3rd Person's POV

Karina smirks as she sits at a table in the corner of a coffee shop in Hogsmeade.

"Why are we here again?"

Glancing over at Luna who sits beside her, Karina smiles, "Luna dear loony... we are spying on the boy who lived."

"Harry Potter? Why?"

"I'm just curious. Plus would you rather be sitting with Hermione Granger and Rita the paparazzi right now waiting?"

"No thank you." Luna smiles.

"Exactly. I can't stand either of them."

Luna pats Karina's hand, "Don't worry they can't stand you either."

Karina frowns then chuckles at Luna, "You're lucky I like you."

"You do?" Luna grins widely as she claps, "How delightful."

"Yes it is. Oh they're sitting down... shhh..."

"I came in here with Cedric last year," Cho frowns as she looks around.

Karina laughs into her hand, she could not believe that Cho wanted to talk about Cedric right now, on what seemed liked a date.

Cho's voice was rather higher when she spoke again, "I've been meaning to ask you for ages... Did Cedric — did he m-m-mention me at all before he died?"

This was the very last subject on earth Karina wanted to hear. She bites her lip trying not to let Cedric's death affect her at the moment.

Luna pats her hand once more making Karina smile in gratefulness.

"Well — no —" Harry says quietly, "There — there wasn't time for him to say anything. Erm... so... d'you... d'you get to see a lot of Quidditch in the holidays? You support the Tornados, right?"

Karina watches as Harry's eyes widen when Cho's fill with tears.

"The idiot..." She mutters to herself.

"Look," he says desperately, leaning in so that nobody else could overhear, "let's not talk about Cedric right now... Let's talk about something else..."

But this, apparently, was quite the wrong thing to say.

"I thought," Cho sobs with tears spattering down onto the table, "I thought you'd u-u-understand! I need to talk about it! Surely you n-need to talk about it t-too! I mean, you saw it happen, d-didn't you?"

"Well — I have talked about it," Harry said in a whisper, "to Ron and Hermione, but—"

"Oh, you'll talk to Hermione Granger!" she said shrilly, her face now shining with tears, and several more kissing couples broke apart to stare. "But you won't talk to me! P-perhaps it would be best if we just... just p-paid and you went and met up with Hermione G-Granger, like you obviously want to!"

Karina fully laughs into her hand.

This was gold.

Harry stares at her, utterly bewildered, as she seizes a frilly napkin and dabs at her shining face with it.

"Cho?"

"Go on, leave!" Cho cries into the napkin, "I don't know why you asked me out in the first place if you're going to make arrangements to meet other girls right after me... How many are you meeting after Hermione?"

"It's not like that!"

Cho sprang to her feet. The whole tearoom was quiet, and everybody was watching them now.

"I'll see you around, Harry," she says dramatically, and hiccuping slightly as she dashes to the door.

Karina watches her wrench it open, and hurry off into the pouring rain.

"Cho!" Harry calls after her, but the door had already swung shut behind her with a tuneful tinkle.

There was total silence within the tea shop. Every eye was upon Harry. He threw a Galleon down onto the table, shook pink confetti out of his eyes, and followed Cho out of the door.

It was raining hard now, and she was nowhere to be seen. He simply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine.

"Women!" he muttered angrily, sloshing down the rain-washed street with his hands in his pockets. "What did she want to talk about Cedric for anyway? Why does she always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?"

He freezes hearing clapping come from behind him. He turns to see Luna and Karina. Luna had been holding an umbrella over the two of them as Karina looked at Harry in bemusement.

"Amazing job, Potter. You truly have a way with women."

Harry frowns rolling his eyes, "Karina I don't have time for you right now. I know we talked about you helping again but I don't need help in this area-"

"Apparently you do. And I wouldn't be helping you. I would be helping her. She was nice to me. C-Cedric loved her... so I want to see her happy once again. Even if it is... with you..."

Harry feels his heart clench in sadness from her last statement. He knows that he hurt her feelings a few times but he just was never sure if he could trust her.

"Fine... I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?"

"Oh, Harold..." Karina chuckles stepped closer as Luna follows still holding the umbrella, "Well, I'm sorry, but you were a bit... hmm very tactless."

"Me, tactless?" said Harry, outraged.

"You're serious?" Karina giggles.

"How is this my fault? One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out, and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid tea shop — how was I supposed to feel about that?"

"Well, you see, Potter, you shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet Granger halfway through your date."

