'I don't have much of a choice,' Harry shrugged. 'Dumbledore sent a note via McGonagall that I have detention with Snape in his office today for an hour, and again every week for the foreseeable future whenever he can organise it.'
'What for?' Harry raised an eyebrow at her. 'Oh,' she realised. 'Malfoy. I thought you'd managed to escape with just your ban.'
'Not much of an escape that,' Harry joked. It would have been an incredible escape. Any other student would have been expelled, or at least suspended, but Dumbledore wanted him where he could watch him, so Harry remained at Hogwarts.
'I guess we should head back then,' Katie decided, standing up and almost tripping over her chair.
'Too much to drink?' Harry quipped.
'No,' Katie scowled. 'I'm more careful now, after…well, you know when.'
'Yeah,' Harry responded quietly. 'I know.'
'Harry,' Hermione scooped her things into her bag very untidily, wincing slightly at the sound of crumpling parchment, and jogged to catch them before they left.
She must really want to speak to me.
'What do you want?' He still treated her coolly, it was no more than she deserved for breaking his wand.
'I spoke to Cedric about the third task.' Harry waited for her to continue. He doubted Cedric remembered very much. 'He says he remembers hearing the whistle and starting to run into the maze, then nothing until seeing you stun him.'
'That's unfortunate,' Harry remarked.
'He does remember being told that he was found unconscious next to Viktor, and that his wand had been broken.' Hermione seemed quite upset and disturbed by something, she clearly wasn't buying the set of events she had been told about.
Harry very carefully thought through the possible outcomes in his head and decided that while it would be best to keep his mouth closed for now nothing could come back to bite him. Cedric might end up feeling very guilty, which he didn't deserve to, but Hermione's search, at worst, would simply give Hogwarts' champion nightmares.
'You don't think that's weird?'
'Of course I do,' he agreed. 'You heard what Dumbledore said, someone was interfering, they probably got Cedric too and he'd just woken up when I found him.'
'It doesn't make sense,' Hermione shook her head, 'his wand was snapped deliberately, but for no obvious reason.'
She's not going to let this go until Cedric is forced to realise what really happened.
It made him more than a little angry with his former friend. She was going to stir up a lot of unpleasant truths, hurt Cedric unnecessarily and in return she would find nothing more satisfying than the story she already knew.
I can't even dissuade her, because it will make me look suspicious.
'I only know what I saw,' Harry responded evenly.
'I know,' she sighed. 'I'm sorry to bring it up after everything that happened, but I need to know what happened to Viktor.'
'Most people who go digging don't find gold, Hermione,' Katie warned, in a rather uncharacteristicly metaphoric manner. Normally she was quite blunt. Hermione glared at the chaser and stalked off, probably more determined than before.
'Is that actually a saying?' Harry asked.
'I made it up,' Katie admitted. 'I thought it sounded good.' 'I've heard worse,' Harry conceded.
'What actually happened in the maze?' Katie inquired quietly. 'You were answering her questions in a very specific manner, and you're not happy about her searching into this at all, are you?'
'If you're worried that I was responsible, don't be,' Harry assured her. 'I know exactly what happened, but I took a risk to protect someone. Her digging is going to undo that and it's not going to benefit anyone. They will get hurt, and nobody else will really be affected in the slightest. It's too late to implicate me,' he told her calmly, before she could worry about that.
'Cedric,' Katie realised. 'You snapped his wand so nobody could see the spells it cast and stunned him.' She scrunched her face up in thought. 'Why are you helping him if he killed someone? What don't I know?'
Harry felt a surge of gratitude towards the scruffy chaser. She had trusted him implicitly, assuming he had a good reason rather than telling him he was doing something wrong.
'Cedric didn't do anything consciously,' he told her, in a very quiet whisper. 'I spared him from blame in case Bagman hadn't been caught, now I'm only keeping him from the guilt of knowing, but it's no less than he deserves.'
'You obliviated him,' Katie deduced. 'That was noble of you, Harry,' she teased. 'Still a Gryffindor at heart. I won't tell anyone, it's unnecessarily cruel to Diggory.'
'As brainless and reckless as they come,' Harry grinned, and thank you.'
'So how come you're only teaching Neville and not me?' She asked as they drifted back onto the school grounds.
'There would be an outcry from the lower years if anyone caught wind of me teaching you anything,' Harry smiled. 'You've terrified them all already, imagine how they'd react if they thought I'd been teaching you dark ice curses too.'
'Angelina said you used the water conjuring spell,' Katie pointed out.
'I did,' Harry grinned, 'but didn't you read what Rita Skeeter said. It was clearly a very dark curse, so I must have tricked her.'
'You aren't going to tell me, are you?'
'It was an accident,' Harry admitted, choosing his next half-truths carefully. 'I wanted to drench him in water, but I was angry and I think I did some transfiguration by accident after conjuring the water.'
'You must have been angry about me being hurt to do accidental magic at fifteen, Harry,' Katie suggested coyly. 'Is there something you need to tell Fleur?'
'Only that sometimes there are people who you see as more siblings than anything else,' Harry smiled at her slight flush, 'and that she should feel free to throw fire at you.'
Katie pouted, and turned towards the Owlery. 'I need to send a letter,' she told him, 'have fun scrubbing things for Snape.'
'I'm sure I will,' Harry gritted, annoyed at the time he might lose in the chamber because of this.
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