10 Chapter 10

As he made his way up to the door of his foster parents' home, Harry wondered what their reaction to his current appearance was going to be.

At an even six feet now, he was impossibly tall for a not-quite-fourteen-year old. Well, impossible unless you were Dutch, which he wasn't. His growth had slowed down recently, so he figured that he might manage a few more inches at best before it stopped. He was still a bit on the gangly side of teenagerhood, but was hopeful that he would start filling out soon.

His black hair rested between his shoulder blades in a neat ponytail, even the Potter wildness defeated by gravity. Only the ends still tried to stick every which way, but for the most part ceded defeat with only mild use of cosmetic spellwork to keep it straight

Harry took a deep breath as he pushed open the door. He didn't keep too many things here anymore, having gradually moved them over to Potter Manor, so it didn't take him long to 'unpack' so to speak. After that was done, he made his way to the living room, where he figured that Robert and Katherine were currently watching the evening news. He mostly intended to just say hello and goodbye before he went back to the manor, and even that only because they expected to see him once the school year was over.

"Hey." He greeted as he entered the room.

"Welcome back." Robert said in a rather perfunctionary, even cold, manner. Harry figured that his constant absences must have started to become terribly inconvenient for them. The disapproval made his heart bleed. Not.

Katherine didn't say anything, merely walking up to him and looking him over intently. "If I didn't know better I'd say that you were at least seventeen if not older." She sounded a bit surprised.

That was about the physical age that Harry figured himself to be as well. "I must be an early bloomer." He said with a shrug.

"Is that actual stubble on your face? You're shaving already?" Katherine continued, now sounding quite a bit more incredulous. Height was one thing, but a beard was something else entirely.

Harry's lips twitched in amusement. He did indeed develop a patchy beard if he didn't shave often. He'd deliberately let himself grow some stubble to see how his foster parents would react.

"Yes, I am." He said simply. "Anyway, I just came to say 'hi' before going back. I've got a lot to do over the summer, so I'm not going to be around much, if at all."

"You'll need to be here on the seventh, we're meeting with the Burtons then." Katherine said.

"I can't, I have too much to do." Harry repeated, keeping the grimace he wanted to make off his face. The Burtons were as bad as his own foster parents from what he remembered.

"You can take a day off." Robert declared, as if that was the last word on the matter. "People have been asking questions about where you are and you need to make a few appearances."

"Their daughter has turned out quite well. I'm sure you'll like her." Katherine added, thinking to appeal to his hormones.

In this she failed spectacularly. Elizabeth Burton had indeed been a very pretty girl even a few years back and would by now probably be a very beautiful teen, but she was utterly vapid. Her personality would be more interesting if she was unconscious and Harry's libido was not nearly deprived enough of female companionship to willingly endure that kind of torture.

"My magical studies are more important." He said, simultaneously weaving a compulsion spell around Katherine. He firmly ignored the insidious thought of what else he could compel her to do. It wasn't the first time that he'd had thoughts of abusing his power like this.

"I suppose…" Katherine conceded reluctantly, the compulsion making her accept his words as truth.

"Now wait just a minute!" Robert protested at seeing his wife give in. "You have responsibilities to this family and you've been ignoring them for long enough already."

"You can handle the Burtons just fine without me." Harry told him, weaving another compulsion around the man. "The long term investment of my magic is much more important than having me go with you."

Robert subsided at that, his mind full of the possibilities that magic would open. Possibilities that Harry had neglected to inform him were illegal and which he would not carry out even if they weren't.

It was easy to leave after that, but something niggled at his mind despite the ease with which he had bent the wills of his foster parents and escaped their blasted socializing. Something had been wrong in that encounter and he wasn't talking about the questionable legality of it.

He couldn't pinpoint the feeling, but something had simply not felt right.

The mystery feeling didn't remain a mystery for very long, as it cleared up almost as soon as he made it back to the manor.

The situation had felt wrong because the gut feeling about people that he'd gotten used to had been absent. With no magic in them, Robert and Katherine were blank spots to this new sense he seemed to have developed. It had been a background sensation for so long that he'd only properly noticed it once it had vanished and returned.

It had been uncomfortable not to have that extra sense aorund people.

"Harry, are you listening to me?" Sirius asked in exasperation.

"I was thinking." Harry replied, mildly irritated at having his train of thought interrupted.

"How about you rethink this plan of yours then?" The dog Animagus prompted.

"It's a good plan." Harry insisted.

Perhaps more complicated than he would have liked but solid all the same. The Ministry could not be trusted to do the right thing, so a situation had to be created where too many people knew the truth for things to be swept under the rug.

That meant the media and that meant reporters. Harry disliked reporters on general principle and disliked magical reporters as a matter of caution. The Wizarding World seemed to have much looser laws in regards to slander than its muggle counterpart. The Daily Prophet had come across as valuing sensationalism and shock value over facts more than once.

But in this case that could be used. Nothing pleased the vultures more than a shocking and sensational truth.

"What if it fails?" Sirius asked.

That was a legitimate worry. It was possible that the reporter would squeal to the Ministry instead of printing the story, but Harry considered it a low probability. Reporters thrived on controversy like fungus thrived on moisture. "In that case we'll have to improvise."

"I still think we should bring Dumbledore in on this. He's got contacts everywhere. He could get this handled without the risk."

"No." Harry scowled. "I don't trust the old man. He was Chief Warlock back when you were first imprisoned, but he didn't even bother to visit you once, much less provide you with a trial. I'm not going to rely on him unless I absolutely have to."

Nothing good ever came of owing favors to powerful people, wizards least of all.

Sirius frowned but eventually gave a grudging nod. Yes, it was possible that Dumbledore had been as duped by the deception as anyone, but it was hard not to feel resentful for twelve years spent in Azkaban.

"I guess I was just hoping to keep you from doing all the work." He finally admitted with a resigned sigh. "You're way too young to be pulling my arse out of the fire like this."

"I'm not looking forward to it either, but we don't have a lot of options with Pettigrew being dead." Harry replied.

They had gone over a lot of possible plans, but using the media to cause a big scene and drag everything into the open was by far the most reliable. They could have directly contacted Amelia Bones, the current head of the DMLE, but Sirius had only her good reputation from over a decade ago to go on rather than any personal - or even recent - knowledge, so it was deemed too risky. They could have gone to Dumbledore, but Harry refused to consider it as anything besides a last resort. They could have even tried to contact one of the other European Ministries of Magic and asked for asylum for Sirius, but they couldn't predict how those Ministries would react or how corrupt they were.

Even Charlus and Dorea had admitted that using the papers as a platform to spread the truth before the Ministry could act and causing a public outcry had the most predictable consequences. Not necessarily the best, but the most predictable.

The Ministry would panic and demand that Harry and Sirius present themselves, but they would have to follow procedure unless they wanted a riot on their hands.

"Well, at least it'll make a good prank." Sirius replied, now smirking.

"I guess you could say that." Harry smirked back. "But enough about that, I think it's time we start getting serious about the Animagus transformation."

"I'm always Sirius." Sirius stated with a stone face.

"Yeah, and no matter how much I shave, I'm always Harry." Harry riposted.

Sirius let out a barking laugh and grinned widely at his godson.

"Very well then, my brother in puns, let's make you an Animagus."

Andy Smudgley was a reporter for the Daily Prophet, one of the less prominent ones. He didn't have Rita Skeeter's penchant for viciousness or her uncanny ability to ferret out sensitive information, so he mostly had to content himself with writing fairly mediocre articles.

Upon receiving a letter from the Boy-Who-Lived, offering him the chance for an interview, he had jumped at the chance without hesitation.

So here he was, standing outside the Leaky Cauldron and waiting for Harry Potter to arrive.

He wasn't particularly comfortable in the Muggle World, being a wizard-raised halfblood. The odd looks and amused smirks he was getting from the passing muggles were certainly something that he didn't appreciate.

"Mr. Smudgley?" A voice questioned, making the reporter look at who had adressed him.

A tall teenager, with very distinctive green eyes and a lightning bolt scar.

"Harry Potter?" Andy near-gasped, looking slightly up at the boy who had vanquished Voldemort. The legend of the Boy-Who-Lived was such that he didn't even question why a not-quite thirteen-year old boy was taller than him. It seemed only right for heroes to be tall.

"I thought I asked you not to draw attention to yourself?" Harry sighed, already embarrassed about having to stand near such an outlandishly dressed individual.

The reporter was wearing white, knee high socks and lime green crocs, a pair of tight beige shorts with suspenders and a blue V-neck T-shirt that was almost definitely made with women in mind. Completing the mismatched ensamble was one of the old-style cameras that wizards used and a rather girly looking purse that presumably held his wand.

He looked like a vaguely crossdressing hipster that had just come from Oktoberfest or something equally baffling, but at least he wasn't wearing a skirt.

"Isn't this how muggles dress?" Andy asked nervously, afraid that his lack of knowledge on muggle fashion would cost him the story.

"The weird ones perhaps," Harry answered with a smirk. "but nevermind that now, we should go."

Andy nodded eagerly. He was determined to make the most of this opportunity and not dissapoint the Boy-Who-Lived, who must have been impressed by one or more of his articles to have chosen him over the other reporters at the Daily Prophet .

Contrary to his thinking, he had not been chosen for any kind of ability. Sirius had merely liked the fact that he'd made a pun with his name when reporting on the Animagus' Azkaban breakout.

