First Intermezzo
It had been a trying week for Lucius Malfoy.
A week ago, his Dark Mark had come back to full visibility. There had been no subsequent call to his Master's side. He was of two minds about that.
Supporting a dark lord was an expensive proposition. He had joined the death eaters, as had other purebloods, with the idea of sweeping away the mudblood filth. He wasn't necessarily fond of the torture and the constant Crucios that one had to endure as a death eater. But, it was far safer playing along than betraying their master. Regulus Black had found that out the hard way.
Next, there was a message from his son that the newly exonerated Head of House Black had demanded an apology for his son's stupid baiting of Potter. With the press seriously behind Black, it was next to impossible to bribe the Daily Prophet to destroy his reputation. Their star reporter Rita Skeeter wouldn't touch it, and that made it a VERY difficult proposition. Blackmailing Skeeter was almost impossible as those who had tried in the past had found themselves lambasted in the press in short order - it was far too easy for Skeeter to use her secret animagus form to dig up dirt. Later in the week, Black had sent a message that his will contained clauses to dissolve his marriage and disown his wife and son should Sirius or the Potter brat meet an unnatural demise.
He couldn't afford to get into a blood feud with House Black. It was one of the few names old and prestigious enough that public disapproval from the House would affect his position adversely. The only thing that would be worse was when the half-blood Potter declared his status as Head of House. The Potter name was even older than the Black name. And half-blood or not, Harry Potter had sufficient political clout as the Boy-Who-Lived that combining it with Head of House Potter would be very problematic. He had been eroding the boy's reputation for the last several years, but Sirius Black being found innocent threw a wrench into his whole plan. DAMN Fudge for being an incompetent!
To top it all off, his wife had been strangely non-cooperative. Although she was a firm proponent of the superiority of purebloods, she was not the zealot that her sister Bellatrix Lestrange was. Narcissa had been sympathetic toward her favorite sister Andromeda when the latter had been disowned -- privately of course. Now that her sister had been reinstated by Black, Narcissa had been interested in reaching out to her. As much as she loved him and his son, he knew that the bonds of sisterhood were strong enough that if he pushed too hard, she would ask Black for a divorce. And blood-traitor that he was, he would grant it.
It was time to educate his son on the new realities for House Malfoy.
Cornelius Fudge hadn't been enjoying his week any more than Lucius Malfoy.
With the revelations of the past week, he had lost serious political clout. There were rumors of a vote of no-confidence, and he didn't have an easy plan to overcome it. If he tried to push for support from Harry Potter, his godfather would interfere and there was no love lost for Fudge from Sirius Black.
He had been barely successful in keeping the news of Lord Thingy's return a secret. If that got out, he could kiss his political career goodbye. He had been forced to increase the funding for the Aurors and that bit into the programs that he had set up to keep the purebloods happy. Add that to the G600,000 that the Ministry had to fork out to Black to make up for 12 years of illegal incarceration, the Ministry's finances were not in a position to start any bold new initiatives to increase his popularity.
And he couldn't even use the real guilty party, Barty Crouch Sr, as a scapegoat, cause he was dead! And guilty or not, the public liked a live target.
This was not a good week.
Amelia Bones had been working hard since the tournament.
After the incident with Sirius Black and his exoneration, she had been worried that her department would be destroyed from the political fallout. It wasn't her main concern, of course. First and foremost, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was about justice.
However, for some unknown reason, the Daily Prophet and Rita Skeeter seemed to be going out of their way to be fair to her and her current department. It was very strange. Normally, with blood in the water, the press was there like hungry sharks ready to destroy reputations. But Rita Skeeter had taken the unprecedented step of consulting her as to what she could print regarding the night of the TriWizard Tournament. She had refused to cite her source, but had apparently had very accurate information. And except the bit about Voldemort and his resurrection being left out for security reasons (damn Fudge), she couldn't even deny any of it as it was the truth and much, if not all, of it was or would become part of the public record.
Still, she had forced through increased funding for her department and had also initiated investigations into corruption in the Minister's office. Too many mistakes were being made, and she didn't like mistakes.
Dolores Umbridge was in a quandary.
Although she normally defended Cornelius with everything she had, she didn't know if this was the right thing to do currently. Her political power was tied to his, but his seemed to be crumbling fast. And if she stayed tied to a sinking ship, she might drown.
She was still working on limiting and destroying half-human and non-human freaks such as the centaurs, werewolves, goblins, giants and merpeople. She had gotten the laws limiting werewolves passed and through Slytherin cunning had been working on increasing the power of the Ministry over such things. She had gotten the statuary in the Ministry atrium altered and wizards were coming to see the inferiority of that filth more and more.
However, the public was currently far too sympathetic to Harry Potter and he was a known supporter of non-humans. Apparently he was friends with a FREE house elf! That was an abomination! And the Daily Prophet had gone inexplicably sympathetic to the Boy-Who-Lived.
Plans would have to be made.
Lord Voldemort was having a bad week of his own.
Ever since that filthy rat had botched the resurrection ritual, he had been forced to hide from the glory that he had been planning.
Although he was in a new body, it was deformed. He had protuberances in his mouth which prevented him from speaking Parseltongue. And because Wormtail had contaminated the ritual with what was apparently spider blood, it was even worse. Snakes and spiders didn't get along, especially magical snakes and magical spiders.
So even catching a snake to put it somewhere where it could be used to create another small body for a corrected ritual was difficult. DAMN Potter for destroying his snake.
