Chapter 688: Chapter 688 The Fireplace (2 in 1)
Rita Skeeter entered the conference room with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. She looked around and several of the newspaper's key figures and well-known penmen and penwomen are present - the fat executive, the serious senior woman who looks after her, rival Melissa, and two or three of the best in their respective topics, one of whom she knows writes a good obituary.
They all looked serious as if something big had happened.
"Rita, here you are." The serious woman said amiably, with several letters in front of her, and one of them already opened. "How was your rest? There were no lingering effects were there, from that strange magic thing?"
"Much better." Skeeter said vaguely, "I slept a bit and I feel all right now. Oh yes," she pulled two manuscripts out of her crocodile bag, "I wrote these."
The woman took them with considerable surprise.
"It's my review of yesterday's events, and because I wasn't sure of the newspaper's attitude, I picked two angles to recount." Skeeter said without moving.
"I'm satisfied." The serious woman nodded as she flipped through the manuscript casually, putting it down without looking at it in detail. She rested her hands on the table and leaned forward, "But things have changed now, as we received this." One of her ringed fingers tapped the envelope on the table, "And it happens to be relevant to you."
"It's relevant to me?" Skeeter repeated in confusion.
The serious woman picked up the opened envelope and pulled out a folded wad of parchment and a small card from it. She pushed the small card over to Rita Skeeter.
"Read it."
Rita Skeeter picked the card up with the long nail of her little finger and held it in her hand to carefully identify the handwriting on it. At a glance she noticed the handwriting is messy and less formal than it should be, and, thinking about what Hap had said last night, she guessed it might have been transcribed by one of the students? She cleared her throat.
"The wizarding community is exposed. The adults are busy discussing a response and Mum is worried, she doesn't want conflict. A few friends and I have decided to write to you - I hope you will realise that, apart from magic, our emotions are all the same.
BTW: a friend of mine from muggle origins recognised the female journalist who appeared on the news, you must be considered the first person to have interviewed a wizard, right? So we sent it to you. End of story, that's all written on it."
Rita Skeeter looked up to find the journalists in the room staring at her jealously, and she instantly realised that it had to do with the title of 'first journalist to ever interview a wizard'. The serious woman said nothing and pushed the open letter over again.
Skeeter unfolded the letter and read it aloud to the crowd. "I have a friend ..." It was only halfway through the reading she managed to identify the character in the letter. Everyone in the wizarding world knew about the great Harry Potter, and with the reappearance of the Dark Lord Voldemort, his two friends had become a little famous, for winning the Order of Merlin on account of their unyielding courage in the face of the Dark Lord.
Through various clues, she had determined that this letter came from the youngest son of the Weasleys, Ron Weasley.
"It's over?" The fat executive said intently, "It was quite interesting, just a bit edgy." Several other journalists nodded along.
"It's over." Skeeter said dryly, she didn't see anything interesting at all, if she had been informed earlier she surely would have churned out a series of controversial articles, of course, whether they are positive or negative is still a matter of debate.
A journalist was about to comment, but the serious woman stopped him.
"Read all the letters, and we can discuss them together."
Rita Skeeter looked around, grabbed the second letter, tore it open, and read it aloud to the crowd, "I have a friend ..." Well, she just thought of the Saviour in her mind and there is a letter from the Saviour, if Hap hadn't arranged it, she would dare to eat the parchment.
Then came the third - and final - letter, which Rita Skeeter read for a while, unable to guess who had written it.
"... When the weather is muggy, I like to lie in the little flower garden.
The branches of the mistletoe separate the sky into little grids which move across each other, and the fine specks of sunshine hover next to the white berries of the mistletoe; it's pretty, and probably the gnomes in the garden think so too. Gnomes are not very good at talking, apart from spitting and making faces, their greatest pleasure is carrying the white berries to their homes. I left a boot in the garden when I was little, expecting them to move in one day, and later I worked with my Papa to build a house for them.
There are also lumpy vines growing in the garden. Often resembling dead tree stumps, this charming plant has a lumpy surface with the occasional coloured scar (some say because of an insect infestation). Papa wouldn't let me touch it because the lumpy vine is a fragile and kind plant, and its presence sweeps away any bad feelings in the neighbourhood, thanks to the secret of its large grapefruit pods.
'Those bad emotions hide in the pods and get bigger and bigger until it can't fit and bursts itself.' Papa said.
It was with awe that we observed the pods cracking open.
