Rita Skeeter had been called a lot of unflattering things in her time, many of them but by no means all accurate. Was she a horrible person? Oh, yes, most likely. Did she profit off the misery of others? Most certainly. But that was the nature of the media, in her opinion. People loved to complain about how she invented scandals out of whole cloth and ruined people's reputations, but at the end of the day, they still bought the papers containing the offending columns, didn't they? Rita gave people what they wanted, no more, no less. It was hardly her fault, in her opinion, that people were actually nasty, small minded bigots. She had no problem catering to the tastes of the worst in society.

No, Rita was a proud muckraker. Did she at times wish she had a better reputation? Sure. Who wouldn't? But if Rita had to choose between being trusted and making a huge pile of cash, she'd take the huge pile of cash at any time. She was fundamentally honest about the kind of person she was. Anyone who read one of her columns knew what they were getting and if they said otherwise, they were just fooling themselves. But did they try to call out their friends, their neighbors, their family for feeding the sensationalist tendencies of society? No, of course not. No, they targeted poor, innocent Rita. It really was most distressing.

Well, Rita may not have been the world's most ethical journalist, but in her opinion, she was a damn good one. She could spot a scandal a mile away, and this whole Triwizard Tournament malarkey had stunk of delicious, juicy malfeasance even before that little snafu with the Goblet of Fire. Rita had literally danced a jig when she heard Harry Potter's name had come out of the Goblet. She'd been itching for a plausible excuse to interview him for years. If only she could find him during the summer, but even her prodigious skills failed her when tracking him down.

Honestly, Rita probably wasn't going to have to tell a single lie when writing her articles. The truth was going to be juicy enough on its own. Government incompetence and/or corruption! The savior of Britain in mortal peril through his own teenage recklessness! There were even whispers of an torrid affair between Potter and the Malfoy heir, though Rita was certainly not going to report on that without ironclad proof, and maybe not even then. Lucius Malfoy was a very vindictive man, after all, and Rita knew quite well his so-called Imperius defense was balderdash.

But the best part was that she finally had a chance to get to Hogwarts. She'd been blocked from accessing the damn place for years, even though there were quite a few juicy stories – Sirius Black breaking in, students being petrified, and whatever the hell had happened to the Defense professor in Potter's first year – that she would have given her right arm to report on. Now, of course, she could have gotten in with her Animagus form, but that was a secret, and it would have just been too much of a risk, unfortunately. Rita wasn't stupid, after all. She knew that if people found out about her beetle form, she probably wouldn't live long enough to go to Azkaban.

Potter certainly had been raising quite a few tempers at the Ministry. The boy claimed he had put his name in the Goblet of Fire and for some reason (probably sheer, utter stupidity), people actually believed him. Never mind, of course, that he was only a fourth year, and Rita could probably count on her fingers the number of mages who had the power to trick the Goblet in such a fashion. Dumbledore could have done it. You Know Who, maybe some of his top Death Eaters. But Potter? The idea was preposterous. Of course, he had defeated You Know Who as a baby and there were all these rumors swirling around him (killing a basilisk, really!) but Rita didn't believe that was anything more than a fluke.

From what Rita could gather using rumors, regular interviews, and her special technique, Fudge was nearly apoplectic with rage and trying every avenue, both legal and arcane, at his disposal to try to withdraw Potter from the tournament. His presence there made Britain look like cheaters to the international community and it was something of an open secret that Britain was already the laughingstock of the magical world as it was. Unfortunately for Fudge and, in all likelihood, Potter, there appeared to be absolutely no way for him to get out of the tournament. This was what happened when you were moronic enough to try to use an artifact that was ancient when Stonehenge was built for a school competition.

Of course, Rita wasn't about to tell her readers her suspicions Potter had lied about putting his name in the Goblet. Her readers wanted drama! They wanted to see a hero fall! Rita wasn't going to be doing anything to sabotage Potter during the tournament, but the odds were better than average he wouldn't survive it, and Rita would be absolutely ecstatic if that was the case. She could think of nothing that would boost her career more than to report on the death of Harry Potter.

There was much to be done, of course, before she interviewed Potter. She had a whole list of incidents she wanted urgently to get information on – or at least enough rumors to concoct an interesting article, at the very least. Dumbledore guarded Hogwarts as if it belonged to him, and it was rare he let outsiders in. Even rarer when he was forced to by the Ministry. But Barty Crouch owed her a favor (a charitable way of phrasing that she was blackmailing him regarding a certain incident in Lithuania) and he'd forced Dumbledore to give in.

