Grizel gave Ginny a blank look. “Your P.P.P.? Your Portable Protean Printer.., Oh, Hecate’s Handmaidens, you’ve never used the P.P.P.!” Grizel closed her eyes and massaged her temples, as Ginny looked bewildered. “Okay. Okay. My mistake. Starting from scratch.” She sat up and opened her eyes.

  “A Protean Printer is just what it says on the tin, a printer with a Protean Charm on it. Are you familiar with how a Protean Charm works?”

  Ginny nodded. “Hermione enchanted coins for Dumbledore’s Army during the War, so we could communicate securely.”

  “Impressive,” Grizel said. “Wish she had been around when we were developing these. The money we spent. Carrying on. The printer takes dictation...”

  “Like Rita’s Quick-Quotes Quill?”

  “Without the lying, self-flattering modifications she has bespelled it with, yes. The reporter dictates the story, or maybe just the notes, if someone here is to write the article. The magimachine prints it out for the reporter. Once the reporter approves it, she invokes the Protean Charm, and an exact copy prints here in the office.”

  “Brilliant!” Ginny enthused. "Why don’t we use them all the time?”

  Grizel shrugged. “In-country it’s really much quicker to pop back to the office. The P.P.P. is mostly used for big, world-wide events, like the Cup. And since this is your first Cup as a reporter...”

  “Got you. Still and all, it sounds like an awfully handy tool.”

  “Oh, it is,” Grizel agreed. “Even better once we got it down to a portable size. The first models were big, clunky, boxy monstrosities. We kept them in branch offices all over the world. There was usually one within reasonable Apparition distance from just about anywhere. Those eventually became too much trouble, always breaking down, needing specialty tools that we couldn’t keep on hand, developing weird quirks. It was a real relief when the second generation was finally debugged and released.”

  “Debugged?” Ginny asked. “Like those Muggle... complooter thingies?”

  “Oh, no.” Grizel shuddered. “Actual magical bugs and pests and creepy-crawlies, the printers seemed to attract them. And once the first generation models were infested, they were a nightmare to clean out. The little monsters always seemed to have some place to retreat.” She shook her head and stood up. “Once the portables came out, we gathered all the old ones and consigned them to the storage in the sub-levels. I’d consign them to a place a lot lower than that, if I had my way. Come on, we’ll get you fixed up.”

  As they got to the door, Grizel looked back, and said, “Mr. Gaffe?”

  “Yes, Ms. Hurtz?” he said, without looking up from his highball glass.

  “If I might suggest, sir, you could get one of your clean teaspoons out of your lower left-hand drawer, and gather the whisky with that.”

  “Ah. Erm, yes. Yes, I could!” He looked up and beamed. “Well, bully! Bully for you, Grizel! What in the world would I do without you?”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “By the Baba Yaga, I hope we never find out,” Grizel muttered.

  “Oh, and Potter?” Ginny pulled up short, and turned to face Mr. Gaffe.

  “Sir?” she said.

  The cynical half-smile was back. “I have not forgotten your other condition for working with Rita Skeeter. All I will say is that, if you absolutely must, ah, ‘Belt her a good one,’? Well, it would be much appreciated if you could wait as late in the tournament as possible. I doubt, very seriously, that she will be good for anything else, not for a considerable time afterwards.”

  Ginny repressed a smile. “I will take your words into consideration, sir, and do my very best to accommodate your wishes.”

  “Good, good.” He leaned to the side, to rummage through his desk drawer. “Carry on, Potter.”

  ***

  Ginny and Griz went down two floors to the Newsroom, and wove through the maze of cluttered desks, piled high with untidy stacks of anything that would stack. Several had toppled into aisles, creating a clear and present hazard. The piles were cleared on a fairly regular basis. For instance, if somebody missed more than two days of work without checking in, the piles were the first place searched.

  At the back of the room were double doors. One of them had a battered metal sign hanging by one corner from a Muggle biro jammed into a hole. The sign read, simply, ‘STUFF.’ Grizel produced her wand and waved it. The doors groaned, shook slightly, and settled back. She waved it again. All she got was a heavy sigh, and both doors sagged on their hinges, wedging against each other.

  Grizel gritted her teeth, raised her wand, and whispered, “Incendio, bitches.” A small, but very intense flame started spiralling up and down the shaft. The door hinges tightened up immediately, there was a quite loud click, and the doors flew back so far, they impacted audibly against the inside of the wall.

  “Impressive,” said Ginny.

  “Especially considering that the hinges are on this side,” Grizel replied dryly.

  The two walked into the space revealed, little more than a few tables and some chairs, plus the endcaps of rows of shelves stretching back into the darkness. Grizel turned to the right.

  “They’re over here against the wall, a little down this last aisle.” They walked out of sight. The doors against the front walls seemed to relax, and started slowly swinging outward.

  Grizel leaned out from the darkness, and fixed them with a gimlet eye.

  “Keep in mind,” she said. “Incendio is me being nice.” The doors cowered back.

  Down the aisle Ginny lit her wand, and was inspecting the shelves. Office supplies, for the most part, though on down the way there were shelves stacked with neatly folded Muggle-style clothing, in various sizes. Undercover reporting in Muggle areas, she supposed. Living with Harry had taught her that most of the garments were either inappropriate or ridiculously out of fashion.

  Grizel came back down the aisle, muttering something uncomplimentary about doors getting ideas above their station. She lit her wand as well, and started casting about, looking high and low. She frowned. “They are here somewhere, blast and damn them.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Barny Boy, there, Griz,” Ginny pointed out.

  Grizel snorted. “Who told you my pet name for him? Ah, wait, here they are. We walked right past them.”

  She led Ginny back up the aisle, and stopped at a wall unit, with a coarse wire mesh closing it off from the aisle. A quick Alohomora, and the wires writhed to get out of their way. This revealed several assemblages of various irregular metallic cubes, each assemblage roughly the size of a small suitcase.

  “Ooh, yeah,” Ginny said. “I’ve seen those around. I wondered what they were. No wonder that... looked... familiar...” She trailed to a halt.

  Ginny’s mind, on some strange level, was both frozen in shock and revving out of control. A number of previously unrelated facts cascaded through her brain. They then dropped into the pit of her stomach like bowling balls falling into a vat full of champagne flutes.

  Oh. Bloody. Hell.