"Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all."
― Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name
Rises from the soul, and sways
The heart of every single hearer,
With deepest power, in simple ways.
You'll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other's scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire,
Made from your heap of dying ash.
Let apes and children praise your art,
If their admiration's to your taste,
But you'll never speak from heart to heart,
Unless it rises up from your heart's space."
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: First Part
She'd been sat at the corner most booth for fifteen minutes now.
Rita Skeeter.
Her robe, with fur trim of deep burgundy, seemed to shimmer in the bar's dim light. Her gold tipped nails drummed along the rim of her wine goblet. She'd been waiting for fifteen minutes and Hermione still couldn't muster the nerves to pass the bar's kitchen door.
The dark corridor turned store room was still around her as images of aurors flooded her brain, storming the building, for some reason supplied the robes and snarls of death eaters and snatchers by her traitorous mind.
Dennis had offered to come with her, but Hermione knew the truth. This was something only she could do. Despite Henri's repeated assurances as he continued to check up on her, Hermione could not shake the concern in his eyes, or ignore the thudding of her heart and chest and stomach.
Or Maybe you're in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart.
This was a mistake. What if she was wrong about Skeeter? Had Ginny's offer really been foolproof? The fact Skeeter was hear meant she'd signed the non-disclosure statement in return for the portkey. Had her gamble with Ron worked and were her calculations on the prophet's publication times schedule, enough to truly gamble everything away on?
She thought of Luna's pronouncement about the apartment she'd found. She thought of the girl and boy now within it, eagerly on the run, fighting under her orders. Her plans. Trusting her.
Most of all she thought of the contract Dennis had retrieved for her after meeting with Arthur Weasley that afternoon.
It sat in the pocket of her robes, along with Ron's deluminator.
She had too much to lose.
Harry's humiliating sacrifice at St Mungo's. Ginny's relentless efforts. George and Kingsley and Dennis, even Luna, placing everything on the line for her and she couldn't even walk through a door.
You've already failed once today.
Possibly twice.
Hermione dusted off the deep velvet Luna had fashioned her in, before finally reaching for the door. The robe danced around, soaking in the dim candlelight of the café turned bar, as she casually turned to Fluer's Uncle to once more see his reassuring smile.
She was standing in a Wizarding bar.
Her wand itched in her jeans, as Hermione glanced about the room from the corners of her eyes. The booths were largely empty. Across the room from Skeeter sat an older wizard, his greying hair tied in a nape at his neck while he slumped forward, nursing a bottle of self-pouring firewhisky. Two young witches chatted continuously by the door, bags of robes and crests of the shopping district scatted around their table.
Henri passed her a bottle of red wine and a rather gaudy goblet as he assured her there was no one in the street beyond. She tried not to stare at the sneakascope slowly spring on the bars glass shelf. He assured her, it was always spinning, what with people lying to their friends, to themselves. To the world at large around them.
His broken English did nothing to dispel his cynical tone and Hermione was potently reminded for a moment of Alberforth Dumbledore, and his own advice long ago, in another distant pub, reminding them that they'd lost and the world was simply dark. Better to run. Live a little bit longer.
The stakes were too high.
She recalled her last meeting with skeeter, amidst the throngs of the Leaky Cauldron. The older witch had been dishevelled and dismissive but Hermione had still gambled with Harry's name and the image of the order, just so long as she could say she had tried.
The stakes were simply too high not to try.
In an offhand voice, Hermione asked Henri if he could possibly fetch a glass jar for her. Hermione steeled her nerves. She was on the run, now far from the Ministry and the hum of magic ran around her. She drew her wand for the first time in days, and conjured a small blue ball flame to fill the small jar with a dancing light. Walking across the room, she placed it with a thud before Skeeter, settling into the booth and eyeing the witch's reaction.
"Miss Granger. How I do miss your methods of business."
The jar sat pointedly between them, and Skeeter's eyes glistened with a malice what was artfully contained.
"You certainly keep things interesting."
And with the veiled insulting reference to Hermione's first forays into blackmail, the bartering began.
"I'm rather surprised you're here."
"Miss Granger, I've been involved in politics for the last ten years. You can't possibly pretend I don't know why you've sought me out. Although you are right. Perhaps I came simply to watch you beg for my help."
"I doubt begging would be very productive"
"Oh, I assure you, it wouldn't."
Hermione drew out a now rather worn purple covered paper back, and Albus Dumbledore seemed to survey the pair of them while drenched in the flicking blue light.
"I read your book."
Skeeters malicious smile grew wider, but besides darting her eyes to the book before her, she gave Hermione no prompt.
"Quite a different track from your more recent articles. Although the one on Chrisitina Warbleck was a riveting read. A new hairstyle. Imagine that."
Hermione made sure to deliver the lines with a detachment she did not feel, then lapsed into a challenging silence.
"The unfortunate spoils of war."
Skeeter's reply was sickly sweet and Hermione drew in a deep breath, before launching herself recklessly into still deeper waters.
