Chapter 29 – Aftermath
375 2 7
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

Harry quickly made his way to the headquarters and under his invisibility cloak, he got Tonks, transformed into himself, to make her way to the empty room along with Remus and Sirius.

Harry made his way to the room first and sat down, waiting for them, deep in thought.

‘The plan went without a hitch but now that I think about it, why did this conference happen in the first place?’ thought Harry, his brow furrowed, ‘I don’t remember such an event happening in my past life’

Harry couldn’t help but feel a little concerned. ‘Does that mean, every change I’ve made so far has ended up changing things so much that even stuff like this conference happened?’ thought Harry. ‘Then that would mean that my knowledge of the future would be rather unreliable at best. I suppose I can look out for the major events but I should make sure to be cautious, there’s no telling what might have changed’

Around fifteen minutes later, the other three arrived. All four of them were seated in the room, much like the first time they met for the mission. Tonks had already changed into herself and was situated rather comfortably between Remus’ legs, resting her back on his chest.

“So, how’d it go?” asked Sirius, rather excitedly. Tonks displayed an equal amount of excitement but Remus alone looked a little anxious.

“It went off without a hitch - much of a hitch” correct Harry. “Let me explain properly”

Remus’ anxious expression lightened up a little but he still seemed a little worried.

“I’ll explain the main characters in this debacle first” said Harry, “You all already know Fudge so I’ll ignore him. There are two other morons I decided to include in this time’s plan”

Harry paused for a moment before continuing, “The first one is rather well known. Rita Skeeter” said Harry, looking over the others, noticing their looks of confusion. “I wouldn’t have bothered with her normally but it seems, the conference this time was mainly thanks to her. She provided Fudge with all the information and evidence just so he could drag Dumbledore down. She’s apparently even writing a book called, ‘The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore’” said Harry, a look of distaste on his face.

“Wait, what was this conference even about?” asked Tonks, voicing all of their confusion.

“Mainly just to denounce Dumbledore to the world by spreading the information of him having been extremely close to and possibly in cahoots with Gellert Grindelwald before his rise to power” replied Harry blandly.

“He was!?” asked Sirius, shock clearly shown on his face.

“That doesn’t matter” replied Harry with an air of finality, “Who he is now is who we know and respect. There is no need to go around trudging up his past”

“You’re right” replied Sirius, shaking his head. “Go on”

“The other person who I involved was a reporter from the Daily Prophet, Pavin something” said Harry.

“You mean Pivane Clarke?” asked Remus, disgust practically dripping when he said the man’s name.

“Yup, that’s the one. Why do you know him?” asked Harry.

“He’s a slimy little bastard who joined up with Dolores Umbridge to help her spread the hate for werewolves. If Umbridge handled the legal stuff to make life hell for werewolves then Pivane handled the media side of things” replied Remus, anger clearly visible in his face.

“I see” nodded Harry, “Over the last few days of spying, I found out that he’s the main liaison between Fudge and the Daily Prophet and the man responsible for most of the smear campaign against Dumbledore and I”

“So basically what you’re trying to say is that, whatever happened to them during the plan, they deserved it, right?” asked Tonks with a grin.

“Basically yeah” laughed Harry and proceeded to tell them how the conference went on and how he tricked Fudge into getting angry.

“Though, I did think he would snap, I really didn’t expect him to use a cruciatus in a room full of witnesses and Aurors” said Harry, shaking his head. “I think I might have pushed him a little too far in the last few days but well, things still worked out”

“Well, this would probably harm the Ministry’s reputation a decent bit but it’s still better than the Ministry completely falling to Voldemort” said Remus, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Now we just need to wait for the news of Fudge being arrested and a new Minister being appointed. Hopefully it’s someone sensible” said Harry.

“It would either be Amelia Bones or Kingsley” replied Sirius, “I’m not sure if you know but Rufus Scrimgeor was murdered several days back. They don’t know who did it but they found a death eater next to Scrimgeor with his heart ripped out”

Harry just stared back blankly, “How did Scrimgeor die?” asked Harry, keeping his voice as level as he could, the feeling of guilt surfacing again.

“Seems like a killing curse” replied Remus, “Though, why they used a killing curse against an Auror and then proceeded to brutally murder a death eater is really inexplicable”

“I see, I hope they find the culprit soon” said Harry and changed the topic, his stomach churning.

Eventually, they moved back downstairs and spent the day helping out. When Mrs Weasley was about to go prepare dinner for the massive number of people, Hermione, Ginny and Tonks quickly volunteered their help.

“Why don’t you have Kreacher help you Mrs Weasley?” asked Harry.

Hermione’s face immediately lit up at that, “I agree! We should have Kreacher help and maybe even join us for a meal!”

Mrs Weasley averted her eyes from Hermione and replied to Harry, “Kreacher - might not be too helpful” she said, “Maybe it’s best to keep him away from any sharp objects”

“Nonsense, he’d be really helpful” said Harry and turned towards the door and called out, “Kreacher, could come in here a moment?”

