In Her Honour:
Remembering Charity Burbage
Charity Burbage’s disappearance during the second wizarding war was perhaps one of the most mysterious disappearances. Former Hogwarts Professor Burbage’s whereabouts are still unknown as of today. The official statement from then-Headmaster Severus Snape announced her resignation from her position as Muggle Studies Professor, but many—most notably the members of the resistance group The Order of the Phoenix—decried the statement as false and listed her on their tally of Missing in Action and Killed in Action during the war.
More suspiciously, the Ministry of Magic followed up on Hogwarts’ official statement on the Daily Prophet’s front page on 15 July 1997 announcing her resignation to the general public. Yet on 27 August (just before the start of the Hogwarts school year) another editorial revised the statement to insist she was in hiding. According to Ministry records opened to public in 2008, the Ministry of Magic fell to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on 1 August of the same year, so the veracity of the statement through the Prophet must definitely be questioned.
Witches and wizards have tried to solve the case of her disappearance, yet few clues remain. It is known that she was on summer holiday in magical Brighton, but the exact date of her disappearance is unknown. Infamous wizarding detective Ramsworth Shoule attempted to solve the disappearance and managed to track her whereabouts up to her return to her rented cottage on 19 June. He asserts that traces of Dark Magic were present at the scene, yet none of his patented investigative techniques turned up any leads after that point.
But many insist that Professor Burbage has simply remained in hiding as a muggle given her academic background even to present day. They cite the lack of a Dark Mark as evidence that Death Eaters could not have taken her from her rental cottage, as it was common practice during that time to mark all Death Eater crimes for public
view. Others take the word of the reformed Death Eater family the Malfoys that her whereabouts (and alleged death) are unbeknownst to them.
We spoke with Hogwarts Headmistress Minerva Mcgonagall about the mystery and her thoughts about her former coworker. “We lost many great witches and wizards during the second wizarding war and I include Charity among them. I knew that she had not resigned of her own free will, but I had attributed it to the actions of our Headmaster at the time. I never knew why she considered Severus Snape as among her friends when he was obviously instrumental in her ‘resignation’.”
Headmistress Mcgonagall continued: “But beyond her disappearance, Charity was a large part of Hogwarts’ Muggle Relations program. While she was known by the majority of students as the generalized Muggle Studies professor, she was renowned for her deep knowledge of muggle art as well. I believe she was even published under a muggle pseudonym in one of their ‘art history journals’. Most of all, Charity Burbage was remarkable for her ability to relate the magical to the muggle and to encourage students to do the same.”
Though it may always remain a mystery, the Ministry of Magic officially included all of those MIA among the official casualty list this year—15 years after the war concluded.
Aenean
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