Chapter seven

Harry was once again sitting behind his desk, Minerva was sitting facing the desk and they were both waiting for the minister of magic to arrive. Even though Harry was still nervous, wondering just how he will go as headmaster when he was only eighteen. He could deny he was also excited.

'Dumbledore always offered me a lemon drop. You always offered me a biscuit, I wonder what I will offer everyone.'

Minerva sniggered, 'I'm sure you will discover what takes your fancy.'

'So apart from all the paperwork and meetings with the governors, do I have to deal with anyone else at the ministry?'

'Only me,' Kingsley smiled as he stepped out of the fireplace, brushing down his robes.

'I think I could handle those meetings…Minister.'

'Oh, the headmaster has gone all formal on me,' Kingsley chuckled then pulled Harry to his feet and hugged him.

'I do not believe I have known any other headmaster to hug the minister for magic,' Minerva laughed.

'If we weren't friends before either of us got these jobs then we probably wouldn't. But considering who the last minister's were, I doubt anyone would want to hug them. I might have worked with Rufus for years, but he also did the wrong thing and he began making mistakes the moment he took the job. I on the other hand am determined not to follow in their footsteps,' Kingsley grinned down at Harry, 'You will do a wonderful job Harry, but now the start of all that paperwork you will hate,' Kingsley put a file down on the desk then took a seat beside Minerva, 'It all needs to be filled out, every page and a lot of signatures.'

Harry shook his head at the amused look on Kingsley's face. He knew when the many became minister, he probably had to sign a lot of forms as well.

'So, you had to do something like this when you became minister?'

'I did, I ended up with a sore hand and ink everywhere.'

'Ah,' Harry grinned then reached into his pocket for a pen, 'I like quills, but I hate having to keep reloading them. I think I'll use a muggle fountain pen, not so messy either.'

'It was suggested a long time ago, but as we've both explained, the people that ran the ministry believed that would be turning ourselves into muggles,' Minerva said.

'I don't see how, using something like this would be better than an ink and quill. It's the same with normal pens. I saw it many times, young kids, even myself, we spilt our ink all over our work, some can be siphoned off, but not all and it does tend to smudge a lot. Quills are also harder to write with, especially for people raised in the muggle world. Pens also cost a lot less than quills. We could still use quills and ink, but not all the time. If using something like this benefits the students or even the staff then they should be offered, it's up to the individual to choose.'

'Yes, it is and once you let everyone know it is a choice then I can see more using those pens then quills. Some will remain stubborn and stick with the old ways; that is there choice.'

'I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to change us all to act like muggles, but some things are better. You could argue we already use many muggle things, like the Hogwarts express, swords and crossbows. It's like the bugging device I spoke to Hermione and Ron about. He thought I was going to place bugs on someone, but I explained how the military, the police, they use these to listen in or watch suspects. Now an animagi could do what Skeeter did and no one would ever know, and no one controlled her. But an auror could find out more if he could use something like a bugging device or a tracking device, but only after it's approved by the appropriate people, like yourself.'

'Moody mentioned them once, he's a half-blood and his father who was a muggle-born told him how his father was in the army. He wanted to find a way to adapt a listening device to someone, but it was denied, again being classed as muggle. You are right though Harry, the Hogwarts express is a train that was invented by muggles. We just use magic to load the coal and it goes a lot quicker than the same type of train in the muggle world. I'm sure we could come up with dozens of items that we use that were invented by muggles.'

'I could probably name a lot. Anyway, when will this get released?'

'The day Hogwarts is ready to take students. We want everyone to relax, to see that our world is safe and to hear about some things that we are releasing. Like how we are going to use certain muggle ideas to make our own magical versions.'

'So it won't be such a shock when I explain about some changes at Hogwarts.'

'Exactly and Minerva explained about the computer's being used instead of the library books. I admit I used to hate searching the library for the right book, then to search through those pages to find what I was looking for. But what I like about this idea is the books that are very old will not be damaged as they have been. The more they are touched the more the magic around them wears. It might take another thousand years but eventually nothing will stop them falling apart. We will keep them here but if we can use a computer than those books will last a lot longer since most of the students will not want to use the old books.'

