The Spark {Book 5 in the Star of Gryffindor Series}

Chapter 21 - Airplanes

The Daily Prophet
Issue No. 102,084
2 February, 2022

Astra Lestrange: "The World is in Danger"

There was a surprising special guest on the celebratory broadcast of Lee Jordan's Potterwatch two days ago. Astra Lestrange, the infamous hero of Hogwarts, came forward to tell her story of what happened on the night of the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. And oh, what a story it is. The Ministry has yet to release a statement, though it is believed that everyone involved was hauled in for heavy interrogation, so we at the Prophet decided to present the facts to you as Astra Lestrange told them herself.

As most people know, Brutus Pouri, former headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was found dead inside Gringotts that night, after a nearly hysterical Miss Lestrange somehow apparatus to the middle of the crowd. She says she had been at the bank as well, and she was not the only one. She tells of a man named Caymus Stillens, the uncle of Katreena Predatel, who sounds like he could be the next Voldemort...

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The papers were right; we absolutely did get hauled in for heavy interrogation. It wasn't fun, but I just smiled and reminded Carrow that she'd told me not to share my story until the Ministry released its official version. They'd released their version a long time ago, so I hadn't done anything I wasn't supposed to do. If mine didn't match theirs, how was it my fault? Anyway, such a large portion of the public had believed me, and was clamoring for change, that Carrow couldn't really do anything.

Over the next week, I got more Howlers than I'd ever received in my life. You might be thinking that's a pretty low standard (because it is) but I seriously got two or three a day. They were from people who didn't believe me, people who claimed I was delusional and lying and almost without fail ended up yelling at the Headmasters to lock me up in an asylum.

However, the amount of letters I got supporting me was so much larger. For every Howler, there had to be three or four letters saying I was so brave and what a poor soul, had to go through all that with the Ministry.

Of course, at school things were much the same as they always tended to be. Some people were seeking me out in the hall to thank me for my bravery. Some people (I suspected Eris Prince) created posters with my picture that said "Don't Believe the Lies." Everyone was either at one extreme or the other, though it seemed to me that there were more in my favor than against, even if some of the ones against me had the loudest voices.

Mr. Potter had a substitute teacher in class for three days after the broadcast. It soon got out that he was completely reorganizing the Department of Magical Law Enforcement into a Department of Magical Defense. Finally, there was a enough public support for him to use the Ministry to try and track down Stillens. Carrow was furious, but she couldn't do anything; her job was suddenly in jeopardy, Albus told me. One more wrong move, and there were quite a few people who wouldn't mind seeing her in Azkaban.

Life went on, though, as it tends to. The amount of Howlers I got every day went down. Of course, people were still making a point to call me out in the hallways for being a liar and a fraud, but Albus threatened to hex all of them and I was so used to being disliked that it really didn't bother me at this point. I even managed to simply smile at Eris once and tell her to have a good day before I dragged Albus off.

"The Ministry's trying to save face," Colette told me about a week after. It was the morning of the Quidditch game against Ravenclaw, and Colette was probably the only Gryffindor at our table without red and gold on. She showed me the front page of the Prophet. "'Minister Claims This Information Couldn't Be Verified.' They're saying they never knew for sure if what you were saying was true, so they couldn't act on it."