Power Plays Chapter 59

There were three times as many Aurors on duty in the Ministry Atrium as Daphne made her first official speech after the attack. Harry was pleased to see the turnout that Tonks and Gabrielle had organised for him was competently organised and scanning the crowd as if there were a real threat to Daphne’s safety, which there very well could be. The real kicker came in the form of the hit witches and hit wizards that Harry had brought onto the scene. They were normally under Amelia Bones’ direct control, but the Auror Office could call upon them in times of need. Having them here helped to show a more universal Ministry support for Daphne while simultaneously undercutting Amelia’s power base by allowing them to be directly influenced and spoken to by Daphne.

The crowd turnout was massive as well. Thousands of people were tightly packed into the cordoned-off section of the atrium where Daphne was giving her speech. They came from all across Britain to offer their support to her. Harry knew that not all of them were actual supporters of Daphne; they were here because of the tragic accident to Harry Potter’s fiancée, not the accident to Daphne Greengrass. Still, it was good enough that they were here to listen to what she had to say.

In the coming weeks, this first speech would be dissected to death by both their supporters and opponents. It was crucial that the message put forth was strong enough to withstand the incoming tides.

“My campaign will continue on unabated!” Daphne declared proudly, looking fierce and determined behind the podium atop the stage. Every single member of her audience was rapt with attention, drinking in her every word like it was the solution to all of their problems. Most were desperate with hope for a change in the customs established by the former Ministers for Magic. The rest were there to spread her good word, writing down everything she said.

“The attack upon my life will not quench my desire for a better future for us all!” Daphne continued. “Our people, all of our people, pure-bloods and muggleborns alike, all deserve a better future than what we have been offered by previous administrations. I want to see you all living happily and healthily! Any dangers upon our shores should be dealt with swiftly and without interference from our officials! We can do better, and I can only ask for you all to trust me in my mission to achieve this dream!”

Harry didn’t linger long; to do so would be to overstate his support before it was necessary.

The press would undoubtedly speculate about his support for the upcoming Minister. Regardless of his relationship with Daphne, his status as the man who defeated Voldemort brought about a certain degree of social responsibilities. The people wanted to know his opinions on anything and everything, regardless of whether or not they agreed with it. He had encompassed a cult of personality that drew in people who sought for an uprising against any oppressors that held people down.

Obviously, Harry supported Daphne wholeheartedly. She supported his views that dark artefacts and dark witches and wizards ought to be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which ought to be increased in the wake of an incredibly evil war. Her views upon the development of the British economy and international relations also inspired hope within his heart that Britain could be better than it once was.

Harry had never felt especially patriotic. There’d been a certain feeling of superiority against the French and Americans that’d filled his soul whenever he’d met with them, but it hadn’t been especially strong. That national unity had been more so based upon what his cousin and uncle had watched than his own feelings. It was only once he became a part of the Ministry of Magic that he had truly felt for the entirety of the British Isles and garnered a certain responsibility for them.

They would do well under Daphne’s leadership. Harry felt more certain of that day by day after he truly reconciled life under Kingsley’s rule. The man had been a good devout follower of Dumbledore, but he lacked the true understanding of how to shape a government after a brutal war. Daphne didn’t quite need to do that, but she did need to find a way to reconcile the Wizengamot under her rule.

Out of anyone he could imagine, he didn’t think that anyone but Daphne could achieve such a momentous task. She would always face detractors, but those who had their eyes open would realise that she offered the best future out of anyone.

“I promise to each and every one of you that—”

Harry tuned out Daphne’s words. He’d already memorised the script that she was reading from. Even though she deviated from it to develop further ideas that the audience was resonating with, Harry understood the sentiment behind it all. For all of her political ambitions, Daphne truly cared about delivering a brighter future for everyone.

Had it not been for the dark-aligned pure-bloods, she would’ve had a clear path towards her election. They argued against her on the basis of views established by Voldemort and his followers in the years prior to his ascension, but fewer members of the public were willing to accept such claims in the face of Daphne’s strong arguments.

Turning away, Harry made his way back towards the lift. It carried him back down to the Auror Office, which he found operating smoothly despite the number of Aurors in place around the atrium.

“You have two important reports,” his assistant called out from his desk as Harry passed him by.

“Thanks,” Harry replied as he opened the door into his office.

It was dead silent inside, but Harry realised that he wasn’t alone. Still, he played along with the game and shed his outer cloak before blocking off all of the windows with black-out blinds. No one from outside could see within.

As Harry sat down behind his desk, he felt hands palming as his crotch.

