What happened on June Sixteenth?
By Rita Skeeter
As many of you may already know, an incident occurred at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry nearly two weeks ago on June sixteenth, that resulted in the schools Headmistress, Deloris Jane Umbridge, being sent to stay at St. Mungo's for "And indefinite stay" according to one source from the Ministry of Magic, as well as Hogwarts' very own 'Boy-who-lived' becoming the interim Defense against the Dark Arts Professor at only fifteen years of age. Now, my dear readers, I ask you, what exactly was this incident? What is the ministry hiding? And just how connected was this event to what occurred this time last year at Hogwarts during the tri-wizard tournament? And what exactly was Harry Potter's role in all of this? I myself, had to find out. This expose was compiled through interviews I conducted with various witnesses. Students, staff, and even simple civilians. There were no barriers as I searched for the truth.
Due to the wide array of individuals that claimed to have witnessed these events, it should be noted that these accounts may or may not be entirely factual, but I have done my best to weed out the fact from the fiction.
The first interview I conducted was with a fifth year student, who not only shares the same house as Harry Potter, but also happened to be a very close friend of his.
"Miss Granger, thank you for joining me" I said as the young girl takes the seat across from me at a table in the pit of disappear that is known as 'The Three Broomsticks'. "I look forwards to hearing your recollection of the incident on June sixteenth."
She blinks, "If I may be honest, I was under the impression that you wanted to talk about what happened with professor Snape."
"The Slytherin head?" I ask.
She nods, "Well, He's not any more though... " she says trailing off, while becoming quite fascinated with the ground.
"He's not what any more?" I prompt.
"The Head of Slytherin I mean, or even a professor really. " She looks back up at me, "He left Hogwarts you see."
"Left?" I ask. She nods, "Where?" I prompt.
"Last I heard he was in Argentina."
"Argentina?"
"That's right, I believe he is trying to find the Ducky Lord."
[Even now, this reporter has no clue how she said that with a straight face.]
"... And why exactly would a man like Professor Snape be looking for a 'Ducky lord' in Argentina?" I ask.
She shrugs. "It's a long story..."
"I've got time, but lets start with the incident first" I said. I pulled my quick-quotes-quill from my bag and the official interview began.
INTERVIEW ONE: Hermione Jean Granger
RS: Miss Granger, please, in your own words, tell my reader; What happened on June sixteenth?
HG: Well you see-
RS: Please, speak into the quill dear, not to me. Pretend as if I'm not even here.
HG: Right… Well, the story doesn't start on the sixteenth…
RS: Alright, then when do you think it starts?
HG: Oh, probably around the eighth
RS: Of June?
HG: Of September
[At that moment I knew that I was in for a whirlwind of a tail]
RS: Okay then, let's start at the beginning.
Okay… So, as I said, it all started around the eight. That was the day that decree twenty-three was announced. The day Madam Umbridge became the school's high inquisitor. It was also the day that Harry Potter decided to go insane.
Since it was the weekend, Harry, our friend Ron and I were free of classes for the day, but as we knew this year was to be our OWLs, I was instanced that we spend some of our free time in the library studying.
"I don't see why I should even bother with this." Ron grumbled, shoving the copy of 'Potions for the average wizard' that he had been reading away from himself, acting as if it had done something to offend him.
"Honestly Ron" I said rolling my eyes, reaching my hand out to catch the book before it could fall onto the ground. "If you want to pass your OWLS then you need to study for all your classes, including Potions."
Ron scoffed, leaning back in his chair folding his arms behind his head "Come on Hermione, you know Snape is only going to fail me anyway, so again; why should I even bother?" Ron had never been one for academia, and I'll admit that I may have been a bit… adamant with my insistent on studying so early in the school year, but in light of the resent business with Umbridge, I also wanted to do something to keep my friends distracted. Especially Harry.
"Come on Ron, you never know, one day you might find yourself having to brew a potion one day, and you'll think 'man, if only I had listened to Hermione and payed attention to my potions homework!'" I said with a smile, swatting him with the book and depositing it in his lap.
