Ok, I owe you all an apology. If you read my other story then you've already had this, so feel free to skip. About a month and a half ago Nintendo released Pokémon X and Y versions on the 3DS. I have been pretty much glued to my copy of Pokémon Y for the last few weeks but now the novelty is beginning to wear off so I should be back to regular updates of my stories. Sorry for the delay, but these things happen!

Harry Potter: Junior Inquisitor

Chapter 20: A Moment to Think

Harry stepped through the door of the owlery and looked around for a suitable delivery owl. In his hand was a w sealed envelope which contained a letter that was addressed to Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's parents. The letter was a request for them to come to Hogwarts in order to discuss their son's recent behaviour and the actions that were being taken against him as a result.

Harry was not looking forward to that inevitable meeting.

Hedwig flew down from the rafters and landed on his shoulder.

"Hey, girl," he said in greeting, lifting a hand up to stroke her feathers.

Hedwig clicked her beak in an affectionate manner before looking at the letter in his hand expectantly.

"Sorry, Hedwig," Harry said "but this letter is for the Malfoy's. There's no way I'm sending you anywhere near their mansion. I've only just got you back."

Hedwig bobbed her head as though in acceptance of his reasoning and Harry made his way over to one of the school owls that were there for everyone to use. He called down a tawny owl and attached the letter to the band on its leg before reaching into his pocket and pulling out an owl treat for the bird.

"Don't hang about one you get to your destination," he told the owl "this letter contains bad news for the receiver and they are likely to throw a tantrum so you should get in and get out as quickly as you can, ok?"

The tawny owl hooted contentedly before spreading its splendid wings and taking flight.

Harry, with Hedwig still on his shoulder, made his way over to one of the tall windows and watched the bird disappear towards the sun that was setting in the distance.

He pulled out his wand and used a cleaning spell to get rid of the owl dropping that coated the window ledge before leaning against it.

Really this was the first time in a long time that he had been able to just stop and think.

For some reason his mind drifted back to that day in the Ministry when his whole world had begun to change.

It was the day that shattered an illusion, the day that he had realised Albus Dumbledore was not the man that the myth made him out to be.

When faced with the loss of power over the simple matter of telling the truth, Dumbledore had quickly backtracked, withdrawing his statements and apologising to any inconvenience caused. He had then gone on to blame Harry for the whole debacle, making it appear as though Dumbledore had been sucked into a wild story that Harry, in a moment of madness, had made up.

Worse, he had kept all this from Harry by placing him in isolation and cutting him off from all contact with the magical world.

Harry had been hurt by this betrayal but at the same time it had awoken something within him, something that had refused to take the fall, something that refused to be strung from the (metaphorical) hangman's noose so that others could play their little political games.

No one had been more surprised than Harry himself by the words that had left his mouth in that courtroom when he changed the focus of the blame from himself right back onto Dumbledore. Even more surprising had been the spiel he had delivered in the Minister's office straight after. He had spun a tale in which he was little more than a marionette whose strings were being mercilessly pulled by the grand puppet-master Dumbledore.

At the time he'd had no idea where all these notions were coming from but in the time since he had been rapidly coming to realise that much of it was true.

Dumbledore did have his own plans and schemes that he expected everyone to just go along with. There had been potions in Harry's system designed to keep him loyal and pliable to Dumbledore and his plans. He had been left mysteriously ignorant of his family's legacy, books about his family's history were missing, and money had been stolen from his vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

Whatever there was that was wrong in Harry's life, the finger of blame always seemed, almost unerringly, to point to Albus Dumbledore.

But Harry was breaking free of that now, and if there was one thing that Albus Dumbledore did not like it was someone breaking free.

Harry could think of no better example of this than what had taken place in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts shortly after the tragic events of the third task.

At the time Harry had been quite cross with the Minister for not accepting that Voldemort had returned to life, but now, with the potions out of his system, Harry was free to look at the situation from other angles. Yes, it had been a mistake on the Minister's part to bring that Dementor with him, but nothing that Dumbledore or any of the others had done that evening had helped their case in the slightest.

