Thank you for the reviews yesterday!
WARNING: Some disturbing scenes. On the other hand, I get to write a new viewpoint character.
The title of the chapter is based on John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Chapter Forty-Three: Greater Love Hath No BrotherConnor had known this wouldn't be easy. Who would be so simple-minded as to think this would be easy?
But he hadn't realized—because he hadn't realized how little impact his announcements must have made on his brother—that Harry would be staring at him with betrayal in his eyes as he stood up to testify.
He hesitated. Then he shook his head and went forward, working his way out between the press of bodies. Most of the people sitting with him hadn't realized who he was, and turned to stare at him in absorbed fascination as he made his way forward. Connor wrestled with the temptation to reach up and either brush his fringe over his scar or toss it aside.
A nice-looking witch in the same row he'd been sitting in gave him a smile and a nod that seemed to say It's fine just the way it is, dear. Connor smiled back at her, and walked the rest of the way around the galleries towards the steps into the main courtroom.
By that point, Harry had overcome his shock enough to protest. He was standing up, his hand extended to Connor across the intervening distance. Connor didn't turn his head aside from his brother, because no Gryffindor would do that. He just returned his gaze as calmly as he could, and kept walking.
"Connor, please," Harry whispered. His words echoed in the vast quiet that, for some reason, had decided to fall. Connor found himself irritated at the audience. They could talk now, since he hadn't reached the floor of the courtroom and Madam Bones hadn't begun the official questioning yet. Why did they have to choose now to act like they'd all eaten Fred and George's Silencing Sweets?
"Please don't do this."
He had known Harry would say that, or words like that. He'd imagined that he would be able to make some grand speech when the time came. Surely, even if no one else could get through to Harry and make him see the necessity of this, he should be able to. He was Harry's twin brother, after all.
But he found his mouth so dry and his head so filled with what had to come next that no grand speeches helped him along. He just held Harry's eyes and said, "This has to be done."
Professor Snape, who sat closer to the staircase, was giving him what Connor thought was only the second approving look he'd ever got from him.
"Please take your place in the witness's chair, Mr. Potter." Connor couldn't make out the exact tone of Madam Bones's voice—she could have been irritated, amused, angry, or weary—but he decided that he'd made a spectacle of himself long enough. He sped up until he was on the floor, and then strode across to seat himself in the witness's chair. It adjusted itself to his neck at once. Connor was glad of that, even as he fervently wiped his palms off on his trousers. This was going to be hard enough without feeling as though he were taking his OWLS already.
"You are Harry's twin brother, Mr. Potter?" Madam Bones asked him.
I'm the same age as he is, and you're addressing me by the same last name. I'd think that was pretty bloody obvious. But Connor had given himself lecture after lecture not to do anything that would mess up the trial for Harry, so he contented himself with a terse nod.
"And you grew up in Godric's Hollow with him and with your parents?"
"Yes, Madam Bones," said Connor, thinking that two nods in a row was a bit much, when everyone was craning forward along the railings to watch him. They might start thinking he was afraid to speak. Connor didn't want to give them that impression, not at all. He wanted to give them the impression that his mother was a raving lunatic who needed to be prevented from hurting Harry anymore and his father was a spineless coward who shouldn't be let out of a cell for as long as he lived, just in case he did something out of spineless cowardice to make either of their lives miserable again.
"How aware were you of the abuse during Harry's childhood?"
Connor grimaced. This was the part that wouldn't look so great. On the other hand, he'd been a child, and not the most observant of children, either. It had taken him how long to notice that Harry was the better flyer, for example? And he still hadn't taken him seriously as Quidditch competition after that, and paid the price. So of course he hadn't noticed Harry's training.
"Not aware at all," he made himself say. "Lily concealed it so well from me that I just thought Harry was bookish, and shy, and in awe of me, by nature."
"Did you never notice his various wounds from the pain curses he practiced?" Madam Bones asked, curious now. "Or that he had wandless magic?"
Connor let out a breath and wiped his hands again. "No," he had to admit. "He hid the spells, and made sure to perform the most advanced magic when he was away from me, or I was gone. I remember asking Lily a few times why Harry didn't play outdoors with me more often. She just reassured me that he liked to read, and that anyway, I didn't have to worry about it, because there would be plenty of children who wanted to play outside with the Boy-Who-Lived when I went to Hogwarts." He heard more than a few people snicker in the audience. He hoped one of them wasn't Professor Snape. Not that he liked the git, Merlin no, but he was Harry's guardian, and he knew how to teach dueling spells even if he didn't have a clue about Potions. Connor wanted to get along with him because of that. He had the feeling that Professor Snape was going to be in Harry's life for a long time.
