Sharpening the Savage Quill

"Congratulations, my dear," Gilderoy whispered, plopping down beside Rita at breakfast the next morning. On account of his homework, bath and beauty sleep, he had left her alone to finish the first issue of the newspaper, and Rita had been up until midnight working in the empty common room. Now, half the girls and a handful of boys in the Great Hall were poring over sheets of parchment bearing the heading, "The Hogwarts Herald: All the Gryffindor Gossip, Ravenclaw's Rows, Hufflepuff Hearsay, and the Slytherin Scoop."

"So, er, where'd you nick all that parchment from, anyway?" They still hadn't actually decided how to publish the paper by the time Gilderoy had retired to his dormitory the night before.

"Accio-ed it from the Ravenclaws! No, really, I transfigured it," Rita said in a hushed but playful tone, and in response to Gilderoy's puzzled expression, she hinted, "Gil, I'm surprised you didn't notice my hair. It's quite a bit shorter, don't you think?"

"Oh, why, yes. It's a lovely style, you know. Reminds me of my own, just a little bit. Yours is longer, though." Rita gave him a look that made it clear he was missing her point. Gilderoy rolled his blue eyes up to the ceiling in thought, and they lit up as he realized what Rita had done. "Ah! So you're saying ... it ... the parchment? Your hair's parchment--I mean, the parchment's your hair?" He looked quite impressed. "Transfiguration really is your subject, you know."

"Thanks, Gil," Rita said, her cheeks pink and her eyes sparkling behind her exaggerated cat's eye glasses. "It took ages to do, though. Seventy-five copies! But I reckon that should be plenty to set things rolling."

"You didn't have to write them all out, I hope."

Rita smiled and speared a kipper with her fork. "'Course not! I found a Duplicating Charm in the Student's Encyclopedia of Spells."

"So that thing's finally come in handy, then? Someone really should write textbooks that aren't so dreadfully dull, I think," Gilderoy muttered, taking up Rita's own copy of the Hogwarts Herald and scanning the single sheet. He was surprised to see that, meandering down the right margin beneath the headline "The Beater and His Bird," there was only a short, flattering article about Ludo Bagman and Elmira Bulstrode.

Anticipating his next remark, Rita quickly explained, "I thought it might be best to wait. See, I'll just mention them today, say something nice, and then a few days from now ... Bam! They'll never expect it." She was smiling rather wickedly.

Gilderoy couldn't help giggling at that as he turned his attention back to the parchment. Rita had devoted the top of the page to Euphemia Flint and Calvin Pucey's rather spectacular breakup in the library last Thursday. Both seventh years, Euphemia was the Slytherin Quidditch captain and Calvin, the Hufflepuff Seeker. Rita herself had predicted that their relationship was doomed ever since Calvin caught the Snitch in the recent match between their two houses, almost guaranteeing Hufflepuff would take the Quidditch Cup that year.

Rita had grown very interested in her breakfast by the time Gilderoy finished skimming that first story, which he had helped to write. He stopped reading for a moment to spread lemon curd over a piece of toast and choked a bit on his first bite as he continued on to the next article.

Your Hogwarts Herald reporter can exclusively reveal, he read, that Slytherin fifth year Gilderoy Lockhart was seen on Friday evening in an empty dungeon, talking to himself. What is so interesting about this? What was the subject of his rather one-sided conversation?

Peeking around the doorframe, this author first spied Lockhart gazing into a hand mirror and unwittingly revealing the secret to his much-coveted coiffure. "Ah, Sir Curls-A-Lot, what ever would I do without you?" Lockhart was heard to say as he admired his own reflection. "I'm sure Ludo Bagman would love to know all about you, my dear friend," he continued, referring once again to the newest addition to the Beautifully Bewitched line of hair care and personal hygiene products. And, of course, you'd have to have spent this year at the bottom of the lake to not know that Ludo Bagman is a new member of the Slytherin Quidditch team, wowing students and staff alike with his brilliant Beating. Apparently, Bagman's also the reason for at least one of his housemates to have been attacked by that green-eyed monster, jealousy.

Now, as you may have noticed, Ludo Bagman has been seen recently dangling from the arm of one Elmira Bulstrode. This reporter dares to suggest that perhaps she is also the object of Gilderoy Lockhart's affection and the root of his envy. I posed this theory to Lockhart's best friend and confidante, the vivacious Rita Skeeter. "Well, just between you and me," she said, "he was just crushed when I told him last year I didn't fancy him as anything more than a friend. It's about time he's found someone else besides himself to go making eyes at."

