Disclaimer: Check first chapter for full disclaimer and other warnings.

Chapter 8 – The Fair and the Fool

Gabriel Swift was limping, and it was annoying. He remembered, during his recovery, having chosen to repair his right eye instead of his leg, but the whole dream was unclear to him. How could one choose which part to heal? It didn't make any sense to him, but he was limping anyway.

His first encounter with the outside world, since he woke on the dump, has been with a group of six young ruffians living in the very same shoddy area, and they had attacked him suddenly, beaten him unconscious, and stolen his money. The action had been so rapid that he barely had had time to notice the skull-decorated cloth mask that the apparent leader was wearing. Awakening with difficulty some time afterwards, he had found his papers crumpled beside the nearest trashcan. So, that's with the greatest difficulties that he was moving around, afraid of every loud group of people. He spent most of the days sleeping in trashy alcoves, moving by night towards downtown London. He didn't know why, but he was sure that he would recognize something or someone there. His lack of finances proved difficult, and he had to beg for a coin or two in the morning and evening. Moreover, his scarred appearance doubled with his smell didn't help anything.

Gabriel spent his nights wandering around in his dishevelled state. He survived by eating remains from trashcans, and, surprisingly, live animals found in the streets. He discovered that eating still warm flesh, and drinking its blood gave him more energy than anything else. That disturbed him greatly, but he was surviving, and that consideration didn't prevent him from continuing. After a week of wandering, Gabriel noticed an area with much light, activity, and laughter. Not knowing what it was, he approached cautiously, and discovered the area containing the city's funfair. The stall keepers were boisterously promoting their show and activities, and the kids and teenagers were laughing and generally having a grand time. Looking around, he was dumbfounded that such a place existed, not having any remembrance of something like that. Then he shook his head. He didn't have any remembrance at all, so it was no mystery that he didn't recognize a funfair. Shrugging his feelings of discovery aside, he started to explore the place, still wary of the different group of people there. However, undoubtedly due to his impoverished appearance, nobody came close to him.

He spent the best part of one hour walking around, gawking at the many proposed activities. Some rough teens sometimes made fun of him because of his scarred face, and little kids were afraid of him, as well as some adults. He suddenly stopped at a stall, where a young teenage girl, supposedly the keeper's daughter, was arranging the prizes. Having her back to him, he noticed only her hair, but that was sufficient. He stood there, transfixed. She had fiery red hair.

His heart was banging against his ribcage, and his mind was whirling around one of his few memories of before. Maybe he had known the girl? Maybe...

She turned around, laughing at a joke from her father. Sure, she looked like him a little. And Gabriel saddened immediately because her face didn't fit with his still unclear memory. Still, her hair was so beautiful that he would have spent the whole night looking at her. However, the moment she left the stall through a backdoor, his stomach decided it was a perfect time to rumble, remembering himself of his famished state. Looking longingly to the shop exit, as if it was going to bring her back, he gathered his meagre coins, and, after a last look on the stand, wandered a little more in search for some food to grab.

He smelled fried sausage somewhere, and, despite being starved and going to eat there anyway, he winced at painful but unknown memories. Hesitantly, he gathered his courage and money, and went towards the food stand. On his way to there, he noticed another show. And stopped.

It was a horror train ride, and, looking at the depicted ghosts, vampires, and other undead, he frowned. He knew that, deep inside his scrambled mind, he should know about these monsters. Perhaps he worked there? His hunger temporarily forgotten, he approached the counter, held by a wrinkled old woman, and noticed a sheet of paper showing 'help wanted, inquire here'.

The woman didn't even look at him when he approached, and merely stated "Fifty pence a ride, sonny."

When she didn't hear money clinking on the counter, or the client departing, she looked up, and couldn't hide a gasp when she saw the burnt face of Gabriel, still looking at the paper, with, on his face, something akin to... hope?

Looking at the paper herself, and back to him, she said, in a business-like voice "I'm looking for someone to keep the ride in check, animate the monsters, and generally helping around here. Also selling tickets when I'm not up to it, which is quite often nowadays, sadly. The previous kid went out of the country with his parents, so there."

When he didn't answer, she turned back towards her magazine, and muttered "If you are interested, feel free to ask, as soon as you get your voice back."

