the_debt_of_time

Rita, using the distraction, attempted to make a break for the door, but Mia raised
her wand with incredible speed, cutting her off mid-step.
"Love," Remus said calmly, "I know you're upset about the article―"
"Remus, stop talking to me like I'm going to kill the woman," Mia said, not breaking
eye contact with the seething reporter.
"You do have a bad temper when it comes to protecting―"
"I'll have you know, Remus Lupin, it has been years since I've even thought about
using an Unforgivable on someone," she said, drawing a gasp from Skeeter and a wide-
eyed stare from Harry.
"So, wait... if you're not here to kill her, then what are you doing?" Harry asked
cautiously.
Mia turned back and looked at Rita coldly. "I'm simply making a point," she said
and flicked her wand. "Avis!"
"Oh, shit," Harry muttered, likely recalling the spell from their sixth year. Mia knew
that Ron still bore the tiny pecked scars on his hands and arms from the attack.
However, instead of tiny yellow birds, large black crows emerged from her wand.
"Those aren't canaries," Remus whispered.
"Oppugno!" Mia hissed, and the murder of black birds circled over Rita and then
dove down to attack.
Harry, ever the hero, was the only one to move to help.
Before he had a chance to act, Mia had banished the birds, though she had allowed
them to get in a good few pecks.
As promised, Skeeter was crying—screaming obscenities and calling Mia a
"Mudblood cunt" but crying nonetheless. It was not blood and death Mia had been after,
but fear and humiliation, the same thing Rita had so often made her feel in the past.
With a satisfied expression, Mia reached for the glass jar, waved her wand in the
intricate pattern that she had picked up from Remus years ago, and summoned the
suddenly-small beetle into the container.
"Hermione, I'm still an Auror," Harry said, his jaw clenched and a look on his face
that said he was not sure how he had ended up being the rule-abiding one in their
friendship. "I can't just... You just attacked someone!"