Harry's first Saturday was spent busily. He'd gotten up fairly early, just in time to meet Hedwig winging Hagrid's reply at the window, before spending the entirety of the morning playing games and running around like maniacs with many of his housemates. Interestingly, at some point in the first week Hogwarts seemed to have developed a new turret. Harry couldn't remember if he'd seen that turret before, but he did know that he hadn't actually looked at that section of the exterior on his first Saturday in his first life, so he had to keep an eye out to see if it disappeared the next day.

It was after lunch, however, where things had gotten interesting.

He'd found a book in the library by Winslow Cash, titled "Government", which was, as far as he could tell, the most comprehensive description of how the Magical British government was run. It was also one of the few books he'd seen that had even an approximation of a list of citations.

So, he'd basically decided to believe the book unless given adequate information not to.

The problem with this was that none of it made sense!

First and foremost, there was no separation of powers—there wasn't even a separation of branches, as one bled into the other without warning. The book started with how laws were formed. Now, most people would likely assume the Wizengamot, and they'd usually be right—something like 95% of all laws were passed through it. However, ~5% were just immediately put into place by one of the directors or the Minister, and a little less than 1% (that had been put into place in the past 100 years—136 now) had no officially recorded creator, but seemed to have appeared mysteriously and remained unquestioned.

The laws themselves were also weird—the Wizarding World seemed to be in the midst of a tug of war between as little regulation as possible on the grounds of self-sufficiency, and as much regulation as possible on the grounds of creating an upstanding population.

This was apparently put into place in nearly every law—Cash used an example of a law regulating the purity of certain potion ingredients, which had been passed in 1952. While the law was clearly intended to keep unintended consequences from occurring during brewing or potion consumption, much of its wording discussed how the potion's "effects on its consumer's character" was already known , and a too impure ingredient could have "a wizard or witch beginning to act as if they were a muggle or a beast."

Which was, you know, obviously an excellent argument, considering it got passed.

Harry wondered if that was still true today—in the nonmagical world, at least, many acceptable behaviors and arguments from the 1950s were now frowned upon, but he didn't know if that was also true in the Wizarding World.

After the legislative process, Cash turned his writing to the next step—execution. This, too, was incredibly spotty. The Ministry of Magic had plenty of departments, from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to the Department of Magical Games and Sports, but they weren't the only ways laws were enforced. Citizen arrests, for instance, were the only way that ~20% of all magical laws were still enforced (although, to be fair, many were out of date and hadn't been prosecuted in centuries), but even citizen arrests were quite uncommon. Many regulations, too, were followed on the "trust system", where they were only actively regulated if the business's owner had gotten into serious trouble for something else.

The best part of all of that, Cash explained, was that sometimes none of the Departments, or citizen arrests, or "trust systems" even mattered! This was a result of what would traditionally be considered the judicial system. The Wizengamot, legally, could judge any crime except those related to Act 1243-72 (a), and Act 1250-13 (c), which regulated the creation of floo power and the import of magical tulips respectively. That said, there were also many smaller courts, run by three people each (one randomly chosen out of pure- or half-blood citizens, one from the Wizengamot, and one from the DMLE). This wasn't, on the whole, that bad, except for how what each of the 37 courts would judge is decided—a list of all possible categories would be put in the minister's hat, and 37 slips would be pulled out of the hat. The remaining eleven categories would not be prosecuted for the next three months, unless the Wizengamot decided they had time to judge a few cases.

So… yeah.

The good news was that Harry had been able to take a break from that madness in order to meet up with Hagrid. (First Friend completed. 150XP rewarded.) Hagrid had, over the course of tea time, managed to slip up and admit that he had been involved in the Gringotts break in, that there was something very, very important currently being stowed in Hogwarts, that he had been the one to drop Harry off at his home, and that he performed magic despite technically not being allowed to. More importantly, however, he'd immediately taken to Harry, and by the end of the visit had told him to visit whenever he wanted.

Which made going back to learning about the Ministry of Magic… well, at least he'd gotten a break.

In other news, everyone who used any of the thirteen second floor bathrooms (so what if there had only been eleven two days before?) were now hopping wherever they went. The Weasley twins had not been seen since breakfast.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging around with as many people as possible and continuing to read as many books as he could get his hands on, but before he knew it Monday had come again.

That morning he got return letters.

The first one he opened was from the Daily Prophet's Editor, Barnabus Cuffe.

Mr. Harry Potter,

I am so pleased that you have written to me. I am happy to know you have begun to settle in well with the Magical World, and find it unfortunate that your safety had heretofore required you remaining separate from it. I must admit that many of my writers and interviewers had tried to contact you numerous times, only to be rebuffed by unanswered letters, and it puts me in good cheer to know that it had nothing to do with any actions we had taken.

