A Measured Response

This tragedy in Magical Britain demanded to be written. Harry returns from India where he's been studying parsel magic to hear of a tragedy that strikes close to him. Worse there are attempts to cover it up. This is pretty – uh – very dark. Be warned. BASHING Goblins, Weasleys, Ministry.

Everything belongs to Rowling. I'm just playing in the sand on the beach, and the tide will wash away all sandcastles.

+++ BEGIN: Streams of Water in Diagon Alley

Before the sun rose on a cold morning in the middle of May 1999, Florence Fortescue used the floo in his home to travel to the Leaky Cauldron for breakfast with the regular crowd of early morning workers. Madam Blueberry from Sweet Berry Trunks was quiet, her mind on her plans for the day included a complete inventory of her store. Fortescue ate his usual Full English and paid Tom like always before stepping out into the alley through the porthole. As soon as he was in the alley, Fortescue noticed a small stream of water dribbling across the cobblestones before disappearing into the drains.

'Did it rain here in the alley?' the wizard wondered momentarily. Looking around a bit more, he traced the water back to the steps and door of Gringotts. There weren't any goblin guards on duty, and he quickly crossed the alley to knock on the door, once…twice and then a third time.

No goblin came to open the door, so Fortescue grabbed hold of the handles and pulled them open. Water rushed out of the bank lobby and came up to the ankles of the wizard's boots; the wizard remained upright only because he held onto the door handle. The wave diminished quickly, and the drains on the street removed the water quickly. But there were no goblins anywhere in the lobby of the bank. The ever-burning lamps were extinguished, and the atmosphere in the darkened bank lobby smelled of wet stone.

Returning to the Leaky Cauldron, Fortescue went to the floo and summoned the Aurors. Then he hurried to his ice cream shop. He imagined increased business today with Aurors, Ministry officials and even the ICW might send people out to see this mystery at Gringotts Bank.

+++ SAME DAY: The Ministry for Magic

In the early hours of that same morning (2 May 1999) there were only seven Aurors present in the Ministry for Magic hidden underneath a car park in London. The wizards and witches felt the entire building move as the walls and floors cracked and buckled in several places. The statues in the fountain were thrown down – the wizard lay face down in the water with the goblin statue sitting on the back of the statue's head.

The worst damage was that every elevator shaft was twisted out of shape. The lifts would not run again until a team of goblin engineers was summoned to repair them. The Aurors on duty filed their reports and complained when they had to climb the stairs between floors. The floo administration office and the Atrium were unaffected, so no one raised any emergency alarms.

While an Auror levitated the golden goblin off the golden wizard, DMLE Director, Hastings Proudfoot, began directing Aurors into crowd control as wizards and witches used the staircases to move around the building from the Atrium with wizards and witches exiting the floos on their way to their offices. Given the state of the elevators (not running), Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, used his emergency authority to cancel all trials scheduled for the week and ordered his secretaries to send Owls to the Wizengamot members to NOT come to Ministry.

"Why did you tell them not to come here?" asked Director Proudfoot.

Kingsley grinned, "That guarantees the old purebloods will come. I want them to personally see the cracked walls and floors. They'll not believe that elevator shafts are unusable unless they see it themselves. That way I can force them to agree to hold this week's meeting in the Great Hall at Hogwarts this afternoon."

"McGonagall's not going to like that," muttered a secretary loud enough to be heard.

"McGonagall doesn't like anything or anyone," the DMLE Director replied.

At 9:15 AM, DMLE Director Hastings Proudfoot used the floo to leave the ministry and travel to the Leaky Cauldron. He and his security detail proceeded immediately to the alley. There, Proudfoot surveyed the dark and wet lobby of the deserted bank. He ordered four Aurors to protect the doorway and prevent looters from attempting to enter the waterlogged building. He asked, "Have there been any noises? Any sounds?"

"A few…like rocks sliding into the water but there've been no calls for help," replied the senior Auror on duty in the alley.

Proudfoot frowned and stated, "Our treaties with the goblins mean we cannot enter with our wands drawn, no matter the circumstances inside. Just keep everyone out. If nothing else, close the doors. But don't put any locks or charms on them. That's goblin territory, and we can't touch anything."

