Weasley Meeting
Arthur Weasley sat in his chair in his office at the Ministry. They had taken it back. They had won. There were still some supporters of You-Know-Who out there, the snatchers and werewolves under Greyback for example, but they had got rid of all Death Eaters and would rat out the supporters at the Ministry. Most had come out when they had taken over and were already arrested and on their ways to the holding cells. Willing supporters of a terror regime. They had organised the storm of the Ministry from two sides within two days. It had been a total surprise, but when the information that a coordinated strike against the Ministry was planned, that the Death Eaters would be squibs or dead by that time and that Voldemort was already taken out of the picture, came in through Bill and Fleur, the Order had acted.
Bill had given them the time frame in which they would act. They had mobilised the whole Order and were joined by Harry and Hermione, who had been the ones responsible for the defeat of You-Know-Who. The operation had worked out perfectly. They had used the taboo against the snatchers and had brought them into the atrium of the Ministry after they had secured all departments. Without the Death Eaters in the building, they had an easy time stunning those that supported them. The common way was that one part of a team was disillusioned while the other one, a ministry member, went to ask the supporter a question about work. The disillusioned one would stun and then the target would be tied up and sent to the holding cells.
Kingsley had organised the whole stock of portkeys to the cells that the DMLE had. They would take care of the time-intensive parts later, once they got rid of everybody. It had taken two hours of coordinated work and taking out the communication lines of the Ministry, but they had got them all. Now he was a bit exhausted. He also had to take a bit of time to fully take in that they had won. And all without massive bloodshed. Just when he was about ready to go and help interrogating the prisoners, Bill appeared in his office.
"Bill, what do you need?" He asked.
"We need to talk, Dad. And it's important that we do it now, while Mum and Ron are otherwise busy," Bill said seriously.
"What did happen?" Arthur asked worriedly.
"Mum brewed love potions keyed to Ron and Ginny and dosed Harry and Hermione with them. Harry found out at the beginning of his sixth year that there were potions in his system and got a cleansing potion from Madam Pomfrey and immunisation potions. He freed Hermione from their influence when Ron left them behind. He knows, thanks to Ron being the only one that could have continued dosing Hermione, that he was behind them. But Ron is too inept at Potions to have successfully brewed them. It had to be Mum, as Ginny wouldn't have learned how to do it before she reached sixth year. It's NEWT level material. And while the twins have them in their product line, theirs only work for one day at most. And those are their most expensive ones. I asked them about it. They informed me that it wasn't a good prank to control a person's feelings long-term," Bill said.
Arthur hid his face in his hands.
"Oh Merlin, I thought we had stopped that ten years ago. She seemed to be okay," he groaned, "On top of it Harry is part of a noble house. That can't end well. And just when I thought that we would be getting back to our feet."
"I doubt that Harry will be pressing charges. But he will demand that Mum gets mental treatment again and an oath that she will never again brew love potions or buy some to use on another person," Bill stated seriously, "He's angrier about what was done to Hermione than him, as he wasn't really hit. And the detection of love potions had the effect that other potions that were used to control him were also flushed from his body. My guess is Dumbledore and Snape used them to control and hinder him. I have come to the conclusion that Dumbledore was either totally senile or insane by now. He certainly wasn't fit to lead anybody."
"Explain," Arthur said and Bill gave him all the information about what had happened.
Harry and Hermione had decided that Arthur was trustworthy and needed the whole story to be able to take appropriate action to prevent a scandal like back in 1987. This time they wouldn't recover otherwise.
Ron Weasley wasn't a happy wizard. He had thought that now that You-Know-Who was dead and the evil Death Eaters were all squibs, with a few dead ones among them, things would be perfect again. He would get Hermione, Ginny would get Harry and he wouldn't ever have to really work, because he was famous for being the best friend of Harry Potter. Sadly that wasn't the case. He had been part of the group that took back the Ministry, even if he didn't get a chance to talk to Harry and Hermione. Well, he supposed he could do that later, apologise for the horcrux messing his mind up badly and then they would forgive him. After all, Harry was potioned to see anything that Ron did less drastic than it might have been and Hermione had enough love potion in her system to forgive him anything after a short time.
So when his father told him that they were going back to the Burrow now that they had taken the Ministry back and anybody that posed a problem was in the holding cells, he had been happy. He noticed that all members of the Weasley family were there, including Percy, who looked as if a massive weight had been gone from his shoulders. He didn't like that his father seemed to prevent the twins from hexing the family abandoning git. Now he was waiting what this meant. He didn't see Harry or Hermione, which he had somewhat expected after the fight was finally over. He was truly taken by surprise when his father demanded that they all put their wands onto the table and when they were there, he spelled them under a protective field that would only fall once the family meeting was considered finished.
