FIC: "Fists of Ink" for ldymusyc
Recipient: ldymusyc
Author: pale_moonlite
Title: Fists of Ink
Rating: Mature
Pairings and characters: Millicent Bulstrode/Blaise Zabini, Rita Skeeter, Minerva McGonagall/Aurora Sinistra
Word Count: ~ 7,800
Summary: "Girls like you simply need to work a little harder, develop other strengths to be able to compete." (Rita Skeeter to Millicent Bulstrode)
Author's Notes: Much love and gratitude to TJ for being such an amazing beta (all remaining mistakes are my own) and to bethbethbeth, who went out of her way to help me. Dear ldymusyc, I sincerely hope you enjoy Millicent's world!
***
GRAND DAME OF WIZARDING EDUCATION TO BE HONOURED
Minerva McGonagall, widely-admired Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of her career, writes Millicent Bulstrode, Junior Correspondent.
McGonagall started teaching Transfiguration in 1956. She became Head of Gryffindor House in 1967 and Deputy Headmistress in 1991. Following the demise of Severus Snape, Headmaster and esteemed war hero, McGonagall reluctantly took over the reins and officially became Headmistress after the rebuilt of Hogwarts had been completed in 1999. "Following in the footsteps of two such great men as Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape has been an honour as well as a challenge," she says with a stern sense of duty.
Her dedication and tireless efforts in educating generations of young witches and wizards will not go unrewarded. Tonight, Minerva McGonagall will be honoured with the Albus Dumbledore Medal for a life devoted to teaching and service to the wizarding world.
(Read the full interview on page 27.)
"Bulstrode!"
Skeeter's voice cracked like a whiplash. She threw the Daily Prophet on Millicent's desk and, placing both hands on the edge of the desk, leaned forward until her face was only a few inches away from Millicent's. "What the hell does that gushing bullshit mean?" she hissed. "What did you think? Did you think at all?"
Millicent had never liked the smell of mint; mingled with that of garlic it disgusted her. Turning her head just a fraction, she moved slightly backwards. "I --"
"Yes?" Scarlet talons tapped an impatient rhythm. "I'm all ears."
Millicent's own fingernails were bitten to the quick, her hands stained with ink. Millicent liked her hands; they were the only parts of her body she actually was comfortable with. They could deliver very effective punches and back at school, they had saved her hide more than once. Against her boss, of course, they didn't have the ghost of a chance. The Prophet's editorial offices were a battlefield that required different strategies to survive.
Millicent straightened. "McGonagall still owes me a favour for my testimony against Umbridge in the war crime trials. I thought it would be advantageous to stay in her good graces. Think of the upcoming Triwizard Tournament; if she really follows through with her threat to ban the press, we might yet persuade her to grant the Prophet exclusive rights."
"When hell freezes over." Skeeter snorted with derision. Behind jewelled glasses, her eyes glittered beetle-black. Millicent slumped back in her chair, trying to avoid the menacing stare. There was nothing to be done now but to put up with Skeeter's ire and wait until the fit was over. This could take mere minutes or hours. Millicent started to count.
"Let me tell you something about your widely-admired Headmistress," Skeeter said in a mocking tone. "McGonagall is the most head-strong Gryffindor I ever met, and I met quite a few of them. Her Majesty the Queen of Stubbornness is too hard a nut to crack for a pup reporter like you. You're deluded if you think she'll go out of her way to help you just because you write flattering articles about her. Your naïveté really makes me wonder sometimes ..."
Taking two steps back and meticulously adjusting her robes, Skeeter never averted her gaze from Millicent. A small smile crept across her blood-red lips. "Did you lie about your House affiliation on your application form? It seems so much more likely that someone like you would have ended up in ..." She paused for cheap effect. "... Hufflepuff."
Skeeter had the habit to question Millicent's identity as a Slytherin whenever she was displeased with her. She never failed to hit the mark, but Millicent was far from showing it. If anything, the years at the Prophet had taught her how to better manage her anger. Suppressing the image of herself as an ugly toad amongst elegant snakes, she became like a stone, ice-cold and invulnerable. "I was one of Severus Snape's students, as you very well know," she said, managing an indifferent shrug.
"But of course." Skeeter's smile broadened. "He was a very interesting man, your esteemed war hero. Did you know that I've started doing research for a book about him?"
Millicent didn't state the obvious, that she couldn't possibly have missed it.
Flashing gold teeth, Skeeter struck another blow. "According to reliable sources, Snape was nothing but a traitor. To both sides."
In the silence that followed, Millicent could hear the delivery owls return to the in-house shipping department in the attic. The constant plop-plop-plop of the coin-filled pouches against the wooden beam below the entry hole indicated just how much profit there was in journalism.
"Well," Skeeter finally relented, "be that as it may, it isn't the point here."
Still counting the seconds, Millicent didn't do her the favour of asking her to elaborate.
"The point is that you're my responsibility. In the end it's me who has to answer for your mistakes."
Millicent concentrated on being a stone. "I'm sorry, Miss Skeeter."
Skeeter merely nodded. She perched herself on the edge of Millicent's desk, giving her own legs an appreciative look while rearranging her robes. "You mustn't forget that journalism is a business, and that our goal is to sell a product. To achieve that goal, we need to go out of our way sometimes."
Rummaging around in her crocodile-skin handbag, Skeeter produced a lipstick. She conjured an oversized mirror and made it hover in front of her. "You're at a disadvantage, of course. Unlike me ..." She applied an even darker shade of crimson and smiled at her reflection, "... your looks and your charm leave a lot to be desired. That doesn't mean ..." Flinging the lipstick back into her bag, she rummaged some more. "... that your case is completely hopeless. Girls like you ..." She came up with a compact and started to powder her nose. "... simply need to work a little harder, develop other strengths to be able to compete."
All vibrant colours and odd angles, Skeeter's image in the mirror resembled an expressionist painting. In the background, Millicent's face was characterless, a mass without form, shape, or colour. Siren and Pancake, Millicent called their portrait.
The mirror dissolved into a puff of smoke, the handbag snapped shut. Skeeter gave a long, satisfied sigh. "To survive in this business you must be cunning, my dear, cunning and inventive. Never be afraid. You need to be an intrepid reporter. Your job is to dig for the truth, regardless of the circumstances."
"The truth?"
"Pish!" Skeeter made an impatient gesture. She hated to be interrupted. "Truth or story, call it whatever you want. Don't be naïve again. Truth is relative."
She rose from the desk in one swift motion, eyeing her reflection in the window. For the likes of Skeeter one mirror would never be enough.
"All right," she said, "let's get this over with. You will want to prove yourself, and we could still use a proper article on McGonagall. This weekend, you'll return to Hogwarts and start digging in earnest. Don't be fooled by McGonagall's reputation; everyone has a skeleton in their closet, trust me. Do whatever you must, but come back with a story worth telling."
Unfortunately, they would never agree on the worth of a story, Millicent thought, but she nodded anyway. There was no other option. She needed the job; writing was all she had ever wanted to do.
At least it was over now. Millicent had long since lost count of the time, but she could still hear the plop-plop-plop of the returning delivery owls. It couldn't be that late, then. Skeeter had been positively lenient, by her standards at least. Millicent started to fumble with the papers on her desk, trying to appear as inconspicuously busy as possible.
Being inconspicuous in Skeeter's presence was, naturally, impossible. Millicent yelped in surprise as taloned fingers closed around her wrist. Skeeter lifted Millicent's ink-stained hand from the table to look at it ostentatiously. "You didn't use your Quick-Quotes Quill. Again."
"I ... I must have mislaid it," Millicent stammered.
"You better recover it soon. Your writing style needs any improvement it can get." She let go of Millicent's hand abruptly and dashed out of the office.
Before Millicent could breathe a sigh of relief, the door opened again. "And don't forget, the next Animagus training session is scheduled for Thursday. We need to work on your self-control."
"Rita, do you have a moment?" the editor-in-chief's voice could be heard outside, and the door banged shut.
The dance floor was a spectacular seascape, hit by flashes of strobe light, lashed by deafening beats. Safe on the shore, Millicent enjoyed watching the dancers. Greg flapped his arms mechanically. He was a windmill, keeping dozens of Don Quixotes at bay. Millicent frowned. The metaphor jarred. But Greg wasn't a majestic whale gliding through a sea of bodies; he wasn't even spouting, thankfully. Draco and Pansy qualified for a pair of dolphins, and Blaise ... Millicent didn't have metaphors for Blaise.
Cutting through the waves, Pansy made her way to their table. She downed Millicent's Gillywater and, smiling apologetically, shouted something unintelligible.
"What?" Millicent shouted back. A quick wand movement later, a noise-repelling shield encompassed the small table. "That's better."
"I sent Draco to get us fresh drinks," Pansy shouted. Noticing the effect of the shield, she lowered her voice back to normal. "It's a pity you don't dance." She conjured a towel and wiped the sweat from her face. "It's exhilarating."
Pansy was a good friend. If Millicent had told her about her insecurities, she would have reassured her, had, in fact, done so many times. According to Pansy, Millicent's smile was charming, her eyes gorgeous, and her hair worthy of a fairytale princess. "I'd kill for hair like yours," she had said on one such occasion. "Not you, of course," she had hurried to reassure her. "But Granger, for example. It's a pity that Granger's hair is so hideous."
Millicent was unable to believe her. Pansy's world was divided in black and white, good and bad, Slytherin and non-Slytherin. Longbottom's arse and Granger's hair had always been the favourite objects of her ridicule, but she could never find a fault with Greg. Millicent, on the other hand, was well aware of Greg's shortcomings and liked him nonetheless. And she knew of her own deficiencies. A woman as sure of herself as Pansy would never be able to understand.
"The music just isn't my cuppa," Millicent lied.
