journalism.'
Quirrell swept her a small bow, and then walked past. 'Goodbye, Rita Skeeter,' said his voice from behind her.
As Rita bulled on ahead, she noted in the back of her mind that the man was whistling a tune as he walked away.
Like that would scare her.
Act 4:
'Sorry, count me out,' said Lee Jordan. 'I'm more the giant spider type.'
The Boy-Who-Lived had said that he had important work for the Order of Chaos, something serious and secret, more significant and difficult than their usual run of pranks.
And then Harry Potter had launched into a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George and Lee had tremendous potential if they could just learn to be weirder. To make people's lives surreal, instead of just surprising them with the equivalents of buckets of water propped above doors. (Fred and George had exchanged interested looks, they'd never thought of that one.) Harry Potter had invoked a picture of the prank they'd pulled on Neville - which, Harry had mentioned with some remorse, the Sorting Hat had chewed him out on - but which must have made Neville doubt his own sanity. For Neville it would have felt like being suddenly transported into an alternate universe. The same way everyone else had felt when they'd seen Snape apologize. That was the true power of pranking.
Are you with me? Harry Potter had cried, and Lee Jordan had answered no.
'Count us in,' said Fred, or possibly George, for there was no doubt that Godric Gryffindor would have said yes.
Lee Jordan gave a regretful grin, and stood up, and left the deserted and Quieted corridor where the four members of the Order of Chaos had met and sat down in a conspiratorial circle.
The three members of the Order of Chaos got down to business.
(It wasn't that sad. Fred and George would still work with Lee on giant spider pranks, same as ever. They'd only started calling it the Order of Chaos in order to recruit Harry Potter, after Ron had told them about Harry being weird and evil, and Fred and George had decided to save Harry by showing him true friendship and kindness. Thankfully this no longer seemed necessary - although they weren't quite sure about that...)
'So,' said one of the twins, 'what's this about?'
'Rita Skeeter,' said Harry. 'Do you know who she is?'
Fred and George nodded, frowning.
'She's been asking questions about me.'
That wasn't good news.
'Can you guess what I want you to do?'
Fred and George looked at each other, a bit puzzled. 'You want us to slip her some of our more interesting candies?'
'No,' said Harry. 'No, no, no! That's giant-spider thinking! Come on, what would you do if you heard that Rita Skeeter was looking for rumors about you? '
That made it obvious.
Grins slowly started on the faces of Fred and George.
'Start rumors about ourselves,' they replied.
'Exactly,' said Harry, grinning widely. 'But these can't be just any rumors. I want to teach people never to believe what the newspaper says about Harry Potter, any more than Muggles believe what the newspaper says about Elvis. At first I just thought about flooding Rita Skeeter with so many rumors that she wouldn't know what to believe, but then she'll just cherry-pick the ones that sound plausible and bad. So what I want you to do is create a fake story about me, and get Rita Skeeter to believe it somehow. But it has to be something that, afterward, everyone will know was fake. We want to fool Rita Skeeter and her editors, and afterward have the proof come out that it was false. And of course - given that those are the requirements - the story has to be as ridiculous as it can possibly be, and still get printed. Do you understand what I want you to do?'
'Not exactly...' Fred or George said slowly. 'You want us to invent the story?'
'I want you to do all of it,' Harry Potter said. 'I'm sort of busy right now, plus I want to be able to say truthfully that I had no idea what was coming. Surprise me.'
For a moment there was a very evil grin on the faces of Fred and George.
Then they turned serious. 'But Harry, we don't really know how to do anything like that -'
'So figure it out,' Harry said. 'I have confidence in you. Not total confidence, but if you can't do it, tell me that, and I'll try someone else, or do it myself. If you have a really good idea - for both the ridiculous story, and how to convince Rita Skeeter and her editors to print it - then you can go ahead and do it. But don't go with something mediocre. If you can't come up with something awesome, just say so.'
Fred and George exchanged worried glances.
'I can't think of anything,' said George.
'Neither can I,' said Fred. 'Sorry.'