Karina felt as though she was explaining that one plus one equals two to an overemotional toddler.

"But, but," spluttered Harry, "but — Hermione told me to meet her at twelve and to bring Cho along, how was I supposed to do that without telling her — ?"

"You should have told her differently you got." Karina rolls her eyes, "You should have said it was really annoying, but Granger made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn't want to go, you'd much rather spend the whole day with Cho, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet Granger and would Cho please, please come along with you, and hopefully you'd be able to get away more quickly? Duh...And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you thought Granger was too,"

"But I don't think she's ugly," Harry replies
bemused.
"Wow really? I had no idea! Seriously Harold. Granger isn't ugly it's just better to say it that way you don't seem interested in her rather than Cho. You told her you planned on leaving the date to go see Granger. Look — you upset Cho so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her."

"Is that what she was doing? Well, wouldn't it have been easier if she'd just asked me whether I liked her better than Hermione?"

"Girls don't often ask questions like that you dolt."

"Well, they should!" said Harry forcefully, "Then I could've just told her I fancy her, and she wouldn't have had to get herself all worked up again about Cedric dying!"

"She's sensitive right now. She has feelings for you... I don't know why... ow." Karina glares playfully at Luna who had just pinched her, " Look she lost her boyfriend of two years. She loved him. Now she has feelings for you. She's confused. And she's scared that Cedric is rolling in his grave. She's thinking is it okay for her to have these feelings? Would people look at her weird when she just lost her boyfriend and now she is on a date with Harry Potter... meanwhile the boy is sitting in front of her telling her that he has to leave the date to go see Hermione Granger... don't you think she has a reason to feel as she did."

Luna looks over at Karina in awe, "You should write a book."

Karina chuckles shaking her head, "Let's get out of the rain, loony. Go along, Harold."

Harry follows the two and within minutes he was turning into the doorway of the Three Broomsticks. He shook his wet hair out of his eyes and looked around as Karina and Luna walk deeper inside. 

"Harry! Harry, over here!"

Hermione was waving at him from the other side of the room. He got up and made his way toward her through the crowded pub. He was still a few tables away when he realized that Hermione was not alone; she was sitting at a table with the unlikeliest drinking mates he could ever have imagined: none other than Rita Skeeter, ex-journalist on the Daily Prophet and one of Hermione's least favorite people in the world.

"You're early!" said Hermione, moving along to give him room to sit down. "I thought you were with Cho, I wasn't expecting you for another hour at least!"

"Cho?" said Rita at once, twisting around in her seat to stare avidly at Harry. "A girl ?"

She snatched up her crocodile-skin handbag and groped within it.

"It's none of your business if Potter's been with a hundred girls," Karina sits down beside Rita as she replies coolly, "So you can put that away right now before I put it away for you."

Rita makes a Hm sound as she frowns and snaps her bag shut again.

"What are you up to?" Harry asks sitting down and staring from Rita to Luna to Hermione to Karina.

"Little Miss Perfect was just about to tell me when you all arrived," Rita sighs taking a large slurp of her drink, "I suppose I'm allowed to talk to him, am I?"

She shot at Hermione knowing the Slytherin girl would probably do something, so instead she chose to talk to the Gryfinndor girl that didn't frighten her in the slightest.

"Yes, I suppose you are," said Hermione coldly.

Unemployment did not suit Rita. The hair that had once been set in elaborate curls now hung lank and unkempt around her face. The scarlet paint on her two-inch talons was chipped and there were a cou- ple of false jewels missing from her winged glasses. She took another great gulp of her drink and said out of the corner of her mouth, "Pretty girl, is she, Harry?"

"One more word about Harry's love life and the deal's off and that's a promise," Hermione says 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..."

Karina glares making Rita take in a deep shuddering breath, "Watch it Skeeter. I'm the only one who can damn the two of them to hell."

Hermione rolls her eyes before looking to Rita with indifference, "Yes, yes, one of these days you'll write more horrible stories about Harry and me... 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?"

Karina scoffs wanting to say like Harry Potter would know but then she would get into a fight with Granger, and honestly she wanted to go back to her friends.

"He feels angry, of course," said Hermione in a hard, clear voice. "Because he's told the Minister of 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, "Karina saw it-"

"Don't bring me into this. My visions are not for the world to know thank you very much."

Harry sighs in frustration, "Fine... 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 subheading: '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 re- spectable 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 died out of her face.

"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. Karina lightly slaps Luna's hand making her hush.

