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Power Plays Chapter 6
🕑 Added 2022-12-08 17:29:00 +0000 UTCThe flickering lights of cameras being used filled the Ministry Atrium as Harry strode past with an Auror escort at him back. Just after seven in the morning, he’d received an owl demanding that he come in to the Ministry right away to speak with the Minister, Kingsley, and his boss, Dawlish. It was bound to be a troublesome affair all around, though, Harry’s opinion on that changed when he arrived at the Ministry.
Cheers rang up throughout the members of the press when they spotted him.
“Potter!”
“Mr Potter, please, over here!”
“Just a quick word if you would-”
“Was the activity at the Briar’s Thorn a sign of-”
The four Aurors closed in carefully around Harry, shielding him from the barrage of the press as they rushed him past the security checkpoint without even being examined.
“It’s a mess down here,” one of the younger Aurors, a recent graduate of the trainee program, muttered to Harry’s right.
“Quiet,” the lead Auror of the group, Elwyn, said sharply to the young man. “Just ignore them and focus on keeping Senior Auror Potter safe until we’re through to the lift.”
The young Auror’s face went flush as he was reprimanded. “Yes, sir.”
The press were still shouting questions at Harry even as they stepped into the lift. As the doors closed in front of him, Harry could still faintly hear their questions.
“Bloody mess that is,” Elwyn finally said once the doors slammed shut. He turned to face Harry. Elwyn had been an Auror for nearly a decade and a half at this point. He was middling at best, and he’d retained his job under Voldemort’s rule of the Ministry due to his strong loyalty to the institution. However, upon deep review, he wasn’t a bad man, just a foolish one. “They’ve been here for hours, not long after you and Miss Patil left the Ministry, and they’ve been hounding us with questions ever since.”
Harry nodded, quickly falling into his role as a Senior Auror. “What has the response been?”
Elwyn gave a half-hearted shrug. “Nothing much, if I’m being honest. Williamson ordered us to keep them contained in the Atrium for now. Minister Shacklebolt was alerted about the case as soon as the press started to become a problem, and he decided to take charge of the situation. He seemed to want to talk to you and Dawlish before he put out an official Ministry Statement.”
A reasonable approach, and one that Harry had expected. Kingsley wasn’t the type to rush into things; he was thoughtful, methodological, always wanting to hear out all sides before pursuing a matter fiercely. He probably spent the morning going over his, Parvati’s, and the other Aurors’s reports from the night before. “Did you get to see the Minister?” Harry asked.
“Aye,” Elwyn nodded.
“And?” Harry prompted.
Elwyn let out a deep breath. “Seemed a bit caught off guard to be honest with you. From what I gathered, Dawlish didn’t let him in on this operation of his.”
Probably didn’t get around to writing the reports is more like it. “Well, let’s just hope that things smooth out soon. I’ll try to make sure a statement is ready as soon as possible so that you boys can take a break from dealing with the press.”
“That’d be much appreciated,” Elwyn said, dipping his chin slightly in thanks.
The lift dinged and announced: “Level one, Minister for Magic and Support Staff.”
The doors to the lift slid open and Harry was greeted with a flurry of activity. Various secretaries and assistants were rushing about as dozens of interdepartmental memos circled around above their heads. Nearly a dozen flew into the lift as Harry stepped out of it.
“Ah, Mr Potter,” a voice called out from his side.
Harry turned to see Percy Weasley standing beside a desk, looking as prim and proper as ever. Harry had to stop himself from correcting Percy and asking him to simply call him Harry; he’d long since given up that endeavour after numerous arguments back at the Burrow about it. As long as they were at work, Percy would always be as formal as possible.
“Percy? What are you doing up here?” Harry asked with a frown on his face. He wasn’t an undersecretary anymore; he had since become the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation.
“I was meeting with the Minister about the situation,” Percy explained as he gestured down the corridor towards the Minister’s office. “Just giving a brief report on our floo logs in the hours after the mess at the Briar’s Thorn.”
“Anything interesting?” Harry asked as the two started off towards the office.
“Not particularly,” Percy answered. “Although, there were an unusually high number of travelers to Kent. Nothing particularly suspicious given the high number of witches and wizards who reside there, but still something I felt was worth mentioning to the Minister.”
“Nobody would even fault you of a lack of due diligence,” Harry teased lightly.
From the corridor, Harry could hear the sound of Kingsley’s raised voice coming from behind the set of double doors that led into his office. He shot a curious look at Percy who shrugged in reply. “He was fine when I left him.”
Harry stepped forward and rapped sharply on the doors. Kingsley’s voice immediately quited down and, a moment later, the doors swung inward.
“Good luck,” Percy muttered to Harry as he stepped back.
Harry strode into the room to find only two men inside: Kingsley and Dawlish. The doors closed behind him and Harry heard the sound of a lock latching shut. The Minister, Kinglsey, looked positively exhausted behind his desk. He must have been here for hours already. He gave Harry a weak smile and gestured to the open chair across from him.
As Harry sat down, he glanced over at Dawlish who was standing off to the side by a bookshelf. He looked like a sulking child, and he wouldn’t even meet Harry’s gaze. Merlin, just seeing him here made Harry’s blood boil. A man died last night because he wasn’t fast enough to stop Yaxley, and because none of the other Aurors did anything to help. And Dawlish didn’t even bother to stay around the office to see the outcome of his operation. No, he just left it for another to handle. It was a pathetic display of the type of leadership Dawlish subscribed to.
Forcing down his frustrations dor now, Harry turned back towards Kingsley. “Minister,” he said, dipping his chin in greeting.
“Harry,” Kingsley sighed, “thank you for coming in. I know it must have been quite the night for you.”
