Timeline
New layout! shh_rita! Found some fabulous hi-res pics at the Rita Skeeter fanlisting, and couldn't resist.
Also, reposting Rita's timeline from authors, with a few details edited for things that have developed in-game. As always, I'm open to backstory with other characters, if any of the new players (or any of the old ones who've thought but never mentioned), so do comment or ping if interested.
Italics indicate other events occurring on the Lexicon, game or other characters' timelines.
May 27, 1951 - Rita born to Patricia and Alistair Skeeter. Named Marguerite (later, she will joke that 'I think my parents wanted to make up for having such a ridiculous surname by giving their daughters even more ludicrous first names. Marguerite and Estelle, really').
1955 - Rita's sister, Stella, is born.
1956 - Dumbledore becomes Headmaster at Hogwarts. Minerva McGongall becomes a teacher there.
1962 - Rita starts at Hogwarts, is sorted into Slytherin. Becomes friends with Bellatrix Black. Friendship is volatile but fierce from the outset. Moody and Robards also start Hogwarts this year, sorted into Slytherin and Ravenclaw respectively. Gilderoy Lockhart born.
1964 - Lucius Malfoy and Adromeda Black start Hogwarts
1965 - Bella and Rita's friendship turns sexual. This is a power thing more than anything else.
1966 - Stella starts Hogwarts, is sorted into Hufflepuff. Narcissa Black starts Hogwarts
1967/68 - Bella's pureblood fanaticism becomes increasingly pronounced. Bella and Rita's friendship becomes tense. Bertha Jorkins starts Hogwarts.
1968/69 - Bella and Rita's friendship pretty much ends. Rita is involved with Lucius Malfoy. She graduates in May '69.
1970 - Rita is taken on as an office junior at Witch Weekly. Voldemort's reign of terror begins. The Maurauders, Lily and Snape start Hogwarts
1972 - Stella graduates Hogwarts in May. Becomes involved with a muggle. In November, she elopes. Horrified that their daughter would do something so stupid with Voldemort targeting muggles, muggleborns and blood traitors, they disown her. Still thinking there's a danger, Rita's parents urge to her to leave the country. She thinks it's a lot of worry over nothing, but she goes anyway, and is hired as a cadet journalist at a wizarding newspaper in Paris. She has a brief romance with McLaggen Snr.
1973 - Rita becomes involved with her French teacher (she decides to learn the language instead of relying on translation charms all the time). They drink French wine and have lots of sex and intellectual debates. This woman is an animagus, and her abilities inspire Rita (always naturally talented at transfiguration) to learn herself.
1974 - Rita successfully transforms into a beetle for the first time.
1976 - Rita is no longer a cadet but a fully qualified journalist.
1977 - The relationship ends, and Rita (who will later claim she was not in love, that she's never been in love) doesn't want to stay in France any more. So, sod the war, she returns to England, and is hired as a journalist for the Daily Prophet. The Marauders, Lily and Snape graduate Hogwarts.
1981 - Voldemort attacks Harry Potter, spell backfires. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Rabastan and Barty Crouch Jr. are arrested.
1982 - Rita reports on the Deatheater trials for the Prophet.
Years in between these ones - Works for the Prophet, has miscellaneous relationships, very much develops her taste for gossip and trash. Meets Gilderoy Lockhart at some point during these years.
1994 - August. Quidditch world cup. Rita is presumably in attendance because she reports on the Deatheater attack. She doesn't give a rats arse about Quidditch, though, so presumably she was there reporting. Sept onwards (into 95) - reports on the Triwizard Tournament. Stays in Hogsmeade for the duration. Shags Ludo Bagman some.
1995 - June. Is caught by Hermione Granger and imprisoned in a jar for OVER A GODDAM WEEK (*snarls at Hermione*). is blackmailed into not writing for a year. Takes leave from the Prophet. Writes fiction for muggle publications instead (honestly - no one really believes she wouldn't be resourceful enough to have other forms of income, do they? Really).
