Harry Potter exited the floo grate with nary a stumble, shortly followed by Hermione Granger, long time friend and Minister of Magic, into her office. Vanishing the soot from his clothes with a flick of his wand, he took the chair opposite to Hermione at her table.
"I don't like the idiot," he began, without preamble.
"Harry! He is the Prime Minister!" said a scandalised Hermione.
"That doesn't mean he's not an idiot, 'Mione."
"Well, I for one think he took it about as well as it could be expected. You know it is difficult for muggles to suddenly start accepting magic."
"And I didn't like how he was eyeing you either. He sounds about as bad as his speeches made him out to be. He seems like a slightly less fat Vernon, complete with all the bigotry and a bad toupe."
"Alright, alright, I didn't like him much but hopefully I won't need to speak to him too often. With the new training and additional staff and budget in the muggle affairs department, I doubt I'll need..."
"Ahem," a polite cough from one of the paintings interrupted her, "Madam Minister, the Muggle Prime Minister requests an audience. He appears to have a proposal of some import for you."
Hermione silenced Harry's snarky comment with glare #3, before it even began. It didn't work for his smirk though.
"Please let him know that I will be there shortly," she said to the portrait, pointedly ignoring Harry's snickering.
"That- that arse! How dare he!" Hermione fumed, unable to form sentences.
"Easy now, Hermione, won't do your plans for better muggle relations any good to hex the Prime Minister on his first day" Harry half-teased, half-soothed her.
"Potter, don't you dare! Do you know how much arse-kissing and cat-herding went into getting the budget for this from the Wizengamot?"
"While those old bats weren't right about muggles at all, I honestly doubt you'll make any progress with a man like that heading the muggle government."
"I choose to be cautiously optimistic," Hermione said, primly, and with a glance at the clock, she added, "Well, it seems our meeting for the security plans for the French summit is up next. Shall we?"
"Sure, we can have lunch at that cafe you like afterwards."
On their way out of the conference room, they ran into Padma, who was the Department of Mysteries' newest Unspeakable.
"Ah! Hermione and Harry, just the pair I was looking for," Padma called
"Hello Padma," Harry greeted, "how are the grey cloaks treating you?"
"It's mostly just grunt-work right now, but there's a lot to learn. Speaking of learning, did you know that we have a sensor down there which monitors the Statute of Secrecy?"
"Wait, the Statute is a law, how would you monitor that?" Harry replied, looking just as confused as he felt.
"Oh Harry, if only you could stay awake like our dear Minister here in Binns' class." Padma said, seeing the recognition in Hermione's face.
"Oi! I resent that… Care to explain?"
"Well to put it shortly, alongside the Statute of Secrecy, the erstwhile Supreme Mugwump and Master Enchanter Dunaj, leading seven covens of seven wizards and witches also created a massive ward structure that spans the globe. It prevents muggles from accidentally discovering magic by keeping a generally high level of disbelief towards magic in them. That is why the hundreds of incidents of wizards accidentally getting caught on various cameras doesn't expose us.
"The ward is an amazing piece of enchantment that was centuries ahead of its time but it is not all-powerful. The act of informing a muggle of this will bypass the protection. Most of the time these in-the-know muggles still find it hard to disclose this information to others, but certain individuals - it is theorized that they have near-squib levels of magic - are known to be able to pass the knowledge , occasionally a sufficiently jarring encounter with magic, like a wizard attacking them directly will also bypass the protection and let a muggle accept that magic is real.
"At the DoM and similar agencies all over the world, there are monitors which keep track of the muggles that manage to learn about magic through these loopholes and direct the Obliviators or Aurors to action - so here I am," She concluded with a flourish. "It appears that someone in… 10, Downing Street, London is being naughty. I wonder why they didn't just send a memo to the Obliviators instead."
Hearing the address, both Harry and Hermione had their heads in their hands.
"What?" Padma asked, seemingly unaware of the significance of the address.
"He's not been in office for..." Harry looked at his watch, "... five hours and he is already causing trouble, Hermione. Can't we just put your pet project aside for however long the buffoon is in office and just obliviate him?" He pleaded.
"No, we cannot. You know the Wizengamot will be looking for a way to have this lost in procedural oblivion if we don't see big results and public support for this soon, Harry"
"Um, guys?" Padma tried to interject, but was unable to get a word in edgewise. She swore it was like foreplay for these two sometimes. She just gave it up as a lost cause and decided to make her way back. Maybe Croaker would explain.
"So," Harry began, sitting opposite to Hermione on their regular cafeteria table, " what do you want to do with him?"
"I don't know Harry, I really don't want to give the traditionalist faction a reason to start their usual harping about 'The Muggle Threat'. They're just people - people we grew up around!"
"Hermione, you know better than to trust politicians Even the incompetent ones can cause untold amounts of damag, just look at Fudge."
"I'm a politician too, you know."
"You're the exception. He is many things but well-meaning he is not. How people could elect such a vile excuse for a human being into an office of power, I do not know"
"What do you think we should do?"
"Seriously, I think we should go there and put the fear of God in him."
"I don't think that's a good idea. If he feels cornered, he might end up lashing out worse."
"Well, at least a stern warning is in order."
"I suppose," Harry conceded.
"Good, let's go right after lunch. It seems Kingsley was right to suggest keeping the day clear when dealing with a new Prime Minister"
Their third meeting with the PM went in short order. Hermione thought she got across the point that he was not permitted to go around telling people the truth about magic very well. With the meeting concluded, she and Harry went back to the Ministry to finish off the day's paperwork and head back home. They had jointly decided to keep a safe distance for a while and monitor the situation. It seemed that the PM was also not very keen on keeping in close touch with magicals and that Hermione's proposals for greater cooperation were quickly put on hold from the non-magical end. She was also quite sure that making any real progress with this administration was going to be difficult, but was determined to keep trying. In this process and never truly taking Harry's warnings about incompetence and ignorance not equating to harmlessness and a firm belief in magicals' abilities to protect themselves was something that she rued to this very day.