All Kinds of Directions

“You could have warned me the effects were so unpleasant,” the Prime Minister said with a shiver.

Scrimgeour lowered his magical wand and shrugged. “Nothing to be done for it,” he said apathetically. “We had to know you weren’t under You-Know-Who’s control.”

“Now that we’ve got all these extra protection spells up you’ll be a bit safer, too.” Fudge added with a bit more sympathy.

“I really don’t approve of your implementing your…your spells without consulting me first!” the Prime Minister said angrily.

“Well, I suspect you’ll get over it,” Scrimgeour said vaguely. “We are taking great pains to ensure your safety, so I’m sure you’ll recognize the necessity once you think about it.” He turned and flashed the Prime Minister a fleeting smile. “Got to be getting on now,” he said, heading for the fireplace. “Want Fudge to stay and keep you company?”

Both the Prime Minister and Fudge scowled at that condescending comment. “I think not,” the Prime Minister said haughtily. “I have to give an address tomorrow and I’ve not even begun to prepare, thanks to you.”

“As you wish,” Scrimgour replied. “Come along, Cornelius, we’ll leave the Prime Minister alone to get his speech all gussied up.”

The Prime Minister felt a bit of sympathy for Fudge as the two wizards disappeared into the fire. To be treated the way Fudge was couldn’t be a nice feeling.

Sighing, he turned back to his desk to take up the pages of his speech, when a quiet but strong voice muttered something strange behind him. He spun around just in time to see a jet of red light appear from nowhere and strike, of all things, the painting that hung over his trophy-littered mantel—the painting that occasionally spoke to him, to announce the arrival of the Minister of Magic. Whatever the light had been, the figure in the painting slumped slightly with its eyes closed. The Minister was trying to come to grips with what he’d just seen when another, different voice firmly said “Silencus.”

A thin haze of light surrounded the room, and the Minister gasped. Magic, he thought frantically—Some wizard is invisible, and they’re casting magic spells! “Help!” he shouted, scrambling for the door. “Help me!”

Before he got more than a few steps, the first voice spoke again; “Cnottastreng!”

With a yelp, the Minister tripped and fell to the floor. He rolled to his side and gawped in amazement as two people appeared in front of the fireplace—not from the flames like Scrimgeour and Fudge, but out of thin air.

The first was a young man, with wild black hair and glasses. He was tall and thin, and seemed both hesitant and confident at the same time. The second was a short-ish, red-haired girl, whose entire bearing suggested that she was prepared for a fight. Both of them held magical wands.

“Mr. Prime Minister, I’m very sorry,” the young man said. “We don’t mean you any harm—”

“Is that so?” the Minister said warily. He tried to get to his feet, but found he couldn’t; upon closer inspection, he found that his shoelaces had been knotted together.

Oddly enough, that calmed him somewhat. If his two surprise visitors had wanted to hurt him, they might not have bothered with something so harmless to keep him from reaching the door. He glanced up at them and gestured at his laces; “Do you mind? They’re very tightly knotted.” The girl smiled a bit sheepishly, waved her wand and said something the Minister didn’t understand, and to his amazement the knot undid itself, and the laces retied perfectly. “Thank you,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Er…sorry about that,” the girl said. “We only wanted to speak to you in private, but Scrimgeour and Fudge got here right after we did so we thought we’d better stay hidden…”

“It strikes me as odd that you wanted so desperately to speak to me without the Minister of Magic knowing,” the Minister said suspiciously—his mind was still filled with thoughts of reaching his phone, or the ‘Emergency’ button beneath his desk. Then something occurred to him and he glanced at the door. “I’m wondering why my secretary hasn’t come to see why I was shouting for help.”

“You mean Kingsley Shacklebolt?” the man said. “He’s a wizard, you know.”

“Er—yes, I do. How do you know him?”

“I’ve met him before,” the man said evasively, his eyes falling everywhere except the Minister’s face.

When he happened to glance at the mantel, or possibly the picture above it, the young man froze and simply stared for some reason; finally the Minister felt compelled to prompt him. “Where did you meet him? I know he’s one of those Auditors for your Ministry…”

“What?” the man said, startled, turning back and finally looking the Minister in the eye. “Oh…you mean Aurors. Shacklebolt didn’t come in because I cast a Silencing Charm on the room so no one would hear us. But he’s a good sort—you can trust him.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?” the Minister asked sarcastically. “That two complete strangers, wizards no less, make it so I can’t call for help and then vouch for my secretary?”

