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So.

[Harry's Summer]

Since the Dursleys are long dead, Harry spends the beginning of his summer at Grimmauld Place, and gets to learn about the Order of the Phoenix along with the Weasleys at roughly the same time.

Per the story, Fred and George are not happy at being cut out despite being of age.

And here I feel compelled to note: we are not a member of the Order either.

"He would not be allowed in either." Lupin had said when Fred and George tried to name-drop us as a way of entry.

"Though if he's of age then I don't mind at all." Sirius had…uh, undermined Lupin's case. "Kid's crazy good in a scrap." He was very proud of that, and it showed on his face.

Lupin then tried to stare-shame Sirius to death with little effect.

Either way, the problem at the moment is that, unlike canon where Voldemort was a known (if hard to find) entity who was known to be building an army, here Voldemort is an unknown entity who doesn't seem to be doing…anything.

Or, more accurately, he isn't establishing his old contacts and building up his old army.

Or…uh, he isn't doing it in a way that the Order knows of. They have tabs on the members of Death Eaters, but so far their behavior hasn't been all that different apart from being more excited.

…in retrospect that's not all that different from "Voldemort's keeping a low profile and is building an army", but eh.

Sirius does namedrop the idea that Voldemort can possibly be looking for some edge he didn't have last time, but since he's even more vague than the canonical idea of a weapon or whatever, none of us really have anything to go on.

…

Anyhoo, much of the characterization of the Most and Noble House of Black has been largely circumvented, because although the place is a bit decrepit and poorly maintained, the electric lighting and new coat of paint we installed means it's a rather bright and cheery place. In his spare time, Sirius had bewitched the muggle lighting to have a slightly sparkly effect, so everything's a lot brighter than the bulb wattage implies.

The fishbowled portrait of the I Don't Remember Her Name But She Yells A Lot is also quite quaint to a lot of people.

Either way, Arthur's having a fucking field day™ examining the poorly laid down electrical wires while the rest of the kids go about helping Molly clean the place up.

Are we not doing that as well? Given how we're still a kid.

She never really trusted us from the beginning, and now that we're a known murderer she actively tries to stop her kids from staying in the same room as us…not that they have to try too hard. Of all the Weasley kids who are not Bill and Charlie (since they're not here) Percy's the only one we get along with, and even then the relationship is very polite.

Percy gets along with me because he agrees that what I had to do was necessary. He also doesn't really get along because we have blood on our hands. It's kind of a mixed bag really.

The rest of the kids (Harry included) try to act normal, but uh…yeah. Bad rep and all that.

Further differences…lessee…Percy's relationship with the family is a lot warmer, since the relationship between Dumbledore and the Ministry is a lot less strained…Harry isn't a political liability, so he's not being sued, hence there's no bad blood between Fudge and Dunny.

…well, ok, there is, but only on the basis that Fudge needed to be bribed to do the right thing. The good guys have lost quite a bit of respect for him…which is also why Percy's on better terms with the family, since he has a better opinion of us than Fudge.

Cornelius Fudge: Only a little worse than a child soldier.

I know, right? Percy still wants to get a government job, he just doesn't like Fudge.

Either way…in a bid to get Harry out of the house for a bit—and to ensure that Sirius Black receives his official pardon—the group makes their visit to the Ministry of Magic.

Molly tried her best to fight us tooth and nail so we didn't have to go.

I went so I can scope the place out for the probable later battle…but most of the fighting's going to be in the department of mysteries, so it's probably not as useful as I imagined.

Oh well, whatever.

During the trip, we met Kingsley Shacklebolt. Since he was both in charge of the hunt for Sirius and was a Good Guy Ally, the two got along pretty well.

Also I can't help but keep imagining Kingsley as Mace "Samuel 'Mutherfucking' Jackson" Windu, which was neat.

Apart from that, Sirius striding into the ministry like he owned the damn place surprised a lot of people, but he was a free man, and I made damn sure he showed up in a suit and tie (and shaved), so it wasn't like they could point to Magical Tony Stark and call him a bum.

They just call him a muggle instead.

Also why am I his mother?

Either way, getting the official pardon was an important but otherwise rather minimal affair, with Fudge presenting a letter to him in a fairly important government office (which Sirius accepted with great pains to not snark) and then we were out of th

OH WAIT NO It's Lucius.

"Well, well, well." He says with an evil smirk. "If it isn't the ex-convict."

"That's the Black ex-convict to you, Malfoy." Sirius says with a good smirk.

