The Marauders of Slytherin

Gallows pole

Test week of the second trimester was coming up, so I couldn't dodge all my classmates in the library. Even Mattheo was in the library, albeit because he was irritating Madam Pince with Theodore and Adric Rosier; a second year Slytherin that Mattheo wanted to impress. They were so unoriginal sometimes, honestly. But when Lorenzo called mudbloods old news, I realised something. I don't know how I could have been so stupid to forget to research muggle-related news. Last night, after we discussed the prank, I had started my search in the files of muggle newspapers and muggle-related columns of the Daily Prophet and even the Quibbler. They all dated between 1980 and 1990, so it was an impossible lot of work and I had stayed up all night for it. But if this was what it took to prove that what Narcissa said wasn't true...

I retrieved a Daily Prophet article from February 13th, 1986. It wasn't preserved very well, but still eligible. I flipped through it to the muggle page, at the very end of the issue.

Muggle Woman Caught in Fire

Last week, a muggle woman has been found dead in the sublet apartment on 14th Albany Road in the muggle part of Norwich. The place was initially rented under the name of a wizarding family who are known to be practically extinct. Their last member has not been employed or living in England for since circa 1957. The rent had somehow or other been transferred onto their unused bank account at Gringotts. This was reason for the Ministry to be involved in this case. Muggle authorities have no explanation for the tragedy as the so called 'firefighters' were not able to find a cause for the fire.

"The most logical explanation would be a gas-explosion, hadn't the gas been disconnected this day due to work activities," a muggle firefighter stated to an official of the Ministry's Magical Law Enforcement Patrol on the night of the incident.

(...)

Neighbours witnessed a loud bang around 02:00 at night. "There was a terrible scream and then an explosion. Still haunts me in my dreams. So I look out the window to see what's going on, and there were flames bursting out of the window. Reckon she lit it herself. She wasn't a very sociable woman. Always hiding behind the curtains."

The woman had been known to have a son, who was not found in the remnants of the home. It is possible that his remains are unidentifiable if he had been close to the source of the explosion. The case remains a mystery to both muggle- and wizarding authorities. It has however been decided that the case will be left to the muggle police, since there is no conclusive proof of wizarding interference in the incident, according to Eric Pincoln; Head of Department of Wizarding Incidents concerning Muggle Safety.

All potential witnesses have been obliviated for insurance purposes.

My heart had skipped several beats while I read this. I looked up at the boys, who were teasing Astoria and Andrew Kirke, who hid behind bookshelves; 'studying'. They couldn't find a moment of peace away from the three poltergeists. Mattheo was laughing like I hadn't seen him do before, carefree and at such ease with his friends. It made my heart clench. My aunt – his guardian, had killed his mother in an unspeakable way. She had come to snatch him away in the dead of night. It couldn't be. It couldn't have been Bella. The details in the article could almost not have been coincidental. They had lived in an apartment that the Dark Lord presumably owned (he was the last member of his family and had disappeared in the year 1957), there was a scream before the explosion, which must mean that Mattheo's mother had been awake before the explosion happened. She had been hiding from everyone because she was afraid of her son's existence being discovered by the Dark Lord's followers.