Harry woke up early that day as he needed to visit Madam Pomfrey before leaving for Malfoy Manor. He had breakfast made by Molly and went to the Hospital Wing. When he arrived there, he was surprised to see the whole Tonks family. They greeted him warmly and invited him to sit with them. He agreed and decided to speak with them while Pomfrey was checking his arm.
"I have to say I am surprised to see you all here that early in the morning. Did you sleep there?" he asked them.
"We didn't, but we are here because Dora is coming home today," they replied.
"You are? That's great!" Harry exclaimed happily.
"Yes, I am. Even though I will be bedridden for a long time, there is no point for me to be there when I can be at home. And Mom, as a healer, can take care of me as well."
"I am very happy to hear that."
"And what are you doing here so early?" asked Madam Pomfrey.
"I am meeting Aurors at 9 A.M. And don't worry, I am not going to work. Yesterday I found out that Malfoy Manor still belongs to the Black Family, and as I am Lord Black, I am the owner, and I can drop the wards to let Aurors in."
"You are lucky that you are not going in with them. You need to rest a bit, young man," ordered Madam Pomfrey.
"I will rest next week. Today, Hermione and I are meeting the Muggle PM, so I can't bail out on this," he replied.
"Make sure you end up resting next week. I have heard from Molly that you had fallen asleep Friday morning and slept for half a day. So it is the best sign that you need to take it easy."
"Next week, I promise. And I am sorry, but I need to go," he then turned to Tonk's family. "I will try to visit you tomorrow as I want to speak to you. Is it ok?"
When he got a positive reply, he stood up, said his goodbye, and left for Malfoy Manor. He Apparated outside of the wards, and when he landed, he saw that Aurors were already there.
"Potter, good that you are already here. We are all ready, so do your job," Robards told him not wasting any time.
He took his wand, took a drop of his blood, and put it onto the ward. When the drop had landed, he intoned out loud, "I, Harry James Potter, as the rightful owner of the Manor, am taking control of the property." The wards buzzed for a second, and he felt that the wards came under his control. A few seconds later, a house-elf appeared before him.
"Welcome, Lord Black. I am Nippy, and I am the head elf of the manor. How can Nippy serve Lord Black?"
"Good morning, Nippy. Show me the way to the wardstone, and please warn me if we will be close to the traps."
"Of course, Lord Black. And don't worry, traps cannot activate to you as you be the owner." She started walking towards the house, and Harry followed her. It took them a few minutes, but they finally arrived at the basement where the wardstone was located.
Harry came closer to the stone and looked at it for a second. It was a big, round stone with runes carved into it. Then he took his wand again to draw his blood. This time it took a bit more than a drop to cover the necessary runes, but when it happened, he simply touched the wardstone with his bloody hand and said "DEACTIVATE." The wards drummed again, and after a moment, he felt that they started to weaken. He waited a few minutes longer until the wards were disabled totally, then took his hand, cleaned it up, and went outside to speak with the Aurors.
"Wards are disabled, you are free to go. Nippy!" he called.
"Yes, Lord Black?"
"Are there more elves here?"
"Yes, there are three more house elves."
"Call them here," he ordered, and mere seconds later, they arrived. He called them as he had a task for them.
"I have an important task for you. Next to me, stands Auror Robards, and for this day, you will take orders from him. You will answer his every question truthfully, and you will show him every secret this house has. Every trap, hidden door, dungeon, everything that Malfoys wanted hidden and you know of, you will show him. Do you understand?" The elves nodded their hands in understanding.
"Thank you, Potter. We had forgotten about elves, and they will be very helpful," said Robards.
"You are welcome. If I am no longer needed here, I will go as I want to speak to Kingsley."
"Kingsley is here somewhere, as he wanted to be present, so you don't need to go to the Ministry."
"Thanks for letting me know," Harry said goodbye and went to look for the Minister. It took him only a minute as he was also looking for him.
"Harry, good to see you!" Kingsley greeted him.
"Hi, Kingsley, I was looking for you. I need to know what exactly you want us to achieve today."
