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English
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Pansy Fest 2025, Pots & Pans Server
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Published:
2025-05-06
Completed:
2025-09-14
Words:
2,851
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
84
Kudos:
277
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34
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3,739

Journalistic Independence

Summary:

The Ministry and the Daily Prophet have a mix up. Everyone else gets to enjoy the results.

Notes:

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In the depths of the Ministry, on a lazy Monday afternoon in March, a windowless room filled with a rows of well-loathed chairs was slowly filling with people. The reporters jostled and joked and gossiped, in order of descending intensity, on: last weekend’s Kestrels vs. Arrows game, the secret love-child of the Wizengamot member Tiberius Bucklesoot, rising cost of Floo powder, and the latest fundraiser for the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires. 

The door opened. Quiet fell as a group of Aurors entered.

A woman in the second row, dark-haired and wearing witches robes of dark red, looked up from searching her bag for a quill just in time to to see Harry Potter enter. She froze, hand in mid-grasp. 

“All right, everyone, let’s get started,” Harry said, reaching the podium. ”We are pleased to announce that this morning the Auror Division has arrested five individuals here in London who were running scheme to use Divination to manipulate the muggle stock market. They have been charged with Owl fraud, conducting commercial Divination without a license, and grand larceny.” He looked out over the room. “Questions?” 

Hands rose in a flurry. In the second row, Pansy Parkinson tapped her quill, frowning. 

“Basil Wiggleswade.” 

“Where in London is this ‘stock market’?”

Harry winced. “It’s not necessarily one physical location. Muggles access the ‘stock market’ using something called a computer, but what is on the….” 

By the time his explanation was finished, the eyes of many of the reporters had glazed over. In the back row, Cressida Warble was writing in her notes, Convince editor to buy computer for office as ‘business necessity’, while Tim Savage had scrawled only, STOCK? BOND?

As Harry answered a question from the back about what types of Divination had been used, Pansy raised her hand. On her lips, a hint of a smile.  

“…but we’ll be investigating to confirm this. Next?” 

Harry scanned the crowd. 

When his eyes fell on her, he did a double take. Chairs creaked and feet shuffled as the reporters craned their necks to see. Pansy looked back steadily, hand still raised. On her ring finger, a emerald surrounded by diamonds sparkled merrily. 

Harry blinked. His expression smoothed over. “Pansy Parkinson.” 

“How long has this alleged scheme been going on?” 

“Based on our investigation, we believe that it started sometime around April or May of 2002, though the last two individuals, Gumboil and Pillsworth, only joined late 2002.” 

“I see.” 

“Yes.” Harry looked out again. “Adri—“

“—excuse me, Auror Potter,” Pansy interrupted. “Perhaps you can clarify something for me. I was under the impression that Auror Yelverton was in charge of ‘Misuses of Divination’. Was I wrong?” 

“Unfortunately Yelverton was injured last night trying to capture an escaped Hippogriff,” Harry said evenly. “And while we’re on the topic of staffing, Ms Parkinson I thought that Bard Bingley was the Daily Prophet’s reporter assigned to white collar crime?” 

“Well,” said Pansy, “Bingley is out this morning—he got stuck in a Portkey malfunction on the Shetland Islands. So it seems there’s been a lot of staffing shuffles this morning.” 

“I see,” Harry said. “Seems like that could have been communicated earlier.” 

There were several suppressed inhales in the audience. 

Pansy straightened. “Mr. Potter,” she said slowly, and in the fourth row, a reporter shifted, and muttered oh boy, under his breath, “I certainly hope you aren’t suggesting that the Prophet is required to inform the Auror Division every time a reporter gets Spattergroit or falls off their broom or goes on maternity leave. Because it would be most inappropriate for the government to try to tell our journalists what to do. After all, we here at the Prophet take journalistic independence very seriously.” 

“So that’s how it is,” Odo Trumble from The Seer muttered under his breath to Adrian Bletchely from The Daily Owl, smirking. “Whew.” 

“You’re telling me,” Adrian whispered back. 

“I don’t know what you’re attempting to imply,” Harry said, eyes glittering, “but we here at the Auror Division of course respect the freedom of press do their jobs—within the letter of the law, of course. But I also believe that open communication is also the foundation of every healthy press-government relationship.” 

