Harry Potter and the Zodiac Charms

by PulsarDragon

A quiet night after the Chamber of Secrets changes Harry's and Ginny's relationship, mysterious new characters arrive, and a shadowy force strives to bring chaos to the world. starts in canon but will change to an AU story, Ron bashing until a certain point, Harry/Ginny, Neville/Luna, Ron/Hermione, Remus/Tonks, Sirius/Mary

34. Trials and Tribulations

Disclaimer: I think we all know the drill, but just to reiterate as always. J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, I just own my original characters and such.

Author's Note: Well this took a lot longer to get out than I ever intended. It just so happened to fall right into when I started grad school and a whole influx of other things prevented me from really getting the chance to write it out. However, we are finally back and almost out of these summer months of Order of the Phoenix. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 34: Trials and Tribulations

Harry let his feet wander, shouldering his way through the hustle and bustle of the streets of London. Even at this time of day, there were still plenty of Muggles moving along the sidewalks, disrupting Harry as he tried to get away from Grimmauld Place and the massive contradictions his mind was trying to grapple with. His thoughts were all a jumble, trying to piece together everything he had just seen with the spiteful man he had come to know over the last four years.

"Oi, shove off mate," some Muggle grumbled, pushing Harry after he accidentally bumped against him.

"Sorry," Harry apologized, his eyes downcast. He didn't want to deal with anyone right now; he just wanted to be alone to think. The Muggle grumbled about 'bloody teenagers' and kept moving on, leaving Harry to stew in the same spot for a moment. He needed to keep moving, to keep his body busy or… he didn't know what he might do. Hands wringing, he started moving again.

On one hand, he could still feel that unbridled anger towards Snape that had surfaced when he saw the man's younger self pinned to the wall by Aberforth Dumbledore. Snape had set everything in motion by telling Voldemort about the prophecy, the prophecy that stated neither Harry or Voldemort could live while the other survived. If he was honest with himself, Harry had already suspected as much. He wouldn't rest until his parents' killer was vanquished, and Voldemort would never stop pursuing Harry. He was a threat to the Dark Lord's power, a black mark on his reputation. They had been locked in this cycle since Harry was a year old… and it was because of Snape. Harry's hands began to shake, the anger bubbling up again. Beneath his feet, the flagstones started to vibrate, threatening to burst out of the ground.

He took a steadying breath, trying to keep his power under control. That was the last thing he needed right now, the sidewalk exploding out of the ground with all these Muggles. They stopped vibrating, and he let the breath out. How was he supposed to feel about the man who had both placed a death sentence on his parents and had done everything he could to protect them afterwards? What would anyone think? An image of Snape pleading with Mrs. Weasley's brothers to take the Potters away flashed through Harry's mind, and he tried to dispel the image by furiously shaking his head. He was starting to get odd looks from the Muggles around him, drawing attention to himself. He slipped into the nearby side alley, getting out of the flow of foot traffic.

Harry, begrudgingly, stubbornly, had to admit that Severus Snape was more complex than he had thought. He had always known about the schoolyard grudge that Snape had with his father and Sirius, but after seeing the memories, Harry angrily had to admit it was justified. His father and Sirius had been horrible to Snape in school, and vice versa. Harry could feel a wave of uncomfortableness rising up as he couldn't help see the parallels between his childhood and the Potions Master's… but then it was thanks to Snape that he had even met the Dursleys. A fresh wave of anger engulfed his sympathy for Snape's childhood, his feet wandering down the winding alley aimlessly as he tried to wrestle the emotion down. He was so consumed by his thoughts he didn't notice his breath coming out as tiny wisps of fog.

Snape had risked everything once he knew it was Lily Evans that was under threat, but Harry had to wonder if he would have done that for anyone else. He had to consider maybe Snape would have eventually, for he had seen that even as a Death Eater, Snape didn't have the malice and cruelty of his former comrades. He hadn't been able to kill that Muggleborn girl with the flower name because it reminded him of Lily, breaking through the cloudiness of Voldemort's propaganda and his own hatred.

Dumbledore, the old codger, had been right. Love was indeed a powerful magic. It was Snape's love for Lily Evans, love that had been there since possibly even the moment they met in the playground, that had brought him back from the brink. The love that couldn't be extinguished, no matter how much heartbreak had been heaped onto the Potions Master. The man Harry hated and despised… had turned against his master and risked his life to prolong hers as long as he could. Snape was a far braver man than Harry liked to admit, but he couldn't deny it. Was he supposed to forgive Snape for his role in James and Lily Potter's deaths? Could he?

"Gah!" Harry yelled, slamming his fist into the side of the alley wall. All he got for his trouble was some bruised knuckles to go with the pounding headache he had from his thoughts going in circles. But his exclamation had alerted him to something he had been oblivious to. He watched the last vestiges of mist that had issued from his mouth fade away, another puff of air escaping in front of him. It had gotten much colder; a shiver ran down his spine. Slowly looking up, he found a pair of feet lying to the side of the alley. Cautiously, he walked around the small pile of trash that obscured the rest of the figure. A homeless man was staring off into the distance, his eyes blank. A bottle lay shatter next to his hand. Another shiver ran down Harry's spine. His wand was in his hand, but before he could even turn around, a rotting hand had descended onto his shoulder with unnatural strength accompanied by that horrible, rattling breath of a dementor.

The hand spun him around to face the cloaked, undead monster- the dementor breathed in and Harry immediately felt its chill penetrating his being. This was a major problem, and Harry wasn't feeling all that happy to begin with. Now he had something he could take his frustrations out on, even if his terrakinesis would be useless against them.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry shouted, concentrating on his first public kiss with Ginny and not even thinking of the consequences of performing magic right now. The stag Patronus galloped out of the tip of his wand, sending the dementor flying back down the alley. Now, however, a darkness had descended over the area and a chorus of answering rattling breaths filled the space. There was more than one. Frost was coating the broken bottle of the clearly Kissed Muggle, and the dementors came into view, visible through the silvery light coming from his Patronus. There were too many for him to deal with them in such a tight space….

There was a park nearby! If he could get there, he might have more of a chance to deal with them. He sent his Patronus charging forward, and took off the other way.

As he ran, he could hear their breathing behind him. He sent another Patronus Charm over his shoulder at them, reaching a fork in the alley system that filled this section of London. He took the left fork and then quickly had to double back and take the right as he could feel their chill rushing towards him from that direction as well. Their impenetrable darkness was everywhere, even obscuring the emerging stars. Sounds were being snuffed out, all of London's Muggle activity fading as the dementors tried to capture their quarry.

Harry turned the corner down another alley, and was met by the site of a man in hooded sweatshirt holding a knife to a young girl's throat. A purse lay busted open on the pavement, its contents strewn about. Not good at all. They were coming.

"Help me!" she cried, but she was suddenly whipped around by the man, knife pressed against her cheek.

"You move a step closer, and the girl dies," the thug shouted. "Don't play the hero. Drop the stick, kick it over here, and walk away."

Harry didn't have time for this. Pretending to do what the hoodlum wanted, nice and slow, he tapped into his power and sent a stone flying into the back of the man's head. Not hard enough to kill, but hard enough that the man was stunned, the knife falling to the ground with a clatter. Then that horrible breathing filled the air, and the woman shivered even though she couldn't see the approaching monsters.

"Run," Harry said, quickly picking his wand back up again. "Get out of here now."

The girl didn't need telling twice, and she ran down a side alley back towards the main road. Harry took off down his chosen path again, but he had to stop and turn when he heard the man shout for him. The Muggle thug couldn't see them, but the dementors were right behind him.

"I'm gonna gut you like a fish," the thug snarled, picking up his knife.

"Look, you need to run now," Harry said, pointing his wand and earning a laugh from the criminal. "You don't understand…"

Harry would explain more, but the man gave a yell as a dementor grabbed him from behind, its rattling breath sucking as he was whipped around to face the monster. He was a criminal, but he didn't deserve to have his soul sucked out through his mouth. No one deserved that fate.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry shouted, the stag surging for the third time that night. The man fell heavily to the ground as the dementor recoiled from the Patronus, but Harry had to draw the Patronus back to himself as more dementors swooped down from above. He took off running again. The last sight he saw of the mugger was a dementor swooping down on his shivering form before Harry turned a corner.

They were everywhere now, rotting hands emerging from the shadows and accompanied by their unnerving breathing. Harry grunted as he misjudged a sharp turn in the small maze of alleys and bashed his shoulder against the brick wall of a building. His wild footsteps echoed against the walls as he sprinted down a long section, the only sound besides their breathing. He turned the corner and was immediately grabbed by the throat by dementor that had been waiting for him.

The chill permeated his body, the screams rising in his head as the dementor began sucking all the happiness out of him. His Patronus winked out. He tried to push his mother's cries and his father's yells out of his mind, and through watering eyes, he could see the park just beyond. Throwing caution completely to the wind, he managed to gasp out a spell that Professor Kemper had said was only for emergencies at his current level of training.

"Sanctus," he gasped.

It was his only move while the dementor bent its head to Kiss away his soul. His wand lay limp, useless in his hand.

Please let this work.

If it didn't, he was as good as dead.

A beam of white light descended from the sky, surrounding and blasting into the dementor. It gave a cry as it was torn asunder, leaving only a misty cloak fluttering to the ground as Harry fell heavily to his knees. He felt weak, uneasy as he got to his feet. Between that dementor and the energy drawbacks of using that spell, he wasn't feeling the greatest. He needed to keep pushing on though. Staggering, he emerged out of the alley network and stumbled into the park.

There was only one resident in the park right now, a young girl with shoulder length brown hair was looking gloomily from a nearby park bench, staring a hole into the ground. She gave a sudden jerk of her head, green eyes wide as the cold assaulted her. They were still coming. Harry made his way, as quickly as possible, to the center of the park. The park was surrounded by total, impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some great hand had dropped a cold mantle over the entire park. Frost was slowly creeping across the grass and trees; his breath was escaping in wisps of vapor. They must all be converging on them now.

"Stay where you are! Lumos Maxima!" he yelled, looking around for the first dementor that would emerge from the shadows surrounding them. The light from his wand pulsed out, temporarily dispelling the darkness. Dementors were slowly circling them in a tighter ring, their unnerving inhalations coming from all around. There were more than he had thought. At least Voldemort's not treating me as a child anymore, not after the Graveyard incident, Harry mused with morbid humor.

"Get behind me," he instructed the girl, dropping once again into a dueling stance as the dementors, in all their cloaked horror, glided out from the tree line.

"You're a wizard?!" she exclaimed, shock rampant on her face. Quivering hands were searching through her pockets for something.

"Harry Potter," he said, but he didn't elaborate further as the dementors made their attack. They had their prey cornered, now they merely needed to feast on his memories and weaken him to the point they could extract his soul.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled for yet another time that night, the stag galloping forward to throw a dementor away with its horns. Flicking his wand, Harry sent the stag charging into another dementor, knocking it flying back into the nearby trees. Even as he did that, though, a dementor sailed past him, knocking him over as it grabbed the girl's wrist.

She did something he didn't expect though, while the screaming started up again in his head. Instead of cowering, screaming, or any other normal reaction a dementor caused, the girl drew her fist back and punched the creature right in the face. The dementor's head whipped back, but its grip didn't lessen.