The young man sighed. “Sir, this really isn’t the way we wanted this to go. If you’ll let me, I’ll introduce us, and then Ginny can leave us to speak in private.”

The girl looked a bit angry at that, and scowled at the young man. “I am not leaving you alone!” she hissed.

The young man opened his mouth, but closed it again under the force of her glare. He leaned over and whispered something in her ear; her eyes widened and then narrowed shrewdly, and she nodded as the young man straightened. “Or we could both stay, if that’s all right?” he asked calmly.

The Minister suppressed a chuckle; the girl was obviously a force to be reckoned with, and the young man knew it. “I can’t say I trust you,” he admitted. “But I can’t say I trust the Minister of Magic very much either. So long as you promise not to cast any more spells at me, I’ll listen to what you two have to say—Ginny, is it?” he asked, extending a hand to the girl.

She transferred her wand to her left hand before taking his—but didn’t put it away. That was interesting. “Ginny Weasley, sir,” she said diffidently.

“A pleasure.”

The young man shook his hand as well. “I’m Harry Potter,” he said. “I don’t know if—”

“Harry Potter?” the Minister interrupted. He was a bit bemused to notice that now Weasley’s attention seemed to be on the painting above the mantel, although she was rather skillfully concealing it—he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking. “Both Scrimgeour and Fudge have mentioned you before.”

“Yeah, I bet they have,” Harry Potter said distastefully. “Neither is very fond of me, I can tell you that.”

“I’d already figured that out,” the minister admitted. He turned and walked over to his desk; when he turned back Weasley was facing him again, and straightening out her cloak. The painting was untouched. Odd. “Please have a seat,” he said, and waited until they had before sitting himself. “What is so fascinating about the painting?” he asked. “What did you do to it, anyway?”

The girl looked surprised for a moment, and then seemed to hide a smirk. “I only Stunned it,” she said. “Don’t worry, he’s not hurt…just unconscious so he wouldn’t see us.”

“I see,” the Minister said, and removed his finger from just above the ‘Emergency’ button, pleased that she hadn’t done him the disrespect of denying it. He was far more inclined to like and trust these two youngsters than any other wizards he’d met—except for Shacklebolt, who was remarkable and completely indispensable. “Well. Scrimgeour and Fudge—they called Mr. Potter, alternately, ‘the most trouble a seventeen-year-old has ever been’, the ‘Boy Who Lived’, and the ‘Chosen One’, and none of those were said fondly,” he informed them. “Not that it means anything, but I can tell you that anyone who annoys either the Minister of Magic or his predecessor has a point in their favor in my books.”

Both Potter and Weasley grinned at that. “And anyone who sees them as the self-important incompetents they are has a point in ours,” Weasley said.

The Minister nodded slightly at that. “So why exactly have you come here? I was under the impression that there were two factions in your war—the Ministry, and that other man whose name can’t be said.”

“Voldemort,” Harry said, and raised his eyebrows challengingly when the Minister looked mildly surprised. “Not every wizard and witch gives him that kind of deference, sir. And you’re basically right—Voldemort and his followers are on one side, and the Ministry’s on the other. But it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“It usually is,” the Minister muttered. “I take it you’re on the anti-V-Vol-duh-morte side, then?”

For some reason the question made both of them stare incredulously at the Minister. “You’re kidding, right?” Weasley asked. “You’re asking Harry Potter if he’s against Voldemort?”

“Well, why shouldn’t I ask that?” the Minister replied defensively. “I don’t exactly get a bulletin explaining all the workings of your world!”

“Yeah, but…” Potter shook his head in disbelief. “Sorry. I’m so used to everyone knowing every damned thing about me that it’s kind of a shock. They really haven’t told you anything, have they?”

“Practically nothing, apparently,” the Prime Minister agreed bitterly. “The Ministers of Magic don’t exactly like to give details. Both Scrimgeour and Fudge have a habit of saying things that make no sense, and then ignoring that I don’t understand them!”

Potter nodded with a slight smile. “I know exactly what you mean, sir. I’ve had the same thing happen lots of times since coming to the Wizarding world.”

“Coming to?” The Prime Minister frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was raised as a muggle, sir,” Potter said. “My parents were both wizards, but they were killed when I was one. I lived with my aunt and uncle, who aren’t magical, until I started at Hogwarts, and every summer since.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the Prime Minister said, and Potter grunted in response. “Hogwarts—that’s that school for magic, yes?” They both nodded. “But didn’t your aunt and uncle tell you about your parents?”

