All of you know the public details, probably better than I do. I was born at the end of July, 1980. I apparently had loving parents who doted on me hand and foot.
Don't tsk at me like that, Hermione. I only have one clear memory of them and not a person I've met has been willing to talk to me about them. That means only hearsay is all I can go by, and hearsay is a worse source of information than the Daily Prophet.
Anyways, in late October of 1981 the man calling himself Lord Voldemort got it in his head that there was a threat to his ambitions of becoming the ruler of the Wizarding world. One of his spies had heard part of a proph ecy that described the means of which his destroyer could be identified, and on Halloween night he set out to destroy anyone that matched that identity.
I have heard the partial reciting of the Prophecy that Voldemort heard, I know for a fact that I was not the only one that matched the vague description. I know of at least one other survivor of Voldemort's attacks that could have been his destroyer.
Fred, George. Put your eyes back in your head. You're embarrassing your mother.
Everyone here has heard the story. Voldemort found our house by bribing, or torturing, or maybe just asking my godfather Sirius Black for the password to get through the Fidelius Charm hiding us. Voldemort burst into my family's house, ripping the wards to shreds. He slaughtered my parents, and then tried to kill me with the Avada Kedavra curse, which backfired and killed his body instead.
Whoa. There's a thought. Percy, when you get back to the ministry, see if you can find out if they had a spy in the Death Eaters when my parents were killed. If they didn't, why does everyone know that my parents were killed first, and not in the apparent explosion afterwards. Then find out why they didn't get the targets of the attack to safety before Halloween.
Anyways. I survived and was then placed in hiding so the Death Eaters couldn't find me.
Flash forward ten years.
I received my first Hogwarts letter. Yes, Percy, I said first. My muggle relatives are so bigoted against magic and anything related to it they burned the letter before I could read it. And the handful the next day, and the hundreds the next day. Apparently, the letters keep coming until the one they are addressed to personally opens one of them. I know you lot opened yours first crack you had, so don't argue that point without something backing you up. Anyways, they finally took us on a getaway to a shack on a rocky island in the edge of the sea. That's where Hagrid showed up and hand delivered my letter to me, at midnight the morning of my eleventh birthday.
Sorry, spaced out for a moment there. That's my first happy memory. My first friend brought me my first birthday cake ever, and the next day took me on my very first shopping trip to buy stuff for me. Hag rid even bought me my first present, Hedwig.
A month later I found myself at Kings Cross trying to find platform 9¾. It wasn't until I heard your family mention Hogwarts that I realized there would be other children heading to school at the same time, let alone from the same station. After Molly showed me how to get to the platform I wound up on the train, sitting in a compartment with Ron. Without his help explaining things to me, guiding me through his own actions, and just generally being a friend, I would never have survived. That train ride is where I also met Hermione, Neville and Malfoy.
On arrival at Hogwarts I ran into Malfoy yet again, when he decided that, as the Boy-Who-Lived, I was destined to be his friend, and told me that I would be known by the company I keep. He was referring of course to Ron, just because Ron was a Weasley. I told Malfoy off, telling him that I was intelligent enough to choose my own friends rather than let others pick them for me, and made an enemy for life.
You know the official story of what happened that year. Ron and I made friends with Hermione by accidentally trapping her in the loo with a troll. Somehow we managed to waltz through traps set by the staff to protect a valuable magical object. Neville got himself into a Full Body-Bind Curse somehow. Don't roll your eyes at me, Mr Long bottom; you know full well I never did such a thing to you.
The full story would take hours to tell, but let's just leave it at the fact that without Hermione proving she could use her brains for more than research, she could apply her facts too, and Ron demonstrating his tactical wizardry and his friendship, I would never have gotten far enough to face the evil in front of the mirror.
As a reward for helping keep the object from the person that was being possessed by Voldemort I got sent to live with my relatives again. Percy, don't you roll your eyes. You weren't there. You didn't see the horrible thing; you didn't hear Professor Quirrell brag about it himself. Count your blessings and be quiet about your doubts.
