Chapter 21 - Good Things Come in Small Packages

Gritting his teeth, Harry was careful to keep up his end of the bargain, mindful as he was of Moody's words before he had left Hogwarts that morning.

"Best foot forward with Scrimgeour, Potter! We've received everything we've asked so far from the Ministry of Magic and we don't want to rock that particular boat now, do we? I don't doubt for a second that they'll start to bugger us around in the future, but let's not rush that day. Be a good boy and do as Rufus says!"

As he pushed his glasses back up on his nose after having been jostled for the umpteenth time by yet another over-zealous photographer, Harry cursed Moody and Scrimgeour equally under his breath. He was currently in a Ministry of Magic press conference which was being chaired by the almighty Minister himself. Carefully selected journalists and members of the public fed ridiculously easy questions to Scrimgeour, who in turn fed them pre-prepared answers. As he was there in his capacity as a symbol as opposed to anything else, nobody was paying much attention to the Boy-Who-Lived. It wouldn't have been too bad, then, had it not been for idiotic way in which the conference was being run.

Sitting on a raised dais in the centre of the Exceedingly Long Hall in the bowels of the Ministry were a whole host of luminaries. Besides Scrimgeour and Harry there were to be seen the ex-Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge; the current Provost Marshall of the Aurors, Bertrand Killick; renowned magical philosopher, Margarita Hampton; a personal representative for each of the Ministers of Magic from all of the European countries which were signatories to the International Magical Cooperation Pact and perhaps most interestingly for Harry, professor emeritus of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Ifor Plaice - the last person before Professor Quirrell to both hold and survive the post at Hogwarts.

Excluding Fudge and the European 'Percy Weasleys' as Harry had taken to referring to them in the privacy of his own mind, none of the other participants looked overly thrilled to be there. In the style of modern Muggle politicians Scrimgeour had opted for a more informal style of presentation, presumably to stroke the egos of the journalists, thought Harry sourly. Since his experiences at the hands of Rita Skeeter, he had rated these particular people as only one step less evil than Death Eaters. Unfortunately, there seemed to be many more of them than there were the black-robed followers of Riddle. The fact that they were not only surrounding the dais upon which they were seated, but that they were also allowed to shove their cameras and Quick Quote Quills into everybody's faces probably accounted for the less that congenial atmosphere that hung over the panellists. Harry concentrated on maintaining a neutral expression as he idly wondered on how Scrimgeour had managed to coerce the other poor sods into being here.

The Minister limped to the front of the stage where he simply had to lift a hand for near silence to immediately fall. He nodded to faces in the crowd and smiled occasionally, but everyone present could see that this type of event wasn't really his forte. Cornelius Fudge with his genial, avuncular style had been a natural with a crowd like this. Still, given that You-Know-Who now walked the earth again, the magical community both wanted and demanded a warrior instead of a bureaucrat and in Rufus Scrimgeour they had what they wanted.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention please?" he called out with a wooden smile. "As you can all see our distinguished guests are waiting to respond to any and all points which you might care to raise. We are all at your disposal for the next two hours, so please don't worry; there will be time to answer all of your questions. Now, who would like to go first?"

At this rather unwise invitation, the throng of witches and wizards surged towards the stage, each of them screaming their questions at the tops of their lungs. Harry sighed at the prospect of a very long two hours.

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At the end it was more like double that. Four long excruciating hours later, the Boy-Who-Lived had removed himself to the end of the Exceedingly Long Hall and was surreptitiously massaging some sense of feeling back into his bottom. Thankful for the school robes which covered his hands and allowed him to do this, he was surprised when a voice with a lilting Welsh accent addressed him.

"Which it is a sore back that you have, Mr Potter?"

"Er, something like that, Professor Plaice," said Harry shamefacedly, well aware that he had been caught. "Sorry about that, sir; I had no idea you were behind me."

"Ha! Well, I'd be no kind of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor if I wasn't able to surprise a student now, would I?"

"I suppose not, sir."

"I'm given to understand that you're seeing rather a lot of Alastor Moody these days, Mr Potter. Is that so?"

"He's at the school every now and then, Professor Plaice, but only as a security advisor. I've never spoken to him," Harry blurted out. Nobody had mentioned this tall, imposing man to him and he wasn't sure whether or not to trust him.

