C2The Prime Minister's Outrage

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At shortly after 9.00am on Friday, the 5th of July 1991, Harry popped back into normal reality in amongst the trees of St James Park near the Park Office, hidden from sight from mundanes. A quick check ensured he was wearing the disguise he and Myrrdin had worked out to get him inside 10 Downing Street; a school uniform with a school satchel holding the necessary documents slung from his left shoulder.

He looked around, oriented himself with the direction he needed to go and set off on foot. He did not see a team of wizards suddenly apparate near to the spot he arrived.

Crossing Horse Guards Road, he entered Downing Street from the west end and leisurely walked along the footpath towards the doors of Number 10. His timing needed to be exact for this part.

Just as he was within a hundred yards of the door, he spied his ticket into Number 10 just ahead. The class of nine- and ten-year-olds from Years 4 and 5 at St Tristan's Primary School were clustered around an already harassed teacher waiting to start their school tour of the Prime Minister's Office, which would begin momentarily. He simply approached the group from the rear and, blending in, cast a Notice-me-Not Charm on himself using a bit of wandless magic. Anyone looking at him would simply see a normal school student but wouldn't notice that no one knew who he was.

The door opened and a young lady stepped out. She gestured to the teacher to follow her and went back inside.

"Alright, then, children. Here we go," the teacher called out over her charges. "Remember. Best behavior now. The Prime Minister and his staff are very important people, and you're not to bother them or get in their way." Then she ushered her young charges in through the door.

This was necessary for Harry to get past the Office's main security checkpoint just inside the door as neither Myrrdin nor he, during their research, could discover whether or not mundane security systems could detect someone magically obscured. They didn't want to risk that they could.

Once past security Harry simply dropped back and allowed the group to pull ahead and, with a further piece of wandless magic, altered his Notice-me-Not Charm to a Disillusionment Charm. He also changed his appearance to that of a young man wearing a business suit that looked to be right off a dressmaker's dummy at Saville Row. His school satchel now looked like a business satchel.

He headed directly to the Office of the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary. All he had to do was make sure he didn't bump into, or otherwise come into contact with, anyone along the short walk down a couple of corridors.

Passing a small security desk set up at the bottom end of the last corridor - pausing for a second to make it look like he was flashing the man credentials for the security camera - Harry reached his destination. Thankfully, the door with a small wooden plaque that said 'Lady Muriel Columbus, Principal Private Secretary' was already opened wide and he only had to walk in.

The middle-aged lady sitting behind the desk frowning down at papers before her matched the lady he'd seen on Myrrdin's time viewer.

'All good, so far,' he thought.

He glanced out the door to ensure he wasn't seen, dropped the Disillusionment Charm while the lady wasn't looking at him and quietly closed the door.

Turning back around Harry noticed the lady still hadn't paid him any attention, so he quietly said, "Excuse me, Ma'am."

On hearing his voice, the lady quickly looked up at him, frowned and said, "What are you doing in here, Sir? You're not supposed to be here."

She started to reach for the telephone sitting on her desk.

Before her hand reached it, and looking her straight in the eye, Harry quietly said, "Merlin Yellow, Ma'am."

She froze.

Lady Muriel Columbus was not a lady easily startled, surprised or shocked. She had served her current Prime Minister since the day he had assumed office less than a year ago. She had also served him for nearly the entire time he served in the Ministry as Foreign Secretary, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the previous Government; and knew the Prime Minister thought of her as a trusted advisor.

As his Principal Private Secretary when her Minister assumed his current office, she was briefed on the magical world. A world she would have flatly refused to believe existed if she wasn't provided proof of its existence in the office through the unadorned door behind her and just off to one side. That incontrovertible proof she still found difficult to accept.

The knowledge of that world wasn't so much Classified as it was so... unbelievable. She knew she'd be removed from her posting if she ever spoke about it. People would think she was 'losing it', as her young grandson would say.

But, as part of that briefing, she was told a set of code words that, when someone spoke one of them to her, would mean there was trouble in that other world; and that the person who spoke them would need to see the Prime Minister. 'Merlin Yellow' meant there was an imminent danger in, or originating with, the magical world, and that the person would need to see the Prime Minister immediately.

