A/N: I have to apologise that it took me so long to get this chapter written. However, while writing it I found a problem of epic proportions and it took me some time to find a way to resolve it. That and well…I didn't realise that it was that long since my last update….
A little warning…the last part is a bit heavy on swearing. Nothing too drastic but yeah^^.
Now enjoy.
Chapter 59: Trouble is Coming
Loki's Apprentice strikes again! - Ministry of Magic left in Chaos
Yesterday the Ministry was subjected to an unusual attack. Shortly before 2 p.m., three people arrived in the Atrium of the Ministry. One introduced himself as the Dark Lord Frilly Pink with his two companions the Los Dos Bros. Now you, my dear readers, might wonder who this new Dark Lord. It is none other than Loki's Apprentice Harry James Potter.
Yes, dear readers, you read correctly. Harry Potter, the Boy-who-lived, our dear saviour claims himself to be a new Dark Lord.
But how is this connected to the recent attack on the Ministry of Magic you might ask.
Shortly after arriving in the Atrium, he claimed that he was there for the "Biannual Security Check". Let me tell you, as I was present during the attack, that the Ministry was left in chaos as a result. Plants were growing everywhere (see picture) an no one remained the same.
As you might remember from this summer, the MACUSA was recently subjected to a similar attack. One might wonder what Mr Potter is aiming at with his seemingly random attacks that leave chaos in their wake but hurt no one.
"My son wanted to point out the severe security issues in the Ministry," Lord Potter stated in an interview shortly afterwards. "Think about it. What if this had been a real Dark Lord? You cannot deny that it would have ended very badly."
Lord Potter brought up a good point. Had this really been the attack of a Dark Lord it is undoubted, that the Ministry would have fallen. The Minister, who was also the target of the attack, already responded by doubling the budget of the DMLE.
"This attack proved that the security of the Ministry, as well as the entire British magical community, got lax with the lack of a threat. No more! We will do everything in our might to secure our land once more," the Minister said in an official statement. "It is a good thing that Mr Potter brought our attention to this serious problem."
I think that I speak for many of my readers when I thank Mr Potter for bringing this issue to our attention. Hopefully, the Ministry will take this as the means to improve security and not to neglect it again, but with the actions taken, I already feel safer.
Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, is a very competent woman. Minister Fudge tasked her with finding ways to improve the security not only in the Ministry of Magic but also in other magical areas like St Mungo, Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.
It is doubtable that it will take long until first results are presented to us as Ms Bones probably will surely enlist the help of Harry Potter since he seems to know how to circumvent the already existing security measures.
-Rita Skeeter-
For more about Harry Potter, Loki's Apprentice see page 2
For more about the attack on the MACUSA see page 3
Harry snickered while reading the article. The attack the day prior had been a nice distraction and the expression on Bone's face when she saw him sitting in the Minister's office with the Minister bunny in his lap...hilarious.
"My aunt will skin you alive," Susan Bones, who just walked past the Gryffindor table and the friends, told them. "If I were you, I'd run!"
Harry only snorted, knowing that he had a good argument for why she should not kill him for his little prank. Not that he thought that she would. No, he will probably be subjugated to an hour-long monologue about how much work she has now because of him, how careless his actions were and what it would mean for him. Practically the same as she had done after his coming out in front of the Buckingham Palace.
That was when his snowy owl landed in front of him, carrying a letter. Harry quickly untied the message before feeding her a strip of bacon.
"Hey girl, I'm sorry that I neglected you. It's just that so much happened and...," Harry tried to reassure his first friend that he would never neglect her on purpose by petting her.
Hedwig hooted reproachfully as if to tell him that he expected him to remember her in the future before she gently nibbled at his finger.
"I could never forget my first friend now, could I?" Harry asked her with a chuckle.
He was ripped from his musings when the door to the great hall banged open.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" Amelia Bones shouted while walking towards him at a brisk pace.
Quite a few of the students chuckled or even outright laughed at Harry's plight.
"Uh oh," Harry muttered before turning towards the angry woman. He had to revise his opinion, she was more furious than then if that was even possible. "Hello Madame Bones, what a surprise to see you here but I just remembered that I have to be somewhere else. See ya!"
With that Harry vanished into thin air while Hedwig let out a soft hoot that sounded suspiciously amused. However, Bones didn't seem to be pleased about it.
"Where is he?" she asked Loki, who was currently entertaining his son, in a tone that spoke of untold punishment should he as much as think about lying.