"Is that so, boyo?" said Plaice with a thin smile. "Well, when next you don't see Alastor, please be sure to remind him that I have the twenty Foe Glasses which he requested and that he's to contact me to arrange delivery."

"Right...if I see him, I...I'll tell him," stuttered Harry. Quite why he was so nervous in the face of such a harmless-looking old man he didn't know. Perhaps it was the fact that his smile never seemed to reach all the way to his eyes that did it.

"Potter, with me!" barked a new voice.

Turning around, Harry saw that Scrimgeour had finally managed to detach himself from the parasites of the press and was limping towards both him and the exit at a rare old turn of speed. Meeting Professor Plaice's eyes for the briefest of moments, the Minister curled his lip and sniffed audibly.

"I'm supposed to go straight back to Hogwarts from the Atrium, Minister. At least, those were my instructions," he stated in a carefully neutral tone of voice.

"I'm well aware of that, Potter. However, you can make yourself useful by carrying Alastor's weekly intelligence package from the Ministry - I'll be damned if I'll waste a pair of Aurors to take it to him if you're here!" Taking for granted that Harry would acquiesce, the Minister swept past him and flicked his wand at the heavy oak door barring his path. At the sound of the resounding crash as it slammed into the wall, heads started to turn at the far end of the hall. Rather than risk attracting the attention of the journalists now that they had nobody better to harass, Harry scuttled off after Scrimgeour.

"Make sure you don't try to stick your nose where it doesn't belong, Mr Potter! That package is to reach Moody intact! If you try to open it, I'll be the least of your worries; Moody will have your guts for garters!"

"What makes you think I'd try to look at the contents of the package, Minister?" demanded Harry, who despite his best efforts to remain calm was growing angry at the older man's high-handed attitude.

Scrimgeour stopped dead in his tracks. He stood stock still for a few moments, doing nothing apart from grinding his walking stick into the ancient flagstones beneath his feet. Eventually, he turned to face Harry and his face was black with ill-repressed rage. Leaning down to put his face on the same level as the young Gryffindor's, he spat,

"Why? Well, because you are Dumbledore's man, Potter!"

Surprised at the venom in Scrimgeour's voice, Harry hissed back,

"Yes, I was, still am and always will be Dumbledore's man! But what other choice is there? I'd rather be known as his puppet than the mouthpiece of a would-be dictator!"

"Ha!" barked the Minister, "You think me, a dictator? Would that I were, Mr Potter; would that I were," he growled. "One thing Albus and I always saw eye to eye on was the entirely negative effect of the press on the fight against You-Know-Who. If I really were something akin to the Dark Lord do you think I would allow myself to sit through that moronic scrum?" he demanded, jerking his head back in the direction they had come. "Instead of spending what little time we have remaining to us trying to coordinate some form of effective resistance to the Death Eaters, I have to massage the egos of idiot journalists who write sensationalist drivel in order to peddle their disgusting rags! And who, pray tell, buys those idiot publications? Why, I do believe it is a broad cross-section of the wizard population of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with, of course, a healthy circulation in Eire and continental Europe.

"Rest assured, Mr Potter, that if I were anything remotely approaching what you seem to think of me then we wouldn't be standing here right now. Instead, the press would all be either closed down or under the direct control of the Ministry of Magic. Furthermore, you and your annoying little friends who do nothing else but puff out your chests and thrust your petulant, ill-informed selves at the journalists so that they might use and manipulate you and your words into forming yet more disquiet among the general population, would be safely under lock and key in Hogwarts!

"Voldemort is a past master of the art of divide and conquer, you young fool, and he is attacking us at our weakest point! Can't you see that the public are spineless, cowardly and malleable? For Merlin's sake, Potter, I may not mindlessly worship the ground you walk on as do so many others, but what I feel for you and your kind is nothing compared to the contempt in which I hold the vast majority of wizardkind! You might..."

As the door at the end of the passageway opened, both Harry and Scrimgeour looked up in shock. Such was the intensity of their enmity towards each other that they had entirely forgotten where they were.

"Such matters are better discussed in private," snapped the Minister.

