Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to J.K. Rowling and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Hello, everyone! Hope you all are doing well. Not much to say about today's chapter, just that I hope you like it! ;) Next chapter will be posted next Wednesday. So, until then,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Chronicles of Mabon~

~Harry Potter & the Secret of Life~

~Chapter 15: Colloquies~

Wednesday, 6 September 1994
Hogwarts, Scotland, Great Britain

"Ah, Madam Bones, Mr. Potter, a moment, if you will."

Harry blinked, before turning to look at Professor Dumbledore with a frown on his face. After he, his future wives, and their families had all agreed that Léan Finnegan and Katie Bell would be his second and third wives, there had not been much else left to discuss. Thus, after figuring out the dates that he would marry the two girls – those dates being November 26th and December 31st – the headmaster had stepped in and concluded the meeting, causing everyone to get up and start to leave.

Everyone except Harry and Amelia Bones, that is.

At Dumbledore's request, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement pursed her lips, but said nothing as she settled back into her seat. Her brother, Albert Bones, gave his younger sister a concerned look, but when she nodded stiffly at him, he grabbed his wife's hand and his daughter's shoulder before walking them out of the room, just like everyone else. Harry watched them go, but said nothing, not even when Susan Bones turned around and looked at him for a moment with her wide, greyish-blue eyes.

"What do you want, Albus?" Amelia Bones asked, her voice just as stiff as her posture, when everyone else had finally left the room.

"Oh, nothing much," the headmaster replied. "Just a few spare minutes of your time, Amelia, if you're up to it, because the three of us have something important to discuss."

The witch raised an eyebrow in response. "You mean, something more important than comforting my niece about all of this? Or my aurors' reports on the past few days?" she retorted.

Dumbledore's lips twitched. "Perhaps," he said.

Amelia Bones let out a sigh. "Fine, fine," she said. "What is it?"

Dumbledore leaned forward in his seat. "Do you remember Sirius Black's escape from this castle at the end of the last school year?" he asked.

The witch snorted. "Of course I do," she replied. "How couldn't I? It was the traitor's second grand escape in almost a year."

"Yes, I dare say it was," Dumbledore agreed. "However, Mr. Black was not working alone during this escape. He had help, you see. Help that was only given after the true story about what happened to the Potters was discovered."

"'True story'?" Amelia Bones asked as her eyebrows furrowed. "Albus, what on earth are you talking about?"

Dumbledore waved his hand towards Harry, signifying that the headmaster wanted him to speak. Nervously, Harry wet his lips. This was the moment that Professor Dumbledore had told him about, the moment when he could potentially be able to get Amelia Bones to start the process of making his godfather a free man. "Madam Bones," he said softly, causing the witch in question to turn to look at him with a deep frown, "I – err – I met Sirius Black shortly before his second escape, as I'm sure you already know. And he...well, he told me things that sounded impossible. Things like how he wasn't really the...the Secret Keeper for my parents when they died."

Madam Bones snorted. "Of course he did," she said. She looked like she was about to say something more after that but, when Dumbledore held up a hand, she sighed and gestured for Harry to continue speaking.

"He said that Peter Pettigrew was," Harry continued. "And that Peter Pettigrew didn't actually die the day that he supposedly did...that, when Sirius finally cornered him in London, he shouted out a bunch of false things before he killed all of those muggles and cut off his finger, before he disappeared."

"'Disappeared'?" Amelia Bones repeated. "That doesn't make sense, Mr. Potter. If he disapparated, or used a portkey, or even a broom, we would have his magical signature, meaning that we would know that he didn't die."

Harry shook his head. "He didn't do any of those things, though," he said. "I – Madam Bones, Peter Pettigrew was an unregistered animagus, as were my father and Sirius. They all become animagi in their fifth year, so that they could – well, so that they could help Remus Lupin, because he's a werewolf, as I'm also sure that you know. And Peter Pettigrew's animagus form was a rat, which is also why Sirius escaped Azkaban when he did, because..."