Dumbledore had heard Barty Crouch Jr. confess to his crimes before his death, but at no point had he offered to allow the Minister to see his memory of that confession. Dumbledore just insisted that he had heard what he had heard and clearly wished for the Minister to just take him at his word.

When that had not worked, Dumbledore had tried the intimidation approach. His aura had flared to give off a sense of power and then continued to talk in a way that, without evidence, would sound absolutely ludicrous.

Looking back, to his own immense annoyance, Harry had then joined in on the game, shouting at the Minister, practically screaming the names of the people he had seen in the graveyard following Voldemort's rebirth. Harry had, of course, been telling the truth, but the Minister had been correct when he had pointed out that every name he gave was of someone who had previously been acquitted of being a Death Eater, and that Harry could have gotten those names out of any book that related to the end of the first war with Voldemort.

And still no actual evidence had been provided, just Harry shouting and Dumbledore "insisting."

Then Dumbledore had further compounded the situation by making a series of demands that, to most witches and wizards, the Minister included, sounded utterly ridiculous. Things like sending envoys to the werewolf and giant colonies or removing the Dementors from Azkaban.

Snape and McGonagall had also gotten in on the act and in the end the Minister had left thinking them all insane. Looking back it seemed to Harry that the whole thing had been conducted with an extremely heavy-handed approach that was designed to intimidate the Minister into doing exactly what Dumbledore wanted.

Everything at Hogwarts was about what Dumbledore wanted.

To Harry it seemed that Hogwarts was nothing but a playground in which Dumbledore could test his theories and carry out one social experiment after another, often risking not only the education of the students but their very lives as well.

There was that whole debacle with the philosopher's stone in his first year. Take a rare and valuable object with life-giving properties that is coveted by one of the most feared Dark Wizards in history and place inside a school full of kids. Harry had to wonder what was going through Dumbledore's head when he thought of that little doozie. He doubted that student safety had even slipped into his mind, given that the first trap had been a three-headed dog that was blocked off from the student population by a verbal warning and a door that was so heavily enchanted that a spell from "The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1" could open it with ease.

Then there was his second year. Based on the information available to him, Dumbledore would have had to have been a complete moron to not work out where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was. Moaning Myrtle had been killed right in front of said entrance, after all, and had haunted that place ever since. Either Dumbledore was a complete idiot who had never asked her ghost what had killed her, or he had known but simple decided to not do anything about it. Yes, it would have required a parselmouth to open the entrance to the chamber but Dumbledore still could have blocked it off. Hell, he could have blocked the whole bathroom off just to have done with it. But he hadn't. Nor, it seemed, had he bothered to work out that the creature in the chamber was a basilisk. That it belonged to Salazar Slytherin should have pointed to it being a snake and one conversation with myrtle should have confirmed said snake to have been a basilisk. But again, Dumbledore had failed to do this.

Then there was Harry's third year at the castle. Harry shook his head. There was so much about that year and the events that led up to it all that did not make the slightest bit of sense that Harry decided to not think about it and move on.

On to fourth year. Quite what Dumbledore was thinking when he decided to bring that stupid Tri-Wizard Tournament back was quite beyond Harry. The whole barbaric practice should have been left to fester away in the dark depths of time, only to be read out in some old history book or another, not resurrected in any way, shape or form, even if it was all under the pretence of increasing international magical co-operation

Harry shook his head ruefully. Yes, Dumbledore liked to play his own tricks and was so used to not being questioned about his actions that when it inevitably happened he barely knew how to cope, having instead to rely on intimidation rather than being able to debate.

Then again, he was surrounded by yes men all the time. Harry could think of no better example of this than after his name had been drawn from within the Goblet of Fire. While grateful that both Dumbledore and McGonagall had believed him when he said that he didn't put his name into the Goblet of Fire, when others refused to believe him, McGonagall's argument had been "Professor Dumbledore believes him, so that should be good enough for everybody."

Given that the "everybody" in question had been two other Hogwarts teachers, the true champion of Hogwarts, the headmasters of two other prominent schools and their champions and two leading Ministry officials who had largely orchestrated the revival of the tournament, Harry really had to wonder about McGonagall. The term "staunch ally" didn't really cover her loyalty to Dumbledore and her blindness to his faults.

