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It was on the Saturday of the Hogsmeade weekend that Harry was itching to disappear into the little village to meet Skeeter at the place they'd agreed on and finally discuss the letter that she sent him.
Every time he thought about it, it pissed him off more and more, which to be fair was a regular enough occurrence whenever he thought about what had happened to his mother in general.
Unfortunately, the Hogsmeade visit didn't start off first thing in the morning when he woke up, or else he'd be out of the castle before you could even spell the word gone.
No, the most painful thing about how long he'd waited for the meeting was that upon waking up on the day when it was scheduled, he still had to wait several hours.
Only a few hours for sure, but considering his mental state, that was already just sheer torture.
He stepped out of the way of another knockback jinx and responded with a disarming charm, which clipped his duelling partner when he tried to dodge and sent the boy sprawling straight onto the ground.
Neville's wand flew into the air and into Harry's hand. He felt the Phoenix feather inside as he walked up to the boy, helped pull him up and pressed the wand back into his hand.
"You're sure," Neville started before heaving a deep breath, "that experiencing the disarming charm like this will help me learn it? "
Harry thought about the fact that he'd had fake versions of the killing curse thrown at him by a potential Dark Lord and a Death Eater ear and couldn't help but scowl at Neville. "What do you have to complain about?" he complained. "If it wasn't the disarming charm, it would be the knockback jinx, it wasn't the knockback jinx, it would be the petrification jinx. There's nothing pleasant about duelling, and you need some incentives not to get hit."
Harry's critique shot the boy down, and he once again entered the stance with a determined expression on his face, indicating that he wanted to restart the match.
The older of the two boys nodded in satisfaction before going back the requisite distance to face Neville again.
Neville had been making incredible progress recently, progress worthy of a true genius.
His dodging was sublime, his knockback jinx had become mostly silent, and his stance was as solid as it was going to be with the few hours of instruction that he'd been given.
Today, Harry was surprised to find, however, that the distance between the two of them remained the same.
In other words, while Neville had progressed at the speed of genius, for some reason, so had Harry.
The only thing that could be blamed for this phenomenon was the fact that Quirrell's instruction had happened under such stressful conditions that Harry had leapt forward without even realising it.
It made sense in a way, but between the two of them, Neville probably still had a bit more talent. After all, Neville had made rapid progress while learning from a third year at Hogwarts while Harry had made rapid progress while in a situation where it was hard to distinguish if he was actually about to die, being taught by a professional adult who might or might not be a Dark Lord.
Even if the latter was Quirrell, the older man was most assuredly a competent wizard, the point was somewhat the same.
As for having to experience something to learn it, Harry said that it was most certainly easier to learn something after seeing someone else do it. "Based on the fact that I'm bothering to make the wand gestures and use the incantation means that your own progress will come faster. As you know, the faster you get the wand movement and the incantation to an instinctual level, the faster you can do it silently. It also helps that the knockback jinx and the disarming jinx have a similar enough effect in that they knock someone back, only that the latter includes disarmament."
Neville nodded seriously once Harry once again explained in a different way what they were trying to achieve here.
"Again," Harry said, and they started circling each other.
Barely a quarter of a minute later Neville once again found himself knocked on his ass.
However, as was befitting of someone who had a prophecy made about him, he didn't let that discourage him and was soon up and fighting again.
It was like this that Harry spent his Saturday morning before meeting Skeeter.
-/-
"Are you excited?" Penny asked as she hopped around the two boys who were listlessly standing in line to get their permission checked before they could leave Hogwarts grounds.
Both were tired, just for different reasons. Yesterday, Harry had exhausted himself in his duels with Quirrell, while today he had put an extreme amount of energy into training Neville so as to distract himself.
Cedric similarly had to wake up early this morning to attend Quidditch practice. The Hufflepuff team had recently gotten a new captain, and it seemed like the older boy was very unhappy with the performance of the house team last year and wanted to clinch the Cup this year.
They both turned to give the girl, whose time was mostly spent on living out her sedentary hobby of being way too into potions, a dark look. Penny, for her part, continued to taunt them with her relatively intact stamina by doing a little jig around them.
"Can you stop being so hyper? We're still recovering," Cedric begged.
It really was a bit different being fatigued from professional sports training.
