On the very night Peter Pettigrew revealed himself, all the media in the wizarding world were like sharks smelling blood. Fudge even contacted the Daily Prophet in advance, hoping they would publicize it extensively. They did put in a lot of effort, sending the reporter to Hogwarts that night.
However, in the next day's newspaper, they only mentioned it in passing.
Almost no one delved into the reasons behind this. They were only keen on disparaging the newspaper with the highest circulation, thinking the editor in charge had perhaps lost his mind. Fudge was also very displeased, wondering why they were so diligent in kicking him when he was down, but dropped the ball when they should have promoted him positively.
Meanwhile, many tabloids even thought they had an opportunity.
Little did they know, this was the beginning of their being swallowed up.
If the entire environment is deceived, then perhaps they can still compare who's worse. Look, didn't that newspaper also not escape?
This is everyone's inertial thinking.
But what if one media outlet maintained its clarity?
Unfortunately, the Daily Prophet was the only survivor.
As early as the Christmas holidays, Lucius had directly contacted the senior management of the Daily Prophet and reached an agreement. The tactic of suppressing first and then promoting later always yields great results.
Even Rita Skeeter, who extremely liked to stir up trouble, received a special letter addressed to her. It didn't contain any other content, only telling her to remain silent for a period of time, at least during which she couldn't use her Quick-Quotes Quill to write anything strange.
If there were any wrong signs, then regrettably, the Wizengamot's courtroom might have one more defendant, accused of being an unregistered Animagus.
Perhaps there would also be charges of eavesdropping. Rita Skeeter had used her Animagus form to obtain information quite a bit.
The general idea was like that, and the woman could only choose to bow her head.
Moreover, she now had an excellent opportunity; this was precisely when she was needed.
A long period of silence was driving her crazy; she needed to pour out her feelings, using her magical, enchanted quill to vent her previous suppression fervently.
Just thinking about it made her excited. All the media in the wizarding world being played around by a deceitful traitor was such an ironic thing. She had been ridiculed by those annoying juniors quite a bit these days, and today was the opportunity to slap them in the face.
Exaggerated and sensational words poured out from under her quill, turning into the report Hermione was currently reading.
"This is the most outstanding young man I have ever seen, elegant in demeanor, appropriate in speech, perfectly displaying the good upbringing influenced by his family background," Rita Skeeter wrote with nothing but praise, her words filled with overflowing admiration.
Are you kidding me? How could she dare not to please the heir of the shareholder's family, especially since that person had somehow obtained her weakness?
Lucius had paid a secret and a certain amount of wealth at that time, becoming one of the current shareholders of the Daily Prophet.
Relying on this opportunity, the Daily Prophet not only obtained a great deal of investment, but its reputation also rose to a new level. Being the only one sober while everyone else is drunk, maintaining the integrity of a news media outlet while the public is being incited, is so commendable. Those newspapers that were previously deceived and played around are now a joke.
These are all small losers.
The big loser, without a doubt, besides Peter Pettigrew, who was exposed, was Cornelius Fudge.
This major blunder completely devastated his reputation. The public support he had slightly regained earlier because of Peter Pettigrew completely plummeted into the abyss.
Wrongfully accusing an innocent person for twelve years, and then honoring a shameful traitor as a guest of honor, is this the Minister for Magic of this term?
Fudge could only engage in pale public relations, saying that he wasn't the one in office at the time, and the miscarriage of justice wasn't caused by him.
Unfortunately, that was all he could do.
He then realized that he might have been tricked by that kid.
But he could only swallow this bitter pill. Overturn the table and lay everything out?
He would need someone to believe him.
Moreover, Malfoy had completely extricated himself.
The Daily Prophet's front page wrote:
"One should not fall twice in the same place. This saying is most suitable for Draco Malfoy. The cunning Peter Pettigrew would never have thought that his seemingly foolproof Imperius Curse would fail. Many people don't know that when this boy was in his second year, he made a big mistake that almost disgraced Hogwarts. If readers are interested, they can pre-order my latest work…"
Rita Skeeter's writing style changed, and the following words were written: "At this time, Peter Pettigrew's shaky knowledge was revealed. When he was learning the wicked Unforgivable Curses, he may have forgotten such a fact—the effectiveness of the Imperius Curse will slowly diminish as the number of uses increases. And unfortunately, his spell only succeeded on Draco Malfoy once. Afterwards, this student even used a trick to lure him into a trap."
"Peter Pettigrew, who used the Imperius Curse, was too complacent. He thought that he would be safe after capturing Sirius Black first, which was his biggest mistake. He would never have thought that his Imperius Curse would fail in front of a student."
"What's more, he wouldn't have thought that Sirius Black had sent us a letter earlier explaining all of this. Interested readers can wait and view it on the back page…"
"At first, we at the Daily Prophet were skeptical of this letter, but out of caution, with the mentality of 'rather believe it than not,' we sent our professional reporters to conduct on-site investigations. After all, if what he said in the letter was true, then this might be the biggest miscarriage of justice in the history of the wizarding world."
"Subsequently, we obtained a lot of clues. Some clues were very easy to obtain, such as the fact that Sirius Black was thrown into Azkaban without trial in those years. He never confessed to his crimes, which, in the eyes of people at the time, was a sign of his unrepentance, but now, there is a reasonable explanation…"
"Our reporter also specifically interviewed the Aurors who participated in the capture operation back then. Only those who have experienced it firsthand have the right to speak. Their answers were surprisingly consistent: 'I didn't see Black commit the crime with my own eyes, but the superiors ordered us to arrest him, and we could only obey orders.'"
"I was even prepared to sacrifice myself at the time," said one of the Aurors. "But Sirius didn't show the slightest resistance when facing our arrest. We didn't even use a single spell; he was captured without a fight."
"At the time, we only thought it was a good thing that there were no casualties, but the more time passed, the more unreasonable it felt."
"If he was truly loyal to the Dark Lord, he could have fought us again. I can say with certainty that he still had the ability to fight back at the time," said another Auror at the time.
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