"I need you to do two things. One is to answer his questions about the war. Second, I want you to set up a ground for future cooperation. Try to show him that our Ministry will not be looking down on him, and he will be treated with respect."
"Ok, I am sure we can do this," Harry replied confidently.
"I know. I had asked you because of that," Kingsley smiled at him. They spoke for a few minutes longer, and then they parted ways. Harry Apparated to the Burrow, as they had a bit of time left before they would need to go. When he arrived there, he was welcomed by Bill.
"Hey Harry, how's everything going at the manor?"
"Very good. I managed to get to Wardstone and disable all the wards."
"Dang, I would like to see Wardstone like this someday. I have seen a lot of ancient ones, but I never had the opportunity to see the old Wardstone from Britain," he said wistfully.
"I think you will have that opportunity. Even though Aurors are there, I still want to hire a team from Gringotts to take a look there."
"That would be great," he smiled. They sat in the kitchen, and after a moment, they were joined by Hermione. They spoke for a few minutes, and then Harry excused himself as he needed to change clothes for a more formal event.
A few moments later, Harry went downstairs where Hermione was looking for him.
"Harry, how are we going to get to Downing Street?" she asked.
"We will take the Floo Network to the Leaky Cauldron and then take a taxi," Harry replied.
Hermione agreed to the plan, and after saying goodbye to the Weasleys, they left the Burrow. When they arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, they were happy to see a free taxi waiting for them. They wasted no time and got inside. After a short trip, they soon found themselves close to Downing Street. Harry paid the driver, and after a short walk, they arrived in front of the famous building. Soon enough, they were approached by guards.
"Can we help you?" one of the guards asked.
"Good morning, and yes, you can. You see, we have a meeting with Minister Blair scheduled at noon," Harry replied confidently.
"And you want us to believe that?" the guard asked, a bit annoyed.
"Let's make a deal. You can contact the secretary, and she will tell you if Minister Blair has a meeting scheduled at noon. If not, you can arrest us and throw us in jail. But if we are telling the truth, you will simply escort us," Harry offered.
The guards were surprised by his words. Many teenagers had claimed to have a meeting with the Prime Minister, but none of them had asked them to verify their story. The officer in charge asked for their names and nodded at one of the guards who left to verify their story. It took only a minute before he returned and spoke.
"Sergeant, I spoke with the secretary, and in fact, the PM has a meeting at noon."
The sergeant looked at them and spoke softly. "I'll be damned. You were telling the truth. Come inside. We need to check you before we let you meet the PM."
Harry and Hermione both had disillusionment charms on their wand holsters, so they were calm about the check-up. After the guards had searched them and declared them clean, they were escorted to the PM's office. The sergeant went first and spoke to the secretary.
"Rebecca, please inform the minister that two people are here for a noon meeting," he said.
She nodded at him and went inside to announce them. After a second, the secretary waved at them and introduced them to the PM.
"Mr. Minister, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger for your meeting," she said, a bit surprised. It was the first time she had to introduce someone to a minister. Normally they knew everything about the people he was meeting.
"Please come inside," the minister stood up and welcomed them. The teens listened and took the seats in front of his desk. When they were seated, the PM nodded at his secretary, and she left, leaving them alone.
"You know, every time I meet with a wizard, you keep surprising me even more. I had expected many things, but not that they would send two teenagers." Tony Blair started.
"Prime Minister, there are good reasons why we were selected to meet with you," Harry replied.
"I will be the judge of that," the minister told him. "What brings you here?"
"We are here to explain what happened during the last year."
"And why hasn't Minister Scrimgeour come himself?"
"Minister Scrimgeour was murdered in July last year," Harry explained.
It was not the answer the minister had expected. He had to admit he was not happy to be meeting with wizards and had shown a bit of anger towards them. He decided that the fastest way would be to allow them to speak freely, so he asked them.
