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A/N: I own none of this. Honest. Nope, not me. I most certainly don't own the rights to a billion dollar literary work. Does anyone else wonder if Butterbeer tastes as nasty as it sounds?

A/N2: I've gotten a few emails about the 'blood storm' story from last chapter. It's the Quibbler folks, not to be taken all that seriously.

Harry Potter and the Power He Had Not.



Chapter 4 - Reactions



Ministry of Magic

Department of Magical Law Enforcement



Kingsley Shacklebolt stuck his head into the bullpen. "DRADER! My office. Now"



Auror Christopher Drader entered his Shift Supervisor's office and sat down. "Yea gaffer?"



Kingsley fixed him with a deadly stare. "Who said sit?"



Drader got back to his feet. /Crap, what have I done?/



Slowly Kingsley turned the front page of the Daily Prophet toward Drader. "Since when do we speak to the Prophet?"



"I didn't..."



"Drader, lying to me will make it a whole lot worse for you."



"Ok Boss, ok. After shift last night I went to the Bull and Bush. I'd had a pint or three and this bird start talking to me, asking if I'd heard anything about Potter. She kept me talking all night, and then left me holding my bits, and this card." He handed the business card to Shacklebolt.



Angela Deeds - Daily Prophet.



/Wonderful./ Kingsley returned his attention to Drader. "Go back to work. Shut the hell up. I read another word in the paper that I even THINK might have come from you; you'll find your transfer to Azkaban in your hand before you can blink. Now get to work. And the next time a woman makes you look bad, take it like a man and don't whine to who ever will listen. Go find Tonks; I want to talk to her."



Ottery St Catchpole

The Burrow:



"Precisely when was I romantically linked with Hermione?" Fred Weasley asked the room. "Not that I would have put up all that much of afight mind you, but it would have been nice to have been aware of it, so as to reap the rewards"



"Sorry Brother of mine that was me. On odd days I told her I was you, and on even days I was me. That way she could get the life fulfilling experience that is the Weasley twins, without all that hectic swapping between us." George sighs wistfully. "Oh what a summer that was..."



"YOU WHAT" their younger brother stopped eating, remarkable unto its self. When did you date Hermione?"



"Never, as far as you know." George drawled. "I am far too much of a gentleman to kiss and tell." He smiled. "But I do have reasonably priced photos..."



Ron lunged at his older brother, missed and fell to the floor in a sprawl. Having accidentally snagged the table cloth on a shirt button, he pulled everything off the table on top of him.



The Twins laughed hysterically. Molly smacked George up side the head with a wooden spoon. "Quit picking on your brother". She waved her wand, and everything returned to the table. "No one with a single brain in their head would ever believe a word the Prophet prints"



The Twins wisely failed to note that Molly herself believed nearly the same slander a few years before. Instead they started in on Ron for the location he used when 'disposing of bodies'.



Granger Residence:



For the first time in her life, Emma Granger was frightened for her daughter. And a little frightened OF her. She had just gotten that odd wizard newspaper via a most lovely small grey owl, and looked at the front page when the air around her head started to crackle with static electricity. Emma looked at her daughters face and saw a frozen mask of rage. The news paper burst into flames in her hands. Perhaps a return to the wizard hospital might provide a distraction sufficient to keep Hermione from killing someone.



St. Mungos Hospital

Harry Potter's Private Room:



Senior Master Healer Poppy Pomfrey hadn't seen either the Prophet or the Quibbler. She was however feeling every minute of her 73 years. This case made not the slightest bit of sense. She was easily the most experienced healer at St. Mungos, possibly in Magical Britain, but she had never seen anything like this. The coma continued. His temperature as back to normal, as were all of his physical symptoms. Outside of the coma there wasn't a single thing she find wrong with the boy. Magically there was something seriously wrong, during the period that the curse was attacking his body, his magical potential of his core spiked to levels that had never before been recorded. In the last 15 hours his magic had fallen from a level 10 times higher than his normal (extremely high) level to the current reading from her wand that pegged his magical potential at 5% of his normal level. He was now slightly less powerful than the average first year in sheer casting ability. There was a distinct possibility that his phoenix core wand wouldn't even work for him anymore given that core was intended for powerful users.



Disturbingly, what ever was causing the drain of his magic continued unslowed. Poppy estimated that in another 3 hours Harry Potter would have the magical potential of a squib. 12 hours after that, if the drain was not stopped, he would have the magical potential of a muggle.





St. Mungos Hospital

Waiting Room:



In open defiance of their father, the Patil twins had turned up at the Hospital as soon as they had read of the curse attack in the Prophet. They were the first. Lavender Brown, Neville Longbottom, and Dean Thomas came next seemingly together, but that was just a coincidence. When the Weasley's arrived at 11 am the entire DA was in the waiting area. Then Hermione arrived. Padma and Parvati gathered her into their arms and soothed her anger away. Madam Pomfrey had come out and explained that it was unlikely that Harry would wake today; they stayed until the end of visiting hours. Despite several phone calls and numerous owls, no one from the Dursleys ever stopped by.



Malfoy Manor

Throne Room:



Tom Riddle cast reducto at one of the 2 tonne blocks of granite that had been brought for his experiment with his enhanced powers. Yesterday he had managed after 6 castings to split one of these blocks. Today, with a single casting, a hole the size of a bludger was blasted completely through the block. His laughter echoed through out the room. Not 20 minutes earlier he had felt the need to punish a minor death eater who had erred. The power of the Crucio he cast killed the man in 3 seconds. It was a good day.