"Because of this," Dumbledore interrupted him as he pulled an old newspaper from out of one of his robes' many pockets.

Harry easily recognized the newspaper as the edition that had announced the Weasleys had won a lottery at the Ministry of Magic and had gone to Egypt in order to see Bill, who worked there. The newspaper was in pretty good condition for almost being a year old, although all of the moving pictures in it had stopped moving, a sign that the charms on them had all previously worn off.

Amelia Bones frowned upon seeing it, though. Obviously, she didn't know why Dumbledore was showing it to her. However, when she saw the rat formerly known as Scabbers on Ron's shoulder, her eyes widened and she quickly took out a pair of reading glasses from her robes. "The rat's missing a toe..." she breathed. "The same toe that..."

"Peter Pettigrew lost, during his supposed fight with Sirius Black?" Professor Dumbledore finished for her. When she dazedly nodded, he said, "Quite. When Sirius Black was still in our custody at the end of the last school year, Mr. Potter here, along with his friends Ms. Granger and Mr. Weasley, told our Minister, Severus Snape, and myself this story. None of us believed them. However, when Remus Lupin came to me to announce his resignation from his post as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor a few days later, he saw this newspaper on my desk, and he told me that he recognized this rat as the same rat that Peter Pettigrew turned into in his animagus form."

"Would he be willing to testify to that?" Amelia Bones asked sharply.

Dumbledore nodded. "He would."

The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement took in a shaky breath. "Most of this is purely circumstantial evidence, Albus," she said. "And you know that that means trying to even convince the Minister, let alone the entire Wizengamot, of revisiting this case would be a nearly impossible battle."

"Ah, but that is not mentioning the fact that Mr. Black did not receive a trial after he was arrested," Dumbledore said.

Amelia Bones's eyes widened. "What?" she cried.

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, I had a similar reaction when I went to look at the records for information about his trial, following my conversation with Remus Lupin," he said. "Especially when I realized that, as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I should have realized that such a travesty had taken place and done my best to correct it. But, alas, as I'm sure you know, the time immediately following the war was a much different time than the one we are living in now...especially where Minister Bagnold and Barty Crouch were concerned..."

Madam Bones nodded solemnly. "That they were," she said, before she sighed. "I'll have to bring up all of this with the Minister...maybe if I paint it in the light of him getting the justice that he deserves and carefully leaving out the fact that Sirius had help with his second escape..." here, she eyed Harry, obviously having realized that he was one of the people who had helped his godfather escape that night, "...I can get him to at least give Sirius a trial. But he's going to have to turn himself in, Albus. And he's going to have to get himself registered as an animagus, regardless of his innocence."

Dumbledore inclined his head. "I figured as much," he said. "And I'm sure that, should this information be provided in The Daily Prophet, that he will be more than willing to do both of those things."

Amelia Bones looked at the headmaster sharply then, as if she somehow already knew that Dumbledore knew where Sirius was. After a moment, though, she let out another sigh. "That won't be the only thing that he finds out in The Daily Prophet, I'm sure," she said. "Rita Skeeter knows that something is amiss going on here right now, and even if you charmed her magical signature away from here and charmed the students' post not to reveal anything until we're already, it's only a matter of time until she and everyone else finds out about what took place last Friday."

Dumbledore nodded in agreement.

"Mr. Potter," the witch then said, and Harry found himself blinking and turning to look at her, his eyes wide. "I admit, I was more than a little concerned about you when I was first told that all of this happened. However, that being said, you truly impressed both myself and most of the other adults in this room – including Castor Greengrass, which is truly saying a lot." Here, her lips quirked, causing Harry to think that she and the father of Daphne and Astoria were possibly rather close friends. "And you have impressed me even further by presenting me with this information. So, I will do my best to give your godfather a trial, not just in the pursuit of a justice, but also as a gift to both you and my niece."

Harry did his best to give the witch a smile. "Th – thank you, Madam Bones," he said.

The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement gave him a smile of her own in return. "No, thank you, Mr. Potter. Truly."

