A/N: Translation helpers, I am so sorry I haven't gotten back to you all. I've been very sick for a few weeks now and unable to write/work on New Blood. I will reach out to you all as soon as I can :(

Hermione was reading a book that evening at the dinner table (a muggle maths textbook, one her parents had given her) when a small owl fluttered down, dropping a note onto her lap. Surprised, Hermione closed the book and took the note. The loopy handwriting took her a moment to decipher, but as she read, her eyebrows rose with surprise.

.

Ms. Granger,

You are a significant topic of tomorrow's headline article. I would like to get a quote from you. Additionally, as owner of the Daily Prophet, I would like to get your take on what angle the article should be written from.

You can find me behind the tree by the lake at 8pm.

- Rita Skeeter

.

"Anything important?" Blaise asked, glancing over.

"Not sure," Hermione mused, folding up the note and pocketing it. "I'll have to find out."

7:55pm found Hermione wandering by the lake in the fading light, shivering slightly as a breeze from over the water chilled her. She waited behind the tree, curious, and very suddenly, Rita Skeeter appeared as if from nowhere, and Hermione jumped, startled.

"Miss Granger," Rita purred. "What a pleasure."

"How did you do that?" Hermione demanded. "You can't Apparate on Hogwarts grounds!"

Rita smirked at her. "Can't I?"

"No, you can't," Hermione said firmly.

Rita shrugged, careless. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," Hermione said, obstinate. "Did you jump?"

Rita blinked. "Jump?"

"Wait, no, there's no way – it's not Friday, you'd be stolen," Hermione said aloud, thinking. She looked up at Rita, puzzled. "I give up. How did you do it?"

Rita looked torn between amusement and exasperation.

"Perhaps, Miss Granger," she said, "we could discuss the article first, and then your theorizing about my reporting abilities?"

"Oh. Right," Hermione said, flushing.

She sat down on a large protruding root, gesturing for Rita to do the same. She conjured a few floating lights to help illuminate the area so Rita could see to write, and she tried not to squirm as Rita took out her parchment and an acid-green quill. Rita seemed to sense Hermione's discomfort and glanced up at her over her jeweled glasses.

"For what it's worth," Rita remarked, "I'm in a much more uncomfortable situation than you are, here. You're simultaneously the subject of one of the biggest stories I've had in months, while also technically being my employer. And you're still a child, legally." She gave her a wry smile. "How am I supposed to know how to treat you?"

"Oh." Hermione hadn't considered that. "Ah – that makes sense." She gave Rita a tentative grin. "Just treat me as you would an adult, I guess? I'm not about to wildly fire you or be mean. I'm just a bit anxious to be interviewed."

"Don't worry about it," Rita advised, her eyes glinting. "Now – Miss Granger. From your own mouth, tell me: what happened with the goblins today?"

Hermione's eyes widened. Now she knew what story Rita was working on.

Careful not to let any details of the goblins she shouldn't know spill out, Hermione recounted her adventure in the Wizengamot today, detailing the goblins' request, their diplomat, the discussion, her proposal, and the vote. Rita nodded, listening and asking clarifying questions while her quill scribbled along itself. When Hermione was done, Rita paused, considering.

"There are a couple different angles to go with this, but we're somewhat limited," she said. "Dickens wrote a piece a few weeks ago on all the goblin sightings in muggle areas, so we've already established a baseline of suspicious activity from the goblins. If we want to be consistent, we can't turn about-face on that one."

"Can we just blame the Ministry?" Hermione asked. "The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures clearly didn't do their job well enough, right? If they'd been able to handle the goblins before now, this wouldn't have become an issue."

"Perhaps," Rita mused. She considered Hermione. "You're positioning to become one of the Sacred 28, correct?"

"That's the goal," Hermione said, giving Rita a tentative grin. "We'll see if I get there."

Rita nodded, decisive. "Then that's the angle we'll go with."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked, startled. "My ambition? What's that have to do with the goblins?"

"Everything," Rita said, her eyes glittering. "Don't worry – you'll be painted in a positive light."

Hermione bit her lip. She wanted to ask to see the article before it was published – the request was on the tip of her tongue – but she bit it back. Prior review was a touchy subject with journalists, and she didn't want to give her employees reason to distrust her, even if she was technically entitled to see the pre-publication copy. By trusting them with this, she'd earn their trust in return.

"Is there anything else?" she asked. "You just needed details about the goblin story?"

"Why?" Rita's gaze sharpened. "Is there anything else?"

Hermione paused.

"Can you put in a small article on Friday about the equinox?" she asked finally. "It doesn't have to be large – just a blurb, really. Maybe about me meeting the residents of Exmoor on the land that evening?"

Rita raised an eyebrow.

"You are playing a dangerous game, Miss Granger," she said, but there was respect in the glint of her eye. "I like it. I'll talk to Sherrie, and we'll get you your blurb."

The next morning, as soon as the owl post arrived, Hermione dove for the paper, hurrying to read the front page.

.

MINISTRY FUMBLES GOBLIN DIPLOMACY
Goblin Diplomacy latest failure in string of Ministry ineptitude

By Rita Skeeter

The Wizengamot was surprised on Tuesday with the appearance of a goblin diplomat, sent to talk to the Wizengamot after discussions with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (DRCMC) fell through. The goblin had been sent to request the antidote to the toxin poisoning ancestral goblin lands, citing the need for the goblins to raise their young.

"It was an entirely reasonable request," said Augusta Longbottom, member of the Wizengamot. "If the goblins don't have goblin babies, who's going to manage Gringotts when the current goblins are gone?"