Harry wondered if she too should be scanned for loyalty potions or spells.

He had found himself wondering this a lot about various people throughout the afternoon. Ever since Sarah had mentioned the possibility of Hermione being under the influence of potions the notion had gotten stuck in his head. He hadn't given it much thought before now, but the fact was that he had been influenced by potions and therefore the chance was always there that others would be as well.

Harry had no idea how he was meant to check other people for potion or spell influence. Some people knew what he was up to and were checking their own food, but how could he check others without causing a mass panic? Under what circumstances could he get Hermione to allow him to check her for potions? There was no way that she would go for the idea, and Sarah couldn't attempt it as she was not the school's healer and therefore had no reason to try. She may have been a healer but she couldn't just begin casting detection spells on students without giving reasons.

Harry sighed and pushed himself away from the window ledge. He fed Hedwig an owl treat and she barked contentedly before soaring up into the rafters. Harry watched her go and then made for the door.

In a way he kind of hoped that Hermione was under the influence of a potion. He really needed her back on his side right now. He missed her.

In a very short space of time he had lost the friendship of both her and Ron, the two people whom he had previously been closest to in the world and a small part of him yearned to have the both of them back.

Currently he didn't have anyone his age that he was particularly close to. He was getting on alright with Hannah, he supposed, but things with Susan were still a little strange and really he was only just getting to know Padma. The same pretty much went for everyone else, he was just getting to know them. Some like Katie and Neville he was closer to, but there was still that gap.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that he had been at Hogwarts for four years and had only really gotten close to two people. Two people that he was now alienated from.

Ron, he had decided, was a lost cause. He had not thought of it at the time, but looking back now many of Ron's actions had been questionable. The boy was the jealous type and almost as prejudiced as any Malfoy, though he hid it a bit better. Harry recalled Ron mentioning in their second year that his mother had a cousin who was a squib who had gone on to become an accountant. This bit of information had been quickly followed by the words "But we don't talk about him." Harry had turned a blind eye to it at the time, but now it made him uncomfortable.

The main reason for Harry's hatred of Slytherin House had been Ron. Alright, Draco was an arrogant prick and Snape was a douchebag of the highest order, but they were just two people in a group that contained a quarter of the school. No, it had been Ron's whole "there's not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin" spiel that had turned Harry fully against that house. In fact, Harry's own fear of how Ron would react if he ever got wind of the fact that the sorting hat had wanted to place him in Slytherin had only cemented Harry's attitude towards the house, and what a fool he had been for it.

Once you got past the pricks there were some genuinely nice people in Slytherin. He didn't know too many of them yet, but so far Tracey, Daphne and Astoria seemed decent enough. In fact Tracey seemed like she could be a good laugh, the type of person whom it was just fun to be around.

No, Ron was a lost cause. Harry had cut him off and he would be all the better for it, but with Hermione he still held out hope. Yes, her worship of those in positions of authority was a bone of contention, but at least he understood why she was like that. Mercilessly bullied by other children, those in authority were all that she had. Unfortunately this had now driven a wedge between them by Harry was certain that she could learn better.

Her being under the influence of a potion or spell would certainly make that problem easier to resolve but, if she was not then she had a long and hard road ahead of her before she and Harry could even come close to being friends again.

He just hoped that that road wasn't too long.

Albus Dumbledore was in a bad mood as he sat at his desk in his office. In front of him was a book that contained all of rules and bylaws that governed how things were supposed to be run at Hogwarts. He had been hoping to come across something that he could use to stop Sarah Abbott from coming to Hogwarts in order to tutor Harry in potions brewing but he had found nothing.

Her coming to Hogwarts in order to tutor Harry instead of Severus was entirely legal and above board. It even circumvented the Wizengamot ruling that he had forced through thirteen years ago that prevented the woman from ever contacting Harry. Given her position as a healer he had, of course, been forced to concede that there was the chance that one day she would need to work with Harry in her official capacity, but he had planned to get around that by having Poppy treat him for everything, even when the best action would have been from him to go to St Mungo's. He had not counted on the bitch taking on part-time employment in order to get close to the boy.

