Lightning Strikes Twice (Harry Potter)(Time Travel)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Amelia makes her choices, decisive and forceful in her actions. Can anyone keep up with her?

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To her credit, Amelia doesn’t take his provocation lying down. Scowling slightly, the DMLE Director crosses her arms over her chest.

“You do this on purpose, don’t you? You enjoy stirring the pot and dumping impossibility after impossibility into my lap.”

Harry hums in amusement, tilting his shadow’s head to the side.

“If I derive any enjoyment from this Director, it is only the enjoyment I derive from watching a woman of your skill and experience work. And if I dump impossibility after impossibility into your lap, it is only because I know that you can handle it and will not disappointment me.”

He means every word of course, even as Amelia goes a little red, suddenly looking flustered. However, she’s still a professional and quickly manages to get her initial emotional reaction under control.

“… Tell me this. Is the Dark Lord a threat right this moment?”

Harry gives that very serious question the consideration it deserves. He thinks of New Hangleton and the homunculus that Voldemort is currently occupying, that Wormtail is caring for. He thinks of Bartemius Crouch Jr. currently occupying the position of DADA Professor at Hogwarts and the scheme to get Harry to Voldemort at the end of the Triwizard Tournament so that the Dark Lord could be reborn.

On the one hand, Voldemort would never be a threat to Harry ever again. Not truly. Harry could let the Dark Lord come back to life and regain his full power and he would still be little more than a speedbump on Harry’s path. The fact was, for all that Voldemort had been such a defining part of his early life in the previous timeline… he was nothing but a distraction now.

Even still, the shade would make for an excellent whetstone for Amelia to sharpen her wits against. As such, while Harry would hold some things back…

“Not at the moment, no. He moves and so do his followers as I’m sure you know from the attack on the World Cup this summer, but he himself will not be a threat for some time yet.”

The way Amelia stiffens at the mention of the World Cup makes it clear she hadn’t initially connected that Death Eater attack to the Dark Lord’s potential return. To be fair to her, she had a LOT on her plate right now… he’s sure she would have made the connection eventually.

Looking rather pensive as she stands there over the pensieve, Amelia clutches at the table holding the memory bowl for a moment before finally shaking her head.

“One thing at a time. Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew take precedence. You were right, Harry Potter’s memories make it abundantly clear what really happened and the true culpability of everyone involved. Fuck… I’d have Fudge drawn and quartered for this if I could. I’m of half a mind to go back to Hogwarts and arrest Severus Snape for his part in this miscarriage of justice right fucking now.”

Harry watches on in amusement through his shadow as Amelia comes to a decision. Of course, she has no way of knowing that pursuing Peter Pettigrew would also lead her right to Voldemort. Which is why Harry can’t give her the rat just yet unfortunately. When Amelia finally looks to him, he prepares himself to disappoint her.

“Do you know where Black or Pettigrew are?”

Harry has his shadow shake its head.

“Pettigrew is a rat through and through. Finding him would be like trying to find a single rodent in an infested sewer. No small matter. Sirius, meanwhile, has suffered and survived something truly terrible. He knows better than to let himself be caught again so easily. That said…”

Amelia perks up as Harry trails off for a moment at the end there. But he stays quiet and waits for her eyes to light up as she quickly catches on to what he’s saying.

“The boy. Harry is still in contact with Sirius, isn’t he?”

Harry tilts his shadow’s head forward in acknowledgment, causing Amelia to straighten up fully. Ever the consummate professional, the Director of the DMLE makes sure to extract Harry’s memories from the pensieve again and back into the vial now that she’s done with them. Then, one she’s tucked that away, she heads for the door before glancing back to him.

“Will you be joining me?”

“Mm. Best not. But I’ll be watching. And when you have need of me, I’ll be there for you Director. You can count on that.”

With that, Harry lets his shadow ‘disappear’. What he really does is slide it right back into Amelia’s shadow so that when she reaches him, he can reabsorb it. For the time being, he’s still very much able to see everything going on. Which is why he sees when Amelia pauses after his ‘departure’, not leaving the room immediately.

Instead, the DMLE Director stares at where he just was for a long moment before letting out a shuddering, shaky breath.

