Three Way Conflicts…

“So let me get this correct,” Albus Dumbledore deadpans. “You’ve already decided on your course of action so why are you . . . ?”

“Dear Albus,” Cornelius Fudge interrupts, a trace of mockery in his voice. “Considering that you are already on thin ice as it stands do you really want to get chesty with me?”

It was all something of a scandal, really. How while Harry Potter had been well nigh protected by the wards that come from dwelling with family that the very source of the protection should have been so . . .abusive to the poor boy. Something that Cornelius had high hopes in attending to here.

“Turn over his guardianship to bloody someone ELSE,” had been some of the more polite words Fudge had said to Dumbledore on the matter. While Fudge did not believe that any intentional malicious intent had been meant (like some dark plot to mold Harry Potter into a tool to where Dundledore would gain great prestige through Harrry’s final confrontation with Voldemorte)…

. . .

He felt that a case of criminal negligence could have been made, but had decided to leave it alone. For now, anyway. The man might have meant well and just been too soft on the Dursleys in their transgressions. If Dumbledore continued to have a detrimental influence in the lads upbringing then appropriate . . .steps would be taken. One of them being the removal of the old man from his job as Headmaster of Hogswart being just the first step.

He applaud his good intentions, trying to let “The Boy Who Lived” have a life and a childhood before he was to have been inducted into a war not of his making , but . . .it nearly got him killed. Seriously!

. . .

At least now with the ink still damp on the parchment Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, was finally Harry’s guardian after so long. No thanks to Fudge, the man admitted with some disgust if only to himself.

Frankly, it secretly filled Fudge with anger and (a bit) self loathing for having allowed that unrightfully imprisonment of Black to have gone on for so long even after the Books that the Department of Mysteries had brought forth from some secretive black vault of theirs. At the time of Blacks’ capture Cornelius had not been aware of the Books which bizarrely mirrored events up until now. Indeed, the Books had been all but forgotten in the secretive, paranoid and panicky days just after Second Impact and it’s madness. The current Minister (a useless and doddering old man) probably had his own plans on how to capitalize upon it and probably would have if he hadn’t expired of heart attack brought about from the shock of what had befallen the Wizarding World. As for Fudge, it had proven to be something of a Godsend. And also something of a curse.

See, Fudge’s birth name here is not Fudge, but something entirely else. Grendal is his family name, if one must be pedantic. However, that’s hardly important. Nor is it important that Cornelius had opted to secretly change his family name over to that of a lackluster, defunct fellow coworker due a combination of his family’s dark past AND the further dark stain having been of the same Hogwarts House as Voldemort. Would have been VERY hard indeed to get into the head of the Ministry of Magic back then if such had come to light.

Though . . . Now that he looks back at everything. At the heartburn at having to play the indecisive, bumbling boob. Having to maintain such a public appearance even IF it allowed him and his fellow comrades around the world (Wizarding and Muggle) to have succeeded in not only in playing an important part in stopping Third Impact but stopping SEELE before any more madness could come.

. . .

Fudge had taken some kind of dark pleasure in signing the order to utilize the Dementor Kiss on several of the SEELE members…

Anyway, that was all good and well. Good for mankind as a whole. Good for the Wizarding World in that they’d not been blown off the map with N2 devices. But! But still the price paid for such a payoff weighed upon Fudge.

He hated having to had appeared so inept (and everything else that literary counterpart who bore his name).

Black suffered must unjustly for it. But if he . . .

No, it was done and the only thing now to do was to secretly somehow make amends for it.

”Besides your rather insulting implication that I would Obliviate her memories just because it would be politically convenient,” Fudge says softly. “Granted! I shall freely admit that I shall be losing some political mana when it comes out that Voldemort had not been quiet as dead as we of the Wizarding World had all hoped. . .”

“Not that that little factoid should matter now!” a boisterous voice calls from the background, interrupting things.

Fudge, biting back a curse, turns and faces the newcomer. While he had left orders (and requests) to be informed the soonest word came he had hoped to finish off this meeting before that . .

Mutters of resentment can be heard from some corners about needlesss interruptions, only to be flummoxed by having none other than SNAPE strongly suggest it would be in everyone’s best interest to listen to this odd man from the UN military who’d shown up without even a warning.

What a stir that had caused. Almost as much as the fact that not ONE Auror had even lifted a wand a little bit to stun the man.

The idea that an apparent Muggle had real, official business sent a lot of (idiotic) tongues wagging, let me tell you.

That and made more than a few people resent his presence, but that’s. . . another tale. Something to do with whispered rumors that a LOT of prominent, former high ranking people who’d associated with Voldemort having gone . . . .missing.

Had caused quiet the stir when it had happened. That and gossip about an obvious Muggle bearing a most . . . Peculiar family name.

Some yellow journalists were whispering in glee about the idea that the dreaded, old blooded Grendals would have gone and diluted their blood amongst the Muggles was a delightful thought. Oh the scandal that. What joy it would be to write such a story and how much it would sell.

Mark Grendal (Colonel) couldn’t give two squats about what the Daily Prophet and the like would say. If the idiots would bother to check it was public record that he was a squib.

A squib who’d gotten fed up with the Wizarding world and turned his back upon it for decades after being belittled and looked down upon whilst a child. Why NOT the Muggles world where he had a better chance by far to make something of himself?

But that was another issue that his brother could finally redress (with a vengeance).

The Grenals had been well known for being able to hold grudges for long periods of time. Their retribution was stuff of legend. . . . Which was going to be felt well and truly by what Cornelius had planned in way of reforms and such. Oh dear, the Wizarding World would never be the same again! And who have no business “Sorry to sidetrack here but I felt this needed to be passed along: our mutual friends from the Chamber of Secrets came through . . . Again! We managed to round up the remaining Horcruxes and destroy them except for the very last one. I am VERY happy to say that Our ‘sticking point‘ who we know as Harry Potter got successfully ’De- horcruxessed’ without any lasting harm.”

