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Chapter Four – Minerva's Misery

Little Whinging, Surrey

Wednesday 16th September 2048

It seemed completely fitting to Hermione that even now Petunia Dursley still lived at Number Four Privet Drive. It demonstrated her small-mindedness. Even after Dudley had moved out aged twenty-six to live with his latest girlfriend, after Vernon had taken early retirement in 2022 on health grounds, and even after he died from a stroke five years later, she had no thought of moving anywhere else.

Granted, she was financially independent, having been the beneficiary of a very generous widow's pension from Grunnings, and even at ninety years old she was reasonably spry, but she had no real need for a four bedroom detatched house with nobody to share it.

The less charitable of those who had known her for a long time would have remarked snidely that she had changed very little over the course of the last fifty years, but that would have been quite fine with Petunia, who seemed perfectly happy living in her little bubble.

Certainly when she answered the door to Hermione's knock, her slightly pinched face gave off the normal aura of the visitor being completely unwelcome.

"I'm still not sure that I want you here," was the welcome Hermione got.

Having specifically made an appointment over the phone to visit her, Hermione was determined to see it through, and wasn't going to be deterred by Petunia's bitter countenance.

"Might I at least come in?" she asked.

"I suppose so," Petunia responded, and stepped aside to let Hermione into the hall, before looking furtively up and down the street to check that nobody else knew about her visitor.

Hermione walked into the living room, and it was as though time had stood stil since she had beenin the house as a sevnteen-year-old. Whilst the walls had certainly been re-papered in the intervening years, everything else seemed to be in almost exactly the same spot as it had been fifty years ago. There were one or two more recent photographs of Dudley with his wife and a daughter, and a silver trophy on the mantlepiece that proclaimed Petunia as a winner at a local flower show, but otherwise the room appeared unchanged.

It seemed that Petunia still had some manners though, as she returned with a china tea set and proceeded to pour for them both, even asking Hermione her preference of milk and sugar reasonably politely.

"I suppose you want to know why I'm here," she opened with.

"I imagine it's something to do with the boy," Petunia replied, her nose flaring slightly at the reminder of Harry's long-ago presence in her home, and still unable to call him by name.

"Well, yes. I'm afraid he passed away recently, and I thought you should know."

"Got himself killed by another one of you wizards, I suppose? That Voldy-something he was supposed to be fighting."

"No, actually, Mrs Dursley, it seems he died of a heart attack."

"Hmph."

"You've no other comment?" Hermione asked, slightly disturbed at Petunia's lack of emotion.

"Well, I can't say that I wanted him dead, I suppose," she sneered, "seeing as he stuck to his word and left for good when he said he would, but I'd rather have never known him at all, so I'm not sure what you want me to say."

"Why did you take him in as a baby then, if you didn't want him?"

"You think we had a choice?" Petunia spat out. "How you high and mighty wizards left him on our doorstep in the middle of a freezing November night with nothing but a blanket and a letter telling us that we had to take him and that if we didn't there would be trouble?

"I had enough of that with Lily just before Vernon and I got married, thank you very much, with her fiance looking down his nose at Vernon, and telling me that if we didn't do as we were told they could make us.

"Why would I have wanted another wizard in my house?" she asked.

"He was just a baby, Mrs Dursley."

"Yes, he was. But he was still responsible for Vernon and I not having any more children. How could we possibly expose more children to his... freakishness!"

"Why don't you tell me what the letter said, Mrs Dursley?"

Petunia turned in her chair and pulled out a drawer from the table beside her. From it she extracted a small, well-thumbed notebook. Hermione imagine that this was where Petunia wrote down all the minor pecadilloes of her neighbours whilst she was peeking out the window at them.

Petunia turned to what was apparently a familiar page, given the readiness with which the book fell open there.

"I may no longer have the letter, but I can still remember it and the threats within," she said sharply. "We were asked to take the boy in and provide a place that he could call home until he was seventeen. He was to go to the same school as Dudley, and be kept busy around the house once he got older so that he didn't get chance to go off exploring on his own.

"We were told that he might accidentally do some magic, but that this was natural, and shouldn't be too frequent, and that someone would come by if anything too untoward happened."

"And did it?"

"Of course it did!" Petunia exclaimed. "First he turned his teacher's hair blue, and then the next day he was found on the school roof. He was three years old – how was I supposed to explain how a three-year-old got on the roof? The teachers were threatening to have him removed then for being a 'disruptive influence' on the other children!

