Chapter 2; The Ministry To The Rescue. (Because, really, what else is more important than capturing a preteen boy?)
Cornelius Fudge stepped out of the Headmasters floo with as much dignity the Minister of Magic should have. (meaning he knocked his head on the bricks, stumbled around the room for a short while before finally catching his balance by grabbing the back of a chair.)
If it wasn't so dire, Albus would've chuckled a little and twinkled a bit more at his visitor. But considering the situation at hand, he felt it best to instead view this memory later and mock it then. In the privacy of his own mind, of course.
"I managed to switch around some silly meetings, and push back some documents, to arrive as fast as I could." Fudge looked rather proud of the fact. But it escaped his notice (or he didn't care) that he just put off the salary for the majority of healers, quite a few Aurors, and Madam Malkin (who wanted reimbursement for the damage several drunk Aurors did two days ago, and she wanted it now, dammit!), which in turn was currently resulting in a small riot at the Ministry.
"Well I'm sure they'll understand." Albus twinkled at him merrily. Though they didn't understand, sadly not, they were currently storming the Atrium. After easily knocking out and taking captive Eric Munch, the wizard who registers visitors wands, they took over the lifts and refused to let anyone on or off, which was causing all kinds of chaos for all departments in the building.
"Get on with it then, what was this big emergency that I had to meet with you over? I am a very important man, I'll have you know." Fudge puffed up. Dumbledore rolled his eyes when Fudge turned away to play with the silver gadgets on his mantel. Just how this man was voted for Minister was beyond him.
"Yes, yes, I am well aware of that fact. Also I'm glad you could clear some time, but as you know this year is a very special year for Hogwarts and the magical community of Britain." Albus paused to let that nugget of knowledge sink into the Minister's mind. Fudge looked remarkably like a lemming while he stared blankly at the Headmaster.
"You know...? a certain boy is going to be arriving...?" Albus was slowly growing frustrated. Fudge, meanwhile, still looked lost in his own head.
"Harry Potter is going to be in attendance." He finally clued in Fudge.
Fudge jumped as if startled, then began nodding furiously. "Oh! Yes, I knew that." He smiled with pride, trying to hide the fact that he completely forgot.
"Of course, it's just that we at Hogwarts are quite worried about the poor boys safety." Dumbledore quickly thought of a way of wording this so that it didn't become known that The-Boy-Who-Lived thought magic users were pedophiles. "And for his trip to Diagon Alley, I was hoping you'd be able to persuade one of the Aurors to...escort him on his welcome back to the wizarding world."
Fudge was happily nodding along. "Capital idea! I should have looked into this earlier, but once again I am a busy man. But of course the boy will need a bodyguard at all times! I'll get right to that, and by the end of today the Harry Potter will return!"
Before Albus Dumbledore could interject Fudge was already gone. The old man collapsed back into his chair in horror, this would not turn out well.
On the bright side, at least he himself didn't have to try and capture the boy now.
"What are you on about now?" Petunia Dursley squeaked out. Surely the boy couldn't know about that...that...that freakishness! Looking at Vernon she noticed he was growing rapidly pale. She only prayed her precious Dudders would stay at his friends house for awhile.
"It's a valid concern!" Harry yelled out and stomped his foot. When he got back to Privet Drive he immediately cornered his aunt and uncle in the living room and begun to try and explain that it was not okay to sell him for more money. They didn't even pay attention until he started in on his attempted buyer, a man (beard) who wears dresses.
"Times are getting tough I know, believe me I know, but it is definitely unacceptable to sell me to a freak with a dress fetish! Besides, the man looked older than dirt!" Harry glared at his relatives.
"This is complete rubbish! We have not tried to sell you to anyone-"
"Exactly, you didn't try to, you succeeded!" Harry interrupted, but quieted under the twin harsh glares he was receiving.
"We never tried to sell you to anyone!" Vernon roared.
"Liars! You tried to sell me to Bumblebee." Harry stomped both feet at once (just to make his point). Petunia gasped and covered her mouth with one hand.
"Dumbledore? The man said his name was Dumbledore?" She spat the name as she demanded, grabbing Harry's shoulders and shaking him like a rattle. Harry swatted her hands away immediately, he'd had far enough of people trying to man handle him for one day.
"Yeah yeah, that was it. Stupid name, anyway. Who names their child Dumbledore? His parents must've hated him." Harry stopped and shook his head before continuing on with his tirade. "And that's another thing, I will not be owned by any person with a name like Dumbledore."
Vernon closed his eyes and counted to ten while Petunia palmed her face.
Why, oh why, couldn't they have a perfectly normal nephew?
Harry saw they were struck speechless at all the wrongdoings on their part that were pointed out by him, he mentally gave himself a pat on the back. Now that there wouldn't be any selling of his person, he decided that he could stop his argument.