"Where are we going?" The reporter asked after a few minutes of walking through the city.

"Somewhere a bit more private." Was the only answer that Harry would give him in regards to that.

They spent the next ten minutes walking in silence, one of them wondering where they were going and the other wondering how wizards could possibly screw up getting dressed as an inconspicuous muggle when they had so many examples. It was like they got all of their source material from crazy events like the previously mentioned Oktoberfest, or maybe those fashion shows with the really screwed up 'clothes'.

"Alright, here we are." Harry said once they arrived.

"But… there's nothing here." Smudgley pointed out uncertainly, looking around the out of the way alley they had entered.

"Don't worry about that, this isn't our final destination, just a stopgap. Now, I'm going to need you to stay calm and not panic."

"Alright." Smudgley agreed easily enough.

"Teeny, transport us pelase."

"Yes, Harry Potter sir!" The little house elf said enthusiastically as she appeared and apparated them into a completely featureless room in Potter Manor. It was best not to let people know that he was back in residence.

Despite agreeing not to panic, Andy froze in panic at the sight of Sirius Black lounging on a chair.

But then a hand was laid on his shoulder and a feeling of calm spread through him.

"You've got nothing to be worried about, Sirius is only here to give you an interview." Harry said soothingly.

Once Andy got past the fear of being murdered, he quickly realized the journalistic value of this opportunity.

"Harry?"

"Yes, Luna?"

"You appear to have Sirius Black squatting in your home."

"Well spotted." Unlike the Daily Prophet reporter, Luna could be trusted not to reveal that Potter Manor was back in use, or that it contained Sirius Black.

"Hey, I am not squatting!"

"Squatting aside, Luna, would you like to interview Sirius for the Quibbler ?"

"Not. Squatting."

"It would delay our trip to Germany by a few days, but I think daddy will understand. So Mr. Black, did you see any crumple-horned snorkacks during your stay in Azkaban?"

"Crumple what now?"

"Answer the question Mr. Black, or I will hold you in contempt."

"I don't think that reporters can hold people in contempt, Luna."

"Don't be silly, Harry, anyone can hold anyone in contempt. People do it to me all the time, and you do it to others all the time."

"I… can't refute that statement."

"Not to break up your moment of philosophy, but could we get to the part where I tell my harrowing story of betrayal and false imprisonment?"

"False imprisonment? Are you saying that you weren't in Azkaban these past twelve years, Mr. Black?"

"What? Of course I was in Azkaban!"

"Then how was your imprisonment false?"

Sirius worked his jaw as he tried to figure out the little blonde girl's logic, noticing that his godson was looking terribly amused by the whole thing.

"Stop smirking, Harry."

"That friend of yours is really something else." Sirius said after Luna had left.

"That she is." Harry agreed.

"What the hell is a crumple-horned snorkack anyway?"

"No idea, but I admire Luna's determination to find one."

Albus Dumbledore didn't like summers all that much. Oh, the weather was nice enough, but Hogwarts just felt so empty with the students and even several of the teachers gone. He couldn't even say that he had less paperwork to deal with since he had two other jobs, and DADA was an eternal thorn in his side.

At least he'd learned to expect his DADA teachers to become somehow unable to continue teaching for more than a year and had a replacement all lined up. He wasn't angry at Severus for outing Remus as a werewolf. He knew that there was bad blood between them, though he had hoped that the Potions Master would learn to leave it in the past.

He could only hope that Alastor would restrain himself a bit in the classroom and remember that the students were not Auror trainees. Still, having him around for the Tri-Wizard Tournament would be invaluable from a security standpoint.

The Tri-Wizard Tournament. How Ludo Bagman had come upon the idea of reviving that old competition and then convincing the necessary people to get it done, Dumbledore could not fathom. He had to admit that he liked the thought of fostering international cooperation, particularly in light of the fact that he knew that Voldemort would almost certainly rise again someday, but he had been unwilling to agree to resurrect the tournament in its original form. He would not condone entering children into a deadly competition, no matter how skilled with magic they might be.

That at least had been agreed upon without issue by all involved. If only the rest of it were so simple. It was still being argued as to which school would have the honor of hosting the event. Karkaroff and Madam Maxime naturally wanted it to be at their schools, just as Dumbledore wanted it to be at Hogwarts. This was not merely a matter of prestige, but also of practicality. It would be quite inconvenient to be away from his school for that long after all.

Fortunately, tradition favored Hogwarts, as Durmstrang had hosted it the last time and Beauxbatons the time before that. Wizards and witches do like their traditions, and even the centuries that had passed since the last tournament weren't likely to sway people away from that.

These were the thoughts of Albus Dumbledore as he reached for his morning paper, idly wondering if Ms. Skeeter had printed any more of her vitriol today. Such a shame that a witch of her potential would spend her time spreading malicious rumors or gossip, but then, she had been like that for a long time now. Slytherin had not been kind to her during her school years, Dumbledore suspected.

It's a Sirius shock! Azkaban escapee Sirius Black tells his side of the story!

Safely alone in his quarters, Albus Dumbledore gaped unbecomingly at the headline on his copy of the Daily Prophet .

Yesterday, this reporter received an owl from Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, with an offer for an interview. We met outside the Leaky Cauldron and walked some distance away to a secluded alley, where Mr. Potter called for a house elf to transport us to an undisclosed location.

Imagine my shock when I found myself face to face with Sirius Black himself!

But the supposed mass murderer was not at all hostile. He was in fact rather friendly, though the shadow of Azkaban was still visible on his face.

Mr. Potter explained to me that the interview he had promised was not to be with him, but with Black.

The article then went on to reveal the tale of the switch between Secret Keepers, Pettigrew's betrayal, Sirius' wrongful imprisonment and subsequent escape, Harry meeting his godfather and offering him shelter from the Aurors and dementors and finally ending with the interview that he was now reading.

Dumbledore noted that it said nothing about the means by which Sirius had escaped, nor did it offer up any real details on the fate of Peter Pettigrew.

Mr. Potter is well aware that the DMLE will wish to speak to him and intends to present himself this very afternoon.

That particular line revealed the gist of Harry and Sirius' plan. The Ministry could not, after all, be seen to act rashly now that the truth was revealed to the masses, especially with Harry involved as he was. His status as the Boy-Who-Lived and Heir to the Potter family would shield him from the usual legal repercussions of harboring a wanted criminal.

Clever though this plan was, Dumbledore couldn't help but wish that they had come to him for help. He could have made things so much smoother. Things would now have to play out in the way that Harry and Sirius had set, but he still intended to be there.

He had clearly failed Sirius grievously once already by not taking the time to properly investigate the situation, so he would offer what help he could now. Not only was it a matter of doing the right thing, but also of keeping contact with Harry once Sirius took over his guardianship.

In the office of the Minister of Magic, there was much less certainty.

"This is a disaster!" Cornelius Fudge moaned. "What am I going to do, Lucius?"

Lucius Malfoy considered the situation carefully. Fudge was a simple creature to manipulate, but even a simpleton like him had limits to how far he could be bent with either words or 'donations'. Not many limits, but getting him to commit political suicide was one of them.

The exoneration of Sirius Black would reflect poorly on Fudge even if it had been Barty Crouch and the previous Minister, Bagnold, who had imprisoned him. The Minister was the face of the Ministry and it would be the Ministry as a whole who would end up with eggs on their face over this debacle. The statements he had made about hunting the fugitive down would not help either.

But that did not mean that simply doing away with Sirius Black would be possible, not after the truth was plastered all over the front page of the Daily Prophet. Too many questions would be asked if he mysteriously disappeared .

Lucius himself had long suspected that Black was innocent. As part of Voldemort's inner circle, he was aware of the identities of most every one of the Dark Lord's followers. That such a high profile member would slip past his notice was unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.

He had congratulated himself heartily over the windfall that the Malfoy family had gotten under his leadership. With Bellatrix imprisoned and barren(courtesy of a special, untraceable poison Lucius himself had added to her evening drink one day), Andromeda disowned, Regulus killed on some unspecified task for the Dark Lord and Sirius rotting in Azkaban, his own son was next in line to inherit the Black family and thus absorb it into the Malfoy line since his wife, Narcissa, was a Black by birth.

But now that was all in danger of being undone. Sirius was Heir to the House and had never been properly banished from the family despite his rebellion against everything that House Black stood for. If he was declared innocent, then Lucius could wave his dreams of absorbing House Black into Malfoy goodbye.

Unless of course another bout of misfortune happened to befall Sirius Black. But for that, information was required.

"Regardless of the… distressing nature of this article, Potter and Black have offered little proof of their words." He finally said. "Potter says that he will present himself to the DMLE this afternoon and I think that it would proper for the Minister of Magic to be present at such an important occasion, in order to judge for himself the veracity of these claims."

"Yes, yes of course. Black could be manipulating the boy after all, maybe even keeping him under the Imperious!" Fudge said, getting some of his composure back. "You'll be there too, won't you, Lucious?"

"If you wish for my advice, then who am I to refuse?" Lucius said, keeping the irony out of his voice with the ease of long experience. Weaning Fudge away from his reliance on Dumbledore and making him rely on Malfoy gold and advice instead had been almost too easy.

Harry made his way towards the visitors entrance of the Ministry of Magic, once again contemplating the dilapidated nature of this part of the city. He'd come here a few days ago to make sure that he could find it and had now apparated himself to a nearby alley.

