Author's Note: Written for…

The Battlefield Wars. Team/Position: After All This Time – Always, Front Line Cadet #2. Mandatory Character: Rita Skeeter. Assisting Character: Quick Quotes Quill (personified) Prompts: parchment, lemon yellow, "Don't you try and stop me"

Higher Intelligence

'There is a rare phenomenon in this world, witnessed by few and recorded by fewer. When a witch or wizard becomes so attached to an object of partial sentience – that is, an object that has been magicked to act of its own accord – that they feel they could never live without it, said object may transform under a solar eclipse into something of higher intelligence.'

-Fable Laurent, The Quibbler

:-:

"This is absurd!" Rita shrieked, tightly gripping the letter she had just received. "They're firing me. Over thirty years of consistent reporting and they're letting me go because of one little disagreement. Can you believe the nerve?"

She looked to her desk, on which sat the acid green Quick Quotes Quill that had become her only source of conversation. She sighed.

"Oh, look at me. I'm talking to myself." She scowled down at the parchment again before crumpling it and throwing it into the fire. "I have a much larger fanbase than Ginny Potter. She's not even a real reporter; she's only a sports columnist. They can't honestly expect her to be able to fill my position."

The early afternoon sunlight drained from the room suddenly, plunging it into complete darkness. Rita swore under breath as the room shook and she groped at the mantelpiece for her wand. She lit the chandelier easily, then screamed when she found she was no longer alone.

There was a woman, tall and young-looking, sitting atop her desk, precisely where her prized quill had been moments before.

"What on earth is going on?" Rita demanded, raising her wand at the woman.

"Solar eclipse," the stranger said nonchalantly, pointing to the dark window. Rita nodded; she vaguely remembered reading about that somewhere.

"And who are you? How did you get in here?"

The woman looked as if Rita had asked the dumbest of questions. "My name's Olive. I live here."

Rita scoffed. "I don't think so. No, I live alone."

"But you don't! You have a quill – a Quick Quotes Quill. And it's your best friend, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure what you're implying but-" Rita stopped herself, scrutinizing the girl, who was smirking at her mischievously.

The left side of her head was shaven, and the right side had bright green hair sweeping out with black highlights. Her eyes were a lighter shade of green. She wore dark purple lipstick, the same shade as her striped blouse and boots. She looked like she'd just come from the circus, or perhaps this was just the newest trend. Rita could never keep up with fashion.

"What are you?"

Olive grinned, swinging her legs back and forth. "I'm your quill!"

"You are not."

"Oh, yes, I am." She cleared her throat loudly. "'If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from The Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed,'" she recited in a near-perfect imitation of Rita's voice. "You had me write that on August 23, 1994."

"I don't recall," Rita lied. She lowered her wand to her side, still keeping a tight grip on it.

"Really? It was quite an eventful year. 'The boy who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is unstable and possibly dangerous, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Alarming evidence has recently come to light-'"

"Will you stop quoting me?!"

Olive pouted. "But that's what I do best. Do you at least believe me now? That I'm your quill?"

Rita dropped into a nearby chair, still eying the girl wearily. "Yes, I suppose so. But how?"

"I don't know. One minute I was lying there, waiting for you to use me, and the next I'm this," she said, jumping from the desk and twirling. "I quite like it, don't you?"

"You could do with a makeover." Olive's face fell.

"Why do you always have to be so mean?"

Rita rolled her eyes. "I am not mean. I simply don't see the point in lying."

"Right, because you've always been big on reporting the truth."

"I don't what you're-"

"'Harry Potter's Secret Heartache'?"

"Alright, fine. I exaggerate a little. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere if I didn't. No one cares about the truth."

"You don't believe that. You've written four biographies-"

"Five," Rita corrected proudly.

Olive chuckled. "Fine, if you want to include that poor excuse of a book we wrote on Dumbledore's Army, but you and I both know it's filled with little more than rumors."

"It's being published next month."

"But will people buy it? The sales of your other books have dropped considerably in the last ten years, you've just been fired, and your favorite quill is asking you to reconsider the enormous mistake you're about to make."

"How dare you speak to me like this? You're nothing more than a writing instrument, a device to convey my words. And I don't need you."

Rita stormed over to her desk, wrenching open a drawer and scrambling to find parchment and a new quill. "I'm going to write a letter to my publisher and tell him about my idea for a sequel, and don't you try and stop me!"

Olive obediently stood back, biting her lip as she watching Rita suck on the end of the lemon yellow quill and attempt to set it upright on the parchment. After watching it fall over for the third time, she felt the need to intercede.

"It's not a Quick Quotes, Rita. You're going to need to use ink."

Rita looked horrified at the prospect, but said nothing, returning to rummaging in the drawers. This time she came up empty. Finally she slumped in the desk chair.

"I don't have any ink. I haven't had to use it in years."

"It's probably for the best," Olive said, putting a reassuring hand on Rita's shoulder. "You haven't written anything by hand in years either. Your handwriting is probably rubbish."

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Rita moaned, covering her face. "I've got nothing left!"

"It'll be alright, Rita. We'll figure something out," Olive promised.

Rita looked up at her with tear-stained eyes. "You're going to help me?"

"Of course I am! We're best friends, aren't we?"

-One Year Later-

'Just when you think you've seen the last of Rita Skeeter, she worms her way back into the spotlight again.

After last year's fiasco of an article reporting live from the 2014 Quidditch World Cup in Argentina, during which she was attacked by famed Daily Prophet columnist and former Holyhead Harpies Chaser, Ginny Potter – who was not formally charged for the incident – Ms. Skeeter found herself out of a job and without any direction.

"I thought I had lost everything. I'd lost my purpose," Skeeter writes in her new autobiography, Acid Tongue, on shelves Friday.

The autobiography, co-authored with journalism newcomer Olive Penn, is just the beginning of Skeeter's attempt at a comeback, she claims.

"Olive has changed my outlook on the world. She has been instrumental in helping me rediscover myself as a writer and as a person."

The duo are in talks with Obscurus Books to begin work on a series of children's novels that Skeeter says will not only prepare children for schooling, but also teach them about the muggle world.

When asked if she plans on returning to reporting, Skeeter had this to say:

"The only time you're going to see my name in the Daily Prophet again is when I'm on the bestseller list!"'

A/N:

Clearly I had too much fun writing this. I even drew a little picture of Olive, since I was horrible at describing her. (I'm not the greatest at drawing either, but whatever)

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