Movies - Rita Skeeter

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	Movies - Rita Skeeter

Rita Skeeter (born c. 1951) is a fictional character from the Harry Potter series. She's a somewhat stereotypical reporter, who specializes in yellow journalism. Going to extreme lengths for a good story, she proved herself a nuisance to Harry and his friends throughout Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Rita Skeeter is played by Miranda Richardson in the film version of the fourth novel, released in 2005.

History

Once, Rita Skeeter referred to Albus Dumbledore as an "obsolete dingbat". When she wrote about the Dark Mark appearing at the Quidditch World Cup, she said that there were rumours that several bodies had been removed from the forest an hour after the attack, thus creating a previously non-existent rumour that was at worst blatantly untrue, and at best grossly exaggerated (it is just possible that someone might have seen Barty Crouch sneaking his unconscious son out of the forest, and that the story then grew from one stunned body to several dead ones in the retelling). She also reported on Ludo Bagman's trial (many years previous to when the story takes place), as witnessed by Harry in Dumbledore's Pensieve.

The Goblet of Fire

Harry first encountered Rita when she was planning to write an article about the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He didn't give her the kind of answers she wanted in the interview (which took place, oddly enough, in a broom cupboard). Her article about the tournament turned out to be mostly about Harry. A picture of Harry's face took up the front page, and she replaced Harry's answer in her interview with those of her own invention. The two foreign Triwizard champions' names (misspelled) were squeezed in at the end of the article, and Cedric Diggory (the other Hogwarts champion) wasn't mentioned at all.

She made life very hard for Harry, and Dumbledore banned her from the grounds. Rita interviewed Hagrid, but rather than talking to him about his creatures, which he had been led to believe she would be interested in, she just wanted information about Harry. Hagrid commented after the interview that she seemed disappointed when he said that he'd never had to tell Harry off.

Animagus form

Rita Skeeter, who was, in fact, an unregistered Animagus who could turn into a beetle, decided to get revenge on Hagrid by coming to Hogwarts during the Yule Ball, and spying on him while transformed into a beetle. She overheard Hagrid tell Madame Maxime that he was half-giant, and printed a story about it, which made him extremely unpopular, due to the well-documented ferocious nature of giants. With the addition of Malfoy's hippogriff incident, she made it seem as though Hagrid were dangerous -- so much so that Hagrid became severely depressed and nearly resigned.

When she encountered Harry, Ron and Hermione in Hogsmeade, Hermione insulted her; and, predictably, Skeeter wrote a horrible story about Hermione, making her out to be an ugly but extremely intelligent witch who used illegal love potions to satisfy her taste for celebrity wizards, such as Harry Potter and her boyfriend, international Quidditch star and Durmstrang Triwizard Champion Viktor Krum.

Rita's last defaming article stated that Harry was "disturbed and dangerous", using comments made about him by Draco Malfoy and Malfoy's cronies. She also cited Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue (the ability to speak with serpents), and pains in the scar given to him by Lord Voldemort, as additional material for her article. This was later used for the base of the Ministry of Magic's smear campaign against Harry.

Since Rita had defamed her, but more so because of her treatment of her friends (particularly Hagrid), Hermione had been bent on finding out how Rita was spying on private conversations. She found out, and trapped her (as a beetle) in a jar, just as Dumbledore was reforming the Order of the Phoenix, thereby preventing her from revealing the Order existence to the wizarding public and the Ministry.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Rita Skeeter ]

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