Penny, for her part, simply pulled down one eyelid and stuck out her tongue. "What are you gonna do?" She taunted. "Catch me?" she laughed at her own joke.
"The only reason you're not equally tired is because you skipped out on duelling because I had Quidditch practice," Cedric grumbled. "Or else we both be in the same boat."
The last time they had held the practice, the two of them had shot colour-changing spells at each other and then had so much fun, but by the time they'd finished that, they'd found out they'd exhausted all of their stamina.
The logic behind it was similar to why army divisions in the UK had their own football teams. It was much easier to make soldiers run and keep up their physical fitness by putting a ball between 22 of them so as to make it seem meaningful. After they finished their match, they found out that they expended way more energy than they would have by just doing simple jogging.
"You know you can also come on your own, Penny and Neville did a lot this morning," Harry said.
The blonde-haired girl, for her part, simply shook her head, sharing a look with Cedric. "We both know that you focus a lot on teaching Neville, it's okay," she said encouragingly.
"That kid's gonna have people after his head one of these days," Harry muttered darkly. The horrible thing when you actually thought about it was that to him, Neville wasn't a character from a book, but an actual living, breathing 11-year-old child.
At his words, both of his friends lost a bit of their cheer. After all, Neville was indeed in the very non-enviable position of being target number one for any dark wizard who wished to avenge their fallen master or build their own reputation.
Penny, for her part, attempted to restore some of the brevity. "Kid?" she asked. "He's only two years younger than you."
Unfortunately, the attempt failed, and the mood turned somewhat sombre.
"Sorry for ruining the mood," Harry said with a sigh. There were a lot of things going through his mind recently, and his on-the-spot social skills were obviously taking the brunt of the damage.
"It's alright," Penny reassured him. "We're going to Hogsmeade. It's gonna be great, there's nothing you could do to ruin this, no matter how much you practise," she said jokingly.
"The ability to buy sweets and prank items during the year rather than having to wait for the vacations or paying extra for owl orders is a privilege that we will all learn to appreciate," Cedric agreed.
The group moved forward in the line leading out of the castle grounds and towards the village of Hogsmeade. They started discussing what exactly they wanted to buy.
Harry wasn't really interested in any of the sweets, considering that the house elves gave him whatever he desired and the Room of Requirement could bring anything he could wish for. However, maybe Zonko's the joke store would have some interesting enchanted items that he could analyse.
He'd hit a bit of a brick wall with his deconstruction of the vanishing cabinet, and maybe looking at it from a different perspective with something simpler was the way forward. Getting stuck was much more likely to continue being an issue if he didn't change his approach at least somewhat.
"Zonko's might have some interesting gadgets," he muttered quietly, at which he received surprised looks from his two friends.
"Are you finally gaining an interest in normal people stuff"? Cedric asked haltingly as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"I was wondering if I could break down the enchantments to learn more about the theory behind constructing such a thing," the red-haired replied, almost forgetting that he was being mocked.
"Forget it," Penny said. "He's a lost cause."
The three of them finally reached Professor McGonagall, who was checking the permission slips of the students and passed by without issue.
In this reality, the Dursleys were perfectly willing to give Harry whatever he asked for, so there were no issues there.
It was as they approached the village along the winding path laid out specifically for this purpose that Harry quietly and sneakily split from the group so that he could fulfil his main goal of going to Hogsmeade before rejoining his friends later.
-/-
When deciding on where to meet Skeeter, it had been tempting to suggest the Hog's Head Inn, the shady bar owned by Dumbledore's estranged brother.
Unfortunately, for all that it would have been a good meme and would have led to Harry having an excuse to know that Dumbledore had a brother in the first place, there was a much easier solution.
And no, the solution wasn't the Shrieking Shack.
After all, the place was quite famous for being haunted and in a school environment, which meant that it was actually relatively popular.
It was something that at least every student who went to Hogsmeade had to see once; some even used it as a rite of courage. Or hazing.
No, the best place to meet without anyone else taking notice was to simply walk into the forest adjacent to the village until he saw the obnoxious green of the dress that Rita had recently bought to celebrate her career advancement.
At this point, Harry had given her two exclusive interviews. One after his class advancement last year, and one more recently about his perspective on the duelling tournament that he had attended in Vienna. Getting one large piece was usually enough to get more respect at work as a journalist, and getting two at least got your foot in the door.
