Chapter 2
“I’ve got to find a new Harry Potter before 1991,” Dumbledore muttered as he stared at his chessboard. He’d spent the last six months, since finding out that his puppet martyr was dead, trying to figure out how to create a new savior. Unfortunately, in the attack on the Longbottoms, Augusta survived and has been protecting her grandson like a mother dragon, ensuring that Albus wouldn’t be able to mold the last of the line into the savior he needed. “Perhaps if I scour the muggle world for magical orphans in foundling homes, I could manufacture a new Boy Who Lived. I’ve still got some blood I collected when I took the child to see Poppy after the attack. With the right ritual and that particular ingredient, I could make anyone into Harry Potter. Now, I think I’ll start in London and work my way along the tube. First stop is the Wee Nippers Group Home, and then I’ll try…”
His murmuring was interrupted when an owl swooped into his office and dropped the Daily Prophet on his desk. He’d always paid for the paper a year in advance so that he didn’t have to slip galleons into the pouch attached to the bird’s leg. He had several scars on the backs of his hands from trying to fumble the coins into the cloth sack, only to somehow injure or offend the bird, which resulted in a scratch or bite. Setting aside his ruminations for the moment, he unrolled the paper and stopped breathing for a few precious moments as the headline battered his eyes.
May 3, 1982
The Daily Prophet
OUR SAVIOR, HARRY POTTER, DEAD
Found abandoned in a creek bed like so much garbage
Rita Skeeter, reporter
My dear readers, this reporter has come across some shocking, heartbreaking news hidden in the archives of the file room at the Ministry of Magic. According to reports submitted to the DMLE by some squibs working at a muggle police station in Surrey, on November seventh of last year, the bruised, deceased body of Harry Potter, our Savior, was found on a muddy embankment eight hundred meters downstream from the neighborhood in which he’d been abandoned. Investigations led the officers to the Dursleys, where neighborhood witnesses spoke of a screaming baby that had abruptly stopped. A search warrant was obtained, and evidence of the child’s presence in the home was found in the form of a basket in which a blanket and a note were found, identifying the child as Harry Potter. When questioned, his muggle uncle stated that the freak deserved to die; that they didn’t want his unnaturalness infecting their normal child.
An animal trainer, who has worked for the police on a variety of search and rescue operations, and her husband, an off-duty patrolman, were walking one of her specially trained cadaver dogs along the stream when it alerted its trainer and the officer to the body of the fifteen month old toddler. He was lying face down in the muck and partially submerged in the water, naked and covered with finger marks which indicated that he hadn’t been treated very well for the very short time he’d spent with his only living relatives. The corpse was taken back to the police station by the coroner’s office, which performed an autopsy on that poor little baby. The results were shocking.
The child hadn’t drowned in the creek, as many of us at the Prophet had surmised. There was chlorinated water found in the infant’s lungs, which indicated that he’d been drowned inside the muggle home of Petunia and Vernon Dursley. Petunia Dursley, née Evans, was the older sister of Lily Potter, née Evans, and maternal aunt of Harry Potter. They have been arrested and are facing charges of infanticide, abuse of a corpse, and felony child abuse. Their own son, Dudley Vernon Dursley, has been remanded to their local Social Services, Children’s division, for further disposition. Harry Potter’s remains will be interred in a private cemetery at an undisclosed location, right next to his mother and father. There will be no public funeral; the Ministry wishes to avoid any sort of spectacle that may be created by any of the wizarding populace who might wish to pay their last respects to such a heroic family.
Because of ongoing concerns for muggleborns and halfbloods raised in the muggle world, on which this most recent tragedy shines a damning spotlight, DMLE Head Amelia Bones, Magistrate of Magical Law Lucius Malfoy and Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge have spearheaded new legislation that has been pushed through the Wizengamot with a vote of 49 to one; the single dissenting vote was cast by Albus Dumbledore. These new laws and regulations will allow the DMLE to investigate reported instances of the abuse of magical children, with the assistance of the newly-created Department of Magical Child Welfare, headed by Courtney Whitmore, who had received her certification in Social Work and Early Childhood Education and Development from University of York, located in York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
“This program has been a long time coming,” Miss Whitmore told this reporter yesterday. “For too long, the children who come to us from the muggle world have been shunted aside; their safety and concerns left in the hands of headmaster Dumbledore and his undoubtedly overworked staff. We’ve found reports, submitted to professor Dumbledore by mediwitch Poppy Pomfrey, as the laws had dictated, which have been ignored in favor of sending the children right back into the abusive situations, to be mistreated over and over again, and in some cases killed. The DMLE would like to interview both madam Pomfrey and headmaster Dumbledore, to ascertain the reasons that the children weren’t better protected from their abusers, but we’ve been denied access to the school and the mediwitch. However, they cannot escape the law for long; even now there’s a warrant making its rounds through the Wizengamot, drafted by Magistrate Malfoy, to bring those two people in for questioning.”
This reporter wanted to know why Albus Dumbledore would vote against legislation that would protect our most vulnerable citizens, and he sent me a written response:
I believe that the children are over-exaggerating their alleged abusive treatment; perhaps they’ve been disciplined and didn’t think it fair. Family is of vital importance, and parents will always love their children, no matter in what package they come. I do not believe that the children are so poorly mistreated, and I didn’t feel it would be right to waste the Ministry’s resources following up on such specious accusations.