1996 - Feb 14. Rita interviews Harry for the Quibbler interview. Makes herself look all dishevelled so the Trio don't know she's been working. Is amused when it works. Resumes working for the Prophet in July.
1997 - June. Attends Albus Dumbledore's funeral.
1998 - Feb. Prophet office is destroyed, but continues to print through makeshift means. Sometime in these months, Kingsley Shackelbolt starts supplying Rita with paper and office supplies on which to print. They become involved. Rita calls it casual, Kingsley does not.
2000 - Sept, mostly prevented attack on Diagon Alley. Rita's home, in one of the surrounding residential streets, is blown up. She escapes with nothing but her handbag and her quill, and flees to France, the country she made a home in for some years during the first war. Back in England, she is presumed dead.
2001 - Rita is quite devastated after the destruction of her home, which coincided with the destruction of the apathy she'd always forced herself to feel about Voldemort. She can't escape the realisation of just what his winning would mean, now, and finds that difficult to cope with. She spends a few months moving about France, doing whatever she has to do to survive, becoming increasingly disillusioned with her life. She doesn't see the point in simply existing, and finds it quite depressing. Sometime in mid '01 (probably April or May), she runs into Hermione Granger in a small town, and Hermione helps to convince her to use her animagus talent in collecting information for the Order. Hermione tells her that Rosmerta is a safe contact. June. Rita returns to England, contacts Rosmerta, and starts collecting information for the Order. Also makes contact with the reporters who have kept on with the underground Prophet, and becomes rather instrumental in keeping it going with the information she collects (contact with Colin Creevy and others here?). August. Turns up (obviously) alive and completely unannounced on Kingsley's doorstep with information about the planned attack on Azkaban, and wants more office supplies.
2002-04 - Continues her work with the Prophet and collecting information. Has no fixed residence because she never knows where she'll be. Often stays where she stops when she arrives with information, stays around in said place for a few days making contact with people from the Prophet and putting together an issue of the paper, then heads off again.
November. Voldemort is defeated. Rita still homeless, living somewhere random. She's known about Stoats for some time, but only now that Voldemort has been killed does she decide to move there.
Also, reposting Rita's timeline from authors, with a few details edited for things that have developed in-game. As always, I'm open to backstory with other characters, if any of the new players (or any of the old ones who've thought but never mentioned), so do comment or ping if interested.
Italics indicate other events occurring on the Lexicon, game or other characters' timelines.
May 27, 1951 - Rita born to Patricia and Alistair Skeeter. Named Marguerite (later, she will joke that 'I think my parents wanted to make up for having such a ridiculous surname by giving their daughters even more ludicrous first names. Marguerite and Estelle, really').
1955 - Rita's sister, Stella, is born.
1956 - Dumbledore becomes Headmaster at Hogwarts. Minerva McGongall becomes a teacher there.
1962 - Rita starts at Hogwarts, is sorted into Slytherin. Becomes friends with Bellatrix Black. Friendship is volatile but fierce from the outset. Moody and Robards also start Hogwarts this year, sorted into Slytherin and Ravenclaw respectively. Gilderoy Lockhart born.
1964 - Lucius Malfoy and Adromeda Black start Hogwarts
1965 - Bella and Rita's friendship turns sexual. This is a power thing more than anything else.
1966 - Stella starts Hogwarts, is sorted into Hufflepuff. Narcissa Black starts Hogwarts
1967/68 - Bella's pureblood fanaticism becomes increasingly pronounced. Bella and Rita's friendship becomes tense. Bertha Jorkins starts Hogwarts.
1968/69 - Bella and Rita's friendship pretty much ends. Rita is involved with Lucius Malfoy. She graduates in May '69.
1970 - Rita is taken on as an office junior at Witch Weekly. Voldemort's reign of terror begins. The Maurauders, Lily and Snape start Hogwarts
1972 - Stella graduates Hogwarts in May. Becomes involved with a muggle. In November, she elopes. Horrified that their daughter would do something so stupid with Voldemort targeting muggles, muggleborns and blood traitors, they disown her. Still thinking there's a danger, Rita's parents urge to her to leave the country. She thinks it's a lot of worry over nothing, but she goes anyway, and is hired as a cadet journalist at a wizarding newspaper in Paris. She has a brief romance with McLaggen Snr.