"Not now loony..."

"Sorry Karina."

"It's fine you can sing later."

"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 that 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.

"Even though he has..."

"Grey... 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 forward across the table toward 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."

Karina chuckles humorlessly, "Of course not. Nobody wants to read that garbage.It's against the public mood. They want drama."

Rita nods, "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 awful paper," said Luna, chipping into the conversation unexpectedly.

Karina guests out giggling as she thanks Luna for the laugh.

Sucking on her cocktail onion, Luna gazes at Rita with her enormous, protuberant, slightly mad eyes. "He publishes important stories that he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn't care about making money."

Rita looks disparagingly at Luna, "I'm guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?" she said. "'Twenty-five Ways to Mingle with Muggles' and the dates of the next Bring-and-Fly Sale?"

"No," said Luna, dipping her onion back into her gillywater, "he's the editor of The Quibbler."

Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked around in alarm.
"'Important stories he thinks the public needs to know'?" she said witheringly. "I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag."

"Well, this is your chance to raise the tone of it a bit, isn't it?" Karina stares blankly as she leans back into her chair staring Rita down, "Luna says her father's quite happy to take Potter's interview. That's who'll be publishing it."

Rita stared at the four for a moment and then let out a great whoop of laughter, "The Quibbler!" she said, cackling. "You think people will take him seriously if he's published in The Quibbler?"

"Some people won't," said Hermione in a level voice. "But the Daily Prophet's version of the Azkaban breakout had some gaping holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether there isn't a better explanation of what happened, and if there's an alternative story available, even if it is published in a," She glances sideways at Luna, "in a — well, an unusual magazine — I think they might be rather keen to read it."

Rita did not say anything for a while, but eyed Hermione shrewdly, her head a little to one side.

"All right, let's say for a moment I'll do it," she said abruptly. "What kind of fee am I going to get?"

"I don't think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the magazine," said Luna dreamily. "They do it because it's an honor, and, of course, to see their names in print."

Rita Skeeter looked as though the taste of Stinksap was strong in her mouth again as she rounded on Hermione.

"I'm supposed to do this for free?"

"Well, yes," said Hermione calmly, taking a sip of her drink, "Otherwise, as you very well know, we will inform the authorities that you are an unregistered Animagus."

Karina taps her finger on the table with a shrug, "And of course, the Prophet might give you rather a lot for an insider's account of life in Azkaban... or you could choose to continue to live how you are at the moment... Washed up."

Rita looked as though she would have liked nothing better than to seize the paper umbrella sticking out of Hermione's drink and thrust it up her nose.

"I don't suppose I've got any choice, have I?" said Rita, her voice shaking slightly. She opened her crocodile bag once more, withdrew a piece of parchment, and raised her Quick-Quotes Quill.

"Daddy will be pleased," said Luna brightly.

A muscle twitched in Rita's jaw.

"Okay, Harry?" said Hermione, turning to him. "Ready to tell the public the truth?"

"I suppose," said Harry, watching Rita balancing the Quick- Quotes Quill at the ready on the parchment between them.

"Fire away, then, Rita," said Hermione serenely, fishing a cherry out of the bottom of her glass.

• • • • •

The next morning, Karina entered the Great Hall for breakfast at exactly the same moment as the post owls on Monday morning.

She walked up to the golden trio and crossed her arms over her chest as Hermione looked around excited. She was not the only person eagerly awaiting her Daily Prophet: Nearly everyone was eager for more news about the escaped Death Eaters, who, despite many reported sightings, had still not been caught.

Hermione gave the delivery owl a Knut and unfolded the newspaper eagerly while Harry helped himself to orange juice; as he had only received one note during the entire year he was sure, when the first owl landed with a thud in front of him, that it had made a mistake.

"Who're you after?" he asked it, languidly removing his orange juice from underneath its beak and leaning forward to see the recipient's name and address:

Harry Potter
Great Hall
Hogwarts School

Frowning, he made to take the letter from the owl, but before he could do so, three, four, five more owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter, knocking over the salt, and each attempting to give him their letters first.

"What's going on?" Ron asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forward to watch as another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting, and flapping their wings.

"Harry!" said Hermione breathlessly, plunging her hands into the feathery mass and pulling out a screech owl bearing a long, cylindrical package. "I think I know what this means — open this one first!"

Harry ripped off the brown packaging. Out rolled a tightly furled copy of March's edition of The Quibbler.

