The Forbidden Forest at night was a ghoulish, terrifying place. There was the odor of unfamiliar incenses and rotting plants. Shrieks pierced the night and low moans filled students with eerie unease. Brightly colored sparks crackled out of the darkness and bioluminescent frogs and golden snidgets twinkled like stars.
Jerry had snuck out of Hogwarts and was striding toward the forest alone. Every snapped twig sounded like the footfall of a Romanian Longhorn Dragon. He kept trying to cast "Lumos," but his hand was shaking too hard to light the tip of his wand.
He was about to turn around. MJ must have been playing a prank on him. Jerry was cursing the Malfoy name when he heard music. It was a strange and jaunty tune.
Jerry followed the music, stepping over roots and across streams until he pulled back a bush and saw a handful of students dancing around a fire. Leading them was MJ, who was tooting as loud as he could on a saxophone, devoid of any time signature or discernible melody.
Was this a group of cannibals? Jerry was trying to remember anything he could about wizard rituals for human sacrifices when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Hello, son of Harry. I've been expecting you."
Jerry spun around to see a centaur with a self-satisfied grin.
"I am Firenze," the centaur said. "And this is the Dead Wizards Society. Come along."
They walked to the group around the fire. MJ stopped playing.
"Jerry! I'm so glad you could make it. Come smoke out of the magic trumpet!"
MJ packed the mouthpiece of a trumpet on the ground with a strange assortment of herbs and powders, then held a match to the mixture.
"What sorcery is this?" Jerry asked.
"Sorcery? It's marijuana with a little PCP sprinkled in," MJ said. "The magic part is in the trumpet. Now stand right here and don't move."
MJ pointed the trumpet directly at Jerry's face and blew. It was an awful, discordant note that sounded like a giant farting. But within seconds of the sounds hitting Jerry's ears, the note was transformed into a full orchestra playing the most beautifully complex and sweet symphony he had ever heard.
It was so beautiful Jerry started to cry.
"That's why we call a sonic high," MJ said. "I just got you high through your ears. Now that's fucking magical."
Jerry found himself flying through time and space and rainbows and diamonds all while the symphony continued around him. Ballerinas twirled beside him until he reached a huge set of oak doors and inside all was gleaming and steel and bright until an all-absorbing white light brought him into an understanding of eternity that no mortal could conceive of. Slowly he drifted back to reality like a feather falling to the ground.
"Whoa," Jerry said as he sat up. He didn't even remember laying on the ground. "How long was I out for?"
"About a minute. Now let's get to business," Firenze said, as he stood up on a chair. "Why did we come to the forbidden forest, boys and girls? Because we wanted to live deliberately! We don't study and cast spells because it's cute. We do it because we are members of the wizarding world. And our world is filled with passion. Potions, charms, magical animal husbandry, the ministry of magic, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But actual spells, real magic, these are what we stay alive for. Carpe Magum!"
"My parents sent me to be a magical accountant," one girl said. "But I want to be a magic dancer!"
"I don't care if it kills my dad," a boy chimed in. "I can't go to magic law school. I won't follow in your footsteps, dad! I'll carve my own magic path!"
The group grew more and more excited. They shouted their deepest and truest feelings. One person started to howl, then they all started to howl.
MJ poked Jerry in the ribs.
"C'mon, Jerry. You've been awfully quiet."
Jerry let go of his timidity. He grabbed some ash from the firepit and smeared it across his face.
"I love you, Tanya! And I'm not going to the University of Iowa to play football, Dad! I'm going to be a poet and throw potato salad at my professors!"
"Yes, yes, yesyesyes!" Firenze said, slapping Jerry on the back.
"Wow, that felt good to say out loud," Jerry said. "So what's next?"
"The one rule of the Dead Wizards Society is to be true," Firenze said. "To be true to yourself and to history. Now Dumbledore first hired me to be a professor of divination — the art of knowing the future — but I quickly learned too many students did not know the past. Gather round and listen."
Firenze pulled out a tome titled, "A People's History of the Wizarding World," and began to read.
Jerry couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was more mind-blowing than the magic drug trumpet.
The Wizarding World was divided by rich and poor, human and non-human. The people portrayed like benevolent leaders by J.K. Rowling were often little more than oligarchs with their heels on the neck of the average wizard. The ministry of magic was a party-controlled bureaucracy whose sole function seemed to be the preservation of the oldest and richest magical families — chief among them were the ancestors of Godric Gryffindor.
