Chapter 1
“This is Danny Tanner, your roving reporter for the Wizarding Wireless Network News, station WWNN on the wireless. I’m here in Diagon Alley to get the man on the street’s reaction to the letter that was published in the Daily Prophet just three days ago, written by our own Savior of the wizarding world, Harry Potter. Excuse me, sir, but might I have a moment of your time?”
“Of course you may, young man.” The man's voice was rather bombastic, and the reporter flinched a little at the volume.
“May I have your name, sir?”
“Certainly, my fine young man. I am Bart Rozum, and I work in Damage Control for the Ministry.”
“How has that been going for you, if I might ask?” Tanner was curious as to what someone from Damage Control actually did.
“I am ever busy, trying to make sure that the wizards who wander out into the muggle world don’t end up revealing our existence to them,” the redhead replied with a wide, toothy smile.
“Isn’t that what the Obliviators are for?”
“Who do you think sends them out?” Rozum countered loudly. “I’m sure you didn’t stop me to talk about my job, fascinating as it is.”
“Right,” Danny muttered, “right. What do you think about the letter that the Chosen One sent to the newspaper, telling everyone that he quit?”
“Honestly, I was wondering what took him so bloody long,” was not the reply that the reporter was expecting, and he stared at the other man incredulously. “Seriously, why would that boy want to save our arses after the way that everyone has had a go at him since he returned? Why, it boggles the mind, how idiotic the wizarding public has been about that poor boy. Acting like mindless, ravening beasts certainly didn’t endear us to him.”
“Well...well, that’s a fair point, I guess,” Tanner stammered, baffled. “Don’t you think he should have stayed around until the prophecy was fulfilled?”
“Of course not,” Rozum boomed, scowling. “Divination is such a sketchy discipline, and prophecies are rarely clear-cut. For all any of us know, this is how the foretelling is supposed to play out. Hell, it might not even be pertinent to Harry Potter in the first place.”
“That’s...that’s a good point, considering that no one but Albus Dumbledore knows what it really says.”
“Exactly! How do we know that he isn’t spinning things for a different purpose than he’s been telling us? How do we know that Lord Shite for Brains is even back? We only have his word for everything, and he didn’t even witness the alleged resurrection ritual. I don’t know, but something smells awful fishy to me.”
“Thank you for your time,” Tanner said meekly as he nodded to the other man.
“My pleasure, my good man. My pleasure.”
“How...how about you?” Danny asked the next person, who happened to be an attractive young woman. “What do you think about the letter from Potter?”
“Hi,” she chirped giddily. “My name is Kamala Khan and I listen to your show every day. Your voice is so sexy!”
“Why thank you, young lady,” the reporter chirped enthusiastically. This was the kind of interview for which he lived. “What’s your opinion on Harry Potter running away from his responsibilities?”
“Well, if everything he wrote in that letter is true, and we have no reason to disbelieve him, then I can understand why he’d want to turn his back on us. After all, nobody really gave him any thought until he returned for Hogwarts, and once he was here, the paper went after him something awful. I actually kind of don’t blame him for running.”
“What about his duty to the wizarding world?” Danny queried in frustration. He was looking for that perfect sound bite that would castigate the Boy Who Lived as a coward, and no one was cooperating.
“W-well, he’s only sixteen, and our world laid that responsibility on his shoulders when he was a baby,” the girl answered thoughtfully. Many of the listeners, who had been swinging toward the idea of torches and pitchforks to scare the teen out of hiding, were beginning to reconsider what they were thinking, and why. “I’m just wondering why none of the major players from the last conflict aren’t out on the front lines, doing all they can to keep He Who Must Not Be Named from rising again. Why does it have to be a sixteen year old’s responsibility to save our arses? Why did it have to be a fifteen month old’s responsibility to beat back the evil?”
“But...but the prophecy,” Tanner wheedled, desperate to get some sort of scathing indictment of Harry Potter’s cowardice and dereliction of duty. Danny didn’t want to be one of those facing You Know Who, and felt it perfectly within his rights to try and shame the Boy Who Lived into doing his duty.
“Tell me something,” Khan snapped, her hero worship of the reporter fading fast under his attempts to get someone to say something nasty about an innocent young man, “would you be willing to fall on the sword, as it were, if it was you about which that alleged prognostication spoke? Would any of us be excited at the chance of sacrificing our lives for a cause of which we’d never been a part? That poor boy was left in the muggle world for eleven years, without any real contact with wizards or witches, and we expect him to...what? Fall all over himself to make us happy? Sacrifice any happiness he might have had in order to protect a bunch of cowards, ready to throw him to the lions at the drop of a hat?
“And then he comes back to the world in which he was born, and we treat him like an exotic zoo exhibit, when our reporters aren’t trying to shred his honor and his reputation. It boggles my mind that, after the first ‘adventure’ he had in Hogwarts, he didn’t run screaming back to the muggle world to get lost, just so that he’d have a better chance at a decent childhood. At least it would have been, had Dumbledore not dumped him with abusive muggles. We have absolutely no right to expect him to do anything for us, when barely any of us ever did anything for him.”
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September 7, 1996
The Daily Prophet
STUDENTS ARE COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK!