He could sense several powerful aversion wards affecting the area, no doubt aimed at those without magic. It probably made this part of London unpalatable for muggles, leaving it to slowly decay.

He had to wonder if there was some kind of symbolism in having the magical government housed underground, covered by the filth of the surrounding muggles. Or perhaps it was the other way around, the presence of wizarding politics fouling the area.

A line of thought that was most unflattering to wizardkind either way.

Shaking the thought off, he stepped into the red phone booth that served as the entrance to the Ministry, amused at how completely it failed to be inconspicuous. If not for the aversion wards, this pristine looking but long since obsolete phone booth would probably attract a great deal of unwanted attention. In fact, that might be the reason for the wards in the first place.

Quickly entering 62442 to spell out 'magic', he waited for the operator that Charlus had told him would speak up.

" Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business ." A female voice droned. It reminded Harry of Binns, though marginally less monotone.

"Harry Potter, here to meet with Director Bones." He didn't know if he would actually be meeting with Amelia Bones herself, but it seemed like a fair assumption.

" Thank you. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes. " The instruction was accompanied by a rattling as the aformentioned badge was deposited into a receptacle.

It helpfully proclaimed ' Harry Potter, meeting with Director Bones' .

Harry did as the cool female voice had suggested and pinned the badge to his robes, a rather more ostentatious affair than he would've liked. He had been intending to show up dressed in quality, but eminently muggle clothing. Charlus and Dorea had insisted that he take one of the more formal robes that were hanging around in the manor however, arguing that snubbing the traditional wizard's apparel would not work in his favor. He understood their arguments and it had been part of the coaching they'd given him on how to comport himself around influential people, however much it grated on him due to the memory of similar lessons with Robert and Katherine.

Thus, robes. At least he'd managed to find a set that was a subdued black.

The floor of the fake phone booth began its slow descent after that and Harry took the time to get into the proper frame of mind for the events ahead. He knew that he would likely be stared at by a nerve wrackingly large amount of people, so he would need to keep his wits about him and project the image of imperturbable calm.

Fortunately, that was one of those things that Occlumency adepts frequently learned to do and Harry was advanced enough in the discipline to do it. No two Occlumancers went about it in precisely the same way as it was a personalized thing. Harry himself liked to wrap his thoughts in a peace so deep that it was like Dark. His thoughts were a river of Dark that swallowed all that entered it but remaining undisturbed. They were the vast silence between the stars that allowed no sound.

He had practiced such things often since Christmas, so it did not take him long to get into the proper mindset. He was finished shortly before he arrived in the Ministry atrium.

It was essentially a very long and wide hallway line with fireplaces that constantly burned with the green flame of floo travel. To his mild surprise, the whole thing was decorated rather tastefully, though his assumption on wizardkind's lack of restraint was vindicated by the sight of a garish golden statue of a goblin, centaur and house elf looking adoringly up at a witch and wizard. He strongly doubted that anyone save possibly the house elf harbored any kind of positive feelings towards humans.

Sirius had never been here, but Charlus and Dorea had and had explained to him what he could expect. The atrium was usually the most busy during the morning and evening hours when people arrived for work or went home, but saw a fair amount of activity through the day as well. It being three in the afternoon, it should have been relatively empty, but of course the statement he'd left in the Prophet and Quibbler that he'd be showing up in the afternoon had attracted gawkers.

The atrium was therefore full of overly curious busybodies trying to pretend that they weren't waiting for his arrival, as well as several Aurors, Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic himself, who quite obviously were waiting for him if the way they were watching the fireplaces was any indication. Apparently they'd expected him to use one of those.

Dumbledore spotted him first and swiftly strode over, the Aurors following a moment later and the Minister lagging behind like a nervous but eager puppy.

"Harry." Dumbledore greeted genially.

"Professor." Harry returned calmly, dismissing the audience as unimportant.

"You gave everyone quite the shock yesterday, my boy." The old wizard commented, his eyes twinkling with amusement. It was not how he would've dealt with the situation, but he had to admit that Harry and Sirius had come up with an effective, if loud, scheme. Sirius was likely having a good laugh at the prank they had pulled on the Wizarding World and he had to admit that Harry was handling his part much better than he had expected him to.

"That was the point." Harry stated noncommittally and Dumbledore nodded in understanding.

"May I present Aurors Shacklebolt and Dawlish, they will escort you to Amelia bones, which I see you have already surmised." Dumbledore introduced, gesturing to the two Aurors.

Shacklebolt was a tall man with dark skin and a rather jovial face, whereas Dawlish was pale and dour looking. Of the two, Shacklebolt felt considerably stronger. Both men gave him a nod and a short greeting, to which he replied in kind.

"And of course, last but not least, Conerlius Fudge, the Minister of Magic." Dumbledore finished, gesturing to the shortest man there.

"A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Potter." The Minister positively gushed and eagerly held out a hand for him to shake.

"Likewise, Minister." Harry replied, but didn't really mean it. Despite Dumbledore's words, it was quite obvious that Cornelius Fudge was indeed the least person here, both in magic and in stature. Charlus and Dorea had met him once and been unimpressed. Harry wasn't impressed either. A politician more than a wizard and corrupt besides, nothing to him but an empty title.

But he could definitely be useful. His presence had been expected but not guaranteed. His gradnparents had advised him to imply that he would support Fudge in exchange for help with the current situation, but Harry intended to go a step further than that.

As he shook the pudgy man's hand, he sent a mild compulsion through the point of contact, urging him to help Harry as much as possible. It was slightly harder than casting such spells on Robert and Katherine, but not by much. The Minister of Magic was the weakest adult wizard he'd ever encountered, weaker even than many Hogwarts students. Harry almost felt as if the Dark inside him could swallow the man whole.

Fudge laughed nervously and fidgeted with his lime green bowler hat when he took his hand back. He hadn't expected a boy barely into his teens to be this imposing, but staring up (how was he so damned tall anyway?) at those gleaming green eyes, he could easily believe that this was the one who had vanquished Voldemort as a baby.

He was even more glad now that he had asked Lucius to join them on this meeting. His good friend and advisor would surely help him make sure that this was handled properly.

"Shall we then?" He asked after nervously clearing his throat.

"Lead on." Harry prompted, his amusement at how easily bidden the Minister was a disconnected thing that didn't show on his face or in his voice.

Fudge nodded in a slightly jittery fashion and started walking at Harry's left side while Dumbledore took the right and the Aurors took up spots behind them.

Harry and Dumbledore were comfortable with their thoughts, but Fudge was apparently not.

"So… Harry, may I call you Harry?" He asked.

"If I may call you Cornelius." Harry replied unhurriedly. He felt nothing but disdain for the pudgy little man that was many decades his senior but undoubtedly a lesser wizard in spite of the age disparity. Nothing in his manner betrayed his true opinion though. He wouldn't be the first person to have been brought down by those who were less than him because he had overreached himself. A day would come when gnats like Fudge that hid their weakness behind politics would no longer concern him, but that day was quite a ways off into the future. For now, the idiot had his uses.

"Of course, of course." Fudge hastened to affirm, eager to forge close ties to someone as prominent as the Boy-Who-Lived.

On Harry's other side, Dumbledore withheld an amused smile. He wondered if Cornelius realized that he had just allowed a barely teenage boy with no tangible legal or political power to establish an equal relationship to the Minister of Magic. He wondered if Harry had done it on purpose and who had taught him if so. He wondered if Harry would even need his help to resolve this issue satisfactorily, as the lad truly was handling himself with remarkable poise. He wondered at how advanced Harry's Occlumency was to be capable of controlling himself like this already.

Dumbledore noticed that he spent a lot of time wondering where Harry was concerned.

"Anyway, I was wondering where Black was. The article in the Daily Prophet didn't mention that." Fudge continued.

"I'm not going to tell you that while you have a kill on sight order on him." Harry replied dryly.

"But I'm the Minister of Magic." Fudge protested, the first notes of an injured ego coloring his tone. The petulant whine of someone who thought he deserved respect.

"And as such you are required to uphold the law, are you not?" Harry asked archly. "It would reflect poorly on you for an innocent man to be killed due to a… bureaucratic mishap."

"Yes, yes of course!" Fudge was quick to affirm, nearly stumbling over the words in his haste to be seen as respectable. He didn't want the Boy-Who-Lived of all people to be his enemy! That would be a public relations disaster perhaps even worse than this business with Black.

The urge to roll his eyes popped into being in the Dark of Harry's mind and floated there aimlessly. How had someone this stupid and spineless ever made Minister?

"I believe that there is more to the story than what we learned from the Prophet ." Dumbledore interjected mildly. "We should not make Harry repeat himself needlessly."

"Quite right." Fudge agreed as if that had been his idea from the start.

The lull in conversation did not last long, as they came upon a man waiting for them at the lifts.

Harry didn't even need Fudge's happy exclamation of 'Lucius!' to guess that this was Draco Malfoy's father. He'd been reminded of his annoying yearmate since he'd laid eyes on the blond man that was obviously trying entirely too hard to appear as aristocratic as possible, from his fancy robes and all the way down to that pretentious snake headed cane. In addition to that, Sirius, Charlus and Dorea had all described the man to him.

He and Sirius had gotten a good laugh at their description of the Malfoys being 'froggy bastards', due to their French heritage.

"Harry, this is my good friend Lucius Malfoy. I believe you are in the same Hogwarts year as his son, Draco." Fudge introduced enthusiastically, dreaming of having the support of both Lucius Malfoy and Harry Potter.

