Chapter Thirteen
Harry went straight from his shift at the Ministry to Grimmauld Place where Moody was holding their weekly meeting. Unless the Auror had learned something on his own, Harry wasn't sure there was even a point to the meeting. He supposed there was a chance Moody or someone else had uncovered something as he had been too preoccupied with Ron's impending trial and a number of other things lately, too numerous to list. He knew that Ron and his parents had an appointment with a wizard lawyer in London and would not be present at Grimmauld Place that night. He hoped it went well because Ron was in desperate need of some good news.
When he arrived at Phoenix headquarters, Kingley, Tonks, Moody, Bill, Charlie, Mundungus, Snape and Lupin were all present.
"Where's Hermione?" He asked. He found it strange she would be late to an Order meeting or anything at all for that matter.
"She couldn't leave work," Tonks told him. "Had some sort of a breakthrough or something."
Harry frowned. He hadn't had a chance to talk with her about the incident at the hospital – probably because she was spending so much damn time at work. She was pulling fifty or sixty-hour weeks continuously that he knew she had to be burning herself out, yet she looked perfectly fine. For some reason that had him more worried then if she had been showing signs of fatigue or stress.
"Death Eater activity has slowed down completely recently," Moody began when everyone was assembled. "This makes it extremely difficult for the Aurors to track their movements or find any sort of pattern. We have no Death Eaters in custody, which means our only source of information are missions for The Order. Snape here," he said, indicating to the greasy haired Potions Master, "still has some contacts among the darker parts of the wizarding world. Tell them what you know."
"There are not many who are openly willing to betray the Dark Lord," Snape started. "It seems that he has instilled loyalty of a much greater kind in his followers this time around. But there are those who make a living out of overhearing bits of conversation and selling it to the highest bidder. From what my contact was able to gather it would seem the Dark Lord is building some kind of a weapon, but there are no other details."
"How reliable is this contact?" Tonks asked.
"These information seekers might be mercenaries but they keep themselves in business by giving accurate information," responded Snape.
"That doesn't give us much to go on, Severus," Lupin noted
"I don't see any of you presenting any relevant information," Snape said coldly.
"Enough," Moody barked. "We have a starting point at the very least. We just need to do some digging around on our own to find out as much about this weapon as possible. I will not be caught unprepared like when the Dementors attacked Azkaban, is that clear?"
There was a chorus of nods and murmurs of 'yes', as Moody seemed to be taking the incident with the Dementors to heart.
"Mundungus, I want you using every low life contact you have to find out information about this weapon. Use whatever blackmail you have on them. Everyone else, keep your eyes and ear open."
Moody's last words brought the meeting to a close, and as the group began to break up, Harry was one of the first one out of there.
"Harry, hold on," Lupin's voice called to him.
"I need to go. I want to see how things went with Ron's lawyer."
"This will only take a minute," Lupin said, taken aback by Harry's coldness towards him recently. "We should go somewhere a bit more private."
Harry gave a non-committal nod and followed him into the parlour. If this was going to be another lecture on how he needed to kiss Snape's arse and start up Occlumency again –
"I understand Ginny spent the night at your place a few nights ago – though she and Hermione put on a rather convincing show to try and make me believe otherwise."
He had been completely unprepared for Lupin's statement that he couldn't cover up his surprise or even deny it. "What's the big deal?"
Lupin's eyes widened. "You were the one who came to me, worried that you were somehow manipulating Ginny's feelings towards you. I told you the best thing you could do for her and yourself was to stay away from her until we figured out exactly what was going on. Does none of that matter to you anymore?"
"Of course it does," he snapped.
"Then what the hell are you doing?" Lupin said, sounding uncharacteristically angry. "You've stopped Occlumency and any other training to control your powers – "
"Stop it!" Harry shouted. "You're not my dad – you're not even my guardian, you can't tell me what to do or how to live my life!"
Remus looked taken aback by his outburst. "I may be none of those things, but I'm trying to look out for you, Harry," he said earnestly.
"The same way you looked out for my mum?" Harry said, his temper having snapped.
Lupin threw him a puzzled look. "What are you talking about?"
"You and her. You were in love with her."
Lupin's face paled at the accusation. "What – who told you this?"
"It doesn't matter, but it's true, isn't it? All those years you were at school together…"
"Harry, it's not as black and white as you're making it sound."
"You had an affair with her before her and my dad got married – "
"Harry, let me explain," Lupin pleaded. "The war was starting to turn bad, and Lily and James had broken up for a short time. It was a difficult time for everyone, and your mother and I, we had always been close – "
"And that makes it right?" Harry shouted at him. "You betrayed my dad. He trusted you – I trusted you!"
"I would never come between James and Lily. When we were at school together, it was painfully obvious how much they were in love with each other. I promised myself I would never wreck that. I was happy for them, I really was. But it killed me to be having these feelings, to know that I was betraying one of my best friends. Your father never found out what out happened, but I've hated myself every day since then for being weak and lonely – for betraying your father in the worst possible way."
