“Sir?”

Cornelius Fudge looked up from his desk as he saw a nervous Auror standing at the entrance of his office. He felt a headache coming on, he didn’t recognize this fellow. This fellow was new. Only the new ones delivered bad news, the experienced ones were never that stupid if they could help it.

“Yes? What is it?” Fudge asked sharply as it became apparent that the man was waiting for his response.

“Ah, there’s been reports of a- uhm. Incident. At Hogwarts, sir. People say that Headmistress Umbridge had uh, ordered the castle to attack Rubeus Hagrid after an argument and sent Harry Potter into the Forbidden Forest by himself to ‘display his skill in defense against the dark arts’ in there, according to Mr. Hagrid.”

Fudge glanced at his fireplace, but that wasn’t an option given how the ministry was still locked out of the Headmaster’s office after McGonagall’s departure. Even now, Dumbledore was thwarting the entire Ministry without even being present. Fudge stared at the young Auror blankly for a moment.

“Well? What’s being done? Has the boy been found?” he asked.

“Er, I don’t know sir. I was sent as soon as we got the full story. Amelia Bones is already on site…”

Fudge stood and started walking towards the door. This is why they always sent the new ones to him. He was resisting the urge to demote the boy on the spot for being so perfectly useless to him. What in the world had come over Umbridge? She was only supposed to root out the Dumbledore sympathizers and bring some order. Not… whatever was happening. It had been hard enough pressing the newspapers to keep their stories positive when they were covering all the new laws he had managed to pass recently. Obviously there was some opposition to the new Ministry control over Hogwarts, but the papers had done their job and most people seemed to understand that it was necessary until they were certain there wasn't anyone with sympathies for Dumbledore left at that school to cause more trouble in the future.

The young Auror followed the Minister silently, and Fudge waved him off.

“I’ve got the message,” He said, “Go tell my secretary Linda that I will be out for a bit. I’m heading over there personally. Hogsmeade is where they are gathering I presume?”

“Yes, Minister,” the Auror said before scurrying off as quickly as he could. It seems that he had realized why he was the one chosen to bring Fudge bad news.

Fudge reached the closest stone apparition platform and apparated to Hogsmeade. After a few minutes he found the gathering of blue robed Aurors and Amelia Bones barking out her orders.

“What’s the situation Madame Bones?” Fudge asked as he saw her spot him.

“No sign of these suits of armor that Mr. Hagrid speaks of attacking him,” she replied, “Except a few rather large summoned crossbow bolts buried in the road. According to Hagrid the armors emerged from the ground and a few of them shot at him. It’s certainly suspicious, but he’s the only witness. He refused to go back, said he didn’t want the wards to attack him again.”

“And of Harry Potter? Is he safe?” Fudge said. Everything up to now had been cleanly blamed on the machinations of Dumbledore. Probably true, but Fudge knew that there were likely other parties behind the various incidents that had happened to the boy in the shadows.

But the school was under Umbridge’s and by proxy, his command now. People would no longer accept blaming Dumbledore if Harry Potter was injured. They’d blame him.

Amelia shifted in place, “There are teams combing the forest at the moment. But there are many magical beasts in there and they are having difficulty searching. There’s a whole colony of Acromantulas in there. On another note we’ve, ah, detained Umbridge for now. Fudge I know she’s your subordinate but…”

“No, no,” Fudge said, holding up his hands placatingly, “You’re quite right, it has to be done. Sending a boy into a forest filled with Acromantulas, can’t be doing that. Did she really send the boy into the forest alone? Did she say why? I never ordered her to do such a thing.”

Amelia relaxed slightly and sighed, “Something about a stolen quill and the boy being disrespectful? She refused to explain past that. For some reason she just seems to really hate the boy. She ejected Mr. Hagrid from the grounds after he protested Harry Potter’s punishment. Marked him as an intruder on the wards on a timer. Something she openly admitted to that was highly inappropriate and probably a crime by itself.”

Fudge felt his headache grow worse. It was always something.

“I’ll talk to her," He said, "Keep looking, we need to find Harry Potter before anything terrible happens.”

Amelia Bones nodded, “Then I’ll get back to it,” she said before walking away to another cluster of Aurors to shout some more orders.

Fudge found Umbridge standing there flanked by two Aurors, the two men looking rather uncomfortable as the woman stood there.

“Ah, Minister!” she said perking up as she saw him, “This whole thing is rather ridiculous and overblown. I was perfectly within my rights…”

She stopped as Fudge raised his hand.

“Inside, Dolores?” Fudge said, “We don’t want to discuss this out here where anyone could hear.”

She nodded and they went into the pub, where they managed to convince the bartender to let them into the back room. Fudge didn’t know her well, but he’d heard good things about the bartender from those that visited Hogsmeade. The two guards followed them in, but at Fudge’s orders remained outside the room for now. He cast a quick charm to prevent any sound from escaping the room.