The sun was blazing hot and my Papa and I held our lotus umbrellas to prevent sweating. It was a few hours wait, then we suddenly heard a popping sound and the green skin split open, from which pale green, curved worm-like things oozed out. They squirm at first, but gradually quieten down, making you wonder if they're dead, but Papa thinks it's just those bad feelings coming out of their shells and turning into annoying harassing Wrackspurts.
Harassing Wrackspurts are pesky creatures that drift into people's ears and mess up their brains. They can be invisible, but you can hear them buzzing and then feel irritable and fuzzy, so that's evidence of their presence. Papa has designed a harassment Wrackspurts trap to deal with them, but the lumpy vine makes so many that we have to do something else.
The way to deal with them is to perform a special ritual that resembles some sort of dance.
First, we have to will fill our brains with happy emotions, which will briefly ward off the Wrackspurts, and then we will dance with our arms around our heads, while constantly spinning in place - just like trying to chase away the mosquitoes. The purpose of this is to tell the Harassing Wrackspurts that my brain is already occupied with other emotions and I don't need you, and then they will simply fly away.
The ritual was tiring but also joyful, and to treat me, Papa would usually cook a pot of Plimpy soup.
Papa is well versed in many recipes and I help with catching fish in the stream. There are many different kinds of Plimpy, some of which are dangerous, such as the large-mouthed Plimpy, which will come out of the water with their mouths wide open and attack anyone who overfishes their kind, so I take some lucky stones with me when catching fish to prevent such accidents (I also have some salvia and aromatic mallow for fire divination or other useful things, such as the large spotted umbrella fungus) ..."
Rita Skeeter stared at the oddly overwhelming writing, they seemed so out of place, could something have gone wrong?
"Harassing Wrackspurts." The fat supervisor pondered.
"A plant that absorbs bad emotions." Melissa muttered.
"Would it work if ordinary people practised this dance to ward off harassing wrackspurts?" Another journalist asked.
Rita Skeeter was dumbfounded. After a long moment, the serious woman coughed twice to bring the crowd back to their senses, and then she lit a lady's cigarette. The smoke curled up from the end.
"Well, that's what I mean about the situation having changed." The serious woman sat upright and said, "The whole country - no, I should say the whole world - is in a mess at the moment. A number of newspapers have denounced yesterday's atrocity and of course, we have published an unpleasant and critical article ... The reason we are not rushing to surface our attitude is because we are special and Rita has been lucky enough to have had contact with a wizard and even she herself has become excellent material, so I am waiting for her return and intend to build a series of stories around her. "
Skeeter rolled her eyes secretly, knowing that this woman had got a taste from the last gun ban articles.
"... There are differences, and the news industry can't be totally in tune with what people are saying, we have to develop our own thinking. But this case is unique, and if wizards are defined as terrorists, we will probably get in trouble for speaking up for them, and I received these letters just as I was in a dilemma. What do you think the newspaper should do? Should we hand them over to the authorities, or-"
"Absolutely no!" Everyone shouted in unison.
A smile appeared on the serious woman's tense face. "Very well, if anyone thinks that way, I'll tell him to pack up and get out immediately. The question now is, what attitude should we take, and whether the contents of these letters are credible?"
The crowd looked down and pondered, all of them aware that this is an audition, and whoever speaks more to her liking will have the resources of the entire newspaper revolving around that person for the next few days.
"How about taking a neutral stance and forwarding the letters as they are while we stay out of it?" The fat supervisor said tentatively.
The serious woman looked at him.
"Perhaps a gentle criticism?" The fat supervisor said uncertainly, "There's so little useful information at the moment, only a few letters without a clue, in case it's a conspiracy by those wizards ..."
The serious woman was just about to speak when Rita Skeeter interjected, "That can't be ruled out." But then she asked rhetorically, "But is it vital to us?"
The serious woman glanced at her, "Tell us what you think."
"Whether there are any magical agencies involved or not - well, umm, from these letters everyone should be able to see that wizards are a small organised society, not a loose group, they have schools, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, gathering areas ... " Skeeter pointed to the letters and said, "These specifics aside, these letters alone signify something equally important: we've hooked up with the mysterious wizards while the other newspapers are still banging around like headless flies, er, even though it's only a one-way connection, but it's the perfect opening."
It wasn't that the others weren't aware of this, it was just that the responsibility was so great that they were hesitant. But Rita Skeeter, a woman with little mental burden, looked very decisive to the others.
The fat supervisor frowned and said, "What if these letters are just isolated cases, a couple of - well, a couple of school wizards, for goodness' sake! How does it sound so odd to think that wizards go to school too - ahem, I mean, what if this is just the whim of a few school wizard students?"