"Ha. Ha. You think you're really funny don't you?"
"Funnier than you."
"Oh, whatever. It's a pointless cause and you know it." He said, placing the book over his eyes and folding his arms back behind his head. "Right Harry?"
Upon not getting a reply Ron repeated himself, voice muffled by the book. "Right Harry?"
"Hmm?"
I looked over at him, it appeared my attempt to distract him wasn't succeeding. He was sitting stiffly in his chair, glaring intently at the back of his hand that he had laid on the table. There were scars on it from his detentions with Umbridge. In them, she had had him use a blood quill to write the words 'I must not tell lies' repeatedly until, as she said; they sunk in.
"I was asking if you agreed that studying potions is a pointless cause." Said Ron, still leaning back in his chair. Obviously not realizing that Harry wasn't paying any more attention than he had been when Ron first spoke.
"Hmm? Yeah, whatever you say." Harry mumbled, not looking up from his hand
"See?" said Ron. "That's two against one, I win"
I sighed, "You hardly won anything Ronald, Harry's not even paying attention to us."
"What?" Ron said, sitting up in his chair, the copy of 'Potions for the average wizard' falling into his lap.
"Told you." I said, as we both observed our friend.
"What's up with him?" Ron asked. Honestly, he could be so thick sometimes.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe Umbridge?" I said sarcastically, crossing my arms.
Recognition dawned on his face. "Right…." He turned to look at our friend "Hey Harry?"
"Hmm?" Harry said, still not paying much attention to us.
"Mate, don't worry about her, Dumbledore isn't going to let her do anything too awful. All you're doing is bumming yourself out."
Harry finally looked up at us, clinching his fist.
"It's not just her Ron." He hissed, looking him in the eye, voice sounding raw "It's all of it. Her, the papers, the order, Dumbledore. They all either think I'm too young to tell anything too, or that I'm mad, and get off spreading lies. I think I've got a pretty good reason for being bummed!"
Ron and I shared a look, neither of us really knowing what to say.
After a few minutes of silence, I finally broke it by saying, "Harry, you can't let it get to you, I'm sure that the order has their reasons, they wouldn't let us join either remember? And as for the papers, what does it matter what they say? They say you're lying? Does that matter? We know what really happened." I looked over at Ron for support.
He nodded and added: "Yeah, who cares if they think your nutters! We know the truth."
Harry froze. "What did you say?"
Ron looked nervously at me, then back at Harry, "…That we know the truth?"
"Before that." He said, unclenching and clenching his fist.
"Uh… Who cares if they think your nutters?"
"Nutters…"
Ron looked back over at me, confusion gracing his face.
Harry stood up abruptly.
"I think I'm skip dinner, see you guys in the common room." And with that he left, before Ron or I could make any move to stop him.
And, I guess that was really the start of everything, about half an hour later Ron and I packed up our things and headed to the great hall for dinner.
It was a for the most part, an uneventful evening, none of our housemates seemed to notice Harry's absence, and if they did, none of them mentioned it. There was still a lot of tension between Harry and… everybody, over what happened during the tournament, especially with everything the papers had been saying…
Ron and I were just about to head up to the common room when;
"Hem-hem." Professor Umbridge was standing right in front of us as we were leaving the table.
"Professor!" I said slightly louder than I meant to.
"I noticed that Mr. Potter decided not to come to dinner today. Would the two of you perhaps be able to tell me why that is?"
"We-Uh..." Ron said, looking helplessly at me.
"What he means is…That Harry wasn't feeling well, so he decided to go up to the dorms to get some sleep. That's why we're leaving early, to go check on him."
She looked the two of us over. "Well then." She said with a tight, and obnoxiously fake smile, clasping her hands in front of her stomach. "Perhaps he should make a visit to the hospital wing? While there he might see if Madam Pomphrey can give him something to curb that nasty habit he has developed of spreading falsehoods, hmm?" It took most of my strength to keep from punching that vile woman in the face, and from the look on Ron's own face, I could tell he wasn't fairing much better.