"That old headmaster of yours came round after that and cast some sort of spell on him, and he didn't do anything for a while, but then the freakishness started again – his hair grew overnight, his jumpers shrank whilst he was wearing them, all sorts of things that I couldn't possibly explain to anyone..."

"And because you saw him as a freak, you treated him like a freak," Hermione stated. "You made him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, whilst there were two unused bedrooms. You made him do as many chores as you thought you could get away with, cooking, cleaning, gardening and painting. You allowed your husband to physically intimidate him and occasionally beat him, and your son to bully him and more regularly beat him."

Hermione paused, controlling herself, and sent a condescending look at Petunia.

"You made him feel completely unwelcome, and that nothing he did was good enough. You treated your own son like a little prince and denigrated Harry at every opportunity. You accused him of cheating if he did better at school than Dudley, to the extent that he learned to make sure his marks were always lower. You provided for every little whim your son had, caved to his every demand, and refused anything that Harry might have wanted.

"In truth, you abused him psychologically, even if you never personally abused him physically."

"We never wanted him!" Petunia almost shouted at her. "Vernon was all for taking the boy to an Orphanage, or to Social Services and leaving him with them, but the letter said they would take Dudley away too if we didn't keep him."

Her breathing had become rather heavy, and she was beginning to become overwrought, so Hermione decided she'd better change the topic.

"So, how is Dudley?" she asked.

Petunia looked a little nonplussed at the question.

"I'm sure he's fine. He pops round about once a week just to check whether I need anything, but he hasn't really paid much attention to me since he first moved out. He's just retired from Grunnings, though he never made it to Director level like Vernon."

"Any grandchildren?"

"One girl. Well, I suppose she's probably thirty-five now." Petunia's voice took on a strange tone. "Dudley said he had half-feared she might be a wizard too, but she's not. I'm glad he never mentioned it to Vernon, because he would have blown his top."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about Harry, before I go?

Again, Petunia looked a little confused.

"Only that, every so often I would have a strange feeling that I was supposed to be particularly mad at him, but I couldn't quite figure out why. Normally in here."

"Just stay calm for a moment, please, Mrs Dursley. There's something I need to check."

"You're not going to use magic on me are you," she said, starting to become frightened.

"No, not on you," Hermione reassured her. She stood and deliberately faced away from Petunia, before casting a wide-area detection spell and ignoring the sharp intake of breath from behind her. Something on the mantlepiece glowed very slightly, and Hermione re-cast specifically at the object, which appeared to be a simple pewter mug.

She picked it up and held it up to Petunia.

"Have you always had this?" she asked, sure of the answer, as she had a vague recollection of it being in exactly the same spot fifty years earlier.

"I don't remember," Petunia replied. "Is there something wrong with it?"

Hermione paused for a moment as she considered what the diagnostic has revealed.

"Not any longer, I don't think," she said, "but at one time it had some sort of spell cast on it that I think was linked to Harry."

Petunia looked at her in disbelief, and neither of them said what was on both of their minds, which was that Petunia would never have kept an item relating to Harry.

"Will you take it away," Petunia asked.

"Yes. I think that might be for the best," Hermione agreed, and slipped the mug into her handbag. "Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Dursley. I appreciate that it's probably not been very pleasant for you, so I hope that we won't have to repeat the exercise."

She forewent mentioning that it hadn't been a particularly pleasant experience for her either.

She walked back toward the front door, and Petunia followed her.

"Yes. I would appreciate it if you didn't come back," Petunia said as she ushered Hermione out. "And please don't bother Dudley, either."

"Goodbye, Mrs Dursley," Hermione said firmly as the door closed, and then, under her breath "I'd wish you ill for how you treated Harry, but there's not much point now."

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Shell Cottage

Thursday 17th September 2048

Hermione was reminded what a resourseful and useful bunch of people the Weasleys were when Ron suggested that she show the pewter mug to Bill.

"It's old magic," he shrugged. "Bill's been working with old magic since he left Hogwarts, so that's who I would take it to."

That had brought her back to Shell Cottage.

It had mixed memories for her. A temporary safe haven during the flight from Voldemort after the breakout from Malfoy Manor, it was also where they had buried Dobby and plotted to break into Gringotts. More by chance than anything else, she hadn't been back here since, as most of the Weasley reunions still tended to occur at The Burrow so that Molly could have everybody 'home' for a while.

The view was still lovely, but this September morning was cold and damp, and the breeze coming onto the shore was cold and not particularly inviting.

