Insect Repellent

Hogsmeade, Outside The Three Broomsticks, January 14th

"So are you going to ask Hermione out or what?" Harry asked. After the two left the library Nathan was suspiciously silent and Harry wanted to shock him out of it.

"Wha- bloody hell I do not like Hermione!" Nathan said a little bit too loud.

"I'm just sayin' you've been a bit out of it, are you sure she's not what you'll 'sorely miss'? And besides if you don't someone else will" Harry asked in a high pitched voice, trying to copy the egg.

"First of all, we don't even know if it is a person like you think, I'm more worried about my broom than anything else." Nathan replied, rolling his eyes at his brother's poor matchmaking attempt.

"If you say s-"

"Hey isn't that your friend?" Nathan asked as they approached The Three Broomsticks seeing Kira running out in tears.

"Well that was weird" Harry remarked as he watched a furious Viktor racing after her as Hermione, Ron, Calypso followed behind him at a more reasonable pace.

"What happened?" Nathan asked.

"That horrid woman, she-she" Hermione managed to get out in her rage and tears.

"Skeeter is what" Ron stated angrily "She was talking crap about Hagrid so me and Hermione tried to stand up to help but then she started insulting Hermione, you and Krum."

"Basically she insulted Hermione's intergreally as a woman for digging her hocks into Krum after she already had your brother" Calypso said calmly.

Despite her demeanor Harry could easily tell that she was just keeping it in and obviously using her occlumency in overtime. What Rita said must have hurt Calypso for some reason.

She had to pay.

"What about the mean girl, um, Kira? Why'd she run off?" Nathan asked not noticing his brother's malice thoughts but did succeed in getting Harry's attention.

"Just some pureblood nonsense about ichor" Hermione said between her sobs of rage.

Calypso was about to say something but before she could Ron said "Let's just go already, I'm getting cold from the wind."

"You guys go ahead, I still need to get some potion ingredients" Harry said, masking his emotion with occlumency.

"Alright, just don't try to talk to Skeeter, she'll twist whatever you say to make an even bigger story then she already has" Ron said, uncharacteristically kind to Harry. Well not kind but at least polite, especially compared to their normal exchanges.

As the four made their way out of Hogsmeade and left Harry, Calypso spoke out "I should go back and stay with him so he doesn't do anything stupid"

"Alright but hurry up back soon, Harry and I still haven't completely finished my plan to get past the second task and I don't want him distracted" Nathan said with a wryly smile, no doubt think that she was going to get Harry to go to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop with her or something. Now that she thinks about something doesn't sound too bad.

As the three walked off without her, Nathan getting told off by Hermione for his suggestive comment and Ron laughing at him. Shaking her head Calypso slowly walked back into Hogsmeade, hoping Harry hadn't already done something stupid.

As she walked into the town Calypso couldn't help but think what Harry was trying to do by staying back. While Harry cared for his brother and through him, Hermione as well, but she knew that it wasn't enough to get him to stay behind. Hopefully whatever he was doing wouldn't endanger their potential blackmail on Skeeter, unregistered animagus had conviction of azkaban after all.

It was a pity she couldn't become an animagus.

Finally Calypso had reached The Three Broomsticks but Harry wasn't there, nor was he in the building itself. Leaving Calypso noticed that she couldn't hear anything coming out of an alley nearby The Three Broomsticks. That wouldn't be strange, however, the lack of wind was.

There in the dirty alley with binns lined the walls of the two shops was Harry and strangely enough Rita Skeeter, dressed in her flamboyant yet strange clothes and handbag.

"-expect you to send that note. Nevermind, so what do you have on your brother. I'm sure whatever it will be a great story" Rita said, a smile on her lips, already thinking about her next story; The Potter Brothers.

"Unfortunately I'm just here to give you a warning and to tell you to stop writing about my brother and Viktor." Harry said his voice low, still angry from earlier.

"Oh, and what makes you think you can just make demands," Rita says. She doesn't ask, clearly thinking she has the upper hand. Against any over fourteen year old she was probably right.

"You're an unregistered animagus, a type of beetle, but I'm not sure what." Harry says with a grin "And let's be honest, that's probably the first of your crimes, after all spying on auror and publishing unreleased information is quite an offence."

As the colour vanished from Rita's face she started shouting "Help, help. He's about to attack me."

"Unfortunately for you I warded this entire area, no one can enter without my permission." Harry said with a cruel grin.

Truly panicking now Skeeter drew her wand from handbag, "You can't prove anything."

"Yet again our wrong" Harry said, his grin now growing even larger, clearly enjoying himself, "did you know that there is an animagus revealing charm much like Homenum Revelio?"

Pointing his wand up Harry said "Animagus Revelio".

A flash of blue light exited his wand and lit up the entire alley and a blue outline on Harry and Skeeter appeared.

At the same time a blast came out of Skeeter's wand straight at Harry, as it closed the distance Harry simply waved his free hand and one of the bins flew through the air and shield Harry from the spell.

"I believe I have made my point," Harry said, summoning Skeeter's wand from her hand and dropping it on the ground before him.

"I'll be going now."

Walking out of the alley straight to Calypso, Harry smiled at her and said "How do you think I did?"

Grabbing his hand Calypso led Harry out of Hogsmeade.

"Are you ok? Where are we even going?" Harry asked, confused by his girlfriend's actions.

"Shut up, if you must know we are going to do something over there," Calypso said, pointing at some nearby trees outside of Hogsmeade.