Chapter 4
September 30, 1996
The Daily Prophet
MORE SECRETS COME TO LIGHT!
Things are far worse than anyone thought!
Annie Reed, reporter
It has only been a month since Harry Potter gave his resignation notice, and so much has happened in that short time frame. The DMLE has informed this paper that the investigation into the accusations made by, not only Harry Potter, but Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini and Luna Lovegood will go on for longer than anticipated. Hogwarts records, which had been rigorously kept in the past, have mysteriously disappeared for the dates in which Harry Potter was part of the student body. Additionally, the wards around the ancient castle, which had been put in place by the Founders themselves, have been tweaked, changed or, in some cases, eliminated so much that the school no longer provides the legendary safety and sanctuary that it used to.
Many of the staff have gone through rigorous interviews, to see whether they noticed anything odd or unusual about Mr. Potter’s time in the school, as well as whether they noticed the marked lack of ordinary care that the boy should have received during the summer breaks. Though most of the professors have had very little day-to-day contact with Mr. Potter, and were cleared of any obvious wrongdoing, some of the teachers had, in fact, more contact with the Boy Who Quit, and it was upon them that the examinations concentrated.
Minerva McGonagall, the teen's Head of House, came under close scrutiny. As she was the first line of defense for the young man, she should have been more involved in the day-to-day happenings than she actually was. She had no answers for why she allowed the boy’s own housemates to bully him, to the point that he had nowhere to turn for help or comfort. She, herself, admits that she consistently brushed Mr. Potter off when he came to talk to her about issues with which he was dealing. She claimed that much of her day was taken up with teaching and her duties as deputy headmistress, so she could never really make time to listen to him.
Severus Snape was another professor that had almost constant contact with Mr. Potter, but those interactions were anything but helpful. It was discovered, when the missing records were found, that professor Snape took points and assigned detentions to Mr. Potter for the most specious of reasons. Anything from turning a book page too loudly to breathing too loudly was docked, with punishments assigned. The teen was forced to scrub the cauldrons of previous classes for hours, which ate into his study time. The Potions Master also allowed his Slytherin students to throw ingredients into the Gryffindors’ cauldrons, but most specifically Mr. Potter’s, all so that they could ruin his efforts to brew a successful elixir.
Even when Mr. Potter presented an adequate brew, he was given the lowest grades possible, whilst Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, two of his Slytherins who had the IQ of a flobberworm, managed to achieve acceptables. But, as was said in the previous paragraph, he had no one to whom to turn to discuss this obvious unfairness. When asked about his clearly biased behavior, professor Snape had this to say: “Harry Potter is an arrogant, entitled bully, just like his reprehensible father. From the moment he walked into the Great Hall as a first year, I had the measure of him. I treat him as I do to make sure that his arrogance doesn’t result in grievous injuries to the other students. I make sure that he cannot treat this school and its students as his own personal kingdom, with him as lord and master.
“He has been spoilt and pampered his entire life, and I’m here to see that he gets a strong dose of reality in order to deflate his head enough to do his duty to the wizarding world. This running away from his responsibilities is a prime example of the foolish immaturity with which I’ve had to deal for the last five years.” Obviously, professor Snape has some sort of vendetta against the house of Potter, so this newspaper did some investigating, and we discovered some rather troubling information. Unfortunately, we cannot publish it at this time, because the DMLE is still inspecting things. When we have the all-clear, we will publish an exposé on Albus Dumbledore, as a headmaster and as a person.
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October 12, 1996
The Wizard’s Voice
LAWSUITS FILED!
Ministry scrambling to protect themselves
Jerry Thompson, reporter
In what can only be termed the surprise of the century, the British Ministry of Magic is being sued. According to the filings with the law firm Milton, Chadwick and Waters, the defendants in the suit are Minister for Magic Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Senior Undersecretary Dolores Jane Umbridge, the Wizengamot as an entity, and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as an entity. The suits allege that former Minister for Magic Fudge has continually harassed and slandered the plaintiff, who just happens to be Harry James Potter, Boy Who Lived. From the information that this newspaper has received, by request, evidence has shown that Minister Fudge paid the Daily Prophet to libel the plaintiff in order to ‘keep the teen from utilizing his not inconsiderable political power to destabilize the government’; Minister for Magic Fudge’s words; and to keep the boy from realizing his true influence in the magical world.
Senior Undersecretary Dolores Jane Umbridge is being litigated for a variety of crimes, not the least of which is assault and battery, torture by use of a Black Quill, slander, libel, and the attempted illegal use of veritaserum on a minor. According to court filings, Mr. Potter is alleging that during his hours long detentions with Miss Umbridge, which lasted nearly the entire ten months of the school term, he was forced to write lines with the illegal quill, which carved those words into the back of his right hand, since the writing implement used the writer’s own blood as the ink. Unfortunately, he was not the only victim; there were several halfbloods and muggleborns who also suffered this punishment, though not to the extent that Mr. Potter had.