Gabriel was astonished. A job! He didn't recall having a job before. Of course, he didn't recall anything. And he didn't even know his own age. How old was he? Looking at his crumpled papers, he read that he's 15, and his face wasn't giving anything away anyway. So, trembling, afraid that his stroke of luck might leave him the moment he starts to speak, he croaked, coughed, and started again.

"When... when do I start?"

She leaned towards him, looking at him inquiringly, but her aged eyes couldn't see if he had been mistreated or if he just suffered of sequels from an old accident. She needed a hand to help her managing the ride, though, and was ready to take him in right there. However, after the dump episode and the week sleeping in the streets, his stench was almost unbearable. She curtly answered "As soon as you take a shower." Then, seeing his lost air, she took pity of the obviously poor teen. "Come here, there is no client right now, and it's a low time anyways. Follow me." She said, while getting out and closing the booth. She then led him towards several parked mobile homes. Opening one, she motioned him inside, and told him to clean himself before coming back to the booth.

And that closed the deal. The funfair employees were given more-or-less leeway about work regulations concerning age, because of so many whole families in the business. The woman just asked his papers once, to get his name and age. And now, he was working on the train ride, had a steady little income, and was lodged and fed by the old maid herself. Nothing fanciful, but heating and regular food was always preferred over the dangerous and damp streets. He even got to live close to the place where he had spotted the red-haired girl. Things couldn't be better.

At the same time, near the hamlet of Ottery Saint Catchpole...

Ginny Weasley was sad, angry, and happy at the same time, a detonating mixture. She had already snapped once at her mother, and twice at her brothers, and she was now staying under her favourite tree in her home's garden. What she was happy about, though, was the sudden appearance of a big, white, and feathery lump in her lap. She recognized the thing immediately, despite its underfed and tired state.

"Hedwig!"

Exhausted, the white bird fell asleep in her arms, and, turning her over, Ginny noticed some blood on her feathers. Unknown to her, the Dursleys had chased Hedwig around until she left Privet Drive. The owl had tried to reach Harry afterwards, but her owl compass was failing, and after some days of almost non-stop flying, she was out.

Hedwig was one more link to Harry, and Ginny decided on the spot that, until she could get back to Harry, she was going to adopt the owl. Her mind, still in denial, already planned to use her to send messages to Harry, wherever he was. Going back to the Burrow, with the now sleeping owl in her arms, she barged in the kitchen where the family was having the afternoon tea. Everyone was here, and everyone was startled by the grinning Ginny and especially the dishevelled owl in her arms.

Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Headmaster office...

Albus Dumbledore sat at his desk, his eyes unfocused. The accumulated paperwork on his desk was reaching record heights. Grieving, and angry at himself, he shouted an impolite curse and lunged at the mountains of reports and forms. Papers flew in the room for a time, some of them reaching the foyer and experiencing instant combustion, until the Headmaster seemed to calm himself a little. Getting up and sighing, he magically collected the fallen paperwork, before turning around his desk to sit in front of the chimney.

Looking at the soothing flames there, he was reflecting about his responsibilities again, speculating about what could have been done differently. Suddenly, he noticed something strange in the fire. Of all the papers that had flown through the room, of the dozen sheets that had burned when touching the fire, there was a charred envelope there, right between the logs. And its content was not burning.

Now, magic was a well-known field for Albus Dumbledore, but he seldom used non-flammable paper for his regular office work. The only time people he had used this kind of paper was when...

He shuddered.

This kind of paper was used to write wills.

Bending, and reaching with the fire tools, he got the paper from the flames. Even if it didn't burn, it was still very hot, and he had to breathe on it for a time before unfolding it. What he saw, though, made him drop the paper as if it was white-hot again.

There, on the floor, was the accusation of two dead persons. If this paper had been found a decade ago, an innocent man wouldn't have been sent to prison, and a culprit would have been sought after. A child wouldn't have had to live through hell, and a man would have had joys and challenges of surrogate parenting. And a boy wouldn't be dead, causing him to grieve. This was the letter proving the innocence of Sirius Black, the letter that Harry found in his vault, and that Severus gave to him on the burial. And to think that he almost lost it to the fire!

Defeated, he slumped on his chair, the accusing paper still in front of him. And it was a long time before his sense of responsibilities forced him to make a fire-call he would have most difficulties to explain.

Later, at the Burrow...