Unfortunately, no one had seemed to be willing to talk to her about the events of the last three years, especially anything regarding Potter. If Rita didn't know any better, she'd think they couldn't remember any of those incidents, but that was silly, obviously, so she automatically dismissed the idea.

"Miss Skeeter?" a voice called out. Two girls of around Potter's age, a Slytherin and a Ravenclaw, were standing nearby. Rita had been so consumed in her own thoughts she hadn't seen them approach. "I'm Daphne," the Slytherin said. "And this is my friend Luna Lovegood." Rita wrinkled her nose. The Lovegoods ran the Quibbler, one of the Prophet's few remaining competitors. "We'd like to talk to you about Harry Potter."

"We have a few wild conspiracy theories we'd like to run by you," Lovegood said chirpily, her voice sounding vacant and dreamy. Rita didn't fall for it for a second. She knew very well when someone was trying to be underestimated. She'd been that way herself as a child.

Rita's lips curled in a sneer. "Well, as much as I would adore the chance to talk to the child of one of my competitors…"

"Did I mention my full name?" Daphne said innocently. "It's Greengrass. Heir Daphne Greengrass."

Rita took a step backwards, suddenly wary. The Greengrass family were owners of a highly respected company that procured materials for wands. They were extremely important members of high society, and, much more relevantly, the Greengrass Corporation was a very prominent advertiser in the Prophet. Lord Greengrass would have a conniption if he found out Rita had brushed off his daughter. Rita was extremely valuable to the Prophet, but if Lord Greengrass wanted her gone, she'd be gone before he could snap his fingers.

"Well met, Heir Greengrass," Rita said with a curtsy, as loathe as she was to curtsy to some measly slip of a girl. But Rita had no choice but to play nice. "Perhaps we could find a place to chat, then?"

The girl – what the hell was her name again? – gave a smirk to Lovegood and led Rita to the Skeleton Hall on the fourth floor, a room unaccountably filled with skeletons hanging from the ceiling. At this point, Rita wasn't even phased; she'd seen far stranger things in Hogwarts in her time. Dana…or whatever the hell her name was – Rita decided she'd just call her Greengrass in her head rather than trying to remember her rather slippery first name – had a mischievous glint in her eyes. But there was fear there too. Rita could sense it. How juicy. And how vaguely satisfying. Rita had never liked the Greengrasses.

"The headmaster is siphoning people's energies to feed his power," Lovegood said, her voice urgent and pleading. "At least that's our working hypothesis."

"I'm out," Rita announced and walked for the door. To hell with it. Rita would grovel to Lord Greengrass if need be. This wasn't worth it. Greengrass locked the door with the flick of her wand, wordlessly, before Rita could make it there. Greengrass was quite powerful, it would seem. Perhaps that meant she was a useful asset for Rita to cultivate.

"I told you, we need to ease her into it," Greengrass snapped. She gave a professional smile at Rita. It was the smile of a bullshitter. It was the smile of a kindred spirit. "Okay, look, Luna's got some…esoteric…theories as to what's going on. We'll get to them eventually, but right now, I have cold hard facts for you that will stand up to scrutiny."

Rita almost guffawed. Since when had she given a damn about things standing up to scrutiny? "All right, you have me intrigued. Tell me about this dark conspiracy of yours, Heir Greengrass."

"We all know about Harry Potter," Greengrass began. "He's the boy who slayed You Know Who as a child. But what if I told you that everything we thought we knew about that night was wrong? Starting with the fact that You Know Who isn't quite as dead as we thought."

"That's a nonstarter," Rita warned her. "I'm all for sensationalism, but that's not a headline I'm printing. Way too much risk, way too little reward."

Greengrass arched an eyebrow. "Even if I tell you that You Know Who was possessing our Defense professor for a full year?"

"I never did trust Lockhart," Skeeter muttered. No one who looked that dumb was as dumb as he looked.

"No, no, the one before him," Greengrass said. "Though I do see how you'd make that mistake. Well, Harry fought and killed him. In self-defense, of course. You Know Who was possessing Quirrell. Had his face on the back of Quirrell's head, hidden with a turban."

Rita blinked a couple of times. "He killed Quirrell? Really? Now this is interesting." The You Know Who part notwithstanding, the idea of a professor trying to murder the Boy Who Lived was certainly something that would sell papers. "Tell me more."

