Satisfying Curiosity

The Ministry was loud and full of people moving about conducting their business for the day. Harry headed across the atrium with slow, determined steps. He was there to meet with the Minister, and he didn't feel like dealing with anyone else. He had no wand to register, so he just moved past the desk and straight to one of the lifts. He headed up as people got in and out of the gilded cage.

Harry paused as he looked at the young man by the assistant desk. "Hydrus Black, here to see the Minister," he said calmly. Kingsley had asked him to be there, so he assumed there would be no problems.

Dennis Creevey looked up at Harry before checking the Minister's schedule. "The Minister is in a meeting, but I will let him know you are here," he said. He sent a note in and went back to what he had previously been doing.

The door opened and Lucius strode out of the room. He stopped in his steps as he saw Harry. "Lord Black," he said with a small nod.

"Lord Malfoy," Harry said.

"Answering the Minister's summons?" Lucius asked.

Harry offered a small smile. "This once," he said. "Curiosity does sometimes bring a person to places they would prefer not to go." He moved past Lucius. "Do give our regards to your wife. As a daughter of the House, we hope she is doing well."

Lucius continued walking as the door closed behind Harry. He considered the words he had spoken. He was not presenting himself as weak or lost. He knew what he wanted, and he was not afraid to stand his ground. His verbal concern for Narcissa could be taken two ways. Either he was offering her sanctuary from her current house, or he simply wished her well.

Harry walked into the Minister's office and placed his hands on the back of the chair Lucius had just vacated. "Good afternoon, Minister," he said.

Kingsley looked up from his desk. He had met Harry at the Ministry function, and he was glad he had, this young man knew how to look intimidating without really trying. His broad shoulders and neatly swept back hair paired with those piercing green eyes and perfectly tailored robes made Kingsley think of tales of the Black family from back before they married their own cousins. "I appreciate that you chose to accept my invitation, Lord Black," he said.

"I'm here to make one thing perfectly clear," Harry said calmly. "I and my family do not exist for the convenience of the Ministry. Nor do we exist for the amusement of the citizens. I commend the work you have done in the years after the war. The changes within the Ministry gives me hope."

"I agree with your statements," Kingsley said. He wasn't sure quite how to handle this. He had hoped Harry wouldn't be quite this formal when alone with him. "And I thank you for your compliments. I did not ask you here to demand anything from you. I am curious. Curious as to where you have been and what you have been doing for the past seven years."

"I was taken in by the goblins and taught a profession," Harry said. "Anything else that happened is guarded by the laws of the Nation. I cannot tell you about those years. Since returning to the wizarding world, I have reached out to my friends. I have warded Hogwarts. All the while, the slandering of the name I once held has not stopped. All I can do is hope that no matter what, my new name does not get dragged into the same kind of foolish mockery that happened to my old one."

Kingsley sighed. "The media is allowed to print," he said. "I cannot restrict them."

"You can enforce slander laws. If what they wrote was the truth, that would be one thing," Harry said. "They are lying and theorizing., In the non-magical world there are laws against what they have done to me." He brushed his hand over the back of the chair. "No matter, if I want to, I can probably buy the thing. Maybe a firm hand will teach them how to report accurately."

Kingsley looked at Harry. He couldn't tell what he meant by that. He had no idea what Harry was willing to do. "If you commit crimes…"

"There will be no reason to," Harry said.

"I am not your enemy, Lord Black," Kingsley said.

"No, you are not," Harry said. "And I'm not treating you like an enemy. Do recall that I am a member of the Nation. You are not of my clan, nor are you my friend. A formal stance is all I can offer you. Is there anything else you wish to speak to me about?"

"I would like to hire you," Kingsley said.

"To?" Harry asked.

"Ward the Ministry," Kingsley said.

"You do realise that having me do this work might not be the wisest choice," Harry said.

"I wasn't planing on telling anyone, and you know how to keep silent, I'm sure," Kingsley said. He needed wards that would work.

"You wish to hold the wards?" Harry asked.

"Myself and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, as well as the Head of the Department of Mysteries," Kingsley said.

Harry paused. He activated his magesight and looked around. The wards on the Ministry were by no means bad. They were unfocused and broken in places. Someone should come in to do some maintenance on them. "And you wish for me to do this work when?" he asked.