'Who the bloody hell is this girl?' he thought, rolling to avoid being grabbed by a dementor. He slashed his wand and his stag Patronus barreled through the dementors to smash into the one holding the girl. The hooded figure flew backwards, releasing her wrist, and she quickly got to her feet. Her hair was a mess, but she had managed to finally pull out what she had been fishing for earlier. A wand.

"A witch huh?" Harry asked rhetorically. He didn't hear her sarcastic reply as a dementor swooped past his stag, sucking in a long hoarse breath before it was swatted away. A cold sweat covered his body, and it was taking everything he had to remain upright.

"Reducto!" she yelled, but her spell missed and the dementors continued to circle them, sapping their will to fight. "Fuck, this is bad," she gasped, a wave of cold washing through her and almost causing her knees to buckle. They just kept coming, and nothing he did seemed to stop them. There was always another one to replace the one he banished away.

"Sanctus!" Harry yelled again, his hands shaking as the energy drain took its toll. Another beam of light enveloped the nearest dementor, sundering it completely. He unleashed another Sanctus spell, but the beam of light was feebler than the last two as his energy was getting too low. The girl yelled as another slimy hand grabbed her, pulling her towards the sucking mouth hidden under the hood. She resorted to trying to bite and kick the dementor, for all the good it did. Physical attacks didn't seem to hinder them much.

"Expecto Patronum!" he gasped, but only wisps of silvery mist emerged from his wand. He was too tired to cast the spell, and the dementors must have sensed it. They closed in, the one holding the girl lowering its hood with its free hand.

"S-sanctus," Harry gasped, sagging to his knees as his body's reserves of energy ran out. The white light blasted the dementor holding the girl back, and Harry could clearly see the light burning the dementor's clammy flesh… but it survived the spell. The remaining creatures pressed in on their prey, their horrible breaths sucking out what little energy Harry had left. A white mist was encroaching on his vision; the screams and pleading of his mother would no longer be denied. The innocent girl was curled up on the ground, legs tucked against her body and her head cowering. She didn't deserve this, Harry thought even as his mind began to lose coherence and his head thumped against the frost covered earth.

But then the cold retreated slightly, and, struggling mightily, Harry looked up to see a Patronus standing over him. A silvery doe, its innocent stance belying the strength of the emotion powering it. A wellspring of relief rose up as the doe raised its head, but all the other mixed emotions he felt for the man who had this Patronus rose up as well. Nevertheless, there was no way to excuse the fact that Severus Snape had just saved Harry's life.

A giant silvery Grim Patronus came barreling through the circle of dementors, knocking them flying left and right. A hawk soared out of the sky to land on top of the unconscious girl, snapping its beak at the monsters around them. A weasel slinked up next to the doe, and two wolves suddenly joined the Grim. The Patronuses formed a protective shell around Harry and the mystery witch, and the dementors couldn't reach them now. They hovered indecisively, regarding the prey they had almost fed upon and which had destroyed four of their number. They hated being denied their food, but there was no way to reach it.

As suddenly as they had come, the dementors vanished back into the shadows.

Glorious sound and smells returned in a rush to the surrounding park, the stars above twinkling again. Heavy running steps vibrated against the Harry's connection with the ground as Snape and the others arrived, the Potions Master's cloak billowing behind him in ominous contrast to the doe who was fading away. He stopped short of where Harry was panting, and he simply watched the boy he had sworn to protect in her memory. Sirius blasted past him in a dead run, skidding as he tried to stop and wrapping his godson in a bear hug as he slipped in the dewy grass. Snape made a hint of a move to follow, but decided against it as Remus, Mary, Mr. Weasley, and Tonks arrived.

"We saw the ice forming on the windows and came as quickly as we could," Sirius gasped, helping his godson up into a sitting position. Harry swayed; his skin felt clammy and he was still incredibly weak. "You alright pup?"

"I'll be fine," Harry managed to say, stuffing his quivering hands into his pockets. He couldn't bring himself to look at Snape right now, the war of emotions still raging inside him. He instead looked over at the extremely pale looking girl who was being shaken awake by Tonks. "How is she?"

"Fine… I'm fine," she whispered, even though her body language clearly stated otherwise. Her green eyes were glazed over as though she were still at the place the dementors had brought her back to. "What was that spell you were using?"

"Something a mentor showed me, in case of emergencies," Harry responded, giving a gracious smile to Mary as she handed him a large piece of chocolate. Remus was handing the girl another piece, helping her to her feet and placing a steadying hand on her shoulder as she swayed.

"We should return to Grimmauld Place," Snape said quietly. His hands twitched awkwardly at his sides, as though he wanted to join the others in assisting Harry but forced himself not to. "The Ministry will know by now that an event has occurred."

"Fudge is going to have a field day with this," Mr. Weasley agreed. "You feeling alright to walk, Harry?"

"Yeah… yeah," Harry replied while Sirius helped him to his feet. Turning to the girl, he asked, "Will you be okay getting home?"

"I should be," she whispered, staring at the ground still. She didn't know who any of these people were, except the raven haired boy. Harry Potter was famous the world over, after all. "Thanks for saving me."

"We should be thanking him," Harry said, gesturing at Snape. Even though his feelings on the man were still seething, he couldn't ignore the fact the man saved him. "If it wasn't for his Patronus, we would have been husks before the others got here."

"Thank you, sir," the girl said. Snape replied with just a curt nod.

"What's your name, dear?" Mary asked.

"Lilythe Ashecroft," the girl replied, taking a few shaky steps as she bit into her chocolate again.

"There's an Ashecroft in the Department of International Magical Cooperation," Tonks said, and Lilythe nodded.

"That's my father…. I should get going," and with that, she staggered away and out of the park.

"Let's get back to Grimmauld Place, we have a storm to settle in for," Mary said. The others exchange worried looks, and as though they were fleeing haunted ground, the small group of witches and wizards left the park.

From his hiding place, a Ministry official quaked in his boots at the response that the Senior Undersecretary was going to have… and his actual masters.

The next day, Sirius closed up the buttons on the shirt he had chosen for the day, fingers deftly working even though he was worried. He was trying not to show the anxiety he was feeling, trying to focus on the mission he had been planning for a month now, but his thoughts kept drifting. He thought of Harry, of dementors, of the horrendous announcement that had been waiting for them when they returned the previous night, and, lastly, of dark and mysterious wheelings and dealings. Absently he shrugged on the brown greatcoat he had chosen to complete his outfit, the heavy leather hiding a few charms of his own invention.

"I haven't seen you this concerned about your appearance since the wedding," Mary said, stepping up next to Sirius, placing her chin on her shoulder. Her normally shoulder length brown hair had been charmed to a deep red today and extended past her shoulders to go with her disguise for the operation. "You worried about Harry?"

"He had a rough day, and that Ministry letter didn't help," Sirius replied, running his hand idly through Mary's new hair. It had been waiting for them when they got back to Grimmauld Place, an official notification from the Improper Use of Magic office stating that Harry was to be expelled for using the Patronus Charm and an unknown spell in the presence of Muggles and that Ministry officials would be arriving at Grimmauld Place to confiscate his wand. Dumbledore had apparently left when the letter arrived, intent on going to the Ministry to delay this avenue of attack on Sirius's godson. Harry had slumped down at the kitchen table, his face in his hands, until the second letter arrived not soon after. A formal hearing had been arranged to investigate the matter and would determine if Harry would be expelled or not.

"At least Dumbledore was able to forestall things," Mary said, kissing Sirius's cheek. "And Harry has a fighting chance in this. We're all witnesses to the dementors, and his life was in danger. You know the law is on his side."

"Yeah, but Fudge doesn't seem to care about that now," Sirius replied quietly. "I want to know how that many dementors could have been away from Azkaban without us knowing about it. That sort of attack wouldn't go unnoticed by Roberts."

"I suspect Amelia will be asking that very question to Roberts directly," Mary said, grinning slightly. The warden of Azkaban was not well liked by many in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. "Now, we need to give you that last touch for your disguise."

"Already on it," Sirius said, tapping his wand to his face. He cringed as the hairs on his face shifted around, some retreating and others coming out. He was left with thick mustache; his goatee having disappeared. His black hair had turned brown, shortening slightly to a more "cop" look.

"How do I look?" he asked. "Muggle cop enough for you?"

"Definitely channeling something, just can't put my finger on it," Mary answered, leaning over to kiss him on the lips. She immediately pulled away, her nose twitching and her face twisting. "But definitely not a look you should keep. Sorry Magnum."

"Hmm it feels itchy," he chuckled, twitching his lip. "So fair enough. Just need it for this operation… and maybe for Halloween. Shall we?"

"I think so," she said, taking his hand, and together they descended to Grimmauld Place's kitchen. The other members of their team were gathered around, some in disguises, others only playing a support role for this particular operation. Remus was hidden behind the Morning Prophet, a cup of coffee steaming next to him. On the front page of the paper, a picture of Fudge standing with Lucius Malfoy and Barty Crouch was prominently featured with the headline 'Minister Announces Revolutionary School Reform.'

"I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake," Jack said, stirring his morning coffee idly. The American captain was dressed in his usual outfit, having said he didn't need a disguise to break into a place. He hadn't elaborated on how he intended to do so though. "Fudge announces that if Dumbledore can't find a suitable teacher, he will just appoint one. I can't think of anyone who actually would turn down a job from the headmaster."

"They will if enough pressure is placed on them," Remus replied from behind the paper. "They're already leaning on anyone who might fill the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Dumbledore hasn't found a candidate who will touch that job now."

"It's one thing after another," Tonks sighed, grabbing a piece of toast to nibble on. She was dressed in typical attire for a girl who was going to an interview for a job, even though she wasn't happy with Sirius when he said she couldn't do anything brightly colored. Catherine also had opted for the professional look, but she had gotten into their target a week ago. Shane and Jess weren't dressed in anything special, as they were providing support and back-up if needed.

"Alright, everybody remembers the plan?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, Padfoot," Remus chuckled, putting his paper down. "You and Mary distract them as Muggle police investigating their missing shipment while…"

"Tonks, Jack, and I will slip in and see what sort of information might be found connecting Prime Technologies to the Blades of Strife or the Death Eaters," Catherine said, finishing Remus's sentence.

"And I'll provide ground support if a tumble breaks out," Shane said, a wild grin forming on his face and stretching the scar over his eye.

"I'm to patch up anyone who happens to get injured, as seems likely with you people," Jess finished.

"I don't think I need to mention that if any incident does break out, we're on our own," Sirius said, placing both hands palm down on the table and making eye contact with each one of them. "We have no formal support from the Auror Office from this, no other teams providing cover. Only Amelia, Serenity, and Scrimgeour know about our investigation continuing, and we want to keep it that way until we have something to act on."

"Let's get on with it then," Jack said, sliding the fake chief inspector badge to Sirius. "Hot off the press for you, Sirius. Should be able to fool any Muggle who sees it."

"Good luck everyone," Sirius said, and everyone started to stand up and troop out of Grimmauld Place to Apparate to their designated locations.

Jack paused on his way out the door. "Your boy's okay, right?" he asked with a bit of uncharacteristic grimness.

