Rolling in the Deep
DaggersBloodPain
A note on my portrayal of Kingsley: I am not writing from the movies, but from the books. This gives me more leeway with his age and personality as he is a relatively minor character in comparison to people like Tonks and Fudge. When he was first introduced I had him pictured much differently than the movie version. I assumed he was younger than he was, and I am not too proud to say I use artistic license with character descriptions, especially if I have a much different view of the character than the actor that portrays them. If this altered portrayal of my pairing choice is going to upset you, please, do not read any further you will not like what you find.
Chapter Two
Letting go
Kingsley Shacklebolt was not a very complicated man. He was incredibly straight forward in his personality and demeanor, what you saw when you looked at him was exactly what you got. This trait alone made him completely unpredictable. With a world full of uncertainty and fear, everyone was looking for the catch in every statement, to meet a person without a catch threw people into a panic. An honest man was a rare find, one few recognized as the treasure it was.
It was this reliability that landed the man in the unusual position he found himself in. Him, a high ranking Auror, was now saddled with the task of teaching Transfiguration to the newest generation of witches and wizards. How did he get himself mixed up in this you might ask? Simple, the Minister wanted a powerful Auror in Hogwarts with Dumbledore gone. An Auror with all the necessary clearances to use lethal force in dealing with intrusions and attacks, while still being honorable enough to not abuse the position. Kingsley happened to fit the bill perfectly. Not only was he very good at Transfiguration, he was also not opposed to carrying out the side mission assigned to him by the minister. Namely the babysitting of the resident Death Eater, Snape, and the Golden Boy, Potter.
Rufus Scrimgeour was taking no chances with the now vulnerable Hogwarts. He wanted his bet set of eyes there, and his quickest wand. Even knowing Shaklebolt had supported Dumbledore when the man was alive, he trusted Kingsley's ethical code enough to place him in a position to sway Harry Potter away from the ministry, and into anything the old Headmaster might have set up before his death. Kingsley would not push Potter into a war without a leader, the Ministry was the only things left for the boy with Dumbledore dead. Snape was a matter entirely different from Potter. A spy was a person born to deceive, the man would have to be treated with extreme caution, double agents had been used in the first rise of Voldemort. Rufus was a man who learned from history, though being an active duty Auror during those dark days may have created a lingering paranoia. Better paranoid than dead.
Kingsley understood the Minister's point of view, and even though he felt his skill could be put to better use in the field, he was now sitting at the Hogwarts' head table looking over a sea of students. He picked out the children of his colleagues easily, in his field memorizing faces became second nature, and he had met most of the children at Ministry functions at one time or another. Harry was even easier to spot. The Gryffindor table seemed to converge on a single point, like every student had sat as closely to one person as they could get, and Harry was at the center of the cluster. The boy didn't look good. Even surrounded by his friends and house mates, he looked pale and warn out, the dark circles under his eyes clear enough to be seen by Kingsley at the Head table.
"How long has Potter been imitating a ghost?" Kingsley quietly asked the witch sitting next to him, who was the head of Hufflepuff house Pomona Sprout.
She looked at the Gryffindor student in question with a bit of sadness in her eyes, "The poor dear hasn't been right since the end of last year, but I'm afraid the loss of Albus has made the situation worse for him." She explained simply, she was good at keeping an eye on the students of Hogwarts, even those in houses other than her own.
"He was really that close to Dumbledore?" Kingsley was honestly puzzled about that, at the Order headquarters it seemed like the two of them went out of the way to avoid each other, but he couldn't voice that in present company.
"It is never that simple, especially for those two, but in the last few years I have seen the relationship between them grow strained but never break completely." Pomona knew a bit more about the matter than she told the new Professor, but she felt it was better to keep the answer simple. It hadn't been hard to see the bond between Headmaster and Savior, it was the nature of the bond that perplexed people like Pomona who just watched. Some days it seemed there was nothing but frustration and anger between them, but even at the height of these problems she never saw the boy's loyalty wavier.
Kingsley caught most of what wasn't said, the kind professor was not very good at hiding what she was thinking. Even without mind magics Kingsley could read the emotions the gentle witch wore on her sleeve. There was more to the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore than student and Headmaster, that had been a given, but that there had been animosity between them boded well for his mission. If Harry held frustrations from Dumbledore's handling of the situation, maybe there was a chance he could guide Harry into working with the Ministry, especially if Kingsley did a little digging and found out exactly what Harry's problem had been with the Headmaster. If he could find that out, he could warn Rufus, and they would have an easier time dealing with Harry rather than driving him away.
Kingsley did wonder if the boy would collapse from exhaustion before or after he got a chance to speak with him. He really did not look good. It made him wonder if there wasn't more wrong with Potter than just the death of Dumbledore. Many people still showed signs of grief, even now, but Harry was the only one that looked like a walking corpse.
"Are you worried about how Potter is dealing with this?" Kingsley decided to ask Pomona after realizing he had gone silent for a tad too long, what he was planning on trying with Harry was not going to sit well with the warm-hearted woman.
She sighed a bit before replying, "In all honesty yes, but there isn't much we can do for him. We are encouraging the students to have a session or two with a mind healer to deal with the situation, but so far Mr. Potter has declined all efforts to get him to go, and he can't be forced unless it's proven he is doing something dangerous to cope. Looking tired isn't enough cause, or you can be assured most of the staff would have him in front of that mind-healer in a heart beat." She confessed, with a side-long glance at Snape when she mentioned 'most' of the staff.
This was a policy he didn't know much about, "If that isn't enough, than what is?"
She replied easily, "If he harms himself or another person with the intent to cause pain or destruction. If he did something like stop eating, or started setting the castle on fire, we would have just cause." Her sardonic tone at mentioning arson sounded to Kingsley like they may have had such a thing happen in the past.
"We will just have to keep an eye on him then, though I don't see that being any different than usual for him." Kingsley remarked.
"Too true, that boy doesn't get a moments rest from all that pressure. I have an inkling that is the main reason he wont see someone about his grief, he doesn't want to deal with all the speculation coming at him from all angles." Pomona was not blind or deaf, she knew what the school had put Harry through in the past, and didn't doubt it would happen again at the drop of a hat.
"Never thought of it that way." Kingsley replied honestly, now having an even better idea of how to gain Harry's support and loyalty. It had been a very fortuitous event to talk to the quiet Herbology teacher. The woman didn't miss much and she wasn't too shy about saying anything about it either. The woman bore watching just as much as Harry.
Let the games begin.