The Fourth Estate by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: The idea of starting something of a paper becomes an official idea, but there is far too much work for just three fifth-years to do. So the girls start dipping into the school talent pool in an attempt to find assistance.
Again, thank you to Fresca for being such a wonderful beta!
Chapter 3
Staff
“No laws were ever passed on the use of the Quickslitter Quill, though by the early nineteenth century, much of Europe had come to the conclusion that the use of such a tool on students was unethical,” Lisa read aloud, her voice echoing off the tiles of the bathroom. “So even though there are currently no legal ramifications for Dolores Umbridge’s favorite form of discipline, the philosophical and ethical ramifications of it are too many to count.”
As soon as she reached the last word, Lisa glanced over the top of the parchment to see Mandy beaming and anxious to hear the response.
Lisa’s honest response was that she couldn’t believe it. What she had just read was…good: well-researched and entertaining. Lisa had no idea where Mandy had been able to find her information (though Mandy reminded her that a person could find just about anything in the Hogwarts library if they knew where to look), but it was something that seemed like it could honestly be believed. It was just like something that might have been printed in a newspaper. Lisa’s own compositions had really been little more than some musings and her own rantings.
Off to the side rested Morag’s essay, which had been no less exquisite. She had actually managed to look up Umbridge’s old school records and had written an entire exposé on her Hogwarts years. It had just a touch of sleaze to it, but after everything that had been printed in the Prophet, Lisa doubted anyone else who read it would even be able to pick up on it.
Not that Lisa knew how she was going to get anyone else to read it. Right now, they were just three girls pacing around the bathroom jumping at small noises that might have meant someone was about to intrude.
“It’s good,” she told Mandy finally. “It’s really, really good!”
Mandy let out a high-pitched squeal, and the other two girls hushed to silence her. All Ravenclaws had giant egos, so they would have to be very careful about just how much praise they gave to one another.
“Yours was good too, Morag,” Lisa moved on to tell the other girl. “Sleazy, but in a good way.”
Morag smiled slyly. “I can’t think of anyone more deserving.”
“Alright then,” Mandy said, still bouncing. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Ideas about what?” Lisa asked as she began washing the smudged ink off her hands.
“How we’re going to get these stories all around the school.”
“Well, we all agree that these stories are good, and we certainly have a fair amount of them now,” Mandy explained further. “How do we go about print them and passing them out?”
Morag put her hands on her hips and offered a cynical look. “What do you think, Mandy? That we’re writing a newspaper?”
“Well, why not?”
“Excuse me?” Morag asked.
Mandy repeated herself, “Why not turn these things into a newspaper?”
Even Lisa was taken aback by this new turn in the plan. So far, this had just been a small collection of essays that they were possibly going to show to other students when no one was looking. But mass production of writings like these, and who knows how many of them? Lisa didn’t even know where they would begin.
Morag seemed to share these exact same feelings. “And just how are wesupposed to go about doing that?”
“It wouldn’t be too terribly difficult,” Many assured them. “We would need to type them out, and there are typewriters that Professor Burbage has in her classroom. She collects all kinds of Muggle contraptions. Then we just have to fit them to a layout. After that, it’s just a matter of getting the copies to paper. You see? Not nearly as it seems.”
“How do you know so much about newspapers anyway?” Lisa asked.
“My older brother is studying journalism at Muggle university,” Mandy told them.
“Your brother?” Morag raised one of her eyebrows. “The Squib?”
Mandy snapped her head around fast and flashed a glare while Lisa cringed and groaned. Mandy was a half-blood with a Muggle father. The Brocklehursts had only two children and their first, Mandy’s brother, had been born without magic. The kinder students at the school never breathed a word of him (Lisa didn’t even know what his name was), but it was something a few of the more proud pureblood students used to torment her. Lisa couldn’t believe Morag had said such a thing.
“He doesn’t have magic, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he is talking about when it comes to the newspaper industry!” Mandy snapped. “He studies it all day, every day. And he certainly knows a lot more about it than any of us do!”
