Oh, fantastic! Thank you so much for this - it's such a treat to find a fic about either of these ladies, let alone both. I loved the implied other Rita pairings, too: the idea of Rita/Gwenog in the locker room showers is delicious, and then her flings with Wilhelmina and Amelia.
“Do you think your intended’s having this much fun on his last night of freedom?” Rita asks the woman beside her. Brilliant first line. It tells us so much about Thea and Rita, and I adore her reply too.
“Fashion is the only thing, darling,” Ah, Rita has so much to learn! It's fascinating to get these glimpses about Rita's progression from a brunette covering the deadest of dead stories to the salacious, attention-grabbing Rita we see in canon.
Five minutes later, having located the artfully concealed slit in Thea’s robes, she has the widow squirming against the wall. Ha! At a funeral! That certainly puts pay to the idea Thea might have been grieving, and I love that she has a funeral outfit made with this in mind. I wonder if Rita is the only one Thea squirms with that day?
“Love the hair,” says Thea. Only the slightest languorousness between syllables and an extra sway as she eases her hip off the door hint that she has been drinking. Wow, this is such a sexy image.
“Darling, would I have told you if I didn’t?” Ooooh, this is so utterly Slytherin. What a revelation to come out with after sex, and I love the cool vengeance of a woman scorned. Algernon should have had the sense to tell her beforehand! How bittersweet that the scoop Rita needs professionally comes at this personal cost.
I love the intrigue over the letter Rita gets about Marco, and Thea's refusal to answer her questions about it. Even at the start that was a tempestuous-sounding relationship, and it gives Rita a stake in the inquiries to come. But then of course Thea has the power to reveal her animagus form, so even if Rita found the dirt it's not clear she can afford to reveal it. I love these Slytherin politics :-)
At the sixth wedding, she isn’t even allowed past the door, and the venue has been liberally doused in insect repellent of both the spell and potion variety. Ha! Thea obviously doesn't forgive or forget easily.
The segue into Rita's Trwiward exclusives with the Slytherins via Blaise is a clever tie-in with canon. I adore the ending too - Rita's loyalty to Thea and Blaise despite everything, the implication that their relationship is still salvageable despite everything and that Thea has tried to contact her, and Thea's absolute trust that Rita would take Blaise in if things at Hogwarts went sour.
I really enjoyed this, especially the way both characters' flaws came out in the story, how Rita changed as a result of her relationship with Thea, and the reunion through Blaise that's implied at the end. A great note to end on :-)