Harry Sorta-Rescues the Prime Minister
Wednesday night, 23rd August, 7:48 p.m Hogwarts time 11 days, 11.8 hours after the start of Harry's trial
Nine days before the start of school at Hogwarts and at MMA
When Albus returned to Hogwarts Castle, he found on his desk in the headmaster's office, a note—
Somehow Miss Granger discovered who the fifth-year Gryffindor prefects would be. She informed me that she refused to be a prefect if Mr Weasley also was a prefect. My second choice is Parvati Patil, but I think a Patil-Weasley prefect-pairing would be a disaster. I request that the fifth-year Gryffindor boy prefect be Mr Longbottom.
MM
Albus had to stop and think about Minerva's request. If not for the events of this summer, Albus would be sure that he could persuade Miss Granger to accept her prefect badge—and thus, to do Mr Weasley's prefect-work for him. But now Harry and Miss Granger were betrothed, and Harry had spent the past week and a half saying only unflattering things about Albus. For the first time since the bushy-haired genius Muggle-born had been Sorted, Albus was not confident that Miss Granger would blindly believe and would blindly obey Albus's every word.
Albus sighed, and wrote "APPROVED" at the bottom of Minerva's memo.
****
9 a.m the next day Thursday, 24th August Longbottom Hall
Augusta Longbottom scowled as she read this morning's Daily Prophet. Yesterday, the ICW's annual conference had sacked Dumbledore as Supreme Mugwump, after he had been caught hiding reports in order to influence an election. Perhaps because of anger at Dumbledore, the ICW-conference delegates had voted on an anti-Britain measure with more than 90 percent of the vote, thus requiring the Wizengamot to change its laws.
Dumbledore as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot already had been shown to abuse his office, and poor Harry Potter had suffered as a result. This morning's newspaper showed that Dumbledore had abused his office of Supreme Mugwump. And Augusta knew that Dumbledore had abused his Headmaster position, mind-whammying Susan Bones and poor Neville.
Now Augusta decided: the next time Dumbledore put a toe out of line, Augusta would rally the Board of Governors to sack him as Headmaster.
****
Also on page 1 of the Daily Prophet: Harry Potter declared that all Houses that he already was Head of, by Right of Conquest, or that he would become Head of in the future, by Right of Conquest, Potter hereby declared to be extinct. Meaning that when Potter died, the names of these Houses, and the votes in the Wizengamot that these Houses held, would cease to be.
The Prophet then discussed what this meant for the Houses that would become extinct. Basically, since these Houses all were, without exception, Dark, the Dark faction in the Wizengamot would be much weaker from now on, both before Harry Potter died, and afterwards.
But the Prophet also made much of the fact that, of the four Founders of Hogwarts, only Slytherin had a living Lord Head of House, and it was unthinkable that Potter would declare a Hogwarts-Founder House to be extinct. After all, the Lord Head of a Hogwarts-Founder House could dismiss the Hogwarts Board of Governors and could make decisions in the Board's place. What kind of fool was Potter, the Prophet asked, that he was given power to rule (even if his ruled domain was only Hogwarts), then threw this power away?
****
On page 15 of the same Daily Prophet, Augusta read that Draco No-Name, formerly Malfoy, had been killed in Knockturn Alley yesterday.
According to the Prophet, No-Name's killer had been a Chinese-British wizard named Han. After the duel, Han had told Aurors that No-Name had cast a deadly curse first, but Han had dodged it; whilst Han's counterspell, a split-second later, had hit No-Name, killing him. Aurors did not charge Han with any crime, despite having questions about the timeline of events. The Aurors' conclusion: Han cast second.
The Prophet mentioned that Draco No-Name, before his death, had been disowned by Harry Potter acting as Lord Malfoy, and that Potter had used a curse-spell to write RAPIST on Draco No-Name's forehead. The Prophet did not speculate why Potter had done these things.
****
The next morning
Friday, 25th August, 9 a.m
Courtroom Seven, the Ministry of Magic
Molly Prewett, formerly Weasley, was tried in front of the Wizengamot for Line Theft (in the 1970s) and for Potioning a Head of House (in 1995).
The victim of her crimes was a Pureblood; but on the other hand, Molly was a Pureblood too. The Daily Prophet predicted that her Azkaban sentence would be five or six years.
