Rowena's Quill

Rowena took a leaf out of Alice's book and kept her relationship with Leonard a secret. Like Alice and Frank, they lasted beyond their Hogwarts years, and like Alice and Frank, they too shared a vision of how they could contribute to the fight against Voldemort. But unlike Alice and Frank, they did not elope immediately upon Rowena's graduation. Leonard spent a few years working for his father. The ins and outs of running of business were the same for Muggles and wizards alike, and Professor Dumbledore approved of their plan. When Leonard felt ready to make a go of it on his own, he married Rowena, and a few days later, they were ready to make their announcement.

"Leonard, please stop that. You're making me nervous," said Rowena, clamping her hand over her husband's tapping fingers.

"I can't help myself," he mumbled, trying to hide his words from Professor Dumbledore. It didn't seem very respectful after all. Dumbledore's vote of confidence ought to be enough for them, but they did care quite a bit what the members of his Order would think. Rowena knew how much Leonard hoped to impress Potter and Black. They'd been in his year at school, and were always too cool to notice him. Leonard preferred Lupin and hoped to have him at the meeting, but they were told he was ill that night.

Rowena felt a little guilty. She had insisted that Alice come because she wanted the support of a friend in her corner. It wasn't fair that Leonard wouldn't have the same thing.

She sighed to herself. "Why aren't we above these things? We're not teenagers in school anymore. We're adults in our twenties." Somehow, though, those adolescent concerns were hard to shake.

Much to Rowena's relief, Frank and Alice were the first to arrive.

"Ohhhhh," moaned Alice, rubbing her ears from what seemed to be a painful apparition.

A concerned Frank conjured her a velvety easy chair and Dumbledore, ever the gracious host, sent a cold drink floating her way.

"It means so much to me that you came," said Rowena earnestly.

Alice nodded as she sipped her drink. "No problem," she said. "I'll be fine."

Rowena wasn't so sure, but before she had a chance to say more, a silver patronus in the form of a stag galloped into the room.

"Ah!" said Dumbledore, and he waved his wand around the window frame so that it quadrupled in height and width. Rowena looked out into the moonlit Hogsmeade night. She didn't see anyone coming. Then, a big gust of wind burst into the room, and out of nowhere appeared James and Lily Potter on a broomstick.

"Potter! An invisibility cloak?" boomed Frank, getting up and shaking his hand.

"Flying has got to be easier than apparating at this stage of the game," said Alice.

"It is," Lily agreed. "Much." James conjured her an easy chair identical to Alice's.

"I am so sorry, Alice," said Dumbledore, sending around more drinks. "If I had known this meeting would cause you so much discomfort - "

"No, I'm sorry," Rowena interrupted. "I was the one who insisted - "

"It's fine," said Alice. "I may have been a Hufflepuff, but I can brave a little discomfort as well as any Gryffindor."

Her husband patted her hand proudly. "Did I tell you that Bagman has been taking bets around the Ministry as to which of you will be first?"

"Ick," Lily and Alice said simultaneously.

"Ten galleons says it happens on the same day!" said James, but before anyone had a chance to take the bet, the roar of a motorcycle muffled everything and everybody.

"Sirius!" James laughed, and in the next moment, Sirius Black apparated into the room, and the two were clapping each other on the back as though they hadn't seen each other in years.

"All present and accounted for," said Dumbledore.

"Think you could have made a bit more noise, Sirius?" Lily asked him.

"Love you, too, babe," he retorted as he conjured himself a seat.

"As I was saying, all present and accounted for. Now, as we all know, the Order has long been able to boast of its valiant warriors, may they continue to be successful," Dumbledore paused to raise his glass to them, "but we have been lacking in a press of our own. Leonard?"

Rowena squeezed Leonard's hand, and with their placards, he took his place at the front of the room. Rowena could see he was nervous; he wasn't used to public speaking. With his wand shaking ever so slightly, he levitated the placards so that everyone could read the headlines: LOVE POTION OR LOVE POISON?, FLIRTATIONS IN THE WIZENGAMOT, HOUSE ELVES ON STRIKE.

"Let's hear about the love potion first," said Dumbledore.

Leonard cleared his throat, pushed up his glasses, and began: "The mysterious disappearance of famed cover witch Capricia Knolle from all major fashion magazines has been explained by her personal assistant as "her need for a holiday." BUT WAS IT?

Skink Tatterdemalion, owner of the Diagon Alley news kiosk, reported that she left her photographs after sprouting fur and long, prehensile tail.

