Chapter 25

Mount Justice

March 10, 15:55 EST

A few days after Wally's trip to Hogsmeade, Hermione showed up for training with her hands covered in bandages.

"What happened?" asked Kaldur when he saw this. The rest of the Team crowded around Hermione in concern. None of them had been able to go to Hogwarts that day due to busy schedules, and they were regretting that now.

Hermione sighed. "A few weeks ago I shot my mouth off at Rita Skeeter for the horrible things she said about Hagrid. This was her response to that." Hermione pulled out a magazine called Witch Weekly. Taking it Kaldur read the article Hermione had book marked. The rest of the Team crowded around Kaldur to read over his shoulder.

It was another Rita Skeeter article. In the article Skeeter painted Hermione as some kind of gold-digger who perused famous men. It scandalized her friendship with Harry saying she was cheating on him with Viktor Krum, and even (much to Wally's disgust) hinted that Hermione might also be after Kid Flash as well, since the two had been seen talking, and Hermione had failed to be discreet enough one time in sneaking into the Team's private room.

"I don't care what she says," said Hermione bravely. "And I'm not worried about my reputation, most people know me better than that and my parents would never read that since they're muggles. But apparently some people believe this rubbish, and have begun sending me hateful letters. My hands are like this because one of them was full of bubotuber pus."

This enraged the Team, but Hermione talked them out of going after Skeeter. "It would only tip her off that I have a connection to you guys," she said. "Well, one other than the one where I'm 'trying to steal Kid Flash from Artemis.'"

But that only meant they couldn't get back at her publicly. After Hermione went back to school, the Team stuck around to plot revenge.

v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v

London

March 19, 4:45 P.M.

It had been a good day as far as Rita Skeeter was concerned. She was heading back to her London flat after submitting her article about the scandalous relationship between two well know members of wizarding society. A scandal she had for the most part made up, but oh well, it sold papers. Sadly the story was nowhere near as juicy as what she could write about her new cash cow, Harry Potter, but then what was.

Rita snickered at that thought as she entered her luxurious flat. With a flick of her wand she turned on the radio she had in the corner. To her surprise, instead of her usual station coming on, the newest Weird Sisters song came blaring out of it at full volume.

Covering her ears, and forgetting about her wand she ran over to the radio and tried to turn it down or change the channel. Neither of which seemed to work no matter how much she twisted the knobs or hit the buttons. After she managed to break the volume knob off without the least bit of difference, she opened a nearby window and chucked the radio out of it. She felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction as the magical piece of equipment was silenced as it smashed to the ground several stories below.

Shrugging off the malfunction of her radio (it was getting rather old after all), she absent-mindedly went into her kitchen to fix herself a drink. After she had nearly finished mixing her favorite, she reached into her fridge to get some ice for it. When she turned back to her surprise she saw that the glass her drink had been in was no longer where she remembered, but on a counter on the other side of the kitchen.

Now Rita was suspicious. She was beginning to think someone might be in her apartment, and since she hadn't heard the sound of someone disapparating they were most likely still there. Cautiously she looked through every room in her apartment with her wand at the ready to hex whomever she came across. But her search came up empty. Figuring she had simply forgotten where exactly she had placed the glass, Rita returned to the kitchen and placed fresh ice into her drink.

However the second the liquid reached her mouth she gagged and had to spit it out. Rather than he favorite drink, the liquid tasked like old socks and horseradish.

Now Rita Skeeter was starting to get mad. Once again she searched her apartment, this time more thoroughly and with the accompaniment of a summoning charm in case the intruder was wearing an Invisibility Cloak. But once again her search came up empty.

Trying to convince herself that one of her drink ingredients had simply gone bad, Rita sank down onto her couch attempting to calm her now frazzled nerves. To he surprise, rather than her usual squashy but comfy couch she found herself sitting on something that was as hard as a rock, and extremely cold.

She leapt off the couch and stared at it in shock. Tentively she reached out and rapped her knuckles on the couch. While the whole thing still looked as squash as it usually did the whole thing felt like it had been frozen.

Now Rita was sure someone was messing with her. "Come out!" she demanded. "I know you're there, come out at once!"

There was no response.

"Come out now, or I'm flooing the Auror's office!" she demanded.

There was still no response, and Rita began making her way towards her fireplace. As she prepared to cast a spell to ignite the fire there was an explosion within the fire place, which knocked her back.

When Rita sat back up and looked at her fireplace again, she saw that the explosion had caused debris to fall into it, blocking the entire place up, and making it completely unusable for floo. That didn't matter anyway, as the small vase where she had kept her floo powder had also been destroyed in the explosion.

Now Rita was starting to get frightened. "Now, now," she said nervously as she got back to her feet. "There was no need for that. No need at all." She glanced nervously around the room, and continued to try and appeal to her antagonist. "I'm sure we could work something out. If it's money you want, I have plenty…" she called. "Or, or maybe I could write a story on someone you hate. You know, one of the ones I specialize in. Who would you want me to write about?"

