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The smile on Rita's face froze.
She blinked, not quite understanding what Hermione meant by that.
Was she being mocked?
Before Rita could work it out, Hermione continued. Her voice was quiet. What she said dropped everyone's jaws.
"Why would I be the one colluding with him?"
Hermione tilted her head slightly.
"Have you ever considered... hmm. Another possibility?"
Rita's breath caught without her meaning it to. A sense of dread crept up from somewhere beneath her ribs.
Hermione looked at her, gaze perfectly clear, and said the words slowly.
"For instance... Voldemort is actually my subordinate. He's really just following my orders."
The air solidified.
Rita's expression locked up. Then shock crashed through it. Every prepared line she'd had ready choked back down before it could reach her mouth.
One sentence, and she was completely thrown.
Outside the door, Harry was staring into nothing, wondering if he'd misheard.
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched. Something flickered through his eyes that looked very much like I knew it.
Hermione elegantly picked up the teacup from the table and took a small sip. Her movements were unhurried, composed, as if those words had come from someone else entirely.
"Ms. Skeeter." She set the cup down. "As a professional journalist, your reports always need a certain explosive quality, don't they?"
"How about I give you one?"
"For example: I'm actually a Transmigrator. All of you are characters from a book."
"So I can't actually do any prophecies — I simply read the source material and know how the plot goes. Armed with the foresight of someone who's already read the story, I tracked down Voldemort, brought him to heel as my underling, had him go to ground inside the Ministry of Magic, and waited for the right moment to overturn the wizarding world in a single move."
"What do you think of that version?"
Hermione spread her hands, expression perfectly innocent.
"You see, this way, everything I did at the Ministry becomes completely reasonable, doesn't it?"
Rita's brain crashed on the spot.
Every leading question she'd prepared, every angle she'd sharpened, all of it turned to a joke in the face of Hermione's earth-shattering "confession." This witch simply didn't play by any recognizable rules.
What Rita wanted was a scandal. An inside story. Something that could anchor the front page of the Daily Prophet and make the whole wizarding world talk.
Not news that sounded like it had escaped from a psychiatric ward.
Rita's mouth hung open. It took a long moment before she managed to squeeze out a smile.
"Ha... Miss Granger... you really do know how to joke..."
Usually she was the one spouting nonsense while the interview subject went quietly frantic. Somehow, at some point, the roles had reversed, and now she was the one about to go frantic?
Who would believe this if she published it? She wanted to grab attention. Not make people think she'd lost her mind.
When the silence stretched on, Hermione smiled.
"It seems you have nothing more to ask. Well then, I look forward to your report."
She stood, and walked out, leaving a dazed Rita behind.
Harry had already gone. Snape was waiting in the corridor.
The two of them fell into step side by side. Snape turned his head, studying Hermione with those dark eyes, then spoke abruptly.
"Miss Granger. You aren't planning to simply kill her, are you?"
He'd decided Hermione's complete disregard back there couldn't be innocent. Knowing her, she'd probably thought something along the lines of: dead people can't write articles, so I may as well say anything.
A trace of genuine surprise crossed Hermione's face.
"Professor Snape, how could you think that? Am I really the sort of person who kills people at the drop of a hat? Think of what that would do to Hogwarts's reputation."
Her tone was thoroughly innocent.
"Rest assured." Her gaze was clear, her voice sincere. "I won't kill anyone at Hogwarts."
...
The next day, the front page of the Daily Prophet caused an uproar that could be felt from one end of the wizarding world to the other.
Enormous black typeface consumed nearly half the page:
SHOCKING EXPOSÉ! HERMIONE GRANGER PERSONALLY ADMITS TO COLLUDING WITH YOU-KNOW-WHO! MINISTRY OF MAGIC CHAOS, ORCHESTRATED BY HER ALONE?!
Rita Skeeter had actually run it.
The final paragraphs of the article piled on further embellishment, darkly hinting that Lockhart was a co-conspirator, that the two of them had been performing a rehearsed double act that day, all to engineer Lockhart's rise within the Ministry.
Harry and Ron burst into the Great Hall at nearly a sprint.
"Hermione, look at this!" Harry slapped the newspaper down in front of her. "How can she write something like this? This is outrageous!"
"Exactly!" Ron seethed from his side. "She made you sound like some kind of Dark Lord!"
Yesterday Hermione had obviously been talking complete nonsense, but Rita had gone ahead and published it anyway without a shred of shame.
Hermione picked up the newspaper. Her face was a picture of righteous fury.
Then she opened her mouth.
"I laid everything out so thoroughly, and she cut it down to nothing. What about the part where I'm a Transmigrator? Why isn't that in here?"
She looked up at Harry and Ron, who were staring at her in complete bewilderment.
"I'm a Transmigrator. I've read the source material. Voldemort is my underling. That is critical information — the core of the whole story — and she left out every single word of it?"
Both of their brains went blank.
That's what you're angry about?!
Hermione paid no attention to their petrified expressions and muttered on to herself, voice low and aggrieved.
"Tsk. I was so thorough yesterday. Such rich detail. And she couldn't be bothered to report any of it faithfully..."
She set the paper down with a quiet click.
"No. This kind of deliberate distortion cannot stand."
She looked up. Her eyes were bright and very focused.
"I think it's quite necessary to bring the relevant parties involved and sit down with her for a proper discussion. To correct the factual inaccuracies in this report."
A small pause.
"The truthfulness and accuracy of the press must be ensured."
...
At that same moment, Rita Skeeter was settled comfortably in her armchair at home, basking in the warm glow of another masterpiece.
The latest issue of the Daily Prophet lay spread open on the table.
She thought back to the interview yesterday and her mouth twitched involuntarily.
She hadn't been able to bring herself to publish the truly unhinged things Hermione had said, in the end. She'd stuck to the collusion angle, then invented her own explosive detail, that Lockhart had been Hermione's accomplice all along.
She'd half-expected some kind of retaliation afterward. The rumors about the witch's temper were vicious. But yesterday had passed without incident. By the time the interview ended, the girl had even seemed... pleased? Almost cheerful?
Nothing like the revenge-driven, hair-trigger fury everyone warned her about.
Clearly, rumors couldn't be trusted.
Rita lifted the paper and admired her work one more time, picturing the entire wizarding world buzzing over this piece, her name on every breakfast table from here to Edinburgh.
Then a calm voice came from directly behind her.
"Ms. Skeeter. I laid it out so clearly yesterday, and you still didn't report it faithfully."
Rita's hand jolted. She spun around.
Three people stood in her living room. She had no idea when they'd arrived. She hadn't heard a sound.
The one in the center was the Witch she'd sat across from just yesterday.
Except the Witch was wearing an expression that hovered somewhere between a smile and something else entirely, the kind of look that made the skin prickle.
Rita recognized the other two as well. On one side stood the famously charming Gilderoy Lockhart. On the other, the Ministry's newest rising star, the Auror Ethan Hunt, who had made such a striking impression during the whole affair.
Three people who had absolutely no business being in her living room at the same time.
They stood there, still and unhurried, and watched her.
➤ Next: Congratulations, You Guessed Right
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