Grabbing Harry by the upper arm with surprising strength, he half-pulled and half-propelled him a short distance down the dank corridor to a nondescript side passage with a faded and cracked door. Muttering the password so that Harry could not hear, Scrimgeour bundled him through the opening and lit the lanterns with a single sweep of his wand. The office which was revealed by the dim glow of the candles was nearly identical to the official ministerial chamber upstairs. On second glance, it wasn't a near match so much as it was an exact copy.

Noting Harry's quiet scrutiny of his their surroundings, Scrimgeour said in a calmer voice than before, "I'll fetch that package for you, Mr Potter, and then you can be on your way."

"You said his name," observed Harry in a quiet voice. "You called him Voldemort, out in the corridor before."

The older wizard cursed silently under his breath. He had hoped that the young wretch hadn't picked up on that. Sighing, he picked up a surprisingly large and heavy box from an ornate sideboard and heaved it over to his desk with some difficulty. Harry made no move to help him, despite the fact that he had a weak leg.

He sat himself down, sighed and ran his hands through his hair before bringing them down to massage his temples. "Do you know how many witches and wizards there are in the United Kingdom, Mr Potter?" he asked.

"It's something like 50,000, isn't it?"

"That it was the at last census we conducted, but now the figure stands at a touch over 60,000."

"So?"

"So, Mr Potter, we - that is to say wizardkind - are in trouble. Whether it be by the hand of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or by the hand of Mugglekind, we are in a precarious position and could easily be tipped over the edge of a very slippery slope."

Deciding that the sooner the Minister got whatever was bothering him off his chest, the sooner he would be able to leave, Harry decided to play along. He raised his eyebrows, indicating that Scrimgeour should go on.

"Why Hogsmeade?" asked the Minister.

"Why what?" countered Harry.

"Why does it exist, boy? In the entirety of this country there is but one exclusively magical settlement and it happens to be hanging on to the apron strings of Hogwarts; the single most protected site here or possibly in the entire world."

Harry shrugged.

"Think boy! Wizardkind has only been safe, relatively speaking, for the past five hundred years and given the lifespan of the average magic user, that is no great shakes at all. What with our kind having been teetering on the brink of extinction for the vast majority of its existence, an insurance policy was seen as wise. There are enough witches and wizards in or around the vicinities of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade to propagate the species should disaster fall."

"I think you'll find that Voldemort is more than capable of attacking either of those places, Minister," noted Harry.

"True, but they were never meant to be proof against him or his kind as much as they were against the real enemy."

"And who are the real enemy, Sir?"

"Muggles, Mr Potter; they always have been and always will be our natural enemies."

"What...what are you talking about?" demanded a shocked Harry. "It's Voldemort this time around, before him it was Grindelwald and I remember Professor Binns telling us about..."

"Bah, those are mere names! Grindelwald and Tyeminmars never wanted to destroy wizardkind - they wanted to rule it! Admittedly they wanted only a certain section of the magical community to hold the reins of power, but not even in their sick and perverted dreams would they seek to destroy it. All dark wizards, and I assure you that this includes Voldemort, think the same: wizardkind are an über race and Muggles should be their slaves."

"You called him by his name again," observed Harry through clenched teeth.

"What?"

"I said you called him by his name again: you said Voldemort again just now like you did outside in the corridor."

"Do not interrupt me again, boy!" screamed the Minister, slamming his fist down on the table.

The ensuing silence stretched out as the two wizards locked gazes, neither of them willing to look away first. Scrimgeour's face was mottled with ill-repressed anger and his nostrils flared as he fought against the near overwhelming urge to lash out at the contemptuous creature standing in front of his desk. Harry's mien was no more attractive as he stood ramrod straight with his hands curled into painfully tight fists at his side. His pale face was pinched and his lips were pressed into a firm line as he glared defiantly at the hateful old man slumped in his chair.

As the seconds slowly ticked by both of them were aware of the subtle undercurrent of power in the room. It was something which only powerful witches or wizards would have been able to detect; a certain dim awareness of the presence of magic which was not unlike the first time a young child held his or her wand. For Harry, at least, it felt like the most gentle of breezes. As yet more time passed and their anger ebbed, the sensation faded. Neither of them chose to lower their gaze, however.

"I...apologise, Potter. That was uncalled for and I regret it," Scrimgeour ground out from between his clenched teeth. "Won't you please sit down? There is but one more thing which I would say and then you can take your leave."

