SKEETER

she licks blood off her fingers and she looks like divine absolution. careful, meleager: this is your sport but she’s not playing a game. do not think you are safe because you love her. do not think she will not stain her mouth red with your blood too.

(   *  💀  / ryan destiny, cis woman, she/her  )  —  is that rita skeeter i just saw rushing down the corridor? i hear they’re a twenty year old ravenclaw, returning for their sixth school year, but their friends would tell you that they are diligent & clever as well as deceitful & apathetic. if you want to know more about them, i guess i could tell you that they’re halfblood, and from what I hear, they’re currently allying with the neutrals. when our divination professor looks into their crystal ball, they see: perfectly coiled calligraphy, calling hundreds your friend only to eat dinner alone, that one piece of hair that just won’t sit right in the bun, the chaos of being caught in the middle of a storm, a quiet snake blending in with the grass, permanently ink-stained fingertips.  

character parallels: petra solano (jane the virgin), annalise keating (how to get away with murder), valencia perez (crazy ex-girlfriend), cher horowitz (clueless), jacqueline white (unbreakable kimmy schmidt) links: stats, pinterest

Lily took a deep breath of the fresh fall air as she made her way towards the castle. It was good to be home. She didn’t know when their little house in Cokeworth had stopped feeling so much like home exactly, but the difference had definitely been noticeable this summer, holed up in her room avoiding Petunia’s hostility and even the sight of Severus. She’d relied on letters from her friends to keep her company, comforting herself with the words of those who actually cared about her. 

She knew avoiding her former best friend was going to be a lot more difficult in the castle, which was so much smaller and where they had so many classes together that she couldn’t skip out on, but the thought didn’t feel nearly as daunting with the support from her friends to fall back on. 

Though, of course, there would be plenty of people who would be the opposite of welcoming. She wasn’t naïve enough to not realize that Professor Ambarella’s disappearance was far from innocent, and some of the more vocal blood purists had been already proclaiming what they hoped had happened to the muggleborn. Lily had handed out a whole host of detentions before term even started, but she wasn’t sure that would make much of a difference. 

Shaking herself out of her depressing thoughts, she quickly picked up the pace, eager to get to the Great Hall to watch the Sorting Ceremony and catch up with her mates that she hadn’t seen in the prefects compartment. Unfortunately, she must not have been paying enough attention, because she almost immediately crashed into someone and only barely stopped herself from tumbling to the ground. “Are you alright?” she asked franticly as soon as she had regained her balance. “I’m so sorry about that, I suppose I was just overeager to get to the Great Hall.” 

—

it was not exaggeration to say that rita THRIVED at hogwarts. for lack of a better term, it was where she had the most control. back at home, it was maribelle this, and maribelle that, and did you hear what maribelle accomplished last month? when are you going to show us the same, margarita. home was exhausting and soul-sucking. hogwarts was where rita sat on top, drowning in the attention she received as ‘ head of the gossip committee ’, as many had taken to calling her. 

at a time like this, you could usually find rita wherever the crowd was, surrounded by people and therefore stories. but at a time like this, there were many crowds around, and it was as rita was on her way from the grounds-crowd to the hall-crowd that she found herself colliding with an airy redhead. brushing herself off and regaining her balance, rita scowled at the person who had nearly caused her to fall head first into the stone floor — lily evans. “ i’m fine, no thanks to you. ” rita rolled her eyes at the ridiculous sentiment that evans tried to pass off as an excuse. “ it doesn’t hurt to watch while you’re going while you’re at it. off with the fairies this evening, are we? come back down to earth for a second and you might realise there’s other people in this hall too, evans. ”

     frustration was clearly painted across the slytherin’s face as he attempted one more time to correct the error in his formula. once again , he failed. normally potions class was a breeze but that evening something just wasn’t clicking inside of rod’s mind and he couldn’t remember the professor’s exact words. maybe it had to do with the letter he’d received from his mother earlier that week , or with the consistent lack of sleep he’d been experiencing for the past few days , or whatever he was on at the moment  ( he couldn’t remember ) — whatever the reason the constant failure kept playing on the keeper’s mind until he exploded. ❝ ugh … damn this. ❞ the vial flew out of his hand and travelled quite some distance across the empty corridor before it collided with a statue , shattering and spewing blueish liquid in every direction. rod paid no mind to it as he leaned against the wall behind him , momentarily closing his eyes in the hope of calming down. 1 , 2 , 3 …

