The-Little-Beetle-That-Could (II)

"Not only you attacked me and kidnapped me, but you are also trying to interrogate me?" The woman wheezed out in between her laughs. "It looks like all of that fame has gone into your head" The woman sneered as she finally stopped laughing. Previously, she was a bit worried, but now she was simply angry… If the boy thought that she was afraid of him then he had another thing coming.

"I see… It looks like I have to persuade you with some other means" Harry sighed as he shook his head in disappointment. He slowly pulled out his Wand and he was intentionally slow with the draw.

Rita pointed at his Wand… "What are you planning to do with that? Cast Stinging Hexes at me?" The woman asked in a mocking tone as she reached out to smack Harry, but her whole body froze up and she realized she couldn't move. She stared at Harry with wide eyes when she realized that he petrified her without uttering a Spell or moving his Wand.

Harry flicked his Wand up in the air and levitated the woman up in the air… Rita screamed with her mouth closed as her whole body was petrified. Fear surged inside her mind as she started to sweat… Harry twisted his Wand to cancel the petrification on her head… He wanted her to speak, so keeping her from speaking would be kind of counter-productive. He could have done all of this even without his Wand, but he decided to keep that card close to his chest.

"Pah!" Rita gasped when she realized that her head was no longer petrified. Even though she was afraid, she still decided to act strong. "You don't want to do this, Harry! You have no idea who you are messing with!" Rita screamed frantically, trying to scare Harry, but it didn't take her long to realize that it wasn't working when she saw that the expression on Harry's face didn't change in the slightest.

"I have friends-" Rita began to speak, but she froze when pain surged from her left hand.

*crack*

"Khhrrraahhh…!!" Rita screamed loudly as she felt an intense amount of pain course through her body.

Tears started to leak from the corner of her eyes. She finally started to get used to the pain and while breathing heavily, she slowly turned her head toward her left hand as she wanted to see the source of such mind-numbing pain. Her breath hitched in horror when she noticed that the pinky of her left hand was bent in a weird direction. Her head snapped back toward the boy… No, not a boy. A demon… …the demon when he started to speak again.

"That's nice" Harry said thoughtfully. The expression on his face remained the same and now Rita was sure that she was dealing with a demon. "Everyone should have friends" He admitted while nodding his head.

With another twist of his Wand, he petrified her head again, as he wanted to monologue like a villain… Rita started to hyperventilate in panic, but Harry paid her no mind. After a minute, she finally started to calm down when she noticed that he didn't snap any more of her fingers and now that she was finally calm, Harry started to speak again as he wanted her to listen to everything he was saying.

"Sorry for that, but I needed you to understand that I am not fooling around… Pain is one of the greatest motivations, so…" Harry trailed off and pointed at her left hand. "Now, I am going to free your head, but if you speak out of turn, then I will snap another of your fingers" Harry stated firmly.

Rita noticed that the demon didn't even look like he was threatening her… He looked like he was stating facts and that coldness scared her… She felt something warm trickle down her legs, but she didn't feel ashamed in the slightest… She was facing a demon, so she felt that losing control of her bladder was probably earned…. For the time being, Rita decided to play along with him. That was probably the only way she could see this through alive…

Harry twisted his hand a bit to unpetrify her head and she gasped again at her minor freedom… "Do you understand?" Harry asked and Rita frantically nodded her head. Once again, his expression didn't change. It felt like he was expecting her to nod her head like a good little girl. He didn't even show any reaction when she peed, so Rita realized that he probably decided to ignore it…

She had never been humiliated in such a manner… It made her fume on the inside, but right now, she decided to suppress that part of her. Snapping at him right now would only earn her more pain. Yes, she might have decided to play along for now, but she internally vowed to destroy him as soon as she could… She promised herself that she would make him cry tears of blood. Nobody messed with Rita Skeeter and walked away with their reputation intact and she was planning to do a lot more than butcher the Boy-Who-Lived's reputation…

"Good" Harry nodded his head in satisfaction. "You see, using Legilimency on you would have been the easiest from my perspective, but fortunately for you, I don't know Legilimency. Look it up if you have the chance, but I do not believe you will find anything about Legilimency" Harry explained when he noticed her confusion at the term 'Legilimency'.