Harry was on the very edge of telling the Minister where to go, but managed to pull himself back in time. It must have been killing Scrimgeour to act in such a conciliatory manner and he was curious to see why he was going to such Herculean lengths to win his ear. Silently he took the single chair in front of the desk.

"As I was saying before, our worst enemy is not any one dark wizard but rather Muggles in general. The reason Hogsmeade was founded was nothing more than the desire of our kind for peace; a state which was ever denied them whilst they lived amongst the uneducated, ungrateful and suspicious farmers and sheep herders of medieval times. Well, times have changed and so have the professions, but I am very sorry to say that the peasants have not.

"You mentioned Professor Binns earlier, Mr Potter. Tell me, did he ever touch on the infamous Witchfinder General Mathew Hopkins? By the time his church-backed campaign of terror against witches had run its course, over 5,000 women lay dead. If they were lucky they were merely drowned whereas if they were not their confessions were forced from them by torture. After that agreeable experience they could look forward to being burnt alive at the stake. Just how many witches do you know who would allow themselves to be captured and either drowned or burnt, Mr Potter?"

"Not many, I suppose," answered Harry, feeling foolish. He knew it wasn't much of an answer.

"Try none at all, Potter. This dark chapter in the history of our kind is almost comedic due to the fact that as far as we are aware not a single witch was even exposed, let alone captured. All of those poor, unfortunate women were Muggles whose only crime was to try to alleviate the suffering of the ill or injured at a time when the church maintained that such maladies were God-sent and should only, therefore, be cured through prayer. The agents of organised religion suffered nothing in the way of hedge-medicine, Mr Potter, and stamped down hard wherever they found it."

"But you said yourself that they didn't manage to take any real witches, sir. Would it be any different today?"

"Merlin's Beard! How can you ask that? There are 1,000 Muggles for every one of us and today they're not carrying pitchforks or burning torches! Have you forgotten what a single Muggle weapon managed to do at William Weasley's wedding? If we can see them coming, we can so very easily defeat their weapons. However, if they surprise us then we are, of course, vulnerable. There is also the fact that safety comes in numbers. How would you like to live in an entirely segregated society, never once able to wander freely outside the relatively small areas which we can magically ward? What if we become virtual prisoners in our own homes, afraid to go out for fear that the Muggles have developed a method to identify us? Their track record on singling out distinct groups within society and exterminating them is hardly encouraging, boy."

"You said that Voldemort wanted to control wizardkind as opposed to destroy them. With his random attacks on them isn't it possible that they might begin to suspect something?" asked Harry.

"It is unlikely in the short term, but ever more likely as time goes by," admitted Scrimgeour.

"Then why does he do it?"

"Perhaps to distract us from his activities; to divert our attention away from him at a time when he is making a particularly important move? We simply don't know and that brings me to my point: at a time when we should all be working in concert against You-Know-Who and his cohorts, we are failing spectacularly to do just that. Think about it, Harry! If it were the Death Eaters on their own against the rest of society they wouldn't stand a chance. Unfortunately though, that is not quite the case now, is it? Rather, it is the Order against the Death Eaters and the Ministry; it is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named against the Order, the Ministry and the public at large; it is the Ministry against the Order, the Death Eaters and the public and last but by no means least we have the idiot public against absolutely everybody else be they friend or foe!

"The key to all this is unity, don't you see? It should be a simple case of us against them. But no, so very few people are capable of putting aside their own wants and needs for the good of society as a whole. So let's have a respected pureblood family such as the Weasleys extolling the virtues of those mistrustful, barbaric muggles, why don't we? Should we not also encourage them to appear in the press, publicly thumbing their noses at the Ministry and its efforts and actively undermining what little respect and cooperation we garner from the public? Come to think of it, why doesn't everybody just do their own thing whilst Voldemort skulks around in the background cherry-picking what he wants and destroying or killing what he doesn't?"

At the very first mention of the Weasleys, Harry's blood had begun to boil. Just when the faintest inkling of some small measure of sympathy for Scrimgeour's passionate views had been forming, it was suddenly throttled by the rage he felt at the slightest criticism of his only family. Slipping his wand into his hand, he looked straight into the Minister's eye.

"You said Voldemort again...Rufus. That's three times now. What's changed that you dare speak his name? Are you best friends or what?"

