Nearing December, Hermione began to subscribe to the Daily Prophet.
Usually found the wizard newspaper fascinating, but when Ron came up, red
in the face, brandishing a copy with her face taking up about half the
front page, she was frankly bewildered.
"Hey Kate, look at the Daily Prophet! There's your picture!" Ron handed her the paper. Indeed it was her picture on the front page. The piece was entitlted, "Katherine Rhys: the myth and reality of the Child Silverhair."
"I really wish people would stop calling me Silverhair. Makes me sound like an old woman. What does this Rita Skeeter have to say about me?"
The other three groaned. Rita Skeeter was more interested in getting sensational stories as well as causing trouble than in reporting the truth. She'd been bothering Harry for the past two, almost three years, but it seemed as though she had found a new victim. Kate read the beginning aloud.
"Wild dark hair framing a pale face more startling than pretty, slightly pointed ears often hidden, and stormy blue eyes sprinkled with gold best describes the second of Hogwarts' adolescent celebrities," writes Rita Skeeter, special correspondent. "Katherine Rhys, known to friends as 'Katie,' has undergone harrowing ordeals throughout her young life. The well-known facts of her heritage, not only is she the direct descendent of Morgana Le Fey and of ancient Welsh High Kings, but she was born on the very night, at the very moment ( as our inquiring journalist has learned) when little Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who, and became an orphan. Katherine was also orphaned at an early age. Her father, a Muggle, was killed in a car accident when Katie was two. Her mother, Anwen Rhys, was the victim of a dark wizard when Katie was only nine. Ever since then, Katie's aunt, Gwendolyn Rhys ( her mother's twin sister) raised the girl. This same Gwendolyn Rhys was the maid of honor at James and Lily Potter's wedding," Kate paused for breath, then exploded, " What unmitigated drivel! I can write better than that."
"Keep reading," Harry said.
"Katie has proved the worthiness of her maternal heritage already, despite her half- Muggle blood. Only last year, she defeated the famed Dark Wizard Lorenzo, who, by all accounts, is almost as terrible as You- Know- Who. In doing so, she earned acclaim as a powerful enchantress. But, at Hogwarts, she shall have to prove herself all over again. Put into Gryffindor House, alongside Harry Potter himself, the girl has become the object of many teenage hopes and dreams for the young men of Hogwarts. With her faerie charm, she has put many young men under her spell, and, we have reason to believe that students aren't the only ones. Rumor has it that Professor Severus Snape is just as wildly infatuated with the girl as the boys her own age." She stopped again, this time the paper sliding from her grasp. For the first time of their acquaintance, they found she had been shocked into silence. Harry picked the paper up from the floor and began to read where Kate had left off.
"This dangerous charm appears to run in the family. It is a known fact that, as a student at Hogwarts, the now Professor Snape pursued the infamous Golden Gwen Rhys, the girl's aunt. Has the siren spell of the niece captured this poor man's fancy now, nearly twenty years later? But he is not the only one…" Harry trailed off, flushed hotly and handed the paper to Ron, who continued, " Harry Potter, who has been so cruely used before by Muggle-born Hermione Granger, has falled yet again into the spider's web. We are told that he is always to be seen with Katie Rhys. We can only hope that the human side of this faerie girl will take pity on him and release him from her spell. But, unlike the devious Miss Granger, the author is certain that this is just the effect of an unconscious siren rather than a scheming conniver." He finished the article and looked at the others.
Harry put an arm around Kate, "Don't worry, it's just rubbish and will die down soon." He smiled and tugged at one of her braids. Kate however, refused to be comforted. She appeared to be thinking, and when she spoke, it was with a terrible conviction.
"Do I really do that? What she says I do… Do I make them fall in love with me? I wouldn't know, I've always been so solitary. You're the first real human friends my age that I've had. At home, there were the ghosts and the wind, and Orion of course. You see, there just weren't any other children about. I was schooled at home… I've never even seen this Rita Skeeter. How could she say such awful things… such familiar things?" She was almost more angry over the familiarity of tone the woman used than what she said in the article. Harry and Ron just decided that they needed to protect her from those things, and Hermione brought tea to her. Kate, in one of her fits of contrariness, tossed the paper into the fireplace. She then pointed a finger at it, setting it alight.