Fudge didn’t cast many spells usually, but he was very good at this one in particular. People were always trying to listen in and spy on his conversations wherever he went. One of the disadvantages of being Minister he supposed.

“Alright, Dolores, tell me what happened,” Fudge said, “Tell me from the beginning.”

“Minister,” Umbridge started, “Harry Potter has been nothing but rude and disrespectful all year! He even said the books you so helpfully provided for my class weren’t good enough! Well after catching him breaking the rules again, I’d had enough! A night in that forest will teach him that he needs to pay attention to his studies!”

Fudge sighed. Best get the full story first. But it wasn’t looking good so far.

“And the matter with Hagrid?” He said, “Did you order the Hogwarts to attack him?”

“I gave him twenty minutes to gather his things!” Umbridge declared, “Far better than a… than he deserves after yelling and insulting me like that. Like a scruffy dirty man like that knows anything about proper discipline for students.”

“So you confirm that you did indeed order the wards to attack him?” Fudge confirmed, “And you intentionally sent Harry Potter alone into the forest?”

“I… I do. Minister? Was this not the mission? I’ve brought proper order back to that school. The students are resisting now, but given enough time they’ll break and accept the new changes. Hagrid has been loyal to Dumbledore his whole life, I’m sure if he came and asked the oaf for something he wouldn’t refuse. He’s another Dumbledore loyalist that I’ve removed from the school!”

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Fudge stared at her for a moment. She was going to try to blame this mess on him? That was preposterous! Best to come out ahead of it.

“Dolores, this was way too far. Harry Potter is at risk again and you are at fault. I will do my best, but things are not looking good for you at the moment. Just hope to Merlin that the boy is alright once we find him or you might even be facing charges for Azkaban. The public has been touchy about anything involving Harry Potter ever since… the trial.”

“But… but he spoke out against the Ministry last year! After the triwizarding tournament when he was champion,” Umbridge replied, seeming confused.

“He did?” Fudge said in confusion, “When was that?”

“After he refused to do the interviews after he won? Just left despite being told by the ministry that it was required and flouting our authority?”

Fudge coughed as he finally remembered what she was talking about. So much had happened since then. All the maneuvering with the now dominant light faction and the still looming threat of Dumbledore untethered and on the loose… he had truly forgotten all about it.

“Flouting the authority of the department. Just that department, Dolores!” Fudge said, letting some of his irritation enter his voice, “Do you even remember how hard we worked to separate their actions from the ministry as a whole in those following weeks? That woman was out of line in her threat to withhold the prize money either way. The last gasps of a sinking department. Why would we want to be associated with that disaster of a triwizarding tournament? That would be remembered as the blunder of the century by the ministry if Dumbledore hadn’t committed his massacre of the dark faction on the very same day. You should have been more thorough in your reports if there was a problem, not go rogue like this and pull me and yourself into an even deeper mess!”

She looked at the floor looking suitably chastened, “Yes, Minister,” she said.

Fudge left and returned to the Ministry with all haste. Even if the boy were found immediately it would still be a mess. He had to prepare for when the news broke, hopefully with the boy alive and unharmed.

— — —

Half way back to the castle, two blue robed Auror rushed out of the castle towards Harry. He stared at them in confusion. What was the matter? They came to a stop just in front of Harry.

“Harry Potter? Are you alright?” One of them asked, seemingly out of breath from the short distance that they had run.

“Yes? I am fine,” Harry said. Had they been worried about him? Was the magical beasts constantly running away from him not well known to them? Thinking back on it perhaps not. Most students had at least a vague idea about it, but Harry didn’t think he’d actually seen it reported in the papers ever. He had thought it obvious after all the magical beasts in the third triwizarding task avoided him and ran away. Maybe they thought he had used some sort of spell? Now that he thought about it, that was more logical than the real explanation…

“Was the Ministry looking for me?” Harry asked, “Did Umbridge want to take back my punishment?”

The two Aurors glanced at each other briefly.

“Er, Umbridge’s been detained,” one of the Aurors said, “She’s being removed as Headmistress from what I’ve heard. Had the Hogwarts wards attack Hagrid on his way out. It's been a whole mess out here. Now come with us, we’ve got to report you’re safe.”

Harry followed them as they left.

— — —

Things were quickly sorted out with the Ministry after it became that Harry was uninjured. It seems the Ministry had trouble searching all the woods with all the magical beasts they had encountered attacking them.

Harry’s friends had been frantically looking for him after Umbridge made him abruptly ‘vanish’ out of nowhere. Hermione was furious when she heard what the woman had asked him to do. It would have been fatal to nearly anyone else, and Harry agreed with her that Umbridge had not been aware of his unique advantage that had made surviving so easy for him.

