Prompt: The Daily Prophet

The Dream Job

"Wake up witch!"

Stellana's eyes opened to the view of a black eyed raven, eyes lifeless and feathers dull.

She grabbed the raven and threw it against the wall, a loud squawk her reward. Unfortunately, she had paid for the durability enchantment to her ClickClack Clock, and soon it was back in her face,

“Wake up witch!” "Wake up witch!"

It finally took a few more throws before she was able to push herself up, the setting sun a far better motivator than the alarm. She hurriedly threw on a deep blue robe and charmed her hair and face clean. Grabbing a piece of toast, she smeared some beans and wolfed it down as she finished using the bathroom, stepping around piles of never put away clothes. Finally, she burst out of her house and headed upstairs onto the roof.
She waved her willow wand, and the burlap drape covering the gargantuan telescope folded itself up and returned to its crate. She opened her book and her dictaquil poised itself.

She took a deep breath, sat down in the chair, put her eye to the eyepiece and started staring at the sky.

“Jupiter ascends to the 5th house, luminosity has increased, Draco’s head has moved into declension, luminosity major drop. Mercury has moved forward without incident.” The dictaquil copied her words, and pages and pages of the book slowly filled.

Several hours later, her eyes bleary, she finally took a break, and looked over the pages of notes. She walked downstairs, pulling out a half a turkey sandwich and some crisps, and sat down at her cramped dining table. It was supposed to be big enough for four, but with her scattered clothes and piles of books, it barely had space for just her.

Going through the first half of the night’s notes, she started compiling her column. With Mars sliding closer to apogee, Taurus would need to watch deals closely, someone was going to pull a fast one on them. Pisces on the other hand would benefit from Neptune entering its fin.

She wrapped up lunch quickly, and went back out into the cold for another few hours, until sunrise ended her stargazing. She put the burlap back over the telescope and grabbed her notes and early predictions. Time to start her day. She turned on her heel and disappeared with a crack.

She entered the Daily Prophet at its most tolerable time. She walked past the house elves who were busy polishing the banister rails and walked up past the security trolls. It was easy for them to identify her, she was the only black haired witch who arrived this early. Not best for actual building security, but that was Harbough’s problem.

The magical presses were cooling after the morning’s printing, and all of the owls were out for deliveries, and not a single other person was in the office yet. Stellana took a deep breath of the smell of ink on paper and coughed several times as she headed towards her office.

Blessed silence continued for another hour as she switched to her feather quill. Her hand appreciating the cushioning charms as she filled paragraphs, rushing to get tomorrow’s work done.

“Good morning Stellana”

“Good morning Rita.” Stellana called back. “You should be careful, someone’s going to watch you. And you’ll want to skip the flourish on your flick for your charms today, Mars is bright, and doesn’t like being outshined.”

“Thank you! You always have the most useful stuff.” Rita called back. Stellana hadn’t really read much of Rita’s work, but she got the most howlers of anyone. A mark of a good reporter; solid Taurus high in the 3rd house. Though the stars had been quite unusually clear in their prediction of the seeing eye-glass for Taurus. Probably something to do with the tournament. Harry Potter, now he was a Cancer, unsurprisingly in the 10th house, strongly influenced by Mars. Today looked surpassingly good for him, much better than the past few days.

“Stellana, I’m not paying you to doodle, I’m paying you to update.” Harbough’s voice snapped her out of her reverie. “Sorry sir.” She mumbled, sinking down into her desk, resuming her page for tomorrow.

The noise level steadily rose, as more reporters and columnists arrived. Owls started fluttering with correspondence as interviews were scheduled and letters sent. None landed on her dust-covered owl roost, and Stellana once again wondered if she really did get it so lucky, or if she was just misreading the Libra that day.

Sarah Silvestrii, editor in chief of the Stars Aligned section of the Daily Prophet, left Mr Harbough’s office in tears.

Readership was down, and they knew there would be cuts, and Stars Aligned was the biggest section after the front page. Witches and wizards all over Britain depended on them to give accurate horoscopes they could use to maximize their spells. Potioneers counted on them to adjust their stir counts, and Horace Slughorn himself was known to correspond on vagaries of the thickness of talon slices based on how Libra’s scales tilted.