In shock, Lady Muriel stared at Harry and said, "Ehhhrrr... what?"

That was not something someone with her impeccable manners was normally wont to do, no matter the surprise.

To be fair, she'd never expected to hear that particular phrase as the magical world took care of matters themselves. They had given no indication trouble was brewing. She thought this may be some form of elaborate prank or a security 'exercise'. People from 'that' place also normally didn't enter through her office door.

"Now, see here, young man!" she said with her sternest voice; the one she normally used with her grandson when he'd done something really bad. "I don't know what you're playing at, but I demand to know who told you to say that to me!"

Harry just stared back at her with an expressionless face and quietly said, "You have the code, Ma'am. Please, carry out your orders."

Lady Muriel could detect no subtle signs on the man that he was being anything but completely straight with her. She could detect no sign of subterfuge about him at all. There was no indication of anything whatsoever other than his piercing green eyes. Eyes that told her this young man was to be taken seriously.

Harry felt the lady's stern gaze upon him for quite a while. Then she suddenly rose from her office chair, turned to the door just off to one side behind her desk, and rapped on it twice.

"Enter!" Harry heard a muffled male voice call from the other side of the door.

Lady Muriel opened the door and stepped just inside.

Harry saw her turn slightly to her right and say, obviously to someone within the room, "Excuse me, Sir."

"Yes? What is it, Muriel?" asked a man's voice.

Hesitating a moment Lady Muriel then quietly said, "Merlin Yellow, Sir."

Clearly the man inside was more properly able to restrain himself from verbal utterances of surprise. And a moment later Harry heard the man say, "Send them in."

Lady Muriel beckoned to Harry, who walked forward and past her into the large office beyond.

Inside, Harry could see he was in the Prime Minister's public office. The man himself was standing over near his desk, clearly having just risen from behind his executive desk to greet his visitor. Harry heard the lady behind him step back out of the office and close the door behind her.

The tall man with short grey hair and large horn-rimmed glasses standing at the other end of the office from him stared at Harry and frowned slightly before quickly replacing his expression with a politician's smile.

"Hello, young man," the man said, continuing to come forward. "I'm Prime Minister Major. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"One moment please, Sir," replied Harry, quickly casting a spell.

The Prime Minister saw the young man suddenly reach outwards away from his body with his right hand and make a few slight intricate motions. Suddenly there was a slight noise behind him.

Spinning around to see what it was the Prime Minister saw that a little trinket on his desk seemed to be dancing a little jig, before it suddenly flashed with a small bright orange light and fell over on its side.

Turning back to the young man that had walked into his office, the Prime Minister asked, "What was that?"

Smiling and stepping forward, Harry replied, "I just cast a small charm spell designed to detect, and then destroy, any magical item enspelled to act as... what you might call a... 'listening bug'. We will now not be overheard by anyone by magical means."

Listening to what Harry said the Prime Minister lost his politician's smile. It didn't take a Legilimens to see the Prime Minister was not happy about what Harry had just said.

"You mean to tell me," said the Prime Minister in a low voice, "That... that thing was being used by someone to listen in on anything said in this room?"

"Yes, Sir," said Harry. "If I may ask, Sir; who gave it to you?"

Frowning and thinking back the Prime Minister angrily said, "That peculiar man in the green bowler who called himself Minister of Magic."

"That would be Cornelius Fudge, Sir," said Harry. "He's one of the reasons I'm here."

"He gave that thing to me as a gift when I first took office," the Prime Minister angrily mused. "I don't know why I kept it, let alone on my desk."

"If I may, Sir?" asked Harry, gesturing towards the trinket.

Frowning at Harry the Prime Minister also gestured and said, "By all means."

Harry walked over to stand before the desk, waved his hand over the now frazzled little trinket, and said, "Ah! It's enspelled with a charm that encourages you to keep it here. Very clever of the man."

Then, after a few other quick hand gestures, said, "The charm's now been removed, Sir. You can dispose of it whenever you wish."

While Harry was talking the Prime Minister walked over to the desk to stand beside him and watched what he did.

After Harry finished removing the charm the Prime Minister asked, "Is it safe for me to handle?"