"Oh Millie, why didn't you say something?" Pansy's face clouded over for a second, then brightened again. "Next weekend we'll go wherever you want, all right?" She flashed Millicent a conspiratorial grin. "I bet Blaise will like that."
Before Millicent could ask what that was supposed to mean, the others returned to the table. Draco had a tray hovering at his wand tip. "Gillywater for the ladies," he said, but it was Greg who took the first glass, gulping it down in one go before grabbing the next. Draco pretended to box him on the ear. "For the ladies, I said."
In his effort to dodge Draco's mock blow, Greg nearly collided with him. The tray wobbled dangerously. "Holy Circe!" Pansy exclaimed, securing the tray and placing it on the table. "As if there wasn't enough Gillywater for everyone."
Millicent leaned back in her chair. It was just like old times, and if she unfocused her eyes, she could imagine herself back in the Slytherin common room. This familiar feeling of belonging was the main reason why she enjoyed the weekly night-outs with the old gang so much. For Pansy and Draco, and presumably for Greg, it was the same. They didn't talk about it, but after all this time, after war and destruction, their childhood oath -- Slytherins forever, friends forever! -- still stood.
They had to grow up sooner or later, Millicent knew. Already their bond was weakening. The clouds on Pansy and Draco's faces grew darker with each weekend. Soon they wouldn't be able to banish them for the sake of a careless dance any longer; soon their relationship would break apart. Millicent didn't need to be a Seer to predict everyone's future. Draco would marry the heiress his father had chosen for him, and Pansy would scrape together the last remaining Galleons from her family's fortune and travel the world. Greg would never be whole again, but he would manage, Draco would see to it. And Millicent ... she had her career to think of.
Blaise slipped into the chair next to her and offered her a glass of Gillywater. "Thank you," she said mechanically. She didn't mean to be unkind, but Blaise irritated her. He wasn't part of the gang, had never been. Back at school, he'd been a loner, haughty and unapproachable, and Millicent didn't really know him at all. Why he had made a habit lately of joining them on their night-outs was a mystery to her, and frankly, she wasn't happy about it.
"Don't you like it here?" Blaise asked. "You look as if you'd much rather be somewhere else."
Millicent's lips tightened in anger. Was she really that transparent? "I'm not particularly into the music," she said. It was lame to use the same lie twice, especially since the shield kept the noise down to a mere humming, unidentifiable as music, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.
"I'm not fond of it either," Blaise said with an odd smile. "Actually, it reminds me of a natural disaster."
"Next weekend, you two get to choose the club," Pansy said. Leaning in, she whispered in Millicent's ear, "Good luck, darling!" and gave her a meaningful wink. Then she turned, linked arms with Draco and a reluctant Greg and steered them in the direction of the dance floor. The three of them disappeared among the waves of dancers.
Millicent examined her hands. She had scrubbed them clean, but a faint hint of ink still lingered. Pansy was delusional, even more so than usual. To think that Blaise might be interested in someone like Millicent was simply ridiculous.
"Where do you want to go?" Blaise asked, smiling that unsettling smile again. The main reason Blaise vexed her so was that she didn't know what to make of him. Millicent didn't like mysteries; she had become a journalist to eradicate them. She was proud of the fact that she had learned to read people like books, but Blaise was a disturbing exemption. Most probably his smile meant nothing, was merely determined by the angles of which his face was composed, by his high cheekbones and his slanting eyes.
"In the entire of wizarding Britain, there are only three night clubs," Millicent said indifferently. "That doesn't give us much choice. The music they play at the Boggart is not much different from what they play here, but if you like jazz music, the Haunted Hunchback is the place to go."
"Do you like jazz music?" Blaise stared at her with unwavering intensity. A fat toad facing a hungry snake must have felt exactly the same way as Millicent did right now. She caught herself before she could start to fumble with her robes. She wouldn't show weakness in front of Blaise.
"I like it well enough." She gave a non-committal shrug. "At least it doesn't make my ears bleed." Millicent cringed. Why was she spouting rubbish like that? A stone appeared in her mind's eye. Concentrating on the hard surface, she imagined herself to be just as cold and invulnerable.
Blaise laughed. "No, I don't suppose it does." He fell silent, watching the dancers with his chin in his hand and his brow furrowed. "Why don't we Apparate to Paris next weekend?" he finally proposed.
What does Paris have that London doesn't have? Millicent was tempted to say. She bit her tongue; she didn't know a thing about Paris.
"I'd love to show you my home town." There was that annoying smile again. She still couldn't fathom him out and wondered at what he was playing.
"What makes you think I don't know it already?" she blurted out. Another lie. It couldn't be helped. Blaise was such a poser; she mustn't allow him to get the upper hand on her.
The infuriating smile widened. Millicent reminded herself of the fact that beauty was a tool and, if wielded skilfully, one of the most dangerous weapons. Hadn't Blaise's mother set the perfect example of what beauty could do? The thought of Mrs. Zabini's seven husbands made her shudder. She wouldn't become the victim of Blaise's good looks, that was for sure.
"Then you must know the Moulin Rouge," Blaise said.
Fortune favoured the trickster, Millicent thought with grim amusement. She might not know Paris, but she remembered Slughorn's endless stories. The decline of the belle époque wizarding culture must have been one of his favourite subjects.
"The Moulin Rouge," she said, trying to sound not too smug, "may have had its good days, but they're long over. Nowadays it's merely a Muggle tourist attraction."
"Haven't you heard of the new wizarding section?" The devilish smile exploded, and Millicent finally understood. Blaise was taking the piss out of her for no other reason than his own amusement. The provincial atmosphere of wizarding London and its clubs must bore him to death, and Millicent provided a convenient distraction.
She clenched her hands into fists. She wouldn't tolerate Blaise's abuse any longer. With the intention to Firecall Pansy tomorrow to apologise for her abrupt departure, she stood up. "I have to go now."
"Millie, wait!" Blaise reached for her arm.
His fingers were strong and elegant, she couldn't help to notice. They were blazing iron tongs, burning the pudgy flesh of her forearm. Her mental image of a stone had long since turned into red-hot lava. Her fists were the only weapons she could still trust.
Her punches had lost nothing of their effectiveness. Blaise's nose made a dull crunching sound. Millicent suspected it was broken, but she didn't stay to find out.
Lazy clouds drifted across the afternoon sky. A gentle breeze played through the leaves of the trees and rippled the surface of the lake. Hogwarts lay in deep holiday slumber. Millicent had never seen it that quiet before. It reminded her of a fairytale castle under the spell of a powerful witch.
This was, however, neither the time nor the place for idle musings on children's stories or the beauty of nature. Her Animagus form required all her attention. Currently it was forcing her to hide under a rock, and Millicent had a hard time not to fall asleep. Don't let the animal control you! she remembered Skeeter's lessons. You must never forget, this is still you. Conceal yourself in the skin of the animal, but use your own brain. Use your own ears to hear and your own eyes to see. Concentrating on her task, Millicent crawled out of her hiding place.
The sunshine hurt her eyes, and while the high grass provided shade, her progress was still painfully slow. The way up to the castle seemed to stretch endlessly. Millicent cursed the stupid midwife toad. Why couldn't she have been a bird or a bat? Even being a nasty bug like her boss would have been preferable to this. At least Skeeter could fly.
Having reached the small beach opposite the castle without meeting a single person, she wondered whether she shouldn't take the risk and change back to her human form. The small clump of trees at the edge of the lake would make for excellent cover. She was just about to think the spell when the warts on her skin tingled in warning. It was a familiar sensation, that of strong privacy wards. As a witch, she would have never been able to breach them, but the toad had no difficulties to enter the isolated space.
She found herself on a tartan blanket, a picnic basket shielding her from view -- not that it was likely that the other occupants of the blanket would notice her; they were too busy with themselves. Millicent was too close to the ground to be able to recognise details. A forest of hair and vast expanses of naked skin was all she could discern. She crawled along the edge of the blanket, anxious to find an elevated spot. The basket was out of the question, being not tall enough to allow a full view of the surroundings. A small birch tree seemed to be her only option. The toad was unaccustomed to climbing, but Millicent forced her will on it, and she was rewarded for her pains. The headline she'd been sent to look for was right in front of her eyes; she didn't even have to snoop around the castle to find it.
HOGWARTS SEX SCANDAL: HEADMISTRESS INVOLVED IN LESBIAN AFFAIR WITH SLYTHERIN HEAD OF HOUSE
Millicent cringed. Skeeter would be delighted, but Millicent detested this kind of sensationalist journalism. She didn't want to build a reputation for scandal-mongering. Besides, she had learned to respect McGonagall for her fairness in dealing with what had been called the Slytherin Issue after the war, and Professor Sinistra had always been her favourite teacher. She would hate to ruin their lives.
There had to be another way to save her job. If she listened to their pillow talk, she might yet learn something she could use for a different sort of article. She crept onto one of the low hanging branches so as to be able to hear every word.
The two witches on the blanket had a long way to go until they would enter the pillow talk phase. Millicent told herself that she didn't close her eyes out of fear that the toad might inadvertently fall asleep if she did so, but she had to admit that she was fascinated by what she saw. Wearing only a pair of black stockings, Sinistra was a striking woman. With her round belly and the big breasts, she was the embodiment of mature femininity. Millicent was amazed. She would never have thought that a fat woman could look so good.
In contrast, McGonagall was still fully clothed. The only concession she had made to the occasion was to remove her ankle-length boots. Her toes curled into the grass beside the blanket as the two women kissed.
McGonagall finally interrupted the kiss. Her glasses were steamed up, and she removed them, folding them neatly and setting them on top of the basket. She looked prim even without them. Millicent had difficulties to separate the private McGonagall in front of her from the aloof teacher she had known for so long. She winced as McGonagall now touched Sinistra's breasts.
