CHAPTER 13
The Madness of Rita Skeeter
The month of September passed without any more signs of the ice-cream truck. Harry gave his notes about it to the Professors, who analyzed it and found no useful information that they didn't already know, so he still had no answers as to who was stalking him or why. On the bright side, it also meant that he'd lost that Candycorn game for nothing.
The boys did not, as it turned out, have to do any homework for the girls, as the girls in their sexism scarcely trusted boys to do well on it. The boys would do something for the girls, but no one knew what just yet.
Many of the Slytherins and Gryffindors continued to feud as usual, but a few actually seemed to be making progress. Malcolm Braddock became the first Slytherin to join an anti-hate school club called the Pureblood-Muggleborn Alliance, which had been started that month by a group of Gryffindors, and inspired a few other Slytherins to join as well. Katie Bell tried to help Marcus Flint with a spell to straiten his teeth (it didn't work, but the thought was what counted). Gryffindors started helping Slytherins out with studying, and Slytherins started to offer advice on cheating to Gryffindors.
Seamus Finnegan, however, found it all to be suspicious.
"Those Slytherins are probably just faking it all so they can earn our trust. You know, lure us into a false sense of security and strike when we least expect it!" he whispered to Dean during Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
The class took place on a cliff shaped similarly to Pride Rock from "The Lion King." That is, a tall, pointed cliff with a long rock ledge jetting out the middle of it, where the students sat.
Dean only shrugged.
Seamus continued to whisper. "And I also think that th—"
"You! In the back! Pay attention!" the floating head barked.
Professor McTwirf was about fifty or so, (at least his head was) with large round glasses and gray hair that was mostly covered by a very tall pointed hat which was striped with red and white, making the Muggle-borns think of Dr. Seuss. He was not always in a grouchy mood, nor was he a genuinely grouchy person. He was simply one of those slightly depressed people. Usually, people who have had something extremely horrible happen to them, like Harry or Neville, rarely talk about it. But people who have had something extremely annoying that affect their lives tend to talk about it as often as they can, and that is what Professor McTwirf did.
"Now as you secondary-school students (who are not college students like I wanted to be teaching, ever since I was eleven, and decided upon my career goal, which I've never reached) can see, I myself have had some experiences with the dark arts…"
"How'd you get your head to float like that?" Dean asked, hoping to make Seamus forget about the Slytherins for the moment.
"Good question, pipsqueak. You see, it all began back when I was young and handsome. Well, more handsome than a floating head is anyway. I was experimenting with muggle technology, hoping to prove my worth to the University of Magicity in Scotland. When the calculator exploded I was almost killed, but I used a very advanced curse that saved my head. Several other potions and types of caffeine were used to keep my head floating and active. It's an extremely advanced spell, but I can teach it to whoever is interested in trying. Purely for your own curiosity of course, it's no use to impress anyone when searching for a career in Defense Against the Dark Arts, apparently.
"Any other questions?"
Parvati raised her hand. "I've been meaning to ask you this all month Professor, but why do you always wear that ugly hat?"
"Oh, it's a long story. It began when I was an assisting in a magic show at the Wisconsin Cheese Festival a few years back…"
Lavender whispered to Parvati, "I asked Professor Willers, she says it's to make himself look taller."
Needless to say, as eccentric as Professor McTwirf was, he really wasn't that interesting of a teacher. Now, the History of magic teacher, Professor Willers, was interesting. Much more so than the ghost professor Binns that the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were stuck with. She appeared to be just a little old lady, but she was a very energetic little old lady. She believed that in order to understand history, students should put themselves in the events, by acting them out like a play.
"Alright everyone. Mr. Weasley, you're Wendolyn the Weird, who enjoyed being burned at the stake. Mr. Malfoy, you're the witch-hunter who's going to try and kill Mr. Weasly—NO NO NOT FOR REAL! MR. MALFOY PUT OUT THAT FLAME—NO—BAD SLYTHERIN!"
Very interesting indeed.
Then there was Professor Sunrise, who was really just a male, American 1960s version of Professor Trelawney.
"…and if you, like, inhale this mandrake leaf's scent, you will see the distant future of your civilization."
"Sweet," Malfoy said. "My mum and dad've got a whole cabinet of stuff like these mandrake leaves in a secret room under our welcome rug." He suddenly remembered he was sitting next to Ron, whose father worked for the ministry. "For, for medical purposes."
