"Good luck to you both!"
Colin gave them a quick wave before disappearing, having escorted them to the temporary wand inspection room. Of course, only one of them needed encouragent—Harry.
"This is going to be humiliating…" Harry muttered, his legs trembling as he hesitated at the door.
"It's going to go viral for a while. Play it right and you might even land a few endorsent deals," Cohen said breezily, completely in the zone. "Like I said before—if you can't fight it, might as well embrace it."
He pushed open the door. Inside was a small classroom. Most of the desks had been shoved to the back to clear an open space.
Three desks had been pushed together at the front of the room, right in front of the blackboard, covered in a long strip of velvet cloth.
To Cohen, the whole setup looked a bit like one of those cobbled-together university New Year's Eve parties.
The other three champions were already seated around the makeshift table. Krum sat in brooding silence, while Cedric seed to be deep in conversation with Fleur.
Aside from the champions, there were a few familiar faces present.
Mr. Crouch was speaking with a woman dressed in a bright magenta robe, her hair styled in exaggerated, bouncy curls. Nearby, a photographer was circling the room, endlessly adjusting his angles and snapping pictures.
"Well, now all the champions are here," Crouch said crisply, turning to Cohen and Harry. "Please take your seats. We're about to begin wand inspection. The other judges will be here shortly to check whether your wands are in proper working order."
"As for this lady…" He gave a brief glance toward the woman beside him. "This is Rita Skeeter. She's writing a piece for The Daily Prophet."
"If you'd be willing to share just a little more, Barty…"
Rita, who slled overwhelmingly of perfu and wore a smile far too practiced to be sincere, strutted over toward them.
"Before the inspection starts, could I have a quick word with our most controversial little champion?" she asked sweetly. "You understand, Barty—it'll add so flavor to the article."
"I have no authority over the champions' choices," Crouch replied stiffly. "It's up to them."
"Perfect, then…"
Her eyes flicked between Cohen and Harry—interviewing Harry might've been the safer bet. But Rita Skeeter had never been one to shy away from risk. After all, she was the one who'd exposed that side of Dumbledore—the stiff old lunatic—on the front page.
"You, Cohen!"
She grabbed him by the arm, her scarlet nails digging in, and pulled him out of the room, yanking open a side door.
"It's far too noisy in there… Let's see… Ah, this'll do nicely."
She led him into a cramped broom closet.
"Co on in, dear. It's quiet—perfect for an exclusive interview."
Her eyes sparkled with curiosity, utterly unaware of what was about to unfold.
She sat him down on a cardboard box and perched herself on an upturned bucket. Then she opened her crocodile-skin handbag, pulled out a few candles, and floated them in the air with a flick of her wand to light the tiny space.
"I'll be using a Quick-Quotes Quill, if you don't mind?" she asked, her smile syrupy sweet. "That way I can focus on our conversation."
"AI-generated content, huh? Interesting…" Cohen murmured, stroking his chin.
Rita ignored whatever "AI" ant and fished out a long, glittering green quill along with a roll of parchnt. She unrolled it onto a nearby crate, then dramatically stuck the quill into her mouth, sucking on it like it was a lollipop, before planting it upright on the parchnt.
"Let's give it a test. 'Rita Skeeter, reporter for The Daily Prophet,'" she declared.
At once, the quill began to scribble in loopy, dramatic handwriting:
"The dazzling blonde Rita Skeeter, age forty-three, whose defiant quill has exposed countless hollow reputations…"
"What?" she snapped, catching Cohen's skeptical look. "Sothing you want to say?"
"Isn't forty-three a bit old for a journalist?" Cohen asked bluntly. "I an, you don't look like soone who's found their other half… Spending your life chasing rumors, watching your interviewees go ho to families of their own—don't you ever feel so jealous that you twist the truth into sothing more dramatic, more… rotten?"
"The young Cohen, in his first-ever interview, displayed a curious fascination with the reporter's personal life. Clearly, the age of forty-three struck him as oddly—"
"No, no—absolutely not," Rita snapped, ripping the parchnt to shreds. Her smile had beco considerably more brittle. "Let's stay on topic, shall we? So… what made you enter the Triwizard Tournant?"
"Well, it's a bit complicated," Cohen replied with a dramatic lift of his eyebrows. "At first, I didn't know anything…"
"The faint candlelight flickered across his pale, handso face. His dark eyes were deeper than the dungeons of Azkaban. At last, under the reporter's gentle coaxing, he began to reveal the tournant's darkest, dirtiest secrets…"
"I don't think I'm that cold and mysterious," Cohen muttered.
"Truth, Cohen—focus on the truth," Rita urged. "What happened next? What made you enter?"
"That's the strange part," Cohen said, playing along. "I never submitted my na. It just appeared in the Goblet sohow. And the Ministry did absolutely nothing. In fact, Minister Fudge insisted I go through with it. I suspect soone in the Ministry set up. If this doesn't get printed… well, congratulations, capitalism—you win."
"'It wasn't a coincidence!' the youngest champion in Hogwarts history said darkly, his voice low and razor-sharp. 'I believe it was the Minister himself who put my na in the Goblet. I saw him at the Quidditch World Cup—'"
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