"I have some serious things to discuss and invoke the Weasley family secrecy oath as head of the Weasley family," Arthur said seriously, which shocked many.
"As heir to the Weasley family I uphold the head of family's decision about the oath of secrecy," Bill then added and a wave of magic shot through every member of the Weasley family.
Ron realised that this wouldn't be a good conversation. He had never experienced that this oath was invoked.
"It is time that we told you some important things that happened ten years ago, as they are the prelude to what we need to discuss today, which is also the reason why I had Percy questioned under veritaserum to find out his motivations behind abandoning the family," Arthur said, which made the others gasp and the twins look at their next older brother in a different light.
Arthur then proceeded, to the dismay of Molly, to inform his children, even Ginny, who had been allowed to attend the meeting and had used Professor McGonagall's floo to come to the Burrow for the next two days. She was actually very silent and seemed disturbed by something, of a tale that had been kept hidden from the youngest four, as they had been too young to really understand. Fred and George looked at their mother horrified. Ron didn't know why she had needed to put Charlie and Bill under potions as well as the girls and Ginny didn't comment on anything.
"As you see, we barely escaped a catastrophe. I wouldn't have been able to raise you on my own and continue working at the Ministry at the same time, which was our only income. The reason why we had so little money all the time was that we still had to pay back the loan I had to take up to cover the costs of having your mother treated at St. Mungo's, which was the only reason she was even kept out of Azkaban, which would have been the consequence of being convicted for line theft. There are no exceptions in our society. I was convinced that she had learned from that and that the healers had got her far enough that she wouldn't have a relapse. But sadly that wasn't the case. I know that I haven't taught you all the intricacies of pureblood law, as I think that most of it are discriminative rubbish.
"One thing though I have taught you all and that is the consequences that can take place if you mess with the truly important families. Those that have the noble attribute attached to their name," Arthur said sternly.
Except for Ron all the others nodded. Ginny seemed to be close to tears.
"We can consider ourselves lucky that the one that was a victim of your mother's newest attempt to force her ideas of a perfect family with love potions, doesn't hold it against our whole family, but he has stated his demands for that," Arthur said.
Percy now looked up.
"It's Harry, isn't it?" He asked forlornly.
"Yes," Arthur confirmed gravely, "He and Hermione to be exact."
Ron paled. He knew that his father didn't like love potions, but he had never understood the reason. After all, he didn't tell the twins off for selling them at their joke shop. He had thought it was a perfectly okay way to make sure you got the girl you wanted, like he did with Hermione. But seemingly there were harsh consequences that could come from it. He grit his teeth. Harry again got in the way of what he wanted, the girl he wanted.
"Ron, what do you have to say in your defence? It was you after all that kept them under the potion all the time while you were out on your mission until you left them in a temper tantrum," Arthur asked sternly.
Ron looked into the eyes of all his brothers and none of them showed any sympathy. Ginny was crying and looking at the ground.
"It was just a love potion, nothing bad. And I wanted Hermione to notice me. She always wanted to talk about Harry this and Harry that. And I wanted her to be mine. Mum said that we would be a good couple and that it would make sure that I wouldn't fail at school. But Hermione always argued with me and nagged me. I wanted that she didn't do that and instead didn't like Harry. And, as a muggleborn, she wouldn't have had any standing in our world without a pureblood husband. So what was the harm, she would have profited from it as well. And why would it matter that Harry was given a push towards Ginny? He would then have had her and not gone after Hermione," Ron said petulantly.
"Ron you idiot, did you ever listen to the lessons Dad gave us?" Fred exclaimed, "I know that Ginny got her mind screwed up by the stories Mum told her and that the Chamber incident didn't help at all with her getting over her silly crush and seeing Harry for the real person he is, but you have no such reason. And there is a difference between the types of love potion."
"Yes, the ones we have at the shop last at most one day. We do business with pranks that make people laugh, never with anything harmful. The imperius curse is banned for a reason. Love potions that last longer than a day, take away the free will of a person over time. In case you didn't realise, had you married Hermione with her being put under love potions, and slept with her, it would have been rape. Nothing else. A crime," George continued.
"And Harry is head of the ancient and noble house of Potter since he turned seventeen," Percy softly said, "Not to mention that he can claim the Black headship if he wants to, as his godfather left him everything as his sole heir. If he raised charges, the automatic result would be at least five years at Azkaban."