Suddenly, before he'd even managed to react to what he'd just read, Rita ripped the parchment from his grasp and said too loudly, as if she were a poor actress, "Oh, Gil! How could they? I never-"

Cutting herself off mid-sentence, she grabbed the front of his robes and hauled him out of the Great Hall just as Ludo and Elmira were arriving. As they passed the end of the Slytherin table, Euphemia Flint finished reading the intrusive article about her personal life. Holding out the curiously blond piece of parchment between her thumb and forefinger, it went up in flames with a murderous look and a muttered incantation, the ashes falling directly into the girl's cereal.

Rita didn't loosen her grip on Gilderoy until they had reached the second floor, where she wrenched open a door marked Girls and pushed him through before her. Stopping short, Rita was knocked forward into her friend as the door slammed shut against her rear.

"What are you on about?" Gilderoy sputtered, feeling utterly betrayed, as he pushed Rita off him and began straightening his robes.

"Really, Gil, you didn't see that coming? It was your own idea!" Rita's face scrunched up in annoyance as she spoke.

"Wha--No, no, it wasn't! And that--none of that ever happened. When did I ever go off on a rendezvous with myself in some dungeon?"

"Oh, fine, so I embellished a bit. It's called art, Gilderoy."

The boy looked as though he were very near to bursting into tears. "But Elmira Bulstrode, Rita! How could you? No one will ever look at me the same way again!" Gilderoy sighed dramatically and backed up into the bank of sinks, slumping against the nearest basin. He only hoped she didn't realize he wasn't only upset about Elmira; until today, he had been happily under the impression that Rita had forgotten all about what had happened last year, as she'd said she would. Gilderoy, of course, couldn't avoid remembering that February fourteenth when he had attempted to kiss her cheek and was met with the palm of her hand pushing his face away from hers. He no longer desired to do any such thing to Rita, but, nonetheless, the incident had been a sharp blow to his adolescent ego.

Rita only waved her hand dismissively and said, "They'll forget about it soon enough."

Gilderoy frowned back at her for a long moment, looking thoroughly unconvinced. "Right." He pushed himself off the sink and headed for the door. "Well, ta, Rita."

As the door slammed shut behind Gilderoy, a sullen, bespectacled ghost drifted out from the direction of the toilets. "Was that a boy I heard?" Moaning Myrtle asked in a high-pitched voice. "Boys in here are always trouble. Especially you Slytherins." She glared at Rita, crossing her transparent arms.

"Oh, shut your gob, Myrtle. He's just being thick." Rita shook her head and made a tutting noise. "No concept of sacrifice for the greater good."

Glancing at her wristwatch, she muttered a mild curse, realizing she'd left her schoolbag in the Great Hall and had only a few minutes in which to retrieve it before double Potions began. As she left the lavatory, Rita couldn't help wondering if Gilderoy'd been upset about something else... She wasn't lying, though; he couldn't pin that on her. It was true he'd fancied her, somehow, over everyone else, and she'd only published that information because she'd needed something. And she knew she was right, the whole matter would be forgotten, and everyone's attention would be turned to Bulstrode instead. And, anyway, their friendship had never been any worse for it. Gilderoy would come around, eventually. As unlikely as it sometimes seemed, he was a Slytherin, after all.

By the time Rita made it down to the dungeons for Potions, she was rather winded and not at all surprised that the only empty seat was her usual one, right beside Gilderoy in the back of the room. Most of the time, the pair spent these hours whispering snide remarks about their classmates. Rita and Gilderoy's inattention was rarely noticed, though; it was the opinion of the haughtier Slytherins that the trusting but absent-minded Potions mistress, Professor Mitis, was the perfect embodiment of Hufflepuff House.

The lesson had already begun when Rita flopped down beside her best friend, hoisting her Potions materials out of her bag. "Psst, Gil, what are we working on today?" she whispered as she cleaned the lenses of her glasses with the cuff of her robes. From this distance, she couldn't see the blackboard without them. Gilderoy only fluffed the feather of his quill and turned to a fresh sheet of parchment, on which he began to draw detailed sketches of himself vanquishing horrific beasts and being surrounded by crowds of admirers with hearts drawn in where their eyes should have been. Rita leaned over to observe his handiwork, but Gilderoy only butted his shoulder against hers, pushing her away and setting up his arm as a shield over his half of the desk.

