Draco was probably wrong.
That noon, when Hermione looked up from the Gryffindor table and spotted Rita Skeeter's lacquered, stiff, aggressively curly hair appearing in the entrance of the Great Hall, she couldn't help but think exactly that.
She never imagined she would one day find Draco's darkest predictions still too mild — he had, after all, thought the turbulent new school year at Hogwarts wouldn't begin until later.
Cornelius Fudge, who had been so emphatic about hoping to remain on good terms with Dumbledore, may have already sounded the opening note of his retaliation. And only a single morning had passed since that confrontation outside the Hospital Wing.
Why did Hermione connect Skeeter's appearance to Fudge?
The evidence arrived with Skeeter herself: she swept into the bustling Great Hall with her oversized chin raised, waving a special letter of authorisation personally approved by Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, and fixed her sights on Harry and Cedric with the air of soone who had already written the headline.
Dumbledore had banned Rita Skeeter from Hogwarts grounds so ti ago — back when both Hagrid and Mada Maxi had been exposed as half-giants in the Daily Prophet.
Who else could have compelled the bad-tempered Mr Filch to open Hogwarts' iron gates willingly, if not the Minister of Magic himself?
Hermione was forced to abandon her quiet study of how her boyfriend across the hall managed to eat a ringue soufflé with such insufferable elegance, and turn her full attention to Skeeter.
Skeeter and her photographer, Bozo, wasted no ti on pleasantries. They attempted to herd the two Triwizard Tournant champions toward the eting room at the back of the hall as though they were livestock.
Lunch had only just begun.
Students were steadily filing into the Great Hall and finding their seats. They gawked at Rita Skeeter's alarming green robes, and at the two champions who had planted themselves firmly in the open space near the entrance, refusing to move.
A low, restless buzz rippled through the hall.
"You'll be on the front page tomorrow — I've already spoken with the editor! This is a special assignnt sanctioned by Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge — you cannot refuse!" Rita Skeeter stroked her acid-green Quick-Quotes Quill, well-known for its appetite for embellishnt and slander, and peered through her jewelled spectacles at Harry and Cedric, who were both standing their ground. She was cleverly positioning herself to cut off any avenue of escape.
"I have nothing to say." Harry shook his head slowly. "I'm tired of your distorted reporting. Leave us alone."
Cedric, standing beside him, gave a single, firm nod.
Rita Skeeter's smile broadened, apparently impervious to Harry's words, and ploughed on regardless. "My readers are desperate to hear what truly happened… Could this refusal be an admission of guilt? So are suggesting there was a Hogwarts conspiracy behind this so-called victory…"
Both Harry and Cedric's expressions darkened.
"Aren't you going to do sothing about it?" Pansy Parkinson said, with a malicious sideways look. "Your precious girlfriend looks like she's about to charge over and tear that woman's hair out."
Draco had been halfway through a ringue cloud soufflé at the Slytherin table when Skeeter appeared, and had instantly lost his appetite.
He hadn't intended to intervene.
Frankly, the business with Bertha Jorkins had been a straightforward exchange — information for information — and it didn't make him and Skeeter anything resembling allies.
But in the ti it took him to set down his fork, Hermione had already jumped up from the Gryffindor table and gone to stand at Harry's side with Ron, facing Skeeter with her arms crossed and her expression like a thunderstorm.
Well. What could he do? This was entirely characteristic of Hermione Granger.
She had always had an acute sense of justice, and an even more acute sense of loyalty toward the people she cared about.
Right now, she was standing in front of Harry like a shield, speaking to Skeeter in a low, fierce voice — her smooth hair practically bristling, making her look remarkably like a small, very irritated lion.
For a boy who was, arguably, even more protective of his own — what other choice did he have?
Draco sighed, dabbed his mouth with a napkin, tucked the soiled edge inward so it sat neatly against the plate, and stood. He fastened his cufflinks, set his expression to its most composed and intimidating, and made his way at a asured pace to the open space in front of the hall.
Hermione had clearly already spotted him.
She glanced past Skeeter, her eyes eting his — a flicker of anger still there, but with a thread of relief running under it.
