Albus Dumbledore was most put out by recent events. Things lately had not been going his way, and he was not used to that.
It began back at the end of the last school term, when the Minister of Magic, one Cornelius Fudge, had outright dismissed his claims that Lord Voldemort had returned to physical form.
Alright, so he had offered absolutely no proof of this fact whatsoever (other than having Severus show off the Dark Mark tattoo on his arm) but that was beside the point! He, Albus Dumbledore, had believed it to be true, and that ought to be good enough for everybody (as Minerva had once so eloquently put it.)
But no! With his old buddy Lucius listed as one of those supposedly reformed Death Eaters accused of attending the Dark Lord's rebirth, Fudge had gone on the defensive, and sought to turn Dumbledore into public enemy number one.
Of course that could not do, especially when they threatened to kick Dumbledore out of his position of Chief Warlock to the Wizengamot and subject both his position as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and his role as Headmaster at Hogwarts School to intense scrutiny.
Dumbledore did not like people looking into his dealings too much. Only he, after all, had the ability to see the big picture. Only he could see how things should be done in order to attain the Greater Good. What others would see as being heinous crimes were actually, in the grand scheme of things, nothing more than necessary evils.
Too many people would fail to understand such things, of course. They would fail to see how keeping Snape within the castle was more important than giving students a fair and decent learning environment for their potions lessons. They would fail to comprehend how imperative it was to bring the Philosopher's Stone to Hogwarts in order to lure out Voldemort. They would fail to understand why he sent Harry Potter off to live with his neglectful relatives, and why he sent him back there every summer.
They would fail to understand because they had no concept of the Greater Good.
And that failure would ultimately lead to disaster if they were allowed to go through with their plans.
So Dumbledore had back-tracked a little. He had withdrawn his comments about Voldemort's return, and allowed Harry to take the fall. In this way he had gotten the Ministry, the school governors and the International Confederation of Wizards to back off, allowing him to covertly reform the Order of the Phoenix without raising suspicion.
Unfortunately allowing Harry to take the fall without telling him had since backfired, and quite spectacularly so.
Firstly the boy had somehow talked his way out of his trial. And then he had simply disappeared! He did not return home to his Muggle relatives in Little Whinging. He did not go to the house of a friend. There had been absolutely no sign of him in Diagon Alley all summer long, and there wasn't even a record of him leaving the Ministry that day.
Dumbledore had found several leads, but all of them turned up absolutely nothing. Worse, both Minister Fudge and Madam Bones appeared to be in the know and they weren't telling, no matter how much he insisted. Neither could be swayed by adulation of him, and neither could be intimidated by his power.
It was frustrating.
Then to cap it all, one of his spies within the Ministry, a young Auror named Nymphadora Tonks had gotten herself caught snooping around outside the courtroom where Harry's trial had taken place and had subsequently been kicked off of the Auror force.
That had actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though. When the Minister had attempted to crowbar his lackey Dolores Umbridge into Hogwarts using the vacant Defence Against the Dark Arts post, Dumbledore had been able to block his attempts by giving the role to Tonks.
Unfortunately this had not stopped Fudge. Somehow he had gotten Griselda Marchbanks of the Wizarding Examinations Authority to go against him and remove Professor Binns from his teaching position at the school.
Not only that, they had also created legislation to guarantee that Umbridge would take over the vacant position of History Professor after Binns was removed.
Since then Dumbledore had been dreading the damage that Umbridge would be able to do to his carefully laid plans, and he had worked hard to come up with a few contingencies.
There was one thing, however, that he had not been prepared for. Harry Potter working for the Ministry, in a role that they apparently sponsored, was not something that he had seen coming even in his wildest speculations.
For whatever reason the Ministry had seen fit to give Harry a position of power over not only his fellow students, but also over the prefects. It was a position that was almost akin to Head Boy, only apparently more-so.
Dumbledore had, of course, planned to confront Harry as soon as he returned to the school, but this news changed things, especially as it seemed that Harry had already been exercising his newly obtained power against his enemies.
He would have to tread carefully here, as he had no real grasp over the entire situation. Antagonising Harry too much might result in more interference from the Ministry, but at the same time Harry could not be allowed too much free rein, as he had the potential to be just as damaging to Hogwarts as Umbridge.
If not more so.
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