Chap. 51: The Magic Eye, Rufus and Robards, Mercy, the Security Council, Pieces of Eight, and the One Twenty One Two
When Harry walked into the office at The Magic Eye on Friday, the 6th, Rita was the only employee that had arrived that early, so Harry passed her by and made himself a cuppa before sitting down just across the table from his yellow-pen journalist.
"How's Batty?" Rita asked while reading over her notes.
Harry took a sip of his tea and sat his cup down before he answered. "Some better, but I'm afraid that she may never be able to tend to her own self properly again. She has too many health issues."
"Well," Rita inquired, "where will she go?"
"Oh," said Harry with a sigh, "Daph and I will see to it that she's taken care of."
"You will?"
"Of course," Harry replied. "She helped with me when I was born, and I won't turn my back on her. Besides, she was a good friend to mum.
"No, if I have to, I'll hire a live-in aide. She won't be sent to St. Mungo's unless she's too bad off, which my wife and I have already discussed."
"Hmmm," Skeeter hummed before reading her notes, again.
"Listen, Rita," Harry said, "I know that we'll need to cover what happened to Daph, but I need the article to be short and precise, and everything must be factual. I have to be seen as clean if something were to happen, should I ever become tied to anything regarding the Flints."
"Clean?" Rita questioned with a curious look and snort. "You, clean?"
Harry merely gave her a nod with a cold stare and stood. "I have to be at the ministry, so covertly contact me there if you need anything. By the way, do we have a photo of Flint?"
"Yes, we do, and it's on your desk," Rita stated.
Harry made his way over to his desk, and sure enough, there lay a school photo of Marcus on top of the notes for the story. Harry picked it up, scanned it into his PC, and then printed off seven copies, which he folded up, and slid inside his jacket.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning, Rita."
"What do you make of Potter, Rufus?" Head Auror Robards asked over his morning tea.
"He's a slick one, he is," Rufus mused. "He has a head on him for politics and law, that I can tell you."
"But, what about the magic that he can wield?" Robards inquired. "Rumor is, his family are Warlocks from long ago."
"In the wrong hands," Rufus replied with a sigh, "that can be a bad thing, but in the right hands, very good."
"And his?" Robards questioned.
"Very good, I'd say," Rufus replied. "He doesn't strike me as being another Grindelwald or Dumbledore, nor another You-Know-Who. He has a great love for us and our culture, and he knows that we should be separate from the muggles. No, Gawain, that young man wants nothing but to have a normal wife and magical family, though he'll never be seen as normal.
"I'd say young Harry's myth, right now, is just as great as, or greater than that of Dumbledore's. If he stays in politics, he may even hold my position one day, if what Horace has said about him can be believed."
"Horace does have an uncanny ability to pick them, doesn't he?" Robards remarked as he took the last sip of his tea.
"Yes," Rufus replied, "and I'd say that he's spot on about Harry."
"So," Robards asked, "we should follow him, then?"
"Follow him?"
"In his shadow," Robards clarified, "or in his wake if we want peace in our world."
"He and his new family are neutral for a reason, Gawain," Rufus said as he placed his empty teacup back on its saucer and stood to leave the Head Auror's office. "They know how to give and take, and work with both sides to each's satisfaction in our political realm. So, yes, we should follow in his wake, and back him to our fullest extent. Everything started with the Dumbledores and Grindelwald, which led to You-Know-Who, and I believe that it will be Harry who finally brings that to a conclusion. Then, old friend, we can have peace throughout our retirement."
The floo at the Hog's Head flared up with a green fire, and out of the hearth stepped Harry, covered in soot.
"Damn it, Aberforth," Harry groused, "when was the last time you had that floo cleaned? You know they have a group of house elves for hire to do that!"
"I ain't a payin' out good galleons for a few elves to sweep the bloody floo, Potter," Aberforth snarked as he watched the young Potter heir rid himself of the soot with a twitch of his wand. "Ya here a bit early, ain't ya lad?"
"Just a quick stop for some morning business is all," Harry replied as he made his way over to the bar and sat beside a sniggering Mercy. Harry also noticed that the mercs were the only people there at the moment.
"Give me a cup of that coal oil that you call coffee if you have any left, that is."
"Aye," Aberforth said with a scowl as he stomped off to the back to pour the young mage a cup.
When Aberforth was gone, Harry placed the copies of Flint's photo down in front of Mercy, who quickly looked at them, and then placed them inside his leather vest.
"What do you need?" Mercy said in a low voice.
"You know who that is, I take it?" Harry asked.