Millicent squeezed her eyes shut, biting back the bile that rose in her throat as unwelcome images invaded her mind. She didn't recall the faces of the men she'd had sex with. They were of no importance, anonymous Muggles she had met on her many excursions into the unknown, the shady trips she would make whenever her burning curiosity got the better of her. The thought of these men disgusted her. She remembered their hands on her breasts. Big hands, small hands, fat or hairy hands, hands blue with tattoos, dirty or clean hands -- they came in many shapes and sizes, but their greed had always been the same. They had squeezed and kneaded her breasts, pinched her nipples or moulded her breasts together in order to create a tight channel around equally greedy cocks. -- Take that, you fat slut. Do you like it? Tell me that you like it, Fatty. -- Covering her breasts in semen, they had marked her in a final act of triumph.
The toad could feel the heat of the sun on its back. It grew more and more distressed, whereas Millicent fought a different kind of revulsion. She reminded herself again that these men meant nothing to her. She didn't even blame them. They had treated her according to the rules of the game she had chosen to play, and they had taught her what she had wanted to learn. They didn't matter. Her job was all that mattered right now. Focusing on the animal, she brought it back under her control and forced it to open its eyes. She was surprised by what she saw.
McGonagall's touch couldn't be more different from the touch of those men. She caressed Sinistra's breasts as though she were worshipping them, cupping them in her hands and teasing the nipples with gentle fingers. She lowered her head and began to lick circles around one big aureole, then sucked the nipple into her mouth. After devoting equal time to both breasts, she kissed her way down to Sinistra's bellybutton. Sinistra, moaning and squirming under her caresses, tapped her on the shoulder. "Didn't you forget something?"
McGonagall looked up. "What do you want me to do?" she asked with a smile. Her cheeks were flushed bright pink. Her eyes glittered. A strand of hair had escaped her bun and fell over her face. She was a changed person, the stern teacher only a faint memory. Millicent was intrigued by McGonagall's metamorphosis into a sensual woman, but it was her smile that mesmerized her. She had seen it before.
McGonagall's eyes weren't long and slanting, and although she had the prominent cheekbones of a Scotswoman, they weren't nearly as high and chiselled as Blaise's. Their facial features were worlds apart, and still, the smile was the same.
The truth hit Millicent square in the face. She flinched at the metaphor, remembering the crunching sound of Blaise's nose. She shouldn't have hit him. He had done nothing wrong. It had been Millicent's fault not to recognise the obvious.
Millicent's thoughts ran wild. Confusion and certainty mixed with a joy so intense that she thought she was going to explode. She watched as Sinistra slowly unbuttoned McGonagall's robes, revealing fine-boned shoulders and firm small breasts. The two witches on the blanket were so different in appearance, and yet they fit so well together. Earth and water, night and day, Slytherin and Gryffindor -- united, they became a new dawn. Something inside Millicent started to melt at the sight of their beauty. Sinistra loosened McGonagall's bun in between kisses, and a silver waterfall spilled over McGonagall's shoulders, cascading down her back and caressing her tight bum with fine ripples. Millicent closed her eyes to give them the privacy they deserved. Blaise's smile was all she could see now.
The toad woke in panic. Gusts of wind were hitting the birch tree, and the branch on which it was perched was swaying dangerously. Before Millicent could regain control, the animal had already slipped. She fell to the ground with a thud, finding herself perilously close to a pair of sturdy shoes. "What do we have here?" the owner of the shoes asked, kneeling down in the grass and picking Millicent up.
"Is something wrong?" McGonagall's voice could be heard in the distance.
Millicent struggled to break free, but Sinistra held her in an iron grip. "Why don't you go on ahead and put the kettle on?" she called. "I discovered an interesting specimen of Alytes obstetricans, but I promise, I'll be there before you can add Firewhisky to our tea."
"I wish you would keep your eyes to the stars and leave the reptiles and amphibians to Hagrid. But who am I to come between a woman and her hobby." The wind carried McGonagall's laughter away.
Sinistra put her back on the grass, but before Millicent could gather herself and flee, she was hit by a spell. Blue-white heat encompassed her, blinded her and ripped her apart. The toad writhed in agony. Helplessly, Millicent was forced to let it go. The world grew smaller around her. Her legs wobbled, and she sat heavily on the ground. She looked at her hands in confusion. "How did you know?"
Black teacher's robes concealed Sinistra's feminine curves. She was completely transformed. Pointing her wand at Millicent, she looked grimmer than Millicent had ever seen her. "A midwife toad is an unusual sight in Scotland, and in broad daylight, too. But imagine my surprise at seeing one fall from a tree."
A tsunami of shame and anger crashed over Millicent. Her cheeks burned and her stomach seethed. Words formed in her mind only to immediately dissolve again. Phrases appeared, strings of jumbled sentences that made no sense at all. Lame apologies warred with dishonest explanations. There really wasn't anything to say. "I hate my Animagus form," she finally blurted out.
"There's nothing wrong with your Animagus form." Sinistra resolutely shoved her wand up her sleeve and stood with arms akimbo, every inch the teacher Millicent had known all these years. "The midwife toad is a fascinating animal, exemplary for its parental care. It's the male who carries the eggs, leaving the female free to pursue her own interests."
"It's ugly," Millicent said without thinking. She still hadn't regained her composure, and the whole conversation seemed absurd to her.
"Ugly is as ugly does." Sinistra gave Millicent the same look she had given her back at school when she had forgotten to bring her telescope to class. Millicent was convinced that it was that look, disapproving but also questioning, that was responsible for Millicent's orderliness.
Sinistra sat down on the grass opposite her. "You're surprisingly shallow for someone of your intelligence and inquisitiveness, Miss Bulstrode," she said. "Rita Skeeter's influence, I have no doubt about it. She was one of the worst students I have ever had the misfortune to teach, and as shallow as the mirrors she's so fond of. That girl couldn't look through a telescope before having checked her reflection in the brass tube a dozen times."
A diminutive Skeeter, distorted by the convex surface of a telescope, strutted through Millicent's mind. The image was ridiculous, but Millicent wasn't in the mood for laughing.
"The Headmistress and I have been speculating about you -- whether or not you would adopt Skeeter's methods. Professor McGonagall expected that it would happen sooner or later, but I begged to differ with her. It seems I have lost my bet."
"I'm sorry," Millicent said, and it was the truth. She wanted to blame Skeeter for everything, but that would have been too easy. She had played along, after all. She had mastered the Animagus transformation knowing full well what would be expected of the animal, and she had always, if grudgingly, followed Skeeter's rules. Her ambition to become a renowned writer was no excuse, on the contrary. Making a promise to herself to quit her job first thing Monday morning, she repeated, "I'm sorry."
"No, you are not," Sinistra said forcefully. "You're a Slytherin. Slytherins aren't sorry. They're imaginative and resourceful and have the ability to find a solution to any problem, am I not right?"
The little park off Diagon Alley buzzed with Sunday afternoon life. Fortescue ice cream cones and Weasleys' Wondrous Welding Wands ruled the playground. If unsuspecting strollers didn't get singed by misdirected welding beams, they would undoubtedly fall victim to flying scoops of chocolate caramel cluster or pumpkin pleasure. House-elf nannies sat on a row of tiny chairs, banging their heads against the wrought-iron railing in front of them whenever one of their charges annoyed another unfortunate passer-by.
Blaise was waiting at a safe distance, watching the chaos with haughty composure. His face seemed chiselled in stone, and to all appearances, he could have been one of the statues guarding the entrance to Lover's Lane. Millicent noticed with relief that his nose looked exactly the same as before. She clenched her hands into fists, then unclenched them again self-consciously. She straightened her robes, checking once more to ensure that the pumpkin ice cream stain was truly gone. Plucking up all her courage, she stepped into the sunlight. "Hello, Blaise."
He didn't smile as he saw her, merely nodded his head. "I got your Owl," he said. "You wanted to talk to me?"
To Owl him had been a mistake, Millicent now knew. Nothing she could say or do would ever bring that smile back. She wished Dilly were here to bang her head against the railing for her, but unfortunately, Millicent wasn't six any more. "I wanted to apologize," she said. "I'm sorry for ..." She rubbed her nose, embarrassed. "... you know."
Endless seconds passed. Millicent was too busy shrinking under Blaise's stare to be able to count them. "Would you care to elaborate?" he finally said. "I want to understand. What the fuck did I do wrong?"
"Nothing." Rivulets of sweat ran down her forehead, but her mouth was a desert. Swallowing hard, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "You did nothing wrong. It was all in my head. I thought you were making fun of me."
"What? But why?" He looked puzzled for a moment, insecure even, before his face became stone again.
"Bloody hell," Millicent burst out. "What was I supposed to think? Someone like you being interested in someone like me -- you have to admit, that sounds pretty unbelievable."
Blaise shook his head in slow motion. "I don't get it. What's so unbelievable about it?"
"Do you want me to spell it out for you?" Millicent had to be careful not to Disapparate accidentally, so desperate was her wish to be somewhere else. Startled by a horrible noise, she turned around in panic, afraid that her magic had gone haywire.
The stone guardians of Lover's Lane had come to life with a roll of thunder. Flashes of lightning shot from their outstretched wands. A teen couple was hurled through the air, Gryffindor scarves flapping. They collided with Millicent and sent her stumbling backwards, right into Blaise's arms.
It was over as suddenly as it had begun. Millicent barely noticed the statues creaking back into place or the students blowing them raspberries before running away giggling. Blaise's hands on her arms distracted her. The heat of his breath against her cheek made her dizzy. Her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of his reach. "Bloody Gryffindors," she said in an attempt to cover up her arousal. "Will they ever learn to follow the rules?"
"You could always interview me," Blaise said.
"What do you mean?" she asked, puzzled by this non sequitur.
"You're a journalist," Blaise said, the hint of a smile on his face. "When you interview someone, you'll be able to determine what their true motives are, won't you?"