"So, if anybody had found out about this and raised a stink, you and Mum would spend time at Azkaban and Ginny would be expelled in a similar situation as Hagrid for two years. The only difference would be that, as she passed her OWLs, she would be allowed to get a new wand upon turning seventeen. But the black mark would always haunt her," Bill stated.
"I only wanted my babies to be happy and have good lives," Molly wailed.
"Your ideas of what makes a happy life are vastly different from that of other people, Mum. You already drove Charlie and me away when you wouldn't let us follow our dreams when we graduated. Percy simply didn't have the problems, because he wanted to go into the Ministry, to have a chance to change things there. But with how corrupt people were there, he had to lie low and collect evidence," Bill said, having heard Percy's confession under veritaserum.
"What?" George asked shocked.
"Yes, when I entered the Ministry after my NEWTs, I wanted to learn everything I could and impress all the important people there. But soon I noticed that nothing ever got done, because certain people blocked processes, let evidence vanish, or took bribes to not report criminal actions. The real reason why I was made the personal assistant of Fudge, was that I had a job given to me by Madam Bones. She noticed how unhappy I was with how things were done there and offered me a spot in her department, one of the few that I could actually stand after a year of working at the Ministry. She outlined how things had gone out of control and how the Ministry was ripe for the taking after Fudge started to slander Harry in the press.
"My job was to pretend to fully support Fudge in anything and to gather evidence that could be used against any corrupt member of the Ministry. By distancing myself from my family I got that necessary insider position. The problem was that Madam Bones was killed too early on and that nobody else really gave a damn about the things that were wrong. Scrimgeour was a pompous idiot. Better than Fudge, but he had no clue of how to clean house, which would have been the one way to stop the takeover. We were so infested at the inside that the takeover only needed the death of the Minister to be complete.
"Do you want to know why the Ministry fell? About half of the leading positions were held by Death Eaters or at least pureblood supremacists. You had a handful of people that were willing to speak out, the others only ducked their heads and did as they were told from the people in those positions above them. With Thicknesse being Minister, and under the imperius curse, Umbridge not needing any convincing to play along, as she loved having that power and being allowed to finally hunt the muggleborns down, the two top positions were under their control. The plan has been worked on since the seventies. Most of the people that were now revealed as Death Eaters had been in their positions before the first fall of You-Know-Who.
"I know that the takeover was only prevented by the miracle of Harry somehow separating You-Know-Who from his body and surviving the killing curse. But even back then, when the horrors of the war were still fresh in mind, there was no consequent action to root out spies and traitors. Instead, after getting off by bribing the Minister with enough gold to accept the imperius curse defence, lots of rich Death Eaters got off. After lying low for one or two years they continued the plan, knowing that their leader would return to them in the near future.
"The main culprit for the placement of the key players at the Ministry was Lucius Malfoy. He bought several decisions on who should gain an open position as department head or deputy of the department head. Under Fudge he got six department head positions filled with supporters of You-Know-Who. The gold to do so came from illegal businesses, which were hidden well enough that the DMLE didn't have enough proof to close them down. Not to mention that Fudge always blocked any true investigation in the business deals of the so-called upstanding pureblood members of society. What was done today was actually the only thing that can help us to start anew and get out of the swamp of corruption that we're in up to our chins," Percy ranted.
"Wow, so you were a spy all the time?" George asked.
"Ever since seeing what a disgrace was made out of the Triwizard Tournament. I mean, I was part of the team that was present at the negotiations and I worked hours on making sure that everything went off without a hitch. I coordinated the transport of the dragons to the Forbidden Forest, made sure that no area with high muggle settlement was crossed, secured the permissions of the countries that they had to go through and so on. Do you have any idea what kind of bureaucratic nightmare it was to secure a fourth dragon in just three weeks?" Percy asked.
"I can tell you that my superiors at the preserve weren't happy at all at the demands to find a fourth nesting mother dragon to be brought to the Tournament on short notice. We had been informed about the plans for the first task a year in advance to ensure that we had three female dragons that were nesting at the right time. Even if the schools wouldn't have agreed, we would've only had a few more dragon eggs at the time. Nothing problematic. We had chosen three of the least aggressive breeds and manipulated their mating time. Normally the Hungarian Horntail wouldn't have been taken to Hogwarts, but it was simply the only other nesting mother we had. The Welsh Green, the Swedish Shortsnout and the Chinese Fireball are breeds that can easily be calmed down with enough manpower. A Horntail is a whole different story. You need to be extremely careful to handle one of them," Charlie added.
