The Marriage Decree

Chapter 137: His Name is Albus Severus Potter

After the disappearance of Harry Potter at his own birthday party, the majority of the guests had turned the conversation to another person who was on all their minds, Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt. Their joint hatred of the man, mixed with the strength of the alcohol on offer, meant that many of the stories were on the fabrication side.

"I saw him kick a puppy once," Lee Jordan states, and the group of friends around him burst into raucous laughter.

"No, you didn't," Oliver Wood shakes his head, the amusement is evident on his face.

"Nah, but he looks like the type who would kick a puppy if it was in his way," Lee shrugs.

"He's a puppy kicker!" George Weasley raises his glass.

The rest of his representative group raise their own glass, chanting, "Puppy kicker, puppy kicker!"

Hermione's brows furrow as she walks past. This wasn't exactly the desired result of Harry's party. Perhaps they should limit the amount of alcohol at the buffet table. She heads over to where Draco is sitting at the entrance to the Burrow, beside the buffet table, and begin to remove bottles of firewhiskey and muggle liquor.

"There's not much networking going on," she admits, sneaking past Draco to place the bottles in the kitchen. "How's your post going?" She asks.

"No one seems to have noticed that Ginny, Harry and Molly have disappeared." He answers, bouncing Scorpius on his knee, and smiling at his giggles.

"I'm going to suggest the groups mix, George's group are all together and calling Shacklebolt a 'puppy kicker'," explains Hermione.

Draco laughs, "Makes sense to me."

Shaking her head, Hermione walks back over to George's group, "Hey, you're supposed to be mixing with other groups," she reminds them.

"But we're having fun," Lee complains.

"Go!" she uses her teaching voice to split the group up.

The members reluctantly wander off to join other groups, and as they seemingly explain their reasoning for joining, others start moving around the garden, chatting to representatives they wouldn't usually come across.

With the event back on track, Hermione takes a moment to stand back and watch. This is what the New Order was all about, the freedom of information sharing. Something some person might not think is a big deal, might be the missing link for the other person in understanding the motive behind the Minister's actions.

Hermione watches Alexander Vyner and Elias Woodward walk towards her, their faces stern and serious.

"We need a private word, Ms Granger," Elias states.

Curious, Hermione nods, gesturing for them to follow her around the side of the house, "What's going on?"

"Elias has just informed me that the Minister is planning on completing his own inspections at Hogwarts," Alexander begins.

Hermione frowns, the Minister still hadn't officially announced his new Department for Education Standards, but the news had gotten around to the professors, who were spending their summer holiday planning lessons, resources and their classroom. They had found it more than a little coincidental that the DES would be conducting inspections just in time for Hermione and Draco to return to work.

"This must be the announcement the Minister is planning on giving in September," she comments.

"In the past month, the Minister has shown interest in the archived files of a few Hogwarts staff. He's been attempting to keep it a secret too. I caught him leaving the basement with copied files just last week. I didn't press him on it, since he's still wary of me after your New York holiday, but Lyra made another copy of the Archive Map, and she informed me of the filing cabinets he opened." Alexander explains.