Chapter 21

It was some months earlier, near the end of the school year, that Hermione had captured Skeeter by confining her in a jar. After forcing Skeeter to resume her human shape, Hermione restrained the woman with the binding curse. At first Skeeter had raged, being defiant and threatening in turns. They were in an area of the Forbidden Forest not frequented by students, and with no real chance that Skeeter would be heard, Hermione had been content to let the writer rant on and on.

Eventually Skeeter's voice had grown hoarse, and becoming calmer, she looked at Hermione with more objectivity. Skeeter's captor had a hint of a smile on her face, and was clearly enjoying her victim's histrionics. The threats meant nothing to Hermione, and once the woman ceased her

raving, Hermione spoke.

"Now that you're in the mood to listen, I'd like to read something. I borrowed this from the library the other day, just in case you and I had a chance to meet in circumstances like these. It's a legal text,

"Codification of Illegal Acts and the Procedure for the Prosecution Thereof," 1847, as annotated 1982."

Hermione held the thick book up so that Skeeter could see it.

"So what? Doesn't Hogwarts have a more up-to-date version?" asked Skeeter with a sneer.

"I wondered about that myself," replied Hermione. "And as it turns out, 1847 was the last year it was updated. It could probably use a re-write, if you ask me, because some of the punishments it sets out

are pretty brutal - almost medieval. So listen up, because this is the part that concerns you."

Hermione made a show of casually flipping through the text, pretending to look for the applicable section even though she'd marked it the night before. Her 'search' was punctuated with 'hmmms' and 'where is it now' and similar comments.

"Ah - here it is. I'll skip the bit on how to register as an Animagus."

Skeeter rolled her eyes with annoyance at Hermione's gloating, exalting manner. She ceased this behaviour in response to the teen's menacing gaze, and listened as the girl continued.

"Article 147(b) Failure to register as an Animagus

Any wizard who, without lawful excuse, the proof of which lies with him, practices as an Animagus without first having registered as such as required by this section, is guilty of an offence."

Hermione stopped for effect, looking at Skeeter for a reaction.

"Go on - get on with it!" shouted the angry woman.

Smiling, Hermione continued.

"Article 147© Punishment

Anyone found guilty under Article 147(b) may be sentenced to a maximum of 14 years in prison. The court shall take into account the following factors when considering sentence:

a) the length of time the wizard was unregistered;

b) the number of occasions on which the wizard transformed, and;

c) any evidence that the wizard gained pecuniary or other advantage from his transformation."

"Now of course no one gets the maximum sentence for their first offence, not unless it's an unforgivable curse or something almost as bad," said Hermione consolingly. "Maybe they'll go easy on you."

Scant chance of that, thought Skeeter. She'd been an unregistered Animagus for more than twenty years and had made use of her skill countless times, making a lot of money in the process.

"In fact," continued Hermione, "why don't I send an owl to the Ministry now?" said Hermione, opening her bag and pulling out parchment, paper and quill.

But Skeeter in urgent tones implored Hermione do to no such thing, assuring her that it wasn't necessary = really, not at all. Perhaps an accommodation of some kind could be reached - Skeeter was quite sure this was possible.

"Really?" asked Hermione. "Well, alright, what do you propose?"

"I'll write a full retraction - I'll take back everything I wrote about you and your friends. We'll send it to the Daily Prophet to be published in the next weekend edition."

Hermione pretended to think this over.

"Suppose though the Daily Prophet doesn't want to publish it? After all, they don't have to print a retraction if they don't want to."

"Then I'll pay for the publication myself, in any paper you choose."

"Do you have your quill with you - the one that takes dictation?"

"No - it's in my room where I'm staying in Hogsmeade."

Hermione raised her wand, and waved it in the direction of town, summoning Skeeter's quill. The writer's amazement showed on her face when a minute later her quill sailed into Hermione's hand - she had not expected the girl would be able to summon an object over such a great distance. Certainly Skeeter could not have done so, and she didn't know anyone who could. Hermione was perhaps a little more powerful than Skeeter had hitherto realized.

