Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches

Chapter 56: BONUS - Nothing Like a Free Press

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text
Diagon Alley, London. All over the wizarding world, it is known for its high-class shopping — a place where modern retail establishments, selling magical sweatshop products from all over the world, rub shoulders with old-school-style workshops, crafting one-of-a-kind artefacts on commission for the more discerning customer. The windows are a riot of colours and interest. Many thousands of visitors from every corner of the globe walk down the street every year, eyes sliding from one window to another, almost as if magically drawn.

Very few of those shoppers regularly look up.

Diagon Alley is more than just one or two storeys.

Above the crazy wizz-bang commercialisation of a thriving magical shopping district, many of the buildings support a host of other purposes — lawyers' offices, bed and breakfasts, travel agents, and many other minor services that help the world go round.

If the shoppers below did look up, they'd see signs proclaiming the third floor of Olivander's wand shop to host a watch-maker.

If they looked up above Flourish and Blotts, they'd find Magical Britain's only art studio.

Such singularity of purpose was not always so.

What had started out hundreds of years ago as a nice apartment for the blacksmith's family to live in, had, over the natural course of economic pressure, been subdivided, rented-out, space-expanded, and sub-divided again, and again, on so many occasions, that the ministry ended up banning further development, after the humble hag of the time failed to cast a basic lumos spell near a particularly densely charmed area, and was embarrassingly mistaken for a squib.

Those truly labyrinthine upper-floors were then carefully dismantled, but there do still exist a few hold-outs from the days before ministry-controlled space-expansion permissions.

For example, if the shoppers of Diagon Alley looked up just outside a magical greengrocer's, just a few doors down from a rather nice café (which does, in fact, happen to also serve pudding) they would find not only the headquarters of the Quibbler, but also Witch Weekly, The Practical Potioneer, Transfiguration Today, Top Broom, Challenges in Charming, many other scholarly and special interest publications. But most importantly, they would find the Daily Prophet — the overall most respected publication in the country, and the only one to have not just one full-time journalist on staff, in addition to the editor, but two.

In a corner of a small and cramped room with no paint on the wooden walls, Rita Skeeter sipped on a cup of tea like it owed her money. All around her, the sounds of a questionably free press rattled and slammed away through silencing charms not quite strong enough to keep them out.

"Don't worry, Luv," said Bozo, lounging against the desk. "Something'll turn up."

"Worried?" Rita snapped. "I'm not worried."

Bozo carelessly flicked a cigarette into an already overflowing ashtray. "If you say so, Luv."

"And it's not as though you've found anything," Rita continued. "A good Slytherin story would do us wonders, but no, we can't even run the Black girl's scoop." She folded her arms and glared at nothing. "Such delicate matters will be handled in private, my dear," she muttered.

"There's always the Muggle Protection Act that's coming up. That'll be a right to do. All the lords and higher-ups swanning about. Plenty of opportunity to sniff something juicy out."

"We'd have no doubt gotten something juicy if we'd managed to sneak into Slytherin's Gala!"

Bozo chuckled. "Don't be daft, Luv. Slytherin's not the kind to let a pair of animagi through his gates. You should know that. We don't have to get a Slytherin story immediately. We've still got plenty of angles to play. I hear Crackpot Hall's in trouble — Updike wants to pull his support. And he's got Whittle's scent all over him. Bad time to be in with the loan shark. Should have tried his luck with the green buggers up the street." Bozo chuckled again.