“No,” Potter muttered. “They’re…very anti-wizard, sir. They think it’s unnatural. I didn’t know I was a wizard until my eleventh birthday.”

“I didn’t know that happened…I thought you all lived separately from us.”

“Lots of wizards are born to muggle families,” Potter said. “My mother was one of those—her sister wasn’t a witch, though.”

“That must be a bit of a shock to the parents,” the Prime Minister said.

“It is, sometimes,” Weasley agreed with a chuckle. “One of our best friends had that happen to her. Fortunately her parents were open-minded about it.”

The Prime Minister smiled for what he was sure was the first time in any of these visits from magical people. “So what exactly is it that makes you special, Mr. Potter? As I said, I’ve heard Fudge mention you a number of times, but he’s never said why you’re so famous.”

Potter stared at the desk for a moment before responding. “Voldemort murdered my parents when I was one,” he said eventually. “When he tried to kill me as well he was almost killed himself; no one understood what happened, so they all decided I was special for surviving, and started calling me the Boy Who Lived. I found out much later that there was also a prophecy made about me,” he said. “About me and Voldemort, foretelling that it would happen.”

“A prophecy?” the Prime Minister said skeptically.

“Prophecies are real in our world, sir,” Weasley insisted. “They come true. And Voldemort found out part of the prophecy—the part that said—” She glanced at Potter as if asking for permission, and he nodded slightly—“He heard that part that said: ‘The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Born to those who had thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies’.” Weasley’s lips quirked when she saw the confusion in the Prime Minister’s expression. “It meant, a boy would be born that year, at the end of July, who would have to ability to finally defeat Voldemort.”

The Minister glanced at Harry, who nodded dully. “I- I see,” he said weakly. “Er…’ thrice defied him’?”

“My parents fought against Voldemort the last time he came to power, and escaped him three times before I was born,” Potter explained. “There was one other boy who the prophecy could have been talking about, but Voldemort decided I was more likely to be a threat, and came after me.”

“He went after you? And that’s why your parents died?” Potter nodded again. “Have you… have you ever figured out why you’re—?”

“Still alive?” Potter smiled humorlessly. “When my parents were killed—well, Voldemort killed them to get at me. My mother died protecting me, and that gave me magical protection—there’s a very old magic bound into giving your life to save another. So when he tried to kill me the spell backfired and almost killed him instead.”

“My—my goodness,” the Prime Minister said softly. He hardly knew how to take all this information. He’d spent years being frustrated and angry that the Minister of Magic was so unforthcoming, but now he wasn’t sure if it hadn’t been a good thing. “You… you said He only heard part of the prophecy? What was the rest? Or don’t you know?”

Harry quirked his head to one side. “I do know, sir. And I’m not going to tell you. Wait,” he said quickly, holding up his hand to stop the protest forming on the Prime Minister’s lips. “Voldemort is desperate to know the entire prophecy. If he thought for a second you knew what it was, he’d show up here in a heartbeat, and no Aurors pretending to be secretaries could stop him from ripping the information right out of your head, most likely killing you in the process.”

The Prime Minister gaped like a stranded fish. “He can do that?”

“He can do a lot worse than that, sir,” Weasley answered. “The little bits of magic you’ve seen are parlor tricks, even to normal wizards, and Voldemort isn’t normal. Now that Dumbledore’s dead, he might be the most powerful wizard in the world. If he wanted to know something you knew, he’d find out no matter what, and you would not survive his attention.”

“Fudge and Scrimgeour never explained just how dangerous he was,” the Prime Minister admitted, swallowing nervously.

“The most dangerous man in the world, sir,” Potter stated flatly.

“So what exactly is it you want?” the Prime Minister asked. “Guns? Police? I don’t see how I can be any help—the Minister of Magic basically said exactly that.”

“You can’t help directly with the fight, that’s true,” Potter agreed. “We have to fight magic with magic—I’m sure bullets could be stopped by magic, and the police wouldn’t have a clue what to do; they’d be sitting ducks. Magical problems won’t be fixed with Muggle solutions. What you can do, though, is help us by providing information.”

“Information? But your Ministry—”

“We’re not working with the Ministry, sir—I thought that was obvious by the way we chose not to let them know we were here,” Weasley pointed out.

“But why? They are your government; surely at least the Minister should know.”

“Not the Minister—especially not the Minister, sir!” Potter insisted. “Voldemort almost certainly has spies throughout the Ministry. He’d find out we were here, and then… Well, remember what I said about ripping information out of—?”