Sirius nodded to the normally suave gentleman, a little touched by his concern. "He will be, Jack. Keep your head in the mission." The captain nodded, then rolled his shoulders and flashed a characteristic flirtatious smile before heading out.

Sirius and Mary waited a little longer for everyone else to leave since they needed to wait long enough for Catherine, Jack, and Tonks to get into position first. Checking his watch, Sirius determined that enough time had passed for his team to get into their places after about fifteen minutes.

"Ready, Swiftwing?" he asked, his usual mischievous grin in place but slightly obscured by his new mustache.

"Ready, Padfoot," Mary replied, and they Apparated to an alley near their target. Reappearing and stepping out of the alley into the usual morning hubbub that Muggles made on their way to work, they made their way towards an impressive looking tower that was constructed entirely from glass and steel. It had a modern architectural style, pleasing to the eye, even. Still, there was nothing pleasing to the eye at the amount of security around it. In their research on Prime Technologies, the team had discovered that they held many government contracts with the British military and other major multinational groups. That would certainly explain the tall fortified walls, the soldiers and other black suited security roaming the grounds. Sirius fully expected security to be even tighter inside and to increase the higher up one got in the tower and the compound that made up Prime Technologies headquarters.

Passing through the gate checkpoint, Sirius and Mary made their way inside the tower without much trouble from the security outside. A portly security guard was seated at a desk in the center of the lobby; several monitors with video feeds playing on them flickered around him. Multiple workers streamed past the guard, all of them heading for the elevators and stairs at the back of the lobby. Sirius, trying to channel his best Muggle police impression, walked up to the desk and leaned on it.

"Can I help ya?" the guard at the desk asked gruffly, looking up from the camera monitors with an annoyed expression.

"Yeah mate, Scotland Yard," Sirius said, flashing the fake chief inspector badge at the guard. "Chief Inspector James Gordon, and this is my partner Inspector Barbara Keen. We have a few questions for Lord Mallory that we need answers to."

"Wot kind of questions?" the guard asked. His eyes narrowed as he tried to stare down and intimidate Mary and Sirius.

"You don't need to know," Mary snapped gruffly. "Just tell him we're here."

"Got a warrant?" the guard asked with a sneer, settling back in his swivel chair.

"Right here. Now get on that blower and tell your boss we're here or I'll charge you with obstruction to an investigation," Sirius said, slapping a pamphlet on the desk. Silently, he sent a Confundus Charm at the guard as he reached for the pamphlet.

"I guess this checks out," the guard grunted, throwing the pamphlet back at Sirius. He hit a small red button on his intercom and continued saying, "Lord Mallory, sorry to interrupt ya, but Scotland Yard is here."

"Send them up, Thomas," a cultivated voice answered.

"Lord Mallory will see you now, top floor," Thomas said brusquely, going back to monitoring the security cameras.

"Thanks," Sirius replied. He led Mary over to the elevators. Stepping inside, he hit the top floor button and the doors slid shut. The couple stayed quiet during the entire trip up, Sirius tapping his foot along with the light music coming from the speaker in the ceiling. There was almost something hypnotic about it, the music lulling his worries and concerns.

"This is some soothing music," Mary said dreamily.

"Mhm," Sirius muttered, his eyelids starting to get heavy. The bell dinged, jarring both of them out of their stupors. Sirius started blinking excessively, pushing the sleepiness away. Next to him, Mary shook her head a few times to dispel her drowsiness. The doors of the elevator opened, revealing an opulently decorated hallway with a marble floor. Odd bronze sculptures of different men and women dotted the corridor in even intervals all the way up to a set of cedar double doors.

"Who do you reckon these people are?" Mary asked quietly as they walked along the corridor. She bent down to read the plaque on one sculpture of a serious looking knight, not even sure how to pronounce the name. "Vormav Tengil?"

"Folmarv Tengille," a male voice said from behind them. Sirius and Mary turned around to see who had just spoken. The tall man standing in front of the double doors appeared to be in his mid-50s, looking at the pair of them curiously with sharp eyes. He had short-cropped dark hair that was graying around his temples, and steely-blue eyes full of intelligence glimmered from his face. The dark gray suit he wore was crisp and neat and was clearly tailored. The way the man moved as he walked down to where Sirius and Mary were bespoke that, while he was usually behind a desk based on his outfit, he was extremely fit. The grip he had when he shook Sirius's hand was strong and firm.

"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the name," Sirius said, wincing slightly as his hand was released.

"Not surprising, he was the head of the Knights Templar for a time," the man said. "Apologies, introductions are needed of course. Lord Ian Mallory, head of Prime Technologies. You two must be from Scotland Yard yes?"

"Chief Inspector James Gordon," Sirius said, pulling out his fake badge for a second time and flashing it at Mallory. "This is Inspector Barbara Keen, my partner."

"I see… well let us discuss whatever brought you here in my office," Mallory said, gesturing for them to proceed. "Discussing serious matters in a hallway is not becoming, hmm?" Mallory led them back down the hallway to his office, even holding the door open for them. The office was just as intricately decorated as the corridor leading to it- marble floors, more sculptures of obscure historical figures, a mahogany desk in the middle of the room with a state-of-the-art computer screen with two chairs in front of it. A smaller desk was tucked away in the corner where a woman with piecing gray eyes and black hair in a pixie cut sat.

"Don't mind her," Mallory chuckled, as Sirius and Mary were on the receiving end of a glare from the woman. "Yvonne is my personal secretary and bodyguard and she isn't too fond of unannounced guests. Please, have a seat."

"Not often that someone is both a secretary and a bodyguard," Mary said, taking a seat while Sirius took the other.

"Indeed, but then Yvonne comes from a special bodyguard school in France that teaches its students how to fill a variety of roles," Mallory stated, taking a seat in the leather chair behind his desk. "Now, how can I help Scotland Yard?"

"We're investigating a smuggling ring down at the docks and we recently found evidence that one or more groups are using your cargo containers as places for contraband," Sirius said, getting straight to business. He was going to play the tough, gruff, no-nonsense type of cop while Mary was supposed to play his more diplomatic partner.

"What the Chief Inspector is trying to say is that, while we don't believe your company is involved, you do seem to have a breach in security," Mary said, dropping right into character. "We recently discovered, with cooperation from the local authorities, that one of your shipments was intercepted in Albania."

"Ah," Mallory said, stroking his chin. Sirius was slightly taken aback by the amused sparkle in his eye, but he took cares not to show it. "Now… I like to keep an ear to the ground about whether law enforcement is investigating something or another. It pays to be friends with Sir Richard Wilson you see. I know for a fact that the British authorities are not investigating anything related to my company… but the Aurors are."

"Aurors?" Sirius asked, trying to hide the alarm he was feeling. How did this Muggle know what Aurora were? Next to him, Mary's knuckles had whitened as she gripped the arms of chair in surprise. "I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with that word."

"No need to play coy," Mallory said, steepling his fingers on his desk. "I've been anticipating this meeting for some time… Lord Black."

"Are you taking the mickey out of me?" Sirius asked, trying to salvage his cover. "My name is James Gordon."

"Unfortunately not," Mallory chuckled. "You're Lord Sirius Black, a Senior Auror in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. And this must be your partner, Auror Mary Macdonald. There's no need for such disguises. Even if I had not known your names, I knew you were a witch and wizard the moment you stepped foot in the building."

"How could you possibly have known?" Mary asked. "How do you know about the magical world?"

"I'm a Squib myself," Mallory answered, to both Aurors' shock. "My family disowned me after they discovered I had very little magical ability… wiped me from the family tree and record. Only my brother stayed in contact with me, and he's currently working for Minister Fudge. As for how I knew you were who you are, the elevator plays a rather soothing tone, but only those with magic become drowsy. And, of course, as the man in charge of such a large operation, I do like to keep an eye on the cameras." He turned the computer around and gestured at a small display in the corner similar to the one on the security guard's desk downstairs.

This turned their entire investigation on its head, Sirius realized with a panic. They had been anticipating only dealing with a CEO that was a Muggle and wouldn't know any better, but now… it just made him more determined to understand who Mallory was and how his organization was connected to the Blades of Strife.

"Then maybe you know we are here investigating why we encountered a forest full of Shades, weapons, and other criminal activity in a place that was owned by your company?" Sirius said. Mary glanced sideways at him, but he could not reassure her. He just had to trust that being blunt would work.

"Our Korab Forest operation was supposed to be a flagship for industry in the Balkans, but sadly I lost contact with the construction team weeks before your… team arrived," Mallory stated, now turning his computer screen towards him once more. There was the tap of a few keys and then he swung the screen around to face Sirius and Mary again. "Communications logs, and you'll note that the last transmission is almost a month before your team put a stop to those criminals."

"How do you know when our team arrived there?" Mary asked. "The report we filed was secured to certain eyes only; only a handful of people would have seen it."

"As I said, my brother is one of Minister Fudge's aides," Mallory said. "He handles all classified documents that come to the Minister, so he was fully aware of your entire operation. He passed that information along to me as a common courtesy and so my company could do its own internal investigation. We found that several of our middle management were on the take from these… Blades of Strife, and we promptly liquidated them."

"You'll understand if I want to confirm that for myself," Sirius replied. "These criminals are very adept in slipping into all aspects of society and I imagine it wouldn't be hard for them to slip into a company as large as yours."

"Then we shall take a tour of our operations here," Mallory chuckled. "Come, let me show you around."

Mallory got out of his seat, his bodyguard immediately coming to his shoulder. Sirius and Mary shared a look and got up to follow Mallory down the statue lined hallway again. This operation wasn't going exactly to plan, but at least now Mallory was out of his office. Catherine, Tonks, and Jack would now have the opening they needed to slip in and find anything that might be useful. They were wary of getting in the elevator again, but Mallory chuckled again at their expressions.

"No need to worry about our detection music this time," he said.

"How did your company figure something like that out?" Mary asked as the elevator began its descent. No music came from the speaker above this time.

"To answer that, a little history," Mallory said. Behind him, his bodyguard Yvonne made the slightest of eye rolls that her employer missed. Sirius guessed she had heard this account many times by now. "I had just turned twelve, having finished a very struggling year at Hogwarts. My father, the perfect pureblood that he was, couldn't stand to find out why I was doing so poorly in school. A trip to St. Mungo's later, and it was determined I would never have more magic than a first year student, essentially I would be little better than a Squib. You can imagine the scandal, I assume, Auror Black?"

Sirius could imagine it all too well. He knew what those who thought like his parents were like, well at least his mother. Orion Black was a much more complex man than he ever portrayed to the public.

"To avoid my bringing down the family name, he quietly withdrew me from Hogwarts, citing he wanted to have me privately tutored," Mallory continued. The elevator dinged as they reached a floor and the doors opened. The businessman held the door open himself so the two Aurors could step off before he passed them and escorted them through a long hallway studded with offices.

"This is the part where your family disowned you?" Sirius asked.

"Everyone but my younger brother," Mallory confirmed with a nod. "Stripped me of the family name, wrote me out of the inheritance… everything. I was packed off to a private boarding school in Austria and forced to stay there."

"What was your family name?" Mary asked as they passed two junior executives of the company.

"Selwyn," Mallory answered. "But I can never use that name again. I chose to use the last name Mallory once I started to attend boarding school."

