"Rita Skeeter better shut her mouth before she gets in trouble.

Rita Skeeter better shut her mouth before she gets in trouble.

Rita Skeeter better shut her mouth before she incurs

the wrath of Hermione,

'cause it's bound to be worse than

Rita Skeeter better shut her mouth before she gets in trouble…"

- The Wrath of Hermione, Harry and the Potters

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

In which Rita Skeeter has fun being Rita Skeeter andGinny wears Kyle's T-shirt to breakfast...

September 28, 2003

Rita Skeeter was having a good day. She'd spent the majority of it pretending to write a story about Bali's new beater (the old one having been bludgeoned into a coma), who, it turned out, had had quite an extensive career in the skin-flick industry; this according to Ludo Bagman's assistant's brother's iguana's aunt's husband's nephew (who was improbably human). He was a bit near-sighted but claimed beyond a doubt that he'd seen her grace the pages of both "Magic Stick" and "Witches Gone Wild". Who was Rita to argue with such a reliable source?

She'd spent the rest of it pondering the nature of peace; if the nature of peace was a certain upcoming wedding between two of the wizarding world's most overrated people, if Rita did say so herself; and she did say so, often.

What had Draco Malfoy and/or Hermione Granger done to get themselves so famous, so infamous, so… popular? What, Rita wondered, had they done that made them deserving of a celebrity status? The answer came quickly. Nothing. Draco Malfoy was nothing but hair and money. Hermione Granger was… Rita felt her grip on the solid world sliding away and stopped. Being trapped in a glass jar did terrible things to one's psychological well-being.

Here. Now. Desk. Chair. She ran unsteady hands over the desktop and let out the breath she'd been unconsciously holding. Good girl.

She looked nervously over her shoulder, adjusted her glasses and turned back to the blank notepad she'd been scrutinizing. Hermione Granger was going down. She wasn't sure when, she wasn't sure how, but that bitch was going to crash and burn… eventually.

'Hermione Granger' she wrote; and then, as a poetic afterthought, 'Reap what you sow.'

She sat back and chewed on the end of her quill. Granger had been very good at keeping her nose clean over the past few years. She hadn't even been seen with Potter or Weasley for two years. She'd been living very cleanly, except for the two obvious lapses in judgment that were her fiancé and unborn child.

Rita frowned. It was all just a little too clean.

Rita knew all about secrets, she made her living on them. Rita liked secrets; not hers, on a general basis, but other people's were quite useful. She couldn't believe it when Witch Weekly's Inga Thorne, a promising talent who wore the wrong shade of lipstick, called her a "dime-a-dozen gossip who worked to dig up other people's private confidences". Rita didn't need to work to dig up other people's secrets; most of them came and found her. As a result she spent her weekdays (and weekends, for that matter) up to her rhinestone-encrusted glasses in them, it was simply a matter of brushing cheap rumors (who had a new boyfriend, who was being fired) away from real, solid-gold secrets (who had a new boyfriend while keeping the old, who was being fired for sleeping with their boss's wife). Those secrets were worth keeping, and so consequently worth spreading.

Hermione Granger was keeping a secret. Rita could taste it like blood on the air. Granger had been too good at keeping it, whatever 'it' was, a secret thus far. Sooner or later she was going to crash. It was simply a matter of Rita being there with gasoline and matches.

"Ms. Skeeter?" a nameless intern rapped on the edge of her cubicle.

"Yes?" she snapped. Rita did a lot of snapping at interns.

"Call for you on grate one."

"Right." Rita stopped chewing on her quill long enough to grab the notepad (you never knew who might be calling), stand and sweep past the intern. She made her way past countless identical cubicles and to grate one, which was an no-nonsense-looking fireplace seated between a row of secretaries and the men's restroom. A woman's heavily-made-up head was floating in the violet flames. "Charisse! Darling!" Rita gushed and pulled a stool up to the hearth. "And to what, or whom, do I owe this pleasure?"

Charisse Tyler smiled smugly. She was on the verge of spilling someone else's solid-gold secret, Rita could tell. Rita knew secrets. "Hermione Granger."

Rita was listening.

Kyle was making breakfast when Ginny woke up. She dragged herself out of bed and to the kitchen to the tune of egg-beaters whisking across bowls and the WWN's morning announcer crooning a set of old muggle standards.

She'd been having a very good dream, she thought. She couldn't quite remember what it was about, but it had been very good. She yawned. Strands of red hair were falling in to her eyes, but she wasn't really looking where she was going, so it mattered very little. This might explain how she came to walk into the kitchen, kiss Kyle on the cheek, pour herself a glass of orange juice and not notice the Grangers until she was nearly sitting in Mr. Granger's lap.

