[From Samhain to the Solstice]: A Path Like Frost, gen, Like a Malfoy series, 5/6

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part Five

Draco had insisted on speaking to him alone in the library after Charms. Harry followed him in, unsure what was going on. Was something wrong with their parents? But then he thought Draco would have told him right away, and whoever wasn’t sick or injured, Mother or Father, would have sent an owl.

Draco led Harry to a table tucked away between two shelves of dry Arithmancy texts that barely anyone used and faced him with a solemn expression. “Did McGonagall tell you what’s happening over the holidays?” he asked.

Harry frowned. “No. What?”

Draco leaned towards him. “There’s going to be a Yule Ball,” he whispered. “The Champions have to open it with a date and a dance.”

“What?” Harry yelped.

“Oh, Merlin, the look on your face…” Draco yelped, too, but with laughter, bending over to put his hands on his knees. “Oh, Merlin, I hope that Father agrees to watch that memory in a Pensieve with me!”

Harry scowled, understanding for the first time why Draco had wanted to talk to him alone. “You prat.”

Draco lifted his hands, all innocent. “I just wanted to deliver the message in case McGonagall hadn’t talked to you yet. I see she hasn’t. Probably wants to put that off as long as possible.”

Harry blew out air. “Do I have to participate in the Yule Ball more than I participated in the First Task?”

“Yes,” Draco said immediately. “How are you going to open it with just a little dance? Or a try at a date?”

Harry tried to retort, but then paused as a genius idea struck him. He smiled.

“What?” Draco demanded, now sounding as though he was jealous of the interior of Harry’s skull for knowing his thoughts.

“I don’t know if I should tell you,” Harry drawled, doing his best to sound like Father had when he talked to Dumbledore. “You’re a prat.”

“Come onnnnn, Henry, pleeeeease.”

Harry shook his head and gave in. He hoped that Draco never worked out how much of a weapon his whinging could be, or there would be no way to get him to stop. “Okay. I’m going to ask Tonks to impersonate me.”

Draco opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

Enjoying the silence, Harry turned around and went off to find their cousin, who he knew was visiting today to study the walls of an old Defense classroom in case the curse was lurking there. Draco ran after him.

*

“Go to the Yule Ball and pretend to be you?” Tonks smiled, her eyes sparkling—literally, since she appeared to have changed them into a kind of shiny reflective material. “Oh, that sounds great fun, Harry! But what about a partner? I’m afraid that I couldn’t Transfigure someone else or create an illusion with any degree of accuracy.”

“I know a third-year Slytherin who’s dying to go to the Ball,” Draco said immediately. “Adele Morningstar. But she can’t unless someone asks her. We can bribe her a little to keep quiet about you not being Henry, and you can invite her.”

“She wouldn’t have to keep quiet the entire evening.”

Harry eyed Tonks. “What are you planning?”

“Planning? Why do you think I’m planning something?” Tonks might not have changed her mouth to be wider than usual, but the manic grin spreading across her face made it look like it.

“Because it’s you.”

“Harry, you flatter me.” Tonks jumped down from the old, half-broken desk where she was swinging her legs, and stumbled. Her hair flared black for a second as she caught herself. Then she straightened up and snorted. “I promise, it’s a prank that’ll surprise and maybe frighten a few people at the Yule Ball, but it won’t do anything permanent to them.”

Draco folded his arms. “Can you dance?”

“Not a jot,” Tonks said cheerfully.

“Then I wonder—” Draco glanced at Harry. “I don’t want my brother embarrassed in front of everyone, even if they just think that he’s a clumsy dancer and it’s not really him.”

Harry rolled his eyes. He felt he should have realized that Draco would have an objection like that. “I don’t care about that.” He would have liked to swear to show how much he didn’t care, but both Tonks and Draco would take too much satisfaction in chiding him about his language. “And if Tonks is planning a prank, then probably everyone will know that she’s not really Henry Malfoy, anyway.”

“Right,” Tonks said. “I’ll give it, what, two dances? The opening dance all the Champions have to do and the next one, so that Adele can feel she’s getting her money’s worth. Then I’ll change.”

“Back to yourself?” Draco asked, which Harry thought was a little stupid. He should know Tonks better than to think she would think that was a worthy prank.

“No. No, I’ve got something much better in mind.” Tonks’s eyes sparkled some more.

