I was supposed to go back to Hogwarts on January 3rd, so I spent every moment of the next few days with my family. They kept trying to talk me into letting them come back to Hogwarts with me to talk to Cedric, and I kept ducking their requests or flat out saying no. The Canary Creams eventually ran out, so we let up on the prank war, but a few members of my family kept throwing things at me even on my last day in the Tower.
On Sunday, it was time for me to go back. I stayed in New York through one last dinner with my family, then made a sling portal back to my dorm and went right to sleep. Angelina and Alicia were already in bed too, since classes started back up tomorrow, and I was already wincing at how painful it would be to wake up in the morning. To my body clock, it was going to feel five hours earlier than normal.
My alarm went off at 7:30am, and it damn near killed me to pry my eyes open and get out of bed. I was a zombie going through my morning routine, trudging down the stairs to breakfast and drinking coffee like my life depended on it. I gave sleepy hellos and hugs to my Gryffindor friends, and somehow I managed to maintain a conversation at breakfast. They all completely understood why I was so exhausted, and they all did their best to keep me from going face-down into a nap at the table.
"Did you see the notice up in the Common Room this morning?" asked Lee excitedly. All my friends nodded, but I just stared blearily at him over my second cup of coffee in about an hour.
"No..."
"We're starting Apparition lessons!" he said excitedly. "We have to pay for the class, but the first one's in a month! If we pass our tests at the end of the year, we can use Apparition to get anywhere!"
"Alexa can already do that with her sling portals," noted Fred, shooting me a look. I just shrugged.
"Hey, can't hurt to have another method of traveling magically. Especially since I can use Apparition in a fight if Strange demands a rematch over the summer..." I was lost in thought for a second, then I turned back to my friends with a smile. "Besides, if you guys are all going through this whole wizard-milestone class, I want to do it with you."
My friends grinned, and we talked excitedly through the rest of breakfast about Apparition lessons. Our first period was Charms with Hufflepuff, and Cedric caught up with us as we headed out of the Hall.
"Alexa! It's good to see you again," he said, smiling brightly and pulling me in close for a hug and a kiss. I smiled back at him.
"It's good to see you too. I missed you."
"I missed you too."
"Alright, we'll see you all in Charms," said George, cutting in as he herded all our friends along ahead of us, leaving Cedric and I to walk to class in private.
"So how was break? Did I miss anything big?"
"No, not really. Other than the Apparition announcement, we haven't had any big or interesting events since you've been gone."
"Alright, that's good. Have George and Angelina admitted their feelings for each other yet?"
"Unfortunately not. We may have to return the favor of helping get them together."
I grinned. "My thoughts exactly. Further scheming may have to wait until I'm done with this cup of coffee, though."
"Oh dear. What number is that?"
"Three. But before you say anything, it's three in the morning to me right now."
Cedric and I spent as much time as possible together throughout the rest of the day. We had to separate for Potions, where I finally got to see my Slytherin friends again. Jackson and Adrian were apparently trying to make a run at me and Cedric for best couple of the friend group, and Myrah just seemed happy to have a bigger crowd than just the three of them again.
"Listen, as far as couples go, you two are easy to hang out with," she explained as we worked on our potion. "I never feel like the third wheel, but God, it's nice having some single people back in the mix for a change."
Adrian just laughed while Jackson rolled his eyes. They really did make a good couple, and Adrian had even managed to get Jackson to cut down on the number of times he tried to call Snape "Mister" in class, to everyone's relief.
After my last class of the day (an hour before everyone else's last class, thanks to me dropping History of Magic), I went straight upstairs and passed out cold for a nap. Was it the best strategy for getting back on a normal sleep schedule? Probably not. Did I care at all? No.
I woke up just in time to wander downstairs for dinner, still feeling tired but not at the same risk of falling asleep sitting up as I'd been this morning. The Hall seemed to be buzzing a little more than usual, and my friends gave me looks that made me insanely nervous as I sat down with them.
"What's going on?" I asked, starting to feel a little more awake as adrenaline started creeping into my bloodstream. My friends shot a few nervous glances back and forth, then finally Angelina passed over a newspaper.
The Daily Prophet. Rita Skeeter had two articles featured, and I didn't feel like reading either.
"Could you guys summarize for me?" I asked, looking up at them and setting down the offending paper. "I'm really in no mood to read her trash right now."
