Disclaimer- Harry Potter and its respective characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

Authors Note- Wow! I am so overwhelmed with how this story has been received, I posted it just before I went to bed and checked when I woke up and it was freaking crazy. Thank you all so much! Thanks to every person who read the first chapter, or followed this, or added it to their favourites-Just Thank you! Since I'm on holiday's at the moment I'll be able to update more frequently, and I'll try to get ahead of my writing for when I resume Uni again.

In this chapter I make a reference to floo fire being blue, that's just part of my head canon that the floo colour is a different colour when you do it in certain place, or when it's certain people who use it :P

Also a Super Thanks to Uber Ghidorah for reminding me of the silver hand Peter has! I knew I forgot something important and you nailed it! I'm going to go back and change a few lines in that chapter (and fix several grammatical errors I made) so just imagine that that line never existed and I did instead mention his silver hand/paw/thing. But really...Peter is such as asshole; he doesn't even use his good hand for Voldemort's resurrection ritual. I mean, like how rude.

Most Wanted: Peter Pettigrew

1st August 1995

-2:35 am, The Daily Prophet, Wandsworth; London

Melanie Williams liked her job at the Daily Prophet on most days.

At first her job as an assistant secretary had simply been a way for her to pay the bills, a way to pay for her entrance into the Saint Mungo's healers training program. But then one year had passed, and then another, then two more, and Melanie found herself rather comfortable in her position.

She'd make coffee for her boss, gossip with the others assistants and reporters, file a few papers and then leave at 5pm every day. The downside to this was that the press never slept and neither would Melanie apparently as she was rudely woken up by her boss flooing her and screaming at her to get up.

It was two in the morning.

Grumbling and calling her boss an all manner of foul names she hurriedly got ready for her shift. They probably wanted her to draft up an opinion piece on some new legislation or on something else that Dumbledore had done. She tried not to dwell on Dumbledore for too long, she had been a student at Hogwarts once; a muggle-born witch who was completely enamoured with the world around her.

There was something that didn't sit right with her about slandering the name of the man who had introduced her to this world, the man who had smiled and worn outrageously coloured robes because he knew they would shock the more traditional wizards amongst them. The same man who at her graduation had shook her hand and smiled, saying "Congratulations Melanie, best of luck at Saint Mungo's, I know you'll do great things." Of course he had to say that to all of his students, but Melanie had never breathed a word about her desire to become a healer to anyone and yet here she was pretending she was "Mrs Perkins" who witnessed Dumbledore crucioing kittens last Sunday.

Shaking her head from these thoughts, she reluctantly grabbed a handful of floo powder and threw it in her fire.

'The Daily Prophet, Wandsworth!'

In a whirl of green Melanie arrived at the gilded establishment that was the Daily Prophet. When she first arrived at the Prophet she had surmised that it was exactly like the Ministry except decorated in white instead of black; it was always a place of noise and laughter, even at 2 morning.

Which was why Melanie was extremely concerned when she exited the fireplace to find it almost completely silent. Of course it was 3 in the morning and she hardly expected it to be the bustling centre that it normally was, but the hushed whispers and the eerie tension that had descended was disconcerting.

Hurriedly making her way to the editing room she hoped that she'd get some answers before she stopped outside her boss' office. His side door was slightly open and she could hear Mason Pritchard, the editor of the Prophet, and Emily Dorne, the lead writer for the gossip column talking in hushed whispers. After a quick look around to make sure no one else was in the office Melanie moved forwards, ducking behind a pile of newspapers as she peeked in.

'You've heard then?' Mason whispered to Emily, looking excited.

'Yes! The Potter boy-' Emily whispered back as she looked at something with wide eyes.

'I thought this was a hoax, but apparently it's legit! I've got a statement from Amelia Bones-'

'Surely not! This is probably rubbish, some silly little attention-'

'Quiet down and use your head for once Emily,' Mason hissed. 'All that talk about Potter was complete crap and you know it, this-this is real!'

