FicWad

Chapter 23: Genesis

In Britain, many of the employees of the Ministry of Magic were beginning to return to work after a holiday break. Most inside the Ministry went back to their normal mundane jobs, that didn’t vary from the routine that some had gone over for years. That might have been well enough for some but others had quite the mess on their hands that they needed to sort out. The recent scandal that led to the resigning of Cornelius Fudge threw the entire Ministry into a chaotic state of disarray, as the majority of the most influential Ministry officials seemed to be divided and splintered in factions, out for themselves A committee of Wizengamot members had to sort out any loose ends left by Fudge’s sudden departure before an interim Minister could be elected to serve the remaining eleven months of Fudge’s term.

Within the chambers of the Wizengamot, Amelia Bones sighed as she looked over the information that was presented to certain high ranking Ministry officials that got Fudge in hot water. Apparently, he funneled funds into his personal Gringotts account that was intended to go charity. The interesting similarity for each of these donations were paid by one Lucius Malfoy. To say Madam Bones was skeptical about these actually being charity donations would be a gross understatement. She really would have liked to investigate Lucius Malfoy, but the problem was that Lucius had too many influential friends within the Ministry to even think about bring him to trial.

Madam Bones was many of the several people that threw their name in as a possible candidate of being elected for the post of interim Minister of Magic. She only decided to attempt to get chosen for the job because the rumors that He-Who-Must-Not-Name had indeed returned were too serious to sweep off to the side as some in the Ministry had tried to do. Many had attempted to pass them off as delusions of one Harry Potter, but the boy’s condition after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. Unfortunately, as of this date, the officially Ministry stance on the subject was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had died on Halloween Night in Nineteen Eighty One. Madam Bones decided that if she became interim Minister, she would do everything in her power to make sure any information about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were followed up with a through investigation.

Madam Bones looked up as several members of the Wizengamot filed in the courtroom to continue their investigation on the Fudge, followed by a thirty five, nearly thirty six woman with auburn hair and vivid emerald green eyes, wearing a black sweater and Muggle blue jeans with white shoes stood in the doorway waiting to be summoned into the courtroom.

“You may come in, Lady Potter,” boomed Madam Bones and with that, Lily Potter tentatively stepped into the courtroom, cringing slightly at the use of her formal title. To her, being called Lady Potter made her sound a little bit pompous, but that was unfortunately the nature of having married into an old, rich pureblood family. The only satisfaction Lily found in this is that she was sure that the pureblood supremacists cringed at a muggleborn having to be addressed with such a title within the Wizengamot and other formal occasions.

Lily walked in front of spot where Madame Bones was sitting, before sitting down in a chair in front of the Wizengamot representative.

“I must say Lady Potter, you were rather lucky to gain this meeting, as thanks to recent events, we are rather busy here at the Wizengamot,” remarked Bones off handily. “But, never mind us; please state your business please.”

“I wish to put my name out there as a possible candidate for the post of Interim Minister of Magic,” stated Lily calmly.

Not even one second after Lily had finished speaking, a quill dropped to the floor as several Wizengamot members looked at Lily with bewildered expressions. One of them coughed, which Lily had the strong suspicion that he was covering up a snicker.

“Very well, you are more than qualified, especially over some of the people who have found their way into the Ministry post over the past several decades,” declared Madam Bones in a business like tone of voice. “At least Exceeds Expectations in N.E.W.T. classes and from what I’ve heard, your work in the Department of Mysteries was very exception, some going as far to call you one of the greatest Unspeakables the Ministry have ever seen. Now while I can’t confirm nor deny this due to not working in the Department of Mysteries myself. However, I am but one vote. Your name will be up for consideration.”

“Thank you Madam Bones,” declared Lily, as she made eye contact with the other Wizengamot members in the courtroom. Some of them looked at her with shock, while others reacted with anger. Lily rose to her feet; she managed to get her name on the potential Ministry candidates.

She walked down the corridor and past the Wizengamot, making her way to the visitor’s entrance. Unfortunately, before she could reach her destination, Lily had run into a very unfortunate arrival.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Lily Potter,” drawled the pompous voice of Lucius Malfoy. “I have to wonder what could bring you to the Ministry of Magic on this day.”