"And the idiot Bagman was only happy to have the publicity of Harry being in the Tournament to advertise it better. He didn't help with anything. For him it was only commenting on the tasks and betting on the winner to deal with his gambling debts. The quotes for Harry would have been the most interesting point in the whole thing for him. Not that we had to work overtime to get everything cleared. The complaints of France and Bulgaria for the additional competition for the champions from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, commissioning a fourth golden egg, which only got ready the very morning of the task, stopping the press from demanding entry at the castle for the whole time of the tournament instead of just the tasks and much more," Percy listed.
"And then, when I got those letters, I did ask a few others if the handwriting was correct after Mr Crouch had been absent for two weeks and they confirmed it was his and that I should simply enjoy the time they had without him breathing down all our necks, demanding perfection all the time. If we did what he wrote, we would be alright. As they were the senior members of the department, I didn't question it. Which was an error. I did report it to the responsible superior after a month, when I found it strange, but nothing ever came from it, so I didn't act more, as I was too busy."
The Weasleys nodded. Then they turned to Ginny, who was still crying.
"So, what is your stand on this, Ginny?" Arthur asked.
"I talked to Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey after Professor McGonagall informed us about the death of You-Know-Who and the loss of magic for the Death Eaters. She told me very clearly what she thought of this and how Mum had had problems before. I didn't realise that it could have been ruled as line theft. I just, all my life I had been told that it would be wonderful to marry Harry Potter. And after my first year, when he had saved my life, it seemed just like fate wanted us together. I honestly only wanted to make him notice me a bit more. I slipped one dose of the potion that Mum had sent me into his juice one morning to see if he would act on it. He didn't, but he looked interested.
"So I bid my time. The day of the Quidditch match, when I didn't have Dean as a boyfriend anymore, I did it again. Only enough to last for a few hours. But when I kissed him and he didn't push me away, I thought that he liked me too, that we would be a great couple. I didn't give him any doses after that anymore," Ginny said, "I mean, the potion should only have lasted a day at most. That was what Fred and George said was the longest any of their love potions would work. I didn't see the harm in that to find out if he would have been able to fall in love with me. Mum said to get the interest of a boy adding a bit of the potion wasn't bad after all. Only when Professor McGonagall told me what had really been going on, I realised what could have happened. I was too obsessed to really notice anything outside of my dream coming true.
"Madam Pomfrey says that I still have lingering problems from the time Tom possessed me. That she will have a mind healer come to the school for me to have sessions once a week. I never wanted to hurt anyone again after I had nearly been responsible for the deaths of the students that were lucky to only have been petrified. If Nick hadn't been there that time with Justin, the basilisk would have killed him. I couldn't have lived with that guilt," Ginny confessed and broke into more sobs.
Fleur walked over to her and rubbed her back consolingly. At least she hadn't done it for totally selfish reasons like Ron.
"Aright, we will let Ginny go through the therapy that Professor McGonagall has arranged for her and I'm glad that she wants to do it. While I'm truly disappointed that you thought using something like a love potion was acceptable, I have to admit that I should have sat all of you that didn't know the history of our family's problems down when you were fourteen and old enough to understand. But I wanted to protect your mother, thinking that she had overcome her problems," Arthur admitted, "This is what is going to happen. Ginny, you'll do everything that Madam Pomfrey tells you to do, concentrate on your studies and do your best to graduate with good grades to let you take any path you want to take for a career. I'll support anything you decide to do. Ron, you'll also return to Hogwarts and you better honestly apologise to Harry and Hermione, especially Hermione. I don't know if she can forgive you, but that's the only way to go. You'll also buckle down to catch up on the three months of material you missed thanks to the mission. I expect that there will be a lowering of the demands for what grades you need to have reached in your NEWTs for several careers. Use that."
Ron grumbled, but all of his family glaring at him shut him up.
"Fred and George, I want you to take any kind of love potions from your shop. That kind of potion brings too many problems and we right now don't need any of the comments in that regard. You have a lot of other great products, so concentrate on them," Arthur said.
"Yes, Dad, after hearing this story, we would have done that anyway," Fred confirmed.
"Percy, I want you to hand the evidence that you collected over the years over to Kingsley Shacklebolt. He's going to be interim Minister for now and in charge of the trials for the ones that we dumped in the holding cells. I guess with your material we can ensure that those that deserve it, are thrown into prison for a long time. More than enough time for us to clean up our world. We are incredibly lucky that we got away with just one and a half years of true war. It could have been much, much worse," Arthur commented.
"I'll do that, Dad," Percy nodded.