  —

rita had only volunteered to help slughorn arrange his ingredients cupboard during his seventh year class to get on the professor’s good books for a fresh year — she had never expected it would lead to such fun as this. at the eldest lestrange’s little temper tantrum, rita’s eyes widened, her lips forming a tight smile as she attempted to hold back a laugh. the look in the surrounding students eyes spoke more to fear, and even slughorn himself seemed dumbfounded by the outburst. as slughorn went to see if he could clean up the mess, rita slid towards the slytherin, propping an elbow up on the table and resting her chin in her palm to try and catch his eyes as he looked down. “ feeling a little testy, are we roddy? ” rita said quietly, pursing her lips in mock sympathy. “ it’s alright... we can always do better next time! sometimes we just have to let it all out, isn’t that right? ”

the compartments always seemed to feel paper thin, as if a razor’s edge of sharp wit could cut right through them. The tinkling of laughter floated across the narrow hallway as hestia made her way down, trying to find an empty one but coming up short. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be social but she did want to get out of these shoes as soon as possible, and not be bothered by the constant haranguing that her blood status afforded her. She felt the weight of half a dozen eyes on her as she pressed her face to a compartment window, still no luck. 

Finally after making it to nearly the very back of the damn train she happened to strike gold, an empty one and she hurried inside. Once the shoes were off it just made sense to chuck the socks too and soon her feet were up on the other seat and she was closing her eyes and letting the train rock her to sleep. Not five minutes later she was woken to the sound of knocking and leapt up to open the door a crack. “This one’s taken, better luck somewhere else.” she wanted to remain alone but she knew the likelihood was slim to none, even if this person sidled away there would be another. Best to take the person that was less of a nuisance than someone else might be. “Wait, fine you can come in but i’m not putting my shoes back on until we’re putting on our robes.” she clarified.

   —

rita loved the hogwarts express — though not for the reasons most did. it wasn’t a time for her to catch up with her friends, it wasn’t a time to gouge oneself on sweets from the trolley, and it certainly wasn’t a time to sit and watch the rolling hills pass them by. no, it was a time to listen. the first train ride after summer always provided itself as the most juicy of them all, and with her trunk stored safely in a compartment near the front of the train, rita slowly made her way all the way down.

she was feeling rather buzzed by the time she reached the back, coming down from the high of listening as the compartments she looked into became less and less crowded. by the time she got to hestia, the train was nearly at its end. but rita was not. knocking incessantly until the girl woke up, rita grinned and threw the door open, simply not willing to take no for an answer. her nose scrunched in an odd look of disgust at the response she got, grin faltering for just a moment. “ so kind, aren’t we ‘tia? ever willing to sacrifice ones own needs for others. ” stepping into the compartment, rita waved at hestia’s feet with a piece of parchment, showing that she wished to seat opposite the hufflepuff. “ sitting alone then, are we? no friends to say hello to? bit boring back here, really. i’d think you’d want to be up with the fun, though you always have been one for mood swings, i suppose. not a fan of crowds, perhaps? ”

It was not secret that Alice adored the grounds. She was such an outdoor person. She often could be found ether out here in the grounds, or up in the Astronomy tower. So, it was no surprise when it was exactly where Alice had gone straight after the feast had finished. She adored not having those responsibilities that meant she had to look after the younger students. It meant she could get rid out and enjoy the early evening.

Rather than sit on a bench, Alice had climbed up onto one of the Stone walls, so that she could look out at the grounds. She was enjoying it, distracted enough, that she didn’t realise that she wasn’t alone here in the courtyard.

.

sweet little alice, perched high atop the stones watching the students bustle through the halls to get to their dorms, sweet little alice was the perfect target. with a wicked grin upon her face, rita stood directly beneath the gryffindor, waiting until her classmate was perfectly entrenched in her own little world before calling up  -  “ excuse me, miss fortescue? would it not be considered rule-breaking to climb across the sacred walls of the castle as if they are simply rocks by the lake? we wouldn’t want to get in trouble on the first day, or the GREAT AND MIGHTY head boy franklin might have to come serve punishment. unless punishment from frankie is what you’re looking for, in which case stay right there and why don’t i just go get him for you? ”