At Hermione's bidding, Skeeter explained to Hermione how the quill worked. While Skeeter remained bound to a tree, Hermione make herself comfortable on the grass, and took great pleasure in dictating a long, humble retraction on Skeeter's behalf. Her work was briefly interrupted by the writer's strident protests, which ended when Hermione subjected her to the Silencio charm. After a while the retraction was finished, a long scroll filled with the most abject statements for Skeeter's signature.

"I won't sign that!" said Skeeter indignantly when Hermione permitted her to speak once more. "I'd be ruined if I signed that!"

"Yes, you might very well be ruined. But there's another document for you to sign. Now shut up while I dictate it." Skeeter saw no point in forcing Hermione to inflict the silencing curse on her again, and so kept quite while she heard Hermione dictate a confession, wherein Skeeter described her repeated use of her abilities as an Animagus at Hogwarts, despite having been banned from the school and environs.

"And I won't sign that either," said Skeeter. "You're just wasting your time."

"On the contrary," said Hermione. "I'm enjoying myself very much. I don't think I can say the same for you. Meanwhile, it's almost lunch time, and I'm getting hungry. I'll try to come back later this afternoon, but if not, I'll see you tomorrow morning." Skeeter screamed with rage as Hermione turned to leave, struggling impotently to free herself from bonds that would never be broken other than by magical means.

Hermione returned immediately after she'd had a nice lunch, for she had not intended to leave the writer in the Forbidden Forest all alone, for an entire night. Not unless it was absolutely necessary. Hermione took a different route back into the forest, approaching Skeeter quietly from behind. As she walked along the path, she could hear the occasional cry for help, but the strain in the woman's voice was obvious - she was becoming exhausted, her voice nearly spent.

Hermione seated herself near the tree to which Skeeter was bound, out of the poor woman's range of vision. From her vantage point, she could hear Skeeter's soliloquy, punctuated by gasps for breath, sobs, and the occasional cry of despair.

Eventually Hermione grew bored, and after getting to her feet, strode into Skeeter's view.

"Oh thank god you've come back," said Skeeter with obvious relief. "Oh please, please don't leave me here please let me go - " Hermione silenced the woman with a wave of her wand.

Hermione took a few more steps to where she'd left Skeeter's quill and a long piece of parchment, and was glad to see that the quill had been taking down every word uttered by the writer in Hermione's absence, secretly making a transcript of the writer's desperate ramblings. Hermione picked up the document. Satisfied with what she found, she walked over to Skeeter and held it up to the woman's face.

"I think you can drop the pretense now," said Hermione. "It's obvious from your own words that you know that I have you, and that you'll have to do as I say."

Skeeter could only nod in agreement. During Hermione's absence, Skeeter had lamented her poor judgment in provoking Hermione, and deeply regretted her decision ever to become an Animagus, and having become one, failing to register.

Hermione picked up the confession she'd dictated earlier and presented it to Skeeter, freeing the woman's right arm. Skeeter signed with an air of hopeless resignation.

"If you'd only signed it earlier it would have saved me a lot of trouble. But now that you've signed, things will go a lot smoother," said Hermione. The writer's defeated manner placated Hermione some what, but a bit more punishment was still required. Hermione explained that she would return the confession to Skeeter in one year, provided that in the interval, Skeeter published nothing, and at the end of the year, would swear an oath that she had written absolutely nothing intended for publication.

Skeeter agreed without any fuss to Hermione's terms. Hermione unbound the woman, and ordered Skeeter to transform herself into a beetle, ready to blast the woman with a curse should she show the slightest sign of using the wand for any other purpose.

Soon thereafter Skeeter found herself in a bottle on the Hogwarts Express, bound for London and forced to listen to Hermione gloating over her capture.

From London Skeeter apparated her way home, home being a small wizarding community that maintained itself inside the woods located in a golf course near Surrey. While the odd golf ball found its way into the village, no muggle was able to find his way in, and the regulars on the course knew enough not to bother looking for balls hit into the forest.

Skeeter arrived home in a foul mood - overcome and humiliated by a teenager, and now with a year's unemployment staring her in the face. Despite the fact she would have no income for some time, the first task at hand was to deplete her bank account. At her bidding her quill prepared the following letter to her publisher:

"Dear Sirs,

It is with regret (the letter began) that I must return to you the five hundred galleon advance given me for the book on Grindlewald. I was to finish within the next three months. and while I remain keenly interested in completing the work, it is impossible that I will have a manuscript to you within the next year. I am rather ill, and the healers have advised me to do nothing but rest for a year or so. When I am better I will contact you to see if you are still interested in the project.