“I could ask the same thing about you, Lucius,” said Lily in a cool tone of voice.

“Of course, you should have heard the news by now from your dear friend Alexandra Morgan that I’m the favorite to win the post of interim Minister of Magic,” declared Lucius with a smug expression. “How is the poor girl by the way? She must have been devastated by the fact her entire family was murdered and she couldn’t reach them in time but I sure the fact she managed to become the head of an insignificant magical government caused her to forget all about that.”

Lily’s eye twitched. She felt if she decided to curse Malfoy into a million unidentifiable pieces, she would be doing the Magical World a great service. However, she already had her back against the wall in her attempts to be the first muggleborn to become Minister of Magic or run for it ever, so she decided to do nothing. After all, it would have reflected badly on her character if she had cursed one of the other candidates out of anger.

“Malfoy, it just so happens that I am also running for the interim Minister of Magic position as well,” remarked Lily coolly.

“You’re joking Mudblood,” whispered Malfoy in a voice that only he and Lily could hear.

“No, the only joke is your inability to raise your son, Lucius,” retorted Lily with a smug expression which caused Lucius to reach for his wand. “I wouldn’t advise that, you know what happened last time we went head to head in a duel.”

Lucius withdrew his hand from his wand, grimacing at the very thought that a Mudblood had disfigured half of his face in a duel so badly that magic could not fix it. Indeed, Lucius had to go through the disgrace of Muggle plastic surgery to fix the damage Lily Potter had done.

“And I must say, when I become Minister of Magic, I’m going to make sure that all people being accused of becoming a Death Eater that cried Imperius get a trial,” remarked Lily calmly.

“You won’t win Potter,” muttered Malfoy in a disgusted voice. “You can’t beat the system.”

“No perhaps you’re right but I can beat you, Malfoy,” declared Lily in a confident voice before waving Malfoy off dismissively. Malfoy gave her an unreadable look before heading off on his way. Lily waited for about a minute to make sure Malfoy didn’t do anything stupid like try to hex her from behind before making continuing her way towards the visitor’s entrance of the Ministry of Magic at a fast pace before she could run into any other Death Eaters that bribed their way out of Azkaban years ago.

Back at the Potter Residence in New York, Harry sank into the chair, slightly magically exhausted. Making thirty different open ended Portkeys was a very draining task, even for the most powerful of wizards, but Harry barely managed it. He had a few hours to catch his breath before the first meeting of his resistance group

The open ended Portkeys worked the same as a scaled down version of Harry’s Portus-Amulet. For the time being, they were powered for two different trips; one to take each person to the meeting place and one to take them back home, no matter the destination. This was only a temporary procedure, as when Fred and George finished with the project that Harry had given them, it would be a lot easier to get everyone to the meeting place without any additional trouble.

Harry looked up at the sound of the front door creaking open and his mother walking in the door a second later with a tired look on her face.

“Well, I managed to somehow reach one of the fair and just members of the Wizengamot and get my name into the mix for the position of interim Minister of Magic,” remarked Lily. “I can say the Wizengamot members that were present in the court didn’t seem too happy with me running and the fact I decided to show up in Muggle attire to prove that I’m not intimidated by their out of date beliefs didn’t seem to sit well with them.”

“Well, they have been governing things for the most part the same way for over three hundred years without any minor alterations, but that method is starting to show signs of strain because of the Minister’s blundering throughout Voldemort’s first reign of terror,” said Harry in a tired voice. “The point is kind of moot, as I have the feeling that the Ministry will be lucky not to get flattened by Voldemort and his minions within the next two or three years.”

“Yes, Harry, but at least we can try to counteract the fact that their polices seem to go in reverse of everything that should be done to ensure the safety of everyone,” said Lily. “Still, my goal is really not to win, even through it will make things a lot easier. It’s to make sure Malfoy doesn’t win and if I can somehow damage his credibility between now and the Wizengamot voting at the end of this month, we’ll be a lot better.”