'But 100,000 galleons-' Melanie's eyes widened and she leaned forwards to try and hear more.

'Is out there for the taking Emily!' Mason interrupted, gripping Emily by the shoulders. 'Look I was a year ahead of Peter in school-,' Melanie strained her neck as she desperately tried to hear as his voice lowered. 'He was nothing compared to Potter, Black and Lupin-he could barely cast a summoning charm without having one of them hold his hand. If we can get him-,'

'This says he's a Death Eater! That he killed that boy from the Triwizard Cup Mason!' Emily exclaimed loudly and Melanie put a hand over her mouth in shock, surely not! That was an accident! The Ministry wouldn't lie about the murder of a teenage boy-would they?

'So we'll all go in a group, safety in numbers!'

'This is-,' whatever it was Melanie would never know as the pile of newspapers she was leaning on suddenly gave way; falling on the ground as they brought her down with it. She lay there dazed for a few moments before Mason and Emily exited the office.

'Melanie! Are you alright dear?' Emily hurried over and helped her up, Melanie making sure that she avoided eye contact with Mason. 'Honestly Mason I told you stacking them was going to get someone crushed,' she reprimanded.

'I'll make sure not to do it again.' There was something icy in his tone and Melanie flinched as she realised she had been caught.

'Williams get me a coffee, double shot of firewhisky,' he barked at her as he turned back to his office, ignoring Emily's scandalized yell of "Mason!" as he slammed the door.

'Don't mind him dear,' she patted her arm consolingly before her eyes lit up. 'But you won't believe what came in the mail last night,' she leaned forward and grinned, reminding Melanie of Rita Skeeter the reporter whose shoes Emily had filled.

'We got a letter from Gringotts bank, all very proper, see they've put a bounty out-,' she paused for a dramatic effect. 'A 100,000 Galleon bounty on Peter Pettigrew!'

Melanie would have been shocked if she wasn't so confused.

'Whose Peter Pettigrew?'

'Pettigrew's the wizard who was murdered by Sirius Black dear!' Emily seemed to be thrilled that she had no idea who this man was. 'He was one of the best friends of the Potters, when they were betrayed Pettigrew went and confronted Black and was murdered!'

'But you just said he was murdered,' Melanie pointed out.

'Exactly darling!' Emily trilled as she applied her lipstick. 'The real question is, why is someone paying so much for a dead man?'

-oOo-

-4 am, The Ministry of Magic; Kingsley's Office

Kingsley Shacklebolt had been working non-stop since his impromptu invitation to meet Amelia Bones last night. He knew as soon as word got out of the reward on Pettigrew's head there would be chaos, 100,000 galleons was no small amount of money and plenty would kill for far less.

He didn't doubt that word had already probably gotten out somehow (things this large had a way of doing that) and that it was making its way around Knockturn Alley. He could only hope that it took at least another hour for the Death Eaters to get a hold of this information. Kingsley knew that the Death Eaters would sell Pettigrew out for only a fraction of the reward price, but they wouldn't be the one making the final call. At this point Voldemort could go either way, keep Peter close or kill him. The last option seemed the most likely, but the fact remained that as long as no one knew where Peter (or his body) was then people would keep on searching until they found him, or it.

He could not help how amusing he found this entire situation.

Sirius and Remus had both warned Dumbledore that Harry was bound to get restless if they left him locked up and out of the loop for too long, and here was the result. When most teenagers rebelled they'd go run off for a few days, maybe grab a pack of smokes or get blindly drunk; Potter just had to go and start up what Kingsley suspected would be one of the biggest manhunts in Wizarding Britain's history.

One good thing to come out of this was that he was removed from being the head of Sirius' case; he had never been comfortable with the knowledge that he was deliberately sabotaging an investigation, regardless of Sirius' innocence it had nagged on his conscience at times. But Pettigrew was definitely guilty and Kingsley would be damned if he'd let the man slip away again; if for Sirius' sake than nothing else, God knows that the man needed something to go right for once.

