Harry's Future

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The Aurors' break room had once again been commandeered to serve as a conference room. On this occasion Harry was having a staff meeting. Seated around the one old battered table were himself, Maxwell, Milligan, Tom Medford and Reggie Phillips. The task of taking notes had fallen to the two administrative assistants. 

"I wanted to get us all together so I could bring you up to date on what went on at the conference in Paris last week and then we'll all get up to date on what's been going on here at home. On a personal note I'm happy to say that I managed not to fall off the stage or knock over the podium," Harry said with a crooked smile. "There seemed to be some interest in how we've been organizing things here and a good deal more on what was going on as part of the investigation. The other presenters all included some mention of that problem in their briefs along with their own local issues. I brought back a copy of the presentations so anyone who's interested can get a look at it. It appears that we all have some common problems but there are also some highly unique ones. I, for one, am glad we don't have giants occasionally dropping in from their mountain homes." 

"I'm glad our smuggling friends hadn't managed to acquire the services of any of them. Most of the giants seem to be in that same general area," Maxwell commented. 

"At least as far as we know," Milligan added quietly. 

Harry nodded then continued, 

"There were a number of side discussions after the presentations were finished but not much in the way of specific information was exchanged. The general idea seemed to be that that was best left to the professional investigators and the bosses were better off keeping their noses out of it," he finished with a chuckle. 

"Why do I have a feeling that you were one of the ones pushing that idea," Milligan said. 

Harry just gave him a 'who? me?' look and then shook his head. 

"The one other thing that was agreed was trying to set up an efficient way to exchange information across the different national departments. The concept is for each department to spend some time over the next three months coming up with ideas and then a separate working level conference will convene to try and hammer a system out. So give it some thought and we'll sit down in a couple of weeks and see what we can start sorting out. That's about it really. Like I said there wasn't a great deal of specifics but at least it's a start. So what's been going on around here of late?" 

Maxwell went first, 

"There hasn't been much of a change in the level of problems in either of the Alley's or Hogsmeade. Most of it is the usual public disturbances in Hogsmeade Friday and Saturday nights. We have noticed an uptick in activity involving reports of dark magic. It's similar to what happened after Voldemort had his first run in with you. Once his influence was gone the lesser witches or wizards involved in the dark arts started to surface. When Riddle was strong he either attracted them to work for him or suppressed those he saw as competitors. With him gone I guess they see their way clear to start causing their own trouble. We're investigating the reports and we'll gather them in as appropriate." 

"Okay, but remember what we've discussed. Make sure the information is good and that we understand the situation. I don't want us getting blindsided like the last time. The one thing I did come back with from Paris was the knowledge that we still don't know how far that old wizard in Romania had reached," Harry said. 

"You know, chief," Milligan began. "I've been given this all some thought. Now, I'm not going to argue with you about how strong this old fellow was. You were there, I wasn't. But I'm not so sure that this character was in the same league as Voldemort. If you look at what went on objectively it was pretty clumsy. Their actions in Knockturn Alley were fairly obvious and lacked any subtlety. What Voldemort did with stealth and subterfuge these guys tried with brute force. The old man even managed to attract your attention when he had several very good examples as to why that wasn't such a good idea. I don't think we have the same level of threat here."