Chapter 39: Interview
February 14, 2003
On the morning of the fourteenth Dawn dressed particularly carefully. She and Ginny arrived at breakfast just in time for the arrival of the post owls. They saw Hermione was tugging a letter from the beak of an unfamiliar brown owl as they sat down.
"And about time! If it hadn't come today…" she said eagerly, tearing open the envelope and pulling out a small piece of parchment. Her eyes sped from left to right as she read through the message and a grimly pleased expression spread across her face.
"Buffy, Dawn," she said, looking up at him. "This is really important… Do you guys think you could meet me and Harry in the Three Broomsticks around midday?"
"I can't," Dawn said sadly. "Angelina wants a full day's training. Ron, Ginny and I all have to be there."
"Willow and I were going to be spending the day together just the two of us," Buffy said. "Why do you want us to meet you?"
"I haven't got time to tell you now, I've got to answer this quickly—" And Hermione hurried out of the Great Hall, the letter clutched in one hand and a piece of uneaten toast in the other.
Buffy sighed as she looked at Willow. "Well we can go if you like."
"It would be a slight change in plans but we could," Willow agreed slightly sad that their day of lovemaking was to be interrupted.
"I'll make it up to you tonight, I promise, baby," Buffy said.
When Buffy, Willow and Harry headed for Hogsmeade they found Hermione waiting by the oak front doors. Buffy and Dawn both noticed that Harry stared at Hermione for a long moment. They wondered if it was because Hermione had pulled her bushy hair back into a very full ponytail.
"You look," Harry said fidgeting with himself for a few moments, "beautiful."
Hermione smiled and kissed Harry on the cheek. "Thank you," she said.
It was a fresh, breezy sort of day and as they passed the Quidditch stadium, Harry glimpsed Ron, Dawn and Ginny skimming over the stands and felt a horrible pang that he was not up there with them…
"You really miss it, don't you?" said Hermione.
"Yeah," sighed Harry. "I do."
It was then that a large gang of Slytherin girls passed them, including Pansy Parkinson.
"Potter and Granger!" screeched Pansy to a chorus of snide giggles. "Urgh, Granger, I don't think much of your taste… At least Krum was good looking!"
"Ten points from Slytherin," Buffy called after Pansy and the Slytherin girls that were with her as they sped away.
Buffy and Willow said they would see Harry and Hermione at midday and hurried off to do some shopping. They wandered toward Dervish and Banges. A large poster had been stuck up in the window and a few Hogsmeaders were looking at it. They moved aside when Buffy and Willow approached.
They looked at the poster that held the ten pictures of the escaped Death Eaters.
("By Order of the Ministry of Magic") offered a thousand-Galleon reward to
any witch or wizard with information relating to the recapture of any of the
convicts pictured.
The ten escaped Death Eaters were staring out of every shop window Buffy and Dawn passed. It started to rain as they passed Scrivenshaft's.
"Buffy," Willow said. "How about we get some coffee?" She motioned toward a nearby shop. Since they started dating, they had been in the place a handful of times.
They walked into the cramped tea shop, where everything seemed to have been decorated with frills or bows.
"Cute, isn't it?" said Willow happily.
Buffy nodded. "It is," she agreed as they sat down at the last remaining table. Buffy slowly became a little self-conscious after all teachers and students weren't supposed to be dating. And Willow was still technically a student.
"It's alright," Willow whispered to Buffy seeing how self-conscious Buffy was. "The only one who likely would care is Umbridge. Can you see her coming to Hogsmeade with the students?"
"Probably not," Buffy said as she relaxed
"What can I get you, m'dears?" said Madam Puddifoot squeezing between their table and the table next to them with great difficulty.
"Two coffees, please," said Willow.
In the time it took for their coffees to arrive, Buffy and Willow started kissing over their sugar bowl. As it got closer to midday, they finally left the little tea shop hand in hand in to the hard-pouring rain.
Within minutes they were turning into the doorway of the Three Broomsticks.
"Buffy! Willow! Over here!"
