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In some other world, Harry Potter’s fourth year was a disaster, characterized by a golden cup, a dragon, and a grotesque rebirth ritual in a graveyard. In the world beyond that, there was no Triwizard Tournament, and Harriet Potter had an entirely unremarkable schoolyear free of anxiety beyond the usual torments of a teenager.And in this world, the 1994 – 1995 schoolyear was very different again.The first thing you need to know is that none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for a minor potions mishap on an average Tuesday in Peru.A hapless student at a lesser-known school of witchcraft and wizardry was brewing a potion. He was talking, as students do, to his best friend, and laughing just a bit too much, and not paying enough attention to the instructions on the board in front of him. He added just a shade too much bulbadox powder and a few too many valerian sprigs, and instead of creating a simple cure for boils, managed to create a large thundercloud, that quickly rose out of his cauldron, escaped the potions classroom and took the professors six hours to fix.The thundercloud was an angry black cloud that seemed to swell and bubble and hiss, and it quickly became a full-blown thunderstorm that spread all over South America, changed the direction of the wind to the east, and sent a stream of hot air across the Atlantic Ocean, up the backbone of Africa, across Europe and up and through the UK.If that student had paid a bit more attention, or the professors had been able to contain the thundercloud, or if the wind had changed to the west, perhaps that summer would have been a cooler one. Perhaps this would be a different story.But it didn’t.And so, the second thing you need to know is that this potions accident brought more consequences than just the worst heatwave in two centuries. It brought a dry spell for the Daily Prophet.The Wizengamot was in summer recess. It was swelteringly hot, the hottest summer on record, in fact, and every witch and wizard in the country from Lands’ End to John O’Groats was lethargic, languishing lazily in their gardens under thick layers of cooling charms that seemed to bend and break under the weight of the humidity.Everyone was so focused on staying cool, that nothing was happening, and that meant no news.Barnabus Cuffe, highly experienced journalist and editor of The Daily Prophet prided himself on knowing what sold newspapers. But recent headlines – well...
HOGWARTS EXPRESS ARRIVES ON TIME
EEYLOPS OWL EMPORIUM STILL SELLING OWLS
...they weren’t really selling newspapers.Feeling oppressed by the stuffy air in his office, Barnabus heaved himself out of his chair and went to stand in the doorway, looking out over the newsroom. Rita Skeeter hadn’t bothered to come in that day. Zamira Poinse, Chief Culture Correspondent, was slouched in her chair over at the music desk. Her feet were propped up on a stack of old concert programmes, and she was absent mindedly playing with a yo-yo that had been in the range of fan merchandise on Celestina Warbeck’s latest tour. Celestina’s face was emblazoned on the side, and as she was currently spinning up and down, she looked rather sick. Opposite her, political editor Henry Loud-Haylark was asleep at his desk, the newspaper covering his face floating gently up and down with each snore. The Quidditch correspondent Peter Undermanager had abandoned his chair entirely and was sat on top of the sports desk, throwing spare quills into the ceiling like they were darts.Barnabus sighed. He’d take them all to task for it, but what was the point? They’d all submitted what little news they had to write up already. Turning to go back into his office, he caught sight of the Prophet’s newest recruit out of the corner of his eye.Anna Mattock, Muggleborn witch and recent graduate of Ravenclaw House was sat at the announcements desk with her chin in her hands. Barnabus hadn’t been looking to take on a new journalist when her owl had delivered her application, but when she’d followed it up the day after the Hogwarts Express arrived back in London with a look of determination on her face and a stack of Ravenclaw Newsletters in her satchel, he’d seen a little of himself in her, and decided to give her a chance.Unfortunately, nothing newsworthy had really happened since she had started, and he was afraid the gloss of her shiny new job in journalism was starting to wear off. His brain froze on that thought for a minute, and he probed at it a little before hitting on an idea that should, at least, liven up her day and keep her keen.She flushed as he caught her eye and beckoned her into his office, waving off her apologies for having been caught idling.“Nonsense!” he said jovially, “we’re all of us a little at a loose end at the moment! I called you in here because it seems to me that we might as well use this quiet period to give you some training!”She sat up a little straighter in her chair at that, the Ravenclaw unable to resist the idea of learning some new skills.“Why don’t you go out and write a story – perhaps based on something you’ve heard at school – and I can go through it with you and show you how we’d edit it for the paper?” he said, leaning back in his chair and feeling quite pleased with himself.