"A pleasure." Malfoy said neutrally.

"Yes." Harry said blandly.

Neither offered their hand, well aware that they would be unfriendly acquaintances at the most unrealistically optimistic best even if they had never met before. Lucius might have tried to get close to the Potter brat if he had not already heard from Draco about the antipathy between them. Attempting to be friendly would only serve to look suspicious.

Harry was merely trusting his gut when it told him that Malfoy senior was bad news.

"If I might ask, Cornelius, why have you invited Mr. Malfoy along for this." Dumbledore inquired in the uncomfortable silence that ensued.

Lucius' eyes tightened slightly at the subtle snub. Most referred to him as Lord Malfoy, but he was technically not a Lord. The Malfoy family had no seat on the Wizengamot due to being relatively new to Britain and were thus not a Noble House. They were very rich, and that money kept them high up in politics, but they were not one of those families that had a hereditary seat on the Wizengamot. That was another reason that he had been so eager for the Black family to be absorbed into his.

Truly, wooing Narcissa Black had been one of his better ideas. His father had been impressed with it too, for the little time that he'd lived after Lucius had arranged for him to get infected with Dragon Pox.

"He's one of my chief advisors." Fudge argued, unknowingly enlightening Harry as to the likely reason for his political success.

"Yes, but you will hardly need his advice in order to listen to Harry's explanation of the Prophet's article." Dumbledore countered in his best 'I'm everyone's wise and friendly grandfather' voice.

"I must say that I agree with the Headmaster." Harry added. "Your presence and that of the Aurors is expected of course and Professor Dumbledore is here both as Chief Warlock and as my current magical guardian, but as I understand it, Mr. Malfoy has no outstanding reason to be present for this."

He may not trust Dumbledore, but he wouldn't hesitate to use him as a shield if it was convenient.

"But-!" Fudge moved to protest.

Harry gave him no chance. Malfoy senior felt dangerous and he was not going to let him be present for this. The compulsion alone obviously wasn't enough for this.

"Minister." He said implacably, using his magic to press down on Fudge in a way that the basic five human senses could not perceive."This is a sensitive matter and it would not do for any more ears to hear than strictly necessary ."

Cornelius looked into those powerful green eyes and felt the heavy regard of a much greater wizard, even if he didn't understand it.

"I'm sorry, Lucius, but he's right." He said meekly. He didn't want to send his friend away, but he couldn't gainsay the Boy-Who-Lived in this, especially with Dumbledore in on it too.

Dumbledore gave Harry a penetrating look. He had felt what the boy had done. Few wizards had the strength or knowledge to use their magic in such a fashion and they were generally of the old and powerful variety. He could do it, but even then perhaps not as subtly as Harry had just managed. How in the world had a boy of thirteen learned this skill? This bore investigating.

Lucius's lips thinned in displeasure as the group entered the lift. This, he reflected, was the problem with people like Fudge. Anyone with half a brain could yank them around and he could hardly offer the idiot a bribe in public.

Unnoticed by all, a beetle flew into the lift and hid in an unobtrusive corner

Harry found the Ministry lifts to be rather puzzling. The atrium was apparently on the 8th undreground floor, which meant that the visitor's entrance had taken him quite deep. Now they were going up again.

Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the atrium on the 1st floor if you were going to build underground? Wizards made no sense.

The short ride passed in silence, as Fudge seemed to be too off kilter after being made to leave Malfoy behind to chatter.

The walk through the DMLE was similarly short and uneventful, though Harry did find his attention captured once when they passed through Auror Headquarters, by a young woman in Auor robes. She was dressed properly for her job, but her spiky purple hair gave her the image of a punk rocker trying to infiltrate law enforcement.

She noticed him staring, her hair turned pink and she gave him a rather saucy wink, prompting Harry to return the gesture with a flirtatious smirk.

"Who was that?" He asked, quite sure that Dumbledore would know who he was referring to. The now pink haired Auror was very pretty and looked like loads of fun.

"Who was who?" Fudge asked in confusion, having missed the short byplay entirely.

"I believe that Harry was referring to Nymphadora Tonks." Dumbledore said, sounding amused. "A very capable young lady and a fine Auror." And Moody's last protégé, whom the grizzled old Auror had already recommended for recruitment into the Order of the Phoenix should it be reconvened.

There was an opportunity here.

"Why did her hair change like that?" Harry asked before Fudge could make an even bigger ass of himself.

"She is a Metamorphmagus, a natural shapeshifter." The old wizard explained.

"That sounds very useful." Harry mused. He knew that it was somewhat typically male of him, but his mind instantly jumped to the bedroom applications of such an ability.

"Indeed." Dumbledore agreed, sounding even more amused. He'd probably guessed what Harry had just thought about. "Further deliberation on the applications of shapeshifting will have to wait though, for we have arrived at Madam Bones' office."

Yes, Dumbledore had definitely guessed it.

Harry quickly deduced that Amelia Bones was a formidable witch, and not someone that could be pushed around like Fudge. Hers was the strongest presence he'd felt so far, bar Dumbledore himself.

The two Aurors left and then it was just her, him, Dumbledore and Fudge in the room. Something felt wrong about that number, but Harry couldn't for the life of him place what it was.

"Mr. Potter." Bones said by way of greeting, her displeasure ringing as clearly as a bell. "You've caused me and my department a great deal of trouble and embarrassment with those articles in the Prophet and the Quibbler ."

Concern welled up in him at her tone, but was swallowed by the Dark in his mind and did not affect his composure.

"I apologize," He said calmly. "but I saw no better way to ensure my godfather's exoneration."

Amelia stared hard at the boy, noting with grudging respect that he remained unmoved by it. In fact, the only one who looked uncomfortable was Fudge. She wondered what had happened to Malfoy, whom she knew that the bumbling idiot had been planning to include on this meeting. Good riddance either way. She'd been tempted to cleave the bastard's head off more than once in the past twelve years.

"I'm sure that we can get this handled quickly, Amelia." The Minister fretted, worrying at his hat.

"We will handle it by the book, if that's alright with you Mr. Potter?" She stated more than asked in a tone that brooked no disagreement, a trace of sarcasm showing up at the end.

Harry felt a stirring of decidedly more personal interest in the woman. She was quite severe looking, but not at all unattractive, though that monocle was a bit odd. He wondered if she was this forceful all the time.

The thought was pushed aside. This was definitely not the time for that.

"Of course, Madam Bones."

"Good." She said with a firm nod. "Now, the first thing I want to know is when and how you came into contact with Black in the first place."

"During my very first Hogsmeade weekend. I recognized his Animagus form and got him away from there before he did something stupid." He felt a spike of… something when he said that, but he once again failed to pin it down.

"Animagus form?" Bones asked, talking right over Fudge's surprised exclamation and noting Dumbledore's lack of surprise at the information.

"Yes, a big black dog. I remember him using it to play with me when I was a baby." Sorry Sirius, I know you wanted to keep that a secret, but Bryanna and Tiana were sure to have figured it out after this, if they haven't already. I might like them, but I'm not sure they'd keep it a secret and trying, and more importantly failing, to hide your Animagus ability is the last thing you need.

"Your memory stretches that far back?" Dumbledore asked in some surprise.

"Yes." Harry answered simply.

"Do you remember what it was that caused Voldemort's downfall then?" The old wizard pressed.

Fudge yelped at the use of the Dark Lord's name, looking like he'd nearly lost control of his bladder.

Amelia merely twitched, the remnants of an old reflex.

"I do, but I'd rather not talk about it." Harry said. "It's not something that can really be used in anything other than a very specific set of circumstances."

Most people did not have months of forewarning that they were going to be murdered after all, nevermind the skill required to turn their own murder into a ritual sacrifice.

"Getting back to the matter at hand, what kind of stupid thing did you expect Black to do?" Bones asked, determined to stay on point despite her own interest.

"Sneak into the Gryffindor common room and murder Peter Pettigrew." Harry replied with a bland smile. That odd feeling from before manifested again, but remained elusive.

This time, even Dumbledore was surprised, though he quickly deduced the truth. He had assumed that the Weasley family rat had actually been several rats that Molly and Arthur had kept replacing in order to not upset their children, but it had apparently been just one Animagus.

"Am I to understand that Peter Pettigrew is also an Animagus and was hiding in Hogwarts all this time?" Bones asked, guessing at the truth.

"Close, he was a rat Animagus and had been hiding with the Weasley family ever since his confrontation with Sirius."

"Was?" Bones asked sharply, picking up on the use of past tense.

Harry sighed heavily as he answered. "Yes, was. You see, I bought him from Ron Weasley just before the Christmas break. Sirius and I were intending to come forward with him and reveal the truth of what had happened after Voldemort's defeat."

"So why didn't you?"

"Sirius wanted to talk to him, he wanted to ask why Pettigrew had betrayed them and I admit that I wanted to hear it too. He was supposed to be their friend, but he sold them out to save his own skin. Sirius was always a brash sort and Azkaban hadn't improved his self-control any, so things got a little out of hand."

"Out of hand how?" Amelia's voice was considerably harder now.

"There was a lot of shouting and we stupidly hadn't thought to disarm the rat. Pettigrew reached for his wand and I panicked. I didn't even know what spell I was going to cast, I just knew that I couldn't let him do it first. Before I knew what had happened, I'd fired off a blasting curse." Harry did his best to put a tremor in his voice, though he wasn't sure how successful he was in that. He'd practiced doing it, but there really was no substitute for the real thing and he couldn't muster much emotion over this months old issue anymore.

