Chapter 20
Harry stared down at the newspaper in his hands, his face blank. He had managed to fix the problem of people seeing Loki when they looked into his eyes years ago, but if one were to look upon them now, it would have been an entirely different matter. Instead of him, they would have seen the spirit within; a god, fallen from the heavens, but they wouldn't have known that, and they would have thought it a demon - a testament to the fury boiling within them, a lot of it Harry's.
'Calm yourself, Harry,' Loki hissed. 'Destroying the paper and killing a few students will do nothing for your reputation.'
Slightly loosening his ever-tightening grip upon the newspaper, Harry let out a slow breath. 'I wasn't going to do anything.'
'I know, but nonetheless, I thought it was prudent to remind you.' Loki sighed. 'You can never trust the emotions of you hormonal teenagers,' he added mockingly.
Harry snorted. 'Skeeter is still going to die - slowly and painfully.'
'I am not against that,' Loki agreed. 'I just know that it isn't wise to display your emotions in the middle of the Great Hall. Dumbledore would most likely object to you slaughtering his students in a temper tantrum.'
'It also wouldn't be good for us to display our ire at the reporter now. It would bad for us to be implicated in any wrongdoing concerning her.
A laugh escaped Loki. 'Oh, please. We shall have nothing to do with her death. She will simply fall down the stairs, happening to lose all of her fingers to frostbite on the way down before being impaled upon a bed of spikes.' He cackled. 'It will truly be a terrible tragedy.'
With a slight laugh, Harry asked, 'Why do you think she's doing this anyway? She didn't even mention my possible relation to Arthur.' He paused, before adding 'Though that's probably a good thing.'
'I imagine she is being bribed to slander you, probably by one of the supporters of Voldemort who survived after his passing. A poor attempt at revenge. Perhaps it is the same person who entered you into the tournament,' Loki suggested.
Harry glanced back at the newspaper, skimming over the words proclaiming him a criminal who had threatened to kill Skeeter. That said, he had been mentally planning to do so, but unless she was such a skilled mind-reader that she had been able to bypass both Harry's and Loki's defences, she wouldn't have known that.
Switching his gaze to the students at the Gryffindor table, he noted the ones reading newspapers were occasionally glancing up at him, different emotions written on each of their faces. He would need to win them back soon if he didn't want his reputation eternally tarnished, and after spending a bit of the previous day speaking to some Gryffindors, he knew just how to do it.
At precisely the right moment, Harry stood from the Gryffindor table, strolling over to the Great Hall's doors. He had timed it so that only a few seconds after he left, the boy Ron had told him was named Draco Malfoy followed. He was a Slytherin, and from Gryffindor's descriptions of him - biased might they be - Harry guessed that not even those within his house genuinely liked him. Combined with the fact his father supported Voldemort, thus making it nigh-on impossible to ally with him, he made a perfect target for Harry's plan.
As predicted, he only made it a few feet down the corridor before the sound of footsteps reached him, promptly followed by a cry of, "Hey, Potter!"
He turned around to see Malfoy, accompanied by the two dumb-looking henchman who apparently followed him around. "Yes?" he replied inquisitively, looking Malfoy up and down before putting a look of smothered disdain upon his face.
Malfoy might have been good at concealing his emotions, but Harry was better at detecting them, and Loki was an expert. Both were sent into a fit of telepathic snickering as a flash of indignation and anger passed over his face, briefly struggling for words as he was given a taste of the treatment he gave to others all too frequently.
"I'm Draco Malfoy," he finally managed to get out. Taking a step forward, he reached his hand out to shake Harry's hand.
The mild disgust once again crossing his face as Harry studied the boy's hand. A few moments later, he glanced back to his face. "Sorry," he murmured, fighting back a grin, "I'd rather not consort with the inbred." His urge to grin only grew as Malfoy turned red, stammering for words. "I know, I know. The Malfoys are all ancient and noble, but that doesn't mean you have to follow all the Roman traditions - incest, for example."
As the boy began to reach for his wand, Harry's was already whipping his forward, firing silent stunning spells that instantly felled Malfoy's goons. He then surged at Malfoy, ripping the wand from his grasp and flinging it away. Malfoy had no time to react as he was grabbed by his collar and slammed against the wall.
"Y-you're just as crazy as the papers say," he stuttered, his grey eyes wide and terrified.
A cold smile slowly spreading over his face, Harry nodded. "I am crazy. So absolutely mad, in fact, that the voice in my head is telling me to kill you."
'No, I'm not.'
"And now he's telling me that he wasn't telling me to kill you, but I think I might do it anyway." He hummed thoughtfully. "Do you have an opinion on this matter?"
"I-"
Draco was interrupted as Harry noticed a group of Gryffindors exiting the Great Hall and screamed, "What the hell did you say about my mother?! I'll show you the son of a mudblood!" With that, he threw Malfoy to the floor, letting the boy skid along before gathering his magic and wrapping it around his neck. Clenching his fist, he wrenched him into the air by his throat and resisted the urge to make Darth Vader noises, insteading deciding to twist his face into an expression of anger.
A few moments later, he dropped Malfoy to the floor, sneering as he choked for breath that wouldn't come. "Don't talk to me again, you filthy Death Eater."
