A/N: The editor here has eaten up all my percent signs, which I noticed too late. All the figures in the earlier chapters are meant to be percentages...


4. Settling in and Cleaning up

The next day they turned up at Madam Malkin's. The cheerful old lady measured them and sold them several sets of business robes and everyday robes and promised to have them delivered before Monday morning.

"It's not that urgent, Madam, no need for extra hours for our sake…"

"It's not much work, just adjustments, really. A few waves with the wand."

"Oh, then it's okay. Thank you very much."

Then they moved on and went to Gladrags in Hogsmeade, where they both ordered two sets of formal and two sets of full dress robes.

On Monday morning Hermione came in with Arthur, Ginny and Luna. She had been out to the Diagon Alley to buy some coloured robes and looked very nice. Sirius grinned and was content. He introduced her to Elsa Kenneth and said:

"Miss Kenneth, this is Miss Hermione Granger. She will be your successor. I know that the job had not been advertised, but I decided that I need someone doing it who I know I can rely on. Miss Granger has just finished Hogwarts and probably made best of her year again. She's well organised and has a very quick mind to grasp lots of information in a short time, so don't hesitate to go through all aspects of your work thoroughly with her. Hermione, I'll leave you to the mercy of Miss Kenneth, but I'm sure you won't mind to share lunch with Remus and I, will you?"

"Thanks, Sirius, I will."

That settled the first young lady. Sirius turned to Ginny and Luna and smiled.

"Now to you both. Remus will take you to our flat right now and show you what's come in so far. And what we want you to do. Okay?"

"Okay!"

"We'll be back in the flat for lunch together. The house-elves are already notified."

Remus led the two girls to their flat and showed them the boxes.

"Now, you're to read over all the letters and place them in separate boxes. We'll then file them chronologically. This would be a box for extremely rude mail. This one for critical and this one for positive reactions. Anything you think you can't sort you could put into a fourth box and I'll go through it later. Feel free to turn on the wireless and help yourself to anything in the kitchen, if you want to. Okay?"

"Okay!"

"Well, here's a stack of prepared answers. We have written a letter to tell the people that we have received their mail and that it will be read, but that it will take some time for a personal answer. Every letter you file should have one of these sent. Address them and I'll show you the way to the Ministry owlery to send them."

"I'll do that!" said Luna.

At lunch, Sirius came back to the flat with Hermione and they all sat down at the dining room table. The house-elf brought the food and while they ate, Sirius asked innocently:

"So, what did you do on the rest of the weekend, Hermione?"

She looked a bit dreamy when she said:

"Just imagine, on Saturday morning Harry came and asked me out! We went for dinner and a film on Saturday."

"Oh, that sounds nice…" he replied vaguely. Remus looked at him critically. That sounded very much like Sirius, the matchmaker! He remembered only too well when Sirius had decided to bring Lily and James together.

"He even asked me if I wanted to share a flat with him. Do you think, I should? I know he's not short of any money, but he still doesn't know what to do with his life…"

"Why not? You could give him a lot of stability, you know. Plus, you're going to earn your own money, so you should find something suitable in which you won't step on each other's toes at each turn."

She looked hesitating for a moment. But then she nodded quickly and said:

"It would be nice. We could also have a third bedroom for Ron when he's free on weekends…"

Ginny and Luna were exchanging amused glances, which Remus noticed as well as Sirius did, but Hermione remained completely oblivious. Sirius had a smug grin, when he turned to the girls. Both of them had guessed that dear Hermione felt a bit more than friendship for a certain raven haired young man. But they all tried to keep a straight face.

Once Sirius and Hermione had left the flat, they broke out in squeals of laughter and Remus chuckled.

"Isn't she just adoringly oblivious?" Luna asked and tried to catch her breath from laughing.

"Gosh, we should do something! Those two will dance around each other for years if we don't open their eyes!" Ginny agreed.

"Knowing these two that could be very counterproductive, Ginny," Remus remarked cautiously, "they could kind of taking it wrong, you know. Better be very careful. But you might want to try and pry a little inside of Hermione, so Sirius could drop hints for Harry. He's quite good at that!"

Ginny grinned.

"Oh yes, you bet, I'll do that as long as she's still at the Burrow. Late night girlie talks and all. We have that quite often, you know. They'd be great together. My own curiosity needs to be stilled, too."

Remus laughed. He genuinely liked Ginny. She'd come past her crush on Harry a while ago and had finally settled for a companionable friendship with the trio, who let her then join their adventures more and more. They quickly went back to work.