"Good riddance to badly written rubbish. The thing is worth nothing more than a bit of kindling," she said brightly. But the next day, she was to find that bit of kindling had set the school ablaze, figuratively, of course. Boys in the hall either avoided her studiously or came up to her with a familiarity she found appalling. Finally, just before potions class, she snapped when Gregory Goyle actually said something independent of Draco Malfoy. Kate turned on him with eyes blazing. The curse she laid upon him for his impertinence blasted all the hair from his eyebrows and left his face an electric lime green.
"What's happened now?" Snape raised his own formidible brows at Goyle's appearance, "Who did that?"
Kate raised her hand, "I did it," she said quietly, without any trace of her earlier anger.
"May I ask why, Miss Rhys?" Snape asked, looking at her critically. She looked pale, and did not sparkle with the vivacity which he had come to expect from her. She did not answer him, but looked into the mirror like surface of her cauldron. Draco Malfoy enjoyed her silence and answered for her.
"It's because of the Daily Prophet, Professor Snape. Rita Skeeter thinks the faerie princess here is a danger to all the male population," Malfoy said, relishing every moment of Kate's discomfort. Her pale face flushed a delicate pink. Snape thought irreverently that it could have been Gwen sitting there, immovable as stone, yet still blushing furiously at a remark made.
"What has that idiot woman put in there now?" Snape said, the sneer returning to his face, " I suppose that she has decided Miss Rhys will take Mr. Potter's place as her favorite victim? Do you have a copy of that paper?" Malfoy handed the Daily Prophet over to him, and Snape looked at the piece gravely.
"It isn't a very flattering photograph, is it, Katherine? They've altered it, that's plain. Has the description down though. 'More startling than pretty.' WHAT – IS – THIS ?" Snape's voice, though low, was dangerous. One could hear his fury as his sallow skin reddened and he looked about ready to burst a blood vessel.
"Class is dismissed. Miss Rhys, go to Dumbledore's office. I will be there shortly."
She caught up her things, in no less of a fury than Snape himself, his anger igniting and intensifying her's. The entire class shuddered when the doors slammed, making several glass bottles sway alarmingly. She stood beside the gargoyle, waiting for Snape to get there. He came, snapping out the password, and Kate followed his billowing robes silently up the spiral stairs.
"Headmaster, this is the final straw," Snape muttered as Albus Dumbledore scanned over the article.
"I quite agree, Professor," he said mildly, looking at the two angry faces across his desk, "What do you say about this, Miss Rhys?"
"Isn't there anything we can do about this? It's nothing short of libel… or is it slander?"
"Not much you can do in the realm of legalities. But I am sure you can come up with a way of getting even, or even setting the record straight."
Kate stood and began to pace, like a tiger in a cage. Then her face lit up with an inner radience, along with a cunning that surprised even Dumbledore.
"The pen is mightier than the sword, they say. I wonder…"
"I've heard that you have quite a gift with words," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with something akin to mischief. Kate returned his smile.
"A pseudonym would be necessary. To make the truth more readable than a pack of lies…"
"You can't mean that you're going to write a refutation of that woman's story?" Snape asked, disbelieving.
Kate gave him a saucy, lopsided grin, "Rebuttal was the word I was thinking of. This will have to be planned very carefully. An American wizard, not a witch. Wouldn't want anyone thinking that I wrote it myself. Taking the insult made to Katherine Rhys as one to nationality, he has decided to write a piece which is true. I'd have to have help with the transfiguration. A tall man, with auburn hair and green eyes, Virginia accent, I think. T.C. Wanderer. You have to have at the very least, three initials south of the Potomac." She said, more to herself than to the two men in the room.
"Excellent! What does the name stand for?" Dumbledore asked, looking at the girl with amused respect.
"Taran Chamberlain Wanderer. I've always liked the name Taran Wanderer, and Chamberlain is a personal hero. Joshua Chamberlain, that is."
Dumbledore laughed outright, "You'll give Rita Skeeter a run for her money. And I think you just might succeed."
"Then you're OK with this?"
"Indeed. I think that Rita Skeeter would benefit with having her ego deflated."
"I have your permission to beat that fraud at her own game?"
"Yes, you do. However, this does not leave this room. We needn't bother Professor McGonagall about this, I'll teach you the transfiguration myself." Dumbledore winked. She was a fey child, but there was more. Clever in a manner unlike Gwen or Anwen, or even old Bran, who had been a veritable Puck. Dumbledore wagered that she got that streak of merry deviltry from her father."