Draco raised an eyebrow, gave her a small, reassuring smile, and cleared his throat loudly enough to catch Skeeter's attention.
"Rita Skeeter—" He said the na slowly, as a Potions master might na a particularly unpleasant ingredient. "I have sothing to say to you."
"Bozo — keep an eye on those two!" Skeeter instructed her photographer, then turned to Draco with an expression that suggested she already knew exactly how this would go.
The mont Draco stopped looking at Hermione, his expression settled into sothing cool and blank.
"What exactly are you doing here?" he asked the reporter, his tone suggesting he found the answer both obvious and beneath him.
"Draco Malfoy — co to share more information?" Skeeter said with practised slipperiness, clearly still categorising him as a useful source.
"Why don't you write about Bertha Jorkins? I'd have thought that was more in your line." Skeeter's perfu was already giving him a headache. He glanced briefly at the dark-haired boy standing stiffly behind her and turned back to the reporter with a cold look. "Why co all the way to Hogwarts to harass two underage students?"
"Bertha Jorkins can't be reported." Skeeter ignored his expression entirely, raised one thick bejewelled finger toward the ceiling, and said, with the conspiratorial delight of soone sharing a great secret, "That story has been suppressed from above. But I must say — thank you for that tip, darling. It led straight to a friendship with Fudge himself."
She smiled with great satisfaction. "In exchange, he gave special authorisation to cover the Triwizard Tournant championship for this edition."
"So you've attached yourself to Fudge's coattails," Draco said in a mild, enquiring tone, while sothing cold and unpleasant settled in his stomach. He was beginning to understand that a piece on the chess board had moved sowhere he hadn't anticipated. "Should I congratulate you?"
He caught, over Skeeter's shoulder, a glimpse of Hermione watching him with a look that mixed concern with sharpness.
"I might as well tell you — he's very invested in this story. He even suggested it could be written with a certain… flair." Skeeter's smile widened, with the self-satisfaction of a vulture that has caught a very promising scent. "For a man as reputation-conscious as Cornelius Fudge, this is an extraordinary degree of trust. The Triwizard Tournant championship — people are expecting sothing with a little more bite…"
Flair. Draco thought with cold irritation. Fudge was as good as telling her to dig up dirt.
"I thought we had an understanding," he said, lowering his voice. "Potter isn't fair ga."
Around them, Cedric's Hufflepuff supporters seed to have sensed the atmosphere — students were rising from the table one by one and drifting closer.
Skeeter paid the gathering crowd no attention.
She gave Draco a quick, knowing look, her gold teeth catching the light. "I know our arrangent. But I've rather worked out what you actually care about."
She glanced back at Hermione, who was still watching her, and directed a particularly unpleasant smile her way. "What you actually care about is her. Harry Potter was always a distraction from your real concern."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Draco's pulse gave a single sharp beat, but he kept his expression entirely still and narrowed his eyes. "I think you're imagining things."
"Oh, I know everything, darling. Your mother asked to look into Hermione Granger. You're not the only contact I have at Hogwarts — and such a high-profile couple hardly needs much investigating." Skeeter's hands moved with the restless, theatrical energy of soone who was enjoying herself very much.
She smiled unpleasantly. "I never expected the young heir of the Malfoy family to make such an unconventional choice. No wonder you were so eager to threaten — you thought I'd mistaken her for Potter's girlfriend. That must have been alarming."
Draco's jaw tightened as he stared at her, parsing what she had just said.
His mother had privately hired Skeeter to investigate Hermione.
What, exactly, did she intend to do with that information?
He looked at the reporter with cold alarm, and felt, for the first ti, that this situation was moving beyond his control.
Skeeter pressed on, her expression gleeful. "Your partner at the Yule Ball. That jump into the Black Lake. And even before that — she stood up to a professor on your behalf in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Oh, you two have quite the story…"
Her tone shifted, acquiring a note of perford indignation. "You should have simply told . Given the nature of our arrangent, I would have been perfectly reasonable about it. You can imagine how put-upon I feel — I've been holding back countless Potter manuscripts because of her."