"My friend Ginny's brother Ron is Harry's best friend," Lovegood informed her. A bit of a tenuous connection, but Rita had done more with less in the past. "Now according to him, the Philosopher's Stone was hidden in the third floor corridor, which…"

"People were warned away from at the risk of suffering a painful death," Rita recalled. That warning had definitely made some waves, but it wasn't the strangest thing people had been warned about at Hogwarts. "Go on, go on." This was definitely going somewhere interesting. Dumbledore had hidden one of the most desirable artifacts in the magical world in a school. This alone was a story.

"Well, Ron says there were obstacles put there by the teachers," Lovegood went on. "A Cerberus, a life sized chess set, a riddle, Devil's Snare, and flying keys." Rita arched an eyebrow skeptically. This sounded like very flimsy protection. Maybe Weasley had been telling tall tales. But then again, hadn't she heard last minute points had been given out that year for, among other things, "the best played game of chess Hogwarts had scene in many years?"

Rita steepled her fingers. "So then what? It was just laying there in a chest or something?"

"Well, actually, according to Ron, it was hidden inside the Mirror of Erised somehow," Greengrass said. "Harry confronted Quirrell in the treasure chamber and somehow Quirrell got burned to death with some weird Boy Who Lived magic." Clearly a cover for Potter having burned the professor alive in self-defense; the child may even have been lying to himself about that.

Rita really loved this story, but she needed more details to tell the story. Details she wasn't going to get from these two girls, to be sure. She needed, ideally, to go to the source. Luckily, she was slated to interview the champions later that day; getting Potter in private to do a one on one interview would be, if one would pardon the expression, child's play.

"You don't believe us," Lovegood said, peering at Rita closely.

"I actually do," Rita admitted. "But it doesn't matter. What matters is that you have an interesting story to tell. Truth? It's just a useful myth." She gave an unkind smile at Lovegood. "But then your family would know all about that, wouldn't they?"

"Don't speak to my friend like that," Greengrass spat. Rita had to bite her tongue to stop herself from giving an acerbic retort. She couldn't afford to antagonize the Greengrass family. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

Rita sighed. "Let's just move on, shall we? I don't suppose you have any juicy gossip about the Heir of Slytherin incident, do you?"

Greengrass smirked. "Would Harry slaying a basilisk count?"

Rita laughed. "Sure, sure. Just like in the books. I've heard it all before. The students were petrified, weren't they? Basilisks kill."

"Unless you look at them indirectly, through reflections or mirrors," Lovegood said. "All of the students were petrified that way."

Rita rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh. They just coincidentally all saw the basilisk indirectly. That really strains credibility, you know. On the other hand, the public doesn't really give a crap…and it is an interesting story…"

"I'm really starting to hate you, you know," Lovegood said conversationally.

"The feeling is mutual, my dear girl," Rita assured her. "Well, I'm going to look into these incidents more. Maybe I'll get back to you. Or maybe I won't. To be honest? I'm kind of leaning more towards the second option." She unlocked the door and started to walk to the exit.

"There's something very wrong with this school," Greengrass called out and Rita stopped in her tracks. "You can feel it, can't you? Someone is messing with people's minds here. This stuff? It should have been common knowledge from people writing to their parents. It isn't. Ask yourself why."

Rita walked out of the room without saying another word. It wouldn't do to give that girl…whatever her name was…the satisfaction of hearing she might be right. Because honestly? Hogwarts was giving Rita the creeps now the way it didn't back when she was a student here. There was indeed a wrongness that seemed to permeate the school.

As the time for the Weighing of the Wands ceremony (what a ridiculous and pretentious name) neared, Rita's misgivings only increased. There were strange goings on and they all seemed to center around the headmaster. Specifically, how Dumbledore was perceived by the student body. Every time she asked a student about him, she got the same phrases. Almost word for word. From every student. That wasn't right at all. It was downright sinister.

And nobody, aside from Lovegood, had been able to tell her a single thing about Potter's adventures over the last three years. Not willing, but able. Even the Weasley boy hadn't seemed to be able to bring himself to utter a single word, something that caused him and that Granger girl no small manner of alarm. Weasley and Granger then promptly went to the library to look up geases, leaving Rita in the lurch.

Dumbledore had tried to approach Rita several times, but Rita had just ran for it each time she saw him. Powerful he may have been, but he was still an old man, and Rita prided herself on her fitness. She had a hunch that if Dumbledore got to her alone, she'd be singing his praises when he was done with her. It was an almost terrifying notion. But Rita didn't scare easily.