In this vein, I will of course heed your request to explain away your silence, and you will find your apologies written as you wrote them below the fold on the front page. I have, for your perusal, attached a free copy of today's newspaper, as well as a pre-filled annual subscription so that you may continue to read our work on a daily basis. I must tell you, however, that despite your words to the contrary, few will believe that it was not you who banished he-who-must-not-be-named. After all, Chief Warlock Dumbledore was quite clear in his speech to the Wizengamot, and he is a very powerful and intelligent wizard—he would know such things.

As for books written about you, I am horrified to learn of your ignorance of them. While I will admit that there are few laws involving this, I would highly suggest contacting the DMLE, as I understand you have already done, for further advice. On my end all I can promise is a recommendation for the Daily Prophet's readers to be wary of books written about your childhood, and I have included a warning to that effect on page C4 of today's paper.

Finally, your request about more information on the rat. I apologize, but there is currently an embargo placed on that investigation, so I am unable to tell you more about it until the newspaper itself is.

I hope this letter finds you well, and that my actions have been a help to you. Please feel free to write should anything more come up—I am at your disposal.

Sincerely,

Barnabus Cuffe, Editor-in-Chief for The Daily Prophet.

Fickle Fame Goal Completed (figure out why you're so famous and what you can do about it) (250 XP awarded)

You have leveled up!

Congratulations, you are now level 17.0.

Well… that was nice. In terms of fame, however, all he'd considered was how difficult it would be to have anyone consider Dumbledore fallible and how he'd have to make them understand he could be wrong, which wasn't exactly as easy as he'd hoped. That said, the apology letter—and the fact that it actually was a direct quote—in the newspaper was helpful, and while some of his dormmates teased him about it, the Great Hall in general seemed to be less hostile, as if an oppressive force that was so slight as to go unnoticed had been lifted—not an immense change, admittedly, but a noticeable one.

The increased level was helpful too. He now had 60 unspecified skill levels to spend, and while he wanted to avoid using them until absolutely necessary, it was nice to know that he could currently become basically fluent in a language he didn't know overnight.

As for the books about himself, while Cuffe had included a warning to his readers, it was pressed on the very bottom of the "Letters from Readers" page, which, as far as Harry was concerned, made it basically invisible. That said, at least it was on there, given that the response to the letter to Susan's aunt had proven… less helpful.

Mr. Potter,

Greetings and well wishes from the office of the ministry. We will, of course, endeavor to answer all of your questions, but as the head of the DMLE is quite a busy women, we hope that you don't mind that this response comes directly from the minister's office.

Unfortunately, this letter must begin with bad news. We deeply and sincerely apologize, but it is the policy of the ministry not to discuss any ongoing investigations, no matter who it is who has asked. We hope you understand that this is no slight to you, but a rule that must be followed with everyone—no exceptions.

That said, we may be able to brighten your day a bit with the next piece of news—the books written by Richard Gold-Tolkey are entirely fictional, and were sold as such! (You may find, should you obtain a copy of any of his books yourself, an ink stamp on the last page of each book identifying it thusly.) We here at the ministry assure you that Mr. Gold-Tolkey is a wonderful man who has made significant contributions for the betterment of society, and we assure you he likely meant no harm. If, however, your issues persist, we do recommend attempting to contact him personally.

As for any other books, should you identify them by name and send in a formal complaint with the DMLE the ministry is of course more than willing to ensure that all laws were followed in their publishing.

Finally, we here at the ministry truly apologize for your necessary upbringing, and hope to allow you to reenter the Wizarding World in style. To that end we proudly extend an invitation to this year's Ministerial Ball (see attached)! We do hope you can make it.

Wishing you a wonderful reintegration,

The Office of the Ministry of Magic.

A fancy invitation to a ball taking place on December 23rd was tucked behind the letter. Harry put it, and the letters and newspaper, in his bookbag until he could decide what to do about them.

That evening, after all his classes and schoolwork had been completed, Harry turned back to the letters.

The first issue was the rat, and for that he guessed he'd just have to wait. It shouldn't have surprised him, really—while his own "trial" had been incredibly expedited in his first life, that hadn't really gone through the normal channels. While it kind of irked him—he wasn't exactly the most trusting of the Ministry of Magic, after all—he'd have to give it time before attempting to force information.