"That was some tail," said Tatterdemalion. "It was wrapping itself around the palm trees on the travel magazines. Can't blame her for hiding."

An unnamed St. Mungo's potioneer has confirmed that Ms. Knolle has been in the Potion and Plant Poisoning ward for a week, suffering the after-effects of a faulty love potion. The offending ingredients have been identified as a bad combination of chocolate and bubotuber juice, and it is unknown whether this will spell the end of Ms. Knolle's career."

"Chocolate and bubotuber juice," repeated Dumbledore. "Good to know. Now, please indulge me. Read my favorite."

Leonard took a deep breath and started to read the next placard: "The promotion of Albus Dumbledore to Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot was widely regarded as a shoe-in, just deserts to the wise, if eccentric, Hogwarts headmaster. BUT WAS IT?

"Dumbledore's not as great as people think," said our source, an anonymous secretary employed in the Ministry. "He only got the position because all the witches on the Wizengamot have had raging crushes on him since their own school days. One twinkle from those baby blues and he's got them eating out of his palm."

Dumbledore clapped his hand to his heart and cried, "I'm exposed!," but the other members of the Order didn't find it at all funny. They looked more like they were considering giving Leonard a good punch in the nose.

"Well, dear friends, what do you say to our new press? Sirius, how about you?" Sirius squirmed in his chair as though he was feeling like an adolescent now, a schoolboy cornered by the headmaster. "Come now, Sirius, since when have you been afraid to speak your mind?"

"All right, since you've asked, I think it sounds like a load of old rubbish."

"Oh, but doesn't it, though?" said Dumbledore.

"And I'm sure you never thought very highly of the author either," said Leonard in a tone that made Rowena nervous. Years of bottled up resentment was about to come pouring forth, not just from Sirius from all the "cool" people they'd known in school. A litany of insults Leonard had suffered soon followed. "Mealy-mouthed prat," said Leonard. "Weirdo. Mudblood."

"I've never used a word like that!" said Sirius.

"We all know about your family," said Leonard. "I understand you fight solidly on the right side, but who's to say you haven't inherited some of the old family values?"

Sirius whipped out his wand and jumped to his feet. "How dare you!"

"Gentlemen!" said Dumbledore, stepping between them.

"He's nothing like his family," said James decisively.

Leonard scoffed. Potter's defense didn't mean much to him.

"It's true," said Lily. "He's always treated me with respect all the time I've known him."

Both Sirius and Rowena shot Lily looks of gratitude. Since her experience in the matter carried the most weight of anyone else in the room, Leonard calmed down.

"Very well then," he said, "I am sorry I misjudged."

"Apology accepted," said Sirius, his tone a little cold, but still sincere.

As the tension in the room receded, Alice began to try to get a closer look at the love potion placard.

"May I?" she asked. Dumbledore smiled and nodded, and Rowena could not suppress a wide grin. She knew Alice would be the first to catch on.

"Accio!" said Alice, and the placard sailed into her hands. She examined it for a little while, turning it over in all directions, and finally, holding it upside-down, she read hesitantly: "Mrs. Sophie Starkle Rockrimmon is pleased to announce the marriage of her daughter Rowena to the Muggle-born wizard Leonard Lovegood. The couple was married in a small, private ceremony, attended by close family and friends last Sunday."

Frank and Lily peered over at the placard from either side of Alice.

"Congratulations," said Lily.

"Incredible!" said Frank. "It's all encoded Runes."

"The two of you composed them yourselves?" asked James.

"Just as it says, the wedding announcement was penned by Rowena's mother," said Leonard. "But the others are a collaborative effort between myself and my wife."

"Leonard's accomplishment is much greater than mine, actually," said Rowena. "I was raised on Runes. My mother is an expert, and she gave me a quill which can -"

"She's just being modest," Alice interrupted. "Rowena's a genius at Runes. She got me through my O.W.L."

Rowena blushed and said, "You got me through Herbology."

"Let's hear the one about Dumbledore," said James, "but . . . uh . . . someone else better translate. Runes was never my subject."

"Try these," said Leonard, tossing James a pair of multicolored glasses. He was relaxed and enjoying himself now. Rowena was happy to see it.

"Why shouldn't he triumph?" she thought. "He's clever, and talented, and deserves his day in the sun."

James fit the glasses over his regular ones and held the placard upside-down. "This is all about your recent battle with those Death Eaters!"

