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Chapter 3- The Law of Reciprocal Action
Harry had intended to be calm. He'd meant to go in calmly, coolly, rationally.
That lasted about as long as it took for him to apparate from Grimmauld Place to the alley in London.
He was tense as he made his way around the overflowing dumpster. His hands moved restlessly open and shut at his sides as he walked.
Clench, flex. Clench, flex. Clench, flex. Clench, flex, as he walked. Breathing, remembering to breathe. He stepped into the little box and waited. Clench, flex, Clench, flex. Breathe. Breathe and remember the numbers.
2-4-4-2.
Minutes later, Harry stalked into the Atrium. The whiskery bloke at the counter looked up irritably from his copy of the Daily Prophet. He did a double take when he looked up and saw the badge tacked haphazardly to Harry's black t-shirt.
Harry Potter, Mad as Hell.
Harry tossed his wand onto the brass scale with a clatter, and tapped his fingers against his thigh as he waited for the little slip of parchment. He didn't hesitate as he made a beeline for Level 3.
The plump strawberry-blonde receptionist at the entrance looked up, eyed Harry with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Finally, something interesting to tell the girls at the knitting bee.
"What can I do, for you, luv?"
"I want to speak to Scrimgeour."
"Certainly, luv, and what time was your appointment?"
"I don't have an appointment," Harry said tightly. "But I need to speak with him, and I need you to go and get him for me."
"Well, the only thing I can do for you, I'm afraid, is put you down for the earliest time he's got, which would be…let me see…" She peered at a roll of parchment.
Harry reached over the desk and placed his hand carefully on the parchment.
"You are not listening to me." Harry's voice was dangerously quiet, now, but even so, he was starting to attract the attention of a tall, thin wizard in black robes in the corner.
"You get Scrimgeour out here, now. I don't care where he is, I don't care if he's on the toilet. You get him, and you tell him that he's going to want to speak to me."
At this point, the tall wizard made his way over. "Is there something you need, sir?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I need to speak with your Minister. Is he free? Would you get him for me?" Harry's voice was becoming louder in his frustration.
"Sir, I think the lady has already told you that the Minister isn't available at this time. Now, you're free to leave; I'll be sure to tell him you were here."
"Yeah, you tell him that. And while you're at it, you can tell him I don't fucking appreciate what he did. What he's doing!" Harry was full out yelling, now. Two more wizards came in, bigger ones, and Harry began to charge in the direction of the offices.
"You tell him he's to stay away from me and mine! Tell him, and his men to stay the hell away from my FAMILY! " The two large men took Harry by the arms. A camera flashed from somewhere in his periphery.
"Tell him I know what he's doing, and if I catch anyone, ANYWHERE near them he'll pay for it!
"Do you hear me?! Did you HEAR that, you bastard?!" The men dragged him backward without a word.
-==-==-==-==-
Hermione didn't have the longest fuse, to begin with.
So, as far as words went, 'angry'….didn't quite say it.
Of course, she knew where Harry had gone. It was painfully obvious after all that they had found out yesterday. But honestly, if this was the way he was going to react to things from here on out, they were going to need to have a talk.
For all her anger and annoyance at him when Harry got this way, the worst and most debilitating feeling had been the acute panic Hermione had felt at waking up to find that he wasn't there.
If there'd been time, she probably would have worried about the implications of this, considering the fact that they'd been 'together' barely thirty six hours.
But there wasn't time now. Hermione knocked on Ron's bedroom door.
"Ron!" Three more rapid knocks. "Ron, get up, we have to go to the Ministry. Harry's left."
Ron opened his door. His hair was plastered to his head on one side. "Hermione, what're you yelling for…what about the Ministry?" He gave her an owlish stare and a wide yawn.
"I am not yelling, Ronald, but that may change if you don't look alive and listen to me. Harry has left. I'm more than positive he's at the Ministry, and we need to go there, now, before he does something stupid. I'm going to go to the kitchen, and floo Professor Lupin, let him know what's happened. You should be ready to leave by the time I'm finished. Alright? Great." She stalked downstairs, leaving Ron grumbling and still adjusting his eyes.
Even so, he was waiting for her at the front door when she was finished.
-==-==-==-==-
Harry struggled against his captors, cursing, arms flailing as he tried to shake them off.
"Get off me! Don't touch me!"
"I think you can let Mr. Potter go, Reaney, Wilson."
The men immediately released Harry, who nearly lost his footing, but straightened and turned to face Rufus Scrimgeour, who addressed him, now.
"Mr. Potter. Obviously you've a rather…urgent need to speak with me." Scrimgeour said with an unreadable expression on his face. "I think you should calm down and follow me." He turned without another word and head down the hall toward his office. Harry followed with a dirty look at the two guards.
"Sorry I was rude." He said shortly to the flustered receptionist.
She craned her neck to follow Harry as he walked down the hall.
"You'll find I don't really mind at all, luv," she sighed.
