Diagon Alley is chock-full of people; cloaks batter against bodies and the heady, confused scent of confectionary, wood polish, and animal fur tumbles through the air as I weave my way down the cobblestone street.

     I pass by Ollivanders, remembering the last time I was here: It was a windy August morning with my parents. The sickness had gotten the best of Mum, but she still managed to drag herself from bed to come with us. "Redwood," Ollivander had smiled as I twirled the pink-hued wand between my fingers. "Many decisions ahead of you. Choose carefully, young girl."

      Decisions. This is my worst one yet. A few more paces and I'm staring up the intimidating exterior of the main office of The Daily Prophet.

     The paint has peeled off its dilapidated walls but the windows remain shiny and reflective, like those of the office buildings in Muggle London. I place a hand on the burnished doorknob and turn.

     A long hallway stretches ahead of me with nothing much beyond that I can make out. The cool air is welcome on my heated cheeks. I take a deep breath and start forward, my shoes squeaking against the glossy parquet floor.

     Adorning the narrow walls is a succession of framed newspaper clippings from an era past: THE BOY WHO LIES. DUMBLEDORE: DAFT OR DANGEROUS? TROLL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OUT OF CONTROL. TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP. BLACK STILL AT LARGE. GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST. 

     The end of the passage opens up into a wide, square office space; a great chaos of bustling conversations and rustling parchment. Witches and wizards in robes of amethyst and emerald and deep sapphire stand guard over frantic neon-plumed quills.

     Along the sides of the cubic-shaped floor are private offices. Gold plaques on the doors announce the name of the editors who reside beyond them: CUFFE, AMORIN, SMUDGLEY, amongst others.

     There's a desk on my immediate right, behind which a young, bespectacled witch sits, frowning with great concentration at something obscured from my view by the high countertop. The nameplate tells me her name is Lucy Edwards.

     I go up to her put on my most adult-sounding voice. "Hi, I'm looking for Rita Skeeter."

     "Name?" Lucy asks without looking up.

     "Um- Ainsley?"

     "You don't know your own name?"

     I clear my throat. "No, it's- it's definitely Ainsley. Gabriella Ainsley."

     "Do you have an appointment?"

     "Yes," I lie.

     She picks up a clipboard and runs a sparkly blue fingernail down the list of names. She pauses, peers at it harder, and seems to awaken from her stupor of boredom. Her eyes grow wide. She looks up at me as if she's just noticed my presence. "Y- you're not on here," she manages at last.

     "Well, I was just wondering if I could have a quick word with her," I say. "It won't take very long."

     Lucy sets aside the clipboard. "You'll have to make an appointment."

     "It really won't take long at all, I promise. Just five minutes." I spread the fingers of one hand to emphasise my point.

     Her heavily-lined eyes drift from my digits to the Cheshire smile plastered on my face. "You'll have to make an appointment," she says again, more firmly. "Leave your name and I'll see when I can slot you in."

     A movement behind Lucy catches my attention. Behind her desk is an office. The plaque on the door reads RITA SKEETER, MANAGING EDITOR. Behind that, a figure is seated at a desk - a figure wearing a chartreuse cloak, its head piled with big yellow curls.

     Desperation lurches in my chest. "Lucy," I say, almost pleadingly. "This is about something really important. Like, really really important. Like, my-life-depends-on-it kind of important. Rita knows me, I'm working with her on the Malfoy Project. If you could just let her know I'm here..."

     "She's not in."

     "Oh," I say, confused. "Is she not in her office?"

     "I said she's not in."

     "Yes she is, she's right there!" I point, but Lucy doesn't turn. "You can come back another time," she says, growing visibly irritated.

     My knuckles are white from gripping the counter so hard. "Lucy, look, how much will it take? I have about," - I fumble about my satchel for my wallet - "fifty Galleons."

     Lucy snorts, her expression a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "This is the Daily Prophet, Miss Ainsley, not a market. Rita's unavailable right now. Leave your name and I'll let you know when she's ready to see you."

     My fragile dam of patience collapses. A river of anger floods in quick and strong. "When she's ready?" I screech. "Hah! That's funny, because she never asked if I was ready to have my tapes stolen, nor the Malfoys when she published the news without permission or warning, nor Draco when she wrote that exaggerated piece about his private life which, by the way, breaks at least half of Britain's journalistic code of conduct!" I turn to the rest of the office. "I'm looking for a reporter here who possess a single ounce of integrity! Anyone at all?"

