Cambrian
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Lightning Strikes Twice Ch. 22 (Harry Potter)
🕑 Added 2023-10-25 14:48:43 +0000 UTCA/N: Harry watches Amelia work, pleased with her efficiency.
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He stays long enough to see what Amelia does in the immediate. The Director of the DMLE casts a variety of spells first, all to try and detect him or how he intruded on her office in the first place. For a moment, he thinks she might continue to focus on that, ignoring the breadcrumbs he dropped on her desk. If she had, Harry would have been disappointed, admittedly.
But… no. After a moment, Madam Bones slowly sidles her way over to the desk, wand still out and now pointed at the papers themselves. One might think she was being paranoid, but the paranoia is justified for two reasons. Number One, she lives in a world of magic, where even a piece of paper can be used to kill through a variety of hexes and curses. Number Two… it’s not paranoia if they actually are out to get you.
Amelia Bones would be Enemy Number One to Voldemort and his Death Eaters if Harry and Dumbledore didn’t exist. As things stood, the fact that she commanded a Bronze Medal despite being just one of many of their victims from the Dark Lord’s First Rise spoke to Amelia’s determination and resolve. She was a fighter and a go-getter through and through and even if there wasn’t anything unique or special about her in the way there was for him and Dumbledore, she still represented a significant thorn in Voldemort’s side.
Still, eventually the overly cautious DMLE Director makes it to the desk and looks down at the papers, still ready for them to quite literally leap up and attack her. Then she reads a few lines of what’s on the first page and Amelia stiffens before suddenly snatching the papers up, eyes widening as they dart back and forth, consuming the text at a truly voracious pace.
Yeah, that was about what Harry expected. After all, the sheaf of documents provided proof of misdeeds tied to individuals that Harry imagined Amelia had wanted to put away for a long, long time. No one overly special, to be clear. They weren’t Lucius Malfoy, that was for sure. But they were just important enough in the grand scheme of things that they got a pass. And that… that likely rankled the Madam something fierce.
Sitting back down at her desk, it’s clear that her previous work has been entirely forgotten. As Amelia begins poring over the documents he’s provided her with, Harry just smiles from where he’s hidden, watching her. Unfortunately… it IS rather boring in the end. This was the truth. Harry didn’t think he could possibly taint the ensuing events with his presence because at this point he simply didn’t think he could be caught.
However, the real downside to sticking around and watching Amelia work was this… he would get bored. Oh sure, studying the woman’s severe but beautiful face was certainly fun enough, especially since she didn’t know he was still there. But there came a point where Harry found himself somewhat numbed by the tedium of it all.
Hours and hours pass as Amelia Bones turns his initial sheaf of pages into three very full files, one for each of the Death Eaters he’d lined up for her. Her work is to be applauded, but by Merlin is he at the end of his rope by the time something interesting finally happens.
Namely, the sun finally finishes rising and Amelia’s enchanted pocket watch suddenly chimes with an alarm. Glancing down at it, she huffs and pulls open a drawer. For a moment, Harry thinks she’s pulling out alcohol of all things… but belatedly realizes she’s withdrawing a potion when she uncorks the vial and downs the mixture inside without a second of hesitation.
In an instant, the unhealthy pallor that the older witch has developed after being awake all night without getting even a wink of sleep has vanished. Color returns to her skin and she straightens up, clearly re-energized and feeling quite a bit better. Like a good cup of tea, but a hundred times stronger.
Harry watches in amusement as Amelia then proceeds to pull out a mirror and tap it thrice. A male voice comes out of it a moment later.
“Scrimgeour here.”
“Rufus. Report to my office immediately.”
“… Yes ma’am.”
Well now. Wasn’t that a blast from the past. Rufus Scrimgeour. Harry tilts his head as he realizes that… yes, that makes sense. Rufus Scrimgeour WOULD still be the Head Auror right now. For a moment, he has to wrestle with his own negative feelings towards the man. Harry and Fudge’s very short-lived replacement had not gotten along well. Rufus Scrimgeour certainly gave the appearance of being a much tougher and more stalwart Minister of Magic than Cornelius Fudge had… but that was just it. That was where it ended. Appearance.
The man, commonly likened to a lion, was all flash and no substance. He cared more about public perception than actually persecuting a proper war against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. He’d also been terribly suspicious of Dumbledore. Which in a way was fair, the old wizard had his fingers in too many pies and was constantly spinning half a dozen plates at any given time.
But Dumbledore was never Scrimgeour’s enemy. Not in the same way Voldemort was. After all, only one of them had killed Rufus and taken over the Ministry of Magic in a coup, in the end. Harry honestly shuddered to think what Rufus Scrimgeour as Minister would have done when everything happened afterwards. When magic itself began to die off. When the muggles’ wars had sped everything up and left them with no time to react or recover.
Given how they’d failed even with everyone working towards the same goal, Harry didn’t think they would have fared any better with a man like Scrimgeour at the reins.