What the Prophet failed to consider was who exactly the trial's defendant was. One minute into her trial, Molly, who was being held captive by a chains-chair at the time, yelled at the Chief Warlock—
"CYRUS GREENGRASS, I DON'T LIKE YOUR TONE OF VOICE! I'M THE MOTHER OF SEVEN CHILDREN, ONE OF WHOM IS IN THIS COURTROOM NOW, AND THIS DESERVES RESPECT!"
Had Molly been paying closer attention, she would have seen the court scribe, Percival Weasley, throw his quill on the table and put his head in his hands.
Molly was sentenced to the minimum-security wing of Azkaban; this was the good news. But instead of being sentenced to five or six years in prison, as the Prophet had predicted, Molly's loud and unwanted outburst resulted in a ten-year sentence.
****
Three days later Monday, 28th August
Wizarding Britain held its election for Minister for Magic. Anyone over seventeen with wand rights could vote.
The second-place finisher, with 5.1 percent of the vote, was Heir Demodocus Cooper of the Minor House of Cooper. His platform was that the Death Eaters were "misunderstood" and that Harry Potter was a "butcher." Cooper never gave a straight answer when asked whether he himself was a Death Eater; he refused to pull up his left sleeve.
As for the new ICW requirement that Wizarding Britain had to make their NEWT tests harder, Cooper's public attitude was, "Who do these foreigners think they are, telling us British wizards how to run our schools?"
The first-place finisher in the election, with 94.2 percent of vote, was Amelia Bones. Her campaign ads said simply, "You know me. You know what I want to do. You know what I refuse to do."
Candidate Bones's attitude towards the new ICW requirement about NEWTs was a simple one: "It's the law now that we must upgrade our NEWTs tests. My Ministry will obey the law."
Amelia Bones, during her victory speech, announced that she immediately was increasing the budget for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so that the Aurors and Hit Wizards better could fight the surviving Death Eaters.
Amelia appointed Rufus Scrimgeour as the new Director of the DMLE.
****
Amelia began thinking about her meeting, as the new Minister for Magic, with Prime Minister John Major. Usually this was only one meeting, lasting only five minutes, because
neither side wanted the meeting to go longer than that. But Amelia had a radical plan in her head, to give Muggle-borns and Muggle-raised half-bloods equal rights with Purebloods in Wizarding Britain. Step One in this plan was to introduce the Prime Minister to British magicals who did not sound like drooling idiots when it came to nonmagical topics.
The election-victory party was going at flank speed when Amelia beckoned Heather Tidwell to her. Heather was told, "Tomorrow I'll meet with the Prime Minister. I want you going with me, so plan what you're going to wear."
"Madam Bones, I'm honoured," Heather said. "Is anyone else going with us?"
"Harry and Hermione, I hope," Amelia said. "The Prime Minister will want to meet two genuine magical heroes, instead of meeting one more politician, even if this politician carries a wand."
****
The next afternoon Tuesday, 29th August, 2 p.m
Number 10, Downing Street, London
John Major had been told, when he had taken office as Prime Minister in November 1990, that there was a secret magical society within Britain, which was allowed by a 1642 treaty. John had been further told that the person in charge of the magical government of Britain was the "Minister for Magic." John had met this person, a month after John had taken office in 1990, and John also had met the headmaster of Britain's one magical school "that is worth mentioning." John had never gotten a straight answer to his question, "How many magical schools does Britain have?"
John had not been impressed by the two magicals he had met in December 1990. The Minister for Magic had come across as a pompous moron wearing a lime-green bowler. The headmaster with the ridiculous beard had made John Major feel he should count all the silverware, as soon as the halfpenny Merlin left the building through the fireplace with suddenly-green fire. John had distrusted Dum-something despite the bearded man giving John a gift: a solid-gold cigarette lighter.
But oddly, as soon as the green-bowler idiot and the Merlin impersonator had left John's office, John had given no more thought to their meeting. One would expect John to think about how the British government could put magic to work in solving the government's nonmagical problems; but no such thoughts entered John Major's head, anytime in the next five years.
But after five years, a centuries-old portrait in John's office had spoken with the Prime Minister again. This time, the new Minister for Magic asked for an hour of John's time; the talking portrait mentioned that Minister for Magic Bones would be bringing three people with her, "whom Minister Bones is sure," according to the portrait, "you would prefer to meet, rather than meet her."