"How many times?" Harry asked, his voice shaking with anger. "How many?"
"Harry, Lily loved James – she was never in love with me. I was trying to be a good friend and it got out of hand."
Harry felt a disgusted sickness creeping through his body. He had been so wrong about Lupin. The one person who had done everything to be there for him, to stand up for him, was nothing more than a lying bastard.
"Is that why you took the teaching job at Hogwarts? Because I was Lily Evans son and I was all you had left to remind you of her."
Lupin fervently shook his head. "Dumbledore asked me because he wanted you to have someone in your life who could tell you about your parents, who would look out for you the way the Dursley's never did. If Severus hadn't let it slip I was a werewolf I would have stayed on."
"But you've always treated me different," Harry pushed.
"My feelings – my relationship with you, has nothing to do with your mother, Harry," Lupin said in a hoarse voice.
Harry ran a shaking hand through his hair. He didn't know what to do. He had always trusted Lupin. Lupin had always been honest with him, and now it was like staring at a stranger.
Harry bolted from the room and Lupin didn't go after him. He didn't stop, not even to apologize to Tonk who he nearly knocked over in his haste to get out of the house. He didn't stop to think why Tonks looked so upset when he ran out of Grimmauld Place.
Ron didn't know how it was possible to be so bored when his entire future was riding on the middle-aged lawyer sitting in front of him and his parents, but he was. He did his best to listen attentively, but that didn't stop his mind from wandering. The lawyer, Brian Hansen would drone on for minutes at a time about one point or another and Ron didn't see how any of it was going to help with his case. For his parents, he at least feigned paying attention, until Hansen began talking about what kind of a plea he should be entering.
"If you want to get off with the lightest sentence possible, you might want to consider entering a plea of guilty," Hansen was saying to him.
His mother spoke before he could even open his mouth to object.
"Absolutely not!" She exclaimed. "You're supposed to be helping my son. What kind of a lawyer are you?"
"One who knows that without any witnesses to verify his story it's going to be a extremely difficult case to win. Especially once the prosecutor makes the jury aware of the hostile relationship between your son and Mr. Malfoy."
"I don't believe this," Mrs. Weasley said, shaking her head. "Arthur, we're leaving."
Mr. Weasley gently laid a hand on his wife's arm. "Molly, Brian has a lot of experience in these cases. We should at least listen to what he has to say."
Molly clearly disagreed with him, but conceded to her husband's request to at least hear the man out before walking out of there.
"As I was saying," Hansen continued when it became clear they were not going to walk out. "The prosecutor will find a link between the rivalry of Ron and Mr. Malfoy, and it will go to motive for what happened. Jeffrey Moore, one of the alleged attackers has already gone on record to the investigating authorities that Ron instigated things. Mr. Malfoy has confirmed his story – "
"What do you mean 'confirmed'? He's still in a coma," said Ron confused.
It was Hansen's turn to look confused. "You mean you didn't know Malfoy was awake?"
"No," said Mr. Weasley, looking just as perplexed as his wife. "No one has said anything to us."
"I suppose they're trying to keep the whole thing quiet. St. Mungo's doesn't want reporters buzzing around there looking to hear his side of the story."
"What did Malfoy say?" Ron dared to ask.
"He said he was heading in to the pub for a drink when you attacked him from behind without warning."
"That's not true," denied Ron, shaking his head.
"Whether it's true or not, Moore and Malfoy's stories corroborate. There's still the matter of the two young men found dead at the scene."
"It was self-defense," Ron said immediately.
"Even if that's the case, the opposing attorney can argue excess force. Was your life in that much danger you had to kill them?"
"Everything happened so fast. I was cornered by Malfoy and his goons and I just reacted." Ron looked anxiously at Hansen. "What are my chances of winning?"
Hansen gave it some thought before speaking to Ron and his parents. "A plea of guilty will show the judge and jury you admit and understand the wrongfulness of your actions. Your best defense would be to play on their emotions and use that to show how sorry you are. If you make it seem like your Auror training took over, then that would mean you had no control over your actions and could therefore not stop yourself. The maximum penalty would probably be ten years in Azkaban."
Ron looked over at his mother who gave a frightening gasp at this news. He swallowed and asked, "what if I plead innocent?"
"You could play the self defense card, but as I mentioned before the prosecutor could blow that out of the water by saying it was excessive force. We could get some witnesses to testify on behalf of your character, including your Auror instructor and friends, but that will only go so far. If you were convicted, the maximum sentence would be life. Ron, it's your choice."
Ron quietly contemplated his options. He couldn't plead guilty even if it was to get a lighter sentence. If he did, everyone would think him a murderer when all he had done was fight for his life. At first, he had thought he deserved to be punished for killing those two men, but they had attacked him and if there was one thing Mackenzie had taught him it was to fight as if your life depended on the outcome. "I want to plead not guilty."