"Then I considered using the Cruciatus Curse on you, but once again, I decided otherwise… The Cruciatus Curse might be the best torture Curse out there, but the signs are very easily noticed… So, I ultimately decided to take this route, which I could easily fix, and broken fingers are no big deal for me" Harry explained as once again he pointed toward her left hand.

"Now, this is how it will go… I will ask you a question and you will answer me truthfully, and you will answer me to the best of your capabilities… Understood?" Harry asked as he stared directly into her eyes… The woman once again nodded her head. Yes, she might be planning her bloody vengeance, but that didn't mean that she wasn't afraid.

"If you say something I didn't want to hear or if I feel like you are lying, then I will snap another one of your fingers… Do you understand?" Harry asked again, and once again, Rita frantically nodded her head in understanding as right now, that was the only thing she could do.

"Why were you following me?" Harry asked, finally getting back to the topic…

"I was trying to look for a scoop. I was planning to find something scandalous about you and twist it into something more" Rita answered honestly, she didn't want to experience that pain for the second time.

"You are a reporter?" Harry asked as he raised her eyebrows at her… He never bothered to read the British newspaper, so he never heard about Rita Skeeter. He would have felt bad for her, but the woman did admit that she was looking for something scandalous to ruin his name.

"Yes. Yes, I work for Daily Prophet" Rita admitted while nodding her head.

"What do you mean by 'twist it into something more'?" Harry asked even though he already had a good idea.

Rita seemed to hesitate a bit, but she still began to speak before Harry could snap another one of her fingers. Rita may not be the brightest tool in the shed, but she was more than smart enough to realize the trend. "I spice up stories on my own to make them more phenomenal" Rita admitted with a small hint of pride in her voice. She had made a lot of enemies during all these years, but nobody succeeded to get back at her.

Rita believed it was something to be proud of… Anyone who came after her, she ruined them too and now Harry Potter was in her crosshairs… The boy was going to regret his actions…

"I see… I don't believe you have registered your Animagus form, have you?" Harry asked, even though once again he already knew that answer.

Rita practically forced herself to answer this question… "No, I am an unregistered Animagus" Rita admitted and it was almost painful for her to admit this.

"Ah… Then you must have used your form to spy on prominent figures in Wizarding Britain, haven't you?" Harry asked. There was no way the woman wouldn't have done something like that… If he was in her place then that is exactly what he would have done.

This time Rita seemed to hesitate the most and she screamed at the top of her lungs as Harry snapped another one of her fingers as promised… He never told her that he would snap her fingers if she took too much time to answer his questions, but some things were better to be left unsaid… Rita kept howling for the next couple of minutes as tears continued to roll down her cheeks. When she finally regained some semblance, she decided on the most foolish course of action…

She tried to turn into her beetle form to escape… She knew she needed to escape. She couldn't simply hand over all the dirt she had collected during her career to a boy who was yet to grow any hair down there… The only reason nobody hired mercenaries to get rid of her was because of the dirt she had on them and their Family members. She had made a lot of enemies by ruining their reputations as her poison quill had ruined a lot of lives.

The dirt she had on them and their families, which could see them into Azkaban was her only life insurance… If she lost that, then death wasn't going to be the worst of her fates… That is why she tried to escape by turning into her beetle form, but unfortunately for her, she felt a jolt of pain in her chest as her transformation was forcefully stopped.

It wasn't as painful as her broken fingers, but she still felt it. Her eyes focused on the demon standing in front of her with an amused smile on his face… He must have done something. She felt unimaginable terror grip her body as the demon stepped forward.

"Rita, Rita, Rita… You shouldn't have done that. You are being a bad girl and bad girls need to be punished…" Harry said while grinning and his eyes started to glow as he released his Magic… Rita whimpered in horror as she lost all color from her face…

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