“Oh – oh, yes!” she said, eagerly. “I heard a rumour at the end of term about Harry Potter that – ”“Excellent!” cried Barnabus, unwittingly cutting off a story about Sirius Black and a werewolf that he’d have been very interested in indeed. Schoolyard rumours about Harry Potter were ten a penny, after all. “Do you think you can have something for me by Friday lunchtime?”“Yes, Sir!” said Anna, practically vibrating in her seat.“Off you go, then!” Barnabus waved her off, chuckling to himself. “Ravenclaws!”Back at her desk, Anna wondered where to start. Quill poised, she watched as a drop of ink pooled and dropped with a splash onto the parchment. Slowly, hesitantly, a plan of action started to form, and she wrote down everything she could remember about the rumours that had been flying around the school.And then she started at the beginning.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
In Surrey, Harry Potter was lying flat on his bed, threadbare curtains pulled shut in a futile attempt to keep the room cool. His Aunt Petunia had half-heartedly given him some chores to do that morning, but it seemed the heat had taken all the spite out of her, and she lacked the energy even to make his day miserable. Once he’d stumbled in from the garden having done the weeding and dripping in sweat, she’d shooed him upstairs with instructions to stay in his room and not to bother anyone while she went to the shops and stocked up on ice cream for herself, Vernon and Dudley.So far it had been a depressingly normal summer, heatwave aside, and it felt like there were still centuries to go before the Weasleys would be able to break him out like they normally tried to do around the time of his birthday.He was just contemplating whether it was worth trying to sneak a quick cold shower while Aunt Petunia was out when he heard a familiar tap at the window. Peeling himself off the bed and grimacing at how sticky he felt, Harry went to the window, noting with surprise that it wasn’t Hedwig coming back with his usual food parcels, but another, brown owl he didn’t recognize. He let it in and relieved it of the letter it had been carrying.He eyed the envelope curiously. It couldn’t be from Sirius, who had been sending him letters with increasingly more exotic birds as he clearly made his way south. The handwriting was neater, too - tight and concise, and unlike the last mysterious letter he’d received, the year he’d turned eleven and been invited to Hogwarts, it was addressed just to “Harry Potter”, with no address.Turning it over, he pulled it open and felt his eyebrows rise steadily up his face as he read the letter within.Dear Mr. Potter (it read),
My name is Anna Mattock and I have recently joined the Daily Prophet as a journalist having finished my studies at Hogwarts this year.
Anna Mattock? Harry cast his mind about trying to picture who this was, and finally settled on an image of a tall, dark-haired girl he’d sometimes seen talking to Percy in the hallways.
I have been asked to look into the rumours that Sirius Black was found at the school at the end of last term, and I wondered if you would like to comment. Please do write to me by way of my owl, Plectrum, who has been asked to wait for your response. I am also happy to meet in person if you would like to be interviewed on this matter.
Kind regards
Anna Mattock
Harry read this letter through several times, a curious bubble of emotion seeming to expand in his gut as he tried to grasp the whole of what was being offered.Was this – could this be a way to get Sirius his trial? Would the Daily Prophet really listen to his side of the story, when the other adults had either refused to listen or had done nothing with the information? More to the point, would they even believe him?He lost himself for a moment, in visions of a life where Sirius was free, and he could live with his godfather, playing quidditch in the summers and getting presents at Christmas and far, far away from Little Whinging and the Dursleys.A door slammed shut downstairs, and Harry, coming back to himself, lurched to the loose floorboard under which he kept anything magic related during the summers. Prying it open, he stuck a hand in and scrabbled around, grimacing as his hand skated over something slimy before finally landing on a quill and some parchment that he could write back with.His first instinct was to put the whole sorry story down on paper. The words spilled onto the page in no time, covering the parchment front and back, squeezing ink into every blank space in his eagerness. His hand cramped, and he shook it out, reviewing what he’d written.Hermione had complained about his chicken scratch handwriting often enough in the past, and he’d shrugged it off just as often, but only now did he finally realise that she might have a point. In his haste to put across his version of events to someone who was willing to listen, he’d taken little care over his handwriting, half of which was now indecipherable even to him and half of the rest covered in ink blots.This was possibly – no, definitely! - the most important letter of his life. He had to take this more seriously. He discarded the parchment and took out a new piece, eyeing it thoughtfully. What would Ron