Rita Skeeter was enjoying life. After a long career at The Daily Prophet, the investigative journalist had retired and chosen a quieter lifestyle — a small cottage on the coast. She occasionally missed the furious pace of the newsroom, the clack of enchanted typewriters, the smell of magic ink on her fingers. But she didn't miss all the name calling and attacks.
It wasn't easy to be a muckraking reporter who exposed the deaths and maimings at the Ministry's premier educational institute, but she knew in her heart that the students at Hogwarts were now safer because of her investigative reports. Yes, Hogwarts had sicced JK Rowling on Rita, and her reputation had suffered. But that was behind her now.
Rita picked up her copy of the Daily Prophet from her front porch, sat down at her kitchen table for breakfast, and dropped her coffee mug on the floor when she saw the front page.
That ass. That scar. She had seen it before.
Rita ran to the filing cabinet in her basement, rifled through her folders, and pulled out one labeled "Harry Potter, Wizard CPS case." One of her last exposés had been a deep dive on the life of Harry Potter after Hogwarts. She was the first person to publish a story that said Harry Potter had a son — and that agents from the ministry's child protection services had taken the boy away. Rita had successfully argued in wizard court that the CPS documents were a public record after Candy sued Harry Potter and Harry attached them as an exhibit in his countersuit.
There was a picture included in the CPS case file that she would never forget. It showed the striking lightning bolt scar on Jerry's ass after his mother dropped him. She held up that photo to the front of The Daily Prophet and gasped.
Rita ran up to the kitchen, grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed from memory.
"Get the publisher on the phone," she barked. "It's Rita. I'm coming out of retirement."