Hermione had been invited for dinner that evening, and things hadn't gone smoothly at all. Her logical mind had, in one way or another, completely squished her emotional self. To Ginny and Ron, to the horror of the other Weasleys, she had been repeating that Harry was dead, and that was all. She had even suggested they start on their homework. Ron had been silent since the burial, his mind seemingly disconnected somehow. Contrarily to Hermione, it seemed that his emotional mind engulfed his logic. He had even lost the three chess games he played against his siblings. To everybody, that alone was a sign that Ron wasn't coping well with Harry's death.

The weirdest part of the evening had been when they were drinking tea and trying to relax in the living room, Hermione still babbling about homework and berating Ron for his lack of attention. Ron suddenly stood up and left the room, still without uttering a sound. Everyone was aghast at Hermione's speech, and even more at Ron when he appeared again in the room, his wand in hand, pointing towards Hermione. Without explaining, without even a trace of feelings on his face and voice, he uttered his first word in many days.

"Silencio."

Needless to say, everyone was even more dumbfounded than before. Even more so when the family was at odds with the Minister and the Service of Underage Magic. The silence was so intense that it seemed as if Ron had cast the spell on the whole room. The blank-faced teenager then got some Floo powder in his hand, and showed the chimney to a forcibly silent, fuming Hermione. When, still silently yelling at him, she didn't move, he threw the powder in the fire, mumbling "Granger's". He then waited next the green fire, arms crossed, for her to get out. When she still didn't move, he went to her, and, as blankly as before, bodily pushed her in the flames, towards her own home.

The other family members had been watching the whole scene, too flabbergasted to even move a finger. And Ron went back to his seat and sipped his tea as if nothing had happened. After a long time, during which Ginny and the twins stared at Ron with something akin to respect in their eyes, whereas their parents looked horrified, Ron stood up and left the room towards his bedroom. After this, Arthur and Molly went into a frantic discussion about Hermione and responsibilities; the twins muttered darkly to each other; and Ginny stayed silent, watching the fireplace. Hermione didn't return that evening, nor the following days.

Some hours after Hermione's expulsion from the Weasley house, Ginny woke up from her slumber, sweating from a nightmare. In her dream, she had been on Privet Drive when the fire had happened, and she has seen Harry, burnt everywhere, going out of the house towards her, his croaky voice asking her "Why? Why?"

Unable to get some sleep right now, she descended towards the kitchen with the purpose of making herself some tea, when, passing next to the twins' room, she heard voices muttering. 'It appears my pranking brothers are up to something', she reflected. She was ready to leave towards the kitchen again when the door opened suddenly, and a sleep-deprived and stern-faced Fred opened the door. He and his twins had a strange gleam in their eyes, and Ginny was a bit afraid that they could pull one of their infamous pranks on her right now.

"Enter, Gin."

She hesitantly went through the doorway, and sat on one of their beds. She noticed that the floor and their worktable were littered with rolls of hand-written scrolls. As they both had a quill in their ink-blotted hand, she suspected that they were either doing their homework, or planning something. Knowing her brothers, she immediately jumped to the latter conclusion.

"What are you up to?"

Silence met her question. Strange. Generally, these two shared their material with her, as she was as much a prankster as them, although less successful, not having a twin herself. Unless...

"It doesn't concern me, does it?" She asked in a little voice.

More silence, but interrupted by Georges' yawn. Fred sighed.

"No, Ginny, you are not the target. I hope that nobody we know will be soon. As you were listening, and as you are as deep in that... shituation... as we are, we deemed that you could be let in on."

"What prank is it?" she asked.

As silence meets her request, she turned towards the scrolls, and started to read bits. As comprehension dawned on her face, George stated "This is not prank material."

"We took a personal oath that we wouldn't jokingly prank anyone anymore." continued Fred.

Ginny was taken aback by this. How could it be? They were natural born pranksters, how could they stop this? And what about this work around them?

"What we are doing now, it's hard to explain..." a silence, then "...we develop weapons. Like pranks, because we are versed in these, but lethal."

Ginny was even more stunned at this. Lethal? Were her brothers going to be murderers? Worried, she stood and started to inch towards the door, when Fred words placated her.

"Last year, because of Harry's encounter with Voldemort, Dumbledore has reunited an old group, dedicated to fight against dark lords. Some weeks ago, he asked us to provide debilitating prank material that could be used against the Death Eaters. But we now feel that we can do much more than that."