and Hermione do in this situation?Hermione would want to talk to an adult. But, he thought, they’d tried that. Fudge had dismissed them as children. Snape had allowed himself to be blinded, as per usual, by his hatred for Harry’s father. Dumbledore had listened, he supposed, but then he’d done nothing. And wasn’t he the Chief Warlock?Ron would probably take a more gung-ho approach. That suited Harry’s feelings more. If he, Harry was going to have to be the one to step up to the plate and get justice for Sirius, he’d have to do it properly.Perhaps, he decided, he should meet this Anna in person, and check that she was the type of person who would listen to what he had to say. The Daily Prophet was, after all, not what he’d call a serious newspaper. Oh, it seemed harmless enough, but he’d heard plenty of people – mostly muggleborns – grumble about it over breakfast. It was a distinction that seemed to go over the head of most purebloods, but it was undeniable that the Prophet was more a sensationalist tabloid than a properly balanced source of news and tended to be something of a ministry mouthpiece.No, he thought. There was no point in sending off Sirius’ whole story and putting it out into the world where it could be twisted to make things worse when he could try and prevent it. True, it would be difficult to sneak away to the Leaky Cauldron, but he’d never had such motivation in his life. He thought he could do it, if he was a little more… Slytherin.(Several hundred miles away, in Scotland, the Sorting Hat smiled smugly).He put quill back to parchment and wrote out a much shorter, neater letter, and sent it off. He watched Plectrum fly off as the last of the daylight faded, heart thumping with anticipation.Truthfully, Anna had been very surprised to not only receive a reply from Harry, but so quickly. Her impression of the short, dark-haired boy who she’d seen so often in the halls of Hogwarts was of a very private person who disliked his fame. The rest of the school hadn’t even seemed to see that, or how uncomfortable he became at the end of each year when there inevitably seemed to be a new storm of rumours about him, and she’d never been able to understand why.But receive a reply she had, and so she had booked a private room for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron at Harry’s suggested time of 1pm. When she got there, the room was empty, so she spent a couple of minutes getting herself organized with parchment and quill and then sat down, suddenly unsure of herself. This was crazy, she thought. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had never spoken to the media before and here she was, two weeks out of Hogwarts and about to land the first ever exclusive interview with him.She closed her eyes and took a long, calming breath, and when she opened them again, he was sat in front of her, seemingly having been there all along.“How did you do that?” she spluttered, “was that a disillusionment charm? You’re underage, you can’t do magic outside of school!”Harry shrugged vaguely, trying not to glance down at the invisibility cloak that was now pooled in his lap. “I didn’t do any magic. Besides, I don’t think I should be seen having this conversation with you, and I wanted to check you out before we get started. See what you were like.”She stared at him for a moment, speechless. He raised an eyebrow.“Do you promise that you will listen to me and report on this honestly?”“Well,” she said, trying to pull herself together and wondering again if she’d bitten off more than she could chew. “It’s my job to verify and fact-check whatever you tell me, Mr. Potter – ““Harry, please.”“Harry, then. It’s my job to verify whatever you tell me, but I can promise you that I will report on this with integrity” she said solemnly, seeing a little late the anxiety in his eyes. If he thought she was going to write a sensationalist piece, he’d bolt. “I’m only new to this, but I want to make a name for myself the right way.”He looked at her thoughtfully. “You won’t dismiss me just because of my age?”She shook her head, holding her breath and there was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Alright,” Harry said, head cocked. She seemed to have passed some kind of inspection.“Alright?”“Alright.” he said again, biting his lip and suddenly sounding much younger. “I – I’m trusting you with a lot here. Please don’t make me regret it.”This resonated with Anna. “I promise,” she said, solemnly.He started talking.Two hours later, she had a thick stack of parchment covered back-to-back in lines of notes, and a headache.“…and then we tried to tell the Minister, but he wouldn’t listen. And that’s pretty much it!” finished Harry, now sounding slightly hoarse.Anna flipped back through her notes again. “Do you know anything about how Mr. Black got away from Hogwarts after that?”“No.” said Harry resolutely, and with a straight face, “– but Snape was furious.”Anna eyed him closely, and he flushed under her scrutiny. He’d told her what seemed like the most outlandish story, but funnily enough, she had believed every word, and it was only now that she thought she’d caught him in a lie. The rest had rung with perfect truth. That being the case, she decided to let it slide. He’d given her more than enough to go on and, if half of what he said was correct, she couldn’t be dismayed that Sirius had successfully escaped the castle.