Lightning Strikes Twice Ch. 45 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: I didn't originally intend for this entire chapter to take place in Rita's head, but hopefully people like it lol. Ritual next time.

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Rita’s breath hitches as Harry places his hand on her cheek, her pupils dilating as she looks into those bright green eyes of his.

She’s not unaware of how most people see her. Oh sure, she has her readers, else she wouldn’t have a job at the Daily Prophet to begin with, but even among her fanbase, she knew most were in it more for the scandalous nature of the things she wrote, rather than out of any great love or even like for her personally.

Heh, she certainly wasn’t getting stopped on the streets to sign autographs like say, Gilderoy Lockhart before his accident or anything like that. But Rita had always been okay with that. She’d likened it to the consequences of speaking ‘truth to power’ as she liked to put it.

… But deep down inside, she knew better. She knew it ate away at her. Not only being unliked, but also being unloved. Deep down, she just wanted a modicum of the human connection that others seemed to naturally have with one another. Unfortunately her own ambition had ruined that for her all the way back at the beginning, on her first day at Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Funnily enough, something nobody knew about Rita was that she’d originally wanted to be in Hufflepuff back then. She’d never had friends before, never gotten to play with children her own age in all her first eleven years of life. A whole Hogwarts House full of friends had appealed to her in a way the other Houses hadn’t, and her younger self had really quite hoped that Hufflepuff would be where she wound up.

That was, until she’d gotten up on the stool and had the Sorting Hat dropped upon her head. It had spoken to her then. To this day, Rita didn’t quite know if she was special or not. Talking about one’s experiences with the Sorting Hat was considered so much of a taboo that even Rita knew better than to try and interrogate others on theirs.

Regardless, when it came to her, the Sorting Hat did something she thought was very special indeed… it gave her a choice. It looked into her mind and saw her desire to be in Hufflepuff… and then it offered her an alternative option.

“Sure you could have all the friends you might desire in Hufflepuff… but you have an ambition to you, my dear. An ambition that could see you much further… in Slytherin.”

Slytherin. Rita didn’t have a bad opinion of the House or anything like that. She was a Pureblood after all, so it wasn’t like she needed to worry about prejudice. And… as much as she wanted friends, she WAS ambitious. Her parents had instilled that in her, the desire to always be reaching for more. It was just the way the world worked in the end. You either gobbled up all you could or were the one who was gobbled up in turn for your complacency.

Friends… friends were nice, but ambition was forever. And so Rita had listened to the Hat’s advice and gone along with his idea. She’d accepted his offer and been sorted into House Slytherin.

Almost immediately, Rita had discovered the choice to be something poisonous. Slytherin hadn’t seemed that foreboding until she was actually in it only to realize that everything in the House of Snakes was a power struggle. At the tender age of eleven, Rita had been old enough to understand that her parents were social climbers who were always grasping for more… but she hadn’t been old enough to realize they were very small fish in a very large sea, with several layers of far greater influence, wealth, and power above them.

Entering House Slytherin as a lowly first year, and possibly the lowest on the totem pole even among her own year, had taught Rita that valuable lesson very, very quickly. Desperate to be needed, desperate to be useful even if she wasn’t liked, loved, or appreciated, Rita had turned to the one thing she was good at… snooping.

It didn’t help her original goal of getting friends, of course. Not one bit. She couldn’t have it both ways, Rita had eventually come to realize. She couldn’t have her ambitions AND friends. So she’d dropped the latter in exchange for the former, and she’d become something of a spy for the older years in the House.

Most of the time, she tried to keep her snooping and rumormongering focused on the other Hogwarts Houses. You don’t shit where you eat, and all that. But that was just the public facing side of her ‘business’. There was also the other side, where she’d worked to provide more private, clandestine information on her own housemates to certain well-paying individuals.

Over her years at Hogwarts, Rita had learned so many valuable lessons that had served her well all her life. But most importantly of all was the lesson that friendship… friendship was a trap. A great lie. And one she wanted nothing to do with.

… Or so she had thought. She’d been fine before she found herself trapped in Harry Potter’s web. Truly, she had been. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been entirely well, but she’d been good enough.

Unfortunately, ever since she allowed herself to be drawn into Harry’s machinations, things had changed. It had started off small, with her being rather surprised that he wasn’t outright blackmailing her with knowledge of her status as an illegal animagus. Rita had always known that becoming an animagus without registering might eventually come back to bite her in the ass.

That said, the benefits had far outweighed the risks. If everyone knew Rita Skeeter was a Beetle Animagus, they would have known what precautions to take to keep her away from their private affairs. The amount of spying she’d managed to get done, the sheer volume of secrets and juicy pieces of gossip she’d uncovered over the years… it was worth it. It had to be worth it.

But Harry didn’t even want to take advantage of his knowledge regarding her animagus form. Instead, he’d offered a relationship of convenience, and one that Rita hadn’t really thought twice about. Sexual favors in exchange for exclusive stories from the Boy-Who-Lived himself? An insanely good deal, to say the least. It was a win-win, really!

… Except, Rita hadn’t realized just how much of a ‘win-win’ it would be until it was far too late. Originally, her expectation was that she would be the one doing the pleasuring in exchange for information… and of course, the chance to one day maybe use those sexual escapades with Harry for her own game, maybe in a ‘tell-all’ memoir or something.

Shame? What was that? Could you eat it? Or rather… that’s what Rita WOULD have said. Instead, Harry had wound up doing more of the pleasuring than Rita could have thought. And for the first time, she found herself in a relationship that made her feel good… better than good, it made her feel great in ways Rita’s cold, black heart hadn’t even known was possible.

