Chapter 6: Quibbler
DEMENTORS ON THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS! (Cover Story)
By Xenophilius Lovegood
It has come to this writer's attention that Dementors inspected the Hogwarts Express yesterday, September 1st, halfway to its destination.
It is reported that the foul creatures searched every compartment, inflicting the horrendous, bone-chilling feeling they cause on every student. Remember, these are CHILDREN aged 11-17.
It is on good authority that the Dementors even attacked certain students, purposefully sucking as much happiness out of their compartments as possible. In some cases, this brought to mind memories that had either been long buried, or were long forgotten because of the age at which they occurred. Many consider exposure to a Dementor a form of torture. How can the Ministry and Albus Dumbledore purposely subject these students to torture?
This writer can hardly believe that the Ministry would subject the poor students to such treatment or that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, would allow such a search! As such, there can only be three explanations in this: either the Ministry did not inform the headmaster that the search would take place (which doesn't say much about either party), the Headmaster was informed, but did nothing about it (which is absolutely ghastly), or the Dementors acted of their own accord (which is too terrible to contemplate).
This writer can only hope that something will be done to rectify this matter. Can the escape of Sirius Black really be worth the near torture of our children?
Harry, Luna, Hermione, and Draco crowded around the Quibbler issue that Xenophilius had sent his daughter.
"That's an awesome article!"
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy has offered to fund the Quibbler fully until it becomes a larger publication, on the condition that he gets one article of choice each issue. He hopes to use the Quibbler to attack Dumbledore, and, to some degree, the Ministry. Daddy was a little worried at first, but I think now he's happy he gets to report something important to others. He was afraid to do that before because he didn't really have a backer. With Mr. Malfoy, we don't have to worry about that. This issue will be sent out tomorrow."
"But not many people receive the Quibbler," replied Hermione, confused.
"Not, yet, that's true," answered Luna sadly.
"I have a great idea," Harry told them with a grin. "What if we make copies of the cover and this page and have them deposited in every common room? The cover is very interesting, so students are sure to pick them up. We can call it a free excerpt. Some of them are sure to send it to their parents, and we'll increase subscriptions. Oh, we better include a subscription card in there as well."
Luna hugged Harry tightly, beaming. "Harry, that's an excellent idea! Let's get to it."
Hermione was the one to perform the duplication spells. Luna created the subscription card for Hermione to duplicate as well. Harry cast a permanent sticking charm on the top left corner of the two pages to keep them together, and a light sticking charm on the subscription card, so it could easily be removed. Draco had Dobby and Dottie deliver the stacks to each common room. By the time they went to bed, they had created, and delivered, about a hundred copies.