"Come on in," said Bill, ushering her into the living room. "It's too cold and wet to be standing around and knocking on the door."

The scars on his face from Fenrirs Greyback's assault on his were largely hidden by the accumulation of other lines and wrinkles these days, but Bill had still kept a full head of ginger hair and the ponytail.

"Thanks very much, Bill. Is Fleur around, or is it just you?" she asked.

"I left Fleur in bed. You probably heard she's pregnant again."

"Indeed," Hermione said with a roll of the eyes. "I knew one of you would end up carrying on the Weasley tradition of fecundity. I'm just glad it wasn't Ron! How many is that now."

"Five boys and Three girls, plus one to come, so this will be our ninth."

They sat down in the living room, and Bill poured drinks for both of them as they bantered.

"Shocking!" Hermione teased. "I'll have great-grandchildren barely younger than your children! I don't know how Fleur does it!"

"Neither do I," Bill agreed, "which is why I didn't disturb her this morning!

"Anyway, what can I do for you, Hermione. Ron said something about a cursed goblet?"

"That might be stretching it a bit," Hermione replied, as she drew the pewter cup from her handbag. "I'm not sure I'd describe this as a goblet, for starters, and I don't know for sure that it's cursed, just that it has some magic on it that has more-or-less faded."

Bill took the cup and turned it over and about in his hands.

"Where did you find it?" he asked.

"Can I tell you after you've examined it? I don't want to put ideas in your head that might make you pre-judge it."

He looked up at her, slightly crossly, but saw that she was genuine in her concern that he examine the cup without prejudicing it, and nodded at her.

Hermione waited patiently as Bill examined the cup with care, looking closely at every part he could examine and then applying a number of diagnostic charms with his wand that Hermione couldn't being to understand. With a jolt of surprise at one of the results from those scans he brought the base of the cup right up to his face and squinted hard at it.

Finally, he put the cup down on the coffee table between them and sat back in thought.

"Okay..." he began slowly. "There are, or were, two magical elements to the cup. Neither was intended to be permanent, so the fact that they have degraded over a number of years isn't a surprise.

"The first was a basic notice-me-not charm. It is probably thirty or forty years old, maybe a little more, depending on the strength of the caster, but it has almost gone completely. This was probably what triggered your revealing spell when you found it, and I'm a little surprised that it even registered.

"The second is more complex, and is still active. It's a series of tiny runes that have been blood-sealed to an individual. The runes themselves are ancient. Probably Babylonian or Pre-Akkadian, but I would have to get a magnifying glass out to check for certain. Anyway, they are similar enough to the Egyptian runes I've spent so long looking at that I can tell what they were supposed to do.

"In short, they should make anyone within close range of the object – say five or six feet – feel a distinct distrust towards whomever's blood was used to seal the spell.

"Again, I would say that the blood seal was formed thirty or so years ago, which suggests that it was applied at the same time as the notice-me-not. I would also think that it might be good for another hundred years or so – possibly even longer – so would likely run for the lifetime of the victim. In ancient Egypt this is the sort of thing that would have been used in court politics to sway the Pharoah into trusting one person over another, or something similar.

"Interestingly, the cup itself probably isn't Pre-Akkadian, since we don't have any finds of pewter that can be dated anywhere older than about 3500 years ago, so it's likely to be Late Bronze Age rather than Early Bronze Age, though it is possible it might be Babylonian or Middle Kingdom Egyptian, but if it were then it would be a significant historical find."

"Are you able to tell who blood sealed it, or who the blood belongs to?" Hermione asked.

"No. That's not really my area of expertise," he replied. "You'd probably have to go to the Department of Mysteries for the caster, and you might be best in the Muggle world for identifyng the blood, though who you would approach I don't know."

"Okay, thanks very much,"she said. "I'm not sure I want to go back to the Department of Mysteries with this – I've had enough of their help of late."

"So, you promised to tell me where you found it," Bill prompted.

Hermione paused.

"Dont tell anyone else," she said, "but it was on the mantlepiece in the living room of Petunia Dursley, where Harry lived between 1981 and 1997."

"Which is what, fifty-one to sixty-seven years ago," Bill calculated with a sigh, starting to realise where this was leading. He thought for a moment "Presumably that means it was placed there at the start of that period. Which, given that I could still detect traces of the Notice-me-not means that it was cast by someone very powerful."

"Indeed."

"And I rather doubt that You-Know-Who would have popped in just to leave a mildy upsetting (and rather ugly) ornament in the house."