Fudge went a little pale and Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder supportively, though he was sure that there was a very uncomfortable conversation going to happen between them in the near future.

Amelia on the other hand, was clenching her jaw and looking deeply irritated.

"You mean to tell me, that you have killed a man and presumably had his body stashed somewhere since Christmas and have deigned to report it only now ?" She demanded slowly, her expression thunderous.

Harry winced, but went on with his explanation. "Sirius and I were at a bit of a loss as to how we were going to explain this without him ending up lunch for the dementors. We argued about it for months until we finally decided that putting that article in the papers was probably the surest way of doing it."

That those months were also spent planning out how to get away with it went unsaid.

"Why didn't we receive any notifications about underage magic use?" Amelia asked suspiciously, seeing a slight discrepancy in the story.

"We were in an area warded against detection at the time."

"Harry, why didn't you come to me with this?" Dumbledore asked sadly. "I could have helped you."

"You were Chief Warlock when he was first thrown in prison, Professor." Harry pointed out. "You didn't ensure that he got a trial back then and we were only going to get one chance at this. There was no guarantee that he'd get one now."

Dumbledore looked even more saddened by that.

"Wait a second, Black was never tried?" Amelia interjected, momentarily surprised out of her anger at the way that Potter and Black had played fast and loose with the law.

"No. From what he told me, he chased down Pettigrew only for the rat to fire off the blasting curse that blew up the street and the muggles on it. The explosion had rattled him pretty badly and by the time he'd gotten his wits about him, he'd already been in Azkaban." Harry explained.

"Crouch is going to have a lot of explaining to do." Amelia growled.

"Indeed he will!" Fudge hurried to add, eager to be seen as the man that was correcting past injustices. He might actually benefit from this if he dumped all the blame on Bagnold and Crouch!

"And speaking of that, here is Pettigrew's wand." Harry said, pulling it out of on of his robe pockets. "It might still have the trace of that blasting curse on it, since I doubt that it's been used since then."

Amelia took it and cast Priori Incantatem on it, seeing that it did indeed register a blasting curse as the last spell to be cast.

"I also have one other wand for you." Harry went on once she did that, more slowly now. He reached into another pocket and drew out a wand with a ghastly white bone handle, which he was sure had been a later affectation instead of something that Ollivander had made for an eleven year old.

"I know that wand." Amelia said softly "How did you get it?"

"Pettigrew had it with him. I assume that he grabbed it from my room."

"I don't understand, whose wand is that?" Fudge demanded, obviously not recognizing it.

"Voldemort's, Cornelius." Dumbledore told him calmly, ignoring the way the Minister flinched.

"All this aside, that still leaves us with you Mr. Potter. You've harbored a known criminal, even though it seems that he was innocent, and you've hidden the fact that you've killed someone for months now, even if it was in self-defense."

"Come now, Amelia, surely you can't blame the lad for wanting to do right by his godfather? The man has clearly suffered enough already." Fudge interjected.

"Thank you, Cornelius, I appreciate your support." Harry said, aiming a smile at the Minister.

Amelia's face went stony for a moment as she saw the way that Potter had Fudge wrapped around his little finger already, not that it was exactly a difficult feat. That, combined with Dumbledore's obvious support would mean that Potter would be getting away with this whole debacle with barely a slap on the wrist, nevermind a full investigation. The most that she'd be able to do was put a black mark on his record, anything else would get waved off by Fudge in an effort to curry favor with the Boy-Who-Lived.

She hated it when politics got mixed up with the law. She hadn't been intending to throw Potter into Azkaban over this, he was only thirteen after all, but the obvious abuse of his reputation, Dumbledore's protection and Fudge's… Fudgeness, grated on her.

"I want Pettigrew's body, and I want to talk to Black. Immediately ." She bit out.

"Right away, Madam Bones." Harry quickly agreed, seeing that the formidable witch was most definitely not happy with him.

"You're taking an Auror escort with you." She stated uncompromisingly.

"If I might suggest Nymphadora Tonks?" Dumbledore said, his eyes on maximum twinkle. "She is a cousin of Sirius' and might serve to put him more at ease than others."

Harry gave the Headmaster an incredulous look. Was the old man seriously helping him get hooked up with the pretty shapeshifter?

"An excellent idea!" Fudge contributed, oblivious as ever.

Amelia gave Potter and Dumbledore a scrutinizing look, wondering what they were up to that involved Auror Tonks.

"Why her in particular?" She demanded.

"She is a most impressive young lady." Dumbledore replied, sounding very amused.

Amelia knew that this was true. Tonks might be a rookie and bit of a klutz, but she was powerful and resourceful. She fully expected her to become one of the best in a few years, after she got some experience under her belt.

That didn't explain why Dumbledore had suggested her though. There didn't seem to be anything nefarious about it and it was the kind of assignment that a rookie would be given, but Black was pretty high profile and she didn't feel charitable enough to go along with whatever this was.

"I'm assigning Shacklebolt to be your escort."

Was that a flash of disappointment that had just crossed Potter's face?

As Madam Bones' office emptied, Rita Skeeter buzzed stealthily out of the Ministry of Magic in her beetle Animagus form, nearly vibrating with excitement over all the material she'd just gathered. The Daily Prophet's next headline would be sensational !

Harry felt that things had gone rather well, all things considered. Fudge's presence had been unexpectedly useful, as the man was quite obviously a politician for hire, supporting whoever would benefit him the most. Of course, this might be a bit problematic in the future if he ever expected Harry's support, but no promises had been made.

Amelia Bones had been quite a bit more intense than he'd been expecting, but he supposed that not every pureblood could be a useless waste of air. He hoped that he hadn't made an enemy out of her, as a woman like that could cause him quite a bit of grief in the future if she put her mind to it.

Dumbledore had acted more or less as expected, aside from that very odd attempt to contrive an opportunity for Harry to talk to the interesting Metamorphmagus Auror. He really had to wonder what the old man had hoped to achieve with that.

The thing that really bothered him about that meeting was the strange feelings he'd been getting the whole time. It had felt almost like there was another person in the room, but the only thing he had to go on with this theory was his gut feeling and the strange spikes of emotion when he said something particularly surprising.

Sirius had been anxiously pacing through the foyer of Potter Manor ever since Harry had left for the Ministry, waiting for his turn. His godson had wanted to keep the use of the place secret, displaying Moody-like levels of paranoia about information but had eventually conceded that the DMLE at least would need to be informed now.

It was almost a relief when Harry returned with the tall Auror that he introduced as Shacklebolt and he was side-along apparated directly to the DMLE to avoid any lingering gawkers. Even if things went pear-shaped, at least the tense waiting was over.

It had been replaced by an entirely new kind of tension.

"Sirius Black." Amelia Bones said in a stony tone that betrayed a certain amount of irritation.

"In the flesh." Sirius replied with a winning smile. He noted with dismay that Madam Bones seemed immune to his charm.

"First, let me just assure you that you aren't going back to Azkaban anytime soon. Since Crouch didn't even bother to properly charge you with a crime before throwing you in there, the Ministry actually owes you quite the hefty apology, as well as compensation if we determine that you are indeed innocent." She went on, almost kindly.

"I appreciate that." Sirius said, feeling a certain amount of tension bleed out of him. It was good to know that Amelia was as fair as her reputation claimed.

"That being said, I am extremely annoyed by the stunt that you and your godson pulled." The kindness was now replaced with a growl as she glared at him. "Now you are going to tell me everything that happened from the moment that the Potters switched Secret Keepers to the moment that you set foot in my office and if I find out that the two of you are trying to pull another fast one on me, then I am going to bury you. I don't care if your godson has Fudge and Dumbledore on his side, I am going to find a way to do it. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Sirius nodded, swallowing nervously. What a scary woman.

Harry had an uncomfortable conversation of his own to attend to and his wasn't even with an attractive older lady.

Dumbledore had somehow arranged for a private room for them and spent the next few minutes liberally applying privacy spells to make sure that it was actually private.

Once he was done with that, he turned to Harry and stared at him inscrutably, saying nothing.

Well, two could play that game. Harry stared back impassively, sinking further into the deep sense of peaceful Dark that had allowed him to keep himself composed during this entire nerve wracking experience.

"I see that your study of Occlumency is progressing well." Dumbledore finally said.

"Yes." Hary replied unhelpfully. The old wizard would have to broach the subject more directly than that.

"I could have helped you, my boy." Dumbledore said sadly, repeating himself from earlier when he saw Harry's reticence. "If you had come to me after meeting Sirius, I would have listened. We could have captured Pettigrew easily and all of this would never have needed to happen."

Harry heard the implication as clearly as the words. You would never have needed to be a killer. It would have been better if you trusted me to handle things for you. He still didn't understand why Dumbledore wanted his trust so badly.

"You have a history of poor decisions behind you. I couldn't risk having you make another. Not with this." He said evenly.

Dumbledore sighed in a greatly put upon manner. "I am not perfect, Harry. I can make mistakes the same as any man, especially when I don't have all the facts as was the case with Sirius."

"Leaving me with the Dursleys? Leaving the school open with a basilisk on the loose? You should have had enough information to prevent those."

"There were extenuating circumstances for those decisions." Dumbledore argued, but declined to elaborate. He was not used to explaining himself to people.