In the 1960s, a wave of activism swept across the campuses of magical schools, including Hogwarts. Severus Snape printed an influential zine out of his dorm room, calling for massive redistribution of potions and dragons. Young wizards around the world were entranced by the writings of Tom Riddle, who advocated for a complete dissolution of the Ministry of Magic.
He was calling for unheard of actions, like full citizenship for Giants, reparations for house elves, ending torture at Azkaban, and creating a commission to ensure free and fair elections.
Riddle's words enraged the leaders at the Ministry, especially because they came from the son of a non-magic. Riddle was thrown into Azkaban on trumped-up charges. The propaganda arm of the ministry went on overdrive, dubbing Riddle a terrorist — "Lord Voldemort." The establishment wizarding newspapers derisively called his followers "Death Eaters."
But Riddle's fame only grew during his imprisonment and his followers proudly adopted the sobriquet as their own. Soon, acts of violence - hexings, curses, and even deadly potions - were carried out in the name of Lord Voldemort.
Riddle never publicly denounced the violence, but private papers later unearthed by Rita Skeeter show Riddle desperately trying to stem the violence from inside a prison cell while he lost control of a rapidly growing movement.
Nowhere was the debate more heated than in the Slytherin House of Hogwarts, long considered the UC Berkeley of magic schools. The ministry had tried to shut down the house, but Dumbledore to his credit refused.
Deep in the dungeons of Hogwarts, Slytherins painted signs and practiced slogans. Some shouted for direct action now, even if it meant war. Others called for nonviolence. Still others called for a more targeted approach.
They knew they couldn't wage a war against the ministry. Nonviolent action would never turn public opinion as long as the ministry controlled the mainstream wizarding press. They needed to acknowledge the truth of the moment. They were insurgents. It was Snape's idea that won out: Infiltrate the enemy and win from within.
Snape's two best friends were Lily Evans and James Potter. Outwardly James pretended to be mortal enemies with Snape, but only so as not to rouse suspicion. James and Lily were the greatest double agents in the history of the wizarding world, secretly passing information plucked from Gryffindors and the Ministry to Snape and the Death Eaters.
Snape thought it was crucial to win over public and political support if the insurgency would achieve permanent success, but James and Lily were impatient. They started building a cache of explosive potions — enough to blow up the minister's office. The intelligence wing of the Ministry, led by a paranoid and imperious young man named Cornelius Fudge, had placed ears inside the house of James and Lily.
Fudge was jealous of the young power couple who were rapidly ascending the ladder of power in the Ministry, but, to his delight, he found himself listening to a plan to plant and detonate explosive potions while the minister of magic was supposed to be touring Azkaban. Fudge called in the ministry's top SWAT team of dementors. They waited until James and Lily were home, then raided the house, left an assasination note "written" by the Dark Lord, and detonated the potions with James and Lily inside.
It was a public relations coup for the embattled Ministry of Magic. Rank and file wizards immediately stood up behind the ministry. All across the world they mourned the deaths of James and Lily, two doves of peace, while scourging Voldemort's name.
The Death Eaters went underground. Tom Riddle went into hiding. Harry Potter went into life without parents.
Only in the past decade had people started to publicly challenge the narrative long peddled by Fudge, the ministry, and JK Rowling. Each year, new bombshells were splayed across the pages of The Daily Prophet as wizarding courts unsealed secret documents and journalists interviewed survivors of the insurgency.
When Firenze finished reading, the group discussed what responsibilities they had to build a more just and fair wizarding world.
"Disband the fraternity houses," one student suggested.
"Disband the whole school," another said to laughter. "No, I mean I'm serious."
"Disband Hogwarts?" Jerry wondered aloud. "I love it here. Doesn't everyone?"
An uneasy silence fell over the group.
"Hogwarts, Jerry," Firenze began, "and this whole educational system works for who it's supposed to work."
As the night grew late and conversation fizzled, students started leaving one by one. When Jerry saw MJ stand up to leave, he started after him.
"Hey, MJ. Thanks again for telling me about tonight," Jerry said. "There's something you should know about me."
"Oh Jerry," MJ said. "I probably know more about the Potter family than you do. My father was quite fond of yours, and yours was quite fond of mine. He's been eager to meet you. He's proud that the Potter name is still at Hogwarts."
"Really?" Jerry said. "I assumed your dad, you know… hated me? But if that's not the case, why can't you play quidditch with us?"
"I want to play quidditch more than anything," MJ said. "It's just that the Malfoy name is a bit unpopular right now. My father thinks it's best to keep a low profile."
Jerry thought he was the only one at Hogwarts weighted down by his last name. He never realized that someone else here might know what that felt like. He grabbed MJ by the hand.
"You'll always have a friend in me," Jerry said.