Chapter 168 The Mysterious Miss Granger

Rita Skeeter's article about the Triwizard Tournament is finally here.

It can be seen that she neglected Maca to the greatest extent, which was supposed to be a big deal. In this article, information about Maca is limited to just one name.

Correspondingly, Harry is a bit doomed - it's not so much a report on the tournament situation as an embellished portrayal of Harry's personal life.

A photo of Harry took up a lot of space on the first page of the newspaper, and the entire article covered the second, sixth, and seventh pages, all about Harry.

The above content is of course all false, but I have to say that those things look very eye-catching and will cause various misunderstandings to the uninformed.

As for Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons, her name was squeezed into the last line of the article with Maca, and even her name was misspelled.

When it comes to the specific content of the article, apart from those groundless speculations and strange descriptions, a certain paragraph in it made Hermione feel very uncomfortable.

Rita Skeeter writes:

“…Harry finally found his first love at Hogwarts. According to his close friend Colin Creevey, Harry was inseparable from a girl named Hermione Granger – and right , she is the famous fourth warrior of this tournament. Miss Granger is stunningly beautiful, born into a Muggle family, and like Harry, she is also one of the top students in the school."

This narrative is not too informative, presumably Rita Skeeter just wanted to bring a little pink lace to the article to make it look more gimmicky.

It was just one of countless everyday things about Harry's life, but Hermione couldn't bear it at all.

If it was in the past, she might just ignore it - that's not true anyway, it doesn't matter to her. But now, after she discovered her thoughts, this text became very eye-catching.

"Amazingly beautiful? She?" Pansy Parkinson of Slytherin grotesquely said upon meeting Hermione for the first time after Rita's article was published. Rat?"

"Keep your voice down, Pansy!" Another girl exaggerated, "She's the savior's girlfriend!"

Then the group of Slytherin girls giggled.

Hermione was trembling with anger, but when she heard this,

The first thing she did was look around. Seeing her guilty look, the Slytherin girls couldn't help laughing even more.

"Harry and I are just friends!" Hermione yelled angrily, and left quickly.

She couldn't let Maca hear these unreasonable rumors, even if she thought that Maca would never believe such nonsense. But……

"Oh—what's wrong with me, I need to calm down." Hermione retreated into the dormitory again, and she decided not to go out unless necessary.

What if someone made fun of her about that again...if someone happened to run into Maca when someone called her "the savior's girlfriend" again... what should I do?

Hermione felt that she was always panicking recently, which was a bit bad, obviously Maca had reminded her to be careful. Now this state...

"Hmm..." Hermione scratched her hair in annoyance, "It's Maca again."

...

On the Saturday before the first project, students from the third year and above are allowed to go to Hogsmeade village. Hermione had suggested to Harry that a walk outside the castle might make him feel better.

In fact, Harry was eager to go out and relax, and she didn't need her persuasion at all.

"But what about Ron?" he asked. "Don't you want to go with him?"

"Oh... so..." Hermione blushed slightly, "I think you can meet him at the Three Broomsticks..."

"No way! I don't want to... wait," Harry said strangely, "Aren't you going with me?"

"No, I... I still have something to do." Hermione stammered.

"What?" said Harry. "I can do it with you, you know, I just want to relax, nothing else."

"no!"

Hermione subconsciously yelled out, then was startled by the sound of her own voice. She looked around, and then continued: "No, I mean...some things can only be done by me..."

But Harry said sullenly: "Then I'll be alone again...that would be awesome!"

Hermione looked up helplessly, she thought for a while, and then reluctantly said: "Okay, okay...then you must keep quiet and don't ask anything!"

She repeated it with emphasis, "Remember, don't ask anything!"

"Why—" Harry subconsciously asked halfway, seeing that anger appeared on Hermione's face immediately, he couldn't help holding back the words.

"—I don't ask, I don't ask anything." He immediately changed his words.