Loki looked surprised and slightly frightened at the women before he merely pointed upwards.
Ms Bones rose an eyebrow but looked up nonetheless. Indeed, hidden behind the spells that made the ceiling invisible, she could make out the faint outline of Harry sitting in the rafters.
"Traitor!" Harry called out but, to the shock of everyone, jumped down and nimbly landed in an emerald green cloud in front of Bones. "Madame Bones, I think we should relocate this conversation somewhere more private."
"I have to agree," Michael, who came over, spoke up. "If you might follow me then we can take this to my office."
Bones looked at Harry critically. "Should you decide to vanish again, trust me there will be no place for you to hide," she sternly told him.
"How good that I know a place neither you nor anyone else can get in," Harry retorted with a broad grin. "But no, I promise you not to vanish again, scout's honour."
"Only you would use Lucifer's cage as a hiding place," Loki groaned. "Besides you never were with the scouts."
Harry merely shrugged. "Lead the way and Loki...don't think that I forgot about your little betrayal. This is not over."
"Bring it on!" Loki retorted with a broad grin while his son chuckled.
"You asked for it," Harry said with a smirk while following Michael and Ms Bones.
Michael looked at the two and wondered whether he should erect a few security measures, though he was quite sure that he would be able to reign in his brother. Harry on the other hand...he would have to wait and see.
The others also all got up and walked after them, joined by Draco outside the great hall. Michael looked at them questioningly but didn't say anything, fully well knowing that Harry would tell them anyway. Together they walked the many stairs up to Michael's office, where he conjured enough seats for everyone to sit in. Michael also called for a house-elf to bring them tea and some pastries.
"Mr Potter, would you be so gracious and explain what brought you to the idiotic idea to attack the Ministry? Do you have any idea what trouble you're in?" Bones began after sipping her tea. "The chaos you created will take weeks to sort out. Not to mention, that quite a few very influential pure-bloods are now demanding that you're thrown into Azkaban!"
"Oi, you should be grateful that I left everything alone that contained paperwork," Harry retorted. "Like the offices, the archives or...the DMLE!"
Bones blanched when she heard that, the horror of having to sort through every file and document the DMLE stored on open and recently closed cases...it would drive even a saint into a murderous rage. Not to mention that many lawyers would this take as a mean to claim that evidence was tampered with and therefore invalid.
"Madame Bones, it was never my intention to harm anyone or disrupt the workings of the Ministry too much. I just wanted to prove a point. The Ministry is wide open for an attack," Harry explained.
"Do you know how much work it is to clean your mess up?" Bones growled. "Then there are also those who say that you should be locked away. This is very serious!"
"Yes, you have some cleaning up to do, boo-hoo! Send in a few house-elves and the Ministry will be back to normal within hours," Harry said with a shake of his head. Sometimes he really wondered how oblivious the magicals were. "But I also made your life easier. You get more budget to hire more Aurors and even install some surveillance tech to upgrade your security."
"Muggle technology doesn't work in the magical environment," Bones stated confused.
Harry sighed deeply, pulled out his mobile and snapped a picture of Bones, who looked at him shocked. A few clicks later he posted the photo on his Twitter account with the subline "Security is giving me a lecture because I was a naughty boy and livened up the boring lifes of some bureaucrats".
Within seconds, the tweet was seen by thousands of people and reacted to it.
"Haha, did ya do?"
"Serves them right, stuck up idiots"
"your doomed"
"whose tha beatiful woman? Looks fierce. Can ya get me her numba?"
"Prank 'em ta hell!"
"nice milf!"
With a grin, Harry threw Bones his phone.
"People seem to like you," he chuckled. "Anyway, muggle technology works. That is where another problem comes up. Have you ever considered, that someone walks into the Ministry, armed with a gun? You wouldn't know before it is too late and you have at least one dead person. That is assuming that said person only has a pistol. Would it be an MP or something even larger and the person is halfway decent in using it...halleluiah!"
Bones went even whiter than she had when Harry implied what he could have done. Thanks to her regular dealings with the muggle world to cover up mistakes those ignorant pure-bloods made, she knew very well what Harry was talking about.
The prospect alone that some muggle-born who held a grudge against the Ministry could do just that was terrifying.
"Then there is another thing. Why the heck, are you checking people only when they are already within the wards? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having those wards?" Harry continued. "If I were you, I'd check their intention as well as what they are carrying with them personally and before they even set one foot into the Ministry. I mean I don't know what wards are around the Ministry, but you saw that I could just enter and leave it in chaos."