Ever since Severus had been employed in the castle Dumbledore had had to dissuade at least fifty percent of the student population from employing the services of a private potions tutor and he had, by and large, been successful in that endeavour. Ok, so the numbers of students carrying on their potions studies into their N.E.W.T years were at an all-time low, but in Dumbledore's opinion that didn't matter. By working in the castle, Severus was slowly redeeming himself of past crimes and if the little snots didn't like it then that was their problem. If they couldn't put up with Severus' methods for an extra two years then clearly they didn't have the mentality required to master the subject.

But now all of that had been thrown clear out of the window by Harry Potter! He had gone directly to the Ministry in order to get a tutor, and the Wizarding Examinations Authority had gone out of their way to please him. They had suggested Sarah Abbott, Harry had agreed and the Board of Governors had approved.

There was nothing that Dumbledore could do about it.

Well, not in his role as headmaster, anyway.

People had accidents all the time, and perhaps a body, with the dark mark hanging in the sky over the dwelling of the House of Abbott would have to make an appearance sometime in the near future.

But not just yet as to do so now would only cause suspicion. Suspicion aimed at him.

Dumbledore was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Harry's disappearance over the last few weeks of the summer holiday had something to do with Sarah Abbott in some way. He had already realised that Amelia Bones had been involved and slowly the pieces were fitting together to show that the Abbott family had played a part as well.

He had watched Harry at mealtimes, and kept an eye on how well he got along with those whom he sat with. He got along with Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott a little too well for his liking, especially given the unsteady relationship that Harry had had with the whole of Hufflepuff house in the past.

Obviously Harry had spent his time away in a place where he met with both girls frequently, perhaps even at one of their homes. This did not sit well with Dumbledore as, although both the Bones and Abbott families were firmly in the light, none of their current members were strong supporters of Dumbledore and, he was honest enough to admit, with reason.

Amelia's brother Edgar had been a member of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix before he and his family had been murdered by Death Eaters in the previous war with Voldemort. That Edgar had been on a mission for the Order when he was captured by the Death Eaters made Amelia suspicious.

She would never know, of course, that it really was the Order's fault. Peter Pettigrew had been passing information from the Order to Voldemort for a year before the war ended, and some of that information had led to Edgar being captured. The Order had been suspicious of a spy in their ranks, but hadn't done anything about it. Dumbledore had had access to veritaserum but had not thought to use it. In fact, he would not even had needed to use it, just the threat would likely have found out the spy as everyone but the spy would have agreed to taking the potion.

So Amelia was distrustful of Dumbledore. Sarah Abbott, of course, had her own reasons for not liking Dumbledore. With Harry's parents dead and Sirius Black in Azkaban, Harry was meant to have been placed into her care. She did not understand Dumbledore's stated reasons for putting Harry with the Dursley family and certainly would not have like his real reasons if she ever discovered them, and so she had pushed the matter until Dumbledore had been forced to attempt to cut her off for good.

He also knew that Severus still being alive and free did not sit well with the woman.

Dumbledore sighed and closed the book in front of him. He had put a lot of effort into making himself look good back at the start of the summer when he had withdrawn his statements about Voldemort's return. Luckily he was an expert at faking humility, but now the world seemed to have turned against him again. He did not fully understand why, but he was certain that Harry Potter, Amelia Bones and Sarah Abbott had worked together to turn the Minister against him.

And now the school was under unofficial investigation, Professor Binns was out, Severus had lost his role as head of Slytherin while the rest of his duties were on the ropes, Harry was independent of him, the prefects were being watched, the students were getting the impression that their complaints mattered and Dumbledore's standing with the Ministry was in tatters.

Who would have thought that Harry Potter being at the Ministry for one poxy day could have caused all this trouble?

Draco Malfoy was furious. The entire Slytherin House Common Room was silent as he ranted about the latest injustice that scar-head had heaped upon him.

"How dare that stupid half-blood try and take my prefect badge? Does he not know who he is dealing with? Stupid, jumped up mudblood lover. Wait until my father hears about this. He'll put a stop to all this."