"Hm. I thought perhaps you might like to change that."
"Don't pretend like you can offer me anything Granger. I see you've been up to your usual antics. You escaped this evening's paper, but you know that already. The ministry has been remarkably quiet on the nature of the research project and the source of the disturbance. Still. We both know these things must come out eventually."
She could practically feel Skeeters self-satisfaction humming beneath her knowing smile.
"Naturally. We both know what's about to come. The ministry has rushed through their Marriage Law and I'm soon to be paraded before the press. See the things is, I've got nothing on you anymore."
Skeeter made to open her mouth, and Hermione quickly cut her off.
"Clever, really, to place through your animagus registration during the reign of Voldemort. It took quite a lot for a friend in the ministry to find that for me. I doubt anyone else cared to look it up. Yes, your book deal was held as rather unsavoury, but to be fair, it still sold. So now you get to live through the next reign of politics discussing the important topics of hair maintenance and the largely imagined love lives of once distantly interesting celebrities."
Hermione had done it now.
Skeeter was now apoplectic, her complexion rising in blotches, her perfectly shaped eyebrows glaring down murderously.
"Or…You can cash in on your past articles on me. A Rita Skeeter exclusive investigation, and all the horror that will entail."
"Oh trust me, I will make it horrible."
"I have no doubt." Hermione shrugged and poured the wine before her into the goblet, before taking a sip and allowing herself to glance around the room. The witches by the door had left. At the bar, Henri stood wiping glasses, nodding discretely at her to signal their continued privacy. The wizard cradling his whisky seemed nearly passed out, his head slumped inelegantly upon the far booth's table
"I've got nothing left to lose at this point. But you know what I think? Neither do you. You know, I heard a lot about you, overheard conversations between Dumbledore and the order, the stories Ron's dad would bring home from the ministry. Your appointment for the political coverage of the Twi-wizard tournament after the international debacle that was the Quidditch World cup. You seemed to have had everyone around you running scared. Then… nothing."
The sneakascope continued to twirl on the wall
"So you have your fun with me. You get your revenge. Then what?"
Skeeter abandoned the pretense of smiles.
"What makes you think that's not enough for me."
"The fact that you're a reporter, and you once tore at the Ministry like a rabid dog. Oh, and this."
Hermione pulled the sheaf of parchment from her pocket and Skeeter rose and eyebrow as she recognised it for what it was.
"Your contract for the Daily Prophet. Made a matter of public record according to the 'magical publications act' during the reformation of the ministry. You see, the book did hold a touch of the macabre, not to mention the Ministry and Prophet had been burned by your freelance writing before."
"Your freelance writing you mean. The one you coerced me into?"
"That's the one."
Skeeter lapsed into silence.
"Now I haven't been in politics for the last ten years, and you've always been a supportive mentor of mine Rita, so correct me if I misunderstand. You're locked in for another 7 years. Not too substantial a time period for a magical life-span. Then of course there's the anti-competition clause restricting you from writing for a competitor for a further 10 upon either your dismissal or the termination of the contract."
"Then you know your pleas for an interview for the quibbler simply won't be answered this time Granger. We all get what's coming to us."
00000000 -
Rita Skeeter had to admit. She found the Hermione Granger in front of her unnerving.
Gone was the 15-year-old dressed up in floating robes. Gone the Granger who had smugly enclosed her in a jar and paraded her from the library to dinner then to the Gryffindor common room. The girl whose frizzy hair had bobbed around her while she had slipped the nightly allotment of crumbs into the jar with a knowing smirk. The girl who had ruthlessly blackmailed her while studying for her O.W.L's, taking advantage of Skeeter's tenuous position as the ministry slowly bought out the Prophet. The girl whose ambitious moves had actually kept Skeeter afloat, drifting in a whirl of politics, while she was left to suffer the silent contempt and scorn of an adolescent face.
In front of her, sat a witch come into her own. The robes around her drew in the glint of the magical fire and her savagely cut locks revealed her neck and shoulders to the world, and allowed her violent eyes to take in the room. Skeeter had come to watch the girl finally squirm, and instead she found her resolved. Sure she continued to glance about, and the occasional noise caused her to flinch slightly, but the witch before her continued on undaunted.
The change was not the only thing she found unnerving. The girl had obviously been paying more attention than Rita might have liked. She couldn't help but acknowledge, with a grudging respect, that she'd done her research.
But that respect soon turned hollow in her chest, as Hermione Granger threw her last pull of the dice.
"Oh I don't need you to write an article for the Quibbler."
Rita was distracted from her retort as Granger opened the paperback still sitting between them. There, above a magical picture of Dumbledore with his arm around Harry Potter, sat an inscription Skeeter had written venomously more than a year ago.
"I want you to bring the ministry to the dust on this marriage law."
Skeeter felt the septic stir of magic in her stomach as she remembered her current deal with Burges, and the leash he had placed her on.