Matthew Cormerant, planetary specialist, left Mr Harbough’s office in tears.

The whole department was getting gutted in real time, and Stellana was clutching her own horoscope from last night. She was a generalist, one of the best, but that comet passing in front of Mercury right as it hit apogee had terrified her. Massive upheaval. The fact the same comet then went through Orion’s hand was confusing, and she had asked her old professor Sinistra in an early morning owl what was her interpretation of it. She was one of three that watched the sky, while the rest of the team took their notes and gleaned vast interpretations from it. Stellana was decent at interpretation, but nothing had prepared her for this!

Richard Himbs, the only one of their division with a NEWT in divination, was packing up his desk. Everyone else, recognizing the clear signs, started as well. Her owl post stood empty, and Stellana fretted more.

“Stellana, Mr Harbough wants to see you.”

She continued to scratch out her section, finally turning it in by noon. She waved off Rita’s offer of lunch, she was tired, and she needed to sleep before sundown. Summer was kind in that she had more time to sleep, but harsher in that she had less time to get everything in. Maybe tonight she would see something special.

----

The shooting arced through the night sky, draining all of the color from the world for an instant, and from Stellana’s face for the rest of the night. Gemini, Leo, Mars, Cancer, Taurus, and then finally, ominously, clipping three of the Pleiades before exploding, precisely at midnight. She shivered, several bad things had happened. And she couldn’t stop shaking in dread, as if a dementor had its hand on her shoulder.

----

When Stellana got to the Daily Prophet that morning, she was shocked to actually be stopped by the security troll. “Badge.” It rumbled. Surprised, she handed it over, and was ushered inside. Inside was bedlam. It seems she was the only one who wasn’t there already. She saw Harbough in his office with his ass out and his head in a fireplace, she saw Barnabus Cuffe trying desperately to keep order and failing. She saw a half dozen owls all crowding around her desk, but she was interrupted before she got to them.

“Stellana! My office! NOW!” Cuffe shouted at her, before moving so fast she thought he apparated. She followed him in, ignoring the oppressive susurrations around her, and shut the door behind herself unasked. She wasn’t stupid.

“Mr. Cuffe? What is going on?”

“Harry Potter appeared last night with a dead Cedric Diggory, Barty Crouch Jr was actually alive, and is now dead, and Barty Crouch senior is dead. A lot has happened in the past 12 hours, and Dumbledore is keeping a lid on everything.”

“Sir, our job is to blow lids off of things.” It was an automatic response, but inwardly her mind had shut down. Harry Potter with a dead Cedric? Crouch Jr? He had a son?

“And that’s why you are still working here. I need to know, what did the stars say beyond what I’ve heard. I’ve got a dozen reporters ready to go, I just need to know where to send them.”

She paused, and let her brain try to catch up. “Sir, you know that’s now how the stars work, and you’d need Richard to do that granular of interpretation. And after..” She paused. Harbaugh had been the one to do it, but Cuffe had not lifted a finger to save the Stars Align. Why should she help him?

“Listen Stellana, people are saying You-Know-Who is back. Do the stars say yay or nay?” Cuffe, for the first time in her life, looked terrified. She realized this wasn’t Barnabus Cuffe, editor in chief, asking her for a prediction, this was Barny the Englishman, terrified he was going to die.

“Sir, even if I had Richard’s talent or Sinitstra’s intuition, we just can’t know. All the stars can say for sure is that there were three captures, one of them likely harry potter,” Which was a massive guess on her part, but given the other data, not a terrible one, “and that war or battles were involved.”

“What happened to young Cedric is a terrible accident.” The Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge said, stepping into the room. Stellana failed to keep her jaw from dropping. The Minister of Magic, here? With her?

“And while my astronomy OWL is a bit dusty, I do recall that you couldn’t actually be so precise as to name an individual, not without extensive corroborating evidence.” The minister continued. “I’m here to talk to your boss, so if you please, scoot.” He chided her, and she found herself standing outside the door, as an unnatural silence dropped behind her.

She looked at her desk, with the birds all perched, ready to bombard her with requests and questions, probably similar to what Mr Cuffe wanted. And she found she just didn’t have it in her to answer the mail. So she headed to the lounge, whipping up two cups of coffee with extra sugar and a big pat of butter for the other cup, and headed to Rita’s office.