"Hmm." Harry replied, unconvinced. "It doesn't matter anymore and we've gotten off topic. This matter is settled, Sirius will get the acquittal he deserves and become my guardian as my parents wanted."

He was perfect for it too. Still as immature as a man less than half his age and not at all inclined to be responsible, especially when he seemed to be looking at Harry as a replacement for his murdered friend rather than as a child to be protected. A poor parent and one more suited to doing rather than thinking. Perfect for Harry's purposes, as he'd likely leave him to do all the thinking.

"Yes, he no doubt will." Dumbledore agreed. He wasn't going to try getting in the way of that, even though he had some misgivings about Sirius' ability in that area. "I am merely saddened that the process was so messy."

"Was that all?" Harry asked, getting tired of the conversation.

"Just one more thing." Dumbledore promised. "Minister Fudge and Lucius Malfoy may not be sensitive enough to notice what you did, but I am."

"And what did I do?" Harry asked noncommittally, inwardly very worried. He might have become a great deal stronger since the first time he'd felt the power of Dumbledore's magic back in second year, but he was under no illusions that he would be able to match him. Even if their magic were of equal potency(which it wasn't), Dumbledore was simply too experienced right now for him to fight in any way. If the old man decided to start being difficult, then he could be very difficult indeed.

"You wielded your magic as a tool of intimidation, forcing the Minister to comply with your wishes to send Malfoy away."

Ah, that . The ability to project your will on another by exerting a spiritual pressure on them. He hadn't expected that any wand-reliant wizard would be aware of themselves enough to realize that their magic was more than just a power source for their spells, but he supposed that had been foolish of him. It had been arrogant to assume that everyone but him was completely blind.

"I do not know how you are capable of such a thing at your age, but I do know that you have used some ritual to speed your growth."

Harry's face went completely blank at that, listening silently as Dumbledore went on.

"I do not know which, as my own research has unearthed no ritual that fits my observations, nor do I know what price you paid for it. Furthermore, I suspect that you did not perform only one such ritual, as your mind went from completely undefended to impenetrable too quickly to be the result of Occlumency training."

"Is there a point to this, Professor?" Harry asked, deciding to ignore Dumbledore's not-quite admission to casual use of Legilimency. He'd already known that the old man did it after all.

"Yes, there is." Dumbledore said softly. "I would caution you to temper your lust for power, Harry. I was much like you in my youth. I too desired power over all other things and resented anything that held me back from my ambitions. It was only when those same ambitions caused the death of my sister that I saw the ruin I was causing around me. I would not wish for you to go through the same thing."

"I'll keep it in mind." Harry said, but was mostly just annoyed by the little speech.

"I know that I must sound terribly patronizing to you right now." Dumbledore chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I imagine that my advice is unwanted and the implication that you would repeat my mistakes resented."

Harry didn't reply, not wanting to make an obvious lie by denying it but also unwilling to outright agree.

"Wizards and witches have a very strange relationship with power." Dumbledore went on, seemingly off topic. "They hate it and adore it, fear it and worship it. The powerful among us do not often get the luxury of keeping to ourselves as we grow in strength. Whether by our own actions or by that of others, we find ourselves thrust into the center of events."

"Is that why you're the Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump, despite not being from a Noble House?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, interested in spite of himself. He knew that neither of those posts required that the holder be from a Noble House, especially the Supreme Mugwump one as it was an international position, but they did usually require a lot of money to get elected, something that he was reasonably certain that Dumbledore did not have an abundance of.

"Ah, you've noticed that, have you?" The old wizard asked rhetorically. "Indeed, after my defeat of Grindelwald, there was no shortage of people eager to foist all responsibility for everything on me."

"And you expect that I will find myself in the same situation?" Harry guessed.

"You have had a reputation since the night Voldemort attacked you and have shown great potential in your schooling since then. There are those who will want to use you and what you represent to further their own agendas, or seek to remove you if they feel you will oppose them. This is especially true now that you have drawn attention to yourself." Dumbledore explained.

"So… what, am I supposed to cower and pretend to be less than I am?" Harry demanded. Pretend mediocrity to appease the masses unimaginative sheep? Unacceptable. He wanted to unravel the deepest mysteries of magic, not quibble over cauldron bottom thickness with a bunch of old greybeards who had more in common with mundane politicians than actual wizards. Even becoming a Dark Lord would be preferrable to that.

Dumbledore needed no Legilimency to guess at Harry's thoughts. He had felt the same way once. He imagined that most of those who stood above their peers felt that way at some point.

It was so easy to look down on those who were less powerful than yourself. So easy to become frustrated with society's limitations on magic use when you felt yourself capable of doing it, of mastering anything. Dumbledore still remembered the hunger for more and the bitter resentment at anything that stood in his way. He had been well on the path of a Dark Lord when Ariana's death had shocked some sense into him. Sometimes, as he paced in his office late at night, he still wondered if he could have swayed Gellert away from that path if he had been wiser and less bullheaded in his youth.

But all that hard earned wisdom would be meaningless to a lad of thirteen that didn't want to hear it. It had been meaningless to Tom Riddle as well.

"No, Harry, I do not expect you to do that. It is quite too late for that even if you wanted to. Instead, I would offer my help in navigating the treacherous waters you've just entered. I mean no disrespect to Sirius, but he is not a politician. You are still a few years away from your majority, regardless of the state of your body, but people like Minister Fudge will not be stopped by that in their attempts to use you. We may even be able to squeeze in a few lessons on magic."

Words may be meaningless, but an offer of help and a bribe of knowledge might work. He could try to steer the boy away from his current path during their meetings. Harry would eventually need to die in a confrontation with Voldemort anyway, but it would be much better if he did it as a champion of good rather than as a rival Dark Lord.

Harry was honestly tempted to accept just for the magic lessons. He might not trust Dumbledore, but the old man was indisputably an accomplished wizard. But the fact of the matter was that he didn't trust him and he remembered a saying he'd heard from somewhere, something about help when offered but not needed often being no help at all.

Besides, the only politics he intended to do was abusing the shit out of his noble status. Other than that, he was planning to do his own thing.

"I'll think about it." He said without really meaning it. Better to try navigating treacherous waters alone than with the help of a shark.

After that conversation, Harry made his way back to the DMLE. For one thing, he needed to wait for Sirius to finish talking to Director Bones.

For another, he wanted to talk to that cute Auror. This would actually be the first time that he was so blatantly making the first move with a girl since Zoe, and even then he'd been given an opening when she'd caught him staring at her boobs. Fortunately, Harry was finding the prospect of approaching a girl considerably less daunting ever since he'd killed Pettigrew. It was morbid as all hell, but killing a person had a way of changing your outlook on life and that wasn't even mentioning the ritual shenanigans that had happened immediately after.

It took a little effort to find her, as the area was divided into cubicles, but he knew her name and it was easy to ask which one was hers.

He found her in short order after that. She was doing paperwork and her previously vibrant hair had turned a dull brown. It wasn't even as spiky as it had been earlier.

"Good afternoon." He greeted, giving the wall of her cubicle a light knock.

She looked up and her mood visibly improved upon having something other than paperwork to do. Literally, as her hair perked up and turned a light purple.

"Wo- I mean, good afternoon Mr. Potter. What can I do for you?" Her hair turned an almost red sort of pink as she stumbled over the words.

Harry was deeply amused at seeing that her hair seemed to act like some kind of magical mood indicator. She'd obviously been going for a casual greeting before recalling that on-duty Aurors were supposed to be officious when talking to civilians, and was embarrassed by her near-blunder.

"Just Harry please. I've been called Mr. Potter too much today already." He said with his most charming smile.

"Well then, Harry, I suppose you can call me Tonks since you've saved me from having to do paperwork for a while." She smirked back, hair going a more playful pink.

"Not Nymphadora?" He inquired with an exagerrated wounded look.

"No." She growled, hair turning an indisputably angry red.

Okay, dangerous territory.

"Not fond of your name I take it?" He asked.

"You wouldn't be fond of your name either if my damn fool mother had been the one to pick one for you." Tonks grumbled.

"At least your name sounds special." Harry commiserated. "What kind of name is 'Harry' for a wizard anyway? I might as well go around calling myself Tim the Enchanter."

"Was that a Monty Python reference?" Tonks asked with a surprised laugh.

"You understood a Monty Python reference?" Harry asked back with equal surprise.

"My dad's a muggleborn and he loved those movies, insisted that we watch them. Mum and I didn't think they were as funny as he claimed, but we watched them anyway." Tonks explained.

"I'm just happy that I've finally met someone who understood one of my references." Harry replied with overdone relief. "You have no idea how much it sucks to make a Conan the Barbarian joke and only get blank looks in return."

"Who?" Tonks asked blankly.

"Yeah, that's the one." Harry sighed despondently, slumping his shoulders.

"Aw come one, you can't expect me to get every reference." She protested.

"I guess not, but you really got my hopes up with the Monty Python one." Harry complained.

"Well, excuuuse me." Tonks apologized sarcastically, smirking widely. Potter was turning out to be a lot more interesting than she'd expected him to be. And a great alternative to paperwork.

"How about you make it up to me by letting me take you on a date?" Harry proposed, once again smiling at her.

Tonks couldn't help it, she burst out into a loud peal of laughter that probably garnered some very odd looks from the Aurors in the surrounding cubicles.