"Of course…how rude of me." Malfoy evil-snides. "And I assume that you are responsible for clearing his name?" He turns on Harry. "The Great Harry Potter…solving the problems of the state one at a time. Truly, you live up to your reputation."

"Hey, asshat, the honor goes to me." I jump in since Harry doesn't seem to be willing to do anything beyond glare.

"Ah…that's right. The boy who witnessed the revival." Lucius turns on us with yet more evil-sniding. "I'm sure you're rather proud of your accomplishments."

"I'm proud of a lot of things, but correcting a flaw of the court isn't one of them." I will admit to having kinda-sorta prepared this speech. "I hope that, in the future, the Wizarding Courtrooms so proud of their purity will put an effort into the upholding of the law per the expectations of their station."

In retrospect calling him an asshat probably didn't do my eloquence justice.

"How well-worded." Lucius says in his same evil-snidy voice. "The wizarding world has much to look forward to if children such as you are part of the next generation."

With that, he gives Sirius the barest of bows and leaves.

Hmm.

Ok, so let's take a step back here.

The fuck did he mean by that?

What, him calling you a good boy?

Well…its less 'what he said' and more 'how he said it.' Snide aside, Lucius was actually quite friendly, and that's setting off bells in my head. Not saying that Lucius was friendly or anything—his body language was quite far from it—but he did take the pains to not only greet us, but also to do so in a fashion that wasn't immediately hostile.

…Or maybe I'm just being jumpy?

Probably just being jumpy.

So we're gonna fight Lucius come next June, right?

Mooost likely.

…

With our job done at the Ministry, we go home.

…

[Other Things That Happened During Summer]

…

So for the record, I wasn't here for most of this. Sirius's pardon was issued rather early during Summer break, and I couldn't really stomach the idea of sitting around for a summer doing chores, so I went over to the United States until the last week of break.

Anyhoo.

Hermione and Ron became prefects, much to Harry's disappointment and surprise. He wanted to be one but Dumbledore obviously had different plans. They were also rather surprised that I wasn't picked.

"You'd think the most dangerous man in all of Gryffindor would have been picked for the job." Ron had commented.

"With how he steps around the rules I'm not surprised at all." Hermione had replied.

Were we present the irony would have made my day. Future irony, anyway…all she's done in terms of willingly breaking rules involves setting a teacher on fire.

That aside, Harry does learn more about James from Sirius and about his rule-breaking tendencies, so it puts him in a better mood. The rest of their break was enjoyable if uneventful, as far as I know.

Ron gets a new broom per his prefect-ness.

Yeah. I don't care in the slightest though I'm happy he's happy.

Fred and George also start scoping out possible storefronts for a new locale, but since they're still a year out they're not trying too hard. They do have their own workshop though; I gifted them a muggle warehouse they can use to store their stuff in the interim.

In a completely unrelated news story, Molly doesn't like us all that much.

…also Molly saw the boggart depicting her family dead at Voldemort's hands. Our corpse was not included, though Harry's was, so…y'know, tells you a bit about our hierarchy in her mind. Don't blame her, really.

For me specifically though.

…

[Me]

I went to the states both for vacation…and for groundwork. Namely, it's a lot easier to lie, cheat, and steal now that I'm older and more well-armed.

So to that end, I…uh…accomplished very little.

Really.

I mean, I'm 15 now, which means I have enough body size to pass for an adult without having someone else come along as a chaperone…but at the same time people tend to look at you weird even if you do the whole "act like you know what you're doing" business.

So…yeah. I didn't really manage to obtain a lot in terms of material possessions.

Instead, I got into contact with paramilitary and military enthusiast groups, with the purpose of learning as much about how best to move our body in a way conducive to the art of not being shot to death.

It'd be nice if I could just invite them into Hogwarts or someplace similar, but the odds of that working out in our favor in the long term is literally nil.

Thus, I spent a few weeks training and taking notes, then moved on to the Middle East for like a week to buy black market military hardware.

Buy?

Steal without a trace. Same thing, really.

It would've been nice to get some heavier equipment from the states, but eh. Covering up my tracks would take too long for the time being.

So instead…

…so instead I got an old and poorly maintained T-64. Russian tank, no upgrades, repaired a few times. I don't know how to run it or maintain it, but it'll be fun to figure out. Realistically it'll just be used to ram into things, but it's nice to know that if things go to pot and we actually fight it out in Year 7, I'll have some insurance on the ground.

It gets smuggled into the castle a day before school starts.

