Yay! Updates!

I'm so flattered by how much everyone seems to love this story and I'm so glad that people seem to like Dany and Sirius and their crazy family as much as I do!

Also, the politics surrounding the Ministry is going to dominate the next two or three chapters just to really get it out of the way and prevent from dragging it out over the entire fic.

Read and Review!

Love, Essie

I'll ride my bike up to the road
Down the streets right through the city
I'll go everywhere you go
From Chicago to the coast
You tell me, "Hit this and let's go
Blow the smoke right through the window"
'Cause this is all we know

~All We Know, The Chainsmokers

Dany loved having her family at home. She loved having Rhaegar and her niece and nephew and her sister-in-law in the house. She loved having Harry and she loved sleeping next to her husband at night. She didn't love having Fudge as Minister of Magic. Apparently David Jones shared her opinion on the matter because he approached her in early November about it.

"Dan? There's someone here to see you." Shay said and Dany looked up from where she was sitting at the kitchen table with Harry and Mason, attempting to help them with their math.

"Who is it?"

"He says he's from the Wizengamot." She said and Dany nodded.

"Let him in." She said and Shay walked back out. "How about you two get this tidied up, huh?" She asked Mason and Harry. "I bet your dad could help with those numbers, Mason." She said and suddenly a man walked in. Dany stood up to shake his hand. "David; a pleasure as always. What can I do for you?" She asked and motioned for him to take a seat as the kids quickly gathered up their homework and left. He sat and she sat back down in her original place. Dany suspected that the kids were listening around the corner.

"Danilynn. Actually, I've just come to ask you to read something over for me. I'm going to present it to the Wizengamot in a couple of weeks and think that someone ought to read it over for rhetorical errors." He said and she nodded before he handed her the parchment. Her eyes widened as she read.

"I'm assuming that there's another reason that you came to me in particular?" She asked and he nodded.

"There is. There's going to be a hearing and I'm afraid that I have horrible public speaking skills and suffer from debilitating stage fright. I came here tonight not only for your opinion on the rhetoric and for your blessing. I'd also like to ask you to speak in my stead." He said and she hesitated.

"You have my blessing completely and I'll be more than happy to look it over for you, but I'll need to talk to my husband about speaking on your behalf. Anything regarding the Minister we agreed to talk about beforehand." She said and he nodded.

"I expected as much. I'll leave this with you then. How much time do you think you'll need?" He asked and she examined it.

"A few days. I can probably get it done by Friday." She said and he nodded before standing back up. Dany stood with him and they started to walk towards the door.

"When I come back to retrieve this, can I assume that I'll get your answer on whether or not you'll speak at the hearing?" She nodded.

"You'll have your answer by then." She said and he nodded before putting on his coat and opening up the door. "Keep warm on your way down the driveway, David." She said and he nodded.

"I'll speak to you again on Friday, Lady Black." He said and she almost didn't realize that he was speaking to her. The title still caught her off-guard. She nodded and he walked down the porch steps and back out into the snow.

"Sirius!" She yelled and he walked out of the living room.

"Everything okay?" He asked and she nodded.

"Yeah, yeah everything's okay. We need to talk though. In private." She said quietly and he looked like he had no idea what she was talking about but nodded.

"Okay. Let's go up to our room to keep the little ones from overhearing." He said and she nodded before following her husband up into their bedroom. He closed the door and turned around to look at her, leaning against her dresser.

"David Jones was just here." Sirius looked surprised. It wasn't everyday that a random member of the Wizengamot showed up asking for Dany, and not her brother, completely unannounced.

"What did he want?" She sat down on the foot of their bed.

"He came here for three things. He wants me to look over legislation that he's presenting to the Wizengamot in a few weeks for rhetorical errors and the like. He also wanted my blessing on the legislation." She said and Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"Why would he need your blessing?" He asked skeptically.

"Because he wants to enter legislation to remove Fudge from office." She said and Sirius immediately got a look on his face like someone had slapped him across the face. He hadn't been expecting that.