"Quite. Nor anyone else who obviously would have intended Harry more direct harm."

"Which does rather narrow down the list of suspects," Bill concluded.

"It does."

"But the bigger question has to be why someone would do that. Did they have a particular mild level of annoyance with the Dursleys?"

"I suspect not," Hermione said. "Let me leave this thought with you: who would benefit from Harry Potter being mistreated, under-nourished, and desperate for attention? Who could want him to remain ignorant of his parents and of Voldemort? Who had any reason to want him to be malleable and easily-led once he found out about magic?"

"Surely nobody!" Bill exclaimed. "And I hope you aren't insinuating that Ginny was involved in this in any way," he added with a glare.

"Of course not," Hermione said sadly, "she would only have been a baby at the time. But it appears that someone did, and someone took advantage of it. Harry seemed to think that he'd been set up, which is why I'm digging back all these years and trying to find out what happened behind the scenes."

"That's awful! If I can help in any way, please ask!"

"You already have, Bill. Just don't mention it to anybody else – especially not Ginny. I think she's going to struggle coping for a while yet and I don't want to put any extra pressure on her."

"Of course. Now let me see if Fleur is up and we can spend a bit more time talking about stuff that isn't going to cause my family pain, like what we might name the newest Weasley in four or five months time!"

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Hogsmeade

Sunday 20th September 2048

Hermione was getting frustrated as she ran into dead-ends at almost every turn she could think of to find people who might be able to answer questions about Harry's life.

Arabella Figg had been old for a Squib even back in the 1990s, and had died many years ago with no children, so could not be asked what she might have seen or told to anyone back in the day.. The publisher and author of "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts", where Hermione first read about Harry Potter as a child had both refused to speak to her, saying only by Owl that the information in the book had been provided by a trusted and reliable source.

Cornelius Fudge refused to speak to her at all, perhaps even now resenting that his treatment of Harry had not led to a better outcome, and the humiliation rising one again at the reminder of those times.

Consulting records at St Mungos provided little in the way of information, either – what there was primarily came from Poppy Pomfrey's notes of Harry's stays in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, and of course the Dursleys would never have taken him there as a child anyway. Harry's health as an adult appeared to be pretty robust, with his temporary stay at the hospital for treatment of Wizard Flu being the only record of note.

Today she was supposed to have been meeting Rita Skeeter, nearing ninety but still employed by the Daily Prophet and still delivering a regular ascerbic viewpoint on the news. At the last minute, however, Rita had cancelled on her, saying that she had changed her mind. No doubt the chance to snub her one-time captor had been the only reason she had agreed to meet in the first place.

Hermione was strangely relieved – she suspected that she'd have got little out of Rita, who had only been in the early years of her career when Voldemort fell the first time, working as a court reporter at the Death Eater trials - the stress of having to deal with the obnoxious gossip-mongerer only partly outweighed by the loss of another potential lead.

Instead she was meeting with Hagrid in the Three Broomsticks.

"'Ello 'ermione!" the half-giant greeted her as he walked into the pub.

Hermione was already sat at a table with a bottle of Butterbeer, and waved over at Hagrid. The pub was almost empty, no doubt between the lunchtime and evening rushes.

"'Appy birthday for yesterday! I 'ope you had a good time?"

"I don't celebrate it all that much after all these years, Hagrid," she replied, "but thankyou, anyhow."

The new proprietor of the Three Broomsticks came over and took Hagrid's order, then returned pretty swiftly with a large glass of ale.

"Well it's good to see you, anyway. What 'ave you been up to?"

"Well, I'm trying to trace some of Harry's early years – before he came to Hogwarts – and I thought you'd know something, since you delivered him to the Dursleys all those years ago."

"I dunno, 'ermione. What is there to tell? I didn't see him 'tween leavin' him at those 'orrible people, an' pickin' 'im up again to take 'im to Diagon Alley ta get all his stuff for 'ogwarts."

"Well tell me about the night it happened – how did you know to got to Godric's Hollow?" she asked.

"The 'eadmaster came down to my house and asked me to go – said he knew summat terrible had 'appened, and I needed to fetch little Harry at once. O' course I went stright to the gates an' Apparated to their place. It was a wreck. Like a big fight 'ad taken place.

"Anyway, I was about to go inside ta see if there was anyone still alive, when Sirius Black came burstin' out the door with Harry in 'is arms.

"He asks me why I'm there an' I tell him that I gotta take Harry to safety.

