A Terrible Temptation

A/N - I reposted the corrected and re-beta\'d chapters (Thanks Kate) and have put the rules of the Challenge at the start of Chapter one. The rules will answer several questions people have asked about the direction f the story.

Thanks to: Kiristeen, Zephyr, Ms.Pixie, Laura, LittleBirs, Allison of the faeiries, Deb, Helen, Gwennaviere and Stellar snape.
Temptation - Yea, Sev has a bit of a dilemma to wrestle with.
Deeble - The info on Snape as a beater comes from the Harry Potter Lexicon, so its practically canon. LOL
Droxy - Most of my friends in LA are 20-somethings, as a 36 year old I am often made to feel ancient myself, so I know precicely how Sev would feel. :)
Brian - I post a chapter a day on two stories right now, I also posted the last chpater of Snark Summer today. How many writers do you know of who do that? Stop complaining. :)
buttercup - thank you for the detailed review, it\'s very helpful to know what I am doing right. :)
Snapelover - Now that would be telling, wouldn\'t it?
dave - Hi Dave! Sorry, didn\'t mean to suck ya into another one. Ha! I lied! Ma ha ha ha ha ha! Now, since I have finsihed so many already, there shouldn\'t be any concern on your part. I shall not abandon you all to no ending. Promise!


Chapter 8 – The Daily Prophet

Breakfast in the Great Hall was usually an exasperating experience for Hermione; Ron and Harry would bicker about Quidditch and she would make sure they both had what they needed for class while simultaneously trying to read and maybe eat something.

But since the accident in the Owlery, Harry no longer bickered. He would quietly state his position and, if Ron wouldn’t back down, he would explain his reasoning until Ron conceded the point. Harry always had his homework down these days and all his things carefully arranged in his book bag.

Harry also had begun to pay attention to what she was eating, putting food on her plate and nagging her to put down her book and eat if she grew distracted. It was strangely comforting to know that Harry cared enough to make sure she was eating properly.

He was more attuned to her moods as well. In the week since the accident she had gotten her period and Harry had noted her depression and asked about it. When informed of the source, he had blushed beet red, but he hadn’t run as Ron normally had; he just asked, in a slightly strained voice, if she needed anything. Her snarled response of “Chocolate and lots of it” had galvanized him into action and a half an hour later he had returned from the kitchens with an offering of chocolate mousse tort and four forks.

The resulting picnic on the Common Room floor with Ron and Ginny had gone a long way to restoring her good humor.

The morning post owls swooped through the cloudy sky that drifted above them in the Great Hall and Hermione grabbed her newspaper as it fell, along with a letter from her parents and one from her grandmother.

Hermione opened the morning paper with a grimace. She really hated the Daily Prophet; it was the ”Sun” of the wizarding world; profit-oriented, untruthful and full of sensationalism. Still, she had learned her lesson: you just had to know what they were telling everyone else or you didn’t stand a chance of fighting their tide of misinformation.

The front page had a photo of the Dursleys and Hermione gasped in shock. It wasn’t that they were dirty, disheveled and covered in what looked like squashed fruit and lettuce leaves, it was that they came with the caption: “Potter’s Family Cursed!” running across the top of the front page. The byline was signed Rita Skeeter.

“I am going to squash that bug the next time I see her.” She growled at her paper.

“What’s happened?” Harry asked her, shifting on the bench so he could read over her shoulder. “Oops.” He said a moment later as he scanned the article.

“Oops? What do you mean ‘oops’, Harry?” Harry gave her conspiratorial look with his lips twisted into a tiny smile. It was amazingly sexy -- as if he’d been a very bad boy but just knew you’d see the humor in it.

“Snape was rather annoyed by them when he came to pick me up. I guess he got a little carried away.” Harry’s face had smoothed back into a more usual expression of youthful excitement. Still, there was something in his eyes; something that spoke of a greater maturity, a secret knowledge. She hadn’t realized that she was staring at him until he cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her. “Do I have something between my teeth?”

“You seem really different lately, Harry.” She admitted and he sighed.

“Ron told me that you two figured things out.” He was watching her with a wary expression.

“Well, Ron has a theory…” She watched him draw a breath and felt a little lightheaded; his hands were restlessly playing with his dinner knife, rubbing his thumb along the handle in a manner that sent her thoughts reeling off in another direction entirely.

“You know I can’t talk about it, ‘Mione.” He shot her a pleading look and she relented, letting him off the hook.

“Harry! It says that your family were turned into howler monkeys by Death Eaters and sent to die in the jungles of Burma! They were chased by leopards!” Colin Creevey managed to say that all in one breath, his eyes starting from his head in his excitement.