"What? Are you serious?" She nodded. "I'm assuming you said yes." She nodded. "No shocker there…so why are we talking about this in private?" He asked and she hesitated.

"That's the third thing. David has…unfortunate public speaking skills and he asked me to speak on his behalf. I didn't tell him yes or no; I said that I had to talk about it with you and I'd let him know by Friday." She said and her husband's mouth dropped open.

"Speak on his behalf? In front of the Wizengamot?" She nodded and Sirius started to pace. "Are you mad? Why would you do that?"

"If I did it, I'd do it for Rhaegar and for Mason." She said softly.

"What if it doesn't work though? We work for the Ministry, Dan. If you do this and the Wizengamot doesn't move to impeach him, what will happen to our jobs? What will happen to us in general? Fudge could accuse you of some fake treason charge and get you put away for the rest of your life." He said and she nodded.

"I know he could." She said and stood up to wrap her arms around her husband. He stopped pacing and put his arms around her shoulders. They stood like that in the middle of their room for a long time, not moving. Dany was eyelevel with his chest and could hear his heartbeat she was pressed so closely to him.

"You could go to Azkaban for this if it falls through." He said and it was obvious that he was thinking of ways this could go as wrong as humanly possible.

"I know I could." She responded and he started rubbing her back slowly.

"We've lost too much time to that place as it is." He said and she nodded.

"We have."

"Do you want to do it?" He asked her and she hesitated. She'd do anything for her brother, even at the cost of her life, but she didn't know if she could do this to Sirius and to Harry. If it weren't for them, she'd be halfway to London to start talking to the right people.

"I don't know." She murmured. "I think David should go ahead with it, I really do…I don't know if I want to address the Wizengamot though." She added on.

"It's your choice, love. Just promise me that you'll think about the consequences, okay? No matter what you decide, I'll back you up." He said and she nodded.

"Thank you." She said and he kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes and neither of them moved.

"I love you."

"I love you too." She whispered. This was going to be one hell of a decision. "We should put Harry to bed." She said and he nodded. "It's almost ten."

"Harry! Get ready for bed." Sirius yelled out the door and received a distant affirmative answer in response. Dany and Sirius walked into Harry's room and waited for him to get out of the shower, neither of them speaking. Dany should have known that she was going to marry him based on the fact that silence was always comfortable. Harry walked out of the bathroom with a head of wet hair.

"Did you brush your teeth?" Dany asked and he nodded. "Good. Come on, let's get you into bed." She said and he climbed into bed and Dany pulled the covers up over him. "I love you, Harry. I love you so much." She whispered into his hair. He hugged her.

"I love you, Dan."

"Love you, Harry."

"Love you too, Padfoot." He said and they walked out of his room, leaving their precious little boy to sleep peacefully.

Friday came way too fast and Dany had only read David's draft fifty times, trying to find any chink in the armor. Rhaegar had no idea; Dany wanted him in the dark in case this somehow ended up on his doorstep, despite the fact he was never directly mentioned. Dany had been sleeping like absolute shit since David had come over to talk to her, so when Sirius woke up Friday morning and kissed her head, she was already awake and had just been lying with her head on his chest out of habit and because he liked having her there. She had never actually slept; she had been up all night, trying to make her decision.

"Morning." She said quietly. He ran a hand down her arm and then through her hair.

"Good morning to you too, beautiful." He said groggily. Sappy Sirius only ever really made an appearance when he was just waking up. She smiled a little, despite herself and despite the fact that he couldn't see her face. She rolled over to kiss him and he kissed her back sloppily. "Happy Friday. Long live the weekend." He said after she stopped kissing him. She smiled.

"Long live the weekend…" She murmured. He ran a finger down the side of her face lightly.

"Do you know what you're going to do about David?" He asked and she nodded.

"I know what I'm going to do. Do you know what I'm going to do?" She asked with a small smile.

"Let me guess. You've been up and agonizing all week about this?" She nodded. "And you've been weighing the pros and cons at night because I know you haven't been sleeping. Don't pretend like you're sleeping at night." She nodded. "And now that the time to make a decision has come, you're going to go with your heart and disregard all of your thinking." She nodded again.