“Rita! I’ve got your coffee!” She called, knocking and entering. Strangely, the room was empty. Rita was an early morning person. Where was she? She must be on the ground at Hogwarts. Leaving the coffee on her desk and putting a warming charm on it, Stellana headed back to her desk, and the squawking birds demanding her attention.

She had been correct, they were all asking for what the stars said, with varying levels of helpful information, but none had been as helpful as Barny, and none from Rita. She duplicated a terse “the stars are cloudy” note and attached it to every owl, and quickly wrote one to Rita.

Rita,

I’m sure you have all the juiciest of gossip, but there is some serious shit going on. I’m really worried about you. The looking-glass keeps coming up, and the shooting star last night smashed right through Taurus’s horns. The looking glass is supposed to be about finding out the truth, but it can also be related to travel and judgement. Are you planning on going anywhere? Just please, let me know you are ok.

Stellana

She sent the office owl off with a treat and a pat, and finally started working. First, she wrote up the basics. While everyone and their Kneazle surely was interested in Cedric and Harry, hundreds of witches and wizards relied on the basic predictions for charm adjustments, transfiguration tricks, and especially potion modifications. She knew personally that Horace Slughorn checked her column daily, and she wouldn’t let her old professor down. His thank you note was framed on her desk. Even McGonagal reportedly used the position of Scorpio to guide her visualizations for her students.

Once the basics were done, she retreated back to the breakroom for another coffee. She did her best to write an explanation for the shooting star, scrapped it, and rewrote it three times before finally satisfied.

Dear Reader,

The events of last night certainly were reflected in the stars, and it would be inappropriate of me to not comment on the celestial movements. For simplicity, there were a number of captures last night, with Gemini, Leo, Cancer, and Taurus primarily affected, with the Pleiades included. If we treat all of these together, along with Mars, then we can interpret that a Gemini, Leo, Cancer, and Taurus were captured, either romantically, contractually, emotionally, physically, etc. But the seriousness of the midnight explosion of the shooting star cannot be overstated. These are not as simple as whether to add 4 or 8 drops of murtlap to your unguent, or as banal as whether the flick for the lumos charm should go sunward or shadeward. This kind of celestial movement indicates serious events that will change the lives of dozens, if not hundreds of wizards and witches, and so, dear reader, I beg you to be careful. Check in on your friends and companions, see if they are doing ok. The stars may be separated from us, but as they show us, separation is what allows for a constellation to be made. We, who are separate from each other, can still come together to support each other.


She turned in her report late, but Barnabus was still meeting with Cornelius Fudge, and she didn’t think he’d notice. She was proud of herself as she left the office, she didn’t get the chance to write fuller articles very often, but she was a reporter first, and she had a hell of a report to make. She practically flew home, trying to get a few hours rest before the next night was to happen.

----

“Wake up witch! Wake up witch!” Stellana groaned; she hadn’t gotten much rest.

She put on some probably clean clothes, and ran out to the observatory to look at what the stars had in store tonight. The dicatquil’s scratch matched her voice, given how tired she was. Venus moves further to perihelion, Pices’ fish gap increases, Libra’s scales remain in balance, Saturn’s luminosity rises starkly, mercury movement slows further, it will retrograde soon. Taurus still appears with the looking glass, and Mars shines brighter still.

Well, good luck to anyone trying to brew some Amortentia. That brutal concoction of 15 extra stirs in a near random order was going to be murder on the stirring hand.

She arrived at the office, and again, the security troll demanded her badge. Unlike last time however, the office was nearly empty. She headed to her desk, and found the owl from yesterday that she sent to Rita, its leg holding the same letter she had sent. Return to sender? That must mean Rita did not want any communication. Was she undercover? At Hogwarts? Preposterous, what was she, hiding as a student?

She was stirred from her thoughts when Cuffe called her to his office.

“Great piece yesterday, but I wanted to tell you I held the letter about the shooting star. I know, you worked hard on it, but its too inflammatory on too little information.”

“Anyway”. She jumped as he slammed the door shut with a wave. “Your article is highly speculative, and it is way outside of your house to be making divinations based on the stars. You don’t have a divination NEWT, and your recklessness could expose us to legal liability. And Himbs would certainly love to come after us as an expert witness. So either get data supporting it, like a reporter, or I’ll bin it.”

