The Master Blackmailer

Society Marriage Called Off

Oliver Wood, Keeper for the English National Quidditch side, has broken off his engagement to Parvati Patil, winner of last year’s Golden Quill Award. The couple met when up-and-coming young journalist, Miss Patil, interviewed Mr Wood on his selection to the team, the article which won her the Golden Quill.

Now, it appears, compromising correspondence between Miss Patil and French Seeker, Pierre D’Or, has come to light, which has made the nation’s favourite Keeper rethink the wisdom of his choice. ‘I was sent my ex-fiancée’s letters anonymously,’ says a heartbroken Wood. ‘I have no idea where they came from, but they are distressingly explicit. Apparently they met at the Yule Ball, the year after I graduated. She swore it was all over, but she was extremely keen to accompany me to France last month for our last away game. We saw very little of each other, and she had been distant with me since.’

Following the Bulgarian squad’s lead, the English team has taken a zero-tolerance policy on scandal, and Mr Wood clearly feels that to continue his engagement would not in be his own, or the public’s, interest.

Miss Patil has since ceased employment with this paper, and is now, the Prophet understands, writing for The Quibbler.

I am sure Mr Wood’s legions of fans wish him well.

Rita Skeeter

Special Correspondent

So, thought Severus Snape sourly, closing The Evening Prophet, Rita Skeeter was still peddling scandal and destroying young lives, was she? He tapped his pipe out into the ashtray and refilled it, thinking hard. Mind you, it didn’t seem to be Rita’s doing this time, so much as the anonymous man trying to blackmail Miss Patil, doubtless for a sizable share of her now ex-fiancé’s earnings.

Severus disliked blackmail intensely. Nasty, cowardly thing to do. If he got hold of the perpetrator… He thought back to that week last year when Sybill Trelawney had hexed him to behave like the great literary detective Sherlock Holmes. Now there was a man who’d be able to deal with this outrage. Perhaps he should go to Sybill and ask her to…

He was jolted out of his musings by a knock on his study door. Who in Merlin’s name was calling at so late an hour? Irritated, he got up and went to the door, and was stunned to discover, on the threshold, a young woman, heavily veiled, and clearly in an advanced state of distress. Wordlessly, he stepped aside to allow her to enter.

Once inside the room, and seated in an armchair beside the fire, the young woman removed her veil, and Severus’s amazement increased tenfold. Opposite him sat the woman he had, for six months, referred to only as the woman: Miss Hermione Granger, the only person ever to outwit him, and the only woman to interest him in a very long time. So she was back from Australia.

On the pretence of offering her a drink, Severus moved to the sideboard and surreptitiously turned the silver-framed photograph which rested there face-down.

‘Miss… Mrs Weasley,’ he corrected himself smoothly. ‘To what do I owe this most unexpected pleasure?’

Having taken a few heartening sips of Firewhisky, Hermione seemed to gather her nerve. ‘Professor Snape, I… I am afraid to say I need your help.’ She swallowed and took another gulp of her drink. ‘I know I little deserve it after the way I way I behaved last year, but it is because of what happened then that I come to you now.’

Snape said nothing, merely regarding her with expressionless eyes. Hermione’s eyes fell on The Evening Prophet.

‘You will know of the tragedy which has befallen my friend Parvati,’ she continued in a whisper. ‘I am now very much afraid something of the same is about to happen to me.’

Severus sat up straighter in his chair. However much she had hurt his pride last year, Miss Granger could not be allowed to fall victim to this master blackmailer. It seemed he would have to act. ‘Tell me everything,’ he commanded.

‘The photographs have gone missing,’ Hermione said, her eyes on her lap. ‘I can only think it was my house-elf. Merlin knows I have treated her well,’ she burst out suddenly in impassioned tones, ‘but Ron…’ and here her voice broke, ‘Ron always said she didn’t like being paid and given holidays. Perhaps she turned against me for it.’

Severus handed her his handkerchief, and she dabbed at her eyes with the fine linen. ‘Do you have any clue as to the identity of the scoundrel?’ he asked softly.

Hermione handed him back his handkerchief, her eyes quite dry now. ‘Parvati came to interview a new member of staff at the Ministry a few months ago,’ she said hesitantly. ‘He is an Unspeakable, so I know very little about him, but he has always been more secretive even than the others, and when I pass him in the corridors there is something in his eyes that unsettles me. More than that I cannot tell you – it would break the code of confidentiality by which I am employed. I am sorry I cannot give you more,’ she finished, looking directly into his eyes.

So, thought Severus, finishing his own drink in silence, there is a code of confidentiality at the Ministry. Evidently the only way to find out more would be to infiltrate the place. How fortunate he had refused to give up his office in the dungeons: Slughorn had a vat of Polyjuice Potion simmering away, to which Severus had direct access. Last year, under Sybill’s hex, he had been reckless with his disguise to the point of stupidity. This would require much more finesse than a scarf and hat. And a lot of research. Fortunate too that it was half-term, and he had no lessons to distract him.

He stood abruptly. ‘I will contact you as soon as the photographs are in my possession. Goodbye, Mrs Weasley.’

Hermione rose and placed her empty glass on the sideboard. Catching sight of the laid-down photograph frame, she picked it up, and a look of recognition came into her eyes.

‘I wondered where that one had gone,’ she said lightly.

*

A/N: I have had several requests for a sequel to ‘Scandal’ which ties in with the Holmes/Adler fandom. This is a combination of Doyle’s ‘Charles Augustus Milverton’, and the Granada TV film based on it: ‘The Master Blackmailer’. And reviewer Sara Blade got her wish to ‘see Snape smoking by his fire while a lady in a veil begs for his help...’

The title is, of course, a blend of ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and the Basil Rathbone film, ‘The Woman in Green’.