“All right, all right!” The Prime Minister said frantically.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Ministry of Magic isn’t having much luck dealing with Voldemort,” Potter said carefully.

“Well, yes… Every time I speak to them it sounds as if things have gotten worse.”

“That’s because they have, sir. It’s not that they’re not trying hard, because they are. But there are some things they don’t know that mean they’re pretty much destined to lose.”

The Prime Minister caught the hidden information in that statement. “Things they don’t know that you do?”

Potter nodded. “And the fewer people who know, the better; ideally, Voldemort won’t realize we know until it’s too late. But we’re having trouble with gathering information, and Ginny got the idea that you might hear things.”

“Hmm. Well, I can ask my secretary to put together information on any recent odd occurrences…”

But Potter shook his head. “Your secretary works for our Ministry, remember? It would look odd for you ask for that sort of information. And anyway, he’d just give you information the Ministry has, and we can already find out those things.”

“Then what else is there?”

For the first time, both Potter and Weasley looked uncertain. “I thought… I thought maybe since you’re the Prime Minister, there would be some things the public doesn’t hear about,” Weasley said hesitantly. “Things you talk about behind closed doors—?”

The Prime Minister thought for a moment. “There were perhaps one or two items I chose not to share with Scrimgeour,” he admitted hesitantly. “For security purposes, you understand. And you’ll also understand why I’m not particularly inclined to give them to a pair of teenagers claiming to be all that stands between an evil Dark wizard and victory.”

Potter sat back dejectedly, but Weasley fixed the Minister with a deeply penetrating stare; despite years of maneuvering through the government, he felt quite unnerved. “You’re smart enough to know that our age has no bearing on our significance,” she said pointedly. “When he was my age Voldemort killed a girl by releasing a basilisk into Hogwarts. It’s a giant serpent,” she added wryly when the Minister looked blank, “that can kill you with its stare. One year later, when he was Harry’s age, Voldemort murdered his own father and grandparents.”

Potter looked fairly amused at the Minister’s horrified expression. “Ginny, you could have given him less disturbing examples.”

“Oh, like how you, Harry Potter, at the tender age of twelve, single-handedly killed that same basilisk when it returned fifty years later, saving my life in the process?” Weasley asked sweetly. “Is that what you had in mind?”

Potter blushed. “Er, yeah—something like that.”

“Or that Dumbledore was still more than a match for Voldemort at one hundred and fifty?”

“One hundred and fifty?” the Minister yelped. “That—that’s impossible!”

“Lots of wizards live that long,” Weasley told him with a blasé shrug. “Something about being magical extends our natural lifespans.”

“Unbelievable,” the Minister muttered in amazement. He raised an eyebrow at Weasley. “All right, your point is well taken. But even so, I can’t say I have a great deal of reason to trust you…”

“Do you believe Voldemort exists, and that he’s as dangerous as we and the Minister have said he is?” Potter asked.

“I—yes, I do,” the Minister answered, startled by the question.

“And you only have the word of a few wizards to base that on,” Potter pointed out. “Why would you trust the Minister over us? Wizards have ways of forcing people to tell the truth. I saw Scrimgeour make you take Veritaserum to prove you hadn’t been compromised—did he offer to take some himself, to prove what he said was true?”

“Er…no,” the Prime Minister admitted.

Potter nodded. “I have some with me, and I’d be willing to take it to prove my word is good… but you don’t have any way of knowing it’s real.”

“I could take some myself,” the Minister suggested. “I’d know if it was working…”

Weasley chuckled. “Not necessarily. Veritaserum lasts several hours—you’re most likely still under its influence now. Why else would you be so open with us?”

“Oh no!” the Minister gasped. “I have to address the House of Commons tomorrow morning!”

“It will have worn off by then,” Potter assured him, clearly trying not to laugh.

“All right, what’s your point? That I shouldn’t trust any of you?” the Minister asked, feeling irritated.

“My point is that all you really have to base your decisions about the wizarding world on is your instinct,” Potter said. “I doubt you’d have gotten so far in Muggle politics without decent instincts—so what are they telling you?”

The Minister had to admit the young man had a point. Looking back, he was shocked that he hadn’t been more suspicious of Fudge the first time he’d appeared; he supposed he’d been too dazzled by the magic. And every instinct he had was telling him that this young man and woman were more honest and forthright than either Minister for Magic he’d met.

