Catch The Snitch

On a Sunday morning after breakfast (following Secrets in the Snow), Ethan made his way to the infirmary. He briefly checked in with a first-year Ravenclaw who'd spent the night there, offering some words of comfort and reassurance. Then he excused himself and made his way over to Kyle, finding the Slytherin awake in his cot, presumably having been served breakfast in bed. "Good morning, Mr. Winters," he greeted. "I hope you're recovering from your experience?"

He waited for Kyle's response before speaking again. "I confess that I have another reason for visiting you, besides inquiring about your well-being. Out of respect for your privacy, and not wanting to re-open a fresh wound, I've kept my distance until now. However, our headteacher has some concerns with the Aurors' investigation into the boggart incident, and he's authorized me to conduct my own investigation into the matter," he broached. "So I must ask, do you feel comfortable discussing your experience with me? I'll cast a privacy charm if you do. But you have the option to decline; I'm not going to force you to recount a traumatic experience against your will. I can proceed without your narrative, however it will severely hamper my effort."

(The title of this thread is a play on the movie by the same name, whose protagonist was Jack Ryan, who was played by Ethan Forrester's actor in a separate production...it seemed appropriate since boggarts are all about fear.)

As a Quidditch player, Kyle was no stranger to the occasional injury and subsequent stay at the Hospital Wing, but this was the longest he had been stuck here and it was driving him bonkers. No amount of protesting from him could convince the healers that he was all right, and while they agreed that he was recovering well, they insisted on keeping him around for a bit longer to observe his condition.

He had been revising his schoolwork in an attempt to preserve his sanity and grades when an unexpected visitor showed up. “G–good morning, Professor Forrester,” he hastily greeted. “Yes, I’ve been recovering well. Both physically and mentally, in fact.” Thanks to his friends – and especially Anwen – he had been able to bounce back quickly from the traumatic experience.

As the professor revealed the other reason why he was here, Kyle nodded solemnly. “I’ll do it,” he acceded, fully understanding the gravity of the situation. In the absence of any official updates about the Aurors’ findings, rumours were beginning to spread amongst the students about what might have transpired, fuelled by a combustible mix of irrational paranoia, old prejudices and fertile imaginations. “I’ll try my best to recall as much as I can to prevent a repeat of this incident.”

Ethan nodded. Withdrawing his wand, he cast a privacy charm around them, then grabbed a guest chair and positioned it beside Kyle's cot, facing him, and made himself as comfortable as he could.

"Thank you for agreeing to this," he began. "If you feel uncomfortable at any time, please say so and we'll end things there. I promise that I won't think any less of you. This isn't an Auror interrogation, and I'm not here to pry into your personal life. I'm just hoping that a fresh perspective might shed some light here, because we're currently at a dead-end. Understood?"

He withdrew a small notebook from a pocket and clicked a muggle pen. "Let's start at the beginning. Do you recall any unusual encounters or exchanges with anyone in the week leading up to that day? Could anyone have anticipated that you would take that path by the lake that morning?"

As Professor Forrester explained that it wasn’t an Auror interrogation, and that he was free to back out at any point if the session got uncomfortable, Kyle nodded to acknowledge that he had understood. “Yes, Professor,” he replied. Given what had happened, it was almost certain that he would be asked about his boggart, and he hoped that he could speak about the topic without being too emotionally affected.

The first two questions were straightforward enough, but he paused for a while to think back on what had happened before the incident on that fateful day. As far as he could recall, there hadn’t been anything unusual: he went for his lessons and Quidditch training, almost got into yet another fight with the bloody twonk who had been testing his patience since the first day at Hogwarts… well, that was about it. “No, nothing out of the ordinary at all as far as I remember,” he finally said.

If his reply didn’t seem useful, then his answer to the second question was even less informative. “To be honest, I wasn’t planning to go down to the lake that day,” he revealed. “I had woken up later than usual that morning, so I deviated from my usual running route because it was a little too crowded and busy for my taste.” Based on the question, he had a rough idea what Professor Forrester might have been driving at. “I doubt anyone could have anticipated that and planted the cupboard by the lake for me to find. Unless they were a Seer or summat like that, and knew in advance that I would take a different route that morning.”

Ethan nodded. "I find myself agreeing with your assessment," he replied. "It appears that you weren't the intended victim, assuming there was a specific one in mind."

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes for a moment as he imagined the scene play out in his mind. "It's likely that the boggart was placed as a deliberate trap, or perhaps merely a prank. While it's theoretically possible that the boggart was already residing in the forest and it took up residence in the cabinet immediately after its placement there, that seems unlikely--I can't think of a good reason for someone to go to the effort of levitating a cabinet to that location, or shrinking it, carrying it there, and unshrinking it, just to abandon it. It wouldn't even have made for good target practice."

He opened his eyes and gently thrummed his fingers on the chair's armrest as he collected his thoughts.

"I realize that once the boggart manifested itself to you, it would have commanded all of your attention, and this would likely have overshadowed any other memories you had from that day. But did you happen to see anyone else that morning who seemed out-of-place? Perhaps after steering towards the lake, you ran past someone going in the opposite direction?"