Harry Potter The Final Straw

After a quick stop in the library, Harry and Hermione were seated at the Gryffindor Table in the Great Hall enjoying their last meal of the year in the castle.

Neville was chatting with Ginny about getting together over summer vacation when there was a great whooshing sound followed by hundreds of owls swooping into the Great Hall carrying the Daily Prophet.

"That's odd." Ginny said as the delivery owl plopped down in front of Hermione and held out its leg. "The paper is really late today. I wonder why?"

With practiced ease, Hermione removed the newspaper and placed a knut in the payment pouch. Before the owl was even out of the Great Hall, she sprayed tea all over Neville in her shock.

"What the…?" Neville blurted as he frantically wiped the tea from his face.

Hermione however, was not paying the slightest attention to Neville; her eyes were fixed on the moving photograph on the front page of the Daily Prophet. It was a picture of the Great Hall with injured students scattered near the destroyed Slytherin Table, the headline read, "Attempted Murder at Hogwarts!"

The bottom of the page had a second photo with the headline, "Boy-Who-Lived saves student!" It was a picture of Harry sitting on the floor screaming for help with Tracey Davis in his arms.

After quickly skimming the article, Hermione let out a sigh of relief. Harry's roll in the entire affair was portrayed in a good light. Draco Malfoy and Albus Dumbledore didn't get off so lightly. The article went on at length about Malfoy's cowardly attack and Dumbledore's lack of safety measures to prevent something so tragic from happening in the first place.

Personally, Hermione was amazed that stuff like this didn't happen more often with so many hormonal, armed, teenagers in such close proximity all of the time.

Harry had taken one look at the photographs and the headlines on the paper before turning his attention to the rest of the students. The Slytherins weren't sending him hostile glares so he turned his attention to the Head Table where Dumbledore was sitting. The Headmaster was sitting ramrod straight but that was the only indication that anything was out of the ordinary.

Realizing that he wasn't going to learn anything else from watching the teachers, Harry turned back to Hermione and asked, "How bad is it?"

She set the paper down and whispered, "You're portrayed more as the heroic victim in the article. However, Malfoy and Dumbledore are taking some serious heat for their roles in everything." Sliding the paper over to him, she said, "Here, see for yourself."

As Harry read through the article, his feelings of unease grew. Rita's column had some very disturbing information in it. Information that no one but the people present could possible know and he was pretty sure that Professor Snape and Madam Pomfrey were not talking to any members of the press.

Grim faced, he put the article down and whispered into Hermione's ear, "We have a problem. There is stuff in this article that no one should know about except for me, Professor Snape, and Madam Pomfrey. Did you see Rita Skeeter in the Great Hall yesterday?"

Hermione pursed her lips in thought as she ran the events from yesterday through her mind. Finally, she said slowly, "No. I don't recall seeing her at all. What do you think that means?"

Leaning back in, Harry whispered, "It means that she's found a way to listen in on private conversations without being detected. It's not a spell that I have sensed either. That rules out invisibility and the only thing left that I can think of is that she could be an unregistered Animagus."

Turning to face him properly, Hermione cocked her head to the side slightly as she stared into Harry's luminescent green eyes. They shone brightly, similar to Dumbledore's, and then she realized it for what it really was; power. Slowly, she closed her eyes and stretched out her senses like Harry had been teaching her to do over the course of the year.

It took a moment before she could sort out the sensations but when she did, she realized something important had changed. Her eyes snapped open and she found Harry's concerned face inches from hers. She gave him a reassuring peck on the lips before leaning in to hug him tightly. While she hugged him, she whispered, "Your magic really feels different to me. It changed more than you admitted earlier, didn't it?"

Shocked, Harry nodded into her embrace and whispered back, "Yes. It's much stronger now, unchained, I guess. I'm still learning about all of the changes though. Why do you ask?"

Hermione pulled back from the hug and saw Neville and Ginny looking at them in concern. Smiling at their friends shyly, she said, "We're okay. Something just occurred to me and Harry calmed me down."

"Okay?" Neville replied, clearly not understanding what had just transpired in front of him but willing to let it go for now.

Ginny was staring at the two of them intently. She knew that something had happened but didn't know what. Figuring they would tell her eventually, she shrugged her shoulders in acceptance and turned her attention to the discarded Daily Prophet on the table in front of them. Picking it up, she asked, "Do you mind if I read this?"

With an absent minded wave of her hand, Hermione said, "Sure, help yourself."

Up at the Head Table, Dumbledore was silently fuming. Rita Skeeter was fast becoming an even larger nuisance. In all the bedlam following Malfoy's errant spell he hadn't thought to check for Rita in her beetle form. Now he was paying for his short sightedness and it didn't please him one bit.

He put down the Daily Prophet and scanned the hall over the rim of his half moon spectacles. The Slytherins were huddled together in small packs whispering over the article while the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs looked unbothered by the paper. The Gryffindors appeared split on the matter, probably due to Harry Potter's involvement, but overall, they weren't really bothered by the repercussions of Draco Malfoy's errant spell.

' When had the school become so divided?' Dumbledore thought to himself as he continued to survey the student body. It was something that he felt he needed to improve in the upcoming year, especially with Voldemort back in the picture. No sense driving a large portion into the arms of an enemy if it can be avoided.

With a sigh, Dumbledore wiped his mouth and placed his napkin the plate in front of him before getting up from his seat and leaving the Great Hall through the side door.

....

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