But no matter how they asked her—Draco with some strategies that he obviously thought were cunning—Tonks wouldn’t reveal more than that to them. She laughed and told them, “Go play, little cousins, and let me handle this,” and so finally Harry and Draco left, walking part of the way to Gryffindor Tower side-by-side.

When Draco turned to go towards the Slytherin common room, where he would find and bribe Morningstar, Harry took a deep breath and said, “Thanks. I never would have thought of the bribery part.”

Draco smiled at him. “You need to get used to thinking like a Malfoy. We take care of a lot of our problems with money.”

Harry snorted, because he assumed that was both true and most of the time a lot less innocent than this. “Well, anyway, if Morningstar needs more than the Galleons I have on me, let me know and I’ll owl Mother for some.”

“I was going to pay her, Henry.”

“No, I’m going to pay her.”

“I’m going to pay her.” Draco’s voice sounded deadly serious enough that Harry stopped arguing to listen. “It was my idea, and she’ll trust a fellow Slytherin more than the former Boy-Who-Lived to tell her the truth. Besides,” Draco added, and visibly smiled to lighten the mood, “this way, I don’t have to get you a gift this year.”

Harry laughed. He suspected there was a lot more going on than that in Draco’s head, but he also knew from the stubborn set of Draco’s jaw that his brother wasn’t about to tell him about it. “Okay. Be sure to tell Mother and Father that.”

“I will.” Draco gave him a small punch to his arm and turned towards the Slytherin common room. Harry made his way up a few more flights of stairs, slowing down only when he saw someone standing at the top of one flight like they were waiting for him.

It was Ron. Harry debated just walking straight past him without speaking, which is what Draco surely would have done, but Harry wasn’t Draco. He sighed and walked up the stairs until he was in front of Ron. Ron avoided his eyes.

“What?” Harry asked.

“You—you really didn’t put your name in the Goblet?” Ron asked, jerking his head up. “You didn’t do it and then just pretend that you didn’t want to participate in the Tournament because it’s some sort of weird Malfoy plot?”

“What?” Harry stared at him.

“It’s just—Dad always said that when a Malfoy acts weird and off, it’s because they’re plotting something,” Ron blurted. “And you said you didn’t put your name in the Goblet, but you didn’t get that upset about it, and then you went ahead and participated in the First Task instead of trying to buy your way out of it or something. But then you didn’t do much in the First Task, and you didn’t care about getting low points! But now you’re not upset about the Yule Ball! What are you doing, Harry?”

Harry stared at him. For some reason, he had assumed that Hermione would explain to Ron about the weak binding the Goblet had created and the actions that Harry had to take as a result of it.

But either she hadn’t, or she had and Ron had forgotten.

Harry shook his head. “I’m not plotting anything.” Well, okay, he sort of was with asking Tonks to go to the Yule Ball as him, but that was more like a prank than a plot. “I had to participate because the Goblet did bind me, and I used to think of myself as Harry Potter. It had a lot to do with names and things like that. But I don’t have to do a good job. There’s no rule that says that.”

“But if you weren’t cheating, why didn’t you stand up and say that?”

“I did? The first night that the Goblet bound me?”

“But after that, you didn’t protest! You didn’t even try to make those Hufflepuffs stop saying that you stole Diggory’s glory!”

Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair. That wasn’t as satisfying a gesture as it used to be, because Malfoy hair just didn’t stand up and ruffle like Potter hair. “Let me get this straight. You thought that I was planning something, and you couldn’t figure out what, and you’re—what? More upset to be left out of it than you are about whether or not I actually cheated to put my name in the Goblet?”

Ron turned bright red. Harry stared at him again. He remembered that first night in Gryffindor after the Goblet’s choosing, when Ron had given him the bright, brittle smile and asked how he’d put his name into the Goblet and why he hadn’t told Ron how to get past the Age Line. Ron had acted more upset about the fact that Harry hadn’t “shared the secret” than he had about the idea that Harry might have managed to sneak past the Age Line.

Harry remembered the first time he’d met Ron on the train. Ron was afraid of being in his brothers’ shadow, not being special.

He was afraid of being left out.