“That man… first the dreams and now he’s saying things like that. Does he have any idea what he’s done to me? Merlin’s beard…”

She blushes hard a moment later and looks around fearfully, perhaps realizing that he might still be there and watching just as he said he would be. But when Harry doesn’t reveal himself again, she forcibly calms herself down and lets out an explosive breath before leaving the room. Harry, meanwhile, finds himself beyond curious by what Amelia had just said. The dreams?

Alas, he doesn’t have too long to contemplate it because Amelia finally pushes out of the pensieve room and makes her way back down the hall to the interrogation room where she had Tonks take Harry in the first place. Focusing back on his real body, Harry is ready when Amelia enters the room, his shadow slipping back over to him with none being any the wiser.

Especially with how Tonks is desperately trying not to let on that anything happened between them. If Amelia notices the strange energy in the air though, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she walks right up to the table, sits down across from Harry, and clasps her hands together in front of her.

“I’ve reviewed your memories of last year Mister Potter.”

Smiling slightly, Harry tilts his head to the side.

“Should I expect to be thrown in Azkaban for aiding and abetting a dangerous criminal, Madam Bones?”

Tonks inhales sharply, but in Harry’s opinion it’s a fair question. After all, Amelia HAD arrested him in front of Albus Dumbledore himself to get him here in the first place. Harry couldn’t help but wonder what the Headmaster was doing right now. Given Harry’s importance, he might actually be going through those proper channels Amelia had mentioned before right this moment.

And yet, the Director of the DMLE showed no signs of feeling rushed or under pressure. Nor does she seem to take offense to Harry’s question. In fact, the corners of her mouth threaten to curl up into a smile as she gazes across the table at him for a moment before sighing.

“That depends on you, Mister Potter. Based on everything I saw in your memories; I’m inclined to say that the only crimes you committed were committed in the process of trying to undo even worse crimes. But… they were still very serious crimes.”

Harry nods sharply at that, well aware that she’s correct. More than anything, he’s intent on making sure none of this blows back on Hermione. Her use of the Time Turner in order to save Buckbeak and Sirius’ lives was incredibly illegal and not just because both of them were sentenced to die. It was also just plain illegal in its own right. The fact that she got a slap on the wrist at the end of their Third Year and no real punishment spoke to further manipulation on Dumbledore’s part, but the cat was out of the bag now.

Still, Harry could tell that Amelia doesn’t want to actually punish him or Hermione for their actions. Likely because she recognizes just how desperate the two of them were at the time. Yes, they committed crimes. But only because they had no other choice.

“… Tell me, Mister Potter. Do you know where Peter Pettigrew is right now?”

Harry only has to think about the rat who got his parents killed for a moment to produce a savage snarl on his face as he shakes his head.

“If I did, do you think I wouldn’t have done something about it by now?”

Maybe he went a little too far though, because his response gets a raised eyebrow from Amelia.

“You’re still underage, Harry. I would hope you would contact the proper authorities and not take matters into your own hands.”

There’s something pointed in her tone at that and Harry realizes she’s talking about what he, in his other guise, told her about killing Quirrel in his first year. Harry doesn’t let on that he knows what she’s talking about though, instead riposting with a slightly biting comment of his own.

“I tried relying on the authorities last year Madam Bones. They sicced dementors on my school, nearly got my soul sucked out of my body, and tried to assassinate my godfather after falsely imprisoning him for over a decade.”

A scathing retort, but Harry has made sure to lessen the blow by pointedly using the word ‘they’ to describe Fudge and his lackies last year, rather than lumping Amelia in with them. Something that the DMLE Director clearly appreciates from the way she inclines her head in acknowledgment of Harry’s words. Tonks, meanwhile, is wincing hard in the background, looking stricken by what she’s hearing.

“… Follow up question, do you know the whereabouts of Sirius Black?”

Here Harry lets himself go completely blank.

“If I did, you would expect me to give him up, wouldn’t you?”

Sighing again, Amelia shakes her head.

“No, Harry. I would expect you to facilitate a dialogue between the two of us. All I want is the chance to talk to Sirius… and to make any number of promises I need to in order to get him to come in willingly and place himself under my protection.”

Harry widens his eyes and sees a flash of satisfaction in Amelia’s face at his reaction. Meanwhile, Tonks’ breath hitches and even she looks surprised by Amelia’s light hand.

“You want to exonerate him then? Fudge won’t let that happen, will he?”