She stared at him. He wasn’t exactly wrong, she had been a little aggressive with her predictions, but she had an OWL in Divination and a NEWT in Astronomy, she felt confident she could back up all of her assertions, but there was certainly a limit to how far she could accurately predict. He also was acting a little strange, he seemed to blowing her article way out of proportion.

“Sir, isn’t that a little much? I’m trying to help calm the populace down. With a notable like Diggory dead, and that rumor about you-know-who that you asked me about-“

“He’s not. It was a false alarm.” Cuffe cut her off. “Marcus acted like a reporter when he is a photographer, and we almost got burned for it. Thankfully the minister came in. Speaking of, he’s asked us to suppress Diggory’s death for a bit.”

“What! We blow lids off of news like this!” Stellana was incensed. If Rita were here Cuffe’s office would be on fire. Suppress a story?

“There is an uncle he was apparently close to that they are having trouble contacting. They don’t want him to find out in the paper first.” Cuffe gave the lame excuse. Stellana did not buy it, but she could read who ‘they’ were. Obviously the ministry wanted a day or two to work up a good sounding response. Well in that case.

“Fine. When Cedric’s death does come out, people will need comfort, and I’ll show you my story was accurate. I’ll need Rita. Where is she?”

Cuffe looked concerned. “I haven’t heard from her. It was Marcus who sent in the report, I haven’t heard from Rita since the morning of the 3rd task. I’m not ready to put a missing person report out yet, she’s gone into the depths for a few days at a time, but if I don’t hear from her by the end of the week, I’ll bring in the aurors.”

She left his office, contemplating a pitch plan. She would need Rita to publish her piece, she would have the corroborating evidence. Then she could get her article published, and maybe prove that Stars Aligned needed more people.


----


“Wake up Witch!”

Stellana blinked blearily.

“Wake up-SQUACK!” The clock clanged against the wall.

Stellana shook the cobwebs from her head and dressed for the day. She had a train to catch.

It hadn’t taken much digging to find out that the children were coming home a full week early, and so she was there at 9 and 3/4s waiting with excited parents, all of whom were ignorant of what their children would tell. It had been several days, and still Cuffe had told them to keep a lid on it. “Cedric’s uncle” was now a replacement for “a cold Skrewt” in the office vernacular, though Cuffe was sticking to his wand, and no one was going to argue with it.

The doors open and children flooded out, more than a few crying as they hugged their confused parents. If Cuffe thought he could suppress it after this, he’s going to need to dose the whole country with calming draught.

Seeing her target, she strode swiftly towards the mop of black hair. Marcus had done a good job, made it very easy for her to spot him despite the odd muggle fashion. She was stopped almost immediately though, by a tall redheaded man. “Can I help you?” He asked, polite, but firm. “Excuse me” She tried, and slid right to get around him. He stepped firmly into her path. “I don’t recognize you, are you a new parent of a child?” “I’m sorry, I’m with the daily prophet, I just need to ask mister potter some questions about-“

“Mister Potter is unavailable for an interview” said the large man with a large black dog at his heel. “You’ll have to ask his guardian to schedule one.” His words were perfunctory, but his tone made it quite clear that she was more offensive than stinksap to him. “Then let me hear it from him. Mister Potter!” She called out, or tried to. Nothing came from her throat, and she looked down to see the man had his wand out. “Please do not interrupt the children as they head home. I’m sure his guardian will be happy to schedule an interview with you at an appropriate time.”

She glared at him, but kept her hands free and visible. She didn’t have a Defence OWL, and was regretting not learning silent casting. So instead she cursed him with her eyes. He stoically stared back as the boy-who-lived walked back to the muggle side of the station. He waved his wand. “have a good day miss reporter.” He used the word reporter like a slur, and apparated away. She screamed, and was surprised to hear her own voice. Embarrassed, and with her face hot and eyes watery, she looked at the families staring at her, and apparated away.