“This is all really helpful, Harry,” she said, biting back an amused grin at the way he seemed to sag slightly with relief.“Really?” he exclaimed, eagerly. “There’s plenty of adults who know all of this too and they’ve never done anything about it.”Anna had been putting her things back in her bag but turned back to him at this. “Really? Who else knows?”“Well,” Harry said, looking like it should have been obvious. “Dumbledore, for a start.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Having obtained Harry’s side of the story, Anna gave serious consideration to making Dumbledore her next port of call. Perhaps she could have gone to him first to get his side of the story; another witness to lend weight to Harry’s testimony, but something about the total lack of action taken by anyone in a position of authority had set alarm bells ringing, and so instead, she decided to go to the Archives Office at the Ministry of Magic and test for herself what the official position was. She got as far as the lift, and only realised as her finger was hovering over the buttons that she wasn’t exactly sure where the Archives Office even was.A tall ginger man who could only be a Weasley turned to smile at her.“Not sure what level you want?” he asked kindly.“No, actually! Do you know what level the Archives Office is?” The man looked surprised. “The Archives Office! My goodness, nobody goes down there very often.”“Why not?”“Well,” said the man, looking stumped. “I can’t say I rightly know. But it’s the basement you want.”She looked back at the button panel and was surprised to see a “B” at the bottom. It looked much newer than all the rest, which had been worn down by hundreds of fingers pressing them repeatedly each day.“Oh!” she exclaimed, “I wonder why I didn’t notice it before!”“Notice what?” said the ginger man, vaguely. She looked at him curiously, but before she could press him, the lift stopped, and he stepped out.The closer the lift got to the basement, the more she felt like she’d forgotten something. Why was she in the lift? Where was she going? Surely, she had something she needed to be doing back at the Prophet?The lift chimed and as she got out, she felt the fog lift. She realised the basement had some sort of confundus charm on it, in an attempt to discourage visitors, and felt her curiosity heighten. The Archives Office was supposed to be public commons – why were people discouraged from visiting it?Ahead of her was a long, dank corridor that smelt of damp and musty paper. As she walked along, the wall torches turned on one by one until eventually they revealed a dark wooden desk with a bell on it. She approached hesitantly.“Hello?” she called, pressing the bell. “Is anyone there?”Nothing, and then – “Who’s asking?”There was a long, rattling sound and then a ladder slid into view along a bookshelf Anna hadn’t noticed. A small elderly lady with long white hair pulled back into a bun high on her head was perched at the top.“Well, hello dear! We don’t get visitors down here very often!”“Yes,” said Anna, “so I hear. Why is that, exactly?”“Well,” said the woman, looking stumped. “I can’t say I rightly know”.Anna felt her eyebrows shoot up at this woman parroting the same phrase as the Weasley man had.“Anyway, dear,” said the woman, cutting off this train of thought. “How can I assist?”“I’d like to submit a freedom of information request to see the file you hold on Sirius Black’s initial arrest and trial, please.”The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “An interesting request, to be sure, my dear. Hold a moment, would you?”The woman didn’t appear to be holding a wand, but she didn’t seem to need one, because the next second the ladder slid her out of view again. She was gone for a long time, and when she came back, she was clutching a small, thin manila envelope, held shut by an old, peeling strip of spello-tape, and a long, grey box.“Here you are, my dear,” she said, and handed it to Anna who looked at it perplexedly.“Is that it?”The woman looked at her impassively, face closed off, but said nothing.Anna set the file down on the desk, peeled away the spello-tape with one fingernail, and opened it. Inside, there was one sheet of paper – an arrest report, only half-filled in, and missing a signature at the bottom. The words “REMITTED TO AZKABAN” were emblazoned across the top, in red ink. She looked at the page in disbelief, feeling a rising level of nausea at the clear proof in front of her that, at the very least, the Ministry of Magic had been grossly negligent.She looked at the box, sat innocuously on the desk. In faded gold print, the words barely visible, “Ollivanders, Est. 382 B.C.” could be seen on top. This could only be Sirius Black’s wand. If the Ministry were to be believed, this wand was the murder weapon for twelve muggles and a war hero. If Harry was right, however…Hold me, the wand seemed to whisper, through the box. I can show you. Her hand was hovering over the lid when she suddenly remembered that the archives clerk was still watching her, and she let her arm fall limply to the side again. Anna’s throat seemed to have gone very dry. “What about the trial record?