The atmosphere in the Common Room as he continued to rant was a strained one. After all, the people there were divided in their opinions on the matter. Some were extremely happy to see Draco getting his comeuppance. These people were of the opinion that it was idiots like Draco who dragged the reputation of their House down. Slytherins were supposed to be cunning and ambitious, not petty little brats who went complaining to daddy when they didn't get their way. Draco and those like him didn't have a drop of cunning in their blood and while certainly ambitious, they merely thought that their ambitions would be achieved because of their family name.

Tracey, Daphne and Astoria were in this group.

Others, although happy that Draco was getting what he deserved could not get past the fact that it was Harry Potter who was the one behind his downfall. That just didn't sit right with them, either because he was a half-blood or because of his former association with Gryffindor House.

The last group consisted entirely of people who were on Draco's side in this. They would be ensuring that their own fathers heard of this latest injustice to the pure-blood way of life and, with any luck, their fathers would be able to assist Draco's father into restoring the status quo. It was, after all, how things were meant to be.

Not too far away from where Draco stood ranting, Pansy Parkinson was sitting in an armchair and staring at the orange flames that were crackling away merrily in the fire place. Draco's behaviour had her worried. She could tell that change was in the air and with the way that he was going Draco was unlikely to survive it.

Without Snape as their Head of House, Draco's behaviour would not be so readily overlooked as it had been before now and she had to wonder at the boy's ability to learn from his mistakes.

That day on the Hogwarts Express, Harry Potter had entered the prefects meeting and had told them exactly how things were now going to be. What he had told them had come straight from the Ministry itself but she and Draco had not paid attention to it. Then they and others had gotten themselves caught behaving in an unacceptable manner towards three of their fellow Slytherins. Potter had followed through on what he had told them would happen to any prefect found to be behaving inappropriately and she and Draco had both been reprimanded.

Pansy had kept her head down from then on, but Draco had pushed and pushed until his badge had been taken from him.

And yet, in his mind, it was the Board of Governors who were in the wrong. It was the Wizarding Examinations Authority. It was Harry Potter.

Not Draco. Never Draco.

"Father stepping down from the Board of Governors was the worst thing to ever happen to this place," Draco continued to rant "this place has been going to the dogs ever since."

Pansy got up and left the Common Room after that. She knew as well as anyone else that Daddy Malfoy had been forced to resign from the Board of Governors in disgrace at the end of their second year and she really couldn't listen to Draco prattle on about the injustice of that any more.

Up in her dormitory she sat down on her bed and leaned over to pull open the lid of her school trunk. It wasn't a standard school trunk, but one a charmed one which opened to reveal different contents depending on which lock you undid. Several of the compartments were empty, but she had one compartment for her school books and parchment, another two for her clothes, one for things that held value, such as jewellery or letters from home, and one that contained nothing but bottles of butterbeer.

It was this last compartment which she opened now. She took out a chilled bottle and popped open the top before pausing to look at the label on the side.

At the bottom of the label, in small, golden writing, were the words "Brewed by PBP Breweries Ltd."

Pansy knew full well what the PBP stood for – Potter, Bones and Parkinson. She did not know the specifics about how that brewery came into being; all she knew was that her father, like his father before him, refused to have anything to do with the company. Her grandfather's brother maintained control over the Parkinson family's interests in the company, but her father refused to take any money from what as obviously a highly profitable business venture.

Not for the first time in her life, Pansy wondered if this was utterly foolish of her father. The entire wealth that their family possessed likely originated from this company, but her father and grandfather had turned their backs on it rather than work with the Potter and Bones families.

She took a long drink from the bottle before swinging her legs up onto the bed and leaning against the pillows.

She had to wonder, if the time ever came, would she be able to look past all their differences and work with the last members of the Potter and Bones families? It was slowly looking like she would have to.

She took another drink and placed the half-drunk bottle onto her bedside table before sliding down the bed so that she could look up at the ceiling.

Times were changing. She would have to decide if she could truly be a cunning and ambitious Slytherin and roll with the changes and come out on top, or if she would cling to her upbringing and the morals of her family, like so many others in her house would, and hope that the changes would be crushed by the weight of the pure-blood movement so that the status-quo could be resumed.

Pansy didn't have an answer right now. All she knew was that Draco's way was quite clearly the wrong way.