"Yes, Sir," replied Harry. "There is no longer any magic associated with it."

The Prime Minister reached over and picked it up. "I think I'll hold on to it," he quietly said. "Minister Fudge and I are going to have a little chat about it."

The Prime Minister walked around his desk, while staring at the object in his hand. Harry could see he was deep in thought.

The pause also gave Harry his opening. "Now, Sir; as to why I am here," he said.

The Prime Minister quickly looked back up at the man before him. "Yes; of course," he replied. "Merlin Yellow, and all that."

"Please, take a seat," he said pointing to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

"Thank you, Sir," said Harry, sitting down. "First, I should at least introduce myself... My name is Harry James Potter and I am the... presumptive... Earl of Slytherin."

The Prime Minister sat bolt upright on hearing that. "Earl of Slytherin, My Lord?" he exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I didn't know!"

"No reason you should, Sir," Harry calmly replied.

The Prime Minister then paused to think for a few moments, resettling into his chair and frowning. "I'm sorry for raising this, My Lord; but I've never heard of the Earl of Slytherin before now."

Harry smiled and said, "I'm not surprised in the least, Sir. The title 'Earl of Slytherin' has not been in use for almost one thousand years."

The Prime Minister, again, sat upright in his chair before spluttering, "But!... How?... What?... But that makes no sense! How can you be this... Earl of Slytherin... if the title has not been active for so long? It would be impossible!"

Harry raised his hand in a gesture of calming towards the Prime Minister while smiling towards the somewhat excited man.

Once he was sure the Prime Minister had recovered from his initial shock, Harry said, "Your... concern... was anticipated, Sir."

Harry turned slightly in his seat and gestured over to a painting mounted on the wall above the small office fireplace.

"That painting, Sir," asked Harry. "What do you know about it?"

The Prime Minister frowned at the young man sitting across from him... the young maybe-lord, he thought... wondering about the sudden shift in the conversation to a rather poor work of art.

"What has a shabby painting to do with this?" asked the Prime Minister.

"If you would humour me for a moment, Sir; you will soon discover the answer to your question," responded Harry quite calmly.

The Prime Minister hesitated for a few moments before he answered.

"'Fruit in a Bowl' by an unknown artist," he said. "Nobody can get the damned thing off the wall. My predecessors have tried, I've tried; we've had art historians, carpenters, all sorts of people in here trying to remove it."

Harry just gently smiled as he listened to the Prime Minister grumble about it.

"I tried to convince the maintenance staff here to just remove the whole damned wall atop the fireplace and replace it," the Prime Minister went on, grumbling. "But, nooo; the building - including all the original walls within it - are protected under the British Heritage Act. And not even the Prime Minister is allowed to do that. Plus, the wall is a 'load bearing' wall and would destabilise the whole facade if it was tampered with."

Gathering himself the Prime Minister asked, "But, what of it, Sir?"

Harry grinned back at the Prime Minister for a moment, turned to look directly at the painting, and called out, "Myrrdin's Hand!"

Suddenly, there was a distinct click sound from the painting and the edge closest to the desk popped off the wall.

Harry then turned back to face the Prime Minister and, with a gesture to the painting, quietly said, "You'll need to look in there for your answers, Sir."

Astonished, the Prime Minister was beginning to wonder if this well dressed young man was intent on giving him some sort of coronary before his unanticipated meeting was over. He was glad that, during his last visit to his personal physician, the doctor told him his heart was fine (though, he could do with some exercise).

The Prime Minister waited a few moments to make sure he was calm enough before rising, walking around his desk and crossing to the painting.

Grabbing the edge of the painting's frame that had come loose, he pulled. The whole side came away from the wall and swung on hidden hinges on the opposite side.

Behind the painting, he found a small box-shaped cubby-hole. And inside he saw a small stack of what seemed to be old documents with a crystal cube-shaped paperweight on them holding them down.

"You'll want to be very careful with those parchments, Sir," said Harry. "They're very old."

The Prime Minister looked back at Harry for a moment and nodded. He turned back to the cubby-hole, reached in with both hands and gently lifted out the documents in one pile with the cube on top.

