Persistence

Interlude I

A Time of Treason

 

Sins of the Saviour

The Life and Times of the Chosen One

by Rita Skeeter

 The nation of Britain is in mourning today, for perhaps the greatest wizard in the last half a century has passed away. The Minister of Magic himself, Kingsley Shacklebolt, announced the shocking news in a statement yesterday evening. Within hours the news had spread like wildfyre throughout the magical world, resulting in mourning processions throughout the country.

 A little surprising, perhaps, considering the fact that the Vanquisher himself had chosen to live largely outside the public eye for the past two decades. Or perhaps it only serves to show the extent of his influence in the magical society.

 We all know the tale of Harry Potter, the Saviour, he who was chosen by destiny to vanquish He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the greatest Dark Lord in magical History. A story for romantics, seeped in wonders and tragedies, a tale of titans made only more breathtaking by the facts that every impossible bit of it is true. We all know about the Saviour's exploits, his fight against the Dark Lord and his minions while he still was but a child in the eyes of society. We know of his legendary prowess as a student, his feats of spellwork that left his peers and teachers alike speechless in wonder. We remember his victory against the Dark Lord, a story old in the telling by many of his friends who had found in his example their own inspiration, had found courage to take part in his fight.

 It is irrefutable that he was a wizard as great as any one may care to name. He saved our nation, young and almost single-handed. He is often compared to Albus Dumbledore, a figure who had once cast on our society a shadow as far-reaching as Harry Potter has had in these years.

 And this comparison, some believe, may hold far more than simple analogies of power and influence. This may hold a truth far deeper.

 Harry Potter was born to James and Lily Potter, in the year 1980. He was orphaned only fifteen months later, his home destroyed and his parents murdered in the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And yet when the Dark Lord turned his wand on the baby and cast the curse of Death, Harry Potter survived; and destroyed his attacker by some power yet unknown. This story is known. This story is legend.

 And yet this is only a prologue to what we know of our Saviour, and the legend continues only after a decade-long pause. We know Harry Potter lived with his relatives for the first decade of his life, a period about which the usual biographies are strangely silent.

 This humble reporter finds it strange that no proper investigation has ever been launched to probe into our saviour's home life through his formative years. An investigation that would have uncovered strange truths, about a boy strange and distant from his surroundings. A boy feared and shunned instinctively by his peers, to a degree not completely explained even by his secretive wizard status.

 And this takes us to other examples, other wizards who had come before. Let us consider the sorcerer Albus Dumbledore instead, the one who, like harry Potter, had found it in himself to fight and defeat the Dark Lord Grindelwald – a comrade of boyhood who had gone beneath the shadow of corruption. Let us consider our Saviour's nemesis, the Dark Lord Voldemort – whose very name still goes oft unuttered amongst us. Both of them were great wizards, it must be admitted. Both of them had gone above and beyond the boundaries that define magic to us – both had found power in places great and terrible, and both had moved themselves with purpose through others who could but bend before their greatness. Both bereft of parents, or nearly so, in their youth; both talented, both purposeful. Both feared for what they did and might have done. Both respected for their power.

 History repeats itself, and it seems now that we have come full circle.

 Who was Harry Potter, really? Shunned, feared, different from all others around him - who was he born, and who did he grow up to be?

 Romantics hold him a hero, his life an example of what tragedies a man must bear. And tragedies have certainly not been scarce in Harry Potter's life, even after the most imminent threat to his life had been vanquished.

 We certainly cannot forget the death of his family.

 The summer of 2003, the last day of July. Harry Potter's best friends Ron and Hermione Weasley, along with his wife and their infant son had gathered in a private birthday celebration for our saviour.

 None of them had lived to see the dawn.

 A mysterious illness, the investigation had revealed, a magic no wizard could unravel. A virus, it has since been said, that simulated the symptoms of incredibly rapid aging process. And even Harry Potter, himself present in the gathering and the only one to remain unharmed, could offer no answer. In fact, no question about the matter had ever been raised publicly by the Wizengamot, and every single query from the press had been rebuffed. Understandable, perhaps. Grief does not make men amenable to relive their moments of trauma. And the saviour had grief enough.

 And yet the question hangs before us unresolved. What magic had killed them? How complex must it have been, to have foxed every wizard and witch the Ministry had assigned to the case.

 How complex it must have been, this aging curse, to have foxed harry Potter himself, who had even then worked with the Department of Mysteries, and have since headed their Temporal Division.

 The deaths are still a mystery, and now that the only witness to them is dead, perhaps so they shall always remain.

 We cannot ignore the strange analogies here; analogies that stretch sinister, towards titans of the past - the wizards who had helped shape the time we live in. Albus Dumbledore is one of them. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is another.

 Harry Potter, indubitably, is another.

