Chapter 1
October 13, 1996
The Daily Prophet
CHOSEN ONE DEAD!
Harry Potter commits suicide in Hogwarts
Betty Braithwaite, reporter
In shocking news that this reporter has received today, Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived, will now be known as the Boy Who Died. He committed suicide in an out of the way abandoned classroom deep in the dungeons, and no one knew about it until more than two weeks had passed. By that time, the body was very badly decomposed, and identification had to be made by his magical signature alone, which was also badly degraded. Our Savior, and the salvation of the British magical world, is gone, and there’s no one else to take up the mantle of Chosen One. With the return of He Who Must Not Be Named finally acknowledged by the Ministry, it’s only a matter of time before we descend into a full-scale war. Merlin help us all.
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October 13, 1996
The Daily Prophet
HOGWARTS TO CLOSE!
Amelia Bones shutting the school indefinitely
Rita Skeeter, reporter
In a surprise move that no one saw coming, DMLE Head Amelia Susan Bones has announced that she will close Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry indefinitely, pending investigation of allegations made by the deceased Savior of the wizarding world in his suicide letter. Chief amongst those accusations are the lack of care or concern that the headmaster and much of his staff exhibited for the beleaguered young man, both before he came back to the wizarding world, and since he’s been here. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore shoulders the lion’s share of the burden; he was the one to place the orphaned Potter heir with magic-hating muggles, and never once bothered to check up on the child. He also failed to inform the Ministry of the boy’s location during his early childhood, and it wasn’t until he was accused of performing underaged magic at the age of twelve that anyone knew where he lived.
Arabella Figg, the squib who lived in Potter’s neighborhood, came to me with information about the way that our most cherished citizen grew up, and it wasn’t pretty. He was made to work for the muggles from the moment he was awakened until well past the time he should have been in bed; slaving like a house elf for the ungrateful muggles, who withheld sustenance of any kind whenever they felt like it. Until he came to Hogwarts, his bedroom was a tiny boot cupboard underneath their front stairs, and this was where he was locked away when they didn’t want to acknowledge his existence, or when he’d finished chores that not even our house elves performed. Not once, in all the time that he’d lived there, did anyone from the magical world come and check up on him. Not once did he ever see a friendly face from our world. It’s almost as if he was a toy that Dumbledore would bring out to perform its tricks, before he put it away until next time.
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October 13, 1996
Memo from the desk of Amelia Susan Bones
Head, Department of Magical Law Enforcement
Cornelius,
After preliminary investigation and interviews, I’ve decided that the school needs to be shut down for the immediate future. There are so many things that have gone on there, right under our very noses, that give me grave concerns. It appears that each year Harry Potter attended, there was some ‘crisis’ that would occur, and he would invariably be dragged into the middle of it; the purpose of which I do not know at this time. Suffice it to say that every incident presented a clear and present danger to the staff and students, and yet the headmaster never lifted a finger to investigate or settle the issue. In fact, from all appearances, it seems like he may have engineered each catastrophe, just to see how the Boy Who Lived would handle it.
The ‘challenges’ have resulted in injuries to Potter and his friends, with at least two of the adventures resulting in someone’s death; three if you count the incident at the Ministry last year. Unfortunately, Harry Potter was at the center of each and every test, for lack of a better term, and he’s the one who had suffered the most, both emotionally and physically. I can’t help but think that, had he had a secure support system in place, he might not have taken his own life to escape the pain and guilt of just living.
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Interview with Hermione Jane Granger, dated October 16, 1996
Interrogators: Amelia Susan Bones, Head DMLE; Gawain Robards, Head Auror; John Dawlish, Auror
AB: You know why you’re here, Miss Granger?
HG: Yes, ma’am.
AB: The first question I want to ask is, why didn’t you notice anything wrong with Mr. Potter? I’ve got testimony that states that you and Mr. Ronald Weasley were his best friends.
HG: I...I did notice that Harry was a little distant, and I had intended to talk to the headmaster about it, but I became distracted with homework and making sure that I had all my books and study notes. I was also Prefect, and those duties took up quite a bit of my time. And...and I needed to make time for my relationship with Ron. We’d finally acknowledged our feelings for each other, and I didn’t want anything to interfere with that.
GR: So, to summarize, your friendship with Mr. Potter took a backseat to all the other things that were important to you?
HG: Y-yes sir. Harry’s fallen into these funks before. I didn’t think that this time would be any different.
AB: When did Mr. Potter fall into these ‘funks’, as you call them?
HG: W-well, after he rescued the Philosopher’s stone...
AB: When he killed Quirinus Quirrell, who was hosting a piece of the shattered soul of You Know Who.
HG: Yes, ma’am. He was kind of distant after the Chamber of Secrets...
AB: This was another incident where he had to fight for his life? Where he had to kill a living thing to survive?
HG: Y-yes, ma’am. And then, after the Triwizard Tournament...
AB: Once again, when he witnessed the murder of a classmate and was involved in a resurrection ritual that brought back He Who Must Not Be Named.
HG: Yes. He was sad for a long time after he found his godfather, and I’m sure that was because he couldn’t escape the Dursleys like he wanted. And then, last year...
AB: Where he, once again, witnessed the passing of someone he loved. Are you seeing a pattern here, Miss Granger?
