Loyal readers, does your favorite reporter ever have a treat for you! Yours truly, Rita Skeeter, the magical world’s favorite blonde bombshell and most stylish investigative reporter, has managed to secure an exclusive series of interviews with the people who are the magic behind the muggle website, HPFF.com

You don’t mind if I use a Quick Quotes Quill, do you, dearie?

Testing . . . testing . . . Attractive and intrepid reporter Rita Skeeter . . .

Lovely, then, it’s working. Shall we begin?

*Clears throat*

JaxGranger, HPFF.com’s very own resident actress extraordinaire, agreed to a lunchtime meeting in Diagon Alley, at a charming little ice cream parlor once operated by the tragically-missing-and-presumed-deceased Florean Fortescue. Regular readers of the Daily Prophet will remember than Fortescue disappeared quite mysteriously last summer, during a series of Death Eater attacks on Diagon Alley. Yet the Fortescue family tradition lives on, despite the dozens of dizzyingly dangerous Death Eater attacks in Diagon Alley – the shop, currently operated by Florean’s grand-nephew Fernando, remains bravely open for business, combating the darkness with good cheer and ice cold treats.

While this delightful establishment is famed for selling bizarre and uniquely flavoured frozen confections (turn to page A-35 to read Foretescue’s old family recipe for Beetle-Butter-and-Pumpkin-Ripple), the lovely Jax opted for the rather mundane childhood favorite, Cookies-and-Cream. Is this a sign of a dull, dreary personality, or is this proof positive that despite her glamorous profession, JaxGranger is sweet and simple, the proverbial girl-next-door? Loyal Readers, I shall let you be the judge.

Wearing a shockingly miniscule pair of pink satin hot pants (which matched her tinted kiwi-strawberry lip-gloss perfectly), Jax gnawed on her fingernails and made idle chitchat until our ice cream arrived. Clearly, this glamour-girl was nervous, and the best way to put her mind at ease was to jump right into the interview.

She smiled fondly when asked to discuss her acting career, speaking wistfully of the roles she yearns to play, including Elphaba in Wicked and Marguerite in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Her least favorite role? A tour of Babes in Toyland, where she played the Widow Piper. “I actually hated that one,” she admitted, her eyes flashing with life. “It’s just not who I am.”

The theatre runs strongly in JaxGranger’s blood, considering she practically grew up under the foot lights. “I’ve been dancing since I was three years old,” she explained, “I did drama in high school, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to go with my life. It was either going to be theatre or dental school. I applied and was accepted to both, and on a whim, I chose theatre.”

Of course, whimsy is no stranger to this stunning starlet! Full of life and quirky habits, it’s easy to see how she wound up on the stage. As we chatted, covering topics ranging from Quidditch (she’s a hardcore supporter of the Ravenclaw team) to her patronus (a mountain lion), it was easy to imagine I was just out for an enjoyable luncheon with a friend.

Talk even turned to a topic always popular with the young ladies: young gentlemen. After a little bit of gentle persuasion (and a few drops of Veritaserum sneaked into her ice cream), Jax was even willing to discuss the eligible bachelors of the wizarding world. When asked whom she fancied, she giggled and blushingly replied, “I would say Cedric Diggory . . .but he’s dead. Next, definitely Sirius Black . . . but he’s dead, too. Hmm, all the good ones are dead, aren’t they?”

A terribly curious statement, coming from a young woman who claimed to loathe playing the part of a widow, I thought, and I suspect that much lurks beneath this pretty face. I myself find it terribly suspicious that all the young men Jax fancies wind up dead as doornails. Mere coincidence, or a symptom of something far more sinister and serious? Is Jax a misunderstood, tragic romantic lead or that chillingly wicked golddigger of modern society, the so-called Black Widow?

