Rufus Scrimgeour put his aching head in his hands. Whoever said 'be careful what you wish for' had been absolutely correct. Here he was, at the position he had lusted after for years, Minister of Magic, and so far, it was an utter nightmare.
You-Know-Who was back. That was an undeniable fact. Dozens of people had spotted him fleeing from the Ministry. His men, marked Death Eaters, had been found incapacitated in the Hall of Prophecies. Witnesses had spotted Bellatrix Lestrange helping him escape. No, there was no doubt about it - Voldemort was back.
Fudge had been tossed out on his arse immediately. The Wizengamot had called an emergency session and pushed through an impeachment hearing in record time. There was nothing else they could do - after all the ass had been insisting that Voldemort was not back all year. He had even been complicit in covering up evidence that proved he was back. Well, as soon as things had settled down, he would make sure that Fudge paid. Oh yes, Cornelius Fudge would pay dearly.
The Ministry building was currently totally unusable. The walls were still reverberating with some truly awful song about Voldemort. Whoever had done that was an insanely sick individual. Who on earth could come up with a hundred and twenty different verses (that they had counted so far)? All of them puerile and insulting to Voldemort. Only someone who was truly insane.
Then there was that poisonous white powder. It was everywhere. It seemed to have originated in the department of Mysteries but it had gotten into the ventilation system and now it was everywhere, in every single room, in the air, everywhere. It had been treated or spelled to be resistant to vanishing and cleaning spells, so all clean up efforts had been utterly useless so far. All he had to show for it was a dozen or so of the custodian staff in Saint Mungos, being treated for skin rashes and irritated eyes, racking up the medical bills. The Unspeakables were working on it now but they had already sent in a report stating that it would be months before the Ministry Offices were usable again.
The problem of course was that none of it made any sense. Why had Voldemort been in the Ministry? No one seemed to know. Who was responsible for the powder, the songs, the random destruction of furniture and artefacts by some blunt object or objects? No one knew. Voldemort might have been responsible for the powder but he would never charm the walls to sing insulting songs about himself. So who? Who could possibly be responsible?
So here he was, the new Minister of Magic for Great Britain, reduced to working out of a crappy rented office in Diagon Alley. Could things possibly get any worse?
....
Voldemort was sitting on a stool, utterly naked, every inch of his body slathered with salves and potions. He had tried lying down but he could not bear to have anything touching his skin which was still inflamed, burnt and raw, cracking in places and oozing pus. He even had to breathe through a cloth soaked in potions to ease his breathing difficulties. Death Eaters cowered in corners of the room, too terrified to make a sound. None of them wanted to draw his attention to themselves. That had already proven nearly lethal to several of them.
The only one relatively immune to his displeasure at the moment was Snape and that was only because Voldemort needed him desperately. Snape was brewing potions around the clock to heal Voldemort's tortured body. Even then, Voldemort had still subjected him to the cruciatus curse a couple of times after he had found Snape's application of the salves to be insufficiently delicate.
....
Harry was perched on an examining room table waiting for a Doctor. The Magical summer camp he had signed up for insisted on a complete physical before they allowed any camper to play any type of physical sport. So he found himself here, waiting for a Doctor to certify him fit and healthy enough to play Quidditch.
He swung his legs in the air, idly wondering why rooms like this were always so chilly. Especially as they had him change into a flimsy hospital gown for the examination. He was a bit nervous, all of his arrangements so far had been over the phone, so this was the first time since he left Britain (not counting that close brush he had in Amsterdam and his forays into magical bookshops) that he would be interacting with a wizard. He wished he could have just gone to a normal doctor but the Camp insisted on a thorough Magical examination. So here he was, in the Magical Wing at Cedars Sinai. He wondered, not for the first time, if he was making a terrible mistake. Perhaps going to that summer camp was not a good idea. Maybe he should just stick to the Muggle World. He felt far safer there. But on the other hand, there was Quidditch.
....
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