He had also purposely stalled informing the Order in favour of getting organised and prepared to head the manhunt that was coming underway. As much as Kingsley respected Dumbledore he would be damned if he'd give Pettigrew the opportunity to get ahead by informing Snape. For all of Dumbledore's assurance in his loyalty he could never buy them. This was a man who had willingly joined the group at the height of their power, when it was widespread knowledge what lengths they could go to.

Reluctantly Kingsley had to ask Amelia for a break and she had reluctantly let him go; giving him an hour max as she scowled down at the mass of paperwork in front of her. He heard a loud smash, of what he assumed was Amelia's second empty bottle of firewhisky (she had smashed the first one on the wall after the editor of the Daily Prophet flooed in demanding to know if the bounty was true) and hurried to the atrium.

He had called an emergency meeting of the Order of the Phoenix ten minutes ago and had spent five minutes sitting in his office, working himself up to telling everybody. Visualising the grimy house that was headquarters, Kingsley turned and apparated, reappearing in the front hall of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

With a sigh he entered the kitchen where the Order was assembled. Everyone their was either hurriedly dressed (Tonks' shirt was inside out and back to front) or still in their pyjamas. He noted in amusement that Dumbledore was wearing robes with rainbow ducks on them, and saw Minerva shoot Dumbledore a withering glare from underneath her tartan nightcap. She really couldn't criticise Dumbledore, I mean really she was wearing tartan...

'Kingsley,' Dumbledore greeted pleasantly as Kingsley suddenly remembered why he was there as he grimaced. 'You called an emergency meeting-'

'It's four in the morning!' Charlie Weasley blurted out; glaring at him and from the looks around the table several people shared his sentiment.

Kingsley grimaced and passed Dumbledore the scroll who took it curiously before he unrolled it, eyes scanning the parchment. In all his life Kingsley had never felt the mood of a room drop so quickly then it did just then. The atmosphere with Amelia had definitely been tense but now it was suffocating.

'Amelia called me in last night,' Kingsley elaborated to Dumbledore who looked uncharacteristically grave. 'These have been sent to every law enforcement agency and news press in Europe.'

Dumbledore closed his eyes in thought and nodded, his countenance starkly conflicting with his choice in pyjamas.

'Albus?' Minerva worriedly asked as Dumbledore nodded at Kingsley who took it as his cue to elaborate to the rest of the Order.

'I was called into Amelia's office last night,' he deliberately avoided looking anywhere near Snape. 'As of last night a bounty of 100,000 galleons has been placed upon Peter Pettigrew.'

It seemed to take a moment for what he said to sink in as several people stared at him blankly before they turned to shock.

'I-um, sorry Kingsley did you-,' Remus' voice was hoarse as he stared at him, his fingers gripping the table so hard that they were turning white.

He nodded at Remus who slumped in his chair, and Kingsley noted that Sirius seemed to have gone into a state of shock.

'Who made the bounty?' Alastor Moody asked as Kingsley winced.

'Harry Potter.'

It took several minutes to regain some resemblance of order in the kitchen after Kingsley's announcement.

Molly Weasley had screamed, waking up Mrs Black who screamed, startling Sirius from his shock as he got up to scream back. Minerva and Dumbledore were talking in frantic hushed whispers while the rest of the table was not so quiet; excluding Snape of course, who was glowering in a corner and muttering to himself.

'100, 000 Galleons!' Hestia Jones squealed excitedly to Emmeline Vance, who was hastily scribbling down in her notepad. 'Merlin Emmy, the things that we could do with that money-'

Molly was now mumbling to her self as Arthur tried to calm her down, while the rest of his colleagues in the Aurors began firing questions at him.

'The public will go mad,' Kingsley said to Alastor, eyeing Hestia and Emmeline warily as they loudly began preparing to go after Pettigrew. '100,000 galleons Moody-they're going to rip this country apart to find him.'

'100,000 galleons,' Charlie repeated, a far off look on his face as he stared at the opposite wall.

'Can he even pay that?' Mundungus Fletcher asked; looking far too eager if the glare Molly was giving him was any indication.