Ron, still bandaged up from the History class incident, tried it first. "I… I see in the future that there will be a war between Earth and alien grasshoppers from Andromeda… and we will reveal ourselves to the muggles and we'll all live in peace together… and there will be a new religion that revolves around having a mullet!"
Sounds of "Oooooo" and "amazing!" and "That's codswallop, that is," could be heard around the dimly lit cave that they were in.
Homework was about as heavy as it was back at Hogwarts, but this time the students had the option of doing it in their tree houses, tree branches, on the beach, or at the ice-cream parlors. Harry liked to write his essays on a rock with the waves splashing around him (except when they splashed on him and ruined his homework). Ginny and her friends made sure to do the homework in a different location every day. Dean and Culebra passed secret notes to each other if their clicks happened to be sitting near each other. Malfoy of course just forced Crabbe and Goyle to do his schoolwork for him, hence his declining grades. Hermione and Ron often did theirs together in the leaves of a palm tree. Lately however, they still had a small problem with their relationship.
"Look Hermione if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times! Well, not a hundred times, maybe three, but I'm sorry! It was only a game, hon."
"But that's not the point! You broke my trust in you just to win a stupid—is this palm tree shaking?"
They both looked down to see Malfoy shaking the trunk of the tree, with Crabbe and Goyle drooling stupidly behind him.
"Having a romantic moment, are we Weasel? Anyway, mudblood, I'd watch out if I were you. You-Know-Who's in human form now, and no one knows where he's hiding. He could be at this beach right now for all you know!"
"I'm so glad you cared enough to warn me," Hermione said, plucking a coconut and dropping over Malfoy.
Malfoy flinched as it bounced off his head.
The weeks passed by, and Halloween was drawing near. The girls finally came up with a task for the losing boys to do for them; the boys were to search the beach with cameras and take pictures of any handsome mermen or centaurs who were willing, as well as a few couple of mermaids for Dingo Zoot, who happened to be a lesbian. (The girls planned to make a calendar out of the pictures--the whole thing was mostly a joke-revenge for Lee Jordan's comments about "babe-magnets" and such during the Candycorn game.)
"Well," Harry said as the boys met on the beach early that Saturday morning, "I guess I'll go get the girl pictures for Dingo…"
"Oh no you don't!" Seamus said. "Nice try Harry. Men, we will all pull wands, and whoever gets the short one gets to do the woman pictures."
They pulled wands. The person with the short wand turned out to be Malcolm Braddock, the Slytherin chaser.
"Sweet!" Malcolm ran off with a wizarding camera.
Ron sighed heavily. "All right guys, might as well get going."
"Oh boy this is fun I just love photography!" Colin Creevy said, jumping up and down.
Dennis copied his older brother. "Yeah this is fun this is really fun do you think this is fun Harry? Do ya?"
"You guys weren't in the game so you really don't have to help if you want to," Harry pleaded, knowing in his heart it wouldn't work.
"Sure we do on accounta' we're your pals!" Colin exclaimed. "It's our job to help you out it situations like this! Plus Draco Malfoy said you'd need lots of help and if we did he'd give us some of his lasagna at dinner tonight for being so nice!" Colin sipped a can of magically enhanced Mountain Dew.
The boys split into teams. Harry and Ron ran off to get their pictures as fast as they could, before either of the Creavy brothers could catch up with them. Seamus, Dean, and Neville did the same.
"They're spies I tell you!" Seamus declared.
The three were seated in one of Captain Hinderhuge's bagels with their cameras, taking pictures at any male being that passed by, without even bothering to check if they would be attractive to the girls or asking the subjects' permission.
"Who is?" Dean said taking a picture of a young surfer, who was knocked over by the bright flash.
"The Slytherins, who else? That's why they're cooperating so nicely."
"But not all of them are cooperating nicely," Dean said as he watched Malfoy surf up to a Gryffindor first year, turned her over and dumped her lunch money into his hands, give her a large wedgie and then surf away on his water carpet.
"That part's probably an act too," Seamus said. "To make it all seem more real. We should be on the lookout, right Neville?"
