The next day Grace only wanted one thing: revenge.
She knew she had two big problems: now EVERYONE knew about her and Blaise after Rita Skeeter's story in the Daily Prophet. The other was that, with that, her father knew too.
She established in her mind that she needed to solve one problem at a time. First she would devote herself to finding out how Rita got this kind of information, then she would deal with her father.
But on a more positive note, the news was not as bad as Grace thought it might be. Surely Severus catching Blaise and Grace together was far worse. Still, the girl would not leave it at that. She would take revenge on Rita Skeeter.
At breakfast, the topic was the newly formed couple, Grace and Blaise, especially among the Slytherins.
She tried not to give it too much thought, because she had more important things to think about. The girl went to meet Hermione that morning, she would know that her friend would also like revenge, and the two of them working together would work better.
"You have probably read the news in the Daily Prophet..." Grace said to Hermione.
"Unfortunately... I am sorry. You know that the exact same thing happened to me." Hermione said.
"I don't even know which is worse, your news being false and everyone thinking that you and Harry are a couple, or mine..."
"There's a strange thing. How does Rita get all this information...?" Hermione wondered.
"What else did she write?" Grace asked.
"She somehow found out that Victor invited me to visit him in the summer right after the second task was finished." Hermione said. "We need to create a plan."
"I think the right thing is for us to find out how she gets information that nobody else is able to get. Because Blaise and I were completely alone... We need to know how she does this."
"That's it. Let's search the library. Everything, spells, potions, incantations, curses..." Hermione said.
So the plan was made. The two girls would spend most of their days hatching theories and researching how Rita gets such sensitive information.
"I can't believe that in the meantime she wrote yet another article about you!" Grace said, when she met Hermione in the library.
"And the worst: I found out that she was banned from the Hogwarts grounds! I wonder how she got more about me if she can't even come here?" Hermione said angrily.
"How did you find out that she was banned?" Grace asked curiously.
"Hagrid told me. Dumbledore had been running out of patience since that article about Hagrid, but apparently the news about you and Blaise was the last straw. Hagrid told me that your father personally went to force Dumbledore to ban her from the school." Hermione told her. " You didn't know that? I thought your father had told you..."
"I haven't spoken to him since the Yule Ball. Since he caught me and Blaise together, he made a fuss, and I haven't spoken to him since. I want to solve this whole Rita problem first, before I settle down with him."
"Well, Rita's definitely not using an Invisibility Cloak!" Hermione spoke five minutes later. "Moody says he didn't see her anywhere near the judges' table at the second task, or anywhere near the lake!"
"We need to keep looking." Grace said.
When she was with Blaise, talking in the Slytherin Common Room, Grace noticed something interesting on the edge of the window where the two of them were: a beetle.
At first Grace didn't pay much attention, but then she realized: she had never seen insects in the Common Room before. This is probably because the common room is located in the dungeons, near the Great Lake, one of the coldest places in the school. Insects don't like cold weather, so how come this one was there?
As she was going to her daily meeting with Hermione in the library, an idea occurred in Grace's mind. Was Rita an animagus?
Remembering this, the girl stopped walking and ran towards the library, where Hermione was already waiting for her.
"Rita is an animagus! It can only be that!" Grace said breathlessly.
"How could we not have thought of this before, of course!" Hermione said.
"She must be an illegal animagus!" Grace realized.
"She probably transforms into some small, inconspicuous animal that others cannot see." Hermione thought out loud.
"It's a beetle!" Grace said.
"How do you know?" Hermione asked curiously.
"I was talking to Blaise in the Slytherin Common Room, when I saw a beetle on the window ledge. But no insects circulate there, precisely because it is so cold." Grace explained.
"So we already have our revenge!" Hermione said.
"Rita Skeeter will never post any articles about us ever again!" Grace said, smiling.