II. In which nothing spells worse mischief than two women plotting

As usual, all standard disclaimers of non-ownership apply.

"You ... want Snape," Rita rasped out slowly, a disbelieving frown etched into her features.

"Snape," confirmed Hermione. Had her expression graced the features of any other person, she would have accused them of being smug. As it stood, Hermione knew she was being smug, but thought highly enough of her reasons that she wouldn't make self-recriminating accusations. And just in case she may have run the risk of Rita also thinking she was being smug, Hermione lifted the small cup in front of her and sipped daintily at her coffee.

"Are you going to explain yourself, Granger, or are you going to hide behind that ridiculously small cup of coffee all afternoon?" Rita growled impatiently, her eyes narrowed.

"I want Snape," Hermione repeated, a wickedly mischievous glint in her eyes. "I want to know everything, and I do mean everything, that will be going on at his trial."

"Are you daft, you silly girl? There's a reason Scrimgeour has waited this long and has left Snape's trial for last. Security for these blasted hearings is rumoured to be higher than when You-Know-Who came back and everyone was under suspicion of Polyjuice or Imperio." Rita seemed to rattle off her explanation in a single breath, ignoring the fervent nods that showed Hermione was well aware of all of these details.

But of course Hermione knew. Scrimgeour's plans for Snape's trial had been all anyone had talked about at the Burrow for the past several weeks. Scrimgeour had rather high ambitions for this final Death Eater hearing; it appeared he thought it would be all he needed to fully secure his position as Minister for Magic. The irony of it all was that without Rita's activities for the past two months, Scrimgeour would have likely tried to get as many spectators in as possible. Either way, Snape was poised to be the Minister's example.

The intent was to have the courtrooms changed daily; the proceedings were also to take place early in the morning and last until mid-morning, ending an hour before noon at the latest. Speculations abounded over whether Snape was to be interrogated at length, of course; but several rather high-profile witnesses, colleagues at Hogwarts and in the Order, had already been called forward to make depositions during his hearing. Scrimgeour also planned to use as many of the testimonies given by the Death Eaters tried before Snape as he could get away with passing off as relevant ... Which, if Snape's popularity among the Death Eaters was comparable to his popularity among the Hogwarts student populace, could turn out to be quite a few.

Not many Death Eaters had truly survived the final battle, though. A number of them had fought too ardently to escape unscathed from a fight everyone had known would decide everything. Others, like Bellatrix Lestrange, had thrown themselves into the fray with all the more ardour once they had seen Harry emerge victorious from his duel with the Dark Lord; Hermione expected they had known they would die and had preferred death to a life in Azkaban without their Master, without a cause and, this time around, without a single hope to escape.

Among those who had been captured, some had still attempted to persuade the Wizengamot that they had been trapped under Lord Voldemort's will by use of the Imperius curse. The tactic had worked well enough at the time of Voldemort's first demise; given that the Dark Marks had once again disappeared from the flesh of the suspected Death Eaters, they had seen no reason why it wouldn't work once more. Some of those who had already been imprisoned at Azkaban for being Death Eaters had tried using the same excuse as well, of course. As Lord Voldemort had been the one to free them from the prison, they had been given the perfect opportunity to claim that the Dark Lord himself had placed them under Imperio: a curse of that magnitude, cast by someone of his obvious power, was nigh unbreakable.

In the end, a third at most of Lord Voldemort's followers had faced hearings before the Wizengamot. Some of them, for whom the Ministry couldn't prove any wrongdoing other than being in Lord Voldemort's service, had been given token sentences in Azkaban. They had been the first victims of Rita Skeeter's vitriol, as they had been the few at whose hearings she had been present. Her editorials had lambasted them for giving the Minister convenient, nondescript answers to any and all of his questions in exchange for a drastically lessened sentence in an Azkaban long deserted of its Dementor guards.

Others, like Walden Macnair and Fenrir Greyback, had shocked the wizarding world with their atrocities. Their trials had been lengthier, more elaborate; but they still weren't convenient enough scapegoats for a Minister who seemed to be trying desperately to break all publicly discernible ties with Fudge's old administration. Their Wizengamot hearings had been held behind closed doors, but Hermione doubted they had had much of interest to say, if indeed anything at all. She knew for a fact she would have expected naught but bravado from Macnair, and nothing but threats and insults from Greyback. She hardly considered the lack of reporting from their hearings a loss.

"I know all this, Rita." Hermione huffed somewhat impatiently. "Nonetheless, I can get you inside. I shall simply let you know which courtroom has been chosen as a venue each morning ... And you can certainly get in there the same way you got in at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament. Surely you don't expect they'll have any real wards protecting the courtrooms; especially none of the calibre that Dumbledore had been using to guard Hogwarts!"

"That remains a rather large risk that you would have me take, Granger. Which brings us to a very important point ... What exactly is my benefit out of all this?"

"What, do you mean besides being a witness to the most anticipated trial in all of wizarding history?" Hermione enquired none too acidly. The raised eyebrow her retort was met with, as well as the cool, unimpressed look in Rita's eyes, let her know the Animagus was suitably uninterested. Hermione would have expected no less.