"You've got it wrong." The colour had drained slightly from Draco's face, but his voice stayed level.
"Harry Potter is not a negligible consideration, and this has nothing to do with my personal life. The terms stand — nothing negative about him." He held her gaze steadily.
And in truth, Draco had to admit to himself that his original motive for threatening Skeeter had been to protect Hermione.
But things had shifted since then. He genuinely didn't want Harry dragged through the mud again. The boy carried enough already.
Skeeter studied him for a mont, then smiled with cheerful indifference.
"Draco Malfoy," she said softly, "I'm not afraid of you any more. Your mother certainly doesn't approve of your girlfriend — and she won't be supporting you on this. I've collected a great deal of material on her, and I intend to show it to your mother at so point."
"I would strongly advise against acting rashly," Draco said, his tone dropping to sothing quieter and more deliberate. "Your unregistered extracurricular activities—"
"I'm only being polite to you because of your family na," Skeeter said airily. "Since you're not inclined to be reasonable—" she adjusted her ghastly spectacles and raised her voice without the slightest trace of fear, "feel free to report whatever you like about my little hobbies. Fudge will make sure I'm untouchable."
She looked around at the gathering crowd with a self-satisfied air. "And even if I stepped aside, soone else would do this interview. Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory will be interviewed today, and they will be in the paper tomorrow. That is not subject to negotiation."
Skeeter looked suprely pleased with herself.
She had every appearance of a woman who believed she was entirely beyond reach — not a gossip columnist with a dubious reputation, but soone with the full weight of the Ministry of Magic behind her, surveying Hogwarts from a considerable height.
Draco held her gaze with cold fury, and said nothing.
With Fudge's backing, his leverage over her had, for the mont, evaporated.
What made it considerably worse was the dawning realisation that he had, in a rather significant way, handed her the ans to board that particular ship himself.
Having apparently detected the flicker of helplessness in his expression, Skeeter decided she had given him quite enough face, and turned away.
She strolled back toward the two champions — who were now surrounded by a considerable number of students: Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws.
"Right, then — who wants to go first?" Skeeter said.
Cedric broke off a quiet conversation with the friends around him. He did not smile.
He said, with careful composure, "Professor Dumbledore has made clear that you are no longer permitted on school grounds."
Skeeter laughed.
Nothing in her eyes suggested she was remotely troubled by Cedric's words, or by the crowd around her. She drew herself up with an air of acquired importance, buoyed entirely by Fudge's favour.
"I don't answer to Dumbledore!" she said sharply. "This is a Ministry of Magic assignnt. Cooperate, and I might be generous in how I write you up. Refuse, and I can't promise this hall won't be full of Howlers by the end of the week…"
"In that case, Professor Dumbledore has nothing to do with it," Cedric said, jaw tightening. "I refuse this interview. Personally and unilaterally."
"So do I," Harry said imdiately.
"The paper's readers are all waiting for the inside story — the true account of Hogwarts' unlikely victory, the unknown side of its two champions." Skeeter's smile was unpleasant, and her next words were worse. "There are rumours circulating that both of you attacked the other schools' champions in the maze to secure your places. Perhaps this refusal is simply confirmation of that?"
The booing from the crowd was imdiate and sharp — loudest from the Hufflepuffs.
Two days had passed since the final task. Everything the champions had endured in the maze was slowly coming to light, pieced together through the patient, communal effort of Hogwarts students who had spent the subsequent days comparing notes and filling in gaps.
During the idle stretch of waiting for end-of-year marks, the story had assembled itself across the school like a mosaic — fragnt by fragnt, whisper by whisper.
The picture that erged had nothing to do with glory.
The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions had been attacked without provocation. The two Hogwarts champions had been subjected to a terrifying and involuntary Portkey that took them sowhere deeply wrong. The entire final task had been perated with the cold, creeping atmosphere of sothing not right — sothing close to death.
Harry and Cedric were standing here now through a combination of courage, ability, and luck that had been tested far beyond anything the Tournant was supposed to ask of them.