"I'm going to take that as a yes." Harry said with dignity. He absolutely loved that hair of hers. It was keeping mostly to playfully bright pink colors that he was fairly sure indicated that she wasn't at all annoyed by his advances. She could probably control it if she wanted to, but as long as she wasn't bothering, he pretty much got free cues on how well he was doing.

"Smooth, Potter. Real smooth." She replied, still chuckling.

"I thought we agreed on 'Harry', and I'm still not hearing a 'no'."

"You're funny, but I usually prefer my men a bit… older."

"What a coincidence! I usually prefer my women a bit older, so we've already got something in common."

"What women?" Tonks snorted. "You might be able to pull off the late teens look, but everyone knows that you're only fourteen."

Harry decided to make no comment about not being fourteen yet.

"You'd be surprised." He said mysteriously. "If you want, I can tell you all about it on our date."

"You're serious? You really want want to take me on a date?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't thought that he was actually serious about taking her on a date, but he apparently really was ballsy enough to ask out an Auror at his age and expect her to agree to it.

"No, Sirius is my godfather and he's currently getting grilled by your boss." Harry smirked.

"Merlin's hairy bollocks, that was horrible." Tonks groaned. "I remember Sirius making that stupid pun when I was a kid, but it didn't sound so bad back then and I didn't expect it from anyone else."

"You think that's bad? Just wait until I make one with my own name." Harry said back with a grin.

Tonks looked confused for a moment before it dawned on her what he was talking about.

"Don't you dare." She warned.

"I mean, I shaved before coming here, but I just can't stop being Harry!"

"You evil git, you're supposed to be a paragon of good, not some pun spewing monster."

"Don't believe everything you read, I'll keep throwing my darkest, dankest puns at you until you agree to go on a date with me and Sirius is probably going to be in there for hours, so I've got plenty of time."

"Fine, I'll go on a date with you! Just… stop ."

When Sirius finally got to leave Director Bones' office, he was mentally exhausted. The woman was like a dog with a bone, and Sirius felt uniquely qualified to make that comparison.

It had taken forever before she was satisfied with his rendition of events and even then she'd still piled up a small mountain of conditions before allowing him to leave.

His Animagus form would be registered now, which just plain sucked. He'd have to keep an amulet with a tracking charm on his person at all times that would vibrate if they wanted to speak to him again. He was to stay inside Potter Manor until a press release could be given that confirmed his innocence so as not to cause a panic. He was to stay available for further interviews at all times, until the DMLE was fully satisfied with their investigation. He was mildly surprised that she hadn't insisted on collaring Padfoot as well.

Sirius had the distinct feeling that he and Harry had deeply irritated Amelia Bones.

Now he just had to find his godson and go back home. He knew that Harry had received a similar set of orders, though slightly more lenient since he was a minor.

"All done?" Auror Shacklebolt asked as he closed the door behind him.

Sirius liked the dark skinned Auror. The man was polite and respectful and showed none of the hostility that he'd seen on the faces of some of the others. He'd been professional and even sympathetic for the entirety of their admittedly short acquiaintance.

"Yeah." He breathed. "That boss of yours is one tough cookie."

"You should've seen her this morning when the Prophet came in." Shacklebolt chuckled. "She looked about ready to breathe fire."

"I can believe that, it did feel remarkably like being locked in a room with an angry dragon." Sirius said with a theatrical shudder. "Now where is that godson of mine?"

Shacklebolt suddenly looked uncomfortable. "He's been talking to Auror Tonks while you've been in with the boss."

"Auror Tonks?" Sirius blinked. "Not Nymphadora Tonks? Andromeda's little girl?"

"That's her."

"And she's an Auror now?"

"That's right, Mad-Eye Moody's last trainee before he retired."

"That's great, I haven't seen her since she was six. Where is she?" He and Andromeda had never been hugely close, but she was his favorite cousin by far(admittedly not saying much when the other choices were a crazy sadist like Bellatrix and a spoiled snob like Narcissa, but Andromeda was a genuinely decent woman), so seeing her now grown up daughter again would be nice.

"Right this way." Shacklebolt sighed and led him through the maze of cubicles.

Sirius had to blink in surprise again when he laid eyes on his godson. Harry was apparently having a very good time flirting with Andromeda's daughter.

"So that's how it is?" Sirius demanded when he saw this, bidding Shacklebolt goodbye as the big Auror went back to work. "I'm getting interrogated and you're over here, flirting with my cousin the whole time?"

"Cut the crap, Sirius, you'd do the exact same thing." Harry retorted dryly without missing the beat.

"You're damn right I would. You make me so proud." Sirius grinned. He decided not to comment on the fact that Tonks and Harry were related. Dorea and Andromeda weren't that close on the family tree anyway, not nearly as close as the first cousin relationship of his own parents at any rate.

"Wotcher, Sirius. Long time no see." Tonks greeted with a wave.

"I'll say. The last time I saw you, you were just a little girl with rainbow colored hair that hated her first name." He agreed.

"She still does." Harry said with grin.

"Are you serious?" Sirius grinned back.

Tonks groaned, anticipating some bad puns.

"No, you're Sirius. I'm Harry."

"But I saw you shave today!"

"I know right? It's uncanny."

"Will you two idiots please stop with the puns? I already agreed to go on a date with Harry." Tonks groaned again.

"Harry, did you get yourself a date by using puns ?" Sirius asked, very much impressed.

"Yep, you could say that I Black mailed her into it."

"Hehehehe."

"You're monsters, both of you. You should be in Azkaban for having such a horrible sense of humor."

"That would be quite the pun ishment."

"This is why people hate their relatives."

Waiting on the muggle side of London, Tonks really had to wonder how she'd gotten roped into a date with a kid that didn't look quite as young as he should, nor act like it.

Ah yes, of course. He'd been funny, charming, very persistent and depressingly enough, more interesting than her usual brand of suitors. If she had to put up with one more idiot who thought he was being clever by asking what her 'true form' was, she might have seriously started considering the use of the Cruciatus as a corrective measure. The fact that she'd also found him rather attractive was best not considered. That way lay confusion.

Having a muggleborn father and a pureblood mother had been the cause of more than one culture clash during her upbringing, such as each parent having very different ideas on the age of consent. Her mother would not be at all bothered by this date, but it would be for the best if her father never heard of it.

It had been good to see Sirius again. She remembered liking him the few times that he had visited and being very upset when he suddenly stopped. She hadn't learned about his supposed murder spree until years later. It was gratifying to know that he was innocent, bad puns and all.

Speaking of Sirius, the man had wished them well on their date(complete with lewd remark of course) and gone back to Potter Manor. He was apparently planning to write to a friend of his and spend the evening catching up since he was effectively grounded until Madam Bones issued a press release declaring him innocent of all charges. Harry had gone with him to change out of his robes since they'd agreed that the date was going to take place on the muggle side.

Tonks was pretty sure that her boss had chewed out both Sirius and Harry for the way they'd sprung this whole thing on her. The entire department had tiptoed around her since morning, wary of attracting her obvious wrath. Even Scrimgeour, the humorless bastard, had looked a bit aprehensive.

She spotted her date approaching then, cutting through her train of thought. She had to admit that he cleaned up rather well in his black shirt and slacks, if a bit monochromatic.

"M'lady." He greeted with good natured mockery, looking over at her ripped blue jeans, black combat boots, pink tube tob, open black jacket, decorative black choker and of course, her usual spiky purple hair. "You look ravishing."

"And you look like like you wouldn't know casual if it bit you on the arse." She snarked back. They were going to look ridiculously mismatched.

"Ah, but not all of us can look as good as you in casual clothes and I felt that you deserved my best." He rejoinedered.

"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?" She asked dryly.

"Not at all." He grinned. "The punk rocker look definitely suits you."

"Not going to be embarrassed to be seen with me then?" She asked with exaggerated disappointment, falling into step with him as they started walking.

"Embarrassed to be seen with a such a beautiful woman? Impossible. Meeting with that Daily Prophet reporter, now that was embarrassing."

Tonks rolled her eyes at the continued flattery, but was inwardly pleased nonetheless. It was always nice to be complimented. "What was he wearing? Some of the more muggle savvy of us in the DMLE have a competition going on who can find the most ridiculously dressed witch or wizard."

"That sounds like an interesting competition." Harry commented before describing the Oktoberfest-esque outfit that Smugley had worn for their meeting.

Tonks shook her head in disbelief once he was done. "I swear, some of these people have to be doing it on purpose. Either that, or they're getting their source material from the most out of the ordinary places possible. A few months back, there was a witch brought to St. Mungo's that thought all muggles dressed like death metal bands. She'd put a layer of white paint on her face that was at least an inch thick and used magic to solidify it."

"You can't be serious." Harry asked incredulously.

"No, that's your godfather." Tonks snarked vengefully.

"I probably deserved that." He admitted.

"Yes, yes you did."

"So what happened with the death metal witch?"

"Nearly suffocated under the paint, probably would have if her sister hadn't been there to apparate them both to St. Mungo's. I heard that the healers had to use a paint stripping spell to get her face cleared, took her eyebrows and eyelashes with it."

Harry winced. "That must've hurt."

"Probably." Tonks agreed. "Where are we going anyway? You never did tell me what you had planned for this date."

They'd agreed to stick to muggle entertainment for several reasons. For one, the Wizarding World tended to close its doors earlier. For another, it simply didn't have quite as much to offer in the way of entertainment either since it was so much smaller.