“That fact won’t be easy it is highly rumored that the Malfoy family owns forty percent of the Daily Prophet, with the other shareholders not seeing eye to eye enough to counteract any decisions that Malfoy might make on behalf of the paper,” declared Harry. “Which explains why that idiot Darthmorth was ever employed by the paper.”

“Yes, he wouldn’t have known the truth if it had slapped him in the face and he did manage to do some damage before you held that little incident with Draco Malfoy over Lucius’s head to get Darthmorth forced out,” remarked Lily.

“I’m not sure he’s completely fired, as there were a couple of articles that did appear too much like Darthmorth’s writing style to be a coincidence,” said Harry darkly. Fortunately, only one of the articles had attacked someone close to Harry and that was the article at the end of his fourth year, exposing his brothers and Master Splinter to the world, while painting them out to be inhumane freaks.

Harry remained quiet for a few seconds before taking a deep breath.

“However, I have more important things that I have to worry about right now,” said Harry. “All of the temporary portkeys have been done.”

“Harry, you were supposed to wait and do those until I got back, so we could split them and you wouldn’t get burned out,” said Lily in a stern voice.

“I know Mum, but I was bored,” said Harry dismissively.

“Yes, the cure for boredom is obviously doing something that zaps a normal witch or wizard after doing once or twice,” said Lily. “Now, I realize you aren’t normal, but you do have your limits and if you keep pushing yourself to new depths, there is a good chance you will exceed them and have a horrendous case of magical exhaustion on your hands that will take days or at worst weeks to recover from.”

“Yes, I suppose to,” muttered Harry in an absent minded voice. Every spell fired was like running a distance in a race. Some people could fire off more spells then others before getting exhausted. The most powerful was the Killing Curse, which was the equivalent of running a mile at full speed in a matter of minutes. Using the Killing Curse depleted energy at alarming rates.

Unfortunately, it seemed Voldemort had seemingly unlimited energy due to his Horcruxes and other dark rituals he had underwent. He could perhaps fire off five killing curses in succession before beginning to show even the most minimal signs of strain, while most humans would be lucky to manage one before collapsing. That was the reason why most Death Eaters favored more creative and slower ways of killing as they were less taxing on their body.

“I’ve got to go and start collecting people for the initial meeting for my little organization to counter Voldemort,” said Harry before he levitated the finished Portkeys into a box and used his amulet to start on his task.

Hours later, at a formally run down convention center, now remodeled thanks to Harry’s tireless efforts over the past couple of days, and laced with every Muggle repelling charm known to wizard kind, thirty witches and wizards sat in anticipation. All of them had been approached to join Albus Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix organization, but many of them seemed skeptical and nearly joined because there were no better alternatives. The Ministry of Magic had denied evidence given by one Harry Potter, saying that his word was meaningless in determining whether He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned. Dumbledore seemed to be the lesser of two evils but many still didn’t fully trust the man’s ability to successfully fight off He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Those who believed that Dumbledore had lost his edge and was a senile shell of his former self would not make the proper decisions in going up against such a dangerous force. Then, there was that other faction that believed Dumbledore tended to manipulate things to be slightly in his favor and he had a warped view of what was for the good of all wizard kind.

Yet, no matter what there opinion was on Dumbledore, they all sat awaiting the first meeting of the resistance group headed by Harry Potter. Harry endeared himself to many of them, by being ambitious enough to start preparing for the fight against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named long before the Ministry would have declared him to be back. So, it showed the boy showed the ability to begin preparing and they really needed that kind of leader ship, as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came close to stomping Magical Britain flat during his first go around. And there was a strong belief that he would not have stopped with Magical Britain, he would have tried to force Magical governments under his regime one by one, until he had complete control of every magical person in the entire world.

And with there anticipation at an heightened sense, it turned out they didn’t have to wait too much longer to see exactly what Harry Potter had hoped to accomplish with this resistance effort. In a blink of an eye, Harry stepped up in front of the Muggle microphone on the stage, gazing out to the people watching him with an unreadable expression etched on his face. He took a deep breath, before turning to address all that had shown up.