After considering for a moment more—with Potter and Weasley remaining silent—the Prime Minister nodded thoughtfully. “Very well,” he said. “Lord knows I certainly feel inclined to like you more than the Minister of Magic—not that he put forth much effort to make me like him,” he added wryly. “But you’re right… Scrimgeour has been very tightlipped, whereas you’ve been forthcoming. I can hardly ignore the difference.”

He took a key from his pocket, and used it to open a locked drawer in his desk. He pulled out several files; “Can you tell me what might indicate activity that concerns you?” he asked, flipping through the files. “I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for.”

“Deaths,” Potter said instantly. “Or disappearances that seemed unusual.”

“Things like that are left to the MP’s to handle, I’m afraid, unless we have good reason to believe they’re politically motivated.”

“Then what about any destruction of property, on a massive scale?” Weasley asked. “That might be something.”

“No, nothing like that,” the Minister said. “Most of the cases I’ve kept secret are to do with terrorism… ours, not yours. Things like uncovered plots to blow up Parliament, that sort of thing. The only destruction of property that’s come up recently is an explosion. We’re keeping it quiet because we suspect it may be IRA related. It was in an area called…” he studied the papers for a moment. “Godric’s Hollow.”

“What?”

The Prime Minister looked up, startled; Potter’s face was as white as a sheet. “Does that mean something to you?”

Potter swallowed several times before speaking. “It—It does. What happened?”

“Well… We’d thought that perhaps the IRA was using the place as a hideout, or a storehouse or something, but we didn’t find any evidence.”

“What place?”

“Oh, just a broken-down house. It had been condemned for ages, which is why it could have been used without anyone knowing. There was an explosion that took out another part of the house, but no evidence as to what caused it.” He stopped in surprise. “Could that have been your people?”

“Definitely,” Potter said with certainty. He stood up abruptly, startling the Prime Minister. “Is the house still under guard?”

“It’s being watched, yes—”

“Harry, calm down,” Weasley said in a low tone.

Potter ignored her. “I need to see it,” he said. “I really need to see it. Can you arrange to let me go there?”

“I—most likely, although it may draw some attention.”

“Never mind,” Potter replied, heading for the fireplace and causing Weasley to scramble to her feet and follow. “I’ll go there myself—”

“Harry!” Weasley hissed sharply.

She grabbed him by the arm and turned him aside, and began speaking very quickly, too quietly for the Minister to hear. Potter replied just as vehemently, and they had a very heated exchange; by the end of it Potter looked a bit calmer, but no less determined. “I apologize, sir,” Potter said. “I—you surprised me with that name. I really do need to see it, so we’ll be going there,” he said, nodding at Weasley, who smirked. “Don’t worry about covering up for us—no one will know we were there.”

“It may be dangerous!”

“No, he’s gone now,” Potter insisted. “He won’t go back. He either found what he was looking for, or it wasn’t there.”

“Then why do you need to see it?” The Prime Minister asked a bit sharply, growing angry.

“To see if I can figure out what should be there and isn’t,” Potter stated.

“Why did you react so severely to my mentioning Godric’s Hollow?” The Prime Minister demanded. “What is so special about that house?”

Potter regarded the Prime Minister for a long moment, clearly deciding whether to answer. “That house,” he said finally, “was my parents’ house. It’s the house where they were killed, and the place where Voldemort almost died.” The Minister gasped as Potter and Weasley waved their wands and muttered, apparently removing the spells they’d cast earlier.

When they’d finished, Weasley looked up and smiled weakly at the Minister. “Thank you, sir,” she said quietly. “This might be really important. Can we visit you again to see if you have any other information?”

“I- yes, of course you may,” the Prime Minister agreed shakily. He stared numbly as Potter drew out a handful of the powder his people used to travel by fireplace, and gave half of it to Weasley. Then Potter smiled and raised his hand to throw the powder into the fireplace and leave. “Wait!”

Potter paused with his hand in the air. “What is it?”

“Why you, Harry?” the Prime Minister asked, using the boy’s given name for the first time. “You’re only seventeen—how is this man, this war, your problem?”

“It’s my problem because Voldemort has made it my problem,” Potter stated flatly. “He killed my parents, my godfather and Dumbledore—all the people who should have watched over me throughout my life, he took. He’s tried to kill me at least half a dozen times over the last six years, and that’s not even counting the first time. Two of his followers, acting on his orders, put my best friend into a coma trying to get at me, and my other best friend was Cursed so badly she’ll literally never recover fully.” His jaw tightened in anger. “Now it’s my problem because I’ve made it my problem—because after everything he’s done to me, I want to see him dead.”

Two flares of green light, and they were gone.