Before the Wizengamot

Harry sighed. He had been busy the last few minutes because he had discovered through a couple of hours of going over his family's ledgers and withdrawal/deposit history, that the amount of money taken out of the vaults and other small numbers were messed up, apparently deliberately.

So, he actually had a lot more money being stolen from him then the one or two million galleons that the monthly payments category in his ledger led him to believe.

He was somewhat lucky, however, that most of all of the Ministry and the Wizengamot records were open to the public. All that one needed to have was a clean record of any crime to be allowed into the records with a supervisor.

Harry had done this and looked into two records. His own and Dumbledore's.

When he regained his composure, he looked over to his supervisor and told him to Apparate him to the Bank. Once there he related all of his findings to his seven goblins that listened with rapt attention.

That took him to present time. He was currently waiting for the goblins to absorb the information he had just divulged to them. Some of them turned to each other and started to murmur in Gobbledygook.

Skullhead leaned forward and told him, with no small grin, "I think that we should manipulate the Daily Prophet to start destroying Dumbledore's reputation, shouldn't we?"

The other goblins started to grin almost evilly. If Harry wasn't used to this, he would have ran out faster than if the Devil was behind him.

He to started to smile evilly. Then he realized he hadn't told the goblins about his ancestor's portraits.

He facepalmed, and told the goblins, "I forgot to tell you guys! I have Head of House trunk that has a mansion inside of it in its sixth compartment that has the paintings of most of the Heads of Houses, including my grandparents and parents, that have been made for me to consult."

The goblins looked at him slightly surprised at this statement. Bloodfang muttered, "I thought that trunk was destroyed when Lord Voldemort attacked the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hallow."

Harry shook his head. "No, I think my parents devised a small back-up plan just in case they did die, or something happened that would leave me on my own or something like that."

Bloodfang nodded. "That makes sense. Your mother and Remus Lupin always wanted to make about twenty plans to back up each other.

Your father was more of the "make a plan, but then don't follow it unless if you need to" type of guy. Sirius on the other hand just wanted to go in with guns blazing; however, I think you parents and Remus Lupin managed to get him to start planning."

Harry nodded, slightly delighted to hear about his parents, honorary uncle, and godfather. "Anyways, I think that we should consult them."

During his forty-nine-day stay in the trunk (but one week outside), he had learned that he could turn the trunk into a ring on his right ring finger and back to a trunk with a single command (either "Turn into a ring," or "Turn into the trunk," commands which are pretty self-explanatory).

His father turned over to his mother and they argued somewhat heatedly for some time before she relented, looking somewhat indifferent to the following proceedings.

"Harry, we should write up a contract that will magically bind one particularly skilled reporter, Rita Skeeter, to work in your favor and under you command.

All you have to do is tease her with a potentially large scandalous story, use telepathic commands to convince her to sign the contract without reading it, and then have her subtly chip away at Dumbledore's reputation."

Harry thought about it. "While we are at it, we might was well add a clause into the contract to make her one of our spy and to work for us-like advance my agenda once I have one, increase my fame as much as she could, etc. However, we are going to make sure that she keeps her own reputation…."

Andrew Potter nodded wisely in his portrait. However, his wife and his mother, in Vivian Potter's portrait, was having an appalled face, so did some of the other Lords and Ladies.

Harry, after his thoughtful pause, continued, "But, we should make sure that we phrase it in such a way so that she has as much freedom as possible, so long as it does not interfere with us, stays loyal to use, and takes some assignments, etc., from us."

There was more debating and refining of finer points, mainly led by the seven goblins. During this debate, several rough drafts of this contract were made, revised, changed, and then rewritten, and soon the study was filled with used and discarded paper.

Around this time did Harry have a stroke of genius.

If he had the power of telepathic suggestions, then couldn't he do the same to almost any one. He knew it wasn't just gullible folk, as Rita Skeeter was as gullible as an average witch could be, but the Minister of Magic couldn't be such a big stretch could it.

As soon as that though appeared, however, he stuffed it down using some of the Occlumency that he had learned from the portraits of Georgina and Gwendolyn.

Of course, they were going to use the contract in a just-in-case scenario-if Harry could find a trace of treachery and other unsavory thoughts in Rita's mind.

Though he was going along with this plan, he did feel guilty about doing this; however he justified it with taking some power away from Dumbledore that was used in a bad way against him.

He was abused, neglected, and bullied all because Dumbledore did some bullshit to the House of Potter by interfering with the law and breaking his parents will.

However, his eyes widened when he realized that he had forgotten to talk to his Account Managers about Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.

