Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling. Yes, there are direct quotes here, but they are used sparingly (approximately 5% of the source material) and for an actual narrative purpose, not for heckling or commentating like in all the other stories of this type.
A/N: This is Part 4 of the Dramatic Reading Series, covering Prisoner of Azkaban, read to Hogwarts in the Great Hall, and Half-Blood Prince, which Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape are reading privately. Part 1, A Dramatic Reading is mine. Part 2, A Sensational Story was co-written by the excellent Srikanth1808. And Part 3, the first part of the staff-only reading of the future books, is fully mine, titled A Daily Dossier.
To recap, I started this series because I like the idea of a read-the-books story in principle (despite the campiness of it), but I had literally never seen an attempt that wasn't completely unreadable. I've since found occasional ones that are readable, but they're rare and usually still have a lot of issues. This is my attempt at fixing that. To be clear, I contend that this is not an MST story. An MST story is defined as "comments inserted in between the flow of a copied story." This is not the case here because I am using quotes sparingly, not interleaving them with commentary, and there is an actual plot, which is also not about commentary, but about the war and the characters' lives.
Case in point: this will be the last full book reading in the Great Hall, since there's no plot-driven reason to continue it, although Dumbledore will be pushing forward with the later books to end the war.
Chapter 1: Dumbledore
Owl Post
Sunday, March 17, 1996.
Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger sat in an out-of-the-way part of the Gryffindor Common Room on Sunday night, preparing for the ordeal that was coming the next day. True, they had had their earlier adventures aired out in front of the entire school over the past two weeks, but the events of their third year could well be the most emotionally draining of all off them (for everyone except Ginny), as Hermione was quick to remind Harry.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Harry?" she asked him.
"Yes, Hermione. I told you; this is why I wanted to keep going with the readings in the first place. I mean, it'll be great if we can nail Malfoy Senior too, but we need to do this so we can prove Sirius innocent."
"We really don't," she insisted. "Director Bones has seen the books. She knows the truth, or she will soon enough."
"Yeah…but I still don't want to take that chance," he said. "This way, the Ministry can't possibly cover it up again."
"I don't think that's going to be a problem with Director Bones," Hermione said. "It sounds like she's really reliable."
"C'mon, Hermione," Ron interrupted her. "It's Harry's story. If he wants everyone to hear it, we should let him. Mind, I'm not too excited about it myself, what with the mess with 'Scabbers' and all, but it's still better if we have it all out, isn't it? Besides, what it Sirius goes outside, and he runs into someone who still thinks he's a murderer, huh?"
"That could happen anyway. We aren't the Daily Prophet."
"It'll still help if everyone at Hogwarts knows," Ron said.
Hermione sighed heavily. "Fine," she said, and turning to her other friend, she added, "I just worry about you, Harry."
"How come?"
"Well, it's the same as the last book, isn't it? If the teachers are reading about our third year, it's going to show everything that went wrong that year, too. Especially your reaction to the dementors. Didn't you say you heard your parents when that happened?"
That brought Harry up a bit short. He remembered all too well his father yelling for his mother to take him and go. His mother screaming for Voldmort to kill her instead. That was the kind of personal memory that he definitely did not want becoming common knowledge. But still, he needed to get through this book reading for Sirius's sake.
"I don't think it'll be that bad," Harry said. "It's not like Umbridge is still here making them read every word. McGonagall skipped the parts that were the most embarrassing for Ginny. They'll probably skip the worst parts like that."
"Unless Snape gets that chapter," Hermione pointed out.
Harry considered that. "Maybe I'll mention something to McGonagall," he decided.
"That's a good idea. And that's not the only thing, either. There's the Time Turner. To be honest, I don't know if the Ministry will let them read about the Time Turner. No one was supposed to know I had it, and we could really get in trouble for what we did with it. And technically, Sirius was still a wanted fugitive that we helped escaped, even though he was innocent."
"Dumbledore told us to do all that, though," Harry said.