Harry nodded. To be frank, he didn’t care about rehashing what had gone on the night before; Kingsley had his and Parvati’s reports on his desk in front of him. What Harry was interested in was where they were going from here. “Has Yaxley been interrogated yet?”
A loud snort turned Harry and Kingsley’s attention over to Dawlish. The man, still not looking at Harry, looked fuming. “He’s not in a fit state for that. You cut out his fucking eyes! Who knows if we’ll even be able to get anything out of him now.”
Harry felt a fire rise up inside of him at the reprimand. How dare Dawlish criticize him when it was his plan that fell apart? His Auror teams he sent in did nothing to stop Yaxley when he was running; it was only thanks to himself and Parvati that Yaxley didn’t slip away into the night. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have gotten away!” Harry retorted, his voice raising a little louder than was appropriate.
Finally, Dawlish looked over at Harry with fury on his face. “You could have hit him with any spell,” he argued. “You had a shot, obviously. You could have stunned him or froze him in place. But no, you chose to hurt that man.”
“He’s a Death Eater,” Harry snapped. “He’s done far worse.”
“He has,” Dawlish agreed. “And we have to be better than them.”
“We are better than them!” Harry shouted, his anger reaching a boiling point. He pushed himself out of his seat and stared down Dawlish. “Yaxley killed a man last night when he was trying to run. I tried to stun him before then, and that’s when he managed to get away. If I had fought harder, if I had really tried to stop him, that man would still be alive!”
Dawlish shook his head patronizingly. “You could have hurt others if you did that.”
“I could have hurt other people too when I fired off that cutting curse,” Harry countered. “But I didn’t. I know my aim and my skill and I know what I’m capable of. I could have stopped him earlier if I had set aside our departmental guidelines.”
“Those guidelines are in place for a reason, as you well know,” Dawlish pointed out. “They keep us and the public safe.”
“They didn’t do any good last night, did they?” Harry said sardonically. “Where were the undercover Aurors you sent in to keep an eye on the place? None of them even showed up until Yaxley was already down!”
Dawlish suddenly took a few steps forward and jabbed a finger towards Harry as a look of fury overcame him. “Don’t blame those good officers for your own incompetence, Potter. They were doing what they were supposed to. Your conduct was completely-”
“Gentlemen!” Kingsley suddenly raised his voice and stepped in between the two men with his hands raised. “Please, settle yourselves.”
Harry only realized as Kingsley broke them apart that his hand had been slowly reaching for his wand. He forced his body to relax and took a step backwards. “Sorry,” he muttered.
This wasn’t like him, losing his cool. This was how he’d react when he was younger. He grew beyond that; he was better than that.
At least, Harry thought he was.
Merlin, he’d spent so much time working on controlling his emotions in order to improve his politicking. He was normally cool, calm, and collected, but he just lost his composure just now. He couldn’t do that, not when he was really starting to put his plans into place in order to make the changes he wanted. That was a more important mission than maintaining his pride.
Harry forced a few calming breaths through in order to help regain control of himself. At least his old occlumency lessons still had some value.
Dawlish seemed less interested in backing down. His cold eyes were staring into Kingsley’s, but they’d occasionally flicker over towards Harry. Harry could see the anger in the man’s eyes. He wanted Harry to be punished for his actions. However, under the stern gaze of Kingsley, he too eventually backed down.
Once Dawlish settled, Kingsley walked back around his desk. “I can’t have the two of you fighting like that, not now,” Kingsley said to the both of them. “The Pureblood faction in the Wizengamot is stirring up trouble again, and I need all the support I can get there to put a stop to some of the bills they’re trying to pass. If I have the two most important men in my Auror department fighting, some of them will see it as a sign of weakness in my administration.”
Kingsley grabbed a folder off of his desk and raised it. “I’ve read your and Miss Patil’s reports, Harry, and I’m fine with the approach you took. I understand the realities of battle, but we’re not fighting a war anymore. All I can ask is that you try to be more careful going forward. Stun when you can, but if you can’t, then I trust you to make the right call.”
Harry nodded, even though he didn’t particularly agree with Kingsley. Death Eaters didn’t deserve to be treated gently; the events of last night showed what happened if you did. Death Eaters may not be as powerful or numerous as they once were, but they were still around, lurking in the shadows. Harry would do whatever he needed to do in order to stop them, even if he had to go against Kingsley’s wishes. He just needed to find the right way to spin it, but he’d leave that for when the time came. It was always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Kingsley seemed appeased enough by Harry’s response. Harry wasn’t sure as to what Kingsley’s true feelings on the subject were, but he knew as well as Kingsley did that ostracizing Harry would hamper his public image. Harry held a tremendous amount of sway with the public, and they both knew it.
“I’d like the two of you to hold a joint press conference on the events of last night,” Kingsley said to Dawlish and Harry. “I want a show of force with the two of you on the same side, and I hope it goes without saying that I hope you two will publicly reiterate that my administration is tough on crime.”
A bold faced lie. Certainly, the Aurors arrested a lot of people, but sentencing had been terribly light under Kingsley’s rule—greatly due to Dawlish’s soft stance on punishments for Pure-Bloods and Death Eaters. Well, Harry wouldn’t contradict the Minister publicly yet. He had to play the game for now until he had more tangible power within the Ministry itself.
As much as Kingsley wanted unity within his Ministry, it would never happen unless everyone was on board with his goals and ideals. Harry had spent the last five years upholding the Minister’s will, and he found it to be lacking.
Harry needed to simmer down and focus on controlling his emotions. He’d play Kingsley’s game publicly, for now, and give the joint press conference with Dawlish. Change was needed in the Ministry, and this was just another example of it. He would never see eye to eye with Dawlish, and, as long as Kingsley tolerated Dawlish’s lax leadership, that made him an enemy of progress too.