Three days ago, Millicent would have agreed with him, but now she wasn't so sure any more, especially when Blaise was the one to be interviewed. Enticed by the promise of seeing that smile again, she nodded anyway.
"We could go there." Blaise gestured at the entrance to Lover's Lane. "It would give us some privacy."
He had a point. Amongst head banging house-elves, flying ice cream scoops and daredevil Gryffindor minors Millicent would never be able to concentrate on asking the right questions. Resolutely, she moved in the direction of the guardians.
"We have to enter together, or else we won't be admitted." Falling in step with her, Blaise took her hand. The statues didn't move a stone limb as they passed.
Millicent had never been to Lover's Lane before, but she had heard of its wonders. She was a little disappointed to find herself on an ordinary country road edged by overgrown hedges. "I can't see what's so special about it," she said.
"It's wizard space," Blaise explained. "The entire adult population of wizarding Britain could be around here somewhere, and we wouldn't be the wiser. Let me show you."
He waved his wand, and an opening appeared in the hedge. Behind it was a rose garden. A bench invited them to rest near a splashing fountain in the shade of a pear tree. The roses were in full bloom and filled the air with a rich, heady fragrance.
"Very romantic," Millicent said in a dry voice, trying very hard not to be impressed by the luscious beauty of the flowers.
"Sorry about that," Blaise muttered, making the hole in the hedge disappear with another wave of his wand. "Do you want to give it a try?"
Fumbling for her wand, Millicent noticed that they were still holding hands. She quickly released his hand and wiped her sweaty palm on her robes. "Is there an incantation?"
He shook his head and gave her a wavering smile. "Just relax. The magic is supposed to find the right place for us."
Millicent closed her eyes. When she opened them again, a gap in the hedge revealed a pasture enclosed by a low dry-stone wall. A few scattered snowdrops and a small patch of wild daffodils decorated the otherwise bare grass. Millicent was satisfied with what she saw. It had the sparse kind of beauty she was comfortable with and, considerably more important, it provided the much-needed privacy without distracting her with romantic nonsense.
The rock fence was just the right height for Millicent to sit. After spelling her shoes clean of cow dung, she pulled a roll of parchment from her robes and stretched it out on the wall beside her, keeping it in place with the help of four small stones. Watching Blaise negotiate his way around cow-pats, Millicent absent-mindedly produced an assortment of quills. She told herself that she could just as well do this professionally and chose an acid-green quill. Grimacing at the bitter taste, she put the tip into her mouth and sucked it for a couple of seconds in order to activate it. She placed it on top of the parchment. "Testing," she said, and the Quick-Quotes Quill moved into an upright position. "This is Millicent Bulstrode, Junior Correspondent for the Daily Prophet." The quill started to scribble.
Fat and ugly Millicent Bulstrode, twenty-six, whose deplorable lack of charm and self-control not only make her unsuitable for a career in investigative journalism, but also condemn her to the empty life of a spinster --
"What the fuck!" Blaise had successfully circumnavigated the last cow-pat and sneaked up on her. He eyed the parchment in open-mouthed astonishment. Before Millicent could prevent it, he had seized it. He shredded it to pieces without giving it another look. The quill leapt at him, spraying ink all over his robes with an angry hiss. Blaise caught it in his hand.
The quill wriggled to break free. Blaise glared at it. "What kind of hellish device is this?"
"It's just a writing aid. A Quick-Quotes Quill." Millicent was too shocked that Blaise had seen this, all her insecurities spelled out on parchment, to think of a convincing lie.
"A writing aid?" Blaise narrowed his eyes to slits. "That doesn't explain why it was spouting insults like that."
Millicent laughed out loud, a shrill and unpleasant sound. "It was nothing, really. Just a test, you know. I was merely fooling around a bit to see if it worked."
Blaise stared at her in silence. He didn't even need to raise an eyebrow to communicate his disbelief.
"Why do you even care? It's the tool of a professional journalist and of no concern to you."
Blaise still didn't say a word. It was unnerving. The silence was a rubber band ready to snap; it stretched thinner and thinner with every second that passed. Millicent couldn't bear it any longer.
"If you really must know, it's charmed to help me achieve a better writing style. To make my writing more interesting. There, satisfied?" Millicent breathed heavily. She was seething. She longed to Obliviate him, or simply to beat the living daylight out of him. Never in her life had she felt so exposed.
Blaise's stare didn't waver as he snapped the quill in half and threw the pieces to the ground. He broke eye contact only as he looked down to see where they had landed. The tip was still moving. Emitting green smoke and an acrid stench, it wriggled its way through a cow-pat. Blaise didn't flinch as he ground his heel into it.
"Are you mad?" Millicent slid from the fence and balled her hands into fists, ready to strike.
"You don't need a bloody instrument to improve your writing. It's fine as it is."
Blaise stood with hanging arms, frozen in place, waiting. His trendy dragon-hide boots were covered in cow dung, his robes and his hands splattered with ink. A single ink drop had even found its way onto his face. It adorned his cheek like the tattoo of a tear. He looked pathetic and beautiful and very human. All his haughtiness was gone. Seeing him vulnerable for the first time took the fight right out of Millicent. "You wouldn't know," she said quietly.
"Did you forget that I copied all your History of Magic essays? They were amazing." He smiled, and Millicent couldn't help herself, she smiled back.
She quickly turned away and climbed back on the wall. Blaise sat down next to her. "I want to get to know you better," he said after a while.
"I don't need a champion," Millicent said. "If you want this ..." She made a gesture to indicate that she hadn't yet decided what this implied. "... to work, you mustn't interfere with my job or with the way I handle things in general. I'm my own person, and trust me, I can take care of myself."
He took her hand. "Would you like to visit Paris with me the next weekend?"
She nodded.
Eventually, she spelled his boots clean of cow dung.
Monday morning, Millicent walked down Diagon Alley with a spring in her step. The sky was speckled with delivery owls. They came from all directions. Circling the Prophet building, they waited their turn to enter the Owlery through a small opening in the roof. Two owls caused a bit of a commotion as they approached the entry hole simultaneously. Angry hooting ensued, and a shower of coins rained down on the pavement. Millicent picked up a Knut for good luck and left the rest for the street urchins. She hummed as she entered the building.
Skeeter was already at her desk, sipping a fashionable coffee drink from Lavender's, crimson lips pursed around a green straw. She looked up as Millicent walked in. "Is your article on McGonagall ready to submit? What did you find out?" she asked in lieu of a greeting.
"Good morning to you, too," Millicent said calmly. Her fate would be decided within the next hour. If Sinistra had succeeded with her plan and convinced McGonagall to make a deal with the Prophet on Millicent's behalf, all would be well. The offer -- exclusive rights to the Triwizard Tournament on the condition that Millicent be the only correspondent allowed to write about it -- should be too good to refuse. If Millicent was lucky, she would even get promoted to Senior Correspondent and not be subordinate to Skeeter any longer. If, on the other hand, McGonagall proved to be every bit as stubborn as her reputation implied, Millicent would lose her job. In any case, it was out of her hands. She could as well make the best of the situation. She flashed Skeeter an innocent smile. "How was your weekend?"
Fixing Millicent with a piercing stare, Skeeter slurped the rest of her coffee through the straw. The noise was disgusting. Millicent gave a sigh of relief as Skeeter finally tossed the cup into the dustbin, but the silence was short-lived. Skeeter immediately started to drum her fingernails on the desk. "Actually, I'm more curious to hear about your weekend."
"How kind of you to ask." Millicent leaned back in her chair and looked out of the window. "I had a fabulous weekend," she said, and then she had to grin because, in a way, it was true. "The weather was just perfect."
"Don't be deliberately obtuse." Skeeter came out from behind her desk, swaying her hips like a cobra ready to strike. "Out with it -- do you have a story or not?"
A knock on the door saved Millicent from having to think of an answer. "Come in," Skeeter bellowed, but her voice became deep and sultry as the editor-in-chief stuck his head into the room. "Good morning, Barnabas."
He gave her a short nod, then turned to Millicent. "Miss Bulstrode, I'd like a word with you in my office. Headmistress McGonagall Owled me about you."
Without waiting for a response, he briskly walked away, leaving the door open for Millicent to follow. Skeeter cast her a speculative look, then bared her gold teeth in a derisive smile. "Bolloxed it up, did you? Good riddance, Miss Bulstrode."
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT: DANGEROUS LEGACY OR NEW BEGINNING?
The announcement of the Triwizard Tournament 2006-07 has started a controversy over the appropriateness of the renewal of a tradition that has cost the lives of many young witches and wizards, writes Millicent Bulstrode, Senior Correspondent.
Minister Shacklebolt supports Headmistress McGonagall's decision to reinstate the Tournament after the disastrous events of 1994-95, when Headmaster Dumbledore ultimately failed to do the same. There are, however, many voices in the Ministry that accuse him and McGonagall of dangerous madness. How justified are they?
While it is true that the famous contest between Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Hogwarts was discontinued in 1792 because of its mounting death toll, we should keep in mind that the death of Cedric Diggory, champion of 1994-95, was caused by Tom Riddle, self-appointed Lord Voldemort, and not by any of the Tournament tasks.
Headmistress McGonagall has granted The Daily Prophet exclusive media rights to cover the event. In an interview, she talks about the collaboration with the other schools and reveals her hopes and expectations.
"Our goal is to encourage friendship and camaraderie between the magic youth of different nationalities and backgrounds. In future, we plan to invite schools from other continents as well," she says.
She looks prim and aloof behind her old-fashioned desk, but her enthusiasm is evident in every word she speaks. Her task is the most demanding. She doesn't have to overcome dragons or giant spiders. Her opponents are an outdated bureaucratic system and the prejudices of a society that lived in seclusion for too long. It might turn out to be a fight against windmills, but if she succeeds, it could be the dawn of a new beginning.