Yesterday John Major and the talking portrait had worked out a meeting time: today at two in the afternoon. Oddly, John Major then had given no thought to the upcoming meeting till now, at two o'clock, when the meeting was about to occur.
Now John Major sat at his desk, with no idea what to expect, when the giant fireplace in his office suddenly lit up with green flames.
****
A woman stepped through the green flames—somehow without getting burnt. She had short grey hair, but her face looked youthful—in her thirties. She wore grey choir robes instead of wearing a dress, a skirt-suit or a pantsuit. Blue strips of cloth, the same colour as the woman's eyes, covered the shoulders of her choir robes. A net of blue yarn—again, the same colour as her eyes—covered her hair. At the top front of her choir robes, a little hook had been sewn on or glued on; from this hook hung a monocle.
Around her neck was a gold chain that ended in a gold medallion. The medallion showed a thick 'M' that had a glowing, upraised wand in front of the 'M'.
The next person to pass unharmed through green flames was a brunette woman, also in her thirties. She wore a black skirt-suit with white pinstripes, and black shoes with low heels. John was sorely tempted to stare at the woman's amazing chest, but managed to control himself; he had learnt self-restraint after meeting Page Three girls in person.
The last two magicals through the green flames were teenagers, a green-eyed boy and a bushy-haired brunette girl, each dressed in their Sunday best. John mentally dismissed these two, figuring that one or both of the older women were the teens' mothers.
Suddenly the teen boy was staring at something on the Prime Minister's desk. "Erm, Madam Bones? I see a problem here."
****
The Minister for Magic—the grey-haired woman wearing grey choir robes—rushed through introductions: she was Amelia Bones, and her companions were Heather Tidwell, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. John recognised none of the four names, though this was unsurprising. John was surprised to be told that the three other magicals that Minister for Magic Bones had brought with her, all had spent their first eleven years in Nonmagical Britain.
Before Minister for Magic Bones said whatever she had come here to say, she asked Harry Potter (the teenaged boy), "What's the problem, Harry?"
He pointed to the gold cigarette lighter on John's desk. "This thing is enchanted, but all I can sense is that its magic won't cause death, injury or illness."
Minister for Magic Bones put the monocle in her left eye, then looked at the cigarette lighter. "It's enchanted with mind-magic ... a Confundus Charm of some sort."
Harry Potter looked at John and said, "The cigarette lighter is magicked to affect your mind. Is it okay if I get rid of it?"
John felt angry, though he showed little of that anger. He nodded forcefully.
Then Harry Potter—he did not wave his hands, nor speak any mumbo-jumbo, but suddenly the gold cigarette lighter vanished off John's desk. John suddenly felt ... unstupid was the best way to describe it.
"Feel better?" Harry Potter asked John.
"I do. I've been unable to think thoughts about magic since soon after I became Prime Minister, but now I can think them."
John then looked at the magical group and demanded, "So when the bearded wizard gave me that fine gift, it was booby-trapped?"
Minister for Magic Bones looked confused by John's question. Meanwhile, Heather Tidwell, the woman in the black skirt-suit, said, "Exactly so. Dumbledore thinks he's wiser and smarter than anyone else, so thinks the rules don't apply to him."
Hermione Granger, the bushy-haired teen girl, said, "We could tell you stories."
Minister for Magic Bones said to John, "I could tell you stories about Dumbledore from now till midnight, that would make you want to spit nails."
Then Harry Potter looked at Minister for Magic Bones. "I'm guessing that Dumbledore mind-whammied the Prime Minister so that whatever legal powers the Prime Minister has to interfere with Magical Britain, the Prime Minister would never think to use those powers."
Hermione Granger nodded agreement.
John snarled, "A British-born person—magical or nonmagical—doing something mind- altering to the Prime Minister could be seen as treason."
Harry Potter shrugged. "This is Dumbledore we're talking about. When I was fifteen months old and my parents were killed, he ordered me kidnapped 'for the Greater Good.' He sealed my parents' wills so nobody would ever find out that the terms of those wills had been violated. Dumbledore would mind-whammy Queen Elizabeth herself if he could get close to her, because he believes he knows better than Her Majesty how to rule Britain."