Hermione was waving at them from the other side of the room. They made their way toward her through the crowded pub. They were still a few tables away when they realized that Hermione and Harry were not alone; they were sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates: Luna Lovegood and Rita Skeeter.
"Hermione," Buffy said, "what are you up to?"
"That was my question," Harry said. "I had broken away from Hermione for a bit to get her a Valentine's day gift and when I rejoined her…"
Buffy and Willow got the impression that in the time that Hermione and Harry did their separate things that Hermione had met with Luna and Rita Skeeter.
"Little Miss Perfect was just about to tell me when you arrived," said Rita, taking a large slurp of her drink. "I suppose I'm allowed to talk to them, am I?" she shot at Hermione.
"Yes, I suppose you are," said Hermione coldly.
"No," Buffy said. "You know what she did last year, Hermione. Why would I ever give her a second chance?"
"Please, Buffy," Hermione said.
Buffy sighed as she and Willow sat down. "One wrong word and I promise you I will make good on my threat."
"Oh, you have little to worry from me, they've run plenty of horrible stories about your family this year without my help," said Rita. "How has that made you feel, Elizabeth? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood?"
"Angry," Buffy growled out. "Because the Ministry wants to call me a, a Slayer, a liar."
"So, you actually stick to it, do you, that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back?" said Rita. "You stand by all this garbage Dumbledore's been telling everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being the sole witness—?"
"Buffy wasn't the sole witness," snarled Harry. "There were a dozen-odd Death Eaters there as well. I'm sure Buffy would be willing to give their names!"
"I'd love them," breathed Rita. "A great bold headline: 'Potter Accuses…' A subheading: 'Elizabeth Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us.' And then, beneath a nice big photograph of you: 'Disturbed Slayer caused outrage yesterday by accusing respectable and prominent members of the Wizarding community of being Death Eaters…'"
The Quick-Quotes Quill was actually in her hand and halfway to her mouth when the rapturous expression died out of her face.
"But of course," she said, lowering the quill and looking daggers at Buffy and Hermione, "Neither of you would want that story out there, would you?"
"As a matter of fact," said Hermione sweetly, "that's exactly what Little Miss Perfect does want."
Rita, Buffy and Harry stared at Hermione.
Luna, on the other hand, sang, "Weasley Is Our King" dreamily under her breath and stirred her drink with a cocktail onion on a stick.
"You want me to report what she says about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Rita asked Hermione in a hushed voice.
"Yes, I do," said Hermione. "The true story. All the facts. Exactly as Buffy reports them. She'll give you all the details, she'll tell you the names of the undiscovered Death Eaters she saw there, she'll tell you what Voldemort looks like now—oh, get a grip on yourself," she added contemptuously, throwing a napkin across the table, for at the sound of Voldemort's name, Rita had jumped so badly that she had slopped half her glass of firewhisky down herself.
Rita blotted the front of her grubby raincoat, still staring at Hermione. Then she said baldly, "The Prophet wouldn't print it. In case you haven't noticed, nobody believes that cock-and-bull story. Everyone thinks the entire Potter family is delusional. Now, if you let me write the story from that angle—"
"No," Buffy growled as Willow place a comforting hand on her arm. She looked toward her girlfriend and smiled.
"Buffy is right," Hermione said. "We've had plenty of those already, thank you! I want her given the opportunity to tell the truth!"
"There's no market for a story like that," said Rita coldly.
"You mean the Prophet won't print it because Fudge won't let them," said Hermione irritably.
Rita gave Hermione a long, hard look. Then, leaning forward across the table toward her, she said in a businesslike tone, "All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won't print a story that shows the Potter family in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It's against the public mood. This last Azkaban breakout has got people quite 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?" said Hermione scathingly.
Rita sat up straight again, her eyebrows raised, and drained her glass of firewhisky. "The Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl," she said coldly.
"My dad thinks it's an awful paper," said Luna, chipping into the conversation unexpectedly.
"I have to agree with you there, Luna," Buffy said as she looked at Rita. "I still have the evidence and once this stuff with Voldemort is done with, I still intend to sue them. Whether or not that lawsuit includes you still remains to be seen."