(Read more of this exclusive interview on page 2.)
***
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Author: pale_moonlite
Title: Fists of Ink
Rating: Mature
Pairings and characters: Millicent Bulstrode/Blaise Zabini, Rita Skeeter, Minerva McGonagall/Aurora Sinistra
Word Count: ~ 7,800
Summary: "Girls like you simply need to work a little harder, develop other strengths to be able to compete." (Rita Skeeter to Millicent Bulstrode)
Author's Notes: Much love and gratitude to TJ for being such an amazing beta (all remaining mistakes are my own) and to bethbethbeth, who went out of her way to help me. Dear ldymusyc, I sincerely hope you enjoy Millicent's world!
***
GRAND DAME OF WIZARDING EDUCATION TO BE HONOURED
Minerva McGonagall, widely-admired Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of her career, writes Millicent Bulstrode, Junior Correspondent.
McGonagall started teaching Transfiguration in 1956. She became Head of Gryffindor House in 1967 and Deputy Headmistress in 1991. Following the demise of Severus Snape, Headmaster and esteemed war hero, McGonagall reluctantly took over the reins and officially became Headmistress after the rebuilt of Hogwarts had been completed in 1999. "Following in the footsteps of two such great men as Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape has been an honour as well as a challenge," she says with a stern sense of duty.
Her dedication and tireless efforts in educating generations of young witches and wizards will not go unrewarded. Tonight, Minerva McGonagall will be honoured with the Albus Dumbledore Medal for a life devoted to teaching and service to the wizarding world.
(Read the full interview on page 27.)
"Bulstrode!"
Skeeter's voice cracked like a whiplash. She threw the Daily Prophet on Millicent's desk and, placing both hands on the edge of the desk, leaned forward until her face was only a few inches away from Millicent's. "What the hell does that gushing bullshit mean?" she hissed. "What did you think? Did you think at all?"
Millicent had never liked the smell of mint; mingled with that of garlic it disgusted her. Turning her head just a fraction, she moved slightly backwards. "I --"
"Yes?" Scarlet talons tapped an impatient rhythm. "I'm all ears."
Millicent's own fingernails were bitten to the quick, her hands stained with ink. Millicent liked her hands; they were the only parts of her body she actually was comfortable with. They could deliver very effective punches and back at school, they had saved her hide more than once. Against her boss, of course, they didn't have the ghost of a chance. The Prophet's editorial offices were a battlefield that required different strategies to survive.
Millicent straightened. "McGonagall still owes me a favour for my testimony against Umbridge in the war crime trials. I thought it would be advantageous to stay in her good graces. Think of the upcoming Triwizard Tournament; if she really follows through with her threat to ban the press, we might yet persuade her to grant the Prophet exclusive rights."
"When hell freezes over." Skeeter snorted with derision. Behind jewelled glasses, her eyes glittered beetle-black. Millicent slumped back in her chair, trying to avoid the menacing stare. There was nothing to be done now but to put up with Skeeter's ire and wait until the fit was over. This could take mere minutes or hours. Millicent started to count.
"Let me tell you something about your widely-admired Headmistress," Skeeter said in a mocking tone. "McGonagall is the most head-strong Gryffindor I ever met, and I met quite a few of them. Her Majesty the Queen of Stubbornness is too hard a nut to crack for a pup reporter like you. You're deluded if you think she'll go out of her way to help you just because you write flattering articles about her. Your naïveté really makes me wonder sometimes ..."
Taking two steps back and meticulously adjusting her robes, Skeeter never averted her gaze from Millicent. A small smile crept across her blood-red lips. "Did you lie about your House affiliation on your application form? It seems so much more likely that someone like you would have ended up in ..." She paused for cheap effect. "... Hufflepuff."
Skeeter had the habit to question Millicent's identity as a Slytherin whenever she was displeased with her. She never failed to hit the mark, but Millicent was far from showing it. If anything, the years at the Prophet had taught her how to better manage her anger. Suppressing the image of herself as an ugly toad amongst elegant snakes, she became like a stone, ice-cold and invulnerable. "I was one of Severus Snape's students, as you very well know," she said, managing an indifferent shrug.
"But of course." Skeeter's smile broadened. "He was a very interesting man, your esteemed war hero. Did you know that I've started doing research for a book about him?"
Millicent didn't state the obvious, that she couldn't possibly have missed it.
Flashing gold teeth, Skeeter struck another blow. "According to reliable sources, Snape was nothing but a traitor. To both sides."
In the silence that followed, Millicent could hear the delivery owls return to the in-house shipping department in the attic. The constant plop-plop-plop of the coin-filled pouches against the wooden beam below the entry hole indicated just how much profit there was in journalism.
"Well," Skeeter finally relented, "be that as it may, it isn't the point here."
Still counting the seconds, Millicent didn't do her the favour of asking her to elaborate.
"The point is that you're my responsibility. In the end it's me who has to answer for your mistakes."
Millicent concentrated on being a stone. "I'm sorry, Miss Skeeter."
Skeeter merely nodded. She perched herself on the edge of Millicent's desk, giving her own legs an appreciative look while rearranging her robes. "You mustn't forget that journalism is a business, and that our goal is to sell a product. To achieve that goal, we need to go out of our way sometimes."
Rummaging around in her crocodile-skin handbag, Skeeter produced a lipstick. She conjured an oversized mirror and made it hover in front of her. "You're at a disadvantage, of course. Unlike me ..." She applied an even darker shade of crimson and smiled at her reflection, "... your looks and your charm leave a lot to be desired. That doesn't mean ..." Flinging the lipstick back into her bag, she rummaged some more. "... that your case is completely hopeless. Girls like you ..." She came up with a compact and started to powder her nose. "... simply need to work a little harder, develop other strengths to be able to compete."
All vibrant colours and odd angles, Skeeter's image in the mirror resembled an expressionist painting. In the background, Millicent's face was characterless, a mass without form, shape, or colour. Siren and Pancake, Millicent called their portrait.
The mirror dissolved into a puff of smoke, the handbag snapped shut. Skeeter gave a long, satisfied sigh. "To survive in this business you must be cunning, my dear, cunning and inventive. Never be afraid. You need to be an intrepid reporter. Your job is to dig for the truth, regardless of the circumstances."
"The truth?"
"Pish!" Skeeter made an impatient gesture. She hated to be interrupted. "Truth or story, call it whatever you want. Don't be naïve again. Truth is relative."
She rose from the desk in one swift motion, eyeing her reflection in the window. For the likes of Skeeter one mirror would never be enough.
"All right," she said, "let's get this over with. You will want to prove yourself, and we could still use a proper article on McGonagall. This weekend, you'll return to Hogwarts and start digging in earnest. Don't be fooled by McGonagall's reputation; everyone has a skeleton in their closet, trust me. Do whatever you must, but come back with a story worth telling."
Unfortunately, they would never agree on the worth of a story, Millicent thought, but she nodded anyway. There was no other option. She needed the job; writing was all she had ever wanted to do.
At least it was over now. Millicent had long since lost count of the time, but she could still hear the plop-plop-plop of the returning delivery owls. It couldn't be that late, then. Skeeter had been positively lenient, by her standards at least. Millicent started to fumble with the papers on her desk, trying to appear as inconspicuously busy as possible.
Being inconspicuous in Skeeter's presence was, naturally, impossible. Millicent yelped in surprise as taloned fingers closed around her wrist. Skeeter lifted Millicent's ink-stained hand from the table to look at it ostentatiously. "You didn't use your Quick-Quotes Quill. Again."
"I ... I must have mislaid it," Millicent stammered.
"You better recover it soon. Your writing style needs any improvement it can get." She let go of Millicent's hand abruptly and dashed out of the office.
Before Millicent could breathe a sigh of relief, the door opened again. "And don't forget, the next Animagus training session is scheduled for Thursday. We need to work on your self-control."
"Rita, do you have a moment?" the editor-in-chief's voice could be heard outside, and the door banged shut.
The dance floor was a spectacular seascape, hit by flashes of strobe light, lashed by deafening beats. Safe on the shore, Millicent enjoyed watching the dancers. Greg flapped his arms mechanically. He was a windmill, keeping dozens of Don Quixotes at bay. Millicent frowned. The metaphor jarred. But Greg wasn't a majestic whale gliding through a sea of bodies; he wasn't even spouting, thankfully. Draco and Pansy qualified for a pair of dolphins, and Blaise ... Millicent didn't have metaphors for Blaise.
Cutting through the waves, Pansy made her way to their table. She downed Millicent's Gillywater and, smiling apologetically, shouted something unintelligible.
"What?" Millicent shouted back. A quick wand movement later, a noise-repelling shield encompassed the small table. "That's better."
"I sent Draco to get us fresh drinks," Pansy shouted. Noticing the effect of the shield, she lowered her voice back to normal. "It's a pity you don't dance." She conjured a towel and wiped the sweat from her face. "It's exhilarating."
Pansy was a good friend. If Millicent had told her about her insecurities, she would have reassured her, had, in fact, done so many times. According to Pansy, Millicent's smile was charming, her eyes gorgeous, and her hair worthy of a fairytale princess. "I'd kill for hair like yours," she had said on one such occasion. "Not you, of course," she had hurried to reassure her. "But Granger, for example. It's a pity that Granger's hair is so hideous."
Millicent was unable to believe her. Pansy's world was divided in black and white, good and bad, Slytherin and non-Slytherin. Longbottom's arse and Granger's hair had always been the favourite objects of her ridicule, but she could never find a fault with Greg. Millicent, on the other hand, was well aware of Greg's shortcomings and liked him nonetheless. And she knew of her own deficiencies. A woman as sure of herself as Pansy would never be able to understand.
"The music just isn't my cuppa," Millicent lied.
