69 Chapter 67 - Reactions Pt 2

***** Bonus Chapter ***** A/N: So yesterday I passed out after work… was super tired. Then i decided to take a mental break to set up My new computer that arrived! Got a nice light one with a touchscreen and a stylus so I can write anywhere now ahaha. ngl I'm enjoying this new writing 'chapter' of my life. It's fun being creative again *****

Khan finished reading and looked up at Fleur, who also looked quite angry with what Skeeter was portraying.

"Dark magic rituals? Seriously? Where the hell did that even come from?" Khan raged. He had barely used the Unforgivables lately, and that was the only dark magic he truly knew how to use, stopping his study, after witnessing Sebastian and his descent into obsession. "Seems tabloids can just write anything these days, regardless if its based in reality or not."

His eyes were flashing dangerously, and Fleur could feel his anger rising.

'And How the hell did she even know that I'm from 100 years ago. There shouldn't be any record or piece of evidence, other than our old Khan family tree, which is in my the Khan Family Mansion, located behind powerful battle wards.' Khan wondered to himself. 'Although it's not really a secret that I'm trying to hide, with my close friends already knowing, its not exactly something that I'm going about advertising either.'

Even he did not fully understand how he was able to come over 100 years into the future. One minute he had defeated Ranrok, and absorbed all the ancient magic under Hogwarts. The next minute he knew, he was waking up in the Medical Wing, already having gone through his coma.

One thing was for certain though, it was definitely not from Dark Magic Rituals, as Rita Skeeter was claiming.

"It's quite alright Jordan." Fleur set aside her own anger, to help get her husband's emotions under control, rubbing his arm gently comforting him. "Don't get too upset, it's fine. We will take care of this over Christmas."

Internally however, Fleur was seething, thinking of numerous French insults she would call Rita to her face next time she sees her. '....retourner à la pute qui t'a accouchée..... Ta mère la pute, ton père le client et toi l'accident..... Amène ta mère pourque je te refasse....'

(A/N: Shit I used to say in french immersion.... ahaha that was like 20 years ago, and even though my french is conversational at best, that's what I remember saying. Hope its somewhat correct, as Im kinda just going with what I remember, having not used these phrases in a while lmfao)

Taking a deep sigh, Khan paused and listened to her, taking a moment to enjoy Fleur's rubbing of his arm and calm down, before responding. "Yes.... of course.... you're right."

"And besides, it's not like anyone who knows you, will believe this nonsense written here." Fleur continued, gesturing to the other Hogwarts students, who by now, had finished reading the article.

Looking around, Khan saw that almost all of them appeared quite upset on his behalf, with even a few arguments beginning to pop up.

"What d'you mean, 'We all hate Jordan?'" Khan heard Cho Chang cry out from the Ravenclaw table. Looking over, he saw a bunch of Ravenclaw students starting to surround an uncomfortable looking Roger Davies.

Khan felt more of his anger start to leave him, as he was feeling quite satisfied watching that particular scene. 'Serves you right you cocky pri-'

"RONALD WEASLEY!" Hermione interrupted his thoughts, screeching from directly in front of him, as him and Fleur were still standing close by after reading the article. "You go and talk to Rita, even after Harry's dreadful article, making up clearly blatant stories, simply because you don't like Jordan?!?"

Looking over, Jordan noted that Hermione appeared quite wild and feral in her defense of himself, with her bushy hair and angry demeanor, as she verbally dressed down Ron.

"You know, when you first didn't believe Harry, I thought you were just being childish, and would hopefully grow out of it." Hermione raged at Ron, who was also seated at the Gryffindor table, previously stuffing his face. "But after this article, I know now that you're just a jealous and spiteful person!"

While watching, Khan noticed that Harry, who was sitting beside the currently raging Hermione, also appeared quite upset, forehead furrowed, as he looked to be deep in thought.

Harry himself, was feeling rather upset with the article. He was quoted in the article after all, being used to make his friend Jordan Khan look bad.

The thing is, he didn't talk to Rita to give her that quote. In fact, after he had rudely said goodbye to her after the first task, he had not even seen her on Hogwarts grounds, let alone talk to her... Perhaps she had an invisibility cloak, like he did?

And although he had indeed said that 'he would've preferred to have a quiet year, instead of being a champion', it had only been to his best friend Hermione privately, during one of their morning walks around the lake.

How the hell could she have heard that? Especially when she had quoted him word for word...

The rest of the Gryffindors all appeared to be surrounding Ron, in a similar fashion to the way Roger was being surround by the Ravenclaws, with Hermione and Cho leading the respective groups.

Looking around at the rest of the tables, it seemed that they too appeared quite upset about the article.

The Slytherins surprisingly appeared quite united, Malfoy and Daphne Greengrass leading them in angry discussions, collectively making their own plans to combat this fraudulent article.

"I will be contacting my father to raise an issue with the daily prophet." Khan overheard Malfoy brag. "As he is its leader, You can all rest assured that the Dark Faction of the Wizengamot will not stand for this slander against the Noble Khan house, and it's Head."

Although Draco had been told repeatedly by his father to befriend Jordan, and become his confidant for the Malfoy house benefit, Draco in his heart truly did want to follow Khan. Draco was amazed with Khan's power, and ruthless demeanor, especially during his first task outburst. He truly did hope that he could support Jordan similar to how his Father was Voldemort's right hand man.