"I'll take your silence as an apology, and while I'll be watching your every move like a hawk for the time being, I'll be able to look past this incident." He then started to head in the direction of the kitchen for a celebratory snack, when the front door was blast open with a blue light. Men with burgundy dresses poured into the front hall.
Whirling around to glare at his relatives, who looked on in horror and fear (at being caught in the act of trying to auction him off again, he was certain), were currently frozen on the couch.
"Didn't we just have a discussion about you selling me to strange men?" Glancing at the men who were pointing sticks at him, he scoffed and turned to proceed to the kitchen.
"I'm not for sale, you're welcome to take Dudley though." He called over his shoulder, just seconds before one of the cross-dressers came to his senses and shot a red light at him from his stick.
John Dawlish barged angrily through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, throwing people out of his way (some Aurors even dived out of his path before they would be within arm distance).
Grumbling to himself he kicked in the office of Amelia Bones and slammed the door behind him. Amelia just glanced at him in amusement. He decided right then if he was ever going to snap and start AK'ing people left and right, she'd be the first to go. Because really, this was starting to get ridiculous.
"This is the fifteenth cat that I have been sent to rescue from a tree this week! I swear the next cat I see I'm going to chuck into a burlap sack and drown the little beast." Now normally he didn't have any anger problems, in fact most people would say he was an easy going kind of guy, but that was before the cats, no scratch that, the little demon spawns from hell, decided to get stuck in trees every time he was on duty.
"I see...and how exactly does your personal problems pertain to me?" Amelia closed the open file she was reading through and clasped her hands in her lap. Dawlish gave her a shrewd look, reached toward the little statue of a unicorn she had on her desk, and promptly smacked it off. He gave a satisfied smile at the crack that resounded in the tiny room, but his faced dropped when instead of getting angry like how he was, Bones just raised an eyebrow and cast a reparo at the figurine. Dawlish promptly stomped the newly repaired figurine to dust under his boot.
Amelia raised her eyes heavenwards and sighed deeply, why did the Aurors insist on acting like toddlers?
"No more cats! No more! I will do anything else besides fetch cats out of trees." Dawlish proclaimed as he folded his arms over his chest. Amelia glanced at the closed file on her desk and then back at him with a delighted smile, and his blood ran cold at the look.
"Of course...I can put you on this new case." Amelia clapped in delight, threw the file at him then forcefully shoved him out of her office. Dawlish glared at the workers who looked up at the door slamming behind him and walked back to his cubicle. Once comfortably seated he flipped through the file.
He suddenly decided he didn't mind retrieving small animals from woodwork. But it was too late.
There were twenty of the finest Aurors crowded in the Ministers office.
Cornelius gleefully told them their mission.
Seven of them suddenly remembered that they had very important documents that needed to be looked at immediately.
Dawlish wished he would've hopped on that bandwagon as the Minister prattled on about how they had to make sure to get back, with the boy (hopefully unharmed), at the chosen meeting place within half an hour. Some of his starstruck comrades wouldn't shut up about meeting their savior. It seems that it escaped their tiny little brains that the Minister told them that the kid didn't even know magic existed.
All it took was one of the newbies to go flying out of the lift before the other Boy-Who-Lived groupies got the message.
Now they were down to twelve. And the other eleven were presently huddled on the complete other side of the lift, basically trying to become one with the wall.
Dawlish muttered a prayer to Merlin for strength not to kill anyone, one of the younger members started crying.
Once through the Atrium to the outgoing floos, Dawlish glared at his comrades and angrily called out his destination. The others hesitatingly followed at a much slower place.
Gracefully stepping out of the destination fireplace, Dawlish started twitching.
There were cats. Everywhere.
One by one the others quickly cluttered up the small living room (at least it would've looked like a living room if there wasn't a small beast every two steps). Out of the doorway a little old lady's head popped up, startling the group.
"Well it's about time!" she huffed and the kitten kneazle mix was knocked off her shoulder. "I swear, youngsters these days have no sense of time. You were suppose to get her over a half hour ago. The door's through the hallway to your left." She threw them one last disgusted look and her head disappeared from view again.
Still twitching Dawlish just stood there in a stupor. Williamson (he unfortunately was the youngest of the group...well he was now that Dawlish threw Savage out of the lifts) was the unlucky one sent to talk to their (group decided) leader.
"Uh..sir? What do we do now?" Williamson squeaked out. Dawlish looked from the door to the cats, who all decided that they liked the homicidal man and were curently rubbing against his legs. Kicking one (who bounced and then landed on the couch with an irritated growl), he mumbled something about making new robes and headed out of the room to the door. The other Aurors followed nervously.