"Well, personally, I agree with Donald." Neville said snatching a name from the air. He didn't want to get involved in this issue and attract more bad luck to himself. He just sat taking pictures, of the sky and the water and their bagel.
Harry and Ron ran along the beach and searched the beach for anyone whom the girls might consider "hot". After a few minutes, they found some nice-looking mermen in the shallow water playing baseball with a live blowfish, who introduced themselves as Johnny, Orlando, Viggo, and Tobey. Explaining the situation to them was a bit embarrassing, especially the part about the ice-cream truck, but eventually the mer-guys agreed to get their pictures taken. The job went uphill after that. Ron and Harry got pictures of lifeguards, a couple of goof-ball college students, and a devilishly handsome pirate. They were walking down the beach, when they heard two voices behind them.
"What about us? We're irresistible, aren't we George?"
"With out a doubt, my wonderfully devious associate!"
Ron and Harry whirled around, not surprised to see who it was.
Ron had had it. "For the last time, what in the blazes are you two doing back here? You've graduated, understand? G-R-…well however you spell it."
"Listen, Harry," George said. "There's something we really do need to tell you."
"Oh, that's all right," said Harry who'd had his share of bad news for one school term. "I'd really rather not hear—"
"We've been working for Rita Skeeter."
"—pardon?"
"Rita Skeeter." George repeated. "We've been working for her."
Ron looked confused for a moment. "What's that supposed to--" then suddenly, his jaw dropped.
Harry pointed to the twins. "Don't move!"
He dashed off into the jungle like a cat running from the bathtub. He returned with Hermione, who must've been in the middle of her studies, as she was carrying a bag of books.
"Harry, what is it? I was doing something important!"
Harry stopped to catch his breath and then ordered Fred and George, "Tell her."
Fred did the telling this time. "We have been spying on people and getting stories for Ms. Rita Skeeter."
"What? But I warned her—I'm going to expose her!"
"I don't thinks that's a good—"
"Hang on, Fred." Hermione said. "From the beginning. Now I want you both to tell me everything!"
"Everything," Fred said uncertainly. "Right."
"Let's sit down," George suggested.
They all took a seat on the sand.
"Now, when did you start to work for Ms. Skeeter?" Hermione demanded to the twins.
"Around the beginning of your school year, actually," Fred began. "Our joke shop was doing fine with business, see."
"Very fine," George agreed.
"Well one day we were getting ready to close shop…"
"Close shop…"George repeated.
"… as it was closing time. We close at 6:30 P.M., because that's when many of the parents return home from work. We open again at Midnight of course."
"Brilliant, isn't it?" George said. "Can I tell some of the story now Fred?"
"Certainly George."
"Why thank you. Now, we were closing, and then in walks a woman all covered up in a creepy trench coat and a big hat. 'Cept it was still a very stylish creepy coat and hat, and we could see diamonds glittering off her crazy glasses. 'Fred and George Weasly?' she asked us, and we answered her, 'That's us!'
"She goes on, 'I hear talk you boys are clever wizards,' " George was putting on a nice impersonation of Rita Skeeter. " 'Very clever,' she said.
"We proudly told her that the rumors were all true, and we began to tell the tale of our first big scheme ever, but she cut us short saying that she needed our help."
Fred picked up here. " 'What can we do for you ma'am?' we asked her.
"Then she pulled off her hat and revealed herself as, Guess Who. Rita told us that if we agreed to work for her, help do her dirty work, she'd pay us big time. Well, we weren't going to work for a shrew like that, not after what she'd done to Dad and Harry and Hermione and everyone. Not even if there was a goldmine of mischief involved!"
"And that's what we told her," George went on. "'We'll never work for a shrew like you, not after what you did to our father and our friends!'
"'But what about the article I agreed to write last year that save your friend Potter's reputation? The one that got people to believe that Voldie-poo was back? Don't you owe me for that one?' And there she had us stumped. 'Please boys,' she begged. 'I just want to write nosey articles again. Just like old times.'
"Fred and I, we discussed it alone for a minute, but we decided that the answer was simply no. When we told her she reminded us of the money but we didn't care at all! Did we Fred?"
"Not one little bit!" Fred agreed. "But then she said to us 'I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, but…' and then from her pocket she pulled out a little glass box, like the kind that you use to keep your pet crabs in. Inside it was a snail. 'Recognize him?' she asked us. We looked at each other, and then we heard the sail start to talk. 'Fred! George!' he said. 'Don't work for her! My life's not worth it!' and we recognized his voice all right. 'Oliver!' we yelled!"
