Harry was currently sitting in history of magic, daydreaming rather than listen to Professor Binns. The past few weeks had been eventful to say the least.

First, the article in the Quibbler had made the rounds, and people kept asking him if it was true. Harry always confirmed it, resulting in many requests for his autograph until he'd taken to wearing his invisibility cloak while traveling from class to class. Yes, this advertised its existence, but it got him away from annoying fans. He considered that an even trade. Still, nothing else might have come of the article since it was not widely read by the wizarding public, except for one Gilderoy Lockhart.

Lockhart himself did nothing (what else was new) but girlish crushes on him led to odd friendships: case in point, his friend Hermione Granger and her new bestie (ever since it became clear that Harry and Neville would not take defense seriously) Hufflepuff Susan Bones.

Susan had gotten the article (after what appeared to have been a dozen changed hands) from her other best friend Hannah Abbott, and – like everybody else – wanted to know if it was true, but not for "oh-Harry-that's-amazing-be-my-friend" reasons, but deeply personal ones.

A lot of Susan's family had died during the last war, and apparently her aunt Amelia was now the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. If Voldemort was still out there, her aunt was living on borrowed time because of her position. Susan asked him point blank if he'd be willing to testify that You-Know-Who was alive, because hunting down dark wizards was her aunt's job, but all signs pointed to her not even knowing that he was still out there.

Harry did mention Luna's theory that it might have been a convincing fake, but said that he was fairly convinced that it had been Voldemort. Susan was not happy with this, but after a moment put on a brave face and said that Harry could let her aunt decide about that in an official capacity; all he needed was permission from his guardian to leave for a day.

That led to another discussion about guardians and communication. Jet Jaguar was missing or dead after his run in with Dumbledore, the Shobijin were too far away for owl post, and Godzilla couldn't write anyway, so how was he to get permission in the first place?

His question led to more of her questions and back and forth until they were both so confused that Susan just agreed to send a copy of the Quibbler to her aunt along with a signed statement from Harry that it was true to the best of his knowledge.

A few days later a stern looking woman wearing a monocle arrived with a number of guards – apparently called aurors, the magical police – with warrants to question Dumbledore, the staff, and Harry.

Susan was happy to see her aunt, Dumbledore was panicked by the sudden arrival, and Harry was confused that the warrant included him.

The greatest obstacles to Amelia's questioning were Harry's honest ignorance and Dumbledore's political power, but where the headmaster was evasive, Harry was just confused.

Harry told her everything as he knew it: his robot uncle Jet Jaguar had found him in a basket outside a house on Halloween night and taken him to Monster Island for safety. When he'd grown up a bit, his extended family had shown him the letter Dumbledore left and how it talked about Death Eaters and Voldemort being alive. He hadn't gotten any mail from anyone – ever – except for his Hogwarts letter. And he detailed everything about his first year except for Hagrid's dragon. When Harry got to the part about Voldemort, Amelia called over one of the aurors and sent them back to the ministry to get something called a Pensieve, which turned about to be an enchanted stone bowl capable of showing copies of memories. With coaching from Amelia, Harry extracted his own memory of the entire night and put it into the bowl. He also asked if he could place one more memory in there, since he might have witnessed something illegal, and Amelia told him to put that in too; he placed his memory of the abduction of Jet Jaguar.

After that, Amelia thanked him for his cooperation and sent him on his way. Then she started to question the staff. Hagrid was conflicted, but cooperated rather than risk being arrested – Azkaban was a truly horrible place. Having read the article, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were all cooperative because of their anger at their deception. They were not comfortable sharing their memories, but answered every question to the best of their ability, going as far as adding background and elaboration, including detailing the argument that the article had triggered.

Snape was oppositional throughout the interrogation, as everyone expected. He would not part with his memories, he would say nothing to incriminate himself or the headmaster, and because Occlumency at least partly countered Veritaserum Amelia could not force him to say anything. She moved on to Dumbledore relatively quickly.

The headmaster was also an Occlumens, so truth serum was out, and even for a determined and experienced interrogator like Amelia, it was like pulling teeth. The headmaster was evasive and obfuscatory about what he did and did not know and when.

Several weeks later, Harry received a letter from Madam Bones herself. It started off by thanking him for his cooperation and that his memories had been determined by experts to be legitimate and unaltered, and yet more experts had determined that Harry had encountered some manner of wraith. Comparisons to war memories determined that the spirit was indeed the one called Voldemort, but it was being kept quiet to avoid causing a panic; it wasn't a secret, it just wasn't being broadcast.