There was a story here. There was the story to end all stories at Hogwarts. But was it worth telling? Rita didn't want to lose her mind or her career or her life. On the other hand, sometimes, one had to take great risks to earn great rewards. One thing was for sure. If she decided to tell the story, it couldn't be a hack job like her usual work. She would have to have an ironclad, completely unassailable case against the Leader of the Light or she might as well give herself the Killing Curse and save Dumbledore the time.

For now, she would wait. Whatever was going on was clearly a long term scheme and Rita still had time to work with. She would focus on what she came here to do, and then work from there.

The Weighing was being conducted in a tiny classroom that looked like it hadn't been used in decades. There were a lot fewer classes being offered at Hogwarts now than there had been in Rita's time, it seemed. That was maybe something for her to look into, but later. Right now, she had a job to do. Find a story and if one wasn't there to be found, make it up out of whole cloth. Rita just loved being a journalist sometimes.

Potter, as it turned out, was wearing a figurative mask. He was pretending to be self-conceited, the kind of person who would have put his own name in the Goblet of Fire, but Rita could see straight through it. He, very clearly, would rather be absolutely anywhere else. Krum was boring and scowled a lot, but his celebrity meant Rita probably would want to at least make a token attempt at interviewing him. Delacour wasn't very interesting at all, even with her Veela heritage. Diggory was even less interesting. He was bland and boring. Her readers wouldn't give a damn about him.

Rita tuned out Bagman's speech, as she usually did. She was too busy studying Potter. He was interesting. One just had to take one look at him and one would know he had accomplished the things he had been rumored to do. He was a true hero. Marked for greatness. Even if he wasn't the Boy Who Lived, Rita knew he'd have gone places.

"…this is Rita Skeeter," Bagman said and Rita snapped back to attention at hearing her name mentioned. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet."

"Maybe not that small, Ludo," Rita said with a smirk. "I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start? The youngest champion, you know…to add a bit of color?"

"Certainly!" Bagman said. "That is, if Harry has no objections?" Was it Rita's imagination or did Potter look like he was surprised someone was asking permission from him? That was interesting indeed.

Either way, Rita certainly had no intentions of allowing Potter to withhold said permission. She grabbed onto his arm, stormed past his objections, and led him towards a nearby broom closet. She had to get to him before Dumbledore can find them.

"Let go of me," Potter snarled, and Rita quickly let go of him. There were witnesses around. It would not do to have allegations of impropriety aired against her. Well, impropriety towards the Boy Who Lived, anyway. "You want an interview, Miss Skeeter? Then we do it on my terms. I have the perfect place for it. Somewhere I guarantee no one will find us. Somewhere much better than any broom closet."

Rita gave a genuine smile. "Then do lead the way, Mr. Potter." If he wanted an interview, she'd happily do it wherever the hell he wanted. This was the holy grail of journalism and she was happy to downgrade it from being in her literal grasp to her metaphorical one.

Out of all the places Potter would lead her to, the last place she had ever expected to be going was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. It did make sense, though. No one in their right mind would ever think of going there. Why would they? Myrtle was the most annoying creature ever created. But Rita would gladly endure just about anything for this interview.

Rita certainly did not expect Potter to start snarling in an eldritch tone of voice near a tap with a snake emblazoned on it. She had heard the rumors Potter was a Parselmouth, and reported on them in quite a juicy article if she did say so herself, but she hadn't actually believed them until now. Everyone knew only dark mages could talk to snakes. It would seem that either everyone was wrong, or young Mr. Potter was hiding more than just not having actually put his name in the Goblet of Fire.

Before her eyes, Rita watched as the sink moved aside, revealing a pipe behind it. "You can't possibly be expecting me to go in that dirty thing," Rita said with a sniff.

"Miss Skeeter…you're really starting to bug me," Potter said and Rita couldn't help but let loose a gasp. He knew! How had he figured it out? How had he divined her secret? No one knew! Not even the editor of the Prophet knew! Rita had made sure to kill anyone who had even the slightest suspicion. "Get in the pipe or I walk."

Rita had no choice. Killing the Boy Who Lived was no small proposition. This wasn't some intern with stars in her eyes who thankfully had a convenient heart condition to make her ripe for poisoning. This was the most famous man in Britain. If he died, there'd be a thorough investigation. She was just going to have to play his game.

