Chapter 48: 48 The Mess

The Ministry was in an uproar.

For some reason, everyone in the building, from the maintenance men right up to the Minister of Magic, knew that Peter Pettegrew had faked his death and was a death eater. He wasn't suspected of being one, he was one. His had the dark mark on his arm and that had shocked everyone, almost as much as discovering that Sirius Black, the man who was sent to prison for Peter's death, was innocent.

Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge sat in his office and wondered what he was going to do. He knew that Sirius Black had been sent to Azkaban prison without a trial, since he was one of the arresting wizards and had delivered him there under the previous Minister's and the Chief Warlock's orders. With a smile, he knew that would be his saving grace from punishment, so he prepared the proper memories and pulled them out and bottled them.

Now that his ass was covered, Fudge started to work on how he was going to mitigate the political fallout of having an innocent wizard be incarcerated and essentially tortured for ten years. Reparations would be in order, hopefully just a token amount, and Black would probably sign anything to get himself out of prison, including an extended stay in St. Mungos to deal with his health and mental state.

Yes, that's the way to go. Fudge thought and started the paperwork for getting Sirius released and under an immediate mental and physical examination to ensure that he would be returned to health as soon as possible. He'll also be out of the way for a bit, and away from the press, and the Ministry will be seen as proactively doing something about it. He thought in satisfaction.

*

Bertha Jorkins had a perpetual smile on her face as she walked around the Ministry building. All the little bees buzzing around is so nice. She thought, happily. I'm so glad that my efforts weren't in vain!

“Bertha!” A woman's voice cut through the background voices in the hallway.

“Hello, Amelia.” Bertha said as she came to a stop. “I hope everything is all right.”

“Are you seeing this place?” Amelia Bones asked and waved at the chaos around them.

“Great, isn't it?” Bertha responded. “One little tidbit of information and then so much chaos!”

“You old gossip monger!” Amelia chuckled. “I knew you'd get a kick out of this.”

Bertha smiled and hooked her arm through Amelia's and started walking again. “Thank you for telling me about finding the dark mark on Pettegrew.”

“You went to school with him, so I thought I better let you know.” Amelia said. “I know you had a thing for his friend, Potter.”

Bertha chuckled. “Now I'm pen pals with his son and visited him a few times.”

Amelia looked a little surprised, then she smiled. “I hope you've been teaching him some good things.”

“He sucks up spells like a sponge.” Bertha said, a little proudly. “He also won't stop practising them until he can cast them perfectly.”

“Always good qualities to have in a wizard.” Amelia said. “How are his school lessons shaping up?”

“He transfigured his match on the first try and now he can do an entire box without taking them out.”

“In less than a week?” Amelia asked, impressed.

“He can also do three forms of Lumos and the Locomotor spell.” Bertha said.

“Are you grooming him for a Ministry position?” Amelia asked, her grin huge. “If not, I'll take him in the Auror's office.”

Bertha chuckled. “You're assuming he'll pass his NEWTs already!”

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“Aren't you?” Amelia asked, then both women laughed and agreed to try and shepherd Harry along as much as they could. They ignored the hubbub around them because it was from their own making. They knew that some of the old curmudgeons needed a little excitement every few years or they would get too stagnant and complacent in their lives.

*

Albus sat in his nice office and stared at the thick letter of 'accounts receivable' he had been given from the goblins at Gringotts bank. It listed all of the purchases that had been taken from Harry Potter's vault over the years and even he hadn't realized how much the school... namely him... had been using the boy's money as if it was an endless piggy bank. That wasn't the worst part, though.

It was a demand to pay it all back, with interest.

They forgave seven years of tuition, thank Merlin. Albus thought as he read through the list. He hadn't really planned for Harry to be in school for that long, however. No, he knew that certain events had to transpire in order for Harry to be prepared to face Voldemort and to deal with the problem, once and for all. That was years away and now he had to gather up some of his own funds to pay Harry back.

He wasn't sure where he was going to get the money for all of the scholarships that he had promised certain families for their continued support; but, he had a year to figure that out. He glanced at the phoenix nest at the side of his office and smiled at the discarded feathers as his friend molted.

Perhaps it will be easier than I thought to raise the money. Albus thought. Phoenix feathers were highly desirable wand core components and also expensive potion ingredients. A discrete call to Mundungus should alleviate some of my immediate concerns.

Albus wrote out a reply to the goblins and gave them permission to take the gold from his personal vault to repay Harry and not from the school's vaults, that way they would know he wasn't apologizing for the original act and was only paying for it. Goblins were a little weird when it came to things like that.

*

Severus Snape was in a snit. He didn't let it show, however. He was much too controlled for that. He had watched and listened all week, and he was very good at it. The object of his attention was none other than Harry Potter. His outbursts in the Great Hall were very fitting for the way his father had acted and he expected the boy to be just as dense and full of himself. He had waited all week to get him into his class and to knock the arrogant boy down a peg or two.

Unfortunately, that wasn't what happened.

In fact, the questions he had prepared had been easily if slightly inaccurately answered. He had been so surprised by how close the Draft of the Dead answer had been to the real one, Draught of Living Death, that he had forgotten to correct the boy. His two follow up questions had been easily answered as well. Even Harry's explanation of knowing wolfsbane and monkshood are the same plant because he looked it up, made his normal answer that much better.

For the Potions class, he had set the students in pairs, keeping the Slytherins and Griffindors separated, and had paired Harry with the bumbling Neville, sure that their potion would be either ruined or cause a mess so profound that he could either vanish the contents or dock points from their House for incompetence. Instead, their potion was the first one completed, thanks to those expensive auto-levelling scales to measure out the right portions for the ingredients.

Harry had also been whispering to the bushy haired girl to help her with hers, all while trying not to get noticed by him.

As if I can't see everything within my domain. Severus thought. “Time is up! Everyone fill a vial with your potion, no matter what state it is in, and bring it up to my desk.” He glared at everyone. “It will be... marked accordingly.”

Everyone did up a vial and Severus noticed that all of them, even the pure blood students, used the cheapest glass vials that could be purchased... all except Harry's. His shiny crystal vial stood out like a diamond in the rough as it was slipped into the large box on the desk.

Snape saw his chance and did a little swipe of his wand and made the vial jump out of the box and fall to the stone floor. “Careful there, Potter!” He said as the crystal clinked onto the stone floor. “It seems that your clumsiness has...” He stopped talking when he looked down at the vial.

“It's all right.” Harry said and turned back to pick up the completely intact vial with his wand hand. “It's unbreakable. I wouldn't trust a simple vial to hold a potion.” He put it back in the box and applied a silent sticking charm to the bottom of it, thanks to the end of his wand sticking out the end of his sleeve. “I would like it back after you mark it, since it was so expensive.” He smiled at the professor and then walked back to his desk.

All of the other students stared at him and then kept staring as he enlarged a crystal vial, dumped the entire cauldron of potion into it, then shrunk it again. He corked it and slipped it into his pocket, used a cleaning spell to clear the residue from the cauldron, then he gathered everything and put it into his trunk. Hermione handed him her large backpack and he put that into his trunk as well, then they were all surprised when Neville gave him his things, too.

Harry picked up the trunk by the handle, as if it weighed nothing, and waited.

Severus opened his mouth to say something about what he just saw, then the bell rang and everyone filed out of the classroom. He sat down at his desk and looked at the box of vials he had to grade and sighed. It was a chore to do it and he would leave it for after class that afternoon.

He had no idea that his snit would become full blown anger when he tried to mark Harry's potion later that night. The sticking charm would lift the box and spill every other vial onto the floor and smash them.

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