In the following weeks it seemed that the wizarding community didn't really care as to who led their government. Sirius started his weekly meetings and went through all of the departments to see what the people were doing. Every day he took two hours to reply personally to all the letters he had received. When Ginny and Luna had finished their work there were about ten folders of positive replies, three of critical ones and one pretty thick one of downright negative ones. Sirius started to reply to the critical ones first, since he thought those people had a right to know about his intentions first. Many had been well written and while they expressed concern there were many who said at the same time that they were glad that Fudge was gone. Sirius apologised in every letter with a standard phrase, first for the delay and then for the shortness of his reply, but in order to reply personally he couldn't do it any longer. Then he would normally write about two or three short paragraphs concerning the writers' letters.

After the first two or three waves of replies, Molly Weasley found a few letters to the editor of the Daily Prophet, which had been printed. She read the paper to her breakfast and gasped, when she read the first one.

"What's it, Molly?" Arthur asked.

"Readers' letters to the editor, Arthur, listen to this one: 'Right after Sirius Black's coup d'état I wrote a fairly critical letter to him, since he asked for any kinds of comments to his own office. At the time I thought it was just a politician's word, and only about ten days later I received an obviously pre-fabricated standard letter that told me, my letter had been received and would be read and replied to. I thought, well, that's a bit more than the old government would have done, shoved the parchment away and expected it to remain forgotten. Imagine my positive surprise when I got an owl yesterday with a letter, containing a standard apology for the delay etcetera, and then a couple of paragraphs that treated my original letter and told me it had been more than acknowledged. I don't think it was enough to completely erase my concern about the way things were handled, but I'd like to take a public opportunity to thank Governor Black for the time he seems to take to reply to letters sent to him. Tim McGregor, Inverness.'"

Molly looked up and said:

"I wouldn't have thought he'd go through with that."

"I'm not too astonished, he has started to set apart two hours every day to reply to some of those letters he initially received. I do think he's very thorough, Molly. You should finally let go of your distrust just because he's got Harry's love more than you have. Or so you think. Ever since Harry's fifth year you've fought kind of a battle with him for Harry's affection and that clouded your judgment of Sirius in everything he did. They love each other genuinely in a completely different way than Harry cares for you. Sirius is a father and friend, you're a mother. That's not the same. McGregor is right. It's good to remain alert and critical. Sirius wants that. He thinks every citizen should be that way. As long as they can admit when something that's been done pleases them they have every right to criticise things they don't like."

"Sirius has not been fit to take care of a child ever! He'd just teach them irresponsible behaviour."

"I think you are thoroughly underestimating Sirius' character, Molly. It's good that Harry moved out of the Burrow, you started to smother him. No young man likes that, not even from a lover."

"This has nothing to do with Harry, Arthur! I'm still disappointed in you to not see it my way. You could have convinced Sirius to let go of Harry."

"Ah, but it has everything to do with Harry. Which is why I kept out of it. You have forgotten an important fact and that is, Sirius Black was Harry's legal guardian! You weren't. We had the luck of winning Harry's sympathy and we must consent with that, we have no claim on Harry!"

"And for the part that has nothing to do with Harry, isn't he turning the whole Ministry upside down?"

"Yes, he is. And it was highly necessary. He started going through Amelia's department first, because she invited him, but there everything is pretty much in order, because she was able to keep Fudge out as much as she could. Then he moved to the Finance department. The old head, Porson, and his deputy had abandoned the department right after Fudge's arrest and Hancock, the next highest official was out there in three days! You should have seen what Sirius and the Aurors found in there. The whole financial reports of the entire time Porson was the head were not only faulty, but obviously sugar-coated, to use a very mild expression. The whole Ministry expenses turned out to be about one third higher than they really were in these reports. It will cost about ten people in that department their jobs. And there will be a new controlling organ consisted of trustees and other financial experts who can apply and will be accepted by the Wizengamot. Sirius wants to assure that no tax payers money is being wasted anymore. Or as little as possible. Don't tell me that's not a good thing."

"One third? You mean they spent one third more than they needed to for Ministry expenses?" Molly asked, shocked.

"Yes, roughly one third."

"What did they use that money for?"

"Mostly favours for Fudge. Porson himself probably got a fair amount of it. They hid it in investments gone wrong, or pay rises for certain Ministry members, lots of things. When traced back to the original expense slips handed in to the financial department, it was usually clear that original figures had been written over. Since there was no controlling organ that was easy to hide and as long as Fudge was there he covered up for them with lame excuses why the budget had to be stretched. Sirius reacted by immediately cancelling nine different taxes on trades, sales and other things, that have been implemented in the past years. Let go of your distrust, Molly. Sometimes it takes someone rash who jumps into these things and starts digging around."

