Chapter 2: An Unexplained Event
Cornelius Fudge remained, at least in his opinion, impressively composed when his eyes caught the headline of the Daily Prophet's newest edition. Granted, his head went a bit red, but it had previously shown itself prone to do that from time to time, so that couldn't really count as "losing countenance".
HARRY POTTER FINALLY FOUND!
How, where, why and what this potentially means for all of us
After his suspicious absence for the last ten years, one of our nation's most popular heroes has reappeared – but not where everyone was expecting him to. Harry Potter, the world-renowned Boy-Who-Lived, has apparently chosen to...
He didn't have much experience, being Minister for only one year at this point. He struggled to keep up with his paper work (proven by the giant mountain of paper that had taken over his desk which seemed to grow every day) and oftentimes, he didn't really know what to do except the universal approach of "go to Albus Dumbledore".
Yes, Cornelius Fudge was pretty sure that he was not supposed to be dealing with this mess. Harry Potter at Durmstrang! And no one had known, no one had even told him this could happen! Fudge slumped against the back of his comfortable wine-red leather chair and breathed out all air that had been in his lungs. A public symbol of their victory in the war, in the very school everyone knew to have supported every single ideal You-Know-Who had stood for. Naturally, everyone would ask him how something like that could have happened and he didn't have a single answer for that question; he couldn't even explain it to himself.
Harry Potter. Durmstrang. It did not fit. Harry Potter was British and the defeater of Voldemort and not German and the successor of Grindelwald - but that of course was what the damned Daily Prophet had to insinuate and that would be what everyone believed!
For a moment, he contemplated just running to Barnabas Cuffe to announce his retirement, but then, he forced himself to calm down again, for there was a very important fact he needed to make perfectly clear: He was not the one to blame. Whoever had messed this up – it certainly hadn't been one Cornelius Oswald Fudge, and as long as everyone knew that, he theoretically should be safe. The only question remaining was: Who was at fault here, and would consequently be pilloried for it?
Fudge's head shot up when he heard someone knocking on the door, then his eyes wandered towards the massive mountain of paper in front of him. The evident need of a new undersecretary was his last mental notice before Albus Dumbledore entered his office.
"Dumbledore!" he exclaimed and hastily adjusted the sheets on his desk so that it looked a bit less like the chaotic mess it really was. "What a convenient appearance, if I may say so."
Dumbledore looked slightly less reassured than normally, even if Fudge couldn't really tell why. Maybe because of the faint frown on his forehead? With a small nod in Fudge's direction, the headmaster approached the Minister's desk and conjured himself a comfortable looking chair whose colour Fudge failed to define – except for the fact that it looked atrocious. That was decidedly unusual, Dumbledore liked to walk around when he spoke to him. Apparently, he also hadn't anticipated that something like this would happen – which made Fudge feel better immediately, because no one could foresee what even Dumbledore didn't know in advance.
"I have to admit that I have expected this," Dumbledore began without the usual preliminary skirmishing and sat down at the same time. Fudge resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Really, what had he been thinking? Of course Dumbledore knew – but at least, that also meant that everything would be easily cleared up.
"I expected and feared it at the same time."
Except it seemed it wouldn't. "E-excuse me?"
"I take it that Millicent has not informed you of the incident that took place within the facilities of the Ministry three years ago?"
Fudge waved away Dumbledore's question for the moment, but he resolved to come back to it later as it sounded like something he actually was supposed to know. "No, she hasn't, but that isn't the point, Dumbledore!" He felt that his face grew red again and, for approximately the seven-thousandth time in his life, wished that it would finally stop doing that. "Harry Potter is at Durmstrang! At Durmstrang! And I only know that because the Daily Prophet somehow got an enrolment list of that school!"
"Rest assured, Cornelius, that I am aware of this unfortunate development," Dumbledore replied calmly.
Had his first impression really been that this man was upset? No, of course he had to be more relaxed than ever. It was so goddamn infuriating. "The recent weather is an unfortunate development," Fudge replied, voice rising.
"This is a catastrophe! Dumbledore! It's not as if he has chosen any school to reappear – no, it just had to be Durmstrang! Do you know what people are going to think? I can almost hear that damned Barty Crouch: 'Oh, Harry Potter is going to Durmstrang? Why did no one tell us? And isn't it suspicious for Mr. Fudge to have remained completely silent about it? Minister, what do you think?' And you know what, Dumbledore? I can very much sympathize with that sentiment, because I don't know anything as well."
Dumbledore didn't even blink during Fudge's rant, he just waited until the minister was finished, then he readjusted his sitting position a bit. "Believe me, Cornelius that this is – given the circumstances – a heavily worrisome piece of news, even graver than you might think at the moment. And at the same time, I am more relieved than you could possibly imagine."
