Wizard's Porn

I’m a bit strapped for time today, so I’m going to give you a quick reply to reviews, and a long one next time.



THANK YOU FOR EACH AND EVERY POSITIVE COMMENT THAT WAS POSTED. I COULD HAVE CRIED WITH JOY AT THE UPLIFTING WORDS THAT JUST MADE EVERYTHING BETTER.



THANK YOU, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO PICKED ME UP WHILE I WAS HAVING SUCH A BAD DAY. TODAY WAS MUCH BETTER, BUT THERE ARE PROBABLY A FEW WHOOPSIES IN HERE, MY BETA IS STILL IN DERBY WHILE I’M BACK IN YORKSHIRE.



It is Unbetad as I’m home to run the Race for Life tomorrow. (I think they’re called Relay For Life in the USA, though I think it’s different to ours) It’s a 5k run for Cancer Research, and it’s ladies only. We’ve got over £1000 sponsorship between 4 of us, and I’m going to be dressed as a pink fairy (and I hate pink). I might be half dead the day after, so another chappie might take me a while!



But I’m going to solve the little mystery a little bit more...







Kingsley Shacklebolt was currently pacing around his office like a tiger in a cage. He had a deadline to meet; as Minister of Magic, his boss was, or more accurately were, the people who voted for him – and those who didn’t. He’d been compiling the first ever magical ‘census’ of the wizarding world.



The department of archives automatically recorded every birth, death and marriage; the department worked with Saint Mungos, Gringotts and Azkaban to compile other details about the population. But the information in the department of archives was rather limited, and didn’t tell Kingsley much about the people he served.



He wanted to know a few more details about the public.



For instance, what faiths and religions did the people have? Previous Ministers had tried to introduce public holidays, and offended chunks of the population in the process – so the magical world didn’t really have any annual holidays – with the exception of All Hallows Eve and Yule.



He wanted to know more trivial things too, such as where were the most popular holiday destinations – if he could give the portkey produces a heads up, they could have the popular ones produced en-masse and ready to activate.



There were many other questions – in fact, the parchment was three feet long from start to finish.



Unfortunately, the person who had been writing the questionnaire had handed his notice in, and left for a job that wasn’t in the Ministry of Magic. Kingsley found himself without his questionnaire and without his deputy Minister – the person who acted in his stead if he wasn’t there or was indisposed.



To say the wizard was cross was an understatement.



“Hey, Kings...” Harry said, entering the office. He noted his good friend was definitely not a happy bunny (the red sparks shooting out of his ears periodically were a dead give away). “And I’ll come back later...” Harry was almost to the door before the other man spoke.



“Harry, I need a new Deputy Minister, and I need him or her yesterday!” he snapped, turning to face his spokesperson for the public. Harry and his team of ten other people had the wondrous job of going through hundreds of owls every day with suggestions and complaints from the public. Many weren’t of much use, but some were fantastic. Harry also handled complaints about the public venues and Ministry to correct departments and another copy to Kingsley.



“Oh. I know I complain about the work load and the horrible handwriting and the screaming howlers that almost set fire to the office every morning... but I actually quite like the department I work for!” Harry assured hastily, he wasn’t a politician – he just listened to what the people wanted and did the best he could to set into motion compromises between what was wanted and what was possible.



“Merlin, not you! You do too much of a good job for me to take you from the Department of Public Influence! I need someone who understands the legal system; someone organised; someone smart; someone who can calm me down; someone who won’t be bullied by angry department heads that haven’t got their own way; someone reliable and punctual...”



“You just described Hermione.” Harry said flatly.



Kingsley looked shocked for a moment before sighing, “I know she’d be brilliant! But she isn’t exactly in public favour at the moment. I need to stay in office – or one of the fools who are also running for election will get in and set us right back to square one! I’ve just managed to get the country running properly – I’ve managed to get the corruption mostly out of the Ministry, and I have aurors working on the rest... Harry, I know she’d be perfect, but not for another six months! And even then I'd be reluctant to employ her - for her own safety.”



Harry looked like he was going to personally rip the Minister limb from limb, “Kingsley! If you want the country to keep running smoothly you’ll need her to help you now! She could probably do the job with her hands tied behind her back after a few days to get used to everything!”



“Harry, I know that! But I’m a politician, the image I present is vital! I know it makes sense – but the voters will go mad!”



“Who gives a rats arse? You need her, the Ministry needs her! Public be damned!” Harry yelled, his face red in anger.