Karina chuckles nodding now squeezing herself onto the bench between Fred and George sitting backwards, "It's happening."

Harry unrolls it to see his own face grinning sheepishly at him from the front cover. In large red letters across his picture were the words:

HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN

"It's good, isn't it?" said Luna, who had drifted over to the Gryffindor table and sat on Karina's lap.

Fred raises an eyebrow at the two making Karina shake her head and laugh, "Don't."

"It came out yesterday, I asked Dad to send you a free copy. I expect all these," she waved a hand at the assembled owls still scrabbling around on the table in front of Harry, "are letters from readers."

"That's what I thought," said Hermione eagerly, "Harry, d'you mind if we — ?"

"Help yourself," said Harry, feeling slightly bemused.

Ron and Hermione both started ripping open envelopes.

"This one's from a bloke who thinks you're off your rocker," said Ron, glancing down his letter. "Ah well . . ."

"Not wrong... ow." Karina smirks then frowns as both twins and Luna all pinch her.

"This woman recommends you try a good course of Shock Spells at St. Mungo's," said Hermione, looking disappointed and crumpling up a second.

"This one looks okay, though," said Harry slowly, scanning a long letter from a witch in Paisley. "Hey, she says she believes me!"

"This one's in two minds," said Fred, who had joined in the letter-opening with enthusiasm. "Says you don't come across as a mad person, but he really doesn't want to believe You-Know-Who's back so he doesn't know what to think now...Blimey, what a waste of parchment..."

"Here's another one you've convinced, Harry!" said Hermione excitedly. " 'Having read your side of the story I am forced to the conclusion that the Daily Prophet has treated you very unfairly... Little though I want to think that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has re- turned, I am forced to accept that you are telling the truth...' Oh this is wonderful!"

"Ha another one who thinks you're barking."

Ron interrupts Karina's giggle, "But... this one says you've got her converted, and she now thinks you're a real hero — she's put in a photograph too — wow —"

"What is going on here?" said a falsely sweet, girlish voice.

Harry looked up with his hands full of envelopes. Professor Umbridge was standing behind Fred and Karina, her bulging toad's eyes scanning the mess of owls and letters on the table in front of Harry.

Behind her, he saw many of the students watching them avidly.

"Why have you got all these letters, Mr. Potter?" she asked slowly.

"Is that a crime?" said Karina loudly. "Receiving mail?"

"Be careful, Miss Grey, or I shall have to put you in detention,"

"You should know by now that, that statement doesn't faze me... ow! Would you all quit it!"

Umbridge turns to Harry frowning, "Well, Mr. Potter?"

Harry hesitated, but he did not see how he could keep what he had done quiet; it was surely only a matter of time before a copy of The Quibbler came to Umbridge's attention.

"People have written to me because I gave an interview," said Harry. "About what happened to me last June."

For some reason he glanced up at the staff table as he said this. He had the strangest feeling that Dumbledore had been watching him a second before, but when he looked, Dumbledore seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Professor Flitwick.

"An interview?" repeated Umbridge, her voice thinner and higher than ever. "What do you mean?"

"I mean a reporter asked me questions and I answered them," said Harry. "Here —"

And he threw the copy of The Quibbler at her. She caught it and stared down at the cover. Her pale, doughy face turned an ugly, patchy violet.

"When did you do this?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly. "Last Hogsmeade weekend," said Harry.

She looked up at him, incandescent with rage, the magazine shaking in her stubby fingers.

"There will be no more Hogsmeade trips for you, Mr. Potter," she whispered. "How you dare... how you could..." She took a deep breath. "I have tried again and again to teach you not to tell lies. The message, apparently, has still not sunk in. Fifty points from Gryffindor and another week's worth of detentions."

She stalked away, clutching The Quibbler to her chest, the eyes of many students following her.

By mid-morning enormous signs had been put up all over the school, not just on House notice boards, but in the corridors and classrooms too. Karina walks by a wall of decrees and frowns seeing the new one.

— byorderof —
The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts
Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven.
Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge
high inquisitor

"She's literally insane..."

What did we think of this chapter?!

Sorry no Draco this time!! He will be in the next chapter. And also this year is geared more towards Karina and her finding her way. It's more about her trying to figure out whether to be good or not. She is more seen with the order of the Phoenix, Snape, and the golden trio rather than her house at the moment. Next movie she will be around Draco and her friends wayyyyyyy more. Way more. 😌

Fav character?

Duo

Trio

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