That summer I met Dobby. Being raised as a muggle, I had never heard of house elves, let alone seen one before. Dobby showed up in my bedroom, bringing warnings that I shouldn't return to school. He was so intent on it he deliberately tried to sabotage my relatives' dinner party, and got me blamed for it.
Intent on helping Dobby without even knowing Dobby existed, my uncle modified my bedroom that they reluctantly let me use by adding bars to the window, seven locks on the door and a cat flap to pass me meals through. Somehow or other they forgot to strengthen the walls the window bars were in, and I was broken out by a few Weasleys in a Ford Anglia. And before you say it Percy, I never had a chance to ask for rescue, your brothers knew better than to trust a muggle to raise a wizard without any comments from me. What happens in my relatives' house doesn't get talked about by me - ANYWHERE.
You probably already know what happened next. We left to get on the train for school, and the connection got blocked. We, that's Ron and me, figured the only way to get to school on time was to borrow the Ford. Again, long story short, we made it to school, but lost the car in the Forbidden Forest, and got detentions to boot.
That was the year that I found out that I'm a Parseltongue. Not that I didn't know before, I just never knew there was a name for it. The problem with being a Parseltongue is that most wizards think of it being associated with being Slytherin, and don't bother thinking after that. No one actually realizes that it can be quite a distraction. Snakes are quite talkative, but their voices are low and soft, and half the time I can't tell without focusing on the words that they are not coming from inside my head.
That's right, Fred, I hear voices in my head. Usually warning me about hanging around you.
Anyways Percy, do you have any idea what it's like to be walking around school talking to your friends and all of a sudden hear someone talking about killing? Not a pleasant sensation, especially when your friends don't hear the voice.
And then the weird stuff started happening. Mrs Norris's cat going stiff, the blood writing on the wall, Colin Creevey getting stoned. All happening with me just around the corner. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick. Since the staff were too busy discussing evacuating the school, which would mean sending me back to Prison Muggle, and the student body believing that I must be the Heir of Slytherin, my friends and I set out to find out the true source of the attacks.
Through brilliant research, good strategy, and just blind luck we found out several things. Hagrid was sent to Azkaban back in 1943 for similar attacks on the school. He was since cleared and hired by the Headmaster to be the Keeper of Keys for the school. The ghost named Moaning Myrtle was killed in the attacks in 1943. The bathroom she haunts is the place of her death. The attack on me during a Quidditch match was caused by Dobby trying to get me away from the school.
I know, Sir. House elves don't act like that with wizards who aren't their masters. If you want an explanation of what happened, talk to Dobby.
Through my talks with Myrtle I acquired a diary that someone had tried to flush. After several false starts and one serendipitous accident I managed to discover how it worked. It originally belonged to one T. M. Riddle. It stored his memories inside it as a muggle diary stores the written thoughts of its owner. Through it Tom showed me his version of what happened back in 1943. This gave me enough information to realize that Riddle had provided the evidence that Hagrid was behind the chamber opening.
Before I could talk to Hagrid about it, Hermione was attacked. When Ron and I went to talk to Hagrid, we found Fudge there to arrest Hagrid, and the board of governors there to remove the headmaster from his position.
Ron, being the true friend that he is, followed me into the Forbidden Forest to get the answers from the only per son left in Hogwarts that had been there fifty years before - Aragog, the Acromantula. It turned out that Hagrid had been keeping the spider in a box in his dorm, and Riddle had used Aragog as a scapegoat for the death of Myrtle.
We went back to talk to Myrtle about it, and through our own planning brought our DADA professor with us. We found the Chamber of Secrets in the third floor girls' loo and then found our way inside to stop the attacks. Unfortunately we also found ourselves on the wrong side of a wand being held by Professor Lockhart. After dealing with him, with Ron's brilliant strategy... Hey, giving the man a broken wand was brilliant! I went in and found that Ginny was in there with the Riddle diary, and Riddle was draining the life-force out of my best friend's most gorgeous sister.