'Okay, losing those books would be bad, but why not make copies of the books, especially the rare ones? Then the original ones can be placed in a secure vault, the students that wish to use the book will not cause damage to such an old and rare book. They do it in the muggle world, rare or books that have only one of the original copies left will be placed in vaults, not like Gringotts, but specialized vaults with glass and the air is the right temperature and that type of thing. The copies are out there for anyone to buy or borrow, but the originals are always safe. I don't know much about this, but I remember reading about the Vatican, the Catholic church do that with some of the oldest books on earth. We can still use computers but the books won't be so fragile.'

'You are made for this job Harry. I might send someone to find out about these vaults. We have lost some very rare books over the years, which means we have lost some rare spells. It's time we do all we can to protect things like books, they are our history. How does Irma feel about this idea Minerva?'

'She is in two minds right now. She wishes to protect her books but she does not like the idea of using some electrical box to read. I believe it's just her way; she is a pure-blood and has never been involved with the muggle world. I think her love of protecting the books will win her over in the end.'

'I don't want to upset her, but it would still be the student and staff's choice. We will need someone to teach everyone how to use the computers and we will need to scan every page of every book into the computer. I know magic will make that go faster, but it still needs to be done.'

'Even though it would be good to have enough computers up and running by the time the students return, it might not be possible. We might have to limit how many are for use, just to begin with,' Minerva said.

'That's the thing, all we need to do is one computer and link them, they join so each computer will be able to access whatever we put on one. Now with the students and privacy, I know you can set passwords to files, so say I wanted to save some work but I didn't want anyone cheating by copying because they can't be bothered doing the work. I save whatever documents I want; then make sure I have a password. Now if someone tries to open my file the computer would ask for the password. It will be best to tell the students to not use a name or numbers that could be guessed, like names of parents, or their date of birth. Like me, I wouldn't use the name Sirius; or Padfoot because too many people would know. Things like Godric's Hollow or Firebolt would be out, even quidditch. I could use something that has nothing to do with me, like a potion ingredient with a couple of numbers either before or after, but numbers that no one would guess, so 31 would be out, 7 would also be out, the number 80 or 81 are also out. I could go with porcupine quill with 04 as I like the number four but it's not something I've ever told anyone, until now.'

'We need to get this up and running, but first Harry you need to start the paperwork to make it official.'

'Alright, but one more question, things like computers and scanners aren't cheap, does Hogwarts have a budget for that?'

'As I told you, we confiscated all the vaults that belonged to convicted death eaters. Now if they had family then only part was confiscated. Take the Lestrange vault for example, Bellatrix is dead, Rodolphus is in Azkaban for life, Rabastan is dead and none had any children. Now it could have been argued that the contents of their vaults could have been shared with Andromeda and you along with Draco. Andromeda as she was the sister to Bellatrix, you were left everything by Sirius, the last official Black.'

'I don't want it,' Harry said quickly.

'No, I didn't think you would and Andromeda said the same thing. She did not want anything that belonged to a death eater even if that death eater was her sister. We are still giving the victims some but a good portion of that money has been allocated to Hogwarts as we are trying to modernise it. But one thing Harry, we will not be buying muggle computers; the department at the ministry was able to work on one of our own. It will use a wand to activate the information needed. I will go into that tomorrow when I take you to the ministry to show you what we have now that came from muggle gadgets. Now unless you are having second thoughts or trying to stall, fill out those forms which will make you the Hogwarts headmaster, officially.'

'Yes…Minister,' Harry saluted making Minerva chuckle but Kingsley who had been scowling ended up laughing, but he knew he was going to like working with Harry. Minerva knew the same thing. Now as they watched Harry, they realised it was about to happen. Harry Potter was the headmaster of Hogwarts and the both of them would be working closely with the young man.