     They barely glance up at me, one or two only sparing me a second of curiosity before turning back to their work. Lucy stands, rising at least a head taller than me. Her dark eyes seem to turn onyx with intolerance. "Miss Ainsley, I'm going to have to ask you to leave at once, before I call security."

     "Just five minutes, and I promise I'll be out of your hair—"

     "No, you will be out now," she hisses, but by the time her brain registers what is happening, I've already bounded around the counter.

     "Stop! Stop at once!" shouts Lucy. I fling open Rita's office and barge right in. Rita jumps in her seat, but relaxed when she sees that it's me.

     I root myself before her. "Ms. Skeeter, I'd just like to talk to you."

     "Ah, Ella! This certainly is a... surprise!" She shoots a withering glare at Lucy, who has stopped short at the door as if the office was sacred ground too holy for her to walk on. "I'm sorry, Ms. Skeeter," she pants, "I tried to stop her but—"

     "That's fine, Miss Edwards. I must be quite popular if someone is this desperate to see me." She winks conspiratorially at me.

     "A- are you sure, Ms. Skeeter?"

     "Of course! I'm sure Ella here has something she desperately wants to confess in private."

     Lucy reluctantly closes the door but her silhouette lingers outside, standing guard over our unauthorised meeting.

     "Now, Ella, what brings you to my humble little office on a Friday afternoon, pray tell?" Rita's voice is dangerously saccharine, taking on a tone she uses when she wants to weed out gossip.

     I pull out a copy of Monday's Prophet and hold it up for her. "Ms. Skeeter, I apologise if there's been a misunderstanding, but I just wanted to ask why this was printed? I thought you said nothing would be published until the project is complete."

     Rita pushes up her jeweled glasses at Lucius's moving photograph. "My dear, this is dire news! Abuse of any form should not be tolerated. If they find out the Prophet had this information and did nothing, we would certainly be brought to court for obstruction of justice!"

     "Fine," I flip the page. "What about this? Why this piece about Draco?"

     "Why, I only used what you wrote in the manuscript!" She slides open a drawer on the side of her desk and pulls it out. "'But you must've been with someone, fallen in love?'" she reads. "'Been with, yes. Loved? Draco does not answer the question, thus I presume the answer is no.''"

     I brandish the paper in front of her again. "Yes, but why publish it? Rich in wealth, poor in love? I just don't see why there was a need for that. It could really hurt him."

     "Hurt him?" Rita gasps in horror. "Oh no, no, no, Ella! If anything, I'm helping him. You see, I know boys like young Draco Malfoy. Tall, handsome, broody. Arrogant, standoffish, bit rude sometimes, you know. Yet, they're still the apple of everyone's eyes, especially young lasses like yourself. And then what happens? They go and do something silly and suddenly everyone's opinion on them has changed. They begin to turn against him, this popular boy once so-revered. But! Not everything is lost. They can still win back our favour. All they need to do is to show they've got a heart and soul within them- that they're just like everyone else, like you and me. And that's exactly what I've done for our dashing Death Eater here."

     "I want to help them too, but it's just that this wasn't quite what I had in mind."

     Rita leans forward on her elbows, a smirk spreading across her blood red lips. "Tell me, Ella," she says. "What do your friends think about him now?"

     My frown falters as I remember what Susan had said at breakfast on Monday, what Monty told me. "I... I suppose they feel sorry for him," I mumble.

     "There you have it!" she clicks her tongue. "You can thank me later."

     Narcissa's tired face projects itself on the screen of my mind. The rings around Lucius's eyes. Vaisey's snicker as Draco lay crumpled in the soggy debris. I look at the paper in my hand. "This won't be the last one, will it?"

     Rita's smirk only grows wider. The pleasure she was taking in this flints sparks of anger within me. "Has the media not done enough to this family?" I demand in exasperation. "For Merlin's sake, they've already switched sides during the war, the least we can do is just let them live! They're already having a hard enough time coping with the whiplash, and your reporters have utterly destroyed what little semblance of peace they could've had. This book was supposed to help them, not decimate them into oblivion. How far will this go? Until one of them decides to off themselves, is that it?"

