Liar. Harry Potter's sister ~ Book 2

chapter twenty-six

THE POTTER TWINS SPEAK OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED AND THE NIGHT WE SAW HIM RETURN.

The article was dropped in front of me, one breakfast time, the shiny, red letters of the headline catching my attention almost instantly. The faces of Harry and I were staring back at me, printed across the front cover of The Quibbler, grinning sheepishly.

Hermione had managed to bribe - well, blackmail Rita Skeeter into interviewing the pair of us. At first we were skepticism about the fact of it being her, considering all of the stuff she wrote about us last year, but Hermione assured us, with an odd twinkle in her eye, that she would be writing nothing but the truth. Luna had taken the interview and sent it to her dad, the editor of the Quibbler magazine and he had managed to get it printed on the front page, unmissable to anybody.

Alongside the magazine that was dropped in front of me, a dozen or so owls had come fluttering down from the windows and landed around us, knocking over goblets and pecking at scraps that lay at the bottom of empty dishes. More owls came swooping down, one landing on my shoulder, a couple landing right on my plate of food, one pecking at Harry's finger angrily.

"It's good, isn't it?" Luna says, excitedly, after drifting her way over to the Gryffindor table, and slipping in between Ron and Fred, her hair ties back into two long braids accompanied with a bright blue headband and her homemade radish earrings. I drop my half eaten toast into my plate, after gently pushing the owls off it and shuffle through the letters on the table, curiously. "It came out yesterday, I expect these," she gestures to the owls scrabbling around in the table pecking at each other excitedly, "are letters from readers."

"That's what I thought," Hermione says, swallowing a large mouthful of pumpkin juice, "D'you mind if we-"

"Help yourself," I say swatting my hand and reaching forward to grab a letter. Harry, Ron and Hermione all reach forward hurriedly tearing open letters and pulling out the parchment from inside, reading them carefully, with intriguing looks in their eyes.

"This ones from a bloke who thinks you're off your rocker," Ron says glancing down at his letter before crumpling it up and throwing it aside, "Ah well."

"This one seems ok-" I murmur, my eyes scanning over the writing of a woman from Southern Wales. "Hey- she says she believes us!" 

Harry looked delighted, taking the letter from me and reading it through, happily. I scramble around for another sealed letter to open.

"This one's in two minds," Fred, who had enthusiastically joined in the letter-opening, says, examining the parchment he was gripping, "Says you don't come across a mad person, but doesn't really want to believe You-Know-Who's back so he doesn't know what to think now. Blimey what a waste of parchment-"

"Here's another one you've convinced!" Hermione says eagerly, "Oh this is wonderful!" She thrusts the letter into my hands and a rush of adrenaline pumps through my veins as I read the wizard's scruffy, cursive writing.

"Another one who thinks you're barking," Ron says, lobbing the scrunched you're parchment over at the Slytherin table and snickering as it lands in a jug of pumpkin juice. "But this one says you've got her converted and now she thinks you're real hero's-"

"What is going on over here?" An evidently false girly voice speaks from behind us. My heart jumps into my throat as I drop the letter in my trembling hands, knowing exactly who was glowering behind me. I snap my head around, shifting uncomfortably in my seat, timidly glaring up at her bulging eyes, which were scanning the table, darting from the overworked owls to the ripped parchment scattered around.