When asked what it’s really like, behind the scenes at HPFF, her eyes began to fill with glistening diamonds of tears. “It’s an honor,” she sniffled, “The staff is an amazing group of really supportive and genuinely fun people who honestly want to make HPFF better, every single day. I must admit that there are times, while sitting in the queue for hours, I think about tearing out my hair and screaming, ‘No more Dramione!’ but the good far outweighs the bad . . . it’s a real labor of love. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

(Note from Rita: After this outpouring of emotion, JaxGranger required several minutes and a glass of water before she was able to compose herself and continue with the interview.)

After blowing her nose repeatedly in Mr. Fortescue’s handkerchief, Jax indicated that she was ready to continue. She opened her handbag to show me pictures of her dogs, Ellie and Murphy. Bizarrely, these poor and innocent creatures were dressed up in costumes – one wore a miniature witch’s costume (bearing a strong resemblance to a certain female Head of House at Hogwarts), the other wore a sweater. Our lovely leading lady blushingly confessed to purchasing a complete doggie wardrobe for her canine friends. Shocked by this revelation, I suggested that this might possibly fall under the Ministry’s decree against the cruelty to animals, but she tossed her hair over her shoulders and gave Yours Truly a decidedly icy look.

It was then, as she hurriedly stowed the incriminating photographs back in her handbag, that something quite curious happened: Her purse fell off the table and spilled its contents all over the floor. Though she was quick to gather her possessions, she wasn’t fast enough, and I was able to spy several containers of dental floss. Miss Granger tried to laugh it off, joking that she was a fanatic about dental hygiene, but it does make one wonder . . . what could one young woman possibly want with that much dental floss? Is she secretly providing oral care to manticores or dragons in her free time, or does the dental floss have a more insidious purpose? Given her morbid fascination with dead men, perhaps she plans to use this dental floss to ensnare a rich man and then garrote him in his sleep. Could JaxGranger possibly be a so-called Black Widow? (For more information on how to achieve the brightest smile possible, please see the complete works of Gilderoy Lockhart.)

I was eager to change the subject, and asked if her acting career had influenced her writing. Gentle Readers, I was most unprepared for the answer that escaped her possibly poisonous lip! “As an actor, you’re taught to work from the inside out,” she admitted, “That is, to develop the internal life of the character, and let those impulses drive the actions and external movements – And I like to carry this over into my writing. My characters, if I may toot my own horn, are always emotionally thought-out and very much alive when you read then. They have impulses and reactions as normal people do, because I take them through the emotional journey internally.” Contrived as it sounds, apparently this method does work for Jax, as evidenced by the popularity of her stories.

Sharp-eyed readers will have no doubt noticed that our Jax shares a surname with the notorious Golden Girl of Gryffindor, Miss Hermione Granger. Loyal Readers, I have obtained documentation confirming something that has been long-rumored: Jax Granger is, indeed, Hermione Granger’s much older, muggle sister. While she may not be mentioned in the books, hundreds of hardcore fan fiction aficionados have speculated about and written about her existence. Of course, blood ties aren’t always enough to create sisterly closeness, and as Jax spoke of her sister, it became crystal clear that a deep chasm has grown between them. She rolled her eyes repeatedly every time Hermione’s name was brought up, and spoke most derisively about the so-called Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. “It just seems so silly . . .I mean, they don’t want clothes. But yet Hermione knits . . . and knits . . . and knits . . . and knits . . . and knits. I haven’t even paid my membership fee – as I don’t deal in magical money.”

Most loyal fans, I was positively flummoxed. The girl carried no magical money? Positively none at all, not even a knut? Simply astonishing! Money has been rather tight for Yours Truly these days, no small thanks to that meddlesome know-it all with the bushy hair and big teeth . . . but I digress. She had no money, I hadn’t cashed my meager paycheck, and my expense account was maxed out.

Gentle readers, there was only one possible course of action, and we took it.

Editor’s Note: Our very own Rita Skeeter and her interviewee, JaxGranger, spent the remainder of the afternoon washing dishes in the kitchen at Florean Fortescue’s, working off the price of one cookies-and-cream jumbo-cone and one pineapple-avocado split with extra caramel sauce. After a generous goodwill donation, Mr. Fortescue opted to not press charges.