“Good evening,” declared Harry. “First of all, I must thank you all for showing up today, for showing faith in my word when ex-Minister Fudge wouldn’t listen to me. The Ministry is in disarray as of right now according to several sources that I’d rather not disclose right now. Several splinter factions are forming from the higher levels of the Minister, enabling the threat of Voldemort to loom closer every day. So, preparing for anything Voldemort throws at us at key.”

The few people who had jobs in the Ministry looked at each other in confusion. Harry seemed know a quite a bit of information about the inner workings of the Ministry. It was rather curious indeed and they realized that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could very well easily get his hands on confidential information if he so desired.

Harry took a breath, allowing what he just said to sink in. The ramifications of that one little bit of information could be costly. A fully united Ministry was already ill-equipped to face Voldemort if he decided to come out in the own tomorrow. A splintered Ministry would have even less of a chance of maintaining the stability of all of Magical Britain. And despite its incompetence, the British Ministry falling would give Voldemort one of his greatest triumphs, as Great Britain was the center of the entire magical world.

“Now, everyone needs to understand exactly how we got to this point. Well, it all started with the Ministry’s decision to reinstated the Triwizard Tournament shortly after the 1993-1994 school year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” informed Harry. “Voldemort managed to get his hands on the information and devised a plan to return himself to full power, after being severely weakened by the events of Halloween Night 1981. That plan was to have a polyjuiced Death Eater, disguised as Alastor “Mad Eye” Moody, enter my name into the Goblet of Fire and thus force my participation into the Triwizard Tournament. However, unlike previous tournaments, the Goblet of Fire didn’t serve as a means of just choosing the champions before they signed a magically binding contract. This precaution was to prevent something like what happened to me in this tournament from happening. Unfortunately someone in the Ministry decided to get the bright idea to change the rules.”

Harry stepped slightly to the right on the stage, shutting his eyes for a few seconds, before preparing to tell the rest of the events leading up to the night that Voldemort had returned to power.

“Despite the unfortunate hand of cards fate dealt me, I gave it my most valiant effort in the tournament, fighting through all the tasks with the values of honor that I had brought up with. Values that are unfortunately a foreign concept within the Ministry,” remarked Harry in a regrettable tone of voice. “I got into the third task with a decent lead against the other three competitors and I made my way through the task, before reaching the prize in the center of the maze, the Triwizard Cup, which was unfortunately a Portkey, which brought me straight to the graveyard. One of Voldemort’s minions, a traitorous piece of scum who evaded justice from the Ministry by the name of Peter Pettigrew cursed me from behind.”

Harry could have heard a pin drop. As far as the Ministry was concerned, Peter had died a hero’s death fourteen years ago and many had been conditioned to believe that.

“The truth about Pettigrew will be a story for after I have you sign the magically binding oaths forbidding you from leaking any information but back to the night where Voldemort returned,” declared Harry, getting back on track so he could finish this story before the night was over. “Anyway, the traitor attacked me, tied me to a tombstone to make sure I didn’t move and took my own blood, before doing a ritual also involving his skin and a bone of Voldemort’s father that he procured from his grave. Needless to say, the ritual unfortunately did not backfire and Voldemort returned. He gave a nice little speech to his Death Eaters, many of which claimed the Imperius defense back shortly after Voldemort fell the first time, and then decided to duel me, to attempt prove that the events of Halloween 1981 were a complete fluke. And I agree one hundred percent with this point.”

Harry paused as some people looked up at him in surprise, not believing that he admitted that the thing that made him famous was a fluke.

“That was the thing that the Magical World made me out to be some sort of legend, a mythical magical tall tale, a storybook hero!” exclaimed Harry. “I’m sure some of the stories ranged from nearly the truth to completely blown out of proportion, but I’ve never cared to read such drivel. However, the events of Voldemort returning and my subsequent duel with him proved, at the risk of me sounding slightly egotistical, that I’m the only one that can match Voldemort in a fair fight. Still Voldemort is a rather dangerous foe and often doesn’t believe in the honor of having a fair fight, as he had Death Eaters at the ready and he also can’t help but throw Unforgivable curses at an alarming rate. But, it’s safe to say that I matched up well against Voldemort enough but the thirty to one odds with the Death Eaters proved that I could only give Voldemort a few parting shots, including some nice third degree burns, and then slip off. And then I showed up back at Hogwarts looking like hell and you know the rest.”