"He argues with me – says Harry is 'is responsibility now that poor James and Lily are dead, but I tell 'im that Dumbledore said I 'ad to take Harry back to 'ogwarts.

"He gives me a bit of a glare but eventually 'ands Harry over, and offers me the use of 'is bike, since Apparating with little kids is frowned on, an' says that he's got a 'traitorous rat' ta hunt down, and Apparates away."

"So you took him to Hogwarts, and I assume straight to Madam Pomfrey, to check he was alright," Hermione said.

"That's right," Hagrid replied. "She was real concerned when she saw the scar on little Harry's 'ead, but Dumbledore, 'e said that it would be fine, an' just to make sure he was 'ealthy."

"So when did you take Harry to the Dursleys?"

"Not till the next day, it wasn't. Poppy looked after him during the day I 'spect, but she called me up after dinner an' said Dumbledore wanted me to take Harry to Surrey, but not direc'ly. Wanted me to arrive well after dark, 'bout Midnight for some reason, so I took him for a nice long flight 'round the country on Sirius's bike, an' he loved it, he did. Was as good as can be, an' fell asleep somewhere over Bristol."

"And when Dumbledore said he was going to leave Harry on the doorstep at the Dursley with just a note. You didn't think there was anything wrong with that?" Hermione asked.

"'course not," he said. "Dumbledore said it was fine. Didn't want to wake up folks, did he?"

"No, but perhaps he could have arranged for you to meet him there earlier, so that he could talk to the Dursleys before they went to bed," she suggested. "Maybe make sure they were happy taking Harry in. I'm not sure that leaving him on the doorstep in the cold in November was particularly wise, do you?"

"He was fine," Hagrid insisted. "He'd offed You-Know-Who. A bit of cold wouldn't have stopped him! An' Dumbledore didn't have any problems with it – he was the one in charge."

"Very well," Hermione said, realising that Hagrid's hero worship of the former 'leader of the light' hadn't abated, even fifty years after Dumbledore's death. "If you think of anything else, do let me know," she continued, as she rose from her seat.

"Have a good evening, Hagrid," she said in parting, leaving Hagrid looking at her retreating back with some confusion.

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Former Transfiguration Classroom, Hogwarts

Sunday 20th September 2048

"Whilst it's always a pleasure to see you, Hermione," McGonagall said as she escorted her into the room where they had once been teacher and pupil, "I'm really not clear on the reason for the excessive security."

Minerva McGonagall looked almost exactly as she had done fifty years ago when she had been Deupty Headmistress. Unlike Petunia Dursley, it seemed to Hermione that this was a much more positive sign. If anything, Hermione thought that since McGonagall had realised that Dumbledore had foisted off a lot of the work of the Head onto her whilst he spent time on his other pet projects in the Wizengamot and the ICW, she might even have lost some of the lines on her face. It had certainly left her well-prepared to cope with the number one job at Hogwarts – and she certainly smiled a lot more now that she wasn't having to do three jobs plus most of the Headmaster's!

"I don't want to get all those portraits of former Headmasters sticking their oars in," Hermione said. "Besides, you know how gossipy some of them are – what we talked about would be halfway around the castle before I left, otherwise."

"And you don't want Albus interfering either, I'll bet," McGonagall guessed.

Hermione shrugged. "I'll have to talk to him eventually," she said. Harry suggested that I ask for your assistance in making sure he's compelled to tell the truth when I do."

"Of course."

"But in the meantime I'm still trying to get all my facts together in order, so that I've got the full story. I'm starting to figure out what Dumbledore was really like, and if I go off half-cocked I'm sure his potrait will come up with some convincing covering story."

"This already sounds ominous," the Headmistress said with a slight frown. "Why don't you let me know what you need, and I'll see what I can do to help."

Hermione forced a big breath out and pulled her shoulders back. Even now talking to McGonagall felt a little bit like you were under scrutiny, ready for her to tell you off for some infraction or other.

"Okay, but you might not like the answers."

"The answers? Not the questions?"

"No, the answers. I think... when you think about what was done... you might feel a bit... disquieted... shall we say."

"Now this really is beginning to sound ominous. Go ahead, dear, I'm sure I can cope with whatever comes up."

As always, Hermione had come prepared. She had a list of questions, and had written them down, so she now referred to them in her notebook.

"Where were you on 1st November 1981?" she began.

"November 1981?" McGonagall asked. "That's nearly seventy years ago! Surely you don't expect me to remember where I was on one specific date, so very long ago?"