"Come on Ron," I said, grabbing him by the robe and essentially pulling him out of the great hall, "Let's go see how Harry's doing."
When the two of us finally reached the Gryffindor common room, we were temporally distracted from our looking for Harry, finding instead a decidedly pink common room. Instead of the rooms usual bright red and gold decor, it was, instead, entirely pink. All of it, in all different shades; from the light baby pink carpet to the dark magenta couches. It was as if Umbridge's wardrobe coordinator had decided to become an interior decorator, and had used the Gryffindor common room as their first attempt. The only things that weren't pink were the people standing in front of the now hot pink fireplace.
"Wha-?" I looked over at Ron, whose mouth hug open. "It- Wa- it's-eh-wha?- Pink!" At the sound of Ron's voice, the three people at the fireplace turned around.
Unsurprisingly, the first two were Ron's older brothers, Fred and George. I say unsurprisingly, because the two of them are known for their percent for pranks; If something funny happens at Hogwarts, you can pet galleons to biscuits that the Weasley twins had something to do with it.
The third person however, was not expected. In the slightest.
"Harry?!" Ron and I exclaimed.
"Oh, hey guys" he said with cheery voice and a wide smile. A far cry from the gloomy demeanor he had had not two hours before.
"What's going on?" Ron asked, as we cautiously walked over to the three of them. Ron nearly tripping over coffee-table, that due to being the same shade of pink as the rug it stood on, was very easy to miss. Though it had been in the same place for as long as I can remember, so I really don't think Ron should have missed it.
Trying my best to compose myself, I took a few deep breaths before folding my arms and fixing the twins with astern of a glare (or at least as much of one as I could muster while in a room that was pinker then a princess birthday party for five-year-old) and in a calm, yet demanding voice, asked: "What. did you two. Do."
George let out a fake gasp, turning to his twin he said "Can you believe that? She thinks we did this!"
"I know!" Fred said, then he turned to face me "Don't look at us!" he said, throwing his hand over his heart as if I'd greatly offended him
"Yeah!" Said George, copping the movement, "This was all Harry's doing!" He nudged his twin with his elbow, "Right Gred?"
"Most definitely Forge! We're just innocent and intrigued bystanders guilty of nothing but admiring young Harry's handiwork."
"Please tell me they're joking" I said turning to give Harry a hopeful look. Sadly, my hopes of this truly being just another Fred and George prank were dashed when Harry couldn't look at me, choosing to let his eyes wander to everything but my own. At least he had the decency to look guilty.
Walking over to one of the now pink armchairs, I plopped myself down and after letting out an exasperated sigh, turned to look at my friend and asked "Why?"
"Why not?" He replied, in a rather exhausted sounding voice, plopping himself onto the couch that was cattycorner to my chair.
"Hmm, let me see. Maybe because turning one's common room into Umbridge's dream house isn't exactly normal behavior?" I asked, my voice wavering slightly in pitch as I tried to make sense of what was going on, fixing Harry with a look that was supposed to say 'please explain this to me in a way I can understand' but by the hasty retreat that the twins made, I figure it was probably more like 'TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!'. I'll admit, the events of the day were getting to me. Umbridge, the ministry interfering with the school, and now Harry's odd behavior. The obnoxiously pink room wasn't helping much either.
"Okay, why don't you try to calm down Hermione." Ron said, moving to sit down besides Harry. "I'm sure Harry is just pulling a prank." Turning to look at our friend he added; "Right Harry?"
Harry shook his head. "No, not a prank."
"Then what?" I asked pleadingly.
"I just felt like it Hermione. I mean, practically everyone thinks I'm half mad anyway, Ron said so earlier, remember? The Prophet has been saying so for months!" He looked down at his scared hand, then back up at Ron and me. "So…. I figure, why not prove them right?"
