Interlude: The Official Record

From the working papers of Dr. Miranda Goshawk, March 2020

I have obtained, through channels I am not at liberty to disclose, a copy of the Hogwarts Incident Report filed on the night of Myrtle Warren's death. The document is an illicit copy, made before the Wizengamot Security Classification Act sealed the original files in 1953. Its provenance is imperfect; its contents, I believe, are genuine.

It is a document of remarkable brevity.

Date: 13 June 1943 Incident Type: Student fatality (accidental) Location: Second floor, girls' lavatory (east wing) Victim: Warren, Myrtle Elizabeth, age 14, Ravenclaw House, third year Cause of death: Undetermined magical creature Investigating authority: Headmaster A. Dippet, Deputy Head A. Dumbledore Resolution: Creature identified as Acromantula, kept illegally by student R. Hagrid. Student expelled. Creature escaped into Forbidden Forest. Case closed.

Seven lines. A girl's life, reduced to seven lines.

The discrepancies with Riddle's account are notable:

First, the official report makes no mention of the Chamber of Secrets. Riddle's narrative describes the Chamber in detail—its location, the mechanism of entry, the basilisk within. None of this appears in Ministry records from 1943. It is as if the Chamber did not exist.

Second, the timing. According to the Incident Report, Hagrid's Acromantula was identified as the cause of death within hours of the discovery. According to Riddle's account, the identification occurred only after he reported his "suspicions" to the Headmaster. Both cannot be true. Either Riddle's account compresses events for narrative effect, or the official record was modified to remove his involvement.

Third—and most troubling—the expulsion records. Rubeus Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts on 14 June 1943, the day after Myrtle's death. The official reason: "Possession of dangerous creature resulting in student death." But I have also obtained Hagrid's wand-snapping order. It was signed not by Armando Dippet, but by a Ministry official named Oblansk. The order was filed at 3:47 in the morning—approximately six hours before the official cause of death was determined.

How does the Ministry snap a boy's wand for causing a death that has not yet been officially attributed to him?

I put this question to a retired Auror who served during that period. He was ninety-three years old and spoke with the careful precision of a man who has learned that some truths are better left unprecise. "There were pressures," he said. "The attacks had been going on for months. Parents were threatening to withdraw children. The Board wanted resolution. When a resolution presented itself—a large boy with a known fondness for dangerous creatures—certain parties were... eager to accept it."

"Even if it was wrong?" I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment. "Wrong is a word that depends on who's asking," he said. "At the time, the question was: do we want a monster we can name, or a monster we cannot find? Hagrid was findable. The alternative was admitting that whatever had been killing students was still loose in the school, and no one could catch it."

I asked him if he believed Hagrid was guilty.

"I believe," he said slowly, "that a fourteen-year-old boy with a spider in a box did not petrify three students and kill a fourth. I believe an Acromantula's bite is not instantly fatal. I believe that someone, somewhere, knew this was a convenient answer rather than a true one." He paused. "I also believe that the boy who handed us that convenient answer received a Special Award for Services to the School two weeks later. Draw your own conclusions."

I have drawn mine.

One question haunts me, and I find it mentioned nowhere in the official record: where was Albus Dumbledore?

By 1943, Dumbledore was Deputy Headmaster and widely regarded as one of the most powerful wizards in Britain. Riddle's own account suggests Dumbledore watched him closely, distrusted him instinctively. Yet when the attacks began—when students were petrified and a girl was killed—Dumbledore appears to have done nothing. He signed the incident report. He witnessed Hagrid's expulsion. He accepted the convenient answer.

Why?

I have found no record of Dumbledore raising objections to the Hagrid verdict. No record of him questioning the Acromantula theory. No record of him investigating further after the case was "closed." His silence in the documented record is conspicuous. Whether this represents investigative caution, institutional paralysis, or something more personal remains the subject of academic debate. What is certain is that the man who would later become Voldemort's greatest enemy watched a fourteen-year-old boy frame an innocent child for murder—and let it happen.

What strikes me most about Riddle's account is not what he claims, but what he omits. He does not deny his involvement. He does not protest his innocence. He simply narrates—here is what happened, here is what I did, here is how it ended—with the calm of a man recounting events that have already passed beyond judgment.

He wanted this read. He sealed these papers knowing they would surface. And he included, in meticulous detail, an account of his role in a girl's death and an innocent boy's destruction.

Why?

I keep returning to a line from one of his later letters: "The truth is a more effective weapon than any lie, provided you control the timing."

Perhaps that is what we are seeing here. Not confession. Not remorse. Control. The story told on his terms, in his words, at the moment he chose.

—M.G., 16 March 2020

[Archival note: Hagrid was officially pardoned in 1993 following the second opening of the Chamber of Secrets. Ministry records from the 1943 investigation remain sealed under the Wizengamot Security Classification Act. Myrtle Warren, as noted in subsequent chapters, remained at Hogwarts as a ghost until her destruction during the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998.]