So she reluctantly followed Potter through the pipe and through a dark corridor, only lit by the light of Potter's wand. There was a crunching sound and Rita let out a shriek as she stepped on a rat skull. If this was some sort of joke, Rita was going to be very cross. But then she spotted it. A huge shed skin of a snake. It was real. The basilisk was real. They were on their way to the mythical Chamber of Secrets. A chill went through Rita. She was unsure whether it was excitement or fear.

"We're almost there, Rita!" Potter said, almost chirpily. "Consider yourself lucky! You don't have to save anyone's life this time around. You can enjoy the sights and the sounds of this wonderful piece of history."

"And the smells," Rita muttered. She could smell something horrible in the distance. It smelled like a rotting corpse. Rita had been around enough of them in her time – several of them of her own making – to figure out what decomposition smelled like. But it wasn't a smell of a human decomposing.

Potter led them into a grandiose, large chamber that seemed to go on forever in the darkness. Rita couldn't help but let out a yelp when she finally saw the source of the smell: a positively enormous snake. The Basilisk – surely such a creature deserved capital letters. It was remarkably well preserved for a creature that had been decomposing for two years.

Potter started bouncing on his feet, looking quite perky. For a few seconds, Rita wondered if he'd brought her down there to kill her, then dismissed the thought. This was just a child at the end of the day, and it wasn't as if she'd done anything to him. Well, nothing worth killing over. "I stabbed this magnificent beauty through the brain with Gryffindor's sword."

"I believe you," Rita said, her voice sounding almost numb to her ears. "I'm not sure why, but I do."

"Well, that is excellent news, Miss Skeeter, because that's going to make this a lot easier." Potter conjured a pair of chairs – one of them a comfy leather armchair and the other an uncomfortably looking metal one. There were no prizes, in Rita's opinion, to guess which one was for her.

"I think I'll stand," Rita said with a curt smile.

"Really? Your choice. Well, I'm not sure how to start, so I think I'll just wing it."

Rita quickly sat down in the steel chair at the reminder that he knew her secret. "On the other hand, perhaps I will need to be sitting down for this. Take as much time as you need, Harry."

"Well, let's start with this Boy Who Lived malarkey," Potter said, plopping down on the armchair. "I know people say I'm the one who defeated Voldemort." Rita instinctively winced. "But I'm not. It was obviously some ritual my mother did."

Rita sighed. "Harry, dear, can I be extremely blunt with you?" Potter nodded almost eagerly. "No one gives a shit." Potter's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "I write stories people want to read. No one wants to read that they're wrong. No one wants to read that a Muggleborn slew He Who Must Not Be Named, all right? Especially since you don't even know if you're right. Tell me a story you think my readers are going to want to hear."

"Well, if you insist," Potter said, a tad sulkily.

And that's exactly what he did. Potter told her of his past. Contrary to what the public believed, Potter was raised by Muggles. And though Potter was extremely cagy about how he was treated, Rita could read between the lines to realize he was not treated well by them. The fact he was denied knowledge of his true heritage, that he was told the legendary Potters had died in a car crash of all the absurd things, that was more than enough to make a story on its own.

But then Potter started to talk about his first year and then things got more interesting. To start with, all of the protocols for Muggle raised students were completely and utterly ignored. He was not given the proper material to understanding magical society. He didn't even know he was a lord until he was told recently by a girl whose name he couldn't quite recall. Hagrid, the oaf, was sent to introduce him to the magical world. The whole thing just stank of manipulation.

Then things got even more interesting. Potter corroborated every single thing Lovegood had told him about the events of his first year. And then some. No one had mentioned, for example, that a troll had been let into the castle. A troll that Potter, a first year, had defeated. Without the example of the basilisk very vividly before her, there was no way Rita would have believed it, but frankly, if Potter told her he had slayed a dragon in his third year, Rita wouldn't have been surprised.

And then she heard about the second year. About the petrified students. About the fact no one had been informed. Not the Ministry, not the parents, no one. That went against a host of protocols. Rita had been shocked to learn that the culprit had been a simulacrum of You Know Who, possessing a student whose identity Potter refused to divulge. Rita decided she wouldn't attempt to seek it out; she had enough to work with and Potter had her by the short hairs. Potter told a vivid tale of how he slayed the basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor. Oh, Rita was going to be the talk of the magical world. She could write a book. She'd be swimming in galleons.

Potter refused to talk about his third year very much, though. Not surprising. With the betrayer of his parents and Dementors lurking around, he probably wasn't able to have the death defying adventures he'd had the previous year.

