Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any of the fictional locations or characters from the Harry Potter series or any other authors work. This is a work of reworked fiction using the world of Harry Potter. However, I do own this plot and any original characters hence forth created for the purposes of this story.

Shifter

XII

It had been several blasted and horrid weeks for Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and head of the Wizengamot. The next day was the first of September and the students would be arriving, and he was too busy avoiding hexed letters and howlers to get much done in preparation.

Somehow Harry had paid him back, even in death for leaving him with those blasted muggles. How was he supposed to know that those blasted people were really that bad to him? He thought that Harry just didn't get along with them because he was too different, being a mage around mortals. The magical world didn't have child abuse – well it did but it was kept so well hidden that it was nearly an urban legend, but now Harry's death had set off a can of worms even through the magical world.

He found himself grounding his teeth, as even his teachers weren't speaking with him – with the exception of Hagrid, Severus, and Minerva. Even though he knew that both Minerva and Hagrid blamed him. He was sure Hagrid only kept on speaking terms out of some kind of loyalty because of the opportunities he had given him after he was expelled, and Albus just prayed that it would never dawn on the friendly giant that he did barely anything considering how much power he had, even fifty years ago.

Minerva was only speaking to him because she had too as deputy headmistress, but that didn't mean she had to be civil as she regretted that she also left Harry without ever checking up on him. It was also Albus who brushed aside the schools own medi-witch's concerns with Harry's health. She had reported that he had malnutrition and 'mysterious' scars that were more mysterious than the one everyone knew of on his forehead.

He had brushed aside all the warning signs of abuse, even the most obvious, when Harry practically pleaded to stay at Hogwarts and never go back that first year at Hogwarts. He had just brushed it off with a smile and didn't even look into the boys memories to see the truth for himself, and maybe he was subconsciously afraid that he had reason to be concerned and didn't know how to deal with that.

Then Severus didn't care that his arch-enemies son was dead. In fact, the greasy – teacher had seemed happy that Harry was gone. Albus had thought about just firing the man for being so callous and spiteful. Harry's death was becoming his downfall. His idiocy involving the boy would cost him the support of others, and now he had to deal with dementors, and even though he was against them being near the school, and it was Minister Fudge insisting on them, it would lose him more loyal friends.

Harry had done in death what no one else had ever been able to do, be it by accident, and begin crushing his reputation, and cutting down his power, and even told the magical world that his parents will was sealed by him and that he gave the boy to people who were 'NOT' approved guardians when the will was ordered open.

Almost as bad: the boy had a will that gave everything to children's charities and liquidated his properties. Some muggle charities with the help of this new Potter Foundation the goblins set up on Harry's behalf even built the boy a memorial. They had discovered his body had been destroyed in the explosive fire. It was so the children he would be helping could pay their respects and gratitude that he would help save them whereas no one saved him.

He had seen pictures on the front page of every muggle newspaper around the UK, and knew that it was reported worldwide, so he knew other magical communities would be seeing him as dirt too. It was even reported in all magic papers and magazines worldwide after a few days of nothing, and it likely took the goblins to clue them in.

It was a huge and beautiful monument in the yard of a huge ground's where they were renovating a huge building into a children's care centre: the 'Harry Potter' child protection orphanage in his honour.

The memorial was surrounded by beautifully crafted benches, donated by a master carpenter along with a huge play park for the children to enjoy. It had a beautiful pond surrounding the mass of marble, with a waterfall running down all sides.

Hundreds of reefs were floating on the water nearly completely hiding the pond, and he had never seen so many bouquets of flowers as they surrounded the pond, and cards and letters to the boy, to read from heaven from other children as local schools had taken trips especially to pay their respect and give him their cards and flowers as his donations would also go to help small struggling schools keep afloat and become Academies under the Foundation.

Then Sirius Black was on the loose. If the truth about that was proven, Albus doubted very much that he would be headmaster of Hogwarts any longer. People would lose faith in the administration of the school. He dreaded to think about what would happen to the school if all the admin, board of governors and the ministry were barred from Hogwarts affairs. The school had money that hadn't been used for anything more than scholarships, and he didn't know how much the school had, but unless the school could make money rather than running even or at a loss it wouldn't be able to self-sustain for more than five to ten years at the most.

Then the parents and other 'people' would claim he was unfit to take care of children, or himself, and he could even now lose his place on the wizengamot for abusing his power and sealing the Potter's will. Well, he supposed that the worst that could happen would be that he would get sent to a retirement home, which thinking about it sometimes felt like a good idea; he had even gotten broacher's for magical world and even muggle retirement homes.