"The crowd is likely to grow just before lunch and then again around 3:00 PM," the Auror explained. "Those are the busy times in the bank."

Another Auror, a half-blood, asked, "What will people do to get their money?"

Proudfoot told himself that the goblins would appear and resume bank operations. However, by 6:00 PM, the DMLE had deployed every Auror to emergency duty with three full covens of Aurors in the alley to prevent riots. Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor and Sweet Berry Trunks were two of the businesses in ruins after panicky wizards and witches began to riot around 3:00 PM.

+++ CHANGE: Battle at Hogwarts 2 May 1998 (One Year Earlier)

From the moment Voldemort fell in the final duel with Harry Potter at Hogwarts, the Boy-Who-Lived was even more powerful and every spell that fell from his lips overwhelmed everyone around him. Lucius Malfoy attempted to rally the Death Eaters to fight on and cast a spell to bring up fog to hide the combatants. But Harry countered Malfoy's fog with a Lumos spell that blinded his opponents and members of the Order of the Phoenix for ten minutes.

Then Lucius Malfoy discovered he could not continue fighting. Potter's piercing hex drilled a perfect inch wide hole through the Death Eater's chest. And the spell had continued through ten more Death Eaters behind Malfoy before finally bursting through the wall of the courtyard.

A few more blasts from Harry's wand and the majority of Death Eaters lay around the shattered courtyard missing at least one limb, usually the head. The battle on 2 May 1998 ended with a complete victory for the light.

Rather than find a spot to rest now that the battle was over, Harry Potter demanded that someone floo the ministry and get an official who could certify the death of a wizard or witch. A team of three wizards appeared within an hour and spent the next two hours photographing each dead person and entering their name in three different Death Books. (Backup copies of each book were stored offshore with three different ministries to prevent anyone from hiding a death or claiming to be a 'dead' person.) At Potter's insistence, the officials photographed and identified the Death Eaters. Then they moved inside the Great Hall where the defenders were laid out respectfully by their family and friends. The sun was setting before the wizards completed their work and departed.

Harry remained in the courtyard for a few more minutes before he found his way into the Great Hall, eliciting wails of sorrow from several people who had waited for the Boy-Who-Lived to appear before they mourned for their dead loved ones. As soon as he had food and drink, Harry spent minutes with each mourner, as well as with bodies of people who were not cared for by a family member.

The next morning, Harry arranged for the unclaimed dead to be collected respectfully by undertakers and delivered to their families, in the magical or mundane world. He would attend each of those funerals but continually refused to discuss a new mystery – the bodies of the Death Eaters vanished that first night after the battle. Death Certificates were issued but all wills were blocked by the Wizengamot to prevent wealth from vanishing before penalties could be applied. For families that were declared extinct, the Ministry received 100% of the money and properties in their Gringotts vaults.

Three Death Eaters survived the battle at Hogwarts and the ministry arranged their trial after only two days in the late afternoon following the first funerals for the men, women, and students who died defending Hogwarts. Harry Potter insisted that the prisoners receive fair trials but with the amount of evidence presented that the Death Eaters participated willingly in the deaths of hundreds of wizards of all blood classes, they were convicted. Alecto Carrow, Antonin Dolohov, and Walden MacNair were sentenced to death, and were thrown through the Veil of Death in the Department of Mysteries only seven minutes after their conviction.

After the three criminals were executed, Harry approached the Veil and threw figurines that looked like chess pieces through the opening, muttering names and curses for each piece as it fell into the afterlife. The Daily Prophet speculated that Potter was purging his soul of guilt over the deaths of so many purebloods while dueling with Lucius Malfoy.

Now Harry became impossible to find – wherever he was living was under some powerful wards. Apparently, Hermione Granger spoke to him each day, and he was a frequent visitor with the witch he considered his sister and her fiancé at the Weasley home in Ottery Saint Catchpole, but he never went to the ministry or the shops in Diagon Alley. The only time he approached Gringotts was through a high priced solicitor who negotiated a settlement for the debt Harry owed for the damages to the bank and the loss of a dragon.

