A/N: Written for the ficathon on kolms' livejournal, the prompt being "I didn't mean to let it get so far out of hand." Why yes, I am obsessed right now.
Disclaimer: Do you really think I own Harry Potter and/or its amazing characters? No, I do not.
...
She picks up a quill when she is two years old, and she can recall without a doubt that that was the first time she felt true, pure magic.
Legs crossed, she tells the biographer (she is such a young thing with bright, eager eyes eating up Rita Skeeter's every word; she can tell this is her first story, the girl may as well be her young doppelganger) about how in her Hogwarts days, she may not have been the absolute best at her studies, but-she giggled mischieviously- she knew how to, quite frankly, bullshit her essays. All the professors knew but couldn't do a thing about it and it drove them absolutely mad. She boasts that she saw an advisor in his office for literally two seconds: went in, sat down, informed him she was going to write for the Daily Prophet, and left before he could give a reply.
She says at that time, she knew this was exactly how her life would turn out.
She doesn't mention how actually she had dreamed of being a political reporter, travelling the world as she investigated the mysterious endangerment of the Houou in Japan or the conflict of witch doctors being known to muggles in Africa.
It isn't a terribly important detail, after all.
...
When asked to describe her first big story, Miss Skeeter stiffens a minuscule amount before smiling charmingly. Ah, that, she sighs lightly. Her first big story. Well, it was way beyond the girl's birth, you see, so she probably hadn't ever heard of a certain John Shingleton of the Chudley Cannons who was kicked off the team for being found to take speed enhancement potions...
The girl doesn't need to know about how she was once madly in love with John Shingleton, when he was a rising star and she was just a poor, low-ranking reporter barely making ends meet with two jobs. How one day she went over to his apartment and found him in bed with his teammate Jane Pettigrew and how her heart absolutely shattered.
How when she ran home, she sat at her desk and looked around at her tiny, dirty apartment for hours and only vaguely heard the yelling of her neighbors upstairs. How she finally glanced down at her parchment paper, and with a flick of her wand set her quill to writing.
The next morning investigators found the potions in Shingleton's bathroom, and Rita Skeeter was off to a brilliant career.
...
She knows how people feel about her.
She knows that there are people who absolutely despise her and would've done anything to see her lose her job. It was not hard to see it in Hermione Granger's face when she was young, or even in Harry Potter's-a kind soul to most of the wizard population- strained patience whenever dealing with her. Still, she can hardly allow herself to care. She may not have meant for her life to tilt toward this direction as completely as it did, but it has and Rita Skeeter-without a doubt to anyone, however grudgingly- is (in)famous because of it. She is somebody.
The girl gets to her last question, nervously tucking hair behind her ear. "Now, Miss Skeeter, it has been often said you have written some terrible things that might be untrue, even according to... Some sources close to me-" the reporter has the decency to blush, the poor, dear child- "What would you say about that?"
Rita Skeeter gazes at her for a good, solid minute and the girl fidgets uncomfortably. It is positively piercing, and she is about to call off her question when the older woman smiles. This time, however, she does not bother to pretend it reaches her eyes.
"Many people do not know what it means to sacrifice for a dream," she replies in a sweetly venomous tone. "Not even your father, Miss Lily Potter."