Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. ྭ
Chapter 7 Shaking things up
Harry looked at the headline disbelievingly for a few moments, and felt an upsurge of hatred for Fudge. The rest of the article did nothing to stay his anger and wrath.
Lines popped out at him. "Minister Fudge states, 'I deeply regret the death of Mr. Potter, who died after his heroic effort of killing the Dark Lord. We were friends, I'm proud to say, and I know that he would want me to watch over the world he fought to protect.'"
'Friends!' Harry thought amazedly. 'The man hated me! I thought him a stupid, bumbling idiot who was completely inept at running the Ministry! How the bloody hell were we ever friends!'
Another line. "Minister Fudge declares that his campaign for re-election will be in honor of Mr. Potter. The Minister's campaign ideal is to never allow a tragedy like that to happen again."
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The entire castle shook, just like Hogwarts did when Harry raged at Dumbledore. However, this time, Harry's self control snapped. Without a second thought, he Apparated out of the Marauder's castle, and since the wards were keyed to his magical signature, he didn't need to break through them. Although demolishing something would have done a small part of defusing his rage.
Dean Thomas was having another boring day, ever since He-Who-We-Are-Glad-Is-Dead had died. He was loving it. When he took the job as security guard at the front desk of the Ministry of Magic, it had been a highly respected position. He was charged as the front line of defense, and every day before He-Who-Is-Dead's death had been nervous and tense. He reported weekly to, surprisingly, Neville Longbottom, who was now the Head Auror.
Dean chuckled, remembering everyone's astonishment when Neville had become one of the top candidates for an Auror. His main weakness had been with Potions, though once Professor Sprout had given him the relation between Herbology and Potions, plus studying it independently from Snape seemed to turn him around, and although he wasn't a genius with Potions, he had managed to pass his N.E.W.T Potions exam, (Dumbledore's persuasion and Neville's own abilities had granted him that courtesy) and get into Auror training. Three years later, he was the Head Auror and a top member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Suddenly the distinctive crack of someone Apparating into the main Hall, even though the Anti-Apparation wards around the Ministry were impenetrable, erected by Dumbledore himself. Dean drew his wand and looked up, and stared into the face of his former classmate, Harry Potter.
Dean's eyes widened in fear as Harry walked calmly up to him. "I'm here to see the Minister." Harry said in a deceptively calm voice.
Dean had heard that tone from a few people, and it meant that Harry was anything but calm. "Uh… can I check your wand Harry?"
Harry's eye's narrowed, and he recognized his former classmate. "Well, well. Dean Thomas. Very well, here." Harry presented him with his wand, point first.
Dean touched the hallowed wand reverently, and checked it off. "Holly and Phoenix Feather, 11 inches?"
Harry nodded, and Dean presented him with his wand, his hand slightly shaking. "Have a good day, Harry."
Harry didn't even acknowledge the greeting, and walked through the door. Dean collapsed into his chair.
Looks like we're gonna need a new Minister. A few moments later, Dean had another thought.
Bugger a new Minster, we're gonna need a new building if Harry blows his top!
Harry Potter strode into the Ministry of Magic with a deceptively calm face, the only thing betraying his calm façade being his rapid, furious stride. People gaped at him in looks ranging from amazement and awe to downright horror at someone who mere hours ago had been declared legally dead.ྭ
Harry ignored it all.
He blasted the door labeled Minister of Magic down, ignoring the protests of several workers. An Auror stepped in front of him.
A single death glare sent the Auror fleeing for his life.
He walked over the demolished door, and yelled, "FUDGE!"
The authority and rage in the Boy-Who-Lived's voice sent whatever Auror's and workers foolish enough to remain packing.
The door labeled Minister opened a crack, and immediately slammed shut.
"GET OUT HERE FUDGE!" Harry roared.
Literally, Fudge was about to wet himself. He had been enjoying a nice, quiet day, telling to world Harry Potter was dead. It was obvious the boy wouldn't come back to Fudge's inept mind.
And now the esteemed by very few Minster Fudge was cowering like a 6-year old, hiding under his desk and praying to whatever god would listen to save him.
