardian didn't consent, then she shouldn't have even quoted you at all. I don't blame you for being furious, that whole article is just… ugh." She shuddered. "Tell you what, I'll write to Aunt Amelia before dinner and see if she can do anything. She knows loads of lawyers, and I bet there's plenty of them just waiting to give Rita Skeeter what for." She smiled, hitching her bag further up her shoulder as Flitwick opened the classroom door, beckoning them inside. "I'll take care of it, Harry. I'll let you know when I hear back."
"You're the best, Susan," Harry declared vehemently, hurrying to take a seat next to Neville before he could be forced to sit with Hermione. The Slytherins had teased her about the article, too, and she wasn't in the best of moods because of it.
With any luck, Amelia Bones would get back to her niece before much more damage could be done.
.-.-.-.
The weekend before the task was a Hogsmeade weekend, and Harry let himself be dragged down to the village by Hermione and Neville. On the walk down, he glanced at the dark-skinned girl. "I'd have thought you'd be hanging out with Ron," he remarked cautiously. Since the article, she was somewhat reluctant to be seen with Harry, as people kept asking her if she was his girlfriend.
"Oh. Well." She began to blush. "I thought we might meet up with him at the Three Broomsticks." Harry stared at her incredulously. "I'm not sitting with him." Ron was still making it very clear he thought Harry was some arrogant little glory hunter.
"Harry, please, this has gone on long enough."
"I'm not speaking to him until he stops being a dick," Harry retorted hotly. "If you want to sit with him, that's fine, but I'll be elsewhere." It was a miracle he wasn't wearing his invisibility cloak; the only reason he wasn't was because Hermione didn't know Neville knew about it. He really didn't want to deal with crowds today — he'd much rather be in the library researching dragons — but the pair of them had insisted (separately) that Harry needed to get out and have fun. He didn't get as mobbed as he'd expected, once they reached the village. The rest of the school seemed to be following Cedric's lead on things, and since he was ignoring the Prophet article like the garbage it was, most of them were doing the same. They were all just eager for the tournament to start, now.
Neville dragged them both into Gladrags, insisting he needed to buy his gran a new hat for her upcoming birthday. Harry wandered the clothing racks absent-mindedly, occasionally picking out something. Since Ron had stopped talking to him, and since Neville had pointed out how much Harry was adjusting his own behaviour to avoid offending the redhead, Harry had started wearing more and more of his new clothes. And, to his surprise, he'd actually grown a couple of inches since last summer. He'd bought the clothes a little big, so most of them were still fine, but… he felt like spoiling himself.
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