Harry sighed explosively. “I’m not planning anything, Ron,” he said slowly. Except having Tonks go to the Yule Ball as me. But frankly, he didn’t think Ron had earned the sharing of that secret. “I didn’t react as badly as I could have in public on Halloween because I knew my parents were going to come to the school and do everything they could to make sure I didn’t have to participate in the Tournament. And no matter how loud I was, other people wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

“And what you did in the First Task?”

“I had to show up and do something. No rules said it had to be good.”

“And the Yule Ball?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s not like it’s as life-threatening as the First Task. And it’s also something they only added recently.” If it hadn’t been, he knew, Hermione would have found it during the research she did on the Triwizard Tournament in the weeks leading up to the First Task. “I don’t have to make a good impression there, either.”

Ron shut his eyes. “I just think—you’re going to move on and leave me behind,” he whispered.

“We’re in the same year, Ron! How could I do that?”

“Not that way. I just mean that I think—I keep thinking that you’re going to start being a Malfoy, and you’ll start laughing at me the way Draco does and despising me for being a Weasley. And then when you acted so calm about the Tournament and your family showed up right away, I was sure that you had planned something with them and just didn’t want to tell me.”

Well, another reason I could be sort of calm about the Tournament was that it just doesn’t matter much next to knowing I have a Horcrux in my head.

But if Ron hadn’t earned being told about Tonks and the Yule Ball, he definitely hadn’t earned being told about that. Harry shook his head. “It’s nothing like that. I just was more confident because I know I have a family at my back.”

“Even if they’re that family?”

Harry firmed his jaw. “Yes. I know they’re not the nicest people, Ron. Do I ever know that,” he added, thinking about Father’s Death Eater days. “And I wouldn’t support them if Draco tried to tease you or hex you, or if Father got in a fight with your father again. But I know I can count on them to support me, and that’s really nice, especially when I knew so many people in school would turn against me.” He stared at Ron again. “I didn’t think you would.”

Ron’s neck and face and ears turned into one huge, hot blush again. “’M sorry,” he mumbled. “I just, I’m jealous of the way you are with Draco, you know?”

“Why, though? You’ve got plenty of brothers.”

“But none of them support me like that.” Ron shook his head. “Maybe it would be different if I had a twin like Fred and George, but I don’t. And then I thought my best friend was giving up on me, too, and…”

Harry sighed. “Look, Ron, I could have talked to you if I’d known you felt like that. As it was, I thought you were jealous of me for getting the glory of the Goblet of Fire and I was angry because you should know I wouldn’t want that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did know, I reckon. But when I thought it was some kind of Malfoy thing…”

“No.” Harry studied him for a second. “And I’m glad that you said sorry. But I don’t feel like spending much time around you right at the moment, okay? We’ll try sitting together in class again and seeing how it goes.”

Ron gave him a huge, relieved smile, which Harry supposed meant Ron hadn’t expected even that much of a chance. “Right. Oh! I wanted to ask you something. Are you going to take Hermione to the Yule Ball?”

“Why would I?”

Harry must have said that blankly enough for Ron to see how far it was from his thoughts. He turned red again, just when he was starting to look normal, and coughed. “Um, no reason,” he said, and sped away towards Gryffindor Tower.

Harry rolled his eyes and followed. He actually didn’t know if Hermione was planning to go at all, or who she was going to take if she did. He didn’t see how it was any of his business.

He didn’t want to date her, and that was that.

*

“Young lady, I am very disappointed in you.”

It was the first time Harry had met his Aunt Andromeda, and he sort of wished it was under different circumstances. Of course, she had wanted to maintain her distance until she saw how the Malfoys treated her husband and daughter, and she hadn’t really trusted Father’s intentions until he removed the Dark Mark. And she was very busy with her work as a Healer. Harry understood all that.

But he didn’t like the way she was shaking her head at Tonks, her face heavy and stern with the disappointment she’d talked about. It reminded him too much of Aunt Petunia, although less shrill.

Luckily, Tonks didn’t look as if she cared. She turned her hair bright red and spiky and her noise into a pig’s snout, which she wrinkled up for a sniff at her mother. “It was fun, and it didn’t hurt anyone.”

“I got a Floo call from Professor Dumbledore at eleven at night!”

“Not my fault he doesn’t have a sense of humor, Mum.”

