London Five

The Daily Prophet reports the disappearance of the London Five

"The London Five. The Ministry never had an event quite like this before — five disappearances all within a few hours, with no evidence, and no witnesses. Someone was capable of making Aurors disappear without a trace… The story took hold across the entire wizarding world."

— Mathilda Grimblehawk

"London Five" was a name used to refer to a group of five notable members of the wizarding community in Great Britain that all went mysteriously missing in 2015. The five missing individuals were Riya Patel, Timothy Hale, Kit Gerrard, Genevieve Bladt, and Penelope Fawley.

History

At some point in 2015, two Aurors, a Records Officer, and the Head of the Department of Magical Artefacts in the employment of the Ministry of Magic in London went mysteriously missing within a few hours of one another, along with Kit Gerrard, reporter from the Daily Prophet. It was the first instance of people having gone mysteriously missing since the dark times when they were still terrorised by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his followers, and hence came as a great shock to the wizarding community at large.

A photograph of the London Five

An investigation was launched by the British Ministry of Magic overseen by a council of senior officials at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to try and find them again. One of its members, Gareth Greengrass, promised the husband of one of the missing people, a fellow Ministry official with whom he was friendly, that he would do everything in his power to find his wife. As time passed, however, the Ministry met a dead end when the trail went cold, and it was generally felt by many that the chance of finding them grew increasingly smaller, causing the despair of their families to increase to the point where the "London Five" eventually came to be regarded as one of the biggest tragedies in the recent history of wizarding Britain.

Despite the fact that Greengrass had assured Fawely that the department would "spare no expense" in his endeavour, the case was ultimately closed, supposedly because of the expenses, leaving the families of the missing individuals outraged. The closure of the investigation would soon thereafter be covered by the Daily Prophet, which reported that it would be easier to "find a Bowtruckle in a pile of twigs" than to find the people that had gone missing. Greengrass even appeared to have believed the victims were dead, as he responded to a plea from Fawley to try and get the case re-opened by suggesting that he took some time off work in order to grieve and look after his children.

In December 2020, during another surge of Calamity, Kit Gerrard was found inside the portrait of Merlin in the Grand Staircase in Hogwarts Castle. Unfortunately, he could not be able to remember anything about himself or how he got there.

Appearances

• Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (First mentioned)