Disclaimer: All familiar characters belong to JKR; the cup to my grandfather; and the idea of a certain Healer to Vivienne Lestrange. Many thanks to all.
Letter to the editor
There it was. Finally.
Finally? As the owl became visible over the horizon, Toby Jugg put down his coffee cup and laughed at himself. There it was, as ever. And here he was, also as ever, clutching his third cuppa for the morning and pretending to himself (for how many years now?) that he really wasn't hanging about drinking extra coffee because he was waiting for the owl that brought the Quibbler.
"Toby," he remarked in gentle self-mockery to the kitchen at large, "you're an old fool." Only fools read the Quibbler, didn't they? And as for old – Toby smiled down at his coffee cup, which his great-great-niece had given him a couple of birthdays ago. 'Her very own choice,' as her embarrassed mother had insisted rather desperately on the day. 'Wouldn't be dissuaded.' It was a nice sized cup, just right for Uncle Toby's coffee, with a large print inscription:
If I measured my age in dog years, I'd be DEAD.
Seven-year olds have a funny sense of humour, but Toby treasured the cup. Gilly was a sweet little thing. He put it down carefully on the draining board, and leaned over to the window. If one was an old fool, hanging about waiting for the Quibbler, one might as well be an old fool and open the window for the owl while it was still several fields away.
He picked his coffee up again, and drummed his fingers expectantly on the rim. What would Xeno Lovegood have come up with this month? Another haul of his hilarious misinterpretations of current news? More new beasts seen by nut-cases? A fresh crossword in which the overlaps were as imaginative as the clues? Toby chuckled. The Quibbler was such good value for laughs – innocent and funny and quite simply charming. Nothing ever serious. And Merlin knew, there was quite enough serious in the world at present as it was. When the greatest wizard of the age had apparently lost his marbles, dangerous prisoners were escaping, the Minister for Magic had a permanent crease ironed into his forehead, and Hogwarts was in a state of undefined disarray nobody was explaining, a old codger like himself could really not be blamed for wanting a few laughs. The world was – not quite right, at present.
Not quite right. He kept thinking that, these days. Everything was not quite right. And he wished he didn't, because that phrase reminded him of Agatha, in St Mungo's years ago, whispering to him that she didn't like the Healer on that ward.
"He seems nice enough, Aggy," Toby had said in surprise, looking round at the quiet, competent-looking man attending to a patient a few beds away.
"Enough..." Agatha had repeated doubtfully. "But he's – not quite right."
Five days later the Healer had been very obliging, helping Toby with the complicated paperwork for getting a burial plot in the muggle graveyard beside her parents, as his wife had always wanted. Aggy's death had been so sudden.
Five years later the Healer had been sent to Azkaban with brother, wife and accomplice, for torturing the Longbottoms into madness.
Toby pushed that line of memories away hastily, and reached out as the owl swooped up to the window ledge. Delivery was pre-paid, but he always liked to have an owl-treat handy for the Quibbler owls.
A big fat parcel this month! Treat and magazine exchanged with mutual satisfaction, and Toby caught up his coffee again and hurried back to his chair. He would just have a quick skim...
Five minutes later Toby realised he was holding Gilly's precious cup at such a dangerous angle the coffee was dripping onto the carpet. Drip, drip, drip. There was hardly any of it left. But the headline across the cover of the Quibbler had not changed.
HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST:
THE TRUTH ABOUT HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED
AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN
Drip, drip, drip. Toby finally registered the puddle, and put the cup on the table with a rather unsteady hand. This wasn't a laugh. This was just – "Inappropriate!"
He said it out loud to emphasise his disgust with Xeno Lovegood's taste. Harry Potter? In the Quibbler? That was just not nice. Toby subscribed to the 'mad and rather sad' line of thinking about the poor boy; it was completely, totally, utterly – nasty, really, to make fun of him in the Quibbler. Especially – Toby registered the author indignantly – to get the vitriolic Rita Skeeter out of her 'sabbatical due to health issues' to write it!
Toby sat up straight, pushed his cup well back onto the table and opened the magazine with a firm hand. He would read the article – every word! And then he would be writing a letter, a stern letter, a definite letter, to say exactly what he thought and cancel his subscription!
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"...'Having read your side of the story, I am forced to the conclusion that the Daily Prophet has treated you very unfairly ... little though I want to think that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned, I am forced to accept that you are telling the truth...' " (OotP, ch.26, p511)
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