----

Bleary eyed, she headed up to her observatory. While Cuffe had given her permission to hunt down Rita, he still wanted his horoscope pages filled. She dutifully, if unenthusiastically, filled out her notebook. She found herself staring at Sirius for close to 10 minutes before shaking herself out of her stupor. Who turned down an interview with the Daily Prophet? And when did Harry Potter have bodyguards? Well, actually that made sense to have a few. But still, she wasn’t some dark witch or an overbearing fan! She was a member of the press! She could hear Himbs tut tutting to her, ‘You are only a part of the press if you can keep your job’. She shook her head out of her reverie, and got back to the grind. As dawn broke, she hastily scribbled a short column for each of the major horoscopes and planets, owled it off to Cuffe, and went to bed. She couldn’t make herself go to the office.

At 2 in the afternoon she bolted out of bed. Sirius! The North Star, The guiding light!

She pulled apart her notebooks, and started compiling the most detailed star chart she had ever made. For 10 years Rita had asked her horoscope, she had over 3000 horoscopes for just her. Cross referencing her Tuarus sign with her exact birthdate and time got her started, but soon she was pulling in every comet and shooting star that had every touched near the reporter’s sun sign.

It was well past sunset when she finished. She ran up to her observatory, and cursed that she had forgotten to replace the burlap the day before. “Come on come one” she shouted as her wand cleaned the dust off of the lenses. She laid the monstrosity of a star chart on the floor in front of her, along with an atlas of Britain, and looked through the glass toward Taurus. Back and forth she looked, adjusting her view, making notations on the chart as she feverishly worked through the night. Cuffe can eat flobberworm, she’s figured it out!

As dawn broke, she looked at her chart for a only a moment with pride. Sinistra would weap, both with pride and horror at the morgana tainted beast of a star chart she had made. But she did it. For the next 12 hours, she knew where, exactly, Rita Skeeter was. Feeling more energized than if she’d had a pepperup, she put on her muggle disguise, and apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. She was going to Hempstead Garden.

Walking down Heathgate, Stellana kept consulting her map, trying to find exactly where Rita was. The houses here were large enough it wasn’t impossible, but she struggled to identify which one in particular she needed to go to. She honestly wasn’t sure if this was a rich or poor area of the London suburbs, muggles were weird about not having turrets on their houses to make it clear who had money and who wanted it. Stellana had a single turret for her observatory, and was quite proud of it. Finally, she parked herself in her bright pink and yellow poka dot pantsuit in front of 9 Heathgate, and consulted her map a final time. It was a simple 2 story, with a small attic. As was every other house on the row. Consulting the map a final time, she couldn’t help a feeling of dread in her chest. Looking up in the daylight, she wished she could see the stars. They had guided her so far in life, and yet half the day they hid. She was sure it meant something, but was too focused to think through it further.

Trusting her gut, she turned left, and strode up to 8 Heathgate. She knocked loudly on the door.

A child opened the door a crack, both hands concealed behind the wood.

“Yes, what do you want?”

“I’m looking for a colleague of mine. My name is Stellana, and I work at the Daily Prophet. Have you seen Rita Skeeter?”

The girls’ eyes got very large. And then she slammed the door in her face.

Well, if that wasn’t as suspicious as Harbough with a deficit.

“Alohamora”. She chanted, and pushed the door open. Only to stop and see the same child now holding a wand at her.

“Stop! You aren’t allowed in here!” The girl called out. Must be a Hogwarts student.

“I’m sure the statute on underage magic would have opinions about you casting with the Trace, and hopefully someone told you about that. So I’m going to ask politely, again, where is Rita Skeeter. You know something.” She had her own wand trained on the girl, even as her heart beat of her chest. She was threatening a child! What was wrong with her?

“Listen, you want Rita? Fine. You can have her. But you’ll have to learn her dark secret to do it, and you’ll be my accomplice.” The girl demanded, though she sounded terrified herself. It was the look of fear in her eyes, fear of Stellana, that caused Stellana to drop her wand hand.

Tears forming in her own eyes, Stellana responded “This, this has gotten out of hand. I’m sorry. She’s my friend, and I just want to find her. I want to know she’s safe. Can we start with that first? Whats your name?” Stellana holstered her wand. She wasn’t going to curse a child, this was too much.

The girl didn’t drop her wand, but she did point it down at the ground. “She’s safe. My name is Hermione. And you aren’t out of trouble for barging into my house.”

“Where are your parents?” Stellana paused, surely this girl had parents. Why weren’t they answering the door and threatening her properly.

