Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

and the deal’s off and that’s a promise,’ said Hermione irritably.
    ‘What deal?’ said Rita, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘You haven’t mentioned a deal yet, Miss Prissy, you just told me to turn up. Oh, one of these days …’ She took a deep shuddering breath.
    ‘Yes, yes, one of these days you’ll write more horrible stories about Harry and me,’ said Hermione indifferently. ‘Find someone who cares, why don’t you?’
    ‘They’ve run plenty of horrible stories about Harry this year without my help,’ said Rita, shooting a sideways look at him over the top of her glass and adding in a rough whisper, ‘How has that made you feel, Harry? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood?’
    ‘He feels angry, of course,’ said Hermione in a hard, clear voice. ‘Because he’s told the Minister for Magic the truth and the Minister’s too much of an idiot to believe him.’
    ‘So you actually stick to it, do you, that He Who Must Not Be Named is back?’ said Rita, lowering her glass and subjecting Harry to a piercing stare while her finger strayed longingly to the clasp of the crocodile bag. ‘You stand by all this garbage Dumbledore’s been telling everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being the sole witness?’
    ‘I wasn’t the sole witness,’ snarled Harry. ‘There were a dozen-odd Death Eaters there as well. Want their names?’
    ‘I’d love them,’ breathed Rita, now fumbling in her bag once more and gazing at him as though he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. ‘A great bold headline: “ Potter Accuses …” A sub-heading, “ Harry Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us ”. And then, beneath a nice big photograph of you, “ Disturbed teenage survivor of You-Know-Who’s attack, Harry Potter, 15, caused outrage yesterday by accusing respectable and prominent members of the wizarding community of being Death Eaters …”’
    The Quick-Quotes Quill was actually in her hand and halfway to her mouth when the rapturous expression on her face died.
    ‘But of course,’ she said, lowering the quill and looking daggers at Hermione, ‘Little Miss Perfect wouldn’t want that story out there, would she?’
    ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Hermione sweetly, ‘that’s exactly what Little Miss Perfect does want.’
    Rita stared at her. So did Harry. Luna, on the other hand, sang ‘Weasley is our King’ dreamily under her breath and stirred her drink with a cocktail onion on a stick.
    ‘You want me to report what he says about He Who Must Not Be Named?’ Rita asked Hermione in a hushed voice.
    ‘Yes, I do,’ said Hermione. ‘The true story. All the facts. Exactly as Harry reports them. He’ll give you all the details, he’ll tell you the names of the undiscovered Death Eaters he saw there, he’ll tell you what Voldemort looks like now – oh, get a grip on yourself,’ she added contemptuously, throwing a napkin across the table, for, at the sound of Voldemort’s name, Rita had jumped so badly she had slopped half her glass of Firewhisky down herself.
    Rita blotted the front of her grubby raincoat, still staring at Hermione. Then she said baldly, ‘The Prophet wouldn’t print it. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody believes his cock-and-bull story. Everyone thinks he’s delusional. Now, if you let me write the story from that angle –’
    ‘We don’t need another story about how Harry’s lost his marbles!’ said Hermione angrily. ‘We’ve had plenty of those already, thank you! I want him given the opportunity to tell the truth!’
    ‘There’s no market for a story like that,’ said Rita coldly.
    ‘You mean the Prophet won’t print it because Fudge won’t let them,’ said Hermione irritably.
    Rita gave Hermione a long, hard look. Then, leaning forwards across the table towards her, she said in a businesslike tone, ‘All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won’t print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It’s against the public mood. This last Azkaban breakout has got people quite worried enough. People just don’t want to believe You-Know-Who’s back.’
    ‘So the Daily Prophet exists to tell people what they want to hear, does it?’ said Hermione scathingly.
    Rita sat up straight again, her eyebrows raised, and drained her glass of Firewhisky.
    ‘The Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl,’ she said coldly.
    ‘My dad thinks it’s an