"Chose… or forced?" Sirius asked, earning a thin smile from the businessman.

"With a father like mine, it's a narrow line," Mallory said. "So I arrived at boarding school, surrounded by Muggles… and I found out I was good at something. Better than good, exceptional even. Once I started to study what the Muggles learned, I figured out I had a keen mind for economics and engineering. Numbers became my life, inventing a passion. I grew to love the sciences, to love the world of finances. My teachers sung my praises, encouraging me to even greater levels of success. They called me decades ahead of my time. And that is what I built my company on."

He gestured for the two Aurors to come up to a large set of windows that overlooked a lab on the next floor down. Down below, they watched as a man wearing some sort of mechanical frame on his arms and legs fought against some other men without it. Next to two women wearing lab coats, another man was lifting various weights. The women appeared to be recording his results on their clipboards.

"Advanced human enhancing exo-frame," Mallory explained. "They allow a normal human being to have the strength and speed of four. Early testing stages of the system, but it shows promise. An old design I sketched out at boarding school. Come along."

He gestured for them to continue following them. Sirius and Mary quickly came to the conclusion that the headquarters was not some typical office building. It was one-part office, yes, but it was clearly a lab and most likely a fortress as well if need be.

"This one is what built the company into the juggernaut it is today," Mallory explained, pointing down through another set of windows towards a large assembly room where teams of people were assembling some sort of electronic device. "We live in the age when electronics have begun to seep into everyday life for the world at large, excepting the wizarding world. I realized, as I graduated boarding school and needed to form a direction for my life, that I could capitalize early… and the result is that."

"What is it?" Sirius asked.

"A microprocessor, but one that is still years ahead of anything made by Apple Inc. or Microsoft," Mallory answered. "I realized what I wanted to do with my life, and it was to show my father I could be far more successful than anything he had ever accomplished with the family export-import business. I built Prime Technologies from the ground up off the back of that microprocessor. It's used in many of the newest electronics that many governments and organizations use."

That said, Mallory led them down the hallway and continued to show them several inventions and other products the company made, all the while explaining each one and how it factored into his company. To anyone else who would be listening, it would all be fascinating as a story worthy of a documentary. To Sirius though, he was growing to respect and dislike the businessman more and more. Everything presented just showed Sirius how powerful the company and this man were, and that just made him suspect more and more that Ian Mallory was in deep with the Blades of Strife. Even the people Mallory introduced them to didn't do anything to settle Sirius's suspicions. He just hoped that Jack, Catherine, and Tonks had found something by now.

"It still doesn't explain how you were able to make that music thing in the elevator," Mary said as Mallory led them back around. Yvonne the bodyguard hadn't said a word, just standing by her employer's elbow at all times. It was unsettling.

"Ah yes, we come to the more modern part of this tale," Mallory said. "All while building Prime Technologies into a company known the world over, I never forgot my 'roots,' so to speak. While I was one of the wealthiest men on the planet, I realized I was excluding a significant portion of the population. I decided I wanted to breach the wall that exists between the two worlds here, to better the lives of both Muggle and wizarding kind."

"And the fact it meant you would be showing up your father meant nothing?" Sirius asked, a skeptical look on his face. Mallory turned and regarded the Auror with an amused expression. Behind the CEO, several scientists were mixing liquids together in test-tubes.

"No… I am human enough to admit that it was on my mind," Mallory answered, running a hand through his dark hair with an almost sheepish grin. "I was also aware that, as a Squib, I would hit a brick wall if I tried to move in on my own, even if I was a pureblood. Luckily enough, my brother was willing to help. He had just been named as a special advisor to Minister Bagnold, and he could open doors I could never normally reach. In turn, I supplied him with funds to secretly begin purchasing our father's company out from under him through various hedge funds. Wizards and witches, oddly enough, do not have a good grasp of Muggle economic principles and maneuverings. You can imagine the shock on my father's face when I walked into his office with my brother and proclaimed he was fired."

"And after that you absorbed the company into your own," Mary concluded.

"Indeed, Auror Macdonald," Mallory answered. "Prime Technologies is a bridge between the two worlds now. We employ hundreds of witches and wizards now, spanning all blood types, and we have operations in over 70 countries that are a mix of Muggles and wizarding folk and they specialize in creating hybrids of technology and magic."

"That's a serious breach of the International Statute of Secrecy," Sirius pointed out.

"I view it as eliminating an archaic barrier leftover from a fearful time," Mallory countered. "By all means, arrest me for breaching a statute that is over 300 hundred years old and has held back wizarding society from progressing. But, it won't get you anywhere and you know that."

Sirius begrudgingly did know that. They could arrest Mallory now for breaching the statute but it would only be a fine, if even that. If his family had such pull with the Ministry, and no incidents had been reported, then there was nothing Sirius could actually do to bring this man in… however much he wanted to.

"I must say it was a pleasure meeting you both," Mallory said, gesturing with his hand. Two security guards appeared from further down the corridor, coming up to flank Mallory and his female bodyguard. "And… I must thank you for bringing to my attention the serious breach of security of my company's overseas operations. I can assure you that they will be addressed. Now, these gentlemen will see you out."

With that, Mallory turned and headed back the hallway with Yvonne, while the two bodyguards came up to stand face to face with Sirius and Mary. The two Aurors didn't resist as the two guards escorted them out of the building, going through the twisting hallways and office spaces until they reached the front lobby.

"'ope you 'eard whatever ya needed ta 'ear," the desk guard called out, chuckling at the silent glares he earned from both Aurors.

"I don't like him at all," Sirius said as they left the building. "Mallory and his company are too clean."

"You think he was lying?" Mary asked. "That he is actually involved with them?"

"Involved… or leading them," Sirius said. "A massive technologies company that has ties to most every government and multi-national group on the planet, both Muggle and magic? He's in the perfect position to control all of it. I wish we could have hit them for the Statute though, would have given us a better chance to look through his records."

"Well let's see what Catherine and the others found," Mary said, taking his hand. "Maybe they will find some incident that got covered up or something else useful." Sirius nodded and they both Apparated away.

Arriving back at Grimmauld Place, they were immediately met by a rather excited Tonks who quickly pulled them inside to the drawing room without explanation. Her hair had gone bubblegum pink again, likely in rebellion against its plainer colors from earlier in the day, and the tips were changing colors in her excitement.

"Judging by Tonks being like this, you found something?" Sirius asked, waving a hand at his cousin.

"More than something," Catherine said, hefting a large binder onto the drawing room table. "This is Ian Mallory's entire itinerary."

"You stole his itinerary?" Mary asked incredulously. "He's going to notice it's gone and know we're to blame for it."

"We didn't steal it," Jack answered, grinning smugly. He was sitting in an armchair with his feet up on the coffee table, thumbs tucked cockily under the suspenders of his outfit. "I know a nifty little spell that made an exact copy of the entire book, information included. Something I picked up working with-"

"We don't need to hear the sordid details," Remus said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he interrupted Jack's tale. "Is there any information we can act on?"

"Mallory is scheduled to meet with a G.C. and a L.M. at a resort in northern Scotland owned by the company," Catherine said. "Some place called Paradise of Magic?"

"Ohhhh I know the place," Jess said excitedly, earning looks from the other members of the team. Her excess energy seemed to come from not being truly needed on this mission. She rolled her eyes at the others' expressions. "The Daily Prophet named it one of the premier privately owned magic spas in all of Britain. It takes months to get an appointment."

"If it's a wizarding resort… then I think we can guess who the L.M. is," Shane said. "Only one wizard I know of that would go to such an expensive location with those initials."

"Lucius Malfoy," Sirius said darkly, looking at Mary.

"Seems like you were right, dear," she said. "We're going to need to work some magic ourselves if we want to find out what this meeting is about."

"Definitely…" Sirius muttered. He glanced out of the sitting room as footsteps sounded in the hall- heavy, weary footsteps, the kind a doomed man would make on the way to the gallows. Recent events that had been forgotten in the rush of the mission came back to face his emotions with a vengeance. Sirius sighed. "Speaking of working magic," he said glumly, mumbling into his false mustache.

Everyone in the room seemed to collectively deflate. "Don't worry, Padfoot," Remus said with a weak smile. "It'll be over before you –or Harry– knows it. Then Harry will be safely off to Hogwarts and you can take out all your frustrations on Mallory."

"Your boy is stronger than you know, Sirius," Tonks added. "This time tomorrow we'll be celebrating."

The others nodded encouragingly, but Jack just smirked. "Besides," he added with a wink, chuckling, "I wouldn't fancy Miss Weasley's hexes on any of even the Wizengamot if they were to expel the object of her affections."

"Jaaaack," Sirius groaned. The others laughed.

Harry jolted awake, hands scrambling for his glasses. A nervous panic was in his chest, panic that he had overslept and missed the hearing that would decide his future at Hogwarts. His hands finally closed around his glasses, and, placing them on his face, the knot in his gut eased as he saw it was six in the morning. He lay immobile for a few moments, just staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He contemplated trying to get a little more sleep, but he knew that now that he was awake, he wouldn't be able to. Instead, his thoughts drifted to the hearing… as it was one of the only two things that had been occupying his troubled feelings the last two weeks.

At first, he had just wanted to be alone, but one rather heated discussion with Ginny later, he had realized that isolating himself from the people he cared for would just make him more anxious about the hearing in the long run. So, he had tried to keep his mind off of the looming terror, either by helping with the room renovations, or training in Grimmauld Place's basement, or just relaxing with his friends and girlfriend, or even focusing on his fifteenth birthday… but he hadn't been able to shake the looming prospect that he might not be going back to Hogwarts. Amelia had promised, when she had arrived for the last Order meeting, that she would hear him fairly. She was the appointed official who would be presiding over the hearing, after all. He had gotten the distinct impression that the square-jawed witch was none too pleased by a seemingly random dementor attack, and Harry was sure she was going to be very persistent in finding out where those dementors came from. Unfortunately, Harry had the sneaking suspicion that something was going to happen.

Unable to bear not doing anything, he leapt out of bed. Mrs. Weasley must have been in before turning in herself the previous night, as a freshly laundered button up was folded on his chair along with a pair of dress pants. The matching blazer jacket was draped across the back. Harry ran a hand along the jacket sleeve, a small nervous smile on his face. The Weasley matriarch, after that whole incident with the Pensieve and the dementor attack, had eased up on keeping the children uninformed of the events going on in the shadow war against the Death Eaters.

He crept his way out of his room, not wanting to disturb anyone while he got himself ready for the hearing later. That nervous knot in his stomach didn't go away, even with the hot water and steam of a shower and it didn't go away even as he finished dressing and headed downstairs to the kitchen. He had expected the kitchen to be empty, considering it was still rather early for anyone to be up, but apparently he was mistaken. He could hear soft voices on the other side of the door. Pushing it open, he saw Tonks, Sirius, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Mary, and Remus gathered at the table almost as if they had been waiting for him. All of them were already dressed except the Weasley matriarch, who was still wearing her nightgown.

"A quick breakfast," she said upon seeing Harry, and she hurried over to the fire.

"Mooorning, Harry," Tonks yawned, her hair shifting colors as she did so. "Sleep all right?"

"Yeah, slept fine," Harry muttered, sitting down across from his godfather.

"I've b-b-been up all bloody night," she continued, her hair shifting colors again as she yawned a second time.