Harry entered the office behind the Minister to find it spacious but sparsely decorated; moreso than Harry would have expected, anyway. There were many filing cabinets lining one wall, which were actually more like cubbies, filled with rolls of parchment facing out lengthwise. The large desk was meticulously neat on one side, and covered with piles of parchment on the other.
Harry wondered which of those was a file on Ron, on Hermione, and stifled the urge to tear through the pile, to set it on fire.
He looked up as he heard Scrimgeour mutter the incantation.
"A silencing charm?" Harry asked, nodding, with eyebrows raised. "Good to see the public can rely on transparency and full disclosure in its leader," he commented.
If he was irritated, Scrimgeour didn't show it. "Have a seat, Mr. Potter." He gestured to a stiff-looking chair that looked little used. Harry took the seat, wasting no more time.
"I know that you've been monitoring me and my family and I want it to stop."
The Minister looked inclined his head. "And how would you have come across information like that? That's quite an accusation."
"It's not important how I know. I know, and I want it to stop. And you can deny it if you like," Harry continued as Scrimgeour began to do just that, "but just know that if I get even a whiff of someone tracking me or anyone I care about, there isn't a measure of the degree to which you'll regret it."
Scrimgeour leaned back in his seat, eyeing Harry consideringly. The angry young man in front of him would make a formidable Auror, if he would only focus some of that crackling energy. Perhaps, after all….
"Mr. Potter- may I call you Harry?"
"No."
"Very well. Mr. Potter, I'm going to level with you."
Harry said nothing.
"Over the years since you and I last talked, we at the Ministry have been relentlessly searching for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Oh, please. "You mean you've been going on the wild goose chases that Voldemort's deep-pocketed plants have been feeding you."
Scrimgeour sighed. "Have you any idea the tremendous pressure I am under, here?" he asked. "The public likes to see a decisive and action-oriented leader in these dangerous times, and frankly, they're becoming restless. It is my job to do whatever it takes to ensure their safety."
"And that includes monitoring people without their consent? Spying? "
"I believe that people will fully understand all that I'm doing, and will continue to do, with their best interests at heart," Scrimgeour said unflappably.
"The fact is, though you and your friends have kept well under the radar these past years, you've left quite a mark behind. We know, of course, that it was you all who stopped the attack at King's Cross two years ago. And the summer before that, the skirmish in Knockturn Alley. I'm fully aware that my Aurors were too late to stop it, and we had a good idea who was there before us."
"Did you? Then why was it all over the Daily Prophet that it was you?" Harry asked scornfully.
The older man was unapologetic. "You made your position clear years ago when it comes to your involvement with Ministry and leaving your name out of things," he replied smoothly.
"What really baffled me, though," the Minister continued, "were the unexplained 'incidents' that popped up over the region. The ostensibly random explosion in Amersham, not to mention that mysterious crater that opened up in Bishop's Waltham."
Harry remembered that crater well, the one resulting from the spell they'd used to destroy Hufflepuff's cup. There had been so much energy released when they'd buried it that the ground had sort of bubbled up and imploded. At the very least, he thought, it didn't seem like Scrimgeour was aware of the horcruxes.
He also remembered that Hermione had broken her leg in the explosion in Amersham, after they'd destroyed Slytherin's locket. She'd been scrambling to get away before the blast hit, and he was too far from her. He'd had to watch as she went flying through the air. Thinking about it now, Harry's anger flared.
"Were your men there, then?" he asked carefully, spacing the words.
"No, they showed up afterwards, when reports came in. There was never any evidence of…anything, though. You covered your tracks well."
Harry had Remus and the Order to thank for that.
"I could only assume these occurrences had something to do with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but I couldn't figure out what it was or how much headway you were really making. It was about eighteen months ago that I made the order for some of my best SS agents-"
"I'm sorry, SS?" Harry cut in incredulously.
"Stealth Specialists," Scrimgeour said swiftly, a bit annoyed at the unnecessary interruption. "As I was saying, I put my SS agents onto you, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger- their families, too, of course, in the interest of determining where your efforts were leading. In this way, we've been able to draw a map of your apparent progress, as far as we could determine-"
"And report it to the Daily Prophet as your own, no doubt," Harry said loudly. "I don't suppose you could have been bothered to help us. At what point did it become 'necessary' to poke around in my head, Minister?"
"So you've been made aware of that, somehow," Scrimgeour commented. "Using Legilimency was…troublesome, for quite awhile, actually. I took us months to even realize that we needed more than one legilimens at a time. It took us four in the end. You're quite an accomplished Occlumens, Mr. Potter."
Clench, flex, Clench, flex.
"Yesterday morning was the first successful attempt. More intriguingly, it seems to have coincided with an intrusion from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Perhaps that's why we were able to see at all," he said thoughtfully.
Harry shook his head, breathing deeply.
"The point in my revealing this to you, Mr. Potter, is that I believe the time has come for us to join forces. With the resources at my disposal-"
"With the resources at your disposal, you could have been helping us all along, you bastard," Harry cut in. "You've got to be kidding. I want you to take your men off my family. That's all I came here to say."