Harry ended his speech with a shrug. He had said his part. Now it was upon the Ministry to decide whether to follow his advice or not.
Bones was deep in thought. She had come to Hogwarts to berate the boy for what he had done but now he told her that far worse things could have happened. It made it apparent to her that a lot of work was waiting for her to get the security not only of the Ministry but also other magical hotspots up to date.
Michael was also lost in his thought. Harry might have addressed Madame Bones with his concerns, but he had to admit that Hogwarts was equally vulnerable. He knew for a fact that Sam had quite a few weapons in his trunk. Sure, Sam kept them secure and away from the other children, he took his responsibility seriously but what would anyone else stop from bringing weapons to the school?
Then there were also the magical artefacts to put into consideration. The incident with the diary had shown that nothing prevented potentially harmful objects to be brought to school. So many things could enter the school, and no one would know until it was far too late. Potions, cursed objects, weapons...the list was endless.
That was when he realised something else. Harry just, without any problems, shot a picture of Amelia Bones and posted it on the web. This in itself was hardly a problem but what if one of the other children posted a picture of a ghost? Or of Hogwarts with its surroundings?
True, the needed enchanted technology was only available in America so far. However, he doubted that it would take long for at least the muggle-born to realise where Harry got his tech and buy it too.
Michael couldn't help but sigh deeply. This was a disaster in the making.
"I will need to go over the wards of Hogwarts too. We especially need wards that prevent dark and cursed objects from getting in. Maybe also a ward that would render any gun useless though I don't know how to do that yet," he mused aloud.
"Why not stopping the gunpowder in the rounds from being ignited?" Sam, who knew the most about weapons, asked. "That would render any gun that doesn't use pressured air useless."
Michael looked at him surprised and a bit confused. Though he wasn't the only one. Bones didn't seem to get his point either. Sam, who saw that, elaborated.
"When you fire a gun, the firing pin hits the back of the round. The resulting spark ignites the gunpowder which explodes and catapults the bullet out through the barrel," he explained. "All you need to suppress is the spark that ignites the gunpowder.
"Air guns though wouldn't be affected by it as they use compressed air to catapult the bullet out. They are not as dangerous as a normal gun but can do quite some damage nonetheless."
Sam continued to discuss the finer workings of guns with Bones and how to possibly counteract them.
Loki, on the other hand, was somewhere else with his thoughts. He stared at the phone that now rested in Harry's lap.
"You realised it too, didn't you?" Michael asked him.
Loki nodded solemnly. "Yes, I did. It is my fault," he muttered. "Hadn't I brought the tech to Hogwarts..."
"It would have happened anyway," Michael added. "Maybe not so fast or that early but there was no way to prevent this from happening. No matter what we'd tried, sooner or later the fact that the magical world exists would have gotten out."
"What do you think why I revealed myself in front of the Buckingham Palace?" Harry threw in only to be met by confused looks. "Don't tell me that you thought that I revealed myself as Loki's Apprentice on a whim. Seriously, I long since realised that the developing tech someday would expose our world and the incident with Ron only cemented that.
"That was also why I appeared in front of that reporter. I introduced the thought that there are supernatural beings in the world. Sure, for now, they think that those are few and far in between, but it will definitely soften the blow when the magical world gets revealed.
"If we can delay this revelation long enough the people will already be so used to the thought that they won't bat an eye about it."
"But what if they react violently? Your revelation already showed that not everyone is as reasonable about this as you might think," Bones, who ended her talk about weapons with Sam, for now, asked.
"Those are mainly religious organisations but I hope that if someone they would listen to, for example, an archangel, explains to the heads of the religions like the Pope, what is going on. They then can keep the population calm, perhaps even using quotes from their scriptures," Harry explained. "Also include the governments so that they don't feel left out. However, make sure that they understand that magicals are just people like them. That we're not the answer to all of their problems."
Harry sighed, was it really that hard to think for oneself? The easiest thing to do this was to reach out to every person or organisation of importance and let the fact that that there was more to the world than they thought slowly leak out. With that, the population wouldn't be overwhelmed.
"And where pray to tell me, do you expect me to find an archangel who would be willing to help with this?" Bones asked incredulously.
"Oh, I can think of one," Harry replied with a grin but didn't elaborate further.
"Uncle Michael will probably help you," Jor, who was currently sitting in Luna's lap and playing with her long blond hair, piped up at the same time before glancing at Michael. "Yep, he'll help."
