Epilogue
Wrap-up
“Orla, have you finished the layout for page three yet?”
“Nearly!”
In a scene almost identical to the one that had played out two years before, the five members of The Fourth Estate were sitting in a circle on the floor of what were now the seventh-year girls’ dormitories surrounded quill pots and parchment scraps, a stack of newsprint transfigured from the school toilet paper set off to the side to be sent to Mandy brother to settle the printing cost. Padma, once again, was completely absent from the room. There was still not a person among the staff who had any idea what she was doing almost every night while they were at work.
There was a great deal of things about the paper that had changed since it had been started up again at the beginning of the school year. There was certainly no shortage of stories to write about, the first issue detailing an exposé on all change in the Hogwarts teaching staff. Professor Burbage, the Muggle Studies professor had completely disappeared and the student body had never been given a very satisfactory explanation as to what had happened to her. This turned out to be a very big story, as Muggle Studies was now a mandatory class for all Hogwarts students, though the way it was currently being taught by Alecto Carrow made Lisa long for the old days of Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Umbridge, as much as it pained her to admit. The main focus of the class seemed to be to indoctrinate the students with the belief that Muggles were a filthy, sub-human race undeserving of any form of mercy or pity.
None of the Ravenclaws dared play the Question Game anymore. The new school policy towards the Dark Arts and Unforgivable Curses had a great deal to do with that.
Amycus Carrow, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts, had more or less dropped the first three words in the class title and now the N.E.W.T.-level curriculum consisted mainly of the students torturing one another. Anyone who refused was themselves subjected to the Cruciatus Curse. All a person really could do in this new environment was keep their heads as low as possible and try to attract as little attention as possible.
At least until classes ended and The Fourth Estate staff went to work under the cover of darkness.
Had Lisa been a much more naïve person, she might have felt slightly safer knowing that Professor Snape was now the headmaster, were it not that it confirmed what had always been a long-standing rumor and belief among the student body: Snape’s loyalties were first and foremost to You-Know-Who. He might have done what little he could to keep The Fourth Estate safe from the wrath of the Ministry of Magic, but there was no chance of him sticking his neck out for them now that one of the world’s most notorious wizards was running the country.
All the same, Mandy, Morag, Stewart, and Orla, who to this day had no knowledge of the secret understanding between Lisa and Snape, held no hesitation about starting up The Fourth Estate under this new regime.
Of course, the Ravenclaws had to become greatly more diligent in keeping from getting caught. There was no more leaving the paper out so openly has they had been in Lisa’s fifth-year, with distribution now restricted to just a few well hidden hot-spots in the school. Somehow they were found, though no one among the newspaper staff had any idea of how.
The Spontaneous Combustion Hex was still in place, in addition to a biting hex, an itching hex, and a mucus-spewing hex. None of them were very advanced hexes, but hopefully they were numerous enough that no one who they were marked for would even dare pick it up.
And for those who thought they were being clever through the use of Levitation spells were in for an especially nasty surprise…
In an odd sort of way, they were also fortunate in that there was no shortage of human suffering within the school these days, which made for plenty of source material. Lisa felt horrible when she first had this thought, but Mandy assured her that this was the case with all journalists. Her brother had told her this many times before, saying it was a sort of mixed blessing that came with being a reporter.
The incoming first year class was completely devoid of Muggle-born students, and though there was no real proof that it had anything to do with the school’s new administration, that did not stop it from becoming the second cover story of The Fourth Estate. Of course, after this had happened, even though the Carrows and some of their more cooperating Slytherins had no real proof of the paper’s existence, that did not stop them from issuing an official statement as to what would happen to those who were caught writing it. Needless to say, it was not pleasant and something that made everything Umbridge had ever brought on them seem like a sweet dream.
“Everybody all set?” Lisa asked the staff, quickly sneaking ones last issue underneath her blouse and on wrapping more papers around her right thigh.
The rest of the staff all stood to their feet, a few taking the chance to stuff a few extra issues underneath their clothes. Lisa sidestepped her way to the doorway that led from the Ravenclaw common room down into the school corridors. Outside, there was complete and utter silence, but even that was no indication of safety.
“Alright then.” Lisa poked her head out into the corridor, a newly acquired reflex after nearly being caught a few too many times. “Annnnd…run!”
On that command, the five Ravenclaws sped off in all different directions, not even looking over their shoulders for fear that it would cost them precious seconds. Printing this paper was no longer just the simple game they had enjoyed two years ago when even the worse of consequences seemed horribly light compared to what could happen to them now were any one of them caught. Mandy had told the other Ravenclaw stories of people even today who were tortured and killed for printing true news stories, and Lisa doubted that their fate would be any different. All of their lives were on the line by doing what they were doing, and it left Lisa heart pounding much too fast, in an almost constant, almost painful rate.
And Lisa Turpin wouldn’t have had it any other way.
The Fourth Estate by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Two years later, The Fourth Estate is up and running again under a new regime, much more dangerous than any they have faced before.
Thank you so much to Fresca, for seeing this story through until the very end.