"Harry," Skeeter greeted as he entered the clearing. His magic sense told him that they were alone. A homenum revelio, of which the range was vastly larger than his passive sense, confirmed it.
"Rita," Harry replied, conjuring himself a tiny little wooden stool so that he could sit down. "You're doing well? " he asked the woman who continued to stand while looking at him with an impressed gaze.
Conjuring wood was often seen as the beginning step to conjuration. Considering Harry had skipped past it to directly start with wasps, it shouldn't serve as any surprise that he was at least capable of producing a small amount of material in a somewhat consistent shape.
"I think I can still make something better for the moment," the woman replied coquettishly, but didn't hide the fact that his conjuration impressed her.
After all, conjuration was something that was generally taught at the end of the fifth year.
Sure, there were specific spells that made the whole thing easier, such as the snake summoning charm used by Draco Malfoy in the original books in the second year. But, there was no specific spell for creating a shitty wooden stool so it was very obvious that Harry had free-formed his creation. That was something infinitely more complex and something infinitely more useful in a journey of mastering transfiguration than individual spells.
Of course, Skeeter herself must not have been a slouch either, considering that she'd managed to become an animagus. She promptly proved this by pulling out her wand from her red purse and creating for herself a plush green armchair. It matched her dress, to Harry's displeasure.
It wasn't anything spectacular and obviously caused her effort, but already this was much beyond the limits of the average Hogwarts graduate.
"You said in your letter that-," Harry started before his voice shakily broke off.
Rita, reminded of the unpleasant topic that they were here to discuss, loudly sighed before dragging a hand down her face.
It wasn't something that Harry would have done if he was her, considering how long and sharp her purple nails looked, but that wasn't really the focus right now.
Rather, he wanted to hear what he'd only read straight from the horse's mouth.
Rita awkwardly coughed into her hand before speaking, which reminded Harry that the situation probably wasn't any easier for her. Telling a 13-year-old boy about the sexual assault which had occurred on his mother and which had led to his conception seemed like a horrible way to spend the weekend for any younger or older woman.
"As you know, my father initially wrote an article about the event," she started awkwardly. "This is that I had a good start to the whole thing. He already has some documents ready, you see. I guess he wanted to write a bigger story about it, but then something came up and he couldn't."
"Anyway, among those documents were also some medical records from the initial report after the…" she trailed off. "I understand why he didn't initially understand the implications. In the end, he was a man. But I found that some of the facts weren't quite lining up. It was after I consulted a medi-witch that I was able to confirm from a professional source that what most likely occurred was forced artificial insemination followed by a sexual assault," she finished before piping down with a flushed face. It contrasted very well with her platinum curls, but unfortunately, Harry wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.
"Artificial insemination indicates a premeditated crime. The sexual assault that follows could be seen as an attempt to cover up what had actually happened. This removes a large list of suspects as it means that it wasn't a crime committed in affect but rather a plan and intended event," he said clinically. He paused for a second before asking the inevitable follow-up question. "Any idea of who donated the sperm?"
Skeeter shook her head. "In my opinion, the artificiality of it suggests that the intended genetic material likely didn't come from Hogwarts. After all, in that case, perhaps there would have been no need to do it artificially."
"Then the suspect list inevitably broadens again as it could have been anyone outside of Hogwarts who had some sort of control over someone in it," Harry concluded with a tired face. "How does this artificial insemination even work in the wizarding world?" he asked.
Skeeter shook her head. "The method doesn't provide any clues. You only need a vial of the material and a spell, and you can do it while ignoring the normal biological cycle," she said uncomfortably. "But let's not focus on that," she quickly added.
"Focus on what, then?" Harry asked bitterly.
"Well, most criminal investigators start by trying to determine a motive since this can narrow down the list of people who could have even wanted to commit the crime in the first place," Skeeter started haltingly before getting more confident as she spoke. "Our previous motives were emotional and random, which is hard enough to narrow down in a school full of teenage men with prejudices based on blood status. Essentially, it could have been any Slytherin over the age of 15. Not only that, but also most teenagers from other houses. Now that we know it was artificial, it means that your conception was not accidental; it means that the motive must have been different."