Add to that that his wand had been taken and he had no spare, he was currently limited to his admittedly good wandless ability to even feed and take care of himself. He couldn't call his followers because first of all, he needed someone with the Dark Mark to call his other followers; and even if he had one to hand, his current form was not one to inspire fear and compliance. Instead it would inspire disgust and revulsion. He might have to start all over again with somehow losing this body.
Luckily his horcruxes were still safe, or otherwise he wouldn't survive losing a body a second time. He had checked the closest one, Gaunt's Ring, before moving off to more hidden locations, so he knew that at least one horcrux still anchored him.
Some drastic measures might need to be taken.
Neville Longbottom was happy.
In the last week of term, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had taken him under their wing and helped him prepare for his exams. Harry had even asked him, Neville Longbottom, for help with Herbology! His grandmother had been impressed with his improved scores.
As a result of discussions he had had with Harry, he had convinced her to take him to get a new wand. He hadn't realized that a wand had to choose a wizard. He had successfully convinced his grandmother to consult with Ollivander and if he agreed, Neville was getting new wand! Maybe he wasn't so pants at magic as he thought. The fact that he had been using a wand that might not be suited for him meant that the fact that he could do magic at all was a very good sign.
Things were definitely looking up.
Augusta Longbottom was impressed.
Her grandson, no matter how much she loved him, had always been a little bit of a disappointment. She had used all of her formidable personality to try to mold him into the figure she knew he was capable of, but until now she had had little hope.
He had come back from Hogwarts, however, much different. He had apparently befriended the Boy-Who-Lived and his best friend, who according to rumors was the brightest witch of this age. He had improved his grades and was walking with a new confidence.
He had talked to her about getting a new wand. Her arguments about being good enough for him if it was good enough for her Frank had been countered very effectively. She had agreed to take him to Ollivander's and consult the wandmaker.
Her grandson had also been convinced to work hard to lose the baby fat he still carried. He had convinced her to hire tutors to train him in sword-fighting, a noble skill for a pureblood of a Noble and Ancient House.
She would have to do something to strengthen the ties with her son and Harry Potter. Such improvement should be encouraged and House Longbottom just might have a Scion to be proud of.
Molly Weasley was not quite as impressed.
Her daughter had come to her for advice in snaring Harry Potter. Molly had regaled her in the tales from her own time at Hogwarts. She had convinced Ginny that getting Harry to see her as a girl could be accomplished by dating other boys first. She had also told Ginny about how she had used some mild love potions to get Arthur to notice her. She hoped that her daughter had gotten the idea. Maybe it wasn't a bad thing that Harry hadn't been set to come to the Burrow this summer. It would give her Ginny time to get ready to put her plans in place.
Her twins, Fred and George, had come back from school with gleams in their eyes that frankly worried her. They had mentioned becoming unofficial apprentices of a master of some type. An apprenticeship sounded respectable, but she couldn't get any more details than that from them, citing secrecy agreements. She just hoped that whatever they were working on would help them get respectable jobs at the Ministry.
Her son Ronald, however, was proving to be a disappointment. His only interests seemed to be chess, food and quidditch. His grades continued to be mediocre, and the only reason they were that good was by the force of his friend, that muggleborn Hermione Granger. Hmmm. That was a thought. Maybe she should owl the girl's parents to invite her over. The girl could spend time with both of her children: Ginny to work on becoming more socially involved with Harry's friends and Ronald to maybe get him a wife that could keep him in line.
Little did she know how disappointed she would be by the end of summer.
Luna Lovegood was dreamily remembering the end of term.
In a space of a week, she had gone from friendless and bullied Loony to a girl with friends that protected her from anyone wanting to harm her.
Hermione was fun to talk to about magic and their classes. Although it wasn't as much fun as the creatures she was interested in, Luna wasn't in Ravenclaw for nothing.
Harry, however, was more than willing to talk about nargles, whackspurts, snorkacks and heliotropes. He also was very protective and had almost single-handedly made her time at Hogwarts fun.
Luna remembered the creatures that had shown up when Hermione and Harry were together, and she realized that they were in for an interesting future.
Neville was almost as shy as she herself was, but also never insulted her. He had stopped shying away when people made comments about him hanging out with her and in fact had responded in such a way that people stopped making the comments.
It was so very nice having friends.
Larry and Bob were having a beer together.
After one of their more important clients at Afterlife, Inc. had made a nuisance of himself, he had been sent back and seemed to be making a good go of it. They had laughed over the new details that had shown up in the files about one Tom Marvolo Riddle. If all went to plan, Harry Potter would get the goblins on board, a notoriously tricky endeavor. That could only bode well for keeping him from another premature visit to the office.
Bob was quite proud of the guidance he had given to Harry Potter: Very sneaky and, with a little bit of luck, very effective. He could give some more suggestions through Larry; it was always good to have a pet project to keep you interested.
Larry was almost looking forward to visiting his client for the next review interview stated in the contract. If all went well, he could avoid a drafty barge on an ugly river.
A/N: I thought a roundup of where everyone not mentioned in the last several chapters and other related characters was a good idea. Plus some news on some of those that had been mentioned. Destiny can't be a product of one person alone, so the reactions of those around Harry becomes very important. I had to throw Umbridge in there because you KNOW she is trouble and the new Harry isn't one to leave potential landmines in his way. I hope the readers found this intermission satisfying. I'd also like to point out that I am publishing as I write this. I don't have a long summary and plan worked out, although I do have a plan in mind which does contain SOMEWHAT of an outline.