"Am I really that predictable?" She asked and he laughed and kissed her.

"You're so unpredictable that you're predictable." He said and she kissed the tip of his nose.

"So what did I decide?" She asked and he shrugged. He didn't want her to make the speech and he didn't want her to get anymore involved than she already was with this impending legislative disaster and she didn't blame him. As unhappy as her speaking on the legislation would make him, he'd back her up.

"I want to read that speech before you give it. Someone has to check and make sure that you're not rambling." He said and she smiled before shaking her head. "What? I don't get to read it?" He asked disbelievingly. She shook her head again. "Wow, there goes all of my husband perks. Do I least get to keep having sex with my beautiful wife? Even if I don't get to read her speeches." He said and she laughed before nodding.

"Hm, I think that you can keep that particular perk of marriage…and you don't get to read the speech because there isn't going to be one." She said quietly and he raised an eyebrow.

"What? Really?" She nodded. "You're not just screwing with me right now, are you?" He clarified and she shook her head and kissed him.

"I'm being very serious. I'm not going to do it because you were right; I could be sent to Azkaban or we could lose our jobs or Fudge could make a problem of our custody of Harry. Being there for Harry and staying with you is more important to me. I'm Rhaegar's sister, but I'm also your wife and Harry's mother. Rae doesn't get immediate priority over either of you. Besides, I'm not irreplaceable, David can find someone else to speak for him." She said and he grinned and kissed her.

"Repeat that. Not the whole thing, just the first two or so sentences." He said and she looked at him curiously. "I really like hearing those three little words." He said and she laughed.

"What? You like hearing that you were right?" He nodded. "Well you were right." She said and he laughed victoriously.

"I love you so much. I'm glad you decided to say no…I really am." He said and she touched his face gently. "What made you decide?" He asked curiously.

"You did." She said and he raised an eyebrow. "I had no idea what I was going to do when you woke up this morning."

"Oh really?"

"Really. But you woke up and you kissed me and you called me beautiful. I had forgotten how sappy you were right when you woke up and I realized that I had to relearn all of those things about you because you were in Azkaban…I never want to lose all of that. I never want to forget all of those little things ever again; I'm not willing to take that risk, not with you and not with Harry." She said very quietly and he kissed her so sweetly that it could only really be described as loving. She kissed him back and someone opened the door.

"Oh, ew. Harry, your parents are in bed together and they're kissing!" Mason yelled from the doorway.

"Mason, has anyone ever taught you about knocking on doors before walking through them?" Sirius asked his nephew and Mason's eyes widened before he nodded and ran off. Dany smothered her laughter into her husband's bare chest and he shook his head. "Oh my…well, we best get up; we need to get to work." He said and Dany nodded before moving off of him and getting out of bed.

David had been disappointed by Dany's refusal to speak for him, but he said that he understood that her main concern was her husband and child. He thanked her for looking over the legislation and said he'd be bringing it to the table the next time the Wizengamot convened. Dany wasn't worried about that; introducing legislation to the Wizengamot was scripted and a trained monkey could do it.

The Monday after Dany had returned the legislation to David, Fudge came storming into the Department, all but frothing at the mouth. He suddenly slammed the door to Dany's office open; she looked up, surprised but not startled. She had been expecting Moody with that kind of entrance.

"Cornelius. May I ask what you're doing here?" She said, putting her quill down and discreetly flipping her papers over. He slapped the newspaper down in front of her. She looked at it and it appeared that David had brought impeaching Fudge to the table over the weekend. "Oh, well that's unfortunate." She said.

"How?" He snarled.

"Excuse me?" She said.

"How did you manage to convince someone that they should remove me from office? Is David Jones under the Imperious Curse? That's punishable with life in Azkaban." He said and Dany raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't convince David of anything and I promise you that if he is indeed under a spell, it's not of my doing. I know what you're thinking, Cornelius; Rhaegar is not behind this. I've said it a million times to a million different people and I'll say it again to you: my brother didn't come back to become Minister. He just wanted to come home and raise his children. Wanting to return to the country you grew up in isn't a crime." She said, leaning back in her chair casually; trying to subliminally push the idea that she was in control of this conversation. He lost his grip on reality if he thought he was no longer in control of a situation. He became erratic and made stupid decisions, which was exactly what she wanted him to do.