"Oh, yes," Mercy said with a nod, "the fucker that messed with your better half. Want us to have a go at him?"
"No, not yet," Harry replied just as Aberforth sat his cuppa down, making Harry scowl.
"Do you ever wash these cups, old man?" Harry remarked with a snarl as he inspected the lipstick stain on the rim of the cup.
"Aye, I let ol' Gellert there lick 'em clean," Aberforth replied with a scowl, and just as the old wethers, which the old barman nodded at in the corner, bleated at Harry.
"If that fucker," Mercy said with a scowl at the goat, "pisses in his beard, again, then I'm leaving."
Here, Harry laughed as he cleaned the outside of his cup with a flick of his wand before taking a drink of the sour coffee. He waited until Aberforth walked over to the tables before he answered Mercy.
"No," Harry finally replied, "I just want your lot to stick to him and his father like glue, and watch who they talk to and where they go. I want to know if anything seems off about them, and if you get a chance, have a look at Marcus' left forearm. I'll let you know more, later."
"All right," Mercy said. "We know they hang around the wizarding quarter at Manchester, but they do come here, and to Diagon Alley on occasion. I'll hand out their photos to our people."
"Good," Harry said, who then took another sip of his sour coffee and grimaced. "I've got to be going as I'm needed at the Ministry. Owl me, or send a Patronus if you hear anything."
At Mercy's nod, Harry left.
Harry closed the most recent book of law on charities, which pertained to the next Wizengamot meeting, looked at his watch, and then stood from his desk. Next, he yawned, stretched, and made his way to Rufus' office, where he had scheduled an emergency meeting earlier that morning.
When he walked up to the reception desk, Mrs. Vane gave him a nod to proceed into the conference room, which caused several to scowl who were waiting their turn for their five minutes with the Minister.
When Harry stepped inside, and after closing the door, he noted that Scrimgeour, Robards, Howard, Croaker, and Thicknesse were all assembled, so he was the last of the lot. It was the full Security Council, which was formed just after Harry had joined the fight with the Ministry of Magic.
Before Harry did anything else, though, he removed a shrunken bottle of Courvoisier XO Cognac from his jacket pocket, which he unshrunk and sat in the middle of the table, and then had Mrs. Vane bring in enough glasses to supply everyone.
After pouring everyone two fingers, and instead of sitting, Harry began to slowly pace by the left-hand paneled wall that separated the conference room from the minister's office. As he paced by, one could have heard a pin drop as Harry chewed over his words. In what felt like several minutes, Harry cleared his throat and spoke.
"Gentlemen," Harry remarked, "I am becoming increasingly worried that the ministry, and our group, will become exposed to the public for, shall I say, some pretty dodgy activities, and I've been thinking over what we should do about that for some time now."
"What do you mean, Harry?" Scrimgeour asked.
"We cannot allow certain things to be traced back to us, nor any of your departments," Harry explained. "No, we need to cover our tracks so that we can have plausible deniability, much like the muggle government has in these matters."
Here, Robards snorted. "Their intelligence services are outed all the time in their news, Harry."
"Ah," Pius replied, "yes, but Lord Potter is correct, as they always slither their way out of it, and nobody can actually trace their covert actions back to them. My brother and I have always been curious about how they can do just that."
"Well put, Pius, well put," Harry said. "I know how they do it and have been doing so since the end of WWII. They hire cutouts to do their dirtiest of deeds, and I think that we should, well, copy them."
"How do they do it," Howard asked, "and what is a cutout?"
"A cutout," Harry explained, "is a private intelligence and security firm, which is generally founded by an ex-government intelligence employee that the government's intelligence agencies hire on the sly. They have been doing the government's covert work more and more, and if caught, the governments can swear that they had nothing to do with it, and they disavow any ties to their actions. The cutout may even be an intermediary between the government and a third group that performs the actions, such as the services of the mercs.
"These cutout companies quickly close shop, when caught, and then just restart their business under a new name later on when the heat's off. Everything is done on the sly, you see.
"The governments launder the money for these operations, which pays the cutouts, and the cutouts, or who they hire, perform the operations. The muggle government of the US, has a group, right now, in the Middle East causing quite the havoc. As a matter of fact, they use several companies, just as do the Muggle Ministry at Whitehall above us."
"I must say," Croaker remarked, "that this is similar to how the DOM was set up to be independent of the Ministry, yet still be a part of the Ministry, itself." At this, Harry nodded.
