The Taming of Rita Skeeter

Strength| * Lucius Malfoy
* Daniel Shafiq
* Mundungus Fletcher
* Draco Malfoy
* Barty Crouch Junior
* Crabbe Sr. and Goyle Sr.
* Benedict Cuffe

The Taming of Rita Skeeter represents the whole blackmail scheme instigated by Lucius Malfoy in order to get Rita Skeeter under his control, and subsequently, the control of the Conservatives.

## Background:

Following Rita Skeeter's criticism towards the Ancient and Most Noble House of Malfoy, the patriarch of the House decides that it is high time for measures to be taken to neutralize the threat represented by said wayward reporter. Thus, on August 1st, 1992 he sends Crabbe and Goyle Sr. to Knockturn Alley to recruit Mundungus Fletcher for a job paid by a private patron. This job evolves, after some iterations into Mundungus figuring out Skeeter's schedule, following her around and gather information on her to be used when eventually she ends up framed.

On August 31st, 1992, Draco Malfoy is tasked by his father with becoming acquainted with Benedict Cuffe. He is also expected to make certain that the boy ends up in Slytherin House, a place where Draco could easier befriend and monitor his actions. Draco succeeds in his task and on September 1st, Benedict Cuffe ends up sorted into Slytherin.

In the meanwhile, Lucius Malfoy ensures that Daniel Shafiq, recently returned to British shores, will meet-up with Rita Skeeter at Summer Isles over the weekend, on September 27th, 1992. There Shafiq reveals some information about his wanderings in Eastern Europe since the end of the Purity War and ensures that he steals some of Rita Skeeter's hair. Some nights later, on October 2nd, John Doe, an up-and-coming reported at the Daily Prophet, is assassinated in the middle of the night by someone who looks like Rita Skeeter with Mundungus Fletcher acting as a witness, under the anonymity of the invisibility cloak that his employer — most likely Lucius Malfoy — had supplied him with.

On the evening of October 4th, Draco Malfoy manages to get a hold of the small black book that Benedict Cuffe uses to communicate with his mother — Rita Skeeter — and urgently sends it to his father that manages to open it with the help of Bartemius Crouch Jr.

## Conflict:

On the evening of October 11th, 1992, Rita Skeeter arrives at the Summer Isles restaurant in Diagon Alley expecting the chance to talk with a representative from the Conservatives about the Muggle Protection Act. To her surprise, the representative from the Conservatives is none other then Lucius Malfoy.

The two discuss over dinner the Conservatives grievances in relation to the Muggle Protection Act, grievances that have nothing to do with the muggles in themselves, but more with the exaggerated power granted to the enforces of the act. After dinner, Lucius reveals his long term plan — the one for which he employed Mundungus Fletcher and later Daniel Shafiq to steal some of her hair — effectively showing Rita how he had successfully framed her for the murder of John Doe. He then confides that he also has the diary that was stolen from Benedict Cuffe, diary that confirms that he is in fact her bastard son conceived with the then married editor of the Daily Prophet, Barnabus Cuffe. Rita is forced to confess about how Benedict came to be and how she ended up poisoning Barnabus' wife in order to hide the affair. In the aftermath, Lucius leave with the understanding that from now on Rita works for him.

## Aftermath:

Following the confrontation, Rita Skeeter ends up de facto working for Lucius Malfoy, and to some extent the general Conservative agenda. Thus, her articles turn out a sudden to be much more supportive of the Malfoy Lord, especially compared to before.

As Benedict Cuffe is no longer required for Lucius Malfoy's plan, he ends up being glided into obscurity in the Slytherin House Hierarchy.