Still… he would try and hold his prejudices at bay for now. Indeed, as he watches Amelia’s Floo flare to life and the lion-like wizard in question step into her office, Harry reminds himself that this is not the same Rufus Scrimgeour he interacted with in the previous timeline. After all, that man had no one left to keep him in check. He was Minister of Magic and doing whatever he possibly could to fix things his way.
This Rufus Scrimgeour, however, is still Head Auror. And that means he answers to the Director of the DMLE… one Madam Amelia Bones.
“Read these.”
“Ma’am?”
Amelia just points to the chair in front of her desk before flicking her wand so that the three files she’s made out of Harry’s information slide across to that side. Rufus sits down and opens the first one, eyes narrowing and lips pressing tightly together as he looks over the information for a long moment.
Silence falls in the office as the Head Auror skims through the first file and then the next two. When he’s done, he looks… frustrated. But also baffled.
“Ma’am… which of my Aurors did you peel off to do this work? Why wasn’t I informed?”
What Rufus leaves unsaid; Harry can hear plain as day. ‘How had he not noticed?’ It was one thing for Amelia to go over his head… she WAS his boss after all. But for the Head Auror to not even KNOW that she was going over his head in this way had clearly caught Rufus off guard. But then to be fair… she hadn’t gone over his head.
“None. And you are being informed, Rufus. You are in fact the first person I’m informing.”
Reaching across her desk, Amelia taps the middle file.
“This information… all of this information came to me only last night. By way of a… confidential source. Brand new. And I’m not at liberty to say any more than that at this time.”
Scrimgeour’s eyes widen at that, his gaze flicking between the three files as he looks at them in a new light.
“… I see. And this… source. Are you sure it can be trusted, ma’am? Are we confident this information wasn’t supplied to us to make fools of the Auror Department?”
And there it was. Even as Head Auror, Rufus cared more about appearances than substance. Honestly, he was just as bad as Fudge, just in a different way. Fudge liked to maintain the appearance that everything was perfectly fine even when it wasn’t. Rufus, meanwhile, wanted to maintain the appearance of control. That HE controlled everything.
Fortunately for Harry’s purposes, Amelia Bones is nothing like Cornelius Fudge or Rufus Scrimgeour. She does hesitate for a moment, looking off to the side as she contemplates his words… and remembers what Harry said to her the night before, the hidden wizard realizes. She’s thinking back to what he’d told her, about just how many former Death Eaters were happily ensconced within the Ministry. Within the Wizengamot. Blood Purists. Opportunists. Murderers. Rapists.
The worst sort of scum and she just had to let them slide because there wasn’t enough evidence or because they’d been forgiven of the crimes they committed in the past. But not with the information Harry had given her. He’d picked three men who all had committed crimes in more recent times. He’d provided evidence. He’d provided proof. All that was left was for Amelia to act.
“… I spent all night corroborating what I could. Trusted? Maybe. Acted upon? Yes, undoubtedly.”
Rufus stiffens as Amelia suddenly rises from her desk, moving to get her coat.
“Ma’am… if this turns out to be even remotely farcical, we could damage the standing of the DMLE. I just want to make sure you’ve taken that into consideration.”
Shrugging on her coat, Amelia looks back at him and nods sharply.
“I have, Rufus. That’s why… you don’t need to worry. I’ll be taking some of our Aurors and handling all of this myself. If it is a trick, then I’ll fall upon my sword and you’ll rise to take my place. If it isn’t… then we’ll know where we stand with this new source. Am I understood?”
Rising from his own seat and standing straight, Scrimgeour nods sharply.
“Yes ma’am. Perfectly understood.”
Harry resists the urge to whistle… before remembering they can’t hear him anyways. So he whistles long and low, impressed as all hell by Amelia’s go-getter attitude. Of course, leaving someone like Rufus as Director of the DMLE if this really does go tits-up is a mark against her, but everything else… everything else is quite impressive.
As the two leave Amelia’s office, Harry follows the older witch. From there, things do significantly pick up as she proceeds to call all of the Aurors in front of her for an impromptu emergency meeting. With a no-nonsense tone of voice, Amelia proceeds to split them all into three groups, giving them only precisely what they all needed for their missions and nothing less. She assigns Shacklebolt as lead for one group, Dawlish as lead for another, and herself as lead for the third.
Three simultaneous raids with no warning ahead of time. Heh, it’s certainly not how the Wizarding World usually operates. Indeed, normally raids like these are planned out weeks if not months in advance… giving the Aurors on the payroll of the Dark Wizards time to get word back to them so they can get their affairs in order and hide the things that need to be hidden.
This ploy of Amelia’s can only work once, Harry notes. But he imagines she recognizes that as well and that’s why she’s making sure all three raids go off simultaneously.
“Alright everyone! You have your orders, so let’s move out!”
From there, things move even more quickly. Amelia isn’t taking chances. Even if the Death Eaters Harry offered up to her on a platter were little more than small fry, she’s acting like they all have the same level of insight into her department as someone like Lucius Malfoy almost certainly did. And… it works. Between Amelia’s go-getter attitude and professionally planned raids and Harry’s information, the operation is a full success.
