Rita Skeeter

Rita Skeeter is a Witch who worked as a reporter for the Daily Prophet. However, some of her articles have also appeared in other sources, such as Witch Weekly and The Quibbler. She absolutely loves her job, and is often accompanied by her photographer Bozo.

In 1994-1995, Rita wrote many nasty articles covering the Triwizard Tournament. She continued to write articles about Harry Potter and his friends until Hermione Granger figured out that Rita was an unregistered Animagus and caught her and put her in a jar. Hermione made a deal with Rita. The deal was that if she could stop writing horrible stories about people for a year, Hermione won't tell the Ministry about her being an unregistered Animagus. In 1995, she wrote an article in The Quibbler, about the night Harry saw Lord Voldemort return.

Rita's Animagus form is a beetle, which allows her to slip around unnoticed. Her last name, Skeeter, indicates a possible reason for why she takes the form of a bug.

She has a crocodile-skin handbag, and is known to use a Quick-Quotes Quill. Her hair is curly, her face is heavily jawed, and she has three golden teeth. Rita always said in the Daily Prophet that Harry Potter is 12 when he was actually 14 during the triwizard tournament.

Rita also attended Albus Dumbledore's funeral,and after an interview with Bathilda Bagshot she wrote a book called The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.

Following Voldemort's death, she wrote a biography about Harry that was only 1/4 true, and also wrote "Severus Snape, Scoundrel or Saint?"

Articles

 * Harry's first meeting with Skeeter came before the triwizard tournament. Under the guise of interviewing all four champions she confronted Harry in a broom cupboard where she took his "um's" and "er's" and invented her own quotes. The article painted Harry as a tragic hero who cried himself to sleep and who has a relationship with Hermione Granger. The article was mostly taken negatively by Harry's schoolmates who assumed he was craving attention, although Mrs Weasley seemed to take it very seriously.


 * Her next article was written after an interview with Hagrid where she asked several questions about Harry but got no answers. The article described Hagrid as a ferocious-looking man who used his authority to terrify his students. The article also revealed to the world that Hagrid was actually half-giant. It is implied that she used her Animagus skills to listen in on Hagrid and find out about his family heritage.