'Thank you, Myrrdin!' Harry thought to himself.

Turning, the Prime Minister walked back to and around the desk, and gently placed the documents on his blotter - knocking the dead trinket aside as he did so - before retaking his seat.

"Careful, please, Sir," said Harry. "The space from which you took them had strong protection charms placed on it to drastically slow down the aging process of what was inside. But those documents are still almost one thousand years old."

The Prime Minister had been looking down at the documents, and was just about to move the paperweight out of the way, when Harry said that. But as soon as Harry mentioned how old the documents were his head snapped back up to stare at Harry in shock, yet again.

Harry was still calmly smiling back at him from where he was sitting back and relaxed in his chair on the other side of the desk.

The Prime Minister placed his elbows on his desk blotter either side of the stack of documents, dropped his forehead into his hands and said near plaintively with his eyes closed, "Earl... My Lord... Mister..."

"Call me 'Harry', Sir," Harry calmly interrupted.

Lifting his head to look over his hands, at what he now thought of as the most astonishing young man he'd ever met across the desk from him he said, "Harry, then." And then sighed before asking, "And these documents are?"

"They will inform you about the Earldom of Slytherin, plus three others, and how and why they were established at the beginning of the eleventh century."

The Prime Minister stared at Harry for a few moments before looking down at the documents again.

After a few moments, and carefully moving each top document aside to see the one beneath, he then said, "I do not recognise the writing, or the individual letters. How am I supposed to read them?"

"They're written in Anglo-Saxon runic script. It was the language of the day of kings, scholars and the clergy," replied Harry.

The Prime Minister, recalling his days in High School studying English History, realised the script was, indeed, Anglo-Saxon script.

"Well, I can't read this... Harry," he said. "But I suppose you have a solution?"

"Of course, Sir," responded Harry, still smiling.

As Harry brought his satchel around in front of himself the Prime Minister sighed, "Why am I not surprised?"

Pausing in what he was doing Harry replied with a grin, "Because you've already had more than enough surprises for one day?" Before returning to opening his satchel and reaching inside.

The Prime Minister only snorted with amusement in response.

Harry then drew from his satchel another sheaf of parchment and, still smiling, handed them over to the Prime Minister.

Taking them from the young man, the Prime Minister placed them on the desk alongside the original stack, gently used both hands to move the original stack off to one side, and then moved the second stack to the blotter in front of himself.

While they still appeared to be parchment, the Prime Minister could also see these were written using modern English lettering and language.

Before the Prime Minister could begin to read the top page Harry spoke up.

"While those documents will provide the evidence of which I spoke, they are not the main reason I am here."

"No?" the Prime Minister looked up and asked.

"No, Sir," said Harry quietly. "I am here to inform you the Minister of Magic, abetted by others, is fomenting sedition against the Crown amongst the people in the wizarding world."

"WHAT?! the Prime Minister near bellowed leaping to his feet.

"Yes, Sir," said Harry calmly. "And he is doing it, while almost literally, pulling the wool over your eyes."

"Explain!" the Prime Minister demanded with narrowing eyes.

"You are being lied to, Sir," said Harry. "And he is using magic to trick you."

"What do you mean?" demanded the Prime Minister.

"I shall demonstrate what I mean, momentarily," replied Harry. "But first, please tell me what you remember of the meetings you have had with Minister Fudge."

The Prime Minister stared furiously at Harry for a moment before seeming to visibly give himself a shake, and resuming his seat.

He thought deeply for a few moments before saying, "I first met him when he came into my office through the fireplace over there," he said gesturing towards the fireplace, "about a week after I assumed office. He nearly gave me a heart attack when he did that. That's when Muriel came dashing into the room.

"He then pulled out of his sleeve what I thought was a stick and waved it about a bit. The door slammed shut and the curtains closed themselves."

"That stick would have been his wand, Sir," interrupted Harry.

The Prime Minster nodded and said, "Then he told me who he was and said to me he was here to brief me on the magical world. I had never heard of such a thing and thought he was a crackpot. I grabbed the phone and tried to call for security but the phone was dead. So, I walked over and tried to open the door but it was locked. I could not even pull the curtains apart when I tried them.