Ron and Neville were a little calmer, seemingly just relieved that he was fine and not as focused on revenge on Umbridge, who had been removed from the school. Although by the next day it became clear that ‘detained’ was all she would ever be. She had returned as Minister Fudge’s secretary after being removed from the headmistress position after ‘harsh words’ from the Minister. Something that all of Harry’s friends even Luna agreed was far too light for what she had done to Harry and Hagrid. But it seems that's all her punishment would be for what happened.

Some boring person from the Ministry took over the position and became the headmaster. No one quite hated him as intensely as they had Umbridge, but he still enforced all of her old rules. He only removing the no magic in the hallways rule after the teachers gave him a collective talking to after he started actually trying to enforce it and hand out punishments to the students.

Harry was a little confused about all of the new rules as time passed. At first he had thought it was only due to Umbridges influence that they were so strange, but it now was clear that it was more than that. Most of the rules were for such minor things. Like forcing them to only walk on the right side hand of the corridors all the time. Or preventing students from going in areas where there were classes with another years students in session.

But then there were at least a dozen rules that seemed designed to prevent couples from interacting or even hugging each other in the hallways. Why would the Ministry or the Headmaster care about any of that? Harry found it very strange. And they still hadn’t replaced Umbridge’s terrible textbook despite everything that had happened.

But despite the dissatisfaction and grumbling at the new rules by all the students, the waves of pranks were far less than what had targeted Umbridge. The new Headmaster was just so bland and boring that it was very hard for people to hate or blame him for anything, unlike Umbridge who had seemed to take a kind of sick pleasure from enforcing her new rules to the strictest degree just hours after she announced them for the first time.

And so, time passed and it was almost winter holiday. No one was exactly happy about what had happened, but people weren’t up in an outrage about it either now that Umbridge was no longer Headmistress. Harry enjoyed Christmas and relaxed with his family, and practiced dueling a bit more with Sirius.

Harry sent Hermione and Dobby their special gifts, hoping they would like them. The book on contract magic for Hermione, and the list of high magic locations around the world that might be available to use for Dobby.

Sirius and Sharon had gotten engaged while Harry was at school, so there was a lot of discussion of what they planned for their future wedding during Christmas dinner. Seems they were thinking of doing it on a beach. They both seemed happy, even Alice and Frank relentlessly teased Sirius for finally settling down after his playboy attitude in the past. It was good to see them be so happy.

Harry wondered if he would ever have that with someone? His feelings on girls had still not changed despite time passing. Neville and Luna were clearly already starting relationships with each other. Ginny had had a few boyfriends by now that Harry had briefly met before she dumped them again.

Hermione and Ron were clearly interested in certain people around them romantically even if they didn’t talk about it that much around him. He had seen their lingering glances as one of their crushes walked by. Maybe the day would never come for him, and he would never feel that way about other people. Harry wasn’t even sure if that was a bad thing, but it did leave him feeling a bit left out.

— — —

James Kensit stood in the Department of Mysteries in the British Ministry building under London. It had been so long since he had been to this country, he had forgotten to check on what valuables they had collected in the meantime. And to his amazement, James Kensit found all sorts of interesting goodies in this place worth stealing. Of course he left an illusion behind that should last a few years at least to replace whatever he took.

It was the Yule holidays, so the place was almost empty. The unspeakables, as they called the workers of this treasure trove, were far more advanced in mental magic than James Kensit had expected them to be. He had to focus a little on each of them to turn their attention away from him as he kept looting.

He snorted as he went into the room filled with prophecies. At least they were doing something right. He knew more than anyone that the forces of Prophecy and fate were not to be trifled with, and often hearing a prophecy concerning yourself only bound the chains of destiny tighter around you.

He kept moving until he reached something truly… extraordinary. The ministry of this pathetic little country were holding something this amazing? He felt his smile widen all the way until his lips hurt as he put his hand to the edge of the empty stone archway. But floating in the empty frame was something misty and indistinct. The Veil. This artifact somehow was bringing the veil of life and death into the physical world. This… he had been worried about finishing his project in time. But this was just perfect, it would make opening the portal to the void so much easier. He had to have it.

He inspected its foundation with a series of spells, but shook his head in annoyance by the end of it. Whoever had built this was a true genius, interweaving complex spell diagrams and wards through the stone floor beneath them as far as Kensit could detect. There was no chance that he would be able to move it in time without possibly ruining something.

Okay. Inconvenient, but using the Archway with the veil was important enough he could deal with it. He would just have to move the equipment here last minute and hold off these pathetic wizards until they gave up and moved their headquarters elsewhere.

Plus, when he opened the portal he was sure they would have so many problems with the fallout from all the rampaging souls that they wouldn't have the energy to focus on countering him too much. It would be a rather cataclysmic event after all.

After a long moment more of admiring the work of art in front and below him, James Kensit apparated away. He wanted to make sure all his loot was nice and properly preserved in his base. They should keep him entertained for decades at least in the future whenever he was between big projects again. Just a little longer and he would finally open the portal… he couldn’t wait.