RA CH 26 Something Wicked this Way Came
Thank you, FriendofMolly, for the title, and helpful tweaks for a hard chapter. The title is, of course, a play on the famous Ray Bradbury novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes."
The third week in February Harry received an owl from Teddy. It read,
"Dear Head Auror Potter,
"I don't know who to talk to, but I don't feel comfortable with Gary Ohio, the new Charms teacher. Victoire told me that when she had private lessons with him she felt uncomfortable about the way he touched her.
"He seems to want to spend too much time with girl students. Prefect Victoire Weasley has talked to several other girls, and other girls are uncomfortable around Professor Ohio, and some look ashamed and do not want to talk to her.
"I don't know what to do. You are on the Hogwarts board. Maybe you know what to do.
"Your foster son,
"Prefect Theodore Lupin"
Harry read the letter four times, getting more worried each time. Even the signature, "Theodore," was an 'I'm a grown up writing a serious grown up letter' type of signature. Teddy had never signed a letter that way before. Harry did what he usually did when he was puzzled; he went and saw Hermione.
Hermione read the letter and said, "Harry, you and I are going to Hogwarts, RIGHT NOW."
When the Vice Minister of Magic and the Chief Auror show up, you make time to see them, and Minerva rearranged her schedule to meet with Harry and Hermione. After some polite greetings, Harry showed the letter to Minerva, and said, "What do you know about this Gary Ohio?"
She said, "We urgently needed a Charms teacher this January, and he applied. He taught at three of the magical schools in the North America, for two years each. All of the schools said he taught Charms, but nothing else. Before that he taught for ten years at a Muggle school, teaching English and Social Studies. We don't have any information about that job. He said it was not really relevant to what he taught at the magical schools."
"Did you speak to anyone at the schools?" Hermione asked.
"They are pretty far away. We had letters from a few students who gave him high praises. We also interviewed him, and he met with some of our students, and made a very favorable impression."
Hermione had one of her famous lists. "No personal interviews. No telephone interviews. Minerva, is there a reason you didn't use your mobile to talk to the other schools?
"They are in North America, across the ocean," Minerva said. She picked up her mobile. "Can these things reach someone that far away?"
Hermione sighed. It was hard to teach someone used to the problems really long distances posed to witches and wizards that the world wide phone network could almost instantly connect you to almost anyone anywhere in the world who had a telephone. "You could have used your mobile and called the schools as easy as you could call me. You have to dial a few more digits. You also have to keep in mind the time difference. I know it feels a little strange to use a Muggle mobile, but I talk to T.T. Chang in China two or three times a week when we are working on a Potions Textbook."
"I usually visit the previous school of a teacher before we hire them, but this was at the last minute, and it just seemed so far away," Minerva said with a sigh.
"No personal visit, no long phone conversation," Hermione said to herself as she made some notes on a list she had. "Can I see the letters from the schools?"
Two of the schools had curt, "yes he worked here," answers that almost begged you to call them for more information. The third, Salem Academy, verified the years of employment, but said that, "any records concerning a teacher's performance at Salem Academy are confidential."
"No letters of recommendation, just verification of employment," Hermione noted.
"I thought if he was a bad teacher we would find out right away," Minerva said, "But he is an excellent teacher."
"I'd like to see how often he has girls in his classroom alone," Harry said. "Do you have your copy of the map?"
Minerva brought it out. There was a female student alone in his classroom at that moment, but shortly afterwards another class came in and the first student left.
"I can't watch the map all the time," Minerva said.
The portrait of Albus Dumbledore said, "I can ask the paintings in the castle to watch Gary's classroom and keep track of him."
"I'll ask a couple of the ghosts as well," Minerva said.
Dobedo spoke up. "Dobedo ask the Hogwarts Elves." When the rest of the people in the room nodded "yes" Dobedo disappeared.
Hermione said, "Do you mind giving us copies of all the information on Gary? I would like to have Harry and his Domestic Affairs Unit go to these schools and find all they can about this Gary Ohio. I would go myself, but I am too busy the next couple of days."
"Why the Domestic Affairs Unit, and why the rush?" asked Minerva.
A grim faced Hermione said, "Because I think there is a good chance Gary is sexually abusing some of the girls."
A horrified Minerva copied all the documents, and gave Harry and Hermione a letter saying that there were some concerns about Gary, and to please cooperate.
"Do you think there is anything to this?" Harry asked Hermione as they left.
"Too many cases of sexual abuse have been hidden by institutions trying to protect their reputation, and much more of this goes on than most people believe," Hermione responded. "Gary should NOT be meeting alone with female students, and the fact that he made even one female uncomfortable is a cause for concern."