"As will I be contacting my father to do the same." Daphne backed up Malfoy's plan. This itself was surprising as the two of them were at constant loggerheads for control over the 4th year Slytherins. "Similar to Lord Malfoy, my Father is also the leader of the Grey Faction, and they too will not stand for this slander against Lord Jordan Khan."

Daphne herself, had her own plans regarding Jordan Khan. And this article presented the proper opportunity.

She was not surprised by Rita's article, as she had immediately done her research on the Khan family, when he had been announced that first day as their Junior Professor.

She was however, originally surprised by the news of Prof. Khan being over 100 years old, before she simply wrote it off as it being possible that Jordan was named after his Grandfather, who shared the same name as him back in the early 1900s when the Khan family originally disappeared.

She had been watching Jordan Khan after all. And just from watching him, she knew better than to take Rita's nonsense as objective truth.

And why was she watching him? Well that involves her plan regarding Jordan, which stemmed directly as a result of their coincidental Hogsmeade meeting.

She had been frequenting that shop ever since her First Hogsmeade weekend, when she had learned about their obscure books, scrolls and tomes being sold, due to her desire to cure her sister. Unfortunately she did not find anything that first visit.

You see, the Greengrass family was cursed. In their family, in every generation, a few people would receive whats known as a Blood-Curse, causing them to be quite frail, and wrought with the occasional bouts of pain.

Unfortunately, Daphne's Younger sister was the one to receive the curse, and not Daphne herself, as she would have preferred.

As such, every Hogsmeade weekend, without fail, she would return, always inquiring about newly received inventory.

And during her many visits, she had never spotted anyone else visiting, as the shop was located quite of out the way, in a back alley of Hogsmeade.

Thus, she was quite surprised to see Prof. Khan and Hermione in that same shop just a few weeks ago.

She had learned later from Granger, that the shop actually belonged to Prof. Khan himself! Add to that the fact that the Khan family was was an ancient and Noble old Family, established by an archmage, and well he was perhaps her best chance for curing her family's curse.

As a result, Daphne was plotting and planning to get closer to the Prof. Khan and the Khan family. Hopefully they would be her sister's salvation.

Similar to Daphne and Draco, many of the Slytherins respected and admired Jordan Khan. Not only was he head of the Noble Khan family, but he also possessed powerful magical abilities, displayed both in the various classes he taught, as well as the first task.

Similar to how many Slytherin students previously respected his power and gravitated to Tom Riddle during his time at Hogwarts, these Slytherin students felt the same way about Khan. Perhaps he would be the pure-blood to finally raise wizardkind to their proper place in the world.

The ever loyal Hufflepuffs of course, were all upset with the article. Prof. Khan was always quite kind to Hufflepuff students, especially with his best friend Poppy coming from that house.

"Is there anything your Aunt can do Susan?" Hannah Abbott asked her best friend.

"Not really.... She's the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Susan appeared quite troubled, thinking hard about how she could help her celebrity crush.

Her Aunt, Amelia, being head of the Aurors, had learned of Khan's mistaken attack on her Ministry Aurors. Of course, she had taken his side, as he was seen by multiple witnesses combating the Death Eaters. However, she had still warned Susan to watch herself around the powerful young lord, fearing (ir)rationally for her safety when coming to start her 4th year.

Susan of course, was her own person, and although she had taken her aunt's words under advisement at the time, she chose to make her own mind about her new cute Junior Prof.

And what she discovered just made her like him even more. After all, he espoused many of the traits that were admired in Hufflepuff.

He was very hard-working, teaching 2 classes, while participating in the triwizard tournament, while also taking his OWLs and NEWTs.

He was very loyal to his friends; Susan had seen Prof. Khan tell off a few students for wearing 'Potter Stinks' badges.

And of course, he was very kind and fair, conjuring cloaks for the newly arrived Beauxbatons students, as well as sponsoring an entire tournament by himself, with his Summoner's cup tournament.

Could he be any more perfect?

"I'll talk to her though.... Maybe Rita can be charged with slander or something similar." Susan responded conspiratorially with her best friend.

Meanwhile, back with Khan, he had finished looking around at all the students in slight shock, feeling quite flattered he appeared to be supported by the fickle student body.

'This is crazy.... Some of them seem angrier than me' Khan thought to himself. Khan unfortunately, still did not realize the growing extent of his popularity.

"Now, there are quite a few ways to combat this nonsense." Fleur interrupted Khan's thoughts, continuing where she left of. "Clearly the students all believe you over this article."

"However, with this publication being nationwide, we must ensure that your public perception does not drop, with those that have not heard of you and seen your deeds, and instead believe whatever is written in the news." She continued. "Since the Khan family is a Noble house, we must ensure that your name remains untarnished."

"Yes, you're right of course. Do you have any suggestions?" Khan had no real experience in playing politics, and winning over the collective consciousness of the general public. As such, he chose to defer to Fleur, who appeared quite experienced with dealing with various rumors and false narratives.

In truth, Fleur was rather experienced with dealing with various nasty rumors as a result of being part Veela. Not only from her classmates, but also in the French Tabloids, with many different publications targeting her family, due to her father's position as Head of the Department for French Aurors.

"Firstly we should arrange for another article to be released with a rival publication. Except this time, we will control the narrative." Fleur started off.

"Great idea!"

"Next, we..."

*BANG*

Fleur was interrupted with The doors of the Great Hall opening with a loud bang.

Looking over to see the commotion, Jordan and Fleur both saw that Dumbledore had finally returned, after missing for half a month. And strangely, he was not alone. Behind him was somebody that Khan recognized instantly, even after a century had passed.

"NATTY!?!"