HG: Harry’s always bounced back from these challenges. Granted, it took him some time after Cedric, but I figured he’d bounce back again in no time. I didn’t think he’d take his own life!
AB:Did you ever stop to think that he might have 'bounced back', as you say, if he'd received some support and kind words from his friends? From his surrogate family?
HG: But professor Dumbledore said...
AB: I see. The great and powerful wizard of Oz speaks, and everyone kisses his arse.
GR: How many times did the school, as a whole, accuse Mr. Potter of being responsible for the catastrophes that befell the school? Why did the students point their fingers at Mr. Potter and blame him for the accidents that injured other students?
HG: I don’t recall them doing anything like that...
GR: Let me refresh your memory. Second year, they called Mr. Potter the Heir of Slytherin, and accused him of releasing the basilisk to ‘kill the muggleborns’. Fourth year, they accused him of cheating; of putting his name in the Goblet of Fire so that he could steal the glory from the ‘true’ champion, Cedric Diggory. They also accused him of murdering Diggory so that Mr. Potter could be the only Hogwarts champion. Fifth year, they turned on him as a whole and called him a delusional liar when he said that You Know Who had returned. In fact, they were still calling him that up until he died.
HG: Ron and I always supported Harry, no matter what. If he was having trouble dealing with things, he knew he could always come to us.
AB: Didn’t Mr. Weasley accuse Mr. Potter of cheating his way into the tournament? Didn’t you choose to side with Mr. Weasley, instead of supporting the true innocent in that mess?
HG: Well...well, yes, Ron did. I told Harry that Ron needed me more than he did, and he agreed with me. That’s why I stayed by Ron’s side during that whole incident.
AB: Did it occur to you that perhaps your friend needed your support more than your boyfriend? That Mr. Potter had the entire school, including much of the staff, talking about him and treating him like he was diseased, and there was no one helping him deal with it?
HG: Professor Dumbledore told us that we couldn’t prioritize Harry over anyone else. That he would become arrogant and refuse to do his duty. Harry had to struggle in order to build up his character enough to do what was expected of him. Everything that happened in school was part of his training.
JD: And we see where all this ‘training’ has led. This ends the interview with Hermione Jane Granger.
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Interview with Minerva Melanie McGonagall, dated October 18, 1996. Interviewers are Amelia Susan Bones, Head DMLE; Gawain Robards, Head Auror; Kingsley Rutherford Shacklebolt, Auror.
AB: You know why you’re here?
MM: Aye, I do.
AB: Why didn’t you do anything about all the harassment and bullying Mr. Potter had to deal with during most of his time at Hogwarts?
MM: Albus told the other teachers and I that we weren’t to interfere with Harry’s day-to-day life in the school. That we should only step in if things became violent between any of the other students and he.
AB: So none of those scuffles ever became violent?
MM: Not to my knowledge.
AB: Why didn’t you let Mr. Potter tell you what was going on with defense professor Dolores Umbridge? Though the body was badly decomposed, we still saw the remnants of the scar on the back of his right hand, no doubt inscribed there by the Black quills we found in her possession.
MM: She was causing no end of strife amongst the students and staff, and more than one pupil came to me to complain about her classes. I thought Harry was just one more in a long line of complainers, and I didn’t want to hear any more about it. I regret not listening to him when I had the chance; perhaps I might have been able to prevent the outcome with which we’re now dealing.
AB: Have you ever known Mr. Potter to complain about anything?
MM: Not to my recollection. In looking back, I realize that if he’d come to me to talk about a teacher, then it must have been fairly bad, considering that he never said a word about Severus' treatment of him. He never complained when he was in pain, and with some of the ‘adventures’ in which he participated, I know that he had to have been feeling excruciating agony. I blame the muggles for that high tolerance.
AB: I am aware that you were with Albus Dumbledore when he chose to dump Mr. Potter on the front stoop of his muggle aunt’s house. What made you or he think that a toddler would be safe sleeping overnight on someone’s doorstep?
MM: I had expressed my grave doubts about the suitability of the muggles to raise Harry many, many times to Albus, but he always thought he knew best, and I could never argue him out of a path he’d chosen to take. I regret not grabbing that innocent little boy up and hiding him away, but there’s nothing for it now.
KS:So, in effect, all of us, who promised to protect that child, in one form or another completely ignored his pain and suffering, all on the say-so of Albus Dumbledore, our lord and master. This ends the interview with Minerva Melanie McGonagall.
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October 24, 1996
FROM: Amelia Susan Bones, Head DMLE
TO: Rosalie Mullins, Head, Department of Magical Education
Rosie,
I’ve finished the interviews with the students and professors of Hogwarts, and what I’ve heard hasn’t been good. What I propose to do is shut down Hogwarts for the foreseeable future so that we can get a look at the records that the school keeps about all the incidents and magics that occurred in the building over the last hundred or so years. It shouldn't have taken this long, but you know how Minister Fudge likes to nitpick until every 't' is crossed and 'i' is dotted.
If what I suspect is true, then there’s a great deal of house cleaning we need to do before Hogwarts is up to scratch enough to reopen as a school. I know that things have gone downhill since Dumbledore took over, but I never realized how bad things actually were until the death of Harry Potter. There are things going on behind the scenes that we really need to take a look at, and we’ll also need to ask ourselves if we have the right people in charge of our students’ educations. Let me know when we can get together to talk this out.
Amy