Fudge's head shot upwards abruptly and he crossed his arms. One sheet of paper slowly floated towards the ground, but he didn't even consciously notice. "So you knew this would happen."
"I was aware of three distinct possibilities." Dumbledore started to count on his fingers' ends, and while he did so, his usually twinkling eyes became more and more absent. "The first one was Harry arriving, as was expected by almost everyone in Britain, in Hogwarts. The second one was him choosing other educational institutes, prematurely Durmstrang. The third one..."
"You knew!" Fudge shouted and pointed an accusatory finger towards his most important advisor. His voice was unnaturally high, almost cracking, his eyes comically widened, but he didn't care one bit.
Dumbledore simply confirmed it with a nod.
"And it didn't – even – I mean, not once did it occur to you that I might be interested in the whereabouts of our greatest celebrity?!" Only after this sentence Fudge noticed that his head was now in a notably higher position than Dumbledore's but, for the life of him, he couldn't remember when he had stood up.
"Of course this occurred to me," Dumbledore confirmed, "I just decided not to tell you."
On the back of his mind, Fudge knew that he was being set up, for whatever reason that might be. But if you had just come to the realization that you didn't know half the things you thought you did, it was surprisingly difficult to maintain any appearance of outward calmness.
"That is a very unhealthy shade of red, if I dare say so, Cornelius," Dumbledore added, sounding slightly worried.
"I am the Minister of Magic!" Fudge roared and threw his hands towards the ceiling in incredulity. „You cannot simply – I have a right to know! If anyone has to know, it's me!" He had bent over his own desktop so that he was now face to face with Albus Dumbledore, but Hogwarts' headmaster still hadn't even moved. "I can't believe it," Fudge continued, deflating a bit. Taking a deep breath, he managed to calm himself down marginally, but he resumed talking immediately afterwards.
"No," he continued in a somewhat contrived impression of Dumbledore, "He's the one in charge, why even tell him anything? After all, I'm Albus Dumbledore and I have that big collection of Orders of Merlin and, well, everyone wanted me to be Minister last year, so I practically am one as well. So, let's just-" Fudge's mouth remained opened, but no words emanated, as if he didn't know how to articulate his outrage anymore.
"Please, Cornelius, compose yourself."
"Yes, you know, you're making that a tiny bit difficult," Fudge retorted, still bit breathless from his outburst.
Once again, Fudge was forced to experience the scrutinizing gaze of Dumbledore's bright blue eyes, and, as it had been the case before, he felt fully exposed. "I did not wish delay telling you, even though it is, I'm afraid, not a story I like to relive. To be honest, I was fairly certain that Millicent would have already let you in at this point, alas, it seems that she did not do so."
Dumbledore readjusted his half moon spectacles a bit and sighed quietly. "There are two versions of this unfortunate tale. One is rather short and the other one contains a few more details. You will want to hear the shorter one, I presume?"
"Please."
Nodding, Dumbledore began his story. "Three years ago, the Improper Use of Magic Office detected an exceptionally startling case of underage magic in a suburb of London in Little Whinging, Surrey. They were not able to find much – except a few sad remnants of what seemed to have been a house, and a little boy with a scar resembling a lightning bolt."
"There are no records whatsoever about this," Fudge said, intertwining his fingers with increasing speed. He had a feeling where this was going, and this feeling didn't tell him anything he wanted to hear.
"Given the following events, that was to be expected. Be that as it may, Harry Potter was brought to one of the Ministry's bureaus for what should have been a temporary stay. By happenstance, I gained knowledge of his location at the time, and was granted my wish of talking to him."
Dumbledore closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, reminding Fudge of exactly how difficult this subject had to be for him. Normally, he'd never show such obvious signs of emotion. "Cornelius, the room Harry Potter was kept in at that time had been heavily protected, using spells that no mere accidental magic could ever hope to penetrate. And yet, when I entered, the bureau proved to be empty. Since that day, Harry Potter has remained unseen and his location unknown."
There was a minute of silence after Dumbledore had finished his tale. Cornelius Fudge just shook his head repeatedly, until he finally gave himself a nudge, went towards the brown-golden cupboard standing next to his desk and opened it.
The Minister didn't bother with a drinking vessel, he simply took out the carefully hidden bottle of Firewhiskey and let the liquid burn its way down his throat. Dumbledore watched as he drank in silence.
"Well," Fudge finally said, having decided on the best formulation. "Crap."
"I would have maybe phrased it slightly less vulgar, but I do agree with the sentiment."
This was a sentence Fudge was fairly certain he'd have shouted at Dumbledore about, but he just couldn't bring himself to muster any energy even for that. He was fairly sure now that Dumbledore had just enraged him previously so that he could tell his little story without interruptions.
"So, there really is no way the boy could've managed that without help," Fudge summed up and took another sip from his bottle. "And we don't know the culprit." Sitting down again, the Minister glanced at Dumbledore. "Do we?"
