Into Darkness - Moment by Moment Book #1 (Harry Potter, Drarry)

The Demands of Duty

Harry stormed down the corridor to Percy's office, steam almost coming out of his ears: he had told that bloody bunch of bureaucrats no more public appearances, no more smiles for 'the good of morale', no more pretending. Yet here it was, another summons from his personal assistant, the dependable Percy Weasley, bearer of all pleas from the great and cowardly Minister Fudge. How that man had retained his position since the exile, Harry didn't know, he had practically handed Britain over to Voldemort through his sheer ineptitude at running a war. If it hadn't been for people like Albus Dumbledore, Merlin rest his soul, and Amelia Bones, there wouldn't have been any hope of the resistance that was still fighting for freedom.

His old mentor's face in his mind, Harry cursed the disasters that had led to Albus' death and resolved, once more, to refuse whatever the Ministry in Exile had in mind for him this time. Propaganda was all very well, but there was only so far they could push the British wizarding community that had made it to the safety of America; Harry wondered what it would be this time: we need your galleons to fund another committee to sit down and discuss this exile problem. Discuss, discuss, discuss, it was all the Ministry did, that and try to placate the mighty Dark Lord who was destroying the Wizarding world in Britain as anyone had known it.

The young Auror stormed straight into Percy's office, brandishing aloft the note which had requested his presence, ready to yell his disgust at the only bureaucrat with the courage to face him.

"What the bloody hell do you want?!" he demanded as Percy leapt out of his seat like he'd been shot.

He leant over the desk and fixed his anxious-looking friend to the spot as he complained some more; "I was in the middle of a training group with the new recruits: what's so bloody urgent that I have to abandon them to Perkins's incompetence?!"

Harry knew he was swearing at Percy too much these days, but anything to do with the Ministry made him mad. This was just how it was now: he would vent at his safe official, Percy would cajole and persuade and no-one bandied around words like 'suspension' or 'dismissal'. No-one else saw this face, the frustrated, opinionated young man, only Percy, and he was usually good at placating him, making deals, smoothing the waters, and not reporting Harry's expletives to his seniors. Harry was expecting Percy's normal long-suffering, nervous smile. Yet it wasn't there. Percy looked back at Harry, his eyes wider than normal, and his mouth a thin, unhappy line. Harry's temper faded immediately, and he asked with more concern, but no less suspicion, "Percy, what's wrong?"

There was silence for a moment, until Harry stood back from the desk, and then Percy began, "Auror Potter, Minister Fudge has asked me to speak with you on a matter of the gravest urgency."

The young man scowled again: if he was hiding behind formality, Percy was really upset about something.

"Cut the crap, Percy," Harry snarled, recognising the slight American twang in his voice he had picked up from the local Quidditch team he now played with.

"You are aware that the Ministry have been in negotiations with Lord Voldemort's regime?"

"They've been in talks for three years, so what?"

Percy sat down, a little too fast not to worry Harry some more: he didn't particularly like Percy, but in her letters, Molly had asked Harry to look after her son, and since they had both already lost her youngest son, he felt obliged to care about the only Weasley he had seen since the exile had begun.

As he thought of Ron, the man with whom he had fought side by side in too many battles to count, he saw the shadow of buoyant red-head in his brother: his conscience piqued, and he backed off some more, sitting down as well.

"What's going on?" he asked with less hostility.

"The negotiations recently have been over the problem of the Muggle-borns in Azkaban," Percy brought up the Dark Lord's policy which had had Harry worrying about Hermione since the time it had been introduced.