Hermione the Blackmailer?

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 47939

To be honest, I'm not sure that what Hermione is doing at the end of GOF to
Rita Skeeter would qualify as blackmail.  She isn't planning to make Skeeter
_pay_ her for her silence; instead, she is imposing an informal, but real
punishment on her for her malicious behavior at Hogwarts.

Personally, I'd a lot rather she'd have turned Gred-and-Forge loose on the
(female dog)...a few months of THEIR attentions would have Skeeter begging
for mercy!  *long, evil laugh*

Of course, if Hermione _is_ Ever So Evil, as I wondered in an earlier post
(admittedly, mostly to get you all good and stirred up) this could be yet
another step in that long road to the bowels of El Diablo.  Lying to
teachers (PS/SS), stealing potion ingredients _and_ lying to teachers _and_
making a restricted potion (CS), and on and on it goes...eventually, she'll
be out-evilling the Dark Lord himself!  Hmmmm...if I had a Scrabble set, I'd
start playing with her name and seeing what sort of scary Dark Lady
pseudonym I could turn it into.

Another thought...what if Hermione finds out that Skeeter's maybe not going
to _write more articles,_ but _is_ going to press charges against her?
Leave blackmail out of it; you've got kidnapping and false imprisonment at
the very least.  Of course, given the scrupulously fair justice system the
lucky Wizard World enjoys, they'd _never_ find her guilty. *dripping
sarcasm*  Or even if they, by some miracle, _did_ find her guilty, they'd
_never_ send her to Azkaban, would they?  *even more sarcasm*  I can just
see Lucius Malfoy, cracking open a case of champers at Malfoy Manor upon
hearing that Hermione's been tossed into Azkaban for life.  Of course,
_he'd_ never, ever arrange things to make sure she was found guilty, now
would he?

Putting Hermione on trial would be child's play, and I doubt that the Tough
wizarding world has provisions for any such thing as a "juvie Azkaban."
Skeeter would have her revenge, and  that would go double, triple and with
horseradish sauce on it if, as I suspect, Rita Skeeter herself is working
for Voldemort.  That way, the Bad Guys catch several Snitches with one
Seeker:

They hurt Harry Potter by taking away an extremely important emotional
support

They hurt the pro-Muggleborns by making them all look bad (the _Daily
Prophet_ and Witch Weekly would have a field day)

They make Dumbledore look bad by showing that he "can't control his
students' criminal tendencies"

Rita Skeeter, secret agent for You-Know-Who, is now seen as an unjustly
mistreated innocent, and gains more access to the powerful for her stories.
Unlike a lot of spies, she has every good (ostensible) reason to snoop
around and dig up facts.