****
Ten minutes later, John Major was amazed at the same two magical teenagers whom he at first had dismissed completely. The teen girl, Hermione Granger (named after a Shakespeare character) was a genius, who could carry on insightful conversations both with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Magic, discussing nonmagical and magical topics both. The boy, Harry Potter, had led Hermione and two adult wizards in an attack against the wizard terrorist "Lord Voldemort"; Potter had not only killed the terrorist leader and thirty-two of his terrorist minions, but Potter had done so without his foursome suffering even a scratch. The
lad was only fifteen, and the British Army would duel the Royal Marines for the privilege of offering Harry Potter an officer commission!
****
But after the getting-acquainted part of the meeting and the drama with the gold cigarette lighter, the new Minister for Magic told John why she had asked for an hour-long meeting. Bones explained how magicals who were raised in the nonmagical world for their first eleven years, were treated in Magical Britain: poorly. Bones herself had grown up in Magical Britain, with both parents coming from long-magical families, and she had been brainwashed about Muggle-raised magical people. A fortnight ago, she had had an epiphany: the things she had been taught were untrue, and nonmagically-raised magicals deserved equal treatment.
Minister for Magic Bones then asked the Prime Minister for his help. She suspected that, hidden away in the Nonmagical Britain government, were people like her three companions, who had wands and could use them, but whose ultimate loyalty was to their parents' nonmagical world, not to the world of their magical schoolmates.
Minister for Magic Bones told John, "I'm not asking the British Army to stage a...?" "Coup d'etat," prompted both Heather Tidwell and Hermione Granger.
"...but I know," continued Bones, "that I need outside help. If I must limit myself to people and resources within Wizarding Britain, then instead of me bringing radical change, I'll be no-confidenced instead, and the next Minister will be someone who panders to the Purebloods."
"Who's fighting you?" John asked. "Who in Magical Britain opposes giving equal treatment to nonmagically raised magicals?"
"The Death Eaters, and their un-Marked sympathisers," replied Heather Tidwell.
Hermione Granger giggled. "There are a lot fewer Death Eaters now than there were on 12th August. Harry has been a killing machine against those evildoers, both in and out of Malfoy Manor."
John Majors blinked in surprise.
Minister for Magic Bones replied, "The Death Eaters oppose me, yes. Also fighting me? Albus Dumbledore—the bearded wizard who gave you that cigarette lighter. The last thing he wants is for laws to be passed making all Muggle-borns equal before the law."
Harry Potter explained: "Dumbledore much prefers being able to organise things so that someone—Hermione, say—is gifted something she can never get otherwise, and it's handed to her by the outstretched hand of Albus Dumbledore. He prefers this because One, this would make Hermione say, 'Albus Dumbledore is so kind and generous'—and public adoration, Dumbledore eats it up with a spoon. And because Two, if Dumbledore can organise Hermione getting some great position that she can never get without him, he will own her. He can demand favours from her for decades—look at Remus Lupin. The last thing
Dumbledore wants is someone like Hermione being hired for a position because she has better test scores then most Purebloods, so the law says to hire her, and Dumbledore getting no credit for her being hired."
John smiled a wolfish smile at Minister for Magic Bones. "It looks like you and I have a common enemy, this Dumbledore. I do not appreciate being magically lobotomised to not think about magic unless magical people are in front of me, and this went on for five years."
Hermione Granger said, "Dumbledore is Harry's and my enemy too. Dumbledore has done horrid things to Harry—yet the magical government, before Madam Bones became Minister, let Professor Dumbledore get away with almost everything. Harry and I just have signed papers transferring from Hogwarts to a magical school that is better suited to us; well, I expect Dumbledore to do illegal things, in order to drag Harry back to Hogwarts."
****
A minute later
The meeting between Prime Minister John Major and Minister for Magic Amelia Bones ended when both of them accepted Heather Tidwell as their go-between. Tidwell had a Royal Mail address, which she wrote down for the Prime Minister.
Right after this, the four magicals left John's office, by stepping into suddenly-green flames in the oversized fireplace.
Now John Major was burning with curiosity about what magical resources the nonmagical government of the United Kingdom had available to it. John thought, Maguire would know. John rang up the royal switchboard, and told the operator that he, Prime Minister John Major, requested that Colm Maguire, the Royal Wizard, pay him a visit.
****
Colm Maguire, the Royal Wizard, had an easy life—and he hated that. Only seldom did the Queen call for him. So when he was told that the Prime Minister wanted to meet with him, Maguire went gladly to the PM's official residence.
