Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 36: Secrets Exposed

2 February 1994
From the Daily Prophet

THE DEATH EATER MENACE!
ARE MUGGLEBORNS SECRETLY TO BLAME?

An Investigative Expose by Rita Skeeter

Regulus furrowed his brow at the lurid headline, and his grimace only deepened as he read the rest of the article. It had been the conspiracy's plan to make the Aurors believe that a group of Muggleborns with access to shapeshifting magic had been behind the Azkaban breakout. A small group most likely motivated by revenge for past harm suffered at the hands of Death Eaters during the last war. It was not meant to be a massive conspiracy whose goal was to seize the magical and material assets of Voldemort's former organization as part of some vendetta against all Purebloods. Yet that was the slant of Skeeter's story: that the daring jailbreak was part of a plan by American Muggleborn metamorphmagi – and wasn't that a mouthful! – to undermine Wizarding Britain's defenses for some inscrutable reason.

Well, it was officially inscrutable because the article never came out with direct accusations, but the subtext was quite plain. The article spent much of its length rehashing old news and conspiracy theories about the Muggleborn Rights movement that had briefly flourished in Britain prior to Voldemort's rise. A movement that quite a few Purebloods thought led to Voldemort's rise, in fact.

Then, Regulus grimaced again as his plane experienced some turbulence. He'd drawn the short straw in this endeavor, as he was the only conspirator who'd ever been on a plane before. ("Once! In 1987!" he'd protested.) Alas, it had been decided that someone really needed to investigate the disappearance of Herbert Cattermole if they were going to clear Sirius of his crimes. Cattermole's trail led to the Bahamas more than a decade earlier and then went cold. And since a Portkey to anywhere in North America would be heavily scrutinized in the current political climate, that meant taking a Transatlantic jet for the journey.

The wizard sighed and put away his newspaper and reclined his chair to try for some sleep. He'd charmed the moving pictures in the Prophet to be still, but the headlines were still potentially visible to Muggles, and he had no wish to risk a breach of the Statute of Secrecy. He'd be breaking quite enough laws on this trip as it was.

Hogwarts
Later that same day...

Naturally, Skeeter's "investigative report" caused quite a stir among the student body. Things weren't improved by a subsequent interview given by James Potter over the Wizarding Wireless in which he condemned Skeeter's "flights of fancy" but was nevertheless unwilling to conclusively deny that her theories could be true.

The article and the Ministry's response to it dominated the discussion at that afternoon's meeting of the Hogwarts Cultural Preservation Society. Daphne Greengrass gave a report to the group on the final days of the Nobby Leach administration and the extremist Muggleborn elements that emerged after the death of the first (and only) Muggleborn Minister for Magic and the expulsion of his patron, Alexander McAvity, from Britain. In particular, Daphne spoke about McAvity's three chief lieutenants, Martha Bracewell, Timothy Spraggins, and Rian O'Grady, all three of whom were Muggleborn activists who turned to violence and revolution in his forced absence. Bracewell accidentally killed herself in a quixotic attempt to blow up the Marriage Contract Registry Office because she was opposed to arranged marriages. Spraggins was cornered while trying to sabotage the Hogwarts Express in some manner and killed himself rather than be taken alive and made to betray his fellow terrorists. Most shocking, though, was the tale of Rian O'Grady who simply disappeared after his public assassination of Cantankerous Nott, author of The Sacred 28 and father of the current Lord Nott. And whatever feelings anyone had towards House Nott, most of those present were incensed at the thought of such a revered Pureblood historian dying at the hands of an Irish revolutionary Muggleborn who'd never even attended Hogwarts.