Hermione was struggling to deal with the confliction that was coursing through her mind. Since the start of term everything had been going wrong for her. Worst of all was the fact that Harry hardly wanted anything to do with her. He was very angry with her and she found herself struggling to cope with the notion.

All she had done was do exactly what Professor Dumbledore had told her would be best for Harry's well-being. How could Harry be cross with her for that?

"Perhaps" said a little niggling voice of doubt in the back of her mind "Professor Dumbledore didn't know what was best for Harry."

"But he's Professor Dumbledore," Hermione would argue back "The Professor Dumbledore. He can't be wrong."

"Why not?"

"Because he's Dumbledore."

"Was he not wrong to give Ron a prefect's badge?"

This was something that Hermione really had to struggle with "He's giving Ron a chance."

"Why? He's clearly unsuited to the role. His grades are lacking and his attitude is all wrong."

Hermione could not argue with that thought. Giving Ron the position of prefect over Harry or even Neville just didn't seem right in her mind.

But doubting those in authority went against her very nature. She was sure that Professor Dumbledore must have had his reasons for making Ron a prefect, reasons that she would never understand, just like he must have had his reasons for asking her to not communicate with Harry over the summer and keep Hedwig locked up.

No, Professor Dumbledore had his reasons, and soon everything would come together and they would all understand.

And Harry would be her friend again.

But why, then, did she have these niggling doubts?

She rolled over on her bed and buried her face into her pillows. Hopefully everything would make sense soon.

Things were going very well for Dolores Umbridge. Her goals of improving things here at Hogwarts were already well underway with full backing from the Ministry and the Board of Governors. Harry Potter was doing a marvellous job of backing her up and after this latest debacle she was certain that the Ministry would be moving up their timescale in order to make her the High Inquisitor much sooner.

She could almost taste the new heights of her upcoming authority. Before long she would be dismissing incompetent staff left, right and centre, and Hogwarts would be filled with people who were not only good at their jobs but also who knew their place. Once Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape and that oaf Hagrid were gone the castle would return to being the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world, as it quite rightly should be.

She opened the drawer on her desk and took out a small box which contained several quills. Blood quills. She had brought them along with her with a mind to use them to punish students in detention but it was quickly coming to look as though she might not need them. Mr Potter had most of the prefects on his side now and had ways of dealing with those who stepped out of line. The students appeared to like him and appeared to be largely on his side, something that was keeping their behaviour in check.

Yes, it was good to be Dolores Umbridge right now. She had the ear of the Ministry. She had power at Hogwarts, and she had more on the way.

What could be better?

The tawny owl circled the manor once before spotting an open window and diving in through it. The room beyond was a study, and the master of the household was sitting at his desk, enjoying a glass of Ogden's finest fire-whiskey as he looked over some paperwork.

The owl landed on the desk and held out his leg expectantly. The blond haired man set his glass down and took the letter from his leg. At that point the owl wasted no time in taking flight and soaring out of the window. Barely a moment later the owl heard a roar of anger, and two green spells whizzed by it, barely missing.

The owl flew straight into a wooded area and landed on a tree branch, resolving to not move until all signs of life within the manor house ceased.

Lucius Malfoy turned away from his attempts to curse the delivery owl and stormed out of his study.

"Narcissa!" he bellowed to his wife "Get your coat! We're going to see the Minister!"

A/N: Well there you go. Some people were requesting a chapter in which we got to see what was going on with a few people in this story, and I think this covers it rather well. Obviously I could not do it for everyone but these few were ones whose thoughts we really needed to catch up on. Susan, Hannah, Padma, Sarah and Amelia all could have had something like this as well, but a lot of information would just get repeated. They might get something a little later, however.

Also, I don't think I brought this up before, but the whole thing about the Parkinson family helping to brew Butterbeer is actually based on fact. Butterscotch originates from a part of the UK called Doncaster. One of the original distributors was a company called "S Parkinson & Sons" (who still trade today under the name "Parkinson's") and, as the main ingrediant in butterbeer is butterscotch, all I had to do was weave in a muggle-born with the name of Parkinson and suddenly it all fits together.

Seriously, the research I do just to increase your enjoyment of my stories!