Obviously, Albus Dumbledore’s assessments of the peril to which magicals living in the muggle world are exposed is grossly understated, as evidenced by the rather quick death of Harry James Potter, just hours after he was left at his muggle relatives’ house. This reporter, for one, is glad that an innocent child’s death has spearheaded sweeping change in how we deal with the muggleborns and halfbloods raised outside our borders, but that gladness is tempered with overwhelming sorrow that it had to come at the cost of a baby’s life.
“That bitch!” Dumbledore snarled angrily as he crumpled up the paper and threw it into the fireplace. The flames flared briefly as they greedily consumed the fuel before subsiding again. “I made sure that my contacts in the Ministry buried all of those reports. That she was able to find them and print this codswallop… I will find out how she’s able to get into restricted areas, and when I do, I’ll roast her for it.” Movement out of the corner of his eye had him turning to the window, where a sea of red winged its way toward the castle. “This isn’t going to end well,” he muttered, the master of understatement as Phineas Nigellus Black, in his frame, laughed for all he was worth.
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“Did you see this, Severus?” Tom asked softly as he handed his spouse the paper. Hawthorne was cuddled in his mother’s arms whilst he fed the toddler, and he gave the Prophet a cursory glance before turning his attentions to their youngest family member.
“I’m feeding Hawthorne right now,” the ebony haired man replied distractedly, still fascinated by the deep mahogany eyes of his son.
“Apparently Albus hasn’t learned anything from your example, or mine,” Riddle continued as he glanced through the article again. An arched brow had the older man chuckling as he continued. “He abandoned the last Potter heir at his mother’s muggle relatives’ house, and the boy was drowned shortly after he got there, then dumped a few blocks away. They found him face down on the embankment of a creek. Investigations led the officers to the Dursley residence, where they found verification that it was actually Harry Potter who was drowned and dumped. The muggles have been arrested and their own son placed in the muggle Children’s Services department.”
“Did they say who did this?” Snape-Riddle questioned sadly, sorrow spiraled through him at the thought of the brutal, ugly death of the child whose mother had once been his best friend.
“Vernon Dursley and Petunia Dursley, née Evans,” Riddle replied softly, watching his mate carefully.
“Dumbledore left Harry Potter with Petunia Evans?” Severus bellowed, startling his son so badly that the toddler started to cry. Instantly contrite, the younger man turned to his son and rocked and soothed him away from his fright.
“Evidently,” Tom told his husband with a frown. “Though the parents’ wills should have stated where the child should go in the case of one or both of their deaths, this smacks of some more of Albus’ manipulations. Of course it means that we’ll need to keep on our toes; after all, he’d worked it so that your friend and her husband would be murdered, as well as Frank and Alice Longbottom, just so that fake foretelling could come to pass. He’ll be looking for a child to take the Potter boy’s place; to build up as the ‘savior’. Although, how he plans to do that with the news of the toddler’s death is anyone’s guess.”
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“Arthur, did you see this?” Molly asked as she handed the paper to him. Ron was a little fussy, so she was trying to soothe him with a little potion in his goat's milk porridge, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“It’s all over the Ministry, love,” her husband replied with a moue of disgust. “The fact that Albus had put little Harry with those beastly muggles is rather shocking, but I don’t doubt what’s been put in the paper. I was there when madam Bones stormed into the Minister’s office, bellowing about the leak we had in some of the departments. I agree with her; we need to find out how Skeeter is getting all this information and stop private communications from being disclosed before something truly dangerous gets out.”
“But why?” the redheaded woman queried, shocked. “Why would he put the child with muggles, when perfectly good, decent magical families would have taken him? Hell, we would have made room for the little tyke here.”
“You know how cagey Albus can be, Molly,” the Weasley patriarch intoned gravely. “Whatever he’s planning must have something to do with that illiterate woman’s prophecy and You Know Who. He put Harry with his aunt and uncle for a specific reason, of which we’ll never be informed. Look what he did to Severus when the Marauders bullied him. You and I both know that Snape was never treated very kindly by his family, and yet Dumbledore sent him back to that hell every summer. There’s some reason why the man thinks abusing certain children is acceptable, but until we can find out what that reason is, all we can do is watch and wait.”
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August 14, 1982
Thomas Marvolo Riddle
Riddle Castle
Frangokastello 730 11, Greece
Greetings, Lord Riddle;
My name is Griphook Dragonbane and I am the accounts manager for the Potter vaults and properties. Since the death of the last Potter heir, the wills have been invalidated, and the inheritances have been reabsorbed into the Peverell family legacy, of which you and your son are the only living heirs. At your earliest convenience, Gringotts UK director Ragnarok Verdensmorder and I would like to meet with you to discuss a few things about the Potter vaults and properties. There are discrepancies in some of the accounting, and we would like to talk over options for dealing with the disparities. Please notify us when you can come in and we will set aside time to cover all bases.
May your gold always grow and your enemies bleed at the strike of your sword.
Griphook Dragonbane
Accounts Goblin
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August 15, 1982
Griphook Dragonbane
Gringotts UK
Number 100 Metallurgik Alley
London WC2H 0HG, UK
Gentle goblin,
Thank you for notifying me of the Potter largess and its disposition. My husband, Severus Prince-Riddle and I will be able to meet with you on August 21, 1982 to discuss the issues you have brought to my attention. We will bring our son, Hawthorne Thomas Riddle, so that he may be added to the vaults; he will need to be keyed into the trust vault we must start for his schooling. I am looking forward to the meeting.
May your vaults overflow and may your might crush your foes.
Lord Thomas Marvolo Riddle