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Harry needed to do something about Rita Skeeter.
It was one thing when she was targeting and trash-talking him.
It was entirely another when she was doing it to his wife.
Decision made—even if not very clear on the particulars—he made his way out of his office, to Ron's, as Deputy Head Auror.
Ron was chewing on his quill as he stared blearily at the reports. The moment he caught sight of Harry, though, he snapped to attention. "Whatever it is, I'm in," he said promptly.
Harry frowned. "I haven't even told you anything."
"I'm up for anything with you, mate. Besides, you get a look on your face when you're plotting something. It's like Hermione's 'I know something you don't' look."
"I do not!" he objected. There was no comparison to Hermione's Looks that Ron found endearing and Harry some mix of scary and exasperating.
"Yes, you do," Ron retorted confidently, legs on his desk. He planted them on the floor with a loud noise. "Let's go see my wife."
Even a while after the wedding, he still delighted in calling Hermione that.
Not that Harry blamed him. He was honestly the same with Ginny.
Hermione was actually working, unlike the two of them, going intently through reports—whatever it was the Department of Magical Legislation did.
Harry knew a lot about it, thanks to both Hermione and their efforts post the war, but he liked to pretend not to. It drove both Hermione and Percy nuts.
She looked up. "I want nothing to do with this," she announced.
Harry frowned, injured. "I haven't even said anything!"
"Told you," Ron said comfortably, going to press a kiss to his wife's cheek. "You've got a Look."
"You do, actually," Hermione said, at least somewhat apologetically. Ron just looked smug.
"Why don't you two listen to me first before jumping to conclusions?" He rolled his eyes and asked.
"We don't need to, we know you," Hermione pointed out.
He crossed his arms. "Oh, yeah? Then what do I want?"
"Probably Skeeter's head on a platter," Ron mused.
These two really did know him too well.
"I can't say I don't want that as well," Hermione said, frowning darkly at her parchment.
She'd been the target of Rita's libel incredibly often too.
"Do you have a plan?" Ron asked him.
The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Not really. I was just hoping to trap her, you know? Get her to write something she can't take back, that'll get her arrested—or at least barred from writing."
"That's a tall order," Hermione said.
"But doable," Ron said smugly. "Here's the plan. . . ."
It was incredibly easy, as it turned out.
All he had to do was take a giggling half-drunk Hermione publicly up to one of the private rooms in the Leaky Cauldron, specifically on a day he knew Rita Skeeter was out there looking for gossip.
All of the DA knew about her animagus form—so when Harry loudly asked Hannah for a private room with silencing charms when they were in hearing range, she shot him a concerned look.
He returned a reassuring smile—he knew what he was doing.
Or at least, Hermione did.
Even if this had been Ron's idea.
He escorted his best friend up to one of the rooms in an intimate and grand fashion—nearly carrying her bridal style. Many patrons murmured about this, and he saw Rita disappear into the bathroom.
Good.
When placing the silencing charm on the room he left a hole in it—enough to be able to unpick it, even for her.
Especially when you could transform into a beetle.
He put the wards for entry at full strength, though—he didn't want her actually seeing what they were doing. That would ruin the whole thing.
Then he pulled out the shrunk radio in his pocket, and flicked to the channel—specific excerpts an audio erotica Hermione very reluctantly admitted was a guilty pleasure.
That reluctance was justified since neither Harry nor Ron had been able to stop laughing for several minutes. The redder she got, the more hilarious they found it.
He did not envy his best mate that night at the house alone with his wife.
"Done," Hermione said, leaning back in the bed, yawning. "Now all we have to do is wait for her to take the bait."
"In the meantime, want to play scrabble?" he challenged her.
Losing to her at one of her favourite games was the best way he could think of to repay her for the immense favour she was doing him.
Her eyes flashed, all signs of drunkenness fading away. "You're on."
It was in all the headlines the next day: Harry Potter and Hermione Weasley found having an affair!
"It's Granger-Weasley," Ron groused when he saw it.
"Not really the most important thing here, mate," Harry commented, putting down his bread to survey the article. It contained exactly what he'd expected.
He looked at his friend. She smiled, slow and satisfied. He shivered, glad that she was on his side, that that would never be directed at him. "We've got her."
An unregistered animagus—one who had registered during the war, even—could get away with a fine.
Someone as infamous as Rita Skeeter, proven to have violated the privacy of the Man-Who-Conquered, as well as several others to write incriminating articles?
It was straight to Azkaban.
She was lucky Harry and the others had spent so much time campaigning for more humane conditions there.
Harry and Hermione gave their very best bewildered testimony in court—they had been in a private room, by law, and what they had been doing there was their business.
Rita had clearly expected them to deny it, as they always had the rumours of their alleged romance, unwilling to admit they had actually gone behind private wards alone, but this time they had thrown themselves into it.
Now the entire wizarding world believed they were having an affair—except the smart ones. And the ones who actually mattered: their family.
Since Ron and Ginny laughed it off, the rest of the family followed suit, though Mrs. Weasley cast them anxious glances every time Harry and Hermione interacted in her vicinity.
When Ginny got back from her training camp, she would find Rita Skeeter arrested and her husband, brother and sister-in-law all looking extremely victorious for some reason.
And Rita Skeeter got a card in prison: Next time, target someone other than Ginny Potter.