Oh, this is fantastic! I absolutely love everything you've done here - Rita's background - pureblood enough to be Slytherin, but not enough to have anything handed to - is exactly how I see her, and I love her transformation both physically and as a writer. Thea is wonderful, too - you capture that sense of tension between family obligation and personal happiness so very well. I love the ambiguity of her husband's deaths - so much hinted at, there, but never confirmed. And the relationship between these two women (as well as the mentions of Rita's other relationships, omg yay) is utterly perfect - they're both such wonderfully strong women, and their feelings for each other never quite overwhelm their other interests and obligations. Love Blaise, too, and everything that last section says about Thea's opinion of Rita even after all this time. This is just amazing.