The lands of Exmoor are currently still magically toxic, a result of Minister Gore's campaign to put down one of the goblin rebellions. With their ancestral cave system unavailable to them, the goblins have been making do with what they can, but they have been outgrowing their current home.

"Goblins keep cropping up in muggle areas, and it's become a serious problem," said Era Hornbeam, Director of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. "Each time the goblins end up in a muggle space, the Statute of Secrecy is at risk."

Despite Royce Fiddlewood, Director of the DRCMC, telling the Wizengamot that his department couldn't handle the goblins' request, a solution was found: a new landlord for the lost lands of Exmoor would take on detoxifying the land. That new landlord? New Blood and Heroine of Hogwarts, Hermione Granger.

"[The Wizengamot] is looking at this wrong," said Hermione Granger, current British Youth Representative to the Wizengamot. "This is an opportunity. If the goblins are able to unpoison the land, then the fields can be cultivated. People will be able to live there again."

Hermione Granger is prophesized to be New Blood - a person touched by Magic to found a new Great House. New Bloods are said to be exceptionally powerful and can be noted by their skill with nonverbal magic, wandless magic, and the amount of power they control. Once a New Blood comes of age, they must make their claim in front of the Sacred 28, who will vote on if the person is truly a New Blood. In preparation for this trial, Hermione Granger offered to take control of the lands.

"If I pass my trial, and the House of Granger joins the Sacred 28, they will become the Granger lands," Granger said. "If I fail, no harm, no foul – no one owned it in the first place, did they? And if I manage to purify the land in the process, so much the better."

This new responsibility places Hermione Granger firmly at the head of the project to detoxify the land, but Granger didn't flinch at the responsibility.

"While I intend to work with the goblins directly," she said, "I also hope to work with any witch or wizard who would want to make their home in Exmoor. Once the area is healthy again, people, plants, and animals will be able to live off the land once more, while the goblins live underground."

An individual taking up the mantle of a fumbled Ministry objective is nothing new lately; back in August, famed Dark creature hunter Gilderoy Lockhart was begged to come out of retirement to help patrol the woods before the World Cup to protect Quidditch fans from Fenrir Greyback.

"I was happy to do it," Lockhart said. "I did think it a little odd that the Ministry couldn't handle basic crowd safety themselves, but no matter – just rumor of my presence seemed to chase the werewolves away."

With so many recent failings on the Ministry, it's no surprise the wizarding public has heard no updates about the attack on Azkaban lately and no leads on the Valkyrie. One might even wonder if the Ministry has discovered anything at all.

"If nothing else," said Gavin Ollivander, member of the Wizengamot, "I'd like to know who did it. Even the Ministry never managed to get rid of the dementors. I'd like to shake the hand of the witch who did."

.

Hermione passed the paper over to Blaise once she'd finished reading. Tracey was squealing at her side, having read over her shoulder.

"You got land?" she asked. "How could you not tell us this? This is huge!"

"I forgot," Hermione admitted, embarrassed. "I was so preoccupied with… other things, really, that it entirely slipped my mind."

"You're a landlord, now," Draco said with reverence. "That's—that means something, Hermione."

"She will be a landlord," Blaise corrected, "once she purifies the land so people can live there without dying."

Two spots of color rose high on Draco's cheeks, and Theo snickered.

"The Ministry is not going to like this," Millie commented, scanning over the paper with Blaise. "It makes them out to be completely incompetent."

"Aren't they, though?" Theo muttered.

"The Prophet is going to need to watch itself," Millie warned her. "Too many articles like this, and Ministry sources will stop talking to reporters."

Hermione snorted. "I don't think that will be an issue."

"Oh?" Blaise was intrigued. "How so?"

"The Daily Prophet has come up with innovative ways to make sure they find out what's going on," Hermione said, thinking back to her own astonishment at the discovery of Rita's unregistered Animagus form. She'd been seriously impressed – Animagus transformations were incredibly difficult to do. "And if nothing else, I'll help them figure out what's going on. The Ministry can't hide secrets forever."

"Especially not from gossiping bureaucrats," Draco said, smirking. "Half of what my father does in the Ministry is just talk to people and listen. People always want to whine about what their boss is doing wrong."

"Whatever," Tracey dismissed. "Most important: land, Hermione! Land!"

"Desolate lands in Exmoor," Theo said. "Not even the hedgewitches live there."

"That is because it's poisoned," Tracey said, enunciating very clearly and speaking slowly, as if Theo were dim. Theo's cheeks turned red as Tracey went on, over-enunciating her words. "Once Hermione makes sure it is unpoisoned, then people can live there again. Because it won't be poisoned anymore."

"I'll have to check out the area," Hermione said hurriedly, trying to distract Theo's rising anger. "I have no idea how bad the poison is, or what it does. I need to get an idea of if there needs to be an antidote brewed en masse and spread over the ground, or if a massive magical ritual could purify the earth instead."

"When?" Theo said pointedly. "You're stuck in the school."

"Landlords can leave to deal with landlord things," Blaise reminded Theo, a gleam in his eye. "She's allowed to come and go as she pleases, so long as she can justify it properly."

"I was thinking Friday," Hermione said, biting her lip. She glanced sideways at Blaise. "It's the equinox that night, and I thought—well, it'd be nice to be out of the school that night anyway, and it'd be even better for Tom to not be around other people in case his little activity goes horribly wrong."

"How do you intend on getting there?" Theo asked flatly. "Using Snape's Floo to get to a deserted moor?"

A feeling of dread began building in her chest.

"You know how I'm going to get there," Hermione said, wincing. She sighed, resigned. "It's just going to be miserable to clear the way."