"Oh Millie, why didn't you say something?" Pansy's face clouded over for a second, then brightened again. "Next weekend we'll go wherever you want, all right?" She flashed Millicent a conspiratorial grin. "I bet Blaise will like that."
Before Millicent could ask what that was supposed to mean, the others returned to the table. Draco had a tray hovering at his wand tip. "Gillywater for the ladies," he said, but it was Greg who took the first glass, gulping it down in one go before grabbing the next. Draco pretended to box him on the ear. "For the ladies, I said."
In his effort to dodge Draco's mock blow, Greg nearly collided with him. The tray wobbled dangerously. "Holy Circe!" Pansy exclaimed, securing the tray and placing it on the table. "As if there wasn't enough Gillywater for everyone."
Millicent leaned back in her chair. It was just like old times, and if she unfocused her eyes, she could imagine herself back in the Slytherin common room. This familiar feeling of belonging was the main reason why she enjoyed the weekly night-outs with the old gang so much. For Pansy and Draco, and presumably for Greg, it was the same. They didn't talk about it, but after all this time, after war and destruction, their childhood oath -- Slytherins forever, friends forever! -- still stood.
They had to grow up sooner or later, Millicent knew. Already their bond was weakening. The clouds on Pansy and Draco's faces grew darker with each weekend. Soon they wouldn't be able to banish them for the sake of a careless dance any longer; soon their relationship would break apart. Millicent didn't need to be a Seer to predict everyone's future. Draco would marry the heiress his father had chosen for him, and Pansy would scrape together the last remaining Galleons from her family's fortune and travel the world. Greg would never be whole again, but he would manage, Draco would see to it. And Millicent ... she had her career to think of.
Blaise slipped into the chair next to her and offered her a glass of Gillywater. "Thank you," she said mechanically. She didn't mean to be unkind, but Blaise irritated her. He wasn't part of the gang, had never been. Back at school, he'd been a loner, haughty and unapproachable, and Millicent didn't really know him at all. Why he had made a habit lately of joining them on their night-outs was a mystery to her, and frankly, she wasn't happy about it.
"Don't you like it here?" Blaise asked. "You look as if you'd much rather be somewhere else."
Millicent's lips tightened in anger. Was she really that transparent? "I'm not particularly into the music," she said. It was lame to use the same lie twice, especially since the shield kept the noise down to a mere humming, unidentifiable as music, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.
"I'm not fond of it either," Blaise said with an odd smile. "Actually, it reminds me of a natural disaster."
"Next weekend, you two get to choose the club," Pansy said. Leaning in, she whispered in Millicent's ear, "Good luck, darling!" and gave her a meaningful wink. Then she turned, linked arms with Draco and a reluctant Greg and steered them in the direction of the dance floor. The three of them disappeared among the waves of dancers.
Millicent examined her hands. She had scrubbed them clean, but a faint hint of ink still lingered. Pansy was delusional, even more so than usual. To think that Blaise might be interested in someone like Millicent was simply ridiculous.
"Where do you want to go?" Blaise asked, smiling that unsettling smile again. The main reason Blaise vexed her so was that she didn't know what to make of him. Millicent didn't like mysteries; she had become a journalist to eradicate them. She was proud of the fact that she had learned to read people like books, but Blaise was a disturbing exemption. Most probably his smile meant nothing, was merely determined by the angles of which his face was composed, by his high cheekbones and his slanting eyes.
"In the entire of wizarding Britain, there are only three night clubs," Millicent said indifferently. "That doesn't give us much choice. The music they play at the Boggart is not much different from what they play here, but if you like jazz music, the Haunted Hunchback is the place to go."
"Do you like jazz music?" Blaise stared at her with unwavering intensity. A fat toad facing a hungry snake must have felt exactly the same way as Millicent did right now. She caught herself before she could start to fumble with her robes. She wouldn't show weakness in front of Blaise.
"I like it well enough." She gave a non-committal shrug. "At least it doesn't make my ears bleed." Millicent cringed. Why was she spouting rubbish like that? A stone appeared in her mind's eye. Concentrating on the hard surface, she imagined herself to be just as cold and invulnerable.
Blaise laughed. "No, I don't suppose it does." He fell silent, watching the dancers with his chin in his hand and his brow furrowed. "Why don't we Apparate to Paris next weekend?" he finally proposed.
What does Paris have that London doesn't have? Millicent was tempted to say. She bit her tongue; she didn't know a thing about Paris.
"I'd love to show you my home town." There was that annoying smile again. She still couldn't fathom him out and wondered at what he was playing.
"What makes you think I don't know it already?" she blurted out. Another lie. It couldn't be helped. Blaise was such a poser; she mustn't allow him to get the upper hand on her.
The infuriating smile widened. Millicent reminded herself of the fact that beauty was a tool and, if wielded skilfully, one of the most dangerous weapons. Hadn't Blaise's mother set the perfect example of what beauty could do? The thought of Mrs. Zabini's seven husbands made her shudder. She wouldn't become the victim of Blaise's good looks, that was for sure.
"Then you must know the Moulin Rouge," Blaise said.
Fortune favoured the trickster, Millicent thought with grim amusement. She might not know Paris, but she remembered Slughorn's endless stories. The decline of the belle époque wizarding culture must have been one of his favourite subjects.
"The Moulin Rouge," she said, trying to sound not too smug, "may have had its good days, but they're long over. Nowadays it's merely a Muggle tourist attraction."
"Haven't you heard of the new wizarding section?" The devilish smile exploded, and Millicent finally understood. Blaise was taking the piss out of her for no other reason than his own amusement. The provincial atmosphere of wizarding London and its clubs must bore him to death, and Millicent provided a convenient distraction.
She clenched her hands into fists. She wouldn't tolerate Blaise's abuse any longer. With the intention to Firecall Pansy tomorrow to apologise for her abrupt departure, she stood up. "I have to go now."
"Millie, wait!" Blaise reached for her arm.
His fingers were strong and elegant, she couldn't help to notice. They were blazing iron tongs, burning the pudgy flesh of her forearm. Her mental image of a stone had long since turned into red-hot lava. Her fists were the only weapons she could still trust.
Her punches had lost nothing of their effectiveness. Blaise's nose made a dull crunching sound. Millicent suspected it was broken, but she didn't stay to find out.
Lazy clouds drifted across the afternoon sky. A gentle breeze played through the leaves of the trees and rippled the surface of the lake. Hogwarts lay in deep holiday slumber. Millicent had never seen it that quiet before. It reminded her of a fairytale castle under the spell of a powerful witch.
This was, however, neither the time nor the place for idle musings on children's stories or the beauty of nature. Her Animagus form required all her attention. Currently it was forcing her to hide under a rock, and Millicent had a hard time not to fall asleep. Don't let the animal control you! she remembered Skeeter's lessons. You must never forget, this is still you. Conceal yourself in the skin of the animal, but use your own brain. Use your own ears to hear and your own eyes to see. Concentrating on her task, Millicent crawled out of her hiding place.
The sunshine hurt her eyes, and while the high grass provided shade, her progress was still painfully slow. The way up to the castle seemed to stretch endlessly. Millicent cursed the stupid midwife toad. Why couldn't she have been a bird or a bat? Even being a nasty bug like her boss would have been preferable to this. At least Skeeter could fly.
Having reached the small beach opposite the castle without meeting a single person, she wondered whether she shouldn't take the risk and change back to her human form. The small clump of trees at the edge of the lake would make for excellent cover. She was just about to think the spell when the warts on her skin tingled in warning. It was a familiar sensation, that of strong privacy wards. As a witch, she would have never been able to breach them, but the toad had no difficulties to enter the isolated space.
She found herself on a tartan blanket, a picnic basket shielding her from view -- not that it was likely that the other occupants of the blanket would notice her; they were too busy with themselves. Millicent was too close to the ground to be able to recognise details. A forest of hair and vast expanses of naked skin was all she could discern. She crawled along the edge of the blanket, anxious to find an elevated spot. The basket was out of the question, being not tall enough to allow a full view of the surroundings. A small birch tree seemed to be her only option. The toad was unaccustomed to climbing, but Millicent forced her will on it, and she was rewarded for her pains. The headline she'd been sent to look for was right in front of her eyes; she didn't even have to snoop around the castle to find it.
HOGWARTS SEX SCANDAL: HEADMISTRESS INVOLVED IN LESBIAN AFFAIR WITH SLYTHERIN HEAD OF HOUSE
Millicent cringed. Skeeter would be delighted, but Millicent detested this kind of sensationalist journalism. She didn't want to build a reputation for scandal-mongering. Besides, she had learned to respect McGonagall for her fairness in dealing with what had been called the Slytherin Issue after the war, and Professor Sinistra had always been her favourite teacher. She would hate to ruin their lives.
There had to be another way to save her job. If she listened to their pillow talk, she might yet learn something she could use for a different sort of article. She crept onto one of the low hanging branches so as to be able to hear every word.
The two witches on the blanket had a long way to go until they would enter the pillow talk phase. Millicent told herself that she didn't close her eyes out of fear that the toad might inadvertently fall asleep if she did so, but she had to admit that she was fascinated by what she saw. Wearing only a pair of black stockings, Sinistra was a striking woman. With her round belly and the big breasts, she was the embodiment of mature femininity. Millicent was amazed. She would never have thought that a fat woman could look so good.
In contrast, McGonagall was still fully clothed. The only concession she had made to the occasion was to remove her ankle-length boots. Her toes curled into the grass beside the blanket as the two women kissed.
McGonagall finally interrupted the kiss. Her glasses were steamed up, and she removed them, folding them neatly and setting them on top of the basket. She looked prim even without them. Millicent had difficulties to separate the private McGonagall in front of her from the aloof teacher she had known for so long. She winced as McGonagall now touched Sinistra's breasts.
