The election is around the corner, so it is only a matter of time until Harry Potter will ascend to the magical premiership. The youngest minister ever, the shining light of our people, but in so many ways a complete enigma. Where does he come from, what makes him tick and what really happened during the tri-wizard-tournament? Join Rita Skeeter, special correspondent, in her weekly series “Anatomy of a Leader”, one writer’s attempt to retrace the trail Harry Potter blazed through the world ever since that fateful night 17 years ago.
“Anatomy of a Leader”
by Rita Skeeter
Part three “Secrets”
The first year at Hogwarts was done and Harry Potter returned to the hamlet of Little Whinging, to the welcoming arms of his family. “We were told when to pick him up at the station,” said Harry’s aunt Petunia, “and so we did. It was [nice] to see that he had made friends, but he [wouldn’t] tell us what that school was like.” Away from the rigours of school Harry was free to relax and “…[play] with [cousin] Durdly and the dogs of [Petunia’s sister in law]”.
He did not stay in Surrey for the whole summer. It had been arranged that he would spend part of it with the family of one of his friends from school, to stay immersed in wizarding culture. A family that is to thank for guiding Harry to London and into Diagon Alley’s own “Flourish & Blotts” at just the right moment.
“It might have been a coincidence, but I like to think that fate guided his way,” said Gilderoy Lockhart, the dashing author, adventurer and regular recipient of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award. “Here I was, magical me, presenting ‘Magical Me’, my first autobiography,” he said while smiling one of his dazzling smiles. “And who walks in, but Harry Potter. I forgot who he was with, but I recognised him immediately and how can you not? The scar is right there in that vast expanse of forehead. So I approached him, for a photo, help him get on the front page of the ‘Prophet’. He was such a good sport, polite, and even then he had that hundred galleon smile that just lifts your heart. That was before I had the pleasure of being his teacher. And you know what, it worked. Front page of the ‘Prophet’ the very next day. With the headline ‘Hero Meets Hero’. It was beautiful. There was some kind of altercation in the book store then—I don’t remember why—and unfortunately I had to leave, but this was not the last time Harry and I crossed paths.”
Less than a week later the opening feast marked the beginning of another school year. Lockhart was presented as the Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor. A position long considered to be cursed. Despite being one of the best teachers to fill the position in a long time, Lockhart did not stay on beyond the single year. “I was one of the best teachers to fill the position in a long time,” he confirmed, “but I didn’t stay on beyond the single year. There was no curse, but after what happened, my thirst for adventure was reawakened. I had places to go, monsters to slay and books to write”
What had happened was the emergence of Slytherin’s monster. A mysterious foe that struck at the inhabitants of Hogwarts castle. In a reversal of the previous year, the first months were quiet. Then, on the night of the Halloween feast, the first attack occurred. The caretaker’s cat was found petrified in one of the school’s corridors. A wave of attacks followed. After the pet, a ghost and then students were frozen by the unknown attacker. Looking back it was obvious what kind of beast was on the loose. Amidst the attacks, though, even the experts were stumped. “I was stumped,” said the handsome hunk Lockhart, “whoever heard of a monster that only petrified its victims? I mean, I had, of course. But a monster that left the paralysed victims behind? That didn’t make a lot of sense. Even so none of the likely culprits could hide in an environment like Hogwarts. I don’t say that lightly, but it was a bit of bad luck that nobody died then. A single body and I would have solved the puzzle a lot sooner. Alas, nobody died. Well, apart from that Wesly girl, obviously”
The culprit was nothing less than a basilisk, king of snakes with a literal glare of death. It was only due to an almost unbelievable string of coincidences that nobody stared into the beast’s eyes. The victims only caught the monster’s gaze in reflections or through cameras and thus were spared the instant death. With every attack the public, and with it the board of governors, got more restless. Closure of Hogwarts was considered, as was the sacking of Headmaster Dumbledore. Then the attacks abated for a while and heated tempers had time to cool. Until catastrophe struck. A girl vanished and graffiti promised her death. The girl, one Virgina Wesly, was gone without a trace. There was no petrified body, ready to wait with the others for an almost ready remedy. The writing on the wall claimed that her body would forever lie in “The Chamber of Secrets”. The governors did they only thing they could. They ousted Dumbledore and ordered the school’s evacuation. To his credit the old man remained steadfast and helped Gilderoy Lockhart to take on the menace.
“Naturally Dumbledore knew where to find that chamber of secrets, it was his school, after all, but he wasn’t exactly in double figures anymore. So he called upon me to help. Truth be told the rest of the faculty were running scared like headless chicken. So we went to the dungeons and into the chamber and, well, if you want to know what happened then you will have to by the book like everybody else.” Bashing the Basilisk, by Gilderoy Lockhard, is available in all good bookstores and via owl. “Suffice it to say that we prevailed. What a shame that Dumbledore suffered this nasty fall and lost all recollection of the events.”
The crisis was averted but all was not well at Hogwarts. In the words of Tracey Davis, a fetching former Slytherin student: “It really was a sad evening. We did not know if the school would re-open, we did not know if we could continue. Dumbledore was injured, Lockhart exhausted and while he had slain the Monster we just didn’t know what to do. And a student had died. Then I looked at Harry and he was smiling, you know. Smiling. I mean I hadn’t known the girl and she wasn’t anybody important, but he might have. She was in his house, right? But he was smiling and he said ’I am Harry Potter’ and he was. And I think that gave us power. Life’s dangerous, but someone’s going to look out for us. It was infectious, really. After a while we were all smiling and then standing up, jumping on the tables and chanting ‘I am Harry Potter! I am Harry Potter!’ I don’t think the school has ever been this united before or since. Suddenly we knew that even if one of our number should fall we would remain. I think everyone in charge saw that the school needed to continue then and it did. If they ever want to rename it into ‘Potter’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’ I don’t think anyone would object.”
When it became clear, a few days later, that it was Miss Wesly who awakened the monster in the first place, the feeling of unity faded somewhat. Her motivations remain clouded in mystery and it is unknown from which dark tomes she learned how to summon the basilisk, but it seems a fitting punishment that she was felled by her own sword.
As for Harry Potter, he had shown that he could command the hearts and minds of the people. He must have been happy to look forward to a peaceful summer. A summer that turned out to be anything but. Join us again next week for the sordid tale of the man, who would stop at nothing, in pursuit of his decade old quest to kill Harry Potter.