Mr. Gaffe shut the door and started back to his desk, muttering to himself.

  “Definitely need to rethink that policy. Definitely.” Looking up, he saw Ginny waiting for him. “Oh, yes, Potter. Have a seat, have a seat.” He did so, himself, walking behind his desk. The seat of his leather-covered wingback chair rose to meet him halfway, got him settled, then the whole chair scooted itself forward to within comfortable reach of the desk. He then looked at Ginny and beamed.

  “Now, then, Potter, what can I do for you?”

  Here we go, thought Ginny. “You sent for me, sir.”

  The elderly man’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “Erm, yes. I did? Yes, yes, I did.” He scanned the top of the desk, obviously looking for a clue. He even unfolded the paper airplane still crumpled in his hand, but apparently it was no help.

  Ginny took pity. “Well, I understand completely, sir. It’s quite obvious you are thinking of the World Cup, since the first round takes off day after tomorrow.”

  Mr. Gaffe’s gaze sharpened, and he started reciting. “Norway versus Ivory Coast. Norway’s Top Chaser Lars Lundekvam against Ivorian Chaser Elodie Dembélé. Seekers Sigrid Kristoffersen, Norway, and Sylvian Boigny, Ivory Coast. Too close to call if they both play to their usual standards.” The impression of sharp focus drained away. “Erm, yes. Yes, I wanted to talk to you.., about?” he ended hopefully.

  “You are absolutely right, Mr. Gaffe, it is time, and past time, for me to devote all my attention to Cup coverage. My performance over the last two months has been, at best, barely adequate. I must, however, thank you and the entire Prophet staff for supporting me until I could get the distracting elements resolved.”

  The editor-in-chief seized on this last. “Ah! Erm, yes. Distractions. Yes, Potter, the distraction from your duties has been.., resolved, you say? Well, bully! Bully for you. No one understands and sympathises with family, ah, distractions more than I, but..,” Here Mr. Gaffe put on a stern expression, “...we have work. Important work. We can’t have staff rolling up at..,” he pulled out his large, plain pocket watch and popped the cover, “...at.., oh, is that the time? Why, it’s still quite early, isn’t it? I say, well done, Potter. Plenty of time to.., to..,” He trailed off. Ginny took up the running again.

  “Time to start the in-depth coverage, indeed sir, it is. Splash out on the competitors the morning of each match, full analysis the morning after each match. Light interviews, hobbies, families, personal interest, before the match. After the match, serious in-depth coverage, win or lose. What went right, what went wrong, key moments, plans for the future.” Mr. Gaffe was nodding along, regular as a metronome, (not too be confused with a metrognome, recurring invasive pests on the Underground. Bloody French).

  Ginny continued. “Days without a match, pick a personality from an upcoming game and go all out. Inquire about their training regimen, get their views on other players or teams, see if we can dig up any rivalries...”

  The editor’s face lit up. “Yes, yes! Assign that to Rita, right up her alley.”

  Ginny paused, then went on. “Sir, as you know, I only agreed to work with Rita Skeeter under specific conditions. I realise she is one of your, ah...”

  Ginny sputtered to a halt. Mr. Gaffe was giving her a cynical half-smile. It was not an expression she recalled having seen before.

  “Potter,” he said crisply. “...Skeeter sells papers. That is the Alpha and the Omega of what she means to me. I don’t like her personally. I don’t like the kind of people who hang on her every word. All I can say is that their money is better off in our Gringott’s vault, than any other purpose they would put it toward.”

  He sighed. His chair rotated slightly, so he could look out the large window on the left wall. After a moment, he went on.

  “Potter, I am not proud of the Daily Prophet’s journalistic record in the years before and during the War. I could plead Force Majeure, first from the Ministry’s desire to prevent panic, then from the certain death dealt out by.., Him, any time He was crossed. But I won’t.”

  The chair turned back, and he faced her. “I took the easy path. And I stayed with that path long after it became the hardest path of all.” He clasped his hands together and stared down at them. “We have since pushed for, and gotten, some very important guarantees of Press Freedom from the Post-War Wizengamot. They have also passed laws that enshrine Truth in Publishing as a core principle of the Press.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Xenophilius Lovegood will still be able to blather on about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and the like. The laws, as written, give the Quibbler a blanket exemption, classifying it as Entertainment, not Journalism. Of course, we're not going to tell him that.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “So, Potter, to get back to your original point, yes, I remember your conditions. The first, that she is not to lie, is not only your request, but the Prophet’s policy, and the Wizengamot’s enshrined law. But you can’t teach an old ghoul new tricks. I have no doubt that she will continue to insinuate, imply, indicate, suggest, hint, allude, infer, let it be known and/or give someone to understand things that may not be exactly 100%, ah, verifiable.”