Here, Amelia smiles a very dangerous smile, her eyes narrowing into slits.

“Cornelius Fudge isn’t going to stop me. I swear it. In fact, if I get the chance, I’ll take this opportunity to nail the Minister to the wall. It’ll be over for him; I can promise that much.”

Amelia pauses for a moment and then chuckles.

“Truthfully, Mister Potter, it’s already over for Fudge. Rita Skeeter’s article has destroyed the foundations of his entire administration. He and his cronies have been fighting to hold onto power all day long, but in doing so they’ve only revealed the quicksand they find themselves standing in. At this point, it’s more about mitigating damage than anything else. People need to be able to have faith in the Ministry of Magic even if they can’t have faith in the Minister himself.”

Here, Amelia grows solemn faced.

“That’s why I need yours and Black’s help, Harry. Because if I can exonerate Black, I can show the wizarding world that it’s not the entire Ministry that’s corrupt and backwards, but just a few bad actors. I can fix this… with your help.”

It’s a good speech. Very moving. Harry likes to think that if she were talking to the original him from his Fourth Year, that she definitely would have gotten him on board with that spiel. Of course, little did Amelia know but Harry was already on board. Rather, he was the one who’d started this train. And he wasn’t about to let it stop now that it had left the station. Not until it reached its inevitably destination.

Pretending to contemplate things for a moment, making it seem like he’s considering whether he can really trust her or not… Harry finally nods his head hesitantly.

“A-Alright Madam Bones. I can contact my godfather. I’ll convince him to at least hear you out.”

The smile Amelia graces Harry with is broad and almost kind for all that it also has a certain hunger to it that she does her best to hide.

“Thank you, Harry. I-!”

Before she can finish her sentence however, there’s a sudden banging on the interrogation room door, causing all of them to whip their heads in that direction as a voice comes through.

“Madam Bones, the Wizengamot has sent word.”

Harry hides his frown at the sound of Rufus Scrimgeour’s voice. Amelia doesn’t though, her brow furrowing and her lips curling down as she stands from the table and opens the door to let the Head Auror in.

“Of course they have. Well, Head Auror? What word have the Wizengamot sent?”

Rufus’ eyes take in the room for a moment, barely glancing at Tonks before focusing on Harry in particular. They narrow for a moment before moving to Amelia.

“… They’re ordering you to produce the Boy-Who-Lived and explain why you felt the need to arrest him, Madam Director.”

Amelia just snorts, nonplussed.

“They… or Supreme Mugwump Dumbledore? I’m surprised he had the gall to call in favors and get enough of the Wizengamot in session tonight to do this, but I suppose I really shouldn’t be. All the more his loss though.”

With a sweep of her arm in Harry’s direction, Amelia smirks.

“Rufus, you can tell the Wizengamot that Harry Potter is no longer under arrest as he’s just decided to become a key witness in a critical case I’m personally working on. As such, I’m afraid he’s going to be under the protection of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the foreseeable future and will not be going anywhere that has not been thoroughly vetted beforehand… including hastily cobbled together Wizengamot Meetings that do not have the proper security for a personage as important as him.”

As Amelia speaks, Rufus’ eyebrows rise higher and higher on the lion-like man’s forehead with every word she says. But then to be fair, Harry and Tonks’ eyebrows also lift and lift. When she’s finally done, Amelia gestures to the door.

“Please Head Auror… deliver my response to the Wizengamot with all due haste. I’m sure once they know I’m not holding the Boy-Who-Lived against his will, they will have questions for the Supreme Mugwump to answer about why they all found themselves getting out of bed at this rather late hour.”

Rufus only pauses for a moment, to throw Harry one last glance. Harry just gives him a smile and a jaunty wave, causing the Head Auror to finally bow his head and take his leave. Amelia watches him go and then lets out a low sigh.

“Right. We’ll need to get you a protective detail immediately…”

“Ah, about that Director. Can Auror Tonks be my protective detail? It’s just… she’s already been with us the entire way, so it seems only right that she stays onboard.”

Amelia raises an eyebrow at that, considering Tonks and him for a moment. Harry is all smiles but Tonks looks like a deer caught in the headlights. For a witch who’s able to change her appearance at will, she has a terrible poker face…

  -x-X-x-

[ ] She senses something off and denies the request - 6%