A/N: Alright, I had to write and post this. The plot-bunny wouldn't go away after I finished HBP until I wrote it and then it kept begging me to post it ... just an odd little one-shot that has nothing to do with anything else ... feedback would be nice!

Disclaimer: It's not mine and I don't mean to make money off of it!

Warning: HBP spoilers!

Meeting the New Minister

By: Lady Arathena

The Prime Minister looked up from the work lying on his desk wearily. It had been two long years since Cornelius Fudge had come to his office to announce Lord Voldemort's return and Rufus Scrimgeour's appointment as Minister of Magic.

In the years since, he had seen Fudge quite a few times, always bringing news of death and destruction with him. He had learned to hate that pompous portrait more than ever, and Rufus Scrimgeour along with it. The only thing he couldn't bring himself to hate was Fudge. The man was so bumbling and pathetic that it would be a sin to hate him. Sort of like hating a kicked and cowering puppy.

He closed his eyes and tried to block out the memories, but they flowed through anyway. His stream of thought was temporarily blocked by a loud cough from the corner of his room. No! Not tonight! What's gone wrong now?

He turned to reluctantly look at the picture and was shocked to find it smiling happily. For some reason, this didn't make him feel any better. "Yes?" He asked cautiously, when he'd worked up the nerve to speak.

"To the Prime Minister of Muggles. Please expect a visit from Mr. Scrimgeour and Mr. Fudge very shortly."

The Prime Minister looked at the painting warily. If he didn't know better, he'd have said the picture was obscenely happy about something. He swiveled the chair of his desk around to see the fireplace turn green. Cornelius Fudge blundered out of the fireplace and looked around nervously before turning his attention back to the fire. It glowed green again and Rufus Scrimgeour stumbled out.

Scrimgeour muttered to himself grumpily as he dusted his robes off, turning to the Prime Minister with fury in his face.

"How dare they? How dare they mock me by replacing me with a – a celebrity! No better than a rock singer he is! How … they'll see. They'll see what happens when they make an ignorant man minister." He was mumbling all this loud enough for the other two occupants of the room to hear him and exchange odd glances, Fudge's resigned and the Prime Minister's wary.

"Er …" the Prime Minister began, carefully. "Can I … help you?"

Scrimgeour seemed to finally notice that he wasn't the only person in the room and he noticed it with more than a little surprise on his face. "Oh. Oh, yes. Introducing you. I forgot. Fudge!"

"Yes, Rufus?"

"Did the … boy … say when he was coming?" Scrimgeour seemed to spit out the word 'boy' like it was a curse.

Fudge looked at his superior's face cautiously, gauging what the correct answer should be. "Er … no. But, I'm sure he'll be here soon. He's not exactly one to be late, is he now?"

By this point, the Prime Minister was greatly confused. He'd never seen another wizard (that he knew of) other than the two standing in front of him. "Uh, may I ask what's going on?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. You wouldn't know. Fudge, tell him." With this, Rufus sank down onto a chair and shut his eyes, looking very much exhausted.

Fudge sighed and pulled over a chair himself. "Well, I'm not quite sure where to begin."

The Prime Minister stifled a groan of annoyance. Lately, all Fudge's communiqués had begun with those words. However, before the Prime Minister could suggest a starting point, Fudge had begun talking again.

"We should probably of informed you earlier … but we were so busy!" He practically whined, "I mean, all those photos and award ceremonies. Potter acting up all the time … there was no time to see that you were informed."

"Potter?" The Prime Minister said. He was quite sure he remember one of the visits Fudge had made about a year ago announcing that the world's only hope to defeat Voldemort had gone missing with his two best friends.

"Hm? Oh, yes. Potter came back. Evidently, they weren't missing at all. They were … er, I'm not sure I understand it myself. Something to do with bits of You-Know-Who's soul scattered about the country …"

None of this was serving to help the Prime Minister understand things at all.

"You see, they were basically on a mission to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Why they didn't see fit to inform anyone of their decision … but what's done is done and I suppose we can't complain. After all, they defeated Him didn't they?"