They had earned the respect of the entire school — a fact that even the more haughty Slytherins found difficult to dispute.
And yet the Daily Prophet had printed nothing. Not a word. The official record of events was a blank.
Now they had sent their least scrupulous reporter to conduct a coerced interview, while simultaneously circulating fresh slander about the very champions they claid to be honouring.
Was that not an insult? It was certainly sothing.
Draco noticed Harry's most devoted admirer — Colin Creevey of Gryffindor — shove his way to the front of the crowd. His small fra was pulled to its full height, and his usually cheerful, eager face was set in hard, cold lines.
"What Harry and Cedric need least," Creevey said loudly, "is another sensationalised distortion!"
"Oh — I rember you." Skeeter's eyes lit up with journalist's instinct. She produced a roll of parchnt from her crocodile handbag. The Quick-Quotes Quill leapt to the top line with evident enthusiasm. "Go on, then — sothing to add?"
Creevey's expression twisted with disgust. "Stay away from Harry Potter! You print rumours and call it reporting! Last ti you used my na and twisted everything I said — claiming Granger and Harry were inseparable, that she was his girlfriend! I never said any such thing! I haven't finished with you over that!"
Draco's opinion of Colin Creevey improved, slightly and involuntarily. He still rembered that article — "Colin Creevey says Harry is inseparable from a girl nad Hermione Granger…"
Now the record was set straight, in front of everyone.
Draco quietly struck the matter from his running tally and made a private, unilateral decision to no longer hold it against him.
Skeeter's smile faltered — briefly — then reset itself.
She dismissed Creevey with a glance and turned to survey the surrounding crowd with an expression of amusent.
"Perhaps a group interview? Who'd like to share their impressions of our two champions? So little-known details — stories from behind the scenes?"
"Get out," said Ernie Macmillan, with magnificent contempt. "We all know exactly who you are. Cedric told us about those rumours you invented. We don't believe a single word that cos from your quill!"
"Is that so? And what exactly did Cedric tell you? Did he happen to admit to attacking the other schools' champions in the maze?" Skeeter asked Ernie, with an expression of pleasant interest.
"That is complete rubbish. I suggest you leave imdiately." The voice was deep, the accent thick with Eastern Europe.
Viktor Krum.
He had co to stand beside Draco — not looking at Draco, but fixing Skeeter with a long, dark, thoroughly unfriendly stare.
He said, in his heavily accented English, "You are not welco here. Only friends are."
Draco hadn't expected that.
He studied Krum and the Durmstrang students behind him with raised eyebrows. After losing the Tournant, Krum was here — standing up for the Hogwarts champions.
A decent person, he decided. Fair.
"Viktor Krum — and what do you make of your defeat? Were you attacked by Hogwarts' champions, or did you simply find yourself outclassed?" Skeeter turned to him with bright, predatory interest, entirely disregarding everything he'd just said.
"We all faced death equally," Krum said in a low voice. "That is sothing soone like you could never understand."
"Fascinating. On a related note — did you know that your Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, was once a Death Eater?" Skeeter's smile widened. "Did he pass on any particularly advanced Dark Arts techniques?"
Draco was fairly certain, at that mont, that Krum's grip on his wand had tightened considerably.
Bozo, the portly photographer, seed to sense the shift in atmosphere. He took two steps forward, positioning himself beside Skeeter and staring outward with an expression intended to be intimidating.
A taut silence settled over the space.
The only sound was the frantic, self-satisfied scratching of the Quick-Quotes Quill as it covered parchnt.
Without anyone noticing quite when, the Quill had already filled two scrolls, hovering in the air. If it had possessed a face, it would undoubtedly have been smirking.
It did not smirk for long.
"Bang!"
Sothing struck it with trendous precision. The Quill, along with both parchnt scrolls, burst apart in a shower of fragnts that rained down over Rita Skeeter — across her robes, her hair, her face.
Every student in the hall stared.
"Who did that?" Skeeter's permanent smile disappeared entirely for the first ti. She looked around in a state of dishevelnt and shouted.