'The Potters were a very wealthy family,' Sirius answered hoarsely as he entered the room again. 'And Harry is the only member of the family left,' he swallowed tightly. 'He'd be able to pay that easily.'

'The goblins would not have put the contract out if he was unable to pay,' Bill agreed, 'they're going to be sending out some people of their own, especially since the reward is so high.'

'But why go after Pettigrew?' Arthur sputtered, before hastily continuing as Sirius made to reply quite loudly. 'Now I know why Sirius, but everybody thinks that Pettigrew's dead! Why not on some other Death Eater?'

'Because they're lining Fudge's pockets with gold Arthur,' Moody said, an eerie looking smile on his face. 'Dead men can't bribe, and they can't be defended by the living either. I think even Fudge for all his incompetence would see that there's something suspicious if Lucius bribes him to cover this up.'

'Mr Potter did say that Pettigrew was present at Voldemort's return,' Minerva said catching on to where Moody was leading. 'If they catch Pettigrew then they'll know that Potter is telling the truth! About Voldemort and Sirius!'

Sirius gave a breathless laugh at this and Kingsley had never seen the man more happy in all the time that he knew him.

'If this is true,' Snape spat venomously, 'then Pettigrew will more of a liability then an asset to the Dark Lord. As soon as he hears of this he will send people to kill him.'

The mood died down quite a bit at that before Moody suddenly rounded on Snape.

'What do you mean send people to kill him,' Moody growled, his glass eye focusing on Snape. 'You said he was at Malfoy Manor.'

Snape seemed to realise his mistake a moment to late and sneered at Moody.

'It is not my duty to play babysitter to-'

'You said he was at Malfoy Manor!' Moody growled back and Kingsley grabbed his wand in preparation of a fight.

'Alastor please,' Dumbledore intervened tiredly before shooting a hard look at Snape. 'Please elaborate on Mr Pettigrew's whereabouts Severus.'

Snape looked as though he was made to swallow something extremely bitter at this, and for a moment Kingsley thought he'd refuse to answer. Not that he had much of a choice really, if the way Moody, Sirius and Remus was looking at him any indication of what would happen if he didn't.

'Pettigrew,' Snape spat out through gritted teeth. 'Is occasionally sent out by the Dark Lord to visit Diagon Alley in his animagus form. He collects Intel and ensures that the Dark Lord's allies are not making any back door deals.'

There was a loud clatter as Sirius stood up, wand in hand as he looked at Snape murderously.

'You knew he was out this whole time,' Sirius said lowly and Kingsley was fleetingly reminded of his last visit to Azkaban where he met Bellatrix Lestrange. The comparison did not bode well for anyone in the room.

'Sirius,' Kingsley spoke, standing between him and Snape. 'I only just got put off your case, let's not start up a new one.'

Sirius lowered his wand and glared at Snape before sitting down, his hands bunched into fists.

'If Pettigrew's in Knockturn Alley then he would know about the bounty,' Moody said gruffly while shooting a dark look at Snape. 'He's going to be most wanted man in Britain without a doubt; The public, Death Eaters and us are all after him now. If he has any brains he'll be on the run.'

'Peter always did have a high sense of self preservation,' Remus agreed darkly.

'Not a high enough sense Lupin,' Snape hissed viciously, looking distinctly unhappy at how he'd been reprimanded. 'The fact remains that both you and Black are still alive,' Kingsley and several other people made to yell at the bastard before they were interrupted.

There was a loud skidding noise as Remus stood up and tackled Snape onto the floor, Molly's screams mingled with Mrs Black's as Remus sent Snape sprawling with a sharp right hook to the nose. Kingsley stared at the scene in shock as both men began throwing punches before there was a loud crack and sudden whoosh of air in the room as both men were roughly forced apart and into opposite corners.

'That is enough from both of you!' Dumbledore's eyes flashed dangerously at both Remus and Snape, who were now sporting a split lip and a broken nose respectively.

Remus stood up and dusted off his robes, not looking apologetic in the slightest, before he turned to Sirius.