“So eager,” Harry said teasingly as Gabrielle’s face emerged from beneath the desk. “How long have you been hiding out under there for?”

“Twenty minutes or so. Your fiancée has been displaced over the past few days,” Gabrielle cooed as she unbuttoned his trousers. “I thought that you might be needing a bit of relief.”

“Really?” Harry snorted. “This early in the morning?”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Gabrielle protested. “Besides, I’ve been dreaming of this all week.”

Harry moaned as Gabrielle engulfed his cock with her mouth. She knew exactly what she needed to do as her tongue slithered its way around his shaft, coating every inch of it in her thick saliva. Harry grabbed the back of her head and pulled her forward. He wasn’t going to turn down a blowjob if she was offering; she was right that he and Daphne hadn’t gotten up to anything since the attack.

“That’s it,” Harry groaned, pulling Gabrielle’s lips closer and closer to the base of his shaft. Her lips finally touched the very base of him, and she looked up into his eyes with lust in hers. She wanted to suck his cock so badly that it didn’t matter how he treated her. All she wanted was to please him. It was an obsessive devotion that left him staggering with the amount of control and power he felt over her.

Gabrielle gargled noisily around his cock as she pulled her head back a bit, but then she went right back to bobbing her head up and down. The tip of his cock kept bumping up against the back of her throat, but that didn’t disrupt Gabrielle’s motions at all. She wouldn’t gag or slow down at all until she’d gotten what she wanted out of him.

“You’re such a good cocksucker,” Harry said as he leaned forward in his chair. He reached down and slipped his hands down the front of her robes and groped her breasts roughly. When he pinched her nipples between his fingers, Gabrielle cried out in surprise around his cock.

That was when Harry realised that something was off. Gabrielle loved having her nipples played with like that…

A flash of danger filled his mind for barely a moment before he realised what was actually happening. Chuckling to himself, he patted Tonks on the top of her head.

“You almost tricked me,” Harry told her.

Gabrielle’s ocean-blue eyes looked up into his and slowly changed colours to a dark brown. Her hair and face began shifting too, and in just barely more than a second, Tonks was in her usual form between his legs. She released his cock with a noisy kiss before grabbing it with both hands so that she could stroke it as she spoke.

“I can’t believe that Gabrielle likes it when you pinch her like that,” Tonks snorted in surprise as she nuzzled her nose against his balls. “Don’t her nipples hurt afterwards?”

“She tried to explain the whole Veela thing when it comes to sex to me a few times. I still don’t quite get it entirely, but she can certainly take quite a bit of punishment; she likes it really rough,” Harry answered.

“I guess that explains why she seemed so displeased that you haven’t been around much to fuck her in your office,” Tonks said, planting sloppy kisses around the base of his shaft. “She even tried to come to me for tips on how to get your attention back.”

“And what did you tell her?” Harry chuckled.

“To strip down completely and sit her perky arse down on top of your desk and wait for you to walk in on her,” Tonks replied. “Try to act a little surprised if she actually goes through with it.”

“I will,” Harry promised her. “But right now, I don’t think I can think about fucking Gabrielle when you’ve left me all hot and bothered like this.”

Without another word, Tonks opened her mouth wide and engulfed his cock eagerly. She sucked him hard as she pushed her head down into his crotch so that she was deepthroating him again.

Now that she wasn’t playing pretend as Gabrielle anymore, Tonks used every last bit of her Metamorphmagus abilities to her advantage. Her tongue extended to an unnatural length and wrapped tightly around his cock, squeezing the base of his shaft as she took the rest of his cock down her throat. She was able to contract her throat around his cock without stunting her ability to breathe, and as good as it felt to be in her tight throat, nothing could compare to the vibrating sensations of her throat when she started to hum around him.

Each little jump and twitch in her throat sent shock waves of pleasure through Harry’s body. She was able to hone in on his most sensitive spots to really make the most of her blowjob. Her lips were sealed tightly around the base of his shaft, keeping all of her saliva trapped inside of her mouth, and her extended tongue lavishly applied it all along his cock.

“I’m not going to last long like this,” Harry warned her, but Tonks was clearly far past the point of caring about things like that. She wanted his cum all to herself, and that was what she was going to get.

Tonks continued to bob her head and let her magical powers control the pace of everything. She kept her throat so tight that Harry knew that if it’d been a touch bit looser that he already would’ve been shooting cum straight down into her belly. As it was, she was ensuring that he didn’t cum immediately. She was milking the last few moments for all that they were worth, truly relishing in the fact that she was the one witch sucking Harry Potter’s cock.