"Defeated … who?" The Ministers hopes rose. It couldn't possibly be, but no. The Minister of Magic's police people, auroras or something like that, were all trying to fight You-Know-Who. Three seventeen-year-olds couldn't possibly do it.

Fudge seemed to be getting impatient as he replied, "Well, You-Know-Who of course! Potter killed him and now he's the hero of the world. Not that he wasn't before … Boy-Who-Lived and Chosen One and all that."

The Minister decided it was probably best to ignore Fudge' s ramblings and focus on the main message. You-Know-Who was gone! He collapsed into the chair behind his desk, giddy with the thought of all this … weirdness gone.

"And now," Scrimgeour's voice came from the other side of Fudge, "he's gone on some sort of political splurge and decided he wants to be Minister of Magic."

Startling the Prime Minister out of his giddy stupor, a voice came from the corner of the room. "And what Harry Potter wants, Harry Potter gets. At least these days." The Minister finally located the source of the comment, the painting on the wall. All three men in the room focused on it as it cleared its throat and continued. "Minister of Magic and Assistant Minister Weasley asking permission to enter. Ah, the male Assistant Minister Weasley, not the female."

Still shooting curious looks at the other two men in the room, the Prime Minister said, "Well, of course, yes," to the portrait who smiled at the man indulgently before walking out of the canvas humming to himself.

The Muggle Minister turned back to his guests in confusion but found them both apparently lost in thought. He frowned and turned to watch the fire. Thankfully, it broke the silence by turning green and spitting a young man out of it. In fact, the Prime Minister raised his eyebrows at the boy's youth.

He had longish, flame-red hair and was tanned. He looked very strong and young, perhaps not even twenty yet. The man hadn't turned around yet so the Prime Minister couldn't tell much more about him except by looking at his clothes, which, shockingly, were muggle. He wore dark jeans and plain green shirt rather than the robes he'd become accustomed to seeing Fudge and Scrimgeour in.

The man, the Minister suddenly realized, was saying something to the fire. "Come on, Harry." He muttered, "Be a normal wizard and come through the fire."

The Minister nearly had a heart attack when another person appeared out of thin air directly behind the first. He grinned cheekily at the three in the room looking at him before turning to his comrade facing the fire.

"But I'm not a normal wizard, so technically I shouldn't come through the fire."

The first man looked around sharply and threw up his hands when he saw the other wizard. "My god, Harry! Warn a guy before you do that. Going to give me a heart attack …"

"It keeps you on your guard, doesn't it?"

The first man made a face and muttered something unintelligible under his breath that the Prime Minister was quite sure wouldn't be appropriate for children's ears. The one named Harry turned around to face the other three in the room still smiling charmingly.

The Minister had no doubt that this was the new Minister of Magic. There was the command of a natural leader in his stance and face. He had messy black hair and sparkling emerald eyes with an air of congeniality about them. He was tanned like the other man standing next to him and seemed to have even more defined muscles, though no one could call him a body builder. Like the other man, he was wearing muggle clothes, worn jeans and a button-up white shirt with a few buttons undone. His body declared him no older than his companion but his eyes spoke of years more experience and difficulties.

Harry turned his gaze to the Minister and put out a hand to for him to shake. "Harry Potter, Minister of Magic."

The Prime Minister met his hand, a touch confused. He'd never met one of these wizards who wouldn't act as thoughmuggles were lower than they were. Harry was still holding his hand expectantly astheMinistertried to work out what he was supposed to do.

Harry seemed to take pity on the Prime Minister by prompting, "And your name?"

"Er … John Daily … Mr. Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Just Harry please. Mr. Potter makes me feel old."

"You weren't saying that on your wedding day when my sister couldn't stop calling you it." The other man teased.

Harry mocked laughter. "You're downright hilarious Ron. Introduce yourself."

Ron grinned and turned to John Daily. "Ron Weasley, the male Assistant Minister Weasley, my wife, the female one, couldn't be here today."

"Nice to meet you … er, Ron?" John said, obviously a bit lost by the relaxation the two were displaying.

