The Daily Prophet that arrived the next morning was even worse than Harry had feared. The front page was dominated by a large, unflattering photograph of his face, his expression one of dazed confusion, under a massive, garish headline:
HARRY POTTER: A CHAMPION'S TRAGEDY?Tears, Trauma, and Tournament Terrors
Rita Skeeter's article was a masterpiece of malicious insinuation and saccharine-sweet fabrication. She painted Harry as a disturbed, possibly unstable boy, haunted by the ghosts of his past and prone to weeping in corners. She hinted that he was desperate for attention, that his inclusion in the tournament was a cry for help. She quoted him saying things he had never said, twisting his simple answers into long, rambling monologues about his tragic orphan status. She even managed to get in a few sly digs at Hermione, describing her as a "plain but ambitious girl who seems to have a taste for famous wizards," and at Ariana, whom she called a "cold, calculating beauty who rarely speaks."
The article achieved its desired effect. The school was buzzing with it. The Hufflepuffs now looked at Harry with a mixture of pity and contempt. The Slytherins, led by Malfoy who was reading passages aloud with dramatic flair, were having a field day.
Harry was mortified, his face burning with a mixture of anger and humiliation. "She made it all up! I never said any of that!" he fumed, crumpling the newspaper in his fist as he sat with his friends at the Gryffindor table.
"She's a dreadful woman," Hermione said, her own face flushed with indignation. "It's libelous!
There should be a law against it!"
"There is," Daphne commented dryly from across the table. "But Rita Skeeter has been cleverly navigating the loopholes for years. My father says she has incriminating information on half the Ministry. No one dares to cross her."
Ariana, however, was not angry. She read the article with a cool, analytical detachment, her expression unreadable. She absorbed the data, identified the threat, and calculated the most efficient response. Rita Skeeter was a variable that could compromise their work. Her ability to eavesdrop and fabricate stories was a potential security risk, not just to Harry's emotional wellbeing, but to their own secret research and strategic planning. Therefore, the variable had to be neutralized.
She had known from her memories that Rita was an unregistered Animagus, a beetle. This was the source of her uncanny ability to acquire private information. A direct confrontation would be messy and would reveal her own knowledge. A public accusation would devolve into a "he-said, she-said" media circus that Skeeter would undoubtedly win.
The logical solution, therefore, was to remove herself from the equation entirely.
That afternoon, she retired to the Room of Requirement alone. She penned a short, anonymous letter. The handwriting was not her own, but a flawless, generic script she had learned for creating untraceable documents. The parchment was standard, purchased from a shop in Diagon Alley. The owl she would use would be a common brown school owl, unremarkable in every way.
The letter was addressed directly to Amelia Bones, Head of the DMLE.
It read:
Director Bones,
It has come to my attention that a significant and ongoing breach of Ministry law is being perpetrated by the journalist Rita Skeeter. It is a well-known fact that Ms. Skeeter has an uncanny ability to procure information from private, magically-secured locations. The source of this ability is her status as an unregistered Animagus. Her form is that of a common beetle (Coleoptera).
This illegal status not only constitutes a serious crime under the Registry of Animagi Act of 1895, but it also represents a significant threat to national security, allowing her to act as an untraceable intelligence-gathering agent in secure Ministry locations, Wizengamot sessions, and even at Hogwarts School itself.
I trust you will find this information useful in your duties to uphold the law. I remain, as always,A Friend to Due Process.
She sealed the letter and sent it off with the anonymous owl. The game was set. She had provided the authorities with a verifiable, actionable piece of intelligence. The rest was up to them.
The result was swifter and more dramatic than even she had anticipated.
Two days later, the morning edition of the Daily Prophet was delivered, and the headline was a showstopper.
RITA SKEETER ARRESTED!
PROMINENT JOURNALIST AN ILLEGAL ANIMAGUS!
EMERGENCY TRIAL SENTENCES HER TO SIX YEARS IN AZKABAN!
A stunned silence fell over the Great Hall as everyone read the shocking news. The article, written by a flustered-looking junior reporter, explained that acting on a "highly credible anonymous tip," Aurors had raided Skeeter's home and found her in the process of transforming. Faced with irrefutable evidence and the threat of Veritaserum, she had confessed everything.
The Wizengamot, many of whose members had been victims of Skeeter's poison-quill pen for years, had convened an emergency session. They showed no mercy. She was found guilty on all counts, fined an exorbitant amount, and sentenced to six years in Azkaban for her flagrant and long-term violation of magical law.
Ariana had correctly surmised that Skeeter had made too many powerful enemies. Amelia Bones, a stickler for the law, would have been duty-bound to act on the tip. And the moment the information was made public, every witch and wizard Skeeter had ever wronged had lined up to ensure the punishment was as severe as possible.
"Blimey," Ron breathed, staring at the paper. "A beetle. She was a beetle. And now she's in Azkaban."
Harry felt a wave of immense relief. He looked over at Ariana, who was calmly eating a piece of toast, her expression as serene as ever. He couldn't prove it. There was no evidence. But he knew, with an absolute, unshakeable certainty, that she was the one who did it. He had been agonizing over a public humiliation, and she had solved the problem with a single, anonymous letter, surgically removing the threat from the board with a terrifying and beautiful efficiency.
Hermione and Daphne also looked at her, their expressions a mixture of awe and profound respect. They didn't need to ask. They knew.
Ariana met their questioning gazes with a calm, neutral expression. "A surprising but ultimately logical outcome," she commented, taking a sip of pumpkin juice. "It seems that even in the wizarding world, the consistent violation of established protocols will eventually lead to negative consequences."
Her message was clear. Rita Skeeter was an inefficient, chaotic variable. And Ariana Dumbledore did not tolerate inefficient, chaotic variables. The wizarding world's most feared journalist had just learned a very hard lesson: you don't pick a fight with a person who treats justice not as a passion, but as an equation to be solved.