'I'll be in Knockturn Alley if anyone needs me.' Remus shot a parting glare at Snape before he left the room, roughly pulling Mrs Blacks' curtain shut on the way.

'Well,' Charlie stood up and clapped his hands together, breaking the silence. 'If that's all there is to the meeting, I have some friends to contact-'

'Charlie Weasley!' Molly stood up and glared at her son, 'You are not going to go run off and-'

'Well I am,' Mundungus stood up as he examined his pocket watch. 'Knockturn Alley's gonna be over'un in the next 'irty minutes. I'm going to grab what ever I can an' make the most of it.'

With that he left the room and several people tensely looked at each other.

'I think I'll head back now,' Bill stood up, deliberately avoiding looking anywhere near his mother. 'Good bye!'

With that Charlie tugged his brother out the room as several other people began listing excuses as to where they needed to be. Hestia, Emmeline, Dedalus, Tonks, Sturgis and finally Moody all quickly exited the kitchen; Moody roughly patting Kingsley on the back in farewell as he clunked his way out of the now silent kitchen.

'So,' Sirius began, grinning around at the remaining members. 'Anyone up for a drink?'

-oOo-

-8:25 am, The Ministry of Magic; Department of Magical Law Enforcement

It was pandemonium in the Ministry; chaos seemed to be the reigning factor of the day as the entire British Wizarding community began going mad. Amelia Bones had expected a response of course, it was 100,000 Galleons that was at stake here, but she had been cautiously optimistic. Deluded more like, she snorted to herself.

The first sign of complete and utter chaos had been when Amelia had been forced to douse her fire; the rush of people trying to contact her had resulted in a back up that had temporarily shut down the floo network, making the entire situation worse when the floo came back up again five minutes later and several hundred witches and wizards all came tumbling out at the same time.

Owls were flooding in every minute demanding to know whether the bounty was legitimate; Amelia had been forced to seal her window shut due to the magnitude of the letters alone. With a grimace she flinched slightly as another owl hit the glass of her window and spared a glance as she saw it flap at her indignantly from the window.

It wasn't as though Amelia could do anything though; this chaos wasn't even being contained to the Ministry! Already she had reports of two people being sent to Saint Mungo's for injuries in what Auror Higgins had described as a "stampede" in Diagon Alley. Auror Petrov had also been forced to call in reinforcements after an argument over whether or not an animagus retained his clothes during change had gotten drastically out of hand; resulting in a duel that left several stores in the area severely damaged, with at least five people being sent to Saint Mungo's for injuries.

And this was only in her department.

Apparently things like the Statue of Secrecy didn't matter anymore, with an old witch in Hackney releasing her trained Crup's on her village to "sniff him out" as Auror Tonks had put it. She did not envy the obliviator's at this point.

Amelia herself was stretched thin as she was forced to assign aurors not only to try and calm the raging mob at Diagon and Knockturn Alley, but also to deal with the influx of people arriving with tips and leads. She could hear the shouts from her office and grimaced, downing her third pain-relieving potion for the day as her headache started up again.

'I saw him in Knockturn Alley yesterday!'

'I remember him from Hogwarts! Never liked the bastard, I swear I saw him last week at the-'

'I told you that I was with Stubby Boardman that night! I told you all that he couldn't have done it!'

She paused at the last one. Who the hell was Stubby Boardman?

'There's another one for the "crazy tip list" Amelia. We're on a role, it's been 25 minutes and we've already beaten our record.'

Here was Rufus Scrimgeour, the proud head of the Auror Department, casually reclining in her chair and sipping on his coffee as Amelia took a moment to breathe. He had come in just before the prophet had arrived citing he had an early copy and had proceeded to lounge in her chair, observing the chaos with amusement.

Amelia noted grimly that it had only been 25 minutes since the Prophet had been delivered and groaned as she realized that this was what it would be like for the rest of the day. She had already called in every available auror as well as the reserves in a futile attempt to reign in the madness that had seized the whole bloody country.