1973 - Rita becomes involved with her French teacher (she decides to learn the language instead of relying on translation charms all the time). They drink French wine and have lots of sex and intellectual debates. This woman is an animagus, and her abilities inspire Rita (always naturally talented at transfiguration) to learn herself.
1974 - Rita successfully transforms into a beetle for the first time.
1976 - Rita is no longer a cadet but a fully qualified journalist.
1977 - The relationship ends, and Rita (who will later claim she was not in love, that she's never been in love) doesn't want to stay in France any more. So, sod the war, she returns to England, and is hired as a journalist for the Daily Prophet. The Marauders, Lily and Snape graduate Hogwarts.
1981 - Voldemort attacks Harry Potter, spell backfires. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Rabastan and Barty Crouch Jr. are arrested.
1982 - Rita reports on the Deatheater trials for the Prophet.
Years in between these ones - Works for the Prophet, has miscellaneous relationships, very much develops her taste for gossip and trash. Meets Gilderoy Lockhart at some point during these years.
1994 - August. Quidditch world cup. Rita is presumably in attendance because she reports on the Deatheater attack. She doesn't give a rats arse about Quidditch, though, so presumably she was there reporting. Sept onwards (into 95) - reports on the Triwizard Tournament. Stays in Hogsmeade for the duration. Shags Ludo Bagman some.
1995 - June. Is caught by Hermione Granger and imprisoned in a jar for OVER A GODDAM WEEK (*snarls at Hermione*). is blackmailed into not writing for a year. Takes leave from the Prophet. Writes fiction for muggle publications instead (honestly - no one really believes she wouldn't be resourceful enough to have other forms of income, do they? Really).
1996 - Feb 14. Rita interviews Harry for the Quibbler interview. Makes herself look all dishevelled so the Trio don't know she's been working. Is amused when it works. Resumes working for the Prophet in July.
1997 - June. Attends Albus Dumbledore's funeral.
1998 - Feb. Prophet office is destroyed, but continues to print through makeshift means. Sometime in these months, Kingsley Shackelbolt starts supplying Rita with paper and office supplies on which to print. They become involved. Rita calls it casual, Kingsley does not.
2000 - Sept, mostly prevented attack on Diagon Alley. Rita's home, in one of the surrounding residential streets, is blown up. She escapes with nothing but her handbag and her quill, and flees to France, the country she made a home in for some years during the first war. Back in England, she is presumed dead.
2001 - Rita is quite devastated after the destruction of her home, which coincided with the destruction of the apathy she'd always forced herself to feel about Voldemort. She can't escape the realisation of just what his winning would mean, now, and finds that difficult to cope with. She spends a few months moving about France, doing whatever she has to do to survive, becoming increasingly disillusioned with her life. She doesn't see the point in simply existing, and finds it quite depressing. Sometime in mid '01 (probably April or May), she runs into Hermione Granger in a small town, and Hermione helps to convince her to use her animagus talent in collecting information for the Order. Hermione tells her that Rosmerta is a safe contact. June. Rita returns to England, contacts Rosmerta, and starts collecting information for the Order. Also makes contact with the reporters who have kept on with the underground Prophet, and becomes rather instrumental in keeping it going with the information she collects (contact with Colin Creevy and others here?). August. Turns up (obviously) alive and completely unannounced on Kingsley's doorstep with information about the planned attack on Azkaban, and wants more office supplies.
2002-04 - Continues her work with the Prophet and collecting information. Has no fixed residence because she never knows where she'll be. Often stays where she stops when she arrives with information, stays around in said place for a few days making contact with people from the Prophet and putting together an issue of the paper, then heads off again.
November. Voldemort is defeated. Rita still homeless, living somewhere random. She's known about Stoats for some time, but only now that Voldemort has been killed does she decide to move there.