"Perhaps you'll remember it by another reference – it was the day after Voldemort was defeated by Harry Potter as a baby and the deaths of his parents."

"Oh!" McGonagall flushed red, something that Hermione had never imagined possible. "I see!

"Well, yes," she continued, "I do remember that day, I suppose! Hagrid had brought little Harry in very early in the morning, and we met him in the Infirmary, where Poppy Pomfrey checked him over. Albus mentioned that Harry's only living relatives were Petunia Dursley and her son of a similar age, and that he expected they would take him in. He asked me to find their address and let him know, and then meet him there late that evening.

"It only took a few minutes to find the address, and I sent Albus a message by Patronus, as he had already left for the Ministry. The rest of the day I spent in the vicinity of Privet Drive in my animagus form, taking in the location and the inhabitants."

"And what was your impression of the place?" Hermione asked.

McGonagall's nose turned up and her lips thinned. "Very stale and monotonous, but I understand that a lot of Muggle residential areas are like that. It wasn't a place that I thought a young wizard would find to be particularly entertaining as he grew up, for certain. I was more appalled though, by the interactions between Petunia Dursley and her son, who seemed to be a menace of a child, kicking at his mother and demanding sweets, when I saw them out for a walk."

"So not exactly the sort of nurturing environment you would have picked for a young orphan, then?"

"Merlin, no! And I told Albus that before he left little Harry there."

"Yes, we'll come back to that," Hermione said, sadly. "Go on."

"Long after dark, quite late it was, maybe even into the next day, Albus turned up and appeared to recognise me immediately. I had assumed that he was going to bring Harry, but apparently not. Hagrid arrived on that motorcyle of Sirius's and handed the poor child over. Albus made some remark about Harry's scar, saying that it would be 'useful' or somesuch, but I misinterpreted this as his usual esoteric rambling.

"We left young Harry on the doorstep in a basket, with a letter from Albus explaining everything," she said, slightly nauseous at the growing realisation of what they had done.

"So, a cold November night, and you just left a toddler alone outdoors with little protection?"

"Yes," McGonagall said quietly.

"And just assumed that everything would work out for the best? No chance that the poor child might freeze to death on a cold night? No thought that he might climb out of the basket and wander off by himself, get lost or perhaps get run over?"

"No."

"No concern that the Dursleys might wake the next morning and wonder why a child had been left onn their doorstep? Or that they would welcome him into their home without a fuss?"

"No."

"Even though you had seen them interacting with one another during the day?"

"No. Hermione... please. Albus must have known what he was doing. Surely?"

"I've been hearing that a lot lately. I spoke to Hagrid earlier today. I didn't get any answers that I liked any more than I have from you."

"I... understand." the Headmistress said softly. "And, yes, I think I would have been horrified had anything happened to Harry. It's just... everything turned out okay, didn't it?"

"That's a matter of opinion, I think, Headmistress. There seemed to be a lot of 'Albus Dumbledore said do this, so I did it' going around at the time with very little questioning whether it was the right thing to do, and what his motives for issuing those instructions were.

"So, moving on a liitle – presumably that was the last anyone saw of Harry until Hagrid picked him up to take him shopping for his Hogwarts supplies in July 1991?"

"Not really," McGonagall said. "Arabella Figg used to babysit him occasionally, and she would take photographs that she would send to Albus. He used to pass them around the staff room, so we could see that he was still alive and well, no matter what the Prophet might insinuate."

"These photographs were presumably passed on to the Prophet anyway though," Hermione noted, "since everybody seemed to know what Harry looked like when he returned to the Wizarding World. Not to mention the seemingly unauthorised remarks about him in various books, or the childrens stories that seems to have cropped up about him. Where do you suppose all those originated from?"

McGonagall paused.

"I never really gave it much thought," she said. "I assumed they had been approved by Harry's guardians?"

"The Dursleys? Really?" Hermione said scornfully.

"As I say, I didn't really give it much thought. It wasn't as though they were anything that crossed my path."

"And then when Harry came to Hogwarts, you didn't think he looked shabby and mistreated?"

"No, I mean we all assumed he'd been well cared for, and the lack of any good clothing was some sort of fashion statement – you know how children are about that sort of thing. He was one of the youngest in your year, so I would have expected him to have been smaller than his year-mates if I had thought about it."