Millicent squeezed her eyes shut, biting back the bile that rose in her throat as unwelcome images invaded her mind. She didn't recall the faces of the men she'd had sex with. They were of no importance, anonymous Muggles she had met on her many excursions into the unknown, the shady trips she would make whenever her burning curiosity got the better of her. The thought of these men disgusted her. She remembered their hands on her breasts. Big hands, small hands, fat or hairy hands, hands blue with tattoos, dirty or clean hands -- they came in many shapes and sizes, but their greed had always been the same. They had squeezed and kneaded her breasts, pinched her nipples or moulded her breasts together in order to create a tight channel around equally greedy cocks. -- Take that, you fat slut. Do you like it? Tell me that you like it, Fatty. -- Covering her breasts in semen, they had marked her in a final act of triumph.
The toad could feel the heat of the sun on its back. It grew more and more distressed, whereas Millicent fought a different kind of revulsion. She reminded herself again that these men meant nothing to her. She didn't even blame them. They had treated her according to the rules of the game she had chosen to play, and they had taught her what she had wanted to learn. They didn't matter. Her job was all that mattered right now. Focusing on the animal, she brought it back under her control and forced it to open its eyes. She was surprised by what she saw.
McGonagall's touch couldn't be more different from the touch of those men. She caressed Sinistra's breasts as though she were worshipping them, cupping them in her hands and teasing the nipples with gentle fingers. She lowered her head and began to lick circles around one big aureole, then sucked the nipple into her mouth. After devoting equal time to both breasts, she kissed her way down to Sinistra's bellybutton. Sinistra, moaning and squirming under her caresses, tapped her on the shoulder. "Didn't you forget something?"
McGonagall looked up. "What do you want me to do?" she asked with a smile. Her cheeks were flushed bright pink. Her eyes glittered. A strand of hair had escaped her bun and fell over her face. She was a changed person, the stern teacher only a faint memory. Millicent was intrigued by McGonagall's metamorphosis into a sensual woman, but it was her smile that mesmerized her. She had seen it before.
McGonagall's eyes weren't long and slanting, and although she had the prominent cheekbones of a Scotswoman, they weren't nearly as high and chiselled as Blaise's. Their facial features were worlds apart, and still, the smile was the same.
The truth hit Millicent square in the face. She flinched at the metaphor, remembering the crunching sound of Blaise's nose. She shouldn't have hit him. He had done nothing wrong. It had been Millicent's fault not to recognise the obvious.
Millicent's thoughts ran wild. Confusion and certainty mixed with a joy so intense that she thought she was going to explode. She watched as Sinistra slowly unbuttoned McGonagall's robes, revealing fine-boned shoulders and firm small breasts. The two witches on the blanket were so different in appearance, and yet they fit so well together. Earth and water, night and day, Slytherin and Gryffindor -- united, they became a new dawn. Something inside Millicent started to melt at the sight of their beauty. Sinistra loosened McGonagall's bun in between kisses, and a silver waterfall spilled over McGonagall's shoulders, cascading down her back and caressing her tight bum with fine ripples. Millicent closed her eyes to give them the privacy they deserved. Blaise's smile was all she could see now.
The toad woke in panic. Gusts of wind were hitting the birch tree, and the branch on which it was perched was swaying dangerously. Before Millicent could regain control, the animal had already slipped. She fell to the ground with a thud, finding herself perilously close to a pair of sturdy shoes. "What do we have here?" the owner of the shoes asked, kneeling down in the grass and picking Millicent up.
"Is something wrong?" McGonagall's voice could be heard in the distance.
Millicent struggled to break free, but Sinistra held her in an iron grip. "Why don't you go on ahead and put the kettle on?" she called. "I discovered an interesting specimen of Alytes obstetricans, but I promise, I'll be there before you can add Firewhisky to our tea."
"I wish you would keep your eyes to the stars and leave the reptiles and amphibians to Hagrid. But who am I to come between a woman and her hobby." The wind carried McGonagall's laughter away.
Sinistra put her back on the grass, but before Millicent could gather herself and flee, she was hit by a spell. Blue-white heat encompassed her, blinded her and ripped her apart. The toad writhed in agony. Helplessly, Millicent was forced to let it go. The world grew smaller around her. Her legs wobbled, and she sat heavily on the ground. She looked at her hands in confusion. "How did you know?"
Black teacher's robes concealed Sinistra's feminine curves. She was completely transformed. Pointing her wand at Millicent, she looked grimmer than Millicent had ever seen her. "A midwife toad is an unusual sight in Scotland, and in broad daylight, too. But imagine my surprise at seeing one fall from a tree."
A tsunami of shame and anger crashed over Millicent. Her cheeks burned and her stomach seethed. Words formed in her mind only to immediately dissolve again. Phrases appeared, strings of jumbled sentences that made no sense at all. Lame apologies warred with dishonest explanations. There really wasn't anything to say. "I hate my Animagus form," she finally blurted out.
"There's nothing wrong with your Animagus form." Sinistra resolutely shoved her wand up her sleeve and stood with arms akimbo, every inch the teacher Millicent had known all these years. "The midwife toad is a fascinating animal, exemplary for its parental care. It's the male who carries the eggs, leaving the female free to pursue her own interests."
"It's ugly," Millicent said without thinking. She still hadn't regained her composure, and the whole conversation seemed absurd to her.
"Ugly is as ugly does." Sinistra gave Millicent the same look she had given her back at school when she had forgotten to bring her telescope to class. Millicent was convinced that it was that look, disapproving but also questioning, that was responsible for Millicent's orderliness.
Sinistra sat down on the grass opposite her. "You're surprisingly shallow for someone of your intelligence and inquisitiveness, Miss Bulstrode," she said. "Rita Skeeter's influence, I have no doubt about it. She was one of the worst students I have ever had the misfortune to teach, and as shallow as the mirrors she's so fond of. That girl couldn't look through a telescope before having checked her reflection in the brass tube a dozen times."
A diminutive Skeeter, distorted by the convex surface of a telescope, strutted through Millicent's mind. The image was ridiculous, but Millicent wasn't in the mood for laughing.
"The Headmistress and I have been speculating about you -- whether or not you would adopt Skeeter's methods. Professor McGonagall expected that it would happen sooner or later, but I begged to differ with her. It seems I have lost my bet."
"I'm sorry," Millicent said, and it was the truth. She wanted to blame Skeeter for everything, but that would have been too easy. She had played along, after all. She had mastered the Animagus transformation knowing full well what would be expected of the animal, and she had always, if grudgingly, followed Skeeter's rules. Her ambition to become a renowned writer was no excuse, on the contrary. Making a promise to herself to quit her job first thing Monday morning, she repeated, "I'm sorry."
"No, you are not," Sinistra said forcefully. "You're a Slytherin. Slytherins aren't sorry. They're imaginative and resourceful and have the ability to find a solution to any problem, am I not right?"
The little park off Diagon Alley buzzed with Sunday afternoon life. Fortescue ice cream cones and Weasleys' Wondrous Welding Wands ruled the playground. If unsuspecting strollers didn't get singed by misdirected welding beams, they would undoubtedly fall victim to flying scoops of chocolate caramel cluster or pumpkin pleasure. House-elf nannies sat on a row of tiny chairs, banging their heads against the wrought-iron railing in front of them whenever one of their charges annoyed another unfortunate passer-by.
Blaise was waiting at a safe distance, watching the chaos with haughty composure. His face seemed chiselled in stone, and to all appearances, he could have been one of the statues guarding the entrance to Lover's Lane. Millicent noticed with relief that his nose looked exactly the same as before. She clenched her hands into fists, then unclenched them again self-consciously. She straightened her robes, checking once more to ensure that the pumpkin ice cream stain was truly gone. Plucking up all her courage, she stepped into the sunlight. "Hello, Blaise."
He didn't smile as he saw her, merely nodded his head. "I got your Owl," he said. "You wanted to talk to me?"
To Owl him had been a mistake, Millicent now knew. Nothing she could say or do would ever bring that smile back. She wished Dilly were here to bang her head against the railing for her, but unfortunately, Millicent wasn't six any more. "I wanted to apologize," she said. "I'm sorry for ..." She rubbed her nose, embarrassed. "... you know."
Endless seconds passed. Millicent was too busy shrinking under Blaise's stare to be able to count them. "Would you care to elaborate?" he finally said. "I want to understand. What the fuck did I do wrong?"
"Nothing." Rivulets of sweat ran down her forehead, but her mouth was a desert. Swallowing hard, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "You did nothing wrong. It was all in my head. I thought you were making fun of me."
"What? But why?" He looked puzzled for a moment, insecure even, before his face became stone again.
"Bloody hell," Millicent burst out. "What was I supposed to think? Someone like you being interested in someone like me -- you have to admit, that sounds pretty unbelievable."
Blaise shook his head in slow motion. "I don't get it. What's so unbelievable about it?"
"Do you want me to spell it out for you?" Millicent had to be careful not to Disapparate accidentally, so desperate was her wish to be somewhere else. Startled by a horrible noise, she turned around in panic, afraid that her magic had gone haywire.
The stone guardians of Lover's Lane had come to life with a roll of thunder. Flashes of lightning shot from their outstretched wands. A teen couple was hurled through the air, Gryffindor scarves flapping. They collided with Millicent and sent her stumbling backwards, right into Blaise's arms.
It was over as suddenly as it had begun. Millicent barely noticed the statues creaking back into place or the students blowing them raspberries before running away giggling. Blaise's hands on her arms distracted her. The heat of his breath against her cheek made her dizzy. Her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of his reach. "Bloody Gryffindors," she said in an attempt to cover up her arousal. "Will they ever learn to follow the rules?"
"You could always interview me," Blaise said.
"What do you mean?" she asked, puzzled by this non sequitur.
"You're a journalist," Blaise said, the hint of a smile on his face. "When you interview someone, you'll be able to determine what their true motives are, won't you?"