The slow, deliberate sound of heels.
A pale blue figure moved through the crowd.
Fleur Delacour, entirely composed, walked over from the direction of the Ravenclaw table.
She passed through the ripple of gasps and exclamations without altering her pace. She passed Crabbe and Goyle, who had been making their way over. She passed the Durmstrang students. She passed Krum. She passed Draco. And she ca to a stop directly in front of the reporter.
"," Fleur said, turning her elegant sandalwood wand between her fingers with perfect casualness. She wore a small, unhurried smile. "Consider it my personal response to your irresponsible reporting."
Rita Skeeter brushed the debris from her hair and swelled with outrage. "How dare you? This is a public magical assault! Cornelius Fudge will hear about this—"
"I am not a Hogwarts student. I am not subject to the British Ministry of Magic's jurisdiction." Fleur spoke slowly, with unhurried precision. "I used magic against a quill that was actively producing slanderous material — which I regard as a Dark artefact of a particularly insidious kind. It has damaged the reputation of Beauxbatons students and our Headmistress, and may well constitute grounds for an international diplomatic complaint." She raised her chin and looked down at Skeeter with an expression that conveyed, very clearly, that she found the woman both tireso and beneath her. "If I were you, I would consider very carefully whether I had the hide of a dragon. I don't think you do."
Skeeter went white, then red.
"She's extraordinary," Draco heard several students murmur nearby.
"Leave imdiately," Fleur continued, her voice dropping to sothing quieter and far more dangerous, "or I cannot guarantee what explodes next. It might be a lying piece of work. It might be a cowardly photographer." She let the sentence settle. "I can promise you I will have dealt with you long before the British Ministry of Magic has filed its first form."
With a sharp motion, she levelled her wand directly at Skeeter.
Bozo, who had been staring at Fleur with complete, slack-jawed fascination, appeared to have entirely forgotten that his job involved either protecting his partner or taking photographs.
Rita Skeeter's composure, for the first ti, showed genuine cracks.
She was a woman herself, and she understood — as only won truly do — what real fury looked like. She had the journalist's instinct for reading what lay beneath a calm surface, and what she read in Fleur Delacour's eyes was not a performance.
This was not rely a pretty face, either. The French champion had defeated a dragon single-handedly using a Sleeping Charm — a creature with scales resistant to most magic, typically requiring five or six trained dragon handlers to Stun. The Daily Prophet's internal ranking of the champions before the final task had placed Fleur Delacour as the most likely winner under ordinary circumstances.
"Let's go," Skeeter said to Bozo, in a low voice, sweeping fragnts of parchnt from her curls.
Bozo was still blinking. Skeeter slapped him sharply across the face to bring him back, and they began to move toward the entrance.
A burst of laughter rose from the students around them.
"You'll all regret this!" Skeeter called back from the doorway, jabbing her fingers at the hall at large, eyebrows arched in theatrical nace. "I rember every one of you. Every word. I'll give Fudge a full account — and he won't be pleased—"
"Out!" Fleur said, and the single word carried with it a force that rather settled the matter.
Skeeter left at sothing considerably faster than a dignified pace, catching her heel on the threshold on the way.
The Great Hall erupted.
Applause from all sides — boys and girls alike, from Gryffindor to Ravenclaw to Hufflepuff and, in a few grudging corners, even Slytherin. Cheers rose from the benches.
"Thank you, Fleur!" "Well done, Delacour!" "Brilliant!" "Bravo!" "To the bravest champion!" ca the voices from all around.
At this particular mont, no one in the hall was thinking about Veela blood or inherited charm.
This was respect. Genuine, earned, freely given.
Fleur Delacour allowed the corners of her mouth to lift.
That face — lit now with sothing real, sothing she had not always had occasion to show — was beautiful in a way it had not quite been before.
She received the applause of the entire hall with the ease of soone who had waited a long ti for this particular kind of recognition. She looked around slowly, taking in each face.
She was certain she had found what she had always wanted.
"De rien," she said simply — you're welco — and dipped into a curtsy that was, sohow, both graceful and entirely her own.
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