Instead of the fight he had been sure he would have provoked with such a comment, Harry was surprised to see no other reaction than the blood drain from the older wizard's face. Slowly pushing himself to his feet, Scrimgeour pulled the heavy box towards him and opened it. A faint, silvery glow immediately filled the room. His view being blocked by the lid, Harry eased his way around the side of the desk, careful not to take his eyes off Scrimgeour's hands lest they reach for his wand. The Minister, however, was staring intently at the contents of the box and did not so much as blink.

Clearing the side of the desk, Harry gasped as he finally set eyes on the source of the light: it was a Pensieve.

It was Dumbledore's Pensieve.

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"Potter? Potter, turn around for a moment," said a hard voice. It took Harry a moment to recognise it as belonging to Scrimgeour.

He heard the instructions as though through a long tunnel, yet made no move to obey. The very instant he had laid eyes on the Pensieve, a whole flood of memories had washed over him; overwhelming his senses and freezing him in place. In his mind's eye he saw Dumbledore's office as it had been the time he had accidentally fallen into one of the Headmaster's memories. He relived a faint memory of the flash of guilt when faced with the kindly old face as he stammered his apology and excuses. Remembering Dumbledore's amused response, he once again felt the mixture of love and hatred that he often felt when he had been face to face with the elderly wizard.

He blinked his green eyes and fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

Moving up behind Harry, Scrimgeour lightly placed his right hand on the back of his neck. Had anyone entered the room at that point, just for the very briefest of moments it would have seemed as if he were comforting the crying boy. However, that was not the case. He took a good handful of Harry's hair and viciously wrenched his head backwards. Such was the shock and the terrible pain that Harry only managed a slight gasp. By instinct he immediately pulled forward against Scrimgeour's hand in an attempt to break his hold. Unfortunately for him, this was just what the more experienced wizard had hoped and planned for. Driving his weight behind the young Gryffindor's head, he managed to add to the speed and direction of Harry's attempted escape. The result was that his head made contact with the surface of the Pensieve and that he disappeared with a flash.

Hastily snatching his hand back for fear of being sucked in after the boy, Scrimgeour collapsed into his chair. It had almost been too much for him to bear and his heart was pounding in his chest. Had he not been able to manoeuvre Potter into Snape's carefully laid trap, all would have been lost. And now, even though the little wretch was very probably undergoing the single worst experience of his life, the Minister still couldn't help but worry. What if Snape was wrong in asserting that they would finally gain control of the boy? What if the insufferable urchin returned bent on exacting revenge? Imagine the headlines if the Minister of Magic was forced to fight, capture or otherwise harm a hair on the wretch's head: the press would have a field day and for once they would be entirely justified in doing so.

"The die is cast," he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

He would just have to wait and see how events unfolded. Never would he have thought that the day would come when he envied Severus his position, but at this moment in time he would have given all the gold in Gringotts to have been anywhere else than in this office. Standing up, he straightened his clothing and summoned his silver-topped walking stick from the other side of the room. When Potter did return, whatever frame of mind he was in, he would find a composed and steely Minister of Magic waiting for him. The minutes ticked by as Scrimgeour's gaze, fixed on the surface of the Pensieve, never wavered.

Eventually, the silvery light began to flicker and the whirls and eddies on its surface grew more agitated. With nothing more than a silent flash of blindingly bright light, Harry reappeared and staggered backwards from the desk. Scrimgeour relaxed when he saw that Potter did not have his wand in his hand. Instead, he was holding on to the mantelpiece above the fire as he gasped and choked. On his pale face was such a look of horror and incomprehension that the older wizard almost winced at the memory of how his own conversion had been for him. Still, there was no room for either sympathy or understanding. Straightening his back, he once again adopted the poise necessary for the Minister of Magic.

"Do you understand now, Mr Potter?" he rasped.

The beads of sweat falling from his forehead, Harry turned his head in a fit of violent jerks to face Scrimgeour. For a moment he said nothing and the room was filled with the sound of his ragged breathing and the hiss as his drops of sweat quickly evaporated on the hot hearth stone.

"Yes, Minister; I think I do."

"Good, then get back to Hogwarts and see to it that you don't mention this to anyone," he said with a rising sense of exultation.

"As you wish, sir," replied Harry meekly.

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