Draco snickered. Harry caught his eye and smiled, too. He had to. They’d watched Tonks’s memory of the first two dances of the Yule Ball in Father’s Pensieve, and what she’d done when she was tired of masquerading as Harry was fun. Harry almost wished he could have been there to see it, instead of coming home right away after exams were done.

Aunt Andromeda opened her mouth to scold again, but Mother sailed into the Malfoy Manor sitting room then, her long white lace sleeves—identical to the robes Aunt Andromeda wore—swinging around her arms. She held gleaming golden cups of something that smelled rich and smoky.

“Now, now, Andi,” Mother said, and handed one of the cups to her sister. Aunt Andromeda took with a frown. “It was a harmless prank, and it didn’t last long enough to truly frighten anyone. You saw the memory. Professor McGonagall understood what was happening right away and yelled at Nymphadora to stop it. There can only have been a few seconds of genuine terror, at most.”

“She turned into You-Know-Who!” Aunt Andromeda snapped.

Harry couldn’t help it. He started laughing again. Draco leaned against Harry, he was laughing so hard, and Tonks laughed right along with them, hard enough that she lost control of her nose and it became a human one again.

“I am still disappointed in you, Nymphadora!” Aunt Andromeda sipped from her cup, though, and her eyes went a little misty. She sighed. “You remembered the recipe, Cissa.”

“Grandmama made it every Christmas,” Mother replied softly. “Of course I did.”

Harry wondered what it was, and what was behind the private look that Mother and Aunt Andromeda were exchanging, but then Ted came into the room, bouncing on the balls of his feet and rubbing his hands together. Behind him floated a whole stream of presents, wrapped in everything from neat silver paper to floating things that looked like fluffy crystal balls to Harry.

“Ted!” Aunt Andromeda seemed to enjoy having someone to yell at, and switched effortlessly to her husband. Behind her back, Tonks wiped her forehead with one hand and mimed sighing with relief, which made Harry and Draco snicker again. “We said that we weren’t going to open those until Christmas Day!”

“Which is tomorrow, Andi,” Ted said, and waved his wand so that the procession floated into place under the tree. “And I thought that the children should be able to open one tonight. It was a tradition in my family.” He glanced at Harry and Draco.

Harry nodded eagerly. He still wasn’t used to the thought that someone besides his friends wanted to give him gifts. Draco was doing the same thing. Tonks stuck her hand into the air and waved it around.

“Me!” she said loudly. “I’m a child!”

“You certainly acted like one in that memory, Nymphadora,” Aunt Andromeda muttered, apparently not able to let it go yet.

“Can I get an amulet that will force people to say my real name?” Tonks said, and turned her hair a lime green that was almost too bright to look at.

“Tell me if you find one,” Harry whispered to her, during the bustle of Ted finding presents for Tonks, Harry, and Draco in the new heap under the tree. “I’d like to make some people say Harry, though, and some people say Henry, so I don’t know how well it would work.”

Tonks gave him an unexpectedly solemn look. “I know. There are times that I want to go by Dora. But Mum won’t compromise.”

Harry blinked, surprised by his fellow-feeling with his cousin, and also that Mother and Father had been flexible enough to realize that Harry would have been unhappy going by Aldebaran. “Well, that’s stupid,” he muttered, a second before he got an armful of one of the fluffy crystal balls. This close, he could see it was opaque enough to conceal its real contents, although he caught a glimpse of gold.

Draco was holding a similar present, while Tonks held a nicely-wrapped gift up to her ear and shook it with a wide smile. Harry recognized it as one that he’d seen Ted wrapping up a few weeks ago at Hogwarts, before he caught sight of Harry and chased him out of the room.

“It is stupid,” Tonks agreed, stopping the shaking to tear into her gift. “But presents are brilliant.”

Harry discovered that he could open the fluffy crystal ball by digging his fingers into the sides and pulling them apart. And if he had to learn that by watching Draco, well, so what. He was still newer to the wizarding world than his twin.

He blinked when a small lion tumbled out of the crystal ball. He doubted it was made of pure gold, but it looked like it. Draco had a serpent that also looked like it was made of pure emerald.

The really different thing about the lion, though, was that its claws were all clenched together and it held a bell between them. Draco’s snake clutched a similar bell in its mouth. Harry tilted the lion upside-down, and noticed that the bell stayed absolutely steady and didn’t move. It certainly didn’t ring.

Behind Ted, Mother gasped. “Ted, you didn’t.”