Mandy went on with even more excited babblings. “His school even has an old printing press and lots of access to paper. If I sent him the original copy, I just know he would be more than willing to make copies of them and send them to us by owl. Don’t you see? We could really make this work!”
But Lisa was not entirely won over by the idea, no matter how exciting it was beginning to sound. And clearly, neither was Morag.
“There is no way we would be able to publish a newspaper with just the three of us, though,” Morag countered. “Even if you brother were willing to do the print for us, it would still be entirely our responsibility to write the stories, type them out, get pictures””
“Pictures! That would be wonderful!” Mandy interrupted. “Do either of you have a camera?”
Instead of answering, Morag listed off the rest of the work that would need to be done in order for this too work. “Then, we would have to somehow paste it all together without anyone seeing the process, and leave who knows how many copies all around the school. Can you imagine the impossible work load?”
Mandy didn’t seem to think this was a problem, however. “So we’ll just get more people to help us.”
Morag snorted. “Like who?”
“What about the cute little second-year that sat between the two of you the night while we were all reading The Quibbler?” Mandy proposed. “He looked as though he could be useful enough.”
“Stewart Ackerly?” Lisa asked. “I don’t even really know him.”
“But he likes you enough to do what you two say,” Mandy reminded them. “If we could make it sound exciting enough to get him, we could get him to join in on the project. Not to mention he looks up to you, Lisa. I could tell.”
Lisa wasn’t really sure that it was that Stewart respected him, or that he still didn’t know who the fifth-year prefects were, but she also couldn’t help but remember how easy it had been to get the boy to do what she asked. He would certainly be a lot easier to convince than a lot of other people in their house.
“Alright,” Lisa finally agreed. “Let’s go find him and ask him for ourselves.”
The Hogwarts library was a large, expansive space, for good reason. On cold, wet, windy, and generally miserable afternoons, even students who had not been seen in the library for months could be found there. Even if they didn’t spend the time studying, staying there was just another moment they wouldn’t have to spend in the damp outside. Lisa, Morag, and Mandy understood that very well, now that they were rushing through the library entrance, their soaked school robes still clinging to their limbs.
Even though they hadn’t checked the common room, as a Ravenclaw, as insulting as it might have seemed, it was a fair bet that Stewart Ackerly could be found in the school library on such an afternoon as this. Still, finding him would be no easy task. All the bodies studying were dressed in the same identical black robes, and from behind, all of the boys (and even a few of the girls) looked as though they could be Stewart Ackerly.
At a quick clip, the girls weaved their ways in and out of the series of shelves, meeting at their respective ends. They worked their ways through the Astronomy section, then Charms, Herbology, Potions; through more books than Lisa was certain that the three of them would have ever read in their Hogwarts careers. Lisa began to wonder how a second-year could have managed to work his way so deep into the stacks.
But when Lisa started her way through a new column of shelves, just at the beginning of a series of empty shelves that had once contained books on combat spells, a small black-robed figure sat staring up at the ceiling: Stewart Ackerly. The younger boy didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular, but with the shelves surrounding him completely devoid of books, it wasn’t very hard to understand.
Mandy, Morag!” Lisa shouted over her shoulder. “Over here, I found him.”
“Stewart?” Lisa called over to get his attention. “Stewart, can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Hello, Stewart.” Lisa made her way over to the second-year boy. “Remember me? I’m Lisa Turpin.”
Stewart offered a small nod. “I sat next to you the night we all read The…” he wouldn’t actually say the name of the forbidden magazine, but it didn’t matter. Lisa knew exactly what he meant.
“That’s right,” Lisa answered, just in time for her roommates to find them. Each of them out of breath from a combination quick-paced walking and breathing more dust than oxygen, Mandy and Morag collapsed to the floor beside the other two Ravenclaws.
“What do you want?” Stewart asked, finally becoming curious.
