"...Actually, we can still talk this over."
Audrey could not help the twitch at the corner of her eye.
Edward lightly tapped his chin with his wand. "Oh, right. If you choose to listen to me, I can give you an extra reward."
"What?"
"I won't strip you of your magical abilities."
Rita Skeeter: "???"
She looked utterly bewildered. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean."
"Well... Magic Is Forbidden Here (Ancient Hermes)."
Rita Skeeter froze, then her face abruptly turned deathly pale. She felt some sort of change in her body-she had lost the ability to cast spells.
"Stupefy!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Lumos."
"Protego!"
Nothing happened.
Still refusing to believe it, she waved her wand over and over, only to discover that she really seemed to have lost her magical abilities and become a Squib. Or a Muggle?
In an instant, Rita Skeeter felt as though she had plunged into an abyss. Fear was all that remained in her mind, and her body began trembling uncontrollably. "No! No! You can't, you can't do this!"
"Please, please give me back my magic! Please!"
"I'll do anything you want, as long as you give me back my magic. Please!"
It was as though all her vitality had been drained away in a single instant.
Edward had truly underestimated how terrifying losing magic was for a wizard. After enjoying the conveniences of magic for decades, it was like an ordinary person suddenly losing their eyes, ears, hands, and feet.
Not only that, she had been reduced to a Squib whom everyone looked down on. The change was like falling from heaven into hell, terrifying and hopeless.
"Very good. Next, I want you to use every means possible to dig up dirt on Fudge, his cronies, and the pure-blood families, and turn them