“Wicked!” Tonks yelled, before Harry could ask what the lion and serpent were and why Mother seemed dismayed by them. Harry glanced her direction and saw that she was waving around what looked a silver shield on a cord. The cord shimmered, odd and misty, like fog condensed into a shape.

Tonks promptly hooked the cord around her neck. Her shirt was casual and Muggle—Father had grimaced when he saw it, Harry remembered—and it was easy to see what happened. The cord broke into mist, and the shield—

Sank into her skin. It winked for a moment, and then faded until it was almost the color of Tonks’s skin. It was really hard to see, and someone who saw it might have thought it was an old scar.

“Tonks,” breathed Father, from a corner, where he’d been busy scribbling in a ledger. His eyes were locked on Tonks, now, but Harry thought he was really talking to Ted. “Is that what I think it is?”

Ted gave everyone in the room a smug smile. “Yes, they’re all what you think they are. And yes, I had to call in a few favors from old colleagues to get them. But they’re priceless, I promise you.”

“It’s, it’s not that we don’t appreciate them,” Mother said carefully. “But I think it might be a little drastic, given the boys’ present ages.”

Ted turned and looked sternly at her. “Narcissa, I do hope that you’re not underestimating the level of danger the boys are in. Harry is at risk for who he was believed to be as much as because people on your husband’s, ah, former side might decide to attack him. Draco is at risk because of Lucius’s former allegiances and because as Harry’s twin brother, someone might think they could kidnap him to force Harry to do as they want. If anything, they needed these years ago—”

“Will someone tell us what these are, please?” Draco asked loudly. Harry was grateful for him speaking up. Draco had a louder voice, in a lot of senses of the word.

Tonks jumped in before her father could. “They’re protections charms that are meant to do this,” she said, and gestured at the one embedded in her chest. “Except mine’s a shield that will guard my thoughts against Legilimency, and yours are ones that will ring the bell when you’re in extreme danger. Then someone who has the charm that corresponds to that one can hear it and track the sound to find you.”

“That’s brilliant,” Draco breathed.

“I’m not against giving the children these charms,” Father said quietly. “But why only one kind? Should they not have the Legilimency shield as well?”

Ted grimaced. “There’s a limitation on what even Shadowfollower magic can accomplish. These charms work well—but only when worn one at a time. They depend on the magic of the wearer to fuel them. More than one charm being attached to the same person’s skin splits the magic between them and causes them to function weakly or unpredictably. The shield wouldn’t protect the wearer’s mind from Legilimency all the time, and the bells would sound on the other charms very faintly. It’s better if they have ones that play to their particular needs. I know my Dora can defend herself well enough, but she could have her mind read by Dumbledore what with spending all the time that she has in the school. Your sons, meanwhile, can’t defend themselves during the summer yet and are in more danger of being kidnapped.”

“And we know not to meet Dumbledore’s eyes,” Draco added.

“If she’s even welcome in the school after what she pulled at the Yule Ball,” Aunt Andromeda muttered.

Tonks laughed. “Dumbledore claimed it was the most fun he’d had all night. Sure, he Flooed you later to yell about it, but he applauded me in public, and then he toasted me. It would be strange to retract that and say I wasn’t welcome in Hogwarts.”

Harry felt a surge of relief. As funny as Tonks’s prank had been—what with her transforming in the middle of the Yule Ball into a tall, pale, red-eyed man—he wouldn’t have thought it was worth it if it meant she got banned from Hogwarts. He wondered if Dumbledore thought she would be a good influence on Harry or something.

“Where should we put these so people don’t recognize what they are?” he asked, holding the lion up.

“Some place that you usually have covered by clothing would probably be best,” Ted suggested. “High on your arms, or your shoulders or backs or legs. They won’t hinder your movement in any way, but it’s better not to prompt questions about what they do.”

Harry nodded. It was another secret to keep from Ron and Hermione, but honestly, he didn’t mind. He could still be friends with them without having to share every thought that passed through his head.

Draco was already pressing his snake carefully to his left shoulder, which he’d pulled his sleeve back from. Harry watched as it sank into his shoulder and turned the color of his skin. Like Tonks’s, it was hard to spot, and even the lines that made it a serpent seemed to break up, so it was just a curlicue kind of scar.