As Kate set upon her masquerade, she was filled with suppressed excitement. There was an odd rush, a feeling of exhilaration about it. She used a couple of the old robes which had belonged to her grandfather. She had gotten Gwen to send her the robes.. not telling her that they were intended for Sirius. Learning the transfiguration spell from Professor Dumbledore, she practiced in a secret room, transforming herself into a tall man, not quite handsome, but pleasing to the eyes. When she looked in the mirror, she saw waving auburn hair and bright green eyes. The voice which spoke was a tenor, with the pleasing drawl of Virginia.
"T.C. Wanderer, at your service, sir. Taran Chamberlain Wanderer, of the Blue Ridge Oracle," a moment after, the figure shortened by about a foot, and became willowy and slender, green eyes changing to blue, auburn hair taking on a darker sheen, tenor lightening to soprano. The laughing face of Kate once again reflected in the mirror.
"Well done. Very well done indeed," Dumbledore said, "Now, be careful, especially as there are Sneakoscopes here in the oddest places. And promise you won't do anything foolish."
"Of course, Professor. I will ask my questions, and poke my very nice Romanesque nose in other people's business for only a half hour at a time. When I miss class, it will be because I was unable to take my cold iron serum that morning. I will go into Hogsmeade at certain hours, always accompanied by Orion who will also be disguised."
"Be careful, Kate. You're needed for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. You're the only person who can play every position."
Kate grinned and saluted, " Yes, sir. I'll be the soul of discretion."
"And Kate, if you meet up with Rita Skeeter, don't lose your temper and do something to her. We want her to be discredited, not turned into a newt."
Kate just smiled mysteriously and was gone. Dumbledore shook his head and didn't bother to suppress a smile. That child was what had been missing in Gryffindor for a long time. A Rhys in Gryffindor House just made sense in Dumbledore's time, from his schoolmate Bran to Gwen and now Kate. That child had more sheer impishness in her than in any student in the past with the possible exception of Sirius Black, or old Bran, who had been called Puck when he was young.
The next day in Hogsmeade, Kate purposefully let herself fall behind and left. Ducking into an alley, she changed into the overly large robes. A few moments later a tall man with auburn hair stepped jauntily away and headed towards the Three Broomsticks. As the fellow went in, the girls at a table near the door stared at the man, who, despite Kate's insistance, was very handsome. He did not seem to be much older than five and twenty. When he spoke to the bartender, his pleasing Southern accent made all the women in the room flutter.
"And who might you be, so far away from home, sir?" the landlady smiled.
"T.C. Wanderer, ma'am. Come to Britain to write my great novel, but in the meantime, making a few Galleons as a correspondent for the Blue Ridge Oracle. Covering Quidditch games and whatnot," he leaned over and whispered to the woman, "Ever hear tell of Kate Rhys? Supposed to find out why that ole' harpy is making such nasty comments on such a good kid. That's the President of the Council speakin' there, ma'am. Heard it meself, he called her a good kid. Made Miss Gwen proud as anything. "
"The child is almost as famous as Harry Potter. Why do you ask, Mr. Wanderer?"
"Well, the Council is riled up, as are a lot of the American wizard population, over that pack of lies written about our girl by that Skooter woman."
"You must mean Rita Skeeter. I read that article, and I must say, it does seem rather ridiculous. She is a very nice child, well brought up. But she doesn't like bullies. You'll always see her sticking up for someone who can't or is too afraid to do so themselves."
The green eyes sparkled lively, "Could I qoute you on that , ma'am? I think that if people want to know the truth, then they should hear it… or read it in this case."
"Oh, to be sure, Mr. Wanderer. No child should be subjected to what Rita Skeeter writes. It's perfectly scandalous."
The man flashed a grin that made Madam Rosemerta's heart tremble, "Precisely what I thought, ma'am. Let's see what ole' T.C. can do to git this varmint to hang up her lyin' quill."
The rebuttal article in the Daily Prophet ( copy to the Blue Ridge Oracle) filled the whole school with excitement. The small byline picture of T.C. Wanderer had all the girls in Hogwarts sighing. The boys were caught by the tales of American monsters and the wizards of the wild west. The picture of Kate, gazing out of a window in Gryffindor, smiling a sweet unexpected smile caught and tugged at heartstrings. The rhetoric in the article ranged from the amusing to the outraged, from the ridiculous to the sad. Each little segment painted a picture with words. Whoever this T.C. Wanderer was, he could wield a quill with talent and force. Even Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl, was sighing over the auburn hair, green eyes and lopsided smile. This reporter had written something for everyone in that issue of the Daily Prophet.