…

[Train Ride to Hogwarts]

Everyone formally meets Luna. She's a touch weird, but the good kind of weird. We (the two of us) have hung out more or less for the past two years, but she's never really been like a part of the circle. She is now. Woo!

I gave her a gift from my summer vacation.

A souvenir T-Shirt from (insert location here, it's not really important).

She seems to like it.

I also got one for each member of the main cast, and one for that nameless Ravenclaw girl. Guessing the girls' sizes was a touch difficult, but there's a resizing spell that can be used, so that's nice.

In order to test that spell I offered to put Luna into what is the equivalent to a skin-tight suit (refit the shirt into one). Surprisingly she accepted, so I managed to test the spell while feeling a bit dirty and unclean. The excess material gets removed into neat balls of material (in this case cotton) so the spell can be undone without hassle.

…still feel a bit unclean though.

Anyhoo, we met Malfoy on the train, which was nice. The kid's still pretentious, which is a little less nice.

I'm also a known murderer, so Malfoy keeps his distance and bails on us fairly quickly. He doesn't make the 'dogging' remark since Sirius Black is a free man and did not show up to the Ministry as a dog.

The rest of the ride passes without incident, though the muted silence caused by me being in the room is a little irritating.

After disembarking the train, we (by which I mean Harry, Hermy, me, and probably Cedric if he were still in school) find out that we can see Threstrals.

Harry and Hermy get into a small debate over exactly why these horses are now pulling the carriages. It lasts for about twenty seconds before Neville comes in with the big reveal™.

I pretend to have an epiphany. "Oh yeah, it's because I shot Peter."

"Glad I wasn't there to see that." Ron mutters. "C'mon, let's get carriages."

I don't know if he's happy or sad to be excluded by this.

…

So we do get carriages and make it to the what the fuck

We enter the great hall and stop short at the threshold, with Neville bumping into us because we stopped so suddenly.

Why is that woman here?

Umbridge is LITERALLY sitting at the teacher's desk.

"What's the hold up?" Ron asks from behind us. "Some of us are hungry."

I should move. I should move before people catch me staring.

We do and get seated.

…

"Who's the new DA teacher?" Harry murmurs as we all take our seats.

My reply is a pretty standard lie. "No clue." Now this is after we froze at the threshold so whether if he believes is up in the air.

Everyone is staring—some more than others—at Umbridge. She's wearing that…offensively loud pink whatever the hell it was called. Was it a cardigan? I think it was called a cardigan. I'm poor, so everything that goes above the waist is just a shirt.

But the more important point is WHY IS SHE HERE ALREADY

"She looks like she's not really cut out for the job." Ron smirks. "Not after Mad-Eye."

"Everyone looks like they're not cut for the job compared to Mad-Eye." Fred snarks in return.

Normally I'd make a crack about Hogwarts' hiring system, but this time it's pretty obvious who's got their mitts on the issue…though the real question here is, why didn't Dunny care about teacher competence this time around?

He cared during Sirius Black with the Dementors, Flamel with the Mirror, Triwizard with the everything, and the Chamber with the almost closing the school.

…ok, fine, but apart from doing everything in his power and not being omniscient, what else has he done?

Ahem.

I've lost track of what I was complaining about. Anyhoo…

Monty Python aside, the speech at the beginning of the start of term gets, predictably, taken over by Umbridge…though this time she politely waits to be introduced before getting her speech underway.

"Thank you, Headmaster Albus." Umbridge starts. "It is truly a pleasure to be among the ones entrusted with the duty of educating the next generation."

Ron's eyes immediately glaze over.

She goes into rehearsed speech mode. "The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance, and that has never been more important as of late." She takes a breath. "As I'm sure many of you know, the wondrous and hallowed tradition of the Triwizard cup was…unfortunately, interrupted…by the appearance of those who would fashion themselves to be 'Death Eaters'." She spat that last term out like venom.

Good. Or bad.

A murmuring stir ripples through the students.

"As such, it behooves us all to move forward in these times." She continues like nothing happened. "And the Ministry, of course, places your safety above all else. Let us move forward into an era of cooperation and safety with the intention to preserve our common history, and work together to ensure the sanctity of our customs and the purity of our laws."

Yuck.

Hmm…

Harry also blanked out, leaving just me and Hermy paying attention.

"They be interfering in our school." I mumble.

"I think so too." She agrees. "Why? We're working together, aren't we?"

I shrug, because at the moment I don't have an acceptable answer.