"She... well, she's run a story about you," stared Fred gently. I glared up at the ceiling and sighed heavily. I figured this would happen eventually.
"Alright, spit it out. What'd she say?"
"She wrote a bit about the champions, and she specifically focused on you and Cedric..." George continued.
"She said... well, she said he was cheating on you with Fleur. And that you'd decided to do the same thing with Krum," Fred finally finished. All of my friends were staring at me with baited breath, clearly waiting for some reaction that just wasn't coming.
"Of course she did," I said, rolling my eyes and tossing the paper a little further away from me. "What a boring article."
"What?" asked Alicia. Now my friends looked confused.
"I figured it was only a matter of time before she wrote some gossipy shit about me," I said. "I was at least hoping it'd be something interesting, like... hell, I don't know. Maybe that I'm secretly Dumbledore's daughter or some obscure thing like that."
"You... you're not upset?" asked Angelina. She and the rest of my friends still looked cautious, like they were ready for me to break any second.
"Nope. I know this is garbage, and so do all of you. I get pissed when she goes after my friends. This? This is the kind of crap I'm already used to. And honestly, except for the fact that she's going after Cedric too, I wouldn't really mind being her target. As much as I hate the media attention, at least this might take a little heat off of Harry."
All my friends just gave me shocked looks for a minute, then slowly, their faces broke into smiles.
"Well, good! We were worried you'd be upset," said George, grinning at me.
"But, Georgie, now we have a bigger problem," said Fred. "I'm more upset than Alexa now. We were completely robbed of any kind of creativity! Personally, I like the idea of you being part mermaid or something like that better than a dating scandal."
"HELL yes! That would've been so much better!" I leaned across the table to give Fred a high-five, and we all laughed. My spirits soared, but then I remembered the second article I'd seen a headline for. "Hey, wait. Was her article about me the only one she ran?"
Just like that, my friends were back to glancing at each other nervously. Nobody wanted to tell me, but I didn't want to actually read one of her garbage articles, so I managed to convince them. Apparently she'd run another piece dragging Hagrid through the mud. He was half-giant, according to the article, which didn't seem like all that surprising to me, but everyone else around the table treated it like a big deal. Giants had a bad reputation in the wizarding world, and the article had hurt Hagrid so much that, according to some of the third years, a substitute teacher had taken his class today.
Needless to say, the article put me in a bad mood like none other. Rita Skeeter kept going after people who didn't deserve it, and who had no practice dealing with an active smear campaign. And unlike most muggle reporters, who really only targeted people in the public eye, she was going after a bunch of private citizens, trying to ruin their lives and drag them into the spotlight without a single reason to help justify her.
My mind ran through a dozen different things I could do to stop her, but I knew none of them would really work. I could try to go straight to the Prophet to get her fired, but based on how the rest of the wizarding world seemed to respect her articles, I didn't think I'd have much luck. Short of losing her platform, it didn't seem likely that anything else would get her to stop writing her stories.
Still, that didn't mean I wasn't going to end her the next damn time I saw her.
I was scowling as I headed out of the Great Hall, trying to brainstorm some way to make Hagrid feel better and get rid of that horrible woman all at the same time. I was ripped out of my dark cloud by someone grabbing onto my arm frantically, appearing at my side out of nowhere.
"Alexa!" I turned to see Cedric, looking completely panicked as he looked at me with wide eyes. "It's not true. I love you, I would never-"
"Whoa whoa! Cedric, relax! Take a couple deep breaths, my God, you're gonna pass out from hyperventilation." All my thoughts were redirected towards my boyfriend, having a massive freak out just outside the Great Hall. He took a few deep breaths, thank God, and I led him away from the crowds into a more deserted corridor. "Okay, now what's going on?"
"That article Skeeter wrote," he said, still a little breathless. "I would never do anything to hurt you like that, I swear. And I know you'd never do anything with Krum-"
"Ced, I know you didn't cheat on me. I would never believe a word of that woman's garbage. I trust you."
Cedric looked at me for a minute, not speaking but looking incredibly relieved. Finally, he pulled me in for a bone-crushing hug, letting out a long sigh.
"Thank goodness," he breathed, still holding me tight. "When I saw you walking out of the Great Hall with that look on your face, I worried..."
"No, that look was for her article about Hagrid. I'm getting very very tired of this so-called reporter."
Cedric let out a small laugh, probably from the adrenaline dump more than anything else.
