Of Wizards, Akuma, and Exorcist

Thirty-Six: Interview

Disclaimers: I do not own any D. Gray-Man or Harry Potter characters/settings. They rightfully belong to Mr. Hoshino (D. Gray-Man) and Ms. Rowling (Harry Potter). Also, some conversations between the Harry Potter characters are direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and that also does not belong to me!

"Are you sure Harry wouldn't mind us being here?" Allen asked Lenalee nervously as she almost pushed him and Lavi into the Three Broomsticks. "Can't I at least take off the glasses?"

"Yes, please," Lavi agreed with him, tugging at the hat he was wearing. "Who did you get this thing from? It's so...weird."

"Hermione made it. It's one of her best," Lenalee answered with an air of dismissal. "And yes, you can take them off. And no, Harry wouldn't mind."

"Hi Hagrid," Allen greeted, spotting the unmistakable giant figure of Hogwarts's gatekeeper.

"Yer," Hagrid replied grimly and turned to Harry, who Allen just noticed was sitting beside him. "In the same boat, you an' me, aren' we, Harry?" he asked.

"Er-"

"Yeah...I've said before...Both outsiders, like," Hagrid grunted. "An' both orphans. Yeah...both orphans."

Hagrid took a great swig from his tankard and glanced at the Exorcists who sat down across from him.

"What about you lot?" he asked. "Yer still Harry's age, aren' you? What about your family?"

Lavi shrugged, but Allen and Lenalee looked at each other darkly.

"Well," Lenalee began slowly, playing with her long hair. "I'm an orphan, too, my brother and I. Our parents were killed by Akuma, and I was taken to the Order because I was a correspondent of the Innocence. Komui is the only family I have now. But...I think I had it a lot easier than Allen." She mumbled the last part, glancing at the boy, who had a dreamy look on his face."

"Does this," Harry asked. "Does it have anything to do with the curse?"

Nobody answered him, unless the weary flickering of Lavi's eye meant anything significant. Lenalee seemed to think that talking about Allen's past (if she knew anything) was a bit rude, and Allen was gazing idly into space.

"Allen?"

"Uh?" the boy jumped, blinking rapidly. "Oh, sorry. Um...trauma. So, er- what?"

"We're talking about the past," Lenalee explained shortly.

"Oh," Allen murmured, looking at Harry and Hagrid for a moment. "Let's see..." He shook his hand, allowing his left sleeve to slide down his forearm, and he showed his wrinkled, blood red hand to the two wizards. "This arm."

"Er-"

"My birth parents abandoned me because of this unsightly arm, and I lived with Mana. I loved him dearly, but he died in an accident when I was twelve," Allen explained. "It was after that that I met my master Cross, and three years after that, I've been living at headquartes with the other Exorcists."

"Basically, everyone here could more or less be considered an orphan," Lavi summarized. "Most of us left on our own will, or had to leave behind our family to join the Order. More than half of the members are adults, so unlike Lenalee, who grew up in the Order, they had a choice- well, mostly."

Harry could only stare, and Hagrid sniffed, looking at all of the younger ones with a wistful look. His face was still battered and bruised (if not even more than the last time they'd seen him) and that gave it a more pitiful look.

"Makes a diff'rence, havin' a decent family," he said. "Me dad was decent. An' your mum an' dad were decent. If they'd lived, life woula bin diff'rent, eh?"

"Yeah...I s'pose," Harry agreed slowly and carefully.

"Family," Hagrid sighed. "Whatever yeh say, blood's important."

He wiped his eyes, where tears had trickled out of.

"Hagrid," Harry said, staring at the large man, "where are you getting all these injuries?"

"Eh? Wha' injuries?"

"All those!" Harry pointed, rather rudely, at Hagrid's face.

"Oh...tha's jus' normal bumps an' bruises, Harry. I got a rough job," Hagrid shrugged, and taking one last gulp from his tankard and draining it, he stood up, slamming it down on the table.

"I'll be seein' yeh, Harry..You guys too. Take care now..."

"Pitiful," Lavi said as Hagrid lumbered out of the pub, looking downcast and positively wretched. "That is one pitiful guy I see."

"Hm," Harry and Allen muttered in response when they heard a voice calling,

"Harry! Harry, over here!"

The voice belonged to Hermione, who was sittingwith the Ravenclaw girl, Luna, and a woman with lank hair that framed her face in an unkempt mess. The skarlet paint on her claw like nails was chipped, and her winged glasses had little holes that indicated missing accessories. None of the Exorcists recognized her.

"Who's that?" Lenalee asked Harry as the boy stood up from the table.

"Someone who I expected to be the last person Hermione would ever drink with," was Harry's reply. "Come on."

"You're early!" Hermione said to Harry when the boy and the Exorcists approached the table. "I thought you were with Cho, I wasn't expecting you for another hour at least!"

"Cho?" the woman asked with an air of sudden excitement. "A girl?"

"It's none of your business if Harry's been with a hundred girls," Hermione told her coolly when the woman began to rummage through her crocodile-skin handbag. "So you can put that away."

"Who're you anway?" Lavi asked, more out of curiosity than anything, peering at the woman with his one visible green eye.

"Rita Skeeter," the woman replied with a haughty air. "Journalist on the Daily Prophet."

"Ex," Harry added quickly, then turned to Hermione as he sat down. "What are you up to?"

"Little Miss Perfect was just about to tell me when you arrived," Rita said, sipping her drink. "I suppose I'm allowed to talk to him, am I?"

"Yes, I suppose you are."

Rita Skeeter turned to Harry and whispered in his ear, "Pretty girl, is she, Harry?" at which Lavi snorted upon hearing.

"One more word about Harry's love life and the deal's off and that's a promise," Hermione snapped.

