Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
It's been two years since Voldemort's fall, and the wizarding world was far from returning to its normal life.
Hogwarts, led by the new Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, still looked like a construction site. The shattered walls and crumbling towers were slowly being rebuilt. Every week, new generous donations from the former students brought furniture, books, and other essentials to the school, while professors worked to restore the protective enchantments of the castle. Some of the wards were so intricate and long forgotten that even McGonagall had to consult ancient manuscripts to understand how they had originally been cast.
Many of the corridors were closed. Lessons were held in half-ruined classrooms. At night, the students shared underground dormitories lined with three-tier bunk beds, and every morning they queued for the few surviving bathrooms.
Moaning Myrtle had never had so much company or attention—not during her life and certainly not after death. Students soon decided that Gossiping Myrtle suited her far better, and within weeks she knew more about the school's romances than the portraits did. Even the oldest boys occasionally stopped by her bathroom to ask whether the girl they fancied was already seeing someone.
The other Hogwarts ghost who thrived in chaos was Peeves the Poltergeist. He found endless opportunities for mischief among the scaffolding, tormenting the builders and pelting unsuspecting students with showers of plaster dust, loose bricks, and the occasional bucket of water.
The Quidditch stadium had been reduced to rubble, but no one seriously entertained the idea of cancelling the school championship. Instead, the matches were played on the castle lawn, where enchanted benches served in place of proper grandstands. On warm days, the same stretch of grass hosted meals beneath the open sky, the first post-war examinations, and even Ginny Weasley's graduation ball.
Despite the hardships, the students wouldn't hear of transferring to another school or being educated at home while the repairs continued. Inspired by the heroes who defended the castle, they were hell-bent on standing their ground.
One morning, a reporter from The Daily Prophet slipped into Hogwarts disguised as a construction worker. He was determined to expose the school's conditions and force the Ministry to shut it down until every single leak in the roof was fixed. He was looking for a naïve first-year willing to blabber, but instead he ran into one tough Muggle-born Ravenclaw who saw right through his plan.
"Hogwarts didn't surrender to the army of Death Eaters. We're not the kind of people who are bothered if the mattress is a little thin." Benny paused, then added, "Also... it's probably not wise to snoop around in places that have a recent history of kicking arse."
The quote made the front page of The Daily Prophet and turned Benedict into an overnight celebrity. Professor McGonagall awarded Ravenclaw fifty points for his loyalty and spirit, while Horace Slughorn wasted no time inviting the previously unknown first-year into the legendary Slug Club. After that, no one suggested closing Hogwarts again.
The Ministry of Magic was in such disarray that, for the first time in centuries, it had neither the authority nor the appetite to interfere with Hogwarts. The school was simply left to govern itself.
Corrupt officials and Death Eater collaborators were still being tried before the Wizengamot. Entire Ministry departments had been wiped out by arrests, disappearances, and the deaths of their employees. The coffers were empty, and no one seemed able—or willing—to explain where all the gold had gone. Under the circumstances, the Ministry was only too happy to offer jobs to anyone with an untarnished record, including recent Hogwarts graduates willing to work for next to nothing.
Even the Auror training, which had once taken at least two years to complete, had been reduced to a crash course. Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Dean Thomas were exempted from the training altogether and sent straight into the field to hunt down the remaining Death Eaters still at large. With so few Aurors left after the war, they often went for days without returning home.
Hermione Granger devoted herself entirely to Hogwarts. With Voldemort's death, the curse he had placed upon the Defense Against the Dark Arts position dissolved. She had stepped in to teach the subject right after the war and had been at Hogwarts ever since, filling in for overworked colleagues whenever she was needed. Sometimes Hermione taught as many as five different subjects in a single day and then spent her entire evening marking towering piles of homework.
The walls of every wizarding street were plastered with wanted posters bearing the faces of the most elusive fugitives: the Malfoy family and the notorious spy Augustus Rookwood. A hefty bounty had been placed on their heads, although it wasn't clear how the Ministry could afford to pay it. Pardons were offered too—and Harry suspected people would talk faster for their freedom than for gold. The Malfoys were almost certainly receiving help from their old friends—other wealthy, pure-blood families across the Continent. They couldn't be tempted by reward, but most had their own crimes to hide. Sooner or later, someone would decide it was better to betray the Malfoys than to end up just like them.
The Aurorate received about a hundred tips a day, but most of them were useless. Harry quickly learnt to identify the genuine leads from fabricated stories and honest mistakes that resulted from good intentions. Some people mistook a innocent fair-haired wizard for Lucius or Draco Malfoy; others simply hoped to claim the Ministry's reward. There were even those who used the manhunt to settle old scores with their neighbors, hoping that a raid might uncover something—anything—illegal.
Something about Harry's obsession with finding the Malfoys didn't sit right with Ron. He'd developed instincts of his own by now, and he'd known his best friend long enough to realize it: Harry wasn't planning to catch the Malfoys — he was looking to help them.