The rest of the night was spent explaining the different traps, and Ginny, while not wholeheartedly accepting the severe turn in her brother's activity, understood the goal and even offered comments on some of the ideas.

The next day found everyone waking late. The parents seemed to have cried their eyes out, and Ron was blank as before, apart from a comment that surprised everyone.

"The sun is beautiful."

Now, this wasn't a surprising thing to say on a beautiful sunny day. But the rain was pouring on the house and grounds, and the sentence, as well as Ron's voice, was so out of context that Ginny instantly thought that Ron was channelling Luna Lovegood at this point. Deciding to take a break, and planning something, she grabbed some parchment and a self-refilling quill, and went in her bedroom with Hedwig.

Once there, she tried to write a letter to Harry, unsuccessfully at first. After all, you seldom wrote to dead people, even in the magical world. After some unsuccessful attempts, and many tears, she managed to simply express her feelings, on one of her peach-coloured stationery.

To my one and only love,

Where are you? I miss you.

Ginny

She then tied the message on Hedwig's leg, telling her nothing. Many people had already tried to write to Harry at some point, and failed, their mail coming back unopened. Her plan was that, if owls could find people using their name, why couldn't they find them using their emotions? So, she hoped that her message would arrive to its destination. It has an ice cube's chance in hell, but, on the off-chance that Harry's body was mistakenly identified, it could work. Opening her window, she sent Hedwig to the now-clear sky. And, watching the bird depart towards the unknown, she couldn't refrain from thinking 'Ron was right, the sun is beautiful.'

During this time, her brother Percy had received an owl from the Ministry and was discussing heatedly with their father.

"They accepted me! I can work there for the summer, and plant some ideas so that I could work there directly after I graduate!"

"Can't you wait for the Ministry to be less corrupt?"

"How can you say that? You are working there!"

"Still, the Creatures department..."

"...is needing people, and they think I can work my way up quickly!"

Arthur sighed, and, after staring at his defiant son for a moment, gave in. "Very well. Just be careful, son."

Percy snorted, and left the room.

In Privet Drive...

The large black dog that contained the soul of the escaped convict had just arrived in Privet Drive a moment before, and he was now whimpering on the rubble that was number 4. If a dog could cry, this one would. But he also had another goal to achieve before allowing himself too much self-pity. Peter Pettigrew. The only way to find this kind of character was to search the shoddiest places of the wizarding world.

The animagus form of Sirius Black jumped over the debris, and started to prowl the street towards a remote area where he could transform back into a human and apparate away. Once in an alcove of Knockturn Alley, he transformed back into a dog, and went down the alley towards the substandard taverns there. If he had known what was going on in the Ministry at that time, perhaps he would have taken another less dangerous path.

In the Minister's office...

Cornelius Fudge was aghast. And furious. And any other feeling in between. But natural reaction is always prevailing, and his face's colour started to drift towards plum. He looked indignantly at the paper in front of him, on his neat and otherwise empty desk. For as long as he entered into office, he had tried to maintain a level of tidiness on his desk, thus giving the appearance of efficiency. In fact, it was his many secretaries who were dealing with his daily work. The paper was not only disturbing this, but its content was what shocked him the most. This, and the grim faces of the seven people in front of him.

"I can't accept this! It's not possible, and it's not legal!" he bellowed to the Heads of the seven Ministry departments.

"I'm afraid it is, Cornelius. And we are not giving you much choice. It is possible, it is legal, and it is done." Amelia Bones was generally a good person, but, being Head of the Magical Law Enforcement department, she learnt to display severity when necessary. And she was using it full-force, now.

"I'm sure it's not legal! I locked all possible procedures against my office when I arriv..." Cornelius interrupted his rant, paling at what he just admitted. The others in the room smirked at the admittance.

"Just for you to know, Cornelius," continued Amelia Bones, "we are recording this right now. We might even send it to the press. And you just sawed the branch you were sitting on. We already knew that you changed all these laws, years ago. But you weren't thorough enough, and we uncovered one. If a vote of no confidence was to be made against the Minister by more than two-thirds of the Ministry employees, the Minister has to resign."

"How comes I wasn't informed?"

"When we discovered this, we quietly inquired about your impact on Ministry employees that weren't under direct supervision by your office. The result is that all of them voted against you. We didn't even have to get the votes from your underlings to complete the required quota."