"I do have that concern." The serious woman said. She is afraid that by speaking for the wizards, or by not criticising or analysing them with enough spiciness and comprehensiveness, she will not make the most of the material and instead be overtaken by other media outlets.
"I don't think so." Skeeter said confidently, her bottom line derived not from the analysis but from last night's conversation, which made the process of working backward incredibly easy when she knew the conclusion.
"Think about it, when these articles go out, whether it's the whim of a few students or not, as long as one of the contents of the letter is true - namely that the wizards have their own law enforcement agency - they're bound to find out about this. There are only two outcomes when that happens:"
The more Rita Skeeter spoke, the more confident she became, and she raised two thick fingers.
"The first outcome, the enforcers come to their door and order those students not to write to us again, but that approach-"
"It would make little sense," the serious woman picked up, "as the wizard has already revealed their presence and this would just be playing deaf and dumb."
"That's right," Skeeter said aloud, "the second outcome would be the law enforcers of the wizarding world acquiesced to the students' actions, at best secretly guiding them to avoid revealing secrets or something; or, as we just feared, that it was all arranged by the wizard... ...Either way, it means a steady stream of exclusives!"
The sound of breathing in the conference room became heavy.
Rita Skeeter fidgeted and glanced at the others; she had just come up with the perfect title for herself: the Uncrowned Queen.
...
Meanwhile, several most influential people in the British government are participating in a cabinet meeting, with every attendee handpicked and even the leader of the opposition party present.
"Can we send our troops ..." the Minister of Defence said tentatively midway through the meeting.
"I disagree!" The Prime Minister slapped the table.
"Mr. Prime Minister, don't forget that you are 'our' Prime Minister." The Leader of the Opposition warned the Prime Minister, as he said wistfully, "I suspect you are under the spell of those wizards ... In fact, this is very likely, legend has it that wizards can summon demons and boil up bewitching potions, and only a burning cross can subdue them... ..."
"Are you a fool?" The Prime Minister said irritably, "Or do you intend to start a modern-day witch hunt?! But remember you're not up against defenceless women from centuries ago, you're up against guys who actually control magic, the strongest of whom can destroy a city by themselves, and - hell yeah, that one happens to use the very fire you're so proud of!"
"That can't be! How can they be that strong?" The Home Secretary shouted out of breath.
In fact, what he wanted to say was, why would a wizard that powerful still willingly hide?
"The ones that strong are only in the minority, a rare breed," the Prime Minister said with a strange look on his face, "According to what I've read in the information, only four have appeared in the last two hundred years, and three of them are in Britain. I don't know whether to be proud or uh-"
"They're all still alive?" The Minister of Finance asked cautiously.
"Two are dead," the Prime Minister said, "in terms, we can understand, one good and one bad, the good one was highly respected, the headmaster of a school of wizards, who fought two generations of Dark Lords all by himself, but sadly he died recently. Had it not been for him, the war might have broken out between the wizards and us a long ago."
He did feel sorry for him. Even though the Prime Minister had never met Dumbledore, he could conjure up in his mind an image of a man whose political prestige was so high that it was unmatched, just from the attitude of the two Ministers of Magic.
The Leader of the Opposition asked coldly, "So what if war breaks out, will we lose?"
The Prime Minister looked at him curiously.
"Have I not made myself clear enough? Or do you insist on fighting an open war on British soil against tens of thousands of people with strange skills? They're organised and have a regime similar to ours, which means they're harder to deal with than terrorists, and I remember the last time we sent a few hundred police officers against a dozen violent men, and they ended up smashing a whole city block! Even if we ended up winning, what would we gain - oh, not to mention the fact that they now have two archmages who can destroy cities at the drop of a hat, one of whom is bound by a magical vow and the other is interested in negotiating the integration of wizards into society, and you're going to ruin that by having two human nukes join forces against us? "
"Do your words represent the attitude of your party?" The Prime Minister pursued the question aggressively, not forgetting to dig a hole for his opponent.
The Leader of the Opposition was dumbfounded, and halfway through, he asked a sharp question.
"Are you sure that all this information is true? I haven't heard of any city being destroyed by wizards, it's only us who have done that before -" he stopped his sentence awkwardly.
"The intel gathered has the answers you're looking for." The Prime Minister shrugged off the responsibility and said, "As for the truth, I'm not sure, which is why I sought all your advice."
"What are they, um, wizards capable of? I mean, you've seen them with your own eyes?" The Defence Minister asked a reliable question.