"So am I," he said, finally pulling back and smiling at me with a delirious smile. "I'm starting to regret not letting you pound her into dust at the Weighing of the Wands."
"Same," I agreed with a laugh. I knew Cedric was joking, at least mostly, but I wasn't. Attacking Rita probably wouldn't have changed anything about where we were now, but I sure would've felt better about everything.
Cedric and I talked and spent time together for a little longer, then went our separate ways to bed. I was still exhausted, so despite all the emotions running through my head, I passed out pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow.
****************
Then next morning, I woke up even earlier than I wanted to and headed out of the castle to get back into my normal training routine. I was happy to see Viktor stretching down by the lake already as I headed outside, especially since I hadn't gotten to see him yet since break.
"Hey!" I called, waving to him as I approached. "Did you hear we're dating?"
"Da," he replied, a small smile on his face. "I vas surprised to hear it. You and Cedric seemed like such a good couple."
"Likewise to you and Hermione. I didn't read the article, but I might just have to drag through it at breakfast to get the details on our relationship."
"Mm, you might be disappointed. She didn't say anything very interesting."
"Damn. How am I supposed to know anything about my side-relationship if she doesn't publish the full story?"
"Very annoying of her."
Viktor and I finally broke as we started running, laughing and venting a little about just how ridiculous the whole thing was. I was relieved to be able to joke with him about it, though, especially after Cedric's panic last night.
We finished our run, and it was so easy to get back into my usual routine, that after a day or two it was like I'd never left. I hung out with my friends, and they helped me get my mind off Skeeter. After the two articles as soon as we got back from break, she went a little more silent, which made it easier to pretend she didn't exist. I went to Hogsmeade with everybody around the middle of January, and Cedric and I got to go on a real away-from-Hogwarts date again. Cedric and I tried to spend a little time preparing for the second task too, but as January came to an end, we decided it was time to seriously sit down and figure out a plan.
"Alright, the task is in three and a half weeks. We need a plan," said Cedric, leaning back in his chair and paging through some of my digital Hogwarts library pages. We both decided a while ago that it would be easier to talk and plan without Madam Pince staring over our shoulders, so we'd set up a miniature library in the Astronomy Tower and were using Ana's records of all the books for any information we needed.
"So we know that we have to go into the lake and get something, right? And that we'll have an hour to do it. Which means our biggest problem is figuring out how to be underwater for an hour, right?" I said.
"Right."
"And based on everything Bagman told us, and the rules of the competition so far, there's nothing that says we have to use magic to solve this problem, right?"
Cedric sat up in his chair now, looking at me with interest. "And what is it that you have in mind, Alexa?"
"We have to go be underwater in the lake for an hour. If you come at that from a wizarding perspective, it's not super easy to find a solution. I mean, we could probably use a charm or something, but the water's going to be freezing cold and also, magic is just an overcomplicated way to solve this. This isn't even a challenge if you come at it from a muggle perspective."
"What do you mean?"
"Muggles have this thing we do, called scuba diving. Basically you jump in the water with fins and an air tank and you can just swim around in the water breathing like normal without relying on magic. The suit makes it easier to handle cold water, and the fins help you swim faster. It's a normal, established thing. And if we decided to go that route, you'd definitely need to learn how to scuba, but I got certified with Natasha and Clint a while ago, so I could teach you."
Cedric nodded thoughtfully, taking a minute before he responded.
"That doesn't sound like a bad idea," he finally decided. "And you're right, none of the judges said anything about how we had to achieve the goal. There's no rules other than retrieve whatever gets taken within an hour."
"Exactly! And maybe we can do a little research on a magical backup plan, but I really don't think anybody with authority would stop us if we showed up in muggle scuba gear."
Cedric nodded along, then smiled at me.
"Sounds like a perfect plan to me. Incredibly out of the box, but that's the best part of having you for a partner."
"Aww, Ced," I teased, smiling and leaning into him. "I'll track down some scuba gear for us and then we can start training next week."
"Can't wait."
Since we actually had a plan we were happy with, we decided to take some time to just hang out and enjoy each other's company in the Astronomy Tower. With Apparition lessons and scuba training coming up, on top of all kinds of other stuff, I got the feeling we wouldn't have much time to just relax and be together in the coming weeks.
Still, I didn't mind too much. All the crazy was just part of what made Hogwarts so amazing.