A pause, while the Minister digested that bit of information, before she continued. "Moreover, we also uncovered that some procedures that you pushed along were not quite abiding to the law." She took a piece of paper from her pocket and resumed. "You have freed dark wizards, and, to placate the public, have allowed innocent people to be imprisoned at the same time." Looking intently at the Minister, she asked "Tell me, Fudge, who is Peter Pettigrew?"

Concerned by the non-sequitur, the Minister was slow to answer. "Errm... it was a long time ago. Something to do with Sirius Black, I gather. That's it! Pettigrew was a good man, and died fighting the infamous Death Eater Sirius Black. And we made sure that he went to Azkaban. I even forbade a trial due to pressing charges!" He gloated. He was so sure of himself and wanting to placate his Heads of departments, that he didn't notice their smiles, again.

"That you did." Implacably, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement pressed on. "Didn't you find strange that your usual clique, usually intent on freeing other Death Eaters, didn't intervene then?"

"No, why? Errm... sorry, that went wrong."

"Thank you again for your new blunder, dear soon-to-be-ex Minister. That just tells us you were indeed in league with those. It will be my pleasure to send you to Azkaban personally, but I have something else I have to say before doing so. Sirius Black wasn't a Death Eater. He wasn't Potter's secret keeper. And he didn't kill Peter Pettigrew and these muggles all these years ago. Pettigrew did all this. You condemned an innocent man without even a trial."

"Insanity! You can't..."

"Here is the proof." Amelia gave him the paper she was holding, with a little smile.

"It's a fake! It can't be real!"

"I assure you that it's the original."

Cornelius Fudge, knowing that he was beaten, merely read the offending paper before throwing it in his office lit fireplace. "There! There is no proof anymore!"

Going slowly towards the fireplace, Amelia Bones spoke again. "If you had read the paper correctly, Fudge, you would have noticed that it cannot be burnt. Accio!" and the smoking, but intact, paper flew back in her gloved hand. Its dragonhide layer merely hissed at the hot object's temperature, but its built-in resistance to fire prevented the woman to be burnt herself.

Amelia Bones and the other Heads of Ministry departments raised their heads, their smiles vanishing. The tone she then took seemed so official that Cornelius couldn't do anything, transfixed by his own demise.

"With the power our people placed in our hands, having questioned our peers, and being commissioned by the Wizengamot high warchief, we, Heads of the Ministry of Magic departments, hereby declare you, Cornelius Fudge, unable to persist in the function you occupy now. You are stripped of every Ministry-induced rank, titles, property and riches. You are also deemed guilty of the crimes you've been accused to, to which we add 'intent of proof destruction'. You'll be sent to Azkaban this instant, and a trial will be held later to determine if you'll receive the Dementor Kiss for your treason towards the magical world."

Cornelius Fudge had paled more and more during the tirade, and his eyes were darting from left to right, until they lock on his fireplace. He ran towards it, and, taking a handful of Floo powder, threw them in the fire. He then ran into the flames, shouting "Minister's Hideaway".

Nothing happened.

Well... something happened.

Cornelius' feet and legs took fire as he was standing stupidly in his own fireplace. Yelling in pain, he stumbled out of it, while the Heads laughed at his stupidity. Between her laughs, Amelia bent towards him, extinguished the flames, and said "Do you really think we would have come here, to tell you all this, without shutting your Floo access first? We also made sure that you can't Apparate, even if you don't have a licence yourself."

She recovered from the laugh, and then called "Guards!"

Two large Aurors entered the room. "Take this... man... to Azkaban." Nodding, as if everything was explained to them beforehand, they took hold of the slumped Minister's shoulders, and activated a portkey to the Azkaban travelling platform.

Sighing, Amelia Bones turned back towards her colleagues. "That went smoothly. Now is the difficult part. Who wants to take his seat?"

To be continued in next chapter: Rescue Missions...

The fool is gone, already?
I always thought he was shoddy.
And my old pal Gabriel
Has a future, now. So, well...

Author's Notes: For some reason, I can't write children properly, and Gabriel's character seems a bit too mature for his age. Don't forget, though, that Gabriel doesn't remember his own identity and age. His only link is the fake identification paper of the dead vampire, which states that he's 15. Unconsciously, the Dursleys' upbringing had put some serious blocks on his ability to enjoy his childhood, too. Another thing to consider is the absorption of the vampire blood, coupled with Harry's small shape-shifting abilities. He had grown an inch or five, and appears older.