Harry took a deep breath. That story burned up at least a good ten minutes, if not slightly more.

“Okay, now you know and knowing is half the battle and knowledge is power or something like that,” said Harry in an off handed voice causing a few people to snicker before pointing to a table with two separate loyalty contracts. “Now, before I disclose any further information, you will need to sign this. The contract on the left indicates that you fully know what you are getting yourself into and will not betray any of the secrets learned in this group to any undesirable parties. Trust me; you do not want to know what the consequences are for breaking this contract. And the contract on the right indicates that you don’t want any part of my little resistance effort. By signing this contract, your memories of tonight will be wiped and ever being contacted by me will be altered, letting you go on with your lives blissfully. It is your decision.”

Harry waved his hand towards the table, indicating everyone to rise to their feet one by one and walk up, signing either contract. A couple of people seemed to be overwhelmed at what Harry had said tonight, so they signed the contract indicating that they wanted no part of the group. The magic in the contract had promptly teleported them back home, without any memories of their meeting on this night.

Harry turned, looking pleased that the vast majority knew what they signed themselves for but were resigned to do it. There were some decent people in the magical world; it was just the problem of wading through all of the corruption that the Ministry unfortunately had.

The rest of the meeting detailed Harry basically filling in the rest of his group on what he knew about Voldemort’s past. It was a story that Harry felt he had told dozens of times before to many people but he still enjoyed revealing information about Voldemort that the he would rather keep under tight wraps. Harry didn’t mention the Horcruxes right now, he felt that finding the Horcruxes was something that he’d worry about, and he wanted his resistance group to be able to even the odds against Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Harry also detailed the events that led up to Peter Pettigrew making the entire world to believe that Sirius Black had betrayed the Potters to Voldemort and had subsequently murdered twelve Muggles and Pettigrew. Everyone seemed a bit disgusted that the Ministry had not given Sirius a trial or had at least investigated the matter more thoroughly before tossing him to the Dementors.

“It’s getting late,” said Harry, looking at the clock on the wall before turning to everyone. “Now, I think you’ve had enough information to comprehend for one night. Voldemort has yet to make himself known but it could happen at any time. Everyone be on your guard. I will contact you again for another meeting when I can and will send word when I can. For right now, unless you have anything else to say to me, those portkeys I gave you can be bring you home by tapping on your wand and you thinking of the location of your home.”

Most of the people who had stayed rose to their feet. A few people had stayed behind. Harry turned to the two people that he had wanted to have a word with, Fred and George Weasley, who stood grinning, holding a large box.

“Harry, it wasn’t easy, but we managed to finish it just last night,” declared Fred.

“Yes, and we did manage to test it, and it works like a charm, it took us from our room to in front of our fireplace in an instant without the use of Floo powder,” remarked George in a proud voice.

They opened up the magically modified box, before pulling out a large tube shaped object, about eight feet tall and six feet wide.

“It’s amazing what you can do with Muggle rubbish,” said Fred.

“Yeah with a few magical modifications and that book on how Floo Connections were made that you leant us and a lot of pain stating work, we have with us this master portal Floo system,” explained George.

“Nice,” remarked Harry looking up and down.

“With your approval, we can make portable versions of this master Floo connection, all linked up to this one and only linked up to this one,” declared George.

“We think we could maybe get enough for everyone in the group within the next couple of months,” remarked Fred.

Harry nodded before moving towards it.

“You need to think the location of where you are going before it will work,” informed George, answering Harry’s unasked question.

Harry wondered if it could work when not thinking of a Floo connection. It was worth a shot. Harry thought to make it teleport him through just in front of the entrance of the convention center. With that, he felt a jerk that deposited him outside.