"And so I decided to enter my name in the Goblet of Fire," Potter finished. "Because I am so sick of being seen as a hero for something I can't even remember doing. I want to be famous, sure, but on my own merits. For my own skills. Not because my parents died."

"Well…" What did one say to that? "Thank you for your time, Harry. I'm sure this will make one heck of a story. Do you mind if I bring my photographer down here?"

"Be my guest," Potter said, his eyes glittering with mischief. "You don't want to get the headmaster's permission?"

"I think what he doesn't know can't hurt him, don't you?" Potter nodded in agreement. "Oh, one last thing. Do you have any comment on the rumors about a relationship between you and Heir Malfoy?"

Potter was suddenly standing up and had his wand pressed against Rita's throat. "I have no comment on the matter. And neither do you. Do you understand me?" Rita nodded frantically. "Absolutely lovely. A pleasure to meet you, Rita. I'm sure you have quite a bit to write about. I'll leave you to it."

Rita was practically salivating thinking about the fame and fortune that awaited her as she left the chamber. Thankfully, there was a much more sanitary exit. One might wonder why she hadn't entered it that way, but Rita knew the answer. It was because Potter was a smug little shit. Fair enough. She was the same way.

"How was your interview with Harry?" Lovegood said, somehow managing to sneak up on her. How she had done that would probably forever be an endless mystery. Rita normally had the perception of a hawk. "Did he corroborate our story?"

"He did," Rita admitted. "I suspect there's more you have to say?"

"Well, it'd be better if we showed you," Lovegood said, and gestured at a bizarrely dressed Slytherin Rita had never seen in her life. "I don't suppose you'd care to take us on a completely unauthorized field trip to the Daily Prophet offices to show us your Pensieve?"

Rita couldn't help but smirk. "Oh, I think that could be arranged." Rita carried a Portkey to the Prophet offices at all times. It was sometimes necessary to make a quick getaway. As soon as Lovegood touched the comb, she was transported to her destination, but much to Rita's surprise, so did a random unfamiliar Slytherin student. She quickly activated the portal herself.

When she got there, she was shocked to see she and Lovegood were not alone. Before she could so much as draw her wand, Lovegood said "She's with me!" Rita shrugged. At this point, she trusted a random stranger more than she trusted Lovegood, so it was all good in her opinion.

Rita led Lovegood and the Slytherin over to the Prophet's top of the line Pensieve. It was preposterously expensive to manufacture a Pensieve – the number in existence was estimated to be in the high double digits – and it was a testament to the strength and power of the Prophet that they had a Pensieve.

"My ancestor was one of the fae," Lovegood informed Rita. Yeah. Rita could definitely see it. She had that look about her. "And as such, some of the fae's gifts occasionally pop up in our line. For me, it's a total immunity to all memory altering magics and the ability to see auras. Let me show you what I see."

Rita showed Lovegood how to extract a memory and she promptly deposited the one she was looking for in the Pensieve. Rita took a deep breath and entered the memory.

The memory was of a breakfast in the Great Hall. It started off ordinary, but quickly took a turn when Granger went on a rant about how the professors were tolerating bullying. McGonagall was clearly under some sort of mental influence that was severely addling her perceptions. By Rita's estimation, the stress of having so much pressure applied to suppress McGonagall's prodigious will probably was having a severe affect on her health. At this rate, Rita doubted the old lioness would survive the year.

Rita couldn't help but be impressed a little when she saw Granger set all the badges on fire, but that quickly turned to horror when she saw Dumbledore wipe the memories of the entirety of the student body. It was a truly sickening act of ridiculously vast power. The only other people in living memory who could have pulled off such a thing were Grindelwald and You Know Who. It was disturbing, to say the least, when everyone went back to their business as if nothing had happened.

"Did you see the auras?" Lovegood asked when Rita had emerged from the memory, her voice eager. Rita shook her head. Lovegood looked crushed.

"But you're right," Rita said. "There is something very, very nefarious going on here. Unfortunately, it's not something I can address right now. This memory wouldn't be enough – he'll just paint you as crazy." Lovegood nodded, probably having expected that. "But it's a start. I'm going to start digging. I'll let you know if I find anything of note. In the meantime, I have a fascinating interview of Harry to publish tomorrow. I think that'll definitely get the ball rolling…"

Rita grinned diabolically and Lovegood – Luna – gave an equally fiendish grin in return. It was time to wreak some chaos in the magical world. And if there was one thing Rita adored, it was chaos.