"We both know that that isn't true; it can't be true. He wants me out. I know he does."

"Have you seen Rhaegar make any sort of effort to remove you from your position? Is there any indication to contradict what I've just told you?" She asked calmly and she got a fuming silence in answer. "I thought not. Now, if you're done attempting to incriminate my family for something we haven't done, there are things that require my attention that are more pressing than false accusations and political posturing against imagined competition." She said and Fudge looked outraged. "Good day, Cornelius." She said and picked her quill back up, returning to the letter she had been writing to the Spanish Minister of Magic. Fudge stormed back out of her office, slamming the door again. Dany looked up at the closed door and shook her head, unable to completely fight the urge to smile. Bloody idiot.

Dany walked out of her office a few hours later and she realized very quickly that Fudge had left the door open during their conversation.

"…And then she tells him that she has more important things to do than talk to him. It was bloody brilliant…did you see his face when he walked out? He looked even more livid than when he walked in…he doesn't stand a chance…gone inside a fortnight…" Dany shook her head slightly and knocked on Moody's door.

"Alastor?" She said and she got what sounded like a positive sound so she opened the door.

"Danilynn. What do you need?" He asked and she closed the door behind her. She sat down in one of the chairs near his desk.

"I wanted to talk to you about Fudge." She said and he raised an eyebrow.

"What about him?" He asked critically. "Is this about that little pissing contest you two had in your office this morning?" Dany ignored the last comment.

"Actually, I was just going to ask what he was like when he worked with Rhaegar, under Dad I mean. He hates Rae too much for there not to be history." She said and Moody seemed interested in the question and thought about it for a minute. Dany took the time to take one of the chips on his desk left over from his lunch.

"Well, I didn't know him personally until he became Minister. Your father and brother would both talk about him occasionally though. He came from essentially nothing, to the best of my knowledge. Daniel would say that he was…interested in blood purity, much more so than your father or brother ever were. Despite this, Daniel kept him close and chose to watch him; he couldn't be joining up with Voldemort if he was right under the Minister of Magic's nose. He wasn't very impressive at the start of his career; things really picked up for him when he married Christina. See, he was quite dreadful at dealing with dirty politics until she came around and did it for him. So, by the time that your brother entered the Ministry, immediately brought in as Fudge's equal to work directly under your father, Cornelius was used to being in power and having people answering to him. You know your brother better than anyone so I don't have to tell you that Rhaegar didn't answer to him." Dany snorted. That would be an understatement.

"To the best of my knowledge, Rhaegar didn't have any particular problem with Fudge until Fudge attempted to falsify complaints about him and deliver them to Daniel." Dany raised an eyebrow. "It was partially successful for a bit, but the complaints became so ridiculous that your father ignored them. He knew his son and there was no way that Rhaegar was walking about throwing the word 'Mudblood' around." No shit, he wouldn't. She wasn't the first to get into a fight over that word. "Naturally when Daniel took his son's side, Fudge grew even more resentful of your brother because it appeared that the Minister was playing favorites with his own son. As far as I know, things went along that way, both men disliking each other and Fudge having a serious case of sour grapes until your parents—and seemingly your brother—were killed." Dany winced. "I can stop here, if you don't want to hear about this, Dany." He said and she shook her head.

"No, keep going. It's interesting and I need to know. That night still hurts to think about." She said and he nodded.

"I'm sure it does. There are some things you can't forget." She nodded. "Now, because of Fudge's position, he should have been immediately instated as Minister, at least as an interim, except something happened he hadn't seen coming: there was a living Masters. You." Dany's head jerked up. "There were whispers of people wanting you to be Minister and Cornelius was outraged that even now, everyone was still playing Rhaegar, your entire family, as their favorite. People would rather an inexperienced girl who was carrying the surname Black become Minister. He was twenty-five and you had only been able to legally drink for a year and people still wanted to put you in the highest position possible. It made it worse when you declined and he was chosen as an obvious backup plan."