Finally, Mandy forced herself into a somewhat upright position, enough so that she could reach into her book bag and extract the same stack of parchments that the three girls had been obsessing over. “Take a look at these.”
Somewhat warily, Stewart took the papers for himself and began flipping through them. The girls watched his expression carefully to see his exact reactions. For the most part, he appeared curious, slightly terrified, and just a little bit excited.
“What is all this?” Stewart finally asked them, his voice shaking slightly.
“They’re stories,” Mandy told him, her voice taking on the same pitch it took whenever they talked about the plans they had been making for these writings. “Lisa wrote the first couple, but then Morag and I began writing too. We want to get a bunch of them printed all together so we can hand them out to the student body.”
“You mean like a newspaper?”
“Exactly!” Mandy exclaimed, not even noticing the slight apprehension Lisa and Morag felt towards the term.
Stewart stared around the circle of older girls, appearing completely dumbfounded. Granted, all this information was a lot to take in. Finally, he managed to ask the three, “So why are you telling me all this?”
Again, Mandy took it upon herself to explain. “You don’t honestly think that it’s possible to publish a newspaper with only three people working on it, do you? Of course it’s not! That’s why we’re going to need help to make this happen. We need to find more people to help us.”
Finally, Stewart was beginning to understand what had prompted this visit from the fifth-year girls. “You want me to help you publish this paper?”
“That’s right,” Lisa finally took her turn to speak.
The small expression of terror and excitement became a little more prevalent as Stewart look back down at the parchments in his hand. “We could get in a lot of trouble for this.”
“You don’t think we know that?” Morag said, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.
“But it hasn’t done anything to stop us,” Lisa finished.
Stewart took a few quiet moments to mull on the situation, chewing on his bottom lip and ringing the hems of his robes through his fingers. After what felt like ages, though, he finally looked up to meet the girls in the eyes.
“I’ll do it,” he answered plainly. “But I do have one condition.”
“What?” Lisa asked, somewhat worried about how big a favor she would have to grant.
“Can Orla join too?” he asked.
“Who’s Orla?” Morag looked down at him in the matter of someone who did not have a vast amount of patience for children. Lisa wanted to snap at her roommate for being so short, for fear of scaring the boy away, but ended up saying nothing.
“Orla Quirke,” Stewart explained. “She’s in my year with me. She would be a great person to have on a newspaper. She’s really smart, and really good at talking to people, and really, really…”
Stewart’s voice trailed off as a bright flush became darker and darker on the younger boy’s face.
Oh my goodness, Lisa thought to herself. He has a crush on this girl! It was perfectly adorable, but not exactly a good qualification for becoming a member of the writing staff for a secret newspaper. Then again, what were they really going to have Stewart do for them aside from grunt work? This Orla wouldn’t have to have a terribly long list of experience either, but there would certainly be more than enough of the dull, mind-numbing portions of the work to go around.
Back in the school corridors, Stewart’s robes too were also coated in a fine layer of dew. Of course, he was in much better shape than the older Ravenclaw girls, who were now soaked from head to toe, icy beads of water dripping down their neck and clinging to their eyelashes. Stewart was eager and excited to approach Orla Quirke with their proposal of joining the staff of their newly founded newspaper, while Lisa, Morag, and Mandy lagged behind, their wet clothing nearly doubling their body mass, the three of them just feeling generally wet, cold, and annoyed.
The caught up to Stewart just in time to hear the bronze eagle knocker ask the question that would determine whether or not they would be allowed in. “John rode to town on Friday, stayed three days in an inn, then rode back on Friday. How?”
Stewart’s brow furrowed in confusion as he tried to work his way through what must have been a new riddle for him. All the while, the three girls stood behind him, shivering and muttering under their breath. Finally, enough was enough. Lisa could have cared less about the value of learning right now. She wanted to sit in front of the fire.
“Friday is name of the horse!” she shouted loud enough that the entire corridor must have heard the answer.