Then again a third of her own aurors hadn't even shown up to work that morning, and if the rumour mill around the office was to be believed several had theorised that they had already broken off to get a head start on the bounty. She already had assigned Auror Dawlish to compile a list of names of the people who could regrettably not made it to work that day for the various bunch of bullshit excuses they had made up.

It could be the end of the world itself and Amelia would still expect her aurors to come up with a better excuse than,

"My cat is sick and needs medical attention -Timothy Whithers"

Whithers' didn't even own a fucking cat.

'You could help,' Amelia said bluntly raising an eyebrow at Rufus who laughed.

'Amelia nothing is going to help this.' He pointed to her window, which was barred and had at least 20 owls congregating outside of it. 'The only thing that would help this situation is capturing Pettigrew.'

'You think he's telling the truth?' Amelia asked and Rufus snorted.

'Amelia, no one cares about the truth.' Something clenched painfully in her chest as he said that. 'All I know is that there's 100,000 galleons out there on Pettigrew's head and that everyone wants it.'

'I'm sure Kingsley could use a hand,' Amelia's gaze flickered outside her door, where Nymphadora Tonks tripped and knocked into a filing cabinet; causing a chain reaction that left half of her aurors on the ground.

'I'm sure he could,' Rufus agreed as he flipped through his copy of the Daily Prophet.

'And?' Amelia growled out through gritted teeth as she realised that Rufus was dragging this conversation on. The floo flared blue behind her and suddenly Rufus' eyes took on a predatory gleam.

'That is what Amelia.'

Cornelius Fudge toppled out of the floo and stumbled, looking incredibly shaken with his clothes messed up as he looked wildly around the room for Amelia.

'Amelia! What in Merlin's name is going on!' The man sputtered, knocking his bowling hat off in shock as another owl hit the glass of Amelia's window. 'I came in this morning and there was all of this!' He wildly gestured around the room, waving his hands about wildly. Any other day Amelia would have laughed at him but right now she could completely understand what he meant.

'I'd suggest you read the headline of every newspaper today Minister,' Rufus said happily and Amelia groaned as she realised why he was in her office. He had come to gloat. She shot a warning look at Rufus who smirked back at her standing up as he passed Fudge the paper.

Had the Minister been anyone else, Amelia would have been concerned at how quickly the blood drained from his face.

'Pettigrew's dead!'

'100,000 Galleons says he's not,' was Rufus' dry reply as he passed Amelia another brandy.

'Please, it's hardly like the boy can pay it-'

'Charlus Potter and Dorea Black's grandson?' Rufus scoffed, 'No, no I'm sure a family as influential as the Potters and Black's could hardly handle a sum a measly as that.'

'This is-OH FOR THE LOVE OF-' Fudge paused mid tirade as another owl slammed into Amelia's window. 'Honestly Amelia,' she had never seen the man so flustered before and took no small amount of satisfaction at his discomfort. 'Can't you just call this off?'

'This is Gringotts business Minister,' Amelia explained patiently. 'The Ministry-'

'The Goblins can go and-!' Fudge exploded before another owl slammed into her window. 'FOR FU-'

'Minister!' Amelia grimaced and downed the rest of her brandy; refilling her glass as Delores Umbridge waddled in, followed closely by Percival Weasley who was an alarming shade of red. Even Delores' sickly sweet personality couldn't stand the barrage of chaos that had erupted, as she entered looking distinctly ruffled and unhappy.

'The ambassador for France is demanding to know whether this-this-mess applies to them!' Delores' face twisted up like some ugly red prune as she spat that out and Amelia made a mental note to send Potter some firewhisky just for pissing her off so much.

'The reward is open to,' Rufus cleared his throat and read off his paper smirking at Fudge while Amelia resisted the urge to bash his head against her desk. 'And I quote "any person who leads to Pettigrew's capture and arrival into the hands of the DMLE."'

'That's a yes Weatherby,' Rufus said dismissively to Weasley who flushed a deep shade of purple as he viciously scribbled down on his notepad.