Harry looked at the door for a few moments, and, after seeing that Fudge was too scared to face the music, did what he thought best, and fun in a sadistic sort of way. But in Harry's mind, he deserved it.
Suddenly Fudge was pulled inexorably from under the desk, and pulled roughly, his knees scraping the cold floor. Harry didn't bother opening the door as Fudge was thrown through it. He landed in a heap at Harry's feet.
"Why Mr. Potter! How good to see you." Fudge said sweetly, which was inappropriate for a man lying in a dusty, slightly injured heap in front of a very pissed off wizard.
"Cut the crap Fudge! What the hell is this about me being dead and you and me being friends!" Harry said, looking livid. "You personally arrested me, and oversaw my trial! You gleefully locked me in Azkaban, stacking the odds against me! You're the reason that we were losing the war! You're so incompetent that you should have been kicked out of office the second you refused to believe Albus Dumbledore!"
Fudge looked completely cowed, and back away, sputtering and trying desperately to recover his political image. However, it would be difficult for an already less than popular Minister to over rule the large crowd of witnesses that now gathered at the Ministry, including several reporters.
"You're as dangerous as Voldemort with your completely inept administration! You're incompetence cost us a year of preparations! Thanks to you, any chance of allying with the Giants or keeping the Death Eaters in Azkaban was lost! And you are the one solely responsible!
"Your former Under Secretary, Dolores Umbridge tried to kill me by loosing Dementors at Privet Drive! And then you tried to expel me for defending myself!"
Harry was pissed. Every last bitter feeling against the Ministry erupted out of him, and it was only through sheer force of will that his magic hadn't released itself in a fury and annihilated most of the Ministry.
The reporters were writing their stories gleefully, knowing that this was their chance to get Fudge, who had been controlling their stories, out of office.
"And you have the nerve to say we were FRIENDS!" Harry continued, and Fudge was stumbling back, trying to get out of Harry's sight.
"You refused to give me Veritaserum, when suggested by a neutral party! And don't give me any uncertainty about the neutrality of the party in question bull, Fudge. Let me review to you mine and Severus Snape, the neutral party in question's history. Let me think. HE BLOODY HATED MY FATHER! WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS BLEEDIN HOLY WOULD SOMEONE WHO HATED ME BECAUSE OF MY FATHER SUGGEST VERITASERUM UNLESS THERE WAS DOUBT!"
Harry paused for a moment, regaining his breath after reaming Fudge, preparing himself for another assault. Fudge attempted to back away, stumbling, eyes widening in fear. It was possible that he may have wet himself.
"If you had any conscience at all, you'd have resigned due to SHEER STUPIDITY!
"And then you have the nerve to say that you are running to make sure that a tragedy like MINE ever happens again! You're the one who had two innocent Azkaban prisoners convicted under your office!
"You refused to believe Sirius Black innocent, even though Dumbledore and myself, along with many other known Light supporters had vouched that the Potters had switched Secret-Keepers!
"Did it ever occur to you that if Sirius Black had betrayed my parents, I'd be the first one to convict him!
"NO! And why is that! Because your so convinced that you're right that you'd let innocents suffer to keep yourself in office!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Arthur Weasley looked on at the scene with grim satisfaction. He was glad to see that Fudge's incompetence was finally being revealed to the public. It saddened him though, to see this young man refer to his imprisonment in Azkaban, bringing back the memories of the following years. His head moved down, in remembrance.
He was ashamed of his actions those three years. He had hated an innocent boy, a boy he had watched grow for nearly 5 years, and should have judged his character better. How could he turn on Harry? He owed Harry his life! If it wasn't for that young man, he'd have lost his life, and never lived to see the end of Voldemort.
Looking back up at the scene in front of him, he looked at Harry, trying to gauge what he was right now, where he stood. He could see that Harry was doing what he thought best, not hurting Fudge, but trying to help the Wizarding World by removing an incompetent Minister from office.
Even after everything, he still tries to help people. Even though he doesn't know it himself. Arthur thought proudly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You dare say that I would want you in office! I've wanted you out of office since my second year in Hogwarts, when you wrongfully put Rubeus Hagrid, who you believed I killed, in Azkaban!" Harry continued, his rant slowing down to a cold voice with a glare that could have melted diamond.
