203 A Double Rock Bottom

"A moment please, Miss… Leana, was it?" called Rita Skeeter, running out of the room after Oleandra.

"Oleandra," Oleandra corrected her grumpily.

"That's what I said!" said the Skeeter woman. "Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?"

Oleandra sighed and stopped walking. From what she could tell from the various articles she had written, Rita Skeeter seemed to be the type to hold a grudge. Which meant that the best thing to do was to answer her questions properly, lest she invent something to fill in the blanks.

"Fine," Oleandra said wearily. "What do you want to know!"

"Excellent!" beamed Rita Skeeter. "Let's just dip inside this classroom quickly; wouldn't want to be interrupted, would we?"

Oleandra wouldn't have minded an excuse to escape, but she kept that to herself. The 'reporter' dragged Oleandra inside the classroom and took out a rather ostentatious green quill and a piece of parchment, which she set on a nearby desk.

"Let's get started, shall we?" said Rita Skeeter sweetly. "Now, I couldn't help but notice some— unresolved tension between you and your fellow champion, Harry… Care to elaborate on that?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Oleandra asked suspiciously. "Aren't you going to ask questions about me, as a Hogwarts champion?"

"Later, later," Rita Skeeter said, waving her hand dismissively. "How long have you known Harry? How did you meet?"

"Er— We've known each other since our first year at Hogwarts," said Oleandra. "We didn't have much to do with each other until we saved Hermione Granger from a troll together…"

"Very interesting," said Rita Skeeter, as she glanced at her quill. "Surely such a traumatic event must have brought you two… closer. As friends? Or maybe even… as lovers?"

"No way!" Oleandra denied a little too hotly.

"In your second year," Rita Skeeter continued, "you successfully teamed up with Harry again to slay the Basilisk that was terrorizing the school, is that correct?"

"We even got Awards for Special Services to the School," said Oleandra a little proudly. "They're in the school's trophy room, if you want to see them."

Oleandra then glanced at the quill, which was furiously inscribing words on the piece of parchment at breakneck pace. Tilting her head a little, Oleandra managed to decipher a few sentences:

It was love at first sight: Harry Potter's fiery passion would soon melt the ice princess's cold exterior. Harry's on-again off-again relationship with the Greengrass heiress would go through many ups and downs, but destiny would always find a way to bring the star-crossed lovers back together, one way or another. The Basilisk would not be the last time—

What kind of fanfiction-level nonsense was this quill writing? Was it broken, or something?

"My sister and Ronald Weasley were also there," Oleandra pointed out angrily. "It wasn't some romantic outing like you're picturing, we all nearly died."

"And what about your third year?" Rita Skeeter inquired, pushing further. "Sirius Black got inside the school at least twice under your teachers' noses in order to finish what he had started; surely, Harry must have needed your… comforting presence?"

"Absolutely not!" Oleandra insisted.

"So, nothing of interest, then?" Rita Skeeter asked again.

'Nothing happened,' Oleandra tried to say, but somehow, the words got caught in her throat. And of course, a seasoned reporter like Rita instantly jumped on the perceived hesitation.

"Something did happen, then?" Rita Skeeter asked, intrigued.

"Nothing… happened," Oleandra managed to say out loud with difficulty. "Now if you'll excuse me— dinner's going to end soon, so I'd like to get something to eat—"

And upon saying these words, Oleandra began to walk away as fast as her dignity would allow her. What exactly had just happened, right there?

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The very next day, Rita Skeeter's extremely salacious article appeared in the Daily Prophet, and Harry's reputation fell even further than it already had. Worse still, Oleandra herself was caught in the crossfire, the article making her seem like the other woman in Harry's supposed relationship with Hermione.

Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts in two stunningly beautiful women; Oleandra Greengrass, noble scion of the Greengrass family and Hermione Granger, a Muggle-Born girl. The two Witches, both top students, like Harry, constantly compete among themselves for Harry's attention.

"I should have known going for taken men was your type, Oleandra," said Pansy passive aggressively. "But just so you know, Draco's off-limits."

Oleandra scowled at her and kept reading the newspaper that the paper-owl had brought during breakfast. All of the Slytherins at the table currently had their noses buried between the pages, much to her chagrin. And to make matters worse, Tracey and Daphne had finished breakfast early in order to go to the library. Oleandra had no one to back her up!

In her latest attempt to vie for Harry's affection, Oleandra confided in me that she had placed Harry's name along with her own in the Goblet of Fire, in order to spend more time with her lover:

I did it for love, I suppose… We're in different Houses, and I was afraid that Hermione would take him away from me. I won't even bring a wand to the first task; I'm prepared to support Harry all the way to victory.

"I never said any of that!" Oleandra said indignantly. "It's all lies! Lies and slander! It's defamation, that's what it is!"

However, upon lifting her eyes from the newspaper, Oleandra was met with the cold eyes of her fellow Slytherins; even Draco was actively trying to avoid meeting her gaze. Visibly, nobody was buying her story: she and her friends were basically the only Slytherins who got along fairly well with Potter's gang, making them stick out like sore thumbs.

They'd been prepared to stick with their champion through thick and thin, but deliberately throwing the competition in order to please the enemy? Oleandra was challenging their bottom line; at worst, they could abide her not performing well, but Slytherins loathed traitors!

"If you like Harry so much, why don't you join him in Gryffindor?" said Pansy icily. "Get out of here, Greengrass, you filthy traitor."

"Why don't you make me?" snarled Oleandra, lightning crackling at her fingertips as she silently invoked Hagal. "If you think you've got the guts."

"Why don't we all calm down?" Theodore Nott, who was sitting a few seats away from Draco, said. "The first task is a bit under two weeks away; surely we can wait until then before doing anything we might regret?"

"Mind your own business, Nott," said Millicent Bulstrode, who was Pansy's Crabbe and Goyle in one girl.

"You can't believe everything you read in the paper," replied Theodore Nott, shrugging his shoulders.

"Fine, then," Pansy snapped. "Greengrass, you've got until then to impress us; otherwise, we'll make your life hell."

After breakfast, Oleandra ran after Theodore to thank him for sticking up for her.

"No need to thank me," he simply said. "I just wanted a bit of peace and quiet to finish up balancing these alchemical equations."

And that was that.