  He sighed again. “What has been made crystal clear to her, is that the Prophet will not be supporting or defending her against legal action for libel, slander, and the like. And, if she gets challenged to a duel...”

  Ginny couldn’t resist. Waving a hand in the air, she went, “Ooh! Ooh! Me! Pick me, please!” He gave her a quizzical look. She continued.

  “Dueling is a sport, right? And someone will have to cover the duel, right? And who better than your Senior Qidditch correspondent...?”

  Barnabas Gaffe stared at her. He opened his mouth, paused, closed it, opened it again, held up a finger, coughed...

  And laughed. And laughed. He laughed so hard he couldn’t speak. He laughed so hard he was crying. He laughed until he gave himself hiccups, all the while waving that one solitary finger. Oh, Ginny was laughing, too, but she wasn’t even in the same sport, much less the same league.

  The door opened slightly. Grizel leaned her head in, checked the scene, pulled her head back, and closed the door. A few minutes later, the door opened wide, and she came in with a small tray in one hand. On the tray were two largish glasses of water with no ice, and three highball glasses, half full of a golden amber liquid, (also with no ice).

  Setting the tray on one end of the desk, she put a glass of water and highball glass before each of them. Turning, she beckoned a chair over, and sat by Ginny, with the third glass in hand.

  It took a while to die down. Mr. Gaffe’s hiccups were the last to succumb to the blandishments of the water in the glass. He took a crisply folded handkerchief from an inside pocket, patting first his lips and chin, then his cravat, and then he looked at his desk blotter and gave it up as a bad job.

  Taking his highball, he held it up to propose a toast. “To the possibility of Rita Skeeter being challenged to a duel!” They all drank.

  Ginny held her glass up. “To my being assigned to cover the duel for the Prophet!” Drink.

  Grizel followed suit. “To you loons getting the hell out of here, so I can get some work done!” They each drained their glass.

  Ginny smacked her lips. “Not my usual tipple, but smooth. Very smooth. I could get used to that.”

  “Don’t,” advised Grizel. “Twenty-five year-old, magic cherry-wood aged, Swott Single-Malt Whisky. Two Hundred and Fifty Galleons the liter.”

  The others looked at her, Ginny with amazement, Mr. Gaffe with speculation.

  Grizel smiled at him. “Remember when you asked me why I let that pushy magic ink salesman in to see you?” He nodded. She held up her glass again, noticed there were a few drops left, and turned it up again.

  Mr. Gaffe looked like he was considering saying something. Grizel waved it away.

  “It was a good product at a good price. Get over it.” She smiled. “It also cut our materials cost by five percent. I wasn’t going to let you chuck that away just because you found that git unpleasant and objectionable. Just think of him as, oh, the Rita Skeeter of Printer’s Supplies.”

  That startled a snort out of her boss. He shook his head, and held up his glass, as if proposing a toast to her. He then noticed that his glass had a few drops left...

  Ginny spoke as Mr. Gaffe was trying to come up with a dignified way to get the last of the whisky. “Griz, I won’t be too much longer. I just want to give Mr. Gaffe a rough outline of my itinerary. Emphasis on the ’rough.’ I’m going to be Apparating and Portkeying pretty much all over the world.”

  “Better to just brief me,” Grizel said. “I’m your designated point of contact, and Barnabas will be coming to me with any questions, anyway.” They glanced across the desk at the Editor-in-Chief. He was slowly rotating his highball glass, with a calculating look on his face.

  “Good enough.” Ginny and Grizel both got their notebooks out. Ginny frowned, then went on. “First week: Tuesday, July 7th, Norway/Ivory Coast; Thursday the 8th, Fiji/Nigeria; and Saturday the 12th, Brazil/Haiti. Barring complications, the intent is to hit both competitor’s training facilities the day before the match, get the fluff stuff out of the way. Short interview the Coach, Seeker, and Top Chaser from each team, get a few candid photos to eke out the stock stuff.”

  “Who do you want as photographer?”

  Ginny shook her head. “Nobody. I won’t have time to deal with one. I am going to be moving. A friend of mine at school used a Muggle camera, small and simple. As long as the film is developed properly, you can’t tell a difference.” Poor, brave little Colin, she thought. A true hero.

  Ginny continued. “Stop soon enough to get everything under my byline written up. The hard part is going to be getting it back here before Press Time,”

  Grizel’s head came up sharply. “Wait, what? Why would you do that? I mean, coming back every night is best, so your internal clock doesn’t get all wicketty. But you don’t have to come to the office to turn in copy. Your P.P.P. will handle all that.”

  “My.., what?”