"My dad publishes important stories that he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn't care about making money," Luna added.
Rita looked disparagingly at Luna. "I'm guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?" she said. "'Twenty-five Ways to Mingle with Muggles' and the dates of the next Bring-and-Fly Sale?"
"No," said Luna, dipping her onion back into her gillywater, "he's the editor of The Quibbler."
Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked around in alarm. "'Important stories he thinks the public needs to know'?" she said witheringly. "I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag."
"Well, this is your chance to raise the tone of it a bit, isn't it?" said Hermione pleasantly. "Luna says her father's quite happy to take Buffy's interview. That's who'll be publishing it."
Rita stared at them for a moment and then let out a great whoop of laughter. "The Quibbler!" she said, cackling. "You think people will take her seriously if she's published in The Quibbler?"
"Some people won't," said Hermione in a level voice. "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 sideways at Luna, "in a—well, an unusual magazine—I think they might be rather keen to read it."
Rita did not say anything for a while, but eyed Hermione shrewdly, her head a little to one side. "All right, let's say for a moment I'll do it," she said abruptly. "What kind of fee am I going to get?"
"I don't think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the magazine," said Luna dreamily. "They do it because it's an honor, and, of course, to see their names in print."
"I'm supposed to do this for free?"
"Well, yes," said Hermione calmly, taking a sip of her drink.
"Otherwise, as you very well know, I will inform the authorities that you are an unregistered Animagus. And Buffy will sue you for everything your worth. Of course, the Prophet might give you rather a lot for an insider's account of life in Azkaban as a bankrupt inmate…"
Rita looked as though she would have liked nothing better than to seize the paper umbrella sticking out of Hermione's drink and thrust it up her nose. "I don't suppose I've got any choice, have I?" said Rita, her voice shaking slightly. She opened her crocodile bag once more, withdrew a piece of parchment, and raised her Quick-Quotes Quill.
"Daddy will be pleased," said Luna brightly. A muscle twitched in Rita's jaw.
"Okay, Buffy?" said Hermione, turning to him. "Ready to tell the public the truth?"
"Do I have a choice?" Buffy asked with a sigh. "All right."
"Fire away, then, Rita," said Hermione serenely, fishing a cherry out of the bottom of her glass.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Luna said vaguely that she did not know how soon Rita's interview with Buffy would appear in The Quibbler, that her father was expecting a lovely long article on recent sightings of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
"And, of course, that'll be a very important story, so Professor Potter's might have to wait for the following issue," said Luna.
Rita had pressed Buffy for every little detail, and she had given her everything she could remember.
"Can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public," said Dean, sounding awestruck at dinner on Monday night.
"It's the right thing to do, Professor," said Neville, who was sitting opposite Dean. "It must have been… tough… talking about it… Was it?"
"A little," Buffy said. "But people need to know the truth."
"Buffy," Hermione said. "I've been hearing in gossip around the castle that you and Willow were seen snogging in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop."
Buffy rolled her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at the other tables in the Great Hall. "I guess that ball is out of the bag. Maybe Albus should make up some excuse to graduate Will now instead of the end of the year. Umbridge is likely to overhear and want her expelled just to stick it to me."
At that moment Ron, Dawn and Ginny joined them.
"So, how was Quidditch practice?" asked Harry deciding to help Buffy out and distract her from the potential fallout of that day.
"It was a nightmare," said Ron in a surly voice.
"Oh, come on," said Hermione, looking at Dawn and Ginny, "I'm sure it wasn't that—"
"Sadly, it was," Dawn said with a sigh.
"It was appalling," Ginny added. "Angelina was nearly in tears by the end of it."
Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner; Harry and Hermione
By the time the next Gryffindor Quidditch match rolled around the very best thing could be said about it was that it was short; the Gryffindor spectators had to endure only twenty-two minutes of agony. Ron failed to save fourteen scoring goals, Sloper missing the Bludger but hitting Angelina in the mouth with his bat, and Kirke shrieking and falling backward off his broom as Zacharias Smith zoomed at him carrying the Quaffle. The miracle was that Gryffindor only lost by ten points: Dawn managed to snatch the Snitch from right under Hufflepuff Seeker Summerby's nose, so that the final score was two hundred and forty versus two hundred and thirty.