Rita Skeeter came a few days later, seething. She searched Hogsmeade high and low for a sign of the elusive Mr. Wanderer. She finally met up with him at the end of November, unluckily on a day when the village was over run with school children. The tall man stood out amongst the shorter heads of the adolescents he was talking with. Plus, the red hair was like a beacon with the sun against it. She paused when she who the teenagers were. Harry Potter, Ron Weasely, and ( Rita shuddered) Hermione Granger. She cringed a moment, then bearded the lions.
"Well well well. T.C. Wanderer. I must say, you look nothing like what I imagined. I was certain that your byline picture had been doctored. But here you are, a glorious youth. Rita Skeeter here."
" 'Scuse me, folks. Well, now, Ms. Skeeter, here I was a-thinkin' you looked exactly the way I figured you'd look. Right down to them funny glasses and blonde-from-a-bottle hair," the young man grinned, winking at the teenagers.
"Why you… you… Crude American."
"I prefer the word straightforward, ma'am."
"He's a better writer, too. I heard that the Daily Prophet which carried his article was the best selling edition in a hundred years," Hermione piped up.
T.C. smiled his lopsided smile again, " Sharp little thing, ain't she? Could beat ole' T.C. here on any of them school subjects."
"From the way you talk, one wonders that you could write an article like you did," Rita Skeeter said, brows raised. T.C. Wanderer looked at her long and hard.
"Now I thought you were a reasonably intelligent lady. I use that last word loosely. This is a persona, if you will. Old Virginia's a far cry from the backcountry you seem to think it is. She is the mother of presidents and poets, of men who did the impossible, of men who dreamed the impossible. Now, Madam, if you will excuse me, these young people had just granted me an exclusive. Mr. Potter here is quite the storyteller himself, though a bit more modest than I would be in his place. Come on kids, I want to see this Honeydukes. My dear mother has heard all about these British sweetshops, and has been at me to send her some… Doesn't matter that she lives within a hundred miles of Hershey, PA." The laughter irritated Rita Skeeter.
"Hey Kate, look at the Daily Prophet! There's your picture!" Ron handed her the paper. Indeed it was her picture on the front page. The piece was entitlted, "Katherine Rhys: the myth and reality of the Child Silverhair."
"I really wish people would stop calling me Silverhair. Makes me sound like an old woman. What does this Rita Skeeter have to say about me?"
The other three groaned. Rita Skeeter was more interested in getting sensational stories as well as causing trouble than in reporting the truth. She'd been bothering Harry for the past two, almost three years, but it seemed as though she had found a new victim. Kate read the beginning aloud.
"Wild dark hair framing a pale face more startling than pretty, slightly pointed ears often hidden, and stormy blue eyes sprinkled with gold best describes the second of Hogwarts' adolescent celebrities," writes Rita Skeeter, special correspondent. "Katherine Rhys, known to friends as 'Katie,' has undergone harrowing ordeals throughout her young life. The well-known facts of her heritage, not only is she the direct descendent of Morgana Le Fey and of ancient Welsh High Kings, but she was born on the very night, at the very moment ( as our inquiring journalist has learned) when little Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who, and became an orphan. Katherine was also orphaned at an early age. Her father, a Muggle, was killed in a car accident when Katie was two. Her mother, Anwen Rhys, was the victim of a dark wizard when Katie was only nine. Ever since then, Katie's aunt, Gwendolyn Rhys ( her mother's twin sister) raised the girl. This same Gwendolyn Rhys was the maid of honor at James and Lily Potter's wedding," Kate paused for breath, then exploded, " What unmitigated drivel! I can write better than that."
"Keep reading," Harry said.
"Katie has proved the worthiness of her maternal heritage already, despite her half- Muggle blood. Only last year, she defeated the famed Dark Wizard Lorenzo, who, by all accounts, is almost as terrible as You- Know- Who. In doing so, she earned acclaim as a powerful enchantress. But, at Hogwarts, she shall have to prove herself all over again. Put into Gryffindor House, alongside Harry Potter himself, the girl has become the object of many teenage hopes and dreams for the young men of Hogwarts. With her faerie charm, she has put many young men under her spell, and, we have reason to believe that students aren't the only ones. Rumor has it that Professor Severus Snape is just as wildly infatuated with the girl as the boys her own age." She stopped again, this time the paper sliding from her grasp. For the first time of their acquaintance, they found she had been shocked into silence. Harry picked the paper up from the floor and began to read where Kate had left off.