“Very insightful,” the knocker responded as the door opened and allowed the students entrance.
The older girls nearly trampled poor Stewart as they rushed up into their common room and threw themselves in front of the fire while Stewart raced off to find Orla himself. With any amount of luck, they would be allowed at least a few moments of warming before Stewart finally found Orla Quirke. It wasn’t nearly long enough, though, that Stewart came running up to the three older girls, pointing out his little crush among a gaggle of other second-year girls.
Orla was a small girl with butter-colored hair and sea-green eyes. She was certainly quite pretty, and it was easy to see how Stewart could be attracted to her. She sat on one of the sofas, amid a circle of her female classmates, and absurd amount of laughter being generated between them.
“Can I ask her?” Stewart looked up at Lisa with a begging expression in his eyes. “Please?”
“Sure, Stewart. Go ahead.”
Without waiting for any further permission, Stewart rush over to the little cluster of second-years on the sofa, a define sense of purpose in his step.
“He’s not really going to ask her in front of all those other people, is he?” Morag asked, turning her attention away from the blazing fire. “Perhaps we should remind him of the definition of the word ‘secret’.”
Lisa might have been worried for a little while too, except Stewart wasn’t saying anything. Yes, he was certainly in range of little Orla Quirke, and it was quite clear that she noticed him. “Um, Stewart, can I help you with something?”
Nothing. Stewart stood before her, but he was certainly not asking her anything that had to do with newspapers. This was just starting to get sad now. As much as it pained Lisa to depart from the warm fire, she pulled away from her roommates and made her way over to where Stewart was crashing and burning.
“Hi, girls,” Lisa tried to greet them as sweetly as she could. “Would you mind if I borrowed Orla here, just for a moment?”
The entire group seemed confused by this request, especially poor, little Orla. But luckily for Lisa, Orla’s friends all nodded, giving Lisa permission to lead the second-year girl away.
“Wonderful,” Lisa said, taking Orla by the folds of her robes, and then doubling back to collect Stewart. “You’re coming too, Stewart.”
And with that, the two second-years were dragged back to the fire: Orla still puzzled and bewildered, and Stewart seeming as though he were trying to speak, but his words either coming out too jumbled to understand or otherwise complete nonsense. It was clear that Orla had yet to learn the potential power she would have over boys very soon. It was so cute.
Once Orla had joined the budding staff at the fire, the entire concept of the secret newspaper was explained once again for her benefit. As the fifth-year girls took turns giving the details, little Orla’s eyes grew wider and wider. But the time they were finished speaking, in fact, she could have easily passed for a young Loony Lovegood.
“But…you guys…” she asked them in hushed whispers, “couldn’t we get expelled for that kind of thing?”
“DOESN’T MATTER!” Stewart burst out suddenly, loud enough for the whole common room to here. The older girls all tried to keep from saying anything, hoping their housemate would believe Stewart’s outburst had been about something frivolous, like Chocolate Frog cards or the Tutshill Tornado’s latest win in the league.
“It’s about the p-principle,” Stewart was finally able to say somewhat quieter, although he still seemed to be getting stuck on certain letters of the alphabet. “It’s like the girls told me, Orla. We shouldn’t even b-be getting in troub-ble for d-doing something like this. That means something is wrong. And that’s why we need to d-do this…at least that’s way they said.”
Stewart made sure to point an accusing finger at Lisa and her roommates, just in case Orla didn’t quite agree with this philosophy. Of course, when Orla actually did agree, he tried to snatch a little of the credit back for himself.
Lisa looked around at the people that would be solely responsible for delivering an alternate source of media to the Hogwarts students: cynical, bespectacled Morag, plain, mousy Mandy, blushing, stuttering Stewart, and little, pretty Orla. And, of course, Lisa herself.
Lisa wondered just how long it would be before they all got caught.
But she was also the one who had gotten them all into this in the first place, and she most certainly hadn’t done it because she was afraid of the consequences. She was not going to do anything to put a stop to it now.