"He then said something along the lines of 'perhaps a further demonstration was in order'. That's when he turned a chair, the one you're sitting in, into an English shepherd. Then he made my desk float up off the floor. He did a few other things, too, before he changed the chair back and let my desk down. He then calmly walked over and sat in the same chair in which you're sitting, and gestured for me to do the same. Once I was sitting behind my desk here he told me all about the wizarding world.

"Then he got up, said he'd see me again soon, and disappeared in a flash of green flame back out the fireplace."

"And the next time he came, Sir?" asked Harry.

"We had a long and fruitful discussion about wizarding matters and he left," replied the Prime Minister.

"And the next time, Sir?" asked Harry.

"We had a long and fruitful discussion about wizarding matters and he left," replied the Prime Minister again.

"And the next time he came, Sir?" asked Harry again.

"We had a long and fruitful discussion about wizarding matters and he left," replied the Prime Minister yet again.

By this time the Prime Minister was beginning to frown at Harry again.

"And the next time, Sir?" asked Harry.

"We had a long and fruitful discussion about wizarding matters and he left," asked the Prime Minister yet again.

"Now, Sir," said Harry, leaning forward to stare intently at the Prime Minister. "With the exception of the first meeting, what did you discuss at any of these meetings?"

The Prime Minister replied still frowning, "We had a long and fruitful discussion about wizarding matters."

"Yes, Sir," said Harry. "But what matters... exactly?"

"I... We...," stumbled the Prime Minister thinking hard. "I don't remember."

"I didn't think so, Mister Prime Minister," said Harry.

The Prime Minister seemed quite confused. So Harry gave him a few moments before asking, "Does Lady Muriel maintain for you an appointment schedule?"

"What?" asked the Prime Minister looking up. "Yes, yes, of course she does."

"Would you mind asking her to bring it in here for you?" Harry asked.

"Ummm... Ah!" the Prime Minister said suddenly understanding. "Yes, of course."

The Prime Minister then reached out to his intercom phone and pushed a button on it.

A moment later the voice of Lady Muriel could be heard. "Yes, Mister Prime Minister?"

"Could you come in and bring with you my appointment schedule from... when I took office?"

"Of course, Mister Prime Minister," she said.

A few moments later Lady Muriel walked in carrying a large ledger, approached the desk, and placed it before the Prime Minister. She waited while he opened it and was obviously expecting him to ask her questions about it.

Harry said, "You're a busy man, Sir. See if you can find any time within it, around the time you believed you had these meetings, where you would have had the time to have them."

The Prime Minister then began flicking through it running his finger down the pages as he did so. As he went through the ledger his frown deepened and deepened.

Once he finished he closed the ledger with a snap and placing his hands flat upon it.

"How is this possible... Harry?" he asked.

"Other than the first, I believe the meetings never occurred, Sir," Harry replied. "Instead, I believe he or someone else came in, hit you with an Obliviate charm... a memory alteration spell... and told you that you and the Minister had... 'a long and fruitful discussion about wizarding matters'. Then left before you'd recovered.

"I believe the person, or persons, who did it would have only been in the office no more than about twenty seconds, if that."

Harry then paused while he waited for the Prime Minister to process that bit of shocking information. He could see the Prime Minister was quite livid. And Lady Muriel, still standing alongside the Prime Minister's desk, was no less.

"Is there a way I can know what really happened, for myself?" the Prime Minister nearly growled in asking.

"Yes, Sir," Harry promptly replied. "It's going to require me to perform a counter spell. And I'm going to need to lightly touch you on the forehead when I do."

The Prime Minister, still mightily frowning, thought for a few moments before saying, "Do it!"

Harry calmly rose from his chair, walked around the desk and stopped alongside the Prime Minister, who had watched him come around turning slightly as he did.

"When I do this, Sir," said Harry, "you are going to feel a little dizzy for a few moments as the real memories reassert themselves."

The Prime Minister nodded his head and waited.

Harry then made a few little gestures with his right hand, softly called out, "Obliviatus Obscura Revealus!" before tapping the Prime Minister in the middle of his forehead with his right index finger. Then stepped back and away.