"This dangerous charm appears to run in the family. It is a known fact that, as a student at Hogwarts, the now Professor Snape pursued the infamous Golden Gwen Rhys, the girl's aunt. Has the siren spell of the niece captured this poor man's fancy now, nearly twenty years later? But he is not the only one…" Harry trailed off, flushed hotly and handed the paper to Ron, who continued, " Harry Potter, who has been so cruely used before by Muggle-born Hermione Granger, has falled yet again into the spider's web. We are told that he is always to be seen with Katie Rhys. We can only hope that the human side of this faerie girl will take pity on him and release him from her spell. But, unlike the devious Miss Granger, the author is certain that this is just the effect of an unconscious siren rather than a scheming conniver." He finished the article and looked at the others.
Harry put an arm around Kate, "Don't worry, it's just rubbish and will die down soon." He smiled and tugged at one of her braids. Kate however, refused to be comforted. She appeared to be thinking, and when she spoke, it was with a terrible conviction.
"Do I really do that? What she says I do… Do I make them fall in love with me? I wouldn't know, I've always been so solitary. You're the first real human friends my age that I've had. At home, there were the ghosts and the wind, and Orion of course. You see, there just weren't any other children about. I was schooled at home… I've never even seen this Rita Skeeter. How could she say such awful things… such familiar things?" She was almost more angry over the familiarity of tone the woman used than what she said in the article. Harry and Ron just decided that they needed to protect her from those things, and Hermione brought tea to her. Kate, in one of her fits of contrariness, tossed the paper into the fireplace. She then pointed a finger at it, setting it alight.
"Good riddance to badly written rubbish. The thing is worth nothing more than a bit of kindling," she said brightly. But the next day, she was to find that bit of kindling had set the school ablaze, figuratively, of course. Boys in the hall either avoided her studiously or came up to her with a familiarity she found appalling. Finally, just before potions class, she snapped when Gregory Goyle actually said something independent of Draco Malfoy. Kate turned on him with eyes blazing. The curse she laid upon him for his impertinence blasted all the hair from his eyebrows and left his face an electric lime green.
"What's happened now?" Snape raised his own formidible brows at Goyle's appearance, "Who did that?"
Kate raised her hand, "I did it," she said quietly, without any trace of her earlier anger.
"May I ask why, Miss Rhys?" Snape asked, looking at her critically. She looked pale, and did not sparkle with the vivacity which he had come to expect from her. She did not answer him, but looked into the mirror like surface of her cauldron. Draco Malfoy enjoyed her silence and answered for her.
"It's because of the Daily Prophet, Professor Snape. Rita Skeeter thinks the faerie princess here is a danger to all the male population," Malfoy said, relishing every moment of Kate's discomfort. Her pale face flushed a delicate pink. Snape thought irreverently that it could have been Gwen sitting there, immovable as stone, yet still blushing furiously at a remark made.
"What has that idiot woman put in there now?" Snape said, the sneer returning to his face, " I suppose that she has decided Miss Rhys will take Mr. Potter's place as her favorite victim? Do you have a copy of that paper?" Malfoy handed the Daily Prophet over to him, and Snape looked at the piece gravely.
"It isn't a very flattering photograph, is it, Katherine? They've altered it, that's plain. Has the description down though. 'More startling than pretty.' WHAT – IS – THIS ?" Snape's voice, though low, was dangerous. One could hear his fury as his sallow skin reddened and he looked about ready to burst a blood vessel.
"Class is dismissed. Miss Rhys, go to Dumbledore's office. I will be there shortly."
She caught up her things, in no less of a fury than Snape himself, his anger igniting and intensifying her's. The entire class shuddered when the doors slammed, making several glass bottles sway alarmingly. She stood beside the gargoyle, waiting for Snape to get there. He came, snapping out the password, and Kate followed his billowing robes silently up the spiral stairs.
"Headmaster, this is the final straw," Snape muttered as Albus Dumbledore scanned over the article.