That was actually the primary reason that Tonks was so well acquainted with the Muggle World in the first place. The fun on this side was much more to her tastes.

"It's pretty late already, so our options are a bit limited. I was thinking dinner and a movie?"

"Works for me." She'd had the afternoon shift today and hadn't eaten anything substantial since leaving home.

"I hope you don't mind buffets. Regular restaurants always give out too small portions for me."

"How are you not the size of Hagrid?" Tonks demanded, seeing Harry finish off his third plate of food.

"Magic." He answered mysteriously, trying to keep down a grin and not being entirely successful.

"Seriously, you must eat as much as him." Tonks insisted.

"Nah, not that much." Harry refuted, but wasn't entirely certain. The Hogwarts gamekeeper tended to eat more in one sitting than him, but Harry knew that he ate more often.

And that wasn't even mentioning the various supplements he took, such as vitamins, calcium, iron and magnesium. He'd gotten a bit worried about nutrition after finding his appetite increased to its current ridiculous level, and had researched what he might be lacking in his diet. He didn't want to assume that magic would handle everything and later discover that his bones had become brittle from growing too fast with too little calcium or something. It was odd to feel grateful for Katherine's obsessive nutrition phase that he was even aware of that potential problem.

Potter Manor now had a room dedicated to the storage of a rather large amount of dietary supplements that Teeny faithfully brought him every day. He really wanted to do something nice for the little elf, because her help had been truly indispensable, but she threatened to cry every time he tried and there was nothing quite so guilt inducing as a blubbering house elf.

"Besides, can't you regulate your own figure with your special ability?" He asked. They were in a fairly out of the way corner, so it was safe to talk about magic if they were discrete about it.

"Some." She admitted. "But I'd still get fat if I ate like you."

"What are the limits of your shapeshifting anyway?" He pressed, seizing the opportunity. He'd been burning with curiousity about the ability ever since he'd heard of it. That had only increased when he'd gotten a good feel for Tonks' magic. It was far more… fluid or maybe mutable would be a better term, than what he felt in other magicals.

"I can't add or remove too much mass, but other than that I can do more or less anything."

"Even gender switching?" He asked further, eyebrows climbing upwards in surprise.

"Why, you'd prefer to date a man?" She asked back with a smirk.

"I walked right into that one." He said ruefully.

"Yup." She agreed smugly. "But yes, I can switch gender if I want to."

"That's incredible." He muttered. "But how? Wouldn't that require you to focus on all the internal changes?"

"Not really." She shrugged. "I just focus on what I want and it sort of happens by itself. I guess my magic must know what to do even if I don't."

"Fascinating. I wonder if it actually accesses your DNA to get the relevant information, or does it just forcibly change it?" He mused to himself, garnering an odd look from his date. "I don't suppose you would be willing to submit to experimentation?"

Tonks rolled her eyes at both the question and his cheesy grin when he asked it. "The Department of Mysteries already asked that and I'm sure you can guess what my answer was."

"No?" He ventured.

"I wasn't quite that polite, but you're essentially correct."

"Ah, too bad." He sighed dramatically. "I was hoping to duplicate the ability."

He was still going to try.

"Of course you did, bloody Ravenclaw." Tonks snorted. "This is why Hufflepuff is the best, you nerds don't know when to stop studying and the less said about Gryffindor and Slytherin the better."

"Can I have just one more question on this topic?" Harry requested.

This time it was Tonks who sighed dramatically, reaching for her glass of water. "Fine."

"Are you using it to keep your boobs so perky, or is that natural?"

The Auror spluttered with surprised laughter at the impertinent question, spitting a bit of water over her empty plate.

"See? I can have fun." Harry said smugly while Tonks worked on clearing her esophagus.

"Touché, Potter, touché." Tonks conceded. "I'm afraid that your question is stupid though, oh great intellectual comedian. For me, it's more natural to use my metamorph abilities than not."

"Ah." Harry nodded sagely. "So your boobs are both naturally perky and saggy. It's a breast paradox."

"How dare you call my girls saggy!" Tonks said, perhaps a bit too loudly if the odd look from a passing employee was any indication. "I'll have you know that I barely even need a bra. They're that perky."

"That's definitely something worth bragging about in public." Harry commented dryly, making Tonks flush in embarrassment as she realized that their conversation had gotten just a wee bit too loud to still be called discrete.

She cleared her throat and decided to move away from this topic. "So, what movie are we going to watch?"

"Let's check." Harry said and pulled out his mostly neglected smartphone.

"Ooh, is that one of those smartphone thingies?" Tonks asked eagerly and siddled over to sit next to him so that she could look over his shoulder.

"Yes." He confirmed, trying very hard to ignore what her tube top covered breasts were doing to him as they pressed into his back. They really were very perky. "I don't get much use out of it with how much time I spend at Hogwarts, but it's useful during the summer at least."

"I thought about buying one just for the novelty, but the paperwork is really a pain in the arse when you technically don't exist in the Muggle World. Not to mention the hassle of keeping it away from magic." Tonks commented, smirking as she noticed that Harry was sitting a bit too stiffly to be natural. Poke fun at her breasts would he? See how he liked it when her breasts poked at him.

"I guess that would be a problem." He agreed, almost managing to sound like he wasn't distracted. Almost. "Let's see… We've got the usual choices between sappy romance and car chases and explosions, as well as… a… few… Tonks?"

"Yeees?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but do you have two wands in your jacket or are those your nipples poking me?"

"They might be, you said yourself that my breasts are perky."

"Well, it's just that… they feel awfully long to be nipples."

"They're very perky."

"You are an evil woman, Tonks." And Harry meant that with feeling. He'd known that the shapeshifting Auror would be loads of fun, but right now he was getting a serious urge to shag her on the spot. He had no idea how he was going to survive a whole movie feeling like this.

" I know ." She breathed huskily into his ear and deliberately rubbed her now two inch nipples over his back, having entirely too much fun teasing him.

"So… um… which movie would you like to see?" He asked distractedly.

"You asked me out, so you should decide." She answered in the same husky tone. "Hurry, Harry! Before we puncture the Statute of Secrecy."

Harry groaned. "I thought you hated puns?"

"That's what I wanted you to think."

They left the restaurant shortly after that, with Tonks needing to take a quick side trip to the bathroom to magically repair her stretched out top, as it had not been made with two inch nipples in mind.

The movie was much less eventful than the dinner, with both of them taking a metaphorical step back.

Tonks had been a bit embarrassed at her own forwardness, having not intended to go anywhere near that far. Harry had been much better company than she'd expected him to be and she'd gotten a bit carried away because of it.

Harry had taken the reprieve from her teasing to get his libido under control with some emergency Occlumency. It was harder than he'd expected it to be, as both his body and magic seemed to have gotten used to regular intercourse as a means of dealing with that issue. He suspected that he was going to have a truly epic case of morning wood the next day.

Unless of course he managed to seduce Tonks all the way, but he was honestly not expecting that to happen. She wasn't the type to jump in the sack with him for his money or reputation and he didn't think that she was as easy as Zoe had been either.

Now the movie was over and it was approaching time to go their separate ways.

"I had a good time tonight, even if you did blackmail me into it." Tonks said, opening up the goodbye portion of the date.

"You know you liked my puns better than the paperwork." Harry retorted with a grin.

"That's not saying much, anything is better than paperwork." She shot back.

"Does that mean that you wouldn't be averse to doing this again?" He asked slyly, stepping a bit closer. "You know, just to get your mind off the paperwork."

"I might be open to it, if you agree to lay off the puns." She replied, not moving away despite his obvious intention to kiss her. He'd been a better than average date and certainly deserved it.

"I could do that." Harry agreed and closed in on her lips.

Tonks had assumed that it would be a simple peck on the lips, but Harry was apparently a rather greedy individual as he immediately went for a deep liplock. She might have protested his forwardness if it wasn't for the surge of warmth that suddenly exploded through her body and seemed to crawl slowly down to her groin. It got worse when his hands reached out to squeeze her butt.

Harry was doing more than just kissing her. He was pressing his magic against hers in a manner similar to what he'd done with Fudge, but for an entirely different purpose. Instead of making himself seem more imposing, he was mingling his own desire with that of the woman he was kissing. It was a technique that he'd actually learned from that sex magic guide that Luna had given him, a means of enhancing pleasure by forming a feedback loop between two people. He'd practiced it with Bryanna and Tiana frequently, though in that case it had been used during sex.

The kiss lasted a good deal longer than either intended as they lost themselves in the sensation, but lack of oxygen eventually prevailed and they broke apart.

" Wow ." Tonks exhaled, breathing hard and staring at him with heavy lidded dark eyes. That hadn't been an inexperienced kiss. Not at all.

Harry smirked at her reaction, more accustomed to it. "Let's do this again. Soon."

"Yeah." Tonks nodded a bit shakily, trying to ignore the throb of arousal in her loins.

Harry waited for a few moments longer, still holding on to the slim hope that she would suggest that they continue this somewhere more comfortable.

Alas, no such luck. "Well… I'll see you later."

Tonks apparated away with that, her mind on finishing this date with an application of Mr. Purple, her favorite, heavily enchanted dildo. She'd put her Hogwarts education to good use after leaving its hallowed halls.

Harry stood there for a while, biting his lip and reflecting on the double edged nature of establishing an emotional feedback loop. His arm was going to be so sore.