“Good news indeed!” Fudge says, smiling. “Would have been a terrible thing indeed to have to neutralize any danger of Riddle coming back through the death of the very boy we had . . . !”

Of course by this time the room which had been in surprised silence bursts into shouted inquires. Questions which are answered in quick order.

First, it came to light that the REASON why the prophecy surrounding Harry Potter should have been “hijacked” (for want of a better word) successfully by Mark’s people was simple: it had been brought to the breaking point from the wakes of a MUCH larger, more far reaching (and ANCIENT) prophecy. SEELE’s plan of action, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Ancient prophecies which, once enacted by SEELE pretty much trumped anything the Wizarding World had in play, including the one surrounding Harry Potter.

“You’re telling me that those bloody SEELE bastards had a Prophecy of Biblical proportion in their hands?!” Snape sputters, not liking that one at all! “And you’re saying that it all has to do in some fashion or form with that young woman from Japan’s NERV?”

“Yeah . . . SEELE did at that and somehow the prophecy seemed to actually have been fulfilled in a positive manner according to the boffins from the Chamber of Secrets,“ mark said slowly, looking first at Snape and then at Cornelius. “What girl from the NERV Japanese branch? There are no survivors from it’s disappearance!“

“One showed up just today,” Cornelius coughed. “Let me guess, been out of touch with your chain of command because of the magic?”

Of course that was the answer. While many large strides had been made by Muggledom recently that couldn’t help but make the Wizarding World stand back and take notice (and by God who won’t stand back and take notice of a 200 foot tall set of mechas?!), certain mundane things still had problems with magic found in the Harry Potter reality here.

In other words, Mark’s radio’s reception was in the toilet due to the magic of Hogwarts and such. Mark had been out of touch because of that, so of course did not know of Rei’s presence. Nor of her involvement in the events of the re-death of the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

Mark was out of the loop because of that and because of a combination of all manpower that had been used to try to track down Rei as well as contain the unexplained outbreaks of . . . Very WEIRD events.

. . .

Cough cough, Chaos Energy events, cough!

The Aurors had been able to counteract and contain the fallout of the events thus far, but things were at their breaking point.

That was why the Order of the Phoenix had been tapped by Fudge. He’d hoped that were his stretched would be helped by that. It did in part, anyway.

Snape had found Rei first and had brought her in, even IF Rei had by that time figured it was time to come in…

No matter, that isn’t the subject of discussion right now.

“And we’ve been able to determine through that Dummy Plug that proved so useful to our needs before again just proved it’s worth,” Cornelius continued.

It had been a method which had only been realized after some genius realized . . . That the “high tech” adverse effect that had been publicly covered up as ultra powerful wards to keep the curious witchs and wizards away from places like Tokyo 3 under the guise of keeping the Wizarding World away from the mad things the Muggles had thought to have become in the Wizarding World’s eyes upon Second Impact’s coming.

. . .

Some valid concerns there, actually, but not that for right now.

Anyway, they realized that only humans with their Wand based magic’s were the only one who had problems with this stuff. After kicking themselves a bit some House Elves were recruited (after more appealing non- humans told them to bugger off) and . . .

House Elves managed to spirit away one of Rei’s clone sisters (which happened to have been one of the few hearts of the Dummy Plugs NERVE had laying about) and switch it with a lifeless copy set up for just this heist. It had been a major coup on Cornelius’ team’s part which had lead to the break that Kaji had been looking for, the plundering of that clone sister’s memories via Cornelius’ Pensieve .

The process of removing the memories from the clone had pretty much turned the poor soulless creature into mush, but it had been the key to stopping SEELE and Gendo . .

But in the end this wreck of a thing now had been key in determining whether or not the girl in the next room WAS Rei Ayanami (or whatever she called herself nowadays). Old magics (pre-seperation) had been able to do that, especially after Fudge and friends had been able to keep her in one place to DO it successfully.

Took a lot of time and effort, that old magic… Probably was why it fell out of favor with the Wizarding World and lead them all down the path it had…

But one thing was now in question, her sanity! Shouldn’t she be put away for her own good if she was?

See, some of her claims were . . . Just so very wild, even IF it appeared that Snape had become somewhat enamored to the young woman.

Hm, maybe the last part about Snape has something to do with the idea that he actually has a fan?

Some of members of the Order of the Pheonix had commented snidely that Rei’s being something of a fan of Snape was proof enough of her insanity.

Actually, there are quiet a few Snape fans out there in the reading world, but that’s not important to the here and now. And the Order wouldn’t know about that, would they?

But then others had pointed out that madmen and women may speak of wondrous things but do those who are mad have things to back up their claims.

However, it is Mark Grendal that points out that while concerns for this woman’s mental health is commendable, debating it behind closed doors there was an easier way to determine whether or not this woman was sane or not.

“Go to this place and lay down a temporary Barrier as she asks,” Mark suggests. “IF there really ARE traveling companions for the First Child waiting there then that’ll be a point in her favor. If not, then it’ll probably prove she probably IS insane as you all fear . . .Why you fear that I’d like to know but it probably would be telling.”

And further interactions with her would perhaps finally put their worries to rest or confirm them.

“That would work actually,” Cornelius murmurs. “But as for just why I fear for her sanity, despite the heroic events she’s been part of and the gifts she brings it happens to be all about what has befallen her, given her history and psyche profile.”

1. Mark is about to ask exactly what his brother speaks of when he stops dead in his tracks and gapes at the winged woman before him.

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