"I had no idea that so many people had wanted me to actually consider it."

"Did you ever? Actually consider it, I mean. I never asked." He said.

"I thought about it for a bit, not very seriously though. Politics was never my calling and I knew Rae was alive. If he came back, we would have been playing musical chairs with being Minister. I'm better off here." She said thoughtfully.

"Well that certainly explains a lot…anyways, there was such an outpouring of support to you when your parents were killed that it seemed to him that Daniel and Rhaegar were both haunting him from the grave. As years passed, he obviously hoped that your family and the—for lack of a better word—dynasty that they had left behind would be left to the history books. But as you rose up as an Auror, you were in the papers more and more often. It bothered him that even though you were, in most respects, normal, you still could make the front page of Witch Weekly because of a dress or haircut. That faded for a few years, to his relief, and yours if I have to take a guess." Dany nodded. It had been fantastic. Moody continued.

"Then Sirius was released from Azkaban and you were back onto the front page, this time with a husband and Harry next to you; then just as that seemed to calm down, Rhaegar was back and people were writing 'invictus' over fireplaces in the atrium and people were starting talk up about your family. He's paranoid. My guess is when he saw the legislation, he immediately retreated back into the vendetta against your brother he's had for more than a decade. He doesn't want to consider that people might want them gone of their own accord." Moody finished up. Dany nodded.

"It makes sense, in a twisted kind of way. It really breaks down to his ego, doesn't it? People don't dislike him, they just like Rhaegar more." She said thoughtfully and Moody nodded.

"Essentially. How closely did you look at that article?" Dany shrugged.

"Not very. Fudge's eyes were boring into my forehead at the time."

"Enough people supported it that there's going to be a trial. It's in a week. I know you knew about this already, Dan." She nodded.

"David came to me and asked me to revise it." She said.

"I could tell. They had excerpts from it in the article; David's a smart man, but that had the refined political touch of a Masters on it. He couldn't have done that on his own. Rhaegar has no idea, does he?" Dany shook her head. "I thought not. Did you know that Mr. Jones has terrible public speaking skills?"

"I know. He told me; he asked me to speak on his behalf, but I turned him down. I don't need to end up Azkaban; I can't do that to Harry and to Sirius."

"That was a tough choice you had to make, girlie." She nodded.

"It was. It really was…I'll let you get back to your work, Alastor. Thanks for the chat." She said and left his office, closing the door behind her. Sirius found her almost immediately.

"I heard about your little…spat with Fudge." He said and she shrugged.

"What was a supposed to do? He wasn't exactly leaving me with a huge list of options." She said and he grinned as he followed her into her office.

"So you were getting aggressive because Rhaegar's future was at stake?" He asked and she grinned.

"I absolutely was. Don't threaten my family; I'm a mom now, I'll rip your head off." She laughed.

"I just wanted to tell you that it's so incredibly hot when you get all protective." He said and she laughed. "I'm not joking either."

"Probably all of those dormant paternal instincts kicking in with Harry around. It's kind of funny seeing that you spent all of your teenage years swearing off kids." She said and he laughed a little.

"But seriously, I really wish I could have been there to see you destroy Fudge." He said and she smiled. "It sounds incredible."

"You think I'm bad now? Do you have any idea how protective I'll be if we ever have little ones of our own? Pregnancy turns women into possessive Momma Bears." She said and he laughed.

"You'll make an adorable pregnant woman, Dan." He said and she was taken aback by the certainty in that statement. It was always "if we have kids" not "when we have kids". She was always socareful to say "if".

"There's no such thing. The pregnant glow is a myth." She retorted.

"Whatever you say. I mean I think everything you do is cute, so I'm totally biased and will absolutely think you're the cutest thing ever when you're pregnant; especially because you'll be carrying my child." He said and shrugged before he left. They were able to leave the office in peace that night.