And just like that, Harry donned his Invisibility Cloak in his dormitory, went downstairs, and set off for Hogsmeade with Hermione.

Harry felt especially at ease under the cloak.

Harry watched the other students pass them as they walked into the village. Although no nasty comments were thrown at him, and no one quoted from that stupid article.

But Harry found that many people were looking at Hermione and pointing.

"What are they talking about—"

"Don't talk, don't ask anything!" Hermione quickly blocked Harry's question back.

They soon came to the door of the Honeydukes Candy Shop, which they always visited when they came back to Hogsmeade. But this time, Hermione skipped over here without even looking at it, and continued walking forward.

Harry really wanted to ask why, but because of the previous two times, he finally held back.

When they passed Zonko's Magical Joke Shop again, Harry noticed that Hermione had stopped in front of Fengya's wizarding clothing store.

"Wait here!" Hermione dropped this sentence in a low voice, and ran in like a gust of wind.

Standing at the door, Harry blinked inexplicably, and looked inside puzzled.

"Uh...I'm still wearing an invisibility cloak, so she can't see it." He hesitated for a while, but finally couldn't hold back his curiosity, and cautiously opened the door and followed.

"jingle--"

A sudden doorbell knocked Harry to a halt.

"Oops!"

He didn't dare to take a breath, but in the next second, he was bumped by something.

"Ouch! What's in the front?" A voice came from behind Harry, and he hurried forward two steps, hiding behind a vertical hanger with a coat hanging on it.

At the same time, Hermione, who was talking to the owner in the store, also hurried to the door—she thought Harry had sneaked in!

But what she saw was a middle-aged witch.

"Oh... ma'am, what's the matter with you?" Hermione said, looking around carefully.

"Well...it's okay, thank you." The witch smiled, then glanced at the door suspiciously, and then walked in.

"Harry, are you in?" Hermione asked softly, but got no answer.

Of course Harry wouldn't say a word, if he made a sound now, it would be a waste of the coincidence just now. Besides, no one would take the initiative to scold them, would they?

However, Hermione suddenly turned around and grabbed Harry.

"How do you know—" Harry lowered his voice in surprise.

But Hermione didn't mean to explain to him at all. She opened the store door and pushed Harry out.

"Does your coat arch itself when it's on the hanger..." she whispered, and hurried back to the store.

"Does she want to buy clothes?" Harry stood outside the door, looking at the clothes displayed in the window, wondering, "But...the clothes here look quite expensive."

After a while, Hermione finally came out.

The two walked in silence for a while, and Harry finally couldn't help but speak.

"That...sorry, just now—"

"Stop talking!" Hermione said angrily, "Okay, please take off the invisibility cloak for a while, no one here will trouble you."

"Oh, really?" said Harry, "look behind you."

Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend just emerged from The Three Broomsticks. They were talking in low voices and walked past Hermione without even looking at her.

Instead, Hermione clenched her fists and glared at her back angrily.

Afraid that Rita Skeeter's alligator leather bag would touch him, Harry dodged and hid under the wall of the Honeydukes candy store.

When the two had gone, Harry said, "She's still in the village. I bet she'll be there for the first event."

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he felt a searing panic rush through him, but he didn't say it. He and Hermione rarely talked about what the first event would be.

He always felt that Hermione didn't seem to want to think about it.

"She's gone," said Hermione, looking right through Harry to the end of the street. "How about we go to the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer? It's getting a bit cold, isn't it?"

Harry didn't respond, and she felt as if she was speaking into the air.

"Just to get a drink, you don't need to talk to Ron!" she said irritably, guessing why he was silent.

The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly Hogwarts students, enjoying their afternoon of freedom, but there were also many different types of wizarding people Harry had rarely seen elsewhere.

For what it's worth, they see Maca in the corner. At this moment, he was chatting casually with Minister of Magic Fudge, holding a large glass of butterbeer in his hand.

"...Don't worry, you've already done what you need to do, just wait." Maca raised his glass to Fudge, and said calmly.