Out of all the hearings that had been taking place after the war, the two last were expected to be the most important. Arthur Weasley, Harry and Ron had confirmed this independently, meaning multiple sources within the Ministry had started coming to the same conclusions.

There were merely two former Death Eaters who meant everything for the policies of the current Minister for Magic. The first, and most tactically obvious from a purely political standpoint, was of course Lucius Malfoy. His ties with the former Minister, his status and his respectability were very well known. In 'breaking' Lucius Malfoy, Hermione was sure Scrimgeour intended to show that he would be in no one's pockets, and that he wouldn't play political games. The problem with that, of course, was that many who had fought against Lord Voldemort, those closest to Harry foremost, knew just how fond Scrimgeour really was of playing games, political or otherwise, with the wizarding population.

On the other hand, it was rather fortuitous for the Minister that most of those nearest to Harry also loathed the elder Malfoy with a passion; well, in truth, they tended to hate both Malfoys with a passion, but Draco was among the first to have been acquitted and thus wasn't the most convenient target of their ire any longer. Of course, the Minister couldn't let such a detail pass him by without attempting to use it to his advantage.

In a move that had in turn surprised and shocked a public now accustomed to the DETSS and to Ministerial secrecy, Scrimgeour had declared Lucius Malfoy's trial open. He had likely hoped to use the loathing festering in so many of the newly-prominent and highly respected post-war heroes to compel the majority of them to provide testimonies against Lucius during the hearing. Of course, rendering the trial public had also increased its popularity as a conversation topic and had shifted the bulk of the public's attention from the trial of the other Death Eater that the Minister had a vested interest in, Severus Snape.

Rumours of Snape's true loyalties had surfaced not long after the final battle. Several witnesses from both sides of the fray had seen Severus Snape fight alongside Order of the Phoenix members, his black eyes alight with fervour as he had silently cast curse after curse at his Marked brethren on the field of battle. Hermione had, of course, been one of those witnesses. She had even fought alongside him briefly, before she and Ron had moved with Harry to the front and Snape had cast a curse to deviate a purple jet of light (one disturbingly familiar to Hermione, at that) which had been approaching Minerva McGonagall from behind, and which had looked like it would have killed her.

"All right, Rita," Hermione continued after a breath, "cards on the table for a moment. I shall get you inside the courtrooms each morning; or, rather, give you the numbers of the courtrooms that will serve as venues every morning. In exchange, you can print anything you witness in that courtroom in your editorial. I'm sure the Minister will be just as puzzled by your ability to spy in on his proceedings as we were when you spied on our lessons at Hogwarts.

"Just ... I'd like to know what will be going on in there. And this is one trial where I feel the public deserves, and more importantly needs to know the truth."

"You seem to have quite the vested interest in this, Granger ... Why are you so concerned with what happens to Severus Snape?"

"Because he fought on our side," Hermione answered heatedly. She didn't care how naïve or idealistic her response would sound. "He fought with me; he saved Minerva McGonagall's life, and I'm sure the lives of other Order of the Phoenix members. In fact, I'm not entirely sure he was ever truly on Voldemort's side to begin with ... Certainly not from the moment he turned to Dumbledore for help and earned the Headmaster's unwavering trust!"

"What do you need me for, in that case? You'll see the whole trial when you testify for him ... So why would you need my reports?"

"Funny how that worked out," Hermione retorted bitterly. "Both Harry and Ron stated to the Aurors that I had never left their side for the duration of the battle. 'Why, it would have been inconceivable; the three of us have been taking on challenges together since our first year ... Mione wouldn't have abandoned us willy-nilly during the fight,'" she mimicked acerbically.

"When the Boy-Who-Lived and his bloody 'respectable, upstanding Weasley' best friend both said I never left their side, and then went on to state loudly that they had never even caught the slightest glimpse of Snape on the bloody battlefield, my own testimony was taken as seriously as a statement that I'd been fighting against Crumple-Horned Snorkacks or– or bloody Nargles, rather than against vicious Death Eaters.

"Despite Harry and Ron's best efforts, I still intended to testify at the hearing, of course. But with their testimonies discrediting mine to such an extent, it seems I 'would have nothing relevant to bring to proceedings of such gravity'. In other words, though snarled for my ears alone and thus clearly something that never happened, the Minister 'doesn't appreciate a pushy, uppity Mudblood who doesn't know her place'." Hermione's eyes sparkled defiantly at that, though her face felt rather hot and she suspected her cheeks to be quite a blotchy red from her fury ... Which wasn't far from the truth, really – they were actually a very blotchy red; and though her hair was fairly crackling with magical energy, it was at least still neatly tucked in its chignon instead of loose and puffed up in volume.

"Indeed," Rita said softly after a beat. The menacing glint in her eyes reminded Hermione that Rita's articles targeting her, however malicious, had never cast aspersions on her parentage as a Muggle-born witch. "If you're right about Snape, Gra– Hermione," she added, surprising Hermione by correcting herself at the last minute, "Scrimgeour won't have released Snape fast enough once this trial is over before I'm through with him."