"Okay, so let's talk about Harry's – and my – first year at Hogwarts. I'll leave to one side for the moment the issue of Harry being the only first year permitted to own a broomstick, and by inference, to play Quidditch for the House team. I'll be amazed if you didn't pay for that in the staffroom through all Professor Snape's snide remarks at various points.

"Let's start instead with the Philosopher's Stone. What was your involvement in that?"

"Well, mostly just to provide the chess set that your husband played across so well. I didn't have any hand in any of the other Professors' traps."

"So, you made no objection to storing an artefact in the school when it was apparent that it was highly sought-after by the shade of Voldemort, and for which even Gringotts could not provide sufficient protection? Hiding it in a school was the best policy?"

"Well, no! Of course not! Not if you put it like that! We didn't know that You-Know-Who was after it! But Albus insisted that it was the only place where it would be safe!"

"Which it clearly wasn't," Hermione noted. Not only did Voldemort actually break through all the protections other than the Mirror of Erised, Harry, Ron and I were able to do so as well. Not exactly secure, was it?

"And Dumbledore announcing to the whole school at the opening feast only signposted the fact that there was something interesting present. I would have thought that you and he would understand the nature of children a little better than that – Fred and George were planning their adventure as soon as he mentioned that it was forbidden!

"And speaking of 'forbidden', what on earth prompted you to assign a detention in the Forbidden Forest to four first-years? Nobody in the party could cast any magic of relevance if they ran into trouble – which they did."

"In my defense, I didn't know that they were going to actually venture into the Forbidden Forest," McGonagall said, regaining some of her composure. "Hagrid simply asked if I could assign some detentions to him that week as he wanted help. You can be sure that I was very cross with him."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm not sure how much comfort that would have been to Narcissa Malfoy or Molly Weasley if either of their sons had died – bear in mind that apart from the normal hazards of the forest, the shade of Voldemort was busy in there killing unicorns to live off their blood! There does seem to be a fairly casual attitude by the staff to danger around the castle and grounds, doesn't there?"

"I don't think it has been anywhere near as eventful as when you were here, Hermione. We don't seem to attract the same level of danger."

"I can only imagine you're grateful for that!" Hermione suggested with a grin. "Now, clearly none of the staff suspected anything amiss with Professor Quirrell that year, so I'll leave that to one side, and move on.

"Second Year we had almost the entire school turn against Harry, accusing him of being the Heir of Slytherin and opening the Chamber of Secrets and attacking students, despite the facts that he was (a) a Half-blood himself, and (b) only twelve years old!

"Even some of the staff seemed to be against him. Yet as Head of Gryffindor, the house that you described as being akin to one's family, you gave him no succour, no comfort. Hardly then any surprise that he compared the situation to his disgusting home life, where he was blamed for everything and no explanation was good enough."

"Albus said that it would be good for him to go through some adversity – it would strengthen him," McGonagall said.

"That wasn't for him to decide!" Hermione growled. "Your silence – and his – encouraged other pupils to mistreat him, by assuming that if you weren't defending him then he might well be guilty.

"And, really, why should Harry be singled out for such treatment? If he was supposed to 'go through some adversity to strenghthen him' then why wasn't that required of other students? I seem to recall Draco Malfoy being waited on hand-and-foot when he got a minor scratch from a Hippogriff through his own fault in my Third Year – and wasn't that a travesty in its own right given Harry saved him from a much worse injury – and then had his father lobby for the animal to be put down! Where was that level of protection for Harry?"

"I am starting to see what you mean, Hermione. I think we all took far too much of a lead from Albus on this. I think we assumed he was Harry's guardian in the magical world, though I know that James and Lily's wills mentioned nothing of the sort, only that Sirius was to have custody."

"Indeed, and I think that's another question to be brought forward, but not one I'm laying at your door, Headmistress.

"Moving on to our Third Year more specifically, tell me your thoughts about having Dementors in the vicinity of so many schoolchildren?"

"Well, I was gobsmacked that they'd even consider such an idea," McGonagall affirmed, "but Albus said that he had fought as hard as he could against it but the Minister wouldn't listen."

"And you and the other teachers didn't consider resigning in protest?"

"No, to my shame it never even crossed my mind."

"And nobody seemed prepared to talk to Harry about his Godfather. Why was that? After all, you all knew who he was, even if it might have been difficult explain why he was in Azkaban. You even had Remus on staff that year, who was best friends with both Sirius and Harry's father."