Soon afterwards, Maguire got angry when John Major mentioned that Albus Dumbledore, the legend-in-his-own-mind headmaster of Hogwarts, had given Major an enchanted gift in 1990 that had continually "mind-whammied" him—till earlier today, when Harry Potter had vanished the enchanted bauble. Both Maguire and Major got angry when Maguire discovered that in the Prime Minister's office, in various file cabinets, was information about various magical individuals and groups within the Nonmagical Britain government—but every such piece of paper had a Muggle Notice-Me-Not Charm laid on it. Maguire swiftly cancelled all such charms.
Maguire was fascinated when Major told Maguire his impressions of Harry Potter. Unlike what the Daily Prophet claimed, the teenager was not, according to John Major, a glory- seeker, a madman or a fool—instead, he was a lad who was given a nasty job that nobody
else would do, then he did it. Major quoted Potter describing what he had done with Lord Voldemort as "A bit more dangerous version of taking the rubbish bin down to the kerb."
Maguire was shocked when Major mentioned that both Minister for Magic Bones and Harry Potter's betrothed, Hermione Granger, had claimed that Potter had "Merlin-level magical power." Maguire thought, This would explain how a fifteen-year-old boy managed to kill the Dark Lord Voldemort.
During the conversation between Major and Maguire, the Prime Minister mentioned that the two teens had transferred from Hogwarts to another magical school, and they were resigned to Dumbledore using underhanded methods, both magical and political, to try to drag Harry back to Hogwarts when the old wizard learnt of the transfer.
Maguire wondered, Could their new school be MMA? Colm Maguire, during his teenaged years, had received all of his magical (and nonmagical) education at Manchester Magical Academy; Maguire had not attended Hogwarts for even a day.
Now, after Maguire finished his visit with the Prime Minister, Maguire owled Mersey Norwood, the Headmistress of MMA. Colm Maguire's note said, "I'm told that Harry Potter and Hermione Granger have transferred from Hogwarts to a new school, but their transfers aren't public knowledge yet. Is this new school MMA?"
After Maguire sent off the owl, he notified the Queen's secretary that the Royal Wizard wished an audience with the Queen. Maguire had important news for his sovereign.
****
1½ days later
Thursday, 31st August, 3 a.m
The twelfth floor of the maximum-security wing of Azkaban
In Azkaban Prison, eight nasty and evil Death Eaters were asleep. Their sleep was fitful, because of the Dementors nearby—but still, they were asleep.
So all eight of them slept through the pop when a house-elf and a teenaged wizard appeared amidst them.
The eight Death Eaters also slept through the boy-wizard's whispered Expecto Patronum that drove the Dementors away—temporarily.
The Death Eaters woke up quickly when all eight of them were simultaneously (and wandlessly) Incarceroused. This quickly was followed by eight Silencios, which assured that the eight Death Eaters could not hear each other, and nobody else could hear them—even when they screamed.
Into the silence, Harry Potter spoke to the eight: "My mother was killed by the Killing Curse. I remember how she died. The Killing Curse is quick. The Killing Curse is painless."
Harry paused, then looked at the eight killers with cold eyes. "None of you deserve a quick
death. All of you caused fear and death, and fear and death is what you shall receive."
Harry walked to the door of Rudolphus Lestrange's prison cell, squatted down and hissed lowly, "§Unlock the door only to this one prison cell.§"
Click—Rudolphus's prison door unlocked. Harry pulled the door wide open.
Tied-up Rodolphus stared at Harry in horror.
Harry then walked to the door of Rabastan Lestrange's prison cell. Again Harry spoke Parseltongue to unlock the door, again Harry pulled the unlocked door wide open, and again the Death Eater inside the prison cell was tied up and helpless.
Harry did this a total of eight times. Harry was unlocking Antonin Dolohov's door when Rudolphus Lestrange was Kissed. Rudolphus probably screamed, but Harry heard nothing.
Twice Harry had to invoke his stag-Patronus to drive the Dementors away from himself and Dobby; but never was the stag-Patronus sent out to protect a Death Eater.
When all eight Death Eaters had been Kissed, Harry cancelled the eight Incarcerouses and the eight Silencios, then Harry asked Dobby to elf-pop him back to Grimmauld Place.
Harry slept well afterwards.
****
The next day
Friday, 1st September
At both Hogwarts and Manchester Magical Academy, a new school year began.