Really George? You show me the sister you have that's prettier than Ginny, and then I'll take you up on that trip to St Mungo's.
After saving Ginny, and defeating the protector of Slytherin's treasure, we returned and turned Lockhart over to Dumbledore. My reward was once again exile to muggle land.
I really don't know if I should say anything about my third year at Hogwarts. For me it was just another year of escaped convicts hanging around my relatives' house, murderers in the school and adults talking to me in riddles. Your brother's already told you more than I'm comfortable talking about.
Not convincing, huh? Then try being thirteen and having your only contact with your friends cut off, the adults who actually care about you hiding the newspaper and talking in hushed whispers using your name (yes, you and you), and the Minister of Magic ignoring the fact that you broke the law by using magic as a minor. Try getting stalked by a mangy cur of a dog throughout muggle London, and then having Madam Trelawney see a dog in your tealeaves and tell you you're going to die before the end of the school year. Just a hint for divination class, Ginny, sometimes a dog is just a dog.
If that wasn't bad enough, have that same minister send Dementors to your school. To the only place you feel safe. Add in that every time I get near one of those dark things they bring up one and only one memory - Hearing my father beg for mercy and my mother beg for my life before the green light envelops her.
Thanks Neville. Just don't let Malfoy know why his prank backfired so badly. You remember; the one at the Quidditch match.
Too many horrors and too many surprises for me. Let's leave it at that. Actually, one more thing from that year, Percy.
Sirius Black, the escaped convict? He's my godfather. He saw the animagus who framed him in the Daily Proph et and escaped to clear his name. That animagus was your pet rat Scabbers. When you get back to the ministry double check the Animagus registrations for the rat-form, and you'll find the name Peter Pettigrew.
Relax Hermione. Percy has accused me of being a documented liar. The more facts he can look up, the more proof he has that I'm not lying.
Now we get to the over-published fourth year. Again you know the basic outline of the year. Somebody with advanced magic got my name into the Goblet of Fire and entered me into the Tri-Wizard Tournament. I survived all of the events with barely a physical scratch, only to have Cedric die during the final event. And probably the basis of your complaints about my being a liar. My proclamation that Voldemort had returned.
Did you also hear how jealous Ron was that I found a way to enter and didn't include him? Did you hear how we argued and didn't speak to each other for most of the year? And most importantly to me, did you hear how he kept me from going mental when I was forced to take a date to the Yule Ball? Wipe that grin off your face Ron. You were going mental too, trying to figure out how to ask Hermione without embarrassing yourself. That's better. Red hair and red face; that's the Ron I expect.
In particular Percy, do you remember the second task? I had to rescue the thing I would miss most, my most prized treasure, from the depths of the lake. Do you remember what that treasure was? It was your brother, my Ron. Do you really think that I would deliberately risk my treasure by leading him on dangerous quests, even if I think I've figured out how to minimize the risks so no one gets hurt, no one gets caught and no one gets blamed? Just because I'm a Gryffindor doesn't mean I'm a reckless fool who jumps in with no planning whatsoever. That's Professor Snape's description by the way. I do learn things from him, no matter what his teaching style is like for me.
No Percy, any dangerous quests that Ron goes on with me is because he won't let me go do them without him. Between Ron and Hermione any mission that I feel the desperate, life-threatening need to go on is as safe as pos sible because neither one of them will let me out of the Gryffindor common room without double-checking that my shoes are tied tightly and my wand is where it needs to be.
You said it yourself, and I agree... I am a lightning rod for danger. If someone feels the need to cause harm to others, to be a bully, to destroy other peoples' lives, I wind up in the centre of it. Some of the time because I can't sit by and watch people get hurt. A lot of the time because the Dark is threatened by me, and seeks to destroy me before I can destroy it. The rest of the time is just plain coincidence.
I don't know about you guys, but I need a bathroom break before I continue. Percy? I can continue, can't I? I want to tell you what would most likely have happened if I had never gotten near your family. Just remember, it's based on what evidence I can find in the records laying around, not on any Divinations, Oracles, Prophecies or Visions.