Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or it's characters.
It seemed everyone in the wizarding world decided to attend his trial. They all wanted justice; they wanted to see someone pay for their loss during the war. They wanted it from him.
It was a joke, how full grown adults could enter into a war and not realize they would have losses amazed him. Their loss wasn't his fault or problem; they were grown adults blaming him, and a 16-year-old boy for the losses they faced during the war. For the people they couldn't protect. For the people he hadn't ever even seen in his life, much less killed.
His "family" sat in the front row. His dad was looking at him as if he couldn't quite figure out what or who he was. The look was kind of funny if he wasn't chained to a chair in the middle of a court room. At least he wasn't throwing accusations at him with his eyes though, no, that was reserved for his mother. Neither of these people ever seemed to give a damn about him and what he did before, why should they start now?
Even wasn't judging him. He wasn't trying to figure him out. He was the only peaceful face in the room. Well except them, but he couldn't think about them right now. It seemed odd that after years of not even liking each other, his twin was still the only one who could accept his decisions without argument. It wasn't that Even would love him no matter what, no, they weren't the Weasley Twins. It was more like Even just didn't care. The feeling was mutual though. It always had.
"Mr. Harry James Potter, you are charged with being a Death Eater and murder in the first degree of no less than 12 different individuals. How do you plead?"
Oh great, they were letting Fudge do the proceedings. Fabulous.
"My defendant pleads not guilty to all accounts; he bares no mark and has never killed anyone. My defendant was just unfortunate enough to have a dismal up bringing which lead to him making the wrong sort of friends. But he never became a Death Eater, nor did he ever kill anyone."
He truly would have to thank Blaise for the excellent lawyer. Well if they ever talked again at least. They probably wouldn't.
"Are you trying to insinuate that the parents of the Boy-Who-Lived are to blame for this poor excuse for a boys evil deeds?"
Wow, Fudge seemed pretty upset by the very idea of it. Just wait until he heard what he had to say on the subject of his dear parents.
"No, my defendant made his own decisions, his parents actions towards him merely lead towards the sort of friends that would put him in the situation that he found himself in. The situation I might add that lead to the fall of You-Know-Who."
The lawyer then went on and on talking about his childhood. Telling them about how two Potters were born on July 31, 1980, but after that Halloween a year and half later, only one mattered. He spoke of the abuse poor, innocent Harry faced from his mother, and the neglect he received from his father. It made him want to gag. He was there; he remembered the abuse, the neglect, all of it. He never intended for it to be publicized to the Wizarding World though, especially with Him sitting in the back row.
"Mr. Potter, can you give us a first-hand account to your mothers alleged abuse?"
Ah, of course Madam Bones would want to hear his side before she allowed someone to ship him off to Azkaban. She always seemed to love children like that.
"Of course, Madame. I'm not sure when it first started, I don't remember a time when my mother didn't blatantly favor Evan."
The look on his mothers face was priceless. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.
"My earliest memory is from when I was 4, my father was at work, but Remus and Sirius were going to come over after he got off. It was a weekly tradition. My mother was making lunch and trying to clean the house. Evan had gotten into the finger paints and decided to paint the floor. When my mother came in, she was furious. Said I was intentionally making her job harder. She sent me to my room without lunch, told me that she would deal with me later. I tried to explain that it was Evan, but she just slapped me and told that I shouldn't blame others for my actions. It didn't seem to matter that he was the one with paint on his fingers. But I went to my room and stayed there. It wasn't until later that night at about 9 that my dad came to say goodnight that anyone came to my room."
That wasn't his earliest memory, his earliest memory was of being swatted for talking to a snake. That memory however might just convince people he was innately evil, and that was NOT what he needed right now.
"What did your father say about you missing lunch and dinner?" Madame Bones questioned.
I looked away from the formidable woman questioning me to meet my father's eyes. He looked so lost, trying to remember the day I spoke of. Kind of constipated looking too.
"He never noticed."
The rest of the trial flew by after his testimony was given. He was found not guilty of the murders, not guilty of being a Death Eater, but on probation for involving himself in Death Eater activity. Fudge wanted him to spend a month in Azkaban. Madame Bones was convinced that two months of house arrest was a better option. So here he was, waiting for his wand to be returned to him so he could go back to Potter Manner with his family. Lily was still glaring at him from his testimony. A social worker was looking into her parenting skills. As a muggleborn, the court had decided that it was probably her abuse that lead him astray rather than his influential pureblood fathers. And they called the Death Eaters purists. Hipacrits.
His father seemed genuinely repentant about his neglect of his other son. He kept trying to apologize to Harry, but Harry could careless. He had moved on from the little boy sitting starving in his room. He had come a long way from that. He had made his own family for himself to replace the one that didn't care for him. Of course now he probably lost that family too, he doubted most Slytherins would be happy about him killing Lord Voldemort. The point was he didn't forgive James, but he also didn't hold a grudge. He liked the man he had become, and it was only due to his families coldness toward him that he was able to become who he was. He didn't hate them, but he didn't love them. Except Lily, he loathed her.
Evan was still looking at him with a completely neutral expression. It was oddly soothing to know that he would always have at least one person who wouldn't betray him no matter what. Of course Evan would never help him either, but that was fine. Twin bonds were old magic. Most magical twins were like the Patil twins, close friends that could almost read each others minds, but were two different entities. The strength of the bond depended on how they were raised. The Weasley twins for instance were raised as one person, so they were inseparable, had almost one personality, and instinctively knew what the other was thinking most of the time. Him and Evan were the other side of the spectrum. They had the bond so they were connected to some extent, but they weren't friends, they didn't like each other, and there two groups of friends were almost always at each others throats. One was the Griffindor, the other was Slytherin. One had short messy hair, the other had long hair worn in a popular pureblood fashion. One had hazel eyes, the other had emerald green eyes. They really couldn't have been more different for twins. But the bond was still there. Like a fail safe for them, their friends would fight and they would fight each others friends, but they never actually fought each other. Even though Evan did not agree with his friends, his house placement, or his decisions, the bond ensured he understood the why behind it. Evan still was able to know his mind on some instinctive level, just like Harry knew Evan's and understood why Evan did most that he did. It was an old and complex magic, but Harry was always great-full for it. He would have gone insane before he even got to go to Hogwarts if he had to grow up surrounded by people who hated him with no release.
"I'll need you to sign this document Mr. Potter," the man behind the counter said, disrupting his thoughts. "They say that you will not use your wand offensively unless protecting yourself or someone else and you will use no dark magic what-so-ever for the next two months."
"Of course." Harry took the quil from the man and signed the parchment. "Can we leave now?" He asked looking at his father with a cool face. It had been a long few days since he killed the Dark Lord and his magic was still exhausted, not to mention he still hadn't been able to face why he had had to kill the Dark Lord, the man who had made him his heir and place some amount of trust in him. The betrayal still hurt, and he wasn't sure which one, his betrayal of the Dark Lord, of the betrayal against him by the one person he trusted more than anyone else, the one person he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
"Yes, we should leave, we have much to discuss once we get home." James replied grabbing Lily's elbow as she was about to make a remark. James went to open the door to leave when someone opened it from the other side and Harry found himself looking into the eyes of the one person he knew above all else, he was not ready to see.