Bones looked at him in surprise, but before she could say anything, Luna spoke up.
"As interesting as this is, I think the more important question is why Harry was truly in the Ministry," she said with a serene smile, knowing that if she didn't get them back on the track, they would go on for hours and not discuss what was needed.
Now it was Luna whom everyone looked at with a confused and surprised look.
"What do you mean?" Bones asked suspiciously.
"She means this," Harry answered while pulling a small white orb out of his robe pocket and threw it in the air before catching it again. "I used the chaos at the Ministry and the fact that the Unspeakables came up and played with us as a distraction to nick this little Prophecy. I want to know what all this shit is about. Why Zachariah is hell-bent on getting me to do what he wants."
"Language," Hermione scolded him lightly.
"That was why you created the chaos," Bones meanwhile muttered in realisation. "You wanted to lure out the Unspeakables so that you could search for the prophecy undisturbedly. But did you really have to do this? You could have just asked for it, and they would have given it to you."
"Where would have been the fun in that?" Harry laughed. "Besides, I don't want anyone besides us to know that I have it or know its content. And as I said, it also served the purpose to point out security problems."
Luna chuckled. She had seen that this little deed would change everything. Not how exactly or the end result, but she knew enough to realize that this was a crucial point that had to happen if Harry wanted to escape the fate Zachariah set for him, hence why she had changed the topic earlier.
Before they could go on another tangent about the security of the Ministry of Magic, Luna picked the orb from Harry's hand and dropped it. They all watched as it fell down, hit the stone floor and shattered into thousand pieces.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...
born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...
and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...
the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
"Well, shit!" was all that Harry had to say to this.
They all sat in silence and contemplated what they just heard.
"Because of this pile of dragon dung, Zachariah is after me? What The Fuck?" Harry suddenly began to rant. "This thing is just so...so...ugh!"
"Self-fulfilling?" Luna asked helpfully.
"Yes, exactly, thank you! I mean seriously? And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...yes but only because of that bastard Zach. Weren't he after me I wouldn't give a fucking shit about that bastard Riddle!" Harry continued to rant.
"Language!" Hermione scolded him again.
Harry though only glared at her, he had other things to worry about at the moment than his swearing.
"Uhm is it only me or could that prophecy also mean me?" Neville suddenly asked in a worried tone. "I mean I'm born at the end of July too."
"Be glad that Zachariah decided that I'm the one. Believe me that feather duster is a pain in the ass," Harry growled.
"Harry James Potter would you mind your language!"
"Ellen already tried to stop me from using swear words, and she failed," Harry told her with a broad grin. "So why do you think that you'll succeed."
"Because I'm here and Ellen is not," Hermione retorted with a smirk before waving her hand over towards Harry.
"And I don't care what you did," Harry said while sticking out his tongue towards Hermione. "Back to the topic. The prophecy said, assuming that it truly meant me, that I have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. First, what Dark Lord does it mean? Are there possibly other Dark Lords than Voldy?"
"Oh, there is currently a new Dark Lord on the rise, the Dark Lord Frilly Pink. He's very active in Britain," Bones mused with a smirk. "He recently attacked the Ministry."
"Ha, ha, ha, do you want to insinuate that I vanquish myself?" he answered with dry sarcasm when he perked up. "Hey Neville, want to vanquish me? Would only have to mark you as my equal beforehand."
"Hell no! I will not kill you," Neville replied, shocked that Harry would even think about something like that.
Harry, on the other hand, looked at him confused.
"And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives," Neville recited the prophecy. "As I said...I'm not going to kill you. Besides, what about the born to those who have thrice defied him part?"
"Meh, are either of us merely surviving? To the thrice defied him…who is him? The Dark Lord? If yes, which Dark Lord? The same Dark Lord that the one born has the power to vanquish or another one?
"When did the parents have to defied him? At the time the prophecy was made? Afterwards? How is defied defined in this case? Did there have to be a battle or is a mere disagreement enough?" Harry replied with a shrug. "And since you only have to vanquish me, a mere defeating me in a duel would suffice. Hey isn't Lockhart still pestering you about a duelling club?"
"Yes, he is," Michael affirmed with a nod. "What have you planned?"
"Fucking this entire prophecy sideways, what else?" Harry piped. "The great Light Lord Neville Longbottom is going to vanquish the Dark Lord...Frilly Pink."
A/N: 'til next chapter!