"Anything you want in particular, Harry?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Just toast, thanks," Harry answered quietly.

"So what were you saying about Dawlish?" Remus asked Mary as Mrs. Weasley started bustling about the kitchen.

"We need to be more careful," Mary replied, offering a reassuring small smile to Harry. "He was asking Kingsley some very leading questions. Good thing that Kingsley saw it as a veiled attempt to get some dirt on him."

"Dawlish is useless when it comes to interrogations," Sirius scoffed, accepting some coffee from Mrs. Weasley as she placed a plate of toast in front of Harry. "I remember in Auror training how he bumbled the interrogation courses because he was too blatant about what he wanted. Had me and James in stiches."

Harry felt vaguely relieved that he was not required to participate in the conversation as he nibbled on the corner of his toast. It was like chewing carpet, and it was clear to everyone how nervous he was. He didn't want to be expelled after all.

"I'm going to have to tell Dumbledore to bugger off about guard duty tonight," Tonks said, yawning again. Her head had been dangerously getting closer to the jam, and now there was a small spot on her nose that had turned purple. "I'm just too bloody tired."

"I'll cover for you, Tonks, I have a report I need to finish anyways," Mr. Weasley replied, shrugging on a Muggle-style jacket.

"How are you feeling?" Sirius asked Harry, concern on his face as the conversation drifted around them.

"I couldn't really explain it," Harry answered, shrugging.

"It's be over soon, pup," Sirius said. "In a few hours' time, you'll be cleared and we will all be laughing at Fudge's idiocy. The hearing is in Amelia's office, so you'll be coming into work with myself, Arthur, and Mary. Remus and Tonks have the day off, the lucky pair." His comment earned him a lighthearted smack from Mary on the back of his head.

"Whatever you do, don't lose your temper," Mary said, addressing Harry while Sirius just grinned. "Amelia is fair and the law is on your side, but Fudge is going to have someone sitting in on the questioning most likely. They will use whatever they can against you if they get the chance."

Something very cold trickled down the back of Harry's neck, making him jump in his seat in surprise. He realized that Mrs. Weasley was trying to attack his unkempt hair with a wet comb, but to no avail.

"Doesn't it ever lie flat?" she asked, a hint of motherly frustration slipping in.

"Never," Harry answered.

"James's hair was the exact same way," Sirius chuckled. "Remember that time Lily tried to take him to that formal Muggle dinner?"

"She wanted to hack off his hair after it," Remus laughed. "Apparently, some Muggle couple called his appearance disgraceful and he had some fun with it. Oh, Lily could never take him there again."

"I think we should be off," Mr. Weasley said, checking his watch. "We'll be a bit early, but that can never hurt your chances. Amelia is a stickler for punctuality, and it will be better than sitting here for a while longer."

"Okay," Harry said, dropping his barely touched toast back onto the plate and getting to his feet. He felt unsteady, the anxiety worsening.

"You'll be fine," Tonks said, patting Harry's arm.

"Fingers crossed," Mrs. Weasley said, hugging him.

"Right… well see you later then…" Harry said, following Mr. Weasley, Mary, and Sirius out of the kitchen and along the hall. Sirius unbolted the door and they stepped outside to the pale dawn, the air thick with humidity and the grass slick with dew.

"You don't usually walk to work, do you?" Harry asked as they set off briskly to the nearest Underground station, almost certain he had seen the adult wizards and witch Apparating from a designated spot in Grimmauld Place's small front yard.

"Normally we just Apparate," Mr. Weasley answered, "but it was decided last night that it might be better for you if you arrived in a thoroughly non-magic fashion. I've never been on the Underground, should be fun."

While he was trying to be jovial, Harry could see that Mr. Weasley's hand didn't leave his jacket pocket. He had to be gripping his wand, and Sirius and Mary also were discreetly clenching their wands in their pockets. The run-down streets were almost deserted, and that just seemed to heighten the caution of the three adults. They didn't relax at all, not until they had reached the small Underground station near Grimmauld Place. It was already filled with Muggle commuters talking about this and that. Mr. Weasley, even with the gravity of the day, couldn't help but get excited about the prospect of Muggle technology.

"Trains… underground, ingenious these Muggles," Mr. Weasley chuckled, regarding the ticket machines. He tried to emulate, to Harry, Mary, and Sirius's amusement, what the Muggles were doing by pressing his hand against the sensor to open the ticket gates. Harry showed him that he needed to insert his ticket, then press his hand against the sensor.

"Ahhh," Mr. Weasley said, slipping through the gate while the others followed him. They took a train to the center of London, while Harry started to wonder how exactly the Ministry could hide themselves if they were in the center of London. They got off at a station where plenty of Muggles in business wear were streaming on and off the trains, went up the escalator (Mr. Weasley riding up a touch stiffly as he wasn't used to such a thing), and emerged out into the middle of a bustling sidewalk.

"This way," Sirius said, leading the group now, since Mr. Weasley looked a little confused after the first stretch of their journey. "Never used the visitor's entrance before, Arthur?"

"Nope, and it's all different when you see everything from a Muggle perspective," Mr. Weasley answered sheepishly. "Have you used it?"

"Once, when I had to visit the Ministry with my father," Sirius replied, leading them down a street that had several shabby-looking offices and a pub. A red phone booth stood next to the pump, an overflowing dumpster next to it. Harry had been expecting something a little grander when it came to the entrance to the center of wizarding government for all of Britain.

"Here we are," Sirius said brightly, pulling open the door to the phone booth and fishing around in his pocket for some coins. "Going to be a tight fit unfortunately."

Harry and the rest followed Sirius into the booth and quickly found he was right. It was a very tight fit. Harry was jammed between the phone apparatus box and being uncomfortably aware of how curvy Mary was as she was pressed up against his back. Mr. Weasley was pressed against the window, his elbow digging painfully into Sirius's ribs as he tried to reach the phone.

"This looks out of order," Harry said.

"Nonsense, pup," Sirius replied, finally getting ahold of the phone and inserting the money. "Six, two, four, four, two," he muttered. Harry wasn't sure if it was to remind himself or so that the others would know for future reference.

The dial whirred smoothly as Sirius input the number, and then Harry was surprised by a cool female voice issuing from the phone.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."

"Sirius Black, Senior Auror in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, escorting Harry Potter to attend a disciplinary hearing," Sirius stated clearly.

"Thank you," the cool female voice said. "Visitor, please affix the badge to the front of your robes and present your wand at the security desk in the Atrium for registration. The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day."

As the voice finished and Harry took the silver badge that appeared in the change depository, the whole booth shuddered. The booth itself was sinking into the ground, and Harry watched apprehensively as the pavement rose above them and darkness swallowed them all up. There was only a dull grinding as the booth continued its descent into the earth. All of the occupants in the tight space stood in heavy silence.

The darkness only lasted a minute when a sliver of light appeared at the bottom of the booth and quickly grew. The door of the telephone box sprang open and the adult wizards and witch stepped out of it, followed by Harry, whose mouth had fallen open. They were standing at one end of a very long and splendid hall with a highly polished, dark wood floor. The peacock blue ceiling was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols that kept moving and changing like some enormous heavenly noticeboard. The walls on each side were paneled in shiny dark wood as well and had many gilded fireplaces set into them. Every few seconds a witch or wizard would emerge from one of the left-hand fireplaces with a soft whoosh. On the right-hand side, short queues were forming before each fireplace, waiting to depart.

Halfway down the hall was a fountain. A group of golden statues, larger than life-size, stood in the middle of a circular pool. Tallest of them all was a noble-looking wizard with his wand pointing straight up in the air. Grouped around him were a beautiful witch, a centaur, a goblin and a house-elf. The last three were all locking adoringly up at the witch and wizard. Glittering jets of water were flying from the ends of their wands, the point of the centaur's bow, the tip of the goblin's hat, and each of the house-elf's ears, so that the tinkling hiss of falling water was added to the pops and cracks of Apparation and the clatter of footsteps as hundreds of witches and wizards, most of whom were wearing glum, early-morning looks, strode towards a set of golden gates at the far end of the hall

"This way," said Mr. Weasley. They joined the throng, wending their way between the Ministry workers, some of whom were carrying teetering piles of parchment, others battered briefcases; still others were reading the Daily Prophet while they walked. As they passed the fountain, Harry saw silver Sickles and bronze Knuts glinting up at him from the bottom of the pool. A small smudged sign beside it read: ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF MAGICAL BRETHREN WILL BE GIVEN TO ST MUNGO'S HOSPITAL FOR MAGICAL MALADIES AND INJURIES.

"Don't be fooled by appearances, that statue is a lie," Mary muttered as they walked around it. "The Ministry collects part of the coins in the fountain as a tax, but that's a secret."

"When did that start?" Harry asked.

"When Fudge took over," Mr. Weasley answered. They all stepped out of the stream of Ministry workers heading for the golden-gated lifts. A desk stood to the left of the lifts, a sign saying SECURITY hanging above it. A badly shaven wizard in peacock-blue robes the same color as the ceiling looked up as they approached, grunting as he put down his Daily Prophet.

"Escorting a visitor," Sirius said, gesturing at Harry.

"Step over here," the security guard instructed Harry, his tone suggesting infinite boredom.

Harry walked closer to him and the wizard held up a long golden rod, passing it up and down his body. The man grunted for Harry's wand and he quickly dug it out of his pockets. The security wizard dropped it onto a brass scale which promptly began to vibrate and glow with a soft violet light. A slip of parchment sped out of a slit in the bottom, and the security tore it off to read it.

"Eleven inches, phoenix feather core. Four years of use. Last spell used was… the Patronus Charm? Is that correct?"

"Yes," Harry answered, that nervous feeling in his stomach returning.

"Alright, I keep this," the guard said, slamming the parchment onto a spike on his desk with similar pieces of parchment. He thrust Harry's wand back into his hands, and, with another grunt, went back to reading his paper.

"Eric Stannis," Sirius said as the group left the desk and rejoined the stream of foot traffic heading for the lifts. "He tried to hack it as an Auror, washed out of the academy. Ended up being assigned security when his father pulled some strings. Lord Stannis is a widely influential Wizengamot member, usually votes along with Lucius Malfoy and his ilk."

"Was he a Death Eater?" Harry asked.

"Nothing we could ever tie to him, but he is definitely a pureblood supremacist," Mary said.

Jostled slightly by the crowd, Harry followed Mr. Weasley, who was already moving through the gates into the smaller hall beyond, where at least twenty lifts stood behind wrought golden grilles. Harry, Sirius, Mary, and Mr. Weasley joined the crowd around one of them. Nearby stood a big bearded wizard holding a large cardboard box which was emitting rasping noises.

"All right, Arthur?" said the wizard, nodding at Mr. Weasley.

"What've you got there, Bob?' asked Mr. Weasley, looking at the box.

"We're not sure," said the wizard seriously. 'We thought it was a bog-standard chicken until it started breathing fire. Looks like a serious breach of the Ban on Experimental Breeding to me. Just chalk it up as another strange creature we've confiscated in the last year."