When they got back to the Ministry Harry and Hermione called the Domestic Affairs Unit into Hermione's office. Hermione rather publicly canceled or delayed a couple of appointments to host the meeting, to demonstrate just how important Hermione thought this meeting was. Hermione spent a couple of hours going over all that she could find about sexual abuse by teachers and other's in authority, and how they could find out more about this Gary Ohio.
Lavender volunteered to go with Harry. The next day they were at the Los Angeles School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, where they met with the Principal Juanita Rios.
After introductions Lavender said, "Harry is on the board of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We have some questions about our new Charms teacher, Gary Ohio."
Juanita's eyes got big and she said, "You didn't hire him, did you?"
"We didn't, but the school did. We just received this letter from one of our students," Harry said, as he showed Juanita the letter. "Teddy is my foster son, and Victoire is a niece, and this is not something they would make up."
"Somebody from the staff said they had gotten a letter from someone in Scotland asking if Gary had worked here. We said yes, he had. We were waiting for someone to contact us and ask for more information, but no one did, and we assumed that he had not been hired."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Gary was fired for inappropriate behavior with some of our female students," Juanita said. "I don't know all that happened, but one of the girls that he had in his room alone committed suicide last year, and after that happened we found a number of other girls had been seeing him alone. We have put windows in all the rooms and Muggle video cameras in some. We'll never let a teacher make a habit of meeting with single students alone again. I don't ever want to see something like this happen in any school."
"Why didn't you tell Hogwarts?" Hermione asked.
"Nobody asked!" Juanita exclaimed. "We assumed that if you got serious about hiring someone you would at least call and talk."
"Minerva still has a hard time understanding that she can use her mobile to ring someone all over the world," Harry said. They spent a couple of hours going over all the information that the school had on Gary;
That afternoon they went to the New Mexico School of Indian Magic.
Roslyn and Victor Firewalker were the co-heads of the school in New Mexico. Roslyn met with Lavender and Harry.
"We are investigating Gary Ohio," Harry said.
"Do not even think about hiring him, and if someone did, fire him," said Rosalyn. "He wouldn't follow our rules. We have rules to prevent teachers from being alone with students. They are either with a group of students, or there is more than one adult there, or they are in a very public place. We were always fighting to keep him following the rules."
"Is there any evidence he molested any students?" Hermione asked.
"Just a couple of incidents of inappropriate touching," Rosalyn said. "He didn't have a chance, though. We have some pretty good rules on that sort of behavior. I don't know why we didn't pick up the danger signals from the Salam Academy. They are not very good at this sort of thing, though."
Harry and Lavender went to Salem, but it was not until the middle of the next morning that they could speak to anyone there. They met with some middle level person. "What do you know about Gary Ohio?" Hermione asked.
"He worked here for two years, but he has not been here for over four years," the lady said.
"Any complaints?" asked Harry.
"That sort of information is confidential," was the reply.
Hermione showed the lady the letter. She read it, and then handed it back to Harry.
"Any comments, now?" Harry asked.
"No," they were told.
"May we speak to the head of the school?" Hermione asked.
"No, he's busy right now," was the reply.
"WHEN can we speak to him?" Harry asked.
"Just because you are reported to be some big hero does not mean that you can order us around," the spokesperson said. "Go. We don't want to talk to you."
"I wonder what they are hiding," Harry said as they left the school.
Lavender spent a little time on the phone with Minerva. Without making a big fuss everybody was trying to make sure Gary was watched, and they tried to discourage students from going into his room alone.
They contacted the Muggle School and explained the situation. A meeting was arranged for the next morning. They were led into an office and were met by five females, three teachers, a police officer and a lawyer.
One of the teachers said, "He raped at least two of the girl students, but we think he did a lot more evil over the years. Evidence against him seemed to magically disappear. We are all very frustrated that he escaped prosecution."
"I've never seen evidence that I spent a couple of years accumulating just vanish," the police officer said.
"It looked like some of the girls were brainwashed," said the lawyer. "It's not unusual to have people not to want to prosecute cases like the ones he was involved with, but this was even strange by the standards we are used to. The only good thing is that we have no evidence he has been teaching."
"He's been at private schools," Harry said. "There are some people who I know who might be able to help you. They have a headquarters in New York City, and I'll have them get in touch with you."
After they left, Harry said to Lavender, "I've heard enough. He needs to be fired at least."
"Hermione sent me copies of some good policies so Hogwarts never again puts students at risk," Lavender said.
Harry and Lavender walked through the North American closet network and the European floo network as fast as they could, and ended up at Hogwarts in the early evening. They went into the school, sat down at Minerva's desk, and reported what they had found out.
"I want that man out of this building tonight," Lavender said, shaking.
"I agree," Harry said.
"I've never dealt with anything like this." Minerva said. "I guess you are right. Let's see where Gary is."
