Chapter 3
Rita Skeeter cursed rather rudely as she examined her usually perfectly
manicured, mannish hands. She's just broken her nail on the end of her large, garish
purse.
"Unbreakable polish my ass!" she thought to herself as several curious faces peered in
her direction.
A sickly sinister smile and the retrieval of her handy quick quotes quill solved that
problem. She watched hungrily as the faces turned hastily away, scuttling out of her
path and taking their bodies with them.
A story. She needed a story.
It had been a particularly horrible past couple of days. She'd followed a dead end
lead on Cornelius Fudge. AGAIN. It seemed like that happened every other week. But
the headline,
"Ministry Corruption behind Closed Doors," was just too good to pass up.
On this particular occasion, she'd found that rumors of Fudge disappearing every
Wednesday morning to an undisclosed location were completely founded in truth for a
change. She had hopefully followed Fudge, yesterday morning, to investigate her
source's information on his supposed secret meetings with foreign ministers to secure
power hungry alliances. It had been disappointing, to say the least, to find that Fudge
was, instead, practicing water polo at the local muggle gym. Still, it made for interesting
facts for later usage.
Back to the problem at hand; she still had no story.
It was becoming more and more difficult to obtain information these days.
It was almost impossible to secure interviews. After escaping that Granger girl's
clutches, she had been forced to assume a false name, and to skirt public activities.
Despite all of her precautions, the girl had managed to uncover two of her newly adopted
identities.
Today she was taking an incredible risk by publicly entering the Ministry of
Magic. True, she had the cover of an appointment with the animagus registration office.
There would be nothing holding her back after that damn Granger had nothing to
blackmail her with. Oh no! And no one ever read the Registered Animagus List
anyways, no one would know. Plus, she could afford (barely) a little bribery to keep it
quiet.
Rita smiled eagerly and clicked 9 of her nails along the rim of her purse. She
needed a good story; One that she could follow quietly until she was officially registered.
Something HUGE..
And that's when she happened to witness the unflappable Mr. Malfoy apparate a
full two feet outside the designated apparition area.
'Interesting...'
Rita Skeeter cursed rather rudely as she examined her usually perfectly
manicured, mannish hands. She's just broken her nail on the end of her large, garish
purse.
"Unbreakable polish my ass!" she thought to herself as several curious faces peered in
her direction.
A sickly sinister smile and the retrieval of her handy quick quotes quill solved that
problem. She watched hungrily as the faces turned hastily away, scuttling out of her
path and taking their bodies with them.
A story. She needed a story.
It had been a particularly horrible past couple of days. She'd followed a dead end
lead on Cornelius Fudge. AGAIN. It seemed like that happened every other week. But
the headline,
"Ministry Corruption behind Closed Doors," was just too good to pass up.
On this particular occasion, she'd found that rumors of Fudge disappearing every
Wednesday morning to an undisclosed location were completely founded in truth for a
change. She had hopefully followed Fudge, yesterday morning, to investigate her
source's information on his supposed secret meetings with foreign ministers to secure
power hungry alliances. It had been disappointing, to say the least, to find that Fudge
was, instead, practicing water polo at the local muggle gym. Still, it made for interesting
facts for later usage.
Back to the problem at hand; she still had no story.
It was becoming more and more difficult to obtain information these days.
It was almost impossible to secure interviews. After escaping that Granger girl's
clutches, she had been forced to assume a false name, and to skirt public activities.
Despite all of her precautions, the girl had managed to uncover two of her newly adopted
identities.
Today she was taking an incredible risk by publicly entering the Ministry of
Magic. True, she had the cover of an appointment with the animagus registration office.
There would be nothing holding her back after that damn Granger had nothing to
blackmail her with. Oh no! And no one ever read the Registered Animagus List
anyways, no one would know. Plus, she could afford (barely) a little bribery to keep it
quiet.
Rita smiled eagerly and clicked 9 of her nails along the rim of her purse. She
needed a good story; One that she could follow quietly until she was officially registered.
Something HUGE..
And that's when she happened to witness the unflappable Mr. Malfoy apparate a
full two feet outside the designated apparition area.
'Interesting...'