"I know, and that will probably push the scrutiny onto him, but I'm not crazy about taking that chance. I'll be glad when this whole thing is over…This will be the last public reading, won't it, Harry?" she asked, and this type he heard a note of warning in her voice.
"I don't see why there'd be any more," he said. "Everyone already knows everything important that happened last year, and we don't want people to know what's gonna happen in the future."
"Well, that's good, at least. And I'm going to hold you to that."
"Yeah, I could do with moving past this stuff myself," Ron agreed.
"Yeah, we agree there," Harry said. "I just want to make sure we finish what we started."
Monday, March 18, 1996.
After the massive intel dump Dumbledore had dropped on her desk yesterday, Amelia Bones was relieved that he didn't have more for her today, even though they needed the information to take down Voldemort for good sooner rather than later. His only correspondence this morning was a brief note placing a time limit of six to twelve months to remove the Acromantula nest from the Forbidden Forest. She happily placed that on the bottom of her stack.
Harry felt about as prepared as he was going to be when he went down to breakfast the next morning. If all went well, they would get into the next reading shortly, and by the end of the week, it would all be over. Looking around the Great Hall, he noted that Amelia Bones was not in attendance. However, he did see Percy sitting up at the High Table, presumably on behalf of the Ministry again.
"Oh, boy, Percy's here," Ron said worriedly once they sat down.
"He must be representing Director Bones," Hermione said.
"Well, this isn't gonna be pretty," he said.
"Why not? He seems to have come around since the falling-out in your family."
"It's not that. Percy owned 'Scabbers' before I did, remember?"
Hermione's eyes widened. "You mean you never told him?"
"How do you think he would've taken that, Hermione? I didn't tell anyone about that night, not even Mum and Dad."
Harry spoke up: "I was kinda surprised your Mum didn't know about Sirius last year."
"You think I could've told her that? She wouldn't've believed me. Everyone still thought he was guilty. It was bad enough that I had a run-in with him at all to her."
"So what you're saying…" Fred cut in, making them jump as they realised the Twins had been listening in.
"…is that dear Percy is going to totally flip?" George finished.
"Totally," Ron agreed. "This is gonna be bad."
"But also hilarious," Fred countered.
Ron thought about that and said, "That too."
"Your attention, please," the Headmistress called out to the Great Hall once breakfast was over. "You will remember we announced this last week—" she began, and already, there were some groans from the less interested students. "After carefully examining the books that have been read here over the past two weeks, and after discussing matters with the staff, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the Ministry of Magic, and other interested parties—" That mainly meant Harry. "—we have agreed to hold a third and final book reading this week."
There were more groans this time, although they were intermingled with cheers from the students who were excited about another week of light classes (those were few because at least some of the teachers were making up for it with extra homework), or who wanted to hear more of Harry's story.
"I want to assure you that this will be the last public book reading we do at Hogwarts," she added firmly. "We agreed on these second and third readings because of certain truths that need to be brought to light, but there is no such need to continue further. Moreover, I know that these readings have been a large disruption to teaching and learning in the school, and for that we apologise, but we must ask you for your patience one more time. We will be using the same short class schedule in the afternoon as in the past two weeks. We anticipate this reading to take four days."
After the murmurings of the students died down again, she continued, "You may also have noted that DMLE Director Amelia Bones has not joined us for this reading. She has elected not to attend so that she may devote herself more fully to the war effort." Quite sensibly, she thought. "Instead, she has entrusted Professors Shacklebolt and Tonks as well as Mr. Percy Weasley to accurately report the events of these readings to her. If you have concerns relating to the reading that you believe merit her attention, I ask you to speak with one of them."
McGonagall sat down and looked to her left. "Professor Dumbledore, if you would like to begin?" she asked.
"Certainly, Headmistress," Dumbledore said. He held up a third book for the Great Hall to see. For the students sitting close enough to see it clearly, this book was noticeably thicker than the previous ones. He looked down at the cover, which, if they could see it, hosted a picture of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger riding on the back of a hippogriff. "The title of the book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," he said, and he opened it up and began to read: "Chapter One: Owl Post.
"Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework—"
"Horrors!" quipped Fred.
"Hey!" said Hermione.
"—but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard."
At least the book was getting to the point right away this time. Harry was, for reasons that were unclear but probably had something to do with a flying car, allowed more liberty at the Dursleys' than last year, but that still meant he was forced to do his homework like normal kids would read comic books, under his blankets to hide it from them. Right now, the subject was History of Magic.
"On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation."
"Are we still teaching that?" Professor Bragnam interrupted. "That's the kind of version that ought to be relegated to young childrens' books."
"For many people, I think that is how they want to remember it, Professor Bragnam," Dumbledore said. "The very real murder of magical children during the Middle Ages is an unpleasant thought and does not especially inure wizards to muggles, either."
In any case, it turned out that Harry's newfound liberty was more a result of having learnt to pick the locks than any positive action on the Dursleys' part. As Dumbledore read the description of Harry's muggle relatives, Hermione jotted down a note: Definitely written for a muggle audience—explaining magic and summarising events of previous books. She'd already suspected it from the previous book, but it was even clearer now.
Unfortunately, for Harry, trying to stay in touch with his friends had not gone well.
"HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME?" the students laughed, and Professor McGonagall groaned as Dumbledore shouted in a recognisable impression of Ron's voice shouting through the phone.
"That's not how a telephone works," said little Natalie McDonald, a muggle-born second-year who had often joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione during these readings.
"Well, yeah, I know that now," said Ron.
"I probably should have tried calling you," Hermione admitted. "But then, we were travelling, and there wasn't much I could do."
In fact, Harry hadn't had any contact with his friends until his birthday, when three owls showed up all at once, though one of them had apparently passed out in mid-flight.
"Owls can carry each other through the air?" Hermione asked. "I'm not sure how that could work. Wouldn't their wings get in each other's way?"
"No idea, but that's what I saw," Harry said.
The owls, naturally, brought Harry's birthday gifts and also an explanation of why he hadn't heard from his friends—namely that Hermione was on holiday in France with her parents, and the Weasleys were splurging their lottery winnings on a holiday of their own.
"A delighted Mr. Weasley told the Daily Prophet, 'We will be spending the gold on a summer holiday in Egypt, where our eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank.'"
"Because perish the thought you actually spent it on new robes," Malfoy called out.
"Mr Malfoy! Ten points from Slytherin," McGonagall snapped. "If you can't be civil during this reading…"
"They made sure to keep enough for what we needed," Ron told his housemates in annoyance. After all, he had at least been able to replace his broken wand, and he was able to send Harry a useful present.
"Harry—this is a Pocket Sneakoscope. If there's someone untrustworthy around, it's supposed to light up and spin. Bill says it's rubbish sold for wizard tourists and isn't reliable, because it kept lighting up at dinner last night. But he didn't realise Fred and George had put beetles in his soup."
"Eww!" came from around the Hall.
"Bloody hell," Harry said. "I just realised, that thing must have been picking up on Wormtail the whole time."
"Blimey, you're right!" Ron hissed. "And I thought it was just you lot," he added to Fred and George. "To think the thing turned out to be useless because we didn't know who it was pointing at. We could've saved a lot of trouble if we'd known that."
But there was nothing to be done about it. There really was no way they could have known. For the moment, the Harry in the book was exploring his other gifts: a broomstick servicing kit from Hermione and a copy of The Monster Book of Monsters from Hagrid, which was promptly wrestled into submission. The older students who remembered that class grimaced. And finally, tucked away with the book, was his Hogsmeade permission form.
"Which he never handed in that year," the Headmistress pointed out. "It was never quite clear what had happened with that—though I can make some guesses with his relatives."
"I suspect the book will give us a full accounting, Minerva," Dumbledore said.
Harry groaned and sank lower in his seat. "This isn't going to be fun," he muttered.