"Now I'm telling you this now Fudge. If you even try and twist what I say today, I swear I'll destroy your reputation so badly you won't get a job. Ever." Harry said evenly but coldly. With that threat, he turned and moved to walk through the door.
Harry turned with his head down, trying to clear his head of the light-headedness that came from barely breathing and yelling at the top of his lungs. Suddenly he was aware of the slightly afraid looks from a large crowd.
'Good.' He thought. 'All the better to make sure Fudge can't crawl his way out of this hole.'
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ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's keen hearing and magical senses picked up the distinct sounds of Floo, and Harry sensed the familiar, if unwelcome, presence of Dumbledore's unmistakable aura, along with one werewolf, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry glared at the crowd, and they parted quickly, and Harry walked briskly, hoping to avoid seeing any of them, but would not look as if there was anything wrong, to keep his appearances up. But a melodic voice stopped him cold. "Harry?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Damn.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry turned slowly, reluctantly, towards the owner of the voice, and her companions all of whom gaped at him.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry scanned the crowd quickly, noting Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Remus, Mr. Weasley, and Ginny. Harry glared at them all, and they winced noticeably, but didn't flee like regular people would have in the face of a pissed off, and reportedly insane wizard.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked like he desperately wanted to say something to Harry, but he couldn't seem to find his voice. Harry decided to ignore the others, especially Ginny.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided to deliver Sirius and his Dad's last wishes, and stalked right up to Remus, who shook visibly with each step. Harry was taller than Remus by a few inches, but they stared at each other, Harry's green eyes glaring into Remus' slightly afraid grey eyes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, Harry punched Remus in the face, hard. He fell to the floor, his nose pouring blood, probably broken, Harry thought with satisfaction. "That was from my dad and Sirius." Harry said coldly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked into Harry's eyes and saw truth, and could do nothing but turn his head down and he released a strangled sob. Harry looked away, and spun on his heel, intent on leaving the Ministry before someone died, or got seriously injured. Of course, Weasley thinking seemed to be intent on throwing themselves to the lions as Ginny and Ron threw themselves at him, grabbing his black robes, trying to pull him back.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A single snap of his head, a death glare, and a small raw force of magic knocked the Weasley siblings back, landing unceremoniously on their backs. "Don't touch me." Harry said coldly, his voice threatening to erupt into a rage.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked them over, noting the fear and awe in Hermione's eyes, Mr. Weasley wasn't looking at him, trying to help his children off the floor, Ron looked at Harry with pleading his eyes, and Ginny echoed his expression with a hint of longing, Dumbledore looked at Harry, his blue eyes without their usual twinkle, and Remus struggled to look Harry in the eye.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Without a word, Harry stalked out of the Ministry.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ To their credit, no Aurors were foolish enough to try and stop him.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Apparated with a pop back into the Marauder's Castle, in the same foul mood as he left. His mood was less volatile, but still enough that anyone foolish enough to say anything to him would probably end up dead, or at least in a very deep coma.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Luckily, the only living creature currently in the castle besides the owls in the owlery was Dobby, who was smart enough to stay away, probably cleaning another part of the castle. Harry decided he needed to vent some of his frustration out, so he walked into an empty hall, and conjured up several tables, chairs, and beds. Then he started destroying them.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After about the fifth table and several chairs and beds, Harry stopped. "DAMN THEM! WHO THE BLOODY HELL DO THEY THINK THEY ARE!" He roared, slamming his fist into the wall. It bled a little, but Harry ignored it. That turned out to be a mistake, as the pain caught up with him.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a minute of non-stop swearing and shaking his hand, Harry stopped. He looked around the demolished hall, and started trying to calm himself down.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He remembered Ginny's offer to meet him in the Leaky Cauldron in two days, at noon. He contemplated it. On the one hand, he needed to move on, and this could provide some closure.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ On the other hand, it could prove to be a disaster, setting him off and possibly destroying a large portion of the Leaky Cauldron, and possibly Diagon Alley.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Win-Win situation then. Harry thought with a grin.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He summoned a parchment, quill, and ink. He wrote one word.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Fine.