The cobble street below was empty.
The office of the Daily Prophet was on the third floor overlooking Diagon Alley. It was late, or very early, well after midnight at any rate but still short of sun rise. The revellers had long since stumbled home.
The press was chugging on behind her. The fourth estate must never rest. Who else would hold the Wizarding World’s feet to the fire? It was true that whose feet and to what end wasn't always entirely justifiable. They had done some good on occasion, surely?
Rita grimaced.
She'd always been driven, always been good at judging where the wind was blowing, in fact, managed to be the low pressure system setting the gale going more than once. She was good at what she did. The best. She had studied at muggle university to make her angles sharper than razor blades. She had learned that conflict was a matter of perspective, and zooming in close enough to find the opposing sides. The nearness principle wasn't a tool, it was her best friend.
She knew what her readers wanted and she delivered.
When she started she had aimed to be at the top, and she had reached it. She had perched there for years. There was nothing for her to do but hover, or start slip-sliding down.
She picked up her bag, put on her jacket. She would walk home, her heels would clack against the wet cobbles and her heart would ache at the beauty of London at its most sedate. She would feel like she owned the city and held its inhabitants' lives in her hands.
She stepped onto the street. Took out a cigarette and lit it with a flourish. It was time for something new. A change of direction, a new challenge. She would write for a cause, do the job she was supposed to have been doing this whole time.
She'd take on one of the Granger girl's projects. Could she make them care? She knew she could, it was just a matter of narrowing the focus and sharpening the angle, finding a suitably guilty party and ruthlessly hacking them to pieces.
Could she make them change, though? She grimaced at the thought of writing for the Quibbler, but activism always became too uncomfortable for the establishment.
Her front door was visible just ahead. She dried and heated the stoop and sat down for a last cigarette.
S.P.E.W. perhaps.
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