He started to rise, but then, unable to stop himself added, "Furthermore, the only reason the 'time's come' now, is because I've found you out, and you don't want me to blow this operation wide open.
"I won't say anything. I don't give a damn what the public thinks of you, or me. But you don't want to help me, and you won't get in my way, not now. We're so close, and by God, you aren't going to fuck this up."
Shite.
Scrimgeour's flinty eyes took on an avaricious glint. "How close are you? Who have you been working with? With whom are you in contact here; who in my employ has been feeding you information?" The questions came out, rapid fire.
"I'm not giving you any information, and I've said all I came to say." Too much. Heart pounding, Harry started to get up, to leave. He made to the door and with a flick of Scrimgeour's wand he could go no further. He whipped around.
"You think you can keep me here?" Harry asked dangerously, green eyes flashing. A ripple of energy came from him, rattling the ancient portraits on the walls.
"I daresay you'll find I can, Mr. Potter," Scrimgeour said confidently. "I wonder if your…cohorts…know that you are here." He summoned the tall, thin wizard in the black robes.
His eyes were on Harry, though, as he gave the man the order to detain Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger if they set a foot inside the Ministry today.
-==-==-==-==-
Hermione hit the ground running as she and Ron reached the same alleyway to which Harry had apparated this earlier. Ron had to take extra long steps to keep up with her.
"What was the number Harry dialed back then, Ron? 2-4-4-2?" She asked as they crowded into the red telephone booth together. Ron was pressed against the glass wall of the booth and had to duck his head. As he did, he found himself closer to Hermione than he'd been in a long time.
Not as close as Harry had been, apparently.
He started to say something, but the badges rattled into the coin slot, breaking him from his reverie. Funny; he hadn't heard her say anything, but now she was handing him the silver badge that read, Ronald Weasley. Looking for Someone.
Hermione looked at him strangely as the box closed in and transported them to their destination.
"Ron"-
But the doors opened to the Atrium, and there were three large, black-clad Aurors advancing on them.
"We need you to come with us," one of them said. Hermione looked at Ron fretfully.
Damn it, Harry...
-==-==-==-==-
Harry and Scrimgeour were both standing now, and facing each other in the big office. Anyone watching would scarcely have been surprised if they'd started circling each other.
Harry's hair began to blow, and the air began to spark with his magic. "If you harm them…"
"Mr. Potter, please, save your breath," Scrimgeour said. "Who do you think you're dealing with, here? We're all civilized people. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement reserves the right to question and/or detain individuals, always humanely of course, especially if it seems that they would have information that would aid in the fight against a threat of this magnitude."
"How is Stan Shunpike, by the way?" Harry smiled thinly.
"You know perfectly well how he's doing, as you took the liberty of breaking him out of Azkaban two years ago," the minister snapped.
Harry couldn't argue with that. His face revealed nothing as he inclined his head.
"How many others have you 'lawfully detained', by now?"
"Never mind that, Potter," Scrimgeour said. He was growing impatient. "We've been able to discern the location of the building you saw in your vision. It's an abandoned orphanage, apparently. I've made the order for the entire Auror department to move on the building immediately."
Harry licked his lips. "You don't know what you're doing. He'll walk all over you."
"Really, Harry, I've been at this for decades longer than you've been alive." Scrimgeour waved him off.
Harry thought worriedly of Tonks, of Shacklebolt, and the opportunity that was about to be missed for him to end this sooner than later.
Fuck. "Let me help."
###########
A/N- Ya'll still there? I hope so… I'm cliffing it here, so as not to have it drag. So, what's next? Are Harry et al going to be okay? More to the point, will Harry survive when Hermione gets through with him? (No, she hasn't forgotten this morning, and neither have I. -_-)
Will the Minister get over his complex? Are they going to be able to work together this once, or is Rufus just going to further impede Harry's progress? Do you really think I'm going to tell you now?
So… this isn't over, even though I projected three chapters…sorry about that. I just felt like I couldn't resolve everything so quickly. If you like, you can chalk it up to the "learning curve". (Personally, I much prefer that term to "dirty liar." '^_^)
I hope to see you again for Chapter 4- Change in Momentum.
So, what did you think of this one? Angry!Harry, exposition, and no sex. Lol. I guess that's the real test, yes? I tried to keep the dialogue sharp throughout. I hope you enjoyed it and weren't bored.
Once again, thanks to everyone who read/reviewed Chapters 1 and 2. I'm incredibly humbled by all your comments. You make my day.
Special thanks to those who went above and beyond - tome raider and alphamatrix, who both recommended me, and to castledown(RiXX) and annearchy, who've been really supportive reviewing here and at LJ. They're both kick-ass writers, too. If for some ungodly reason you aren't reading their work you should be. ^_^
Thanks for reading,
-Heather
[Insert shameless, but otherwise very witty, appeal for reviews here. ]