With a great jangling and clattering a lift descended in front of them; the golden grille slid back and Harry and his guardians stepped into the lift with the rest of the crowd. Harry found himself jammed against the back wall. Several witches and wizards were looking at him curiously; he stared at his feet to avoid catching anyone's eye, flattening his fringe as he did so. The grilles slid shut with a crash and the lift ascended slowly, chains rattling, while the same cool female voice Harry had heard in the telephone box rang out again.

"Level Seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club and Ludicrous Patents Office." The lift doors opened. Harry glimpsed an untidy-looking corridor, with various posters of Quidditch teams tacked lopsidedly on the walls. One of the wizards in the lift, who was carrying an armful of broomsticks, extricated himself with difficulty and disappeared down the corridor. The doors closed, the lift juddered upwards again, and the woman's voice announced:

"Level Six, Department of Magical Transportation, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office and Apparation Test Centre." Once again the lift doors opened and four or five witches and wizards got out; at the same time, several paper airplanes swooped into the lift. Harry stared up at them as they flapped idly around above his head; they were a pale violet color and he could see Ministry of Magic stamped along the edge of their wings.

"Just inter-departmental memos,' Sirius muttered to him, answering the unasked question. "Ministry used to use owls, mess and smell were unbelievable."

"Not to mention the distraction to be had when someone sends his memos one word at a time to pester his superiors," Mary added in a whisper. She glared playfully at her partner, who held his hands up in mock surrender.

As much as he knew the jokes were to ease his nerves, Harry could only manage a strained grimace in place of a smile. He barely managed to catch a look between the two Aurors as well, as if his godfather were saying 'Well, we tried," silently.

As they clattered upwards again the memos flapped around the lamp swaying from the lift's ceiling. "Level Five, Department of International Magical Co-operation, incorporating the International Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law, and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats." When the doors opened, two of the memos zoomed out with a few more of the witches and wizards, but several more memos zoomed in, so that the light from the lamp flickered and flashed overhead as they darted around it.

"Level Four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, and Pest Advisory Bureau."

"S'cuse me," said the wizard carrying the fire-breathing chicken and he left the lift pursued by a little flock of mems. The doors clanged shut yet again.

"Level Three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, including the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, Obliviator Headquarters, and Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee." Everybody left the lift on this floor except Mr. Weasley, Harry, Sirius, Mary, and a witch who was reading an extremely long piece of parchment that was trailing on the floor. The remaining memos continued to soar around the lamp as the lift juddered upwards again, then the doors opened and the voice made its announcement.

"Level Two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services."

"This is us, Harry," said Mr. Weasley, and they followed the witch out of the lift into a corridor lined with doors.

"Sirius," said Harry, as they passed a window through which sunlight was streaming, "aren't we still underground?"

"Yes, we are," said Mr. Weasley, before Sirius could swallow his own nerves to answer. "Those are enchanted windows. Magical Maintenance decide what weather we'll get every day. We had two months of hurricanes last time they were angling for a pay raise…"

The small group turned the corner, walking through a pair of oak doors into an area cluttered with cubicles. Conversation and laughter rose from the cubicles, heads poking out to yell something to someone else. Memos, some of them flashing bright red, were diving in and out. A lopsided sign on the nearest cubicle read "Auror Headquarters."

Harry looked surreptitiously through the doorways as they passed. The Aurors had covered their cubicle walls with everything from pictures of wanted wizards and photographs of their families, to posters of their favorite Quidditch teams and articles from the Daily Prophet. A scarlet-robed man with a ponytail longer than Bill's was sitting with his boots up on his desk, dictating a report to his quill. A little further along, a witch with a patch over one eye was talking with Kingsley Shacklebolt over their cubicle wall. Harry and the others at Grimmauld Place had been warned not to look familiar with anyone they shouldn't know, so Harry didn't say anything to Kingsley as the group neared his workspace.

"Morning," Kingsley said in his deep baritone. "Arthur, I need a quick word about a case."

"Yes of course," Mr. Weasley said, giving Harry an encouraging look. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze before adding, "Everything will be fine, and I'm sure Molly is going to want to celebrate."

Harry smiled back weakly at Mr. Weasley before the Weasley patriarch stepped into Kingsley's cubicle. Curiously, the sound from their conversation was completely muted, though Harry hadn't seen or heard a spell cast.

"Privacy Screens," Mary prompted at seeing Harry's perplexed look. "If we're discussing sensitive details, we can mute all sound in our little space."

"This way," Sirius said, guiding Harry with an arm around his godson's shoulder. They moved through increasingly larger cubicles until they reached the space that was designated for Sirius. Along the walls were various maps and news clippings that were, Harry guessed, about the criminal organization that Sirius, Mary, Remus, and Tonks were investigating. On Sirius's desk, there were three pictures. One was of a younger Mary, smiling as a river gurgled past behind her. One was of Harry, and he remembered when Sirius had taken it. It had been when they had first started cleaning up Grimmauld Place, when they had been moving the new furniture inside. The last picture was one Harry himself had on his desk back at Number 12. His mum and dad, dancing in a courtyard as leaves fell around them from the autumn touched trees around them. Looking up, Harry noted that there was a second desk in Sirius's for Mary and that he had clear sight of a series of offices on the far wall.

"Who's are those?" Harry asked, pointing at the offices.

"The biggest one with smaller ante office is Amelia Bones'" Sirius explained. "The next one over is for Rufus Scrimgeour, he's the head of the Auror Office. He's been working a deep cover operation since last year. Gawain Robards is his right hand man and occupies the office next door. Sort of the special Auror in charge."

"And this spot is for the Senior Aurors?" Harry asked, more for confirmation than anything else.

"Got it in one pup," Sirius said, sitting down in his chair and propping his feet up on his desk while Mary gave him an amused smile. "The other Senior Aurors are Dawlish, Johns, and Savage. Although, I think Kingsley is about to get promoted."

"We're not exactly at our prime," Mary said. "Between everyone here and those that are retired, there are maybe 200 Aurors in total. Our numbers took a big hit during the last war against Voldemort, and with peace being established, Bagnold and Fudge didn't see the need to rebuild. Plus, the training washes out a lot of applicants. It's tough work to be an Auror."

"Most end up as Hit-Wizards," Sirius continued. "Sort of like normal police or military troops if Aurors are on par with special forces… or spies. Take a seat pup, we've got plenty of time until your hearing. Amelia isn't even in yet."

"Which is odd…" Mary stated thoughtfully as Harry took the chair across from his godfather. "I don't even see the light on in Serenity's office and she is always here precisely at seven."

"Even Serenity has to have an off day," Sirius chuckled. Harry had never met the woman, but he had heard Sirius talk about the assistant to Madame Bones and her very strict and professional manner. Harry could still feel his nerves eating away at his stomach, even as Sirius and Mary tried to assuage those nerves by answering his question about how the Aurors functioned. Still, time kept ticking closer and closer to the time for the hearing and Harry had run out of questions for the moment.

"Do you know what Madame Bones will be asking me?" Harry asked.

"A few simple questions about why you felt the need to cast those spells," Sirius said. Harry couldn't help but notice that his godfather had a slight frown now as he stood up to check over the cubicle wall to see if the lights were on in Amelia's office. Harry looked over too and saw clearly that they weren't. Something was definitely wrong. To underscore that feeling, a bright purple memo flew towards them, alternating between flashes of red and yellow light. The memo flew right into Sirius's outstretched hand and Harry watched his godfather's face turn from curiosity to extreme alarm.

"Sirius… what is it?" Harry asked tepidly.

"Padfoot?" Mary prodded.

'That sneaky little bastard,' Sirius thought, lowering the memo in his hand. His fist clenched, the memo crumpling as he tossed it aside. They were a step behind the game, but at least Serenity had sent a warning.

"We have to go, pup," he exclaimed. "They moved the time of your hearing to be in ten minutes down in the courtrooms. It's a full Wizengamot session."

Sirius watched Harry's expression grow further alarmed, but they didn't have time for any of that. If Harry was late to a Wizengamot session… that wouldn't do at all. With a quick kiss to Mary, Sirius took off with Harry right on his heels as they dodged through the Auror office. Heads poked out of cubicles as the two dashed past, Mr. Weasley and Kingsley among them, but Sirius didn't pay them any mind. He was now feeling the same nervousness that Harry had been, and he couldn't imagine the panic gripping his godson now.

Skidding to a halt, he slammed his palm against the lift's down button.

"Hurry up!" he growled.

The lift clattered into view, several more Department of Magical Law Enforcement members on it and talking without a care in the world. As soon as it reached the floor and the grate rattled open, Sirius shouldered his way through the small entourage of people emerging, including a sharp elbow into Dawlish's ribs. Harry followed behind quickly, moving through the gap Sirius had made.

Sirius jabbed the button for Level Nine, cursing under his breath for every time the lift stopped to let people on and off. His foot was tapping furiously, almost dog-like, while he kept a reassuring hand on his godson's shoulder.

"The Atrium," the female voice announced, the grate sliding open.

"Merlin's left…" Sirius exclaimed as a sallow faced man walked onto the lift. "Bode."

"Black," Bode said, surveying Sirius and Harry with an unblinking stare. Sirius wanted to say something because he was sure Bode's unnatural stare was going to be making Harry even more anxious. Bloody Unspeakables.

"How intriguing…" Bode said, but did not elaborate as the cool female voice announced they had arrived on Level Nine, the Department of Mysteries.

"Quickly, Harry," Sirius said, guiding his godson by the shoulders out of the lift and past Bode. Throwing a glance back over his shoulder, Sirius gave a glare at the still staring member of the Department of Mysteries. Racing down the bare black marble walls, Sirius had to give Harry a small shove as they passed the corridor that held the black door into the department proper.

"No time to appreciate the scenery," he said, seizing Harry by the arm now. The clock was ticking and they were almost out of time. Sirius dragged Harry to the left and down a flight of stairs towards the Wizengamot courts. Pulling Harry along a corridor that wouldn't look out of place at the dungeons at Hogwarts, Sirius reached the spot where two Aurors in official robes were standing guard at Courtroom Ten.

"Lord Sirius Black, bringing Harry Potter before the Wizengamot for an official hearing," Sirius said, catching his breath.

"You're very nearly late, Black," one Auror said, opening the door for both Harry and Sirius to step inside. In an undertone, the Auror added, "The Director stalled them for as long as she could without showing favoritism."

"Good, we needed the time apparently," Sirius mumbled back. Bracing himself, he led Harry into the room made of dark stone. He could hear Harry's gasp as he looked around at the robed figures mumbling on the benches, but they all fell silent as the door slammed shut behind them.

A cold voice called out from the center bench, echoing around the Wizengamot chamber.

"You're late."

"My fault," Sirius said, looking up at the irritated image of Cornelius Fudge. "We arrived at the Ministry early and didn't get notice that the time and meeting place had changed."

"That is not the Wizengamot's fault," Fudge stated icily. "An owl was sent to your place of residence this morning. Lord Black, please take your seat."

Sirius gave Harry one more squeeze of the shoulder before ascending up to his spot among the wizards and witches of the court. Sirius gave a slightly smug grin as Harry took his seat on the Chair of Guilt and the chains didn't even budge. Next to him, Augusta Longbottom chuckled at the unpleasant look on Fudge's face when the chains didn't bind Harry.

"Very well," Fudge said. "The accused finally being present, I now call this session of the Wizengamot to order. Are we ready?"