     Rita scoffs and swats the air. "Don't be silly, Ella. They're criminals, they've murdered innocent people, wizarding folk and Muggles alike. They've murdered my colleagues here at the Prophet. Do you honestly think something as trite as a book can save them?" Malice bubbles under her satisfied expression as she adds, "Besides, that's three less Death Eaters we've got to worry about."

     Her words ricochet off the walls of the office, penetrating every visible surface except my head. At first I stare at her, uncomprehending, until the arrow of truth finds its target and pierces straight and through:

     Rita does not care about the Malfoys. No one does. No one except me.

     Her voice changes, becoming soft and gentle. "Ella, dear," she sighs. "Not everyone in this world can or should be helped. Least of all a family of monsters such as the Malfoys."

     What makes up a monster? 

     Everyone said I was, so I told myself I must be.

     I'm only teasing, Lucius; it's us against the world now. 

    You must ask their names and remember them, because they're stars too, and part of their own constellation. 

     Draco stepping onto the rungs. First, second. Third. He didn't fall. He had jumped.

     I screw up the newspaper in my fist. The words seep through my teeth like poison. "No, Rita," I say. "The only real monster here is you." I toss the crumpled ball at her. It lands squarely on the side of her chin.

     She blinks rapidly at the contact. "My tapes," I say before she can find the words. "I'd like them back, please."

     Her smug smile returns. She pulls open another lower drawer and holds them up. "Oh, you mean these?"  

     She places them on her desk, two black circular reels with a strip of parchment tacked on, each scrawled with the name 'DRACO' in my handwriting. I laugh breathily in disbelief. "So you did steal them after all."

     "Here," she says, piling the rest of the reels onto the table. "You can have them back."

     I conceal my surprise at how easily she had conceded but quickly gather them up in my arms. The sooner I get out of here, the better.

     I'm greeted by the shocked faces of Lucy and the other eavesdropping reporters outside the door. I'm about to tell them to move out of the way when—

     "Oh, and Ella? Do expect my lovely friends from the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, perhaps tomorrow, or even this evening."

     I turn. Still behind her desk, Rita is holding up another piece of parchment to me.

     My contract.

     "All intellectual property acquired, collected, or created in the course of carrying out their duties will belong to The Daily Prophet," she recites from memory. "Upon completion of their duties, the signatory will return to the Daily Prophet all intellectual property acquired, collected, or created in the process. Now, that means those tapes you've got there? Those belong to me, as well as all the recordings on it."

     My arms tighten around the reels. "You can't. I won't let you."

     "This is your signature, is it not?" She taps the bottom of the contract. "How do you expect to be a journalist if you can't understand simple contractual terms, Ella? All ownership belongs to me. I could keep them, burn them, liquify them. I could even... throw them out the window. Like this."

     I don't see her pull out her wand, but tapes fly out of my arms. The window slides open with a bang. "No!" I scream, chasing after the reels. A bright flash. POUF! A camera bulb bursts. The tapes hover outside the window, just out of my reach, before dropping and smashing into pieces onto the cobblestone alley below.  

     A blinding rage overcomes me. "You evil, evil witch!" I hurl myself at Rita, but Lucy is faster. Ropes materialise from thin air and bind themselves round my wrists. POUF! goes to the camera again. A pair of strong arms wrap around me as I kick and thrash.

     "What is the meaning of this?" a deep basso-profundo tone booms around the room effortlessly.

     The crowd hushes and parts to let a portly old man through. I recognise him: Barnabas Cuffe, Editor-In-Chief. "Young lady!" he growls. "I command you to stop this immediately! This is the office of the Daily Prophet, not a bloody market!"

     "That's what I told her," Lucy whispers to a colleague.

     "Mr. Cuffe! You have to listen to me. Rita—"

     "Please remove her from the property, Amorin," he nods curtly to the wizard holding me.

     "Mr. Cuffe, please— "

     "Now."

     I struggle out of Amorin's hold. "No need," I huff. "I can see myself out of this dump, thank you very much." I regain my balance, brush my hair back, snatch my empty satchel from the ground. 

     "Oh, and Rita?" I call over my shoulder. "My name isn't Ella. It's Gabriella Ainsley. My friends call me Ains, but you can stick with just Ainsley. How do you expect to be a journalist if you can't even call people by their right names?"

     They stare after me as I walk out with my head held high and my eyes brimming with tears.