RP: News Today
Date: May 19th, 1998
Characters: Rita Skeeter, anyone
Location: Hogwarts grounds, mostly
Status: Public
Summary: Rita arrives in the aftermath.
Completion: Incomplete?
A ticking clock, a silent office. Reporters caffeinated and wilting under bright lights, waiting for the static bursts of radio that marked the progression of night.
It felt obscene to be so still while news broke. Rita examined the reflection of the overhead light on her scarlet nails, watched the shadows move under the door of her editor's office. Back and forward, back and forward. Pacing. At the desk two behind her and one to the left, the mole sat silent as the rest of them.
There were tides in the office. Rita could feel them. Each burst of radio was rapid-fire fear, explosion of hope. The mole - appointed by the puppet Ministry as correspondent the day Thicknesse was handed his power - stood on the same cracked ice they'd been balancing on all year.
Her editor was a convict in a cell, a war general sizing up a battle plan. His reporters should have been out collecting news but he didn't know what it would be - would the press have its freedom with the dawn, or would the morning's paper be spinning propaganda?
Rita was grateful for the silence. Glad the decision wasn't hers.
He Who Must Not Be Named is dead.
The office door burst open and Stupefy flew through the room before anyone could stand. The mole crumpled to her desk like a paper doll and her editor surveyed the room.
"Skeeter, I want you at Hogwarts."
Hogsmeade was cacophony - crowd and faces shocked and jubilant and despairing in morning light, a town rocked to its foundations. She couldn't bare the thought of travelling with the crowd (What if it wasn't really over and someone had finally figured her out?) so she went on wings.
Ravenclaw tower in ruins. Slytherin spilled across the floor in the entrance hall. Gryffindor in the bloodstains in the hallways and Hufflepuff in the small groups struggling to make things right.
Hoof prints on the floor. House elves working beside wizards to clean the worst of the carnage from the walls. Healers moving quietly through the crowd.
Rita didn't know how she could possibly talk to anyone about this night.
Characters: Rita Skeeter, anyone
Location: Hogwarts grounds, mostly
Status: Public
Summary: Rita arrives in the aftermath.
Completion: Incomplete?
A ticking clock, a silent office. Reporters caffeinated and wilting under bright lights, waiting for the static bursts of radio that marked the progression of night.
It felt obscene to be so still while news broke. Rita examined the reflection of the overhead light on her scarlet nails, watched the shadows move under the door of her editor's office. Back and forward, back and forward. Pacing. At the desk two behind her and one to the left, the mole sat silent as the rest of them.
There were tides in the office. Rita could feel them. Each burst of radio was rapid-fire fear, explosion of hope. The mole - appointed by the puppet Ministry as correspondent the day Thicknesse was handed his power - stood on the same cracked ice they'd been balancing on all year.
Her editor was a convict in a cell, a war general sizing up a battle plan. His reporters should have been out collecting news but he didn't know what it would be - would the press have its freedom with the dawn, or would the morning's paper be spinning propaganda?
Rita was grateful for the silence. Glad the decision wasn't hers.
He Who Must Not Be Named is dead.
The office door burst open and Stupefy flew through the room before anyone could stand. The mole crumpled to her desk like a paper doll and her editor surveyed the room.
"Skeeter, I want you at Hogwarts."
Hogsmeade was cacophony - crowd and faces shocked and jubilant and despairing in morning light, a town rocked to its foundations. She couldn't bare the thought of travelling with the crowd (What if it wasn't really over and someone had finally figured her out?) so she went on wings.
Ravenclaw tower in ruins. Slytherin spilled across the floor in the entrance hall. Gryffindor in the bloodstains in the hallways and Hufflepuff in the small groups struggling to make things right.
Hoof prints on the floor. House elves working beside wizards to clean the worst of the carnage from the walls. Healers moving quietly through the crowd.
Rita didn't know how she could possibly talk to anyone about this night.