“Can you help me put it on my back, Tonks?” Harry asked, holding out his lion to his cousin.

“Don’t you want it on your shoulder, like me?” Draco asked, in the kind of voice that could turn into a pout any second.

“No,” Harry said, shuddering a little as Tonks pressed the lion between his shoulder blades. There was a sharp, cool tingle, but then nothing more. He moved a few steps when Tonks let his robe fall back, but there was no sound of the bell ringing, either. “This way, if someone finds out one of us has it, then they won’t find it in the same place on the other one of us right away. It might buy us a little time.”

Tonks changed her hair to black, and Draco’s eyes were wide as he looked at Harry. “I didn’t even think of that,” he breathed.

“No reason you should have to.” Harry gave himself a final shake, and the last of the cool tingles disappeared. He thought that the charm was probably fully embedded in his skin now. He gave Ted a nod. “Thanks, Uncle Ted.”

Ted smiled at him. “I do expect you to be ready to practice your offensive spells again the day after Christmas, you realize.”

Harry nodded. He realized. But for now, they could gather around the fire and sip hot chocolate and talk to each other like any family.

*

“Hermione, would you please shut up about Professor Moody?”

Harry only realized what he’d said a minute after he said it. Ron, who was at the same study table in the library with them, looked up, startled. Hermione had jumped to her feet on the other side of the table, and for a minute, Harry thought she would run away, crying. He braced himself for it, flinching.

But then, although her mouth crumpled a little as if she was going to cry, Hermione took a deep breath and sat down again, twisting her hands in her lap. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t mean to make you upset,” she said quietly, lowering her head. “I was just—I know everyone else is getting help with the Tournament from their professors and Headmasters, even though it isn’t supposed to happen. I even heard rumors that Professor Sprout was helping Cedric.”

Harry stared at her, utterly baffled. He exchanged a glance with Ron, but Ron shook his head and actually held his Transfiguration text up in front of his face to hide from the rest of the conversation.

“What does that have to do with Professor Moody?” Harry demanded.

“It’s against the rules for people to get help,” Hermione mumbled rapidly. “But if they’re all getting help, you should get it, too. Professor Moody said he could help! He said that was why he was trying to get you to come to his office, but you were refusing.” She blew a curl of hair out of her eyes. “And I thought if I could talk him up enough, you’d go visit him.”

“Why didn’t you just admit you were concerned about me not getting help?”

“It’s wrong!” Hermione exclaimed, her face darkening with a blush again. “I don’t mind breaking the rules to help you, but then I’d have to admit that I knew about all the others getting help, too, and I didn’t report them because…” She ran down. “I didn’t think anyone would care.”

Harry cleared his throat, glad that he had controlled his first impulse to laugh. Hermione would be very upset, and rightfully so, if he had laughed at her for her concerns about this. “Thanks, Hermione. I know you were trying to help. But I’m really not going to do well on the Second Task, either.”

“But you don’t even know what it is! You didn’t get the golden egg from the dragon!”

“So what? I know the date of the Second Task. I’ll just follow all the other Champions once I see them going somewhere.”

“You think that’s going to work?”

Harry shrugged. “I only knew the date of the First Task, too. But I did all right there. And given how calm Krum and Delacour at least looked when they took those miniature dragons out of the bag, I reckon they knew about it before I did, too.” He wasn’t as sure about Diggory, because he had been too busy mentally rolling his eyes and thinking how mental everyone was, the Champions and the Tournament organizers, and he hadn’t looked at Diggory then. “It was nice of you to try to help me. But please don’t urge me to visit Professor Moody again. I think he’s kind of creepy.”

“Just because of the leg and the eye?”

Hermione had that look on her face that said Harry was going to regret it if he didn’t speak carefully. He shook his head. “Mostly just because he seems so interested in getting me into his office. He wanted me to cooperate with the Goblet of Fire and go into the waiting room with the other Champions, too, that night.”

“That’s right. I forgot that.” Hermione propped her chin up on her hand. “I wonder why that is?”

Harry shrugged, wondering if Hermione would start trying to figure out the Mystery of Professor Moody now. He was honestly okay with that if it meant that she didn’t talk anymore about what a great professor Moody was and how Harry should listen to him.

And if she didn’t talk about that, she probably wouldn’t talk about how Harry should listen to Dumbledore, either. So that was okay.