They want to talk about the Chosen One!
Diane Simmons, reporter
This article is going to be a long one. I was approached by several of Harry Potter’s classmates, who all wanted to ‘set the record straight’ in regards to his time at the school, and what they observed every year he returned. I have opinions from both sides of the fence, and what shocked and dismayed me the most was that his ‘best friends’ were actually against him. Here it is, folks, and it’s heartbreaking. Makes me wonder exactly what the professors are actually teaching at that magical educational institution.
DS: Thank you all for coming, and for being willing to finally let us know what really happened in Hogwarts during Lord Potter’s stay. If you could, please introduce yourselves for the readers.
NL: I am Neville Longbottom, and with me are Susan Bones, Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini and Luna Lovegood. We all have been witness, at one time or another, to the machinations of the headmaster in regards to Harry Potter, and we’re sick of the overbearing expectations everyone has for him.
LL: I didn’t really meet Harry until my fourth year, and I met Neville, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger at the same time. I use imaginary creatures, that my mother created for my bedtime stories, to comfort me and help me deal with all the stresses of school. Harry never made fun, and we created a special code, using the creatures as labels for certain people in the school. It was a way that I could communicate when someone was up to something, or was planning to hurt him in some way.
BZ: Theo and I came along a little later. Potter had been pushed into creating a Defense Association during our fifth year, because the defense professor was a Ministry mouthpiece who wasn’t teaching anything that would have been useful for our OWLs. Of course, because of Weasley, we couldn’t join, since we’re Slytherins, so we approached him after one of his lessons, and he willingly created another tutoring session just for the snakepit.
TN: Of course, most of our housemates were supporters of the Noseless One, so it was just myself, Blaise, and a few first and second years who wanted to learn how to defend themselves in the snakepit. I have to say, for not being raised in the wizarding world, Potter had a natural affinity for defensive magic, and he was a brilliant teacher. I’m just sorry that he had to run, but I really don’t blame him.
DS: Why do you call He Who Must Not Be Named the Noseless One?
SB: Harry started calling him that during our DA meetings. Because he was an unwilling participant in the resurrection ritual, he got to see the monster rise from the cauldron. According to Harry’s description, the Noseless One is probably six feet, four inches tall, with pale, scaly skin and very long fingers. His nails are like claws and he has red eyes with slit pupils like a snake, and slits for his nose. He’s completely hairless, and Harry said that he resembles a serpent more than he does a man.
DS: So why is everyone here? What is it you wish to share with the readers?
NL: Harry had a very hard time adjusting from the moment he got on the train. It’s unfortunate that Weasley was the second wizard he’d met, and looked as poor and neglected as Harry was. Potter’s first encounter was with Draco Malfoy, in Madam Malkin’s robe shop, and he left such a poor impression that Harry took an instant dislike to the other boy. Reminded him too much of his cousin Dudley. I wish it was me that he’d met first, but I was dealing with my own abuse issues, and we didn’t become friends until last year. It was because of him that I was able to finally see how strong and powerful I really am. I was more than happy to go to the Department of Mysteries and support him as he tried to rescue his godfather, but that turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions.
DS: Tell me about the variety of ‘adventures’ in which Mr. Potter became embroiled.
NL: The Philosopher’s stone was the first one. Dumbledore thought it a brilliant idea that he hide the artifact in the school, and informed us at the opening feast that the third floor corridor was blocked off; that we should stay away if we wanted to avoid a messy death. That was the first stupid thing he did, in a long line of stupidity, as saying something like that to a room full of adventurous teenagers is just asking for trouble.
He’d moved professor Quirrell from Muggle Studies to Defense Against the Dark Arts that year. Why? No one really knows, but I suspect that he knew that the Noseless One had hitched a ride with Quirrell in order to get into the school. Now, Dumbledore is really good friends with Nicholas Flamel, the alchemist who made the relic, and the headmaster went to his old friend to ‘borrow’ it for an unknown purpose. We all suspect he wanted the bait to lure the Noseless One into the school so that he could test his weapon; namely Harry Potter. I learned later that the gem was put at the end of a gauntlet, and that each trap was contributed by a single professor.
The first obstacle was a cerberus; a pet of Hagrid’s. If you knew your Greek mythology, you knew how to put the animal to sleep. Granger is probably the most well-read person I’ve ever met, and I have no doubt she would have been able to help the three of them get past the dog. Next was the Devil’s Snare, grown to maturity by professor Sprout. Any trained wizard knows how to defeat the plant, so how could that protect anything? Especially since three first years had herbology with Sprout and learned in their first lesson how to cast the incendio charm to repel the grasping vines.
Third was a room full of flying keys, and you needed a broom to get them. They were resistant to the summoning charm, and the locked door couldn’t be opened with the alohomora charm. Since Harry is the youngest seeker in a century, it’s logical that he’d be skilled enough to grab the right key. Next was a giant chess set, with two pieces removed. Ron has one thing going for him; he’s a brilliant strategist, and his skill with the game is what helped Harry and Hermione move on. He had to ride the knight so that he could see the board and plan the moves needed to defeat the game, but he had to sacrifice himself to do it.