“You can’t believe everything you read in the Prophet, Colin.” Harry said in dismissive tones.

“Well, but there’s a picture!” Colin insisted, pointing at it. The rest of the Gryffindor table was now listening to the conversation expectantly.

“There is a picture of tourists who got lost in the jungle, Colin. It happens all the time. Knowing Uncle Vernon, he was too embarrassed to admit he made a wrong turn and came up with that story to cover up the fact that he has no sense of direction.” Harry said it with a shrug and a smile and everyone laughed and went back to what they were doing.

“I should have made the bargain for three years.” Hermione was incensed.

“She’d have starved. Besides, someone else would have written it if she hadn’t.” Harry had a decidedly cynical air. “They need to make money and the name Harry Potter sells newspapers.” She had to agree with him about that.

“It’s still wrong.”

“Of course it is, but there are petty little evils like Rita Skeeter, and then there is serious evil, like Voldemort. You have to save your energy for the important battles.” Hermione was staring at him again. Was that more of the mental leakage from Snape or was that Harry speaking? It was an amazingly mature assessment but it wasn’t snarky or mean, so it had to be Harry.

“You’ve really grown up, Harry.” She smiled warmly at him and he smiled back, though it was a rather shy and uncertain expression.

“Is that a good thing?” He asked her with a furrow between his eyes.

“It’s a very good g.” g.” She watched as he relaxed and that rather shy smile she had seen once or twice came peeping back out. It wasn’t the dazzling one he had flashed at Lavender and it wasn’t the sly one he had given her before; it was gentle thing, rather insecure and filled with a sort of wistfulness that made Hermione’s heart ache just a little bit.


She should have been expecting it of course -- Draco wouldn’t put up with being ignored. He was such a drama queen; she snorted as he stepped out in front of herself, Ron and Harry and struck a heroic pose with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him.

“Hey, Potty.”

“Hey, He-who-must-not-be-taken-seriously.” Harry shot back with a sneer of vicious loathing that would have made Snape proud. Draco looked taken aback by the response. A crowd, alerted by the possibility of conflict, began to gather.

“I want a rematch, Potty -- you and me!” Draco snarled, but with less force.

“Whatever for, Malfoy?” Harry said lazily with an expression of utter boredom on his face. Harry must not have been following whatever script Draco had created in his mind because the other boy looked flummoxed by the question. The crowd was looking back and forth between the two combatants, waiting for the bleeding to start like a pack of hungry wolves. Malfoy had hurt most of them at some point and they were desperate to see him taken down.

“So I can beat you up, Potty!” Draco sounded uncertain though, and Harry rolled his eyes, sighed and put his hands on his hips. There were isolated titters in the crowd.

“And that is fun for me how? For Merlin’s sake, you chinless, weak-kneed, wretched excuse for a wizard, how pitifully stupid do you think I am?” Harry retorted with exasperation. “Don’t answer that. Look, I have stood toe to toe with Voldemort, I have beaten your father, the man who trained you to fight -- beaten him soundly I might add – and dueled with your aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman whose very name ought to make you piss blue. I have survived more attempts on my life than you have brain cells and you actually think you can beat me in a duel, you miserable wretch, you puling, slack-jawed mediocrity?”

Harry had a point, Hermione conceded. Put that way, Draco’s continued harassment of Harry was, well, suicidal. At least Draco began to see it that way, because his uncertainty turned to concern and then to worry. Harry pulled his wand and stalked towards the now trembling Draco with an expression of murderous fury etched on his features.

Hermione would have been concerned but she saw the slightest glint in Harry’s eyes and then he leaned forward until his face was mere inches from Draco’s and whispered.

“Boo.”

Draco fainted away and Crabbe and Goyle broke and ran. It was beautiful. The crowd erupted into cheers and Harry was being patted and hugged by half the school. He looked extremely uncomfortable as he was clapped on the back and had his hair ruffled by people he hardly knew, but that shy little smile was back -- the wistful one.

He looked like someone so starved for a single word of praise that he was being overstuffed now with a too rich meal of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop eating. It made that sharp pain in her heart start up again. She stepped in to extract him from the crowd and as soon as she had him safe from his admirers, she hugged him.

There was a moment of indecision and then he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back.

“That was brilliant, Harry.” she whispered. He pulled back from her slowly and gave her the tiniest smile.

“Did you see him hit the floor?” The smile widened and she grinned back at him.

“Did you see his face when you said ‘boo’?” They were both laughing so hard that they had to help each other back to the Common Room.