The Prime Minister thought for a moment and said, "I've only dealt with two Ministers of Magic. They didn't cast spells in my presence at random, but just from what I've seen with my own eyes-" His expression suddenly became serious and grave.
"Wizards can glue things to walls that can't be taken off by conventional means; their portraits have intelligence and can communicate with people -- I'm not sure if that's all they do; they can also turn objects into small animals that the naked eye can't tell from the real thing, which is called trans-sfiguration, and they have a range of other magical disciplines --"
"Can a wizard turn into another person?" The Defence Minister asked, holding his breath.
"I don't know." The Prime Minister shook his head as he continued, "They can also appear and disappear out of thin air, but I've only seen it once, and most of the time they appear through fireplaces -"
"Fireplaces!" The Minister of Defence and the Minister of Home Affairs shouted in unison, seemingly terrified.
"What?" The Prime Minister asked curiously.
"Have you counted," the Minister of Home Affairs said with a grimace, "how many fireplaces there are in all Britain?"
The Prime Minister was stunned for a moment, then the rest of the expression on his face disappeared and fear surfaced a little.
It goes without saying - the British have a strong fireplace obsession and basically every household has a beautiful fireplace, even if they don't light it a few times a year, but they are a must!
The government also sees fireplaces as an important part of traditional British culture, and while technology has made it unnecessary for people to have fireplaces to heat their homes, the government is still doing its best to provide them with increasingly pure coal for fireplaces.
For example, think of how many scenes in English literature have featured fireplaces in scenes of cosiness, power, or reunion with family and friends?
In the midst of a roaring fire, fireplaces have witnessed the warmth and happiness of countless families, the beautiful vows of lovers, the laughter of friends ... and now, if they become hostile to wizards, the first thing they have to do is call on the people to tear down tens of millions of fireplaces?
The Prime Minister couldn't help but shudder.
His already not-so-strong heart became even more shaken at the moment. The link between wizards and ordinary people is far closer than he thought, and to deal with wizards would first require a place without fireplaces... that would be cutting into the flesh! By removing all wizard influence, what would be left in the land?
"These wizards are an abomination!"
"Rats in the sewers!"
"Too shameless!"
A fierce outcry followed. The conference room fell silent again, and the people looked at each other. The Prime Minister looked from side to side and finally, compelled to ask, "So - everyone agrees to try and make contact with the wizard?"
No one said a peep.
"I understand, and I hope everyone will continue to adhere to this resolution in the next parliamentary session."
Outside the conference room, Kingsley, who is acting as assistant of the Prime Minister, pricked up his ears. A fireplace? It hadn't occurred to him at all that a small fireplace would be the key, perhaps he was too accustomed to it. He walked away quietly as the discussion continued in the conference room, but it was no longer relevant to the big picture -
"Should we seek the help of the church? They're the professionals." Someone suggested.
"Idiot, haven't you ever dealt with them? If they could really spread miracles, would they still be that virtuous? They blaspheme themselves!"
"Cough cough cough!" The Prime Minister let out a series of sharp coughs.
"Ugh, at least they might have kept some records."
"Speaking of which - it occurs to me that the Queen is the nominal Supreme Governor of the Church ..."
"You want the crown to get involved?"
"It's such a big deal, so they might as well share some of the pressure ..."
...
The Dursleys.
"I knew it, watch it!" Vernon pointed at the TV and said smugly, "Those gutters can't hide at last, someone will stop them, I wish the government would arrest them all one by one -"
He suddenly braced himself, his small eyes darting around twice warily, "If that's the case, will they use our house as a refuge and forcibly seize our property? I think that Ministry of Magic employee Dudley is sneaky and has no good intentions."
Dudley glared at his father.
"Alas, not all those associated with Dudley are as nice as you," Vernon said in a rush to add a compliment, and he turned his head to Petunia, "Shall we call the police secretly - while the boy is away?"
"No!" Aunt Petunia shouted, in a firm voice, "Absolutely no one can find this out!"
The fat of Vernon's body quivered, and he cooed in a small voice, "Well, well ... I just said it casually, it's all that freak's fault," he suddenly burst out with a fit of anger, "no sense of manners at all, just like his father, he just entrusted someone to bring back a message -"
He spat and cursed for ten minutes, then leaned back on the sofa, panting and looking at the picture on top of the fireplace - they still maintained the tradition of using a fireplace to keep warm in winter, otherwise, they would have been gossiped about.
All the neighbours around know that the Dursleys are very, very disciplined and traditional people.
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