"You only say that because he's made you head of your department."

"No, I don't. And you know that very well. He has put me in the position I should have received years ago. You complained hundreds of times that Fudge was holding me back and you were right. There was nothing I could have done, while Fudge placed younger officials in front of my nose at least three times. Sirius only did what was right."

Molly held on to that grudge for a long time. She was always hard to convince, but her dislike of Sirius made it even more difficult for her to accept his new position.

Sirius was wondering in the meantime if he would ever be able to clean up that mess he had found. He presented his figures to the Wizengamot and the witches and wizards in that board were as shocked as he was when they saw the extent of the former government's misuse of power. Naturally no one declined his intentions to clean up the department. Several team-leaders were sacked with immediate effect and both, the former head and the deputy were faced with a charge. After a month of intensive work Sirius had a new staff in the department. He had hired several financial experts, one former Gringotts accountant among them and had placed Celestina Quigley at the head of the department, an elderly accountant who had worked at the department for over thirty years. She had been in a similar position as Arthur, powerless to do something against the wrongdoing of her superiors, held back in her career for being too outspoken. But she knew the department inside out, so Sirius gave her the head position after interviewing her thoroughly. Together they started to go over the next year's budget and reduced it to salaries, costs for the services rendered to the public, costs for the maintenance of the building and other expenses. They calculated cautiously, because Sirius still had to re-negotiate the salaries of all Ministry employees. He was determined to have them paid fairly. But he had the distinct feeling that there were irregularities in the salary system as well.

In his negotiations with the Gringotts goblins Sirius had asked that all accounts of the Ministry be presented to him. After that he found another little loophole created by Fudge. He had created several accounts covered by the Ministry, but there were funds coming in from Muggle enterprises. And they had been restricted to his use only. No one else was able to enter the vaults. Now that he was in Ministry custody the goblins had to be convinced, that this money was to be released. Sirius planned to rename the vaults for charity purposes the Ministry would support. The evidence of course went straight to the lawyer for the prosecution, Jeremy Smith.

Bringing order into the financial affairs of the Ministry brought a lot of cuts to many departments at first. Sirius forced the department heads to lay open their expenses in the Monday meetings, so he could decide whether these expenses were real or faked. It would be much harder to present faked needs for funds to the whole body of the department heads than to him alone. Someone would question them for sure.

The Monday meetings became famous and infamous. Sirius considered making them public, but kept from doing that. For those department heads who were still used to the old ways and who would not cooperate the threat alone kept them toeing the line. Once there was a bit of order restored to the Department of Finance he moved on to the next important one, the Department of Economy. It was nearly as disastrous as the financial department. Old Barnabas Colby was perfectly fine, but he had never noticed what went on behind his back or even right under his nose. His deputy, Frederick Pettigrew, was clearly one of Fudge's cronies. As soon as Alastor Moody and the Aurors turned up in his offices he backed out and took flight. He had been one of those most responsible for the corruption. Business people feared him, but never dared say anything, because their licenses to even go about their business depended on Pettigrew. He could make them or break them by suspending or even abolishing their trade licenses. Sirius only sighed, when he met Pettigrew. He knew the man who was Peter's oldest brother. The man landed himself in jail soon after until all investigations were over. He was detained because it was to be expected he'd leave the country and hide.

The very next day Sirius had a howler form Mrs Pettigrew. She screeched that it was a disgrace and that he was after her family and just wanted to destroy them. He quietly let it pass, then sat down and wrote her a long letter, explaining to her that it wasn't his fault her sons misbehaved. Asked her if she was aware of all the pain and sorrow Peter had inflicted not only on himself, but especially on Harry and Remus. He sent it off, knowing that it would be fruitless and that she'd probably throw it in the fire.

Remus felt sorry for him. He kept doing the daily jobs with Hermione while Sirius moved through the Ministry.

Hermione enjoyed herself immensely. For three days she went through her duties with Miss Kenneth, then the woman left and she was in charge herself. She was not only the General Secretary, she was the chief of staff as well and two of her four staff members only treated personnel affairs. They worked together with the Department of Finance for the payments of the salaries, regulated the house rules and were responsible for the hiring of staff members. Departments were to send their job descriptions to them and they would then advertise job offers in the media and house internally. Through them Hermione could have looked at each and every contract. The other two were there to do the written work for the Minister, or as Sirius claimed, the Governor. They had to get used to the different title, which Sirius said would only be temporary anyway. Unless he would be asked to later on he did not intend to stay for more than one, two years at the maximum.