'But Pettigrew is dead!' Fudge seemed to have convinced himself that if he said it enough times it might actually come true.

'The public doesn't care about whether or not Pettigrew's dead Fudge!' Rufus snapped exasperated. 'All they care about is the money! Surely I thought you of all people would understand that.'

It was far, far to early for this. Fudge was slowly turning purple while Delores looked as though she was a fish out of water, her mouth opening and closing as her beady eyes focused on Rufus.

'How dare you accuse the Minister-!?'

'Oh shut up Delores,' Amelia snapped deciding to intervene before someone killed someone else. If they had a murder on top of all this Amelia doubted she'd be able to spare an auror until Christmas and she could only imagine the paperwork…

'This is out of our hands,' Amelia said tiredly. 'The only one who can get rid of it is it's sponsor-'

'Potter!' Fudge spat out, hands shaking as he tried to reign in on his rage. 'He's with Dumbledore on this I'm certain, trying to undermine the ministry!'

Amelia breathed in deeply; she was not in a mood to hear another one of Fudge's "Potter and Dumbledore are conspiring together" theories. With the way he carried on he could fit right in with the Quibbler crowd.

'We'll have to get Potter to take it down!'

Rufus began clapping loudly as Fudge came to that conclusion, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he praised Fudge.

'Well done Fudge! Let's go and ask the teenager you've been mercilessly hounding if he would be so kind as to remove the bounty on the man who he claims murdered one of his friends! Not to mention Bertha Jorkins, let's not forget that embarrassing incident-'

Bertha Jorkins had been the deciding factor in Amelia's decision to believe Harry Potter. She had hounded Ludo Bagman for months about her disappearance and by the time he had gotten his head out of his ass and reported her missing it was too late. No one had heard anything from her in over a year and a half and though Amelia was loathe to admit the worst in this situation the fact that a fourteen year old boy with no relation to the ministry had been able to get more information on Bertha was incredibly disturbing. She suddenly realised in disturbing clarity that Harry Potter was the same age as her niece and swallowed tightly.

'-And after we'll all go and make fucking daisy chains and sing songs and talk about our feelings!'

'Rufus.' She said carefully warned him to quit while he was ahead. The man in question looked somewhat disappointed before he shrugged and went back to reading his paper.

'Minister,' she spoke firmly, 'If you even attempt to have Potter take this down then the public will go mad; they'll think that you're depriving them of the chance to earn 100,000 Galleons-'

'But he's DEAD!'

Amelia breathed in sharply through her nose and began counting backwards from twenty, holding up a hand as she used all of her willpower to not throttle the man. She had thought him incompetent of course, but really she was surprised at just how stupid he was.

'We can't do anything Minister besides our jobs, and at the moment our job is to control the panic surrounding this situation.' Amelia said firmly fixing Fudge with a withering glare to hit the finality of this situation home. He seemed to finally get it through his head that this was one situation that he could not "sweep under the rug" and made a high pitched grunt that Amelia took as a dismissal as he turned and left her office, summoning his fallen hat a moment later.

'This is going to be very interesting.' Rufus said as he finally stood, folding and putting the paper down. 'I'll go lend a hand with Kingsley then shall I?'

Not waiting for an answer he left the room, leaving Amelia to gather her scattered thoughts.

If anything Amelia mused as she watched Delores shriek at Weasley who had dropped several boxes of parchments, it was going to make for a very "interesting" next few months. Amelia spared a glance at her clock. 8:45.

God damn it.

A/N- That was a long chapter to write! I loved writing Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour though. I have this head canon that they both spend their Friday nights getting drunk and complaining about the good old days without Fudge. I imagine that Rufus can actually be pretty laid back and sarcastic but when we're introduced to him the HBP he's purely focused on taking Voldemort down so he's not really that sociable. But I really liked the guy when he was introduced, and he had such a sad end, refusing to tell Voldemort about Harry. *salutes canon Rufus Scrimgeour*

So anyway next chapter we'll be getting back to Harry and see what happens from there!

Thanks for reading!