Chapter 508: Padfoot is back (Edited)
Hermione was feeling a bit....
Happy lately.
She didn't know how it happened, but after the second test, Fish became very clingy with her, spending a lot of time with her and hugging and rubbing her so often that she wondered if she was dreaming.
At first, Hermione thought he was clinging to her for comfort because Fish was upset about losing the competition, but she soon discovered that this was not the case.
Fish didn't seem upset or angry when the others mentioned that he had come in last place, but he was still confident that he would be the ultimate winner.
When Hermione tried to figure out what was wrong with Fish, Fish, who had been very clueless, became very perceptive, and always remained mute.
Sometimes, when pressed, Fish would even look at Hermione with his big, round eyes and say, "Doesn't Hermione like being with Fish?"
This situation made it impossible for Hermione to continue to investigate the matter, so she had to blithely ignore her curiosity and spend the days with Fish, or find a secluded place to play or whatever.
Unlike the happy Fish and Hermione, Harry had been having a bit of a hard time lately.
Although his two performances in the Triwizard Tournament had caused most people to treat him differently, he had unfortunately been the target of Rita Skeeter, a veteran of the English magical world.
Previously, Skeeter reported on Harry Potter as a side story, with a cute Fish to write about and the "Boy Who Survived" not so important.
But Skeeter is still essentially a gold medalist who is better at fabricating facts and getting people in trouble, like praising others....
She's not professional.
So after writing a few positive stories for Fish, Skeeter couldn't write anything new, so she focused on Harry Potter.
And then Harry had a bad day.
Rita Skeeter found out things he was saying about Snape, his numerous rule infractions, etc., and, with the help of the Slytherin students, expanded the story by publishing it in the Daily Prophet.
What Harry hated most about Skeeter was the fact that... he had asked Cho Chang to the ball and had fallen in love with her, and somehow Skeeter had found out about it too.
After this report came out, Cho Chang, who nodded and waved at him when they met, basically didn't appear in front of Harry, and even if they did, they pretended not to see him.
Malfoy and other Slytherin students used this issue to laugh madly at Harry, so he fought with Malfoy again, and then Snape, who broke up the fight, sent Harry to confinement, which added another story for Skeeter.
In the article, Malfoy also acts as a victim, saying that he was attacked several times by Harry and his friend Ron together... although this is, in a way, true.
Luckily, Ron was still supporting him as always, and Sirius had asked Harry to meet him outside Hogsmeade village.
Although he was concerned for his godfather's safety, Harry had so much to tell him that letters alone were not enough to vent his grievances.
On the appointed day, Harry and Ron, covered by the invisibility cloak, arrived with Sirius at the promised location: past Devis-Bans, outside the village, where a big, fat, black dog was waiting for them at the end of the road, next to a wooden fence.
As Harry and Ron approached, Sirius seemed to catch his scent and immediately turned his head.
"That's us." Harry and Ron leaned forward and whispered, but did not remove their invisibility cloaks.
The large black dog shook his head and tail, then turned and walked toward the foot of the rocky mountain in the distance.
Harry and Ron hurried around the fence and followed him.
Sirius led them to the base of the mountain and continued up. Sirius could walk easily because he had four legs, but Harry and Ron were soon panting with exhaustion.
They followed Sirius wagging their tails for nearly half an hour as they climbed up the steep, rocky trail, sweating in the blazing sun.
Finally, Sirius disappeared in an instant. When they reached the spot where he had disappeared, they saw a narrow cleft in the rock. They squeezed through and found themselves in a cool, dimly lit cavern.
"Sirius!"
Harry shouted in surprise as he pulled up his invisibility cloak. And the black dog transformed into his godfather.
"Good watch," Sirius Black looked at the invisibility cloak in Harry's hand, nodded approvingly and then grinned, "But aren't you being too careful?"
"I can't help it... I've been under constant scrutiny from that Rita Skeeter lately, I can't help being careful." Harry replied with a bitter smile, "I even suspect she has an invisibility cloak as well and often wanders around Hogwarts with it."
"That's impossible," Sirius said, shaking his head, "Other invisibility cloaks don't stay invisible like the one your family inherited, for ten minutes or a few hours, they expire when the time is up and you have to wait a while before you can use it again." "
He exclaimed, "I envied James more when he had the invisibility cloak in his hands."
But soon Sirius changed the subject, "Well, we'll talk about that later, let's talk about the last letter you sent me..."
The letter Harry had sent Sirius earlier, besides talking about his problems with Skeeter, also mentioned Barty Crouch's leave of absence and Karkaroff's conversation with Snape. Clearly, these two matters were more important in Sirius' eyes.
It was a pity that the three of them had sat discussing the matter for so long, but they had so little information that Sirius had to ask Ron to ask Percy about Crouch.
After that, Sirius smiled and said to Harry, "I've seen Skeeter's article, and I have to say that you are exactly like James when it comes to girls."
In Skeeter's article, most of Harry's infractions of school rules, were done to get Cho Chang's attention.
"I did not!" cried Harry, red-faced, "I basically never spoke to her, except to ask her to go to the dance with me! And in first and second year, I didn't even like Cho Chang!".
"Hahahahaha..." Sirius laughed even harder, "Then you're much worse than your father when it comes to chasing girls...although he's pretty bad that way too."
Harry looked at him with a red face.
"Okay, okay, sorry..." Sirius stopped laughing and apologized, not very sincerely, "But just so you know, when you meet a girl you like, you have to go for it, Harry. "
"Cho Chang has a boyfriend!"
"So what? He's just a Hufflepuff!" sneered Sirius disdainfully. "You know, when your mother was..." he winked, suddenly closing his mouth.
"My mother? What happened to her?" asked Harry curiously.
But Sirius wasn't going to say anything else.
"It's nothing, I just casually said it," he blinked, and quickly changed the subject. "By the way, did you ever wonder how that reporter followed you?"
"Could it be the Disillusionment Charm?" Harry wasn't fooled, but Ron couldn't resist interjecting, "In first year, Professor Dumbledore used the Disillusionment Charm on me, Fish and Hermione, hiding backstage to watch Harry steal the Philosopher's Stone."
"What?! did you really do that?" Sirius, obviously hearing it for the first time, let out a laugh, "That's something Dumbledore would do."
When he had laughed long enough, Sirius shook his head again and said, "It's not easy to maintain an illusion spell for long, not everyone is as good as Dumbledore. On second thought, you should be able to guess, what the journalist used to impersonate you without drawing anyone's attention.... Well, except for that little Fish guy."
The hint became so obvious that Harry and Ron shouted the answer almost simultaneously, "Animagus!".