“Oh,” Pansy said, lips curving up into a smile, “well, Auror Potter, it would seem we’re communicating right now, are we not? In front of all of these people?” 

In the back row, Cressida Warble from Chosen Coven snorted. 

“Does anyone else have questions?” Harry asked through gritted teeth. 

“What the fuck was that about?” Ava Smith, who had started at Muggleborn Monthly just last week as an intern, hissed to her boss, as Harry begin answering a question from Padma Patil about what had tipped off the investigation. 

“That’s Harry Potter,” Elizabeth Blair, a Muggleborn Monthly Features reporter, murmured, “and that’s Pansy Parkinson, she’s one of the Prophet’s reporters assigned to the Ministry.” 

“And?” 

“They’re engaged.” 

Ava looked back blankly. “They are?” 

“You must not read the gossip mags,” said Elizabeth, “because it’s all they ever talk about—the  ‘wedding of the decade’, they keep calling it. I swear, the girls at Witch Weekly are fucking Unspeakables—they apparently know everything up to what knickers Parkinson’s going to wear on the special day, and it’s still five months out. Anyway,” she waved her hand, “obviously, they’re not supposed to work on the same topics, but clearly there was some sort of mix up.” 

Meanwhile, in the third row, Odo leaned over, and murmured to Adrian: “Five galleons says he’s going to break character first.” 

“Nah, my money’s on her.” 

Odo shook his head. “Your funeral.” 

“Any other questions?” Harry asked the room. 

Nigel Kettleburn from Wizarding Wireless Weekly raised his hand. After a beat, Pansy raised hers. Seeing this, Nigel hastily lowered his hand. Harry stared at Nigel, begging him with his eyes, but Nigel shook his head slowly, making a sheepish what else can I do? face. Titters scattered through the rows. 

Harry looked over, defeated. “Yes?” 

“Given that it took over two years to catch these individuals, what does the Ministry plan to do to prevent something like this from happening again? Are there warning signs that could have enabled the Auror Division to catch them earlier? And how might these kinds of schemes threaten the efforts to enforce the Statute of Secrecy?” 

“Pansy.” 

“Yes, Harry?” 

Nervous laughter broke out through the room. 

Adrian let out a muffled groan. Odo leaned over, grinning. “Pay up, Bletchely.” 

“I can’t believe this,” Adrian muttered. “Isn’t he supposed to be good at being an Auror?”

“What are you doing?”

“Isn’t obvious?” Pansy said innocently. “I’m asking questions.” 

“Everyone in this room already knows that the minute you get back to the office, your editor will strike everything, because I was here. So what are you doing?” 

“Well, I only thought I would help my fellow reporters out with questions.” Pansy looked around the room theatrically. “They do seem strangely quiet this morning.” 

Groans mixed with laughter. Cressida rolled her eyes.  

“How else would we enjoy the show?” Elizabeth quipped to Ava. 

“All right, all right, everyone,” said Harry. “Fun’s over. Now—does anyone who is not named Pansy Parkinson have a question?” 

Half a dozen hands flew into the air. The resulting questions carried them through the remaining 15 minutes, and before long, the press conference was breaking up. Noise rose steadily as chairs scrapped and bags were gathered and the people turned to each other to talk. 

“How’s Jorkins?” Padma Patil asked from Pansy’s left. 

“Oh, you know him,” Pansy said, rising to her feet. “He’s still trying to make the Gobstones column a thing. It’s never going to be a thing. Nobody cares about fucking Gobstones. How’s Bode?” 

“Well, he’s decided that crystal balls are the next frontier in journalism.” 

Looking up, Pansy saw that Harry was trying to catch her eye from across the room. He indicated that she should follow him to the hallway. 

“Hmm,” said Pansy to Padma, smiling, “do you think I should be scared?” 

“Oh,” Padma said, turning her head, and surveying Harry, “Absolutely.” 

 

 

Notes:

I wrote this a million years ago and never posted it because I wanted to write a second part that was smut. I may or may not write the second part eventually, but for now it stands on its own!

Comments are very much appreciated. Thank you to Mystic for hosting the fest 💚