I cannot express the excitement I felt when Mrs. Hermione Krum's autobiography was turned in to the Ministry. This enigmatic and secretive figure, even to those of us that took her Muggle Studies courses in Hogwarts, has always been closed lipped about the secrets and actions she was involved in as a member of the Order of the Phoenix—leading some to suspect, despite the protests of her comrades, that she was in truth a double agent with the Order as well as the Death Eaters. This book, however, has the full story in her own words.

Let's compare, to begin, an interview done a few years back to her words in the text:

"The hardest thing about this has been that people have been cruel to my family for their association with me. Regardless what people think of me, I ask they leave them out of this," she said earnestly, her untamable white hair pulled up at the top of her head as she drank the Leaky's specialty ale. "My husband, my son, and my grandchildren have been suffering under rumors that I was actually a loyal Death Eater. "

The subtle, quiet beauty that had captured the interest of both You-Know-Who and Viktor Krum was still apparent even at seventy-five, though her wan smiles and early wrinkles told the story of how much her past has weighed on her. She is still active with teaching as a professor at Hogwarts. However, arthritis had caused the joints in her fingers and wrists to swell, so for the first time since the end of the war she wore shorter sleeved robes and dresses that revealed the Dark Mark burnt into her arm. "I won't hide the Mark. Everyone knows I have it and hiding says I am ashamed when I did what I had to in order to help the Order," she said, then wore a rueful smile. "Besides, robe sleeves would hurt my wrists. I've used my open Mark to facilitate a discussion with the new third-year classes every year about blood purity, the war, and why Muggle Studies is so important."

"And what is it that you tell them?" I asked her as I quickly wrote what she said with an Accuracy Arrow quill gifted to me by Mrs. Krum.

The rueful smile faded into a much more solemn expression, her expresssion finally revealing just how much the war haunted her still. "You took my class. As I told you and all of my other students, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. To alienate and make Muggles seem as 'other' rather than merely magicless people with the exact same desires to fulfill their goals and dreams as we do is how dictators come to generate fear and hatred."

My quill stopped at the end of the sentence, and I couldn't help but take a moment's pause to absorb a very simple name she had said. "Tom? You still You-Know-Who by his first name?"

"I was his apprentice and his widow until I married Viktor." She paused for a long moment, looking torn, and then said, "My feelings on Tom are rather complicated even now."

"Complicated?"

"I loved him, but now all I feel is anger."

It cannot be denied that one of Britain's darkest moments in history was during the terrifying war waged by the Dark Lord and his followers, the Knights of Walpurgis. Those old enough to remember discuss that time, despite its short length, as like a nightmare. No one ever knew who would die next, who to trust, who might be threatened, if someone they loved might just vanish, or if they themselves might one day end up with a wand pointed at them, a black tattoo with a skull and a snake dark on the wand holder's arm. By the end of the war, one in six witches and wizards in Britain were dead or missing and presumed dead. Even now, many years later, we are still recovering from the losses of family, friends, and potential witches and wizards that might have been born and thrived in our beautiful world.

Our world will never completely be able to hide the scar of the terrors these witches and wizards wrought on our world, and no amount of imprisonments, Dementor's Kisses, seizures of property, and house arrests will ever be able to give justice to the innocent witches and wizards harmed. So many looked back on the destruction and desperately asked why, seeking answers through the paltry records that were not filed away in the Unspeakable's office. I am very pleased to present my expanded version of Hermione Krum's book written for her family. While her wishes had been for her records and items to pass among her relatives and not the general public, Ministry Edict 364 requires that any potential documentation relating to the war and Knights of Walpurgis must be put in Ministry care. I was very fortunate to convince a dear friend to let me see this top-secret piece of history.

This is a very personal account of one of the war's most infamous Order members—at the beginning named Hermione Granger, then Hermione Riddle, who claims to have been working for the Order but was known to be intimately close, and eventually married, to him. Post-war trials gave away by Knight of Walpurgis testimonies that she was involved and planned some of the most devastating battles and massacres of the war. As more and more of those involved pass on and those sentenced are having their inheritors' properties and assets seized, we are learning that the sheer scope of the war was far more widespread than we ever expected, and that there were more deaths of Muggles than ever reported—many planned by Hermione herself, and never spoken of at any trial. She herself was put on trial as potentially having been a double agent and for the deaths she was responsible for, but perhaps misplaced loyalty led all of them to speak on her behalf. To this day, those that are old enough to remember the scandal of her trial remember the intense and divisive feelings about her acquittal.

This manuscript reveals details of the war that, until now, were kept from the general public. There is certainly no doubt that Hermione (over the course of working on this manuscript I have come to feel as if I know her) was one of the main people responsible for the Order winning the war. However, were her loyalties was completely dedicated to the Order?

The truth she hid all of her life that this manuscript shows was that despite her marriage to Viktor Krum, the war, You-Know-Who's death, and the horrid loses in the war-she loved You-Know-Who until the end. How she was capable of doing so escapes me, as her narrative reveals that You-Know-Who was far more of a monster than we ever knew. Perhaps it speaks of some amount of insanity on her behalf to love an evil madman.

Her story cannot be looked at in a vacuum, so I have included documents that will shed more light on the whole truth of the situation as I did here—transcripts of the trials and interrogations, articles, diary entries, interviews, and many other things. Despite this supposedly being her explaining the truth, documents I present reveal that not all she says within the narrative line up with evidence.

Is it to merely make herself look better or to hide her sinister intentions even in death? Readers, the answer to that is up to you.

Rita Skeeter

February 10th, 1999