My personal encounters with Rita Skeeter do not necessarily compare to those of the late Albus Dumbledore or Harry Potter, but as a close friend of the latter war hero I have certainly had my share. During my fourth year, I was targeted due to this friendship. Until you are on the receiving end of her line of fire, you do not realize how ruthless she can truly be. Skeeter appears sickly sweet during her interviews, but her Quick Quotes Quill will twist the simplest of stories into gut wrenching tales of tragedy.

Due to circumstances I will reveal at a later time, Skeeter was out of the publishing circuit for nearly a year. When I met with her during this time, she was not the glamorous façade she usually appeared to be. Banana yellow robes do not suit those who cannot take care of themselves. Fortunately for her she made her resurgence into the journalistic world with an article published in the once unreliable magazine, The Quibbler, published by the Lovegood family. This piece was arranged and solicited for by myself, in order to help Harry Potter gain an upper hand with the wizarding public. Unfortunately, bringing Skeeter back into the journalism industry had negative consequences as well. When she began writing for The Prophet again, her reputation as a notorious gossip columnist returned. That may have been a positive success for her, but it certainly had a different effect on her readers.

Rita Skeeter began working on writing a “biography” of the late Albus Dumbledore. Her motives have been revealed through extensive interview with the writer, but she primarily published it in order to create controversy—one of her favourite past times. The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore revealed many facts about one of the greatest wizards of the era that were not publicly appealing. For those her turned a blind eye to this publication, it was revealed that Dumbledore had a younger sister named Ariana who was in extremely poor health. The public also learned of Dumbledore’s teenage friendship with the infamous Gellert Grindlewald and the young pair’s dabbles in the Dark Arts. The man who was famous for his kind treatment of Muggles formerly shared ideas described with one phrase: “For the greater good.”

While it took many months and discoveries of my own to confirm these facts to be true, I have come to terms with the true past of my headmaster during my school days at Hogwarts. Although I am not a fan of Rita Skeeter, I feel that I should do the public a favour and share the journalist’s past. Sharing her motives for her decisions and how she became who she was may be a service to the wizarding community. My career in Magical Law Enforcement has taught me that nothing Skeeter has written was illegal. Immoral? For her own personal gain? Rude? Yes, yes, and yes. But illegal—not in the slightest sense. Our own laws give us freedom of speech for what we believe and we cannot charge Skeeter for writing her beliefs.

On behalf of Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, and anyone whose life has been affected by the words of Skeeter, I present to you The Life and Lies of Rita Skeeter. When reading, I do not suggest that you take it upon yourself to sympathize with the writer but to receive a better understanding what was done. So, my dear readers, let us take a journey into Skeeter’s past and gain a better perceptive of who she really was. While the facts may have been wrong, a truth does lie beneath the lies.

Hermione Granger