The rest of the day continued in much the same fashion. They still weren't speaking at lunch, but Rita and Gilderoy sat together all the same, partly out of habit, but also because it looked much better than sitting alone. Rita still felt certain Gilderoy would come around eventually, but as she sat by herself in the library that afternoon, she realized that she already missed her friend very much. Having no one to talk to made her even more eager to begin the next issue of the Hogwarts Herald, though. She had more work this time, too, since Gilderoy wasn't there to write copy. Writing things out herself took a dreadfully long time, and Rita wished she had something that would do it for her.

For now, though, she felt that she'd gladly endure sore fingers for the rest of her life, if that was what it would take to get this article written. Rita dipped her favorite quill in a bottle of ink and poised it over a clean sheet of parchment, trying to remember everything she knew about Love Potions. They were fairly difficult to brew and quite uncommon at the school. The last time she could recall anyone even mentioning them was in second year Potions, when she'd overheard Ellen Eggleston, a Gryffindor, telling her friends about how her older cousin had made one once. "It must have worked, because they're married now!" she'd whispered. Remembering this, Rita decided that she would have to expose Elmira Bulstrode even if it was the last thing she ever did. ... Well, all right, not quite the last thing. But almost.

* * *

Wednesday morning dawned cool and cloudy, and it was now the start of day three of Rita and Gilderoy's great silence. Little had changed; they still took their meals together and sat beside one another during lessons, but they did so without exchanging so much as a word. Both Rita and Gilderoy were finding the situation to be dreadfully tedious, but stubbornness and pride left neither of them willing to be the first to speak.

Most of the other students were already at breakfast when Gilderoy arrived that morning, pocketing a small comb as he entered the Great Hall. He was, if he might say so himself, looking quite exceptionally fit that morning. Rita might have leaked one of his beauty secrets to the rest of the school, but he'd decided to think of these new circumstances as a challenge. He was still more than perfectly capable of inciting his classmates' admiration; he'd only have to prove it.

Not a single head turned his way, though, as he sauntered over to the Slytherin table. An excited buzz was filling the hall, which was full of girls who were giggling and gasping and whispering in one another's ears, each clutching a piece of pale parchment. Gilderoy saw that Rita was in her usual place, nibbling absently at a slice of bacon and trying to suppress a smug expression.

"Here," she muttered, sliding him a copy of the Hogwarts Herald as he sat down.

"Er, thanks."

"We're not getting along now, just so you know."

Gilderoy snorted. "Fine by me."

Rita went back to her breakfast and Gilderoy perused the paper. The headline--"Slytherin Scandal! How Bulstrode Bagged Bagman"--wasn't any surprise to him, but he could understand the uproar it was creating. Eyes now focused on the story, he didn't notice Elmira Bulstrode and Ludo Bagman's arrival.

The Hogwarts Herald staff has discovered that the Bagman-Bulstrode relationship came about under most shocking circumstances, Gilderoy read, only processing a line here or there. ...Low-down, sneaky ... absolutely horrifying behavior on Bulstrode's part, the conniving brat. ... Slytherin hero, Ludo Bagman, ... hoodwinked ...couldn't possibly have avoided it. ... It's impossible to say how long this may have continued ... This reporter is simply disgusted...

A scuffle broke out farther down the Slytherin table.

"It's nothing! Nothing!" Elmira was saying firmly, crumpling a copy of the Hogwarts Herald in her fist and dropping it to the floor.

"Oi, Bagman!" hollered Calvin Pucey, the Hufflepuff Seeker, as he approached the table, waving his own piece of parchment in the air. "Is this true? Is that really how she got you?"

"Wha--What is it? Elmira, tell me what's the matter," Ludo said, looking utterly baffled.

"Nothing! Nothing!" Elmira's face had turned a brilliant, furious red.

"Not nothing!" Calvin crowed as he clapped Ludo playfully on the shoulder. Ludo looked warily at Calvin's hand; they weren't friends in any sense of the word. "Looks like this bint's really got you good."

Every Slytherin present peered down the length of the table, eyes fixed on Ludo's face. One very small Gryffindor even stood up on her bench so she could witness the commotion. There was no one, though, anticipating this moment so much as Rita Skeeter.

"You're not welcome here, Hufflepuff!" Elmira growled.

Calvin ignored her and flashed a wide, mischievous grin, not at Ludo or Elmira, but at Euphemia Flint, who was seated nearby. "She slipped you a Love Potion, Bagman! How about that?" And with that, he tore off up the aisle toward the door, calling over his shoulder, "Just try to get me, Bul--Aaargh!"