Three days ago, Millicent would have agreed with him, but now she wasn't so sure any more, especially when Blaise was the one to be interviewed. Enticed by the promise of seeing that smile again, she nodded anyway.
"We could go there." Blaise gestured at the entrance to Lover's Lane. "It would give us some privacy."
He had a point. Amongst head banging house-elves, flying ice cream scoops and daredevil Gryffindor minors Millicent would never be able to concentrate on asking the right questions. Resolutely, she moved in the direction of the guardians.
"We have to enter together, or else we won't be admitted." Falling in step with her, Blaise took her hand. The statues didn't move a stone limb as they passed.
Millicent had never been to Lover's Lane before, but she had heard of its wonders. She was a little disappointed to find herself on an ordinary country road edged by overgrown hedges. "I can't see what's so special about it," she said.
"It's wizard space," Blaise explained. "The entire adult population of wizarding Britain could be around here somewhere, and we wouldn't be the wiser. Let me show you."
He waved his wand, and an opening appeared in the hedge. Behind it was a rose garden. A bench invited them to rest near a splashing fountain in the shade of a pear tree. The roses were in full bloom and filled the air with a rich, heady fragrance.
"Very romantic," Millicent said in a dry voice, trying very hard not to be impressed by the luscious beauty of the flowers.
"Sorry about that," Blaise muttered, making the hole in the hedge disappear with another wave of his wand. "Do you want to give it a try?"
Fumbling for her wand, Millicent noticed that they were still holding hands. She quickly released his hand and wiped her sweaty palm on her robes. "Is there an incantation?"
He shook his head and gave her a wavering smile. "Just relax. The magic is supposed to find the right place for us."
Millicent closed her eyes. When she opened them again, a gap in the hedge revealed a pasture enclosed by a low dry-stone wall. A few scattered snowdrops and a small patch of wild daffodils decorated the otherwise bare grass. Millicent was satisfied with what she saw. It had the sparse kind of beauty she was comfortable with and, considerably more important, it provided the much-needed privacy without distracting her with romantic nonsense.
The rock fence was just the right height for Millicent to sit. After spelling her shoes clean of cow dung, she pulled a roll of parchment from her robes and stretched it out on the wall beside her, keeping it in place with the help of four small stones. Watching Blaise negotiate his way around cow-pats, Millicent absent-mindedly produced an assortment of quills. She told herself that she could just as well do this professionally and chose an acid-green quill. Grimacing at the bitter taste, she put the tip into her mouth and sucked it for a couple of seconds in order to activate it. She placed it on top of the parchment. "Testing," she said, and the Quick-Quotes Quill moved into an upright position. "This is Millicent Bulstrode, Junior Correspondent for the Daily Prophet." The quill started to scribble.
Fat and ugly Millicent Bulstrode, twenty-six, whose deplorable lack of charm and self-control not only make her unsuitable for a career in investigative journalism, but also condemn her to the empty life of a spinster --
"What the fuck!" Blaise had successfully circumnavigated the last cow-pat and sneaked up on her. He eyed the parchment in open-mouthed astonishment. Before Millicent could prevent it, he had seized it. He shredded it to pieces without giving it another look. The quill leapt at him, spraying ink all over his robes with an angry hiss. Blaise caught it in his hand.
The quill wriggled to break free. Blaise glared at it. "What kind of hellish device is this?"
"It's just a writing aid. A Quick-Quotes Quill." Millicent was too shocked that Blaise had seen this, all her insecurities spelled out on parchment, to think of a convincing lie.
"A writing aid?" Blaise narrowed his eyes to slits. "That doesn't explain why it was spouting insults like that."
Millicent laughed out loud, a shrill and unpleasant sound. "It was nothing, really. Just a test, you know. I was merely fooling around a bit to see if it worked."
Blaise stared at her in silence. He didn't even need to raise an eyebrow to communicate his disbelief.
"Why do you even care? It's the tool of a professional journalist and of no concern to you."
Blaise still didn't say a word. It was unnerving. The silence was a rubber band ready to snap; it stretched thinner and thinner with every second that passed. Millicent couldn't bear it any longer.
"If you really must know, it's charmed to help me achieve a better writing style. To make my writing more interesting. There, satisfied?" Millicent breathed heavily. She was seething. She longed to Obliviate him, or simply to beat the living daylight out of him. Never in her life had she felt so exposed.
Blaise's stare didn't waver as he snapped the quill in half and threw the pieces to the ground. He broke eye contact only as he looked down to see where they had landed. The tip was still moving. Emitting green smoke and an acrid stench, it wriggled its way through a cow-pat. Blaise didn't flinch as he ground his heel into it.
"Are you mad?" Millicent slid from the fence and balled her hands into fists, ready to strike.
"You don't need a bloody instrument to improve your writing. It's fine as it is."
Blaise stood with hanging arms, frozen in place, waiting. His trendy dragon-hide boots were covered in cow dung, his robes and his hands splattered with ink. A single ink drop had even found its way onto his face. It adorned his cheek like the tattoo of a tear. He looked pathetic and beautiful and very human. All his haughtiness was gone. Seeing him vulnerable for the first time took the fight right out of Millicent. "You wouldn't know," she said quietly.
"Did you forget that I copied all your History of Magic essays? They were amazing." He smiled, and Millicent couldn't help herself, she smiled back.
She quickly turned away and climbed back on the wall. Blaise sat down next to her. "I want to get to know you better," he said after a while.
"I don't need a champion," Millicent said. "If you want this ..." She made a gesture to indicate that she hadn't yet decided what this implied. "... to work, you mustn't interfere with my job or with the way I handle things in general. I'm my own person, and trust me, I can take care of myself."
He took her hand. "Would you like to visit Paris with me the next weekend?"
She nodded.
Eventually, she spelled his boots clean of cow dung.
Monday morning, Millicent walked down Diagon Alley with a spring in her step. The sky was speckled with delivery owls. They came from all directions. Circling the Prophet building, they waited their turn to enter the Owlery through a small opening in the roof. Two owls caused a bit of a commotion as they approached the entry hole simultaneously. Angry hooting ensued, and a shower of coins rained down on the pavement. Millicent picked up a Knut for good luck and left the rest for the street urchins. She hummed as she entered the building.
Skeeter was already at her desk, sipping a fashionable coffee drink from Lavender's, crimson lips pursed around a green straw. She looked up as Millicent walked in. "Is your article on McGonagall ready to submit? What did you find out?" she asked in lieu of a greeting.
"Good morning to you, too," Millicent said calmly. Her fate would be decided within the next hour. If Sinistra had succeeded with her plan and convinced McGonagall to make a deal with the Prophet on Millicent's behalf, all would be well. The offer -- exclusive rights to the Triwizard Tournament on the condition that Millicent be the only correspondent allowed to write about it -- should be too good to refuse. If Millicent was lucky, she would even get promoted to Senior Correspondent and not be subordinate to Skeeter any longer. If, on the other hand, McGonagall proved to be every bit as stubborn as her reputation implied, Millicent would lose her job. In any case, it was out of her hands. She could as well make the best of the situation. She flashed Skeeter an innocent smile. "How was your weekend?"
Fixing Millicent with a piercing stare, Skeeter slurped the rest of her coffee through the straw. The noise was disgusting. Millicent gave a sigh of relief as Skeeter finally tossed the cup into the dustbin, but the silence was short-lived. Skeeter immediately started to drum her fingernails on the desk. "Actually, I'm more curious to hear about your weekend."
"How kind of you to ask." Millicent leaned back in her chair and looked out of the window. "I had a fabulous weekend," she said, and then she had to grin because, in a way, it was true. "The weather was just perfect."
"Don't be deliberately obtuse." Skeeter came out from behind her desk, swaying her hips like a cobra ready to strike. "Out with it -- do you have a story or not?"
A knock on the door saved Millicent from having to think of an answer. "Come in," Skeeter bellowed, but her voice became deep and sultry as the editor-in-chief stuck his head into the room. "Good morning, Barnabas."
He gave her a short nod, then turned to Millicent. "Miss Bulstrode, I'd like a word with you in my office. Headmistress McGonagall Owled me about you."
Without waiting for a response, he briskly walked away, leaving the door open for Millicent to follow. Skeeter cast her a speculative look, then bared her gold teeth in a derisive smile. "Bolloxed it up, did you? Good riddance, Miss Bulstrode."
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT: DANGEROUS LEGACY OR NEW BEGINNING?
The announcement of the Triwizard Tournament 2006-07 has started a controversy over the appropriateness of the renewal of a tradition that has cost the lives of many young witches and wizards, writes Millicent Bulstrode, Senior Correspondent.
Minister Shacklebolt supports Headmistress McGonagall's decision to reinstate the Tournament after the disastrous events of 1994-95, when Headmaster Dumbledore ultimately failed to do the same. There are, however, many voices in the Ministry that accuse him and McGonagall of dangerous madness. How justified are they?
While it is true that the famous contest between Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Hogwarts was discontinued in 1792 because of its mounting death toll, we should keep in mind that the death of Cedric Diggory, champion of 1994-95, was caused by Tom Riddle, self-appointed Lord Voldemort, and not by any of the Tournament tasks.
Headmistress McGonagall has granted The Daily Prophet exclusive media rights to cover the event. In an interview, she talks about the collaboration with the other schools and reveals her hopes and expectations.
"Our goal is to encourage friendship and camaraderie between the magic youth of different nationalities and backgrounds. In future, we plan to invite schools from other continents as well," she says.
She looks prim and aloof behind her old-fashioned desk, but her enthusiasm is evident in every word she speaks. Her task is the most demanding. She doesn't have to overcome dragons or giant spiders. Her opponents are an outdated bureaucratic system and the prejudices of a society that lived in seclusion for too long. It might turn out to be a fight against windmills, but if she succeeds, it could be the dawn of a new beginning.
(Read more of this exclusive interview on page 2.)
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