Rounding to Skullhead, he asked, "Skullhead, I keep forgetting to ask, what happened to my godfather Sirius Black and Moony, or Remus Lupin?"

Skullhead seemed to be surprised with the question, before saying (slowly), "Remus Lupin went into hiding as the Aurors were commanded by the Ministry for the following five years after your parents' murder to help round up some of the loose ends of Lord Voldemort's armies, and still remains there. Possibly he is in either one of the two houses gifted to him or, most likely, he is living in his old house with his father."

He hesitated. Eyes flickering over to the portraits. Harry felt that the following news was going to be bad news.

He wasn't disappointed: "Sirius Black, after the murder of your parents, on November 1st, 1980, went after Peter Pettigrew. He 'blew',"-the goblin did air-quotes with both gnarled hands-"up a street of about thirteen muggles and supposedly Peter Pettigrew.

The only remains of Peter found was a thumb cleanly sliced off and in no way charred or harmed. Sirius was later captured and sent to Azkaban without a trial."

The goblins, as one, braced themselves, as moments later, chaos ensued. All of the Potters were yelling to the goblins of how the severe breach of the Wizengamot charter could be done without a single outcry.

It took some time to calm everyone down. The goblins, however, restarted the chaos by stating that Dumbledore and the former Department Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Barty Crouch Sr., kept the fact underwraps with the enlisted Sandra Skeeter, the mother of Rita Skeeter, who used some red herrings to distract her audience from the way Sirius was imprisoned to "why" Sirius was imprisoned in the first place.

After some more discussion about the scenario, Harry learned that if he could use Rita the proper way, and direct her in the path he wanted her to go and to word her sentences in the right way, then Harry could free Sirius, imply that Dumbledore was behind it and thus damage the esteemed Headmaster's fame and reputation and authority, and get the Ministry on his side by using this to score himself some brownie points with the Minister of Magic to help him manipulate Cornelius Fudge better.

After he told the portraits and the goblins his plan, the room seemed to calm down. The process with Rita's contract repeated itself.

More rough drafts were drawn up, more debating, and at the end of all of this, Harry's hand was sore, his brain seemed to be malfunctioning, and Harry had difficulty standing upright and forming coherent sentences.

He couldn't talk without a slur in his voice as if he had just drunk Firewhiskey.

Finally, they had a plan drawn up. Harry told the goblins that this discussion could continue tomorrow after noon, and after extracting permission to keep his trunk in Bloodfang's office and showing the goblins out, Harry went over to his master bedroom and fell asleep.

The next three or four days was filled with more planning (though Lily had placed her foot down on the time limit to three hours at the maximum) until they had finally finalized their plans and the two contracts.

The next day after this was filled with two meetings. One with Rita Skeeter who had a predatory attitude around him, as if he was a walking, talking story that she needed to have and embellish.

Harry immediately started the plan be using his telepathic powers to start to make her more agreeable to their plans. He at first was surprised to find five to seven compulsion charms on her; he had quickly removed these charms (gently as possible).

Soon he had used his telepathy to the point that the didn't need to do it anymore. The meeting soon concluded after Skeeter signed the contract as if she was signing her fan mail (which he doubt she would receive) and Harry told her his list of things she needs to do for him.

Her anger with him disappointed, especially after Harry give her an amulet that will protect her from most spells, eavesdroppers, etc. (Harry conveniently left out that it also allowed him to track her and it will keep her thoughts of rebelling from advancing to far, etc.).

During his second meeting, Harry meet the Minister of Magic himself. Who, Harry found out, was so fickle minded that all Harry needed to do was do some telepathic suggestions for an hour and placed some compulsion charms.

The meeting was summed up with Fudge thinking that he needed to start being the Minister of Magic that he needed to be.

Harry, naturally, during this time of issuing telepathic suggestions (while conversing with Fudge so that the topics that Harry was most concerned with, like Fudge's mindset concerning his job, was always towards the foremost of the discussion or near it so Harry's suggestions would take deeper root) added the suggestion of looking into several instances where a person was imprisoned into Azkaban without the due process of law.

Fudge left, after the four hour meeting, more of a politician and more independent. Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy will have a harder time manipulating this new Fudge. He also left with Harry's explicit message (telepathically and through Harry's own mouth) that he was not to tell anyone of their meeting or that Harry James Potter entered the wizarding world.

He also procured a smaller half-an-hour joint appointment with the Minister of Magic and the Head of the DMLE, Amelia Bones.

At the end of his week, he had felt satisfied. He successfully managed to secure the magical worlds most powerful newspaper's infamous writer and the politically powerful Minister of Magic into his pockets and there was little chance that they would will betray him.