"Yes, sir," an eager male voice said, causing Sirius to glance over to where Percy Weasley was sitting next to Serenity. At least he was playing the role of an eager aide to the Minister well, even if his enthusiasm earned him a silent annoyed look from the woman next to him.

"Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August into offenses committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at…" the announcer called from his spot, a puzzled expression appearing on his face as he couldn't recall or remember what the address for the accused was. Sirius gave another smug grin as he took some pride that the Fidelius Charm was working perfectly.

Clearing his throat, the announcer continued, "Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister of Magic and temporary Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot; Amelia Susan Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court scribes, Percy Ignatus Weasley and Serenity Kyrstal Shine-"

"And Witness for the defense, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," a quiet but commanding voice said. Sirius felt a little of the anxiety he had picked up since the memo arrived leave his chest as he watched the aged headmaster sweep into the chamber. He especially enjoyed the sour look on both Fudge's and Umbridge's faces.

"Ah… yes… you, er, got the message that the… time and place of the, er, hearing had changed, then?" Fudge asked, stuttering.

"I must have missed it," Dumbledore answered cheerfully. "However, due to a lucky mistake, I arrived at the Ministry three hours early. The charges?"

Fudge cleared his throat, centering himself, to Sirius's eye, from the unexpected arrival of Dumbledore. Clearly, changing the time had been as much for getting Harry in more trouble as it was for avoiding Dumbledore coming to Harry's defense.

"Check, next move to Fudge," Harold Greengrass muttered from behind Sirius, earning a snigger from the Marauder. Fudge grabbed a piece of parchment that Percy handed him, setting a pair of reading glasses in place. All, he was sure, carefully done to allow Fudge time to figure out the next move.

"The charges against the accused are as follows," Fudge read, speaking slowly and clearly so it made everything just that much more important. "That he did knowingly, deliberately, and in full awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a previous warning from the Ministry of Magic on a similar charge, produced several Patronus Charms and a spell of unknown origin in a Muggle inhabited area, in the presence of a Muggle. This constitutes a violation of paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, and also under section thirteen of the International Statute of Secrecy."

When read aloud like that, it certainly sounded impressive Sirius thought. He held back a chuckle at the thought that James would probably be grinning smugly.

"You are Harry James Potter of…" Fudge trailed off, frowning as he couldn't say the address for Harry's residence. Umbridge gave a glance at the Minister, and Fudge covered up his inability to say the address by taking a sip of water.

"Yes," Harry answered.

"Did you not receive an official warning from the Improper Use of Magic Office for using illegal magic three years ago?"

"Yes, but…"

"And yet you conjured multiple Patronuses and performed spells of an unknown nature on the night of the twentieth of July?" Fudge asked.

"Yes, but…" Harry said, trying to once again answer the question. Fudge spoke over him again.

"Knowing that you are not permitted to use magic outside of school while under the age of seventeen and you were in an area full of Muggles?"

"Yes, but…"

"And you were fully aware that you were in close proximity to a Muggle?"

"Yes, but it was only because…" Harry started to explain; Sirius could see his temper rising, but Fudge cut him off again.

"Seems like a clear cut case to me," Fudge said. "I recommend that…"

And then Amelia spoke up, drowning out Fudge.

"You produced fully corporeal Patronuses?" she asked, appraising Harry from behind her monocle. Sirius knew, even if Harry didn't, that Amelia Bones was actually quite impressed.

"Yes," Harry answered. "It's a stag."

"How long have you been able to do so?" she further asked, leaning forward in her seat slightly.

"Since my third year," Harry replied, earning a few mumbles from the assembled group of wizards and witches. There were a few frowns among those on the benches though.

"Truly impressive," Amelia said.

"It's not a question of how impressive the magic is," Fudge stated icily. "In fact, I believe the more impressive the magic, the worse it is. Not to mention the use of spells that are unknown to the Ministry, which clearly shows a lack of regard to the security of our world and a lack of regard for the rules that govern such things."

Those who had been frowning started to nod in agreement with Fudge's words, one wizard with a heavy brow even glaring with nasty triumph down at Harry. Sirius shot a concealed glare at the man, but he couldn't help but notice the smug expression Lucius Malfoy's face.

"I did it because of the dementors," Harry shouted, something provoking his godson to finally speak out and defend himself better.

"Dementors? In the center of London?" Amelia asked, feigning ignorance to the situation. Sirius knew that Amelia had been informed relatively quickly of the event. "What are you on about, Mr. Potter?"

"I mean I had to fight off a pack of dementors that were determined to Kiss me, and did Kiss two Muggles, one of which I witnessed!" Harry clarified. His words caused the court to fall silent; some faces around Sirius wore shocked expression while others had looks of disbelief.

"Ah, yes," Fudge said, an unpleasant smile on his face. He was looking around at various allies of his on the court, sharing what looked like a private joke. "I thought we might hear something along these lines. The perfect cover story, as it were. Muggles can't see dementors, after all. I can assure the members of the Wizengamot that there are no rogue groups of dementors terrorizing London. All are accounted for by Warden Roberts at Azkaban. Although, how convenient that there are no witnesses to corroborate your rather tall tale."

"I'm not lying," Harry insisted. "I was chased through alleys and into a park and…"

"Enough," Fudge said, holding his hand up. "While I'm sure I'm interrupting a rather well-rehearsed story…"

Sirius, at this point, couldn't stop himself from standing up in defense of his godson.

"I hate to interject, but I can confirm that there was indeed a pack of dementors in London that night," he said, looking around at different members of the court before his eyes met Fudge's. "I had to send out my own Patronus or else… my godson would not be here before us today."

"Hem hem," a falsely airy voice said, and Sirius had to just close his eyes and look up at the ceiling.

"I hate to be the one to say so, but I believe you might be just a smidge biased, Lord Black," Umbridge said. "You are the accused's guardian, and it is entirely understandable that you would want to see him escape the consequences of these severe actions. How could the court possibly believe any testimony you might present is not… tainted in some way by your desire to protect Mr. Potter?"

"Dolores does raise an excellent point," Fudge said, addressing Sirius now. "Before we can continue this hearing in a fair and unbiased manner, I would ask that Lord Black excuse himself from the courtroom for the duration of the proceedings."

Sirius stood in silence for a long moment, gobsmacked by this turn of events. Umbridge had to have been waiting for him to speak out, to come to his godson's defense, before she struck. Bloody little toad had him, and he knew it. With a scowl at the pudgy Senior Undersecretary, Sirius walked down the benches and past Harry and Dumbledore. The headmaster was still acting serene, and Sirius began to think that the headmaster had an ace up his sleeve. Sirius gave his godson a wink to try and reassure him that this move had been foreseen, even if it hadn't been, and then headed towards the exit.

On the other side, the two Auror guards were still standing at attention but a new arrival was sitting against the wall across from them. It took Sirius a moment to realize it was the girl from the park from the night of the attack. Dumbledore did have a trick hidden up his sleeve after all.

"What did you do, Black?" one of the Aurors asked.

"Stood up for my godson and Dolores hit me with a bias," Sirius grumbled. "Fudge used it as an excuse to dismiss me for the rest of the hearing."

"Bad luck there, Black," the other gruffly said. "Now, I don't mean to order you around, but please refrain from speaking to us while a session of the Court is ongoing."

"Fine, fine," Sirius said, going over to lean against the same wall as the girl, Lilythe, from before. "You alright, girl?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said, but she didn't look up at the Marauder. She seemed intent on staring a hole through the stone floor, her hands wringing in her lap. She gave the impression she didn't really want to be here, but it showed some courage that she had agreed to come and tell the court what happened. Sirius had to wonder if Dumbledore made her some sort of assurance about what might happen once she was inside. Seeing that the girl was not interested in a conversation, Sirius gave a dramatic sigh and pulled a small pipe from within his jacket's inner pocket.

He needed something to distract himself with, and he had always found this worked best in the past. Placing the pipe to his lips, he gave a small puff on the end and a few miniscule bubbles emerged from the end. Frowning, he tapped the bubble pipe against his leg and then gave it another puff. Much larger multi-colored bubbles frothed out of the end, floating in the air. The two Auror guards tried to keep their features placid as Sirius blew out more bubbles that floated in the air around them, but the one on the left couldn't stop a small quirk of his lips. The young girl was now staring transfixed at a bubble the size of her head, her hand reaching out to hold it.

"I can't believe you still have that old thing," Remus said with a tense chuckle as he arrived outside the courtroom. "Mary sent a message back to headquarters about what happened. I came as quickly as I could, but I see it was too late to stop you from doing something reckless."

"Why Moony, the fact that you are accusing me of doing something reckless behooves me," Sirius said feigning incredulity. "I merely spoke out in support of my godson, and was dismissed from the court for bias." The door to the chamber suddenly opened, interrupting their conversation, and Serenity exited. She made no indication that she acknowledged the multi-colored bubbles in the corridor.

"Professor Dumbledore has asked for you, Miss Ashecroft," she said, looking down at the girl on the floor. Nervously, Lilythe got to her feet and followed Amelia's assistant back inside the courtroom. The Auror guards closed the door behind them, resuming their sentinel while Sirius and Remus were left to their own devices. Remus conjured the two of them some chairs and Sirius went back to puffing on his bubble pipe.

A thick silence fell, only interrupted by Sirius exhaling more bubbles occasionally. He was staring at the door, his apprehension growing by the minute as the proceedings continued. His foot started thumping on the floor again, earning a glance from Remus who had himself just been staring off into the distance. More intricate shapes and designs started to waft out of the pipe as Sirius kept puffing on it, trying to temper down his nervousness for his godson. Even if they expelled him, Sirius would do everything in his power to make sure Harry did not have to even entertain the remote notion of going back to the Dursleys.

The minutes kept on ticking by, and even Remus was starting to show some signs of nervous as he kept coughing quietly or checking his pocket watch. Sirius was of half a mind to storm back inside, protocol or no, when his ears perked up. The sounds of multiple people getting up and moving… the hearing was over. He quickly stowed his pipe away while Remus banished all the bubbles… except one.

This particular bubble happened to pop right in the Minister's face as he stormed out of the courtroom.

"What the devil was that?" Fudge exclaimed, leaping backward and knocking his bowler hat off his head. Sirius and Remus had to determinedly not look at each other to keep from laughing.

"Not sure Minister, came floating from down the hall," the gruff Auror guard said. The Minister scowled in the general direction of the Department of Mysteries before leaving with Lucius Malfoy, Umbridge, Crouch, and Percy Weasley following close behind him. The gruff Auror gave a slight nod to Sirius before he and his companion departed with the court adjourned. Their faces finally twitched toward smiles behind the Minister's back.

"Where are they?" Sirius grumbled, straining to look over the crowd exiting the court to see his godson and Dumbledore.

"Dumbledore held Harry back for a few moments, wanted to ask him something," Harold Greengrass whispered as he passed. Sirius nodded gratefully at the man, and then stood to attention as Amelia walked out with Serenity close behind her.

"Your godson is quite impressive," she said. "I look forward to hearing more about what he hopes to do in the future."

"He's growing into a fine young wizard," Sirius replied, grinning.