Just at the moment that Harry finally thought that he had his pleasure back under control, Tonks did the exact thing that he feared and relaxed the grip of her tongue and throat around his cock enough to allow for it to jump excitedly inside of her. The sudden change in pressure coupled with the way his hips instinctively bucked upwards sent Harry on a course that he couldn’t stop no matter how much he wanted to.

Grabbing her head in his hands, Harry held Tonks down as he came straight down her throat. The intense release of not cumming for the past few days felt like a refreshing dip into a cold pool of water on the hottest day in summer. His mind went foggy for a moment as the pleasure of it all overrode his faculties entirely. It was only once the last drops of cum had been drained from his cock by Tonks’ impressive tongue that he finally released his grip on her. Tonks took the time to lovingly clean up all of the excess saliva around Harry’s cock before she wormed her way out from underneath his desk.

Harry sheathed his cock back within his trousers and grinned at Tonks as she finally stood up. Her robes were less dishevelled than he expected them to be, but then again, she truly was the expert at sucking his cock beneath his desk. No one else had come close to matching her abilities.

“Back to work then?” Harry said rhetorically, knowing that they were both too busy to do anything but. “I have a task ready for you if you’re looking for one.”

“Bring it,” Tonks said as she straightened out her robes.

“Rhys Orpington,” Harry said pointedly. “I need more information on him and what involvement he might’ve had around the attack on Daphne.”

A slightly amused smirk on Tonks’ lips reminded Harry to warn her about accidentally revealing any information about their plans. Only he, Daphne, Tracey, Tonks, Gabrielle, and Hermione truly knew that Daphne had orchestrated the attack on herself. As morally questionable as the action was, it felt good getting a reason to go after Rhys that seemed justifiable in the public’s eye.

“It’ll be tricky to look into Rhys directly,” Tonks told him. Her thumb wiped away a bit of cum dripping around her lips before she popped it into her mouth and sucked it clean. “He’s been quite open about his activities around this attack. If we had something else on him…”

“He has enough ghosts that we’ll eventually find something on him,” Harry replied confidently. “But even ignoring that, I guarantee that he’s done something heinous in the past year or two that’ll warrant a long stay in Azkaban. A muggle-hunter like him won’t be satisfied going without for so long. I guarantee that he’s kept up with his old ways.”

“I guess it’s a good reason you had me supervising his activities while you were in France because I found out that he frequents a muggle club out in the north-east of the country. And there’s a building just outside of Carlisle that he visits nearly every week,” Tonks informed him. “I haven’t been able to find out what he does there though; there’s a password that’s needed to gain entrance to the old shop.”

“Does anyone else know about this?” Harry asked, fearing the worst with Proudfoot.

“No,” Tonks shook her head. “Amelia and Proudfoot have no knowledge of any of this. They’re still trying to figure out if you did anything wrong when you took down Dawlish.”

“They won’t find anything there,” Harry assured her. Even if his words seemed over-confident, he knew that his spells had been absolutely perfect. Dawlish would never remember a single thing about what had been done to him, nor would he recall any past except for what Harry had implanted within him. Only the foremost scholars in brain-related magics would be able to recognise that Dawlish’s mind had been tampered with, and even fewer of them would be able to remove what Harry had done to that disgusting man.

Tonks nodded. “Then they have nothing to find. They’re still so hungry to find a way to take you down that they haven’t begun to limit or stop the corruption within the Wizarding World or even the Ministry itself. You have time.”

“Good,” Harry said. “Rhys will go down sooner rather than later, but I need into this building of his. Can you assign a pair of Aurors to scope out the area and try to pick up on whatever password he uses to get in?”

“I can,” Tonks replied. “But I think that I have a better idea.”

“Go on then,” Harry said.

“Rhys Orpington isn’t the type to give up anything easily,” Tonks began seriously. “He’s a disgusting individual who preys on those weaker than him, and he can’t be allowed to remain unchecked. I think that we need to begin targeting his power base. He has supporters like Theodore Nott and Everett Avery to prop him up within the Wizengamot; they won’t be taken down easily.”

“Then we need to look for his weaker links,” Harry said.

Tonks’ eyes lit up with excitement. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. You know that new witch that’s been hovering around him, Aurora Calderon? She looks like the perfect link to start questioning. Best case scenario, she starts talking right away and gives us everything we need to take down Rhys. Worst case scenario, she tightens up but maybe spills a lead towards someone else who can help us take that bastard down.”

“Does she have an official title?” Harry asked.

Again, Tonks shook her head. “Not that I know of. She’s close with Rhys, but not so close to draw any suspicion about her relationship with him. As far as I can tell, she’s somewhere between an administrative assistant and a personal one.”