"Good catch," Harry told his sister back in Buffy and Willow's suite.
"I was lucky," Dawn said. "It wasn't a very fast Snitch and Summerby's got a cold, he sneezed and closed his eyes at exactly the wrong moment. You know if you we find a way to get you back on the team. I think I will ask to be move over to Chaser. Angelina and Alicia are both leaving next year."
Harry looked over at Ron, who was hunched in a corner, staring at his knees, a bottle of butterbeer clutched in his hand.
"Angelina still won't let him resign," Ginny said, as though reading Harry's mind. "She says she knows he's got it in him."
"I've been thinking about that," Willow said as she looked toward Buffy. "What if I did that spell where my will caused Giles to go blind and caused Xander to be a demon magnet…"
Dawn looked at Willow remembering what Willow had done to her during that spell and shivered. One moment she had been twelve, the next moment she had been twenty-two and a Slayer. She shivered at the memory. Before the spell had been reversed, she had as a result of the spell had sex with both Buffy and Spike.
Buffy noticed Dawn shiver and she moved over to her sister and placed a comforting hand on Dawn's arm. She looked back toward Willow. "That spell was wrong, Will," she said. "I know you just want to help Ron. But by placing your will on him like you did with us is just wrong."
Willow's eyes went wide as she looked at Buffy and Dawn and remembered that her will had caused Buffy and Dawn not only to have sex with each other but Spike as well. "I—I forgot, Buffy, Dawn. I'm sorry."
"What?" Harry asked.
"You don't want to know, Harry," Buffy said. "Trust me. You don't want to know."
Harry looked at Dawn and for the briefest of moments he could see in Dawn's mind and his eyes went wide at the memory he saw playing there. "Oh, God!" he said as his hand went to his mouth in shock.
"We need to finish our lessons so we can shield our minds from each other," Dawn said with a sigh. "You shouldn't have seen that."
February 23, 2003
Buffy and Willow entered the Great Hall for breakfast at exactly the same moment as the post owls on Monday morning. They hadn't been seated long when an owl landed with a thud in front of them, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dawn and Ginny.
Buffy looked at the recipient's name and address on the envelope that the owl held:
Elizabeth "Buffy" Potter, Professor
Great Hall
Hogwarts School
She took the letter from the owl, but as she did so; three, four, five more owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter, knocking over the salt, and each attempting to give her their letters first.
"What's going on?" Ron asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forward to watch as another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting, and flapping their wings.
"Buffy!" said Hermione breathlessly, plunging her hands into the feathery mass and pulling out a screech owl bearing a long, cylindrical package. "I think I know what this means—open this one first!"
Buffy ripped off the brown packaging. Out rolled a tightly furled copy of March's edition of The Quibbler. She unrolled it to see her own face grinning at her from the front cover. In large red letters across her picture were the words:
ELIZABETH POTTER, SLAYER, SPEAKS OUT AT LAST:
THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED
AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN
"It's good, isn't it?" said Luna, who had drifted over to the Gryffindor table and now squeezed herself onto the bench between Fred and Ron. "It came out yesterday, I asked Dad to send you a free copy. I expect all these," she waved a hand at the assembled owls still scrambling around on the table in front of Buffy, "are letters from readers."
"That's what I thought," said Hermione eagerly, "Buffy, d'you mind if we—?"
"Help yourself," said Buffy.
Harry, Dawn, Ginny, Willow, Ron and Hermione started ripping open envelopes.
"This one's from a bloke who thinks you are off your rocker," said Ron, glancing down his letter. "Ah well…"
"This woman recommends you try a good course of Shock Spells at St. Mungo's," said Hermione, looking disappointed and crumpling up a second.
"This one looks okay, though," said Harry slowly, scanning a long letter from a witch in Paisley. "Hey, she says she believes you, Buffy!"