The goblins took a considerable chunk of gold from the Potter family vault, (The Daily Prophet quoted Harry asking, "I have another vault?"). While this payment would resolve Harry's criminal status (and Hermione Weasley and Ron Weasley), the business relationship was repaired with Gringotts, but neither party was comfortable in the company of the other.

After the Boy-Who-Lived apologized for the burglary at Gringotts and explained about the deadly artefact hidden in Lestrange's vault, Harry Potter authorized payment of the fine and debt, and announced he was knut-less. This brought protests from readers of the Daily Prophet and cooled the interest of single witches and their mothers (Ginny and Molly Weasley) in matrimony with the teenager.

In the remaining weeks of summer, Harry Potter read many books from the Black family library in Grimmauld Place and used the ICW to contact wizards who used parseltongue magic regularly in their daily lives and work. Despite a special invitation from Headmistress McGonagall to return for an eighth year at Hogwarts, Harry declined. At the end of August, Harry attended the wedding of his best friends at the Burrow, closed Grimmauld Place to everyone except for Mrs Hermione Weasley (who could access the library) and disappeared.

+++ CHANGE: India

The morning of 2 September 1998, the Daily Prophet created panic with the headline Potter Prepares New Reign of Dark Magic Terror. Headmistress McGonagall made her displeasure known that Harry Potter was not attending Hogwarts. The newspaper included Minerva's quote, That boy needs to complete his education and then sit for his NEWTS!

Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt slapped down that article with a press release stating the he knew Potter's location – the young wizard had traveled to India to work on controlling his magical power with a group of other wizards who used parseltongue magic. The monks were gathered in a 'college' of 17 covens.

Kingsley's concluding statement was, Harry Potter fought and killed to defend Magical Britain! He feels that he has to learn to control his magic in order to keep his family safe. The Boy-Who-Lived will return once he has his magic under control.

+++ CHANGE: Harry Starts for Home (4 January 1999)

The portkey landing pad was filled by a brighter-than-normal light for a moment before the magic deposited Harry Potter on the next step in his journey from India back to England. Powerful wizards could create portkeys to travel great distances, but the common practice was for a wizards to purchase a portkey for international travel – this generated income for the different governments while regulating travel between the different magical societies on the planet.

The stopover in Egypt was a legacy from the days when the British muggles ruled so much of the globe. In the decades since that power ended, the bureaucrats hadn't changed things. Harry stepped off the pad to avoid the next arrival and was surprised to find Fleur Weasley waiting for him. He registered his arrival with the Egyptian ministry quickly and purchased a portkey to carry him to Gibraltar next. At that spot, he would purchase a final portkey to reach London.

"Fleur! What a nice surprise!" Harry greeted the witch he'd known for several years now. While he remained on friendly terms with the Weasleys following the final battle at Hogwarts, during the summer Ginny's demands to resume dating and her persistent hints about marriage caused Harry to back away. The apparent loss of the Potter fortune when the goblins imposed their penalty and fees for the burglary and damages ended that problem. Only Hermione's quick decision to marry Ron meant Harry would socialize with the Weasleys after the Dark Lord's downfall.

Glancing around, Harry asked, "Where's Bill? Why are you in Egypt?"

When he finally got a close look at the beautiful face of the witch, he knew something was wrong and she took his arm. "Come with me, Harry. We need to talk privately."

Fleur led the wizard to a conference room along the same corridor and closed the door behind them. As soon as he stepped into the room, Harry cast multiple silent, parseltongue charms and spells. Three wizards hid underneath invisibility cloaks in the room, recording runes, and wards to prevent apparitions and port keys from working. His magic rolling around the room, Harry identified the wizards as Bill Weasley, Miles Parker, and Andrew Sheffield. Parker was another curse breaker from Gringotts London, and Sheffield was a senior Auror from the British Ministry for Magic. The wizards slumped down in dreamless sleep and would remain in that state for at least eight hours unless Harry woke them up. Fleur gave no indication that she noticed the change of state for the three wizards.

Harry asked, "Fleur, what's wrong?"

The witch took a deep breath and explained, "Hermione is dead."

+++ End of Chapter