In the weeks and months following the Battle of Hogwarts, Magical authors and historians scrabbled to write out the events of the war. Specifically what Harry had done starting when Dumbledore die.
Well.. almost everyone. After the Ministry managed to arrest most of the remaining, dangerous Voldemort supporters, Kingsley had them refocus on all crimes committed in the past year including a certain journalist who confessed to using Veritaserum, a closely regulated substance, on Bathilda Bagshot. Rita spent several months in Azkaban for that.
Meanwhile, the rest of the writers were hunting for any clues about Harry’s quest against Voldemort.
Some information came very easily. Hagrid had told everyone in the Great Hall after the battle how Harry had marched into the forest, didn’t raise his wand, and got hit with a killing curse and collapsed. He said that Narcissa Malfoy had declared him dead before Voldemort marched them out of the forest.
So they went to Narcissa Malfoy next. That was a bit harder as the Malfoys were in Ministry custody. Eventually, Lucius was sent back to Azkaban and Narcissa and Draco were released. Insiders at the Ministry reported that Harry testified that Narcissa had saved his life when she lied to Voldemort. After that, Narcissa and Draco locked themselves in Malfoy Manor and refused to speak to anyone. So any questions about Harry’s escape from Malfoy Manor had to be asked elsewhere.
The next step was to analyze Harry’s conversation with Voldemort before the Dark Lord’s death. Some of the information was garbled through second hand retelling, but there was some useful information gleaned. Like:
-”Neither can live while the other survives” sound a bit like a prophecy. So Harry is the Chosen One?
-The mention of ‘Horcruxes’ left many baffled, but some intrepid researcher found the term and discovered Voldemort’s secret to immortality. Many guessed that Harry had spent the last year destroying them.
-Tom Riddle is Voldemort’s real name. Everyone was a bit shocked that the Dark Lord had a common name like ‘Tom’
-Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore conspired to kill Dumbledore. This shocked everyone and this, coupled with the revelation that Snape loved Lily resulted in several biographies of Snape that were wildly exaggerated and rife with inaccuracies.
-Harry’s mention of the Elder Wand was also a goldmine of information, but after several people spoke with Xenophilius Lovegood, many were under the impression that Harry and Voldemort had fallen victim to believing a Fairy Tale was true.
After that, Ollivander found himself bombarded with reporters asking for interviews about his time as Voldemort’s prisoner and what he and Harry had discussed after he was rescued. He told a watered down version of his imprisonment, but refused to talk about Harry. As far as he was concerned, he would not repay Harry for saving his life by betraying his confidences.
Leads dried up after that. Dumbledore’s Army refused betray Harry’s secrets, but were more than willing to discuss the Hogwarts rebellion.
Kingsley had the Ministry silent on matters concerning Harry. Kreacher would never betray his Master’s secrets. The Weaslys were silent. Aberforth hexed anyone who asked him questions. Nearly Headless Nick gave a longwinded speech about how close he was to Harry and how he could not dishonor that friendship by telling tales about him. No one though to ask the Grey Lady anything. Griphook demanded that Harry return the sword of Gryffindor to the goblins and told anyone who would listen about Harry’s dishonesty. Mundungus Fletcher told anyone with gold his version of events (a telling full of Harry’s unhinged attacks on him and his obsession with a gold locket and how he had threatened an honest salesmen like himself).
By the first anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, there were 3 dozen very, very different versions of Harry’s movements from the time Dumbledore died to the day Voldemort was defeated. In the end, the only ones who ever new the whole story, were Harry, Ron, and Hermione (although, surprisingly, Luna had some pretty accurate guesses).