"Perhaps I should stop by Grimmauld Place more often. I would be very interested to see his progress sometime," Amelia added before walking away. Sirius thought he heard Serenity mutter something along the same lines but he didn't make any attempt to ask about it as Dumbledore finally appeared with the two children.

"…and someone will be along tonight with your Hogwarts letter, Harry," Dumbledore was saying. "We wanted to be sure we could defeat this attack against you before sending them to your place of residence."

"I understand professor, although Hermione might not," Harry laughed. "Thank you, Lilythe."

"You're welcome," she muttered, still not making eye contact. "I guess I'll see you around Hogwarts."

"Well?" Sirius asked, dodging around the young girl as she hurried away.

Harry broke into a big grin as he saw his godfather, and with pure relief, said, "Cleared of all charges. They even tried to stick me with the Hover Charm from second year, but Dumbledore called Dobby to testify."

"Brilliant," Sirius exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulders and ruffling his hair. "I knew they couldn't do anything! I just knew it!"

"Sure he knew," Remus chuckled.

"Yes, well I must be off," Dumbledore said, a twinkle in his eye. "I have some urgent business that requires my attention and I would hate to be late for it. Ryan found the most delectable café in London that serves a toffee-flavored drink."

"Thank you, professor," Harry said, laughing both at this "urgent business" and out of relief. "I don't think Fudge would have let me said anything to defend myself if I had been by myself."

"No thanks are necessary, Harry," Dumbledore chuckled. "I merely reminded him of the law as it is written. I shall see you again on the first of September." With that said, the old headmaster left with a swish of his robes and a merry stride down the corridor.

"You should get back home, Harry," Sirius said, giving his godson a one-armed hug. "You'll have to tell Mary, Arthur, and I about everything when we get home eh?"

"No problem," Harry replied, a grin matching Sirius's on his face. Everything seemed so much lighter now, so much clearer now. He had been cleared of all the charges the Minister had used against him and, best of all, he was going back to Hogwarts. Harry and the two Marauders left the corridor, mounting the stairs to take them up to Level Nine. The silent atmosphere of the entrance to the Department of Mysteries couldn't even take away from Harry's mood, although he couldn't help looking at the simple black door and wonder what was going on beyond it.

The trip back to Grimmauld Place didn't seem nearly as long to Harry. Leaving Sirius at the Atrium, he and Remus had left the Ministry through the main entrance and that had left Harry wondering why the Ministry employees would ever consent to getting flushed down a toilet. Once they were out of the abandoned bathroom, Remus had taken him by Side-Along Apparation back to the house. Pushing the door open, Harry was met by several expectant and worried faces.

"Well?" Ginny asked tentatively.

"Cleared… of all charges," Harry said, a huge grin forming on his face. Ginny launched herself into a hug, placing a hard kiss on Harry's lips while the others exclaimed their joy at the news.

"I knew it!" Ron yelled, punching the air. "Once Hermione did some digging on that old law, I just knew you would be fine mate."

"They didn't have a case against you," Hermione agreed.

"I think this calls for a little extra something for dinner tonight," Mrs. Weasley said while the twins started a low chant and war dance.

"He got off, he got off, he got off," they chanted, and they were joined quickly by Ron and Ginny once she extracted herself from Harry's arms. Hermione and Harry just gave amused looks at the four Weasley children as they started to chant louder and louder, pounding the floor.

"Dumbledore said our letters would be coming tonight," Harry managed to say to her over the chanting Weasleys.

"Oh good, I had been wondering when they would come," Hermione exclaimed happily.

"He got off, he got off, he got off."

"Be quiet, you three," Mrs. Weasley scolded, but to no avail. "Well once we have the lists, I'll be sure to go pick up everything from Diagon Alley. I'll just need your keys of course, dears."

"I should go see how Tonks is doing," Remus said, slipping upstairs as the chant got louder. Harry chuckled, as he knew Tonks could get rather irritable if she was woken up too early after her long night. Her coming down the stairs morphed into a younger looking McGonagall had been a sight to see. As a group, everyone else moved into the kitchen so Harry could explain what happened at the hearing. The twins and Ginny continued their chant of 'He got off' while Ron and Hermione set themselves on either side of Harry at the table.

With the hearing out of the way, the mood in Grimmauld Place seemed warmer in comparison to the last two weeks. The entire day was spent cleaning and laughing, especially at Fred and George going over the top with their chant and waking Tonks. She had come downstairs, wand in hand, and promptly hexed the two so their ear hair kept growing and growing until it was dragging on the floor. She had promised worse if they woke her up again, and she had gone back upstairs while the rest of the inhabitants of Grimmauld Place roared with laughter as the twins compared whose hair was longer. Finally it was agreed that they were, once more, identical, and they let Mrs. Weasley reverse the hex.

Once Mr. Weasley, Sirius, and Mary got home around dinner time, with Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody stopping by, Harry had recounted to them how Dumbledore had called Lilythe into the chamber and her testimony had turned the hearing on its ear. Fudge had tried to brush it off, but Amelia Bones had said it sounded exactly like a dementor attack, and she believed that something had occurred that threatened Harry's and Lilythe's lives along with those Muggles. Dumbledore had hinted that maybe the dementors had received the orders to attack from Voldemort, but Fudge had flat out refused to believe him. So, Dumbledore had simply said he was sure the Ministry would be launching an inquiry into why so many dementors had strayed from Azkaban, and Umbridge had bristled at that.

"Yes, I suspect she would," Sirius chuckled, helping Mrs. Weasley and Kreacher set the table for the rather large dinner she had prepared. "She's very loyal to Fudge and the Ministry… well the Ministry she wants to see be a reality."

"Well Madam Bones assured him that she would be investigating it and would be meeting with Warden Roberts about the matter," Harry continued. "Fudge tried to get the hearing back to me by bringing up the other charges, the Hover Charm from second year and accidently blowing up Aunt Marge, but Dumbledore had answers for those as well."

"How close was the vote?" Mary asked, leaning across the table in anticipation.

"More than half," Harry said. "Even Mr. Greengrass voted to clear me, even though Lucius Malfoy voted otherwise. Fudge had no options left."

"I don't think Fudge will let this victory against him go unpunished," Mr. Weasley replied quietly. "Rumor has it that he appointed the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and I'm sure it will be someone quite loyal to him."

"Kids, do let us know who they got to teach the position," Sirius asked, chuckling again as he sat down with a glass of wine. "I feel we should propose a toast! To Harry getting out of another scrape with the Ministry!"

"Here, here!" everyone said, taking a drink from their goblets or glasses.

"Oh good, I didn't miss dinner," a female voice exclaimed. Everyone turned as one to the new figure in the kitchen doorway.

"Professor Babbling, what are you doing here?" Hermione asked as the Ancient Runes professor walked into the kitchen. She looked like she had just come from some dig site, dressed in her khakis and hair done up in a long ponytail. She even still had her satchel slung around her shoulder.

"Hoping to catch some of Molly's wonderful cooking, and Dumbledore asked me to deliver these," Babbling said, rummaging around in her satchel and pulling out several envelopes. She handed one to each of the children while Mrs. Weasley got a place and plate made up for the professor.

"Your dig is going well?" Remus asked.

"We just moved to a new site," Babbling said, nodding gratefully at Mrs. Weasley. "Had to inconvenience a few Muggles who wanted to loiter around Stonehenge, but it couldn't be helped. My research is at a critical stage currently."

The adults continued to ask Professor Babbling about her project while the children opened their letters from Hogwarts. Harry's contained two pieces of parchment, the usual reminder of when term started and the booklist. He wasn't concerned about getting this year's Rune book, as Hermione had already said she would happily loan it to him as long as she got it back in the same condition. He made a mental note to only use it when necessary, and very, very carefully, so that it did not come to any accidental harm. He knew the only thing Hermione loved more than her books was likely Crookshanks.

"Three new ones," he said, reading from his list. "The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5, by Miranda Goshawk, Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard, and Advanced Dueling Methods by Leonard Hearnssen."

"We got Slinkhard too," Fred said, leaning in from his spot at the table.

"Slinkhard is incredibly dry," Tonks said with an eye-roll, cutting into their conversation. "Had to read a lecture series by him in the Auror Academy. Worst two weeks of my life."

"That's great to hear," Harry replied sarcastically before glancing over at Hermione. "Hermione? Are you okay?"

"I… I…" she said, unable to say anything; her hands were shaking as she held her envelope. There was an odd bulge still inside it, and whatever it was held her attention completely. Ginny reached over and plucked the envelope from Hermione's hands, upending it so whatever was inside would fall on the table. With a dull thud, a badge with the gold Gryffindor lion emblazoned on crimson background with a imposed P over it hit the table.

"Congratulations, prefect!" Ginny giggled.

"Well that wasn't unexpected," Remus chuckled. "Congrats Hermione."

"Indeed," Babbling said, looking up from a bite of her supper and smiling kindly at the still disbelieving Hermione. "Minerva said it was a clear cut case who she wanted to be her fifth year female prefect. Not so much her male one. Apparently, your year is just full of troublemakers and louts."

The Runes professor said that all good-naturedly, earning chuckles around the table as Harry blushed and Ron looked down at his plate. It was true, out of the three of them, Hermione was clearly the prefect material one. He had to wonder out of the other three fifth year boys who got the prefect badge though.

"Oh that brings me to something else I wanted to ask you specifically, Hermione," Babbling said, snapping her fingers as the thought came to her. "My last teaching assistant graduated last term and I find myself in need of a new one. I wanted to ask if you would want the position and maybe help me on my dig tomorrow?"

Hermione's eyes grew wide and she nodded so quickly her bushy curls bounced around her head. "I think another toast is in order!" Mr. Weasley declared, raising his goblet in the air. "To the new Gryffindor prefect!"

"To Hermione!" everyone yelled, raising their glasses and cups.

"Minerva and Albus must have a good idea that you can withstand most major jinxes," Moody growled from his seat as he stowed his hip flask away. "Authority figures always attract trouble."

Hermione blushed, but she couldn't stop herself from beaming around as the shock wore off and her happiness set in. Those assembled at Grimmauld Place continued their excellent meal, swapping stories on who had made prefect in their day and who hadn't. Harry chuckled along as Sirius laughed at the idea of him and James being prefects as fifth years, with Tonks mentioning she had lacked the ability to behave herself. Moody went on to tell a story about one night he was on patrol and had to stop two Slytherin seventh years, Antonin Dolohov and Geoff Travers, bullying a Hufflepuff first year. It had been that moment when he decided he wanted to follow in the family footsteps of law enforcement and he had later gone on to arrest both those Slytherins during the First Wizarding War.

As the evening wore down, and Mrs. Weasley started to clear away the dessert plates, Professor Babbling got up and thanked her profusely. "Thank you so much for the meal, Molly," she said. "With all the interns and other archaeologists, I didn't get much of chance to have a decent meal during the summer."

"Oh it was no problem, Bathsheda," Mrs. Weasley said.

"Hermione, I'll be along to collect you tomorrow morning," the Runes professor said, smiling at the girl. "Just have your wand and your wits about you. Harry, Ginny… I'll see you in class come term."

Later that night, Harry collapsed onto his bed, suddenly exhausted. Between getting off at his court hearing, the antics of the other teenagers earlier in the day, the excitement of getting their letters, and Mrs. Weasley's cooking, sleep couldn't come soon enough.