"And Molly, you're going to be in therapy as well. I'll somehow get the money to have you treated the full way this time," Arthur said sternly, "I won't take a risk again. This could have destroyed our family, just because you couldn't let go of your obsessions."
Molly looked angry, but also cried for all her dreams and her babies' dreams being destroyed.
"I'll help out with a few galleons each month as well, Dad," Percy said, "I don't want to ever again go through something like back when I was in first year. It was horrible how the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws shunned me, even if I didn't do anything wrong, just because I was a Weasley. It took so much work to get over the stigma."
"Wait, you were shunned over this?" Ron asked stupidly.
"Yes, all of us were, Bill and I included," Charlie said, "But we could balance it out better than Percy, who was just a first-year. We were both on the Quidditch team and Bill was headboy. Nobody dared going against Bill openly, but they talked behind our backs. The fact that I was an amazing seeker and won our house the Quidditch cup, did a lot to bring Gryffindor back in line and shut up some others. The Slytherins still caused trouble and used the situation to their advantage. But where normally the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws would have at least stayed neutral or would have taken our side, they now shunned us and stood behind their house members that had been wronged."
"Sounds like how Harry was treated in second year over the Chamber of Secrets mess," George said.
"It was incredibly similar," Percy confirmed, "It was one reason why I told the Gryffindors that spouted that nonsense off massively and gave the worst offenders detention. Even if it would have been nice to have some more support from the teachers in that."
"So, your overdone perfectionism," Fred started.
"Was his coping mechanism. If they couldn't find a flaw in his work, he was on the safe side," Bill explained, "Many of the teachers were horrified with what had happened and many scrutinised all of us more than any other student. I think Percy got more unfair detentions in his first year, including the connected point loss, than any other student ever at Hogwarts. And he was the one that had brought everything to light. It wasn't fair, but with going the way of giving the least possible points of attack, he got through it."
For Fred and George now a lot of things about the brother that had always been too much of a rule stickler became clear.
Harry and Hermione half lay, half sat on the large couch in the movie room at the mansion, enjoying a movie that they had bought at a shop in Littlehampton. Hermione had said that it had been really popular when it had been played in the cinema. Independence Day had been one of the most successful movies of the previous years and as it was on sale at the shop, they had decided to buy it. Now they watched the movie, with a large bowl of popcorn, Harry behind Hermione, holding her and her regularly feeding him with the popcorn.
The movie was really good and they enjoyed it massively. When it was over, Hermione cuddled up to Harry and simply let him hold her.
"It's really over, we don't have to fight anymore," she whispered to him.
"Yes, I still have trouble believing it. It all went so well. I didn't expect it to be that easy to take the Ministry back," Harry admitted.
"Neither did I, I expected that at least some of those jerks would have given any resistance, but they fell for the strategy every single time. I mean, I only had to follow my partner into a department, wait for a clear shot and stun my targets. And thanks to Kingsley convincing most of the aurors to assist in taking the Ministry back, we had enough people that could walk into another department easily. It was a bloodless operation. The one question that always comes up in my head is, why didn't it happen before?" Hermione asked.
"I think because they didn't have anybody organising this kind of coordinated strike and too many of the leaders being too caught up in politics and their personal agenda. In a way it was great that the Ministry had fallen into enemy hands. It justified a thorough clean-up. The massive down side of it sadly outweighs it though. Too many were killed and thrown into Azkaban for crimes they didn't commit. Too many lost family members. We can only be glad that it only lasted four months. Had they managed to do more, the clean-up would be a lot harder. Right now, only the starting measures have been implemented. It can all be undone," Harry told her, while playing with her long hair.
"I'm just glad that we already got the poor muggleborns out of Azkaban. Thankfully Umbridge didn't have too much time to persecute them. She started the despicable commission in September. And we killed her early in November. Still too long, but imagine if she had been able to continue," Hermione shuddered.
"I know. I'm so glad that you were with me and didn't get caught in her net. She would have been capable of using you to make an example. After all, you were the one that got her trapped with the centaurs," Harry mentioned.
"Dumbledore should have just left her there," Hermione grumbled.
"True, but we both know that he was a senile old bastard," Harry told her and then started tickling her, which made her squeak before she returned the favour, making him laugh too.
When they finally stopped, Hermione lay resting on Harry's chest.
"Have I told you how lucky I am to have you, Hermione?" Harry asked softly.
"Sometimes, but it's always nice to hear it, Harry," She answered.
"I love you," Harry whispered.
Hermione was shocked. He had never said that he loved her before, but she was incredibly happy.
"I love you too," she replied and kissed him demandingly.
Harry was only too willing to give into her demands.