Fred couldn't go on. George patted his brother's shoulder and continued the story.
"That's why we had to help that hag with her news articles." George said bitterly. "She has Oliver Wood hostage and if we help her she'll turn him back and set him free. And if we don't she'll…pour salt on him!"
"That horrible—" (It's really no use telling what Hermione called Rita, as it would have to be censored from this story anyway. A shame really, it was a very clever combination of curse words.) "I suppose I can't expose her then, can I. Not while Oliver Wood's in that kind of danger."
"But why didn't you just make stuff up when you told her of the information you found out about people?" Harry asked.
"Because we don't know when she might be watching us!" Fred said. "That…witch could be spying on us at this very moment!"
"Than this wasn't a very good time to have told us everything, was it?" Ron said.
"Yeah, I suppose we should've thought of that," Fred said.
"Yes, perhaps you should have."
Harry, Hermione, Fred, Ron, and George looked up to see Rita Skeeter towering behind them wearing an insane smile, blond curls blowing wildly in the breeze, wand held over her head threateningly, eyes wide and made behind their jeweled frames.
"Expeliarmus!" she yelled, disarming the five of them and obtaining their wands.
"I'll give you all 'till three to run!" she told them.
They took off in different directions. Ron sprinted down the sandy beach without looking back and dove into, yes you guessed it, Charlie Buffit's sand castle. Fred and George ran off into the town somewhere. Hermione and Harry charged into the jungle, with Rita in hot pursuit. Harry, being the athlete, ran very fast and was soon long ahead of Hermione.
"Harry! Wait up!" Hermione yelled, jumping over an armadillo and ducking under a bent tree as she ran.
She could hear Rita Skeeter tearing through the tropical forest behind her. Hermione wouldn't look back for fear of knocking into a tree, but from her robes she pulled a small hand mirror to have a quick glance. Rita was right there, her face filling the frame, glaring with blazing crossed eyes, holding her wand above her like a dagger, ready to strike. Hermione was reminded of the scene with the T-rex and the car mirror from a film she'd watched with her parents a few times.
"Lock me in a jar as a beetle will you? Keep me from writing my nosy news reports, make me help you to save the wizarding world from the Dark Lord and do a good deed, eh? Stupefy!"
The spell missed Hermione by a millimeter! Hermione screamed and quickened her pace.
Harry heard his friend scream from where he was, many yards ahead. He stopped and turned around, and started running back to help her when Rita Skeeter popped out of a bush in front of him, laughing like a madwoman. Harry squealed in terror and turned around to run away again, forgetting about Hermione completely. That was when the ice-cream truck came bounding out if the trees, heading straight for him!
"Harry, look out!" Hermione screamed from where she stood, unable to move by means of Rita's "Petrificus Totallus" charm.
Harry dashed out of the truck's path, but it followed him! He leapt to the left as he ran, then to the right, but the truck did not falter. The driver seemed determined to make Harry into a road waffle. Harry climbed up a doxie-infested palm tree to escape, the tip of the tree sagging a bit with his weight. The ice-cream truck reared up on its back wheels, roaring its engine and playing that horrible "Harry Potter" jingle. Finally, after several minutes, the truck gave up. The driver inside was panting so loudly Harry could hear it from outside the car, as if simply turning a steering wheel was too much work for this villain. The ice-cream truck drove off though the jungle, leaving a trail of pollution and crushed plants in its wake.
Harry realized that his scar hurt this time, but the truck was already gone and he was still feeling it. And the pain wasn't at its full intensity, the way it was when he was in Voldemort's presence.
"Petrificus Totallus!"
Harry was frozen stiff by Rita's charm. He tumbled out of the palm leaves and hit the ground with a thud. The insane journalist dumped him next to Hermione, and ran to catch the Weasly brothers.
"Well that was all perfectly ironic!" Harry said. "That truck was right in my face, and I didn't find out squat."
"We did find out one thing Harry." Hermione said. "We know that the truck isn't there to protect you. It's here to kill you. It wants you dead."
"That makes me feel so much better," Harry said, but he knew she had to be right.