Hours after the meeting with his "betrothed" and their families, as well as the meeting between him, Professor Dumbledore, and Madam Amelia Bones, Harry found himself standing nervously in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady.

It had been, as he now realized, five days since he had really talked to any of his classmates, the glares and whispers that they had thrown at him earlier in the hallway not counting. And while those five days were small in comparison to the summer break that they had followed, they also felt as if they had actually been a lifetime in length. So many things had changed since then, so many things were now irrevocably different, and Harry found himself fearing the response that he would get from his fellow Gryffindors if he were to walk into the common room right then, right now. Fearing what they would say, what they would do, like he was suddenly back in his second year all over again...

"Well, are you going to say the password or not?" the Fat Lady suddenly asked him, causing him to blink and look up at her.

"What?" he asked.

The Fat Lady huffed in response. "I don't got all day, you know," she said. "Especially not for trivial matters such as this. So, are you going to say the password or not?"

Harry frowned. Trivial? He didn't really think that discovering his parents weren't really as good as everyone said they were was trivial, nor was finding out that he was "betrothed" to eighteen different girls. Nevertheless, he knew better than to try to argue with the portrait. So, with a deep, shaky breath, he said, "Balderdash."

The Fat Lady huffed again. "Finally," she said as her portrait swung to the side.

With legs that felt like gelatin, Harry walked through the hole that was behind her portrait and into the Gryffindor common room. It looked just like it had the three previous years of his Hogwarts education, and there were several students in the room, sitting around in the chairs and chatting, having what looked to be a good time.

But, of course, as soon as they noticed him, everybody went quiet, their eyes going wide and their faces turning pale. One of the first years, a girl with mousy brown hair, even dropped the book that she was reading as her mouth opened in shock, and one of her friends whimpered before she suddenly jumped out of her seat and ran up the stairs leading to the girls' dorms.

Great, Harry thought with a grimace. Yet again, I'm a pariah for something that I didn't even do...

Harry shifted uncomfortably for a moment, desperately wishing that everyone would just stop looking at him, before he let out a sigh and moved to walk up to his dorm. He pointedly ignored how everyone's eyes trailed after him, as well as the fact that no one who was particularly close to him – the students in his year, his bonded, the Weasley twins – was in the common room, because he didn't want to think about what exactly that latter thought meant.

Walking up the stairs to his dorm was like walking up a mountain at an extremely high altitude with lead shoes. In fact, by the time that he reached the landing that his dorm room was on, Harry felt exhausted, as if the weight of the world was weighing on his shoulders, and he wanted to do nothing more than sleep, even if he knew that he was probably hours away from attaining such a thing.

With a sigh, Harry opened the door to his dorm room and walked in.

Seamus, Dean, Neville, and Ron were all inside, as he had expected. They were all sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, looking as if in they were deep discussion about something, but upon hearing the sound of the door opening they all turned to look at him with big, wide – even fearful – eyes.

"Err...h – hi Harry," Neville said. Harry couldn't help but notice that he was the first one to speak, which was quite an uncommon thing for him to do, as usually Ron and/or Seamus had to have the first word in absolutely everything.

"Hi, Neville," Harry greeted the other boy tiredly. "Hi Ron, Dean, Seamus."

"Hello," Dean replied with a strained smile.

"Hey, mate," Ron said.

Seamus didn't say anything at all.

For several long, tense moments, nobody spoke. Harry wordlessly walked over to his bed and promptly collapsed on it, before sighing at how soft it felt. His bed at the Dursleys wasn't – hadn't – been comfortable in the slightest, after all, and the beds in the Hospital Wing weren't much better. So it was nice to collapse onto something soft after a long, stressful day...

...Stressful three days, really.

"S – so..." Dean eventually said, his voice cutting into the tense silence like a dull blade. "Ron and Seamus told us you met – uh – your future in-laws today...how was it?"

Harry turned so that he could look at all of them – could look at Ron and Neville's pale faces, along with Dean's sympathetic one and the back of Seamus's head, because the Irish boy was currently looking away from him – and raised an eyebrow in response. "How do you think it was?" he asked.