In the meantime Hermione worked together closely with Remus. They set up new payment levels for the different positions within the Ministry. These would be presented to the Wizengamot and after that the staff would be informed. There weren't any major cuts in the salaries as it was, but there would be no difference between the categories and everyone in a certain category was entitled to the same salary. Some of the older members would therefore have a certain loss.

It was a hard decision and it caused quite a discussion the day Sirius brought it into a Monday meeting. It meant that Amos Diggory, Amelia Bones, Barnabas Colby, Ludo Bagman, Elizabeth Montgomery and Zelda Jones would be paid less than up to now. The greatest cut was for Colby, the others only felt it marginally. All newly appointed heads were already paid after the new system. But that wasn't everything, because the heads had to take the new payment rosters to their departments and inform their deputies and team-leaders about the new system. Lower ranks were left as they were. The lowest were actually lifted a little and got away better than before. Team-leaders lost a little and gained a little, depending on their former willingness to help Fudge and getting favours in return, but there were no great differences. Some of the deputies were hit similarly as the heads of the departments.

Sirius had made it clear that it was a take it or leave it situation. He had the support of the Wizengamot in his aspiration to cut the Ministry expenses to a minimum they could bare and see from there if some extras could be had.

For that reason Sirius called for a conference and asked for the attendance for everyone at the Ministry, even the house-elves. He informed them of the intentions behind the new wages and the cuts in the funds for general expenses and finished his speech:

"If you care to listen around you hear the complaint everywhere, that the Ministry is using too much. The Ministry is spending too much. The Ministry doesn't know where to save money and we have to scrimp and save to make ends in our businesses or everyday lives meet. Taxes are too high. If you care to listen then you should be aware that these complaints have substance. Instead of taking advantage of the power we have over the citizens we should take their pleas and sorrows seriously and start supporting the wizarding economy rather than break it down and exploit it as much as we can. That – and only that will grant us the trust of the people back. We can make mistakes, even costly mistakes, but only if we are intent on increasing their wealth through a booming economy rather than exploiting it for personal gain we will be trusted again. Each and everyone who works here at the Ministry must be aware that they are paid through other people's tax money. To be fair to them and show them that their taxes are used with consideration is the least we can do to show that we are indeed aware of that. In that sense I ask each and every one of you to quit if you can't live with that."

The uproar of some of the staff members was dampened a lot by those who agreed with Sirius and had been doing honest work for a long time.

The result of the work in the two most crucial departments at the Ministry was striking. It caused hope among the business people on Diagon Alley, in Hogsmeade and elsewhere. Even though only the latest nine special taxes had been lifted yet it showed pretty soon how pressing those taxes had been. The streets in Diagon Alley started to be filled with people again, while they had often been almost empty in the past two or three years.

The next department to get Sirius' attention was the Department of Internal Affairs. O'Connor, the old head had abandoned it the day after Fudge's arrest and the new head, Octavia Winter, had already foreseen what Sirius was going to do and had cleaned up a lot herself. It was an important, though small department. Only a few sub-units were there, mostly treating everything from St. Mungo's to other governmental organisations. Sirius was through within two days. He moved on to Amos' department, which had been very disrupted. It had been one of the places where many Death Eaters had been smuggled in and was thus in shambles at the moment. Sirius asked Amos to give him a list of all the vacancies and together and with the help of the Aurors they went through the remaining staff to find possible Death Eaters still around. They found no one else, just a few sympathisers, who were, for the most part, either sacked or placed in other departments. The whole Werewolf Registry was left unmanned. Sirius was met with more than reluctance on Amos' behalf, when he asked for some of the latest regulations against werewolves to be removed.

"You only want that because of Lupin!" Amos claimed.

"What's to say against Remus? He has a right to move around as any other human, Amos. Besides you know as well as I do that many of those latest legislatives were aimed directly at him personally."

"But he is a werewolf, not a human, Black."

"He is a human for 27 out of 28 nights and for 28 out of 28 days a month, Amos. Don't be ridiculous. It's much more dangerous to keep them from finding work and roaming about. Or do you want an excuse to go about and kill them because they can't keep themselves up and have to be outside on full moon nights?"

"No, of course not…"

"Well, that's what happens, isn't it? They can't work, so they don't earn anything to live, they have to roam the streets or the forests, because, after all they're still humans during the month and they have to live somehow. Either you allow them to have a prosperous, healthy life and know that this way you have their trust and cooperation or you let them rot and are presented with them as a potential danger."

"They can't be trusted…"

"Are you telling me you don't trust Remus? Can you stand there and tell me in the face you don't trust Remus Lupin, Amos?"

"He's not your average werewolf, Sirius!"