"What deal?" Rita demanded. "You hacen't mentioned a deal yet, Miss Prissy, you just told me to turn up. Oh, one of these days..."

"Yes, yes, one of these days you'll write more horrible stories about Harry and me," Hermione rolled her eyes. "Find someone who cares, why don't you?"

"They've run on plenty of horrible stories about Harry this year without my help," Rita retorted. "How has that made you feel, Harry? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood?"

"He feels angry, of course," Hermione answered for him. She sent a short glance at the confused Exorcists before continuing, "Because he's told the Minister of Magic the truth and the minister's too much of an idiot to believe him."

"So you actually stick to it, do you, that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back? You stand by all this garbage Dumbledore's been telling everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being thesole witness-?"

"I wasn't the sole witness," Harry spoke at last. "There were a dozen-odd Death Eaters there are well. Want their names?"

"I'd love them," Rita breathed. She fiddled with her handbag again and pulled out an acid-green quill Allen thought he recognized from the quill shop back in October. "A great bold headline: 'Potter Accuses...' A subheading: 'Harry Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us.' And then, beneath a nice photograph of you: 'Distraught teenage survivor of You-Know-Who's attack, Harry Potter, 15, caused outrage yesterday by accusing respectable and prominent members of the Wizarding community of being Death Eaters...'"

It was at this point that Lenalee and Allen gave a soft gasp in Harry's ear. Lavi had a knowing smirk on his face as he peered at Hermione. Rita had her quill raised halfway to her mouth before she lowered it and glared at the bushy haired girl.

"But of course," she drawled. "Little Miss Perfect wouldn't want that story out, would she?"

"As a matter of fact," Hermione replied sweetly, "that's exactly what Little Miss Perfect does want."

Harry and Rita stared at the girl in wonder. Luna, on the other hand, was smiling dreamily into space and stirring her drink as she sang "Weasley Is Our King" under her breath.

"You want me to report what he says about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Rita asked Hermione in a low voice.

"Yes, I do," Hermione nodded. "The true story. All the facts. Exactly as Harry reports them. He'll give you all the details, he'll tell you the names of the undiscovered Death Eaters he saw there, he'll tell you what Voldemort looks like now- oh, get a grip on yourself," she said, throwing a napkin across the table at Rita. The woman, reacting badly to the sound of Lord Voldemort's name, had splashed firewhiskey down her front and also on Allen's shoe. The white haired boy inwardly thanked himself for wearing his own boots.

Rita mopped herself and said, "The Prophet wouldn't print it. In case you haven't noticed, nobody believes his cock-and-bull story. Everyone thinks he's delusional. Now, if you let me write teh story from that angle-"

"We don't need another story about how Harry's lost his marbles!" Hermione snarled. "We've got plently of those already, thank you! I want him given the opportunity to tell the truth!"

'There's no market for a story like that."

"You mean the Prophet won't print it because Fudge won't let them."

Rita and Hermione glared at each other long and hard. Then, leaning across the table, Rita said in a brisk voice Allen heard Komui use whenever he was sending them out on missions: "Alright, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won't print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It's against the public mood. This last Azkaban breakout has got people worried enough. People just don't want to believe You-Know-Who's back."

"So the Daily Prophet exists to tell people what they want to hear, does it?" Hermione scoffed.

Rita straightened up and raised her eyebrows. "The Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl," she said coldly.

"My dad thinks it's an awful paper," Luna said suddenly. Lavi, who was beside her, jumped so badly that he knocked into Allen. Luna ignored the boys and sucked on her cocktail onion as she peered at Rita with her wide, slightly mad eyes. "He publishes important stories that he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn't care about making money."

"I'm guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?" Rita said mockingly. "'Twenty-five Ways to Mingle with Muggles' and the dates of the next Bring-and-Fly Sale?"

"No," Luna answered pleasantly, "he's the editor of The Quibbler."

Rita gave a vulgar snort that made some people in the vicinity turn in alarm.

"'Important stories the public needs to know'?" she repeated in disbelief. "I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag."

"Well, this is your chance to raise the tone a bit, isn't it?" Hermione said to her. "Luna says her father's quite happy to take Harry's interview. That's who'll be publishing it."

Rita fell silent for a moment, then let out a whooping laugh.

"The Quibbler!" she cackled. "You think people will take him seriously if he's published in The Quibbler?"

"Some people won't," Hermione said indifferntly. "But the Daily Prophet's version of the Azkaban breakout had some gaping holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether there isn't a better explanation of what happened, and if there's an alternative story available, even if it is published in a" -she glanced at Luna out of the corner of her eye, "in a- well, an unusual magazine- I think they might be rather keen to read it."

"Alright," Rita said, "let's say for a moment I'll do it. What kind of fee am I getting?"

Luna was quick to answer. "I don't think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the magazine," she said. "They do it because it's an honor, and, of course, to see their names in print."

Rita had the look of someone who was just slapped hard across the face. She rounded on Hermione angrily. "I'm supposed to do this for free?" she demanded.

"Well, yes," Hermione chortled. "Otherwise, as you very well know, I will inform the authorities that you are an unregistered Animagus. Of course, the Prophet might give you rather a lot for an insider's account of life in Azkaban..."

For a moment, Allen was afraid Rita might grab the umbrella in Hermione's drink and stick it up her nose. The journalist glared and glared, then said in a low voice, "I don't suppose I've got any choice, have I?"

"Daddy will be pleased," Luna said cheerfully.

"Okay, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Ready to tell teh public the truth?"

"I suppose," Harry muttered, watching Rita balance her quill on a piece of parchment.

"Fire away, then, Rita," Hermione said, fishing a cherry out of the bottom of her drink.