With that, he turned and stormed off down the corridor. If that wouldn't gain him the alliance of the Gryffindors, who knew what would?
"I assume you know why you're here, Mr Potter?" Dumbledore peered over his half-moon glasses, and if he were a mortal, Harry might have felt intimidated. Instead of that, however, he was feeling quite amused. But nonetheless, he looked down at the floor, feigning what was expected of him.
"Would you believe me if I said no, sir?" Harry could almost sense Dumbledore's amusement. "That's a no, then," he said. "It's probably to do with Malfoy."
"Yes, believe it or not." Leaning back in his chair, Dumbledore sighed. "You do understand that I cannot allow violence in my school to go unpunished?"
"Violence against junior Death Eaters who were the ones to start the fight in the first place?" Harry asked angrily.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't the impression that I was under."
For a moment, Harry stared incredulously at him. "You've worked in schools for God knows how long, and you're surprised about a student lying about who started a fight?"
"No," Dumbledore admitted with a shrug, "I just wanted your opinion on what happened before I acted."
"Well, I was just innocently walking down the corridor - as I often do - when Malfoy called out to me. After hearing rumours about him from the other students, I was understandably wary about his intentions. He obviously took offence to something, for he insulted my mother and went to draw his wand," Harry explained.
Nodding, Dumbledore asked, "And then?"
"I stunned both of his friends, disarmed him, and then neutralized the threat." Granted, that was a simplification, but it wasn't a lie. Still, Dumbledore persisted.
"Mr Malfoy said that you insulted him, and also that you threatened to kill him, and then magically choked him."
Harry raised an eyebrow, deadpanning, "So did Rita Skeeter - about the threat, anyway. Do you believe her?"
A sigh escaped Dumbledore. "Nonetheless, if the media hear of this, they will simply use it against both me and you."
"So this is what it's about?!" Harry demanded, his face twisting. "You simply don't want bad press?! Well I don't care!" With that, he turned and stormed from Dumbledore's office, knocking his chair over on the way out.
'Do you really think that Dumbledore is going to fall for that?'
Harry gave a telepathic shrug. 'What reason would he have to think that I don't frequently throw temper tantrums?'
'He will probably call us back at some point anyway.'
'And?' Harry asked. 'I'll just throw another tantrum. Oh, and speaking of what I threw my tantrum over….'
Rita Skeeter was napping in her armchair when she was awoken by a knock upon her door. She contemplated not answering it. After receiving a rather large donation from an anonymous benefactor, she was set for quite a while, so it didn't really matter if it was someone looking for her to write a story. It most likely was; she didn't have many friends, and anyone else would owl first. This would have to be one of the clients paranoid about their mail being intercepted.
A moment's thought later, she got to her feet. She wasn't only in this job for the money, she was in it because there were things that the public simply had a right to know about - whether or not she sometimes lied. Speaking of her occasional fibs, they occasionally gained her enemies, and that was why she had multiple protective spells upon her apartment. Moving to the door, she raised her wand to check who was on the other side.
Fortunately for her, she didn't need to cast the one-way transparency spell, one that was rather handy when she was spying. Unfortunately, this was because her door had just been reduced to splinters in an explosion of hellish light. She raised her wand to defend herself, an incantation beginning even as her vision began to clear, but she was not fast enough.
Her words were cut off as an invisible force grasped her throat in an iron grip, also muting her scream that started a moment later as a tendril of lightning blasted into her wand hand. A booming, terrifying laugh rang in Rita's ears, and she was thrown to the floor, sobbing in pain. She was not given time to recover, however, and a moment later, she felt her chin being gripped and wrenched upwards by a metal hand.
Another scream burst from her mouth as she found herself staring into the face of what could only be a demon, its blank, black eyes staring upon her from within an equally dark helmet. Its mouth was not visible, but it clearly had one, for broken breaths, somehow metallic, filled the air. "Who told you to slander Harry Potter?" It spoke in a deadly, rasping whisper, yet somehow, the noise reverberated through both her ears and mind.
"Please!" she begged. "I-I don't know! He didn't leave me a name!"
The demon must've sensed she was telling the truth, for it drew back, standing to its full height, which appeared to be at least two meters. "Very well, mortal." For a brief moment, Rita felt relief. It was shattered, however, as the demon uttered, "Then you are no use to me."
A beam of red light, about a meter in length leapt from the previously unseen sword-like hilt in the demon's hand. Rita didn't have time to start her final scream before a searing heat pierced her heart.
Harry gasped as he pulled away from Skeeter's mind, finishing the illusion off with a final stab at her mind and releasing his hands from her head. He glanced around the apartment he had broken into, finding it empty but for Skeeter's form, still dormant in her bed. This method of illusion was far more complex than his usual ones, thus requiring the victim to be sleeping and in contact if he wanted to pull it off successfully. It was also exhausting, requiring Harry and Loki to stay just outside the border of one's mind and constantly manipulate it.
Then again, the benefits of it far exceeded the downsides, for there would be no murder to investigate and Rita would think it a dream. And even if she didn't, who was going to believe that Darth Vader had broken into her mind and killed her?
A/N: Anyone guess what has happening at the end before I said so? Anyway, tell me what you thought!