Dean shrugged. "I don't know...stressful?"

Despite how terrible he was feeling, Harry couldn't help but snort. "'Stressful'," he repeated dully. "That's one way of putting it."

He didn't really know why he was feeling so angry then, at all times, but he was. Hot, boiling resentment was coursing through his body, just underneath the surface of his skin, and in the deepest pits of his stomach. Or, at least, he thought it was resentment...because, to be perfectly honest, he wasn't quite sure what it was. But, whatever it was, he knew that he felt it towards his four dorm-mates – soon-to-be-former-dorm-mates – then, even if they hadn't done anything wrong to him. Even if they had even more of a right to be angry at him, despite him having done nothing wrong, than he did to be angry at them.

Ron worriedly looked at him, his eyes full of concern. Obviously, he didn't know that Ginny was going to have to get married to him on October 29th, yet. "Wh – what did they say?" he asked.

Harry shrugged. He didn't particularly want to tell Ron about what had happened, didn't want to be the one to break the news to him that his little sister was getting married off at thirteen-years-old, instead of fifteen like he and his parents had probably expected. Nor did he want to be the one to break the news to Seamus that his half-sister was next after Ginny, because Harry could tell that the other boy was angry – maybe not at him, sure, but he was still definitely angry.

Desperate to change the subject, Harry nervously wet his lips before asking, "Uh...how far behind on schoolwork am I?"

Ron, Neville, and Dean all shared a look.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore didn't tell you?" Ron asked. When Harry shook his head, the redheaded boy said, "Harry, mate...school's been cancelled until next week. Dumbledore decided it was best for everyone or something like that, so that we – so that we could all get used to...this."

"'This'," Harry repeated.

Nervously, Ron nodded.

Harry sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Well...at least I'm not behind on schoolwork," he said, trying his best to look on the bright side of things. He needed to look on the bright side of things. Because if he didn't...

...Well, he didn't want to think about that.

Harry closed his eyes. Although he had known that he was going to have to talk to Ron and the rest of their dorm-mates eventually, after today's revelations and decisions, he hadn't really wanted to talk to them then. In fact, all he wanted to do was sleep...sleep and pretend that, at least for a while, his life could back to the relative normalcy that it had previously been.

However, apparently Ron and the rest of their dorm-mates – excluding Seamus, of course – didn't want him to sleep right then, because he heard the sound of them all nervously shifting. Then, Neville tenuously asked, "...Harry?"

Harry opened his eyes. "Yeah, Neville?" he asked.

"Ron and I..." Neville began quietly, but when Dean gave him a plain look, he hurriedly added, "and Dean...we're all here for you, you know. If you want us...to be, that is. And I know the same goes for the twins and...and Seamus too..."

Once again, the pudgy boy trailed off, but this time it was to look at Seamus hopefully. However, when the Irish boy suddenly stood up with a sigh and walked over to his bed before getting into it and closing the curtains, Neville's hopeful look turned into one of uncertainty, and he nervously turned back to look at Harry.

Not wanting the other boy to get too upset, Harry quietly said, "Err...thanks, Neville. And you, too, Ron. Dean."

And truly, if he had talked with Ron, Neville, and Dean earlier, before the meeting with his "betrothed" and their families had occurred, Harry would've been thankful for Neville's words of confidence. He knew he would've. However, all he could feel now was a tiredness that he hadn't really felt up until now, due to him being in shock about everything, and a loneliness he didn't want to feel. Because, despite having lived with the Dursleys for pretty much the fourteen years of his life, Harry had never felt as alone as he did now.

As images of Hermione's terrified face and Ginny's horrified one played in his mind, Harry got up to close the curtains around his bed. And, once he closed them, he tiredly collapsed back into the mattress, before closing his eyes and wishing that he could fall asleep as quick as he could.

Little did he know that he would be tossing and turning for most of the night.

Word Count: 3,327

Next Chapter Title: The New Normal