Of Coups and Pranks

Somewhere, and Harry couldn't remember the details, he had managed to find clean clothes and wore for the first time his Gryffindor robes over them. There was a lot of activity at the school as people tried to take stock of the fighting that ended at Hogwarts. A lot of bodies still remained to be recovered and reclaimed, debris littered the grounds, courtyard and inside the castle, blood was caked everywhere…

"Harry!" Harry turned to see Luna Lovegood skipping towards him with a vague resemblance of her normal dreamy smile. "There was a rumour that you had vanished with the Dark Creatures"

"Nah, just Ginny" Harry smiled. "What can I do for you, my little Moonbeam?" he asked.

"I was thinking about Mr Hagrid" she replied with a blush – only two people got to call her that and the other person was in hospital. "Remember at Shell Cottage how you told us about Mr Hagrid being expelled for something he never did? Well I thought that maybe Mr Shaklebolt could overturn his expulsion or something" and then she frowned. "I wonder why Professor Dumbledore never overturned it after he became Headmaster – he knew what happened really"

"That… That is a good point" he admitted to the Ravenclaw. After his Second Year at the school, he wondered why Dumbledore had not announced that Hagrid was innocent of the crimes for which he had been charged. Dark thoughts began to speed through his mind at the thought of the former Headmaster being a manipulative old man.

"You don't trust him… Mr Shaklebolt I mean"

"What do you mean?" Harry blinked at the question.

"He's a good man, there is no doubt about that" Luna explained simply, "But he still did nothing to help you with your relatives even though he knew what they were doing to you"

"He had orders from Dumbledore" Harry said defensively, but he found he could no longer defend the Order in quite the same way as he once would. Whilst the adults had been talking about what to do, it was left to the children of their world to fight the fight and do what had to be done. Talking with Luna and the others at Shell Cottage, telling her and Dean the truth for the first time, he had unburdened his non Hogwarts life and Dean had gone as pale as possible whilst Luna wanted to be sick.

"Did his orders supersede his oath as an Auror?" Luna asked bluntly. "If Professor Dumbledore had Aurors watching what was happening at your Aunt and Uncle's home, they had to have seen and heard everything. If they are capable of ignoring a child in pain, what are they capable of?" and Harry was quiet for several minutes as he processed everything the blonde haired girl had said.

"So what should I do?"

"Well you would go and just ask Mr Shaklebolt for the truth. Me, on the other hand, I would just round up my friends and detain him and the surviving Order membership" Luna shrugged, dropping the dreamy look she normally had. "Harry, even if things are sorted out for the time being, how long do you think it will be until the Purebloods try again? If there is to be a new future for us all, it has to be you that leads us to it"

"When did you ever get so serious?"

"Malfoy Manor"

"Luna…? Did Draco ever…" he found he couldn't finish the words.

"Just the once, but he never broke my spirit" and that pushed any doubts to the back of his mind.

"Luna, find as many members of the DA as you can in the next half an hour and bring them to the unused Charms room on the fifth floor" Harry said. "I'll go and get Hermione and the Weasleys"

# # # # #

"You want us to what…?" Hermione was sure she had not heard Harry correctly.

"We move out and arrest the Order and any surviving members of the Fudge and Scrimgeour Ministries. They knew what was coming, were warned many times about it and they did nothing… In anybody's gaze, that is treason" and there was a murmuring of agreement.

"But what about mum and dad?" asked Ron, gripping Hermione's hand in confusion.

"People like them, McGonagall, Flitwick and others we know did their best we leave alone and ask them to help us" Harry shrugged. "I have no doubt that things will be okay for us in the short term, but as Luna argued to me…" he sighed, "When will the dark families and evil Purebloods take over again? If we do this now, we can get everybody in one swoop and make this as painless and bloodless as possible – I'm not going into another civil war" Harry looked around the room. "Who is with me?"

"My Aunt always said to do the right thing, even if it was not the legal thing" Susan Bones stood from where she had been leaning against a wall with her best friend Hannah Abbott. "If we do this, lets do this… Harry, I'm with you. What are our orders?"

"We stun all our targets here and put them under guard in the dungeons" he replied. "When that is done, we have the House Elves take us to the Ministry and secure it as quickly as possible"

"What about the Department of Mysteries? Its said to be impossible to break in" somebody asked.

"Been there, did that, got the t-shirt" Harry smirked. "Seriously, though, I think our best bet is to simply punch the front door in and take them out"

"They know all sorts of spells" Hermione frowned, "Do you really think they will fall to us?"

"Nope" Harry replied with a cheerfulness, "But we're going to do it anyway. Then, after we're finished, we're going to play the biggest prank ever by installing Hagrid as Minister"

"Hermione?" George looked over at the younger witch.

"Yeah?"

"Is there any chance you can check Harry for possession?"

"Sure… Why?"

"Because putting Hagrid in as Minister is a prank that only Fred could think of"

#

The taking of the Ministry was quick and almost bloodless – a few unmarked Death Eaters and their supporters had tried to make a stand in the offices of the DMLE and Susan had taken delight in eliminating her targets to a final end. Everything in the Ministry was shut down apart from the DMLE, Magical Transportation and the Department of Records as everybody else had been arrested, sent to St Mungos or otherwise sent home. In the coming months, trials were set up for War Crimes perpetrated by those taken prisoner at the end of the civil war and those taken in the storming of the Ministry and other key places. It was agreed that being sent to Azkaban was of no use, so Mind Healers worked with the DMLE and the Unspeakables to gleam every piece of useful knowledge before the most dangerous people were pushed through the Veil of Death. Those convicted of less serious crimes were sent to Azkaban which had been refurbished with ideas given by the Halfbloods and Muggleborns to make it more into a Muggle style prison. It certainly would not be called a palace, but thought was given to the humane treatment and rehabilitation of others. To the surprise of many, Hagrid actually made a good Minister and ended up taking the job for ten years. Of course, his first love was Hogwarts and most of his spare time from the Ministry was spent back at the school with him taking care of things as he always had.

As for Harry, he divorced Ginny after finding her in bed with Draco Malfoy and Tom from the Leaky Cauldron. He ended up marrying Lavender Brown who, it was good to say, had not been turned into a werewolf or vampire as was feared. After they married, Harry called together his former team mates from his Quidditch playing years at Hogwarts and formed Still Standing United which went on to win championship after championship. Hermione, after saving Prince William from a rogue Death eater disguised as an American actress married the Prince and were happy together.

Ron, however, died a jealous little twerp…

A/N:

Well, here I am…

I know that some of you will have been wondering what has happened to me over the last few months, so strap in for a long journey. Starting in January this year, I ended up caring for my Grandmother on an almost daily basis. In March this year she sadly died and, three days after the service, I suffered a complete and total breakdown and had a minor stroke caused by it. Since then, I have been struggling over these months to regain the ability to put "pen to paper" so to speak which I have only just been able to do. I will take it easy for a little while but I will make more of an effort to get fanfics done starting with Friendship and Honour as well as the occasional oneshot and a new Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica crossover which I was advised to do as a form of therapy.

I've arisen from the grave, I'm here and I mean to stay…

Pixel and Stephanie Forever