𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒛𝒆 - pjo x hp [₂]

viii. stealing boyfriends, are we?

"No one wants to know," Raya cut in rather harshly. "Everyone who needs to know — who was close enough to him — knows exactly what happened. Anyone who's sitting here, and doesn't know what happened to — to him, they don't need to know. The attack isn't some spectacle for you all to gossip about. So please, shut up before I charm your jaw closed."

Zacharias made a face, but seeing no one else come to his defense, he sat back down.

"If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort tries to murder someone I can't help you," Harry said. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out."

None of them left their seats, not even Zacharias Smith, though he continued to gaze intently at Harry.

"So," said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. "So... like I was saying... if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet, and where we're going to—"

"Is it true," interrupted a girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus?"

There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.

"Yeah," said Harry slightly defensively.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

"Er — you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" he asked.

The girl smiled. "She's my auntie," she said. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So — is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Blimey, Harry!" said Lee, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"

"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," said Fred, grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was."

"She's not wrong," mumbled Harry and a couple of people laughed. 

"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demanded Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year..."

Raya pursed her lips, not mentioning to anyone that it had actually been her to kill it. She'd been invisible at the time, of course. Letting Harry take the credit for something she did wasn't something she minded.

"Er — sorta," said Harry. "I don't remember a lot of it because I was dying, but I had the sword, and the basilisk was dead."

Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled, the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks, and Lavender Brown said "wow" softly. 

"And in our first year," said Neville to the group at large, "he saved that Sorcerous Stone—"

"Sorcerer's," hissed Hermione.

"Yes, that, from You-Know-Who," finished Neville.

Hannah Abbott's eyes were as round as Galleons.

"And that's not to mention," said Cierra, "all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year — getting past dragons and merpeople and acromantulas and things..."

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table.

"Look," he said and everyone fell silent at once, "I... I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but... I had a lot of help with all that stuff..."

"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said Michael Corner at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying..."

"Yeah, well—" Harry shurgged.