The Risk of Truth

Fudge appeared flustered under the attack, and then shook his head slightly. He would NOT let a MUGGLE, of all people, admonish him, let alone get the upper hand on him! He straightened his shoulders and looked the Prime Minister in the eye and replied "The magical citizens of the Wizarding world have not in the past attacked the non-magical world, just as they did not participate in the attack at Gandy Street yesterday! I have it on good authority they were there strictly for shopping!" Both Amelia Bones and Scrimgeour appeared shocked and embarrassed at the Ministers declaration, especially in light of the video recording. "And whose authority is that?" asked the Commander. "We've all seen the video surveillance, Minister. How would you like to explain how things went down? Furthermore, how would you explain the actions of your Aurors? Do you really deny that your Aurors cast spells on the non-magical citizens?" the Commander asked.

Minister Fudge hesitated a few seconds before responding. "Tell me Commander, how was it that you had people at that location, at that time, with the proper equipment to make such a recording? It's as if you had prior knowledge to the event. And if that is the case, perhaps you were waiting for just the right time to kill our magical citizens. And I don't deny the actions of the Aurors. They responded in the manner they were trained, in order to maintain the Statute of Secrecy."

"Minister" the Commander began, "as I am sure you know, the UK maintains several intelligence agencies, however, in this case, it was just pure happenstance. In the last year we have seen an uptick in domestic terrorism and I periodically send out teams for surveillance practice. It just so happens that on that day, at that time, my team of highly trained soldiers just happened to be there when things went down."

November 10, 1995 – Hogwarts. At Hogwarts, the morning mail bomb was in full progress. The Daily Prophet reported the murder of "10 upstanding citizens" and three Aurors by the muggle military at the Gandy Street shopping area in Exeter the day before. The Prophet reported that these "upstanding citizens" had been out on a shopping spree and, apparently because they looked different, the military killed them. When the Aurors responded to (defensive) spell fire, three of their group were also killed. Of course, this caused many of the magical students to become belligerently loud in their protests against muggles – and later started a spree of not-so-hidden attacks against known muggle-born.

One of their most frequent targets was, of course, Hermione because she was a well-known friend of the "lying Brat" Potter, and because of her "outspoken, uppity know-it-all" nature. Umbridge herself perpetuated this hatred towards muggles and muggle-born by throwing out false information during her classes, and secretly issuing points to students cursing muggle-borns.

After reading the article in the Prophet, Hermione wrote Evan a letter asking if he was all right, as she knew he was stationed near Exeter. When she was alone in her room she called Dobby to deliver the letter because she was worried and wanted a quick answer. Dobby delivered Evan's note to her at the same time.

As Evan was getting ready for bed on November 10, a letter appeared on his pillow. Whispering quietly, Evan thanked Dobby and asked him to come back 20 minutes later to pick up his return letter. After reading Hermione's letter, he pulled out a sheet of lined paper from his notebook and began composing his response. Evan could only give the barest of information in order to preserve security – not only per military protocol but also because he did not trust magical Brittan. He felt that, for both his and Hermione's sake, he needed to "remain in character" even in his letter correspondence, at least until he could find a fool-proof way to secure the mail. Anybody could intercept or steal a letter. He responded that he stayed on base training, and only heard about the commotion. Evan provided a very brief summary of their training, and shared a story of how one of the training Sergeants "slipped" into a trench filled with muddy water just outside his shelter in the middle of the night.

Sergeant Miller had been on his case all week. Every night would see the Sergeant messing with his shelter to either make it collapse or become more visible, but no matter what he did, the shelter was always in top notch condition by inspection time. Evan asked Hermione if she was coming home for Christmas vacation – he might be able to get a week off during that time and was wondering if they could see each other. Before he sent Dobby off with his letter, he asked Dobby if he could keep an eye on Hermione. Reading some of the articles in the occasional Prophet, Evan was worried about her safety at Hogwarts. Dobby, of course could not say no.

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