For a moment, again, no one talked, and Dumbledore's eyes suddenly became a bit harder, icy even. "I have a few theories", he said without changing the calm tone of his voice in the slightest. "They all tend not to hold up."
Fudge immediately felt that he hadn't eaten anything until now; the Firewhiskey was making its way towards his brain with spectacular speed. The only conclusion he could draw from this notion was to take another gulp as he was fairly certain that he'd have good use for the wondrous effects of Firewhiskey today.
"And the two of you, Minister Bagnold and you, you then proceeded to decide that no one needed to know?"
"Millicent was very insistent on this point, and I still do not disagree, if I am to be completely honest. If such an incident happened under your supervision, Cornelius, I take it that you would be far keener to make the public aware of it?"
"Of course!" Fudge replied boisterously. „If there'd be something the public needed to know, I wouldn't hesitate for one second!"
"My doubts of this bold statement aside – did the public need to know?" Fudge glared at him, then he shook his head yes.
"But had they known, what would have changed? A wizard that does not want to be found has stupendous amounts of possibilities available to avoid exactly that. We did not have a face, we only knew that a little boy had somehow managed to break out of an exceptionally well-protected room even adult wizards might have struggled to escape. The only success we could have expected was uproar in the public, and neither Millicent nor I thought that to be particularly helpful."
Fudge nodded at first, but then paused, startled by a new thought. "Just wait a second. You said you knew that the causa Harry Potter was about to go public this very day. At least, you knew that the problem definitely wouldn't disappear, and you still told no one– great, thank you so much! No, it was of course far smarter to wait until Cornelius Fudge was elected Minister so he can clean up behind everything you've messed up – including the uproar you wanted to avoid dealing with!" Fudge shook his head, fully aghast. "What a wondrous plan, Dumbledore! Of course, go on, shift all the crap to me! Really, I'm positively ecstatic now that I understand everything!"
"I did not get to mention the third way this day could have gone," responded Dumbledore matter-of-factly and with so obvious disregard for Fudge's complaints that the aforementioned was rendered speechless for a few seconds. "The one which, admittedly, provided the most gruesome option: That this day would come and pass without a sign of Harry Potter's continued wellbeing. And now, Cornelius, try to imagine such a prospect looming over the public's head for three years, without any opportunity for the Ministry to actually do something about it."
OK, so maybe they had been a bit justified in their decision, but- "I just want to point out that I am not the public. I don't know if you've noticed, but this is the Minister's office. If I didn't already mention it, I'm sorry, but last time I checked I was-"
"Minister, I know," Dumbledore interrupted and Fudge was fairly certain that there had been a sigh hidden in his voice. "What information the new Minister acquires from the old one is, as I believe I stated previously, not within my influence. If you consider Millicent's actions to be that incomprehensible, I'd recommend you to simply ask her. She also answers to letters, I believe."
"Great." Fudge shrugged and shook his head, still not really believing what he'd just been told. "Anything else I should know? Some unimportant side news, maybe? Grindelwald managed a Nurmengard breakout? You-Know-Who recently returned?"
Dumbledore stroked his beard and shook his head, smiling. "I am afraid that, in terms of jeremiads, I have run out of replenishment."
Fudge nodded in a way that clearly communicated just how impressed he was, then his gaze turned back to his Firewhiskey, because he suddenly felt like he wouldn't be seeing that particular bottle again after today.
In doing so, he missed how the smile vanished from Dumbledore's face without a trace of its previous existence. He missed how the headmaster of Hogwarts allowed himself, in a very rare moment of weakness, to cover himself with his hands, expressing shame and desperation at the same time. Albus Dumbledore had been forced to lie twice, today.
He knew much more about Harry's escape than he had ever let on, because he had seen the culprit, and yet, he hadn't been able to prevent it. He knew who, apart from his own failure, was responsible for Harry's disappearance.
Lord Voldemort.
And if Harry had returned, without a trace of Him, then it meant that ... Voldemort had as well.
Of course he was late. This was due to an entirely unlucky causal chain, which had begun with staying awake until three o'clock in the morning. It had then continued with awaking at five o'clock and being unable to sleep again, which led to him trying to use his wand without using any actual spells. The map had led him to an empty classroom, and then he'd tried to do magic. The funny thing was that, from time to time, there actually was a reaction to his made-up incantations - a drop of water would emerge from the tip of his wand or a breeze of wind would blow through the classroom. In short, he completely forgot the time and remembered far too late that he should be elsewhere. Maybe, he'd remembered, but he had already seen that his first scheduled lesson was "Potions" and, well, Potions had nothing to do with magic, at least in Harry's mind. The causal chain had then ended with him racing through the castle's narrow and ambagious corridors that seemed to have built-in random stairs and corners for extra-confusion - and getting lost twice. The map turned out to be of no use if you didn't even have the time to look at it.