The Wizengamot and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are parties to the suit simply because they fell in line with former Minister Fudge’s demands, and scheduled a full trial for the charge of use of underaged magic in a muggle neighborhood; an accusation that needs to be thoroughly investigated because, according to court documents, the teen needed to defend himself and his muggle cousin from a pair of dementors, sent by Madam Umbridge to ‘silence Potter in any way necessary, according to Cornelius’. They are also being sued for failing to secure a trial for Mr. Potter’s deceased godfather. Sirius Black was arrested at the end of the first war for murdering twelve muggles and Peter Pettigrew. It was believed that Black was a Death Eater, and that he was the one to betray the Potters on October 31, 1981. Memories sent to this paper have proven that, not only was Black innocent, but that Pettigrew is still alive, and that he was the Death Eater who betrayed the Potters to You Know Who.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s failure to investigate the crimes more fully, as well as speak with Sirius Black under veritaserum, had most likely cost the man his life, and his godson, the current Lord Black, is understandably angry for not being able to reside with the guardian whom his parents selected to guide him, should they not survive the first war. Mr. Potter wants his godfather exonerated, and knows that if he pokes the DMLE in the arse hard enough, they’ll put in every effort to satisfy this injustice. Mr. Potter wants this paper to pass on a bit of information, in hopes that the DMLE will finally catch the rat. DMLE Head Pius Thicknesse, if you want a lead in locating certain individuals, contact this reporter.
As well as going after the Ministry, Mr. Potter has decided to sue the Daily Prophet. Because of all the lies that Rita Skeeter printed for that paper, Mr. Potter’s life had been upended in ways unimaginable. It’s a good thing that she was never able to get his true address in the muggle world, or he might have been assassinated before he ever returned to the wizarding world. Every speculation; every falsehood printed about him will be examined under a microscope by Milton, Chadwick and Waters, and for every outright fabrication, a hundred thousand galleons will be added to the total amount for which Mr. Potter is asking. I know what Ms. Skeeter is probably screeching as she reads this, but freedom of the press does not give any reporter the right to completely destroy a young man’s life with lies that can be proven to be falsehoods. Libel is very, very illegal and is punishable by jail time and hefty fines. The young man is just beating the DMLE to the punch; not that they did anything about her poisoned pen before now.
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October 15. 1996
Weekly Wizarding News
THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING!
Mr. Potter metes out even more just punishment!
Jenny Young, reporter
As readers probably saw a few days ago, Mr. Potter has filed a lawsuit against some heavy hitters in the Ministry. Well, he didn’t stop there. This paper was given information on even more suits coming in the near future, and boy, are they huge! The first individual to be on the receiving end of Mr. Potter’s revenge is none other than our Chief Warlock himself, Albus Dumbledore. According to filings with the Altman, Altman and Altman law firm, Albus Dumbledore is being litigated for child abandonment, neglect, accessory to prolonged abuse, accessory to prolonged imprisonment and accessory to prolonged starvation that could have cost the young man his life, if not his magic. Mr. Potter alleges that it was Albus Dumbledore to abandon him on the front stoop of his relatives’ house in the muggle world, in the middle of the night, with only a note to identify the child and a fading warming charm for protection. Witnesses to this crime are Minerva McGonagall, transfiguration professor and deputy headmistress, and Rubeus Hagrid, Care of Magical Creatures professor and groundskeeper. Other than a token protest by McGonagall, no one thought what Dumbledore did to the surviving Potter heir was out of the ordinary or wrong. According to preliminary testimony, headmaster Dumbledore was fully aware of the treatment that Mr. Potter received from his relatives. At the end of the child's first year, when he begged to be sent anywhere else and that his relatives didn't treat him right, Dumbledore admitted that he knew that Mr. Potter would have ten long, difficult years, but that he was safe and alive, if not very well nurtured.
Minerva McGonagall is a party in the lawsuit as an accessory to abandonment and neglect. Additionally, she is also being sued for criminal negligence in allowing Senior Undersecretary Dolores Jane Umbridge to torture students unimpeded for nearly ten months. Mr. Potter alleges that he wasn’t the only one to go to her about the detentions; that a student by the name of Lee Jordan was also being subjected to lines written with the Black Quill, and when he attempted to inform the deputy headmistress, she sent him on his way without giving him the benefit of listening to what he had to say. Perhaps a change in the administration of the school wouldn’t be amiss.
Severus Tobias Snape is the third person from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to be sued by Mr. Potter, and his sins are a bit more disturbing. According to the allegations, professor Snape is being sued for gross negligence in allowing some of his students to throw ingredients into Mr. Potter’s cauldron during potions classes and knowingly endangering other students with this behavior. Professor Snape is also being litigated for accusations of torture and mind rape in an effort to teach Mr. Potter the art of Occlumency. From the information gleaned from the filings, Mr. Potter alleges that professor Snape did no actual teaching of the subject. Instead, he would take out his wand, bark at the teen to ‘clear your mind’ and cast the spell without giving Mr. Potter any instruction in how the boy was supposed to accomplish his task.
During these ‘lessons’, professor Snape would gleefully and maliciously rip through Mr. Potter’s memories and mock him for the abuse under which he’d suffered at the hands of his muggle relatives. Professor Snape would laugh at the humiliations and sneer when the teen protested the abuse, informing the young man that ‘Albus wants you to be trained in Occlumency as quickly as possible’. It was only when Mr. Potter invaded professor Snape’s privacy that the lessons were ended.
The last lawsuit is against the School Board of Governors, themselves. Mr. Potter alleges that they neglected to regularly inspect the school, leaving the students to face a variety of dangers, from a giant cerberus in the school to the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets; from over a hundred dementors swarming around Hogwarts to a deadly tournament that not only allowed an underage wizard to participate, but resulted in the death of a student. Crises that children should never have had to face occurred so often that it was a wonder that any of them passed their OWLs or NEWTs, yet the governing body of the school, whose responsibility is to see to the safety and welfare of the students and staff, never once made an appearance. All I can say is, I hope Harry Potter gets every single penny for which he’s asking, because he deserves it.