 They were the ones that made our world. Through power and influence and the allure of their vision they had taken us and molded us. We have fought for them. Death eater or Auror – Light or Dark – we have died for them.

 Is it fate then? Fate, that dictates we – the ones not gifted, not given the vision and the strength to reach beyond what is offered to us – must bow before those who are, must live and die at their sufferance?

 Or is it our own cowardice that holds us back?

 Harry Potter was our saviour, we all agree – we must agree. Yet our vision of him as the great man he had been has to be investigated further, for the truth must out.

 And it will.

 In each installment of this report you shall see the truth that had been hidden from us for so long. A story of betrayal and deceit, of murder and merciless pursuit of power.

 Albus Dumbledore had led us through the turbulent times of Grindelwald, towards his vision of a world some would call utopia, others a foolish ideal. Lord Voldemort, also, had his vision of remaking our world into a shadow of what we had once been, a world where purity of blood decided everything.

 We have complained against such intrusions. We have protested. But under all pretense, beyond all illusion, always we have been led.

 We have been complacent. We have been even relieved, to be subjugated so. We have been deserving of every inch of of mindless slavery that had been heaped upon us.

 With Harry Potter's death, an era ends. An era of wizards with power unmatchable, but also an era where the strong suppressed the weak with ruthless efficiency.

 It is time to make a new world.

 Let us hope that we survive it.

 ***

“What a load of bull,” the heavyset man snorted as he glanced through the article. “You really think it's going to have any effect?” His plain black robes fluttered in the chill winds, and he wrapped his tight against his chest, shivering. His companion didn't answer, looking at the frost lining the road, white in the fading afternoon sunlight.

 “Well? Do you?” The wizard persisted.

 His companion gave him a glance, as cold as the wind that breezed through the deserted road. “It's not your place to question the master, Francois.”

 “Well, as I see it, somebody has to! Or are you forgetting that my life's on the line here, too?” The burly wizard snapped. “What the fuck is this – this, article – supposed to do?”

 His companion sighed, his exasperation plain.

 “Young people,” the wizard replied, “like you, Francois, always think of revolution as something bloody and... glorious. It is not.”

 “I don't see what that's got to –”

 “You don't see, at all,” his companion interrupted. His face twisted, the lines of age prominent, a map of time's passing. “The bloodbath that you wish for, Francois, is something I – and the master would agree – consider better avoided.”

 “We're all entitled to our opinions, I'm sure,” the younger wizard sneered.

 His companion shook his head. “The killings are not what makes a revolution succeed, Francois. You need to plan for it, plan for decades if necessary, waiting for the right moment. You've been with us for, what, six years? This plan was in motion before your father was born.”

 “And yet I don't know half of what  you are going to do. Except – except this – mockery –” the wizard crushed the newspaper in a ball with his hands. “The Ministry is in chaos! Suspicion, recriminations – everybody at each other's throats – we could strike now and remove each and every one standing in the way! Why all this bloody waiting?”

 “Half.” His older companion snorted. “Don't flatter yourself. You don't know a tenth of what our master plans, Francois. None of us do. It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of care, and the master is always meticulous. We know as much we need to know.”

 “I still don't see what bribing the reporter was supposed to achieve,” Francois shook his head. “She writes nothing but gossip and slander. She's a – a muckwracker. She's nothing.”

 “She's useful. People are gullible, and she has a rare talent of rendering even the most ridiculous accusations somewhat believable.” The old wizard smiled. “Imagine what she can do with the truth.”

 “You didn't answer my question.”

 “No, I suppose I didn't.” A smile, head a little inclined. “She's just another piece of our campaign. Harry Potter was a great national figure, and his presence itself gave people a sense of... safety. You know what I'm talking about?”

 Francois said nothing, listening intently.

 “And now he's dead. And there are things we plan on dragging into the light – secrets that's been suppressed by the Ministry for years. Britain is confused, right now. We aim to channel that into anger, by pulling and prodding at all the right places. We'll take away all their delusions of safety, Francois; we'll take away all the lies they tell themselves to find a little peace.” The wizard smiled. “A difficult task, but we have planned long.”

 “I don't like this waiting. The Ministry is confused right now – nobody knows who killed the bastard, or how. But they will regroup soon.” Francois shivered as the chill wind fluttered his robes.

 His companion shook his head. “The plan is going smoothly enough. They won't have the time. Two months, three at most, and then – ”

 “And what will we do, when all of it's done?” Francois asked, quietly.

 “Britain will be a tinderbox.” The sun was setting, and the old man looked at the red western sky. His lips twisted at the corners in a little private smile. “And we will strike the match.”

 

Author's Note: An interlude, because I think we've all been curious about how things were getting on in Harry's own world. There will be one or two more, later in the course of the story. I've also aimed to clear up some of the muddled backstory with this one.