The Prime Minister sat there appearing stunned for a moment before suddenly taking a deep breath of air. He suddenly grabbed the arms of his chair and swayed a bit as a look of amazement passed over his face.

After a few moments the look of amazement was replaced with one of fury.

Suddenly he shot to his feet and slammed his fists onto the top of his desk. Staring off into the distance, he snarled, "That... that... bastard!"

Lady Muriel jumped back in fright before exclaiming, "Mister Prime Minister!"

The Prime Minister, not seeming to have heard his personal private secretary while staring off into the distance, snarled even more venomously, "That... traitorous... prick!"

"John!" exclaimed Lady Muriel. "Your language!"

Harry, in the mean time, had calmly walked back to his chair and sat down to wait out the Prime Minister's furious rant.

The Prime Minister, finally hearing Lady Muriel, visibly got himself back under control before more calmly saying and sitting back down, "I apologise, Muriel. I... was just... surprised."

The Prime Minister took a few more moments to close his eyes calming himself before, opening his eyes again, he picked up the ledger and handed it back to Lady Muriel.

"Thank you, Muriel," he said. "I will call if we need you again."

Knowing a dismissal when she heard it Lady Muriel stiffly responded, "Thank you, Mister Prime Minister." And walked out.

'Not a happy lady,' thought Harry.

After Lady Muriel closed the door behind her the Prime Minister looked up at Harry and said, "I thank you for telling me this, Harry."

"You're welcome, Sir," Harry replied but, sensing a dismissal coming up, said, "However, the information will do you no good when Fudge returns for his next visit."

The Prime Minister thought about that for moment before saying, "He'd just do it to me again, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, Sir," replied Harry. "Before you could even open your mouth. Surprise would be on his side."

Then Harry went on, "I expect he will also be back sooner rather than later. I expect he's going to come and find out why his little listening device has failed."

The Prime Minister glanced down at the little trinket on his desk before looking back up at Harry and saying, "What can I do to stop it?"

"I'm sorry, Mister Prime Minister, you can't," said Harry slowly shaking his head. "You have no way to protect yourself from it."

The Prime Minister was thoughtful for a while before looking back up at Harry and saying, "What if we..."

Suddenly there was a flash and 'poof' sound from the fireplace.

Harry spun around just in time to see Fudge step through wearing a chequered suit with a lime green derby on his head.

Harry immediately thrusts his right hand at the man and said, "Stupefy!"

Fudge collapsed to the ground on the spot.

"What on earth was that?" exclaimed the Prime Minister.

Turning back to him, Harry softly said, "A spell to knock him out. He'll be out for a while until I wake him."

Rising from his chair, Harry walked over to Fudge's body and started rifling through his pockets.

Finding what he was looking for he removed something from one of the man's pockets.

Holding it up, Harry showed it to the Prime Minister, while making the 'Shhh' signal with an index finger vertically over his lips. It was a trinket identical to one of which Harry had already dealt.

The Prime Minister clearly understood Harry meant him not to say anything, so wisely kept silent. However, he was also clearly furious.

Harry then cast an almost silent spell on the object. He hesitated a moment before placing a second one on it. And then a third.

"Well, that happened faster than I thought," Harry suddenly said. "I didn't expect him to come checking for at least a day."

"And, sorry, Sir," continued Harry. "For not saying something but I couldn't risk anyone back at the Ministry from overhearing.

"However, I don't think there will be," he went on. "This is Fudge's doing and he won't want anyone else knowing what he's up to."

Reaching for his telephone the Prime Minster said, "I'll have security deal with him. I want to..."

"No, Sir!" interrupted Harry.

Hesitating, the Prime Minister turned back to look at Harry and quietly asked, "Why not?"

"Firstly, Sir," replied Harry, "he's a wizard. Nothing your security services have can hold him. Secondly, when he doesn't return, the Ministry will send through Aurors, magical police, to look for him. Thirdly, we can use this to our... your... advantage."

Dropping his hand back to the desk the Prime Minister said, "Explain."

"I can use the same spell on him that he's been using on you," explained Harry. "I can give him similar... hypnotic... instructions to make him believe he successfully replaced his listening device.