"Making me was the point of the assault; everything that followed was just a cover-up?" Harry asked confusedly. "But that's an incredibly stupid plan!" he argued. "Wouldn't it have been easy for Lily to just get an abortion? It wasn't like she wanted, well, me."
"By all accounts, it sounded like she did, actually," Skeeter said. "Getting rid of, ah, a foetus is a simple matter. The fact that she didn't do it implies that she didn't mind having a child."
"I sincerely doubt that," Harry refuted. "What 16-year-olds wanted an eternal reminder of their sexual assault and obliviation, carrying to term a child that is half genetically not even theirs.
"Maybe she wanted…" Skeeter trailed off.
"Maybe she wanted what?" Harry asked.
"Technically, if you carry out the term, there are ways to find the father if you have the baby."
"What, the blood recognition potion?" Harry asked. "For that, you'd first need a list of suspects since you have to match the two rather than one leading you to the other."
Skeeter shrugged helplessly. "It's the only idea I have."
"Let's get back on point. Why my mother didn't abort me is something that we will never know because it was a personal decision that she, unfortunately, cannot explain. What's more important is who, in particular, would have the motive of wanting her to carry a child of theirs."
"About that, I have no clue," Rita eventually admitted.
Harry similarly didn't have any idea. "Let's think about it then, maybe it will come to us in the shower," he said.
Rita looked at him with a concerned look in her eyes. "Harry, are you okay?" she asked.
The red-haired boy gave her a flat look. "No, but I've had the time to come to terms with how I was born. It's rather all of this additional horrible information that's harming me," he said. "Thank you for getting it for me, though."
"I understand. You do owe me interviews, so there is no need for thanks."
"I imagine if we ever do find the perpetrator, it might make a good story as well," Harry supplied.
"Solving a crime 14 years after the fact," Rita said in a defeated tone of voice, before shaking her head. "Never give up," she said, seemingly more to herself. "I found out all of this, but that doesn't mean that I'm done with the investigation. I've decided to take on some topics which are at least peripheral. Since we don't know how to continue with this particular thread, maybe I will randomly find a connection."
"What will you be working on?" Harry asked.
"As you know, James Potter is currently running for minister," Rita said. It's been suggested to me that it might be a good idea to create a few pieces about his war efforts, considering that the 10th anniversary is coming up. Something like, ten years after: What did they do and where are they now," she explained.
"Campaigning," Harry said. "Lovely. I guess it's not a coincidence that, considering James Potter was more involved in helping capture Death Eaters at the time, the reports will inevitably show him in a better light than Fudge?" he asked.
Rita gave him a shrewd look. "There are no coincidences," she eventually said.
"It's reassuring to know that our democracy is in good hands," Harry said dismissively before standing up and disappearing the wooden stool he'd magicked up earlier. "Regardless, keep me updated on the investigation, and I'll keep you updated on anything interesting that happens on my part."
"That's the deal," Skeeter said before hesitating for a short second. Then she stood up from her green armchair, walked over to Harry and enveloped him in a hug.
Harry awkwardly hugged her back after a second of confusion. However, Rita quickly extradited herself soon after, stepped back and nodded at him.
"I'll see you around, Harry," she said before taking out her wand and disappearing with a crack, leaving the boy alone in the clearing with the hideous chair.
Harry stood there, not knowing quite what to do for a few moments and thinking about the discussion that he'd just had.
Once the reality of his situation once again set in, he repressed his feelings like a true man who'd inevitably have a mid-life crisis about it in the future.
He stepped towards the armchair and put a hand on the headrest.
The object slowly degraded under the careful ministration of his wandless finite before it eventually disappeared completely.
"Zonko's," he said to himself, before leaving the clearing and going back to join his friends.
-/-
Harry rejoined his friends without much fanfare, and they barely spared him a glance. This was mostly because they were thirteen and had essentially been locked up in a draughty old castle for the past few weeks.
Hogsmeade visits weren't every week, and to Harry's modern sensibilities, locking children up in a boarding school like this was a very cruel and unusual punishment.
The reprieve of being able to go to even this shitty little village in the middle of nowhere was like Christmas coming early for his schoolmates.
To the teens he'd gone to school with in his previous life, who could go to arcades, cinemas and even raves, this whole thing would seem like nothing more than a bad joke.