Though Hansen frowned at his statement, his father looked at him proudly, and his mother gave him a small smile from behind her unleashed tears.
"As long as you understand what you're getting yourself into, I'll begin building a defense for you," said Hansen.
Ron gave a slight nod of his head, as his father stood up to shake Hansen's hand, followed by his mother.
A minute later Hansen was walking them out of the law office, promising he would be in touch within a few days to show them the case he had put together.
For now, Ron just wanted to go home and be left alone, but his mother thought they should stop by Remus's to see what they had missed at the Order meeting.
While his parents walked inside, he opted to stay behind on the front porch, telling them he would be inside in a minute.
The truth was he didn't want to have to face his parents again that night. He knew they were on his side, but it hurt to look at them and see the fear in their eyes as they began accepting the reality of his situation.
When he heard the screen door squeak open, he had to take a deep breath before speaking. He knew his mother meant well, but he couldn't handle her crowding him, especially now.
"Mum, I said I would be in – " He stopped talking when he saw it was Hermione, and not his mother who had stepped out onto the porch.
"I can go," she said, turning back towards the door.
"No, don't," he said to her.
Silently she walked over to where he was leaning against the railing. The only noise was the old floorboards creaking under her feet.
"Do you want to hear the good news?" He asked her. "I can plead guilty and only going to Azkaban for ten years, or I could plead innocent and if I'm really lucky I'll get to spend the rest of my life there."
She fixed him with a sharp look. "Ron, this isn't funny."
"You're right, it's not funny – it's fucked. I'm fucked," he said, leaning over the railing and hanging his head.
She didn't even think to reprimand him for this language. There were other things – much more important things to worry about. "Your dad said Malfoy's awake."
He nodded. "I guess that pretty much seals my fate, doesn't it?"
She shook her head. "You didn't take the easy way out, Ron. You knew your chances were better if you pleaded guilty, but you didn't."
"I guess that makes me a bit stupid, doesn't it?"
"No, it doesn't," she said, letting her hand come to rest beside his on the railing. "It means you weren't willing to sell yourself out by admitting to something you're not guilty of. Most people wouldn't do that, Ron." She couldn't tell him how proud she was of him for doing that, but she had a feeling he knew by the way he closed his hand over hers.
When Harry walked in the front door of his house, the television blaring from the den was evidence enough that someone else was there. When he walked in, there was a Weasley sitting curled up in a chair, but it wasn't Ron.
"No wonder you're so fascinated by this thing," Ginny said in awe. "There's so many different programs."
"Are you waiting for Ron?"
She nodded. "His appointment with the lawyer must be over by now," she said, the concern evident in her voice. "How was the Order meeting?"
"It was all right," he said, somewhat hesitantly.
"That's fine. But in less than a year I'll be able to join as a legal adult and not mum or any of you will be able to keep things from me."
"Trust me, Gin, it's better this way," he said darkly.
Angered by his words, and the continuous implication that she was nothing more than a child, she turned off the television and stood up. "Maybe Ron stopped by Remus's." Unfortunately, Harry was standing in the doorway blocking her path. When it was clear he had not intentions of moving she said, "get out of my way, Harry."
"Is that what you really want?" He said, a mischievous glint present in his eyes.
Before she could begin formulating an answer, his lips came crashing down onto hers. As soon as her surprise melted away, she kissed him back just as hard. His lips never leaving hers, he moved them until her back was resting against the wall. Ginny gasped in pain and pushed him away.
"Did I hurt you?" He asked her.
"I'm not sure… I felt… Did something happen tonight?"
"No," he said in a firm voice.
She looked at him closely. "You feel angry and betrayed," she stated. A second later she began to look panicked. "How come I can feel that?"
He let his hands drop from her sides, looking horrified. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice mixed with guilt. He looked up in surprise when she stroked his face.
"You can tell me," she said in a low voice.
No, he couldn't. If he did, he would risk losing control completely. What he should have done was tell her to go home – that it wasn't good for her to be around him when he was like this. He could already see she was both scared and confused by what had happened. But he didn't do the right thing – he did the incredibly selfish thing.
He pressed his lips hard against hers, pushing her back against the wall. She resisted him at first, before fisting her hands through his hair and pulling him closer. He kissed his way down her neck, while his fingers undid the buttons on her shirt.
"Ron… he could walk in," she breathed, marveling at her ability to speak.
"He won't," Harry murmured, pushing her shirt off her shoulders.
She believed him, which told her the rational part of her brain had shut off completely. But the concern that her brother would catch them quickly erased itself from her mind when Harry pressed himself full against her. She let out a moan.
She helped him remove his shirt. She could feel the erratic beating of his heart, as it matched her own erratic breathing. When she felt him reach back to unclasp her bra, she wasn't sure what she was consenting to, just that she didn't want Harry to stop…