Though, absolute worst case was that he might end up with a small stint in jail. He was definitely going to hell for his scheming. He would be okay with that though. Facing Lily's wrath in heaven would be a lot worse. That woman could have taken his place as most 'powerful' of the light if she had survived. She was a truly terrifyingly powerful witch, which proved that muggle-born's' had power if only they got up, stopped listening to pureblood propaganda and used it like she did.

Albus Dumbledore had gone from most loved wizard in the world, or at least the UK, to most hated, in the world, and yes, he meant world that time, in just one day. Then it got worse, because of one article, which spread as other reporters began their snooping. It had even dropped the Sirius Black hunt from the front page when the reporters started not so subtly trying to question Sirius's guilt and incarceration when a conspiracy theory magazine asked the question of court dates and sentencing, and that probably humiliated the Daily Prophet into asking that same question with a little more subtlety, at least, and the ministry couldn't hand those things over as they didn't exist. That was going to have the whole Law Enforcement Department auditing Azkaban at the demand of the people.

He was so screwed as the kids might say; luckily, he only knew about Sirius, but the ministry might have more people who had never been legally sentenced. He half hoped they have as that would take some heat off him. He had to somehow redeem himself. Neville's grandmother had even turned down his offer to tutor the lad because of what happened to Harry. Not that he thought Neville was all that good at magic, which was why he offered the training he refused to give Harry.

Albus sighed in exhaustion and looked over at Fawkes. He was startled – the bird seemed to have something akin to amusement shining in his eyes for a brief moment. Blinking several times Albus looked back at his familiar to discover it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He sighed again. Maybe he was just a nutty old man?

Sighing tiredly, he thought back to a recent meeting he had with the wizengamot, after some more talks about Harry Potter and Sirius Black they brought up the subject of Fairytale. He was baffled that he had missed this very new company and blamed it on more important things. Though, the meeting did enlighten him to the new project being built next to the Leaky Cauldron. The Firefly: pub, restaurant, and hotel.

It seemed to him that most of the wizengamot seemed to think the place would be a passing fad - something new and shiny for a few days, and that some wizards and witches would probably have a quick look out of curiosity before heading to the Leaky Cauldron for their lunch and or drink.

However, after receiving a new newspaper free of charge the next morning: The Frontier newspaper: a paper seemingly ran and owned by Fairytale (free now while it was small and in the alpha to beta stages, but soon to cost the same as the Daily Prophet come September the first, and even he had made a subscription), and seeing the huge ads for Firefly with coupons for free drinks and valid for the first week, he had to disagree with the wizengamot.

Although the wizarding people might not like change, they did like a bargain like any normal human being, and with their opening prices, and free drinks coupons - well even he would go there for a drink and some lunch. It honestly sounded like a nice place. It would be a hotel, restaurant and bar, which sounded quite nice as he liked choice, and before his only choice had been the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon, or the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade unless he wanted to stay in his brothers cesspool of a bar.

The meeting had not been very nice about Fairytale, though he had to admit it was mainly the Minister and his supporters as nobody else, himself included seemed to care that much, (well he had his own problems right now).

In fact, several people tried to change the subject, but it was brought up again and again. It seemed several people didn't trust a little change, (or they were afraid they would be running out of business or lose money in some investment or some political mumbo-jumbo because they weren't very clever), or they didn't believe in healthy competition as the place would be putting the Cauldron through the ringer.

Though, in all honesty Albus knew that Tom, the landlord of the Cauldron could not possibly hope to compete with an actual company that might actually be starting a chain like with some muggle places he had heard of. However, he shrugged that off as he didn't actually care as it wasn't his problem, and he had important things of his own to worry about.

However, he had to admire the Frontier newspaper as its puzzles were so much more challenging when compared with The Daily Prophets, and its comic strips so much more entertaining. At least they were something nice to take his mind off his woes, even if it was for only a short while until something new knocked him down a few more levels.

Also, he noticed that the journalism in the Frontier seemed a lot more impartial to the Prophets as they were likely giving their writers proper wages. The Frontier was actually a refreshing change of pace and seemed to cover everything from the league quidditch matches, to celebrity gossip, to real headline news, even if the headline news was mostly muggle related. At least it was more interesting and worthwhile compared to a lot of the drivel that the Prophet came up with on slow days.