"That'll do." Ron said grinning at him before turning to the other two in the room.

Harry got to it first though. "Shall I assume that you've already filled Mr. Daily in on recent matters?" His voice contained a veiled threat in it.

"Well …" Fudge responded nervously, "well … you see boys, it's really been a rather difficult time at the ministry … you don't know all the paperwork …"

Harry raised an eyebrow and said, "To cut to the chase, no?"

Fudge seemed to burst at this. "And where were you while we were sorting out all the publicity, hm? Getting married and vacationing in America, wasn't it?"

Ron grinned, correcting, "Actually just California, but yeah, that about sums it up. Of course, we were hunting Tommy for a year and had just killed him … but, you know, I'm sure the publicity was much worse."

"To cut to the chase," Scrimgeour mocked, "Potter here had to marry his pregnant girlfriend before anyone knew what they'd been doing out of wedlock."

"Oi! That's my sister and the most powerful wizard in the world's wife you're talking about!" Ron yelled, getting to his feet from the chair that had appeared since John Daily had last looked at them.

Harry remained sitting but his eyes had hardened. When he spoke, his voice was ice-cold. "I didn't know you read tabloids Rufus. Or perhaps you're the instigator of the rumors yourself?"

At this point, John was having no problem believing that Harry Potter was the most powerful wizard in the world. The room appeared to have darkened and become colder suddenly before Ron closed his eyes and gave out an exasperated sigh.

"This is why we wanted our wives here …" he said making Harry at least remember where he was.

Harry sighed as well and the room regained the brightness streaming in through the windows. He responded to Ron's comment, ignoring the former minister who was apparently scared out of his wits. "Next time, Ron. I guarantee that next time we visit, our wives will join us. I couldn't exactly change a law in the five minutes we had to get here though, so …"

"Idiotic law anyway. Only males can visit the muggle Minister … honestly. I don't want to go home and listen to Hermione rant about that tonight …"

Harry laughed at his friend and turned back to the former Minister and his associate. Fudge was the only one with the courage to speak. "You'd better have put up wards before that little show Potter."

Harry waved away the complaint. "Of course, of course. I did that before I got in this room."

Ron groaned as he plunked himself back in his chair. "Show-off. Dumbledore would be proud though."

There was a moment's silence as Harry bowed his head in respect before looking up again. "I can only hope." He said.

Ron nodded solemnly and replied, "He would be proud. Of all of us. We did it, didn't we? Destroyed the Horcruxes and conquered Tom. And now, he'd want us to do what we're doing, take over the corrupt ministry and fix some things."

Grinning, Harry said, "And we'll start with fixing the law against female ministers and females meeting the Prime Minister." He turned to the Prime Minister, seeming to just remember he was there. "Ah, right. You'll want to be filled in. Well, Lord Voldemort is dead, for good this time, and the Wizarding World is going insane … anyway, I killed him in the end and I'm quite sure you don't really want the details. So … any news on your end?"

John Daily stuttered slightly in the beginning of telling about what was going on in the muggle world, but Ron and Harry's relaxed comments got him more at ease. Finally, an irritated Fudge interrupted them.

"I do believe you have a meeting in five minutes Minister."

Harry looked down at his watch in confusion. "Ah, so I do. We'll just have to continue this meeting some other time then. Good-bye John," and he vanished just as quickly as he'd come.

Ron rolled his eyes in frustration at his friend but also bid the Prime Minister farewell and left via the fireplace. Scrimgeour and Fudge followed shortly after without saying good-bye.

John sat in his office, watching the fire and thinking hard. Perhaps, just perhaps, some of his phobia towards magic was a bit unfounded? And maybe he shouldn't hate Scrimgeour and the portrait so much anymore. After all, Scrimgeour was just a bit pathetic and the portrait wasn't that bad when you got used to it.

Yes, he thought as he turned back to his work with a happier eye, perhapsI could begin to like magic.

A/N: Thank you my good readers, for taking the time to read this and remember, reviews are more precious than gold!

Love,
Lady Arathena