Euphemia was standing, brandishing her wand in the direction of her fallen former boyfriend.

"That wasn't ... Not an Unforgivable?" her friend whispered, tugging at her robes.

"Just Furnunculus," Euphemia said, smiling down nastily at Calvin, who was writhing on the floor, covering his face with his hands. "But I wish...."

Elmira Bulstrode stalked out of the Great Hall, kicking Calvin squarely in the gut as she stepped over him and out the door.

Rumors circulated wildly in the corridors between the first and second lessons of the day. The fourth year Slytherins and Ravenclaws reported that Elmira had melted her partner's cauldron in Potions, yelled at the other girl for mussing it all up, and then fled the classroom after being given a detention. They supposed she had sought refuge in the dormitory, but none of the Slytherins were willing to find out. And according to his fellow Quidditch team members, Ludo Bagman was in denial, though they reckoned that was probably just an effect of Elmira's potion. It seemed it would be only a matter of time until he'd come around.

Rita flitted from the outskirts of one group of chatty students to another, listening to these and other stories as they spread and mutated, filing each one away in her memory. She laughed gleefully to herself as a new topic began to pop up in these conversations: Who wrote the paper? Who knew? Ludo Bagman should be awfully grateful to whoever it is. Gilderoy still hadn't spoken to her, but oh, what did that matter when Ludo was going to be grateful to her--when he was going to admire her--maybe even like her?

The students' excitement abated only slightly as the day dragged on into evening. After dinner, the Slytherin common room grew loud and crowded; schoolbooks had been brought out, but most everyone seemed to prefer chatting to finishing their homework. The cramped quarters had forced Rita and Gilderoy together in their usual corner. Gilderoy, struggling with his Transfiguration work, was very near calling a truce, if only so Rita might help him with the assignment. Rita herself couldn't seem to get anything done, though. She fidgeted nervously in her seat, doing her best to eavesdrop on the nearest conversations and wishing Ludo would hurry up and snap out of it.

Much to her annoyance, Ludo Bagman was indeed still going blithely along under the potion's influence. He was also currently huddled around a chalkboard with the rest of the Quidditch team, watching Euphemia demonstrate new, elaborate strategies. There was still one game left against Gryffindor, and only the slightest chance that Slytherin would manage to score enough points to earn the Cup. To make matters worse, Mister Rook, the Flying instructor and Quidditch referee, had been a Gryffindor himself, and so the Slytherin team knew there would be no opportunity for foul play on their part.

Elmira Bulstrode, the other subject of the day's gossip, was absent from the common room that evening, and this had not gone unnoticed by her peers. She was, at the moment, serving her detention in the Potions classroom, and it was the first time since that morning that she had been out of her dormitory. Though they were terribly curious, the other fourth year girls were too afraid to go into their room, and so no one had spoken with Elmira all day.

Sitting together near the hearth were two students who actually had little interest in the Slytherin rumor mill. Ned Parkinson was doing exactly what Rita and Gilderoy should have been doing--studying for the O.W.L.s, which were to be administered at the end of the school year. His girlfriend, Heather Hornby, was curled up beside him, reading her Divination book. Professor Vablatsky was notorious for assigning lengthy chapters to be read from her own works.

Yawning, Heather shoved Unfogging the Future off her lap and stretched. "Ned, d'you still have that lovely green ink?"

"Mm, yes, in my bag. You don't remember exactly when Alberic Grunnion was alive, do you, love?" Ned asked, flipping through a thick, moldy reference book.

"Erm, no, sorry," Heather said, crouching down beside the schoolbag. She shuffled around for a moment, and then stood up quickly, wheeling on her boyfriend.

"Ned!" she shrieked. Heather held in her outstretched hand a single lock of blonde hair. "What is the meaning of this?"

The boy's face had gone all splotchy; it couldn't seem to decide whether to blush or go completely pale. Ned began to stammer unintelligibly, but Heather turned away from him with a savage look and slowly surveyed the crowded common room. A skinny, tow-headed third year peered up at her over the top of an Arithmancy text. Narcissa Something-or-other, Heather thought. Too young. ... Ludo Bagman? His brother Otto? Too, well, male. Her eyes darted in the direction of every pale head, but very few of them were girls. Knowing Ned as well as she did, though, she was sure the culprit was a Slytherin. There was a noise at the door as someone entered the room. That Bulstrode girl. She has troubles of her own. Just then, she spied two particularly suspicious students tucked away in a far corner. The one on the right, that ridiculous boy, was out of the question, but what about...

"SKEETER!"