"This one's of two minds," said Dawn. "Says you don't come across as a mad person, but he really doesn't want to believe You-Know-Who's back so he doesn't know what to think now…"
"Here's another one you've convinced, Buffy!" said Ginny excitedly. "'Having read your side of the story I am forced to the conclusion that the Daily Prophet has treated you and your family very unfairly… Little though I want to think that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned, I am forced to accept that you are telling the truth…'"
"Here is one says she believes you," Willow said, "And she now thinks you're a real hero—she's put in a photograph too—wow—"
"What is going on here?" said a falsely sweet, girlish voice.
Buffy looked up. Umbridge was standing behind her, her bulging toad's eyes scanning the mess of owls and letters on the table in front of her. Behind Umbridge she saw many of the students watching them avidly.
"Why have you got all these letters, Buffy?" she asked slowly.
"I warned you already, Dolores," Buffy said as she stood up. "My mail, my business. But if you must know I gave an interview about what happened last June."
"An interview?" repeated Umbridge, her voice thinner and higher than ever. "What do you mean?"
"I talked to a reporter," Buffy said. "If you want to read the article it's in the Quibbler."
"When did you do this?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"She did it last Hogsmeade weekend," said Harry as he and Dawn stood next to their sister.
"How you dare… how you could…" Umbridge took a deep breath. "I should have known your siblings lies was a family trait, taking after their only role model. Consider yourself on probation, Buffy."
"Consider yourself on probation also, Umbridge," growled Buffy as she got in Umbridge's face. "You have made an enemy of the wrong person. I am going to be filing a formal complaint before the Wizengamot." She noticed that Umbridge was reaching for her wand. "Go ahead, I dare you. If you think you can get your wand quicker than I break your wrist, go ahead and try."
Umbridge glared at Buffy for a moment before she stalked away, the eyes of many students following her.
By mid-morning enormous signs had been put up all over the school, not just on House notice boards, but in the corridors and classrooms too.
— BY ORDER OF —
THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS
Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with
Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven.
Signed:
Dolores Jane Umbridge
HIGH INQUISITOR
By the end of that day the whole school seemed to be quoting the interview at each other; Buffy heard them whispering about it as they queued up outside her classes, discussing it over lunch and in the back of lessons, while Hermione even reported that every occupant of the cubicles in the girls' toilets had been talking about it when she nipped in there before Ancient Runes.
"And then they spotted me, and obviously they know that I know Harry, which means I know you, Buffy, so they were bombarding me with questions," Hermione told Buffy, her eyes shining, "and Buffy, I think they believe you, I really do, I think you've finally got them convinced!"
Meanwhile Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and demanding that they turn out their books and pockets looking for The Quibbler, but the students were several steps ahead of her. The pages carrying Buffy's interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to peruse it again.
Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it.
The teachers were, of course, forbidden from mentioning the interview by Educational Decree Number Twenty-six, but they found ways to express their feelings about it all the same. Since Buffy was Head of Gryffindor House; Professor Sprout awarded Gryffindor twenty points when Harry passed her a watering can. A beaming Professor Flitwick gave Buffy a box of squeaking sugar mice, Harry had told Buffy that Professor Trelawney broke into hysterical sobs during Divination and announced to the startled class, and a very disapproving Umbridge, that Buffy would become the longest living Slayer on record and would become Minister of Magic, and have twelve children.
To cap it all, Luna told Buffy over dinner that no copy of The Quibbler had ever sold out faster. "Dad's reprinting!" she said, her eyes popping excitedly. "He can't believe it; he says people seem even more interested in this than the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks!"
That evening the portrait from the Gryffindor common room opened and Harry asked Buffy and Willow to come into the common room.
Buffy and Willow followed Harry out of the portrait hole to see that Fred and George had put an Enlargement Charm on the front cover of The Quibbler and hung it on the wall, so that Buffy's giant head gazed down upon the proceedings, occasionally saying things like "The Ministry are morons" and "Eat dung, Umbridge" in a booming voice.
Buffy laughed and hugged the Weasley twins. "That's wonderful boys. Twenty points each for Gryffindor."