Chapter 31

There was a knock at the door of his office, interrupting his studying of the immensely dull paperwork before him. Thankful for the excuse to turn his attention to something else for a bit, the Minister for Magic called out "Come in."

The door opened and a woman came in. She was short, with a wide face and very little in the way of a neck.

She was wearing her usual pink cardigan, and as was normal she had a small black bow in her hair.

"Ah, Dolores," exclaimed Fudge "I trust you are all set to go for our meeting with young Harry Potter this afternoon?"

"Indeed I am, Minister," Dolores Umbridge replied in her simpering, girlish voice "However, I once again find it necessary to ask why you feel that this needs to happen. Do you really trust my abilities so little that you would charge a student who has yet to take his O.W.L. examinations with overseeing me in my duties?"

Cornelius shook his head and replied "My dear Dolores, that is not what is happening at all. As I have already told you several times before now, I have every confidence in your abilities to bring order back to the running of Hogwarts School. Young Mr Potter is going to be acting in a different role to you. In some ways he will be your assistant, helping out with certain tasks that you find you require assistance in. But he will also act as a barrier between you and the students.

"The purpose of this plan, as I have already told up, is to restore order to the school and, naturally, complaints of the students must be listened to and considered as a part of that– it is the place where they are educated and their home for the majority of the year, after all. With your teaching post and your job sorting out the staff and curriculum you will be busy enough without having to endure being disturbed at all hours by any student who has a minor complaint. Mr Potter will be the one to listen to their complaints and anything inconsequential he will ignore, anything that he can handle himself he will and anything that you will need to know about he will inform you of."

Dolores nodded her head. The Minister could tell that she wasn't happy about it, but was accepting of it. However she continued to talk.

"But why Harry Potter, of all people?" she asked "Just a few short weeks ago the Ministry of Magic was going out of its way to discredit the boy, and now you are offering such an important role to him."

"It turns out that we were wrong about young Mr Potter, Dolores. The boy was tricked by Dumbledore into taking part in a plan that would have overthrown the Ministry had it succeeded. When the plan failed, Dumbledore abandoned it but left Harry to take the blame for it. Mr Potter realised this and has since apologised. He whole heartedly approves of the Ministry's new stance on Hogwarts, and wishes to support our efforts in any way that he can."

"But why use him for this?" asked Umbridge "Surely there are better candidates? Why not Lucius Malfoy's son? He's respectable lad from a respectable family."

Fudge shook his head and replied "I am afraid, Dolores, that it is not that simple. Yes my first thought was to enlist young Draco Malfoy for the role, but since then I have learnt that the boy was given the role of prefect for his house and year group."

"And why should that stop him being a viable candidate for the role?" questioned Umbridge.

"Because a candidate for the position of prefect is nominated by his or her head of house and is then either approved or rejected by the Headmaster. And the last person we want in this vitally important role is someone with Dumbledore's approval as that casts doubt on our ability to rely on them."

Seeing that his senior undersecretary still did not look happy, the Minister continued "Look at it this way, Dolores. We will have someone on our side who is already not happy with Albus Dumbledore, and who is not in his debt. Harry Potter will be able to look at things in a way that most students will not. He no longer has the rose tinted vision of Dumbledore that the old man likes to ensure that everyone has."

And then he added "And on top of all that, the Ministry's actions will get the endorsement of the Boy Who Lived. It is a win-win situation for use, Dolores."

Though still frowning, the woman nodded her head and said "Very well. I shall trust that you know what you are doing, Minister."

She got up to leave. At the door she turned and asked "Will the boy be getting paid for his role, Minister?"

Fudge looked momentarily surprised by the question before replying "Of course. The amount will be arranged between myself and Mr Potter after the main meeting this afternoon."

Harry was starting to get used to this. Once again he was being escorted through the Ministry by Madam Bones whilst under a disguise provided by a complex series of glamour charms, placed upon him by Madam Bones and Sarah Abbott.