"You see, we tried to pay a visit to Bathilda Bagshot in the midst of the war. A fellow magical historian of yours I suppose. I was the one who found her body. She must have been an interesting source to acquire. A little old lady with a lifetime of magical history teeming through her brain. So when I re-read your book after the war, I started to think."
"I thought it might be rational to write a magical history of the wizarding war. Then I looked it up at Flourish and Blotts. It's rather difficult, the world of magical publishing. The fees were extraordinary. I suppose that's why when you obtained the deal for Dumbledore's funerary expose, you were signed on for a future deal. Kept on retainer as it were."
"I suppose it was provided for you, by those anticipating a rather different history."
The witch's hair was stood at ends and the bluebell fire swam about her jar sending flickers of light against the somewhat drawn panes of her face. Her profile darkened as she closed the book in front of her.
Skeeter took a sip of wine and watch the witch's eyes as they gazed upon the cover picture of Dumbledore once more, who scowled at the pair of them before closing the gates of Hogwarts.
Skeeter put down her goblet and made sure her robes were straightened before she leaned back and surveyed the girl. Seconds silently slipped by, until Hermione Granger looked her in the eyes once more. There it was. The knowledge and the hatred bubbling deep beneath the surface. She knew.
Teddy Burges had been the only one to figure out what had happened to Bathilda Bagshot. He had brushed aside her death as an act of deatheaters, and she had been spared. Then with a quiet nod to her editor, Skeeters deal and career had been called to heel. Her book was suspended permanently and Burges hadn't let her near a court for months.
The witch didn't look away once.
Her accusations were dangerous to make given the girl was on the run, alone, and attempting to avoid Magical Law Enforcement at all costs. But even as Skeeter stared her down, the witch sat resolved. There was an unsettling calm acceptance.
The girl had nothing left to lose.
She knew Skeeter's secrets.
And she was proposing…
"What exactly are you saying, Miss Granger."
"Oh I don't think the current ministry will ever give you back that deal. There's nothing I can do about that at present. Your methods of story-telling were entertaining by the way. An authorised biography of golden trio, Gryffindor princess, swotty, mudblood war-hero might be interesting. You could tell them how you uncovered me at the Twi-wizard tournament. Encouraged my magical career. You were a true mentor. How you followed anxiously along with the readers of Magical Britain, watching me be persecuted by the ministry on the basis of my blood status. How you revealed to the public once and for all the troubled child star turned war victim, now struggling as her world collapsed around her. How you wrote to her in prison, as she submitted to azkaban rather than marriage and challenged the law before the wizengamot."
Hermione seemed to blush as the words continued to stream from her mouth, her Gryffindor temper running away with her. She pulled a third sheaf of parchment from her cloak.
Rita eyed the magical contract and watched the girl who leaned back in her own chair, picking up her goblet once more.
"I think it's time to take another gamble, Rita. You're better than 'up-do's versus longer locks' and 'ten ways to magically enhance his interest.' I'll give you the next three months of my memories as authorised testimony. Get the ministry to fund the writing and advances, and I'll provide an additional payment following the Law's repeal."
"And when Teddy Burges catches on?"
"You'll be the only one with information on what I'm doing and when and where I'm doing it. All I ask is that when the prophet has a new angle, I hear about it first-hand. Information in return for information seems the fairest trade."
Skeeter gave the witch before her a considering look, and remembered the girl she had been. She pulled the contract towards her and began to read.
"Public image consultant and public relations manager?"
Rita scoffed at the girl in front of her as she read on.
The witch wanted her to provide advanced clearance on any interview piece. Submission of draft copy on every piece, interview or otherwise. Including her regular gossip and opinion column. The demands grew more obscure and diffidently worded as the page continued. Full privacy rights as a confidential client. The public support of a range of as yet undisclosed non-profit organisations. Image and media consultancy on request for an independent continuous stripend and retainer.
Hermione Granger had clearly, finally lost it.
What exactly was she planning?
Rita Skeeter had backed the wrong side before, and she had been cast aside accordingly. She had so far survived the reformation of the magical world, if you could call hanging by her inch long nails survival. That's what it was all about. If her time as a political journalist over the most turbulent years of British magical history had taught her anything it was how to survive. She knew what change felt like, and the witch before her was bent about changing everything. The Marriage law was a travesty, but with so few invested in anything other than their own self-protection, it would probably last a good four years. Either way, it would come crashing down. Where would Rita Skeeter be when it did? Still used as a mouthpiece by the prophet, still spitting out their tripe while a septic sore was clung to her name?
It was only as Skeeter noticed Hermione's repeated glances towards the photograph of Dumbledore, and her look of relative disgust as she eyed the contract now laid bare, that Skeeter found a well of satisfaction in it all. Dumbledore's muggleborn soldier, the brightest witch of her age, was making her own deal with the devil and the thought alone, of being there when Granger reaped the consequences, found Rita Skeeters hand drawing out a rather elaborate quill.
She signed and felt the crackle of magic snare through her fingers as page swallowed her name.
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Currently looking for a beta if anyone is interested xx Hope you enjoyed.