"I quite agree, Professor," he said mildly, looking at the two angry faces across his desk, "What do you say about this, Miss Rhys?"
"Isn't there anything we can do about this? It's nothing short of libel… or is it slander?"
"Not much you can do in the realm of legalities. But I am sure you can come up with a way of getting even, or even setting the record straight."
Kate stood and began to pace, like a tiger in a cage. Then her face lit up with an inner radience, along with a cunning that surprised even Dumbledore.
"The pen is mightier than the sword, they say. I wonder…"
"I've heard that you have quite a gift with words," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with something akin to mischief. Kate returned his smile.
"A pseudonym would be necessary. To make the truth more readable than a pack of lies…"
"You can't mean that you're going to write a refutation of that woman's story?" Snape asked, disbelieving.
Kate gave him a saucy, lopsided grin, "Rebuttal was the word I was thinking of. This will have to be planned very carefully. An American wizard, not a witch. Wouldn't want anyone thinking that I wrote it myself. Taking the insult made to Katherine Rhys as one to nationality, he has decided to write a piece which is true. I'd have to have help with the transfiguration. A tall man, with auburn hair and green eyes, Virginia accent, I think. T.C. Wanderer. You have to have at the very least, three initials south of the Potomac." She said, more to herself than to the two men in the room.
"Excellent! What does the name stand for?" Dumbledore asked, looking at the girl with amused respect.
"Taran Chamberlain Wanderer. I've always liked the name Taran Wanderer, and Chamberlain is a personal hero. Joshua Chamberlain, that is."
Dumbledore laughed outright, "You'll give Rita Skeeter a run for her money. And I think you just might succeed."
"Then you're OK with this?"
"Indeed. I think that Rita Skeeter would benefit with having her ego deflated."
"I have your permission to beat that fraud at her own game?"
"Yes, you do. However, this does not leave this room. We needn't bother Professor McGonagall about this, I'll teach you the transfiguration myself." Dumbledore winked. She was a fey child, but there was more. Clever in a manner unlike Gwen or Anwen, or even old Bran, who had been a veritable Puck. Dumbledore wagered that she got that streak of merry deviltry from her father."
As Kate set upon her masquerade, she was filled with suppressed excitement. There was an odd rush, a feeling of exhilaration about it. She used a couple of the old robes which had belonged to her grandfather. She had gotten Gwen to send her the robes.. not telling her that they were intended for Sirius. Learning the transfiguration spell from Professor Dumbledore, she practiced in a secret room, transforming herself into a tall man, not quite handsome, but pleasing to the eyes. When she looked in the mirror, she saw waving auburn hair and bright green eyes. The voice which spoke was a tenor, with the pleasing drawl of Virginia.
"T.C. Wanderer, at your service, sir. Taran Chamberlain Wanderer, of the Blue Ridge Oracle," a moment after, the figure shortened by about a foot, and became willowy and slender, green eyes changing to blue, auburn hair taking on a darker sheen, tenor lightening to soprano. The laughing face of Kate once again reflected in the mirror.
"Well done. Very well done indeed," Dumbledore said, "Now, be careful, especially as there are Sneakoscopes here in the oddest places. And promise you won't do anything foolish."
"Of course, Professor. I will ask my questions, and poke my very nice Romanesque nose in other people's business for only a half hour at a time. When I miss class, it will be because I was unable to take my cold iron serum that morning. I will go into Hogsmeade at certain hours, always accompanied by Orion who will also be disguised."
"Be careful, Kate. You're needed for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. You're the only person who can play every position."
Kate grinned and saluted, " Yes, sir. I'll be the soul of discretion."
"And Kate, if you meet up with Rita Skeeter, don't lose your temper and do something to her. We want her to be discredited, not turned into a newt."
Kate just smiled mysteriously and was gone. Dumbledore shook his head and didn't bother to suppress a smile. That child was what had been missing in Gryffindor for a long time. A Rhys in Gryffindor House just made sense in Dumbledore's time, from his schoolmate Bran to Gwen and now Kate. That child had more sheer impishness in her than in any student in the past with the possible exception of Sirius Black, or old Bran, who had been called Puck when he was young.
The next day in Hogsmeade, Kate purposefully let herself fall behind and left. Ducking into an alley, she changed into the overly large robes. A few moments later a tall man with auburn hair stepped jauntily away and headed towards the Three Broomsticks. As the fellow went in, the girls at a table near the door stared at the man, who, despite Kate's insistance, was very handsome. He did not seem to be much older than five and twenty. When he spoke to the bartender, his pleasing Southern accent made all the women in the room flutter.
