Regulation and Control

( from the front page of Friday's Daily Prophet )

Who: Astoria Greengrass, Rita Skeeter, and Severus Snape
What: Snape has some questions, Rita has some answers, and Astoria has Rita
When: After dark, Thursday evening
Where: A restaurant in Wizarding London
Rating: PG-13 to R for possible violence and Death Eater mystique

Astoria had made arrangements with Snape for him to "meet" her and Rita after their working dinner. Working dinner with Rita meant smiling a lot at Rita's low-class jokes and humouring her pretensions to brilliance. Had Astoria not been terrified of dealing with her old teacher, she might almost have enjoyed the prospect of seeing Rita Skeeter interrogated by Snape. As it was, despite Snape's assurances, she wasn't even slightly convinced that she and Rita weren't going to end up in the river like whoever it was that Mysteries had given the sack only days before. Snape might have meant every word of those assurances when he'd given them, but they might become inconvenient when he was in the moment of dealing with Rita.

As they came out of the restaurant, Astoria kept up a stream of deferential social chatter designed to distract Rita. She was carefully not paying attention to whatever was happening around them. She didn't want to see Snape's arrival until it happened.

( From the front page of the evening edition of the Tuesday Prophet )

( From the evening edition of the Sunday Prophet )

( From the front page of the Daily Prophet )

( From the front page of the Daily Prophet )

( Owl post to Dexter Cadwallader at Scamander Park )

( From the front page of the early edition of the Evening Prophet )