Harry silently cursed himself for his lateness when he entered. His interpretation of "don't get noticed" seemed to be "arrive late on your first day", and given Karkaroff's mistrust that surely wasn't a good thing. However, he needn't have worried, because Professor Dmitrijew just looked at him for a second, then he rolled his eyes and proceeded to examine his desk again. Obviously, this teacher wasn't particularly interested in the punctuality of his students, and he also seemed to wait for three or four others. Harry surely wasn't going to complain about it and instead took a book out of the opened cupboard that was standing next to the entrance of the room. He didn't know how and when the fee he'd been promised the lending of books would cost him would be due, but it didn't seem to be now.
Looking for somewhere to take a seat, Harry noticed that this room had to have been specifically built for the purpose of Potions lessons. The lighting was far brighter than in the corridors – even though there was neither a window nor another source of light recognizable – most likely to avoid ingredient confusion. The most eye-catching detail was the ceiling which had several bell-mouthed holes built into it. It seemed that Durmstrang had been built at a time where the possibility of poisonous fumes was at least not entirely discarded, even though the first page of Harry's Potion's book said that the only probable effects were short periods of confusion, mostly induced by love potions.
Feeling a bit lost, Harry peered around. Where to sit down? He didn't feel like he had understood much of what the Potion's book said so the front row was definitely out of question. Then, he spotted the guy he had talked to the day before, and thought back to the last night. He wanted a friend, right? Maybe, this was the exact moment where he had to do something about that.
"Can I sit here?"
"Sure," Rodriguez replied. Harry didn't say anything else, but he smiled and sat down.
Five minutes later, the classroom was considerably fuller, now containing a bit more than 20 first years. Dmitrijew glanced at the children in front of him, then he rose from his cushioned chair.
"Hello, everyone. Seven people have managed to be punctual today, and therefore passed the very first test of their academic career. Congratulations to those, the others shall be reassured with the notion that, last year, I had to wait 17 minutes until the majority had decided to appear."
He began to pace with lowered head, not once looking at his students. His voice had a sort of depressing quality that was hard to grasp, nonetheless it was as if-
"You'd think he's speaking at a funeral," Rodriguez whispered and Harry grinned. That was an almost exact replica of his train of thoughts - maybe, just maybe...
"Of course, with the map we give you one would think that we could expect some measure of punctuality, but with today's students, there is very little you can actually expect."
Wow, this teacher was grating on his nerves already, and Harry knew him since yesterday.
"You will have noticed that this room does not contain all of your classmates, but we had to split you into two groups; otherwise we wouldn't have been able to provide adequate progress during our lessons. And especially with today's students-"
Somewhere, someone groaned.
Dmitrijew decided to leave it at that and subsequently turned towards a subject that would have been tiring even without his steady droning out: The intricacies of Potion-making. Well, Harry had to admit that he doubtlessly knew what he was talking about (at least he got that impression when he – few and far between – made an effort to actually listen). However, equally doubtlessly, he had no idea how to make it appear in any way interesting for an audience.
Shortly before the lesson ended, Harry suddenly snapped out of his waking absence when a very overweight, heavily panting guy came running into the classroom. Professor Dmitrijew stopped talking mid-sentence and blinked.
"Sorry," the boy gasped and slumped on a chair, completely exhausted. His face was covered in sweat and he looked as if he wasn't far from fainting. Somewhere, someone snickered – it was that Armin guy who had gotten his wand first yesterday, if Harry wasn't mistaken.
"How did you even manage that?" the professor asked exasperatedly. "Hannes Kuggel, am I correct?"
The boy just nodded, too occupied with regaining his breath to speak.
"82 minutes," Dmitrijew stated. His voice seemed a bit distant, almost consternated. "Even these days, I wouldn't have expected-"
"I couldn't do anything!" Kuggel winced. "I tried, sir, I really did! But there was this wall and when I passed it, I-"
The change that went through Professor Dmitrijew when Kuggel mentioned the "wall" was astonishing. For a moment, he suddenly seemed much more aware, almost on edge. "You're excused!" he rushed to say, voice sharp as a whip.
"But sir, I-"
"I already said you're excused. Our subject is Potions, not your illustrious adventures. However, please stay behind after the class has ended. Now, back to the effects of Wormwood..."
"Well, if that wasn't an interesting lesson, I don't know what should be," Rodriguez said when the class had ended and they were slowly leaving the Potions classroom for the next lesson, which would be "Combat Magic".
Harry almost exploded with laughter, but then he saw the expression on his acquaintance's face.
"Wait a second," he said, having calmed himself down. "Are you actually serious?"
Updated as of 27/1/2017 to give Harry a bit more personality.