"I'm going to start sounding like a scratched phonograph, I'm afraid," the Headmistress sighed. "Again, Albus had said not to bother Harry with stories. I must have been a bit confused that year, because I had assumed that Remus had been brought in exactly to be able to tell Harry about his parents and about Sirius if Albus hadn't already done so, but it appears that he kept a professional distance other than teaching Harry how to cast the Patronus."

"So – fourth year, and the Triwizard Tournament. Harrys' name comes unexpectedly out of the Goblet of Fire, and he makes it quite clear that he didn't enter himself into the tournament. I could go on again about the lack of support that Harry received from the Head of Gryffindor, being ostracised by three-quarters of the school, and the lack of any investigation into who entered Harry's name, how the Goblet could have been confounded, nor what options there might be for pulling Harry out of the tournament."

"And I agree those are fair points, Hermione. I don't feel that I should bear the full weight of opprobium for all those things, but I accept that I could have given Harry more support througout the tournament."

Hermione paused for breath. She still had questions to raise about Harry's fifth year, but she seemed to have lost her focus somewhat, and left the pursuit of knowledge about how things had happened to Harry and diverted to how the school, and McGonagall in particular, had let him down. She hoped by now that McGonagall has gotten the point, so she decided to summarise.

"All I seem to be hearing, Headmistress, is that Albus Dumbledore's instructions have been followed at every turn without giving any thought to what might be best for Harry. Dumbledore says 'jump' and nobody asks why, only 'how high, sir'.

"I have become very disillusioned in the last few weeks, finding out exactly how much everyone danced to Dumbledore's tune without the slightest consideration for what the consequences might be."

"I can see why, Hermione," McGonagall agreed. "And for my part, I'm sorry that I took so much on trust and didn't act on any independent thoughts I might have had. I don't know how much difference my contrition will actually make, but it occurs to me that we seem to have lost the art of critical thinking over the years, and have become reliant on taking a lead from one individual or another.

"It gives me a lot to think about, both personally and in the way that we teach children here at Hogwarts, but I don't know that I would expect to see any big changes – it took you decades just to get the 'Sentients Acts' through, let alone equality."

Hermione grimaced. She could see that this would be a long haul, too. Still... best not to burn bridges you might need to return to on a later day.

"And I'm sorry, Minerva, if I've sounded overly harsh, but there seems to have been so much going on, prompted by Albus Dumbledore, that I'm discovering almost every day. Thank you for your time, and for answering me honestly."

"You truly are welcome, Hermione," McGonagall replied. "I hadn't realised myself how badly I have been led, and it gives me much to think about."

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Author's explanatory note: HP and the Philosopher's Stone provides us with a problem in terms of Harry's trip from Godric's Hollow to Little Whinging. A full 24 hours passes, and we seem to be expected to believe that the journey took that long. This seems completely unrealistic, especially when Hagrid says that Harry "fell asleep somewhere over Bristol", which would have been less than halfway into the journey even if he had started from the far West Wales coast – I don't believe he would have slept for twelve hours straight (plus presumably another five or six before Petunia discovers him on her doorstep.

Indeed, one wonders how Dumbledore thought Hagrid was going to get Harry to the Durselys in any event, had he not run into Sirius and been able to borrow the motorcycle. Obviously Portkey, Apparation and Floo seem to have been out of the equation (otherwise why not use them anyway, since they would have been far quicker!).

Therefore, I have inferred a slightly different scenario here: Hagrid first takes Harry to Hogwarts, where he is seen by Poppy Pomfrey and Albus Dumbledore, and is only later taken by Hagrid down to Surrey.

This has the additional advantage of explaining away how Harry has gone 24 hours without being fed or changed, and of Dumbledore actually being able to establish from Hagrid what he found, and to see that Harry was still alive, and to consider what to tell the Minister.

Otherwise you also have a scenario where people have been speculating all day about the demise of Voldemort and the deaths of James and Lily Potter without having any way of knowing about it in the first place. Someone must have started those rumours or provided some information, but if we go strictly by what it suggests in PS, nobody who knew anything about it was actually in a position to start spreading that information.

Even if Dumbledore had, say, alterted the Aurors to the scene of the crime, it's extremely unlikely that they could have concluded their investigation and reported back for the rumours to be out and about when Vernon hears something, and for the Wizarding World to start celebrating, as appears to have been the case for much of the day on 1st November 1981 – the news and wearther reports on the TV stated that hosts of owls had been flying around "since sunrise"! - not to mention that they would have needed to have interviewed Sirius and Hagrid, both of whom do not appear to have been in circulation at the time!