It continued with an apology. While she acknowledged that Dumbledore had indeed abducted Harry's robot uncle, under ministry laws as they were, no artificial construct – muggle or magical – was a person, and since Harry claimed that the robot wasn't his property, neither theft nor kidnapping had occurred in the memory and there was nothing she could do about it.

And so as Binns ended the nap time that passed for a history class, Harry trudged out slowly and sadly. Earlier in the week he'd turned down Nearly Headless Nick's invitation to his Deathday Party. He wanted to bury his sorrows in a mountain of food and when he'd asked about the menu the list that the ghost provided had been deeply unappetizing.

As always, the feast in the Great Hall was a smorgasbord of culinary delights. Exotic smells and flavors that there was no way for Harry to describe, only to enjoy.

Once the feast ended, Harry trundled, stuffed to bursting, alongside his friends and the rest of the student body until that body came to a sudden halt as someone near the front screamed.

"What's going on?" Harry was immediately in full defensive mode, prepared to cast and burn in equal measure.

Before the answer could ripple back through the crowd to Harry, Argus Filch came demanding to know what all the ruckus was about… and then suddenly roared in rage.

"MY CAT! MRS. NORRIS IS DEAD! WHICH OF YOU LITTLE MONSTERS MURDERED MY CAT?! I"LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU! I"LL–"

"Argus!"

Dumbledore had been lured by the noise along with many of the other teachers.

So Mrs. Norris was dead. That was bound to bring jubilation to much of the student body. That cat was among the most hated animals in Hogwarts' history.

"Argus, come with me. This is not for the students' eyes."

Lockhart looked about to step forward, no doubt to say something stupid, but he was cut off by Professors McGonagall and Flitwick. Snape was scowling but keeping quiet, and after shifting slightly Harry could see that it was because he was protecting those in front – apparently Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and a few other Slytherins were the first arrivals.

"So that you can cover up the incident like all of last year's fiasco? No Albus, there is no diagnostic spell you can't perform right here."

For a moment so brief Harry almost thought he imagined it, Dumbledore's grandfatherly mask slipped and he looked genuinely angry, but faster than a blink it was gone, replaced by something bordering on amusement.

The students and staff watched with rapt attention as the Headmaster murmured strange words while tapping Mrs. Norris, even as Filch clutched her oddly stiff body and sobbed. Lockhart was making the situation worse by talking about all the different curses that probably killed her and how he could have prevented it had he been there.

"She's not dead, Argus." Dumbledore stated.

A murmur passed through the crowd, and for once Filch spoke for everyone as he asked, "Not dead? Then why's she all-" he gestured helplessly, "stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified. ("I knew it!" Lockhart shouted.) Though how I cannot say."

"Ask him!" Filch snarled viciously, pointing past Snape to Malfoy. "He was right here, inspecting his handiwork on the wall!"

Snape's eyes narrowed at the caretaker as he replied, "Talented as Mr. Malfoy is, no second year is capable of such powerful Dark Magic."

Malfoy looked like he wanted to protest that, but a glance from Snape preemptively silenced him.

"We will be able to cure her, Argus" Dumbledore reassured in his maddeningly grandfatherly voice, "As soon as Pomona's mandrakes have reached full size, a potion can be made."

Mandrakes. Harry hated working with the things. His instincts screamed that the neither plant nor animal beings were unnatural, and their killing shriek only solidified this opinion, but now breaking into the greenhouse and setting fire to them was out of the question.

The students were ushered to their dorms and Harry slept fitfully. There had been a strange smell as he'd walked past the scene, equal parts familiar and alien, and it gave him a strange sense of oncoming doom.

He had a bad feeling that this year's mystery had much more at stake than the last.

Author's Note: Hello my dear readers. I apologize for the long wait for this chapter. The TL;DR is that my life has been hectic since I wrote the last chapter, but there is good news. I have returned with a clearer vision of where I want the story to go, and fresh ideas in my mind for how to execute the plan. You've been introduced to some Chekhov's Guns, some red herrings, and some filler throughout my work, and I hope that I can keep you interested and guessing, and that you will forgive my long absence. I wish you all happy reading.

– Kaiser Morse, aka Gojirahkiin.