Feeling pleased, Harry raised his wand, using a silent unlocking charm before walking inside of the Convention Center, looking at the bemused faces of Fred and George.

“It appears that we have a nice little unintended feature,” muttered Fred.

“A highly welcomed one at that,” declared George.

“Even through it was purely by accident,” continued Fred.

“It seems to have similar properties to an unlimited Portkey,” concluded George.

“Excellent work, Fred, George,” remarked Harry. “When you are all done with the portable Floo connections, bring them to me, so I can make a couple of modifications, to make sure no one else outside of the resistance group can use them.”

Fred and George nodded their heads in agreement but Harry just thought of something else that would be useful.

“And if it isn’t too much trouble, do you think you can make another master Floo Connection that I can stash at Hogwarts?” asked Harry.

“Of course,” muttered George in a bewildered tone.

“Might we ask why, oh noble benefactor,” declared Fred.

“You can never be too careful,” remarked Harry in a cryptic tone of voice.

“Of course, we did learn one valuable lesson from the fake Moody last year,” said George.

“And that lesson is one that will no doubt stick with us for quite some time,” declared Fred.

“Constant Vigilance!” chorused the twins in unison.

Harry nodded, as Fred and George loaded the master Floo connection back in their box, before using the portkeys that Harry had given them to teleport themselves back to their room at the Burrow.

“So, that’s what Fred and George were up to,” remarked Bill Weasley in an off hand voice. “Mum sworn up and down that she thought they were working on something for that joke shop idea that they have been talking about, but she couldn’t get into their room because they used an unlocking charm that she couldn’t break.”

“Hmm, don’t know where they could have picked that up,” remarked Harry coolly. “Still, Bill, I doubt you stayed here for ideal chit-chat and you might have some important information perhaps regarding something important at Gringotts that affects the upcoming war against Voldemort.”

“Actually, yes, I do,” declared Bill in an astonished tone of voice. “To be blunt, the goblin/magical relations are not that well at this point. Most of it has to do with the backwards attitude of those in charge of the Ministry and them thinking they can treat goblins just as they would treat a house elf.”

Harry winced. The goblins already had a nasty attitude about humans in general and only tolerated them on issues that regarded money.

“The goblins really don’t like the Ministry at this point but I suppose the only good thing about this is that they also don’t seem to be to found of You-Know-Who,” informed Bill. “I overheard a meeting just a few weeks ago with MacNair and one of the high ranking goblins, and then saw MacNair storm out with an agitated look on his face. I can only assume that the meeting did not go that well.”

“Interesting,” remarked Harry calmly. “So, would the goblins be a potential ally or would I just be beating my head against the wall attempting to form an alliance with them.”

“While you seem to be held in higher esteem then most humans because of the commission the goblins, the goblins don’t really care about the affairs of humans right now or ever,” remarked Bill seriously. “But this is just limited experience, as I only interact with goblins when I bring back treasure from the tombs in my curse breaking work.”

“So it is useless to talk to the goblins, unless it regards financial matters,” remarked Harry, wondering exactly how he could spin this situation into his favor.

“I’ve come to learn that all too well since I began working at Gringotts,” said Bill darkly. “I go to a tome, break all kinds of deadly curses, and then after all that, realize that the tomb I enter doesn’t have anything in it but a few useless trinkets that don’t have that much value. Despite my hard work, the goblins don’t want to give me the time of day unless I bring something back of value.”

“Yet, there must be times that your deadly work does bring back something of value?” inquired Harry.

“Yes, Harry, but a successful trip inside the tomb is, I don’t want to say rare, but rather infrequent,” informed Bill. “The ancient Egyptian magical people were a rather eccentric bunch, with many of them having their tombs loaded up with deadly curses, only to protect the most unimportant of objects. Just about a month ago, my team had to defuse an instant mummification barrier that if one wrong thing was done wrong in eliminating the barrier, we would all be affected by the curse. Despite nearly having the curse going off and risking or lives, we managed to reach where the “treasure” was hidden and found it to only be the wardrobe of the tomb owner.”