“They are at work. And they don’t understand witches. So. Just so you know, I’ve got Rita safe in my room, and her secret is such that if anything happens to me, it’ll land her in Azkaban.” The girl was obviously lying, but Stellana wasn’t sure about what. And she found herself intrigued. What had Rita done to get put in Azkaban, and how had this Hogwarts student found out?

“Ok, we can all keep a secret. I just want to get Rita safe, and I’m sure you don’t want to be charged with kidnapping.”

The girl smiled at her, and it was all buckteeth, “I haven’t kidnapped anyone. I just took a pet home.”

Stellana blinked in confusion, maybe the sleep deprivation was getting to her. “Look, I promise to not tell anyone, just let me get Rita home.”

Hemione looked at her, “How can I trust your promise?”

“I’ll draw a contract. Its standard for classified sources. I promise not to reveal what you tell or show me, and you promise to get me Rita.”

“Counter-offer, you teach me how to make a contract, Rita and I sign one, and then I sign yours.”

Stellana blinked again, “Its not exactly easy Hogwarts material. Its typically an OWL level.”
“that’s fine. I’m a good learner.” Hermione had a focused look to her eyes.

“Fine.” Stellana said, she laid out the wand movements and walked through the incantations to bind action to paper. In only a few minutes, Hermione had demonstrated everything perfectly, though didn’t cast the spell herself. She instead wrote up a simple contract, and held it before Stellana. “I can’t cast with the trace, but can you please cast it?”

Stellana shook her head, she must be exhausted, of course the girl couldn’t cast the charm. But why had she wanted to learn it? Probably a ravenclaw and looking for more education. Stellana took a look at the contract; she couldn’t’ see any obvious loopholes, and the girl had specified ‘the secret known to me that is punishable by time in azkaban’. What the hell had rita done?

Hermione went back upstairs, and Stellana drew up her own non-disclosure contract. The particular version she had taught was more appropriate for a schoolgirl, but still packed some punch. No one wanted their biggest embarrassment manifested on their face.

It was a few minutes later, and then Hermione came back down with a jar in her hand. Stellana was now thoroughly confused, and starting to get annoyed.

“Ok, I’ll sign yours now. Rita agreed to sign my contract.” Hermione nodded to Stellana, and, after reading it, signed her name, Stellana signed hers as well, sealing it.

“OK Rita, your turn.” Hermione said, and unscrewed the lid on the jar. A big beatle jumped out, and transformed into Rita Skeeter.

“Oh Merlin.” Stellana gasped. Rita was an animagus! She quickly connected the dots. The Taurus, the comet, the Pleiades, the LOOKING GLASS!

“Stellana, I’m, I’m sorry you had to see this.” Rita said, pulling a twig out of her hair. “And you, Hermione. I have agreed to your deal, but do not expect kindness from me.”

“You will hang up your quill and we’ll talk again in a year. And no one henceforth will hear from me about your skill.” Hermione said, signing her name to the contract with a flourish, handing it to Rita. Who immediately signed it. That was some oddly legal jargon from a 15 year old Stellana thought, and almost voiced it, but the bizarreness of the situation was taking a toll on her wit, and she was just barely keeping track of the situation.

“Alright Rita, what happened? How did this girl kidnap you?” Reporters instincts kicking in, Stellana started asking questions, even if her mind couldn’t keep up.

“She didn’t kidnap me. She escorted me off school property. After all, I’m free to go aren’t I?” Rita asked, but walked out the front door before Hermione could say anything, and Stellana ran to catch up.
“Rita, you have to tell me everything.”

“No Stellana, first I need to quit my job, then I’ll tell you everything. And you should quit too, Cuffe doesn’t know what a gem he’s got with your talents. You had told me for almost a week to watch out, and I’m not going to lose my prophet to the Prophet.”

The two women disapparated in the middle of the street, Hermione looking at the empty spot with contempt, and shut the door.

----

Stellana walked into Rita Skeeter’s house, and was surprised to find it…familiar. Oh sure the furniture was better quality and both of her turrets was draped in Gryffindor red, but the front room was clean and inviting, and the kitchen was an absolute mess. Looking down the corridor, she saw a bit of blouse on the floor peeking out of the doorway.