"Gah!" Orange juice slopped all down her front as she jumped back. "Ah shit… I mean…" she fumbled. "er…by golly gee whiz!" She handed the now-empty glass to Kyle's waiting hand and backed slowly towards the door, painfully aware that Kyle's t-shirt and a pair of pink knickers did not make a complete outfit. "Hope you all slept well I'm… I'm going to get the paper…" She turned and darted back through the door.

She'd have to attach a note to her door for tomorrow.

"Ginny!" Jeanie called as she walked past the Granger's room.

"Yes?" Ginny asked, rubbing sleep from her eyelashes.

Jeanie produced two skirts from her magic pink bag. "The black or the green?"

"Where are you going?"

"Breakfast."

Ginny's yawned. "You're wearing a skirt to breakfast?"

"Yes." Jeanie gestured to the skirts again. "So, which one?"

"What are you doing later today?"

"Oh, no silly! I'm not wearing the skirt to anything after breakfast. It's freezing out there!"

Ginny's tired mind still couldn't comprehend. "So you're getting dressed for like… fifteen minutes of eggs?"

"Yes. So, which one?"

"What shirt are you wearing with it?"

"I dunno. I'm choosing my skirt first. Then shirt, shoes, stockings, and, finally, accessories."

Ginny cocked her head to one side. "Are you sure you're only going to breakfast?"

"Yes. Which one?"

"Did you just wake up?"

"No. I woke up two hours ago. Which bleeding one?"

"Oh." Ginny yawned again. "You've been agonizing over skirt detail for two hours?"

"No!" Jeanie snapped, her voice taking on a bossy, brassy tone not unlike Hermione's. "Which one?"

"What have you been doing, then?"

"I've spent the past two-hours very efficiently, for your information. I've showered, shaved, tweezed, washed my face, straightened my hair, very difficult, mind, since you don't have any outlets handy, I had to walk across the street and ask this man who owned a pizzeria if I could use his electricity. I've swabbed, moisturized, foundation-ed, lipstick-ed, eyeshadow-ed, mascara-ed, blushed, rouged, contoured, highlighted, powdered, and blow-dried. I've painted my fingernails and my toenails. I also did three-hundred crunches and forty-two push-ups. I did my pilates and now I need you to tell me which skirt I ought to wear to breakfast. Come on, Gin. You're putting me majorly behind schedule."

"The black one, then." Ginny sighed and slouched away.

"Ginny Weasley, you're a goddess." Jeanie called after her.

I wish. Ginny thought. If I was a goddess I wouldn't have to settle for Kyle's T-shirt.

She grabbed a pair of jeans off of her dresser and decided that she was too hungry to brush her hair. She picked the Daily Prophet from the windowsill and walked back to breakfast.

They were eating omelets when she got back. Kyle had set one out for her, tomatoes and peppers with a little mozzarella just the way she liked it. She sat down and picked at it, setting the Prophet at her elbow.

"Can I see that?" Kyle asked, not waiting for a response before reaching across the table to take the paper. Ginny watched him unfold it, absentmindedly watching the back page.

The Grangers were talking about the shopping they were going to do that afternoon. Ginny tuned them out and floated into omelet land, where it was just her, her omelet, and the back of the paper.

She'd been not-really-watching a black-and-white picture of a man and woman kissing before she realized exactly what she was seeing and grabbed the paper from Kyle's hands.

"Hey! I was—"

"No, you weren't," she snapped.

By this time she had the entire table's attention. "What is it?" Mrs. Granger asked, peering over her shoulder. "Oh my… that can't mean anything good."

"I can't say anything I might actually mean in your presence, Mrs. Rebecca." Kyle said, once he'd got around the table and seen the picture. "But your daughter is possibly the most indecisive person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"I'll say." Ginny bit her lip nervously. "I can't imagine what Ron thinks he's doing."

The picture showed no one but Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, sitting on a park bench and being deeply engrossed in, Ginny cringed, each other.

"I will say this, things are going to be very interesting tomorrow."

At that moment the door opened and Jeanie walked in, yawning and stretching as though she'd just woken up. "Hm…" She saw them all gathered round the paper and stopped. "What'd I miss?"

A/N: Review if you feel like. I hope you feel like, though, reviews just make my days!

P.S. Jewel- absolutely I did it on purpose. I was reading the phantom book at thetime (soooooo good)because I'm obsessed with the soundtrack/movie/play (and now the book, as well). I was surprised anyone caught it, but go you for surprising me (but especially for knowing that his name is/was/whatever tense you would put hereErik)