It wasn’t fair. She was like a dog seeing in black and white all her life, only for Harry to come along and inject color into the canvas of her existence. She’d thought she was happy… until he’d shown her time and time again what true happiness was.

And of course, on top of that he’d given her story after story that was… well, delicious didn’t even really cover it. More than that, the stories were… well, they were good. Not just good for sales, but good in a way that actually benefited and improved their society in general. Corruption at the Ministry excised. An innocent Lord of an Ancient and Noble House exonerated of the crimes he didn’t commit.

For once in her life, Rita’s work was actually doing what she had always pretended it did and speaking truth to ACTUAL power. For once in her life, she was writing articles that actually improved the state of affairs, rather than simply tearing people down.

And then, last night happened. Of course Rita had gone to the Yule Ball, and of course she’d done so in her Beetle Form. That amount of young people in one place? It was going to be juicy; she just knew it. And of course, she’d focused on the Champions and their dates.

To her credit, she hadn’t focused on Harry and his date initially. In deference to their deal, Rita had left them alone and focused instead on the other three sets. But mostly on Fleur Delacour. The French Witch was just too perfect. Rita hated how beautiful she was and wanted more than anything to have an excuse to tear her to shreds in the Prophet.

So yes, she’d followed Fleur around. Yes, she’d watched as the part veela sent her date off on a wild goose chase and then left the Great Hall and entered the gardens. For a moment, Rita had wondered if Fleur had a secret lover of some sort she was planning to rendezvous with in the Hogwarts Gardens. That had been the juiciest idea in the transformed witch’s head.

Instead… it was Harry and Hermione that Fleur and thereafter Rita stumbled upon. Harry Potter, receiving head from Hermione Granger. Scandalous. Utterly scandalous. And more so when Fleur was drawn into the mix, joining them both. How depraved! Terribly debauched!

It was hilarious, watching the Beauxbatons Champion try to take control of the encounter, knowing what she knew about Harry. It was rather arousing, watching Harry shut Fleur down in turn, and basically walk Granger through dominating the French Witch right then and there. Amusing was a good word for Hermione Granger’s piddling attempts at taking control, but in the end it didn’t matter when she had Harry’s backing and Fleur Delacour was apparently desperate for his seed.

Not that Rita was all that surprised. She knew from personal experience that there was something special about Harry Potter. Something… undeniable. The more time she spent with him, the more she found herself in bed with him, the more she craved it, just like Fleur had.

It was the story of the decade even with her recent stories. Even with the scandal involving Fudge and Lord Black, this was still so much… bigger. And sure, it said something rather deplorable about the Wizarding World that that was true, but Rita didn’t care. Or rather, she shouldn’t have cared.

It was just like she’d told Harry. She should have had that story written and published by the morning, and yet she hadn’t. Instead, she’d arranged this meeting with Harry out here in the Forbidden Forest, hoping to catch him off-balance, hoping to take him away from Hogwarts, from the place where he seemed to have so much power.

Only, her ploy had failed entirely. He’d arrived ahead of schedule, somehow trapped her under an invisible force and forced her to transform back. His power didn’t come from Hogwarts, and she’d been fooling herself if she ever thought it did. Harry Potter brought his power with him wherever he went.

Rita isn’t stupid. She understands that there’s a threat to her life here in this moment. If she doesn’t give Harry what he wants, if she doesn’t say what he wants to hear, she might not make it out of these woods alive.

She wishes she could say that influences her decision. She wishes she could say she intends to play along, to pretend to submit so that she can find another opportunity later on to make her escape and take her revenge.

… But that isn’t the case. In the end, the truth is far simpler. The truth is… Rita has fallen for Harry Potter. For all his darkness, for all his youth, for all his schemes, he’s the first man in her life… nay, he’s the first person in her life to make her feel this way. To make her feel… pretty much anything at all.

She can’t go back to black and white now that she’s experienced color. She can’t go back to that monochrome existence, now that she’s had such vibrancy these past months. Letting out a shuddering breath, Rita leans even more into Harry’s palm than she already was, staring into those beautiful emerald eyes of his.

“P-Promise not to abandon me?”

Harry smiles at that, his thumb rubbing along her pronounced cheekbone.

“I promise, Rita. Submit to me and I will bring us so closely together that neither of us will be able to abandon the other. You will be by my side forever, for the rest of your life.”

Ominous. Rita isn’t so unobservant that she fails to miss that. And yet, there’s a sincerity in Harry’s voice as well. Despite such ominous language, he really means every word. If she submits, if she gives herself to him willingly, then she will always have a place by his side. The her of a year ago would never have cared about something like that, of course. But the her of now?

Slowly, Rita sinks down to her knees there in the middle of the forest. Harry watches her go, his hand remaining on her cheek all the while. Maintaining eye contact with him, the blonde witch shows her submission in the only way that makes sense to her. She pulls open Harry’s robes, unbuttons and unzips his pants, and pulls out his cock.

Then, she takes it into her mouth. Slowly, tenderly, expressing her adoration and devotion as much as anything else, Rita begins to fellate Harry Potter. Right there in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, she submissively sucks his cock.

He smiles down at her, his hand on her cheek transitioning to the top of her head. His fingers wind through her hair, scratching against her scalp in a way that nearly causes Rita’s eyes to roll up in her head in pleasure. He doesn’t take control though, allowing her to continue expressing her submission to him through her own actions and merits.

As Rita bobs up and down Harry’s cock, she knows there’s no turning back now. And that… that’s okay. Because for the first time in Rita’s life, she feels like maybe, just maybe, she’s found something to fill the gaping, yawning hole in her heart.