— The —
Daily Prophet
Daily Prophet
Price One Knut
May 9th, 1888
Charlotte Potter Returns From The Dead
Sister of Late Minister Potter Revealed To Be A Vampire
Charlotte Potter, youngest sibling and only sister to the late Bennet Potter and former Minister for Magic Darcy Potter, went missing in February of 1883. Given her somewhat tumultuous history with teenage scandals, the predominant theory was that she had eloped — at least until all the likely candidates for her runaway groom were revealed to still be quite safely at home. A Ministry-lead manhunt was launched, only to be concluded a month later when Miss Potter's bloodied dress was found in the Forbidden Forest. The state of the garment implied that the lost woman had met her end during a particularly gruesome encounter with one of the many beasts housed in the forest, and after a lavish funeral, she was quietly mourned and forgotten.
At least until recently. Sightings of the long-deceased are not altogether uncommon, and one tabloid recently reported the late heir to Charles Jameshill had been roaming the countryside as a ghost for several years, but such rumors are rarely substantiated by the Ministry upon investigation. A former acquaintance of Miss Potter's allegedly saw the young woman recently in Hogsmeade, and made a report to the Ministry of Magic. Such reports are typically handled by the Spirit Division, who conduct a brief inquiry to determine whether the person in question has become a ghost, but in this case the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was already aware of Miss Potter's status, as she reported to the Ministry last month in order to register herself as a vampire and acquire access to the Department's blood banks.
When asked why Miss Potter's registry had not been made public knowledge last month, the Head of the Department, Morwenna Skeeter, commented: "The individuals registered with the Ministry do so safe in the knowledge that discretion is paramount and their lives will be treated with respect, and Miss Potter is no exception. Her troubles are not in the public interest." Despite Mrs. Skeeter's respect for the privacy of vampires, the registry lists are open to the public when an inquiry is made, for obvious safety reasons; the citizens of England have an established right to know whether their neighbors are vampires.
Exactly what befell Miss Potter on the night of her disappearance, and what has happened to her since, remains largely a mystery. Some have speculated that she was only recently turned into a vampire, as she only registered for blood this year, but that begs the question of where an alive and human Miss Potter may have been for the past five years.
It is also unclear how much of her story, if any, was known to her brothers prior to their passing. Did either Minister Potter or Bennet Potter shield their sister from the eyes of the world during the early days of her vampirism? Minister Potter may well have had the means to lift blood from the Ministry's stores without registering it, but following his death in 1884 the family must have had some means of continued subsistence for Miss Potter. Several black-market methods for blood acquisition exist, and Bennet Potter may have been involved in them in order to support his sister — or, of course, she may have been feeding herself in the more traditional way, which may explain the rash of vampire murders which have come to light since Bennet Potter's death in 1886.
At least until recently. Sightings of the long-deceased are not altogether uncommon, and one tabloid recently reported the late heir to Charles Jameshill had been roaming the countryside as a ghost for several years, but such rumors are rarely substantiated by the Ministry upon investigation. A former acquaintance of Miss Potter's allegedly saw the young woman recently in Hogsmeade, and made a report to the Ministry of Magic. Such reports are typically handled by the Spirit Division, who conduct a brief inquiry to determine whether the person in question has become a ghost, but in this case the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was already aware of Miss Potter's status, as she reported to the Ministry last month in order to register herself as a vampire and acquire access to the Department's blood banks.
When asked why Miss Potter's registry had not been made public knowledge last month, the Head of the Department, Morwenna Skeeter, commented: "The individuals registered with the Ministry do so safe in the knowledge that discretion is paramount and their lives will be treated with respect, and Miss Potter is no exception. Her troubles are not in the public interest." Despite Mrs. Skeeter's respect for the privacy of vampires, the registry lists are open to the public when an inquiry is made, for obvious safety reasons; the citizens of England have an established right to know whether their neighbors are vampires.
Exactly what befell Miss Potter on the night of her disappearance, and what has happened to her since, remains largely a mystery. Some have speculated that she was only recently turned into a vampire, as she only registered for blood this year, but that begs the question of where an alive and human Miss Potter may have been for the past five years.
It is also unclear how much of her story, if any, was known to her brothers prior to their passing. Did either Minister Potter or Bennet Potter shield their sister from the eyes of the world during the early days of her vampirism? Minister Potter may well have had the means to lift blood from the Ministry's stores without registering it, but following his death in 1884 the family must have had some means of continued subsistence for Miss Potter. Several black-market methods for blood acquisition exist, and Bennet Potter may have been involved in them in order to support his sister — or, of course, she may have been feeding herself in the more traditional way, which may explain the rash of vampire murders which have come to light since Bennet Potter's death in 1886.
Ian Pengloss