"I've already placed a spell on the device to stop it from listening in and replaced it with one that provides false information back to him. I've also removed the charm on it that makes you want to keep it on your desk."

"Okay, I'm with you so far," mused the Prime Minister. Gathering himself and speaking more authoritatively, he said, "However, the man is still a traitor; and there is still the matter of sedition within the magical world."

"Yes, Sir," said Harry. "But the sedition is greater than you think."

The Prime Minister frowned and said, "Then you'd best tell me who else is involved."

Seeing his opportunity, Harry went in for the kill.

"Fudge here," he said tapping the man with his toe, "Is only what you've seen of it. He, and a great many others, believe the magical world is nobody's business but theirs. Almost everyone in the magical world agrees with him. And, overtly or not, they are nearly all work to keep the mundane world ignorant."

"WHAT?!" the Prime Minister near bellowed.

"Near everyone in the magical world," Harry calmly continued, "believes the mundane world has no right to know what's going on. That includes all other forms and government... And Her Majesty."

"LIKE HELL!" the Prime Minister near bellowed again.

"As far as the magical world is concerned," continued Harry as if the Prime Minister hadn't said anything, "Her Majesty is nothing more than a muggle. And that is a derogatory word on par with calling a black person a gollywog, or similar. Some would even consider Her nothing more than... a clever monkey... not worth their attention."

By this time the Prime Minister was near incoherent with rage. "Those... those... people! Those... GAHH!"

Again, Harry waited for the Prime Minister to take control of himself. But, while he waited, the door to the office opened again and Lady Muriel returned. She paused for a moment when she saw Fudge on the floor but then simply walked around him.

"Mister Prime Minister," she said a little angrily, "You have guests awaiting you in my office; and we can hear all your shouting from there. Some have also already left not wanting to meet you while you are shouting."

When it appeared the Prime Minister's, temper had at least dropped back to anger rather than full on fury, she then said, "Now. Do I need to call security or medical staff for the man on the floor?"

"Mister... Harry, here... is going to stuff his arse back out through the fireplace when we're done with him," the Prime Minister retorted. "He can bloody well lie there for now, as far as I care."

"Very well," said Lady Muriel. "In the meantime, please modulate your volume down to a dull roar."

Just as she turned to leave again, she hesitated for a moment before turning back and said with exasperation, "And please try to mind your language."

Then she exited the office again closing the door softly behind herself.

Harry then said, "There are thousands of them in that world, Mister Prime Minister, in Britain alone. While they may not have committed war upon the United Kingdom, through their magics they have still effectively seceded as a... peoples... from the mundane world."

"No, they have not!" retorted the Prime Minister. "I will not allow it!"

"There is nothing you, personally, can do about it, Sir," replied Harry. "Other than Fudge, here, you will not even be able find them unless they want you to. They employ magics to occlude themselves from mundane eyes."

"Then how, pray tell, can we deal with it?" asked the Prime Minister angrily.

"First, Sir, I think we need to send Fudge here back," said Harry. "After, of course, I do to him what he did to you. He will be missed very soon if I do not."

The Prime Minister grumbled for a minute before he gestured for Harry to do it.

Harry then bent over Fudge a little and stuck the man's wand into his pocket. He searched his pockets again and found... a little container with Floo powder in it. Pocketing that himself he cast a weak Enervate charm, then immediately helped the groggy man to his feet. He immediately cast the Obliviate charm on him and kept him in a confused-like state.

While the man was staring vacantly off into space Harry, using a little bit of Legilimency on the man, said, "Minister, your mission to replace your listening device on the Prime Minister's desk was successful. You obliviated him of any memory of it then immediately floo'ed back to the Ministry with no one aware of what you'd done.

"On your return you will find your listening device is working perfectly. You will not need to return."

Harry then put the man in the fireplace and, taking a pinch of floo powder, tossed it in and called, "The Ministry!"

The Minister disappeared with a flash.

"Right," snapped the Prime Minister. "How do we deal with them?"

Harry then set about telling him what he needed the Prime Minister to do. But it wasn't until Harry played his trump card, that the Prime Minister finally made the telephone call Harry needed him to make.

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