The rest of the dinner continues without much incident.

It's only after the dinner that the incident occurred. Namely, I get pulled aside by Umbridge.

"You must be Ash." She says sweetly…wow her eyes are creepy. Not in a good way, mind. She has those…eyes that try to be friendly and approachable but there's the definite feeling that there's something terribly wrong behind them.

If I had to put a finger on it…y'know how some people are said to be judging others with their eyes? Hers give off the feeling that she's looking for a reason to consider you human, and she's not trying very hard.

Fortunately I'm Chinese. "That I am." I reply politely.

The hell does that have to do with anything?

Have you seen an old-school Chinese mother get pissed off? Protects you against all fear.

Isn't that all mothers though?

"It's such a pleasure to meet you." She gushes. "I've heard good things about you from Cornelius, you know." She's adopting that "doting mother" kind of tone with impressively good acting.

A model politician then.

To nobody's surprise. "I'm sure most of it is overstated. So, you're going to be our teacher for the upcoming term?" Were it not for her eyes I'd even believe she's pleasant.

"With the mutual agreement of the Ministry and the School, no less." She nods…though I get the feeling she's lying. "Are you feeling well?"

…what?

I admit to being caught flat-footed. "Beg your pardon?"

"You just seem so…pale." She coos. "Should you need anything, don't be shy and come to me? I'm sure we'll be able to provide whatever it is you need."

Ah.

"I'll be sure to take that into consideration, Professor." I say politely. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to catch up to my house."

We make a dignified retreat.

I screwed the pooch on that one. Well, that might be a little strong, but it was certainly not a meeting that went to my benefit.

So obviously she's making good with us because we're basically the reason why Fudge isn't coming down on Hogwarts like a bag of ineffectual hammers. Whether if she's doing so on her own volition or due to some outside orders isn't clear, but if she's as loyal to the Ministry as canon implies then neither possibility bodes well.

So why did we screw the pooch?

Because I'm naturally mean to shit teachers and I was anything but dismissive of her at that little meeting. A number of students greater than zero saw that meeting.

So the problem is, if she's assigned by the ministry then I risk having her come down on my head if I do my usual shenanigans, and if the ministry cracks down on me specifically then they're not devoting resources to finding and finishing off Riddle.

...that said, it's not like I'm a complete novice when it comes to diplomacy. If she's here because she's a sycophant, then it should be reasonably straightforward to either dance around her or pull her strings to my benefit.

…If she's not just a parrot, then we have a little more difficulty on our hands.

…If she's here because the ministry wants to enforce the whole 'every happy happy working together' kind of plastered smile, then…things might get a little difficult.

Hmm.

I'll need to sleep on this.

.

.

.

We do indeed sleep on it.

I don't get to cliffhanger this?

No.

Bah.

Well, the way I see it? Getting into Fudge's good graces solved one problem, and that is the animosity between Hogwarts and the Ministry. There are more problems than that one which results in this political shitmuffin: One, the ministry's reputation is not the best, and of course that reflects poorly on Fudge. Obviously we tried to minimize that one as best as we can, but when…

…huh.

What?

I just realized that the last decade of peace in the wizarding world was literally due to a fluke. Right? Like, The Evilest Wizard That Ever Lived went to some house and got eaten by a baby, and suddenly the force that held the world in fear and terror just…went away.

Note to self: see if we can find any news from ten years ago so we can see how badly the ministry tried to spin Voldemort's accidental suicide as proof of the ministry's competence. Since Harry's The Boy Who Lived, I don't think it will be that hard.

Anyhoo, problem one is their tattered reputation, which likely didn't get better due to Hogwarts being…uh, not quite the safest school for the past four years. Jury's out on what their normal reputation is like, but hey.

How safe would Hogwarts have been during the time where Voldemort's literally alive?

Um…good question. Fairly safe, it sounds like.

EITHER WAY

The second issue is that Dumbledore is still the big man in terms of reputation and reliability in the wizarding world. I can't say I know this for certain, but I get the feeling that Fudge can and will take this opportunity to prove himself as the leader he thinks he is.

…and if the presence of Umbridge is any indication, somebody's got it in his head that the best way to seem reliable is to lower the bar of competition.

…Hmm. Either way, my goal is to ensure that Harry's party is trained and ready for the end-of-year fight that we likely can't avoid. If we can get Umbridge to agree to practicals during class time, great, otherwise, DA it is.

…book five's gonna be me being a politician, isn't it.

Hoo boy.

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