"Do you think they had raging crushes on me, too?" asked Dumbledore innocently.

"Of course, it would be unwise to use real names in the articles very often," said Leonard.

"Celebrity names work well," Rowena continued. "We decided on Capricia Knolle, for example, because she's famous and frivolous."

"Just call me Stubby Boardman," said Sirius.

"Done," said Leonard, smiling at him as a further peace offering. Rowena smiled, too. Eventually, these two would be friends.

"It's just like a Muggle tabloid," said Lily. "Who would have thought . . ."

"My Dad runs a Muggle newspaper himself, actually," said Leonard. "It's local, nothing big, you know, but it thrives. But sometimes he complains that the tabloids make more money with their lies than he does reporting the truth."

"And of course The Prophet sells lies masquerading as truth," said Rowena, "so we thought, why not masquerade truth as lies?"

"Hidden truths are usually the most powerful," said Dumbledore, "but I suppose that is because most people cannot face truth head on."

"What's the code for Voldemort?" Frank asked.

"The Crumple-Horned Snorkack," said Rowena, proudly.

"The what?" said Sirius.

"The Crumple-Horned Snorkack," Leonard repeated. "Haven't you heard of it? It's rather an extraordinary creature with awesome magical powers, but it's very rarely spotted and even harder to catch."

"My goodness," said Alice, chuckling, "you two . . ."

"That's positively bizarre," said James.

"Talk about your hidden truths," said Lily.

"We used my quill for that one," explained Rowena. "For such an important code, I felt we should get some help."

"Of course," said Dumbledore, "but you haven't told us - have you decided on a name for our little underground press?"

"Yes," said Rowena, as all the placards returned themselves to her. "We're calling it The Quibbler."

The Quibbler enjoyed a productive and profitable first year. In its first edition, printed only a few weeks after that first meeting, it ran birth announcements for the Potters and Longbottoms. Lily had remarked that having babies in the middle of Voldemort's reign of terror was the best revenge against him, so the announcements took the form of an article on that summer's bumper crop of vervain, an herb lethal to the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. In the following spring, they ran a follow-up vervain article announcing the birth of their own daughter.

"Lily was right," said Rowena, kissing the baby in her arms for the millionth time. "There's no joy in the world like this, and it's the perfect antidote to all the doom and gloom we have to report."

But whether The Quibbler's subscribers were following the Rune-encoded descriptions of the war or whether they were just looking for laughs, Leonard and Rowena could never be certain. Either way, circulation was wider than either of them had ever dreamed.

The biggest surprise of all was the day of Voldemort's defeat. Owls flooded in carrying all sorts of rumors, so many that even they, professional rumor peddlers, could not work out the real truth. Only very late that night did Dumbledore send them a report, and then they worked until dawn to produce a special edition with articles entitled THE CRUMPLE-HORNED SNORKACK: EXTINCT OR JUST ENDANGERED? (Voldemort weakened but not dead), BANNED FROM QUIDDITCH (the tragic loss of James and Lily Potter), and GRINGOTTS' MISPLACED TREASURE (the removal of Harry Potter to his Muggle relatives.)

Rowena fell asleep nursing Luna, and awoke a few hours later to find Leonard still scribbling away.

"Leonard, go to sleep. You've earned it."

"I can't. There's been more news," he said grimly. He handed her an article entitled, STUBBY BOARDMAN RETIRES.

Rowena quickly scanned the article. "I don't believe it! Sirius Black, a Death Eater? But Dumbledore trusted him implicitly!"

"So did James."

Rowena sank into her chair, and two sat at the work desk they shared, staring at each other, too shocked for words. Luna gave a sudden coo from her crib.

"I'll get her," said Rowena. Cooing right back at the baby, Rowena picked her up and brought her to Leonard, and for a few minutes, the three of them sat together at the desk, parents momentarily cheered by admiring their daughter, who was grabbing everything within her reach.

"Don't touch, sweetie," said Rowena, pushing her quill further away. Stroking Luna's fresh crop of blonde hair, Rowena's eyes filled with tears. "Lily and James! It's so tragic! And their poor little boy! He'll never know either of his parents!"

Leonard put his arm around her. "It's horrible. They died as heroes, of course, but still . . ."

And in the next moment, the Lovegood family was sitting in a huddle, with Rowena crying, Leonard rocking her, and Luna sitting on both of their laps at once, blissfully unaware of what it all meant.