"Can it be done while people are working?" Kingsley asked.

"Yes, but it will be more straining on me to do it that way," Harry said. "It will cost more."

"Can you give me an estimate?" Kingsley asked.

Harry looked around slowly. "I would say somewhere around four thousand galleons, depending on what more advanced wards you might want," he said.

"And how long would this take you?" Kingsley asked

"About two months assuming I'm not working during the weekends," Harry said.

Kingsley nodded slowly. "I will get back to you," he said. The person he had met now was very different from the boy he remembered. It couldn't all have come from the goblins. Something else had happened, and he was wondering what that could be. He would have to do just a bit of digging. What had really happened to Harry Potter?

"Good, then I shall await your decision," Harry said. "Have a good day, Minister."

Andromeda leaned back as she finished watching the memory. "Good," she said. "Maybe a bit more formal than I would have gone, but people need to understand that you will not bend. You can take a softer approach later if you so wish. How do you feel about it?"

"Good," Harry said. "Shacklebolt is a good man, but the Ministry has fucked me over one too many times in the past. It feels good to put my foot down and say that I won't tolerate it any more."

Andromeda nodded slowly. "I think you did well. Are you worried about taking the warding job?" she asked.

"Not really," Harry said. "I can definitely do it. It's just… should I be worried so many important places are warded by me? It isn't good to have a single warder in charge of so many major locations."

"Could you tear down your own wards?" Andromeda asked.

"Once I hand them over, they are protected against me too," Harry said. "I would have the advantage of knowing how they work to a certain degree, but my wards are alive in a way. Unless I am looped back in by the holder of the wards I can't make changes to them."

"Then I wouldn't worry too much about it," Andromeda said. She patted his shoulder. "I think you are a good enough man to entrust these things to, Harry."

Harry smiled after her. He guessed she had a point. It wasn't like he was going to say no either way.

…

Harry was sitting in the kitchen at Ferngale while Teddy and David played video games in the living room when the owl arrived. He let it in and took the letter from it. The big grey bird jumped back over to the window and took off immediately. He guessed it didn't need a reply then. He opened the envelope and read the letter. Kingsley wanted him to come in. He clicked his tongue as he read it. It was a formal letter. It would seem Kingsley had understood what he meant.

He hummed as he walked into the living room and sat down on the couch to watch the boys play. It was raining outside, so he had figure they could sit in front of the TV for a bit. At least with a game, they were still actively using their brains.

It was a slow evening, but it was nice to have one of those every once in a while. Especially when the coming weeks would be nothing of the kind. Harry headed into the Ministry the following day and began the warding. A new bracelet was adorning his arm, and he looked like a greying man in his mid-fifties who was just taking measurements and doing scans to those who saw him. No one paid that much attention to him because he didn't want them too.

"I've laid the base," Harry told Kingsley halfway through the following week. "Now I can start laying my wards. I had to clean some dredge out that would just have created problems, but most of the old wards are intact. The next step is to interweave the security. Did you want sections?"

"I believe we do," Kingsley said. "If each department could be locked down individually, that would be good."

Harry sighed. "It will cost you more," he said. "I can do a few more hours each day and be done at about the same time, though."

"Go ahead," Kingsley said. He looked after Harry. One thing was for certain. The young man was both efficient and invisible. No one seemed to know what was going on. That was just as well. The fewer people who knew that Lord Black had updated their wards, the better.

…

Soon enough, April rolled around and Harry finished his work on the wards at the Ministry just in time for Teddy's birthday. Harry and Andromeda had learnt from experience and had allowed Teddy to invite six friends to the party rather than his whole class. There was some muttering from the parents of the other children, but all invitations had gone out by mail and nothing said a child had to include everyone.

Teddy ducked under the porch and pulled himself in further. They were out on a treasure hunt, and his dad had been inventive about where the keys were. It was a case of cooperation, though, since all the keys were needed to open the big treasure chest.

"Are you finding anything under there, Teddy?" David called.

"Not yet," Teddy called back. He was sure it would be down there, though. The clues pointed in that direction.

Andromeda sat on the porch watching the children as Harry moved around slowly. If he saw a child, he would hunt and capture them. Unfortunately, his cage had a rather large hole in it that the children could get back out through. "The water is rising. The island disappearing the chest shall go unopened if you have not found the keys in the next twenty minutes," she called out.