I blinked, trying to wrap my head around this. Okay, so apparently all of this was getting to Harry even more than I thought. Clearly, he needed a break, maybe someone to talk to, especially about everything that happened last year. I doubted he'd had much time to really process everything that had happened. Oh no, and neither Ron or I had talked to him once all summer. Dear Merlin he's been dealing with this on his own! No wonder he feels he needs to act out this way! He-
"Okay. How can we help?"
I gaped at Ron. He couldn't be serious.
"You can't be serious."
"Let's hear him out Hermione, this could be good!"
"How?! In what way shape or form could this be good!"
"It'll screw with Umbridge" Harry supplied with a slight smile.
"Or just make her think she's right! Then no one will ever listen to you!"
"No one listens to me anyways! Look, I'm doing this, I've made up my mind. Help me or not, I don't care. It's not like this year's going to be good for any actual learning, so I intend to make the most of it. Screw Umbridge, Screw Voldemort, and Screw Dumbledore. I'm done acting how people tell me to. So if you'll excuse me, I've got places I need to be." And with that he stood and began heading over to the entrance.
"Where are you going Harry?" I called after him, as both Ron and I stood up "They're going to be done with dinner soon!"
Harry looked by at us with a grin.
"I'm going to turn the Slytherin's common room green." And he swiftly walked through the portal, letting the Fat-lady's portrait shut behind him.
Ron quirked an eyebrow at me, "Isn't it already green?"
From the other side of the portal we heard Harry's voice call out "It's emerald green, I'm going to make it lime green."
"And the first thing you decided to do was make the common room pink?" Ron asked, giving me a sidelong glance.
"Well," Ron said making his way back to the couches by the fireplace, "This should be interesting."
"Are you joking?" I asked, "We can't let him do this, it's absolutely insane!"
"Maybe, but did you see him when we first came in here? He looked happy. Really genuinely happy. And besides, whose he going to hurt by pretending to be a little crazy?"
"He did look happier than I've seen him in a while" I acknowledged sitting back down in the armchair I had vacated. "But a little crazy? He made the common room pink! Ron. Pink!"
"Okay, a lot crazy" Ron amended with a laugh. "So, what do you say? Want to help our best friend pretend to be insane?"
I sighed, "What about our OWLS? How is Harry supposed to learn anything if he's to busy acting crazy?"
"We'll make sure he doesn't fail. Or, I guess, you will. We both know I'm useless. Besides, not all learning is done in a classroom, right?"
I shook my head, a small grin on my lips, "Alright fine, but I still think this is completely mad."
"You wouldn't be you if you didn't." he said with a laugh.
I laughed as well, and soon the two of us found ourselves both laughing like the lunatics that Harry was intending on playing.
Shortly after the two of us had calmed down and headed up to our rooms, I heard a loud: "WHAT IN MERLINS NAME HAPPENED IN HERE!" Come from down in the common room. It appeared our housemates were done with dinner. I grinned to myself as I climbed into my bed, drawing its curtains closed, I supposed this could be a little fun. As long as Harry didn't get too carried away.
RS: So that's the beginning of it all?
HG: Pretty much.
RS: Okay, tell me what Happened next.
HG: Oh, I'd love to, but I have to go, I have a HELH meeting to get too.
RS: Wait!
HG: Yes?
RS: Who knows what happened next?
HG: ...Ron.
Author's note:
So, for those of you reading for the first time, hope you enjoyed.
For those of you re-reading this and going "What the heck" I just want to apologize for any confusion. I was working on future chapters and I realized several things,
A) In order to make this story work with certain cannon events, I had to up the date of 'the incident' from March 16th to June. Thus, re-naming the fic
2) I Entirely re-wrote this chapter. The original was not my best work, and I feel like this goes better with the feel of the newer chapters I'm working on.
Thirdly) I changed the rating to T and the Genre's to Humor/Friendship, instead of Humor/Parody. Don't worry, It's still meant to be a funny story, I just feel like it's not as crack-ish as it was originally.
That is all, hope you like it! (09-20-16)
Reviews make my muse scream at me to write more, just saying.