InsaneJournal

Who: Rita Skeeter
What: Listening to the Wireless and Reminiscing
Where: Her Flat
When: 7 June, 2001

Rating: PG
Status: Completed Narrative

Mary: "I don't know girls, when I kissed him goodbye this morning, I started to wonder; shouldn't I be dating men my own age?" Bridget: "Don't be ridiculous, Mary. You should be dating men who look and talk like that. I don't care how young they are." Anne: "Enjoy the Wizard Scout, eager to please sex while you can, Mary. Boys that young have attention spans of rats." Mary: "But he's French." Anne: "Fine. Attention spans of the animal that's bigger than a rat." Rita actually snorted into her covers as she heard the voices over the wireless. This had not been what she'd inteneded when she had sat down to write Liaisons in London all those years ago. Who could have predicted it would be such a scandalous sensation? That she'd get a book and a show on the wireless all based on her sexcapades? It was laughable, really. Sheer luck. And she had done it all anonymously too. Royalties went to a bank account under another name. No one but her, her lawyer, her accountant, and the editor of Witch Weekly knew who the woman behind the scandal was, and they all treasured their silence checks too much to reveal it. And even if they were tempted, what proof did they have? The men all had pen names and Rita was discrete when it came to her personal life. It was the perfect system. She was sitting on a pile of gold for doing nothing but sharing stories of her love affairs. Girls did the same thing every day for nothing. Mary: Forget about The Boy. He got a divorce. Christine: Who? Mary: The Animal. Anne: Why are we talking about him, again? He's bad news, and he's too old for you, and you're getting shagged every day by The Boy. Mary: But now he's divorced Sally. He's back on the market. If life were actually as simple as her Wireless show made it seem, Rita wondered if she would be truly happy. Would she care if Walden had gotten divorced from the Infant Wonder? Unlikely. But it didn't matter anyway. The Animal hadn't left her for happy life with a younger bride, like he had in Liaisons in London, he'd been shipped off to Azkaban, never to have contact with the outside world again. Of course, this didn't stop Rita from sending ten copies of The Daily Prophet to the prison on the day his wife's birth announcement was published in hopes that he would see that he had a daughter. She had laughed about that one fact for far too long to let him live in oblivion, happily assuming he had an heir. No, as expected, The Infant Wonder had failed at heir production as much as Rita thought she failed at life in general. Mary: I didn't expect to see you here. The Animal: Well I suppose luck is on your side. Well at least that bit was true. Luck was on her side. It had been for a while. Certainly life was a bit difficult after the war, but she wasn't put through anything like the others. Cuffe returned as editor of The Prophet, which was none too pleasant, but had she really expected the victors to nominate her instead? Most hated her and her reporting style; she had freely called them terrorists, spun the occasional web of lies, and insulted their fashion sense (well truly someone had to). But even those who hated her most eventually gave in and she returned to The Prophet. She couldn't be jailed, all she had done was her job--they couldn't imprison her for that. Thankfully, Cuffe hadn't returned her to the Society Section. Of course, that was likely because Society was not what it had been, but he had kept a close eye on her for abit, just to make sure she was writing on behalf of the 'right side'. Didn't Cuffe understand? The right side was the same as it had always been. It wasn't about equality or purism, the right side was about Rita Skeeter. That was how she had made a career, had her first book published, survived that battle at Hogwarts, made disgusting amounts of gold; that was the way to survive in this world. Mary: Later that night, I got to thinking about relationships. There are some that are new, exciting, and full of life. Every day with that person is an adventure, something to learn from. Then there are the old ones, the comfortable ones, the ones where you know you just fit and everything makes sense all over again. But the most important relationship I've found, is the one with yourself. You've really got to love you, the real you, not the you that you put on to get shagged. And if on top of all that, you can find the person that loves you for you, bitchy and grouchy, happy and cuddly, all sides of you, well then you've got it made. Why do you listen to that smut? Rita turned to the voice and found her latest boyfriend, Bulgarian Quidditch star, Alexander Rodrigovich, standing in her bathroom doorway in only a towel. She smiled. "It's fun." Alexander shook his head and returned to the bathroom, causing Rita to fall back on her pillow. A few days ago, she had turned 50; an age that she had thought she'd never reach because she'd kill herself first. But here she was, 50, with a pile of gold, and the most delicious looking boyfriend in the Wizarding World. Screw Society, screw Walden Macnair. Life really couldn't get any better.