Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings

Chapter 2 The Future Minister of Magic

The day seemed to go by surprisingly fast and before Harry new it, it was the morning the mysterious guest was going to arrive. He made his sleepy way downstairs to find Ron, Hermione, George and Charlie Weasley all sitting at the table.

Charlie was the second oldest of the Weasley brothers and he worked with dragons. In Harry's forth year at Hogwarts there was the tri-wizard tournament and Charlie was there to help manage the dragons for the first task. He was a reasonably tall boy with bright red hair and freckles like the rest of his family. But he also had very dry and painful looking hands as though they had suffered severe burns. He also had various old scars across his face, arms and legs. A particularly nasty scar was place on the back of his neck. This was often a topic of desiccation ever since he stopped wearing clothes that covered it up. Whenever asked about it he would always avoid the question and stop talking. Mr and Mrs Weasley would often tell them off when they asked. Harry couldn't help noticing Charlie seam conflicted when he heard the mystery visitor was coming to stay. Harry wondered if she had anything to do with the scar. However, the chances of that wore quite low. The only other person who seemed to know about it was Hermione. However, it was unclear how she came by this knowledge as her and Charlie weren't really even friends.

'Morning,' said George as he noticed Harry come down the stairs. Mrs Weasley was bustling around franticly cleaning and cooking. She looked at the family clock. This was no ordinary clock. Instead of numbers it had names of locations such as home, school, work, lost ext.. There were also not three but nine hands, one for each Weasley. Mr Weasley's hand was still pointing to "work".

'Oh relax mum,' said Charlie putting down his newspaper the daily prophet. 'You know her, she wouldn't mind if the house looked like a pigsty.'

'But she's never been to this house before, I want to make a good first impression,' said Mrs Weasley, placing a jar of marmalade on the table.

'You know I'm surprised you're saying that about her,' said Hermione.

Charlie gave Hermione a look that made her look down at the table.

'Wait, If she's never even been here where did you see her last?' asked George as he reached out for a slice of toast.

'The last meeting of the Order of the Phoenix,' she said as she looked up at the clock again. At that moment, the hand on the clock changed from "work" to "traveling" and three seconds later, Mr Weasley walked through the door followed by a girl. This girl was about as old as Harry was with long curly brown hair. Harry couldn't help noticing her grey-blue eyes glinting in the light of the morning sun. She also had a noticeable scar from the top of her neck and down her shoulder and another from the palm of her hand and up her wrist. She wore a deep blue cloak with beautiful silver fastenings however, unlike Mr Weasley, no hat.

'Good morning dear it's so wonderful to see you again,' said Mrs Weasley who came up to her and hugged her with a smile across her face of great joy. 'Come, come sit down have something to eat you must be starving.'

The girl did as she was told and sat down between Harry and Charlie. She then hesitantly took a slice of toast. 'I am rather,' she said smiling. 'Thanks Molly.'

Mr Weasley sat down and Charlie offered him the newspaper of which he accepted. There was a brief silence where all that could be heard was the soft sound of Mr Weasley newspaper.

'You must be Harry Potter,' said the girl who turned her head towards Harry offering her hand.

'Yes,' said Harry, shaking it. 'I don't mean to sound rude but, who are you?'

'I'm Alice, Alice Baggins, it's nice to s... meet you.' Harry smiled, however was rather puzzled. He was certain she was about to say that it was nice to see you, implying they had met before. The more he thought about it the more he began to think they had indeed met before. He recognised her name, and her face, but he couldn't think of where he knew them from. Slowly as he thought about it still more his head began to hurt as though his mind was trying to hide something from him.

'I heard you were running for Minister of Magic, how is that?' asked Hermione. Of course, perhaps he had seen her in the newspaper as the election of a Minister of Magic would be on the front page just about every day. However it didn't seem likely as he normally didn't even read the daily prophet.

'It's quite stressful really, the other people who are running for minister have requested the election to be rescheduled, again. At this rate there's not going to be a new Minister of Magic in years.' Alice sighed and began to eat her slice of toast. Harry noticed that on the front page of Mr Weasley's newspaper there was a picture of all the candidates that wore running for Minister with the headline "STILL NO MINISTER" written across the top of the page. If he squinted, he could make out the small lettering underneath the headline that read "read more about the candidates on pages 5-7".

'This is outrageous!' roared Mr Weasley as he flung down his newspaper in disgust.

'What is it Arthur?' asked Mrs Weasley as she began to clear the now empty plates from the table.

'It's Rita Skeeter,' said Mr Weasley. 'And it's about you.' He nodded his head towards Alice who froze. At the mere mention of her name Harry felt shivers up his spine. In his fourth year at Hogwarts she had written many articles about him that spread false rumours around the wizarding world about him and his friends. When Harry was 17 she had written a book about Harry's good friend and former Headmaster of Hogwarts (and he supposed Bogwarts) Albus Dumbledore named "the life and lies of Albus Dumbledore" that did not shine him in a very good light to say the least.

'W... what did she write?' asked Alice as though she had just been sentenced to death. Mr Weasley handed her the newspaper and she read it aloud:

Alice Grace Primula Baggins is the youngest running candidate for Minister of Magic at aged 19. She has previously worked in the Ministry in the department of magical law enforcement (age 9 - 11), the department of magical games and sports (aged 11 - 12) and the was the governor of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry between the ages of 12 - 14, she is for now the governor of Bogwarts University of witchcraft and wizardry since the end of the last wizarding war. Supposedly she strives to do better. It has been stated by former Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge that if she is elected for being Minister of magic she will not be able to fill the post until a later date; it has also been said that ministry of magic employ Kingsley Shacklebolt shall be filling the post for her in the meantime if she is elected. However, the reasoning behind this is still unknown as it seems the ministry of magic do not mind employing from a young age.

'This is outrageous, I worked for the ministry as a favour to Fudge I just ended up being wrapped up in it all,' said Alice once she'd finished however she seemed ever so slightly relieved.

'Hey at least she got your age right, or at least it seems like she did,' said Harry who was trying to lighten the mood a little. Alice nodded.

'I guess.'

Nothing more was really said and soon Harry found himself, along with Ron and Hermione, back upstairs in Ron's room and before he knew it, he was fast asleep.