"I can't choose," Cedric complained with the bright eyes of a child in a magical candy store. A useless metaphor, as it was all true. Cedric was a child, and Honeydukes was a magical candy store. "I only have four knuts if I ration," he explained, "which means that I can either get two chocolate frogs or a box of sugar quills." He seemed incredibly torn, as if the choice would heavily impact his future.
Penny, for her part, seemed less serious. "Let's just spend the whole yearly salary at once, and then beg for more money for Christmas," she suggested with a bright smile.
Harry understood that their parents were trying to teach them fiscal responsibility, and had thus given both of them the yearly pocket money at once so they could manage it themselves.
Looking at the two idiots now splurging all of it at once and filling up their shopping trolley with an inordinate amount of sweets, he couldn't help but lament that the efforts of adults were often made in vain.
Especially when it came to educating children on the values of fiscal responsibility.
But, wasn't he a child as well?
His eyes drifted over to a large box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. It was made up of ten separate smaller containers of Harry's favourite sweet.
He'd had a shit day, wasn't it time to reward himself?
He went to get his own trolley, drove it over past the other screeching children and smacked the large box right into it. Then, for good measure, he added another one. There was a 20% discount if you got two.
Then, because he liked reading the cards in the back of the chocolate frog boxes, he threw in 10 of those.
Some Acid Pops quickly joined the pile, followed by some crystallised pineapple for Slughorn. The man was suffering enough from having to grade Harry's potions every year; he could get something in return for this upcoming Halloween party, to which Harry was undoubtedly invited.
Then, for good measure, he pushed his trolley towards where Penny and Cedric were trying to maximise the ratio of exchange between sugar and money and took all that they'd put in their trolley into his.
This created a rather fascinating phenomenon that could only be referred to as "Sweets Mountain."
His two friends looked at Harry hesitantly.
They'd known him back then when he'd come to Hogwarts and sold muggle pens for cash.
Unbeknownst to them, he'd looted the Room of Requirements and was now loaded.
Additionally, he had gotten the regular salary of a highly paid professional teaching Draco Malfoy.
He arrogantly took out his money pouch, held it towards his friends and opened it.
A bright and violent golden glow emerged from the moleskin leather pouch, illuminating the entire section of the store they were in.
"It's on me today," he said, at which Penny and Cedric shared one look, and then they were off.
After ten minutes of the two third-year Hufflepuffs raiding the store for all it was worth, they needed a second trolley.
The "Sweets Mountain" became the "Sweets Mountain Chain."
The cashier looked at them dubiously as they barely managed to push the overburdened trolleys to his desk.
The Slytherins, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws present looked on in envy.
The Hufflepuffs were already working on their puppy dog eyes.
The cashier's scepticism faded under Harry's two galleons.
"Is the duelling tournament paying so well these days?" a Slytherin boy muttered from behind him, looking at his own assortment of candy, which was just enough to fill up his cradled arms and no more.
Harry remembered that it was one of the boys who had tried to bully him for being a half-blood back in the first year.
He gave him a deadpan look over his children as the register sang the symphony of a big bill behind him.
"Some of us come from families that are not completely impoverished, thank you very much," he said haughtily, before turning around with his nose in the air.
-/-
The trio of Hufflepuffs made for a funny sight after they left Honeydukes, as all of them had their wands out to levitate in front of them one human-sized shopping bag of candy each. It wasn't easy, and the shopping bags were all a moment away from tipping over and spilling their beautiful, delicious contents all over the street.
Following behind them was a long trail of other students with yellow and black scarves, all looking at Harry reverently as if he had just descended from heaven right in front of them to deliver the word of god.
They all wanted something from him, and he didn't mind sharing. They'd all respectfully asked for some, reminding him of all the favours they'd done for him in the past while appealing to his well-known merciful and graceful nature.
He was sure that today would go down in history as the day on which most of Hufflepuff would have a stomach ache from too much candy.
He was also fairly sure that everyone would thank him for it.
Sprout might not, however. Before these kids crashed, around 40 Hufflepuffs on a severe sugar high would be roaming the halls, looking for their next fix.
He had become a god, destroyer of teeth.
-/-
AN: Long Chapter ahoy. If you can't wait for more, consider donating for my patreon and solving your dilemma of what to do today . 30 chapters waiting, more value than a cinema ticket!