“The public make the decision on who runs the country, and employing her could be my curtain call. I can’t let some other twit get the position!” Kingsley sighed, sitting down and indicating for Harry to do the same.



“Kings, Hermione can’t have been the only woman, well girl at the time, to have been kidnapped and tortured by the Death Eaters!”



“No, she wasn’t. There were thirty-two that we found alive, we never recovered the bodies of the other seventy-nine missing witches women and girls – never mind the muggles.” Kingsley said, his head bowed. Their previous government had bound the aurors in so much red tape that they might as well have been (literally) stuck to their desks. There were almost eighty women dead because they couldn’t do a damned thing because of politics.



“She can’t have been the only one left pregnant because of it!” Harry mused.



“No, Saint Mungo’s told me that twelve were left with child.” He whispered in reply.



“Well? What makes Hermione such a demon that she was outcast from society? She couldn’t get into university; couldn’t get a decent job. She can’t get a decent flat – and she’s been thrown out of five because the landlord was a sheep who followed public opinion! She hates accepting charity, but I’ve been paying her rent after she was sacked from her last job for ‘inappropriate conduct’.”



“I know, I put two hundred galleons into her vault last week, I never saw the Weasley vault as empty as her's...”



“Kings, what makes her so different? She saved the world, not me! She found the spells, planned the strategy, organised everything...” Harry was exasperated.



“The difference?” Kingsley scoffed with a grim smile, “The difference? Of the twelve women left with child, she was the only one to give birth; the only one to carry the infant past twenty-whatever-the-number-is weeks... Hermione couldn’t drink the potion to kill an innocent; and that is why the public hate her. She carried the child of a death eater, she gave birth to the child of a death eater, she nurses and raises the child of a death eater...”



There was a moment of silence, which Harry broke.



“So? Lysander is innocent! He’s a lovely little boy! Though, not so much at the minute because he has some more teeth coming up at the back – he was stroppy all evening when I looked after him last week, he just wanted his Mum... But Hermione didn’t drink a potion, and so she’s condemned!”



“Harry, I know how stupid this sounds, but her keeping the child gave a very bad impression of her. That’s why Rita Skeeter is occupying a cell in Azkaban – she started the whole mess off! Though, I could only lock her up for being an un-registered animagus – but ten years with the dementors might get her to realise lies don’t pay. Because of the jealous bitch’s poison quill, the public thought Hermione was actually fighting for you-know-who, and suddenly changed to the light because it all went wrong!”



“But it’s ridiculous!” Harry cried.



“Harry, she still gets hexes thrown at her and the little one in public. The population think she’s a traitor. Lysander’s barely got the hang of walking, but he’s having to run for his safety away from hex-happy twits! You and I are the only ones brave enough to be seen in public with her; because nobody will risk hexing us by mistake!”



Kingsley rested his elbows on his desk and dropped his head into his hands. He and Harry had argued this to death, and were still no closer to clearing her name, or the name of the completely innocent Lysander William Granger.



“She’s sending him to Dumstrang. She doesn’t want him being bullied at Hogwarts.” Harry muttered, knowing that if that little piece of information got out that all hell would break loose. Three Death Eaters had hailed from Dumstrang, and the population chose to ignore the other students who passed through the doors of the school.



“Harry, she’d make a brilliant deputy Minister – but she’d be lynched by lunchtime on her first day; not to mention Lysander would probably be hexed by the staff in the crèche, rather than cared for... He could stay in the office, but I’d have to put an auror guard around her... and the aurors would be needed elsewhere.”



“Fucking sheep.” Harry muttered, banging his head on the table.



“Harry, here. Give her this.” Kingsley said, handing the other wizard an envelope. “It’s not much; it’s a little cottage I use to get away from the world. It’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s no rent on it because I own it.”



“I will, I’ll help her move this afternoon...” Harry wanted to say more, but bit his tongue.



“If I could do something, anything to make all the hatred aimed at her go away, I would. I’d have her in the office next door in five seconds flat – if it was safe for her and me. Harry, I have to think of the public, if I employ her, they’ll vote me out of office...”



“... And then we’re stuck with an idiot who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.” Harry finished, realising that, even though he hated it, Hermione becoming the deputy minister would be the end of the prosperous times for the ministry.



He left the office with his head bowed, he’d never even told Kingsley why he’d been in there to see him in the first place. He stopped at his office for his cape, and the wizarding child’s toy he’d picked up in Diagon Alley. It was a shape sorter, but the holes moved around every time a correct shape was pushed through – meaning a child learnt the shapes, not the pattern they were pushed in at.



He apparated out of the office with a pop.