On Sunday he had spent what little of the day that had remained after he had woken up resting in the bed provided to him by the Unspeakables in the Healing Room of the Department of Mysteries. Then, during the early hours of Monday morning the healer tending to him gave him the all clear to leave, and he was escorted from the Ministry building by Sarah Abbott before the majority of the employees began turning up. He had still been under glamour charms then as well however, even with there only being a few night duty staff knocking about the building at that time.

Shortly before he had left, however, Unspeakable Croaker had spoken with him once more, and informed him of a surprising titbit of information. Amongst the many prophecies that had been destroyed through his Voldemort induces rampage through the Department of Mysteries, there had been one that may or may not have connected Harry himself to Lord Voldemort.

Harry had been surprised to learn this at first, but with it destroyed, and no written record of it anywhere, he quickly came to see that there was no real reason to worry about it. It seemed that Voldemort did not know of the contents of this prophecy either, and Croaker had admitted that with neither party involved ever knowing the contents of the prophecy, it was highly unlikely at it would ever come true, as prophecies more often than not were self-fulfilling, meaning that knowing the prophecy usually meant that the one it applied to would follow it until the terms stated came to completion, even though they did not have to. A prophecy was a possibility, not an obligation, after all.

Harry had spent most of Monday following the orders of the healer by getting plenty of rest. He had talked to Susan during that time. She was very relieved to learn that the piece of Voldemort's soul that was lodged within his scar was gone.

-Flashback-

"Do you feel any different now that it has gone?" she asked him.

Harry pondered her question for a few moments before responding "I don't know. My thoughts seem a little clearer, if that makes any sense. And there used to be a kind of niggling sensation in my mind, but that has gone now. As to anything else, I couldn't really say. I don't feel any different physically. And I haven't been able to practice any magic yet, so I don't know if there has been any change there. I don't really feel any more powerful than I was."

Susan nodded, but replied "I expect you mind find a change. After all, your magic had been fighting that thing for a very long time."

"Yeah, maybe." replied Harry, thoughtfully "Either way, I'm just glad the wretched thing is gone. Ever since I was told what it was I felt dirty. Now that it's gone I feel clean."

-End Flashback-

Standing in the Ministry lift, Harry frowned slightly as he thought of the topic their conversation had eventually come to. They had been discussing the old families again, and during the discussions of wealth, Susan had grown concerned over something that she had considered a grievous error.

-Flashback-

"What do you mean you don't get account statements from Gringotts?" asked Susan.

Harry shrugged and replied "It's probably because I'm still underage or something."

Susan shook her head and said "Everyone who has an account at Gringotts should get regular statements informing you of the current status of your account. Even if you are under age. Okay, maybe you are not currently entitled to get statements for the entire Potter family fortune, but you do have a trust account don't you? Something set aside by your parents for your school years. Tuition fees, books, clothes and the like?"

When Harry gave a nod in reply she carried on "Then you should get statements for that. Something to let you know that your tuition has been paid in the correct amount, something to tell you how much you have left in the vault, something that informs you if anything is added to your trust vault from the family vaults. I get updates once a month regarding the money that my parents left for me in a trust fund."

She shook her head again and continued "I don't like this Harry. This is information that you really should be getting. Justin from my house at school gets monthly statements as well, and that's just for the few hundred pounds his parents converted to wizarding money and set aside for his future. If your trust fund is covering your tuition fees then it must have more money in it than Justin's, and yet you're not getting those statements while he is. I think we need to inform Aunty of this. Something is really wrong here."

-End Flashback-

Harry had not been sure just how to bring up such a problem as that with Madam Bones, but at dinner that night Susan had broached the topic of him having a bit of an issue, before giving him a pointed look that informed him that he should provide a full explanation.

Harry told Madam Bones everything he could about his bank statements, or rather their mysterious absence, and the Head of the DMLE had liked this information even less than Susan had. Their half-eaten dinners were forgotten as she grabbed his arm and led him from the dining table and to a desk in her study where she had him write out a letter to Gringotts bank.

Hopefully this was just some massive oversight on the part of the Goblins of Gringotts. However, given how ignorant Harry had been left about his family, and the potions that Sarah Abbott had found in his system during her scans, Madam Bones smelled a conspiracy.

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