Inked Dragons

A Prologue About the Importance of Reading the Room

Some seven years, three months, and three weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts there occurred the most controversial week in British Wizarding Politics ever. It also just happened to be three weeks after Harry Potter's twenty-fifth birthday. To be precise, it was between Tuesday 17th August 2005 and Monday 24th August 2005, though the aftermath reached far into the future beyond these dates. It was a week that changed everything.

The week was so controversial mostly because two young men came together with a plan. The two young men in question had once been arch-rivals at school but life had moved on and they'd gone their own separate ways because such is the nature and changing courses in life. However, also such is the vicissitudes of life that these two young men suddenly found themselves in an unusual situation that threw them back together. For once in their tumultuous relationship, they read the room and found they actually got on rather well without the expectations of school contemporaries and silly adults getting in the way.

However, there are also two other key players that are central to the story. The first being a powerful politician with the rather long and pompous name of Jeremiah Arum de Piffle Twarmer. Though he went by the shortened name of Arum Twarmer.

Arum Twarmer was, foremost, an upper-class Pureblood and secondly, an entitled, unscrupulous tosser. Albeit, a clever and successful one. He had read The Classics, Ancient Literature and Classical Philosophy at the Muggle University of Cambridge, spoke both Ancient Greek and Latin, and had slowly worked his way through life to inexplicably become the Chief Lord Justice of the Wizengamot. A high post indeed. But, for some people, the world is not enough. Arum Twarmer wanted more. He always had, ever since he was a precocious little boy when he declared to his mother he wanted to be 'king of the world'.

And as Arum Twarmer moved through life, he became one of those people who thought they were entitled to success without lifting a finger to achieve it. His school reports from Hogwarts often complained about his idleness, complacency and lateness. This was reflected in his appearance for he had straw-like blond scarecrow hair, his clothes were always dirty and rumpled. His indolent countenance was offset by his popularity, even amongst the staff. His House Master, one Professor Horace Slughorn, thought he was a marvellous young chap and keenly added Arum to his Slug Club Collection of People he knew would achieve great things in life. To be fair to Professor Slughorn, he did have a remarkable knack for reading people and knowing they would achieve greatness, even if they weren't particularly pleasant characters.

Later in life, Arum hadn't changed much but he had added an inexplicable fondness for Muggle sunbeds which left him with strange white patches around his little piggy blue eyes. Arum became one of those people who managed to achieve success without lifting a finger beyond oozing some shallow charm to the right people and promising empty favours to anyone who would help him. And he set his sights on Lord Chief Justice of the Wizengamot rather than Minister for Magic, because the Lord Chief Justice was the one with the power, he was the one who made laws and controlled lives. And he could manipulate those within the Ministry for his own benefit and to answer his needs. Yes, making and breaking laws and people's lives was far more powerful than heading up a sluggish machine like the Ministry.

And Arum Twarmer was so full of his own confidence that when he decided he wanted to become Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and told the people closest to him that he was the best person for the job, they believed him. And therefore he gained a number of important financial benefactors because, even though they knew deep down he was twisting their arm and the promises were shallow and meaningless, they also believed he would be the best person for the job (and they would also benefit in one way or another). It was partly because Arum was perceived as being clever (what with being able to speak Ancient Greek and Latin and having read The Classics at a posh Muggle university). But still... he had a way... perhaps because he knew exactly what to say and whether it was the very thing that people wanted to hear at that precise moment. You could say he was superb at reading the room because perhaps it was simply that people wanted to believe what he said.

The other key player in these events is Rita Skeeter. Partly because she had history with Arum Twarmer and there was hatchet to bury deep between his shoulder blades.

Life hadn't been good to Rita since the war. Sure, she still had a job but it no longer afforded her the luxuries she liked. The problem was the Daily Prophet now had its new star reporters, like that bloody Andy Smudgley who had gleefully covered Harry Potter's break-in into Gringotts Bank back in May 1998. The article had skimmed the line of breaking He Who Must Not Be Named's control of the Press in the lead up to the war. The piece was an implicit sign of insurrection, not quite openly defying Tom Riddle or Lord Voldemort or whatever he wanted to call himself but as good as and far braver than anything Rita had the guts to write. Rebellion hadn't mattered anyway; the Press were twenty-four hours behind events and the Boy who Lived Twice had finally defeated Voldemort before the article hit the streets the following morning. But the subtle delight of the 'break-in' article was enough to rocket Smudgley's reputation to favourite of the month, well, past six+ years.

Rita's own reputation had been seriously diminished due to the reporting techniques she used with the Triwizard Champion from that very tournament onwards. She hadn't really intended to pit herself against the Wizarding World's elusive Saviour, he was just a naïve brat when she first met him. She hadn't exactly expected him to turn into this much-needed hero who had saved them all once more. Understandably, people hadn't really taken to her approach. She too saw the error of her ways but hindsight was a wonderful yet bloody useless thing when one had truly cocked things up. There was little she could do to repair the damage and, these days, no one in the Press could get close to Harry Potter, so she couldn't even wheedle out an apology to him or salvage her reputation. Nowadays, work for Rita Skeeter was tiresome, consisting of space-fillers like interviewing some ancient squib in Surrey who was beside herself about her missing Kneazle.

The problem for Rita was although she could sniff out a superbly scandalous headline at 100 paces, she wasn't very good at reading the room. She tended to live by the motto of 'print first: ask later (if needs be)'.

The problem was it wasn't always the best of approaches...

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