Faery Heroes

Chapter 39: Gifts and Curses

Disclaimer: Did Tonks marry a man who was closer to her mother's age than her own? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.
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Harry surrendered in the battle against his yawns as he flopped clumsily into a seat. He had thought that doing a heist just before they climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express was a clever idea; he had been very wrong. "Fun as last night was, let's not make midnight raids like that a common occurrence, okay?"

"No argument from me," Hermione said as she collapsed next to him. "Between the uncertainty while waiting for you to deal with Nagini and then organizing the information I took, I don't think I got more than an hour of sleep." With a giant yawn of her own, she leaned her head into his shoulder. "I'm just going to take a quick nap…"

"Not yet, you're not." A bounding hop had Luna diving across their laps. "Okay, good night."

"You know, since we were so busy last night, we never did get a chance to tell each other how our tasks went," Harry observed, idly carding one hand through the blonde's hair.

"Mmm… Well, I found Fudge's records. Turns out he was a meticulous note-taker; every deal he ever made, even ones from when he was in Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, was written down."

"Why would he even want information like that lying around? He had to have known that if it was ever found, the scandal would ruin him."

"Insurance," Hermione replied vaguely to his question. He bumped her shoulder, so she continued, "The only people who would know that he was crooked are the same ones who gave him that money to get whatever they wanted in the first place. With those kinds of records, he could bring them all down with him, and I bet he made sure they knew it. Mutually assured destruction; no one wants to throw the first punch."

He frowned at that. "Then shouldn't he have grabbed it when he was thrown out?"

"He couldn't. Since he didn't resign but had his position stripped from him, he was barred from returning to his office, and everything inside came into the Ministry's possession." Luna rolled over and gazed up at him like an overgrown house cat. "He won't miss it, and besides, I think it would make a good present for someone once I've had the chance to go through it more closely."

"Okay." Eyes narrowing at the people sneaking glances through the window of their compartment, he drew his wand and fired off a series of charms onto the door to keep everyone away. He was not in the mood to deal with anyone other than the two girls with him right then.

Luna blinked a few times and asked, "Did either of you find anything… unexpected when you were looking around?"

"Why do you ask? Did you?"

"I did, actually, Mione. I hadn't thought about it before now, but did you notice how Umbridge has been rather subdued even since Fudge got tossed out?" Hermione nodded, as did Harry. That had been bothering him somewhat; it was out of character from his memories of the toad-like woman. "Well, I found out why. Though Callahan is only the acting Minister until the Wizengamot makes its decision, he is fully capable of replacing staff. There was a box full of doilies and plates decorated with kittens sitting in the corner of the Undersecretary's office while new picture frames were on the desk; I can only guess that he replaced her with someone who could actually do work since she has to spend all her time at Hogwarts.