A pop sounded and Kreacher appeared in front of Harry. “Yes, Master Harry?” he asked with a bow.

The others looked on at the sight with shock and wonder.

“Could you help Mrs Weasley cook dinner, there really are too many people and she can’t handle it all alone” said Harry with a friendly smile.

“Of course, Master Harry” replied Kreacher and turned towards Mrs Weasley, “How may I help Mistress Weasley?”

Mrs Weasley looked utterly dumbfounded and took a long moment to find her voice again, “Uh, if you could make the rice and mashed potatoes, I’ll take care of the stew” she replied, looking a little uncertain.

“Of course, Mistress” replied Kreacher and quickly made his way to the kitchen and started to work.

Everyone turned towards Harry, they look of wonder and shock not waning in the slightest. Except for Hermione, who had a huge smile plastered on her face.

“Care to explain?” asked Sirius, “Why is that - thing - being so nice, all of a sudden?”

“Sirius, be nice to him” reprimanded Harry, “You’ve been so miserable and you’ve only been stuck in this house for a few months. Can you imagine how horrible it must have been for him, stuck all alone in this house? He’s gone through more than any of us know, so we should really be nicer to him”

Sirius looked stuck for words so Harry continued. “I didn’t really do much, I just did what Hermione said” said Harry, turning towards Hermione with a smile, “I was just nice to him and he opened up. He’s really not bad when he opens up like this, plus you don’t have to worry about keeping the house clean anymore”

Mrs Weasley nodded at that, “I did notice that since yesterday, the rooms have needed a lot less work than usual. So it must be Kreacher actually cleaning them now. Though he still does take things and hide them away so we can’t throw them” he finished with a defeated sigh.

“Come on, these things are important to him” said Harry and looked towards Kreacher, who was still working in the kitchen but Harry noticed his ears perk up a little when the topic was brought up.

“How about this, we’ll compromise” said Harry. “We’ll give one room to Kreacher, he can fill it with anything and everything he doesn’t want thrown out. After that is done, everything else is fine for you guys to toss out if you want. That room alone would be off-limits for anyone else”

“Harry, that’s going a bit far” growled Sirius.

“Oh come on, Sirius, it won’t affect you in any way and Kreacher would be happy. It’s a win-win!” said Hermione happily. “Thank you Harry! What you did for Kreacher really helped!”

“Don’t worry about it” replied Harry with a grin. Kreacher had stopped working and was staring at Harry with tears in his eyes. “Thank you Master Harry” he bowed deeply again.

“Again, Don’t worry about it. Also, get back to work, I’m rather hungry” said Harry with a gentle smile.

“Of course!” replied Kreacher enthusiastically and returned to work with renewed vigor.

Dinner eventually ended and everyone went off to sleep. Ron seemed to have adopted a ‘Ignore Harry from now on’ attitude, not that Harry was too bothered with it. ‘I’m really tired of his jealousy. He did the same thing in the fourth year and again now. I really don’t need that crap in my life right now’

Thinking about that, Harry drifted off to sleep.

The next day, Harry made his way to the kitchen to find many people crowded around the table, peering at something.

Harry approached Sirius, “What’s going on here?”

Sirius turned to Harry, nodded and whispered back, “It’s the news about Fudge” he then spoke in a louder voice, “Check this out, Harry. Seems Fudge caused a bunch of problems and ended up getting himself arrested”

Harry chuckled, “Oh thank god! Now I can stop worrying he’s going to send a howler every time I breath wrong”

Several people at the table chuckled at that, “This is really good though” said Mr Weasley, “With this, we can try to help strengthen the Ministry and resist you-know-who much better”

Harry nodded and moved towards the paper. The front page had a large image of Fudge with a massive article denouncing Fudge in every which way. It was so anti-Fudge that it even went to call Dumbledore a hero for having put up with Fudge’s antics so far and called Harry a misunderstood hero.

“Are they trying to suck up to Dumbledore?” asked Harry, dumbfounded by the article.

“Not just Dumbledore” chuckled Tonks, “You too. It seems like it’s common knowledge that the people most likely to become Minister are on good terms with you and Dumbledore so the Prophet is trying it’s best to resolve the bad blood between us and them”

“Well, fat luck, I’ll be sending them stinkers every week from now on” said Harry with a grimace.

“Ooh! We have better ideas for pranks mate” said George, clapping Harry on his shoulder.

“Absolutely, just leave it to us and the Prophet won’t know what hit them!” said Fred from the other side.

“THE TWO OF YOU WILL NOT PICK A FIGHT WITH THE DAILY PROPHET!” screamed Mrs Weasley.

“Yikes, that’s loud” said George, plugging his ears. “Time to run!”

The twins hightailed it out of the kitchen with a fuming Mrs Weasley yelling after them.

Harry smiled and then thought to himself, ‘There’s really just one more thing I need to finish before school starts. This really has been an insanely busy few weeks’ sighed Harry.

7