"He may not be, but do you know why? Because he's had relatives and friends who supported him and gave him reason to trust others. If you are telling me that you can't trust werewolves in general then I can only ask you: why would that be? Maybe because we don't give them any reason to trust us? I want a crew in the Werewolf Registry and the Werewolf Support Unit to get to work on these issues soonest. If you really want to do something good, you contact the werewolves and check if someone or the other would be willing to join the staff. The legislative that forbids employers to hire werewolves is to be abolished immediately. And I want this to be publicised with a statement to the press. I'll see it before it's being posted," said Sirius calmly and with that, Amos Diggory was dismissed.

Diggory gritted his teeth and followed the order. He wasn't convinced and he was too conservative to dare to go out of his old ways. But so far Sirius had shown great consideration in anything he did, so he just hoped for the best. Diggory knew Remus since the boy had been registered as a werewolf and he knew of the extraordinary path the boy and later the young man had followed. He knew of Remus' integrity, but he thought that Remus was just that. An extraordinary person. It didn't keep him from doubting that other werewolves could be the same way.

Within three weeks a new team was starting work at the Werewolf Registry. The people who had applied for the job were interviewed by Sirius personally. Among others there was Cho Chang who turned up. She had worked at the Magical Menagerie for a while, had then studied a bit more with several magizoologists and was very accepting of her new assignment. She looked at Remus and said:

"You were the best teacher we had at Hogwarts. I always adored Professor Flitwick, but we all loved you, because you had competence, sincerity and a sense of fun that most other teachers completely lacked. When I heard that you are a werewolf I didn't really want to believe it, but then I said to myself it was ridiculous to fear you. I don't know what made you so reliable, but I'd trust you any day. And it also brought to my mind that you are people like everyone else and that you'd only react to how other people treat you. I'm very willing to show that trust to anyone who will have to pass through my office. No one will be treated like an animal as it must have been so far."

"Thank you, Cho," Remus said.

Cho was placed in the Support Unit, where she started to gather information immediately. She was soon joined by two people in the Registry and several more in the Support Unit. The Registry's job was only to keep registering new cases and re-issuing registrations, while the Support Unit was to look after the inflicted werewolves and try to regain their trust and find them jobs and shelters. Cho soon learned that this was hard work. She was allowed to call on Remus though who would accompany her on a visit to others of his kind. Most of them had already heard of his new position and looked at him as a bit of a traitor and called him a salon werewolf. It was difficult to get them to understand that many of the regulations would be lifted if they were ready to accept some minor disadvantages, which were much less than the disadvantages they suffered until now. And they were promised help.

While Sirius had cut expenses in many other areas he had increased the budget for the Werewolf Support Unit. He firmly believed helping them would make society more secure and hired a potions mistress who was to brew large amounts of wolfsbane potion for every werewolf who was willing to take it. Soon the official Ministry shelters for werewolves were changed into comfortable rooms with only a few remaining closed cells for those who were unwilling to take the potion. Once some of the werewolves started to accept the potion on a regular basis they noticed that their full moon nights became easier and they suffered less and less injuries from the transformations.

"Do you believe me now, Amos?" Sirius asked smugly at a Monday meeting about four months after the start of the program.

"It takes trust to form trust. Only the example of others who will carry it further will get them to come in and accept that once a month 'confinement'. None of those who are in there present a danger to anyone. They are safe and feel safe. We are safe from them. Isn't that for everyone's gain? Once their health is back on track we may start looking for them to find jobs."

"I admit that I have let myself be guided by too conservative views, Sirius. We just have to remain alert. We still haven't bound them all to the Support Unit – by far not yet. But Miss Chang is doing a very good job."

"I know. That's not easy. And there will be new cases. But we need to treat newly bitten people with extra care. They are victims, they deserve to be treated as a victim. Treated the right way from the beginning keeps them and us safer."

One of the departments that needed practically no cleaning was Percy's Department of International Cooperation. He did a very good job of keeping the people in line and oversaw their work with a strict, but increasingly good-natured interest. He usually had his reports ready and complete for the Monday meetings. Sirius could count on the correctness of these reports and when he did make some random checks he found everything perfectly in order.

He made a similar experience in Elizabeth Montgomery's department. Sirius found her a delightful person, alert, interested and very adept in her work. Through her he met all the Ministry's examiners who flocked into Hogwarts once a year to the horror of all fifth and seventh years. He remembered many of them from his own schooldays. Elizabeth's department consisted mostly of very learned, intelligent people who were doing a fine job. He found that her budgets had always been very much in order. Astonishingly no one at the Department of Finance had dared to tamper with them. Elizabeth laughed and insisted that her predecessor as well as herself would not have been fooled.