Gary was not in his classroom, but in his private quarters, in his bedroom. There was no one in the bedroom, but Harry felt something when he used the map. He went over the map several times with his wand, and finally you could see a faint shadow of another person in the room. Gary was with one of the girls whose family had been tortured during the war, and everybody in the family, even the children born after the battle, were dealing with some trauma.
Harry looked at it and said, "We need to stop whatever he is doing right now!"
Dobedo, who of course was almost always with Harry on these trips, said, "I get Hogwarts elves."
When they got to Gary's private quarters everything was tightly locked. Neither Minerva nor Harry could break the spell. Dobedo appeared before them and just as quickly disappeared. A short time later a female elf wearing a Hogwarts uniform came out and said, "Come in."
Both the girl and Gary were naked. Harry looked away, and Minerva quickly ran over and put her cloak around the girl, and then took her to another room to get dressed.
Gary was lying face up on the bed. Dobedo was holding up Gary's privates, and had his meat clever right there. "Dobedo say if Mr. Gary move Dobedo cut them off," Dobedo said.
"I'm a Pure Blooded wizard from an unsullied line of Pure Bloods," Gary said. "You have no right to treat me like this."
"You are a Merlin blasted child abuser who is fractions of an inch from being a Pure Blooded eunuch," Harry said.
"I demand my rights as a Pure Blood," Gary said.
"Pure Blooded bastards are treated the same as any other bastards," Lavender said. "I would like to take your male organ, cut it off, and feed it to a dragon, but I wouldn't want to give a dragon something so vile."
Harry was horrified by the violence that had come out of Lavender's mouth, but at least after hearing the rage in Lavender's voice, Gary shut up.
Harry called the jail at the Ministry and said, "I have a naked child molester coming in. I'll put the handcuffs on, and he will be there shortly." He put the cuffs on and Gary was gone.
Lavender was still shaking. "Let me sit down, and calm down," she said. Lavender sat down, and took a potion. She took a number of deep breaths. Then she said, "I think I know what it is like to be raped. When I had my sexual organs, down below, so badly damaged that I thought I could never lie with a man or have a child, I had rape victims say that my disfigurement was better than to have been raped."
Finally Lavender said, "I've learned to control the anger, the rage. I wanted to tell Dobedo to go ahead and castrate Gary, but I didn't. I guess I just feel safe enough with you, Harry, that I can let the rage out. Thank you."
"Thank you for your help, Lavender," Harry said. "Let's see what kind of a case against Gary we can make."
Gary had worked very hard to conceal what he was doing, but after several curse breakers were through with his rooms they found plenty of incriminating evidence. Some of the photographs dated back to his years at the Muggle School. Harry though the oldest photographs could easily convict Gary of crimes in North America.
A month later Ginny heard on the news that Gary had been sentenced to thirty years in Azkaban, and that the North American Aurors were going to prosecute him before he could start serving his prison sentence in Azkaban.
When Harry came home from the trial Ginny said, "Well, that case is over with, as far as you are concerned."
"I wish," said Harry. "There are four girls at Hogwarts that are going through counseling because of that man. Lavender says they are all in pretty bad shape, and she hopes that they can recover. Fleur has been helping, because they are all rape or molestation cases. The girl who was in his bedroom is in treatment on the continent. I don't think she's ever going to come back to Hogwarts.
"Victoire has a number of other stories of close calls, girls who Gary made feel very uncomfortable.
"It also looks like there were other teachers at Salem Academy over the years who had abused students, and it was always covered up. This isn't part of law enforcement, or being on the board of a school, that I ever thought I'd have to deal with."
"How is Lavender handling it?" Ginny asked.
"Fiercely, but successfully," Harry said. "The North American Ministry was not eager to deal with Salem Academy and the Muggle School, but Lavender insisted. It really helps that she is a certified healer, and Auror, and survivor of her own injuries. It also helps that she has a loving husband, who supports her
"The North American Aurors did find plenty of evidence at the Muggle School. The only reason Gary got away with what he did for so long is because of memory charms and other magical ways of hiding his tracks. They are going to try him right away, and they think they can lock him up for two hundred years or more, time to be served after he has served his time here. Using magic to conceal a Muggle crime is a most serious offense.
"The cover-ups at Salem Academy were revealed when Lavender took Cindy Base Hudson over, and she partnered with a couple of reporters at the American Magical Times to do a story on Gary Ohio, and the cover ups at Salem Academy. A number of former students, boys and girls, told how they thought they were alone, and that the wizarding institutions were all against them. I'm very proud of what Lavender and Cindy have been doing."
Ginny said, "There were a couple of Slytherin boys who would have raped every girl in the school if Snape had not prevented it. As bad as it was, I guess we are lucky that it wasn't worse."
"I hope we have policies in place to make sure nothing like this ever happens again at Hogwarts." Harry said. "Once is one time too many."