The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

Working at the Ministry is Such Fun!

James did up his twenty-eight buttons with special care Friday morning, and had his mum tie his bow-tie, since Lily was at her class. Dora dusted his shoulders and fussed over his hair. "Tell my baby that if I was feeling better I'd come to his trial, but I don't need to be coughing fire all about the court room," she said, worrying. 

"I'll tell him, mum," James nodded.

Dora sighed and held him out at arm length, looking him over. "And you... Look at you. So handsome." She smiled and leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"Thanks mum," James said. He sighed. "I don't know how Dad did stuff like this, these advocacy things... I'm a nervous wreck and I'm not even the actual person advocating, that'll be Mr. Underhill and --"

"Harry will take care of you both," Dora replied.

James looked up. "Harry?"

"Yes," Dora said, "Harry Underhill."

James felt like an idiot. He'd known Mr. Underhill for just about a year now and he hadn't managed to learn that the man's first name was Harry? He scanned his brain - surely Mr. Underhill had said his first name at some point, right? Had James been so thick as to forget what his own boss's actual name was? He felt his face flush. 

Porridge, his brain echoed with Lily's voice.

"I guess I didn't know his name was Harry," James said. 

Dora laughed, "You ought to have done, he was friends with your father." When James still looked confused, she expanded, "Harry helped your father when he was in Azkaban, when everything happened with your Aunt Ottalie. Your father might've been put away for good if Harry hadn't helped him out of a tight spot."

James asked, "Mr. Underhill did?"

Dora nodded. "At the time, Harry was working as one of the guards at Azkaban. This is, of course, when they had wizard guards on site still, before the Dementors were assigned at Azkaban to fully replace the staff. Harry was going in the night your father was booked and he was assigned second watch over the prisoner... Harry said he could just tell that Charlus wasn't guilty. There was an air about the guilty prisoners that Charlus just didn't have. So he talked with him and he got the truth out of him and when your father explained what happened --"

"What did happen, mum?" James asked.

Dora stared into his eyes for several long moments. "James, your great-grandfather was a... follower of Gellert Grindelwald... and your grandfather, while not exactly for him wasn't exactly against him, either. He was nice to your father and Ottalie, but he wasn't... good." She paused. "And your great-uncle... Well. He was... quite involved in the entire... Grindelwald... affair."

James's eyes widened. "They were basically Death Eaters, you're saying?"

"Well - no, not exactly. Grindelwald's followers were not necessarily purists, like the Death Eaters are. Grindelwald had a different flavor to his anti-muggle views than You Know Who. They were more... elitest... wizarding supremacy, I suppose you could say. They believed that the wizarding world should not have to be kept secret, but should be made known to the muggles and that the wizards should rule over the muggles, since the muggles were making such a terrible mess of things. They had been to war so many times and advancing more technologically so that their wars were becoming more and more deadly. Grindelwald's views can be seen as... almost enticing when viewed against a backdrop of gun violence and atomic weaponry that the muggles were creating to fight one another. They'd just come out of World War One and the tensions were pointing toward what would become World War Two, they were murdering each other at alarming rates, you see. And Grindelwald... he wanted to overthrow the muggle powers and stop them from having that capability. He said they would destroy the world, make the entire human race go extinct if allowed to go on as they were... and wizards have the power to stop it, he would say."