Hermione's voice was very low, but when her words reached Harry and Ron's ears, they both froze.
Ron's hand, which had just picked up a piece of toast, froze in mid-air. He put the toast back on the plate and tapped his finger on the table. "Yeah!"
"She wasn't there. Last night, it was just a few of us by the Forbidden Forest, along with Headmaster Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Scrimgeour and the Auror, and that masked one."
" Rita Skeeter wasn't even around at the time, so how could she write about it as if she had seen it with her own eyes?"
Harry flipped through the newspaper again, his eyes scanning back and forth between the lines of the article.
In her article, Rita described the scale of the storm, the height of the silvery-white pillar of light, and even mentioned that Dumbledore stood in front of the broken log and spoke to Black, stating that the two "talked for several minutes."
The details were so specific that Harry felt as if the Quick-Quotes Quill was still stuck in the dirt in the clearing from last night.
"Maybe she interviewed one of the Auror afterward?" Harry said, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
Hermione shook her head, a hint of displeasure and confusion in her brown eyes.
"But if she interviewed the Auror, her article should have included quotations, even anonymous ones, such as 'An unnamed Ministry of Magic official stated.'"
"But she didn't mention it at all. She wrote 'According to our newspaper' and 'Sources familiar with the matter,' but she uses these phrases every time and they don't prove anything at all."
Ron pushed the plate in front of him forward, rested his elbows on the table, and propped his chin up with his hands:
"How did she know? Surely she couldn't have been hiding in the Forbidden Forest herself?"
"The clearing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest was completely razed by the storm last night; all the bushes were downed, and even the fallen leaves were swept away."
"If she really was hiding there, she couldn't possibly be unharmed when the storm swept through."
Hermione stated with certainty, "Furthermore, Professor McGonagall later had Professor Sprout examine the scene, and they found no extra traces."
Harry frowned. Hermione was right; if Rita had truly been in the Forbidden Forest, she couldn't have escaped detection.
But she wrote it as if she had seen it with her own eyes, even describing the exact spot where Dumbledore stood in front of Black with extreme accuracy.
"Could it be Fudge?" Ron suddenly said. " Fudge was there too; he was standing quite close to Dumbledore. Maybe Fudge said something to Rita?"
"Why did Fudge tell Rita all this?" Hermione countered. "This article portrays Dumbledore as utterly worthless, but it also puts the Ministry of Magic in a difficult position."
"If Fudge really wanted to shift the blame to Dumbledore, he could have simply stated what he saw, but this article includes everything Black said, and it's written with the beginning and end cut off."
" Fudge was right there listening to Black speak; there's no way he wouldn't have discerned which of his words were favorable to the Ministry of Magic and which were unfavorable."
"If he were really going to tell anyone, he should have kept quiet about all of Black's claims that ' the Ministry of Magic imprisoned me for twelve years without a trial.'"
Ron opened his mouth, then closed it again.
The three men sat around the Gryffindor Table, looking at each other, none of them able to offer an explanation that they could convince themselves.
Harry racked his brains but could never have imagined that the beetle that had kept its ear pressed against Fudge's shoulder the entire time in the Forbidden Forest, hearing every single word Black said, was actually Rita Skeeter.
Right now, she's sitting at her desk at home, an open roll of parchment, her Quick-Quotes Quill dipped in ink, a satisfied smile on her lips.
However, Harry and his friends didn't have time to think about it in detail right now.
Because some people in the Great Hall had already started banging on the tables.
"Look at this!" A fifth-year Slytherin boy slammed the Daily Prophet onto the table, making a sound that could be heard halfway through the Great Hall.
" Dumbledore actually talked to Black for several minutes? That's a murderer who escaped from Azkaban!"
"My mom said Black single-handedly blew up an entire street of Muggle," the girl next to him said in a low voice.
But her voice rang out even louder in the quiet Great Hall: "More than a dozen lives, all taken by him."
"Not just that." Another boy peeked over from the side, also holding the same newspaper.
"I remember the Ministry of Magic said at the time that Black was a follower of You-Know-Who, and that he was the one who betrayed the Potters ' hiding place."
"Now that the Ministry of Magic has him in custody, Dumbledore is still standing there chatting with him?"
Why would he chat with a murderer?
"Perhaps Dumbledore wanted to ask him something?"
"What's there to ask? There's plenty of evidence; he admitted it himself!"
"He didn't admit it," a Gryffindor girl whispered. "The newspaper said Dumbledore questioned him about what happened back then, Black gave his version of events—"
"What 'your own explanation'? A murderer can make excuses for himself?" The Slytherin boy scoffed.
"Anyway, I don't think Dumbledore did the right thing. He's the headmaster; he should have been the first to send Black back to Azkaban."
The murmurs in the Great Hall grew louder and louder.
Harry sat at the long table listening to these voices, feeling a pressure on his chest with each sentence he heard.
He wanted to stand up and say something, but he didn't know what to say.
After all, the Wizarding World's verdict at the time was crystal clear: Black was a traitor, the one who killed his parents.
But what Black said last night in the Forbidden Forest while sitting on that broken log didn't sound like a lie.
"Don't be impulsive," Hermione whispered beside him, as if she had guessed what he was thinking.
"It's no use saying anything now. They're reading the newspapers; we were the only ones there."
"But the newspaper article was clearly biased," Harry said in a low voice.
"I know," Hermione nodded, "But you can't convince them, at least not now."
In every corner of the Wizarding World, similar debates are unfolding with greater volume and more intense emotions.
At the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley, three or four layers of people were crammed in front of the bar, and the same copy of the Daily Prophet was spread out on every table.
Tom squeezed through the crowd carrying his tray, nearly spilling his Butterbeer several times.
"What does this say?" An old wizard in a worn fur robe slammed a newspaper on the bar and pointed to the headline.
" Dumbledore protecting a murderer? Is he senile?"
"Don't say that," a middle-aged witch beside her frowned. "How many good deeds has Headmaster Dumbledore done over the years? You're going to erase his entire life with just one sentence?"
"What's wrong with doing good deeds your whole life? Does doing good deeds give you the right to protect a murderer?"
"What happened to those thirteen lives? All the Muggle on that street died back then, not a single one was left!"
"Their vengeful spirits are all watching Dumbledore! When he was standing there chatting with Black, did he ever think about those thirteen lives?"
Didn't the newspaper say 'there might be another reason'?
"A hidden story? What hidden story could explain more than a dozen lives?" The old wizard slammed his glass on the bar, spilling a few drops of liquor.
" Black was there. He was the one who gave the Potters their hiding place to You-Know-Who and also blew up Peter Pettigrew, who was trying to stop him."
"What's there to ask? Just send him back to Azkaban, call the Dementor back, and make sure he never gets out again!"