"Ok, Mr. Potter, let's start from the beginning. The last time your Ministry contacted me was in May 1997. Since then, I have tried regularly to set up a meeting, but no one cared to respond. And last August, even this portrait became empty. What happened since then?"
"Can I ask you how much you know about the civil war we found ourselves in?" Harry asked.
"In 1996, then Minister Fudge came here to announce that some dark wizard was out there, but that they were on a good way to catch him and his followers. Since then, Minister Scrimgeour came here a total of three times, always claiming they were getting closer to defeating them and that attacks on my citizens would stop soon," the PM explained.
Hearing that, Hermione put her head in her hands, and Harry looked angry. He muttered under his breath about a bunch of useless cretins who should be thrown into Azkaban. The minister was very surprised to see that reaction but allowed them to respond to him.
"First of all, Minister, on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, I would like to deeply apologize for the actions of the previous ministers. I anticipated that they decided to keep some facts about the war and that they had not shown you proper respect, but I am shocked to hear how much they lied to you. If you allow me, I will tell you everything from the very beginning."
I acknowledge that you want me to rewrite the text and correct any spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors to make it clearer. Here's the revised text:
The Minister nodded his head in agreement and allowed Harry and Hermione to speak. The meeting was going differently than he predicted, but he was determined to find out what was happening.
"First of all, Minister, are you aware that there was a second civil war in the last three decades?" Harry asked.
"It wasn't the first war?" he asked, surprised.
Harry shook his head and began to explain from the beginning.
"It wasn't. The First Blood War, as we called it, began in the early 70s. A self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort and his followers, called Death Eaters, tried to take control of the Ministry. Their main goal was to get rid of everyone who was not a pureblood."
"Who is a pureblood? I'm sorry that I interrupted, but my knowledge of your world is minimal," said the Minister.
"Don't worry, Minister. Please interrupt us if we're not clear. We don't mind," replied Hermione. "In the wizarding world, there's an unofficial division of citizens into four groups. The first one is Muggleborns. They are people whose parents are not wizards. The second group is purebloods. To be considered a pureblood, your parents and grandparents have to be wizards. Anything in between classifies a person as a half-blood. The last group is the smallest one, and they're called squibs. Those are people who come from magical families but don't have magic themselves."
"Thank you for the explanation, Miss Granger. Please continue," said the Minister.
"To give you a more precise image of Death Eaters, please think of them as a magical version of Ku Klux Klan and you'll be very close."
"They were that bad?" the Minister asked, surprised.
"Yes, they were. They had zero respect for human life. For them, if you're not a pureblood, you're not worth living," Hermione explained.
It was clear that the Minister was shocked. There was a very dangerous racist group that posed a danger to his citizens, and he had no idea. He knew how important this meeting had become and decided that a few people needed to join them. But he had to ask a few questions to the teens.
"I need to interrupt you one more time, Mr. Potter. I know that this question will surprise you, but can you tell me which blood group you belong to?"
"Hermione is Muggle-born. Her parents are working dentists. I am a half-blood, but until I was eleven, I was raised by my aunt who is a Muggle. So, I'm Muggle-raised. Why do you ask?" Harry replied.
"So I can assume that you know how our government works?"
"Yes, we are. And, to be honest, it's one of the reasons why we were chosen to represent the Ministry at this meeting. The new Minister wants to rebuild the relationship between our Ministry and the government, and he wanted someone knowledgeable in the Muggle world and politics to lay some ground for future cooperation. Why do you ask that now?" Hermione replied.
"Miss Granger, it's the first time in history that a representative of wizards has come to meet with us and has been honest about your world. Because of that, we need to change the place of our conversation as well as invite a few people to join us," the Minister said.
"But Minister, if they're not aware of magic, we can't tell them. International wizarding laws prohibit us from that," Hermione nervously replied.
"Don't worry, Miss Granger. Everyone I have in mind already knows about your world."
"And where would you like to take this meeting?" Harry asked curiously about what the PM was planning. The answer had made the teens pale as paper, as they instantly knew who they would be meeting.
"We're going to Buckingham Palace," Tony Blair replied.