Once again there was no answer. Rita continued to look around the room nervously. At one point she glanced over her shoulder, and let out a soft scream. On the wall behind her (which she had only turned her back on for a second) was one word written in dripping red letters, 'YOU.'

She made a break for the door, but it slammed shut before she could reach it. She grabbed the handle and tugged with all her strength, but the door wouldn't open. Desperately she reached for her wand, only to find that it was no longer in her pocket.

Realizing she had dropped it when her fireplace had exploded, she turned to look back at where she had fallen. She saw her wand sitting there on the floor, and dove for it. Before she could reach it, the wand rose up off the ground and went flying out the still open window.

Rita reached around in the area where her wand had been, hoping to find a person under an Invisibility Cloak there. But all her hand was met with was empty air.

All of a sudden all her furniture in the room began rising into the air. Rita watched it dumbstruck. There was no way a wizard could be doing this. A levitation charm only worked for one object at a time, for everything in her flat to start levitating like this would take at least fifty wizards that she knew were not there.

Rita couldn't hold it in any longer. She began screaming as all her possessions began whizzing around her like she was in the middle of a tornado, and a malevolent cackle echoed all around her.

v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v

Kingsley Shacklebolt eyed the nervous witch in front of him as he was led down the hallway to check on her neighbor. He was a bit dubious about the entire thing. The flighty witch had flooed the Auror office in concern for her neighbor, the one and only Rita Skeeter. According to the witch, there had been a lot of screaming and banging sounds coming from Skeeter's apartment.

To be honest, Kingsley wasn't expecting much. More likely than not it was another publicity stunt by Skeeter to gain more attention.

Never the less, he knocked on Skeeter's door once he had reached it. At first there was no answere, but then he heard a whimpering sound coming from inside. Figuring that was reason enough to enter, he cast a spell to force the door open.

What he saw inside, made the neighbor witch gasp in astonishment. The apartment was in shambles, and where was a reddish smear on one of the walls. Rita Skeeter was curled in a fetal position in the middle of the floor, rocking back and forth and mumbling to herself about radios and flying furniture.

Skeeter was taken to Saint Mungos for treatment, and according to the Healers, Skeeter had suffered a nervous breakdown (most likely caused from overwork), and had most likely done the damage to her apartment herself. They also told him that as a coping mechanism, she was trying to pin the brief stint of insanity on some invisible force that was terrorizing her.

The Aurors still searched the flat from top to bottom. When they didn't find any evidence of magic aside from Skeeter's inside the apartment and found no poltergeists they had to agree with the Healer's theory.

As a result, Skeeter was given a long vacation from the Daily Prophet, but not before one of Skeeter's competitors printed a story telling the world all about the fiasco.

v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v

Mount Justice

March 20, 16:56 EST

Robin and Wally slapped high fives, after Kaldur finished reading the article out loud. The rest of the Team exchanged similar motions of self-congratulation.

Hermione who was also there gave them all a look like she was trying to be stern, but her amusement was showing through. "I can't believe you guys did that."

"Believe it," said Artemis. "On this Team it's all for one, and one for all."

"Besides, she so had it coming," said Zatanna.

"How did you do some of this stuff?" asked Hermione, as she scanned the article again, focusing on the part where Skeeter was quoted on what had happened.

"It was mostly me, KF, and Miss M," said Robin. "I'm the one who messed with her radio and rigged the door to stick. I also used liquid nitrogen to freeze her couch so it'd be hard when she sat on it. KF messed with her drink and painted on her wall when she wasn't looking. And as for the things floating around, that was all Miss M's doing. But everyone helped out in the planning stage."

Hermione threw back her head and laughed. "Thanks, you guys," she said, once she had simmered down to a few chuckles. "I can't wait to tell Harry and Ron about this. Though I do still wonder how she was listening in on private conversations. I'm going to keep looking into that."

She then gave them all a teasing look. "Is there anything else I should know about?"

The Team exchanged a devious look. "Welllll…" said Barbra trailing off.

v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v

Godric's Hollow

March 20, 5:33 P.M.

Matilda Nesbit was a dumpy little witch who had a regular job at a magical plant shop downtown. She was a very opinionated person, who was known for playing mean tricks on people she didn't like, even if she had never met said person.

It was a regular day and she was heading up her front steps with her arms full of groceries. She shifted then into one arm so that she could unlock the door to her small house.

What she saw when she opened the door made her jump back in shock and drop her groceries. The second she had opened the door, a stinking slime she recognized as bubotuber pus had come oozing out of it, the goop having filled up the room on the other side so that it was waist deep.

A quick glance through the windows of the rest of her house showed Mildred that her entire house had had been filled with bubotuber pus.

As she hurried to her neighbor's house in hopes of getting some assistance in cleaning up the mess, she couldn't help but wonder if this had something to do with the bubotuber pus hate letter she had sent to that awful Granger girl a week ago.

v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v

A/N It just goes to show, you do not mess with one of the YJ team, their friends will hunt you down and get you back. Also I completely made up Matilda Nesbit, I don't know who sent Hermione that letter

I own nothing