Teddy crawled back out from under the porch with a key in his hand. "Got it!" he shouted.

"Great, then we just need one more!"

The children ran around for a bit looking for the last key before David grabbed Teddy. "The Captain has it," he said.

Teddy's eyes narrowed. He pulled the rest of his friends together. "So David noticed that the Captain has the key. If we surround him, we can take him down. David and I can tackle him," he said. He looked around at his friends. "Jenna, you are fast, can you grab the key from him? The rest of you help hold him down."

Everyone nodded, and they spread out again before slowly moving closer to Harry. When they couldn't hide from him any more, they ran forward. Teddy and David ran straight into Harry, and he caught himself against the ground.

"Ye scurvy sea rats. How dare ye!" Harry exclaimed and the children laughed. They made it over to the chest and put the last key in. The lid was pulled open and little personalized chest were revealed for each child.

"Time to return to the ship," Andromeda called. She walked inside and got the cake out from the fridge.

"Oh, awesome Teddy."

"That's such a cool cake."

Harry walked up behind his son and smiled as Andromeda took pictures. He made sure the children had what they needed before he started cutting the giant ship of a cake they had ordered for Teddy.

He grabbed a piece and moved back with Andromeda. "I think we did good," he said.

"Everyone is having fun," Andromeda said. "I'd call that a success."

Teddy looked up at his father as his friends were slowly getting picked up by their parents. "That was really fun, dad," he said. "You and Grandma are the best."

"Thank you, Teddy," Harry said. He put Teddy to bed that evening before checking with Andromeda. Then he cleaned up and headed out the front door. He wandered along the water edge slowly when he came across a man sitting with a guitar in his lap, noting things down on a page next to him.

An annoyed sigh left the man's lips as he crumpled the paper he had been working on. As he looked up, his eyes widened slightly. "Hey," he said.

"Hello. You seem to be having some difficulties," Harry said in a friendly tone.

"You could say," the guy on the bench said. "Want to join me?" he asked. "I'm Lucas."

"Harry," Harry said as he walked up to him. He smiled as Lucas started playing again. "You hang around here often?" he asked.

"I like the river flowing by," Lucas said. "What about you? What brings you out here? I'd think a guy like you had someone to at least walk alongside him."

"Lo my fair maiden sailed across the seas many moons ago to seek an adventure on her own," Harry said.

"And you did not follow?" Lucas asked.

"Nay, I have my Estate to protect and my son and heir to care for," Harry said. He knew the way it sounded, but he didn't really care. At least Lucas was smiling.

Lucas snorted. "You sound as bad as my brother," he said.

Harry looked at him. "Truly," he said.

"Yeah, sometimes when he speaks, it makes me think he is living in the Middle Ages. I guess that's what happens when your school is a castle," Lucas said.

"But you did not join him?" Harry said softly.

"Nope, didn't have the gift or whatever," Lucas said. He looked at Harry. He dressed too normal to be like most of those people, so he felt fairly safe in saying that.

"My mother and her sister were like that. Mother was gifted and her sister was not. Petunia turned sour because of the differences between them instead of seeing the value of her own abilities and opportunities," Harry said. It felt good to talk to someone other than Andromeda or friends who had known both him and Susan.

…

The two of them met many more times along that river leading towards the water before Lucas asked, "Will you go out with me?"

Harry blinked and looked at him. "I…" He looked at Lucas for a while. He wasn't sure if he wanted someone right now, but he enjoyed his time with Lucas. He didn't feel as strongly for him as he had for Susan, but that didn't necessarily have to mean anything. "Yes," he said. "I'd like that."

"I don't have very much money but…"

"Lucas, the least of our worries is money," Harry said. "I wasn't joking when I implied that I am a Lord." He got up. "What place do you have in mind?"

Lucas smiled softly. "There is a really nice Indian place nearby," he said.

"Then let's go there," Harry said.

Lucas lay staring up at the celling later that night with a goofy grin on his face. He hadn't really expected Harry to say yes. He had figured that anyone from the magical world would just see him as rubbish. At least it sounded that way when he spoke to his brother. He turned slightly and ran his fingers down Harry's side. He liked Harry. It had been an experience speaking to him. He would never in his wildest dreams think it would take him here.