"My neck is really stuck out here," Harry opined, "what with running The Magic Eye as it is, and I know for a fact that Tom and Albus sent Snape to find out who owns it. His investigation was quite amusing, I must say, where he didn't find anything of use, but I believe that Albus thinks it is the Ministry of Magic behind the smear campaign, and everything else. If he thinks that, then so does his voting bloc.
"My dear wife, you see, caught Snape's surface thoughts about it when he was ill, and I found out that Snape, though gifted in Occlumency as he is, isn't gifted enough to catch my wife, nor my mother-in-law when reading his thoughts."
"I see," Rufus muttered as he took a rather large swig from his glass. "Then, what do you propose we do, Harry?"
"Well, you see..."
Harry and Rufus disapparated from the ministry at two that afternoon to Diagon Alley, where they slowly made their way to Knockturn Alley in the guise of observing and speaking with the public. They didn't have to venture far into the dark and dank narrow alley when they came upon the now-closed Cobb & Webb's, and the Curiosity Shop beside it, which was the very building they entered.
Harry opened the door at the corner of the building, which led to the stairwell, and the two slowly made their way to the second, or top floor, where they stopped before a grimy black door that held a crested-glass window in the top half, which said it was the offices of Messrs Snurge and Snipe, Esquires.
Harry unlocked the door with his wand, and the two entered to look around.
Inside the office was very dirty and dusty, with cobwebs hanging everywhere. The room had no ceiling, and one could see the ancient Cruck frames and rafters above. From that hung several ancient gas lamp chandeliers, which were a new addition from the 1920s or so. The walls were oak paneled from the Tudor days, and the windows were diagonally paned with leaded-in wavy glass. When the two turned from the window, they noticed a dormouse scarper off across the unlevel and wavy oak-planked floor to hide in a hole in the corner just over from an ancient stone fireplace. Rufus couldn't help but scowl at the sight.
"This is it?" Scrimgeour questioned.
"Yup," Harry replied, "it'll do. This will be the offices of St. James's Investigations & Security Service."
"Saint James's?" Rufus inquired with a chortle.
"Yes, well," Harry replied with a smirk, "it's a play on my father's name, and my middle name, as well as St. James the Greater, which is what St. James's Street and Court was really named after.
"I'll hang a new shingle outside that just shows the red Cross of St. James on it, and we'll always refer to them as the 'Pieces of Eight.'"
"Ah, yes, the Spanish connection," Rufus said with a nod, "but why the Pieces of Eight?"
"Well," Harry explained, "there will be seven investigative operatives and one director, making eight employees. If anyone was to hear one of us talking about 'Pieces of Eight' or 'Eight Bits,' then we'll just mention that we were looking for a stash of old Spanish coins. Anytime we mention them, that is what we will call them."
"You have a very calculating and diabolical Slytherin mind, Potter," Rufus remarked, "did I ever tell you that?"
"Why, thank you, Minister!" Harry exclaimed, and then doffed his cap at the old man, making them both snort, and laugh.
At 3:30 in the afternoon, Harry side-along apparated Rufus to a copse of trees at Whitehall Gardens, where Harry led the minister to The Royal Horseguards Hotel.
"Why are we here, Potter?' Scrimgeour asked as he looked at all the muggles milling about.
"Oh, we didn't have time for a good lunch, so I thought that I would treat you to a decent meal at the One Twenty One Two."
"At the what, now?" Rufus inquired with a scowl.
"Oh, heh," Harry replied, "the One Twenty One Two is a nice restaurant and bar inside The Royal Horseguards Hotel. I made our reservations before we left the ministry. I do hope you're up for a good steak?"
Rufus did lick his lips at the thought, Harry caught.
"Why yes," Rufus said, "I do feel a tad peaked I dare say."
"Well, sir," Harry explained as they made their way to the hotel's entrance, "I do hope that you like a good ten-ounce rib eye steak fixed how you like it, with chimichurri, triple cooked chips, slow roast vine tomatoes, and sautéed garlic woodland mushrooms. We'll have a salad with a glass of good bourbon for starters, and I hear that for dessert, they have a very good baked rhubarb & custard tart."
"Lead the way, dear man, lead the way," Rufus stated as he jovially waved his hand toward the hotel's entrance, which made Harry smirk.
Yes, Harry thought, this would begin the covert meeting between he and the minister, where he would sell Rufus on the idea of hiring eight new employees for a new covert arm of the ministry, which would be paid for by ministry funds via shell companies down in the Caribbean. It would free him and Rufus of any dodgy ties, and drive the two main political factions into a frenzy when they tried to trace who was behind everything in the future.
Ah, the coming days were looking up, Harry thought!
A/N: Thanks, everyone, for all the positive reviews!