Rita made coffee for both of them, and for a moment, Stellana just let the silence be. Sure, it was a great interview technique, but first she needed to gather her thoughts.

“So, you are an animagus, which explains how you’ve gotten scoop after scoop and all your libel claims were beaten for being accurate. You got caught by a teenager, who apparently is forcing you to quit your job in order to not go to jail. And I’m prevented from telling anyone but you and her about this. What the hell Rita?”

Rita stirred her coffee and drank. “I’m not going to apologize for my behavior. I am a reporter, and damn it, I tell stories. I bring those in power down to earth, and I am not afraid of the consequences of that. Which means, that sometimes, I have to hang up my quill and take a sabbatical. I got caught, and I’m not going to prison. So, my choices are clear.”

“OK, but why should I come with you? People need me at Stars Align, I’m the only one keeping the whole section going.”
“Stellana, Harbough has been abusing your good graces. You have burned yourself out. We both know your columns get shorter and shorter, and every winter it takes you longer to get back to your normal sleep pattern. Stars align was an 8 person section. You can’t do it all on your own, and you are killing yourself to do so. I know a lot of people depend on your work, but that isn’t a reason to give up your dream job. You can’t be the only astrologian for all of Britain.”

Stellana looked in shock, that couldn’t be true, could it?

But she thought back to her work, how one of her notebooks would be filled in just a few days in the old days, now they lasted for a month or two. Rita was smart, if she noticed columns getting shorter, then they were. Shit.

“I. I need to think about this. I’m going to go home Rita.” Thank you she almost said. Then shook her head, “Thank you Rita. You’ve always been a good friend to me, and I’m hoping we can stick together.”

“Stellana, honey, you know my darkest secret, rescued me from a teenager, and have seen my literal dirty laundry. You won’t get rid of me that easily. I meant what I said, you told me what I needed to know, perhaps I need to listen better.”

Stellana thanked her for the coffee, apparated home, and collapsed in bed.

----

“Wake up Witch!” Stellana looked at the clock with dread. Then relief. She pushed her willow wand against its chest, “Finite Incantatem.”

 

John, Paul, Ringo or George?

OK, onto the serious stuff.

Spoiler

The horoscope concept is interesting, but I’m not quite convinced by all the details – having to add 15 extra stirs to a potion in more or less random order because Mars is in retrograde or whatever is delightful, but seems a little at odds with magic as presented in canon. Overall though, I really like this as a concept.

There's a sense throughout that we're building to something big, where Stellana breaks the big story, but then canon hits, and we're left with a slice of life story that happens to be set at a turbulent time; that's not a bad thing, but it did mean the ending felt a bit abrupt, IMO.

The thread about redundancies and burnout felt all too real, as did the behind the scenes maneuverings at the Prophet regarding the Tournament.

Writing is basic but OK, although scattered with a few errors – misspellings, missing capitals, that sort of thing.

 

Spoiler

I cannot describe to you how much it irritates me that the two pairs of quotation marks are different. That aside, you only need ones, just as you have done the second time you have this particular line.

The writing is generally a bit rough at the edges, there's an eclipse with only two dots, harry potter without capitals, and a dot instead of m dash to name few, some too long sentences, and this above bit that I quoted where there's two different people talking in the same line.

You'll want to put them each in their own row, and as far as I know in English it's standard to end what's inside the quotation marks with a comma instead of full stop, as in "Sorry, sir," she mumbled.

It's still plenty readable though. And there's a nice idea in there, but it suffers from some abruptness that's half because of the roughness of this piece, and half the often breaks and short, snippy dialogue lines. What I would like to see to spread it a bit more is some more time spent on the magic/or lack thereof of horoscope, some more time with Stellana herself so we get a better hang of her, as all I get is: chirpy, a bit lost but overall happy but tired witch - somewhere between Luna and Tonks, if that makes sense. And maybe a bit of clarification on the relationship between her and Rita since it seems at time that Rita is using her, and sometimes it feels like they're best of friends. I'm pretty sure the latter guess is correct, but the writing leaves it to the imagination unfortunately.

I'm not mad I had to read this - far from it - but a second look could make it go far, in my opinion.

Good effort.

The prompt is Daily Prophet, and so it is. I've no issues with it.

