It had been a week since Ben had last visited the manor on Nirn Island.
Not because he was punishing Rita Skeeter. Well, not just because of that.
He had genuinely forgotten she existed.
He'd been mildly distracted by a certain stone that had tried to convince him to die.
So when he finally stepped back onto Nirn Island, disguised once again as his late Uncle Arthur Brown — silver-streaked hair, fine blue robes, eyes carrying just enough nace — he wasn't expecting much from the woman under house arrest.
If he was being honest, he had half-expected to find either a corpse or a complete lunatic.
Instead, the mont he pushed open the manor door, he was greeted by Rita Skeeter's shriek.
"Oh, thank rlin's hairy backside, you're alive!"
Her voice echoed off the walls, accompanied by the frantic rustling of parchnt scattering across the floor.
"I thought you'd died again!"
Ben stepped into the foyer.
"Hah. You wish," he said, taking in the state of the manor.
The air slled strongly of ink and parchnt, reminding him uncomfortably of the Hogwarts library.
Sheets of parchnt clung to the walls, pinned up with sketches of the outside world — Diagon Alley, the Ministry Atrium, even a surprisingly accurate rendering of Hogsade. He hadn't known she could draw.
And then there was Rita herself.
She looked like soone who had been stranded on an island with nothing but a quill and an endless supply of parchnt.
Which, to be fair, wasn't entirely inaccurate.
Her hands, face, and even her sleeves were stained with ink, like a child who had discovered a permanent marker for the first ti. Rolls of parchnt hung from her neck. Her hair resembled a Niffler's nest, bits of paper caught in the tangles.
"I've been stuck here for a week! Alone! With nothing!"
"I left you your wand. What more do you need?" he asked dryly.
"My wand?" she snapped. "There's barely any magic in this place. I exhausted myself casting the smallest spell. Do you know what that feels like? It's torture."
Ben regarded her with mild disdain, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve.
"So dramatic," he said quietly. "If I wanted to torture you, you would know. I simply… forgot you existed."
That silenced her.
For exactly two seconds.
"You forgot?" she sputtered, torn between outrage and sothing much closer to fear. "I've been locked in this house with nobody but a ferret for company, all because you simply forgot?"
Sil, coiled peacefully near the fireplace, perked up at that and let out a series of offended chirps that she couldn't understand.
Unfortunately for Rita, he had his own interpreter.
"First of all," Ben said coolly, "he would like to remind you that he is a stoat and not a ferret. Second, that it is Sir Silvaticus the First to you. And third—"
He paused, glancing down at the indignant creature.
"No. We can't say that about her mother, buddy," he added firmly. "We're all civilised people here."
Sil huffed and let out another string of even more vile screeches.
Before the exchange could spiral any further down that rabbit hole, Ben flicked a rabbit leg toward him. Sil caught it mid-air and retreated to the hearth, cutting the conversation rcifully short.
Ben straightened his robes and moved on.
"In any case," he said smoothly, sweeping his gaze around the hall, "I see you've kept yourself entertained."
The main hall was buried in parchnt. Dozens of drafts covered the tables, chairs, and even the floor.
He could see the Headlines repeating over and over, scratched out and rewritten with increasingly dramatic phrasing.
"I finished what you asked for days ago," Rita said, folding her arms. "But since I had nothing else to do, I… refined things."
Ben's gaze fell on a neatly stacked pile of parchnt on the table. He flipped through the top few pages.
His brow twitched.
"'The Tragedy of Arthur Brown: From Forgotten Auror to Puppetmaster'?" he read aloud.
Rita blinked, like a thief caught mid-act.
The next page featured a dramatic sketch of "Arthur" standing in the rain, cloak billowing, wand raised as though he were so brooding vigilante out of a penny dreadful.
Ben stared at it for a long mont.
Then flas burst from his palms, consuming the parchnt in his hand before he flicked a sharp firebolt toward the remaining stack. It ignited instantly, curling into ash within seconds.
Rita squeaked and stumbled back.
"I didn't ask you to write biographies about ," Ben said flatly. "Show what you wrote about my nephew."
Rita hurried to the far table and returned with another sheaf of parchnt, her hands still trembling slightly.
"This—this is the retraction," she said quickly. "A revised piece on how his bravery saved the school. And this one… a twelve-inch column dragging Lucius Malfoy's na through the mud."
Ben took the pages and lowered himself onto a chair that was mostly parchnt and only partly furniture.
The room fell silent as he read.
Rita stood opposite him, fingers knotted together like a schoolgirl awaiting judgnt.
After several long monts, he set the papers down.
"You exceeded expectations, Skeeter," he said quietly. "These are… well written."
Her eyes lit up.
"So," she said eagerly, "you'll let return now? I can submit these to the Prophet—"
"No."
Rita froze mid-sentence.
"I beg your pardon?"
"These won't be published in the Prophet."
"But—" she faltered. "Then where? The Quibbler? Surely you're joking."
He didn't answer imdiately.
Instead, he leaned forward slightly and asked, "Tell , Rita. What do you actually want? Why did you stay at the Prophet all those years? Was it the fa? The attention? The money?"
Rita frowned, thrown off. "I—well. All of those, I suppose. What are you getting at?"
Ben shrugged.
"Why work under soone else when you could run the whole thing? Why beg for column space when you could decide what gets printed? Why fight for Galleons…"
He snapped his fingers.
A wooden chest dropped beside her with a solid thud. The lid creaked open on its own.
A tiny griffin perched on top of the pile of glittering galleons, glaring at her.
"…when I can give you more gold than you can ever spend."
Rita stared at the chest.
Greed moved across her face before she could hide it.
She stepped closer, smoothing her robes.
"And what," she asked carefully, "would I be expected to do?"
Ben smiled.
"Write."
He tapped the parchnt in front of him.
"For my paper. The Magical Voice."
The greedy sparkle in Rita's eyes dimd, and her nose wrinkled slightly.
"That's… a terrible na," she muttered. "You do realise how difficult it is to start a paper from scratch? No one reads unknown rags. It's a graveyard of failed ideas."
"Exactly why I'm offering you the job," Ben replied calmly. "You've got a na. Infamous, yes. But people read infamous."
Rita paused, clearly calculating.
She stepped closer, confidence returning now that she sensed negotiation.
"And what," she asked softly, leaning in, "do I receive in return? Besides gold and glory, of course."
Ben smirked. "You an in addition to all that?"
She nodded coyly.
Ben stood and closed the distance between them as he replied.
"You get to write the truth, without fear of people like Lucius."
"Tch. Truth," she scoffed. "What if I prefer my own version of it?"
Ben lifted his hand and brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek, for no other reason except to show that he could.
Then his fingers trailed slowly as he firmly gripped her chin to have her look into his eyes.
"You mistake this for a negotiation, Rita", he said quietly.
"It's not." A pulse of magic left his fingers.
The shock ran through her before she had ti to react. Rita's body jerked as the current seized her muscles, and she cried out, collapsing onto the floor as her limbs spasd against the stone.
Ben released her before she fell unconscious.
Sparks was a novice spell. On Nirn Island, where wizarding magic ran thin, it struck harder than it had any right to.
Rita lay on the cold stone floor, struggling to breathe, ink and mascara running down her face.
He adjusted his cuff.
"You will write the truth," he said calmly.
"Or you won't write at all."
-End of Chapter-
Reviews
All reviews (0)