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady.The woman’s face seemed to twitch with annoyance. “Oh, well I can’t help you there I’m afraid.”“Why not?”“The Ministry doesn’t have a file on Sirius Black’s trial! There wasn’t one, see?”Anna felt a thrill rush through her. “What about records on the Potters? Who their son was supposed to go to, that kind of thing?”“Well, they both had wills, but they’re sealed.”“But what about the public inquiry?”The woman was looking exasperated now, “come on now dear, I’ve brought you all the records we’ve got on the subject. There was no public inquiry! Now, have you got any requests I can actually fulfil, or are you just here to waste my time?”Anna’s heart was pounding with excitement as she turned on her heel and fairly flew back to the lift. “Thank you!” she called back over her shoulder.Armed with this information, Anna made several more enquiries elsewhere to build up some more evidence before stopping to ponder what to do next. Balanced reporters, she thought, would get an official comment from the Ministry. If there were no proper records of an investigation, let alone a trial, how were they justifying issuing the dementors with a kiss on sight order? There were reams of paperwork that were supposed to be filed before such a thing could even be considered!She made her way back to the Daily Prophet offices as quickly as she could. This was not very fast. Somehow, it seemed that the temperature was even higher today than it had been all week, and she could swear that the rubber soles of her shoes were melting slightly, making each step slightly sticky as she peeled her foot away from the pavement.The Daily Prophet office was deserted when she arrived, except for Henry, the political editor, who was leant back in his chair and lazily attempting to make his teacup perform a waltz.“Henry?” she asked.Henry jumped, the teacup missed a beat, and span straight off the corner of his desk.“Sorry!” she said, flustered now.“No bother, lass,” he said, casting a quick reparo and setting the teacup in motion again. This time she thought it might be trying the salsa.“How do you get the ministry to comment on a story?”The teacup jerked to a stop again as Henry turned to look at her shrewdly.“Got a scoop?”“No,” Anna said, aiming for breezy. “Just trying to learn how things work.” She swatted at a beetle that was trying to creep its way under the front cover of her notebook. It seemed to buzz at her angrily for a moment, before drifting out of the window. Henry watched it go, chuckling.“Sure you don’t, lass” he laughed again, and she couldn’t tell if he believed her or not, but he heaved to his feet and came over to tell her what to do, so she decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.An hour later, a formal request for comment from the Daily Prophet winged its way into the Ministry post room. Truth be told, this was not a particularly common occurrence. Henry, who had himself once been a bright-eyed young journalist eager to report the truth, had not wanted to burst Anna’s bubble by pointing out that since the Ministry often fed the Prophet stories directly, and expected them to be printed without challenge or debate, there was rarely any need to do so.In any event, requests for comment were rarely answered quickly enough for the paper to include the response before it had to be sent to print. If the post room had ever had a strict organisation system, then it was long lost to history. Incoming letters were marked as “received” and entered into a logbook, but that was as far as it went. After that, they would be piled in tall, teetering towers of parchment, in unhelpful categories such as “received from a bird with a ruffled left wing”, or “written on dirty parchment”, and no one was quite sure how they were then actually distributed to the proper departments after that.When Anna’s letter arrived, the post room was in its usual state of chaos.“Look, Bryan,” the post clerk was saying exasperatedly to a junior official from the Improper Use of Magic office, who had stopped by in an attempt to find that day’s post. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, you can’t use owls for internal ministry communications!” He gestured sharply with his wand as he stamped each new piece of incoming post as officially received. A letter flew over to a pile nearby (this one categorised “letters addressed upside down”).“It’s quicker, though!” argued Bryan, picking his way through the letters and wondering where to start.“Is it?!” exclaimed the post clerk, “when you end up with owl droppings smeared over half your in-tray and you can’t read the bloody things?”Flick, went the wand. Another letter went to the pile, which was starting to sway to and fro.“Merlin, it’s hot in here,” said Bryan, not really listening to this lecture.Flick, went the post clerk’s wand. Two more letters, including Anna’s, joined the pile, by now wobbling dangerously.“I’ll open a window,” said Bryan, cheerfully.“No!” cried the post clerk, but it was too late. Bryan had already pointed his wand at the nearest window, which flew open, and sent the tower of letters flying out into the street below.There was a strangled pause.“I’ll just go, shall I?” said Bryan.