Then, the books. To say that the magical world's laws involving libel and slander were weak was an understatement—basically, as far as he could figure out, so long as the author noted that it was a fictional telling at some point in the book or only stuck to statements which had not been proven false at the time of its writing, then they were gold. While there were some exceptions, most of them seemed to involve proving that the falsehoods had cost the subject money, which Harry was fairly sure he couldn't prove. While he could—and would—try to write in to the DMLE about all the other books he had noticed, that too seemed to be at least a temporary dead end.

The apology, at least, seemed to have been fairly successful. While he had gotten much more attention than he had his last first year, which kind of sucked, Dumbledore had oddly not contacted him and a number of students (including, surprisingly, a number of Slytherins) come up to him and commend him on actually explaining what had happened. Several of them had even offered services in getting him caught up on the wizarding world, and he'd promised to get back to each of them at a later date.

Finally, the Ministerial Ball.

Harry had just outright asked Neville what to do about that one—he knew that Neville's grandmother was a part of the Wizengamot, so he figured of any of his dormmates, Neville would know the most.

"Um… I mean, I don't really know." Neville had mumbled. "I only really went the once, and… well, it's, um… it's mostly boring, I guess. Lots of people talking. I was pretty much ignored because, you know, I'm just a kid. But… well, they're kind of, kind of… they'll pick at each other's flaws, and try to tear each other down. And all of the factions are constantly trying to outdo each other… but if you aren't all that important, then it's just boring. Um, you're important though, so your experience will probably be different."

Harry decided to RSVP yes, and had written his response immediately after DADA (which was the same as last week—he gets a headache, raises his hand, and the headache goes away.)

All in all, though, Harry considered the letters to have been a letdown. The only outright good to have come out of it was the apology, and he had yet to feel its full effects.

"Hey, Harry—a bunch of us are going outside. Do you want to come with?" Dean asked.

"Sure—just let me put my stuff away." Harry said.

He, Dean, Seamus, and Ron were soon trooping outside. It was a bit of a murky day, but it wasn't actually raining, and it soon became clear why they'd decided to spontaneously go outside—there was something going on in the Forbidden Forest, and flames seemed to be shooting up at random intervals in equally random parts of the woods.

"What's going on?" Harry asked a fourth year who was standing nearby.

"Dunno—it started a couple hours ago, and hasn't stopped. Dumbledore said there was nothing to worry about, but…"

What looked like a bear suddenly shot dozens of meters into the air, roaring as it did so. It landed much closer to the school than Harry was comfortable with, and he wasn't the only one to take a step back when it did so.

"So… that's a bit worrying." Dean said.

Harry and Ron glared at him.

"I dunno." Seamus said. "I kind of like it." In Potions that morning he'd caused his first explosion, and that had apparently been enough for him to fall in love.

"Hagrid goes in there a lot—I'm going to ask him what he thinks." Harry said.

"We'll come with." Ron said, before seemingly remembering exactly where Hagrid's hut was positioned. Still, he and the other boys steeled themselves, and they made their way forward.

Hagrid, as it turned out, wasn't actually in his hut, but directly behind it, leaning half over and muttering as he rifled through a junk pile for who-knows-what.

"Hey Hagrid."

"Oh—Harry, is that you? Oh, and I see you brought some friends along. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't really have time to talk now… a bit busy, you know?"

"Does the reason have anything to do with the flying goat behind you?" Dean asked wryly.

Hagrid whipped around faster than Harry had thought possible. "There's a— oh. That's not good." Sure enough, a goat was making its way through the air, and unlike the earlier bear it did not seem to be coming down. Instead it (seemingly very unhappily) weaved its way through the fire blasts, bleating as it went.

"I didn't know there were flying goats." Ron said.

"There—there aren't. Um, run along now, boys—back inside, if you please. Nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing. Best for you to go inside, though. Plenty of things to do in there!" With that Hagrid quickly shuffled them (and any other student he saw) towards the nearest set of doors, and before long Harry found the same set closing behind him.

"Race you to the astronomy tower?" Harry asked.

"Winner must have his telescope with him, and be the first to touch the top step." Ron said. They took off.

Dean won. It shouldn't have been a surprise—only Harry was in better shape, and he had actually put his telescope away after their last astronomy lesson, unlike Dean who had only propped it at the edge of his bed.

Well, served Harry right for trying to keep organized.

Still, he'd only won by a small margin, and by the time he had his telescope pointed to the Forbidden Forest the other boys were well on their way to having set up theirs too.

"Time 'till curfew?" Harry asked. He thought he was doing fairly well keeping his concern over the unexpected events masked.

"Um… about an hour and a half," Seamus said, "and that's if we only give ourselves five minutes to get back to the common room."

"Good enough—" Ron started, but then Dean shouted—

"Look!"

The boys turned.