When he's fifteen, Dennis' older brother dies. It shouldn't matter. Loads of other people lost good folks in the Battle of Hogwarts, and Dennis is no one special. He puts his trousers on one leg at a time, he kisses his wife goodbye before he goes to work in the morning. He rides the bus to work, he lives near or around London. He's the same as he's always been on the outside, the same kid who fell into the lake in first year and had to be fished out by big burly hands, he's still that kid. On the inside, though, his heart is missing. Broken. Big brothers are priceless. Irreplaceable. They show us the light when we think it's all gone, they show us the way forward when we don't know which way to turn. Dennis lost his. Dennis only had one older brother, and he let him slip like water through his fingers.
It's been ten years. The year is two thousand and eight. Dennis, unlike the American fast food owner, works at the Ministry these days. It helps. Going into work everyday and doing the same things today as he did yesterday, it helps. Absolves him of his sin, of his guilt, of the devil on his shoulder that tells him he should've done something more, that he should've been more. Realistically, he knows that's not true. We're not omniscient. We're not omnipotent. There was no way Dennis could've known that Colin would run off in the night. He's smart enough to know it for a fact. But his heart won't believe it. The Ministry is chock full of people just like Dennis.
Instead of worrying about the future that looms like a dark cloud, Dennis concentrates on what the Ministry places right in front of him. It's wrong, in a certain sense of the word. The world is not run by politicians, but neither is it run by worker bees. It takes two kinds of workers to make the world run. Eventually, someone will have to take a stand. Say, this is where I want the world to go. What the Ministry is doing these days feels deliberate. Practical. Under the patient and wise hands of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic, Dennis feels like maybe he'll like the way the world goes. Who knows, maybe nobody else will have to lose their whole world.