“Wow,” declared Harry. “That’s kind of a lot of work to protect clothing.”

“Yet other times, we find valuable jewels or dangerous magical artifacts that make the trip worthwhile,” said Bill before consulting this watch. “Look, Harry, I really need to be leaving, as it is getting late and I have another curse breaking mission earlier tomorrow morning.”

Harry nodded as Bill disappeared by use of the Portkey. As Harry looked up at the clock, it was getting late, but one more person that stayed behind that he needed to address. A middle aged blond man with grey streaks in his hair sat on the chair, with his wide eyes staring up at Harry.

“Yes, you wanted to speak with me,” declared Harry.

“Speak, oh yes, I did, sorry my mind drifts slightly, too many Bludgers to the head earlier in my life” declared the man in an absent minded tone of voice voice. “Quinton Lovegood is the name, my daughter Luna speaks very highly of you.”

Harry nodded, before he leaned forward to catch what Mr. Lovegood had to say.

“I must say Harry, that story about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or rather Tom Marvolo Riddle really was rather informative, and it makes a lot of sense if you look at things logically,” muttered Mr. Lovegood. “I was wondering, with your permission of course, if I could print the truth about him in a future edition of the Quibbler.”

Harry stood with his mouth wide open. That was one of the last things he expected to hear.

“Print the story about Voldemort’s life,” muttered Harry mentally verifying what he had heard from Mr. Lovegood. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the Quibbler….”

“Normally print stories that are amusing at best and completely ludicrous at worst,” finished Mr. Lovegood. “Funnily enough I’ve heard those rumors too and I wouldn’t be surprise if they were true. Maybe someday I’ll have someone look into it.”

Mr. Lovegood paused chuckling briefly at his own joke before his expression became completely serious. Or at least as serious as he would ever be.

“Seriously, we take something with a string of truth, and spin it into a very entertaining story that either makes are readers either laugh in amusement or wonder what drugs our writers could be on,” informed Mr. Lovegood. “It takes a real creative mind to actually pick the truth out in our entertaining tales. Or a real insane mind, I tend to get the two mixed up on occasion. However, occasionally we tend to publish an article that is completely factual without any entertainment factor whatsoever. A rarity, but yes they are in fact published.”

“So you think that the truth about Lord Voldemort would fit the bill nicely for one of these rare features,” remarked Harry coolly. “Aren’t you worried that Voldemort might not take too kindly to his past being published in print?”

“No actually I’m worried that he might try to kill me,” remarked Mr. Lovegood in an off hand voice, as if this fact really didn’t bother him. “But it is worth the risk, and besides he would find it rather hard to get into my house due to all the enchantments I have around it to keep unwanted visitors out. They range from a painful experience to quite embarrassing. You tend to need to have that kind of security when you write articles that some people take way too seriously.”

“So, you’re sure you are properly able to contend with any retaliation from Voldemort?” asked Harry.

“There is a pretty good chance that I am,” remarked Mr. Lovegood. “But to be safe, we won’t make the article a cover story. We’ll slip it in the middle of the magazine, sandwiching it in between all of the nonessential pieces are readers have come to know and love and our critics have come to know and loathe.”

“Okay, if you’re sure, I’m not endorsing it or forcing you to print it,” said Harry slowly. “Do what you think is necessary. “

“Very good then,” said Mr. Lovegood happily. “Now, we have that piece of business out of the way, I must be off. Time waits for no one, especially me. We seem to have a rather quarrelsome relationship.”

Mr. Lovegood disappeared as Harry shook his head, slightly amused. He yawned, it was really late and he decided he better get going, as he was due to return to Hogwarts tomorrow afternoon. As he left the Convention Center and used his Portus-Amulet to bring himself to his room, Harry felt his little resistance group had got off to a good start.

As he climbed into bed, he hoped that tonight’s meeting would be the beginning of the genesis of the defeat of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters once and for all. Still, Harry had to return to Hogwarts tomorrow and unfortunately, his Umbridge free time was just about over. Those thoughts echoed through Harry’s mind, as he slowly drifted off to sleep.