Harry hummed in thought. Aurora Calderon had been an interesting woman since her appearance at Rhys’ side, but Harry hadn’t been able to place her. The paperwork she’d submitted to the Ministry had established that she’d grown up in America and had some low-level position as an administrator within the Magical Congress of the United States of America, but her file had been short beyond that. There were no obvious ties to Rhys within her file.

Could she simply be an ambitious witch looking to make her mark within Britain? It seemed more than likely that this was the case.

“Any idea how we should approach her?” Harry asked Tonks.

“Not directly, at least,” Tonks sighed. “If Rhys finds out that we’re after her, he might cut her loose entirely. I think that it’s best if we find an intermediary… someone who isn’t closely connected to either of us but still someone that can be trusted.”

Harry tried to wrack his brain. He’d encountered hundreds if not thousands of people within the Ministry in his brief time here, and few of them made the cut for what he was hoping to achieve. The few that remained were often all-too close to him and his allies. That left him with his political allies within other departments and those that he’d…

Wait a second, Harry thought to himself. He had the perfect person for his needs.

“I’ve got it,” he declared to Tonks. “I’ll be back.”

“Wait, Harry!” Tonks cried out, but he was already leaving his office.

Harry rushed to the lift, which carried him far away from the Auror Department. He shared the lift with several other people who recognised him, and they each offered their own form of acknowledgement that Harry had to reciprocate. But for all of his social niceties, his mind was on someone else, the person who was bound to help him deal with this problem of his.

Harry passed through the winding corridors until he reached the Department of Magical Transportation. It was a stuffy, boring department that few bothered to interact with. More often than not, they were busy dealing with international witches and wizards who were trying to use modes of transportation that were illegal within Britain. The few smuggling cases that crossed their desks were borderline ecstasy that livened up the department as they worked with Aurors to deal with the tumultuous situations.

Only a few people truly recognised him as he made his way into the bowels of the department. The dreary atmosphere nearly lowered his spirits until he encountered the shining smile of Parvati Patil behind her desk.

“Fancy seeing you around here,” Parvati giggled as she stood up. She looked just as slim and fit as the last time he’d seen her. “What can I help our dear Head Auror with?”

Harry didn’t miss the flirtatious tone in her voice. Despite their atrocious date where he’d taken down Yaxley in the middle of a nightclub, she clearly still had feelings for him even knowing of his relationship with Daphne. And that was what was going to make her so useful to him.

She’d been fun in the bedroom, but Harry struggled to feel the same type of attraction that she seemed to feel for him. Parvati was a wonderful witch but not the type of woman he’d been after to complete him.

“I feel like an utter tosser for not catching up with you sooner,” Harry said as he lowered his elbows onto her desk, leaning in to deliver a more intimate conversation. “I know I promised to take you out to lunch after those horrible attacks here at the Ministry…”

“But life got in the way,” Parvati nodded sympathetically. “I get it. You’ve become terribly busy, not only at work but in your personal life as well.”

“That too,” Harry smiled. “But I still should’ve kept up with you.”

“Maybe you can still make it up to me,” Parvati said hopefully. “I don’t know how the press would feel about seeing us out on a lunch date together, so maybe we can arrange for something more private round my flat. Are your evenings free?”

“I can make time for you,” Harry told her. “I’ve certainly missed our last time together.”

“Oh?” Parvati’s eyes flashed with undisguised lust. “I would’ve thought that you’d have forgotten all about that by now, what with you being involved with Daphne Greengrass of all people.”

“Daphne and I have our own arrangement,” Harry replied, leaving Parvati to make of that what she would. “It doesn’t prohibit me from seeing old friends from time to time.”

“And that’s what we are? Old friends?”

“Something like that.”

Parvati leaned back in her seat and stretched out her arms, emphasising just how much her breasts strained against the front of her robes. She was putting on a show for him, trying to tease him before they’d even gotten going. She didn’t know that he already had his entire plan laid out in his mind and that she was following along exactly as he expected.

“How about this Friday night?” Parvati suggested. “I get off around half five. Do you think you could make it to mine by seven for supper?”

“For you, absolutely,” Harry said smoothly.

“Then I’m looking forward to reconnecting with you,” Parvati winked. “I’ll owl you my new floo address.”

“Brilliant! I’ll see you then,” Harry replied with his most charming smile.

As he returned to the lift, Harry sighed in contentment. Parvati was still the flirt and gossip that she’d always been. If there was anyone who wouldn’t be looked up suspiciously by Rhys if Aurora was suddenly approached, it was Parvati. And all it cost him was a night together with that beautiful Indian witch.