“In future I would ask you not to encourage Mr Weasley…or give him bloody Firewhiskey. I won’t ask for your help, I’ll demand it and I suggest you comply or I promise you I will make life very difficult for the both of you.”

Rita and Rosmerta shared a look across their booth and before the landlady could try to calm the situation her lover had jumped into the fight. As usual.

“And what exactly are you going to do? Stop a few teenagers from coming here once a weekend every three months? We’re trembling.”

“I’ll make sure you never work again for starters. I know Hermione stopped you publishing your poison for a year but I’m quite a bit meaner than she is and I’ll make you unemployed for good.”

Rosmerta had not expected her lover to really be affected by this; Rita was never the sort to take idle threats seriously, even though from Minerva McGonagall they were probably slightly less idle. She knew Rita wasn’t stupid enough to instigate all out war with the Headmistress, the odds were so firmly stacked against her that it would inevitably result in Rita being utterly defeated. She hadn’t expected Rita to smile triumphantly though.

“You’re getting yourself muddled Headmistress, must be your age. If you ruin me then my name will be worthless and it’s my name the Order needs isn’t it?”

McGonagall’s silent fury seemed to confirm Rita’s suspicion and the journalist ploughed on.

“I’m right, I know I am. You want propaganda against the people you think are Death Eaters, the Malfoys, the Parkinson’s, all those kinds of families. All the ones that have children in Slytherin. Well I won’t do it.”

“What?!”

This confused even Ros. As much as she loved Rita she knew the journalist would never pass over an opportunity to write a scandal like that, it was one of the traits she liked the least really.

Rita noted that whilst Ros looked curious and seemed to be trying to work it out for herself McGonagall looked on the brink of a complete eruption. She enjoyed the furious expression for a while before continuing.

“I know my record isn’t pearly white in the gossip columns, but this is different. It isn’t one person who’ll feel the effects, it’s an entire house. I may write about the parents but we both know what Hogwarts is like, Slytherin house will be completely cut off from the rest of the school once and for all. And I won’t do that to the kids.”

“Sudden burst of conscience Skeeter? Over twenty-five years writing I thought that particular basic human quality was gone for good in you.”

“I remember what it was like before. In the 60s when he was rising and everybody turned on Slytherin house. Those were my friends and I couldn’t walk down a corridor with them without dodging hexes! And you did fuck all about it then!”

“Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t most of your contemporaries at Hogwarts join the Death Eater’s ranks anyway?”

“They were driven to it!”

“Evil will always out Skeeter. I thought you’d have learnt that by now the kind of people you deal with. People choose their own destiny, none of them were forced into it.”

Rita’s voice held a steely calm that didn’t reach her face at she glared at McGonagall.

“You pushed Bellatrix to it.”

“Liar!”

The room around them seemed to shake violently and Rita felt herself being pilled forcibly to the floor from behind. With a jolt she felt her knees collide with the stone floor and her stockings split through the pain. A second later she heard the door slam open telling her the kids had returned and felt, rather than saw, Ros slump behind her.