Yours truly, etc etc"

Skeeter knew that she would miss the five hundred galleons greatly, but preferred to take her chances with poverty rather than destroy the excellent relationship she had built up with her publisher over the years by breaking her commitment. Never had she missed a deadline, and if she was going to be forced to miss one, she could not attempt to profit from it.

Prior to recent events, the five hundred galleons had not been money Skeeter really needed. After all, she was a regular contributor to several magazines, and her column in the Daily Prophet had gone to syndication some years before, providing her with a comfortable income. But that income was now ended, and she had a number of other letters to write, explaining that she could no longer continue her column, nor submit articles or work of any kind for the next year. Each time Skeeter signed one of these letters, she felt a part of her die inside.

The volume of correspondence was far too great for her owl. Skeeter took the bundle of letters to the post office, paying the sum required to have the letters delivered by public owl. For her own owl, a large and reliable Great Horned, she reserved the task of carrying to Hermione copies of all her letters, in compliance with one of the conditions of her release.

Skeeter had never paid much attention to money. She had a small savings account at Gringotts, but little more than that. Her flat was rented, for the homes in wizarding communities were ancient and land hard to come by - it was very unusual for a property to come onto the market other than by way of lease. Skeeter rummaged through her more recent correspondence until she found a statement from Gringotts. Examining it, she concluded that with effort, she might be able to stay in her home for three or four months - no more than that. Then she would be out on the street.

Skeeter paused in her narrative, getting up for another coffee.

"Did you have any idea things would get so bad for her, so quickly?" Harry asked Hermione.

"Not really. I'd imagined she'd be rather bored, and I hoped that she'd suffer financially for a while. But I didn't really think that she'd be homeless. She must be at least forty - I would have thought she owned a home by now. Who would have imagined that she had almost no savings to show after writing for so many years?"

Perhaps magical folk were no better at managing money than muggles, thought Harry. The friends' conversation halted when Skeeter returned to the table to pick up where she left off.

"So that's how things stood," she continued. "I managed to get to October before I missed the first rent payment."

Skeeter had expected it, of course, and so there was no reason for her to be so shocked. And yet she had been taken aback to receive an owl bearing a formal notice advising her that she had missed a rent payment, and that if she failed to make good on it, she would be evicted. She'd rented her flat for more than a decade, never having missed a payment, and yet the first time she was late, the response was not a personal note or a visit, but instead a cold, legal notification.

But regardless of whether the notice was the morally appropriate response to her first missed payment, there it was, sitting on her kitchen table. And to it there was no reply Skeeter could make, at least not if she wanted to keep her dignity. It was not hard for her to imagine the response she would receive to a letter begging an indulgence, for her landlord was a Goblin-managed concern. There was no chance of mercy. The commercial activities available to Goblins were very restricted and had been since the end of the Goblin wars centuries before. They could lend money, own property and engage in manufacture of certain things such as jewelery and armor. But outside of the activities authorized by the Ministry, the Goblins could not tread. The parallel between wizards' treatment of the Goblins and Muggles' treatment of the Jews hundreds of years before was not lost on Skeeter, and to some extent she could understand why Goblins would insist so strictly on the few rights remaining to them. But on a matter that concerned her directly, it was impossible for Skeeter to maintain her objectivity, and against her will her heart filled with hatred of Goblins generally as she contemplated the notice.

Another owl-borne letter dropped through the slot. Glad of the distraction, Skeeter walked to the front door to pick up the letter. As she did so, she could hear the owl who brought the letter outside. She opened her door, and the owl flew in. Evidently the author of the letter was expecting a reply, and had instructed his barn owl to await Skeeter's response. Skeeter had had to sell her own owl the month before in order to buy food.

She was surprised to find that the letter was fan mail, and rather lengthier than such letters usual were. Normally she would receive merely a short note, wherein the author expressed glee that Skeeter's latest article had pilloried this or that person. There was no reason for Skeeter to receive anything of this kind, for of course she had submitted nothing for publication since the end of June, and the last article to appear under her name was in July.