 

Spoiler

The writing's rather threadbare and a little confused on some points. I think in the end my main issue is that I don't really feel the magic. Stellana (the name hits an unfortunate middle ground in that it's very on the nose but not charmingly so) reads the stars, goes through the most important day at work she's ever had. At no points are wands used, at no point is magic shown.

The description of the star reading is rather glaring and probably the best example. It's a vital part of the story that this character is an astronomer, yes? Why do we get a single line of description of what the stars actually look like? We don't actually get much of a description of Astronomy in canon, as I recall, just that it involves telescopes and looking at stars with said telescopes. This leaves an author an immense deal of room to play around with. You could describe the telescope and easily spin that into something prosaic, or maybe with the stars themselves. Really try to wow us, maybe, show us that the character loves what she does.

For similar reasons we're not made to care about Stellana. There are maybe a few hints to her personality throughout - rewriting her article three times - and otherwise nothing. Why did she get into reading the stars? Why is she working for the Daily Prophet? Why is she companionable with Rita, who seems like she'd normally be a nightmare of a coworker? We get nothing. I consider that a waste. The premise (a colleague tries to find out what happened to Skeeter) has potential that isn't realized.

Finally, there's small mistakes littered throughout. The spelling's correct, but occasionally you forget periods, you have "harry potter" in lowercase at one point. You have the reporters refer to the boys as Harry or Cedric which feels too intimate by half. Etc.

 

Spoiler

Let me start with what I adored about this fic: the expansion of Astrology and how it could be used in both Divination, Potions and other magical uses. I always thought that astrology would be incredibly important in the wizarding world, more so than what we saw in canon. Having a job at the Daily Prophet centered around this is perfection. I always did love to see other unique jobs in the wizarding world.

However, the plot around this is a little lackluster. The story starts off with Stellana having a normal day, followed by some random notes of people crying (I realized later this is her team getting laid off, but it wasn't made clear in the scene). After, there was some sort of heavenly shift she writes about before learning what actually happened that day (Voldemort's return). Yet, Stellana doesn't even have an opinion on this event. You would think that this is exactly what the heavens were saying and she would believe him. The story ends with Stellana finding Rita using Astrology and Astronomy (which I adored), and making a contract with Hermione.

If I was writing this, I would have started the story with the heavens shifting day by day and Stellana growing more concerned. It starts with Voldemort's return, which she doesn't believe - at first. But as Harry's 5th year goes on, she sees more and more signs in the stars. After Rita interviews Harry (and goes against the Prophet), things start to make sense. The heaven's suggested this all along. Perhaps it is Stellana who starts to convince others at the Daily Prophet that they might be wrong. Or she also leaves to join Rita. Either way, there would be more of a plot to deal with. it would also allow you to expand Stellana as a character.

 

Spoiler

1. I like the beginning of this entry, particularly the descriptions. It’s not giving me the adjectives I’m expecting, like eye lifeless and feathers dull, and the act of throwing the bird against the wall had me quite shocked. I suppose the opening (recurring line too and that works very nicely) line of wake up witch! is also unexpected which to me at least is a good way to start a story (I am stuck with an old Rod Stewart song in my head for the entire read-through, but that’s a shortcoming on my part, not yours.)

I like that you’ve picked two of the most interesting witches from the franchise as side characters, but I’m not really convinced with the way you write them. Usually it’s a good idea to flick through the books when you’re writing characters that have a bit of flesh on them in canon to get a feel for their vocabulary and the adverbs used when they speak (with HP there’s always a selection of adverbs used for each character).

Stellana has a lot of potential, but I agree with the others that we don’t get enough of an idea who she is and what her motivations are. I would have liked to have gotten a deeper dive into what hers and Rita’s relationship is like. Could’ve made it one-sided hero worship with massive gaslighting on Rita’s part or just a genuinely normal, fun, wholesome relationship by showcasing a new side of Rita for the reader. I’d settle on what it is you were going for and bringing it out loudly and perhaps humorously through the fic.

Lastly I like the astrology angle. I think it needs some polish but it’s a great fic idea and you’ve got a lot of interesting thoughts about it floating around throughout the fic. It feels like you had fun with it while writing it and that always makes for a better read.

I like the last line, very fitting.