20. The Diary
At first, I felt as though I had come full circle, as though I was back where I started, back at square one. But I quickly realised, between two cups of ageing caffeine, that this was not the case. It was worse. My life had reached an all-time low, plunging deeper than I'd ever thought possible. I had missed square one, veered inwards and downwards. My life, instead of completing some demented circle of life, was still spiralling as much out of control as it had been when I was unemployed and shuffling through Henry's house in my nightgown.
I was back at the Quibbler, but my boss was my oldest friend's daughter. My deadest, oldest friend. (You really can't get deader than being blown to a million or so pieces by your own stupid experiment.)
I had no friends left and was employed by my dead best friend's daughter (as ditzy as her mother once was). To this day, I don't know whether she hired me out of pity or because the Prophet had fired me for writing (and I quote my editor) 'Quibbler-worthy, crazy fantasies.'
So, I sat like a dried-up old plant in a dark corner of the Quibbler office, feasting on coffee and dubious facts. I had a never ending stream of questionable news washing over me from the smoky mouth of one of our semi-resident freelancers, Miss Inga Northshore. Her speciality was gossip, any kind, anywhere, and her range was astounding; she related elaborate conspiracy theories and who the waitress on the corner was dating with the very same high-pitched tremor, the same glowing eyes, and the same bluntly pointed coughs and splutters. She favoured my desk not because I was particularly receptive but because I was almost always there and almost never doing anything much. I suspect at those few times the office was empty when Inga came to visit, she engaged the potted plants in conversation. Usually she got about as much of a response from me as from the equally withered old plants.
But, purely by chance, I found a golden piece of truth in Inga's stream of fiction. It was from her that I learnt about the rumours that Harry Potter had been dating none other than Draco Malfoy, his old school rival. Had I been a reader of the less reputable witch magazines, I would have learnt about it many months before. As it was, the notion at first startled me and made me laugh in the midst of my misery. And my interest in the affair would have ended there if Inga hadn't continued her observation by saying it was a damn shame young Malfoy had gone missing. Apparently, the lanky young blond had been much to Inga's liking, so much so that she had often camped out with various paparazzi as they lay in wait outside his London home, hoping to catch sight of Harry Potter.
But now, he was gone. No one had seen him since a week before Harry Potter had been reported missing. Gossips were quick to make a connection but no reputable media would even deign to speculate. It was unthinkable that the Boy Who Lived could have had an affair with Lucius Malfoy's son, or that he could have somehow eloped with him.
My own prejudice against the very media subculture that had once given birth to my journalistic career had blinded me to these facts as I tied my Dementor story to the Potter case. But now, fallen from Prophet grace, I was back in the seedy undergrowth of journalism. And I had found the missing clue lying there, discarded. Or at least the trail that would lead me to it.
I sought out Malfoy's landlady. He had paid his flat well in advance. If it stood disused, that was none of her concern. She would by no means let me in. Young master Malfoy had been most specific.
Had I still been working for the Prophet, it would have seemed an insurmountable problem. But now, having stolen a Demented Bellatrix Lestrange (for which I was not thrown into prison for the sole reason that the Prophet wanted to hush it all down and hired an excellent lawyer) and having but scraps of a career left, it merely delayed me a single day. That same night, I went to Malfoy's flat with an old lock-picking acquaintance of mine. Inside, I found the first diary.