He hops over to Hogwarts for an appearance at one point during the day, before returning to Amelia’s side as she and her Aurors take down all three Death Eaters, collecting the actual material evidence of their crimes thanks to the information Harry provided her with. It’s all there. The hidden trophies under the floorboards, the passcode to open the enchanted safe in the wall, even the exact curses on the dark items buried in the garden so that Amelia’s contracted Cursebreaker would know exactly what he was dealing with.
The whole thing goes off without a hitch, and with how much information they already have, the interrogations go just as well. Mostly because the interrogations aren’t even really necessary. Thanks to Harry, Amelia and her Aurors know more about the Death Eaters and their crimes than the three criminals remember themselves, quite frankly.
There’s a little bit of an uproar all the same, of course. Amelia even has a meeting with Fudge once all is said and done where the Minister hems and haws a bit about how he ‘only wishes she’d mentioned something like this in the works’. But he can’t actually censure her for doing her job. And Amelia had done her job very, VERY well today.
Finally, night falls and Amelia returns to her office. Harry expects her to simply wrap things up and then head home to get some shut eye since she clearly didn’t the night before… but no. The woman makes sure to dot her I’s and cross her T’s on the gift he’d dropped in her lap, wrapping everything up with a nice bow on top. And then… then she gets back to work.
That potion of hers might have allowed her to make it through the day without any sleep, but Harry doesn’t actually know of any potion or elixir that completely replaces sleep. And if he doesn’t know about it, it almost certainly doesn’t exist.
Amelia doesn’t seem to care. If anything, Harry’s help has lit a fire under her ass. She seems tired… but revitalized. Rejuvenated, really. He didn’t realize it, but Amelia Bones NEEDED this win. She REALLY needed this win.
… He’d always wondered why it had been Rufus Scrimgeour who had become Minister of Magic after Fudge’s disgraceful exit. After all, as Head of the DMLE, surely Amelia was more of a shoo-in for the role than her direct subordinate, right? Especially when the Ministry had just been forced to admit that Voldemort had indeed returned.
And yet, it had been Rufus. He’d become Minister while Amelia had continued on as Director until they both died a year later less than a month apart when Voldemort finally stopped playing games and took over the Ministry.
Harry finally understood why that was. Amelia was tired. Not just physically, not just mentally, but also spiritually. She was weary in mind, body, and soul. Perhaps she had put her name forward for consideration as Minister. But Rufus had fought for it a little harder and Amelia… Amelia simply hadn’t cared enough to force him to stay in his lane. And in the end, she’d stayed in HER lane while he’d gone on to make an absolute mess of things.
What would the Ministry of Magic have looked like with a Minister Bones? Would it have fared any better against Voldemort? Maybe not. But one thing was for sure, it couldn’t have fared worse.
Meanwhile, Harry finds himself watching a reinvigorated Amelia as she settles in to work her way through another night without sleep. And… he considers his options.
Comments
Cambrian
Thanks, fixt!
Kyllix
Missing word? "Harry and Fudge’s very short-lived had not gotten along well." I like where this is going, thanks for the read.
Osiris Sundavr
The Bone Daddy. Sorry but I just couldn’t help myself.
Dr.Scribe
This is pragmatist harry not dark harry. He knows sleep is important plus which how worn she is even before things kick off and how worn he knows she could get...a slight paradigm shifting nudge is in order. Perhaps a figure she can trust and rely on to have her best interests at the heart (including safeguarding her values of justice) would be just what she needs. Harry disguised or wreathed in shadow interacting with her, telling her she did a good job would do it. Just enough caring Dom/Daddy energy is the source of stability and comfort she needs. Plus that's a different flavor of getting that submission the symbiotic binding needs right? Bella is force, sinestra is teasing and social taboos, Hermione is live and yet to be explored, etc. I guess, thoughts on this Harry being Daddy to the Bones ladies?
RanmaChaos
Looks like sleep is pretty much a guarantee. In that case, I feel like when Harry appears before her this time, he should do something that really wows her. Yes, slipping past her guards is very impressive but it's not really awe inspiring. And I think awing Amelia is gonna give Harry an edge in convincing her to go to bed. I have a feeling she's going to be stubborn about it. It's a shame there isn't more motion around Amelia at the moment, otherwise I would suggest Harry stop time(or at least appear to stop time) around Amelia while they have their talk.
Eric Rudolph
Maybe use some magic to give her a nice dream of her giving up all controll and responsibilities to someone and come back the next morning freash and relaxed to find a new gift on her desk. Maybe some of the deatheaters and spies ( Dumbledore and Tom) in her own department or the flo office or even on Doloris Umbrige. A little tip about some dark objects like a box of blood quills to start an investigation that ends with the discovery of her blackmailing a lot of people and taking bribes...
Osiris Sundavr
It would be best to have her get some rest. That potion might help her in the short run but if she doesn’t get some actual sleep then eventually her decisions will begin to slowly slip. Becoming subpar when she could have instead been excellent.