"And who might you be, so far away from home, sir?" the landlady smiled.
"T.C. Wanderer, ma'am. Come to Britain to write my great novel, but in the meantime, making a few Galleons as a correspondent for the Blue Ridge Oracle. Covering Quidditch games and whatnot," he leaned over and whispered to the woman, "Ever hear tell of Kate Rhys? Supposed to find out why that ole' harpy is making such nasty comments on such a good kid. That's the President of the Council speakin' there, ma'am. Heard it meself, he called her a good kid. Made Miss Gwen proud as anything. "
"The child is almost as famous as Harry Potter. Why do you ask, Mr. Wanderer?"
"Well, the Council is riled up, as are a lot of the American wizard population, over that pack of lies written about our girl by that Skooter woman."
"You must mean Rita Skeeter. I read that article, and I must say, it does seem rather ridiculous. She is a very nice child, well brought up. But she doesn't like bullies. You'll always see her sticking up for someone who can't or is too afraid to do so themselves."
The green eyes sparkled lively, "Could I qoute you on that , ma'am? I think that if people want to know the truth, then they should hear it… or read it in this case."
"Oh, to be sure, Mr. Wanderer. No child should be subjected to what Rita Skeeter writes. It's perfectly scandalous."
The man flashed a grin that made Madam Rosemerta's heart tremble, "Precisely what I thought, ma'am. Let's see what ole' T.C. can do to git this varmint to hang up her lyin' quill."
The rebuttal article in the Daily Prophet ( copy to the Blue Ridge Oracle) filled the whole school with excitement. The small byline picture of T.C. Wanderer had all the girls in Hogwarts sighing. The boys were caught by the tales of American monsters and the wizards of the wild west. The picture of Kate, gazing out of a window in Gryffindor, smiling a sweet unexpected smile caught and tugged at heartstrings. The rhetoric in the article ranged from the amusing to the outraged, from the ridiculous to the sad. Each little segment painted a picture with words. Whoever this T.C. Wanderer was, he could wield a quill with talent and force. Even Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl, was sighing over the auburn hair, green eyes and lopsided smile. This reporter had written something for everyone in that issue of the Daily Prophet.
Rita Skeeter came a few days later, seething. She searched Hogsmeade high and low for a sign of the elusive Mr. Wanderer. She finally met up with him at the end of November, unluckily on a day when the village was over run with school children. The tall man stood out amongst the shorter heads of the adolescents he was talking with. Plus, the red hair was like a beacon with the sun against it. She paused when she who the teenagers were. Harry Potter, Ron Weasely, and ( Rita shuddered) Hermione Granger. She cringed a moment, then bearded the lions.
"Well well well. T.C. Wanderer. I must say, you look nothing like what I imagined. I was certain that your byline picture had been doctored. But here you are, a glorious youth. Rita Skeeter here."
" 'Scuse me, folks. Well, now, Ms. Skeeter, here I was a-thinkin' you looked exactly the way I figured you'd look. Right down to them funny glasses and blonde-from-a-bottle hair," the young man grinned, winking at the teenagers.
"Why you… you… Crude American."
"I prefer the word straightforward, ma'am."
"He's a better writer, too. I heard that the Daily Prophet which carried his article was the best selling edition in a hundred years," Hermione piped up.
T.C. smiled his lopsided smile again, " Sharp little thing, ain't she? Could beat ole' T.C. here on any of them school subjects."
"From the way you talk, one wonders that you could write an article like you did," Rita Skeeter said, brows raised. T.C. Wanderer looked at her long and hard.
"Now I thought you were a reasonably intelligent lady. I use that last word loosely. This is a persona, if you will. Old Virginia's a far cry from the backcountry you seem to think it is. She is the mother of presidents and poets, of men who did the impossible, of men who dreamed the impossible. Now, Madam, if you will excuse me, these young people had just granted me an exclusive. Mr. Potter here is quite the storyteller himself, though a bit more modest than I would be in his place. Come on kids, I want to see this Honeydukes. My dear mother has heard all about these British sweetshops, and has been at me to send her some… Doesn't matter that she lives within a hundred miles of Hershey, PA." The laughter irritated Rita Skeeter.