"So your mother trained you as well?" Madam Bones sounded soft, and sorry for him now.
Connor scowled. They were not going to make this about him. That was what Lily and James had done for too long. "Not the same way she trained Harry. Never the same. She only had me practice a few charms that I could handle, that every wizarding boy handles. I saw more magic from James and his friends—"
"Friends?"
"Sirius Black and Remus Lupin." Connor was a little nervous about naming Remus. He didn't want anyone in the courtroom to remember that his godfather was a werewolf. But Madam Bones had her mind on other things, as it turned out.
"Do you think they were aware of the extent of Harry's training?"
Connor shook his head. They weren't going to touch Sirius and Remus, either. He'd argued with the Minister by letter for a long time before he managed to convince him to let him testify, and he'd become aware that the Minister didn't like werewolves much. So this wouldn't become about Remus, and Sirius was dead, and he'd died a hero no matter what anyone said, so it wouldn't be about him. "They never knew. Lily was very careful to keep it hidden."
Madam Bones's face was troubled. "It just seems extraordinary that four people in the same house could have gone ignorant of such extensive and untrammeled abuse," she murmured.
Connor shrugged, even as he felt himself flush. "I told you, I didn't see everything. And Sirius and Remus weren't there all the time. And James…" He trailed off for a moment, looking up towards the balcony where Harry sat. He knew what he wanted to say, but he wasn't sure that he wanted his brother to hear it.
"And your father?" Madam Bones prompted him gently.
Connor took a deep breath and got the bit between his teeth. He remembered what Hermione had told him when he confessed his fears of being part of the trial. Oh, there'd been lots of cryptic babble about psychological states that Connor didn't even try to follow, but Hermione made her best points in plain English, and he remembered those. It's got to be done, Connor. Harry will never be healthy if his wounds aren't healed, and this is the best way of doing that.
And there was what Ron had said, too. Think of it like this, mate. At least you're helping them find a legal solution. What the Wizengamot's going to do to 'em won't seem like anything beside what Snape will do. And the Malfoys? Ron had shuddered. Can you imagine them?
"James was an idiot," he said bluntly. "And sometimes he acted weird around Harry. I know that he saw things, sometimes, but he pretended he didn't see them. And a few times he told me to be careful around Harry, but he'd never tell me why. He was a coward. He was always a coward. I told him last year that I wouldn't let him hurt Harry, and I meant that. And then he did it when he verbally abused him after he was arrested." He turned and sought out his twin's eyes. "I'm sorry, Harry," he added. "I wanted to be there to punch his nose in after I heard about it."
Madam Bones made a small noise that Connor thought was probably a muffled chuckle. He didn't care. He'd needed to say that, and now that he'd said it, the questioning could continue.
It didn't continue, not quite yet. Before Madam Bones could say anything, Connor saw Harry's head appear over the side of the balcony railing. He waited. Harry was going to say something unfortunate.
That was all right. Connor had actually been more prepared for this than for the moment he went down the staircase to testify. It had taken him a lot of putting together of puzzle pieces—Hermione said he was a 'bricoleur,' which Connor thought meant a nicer way of saying 'slow'—to realize that that mantra the Slytherins repeated to themselves was true and, yes, Harry was an idiot sometimes.
"Connor," Harry said softly, "do you know all about Mum's history with Dumbledore?"
And that's unfortunate thing number one. I wish he would stop calling her Mum. "Yes, I do," said Connor. "You did mention something about that." And Harry had, in his conversations in the last week while he was walking about the school and muttering to himself. Connor had been part of the honor guard that trailed along on several occasions.
"Mr. Potter," said Madam Bones, and then paused for an infinitely small second, as if trying to figure out whether they would know which one she was addressing. Then she continued with greater force. "Sit down."
"Then you know that she wasn't really responsible for her own actions," Harry said earnestly. "I meant to bring that up, but I couldn't stay in my own questioning that long, and Mum doesn't think she did what she did only because of Dumbledore, so she wouldn't say it in her own defense. But you can. You know that a lot of her actions were influenced by him."
"Yes," said Connor. He waited a heartbeat, just in case Harry would go back and sit down, or Draco or Professor Snape would make him sit down. Neither happened. Connor sighed, and finished the statement. "So?"
"So she doesn't deserve to be blamed for this." Harry's hand curled around the railing. "You can make them see that. You can say that. You can still speak, and I can't."
"You're doing a good job of interrupting the trial right now." Madam Bones's voice was an odd mixture of soft tone and loud volume, as though she were trying to figure out how to get Harry to stop interrupting the trial without yelling at him and perhaps making what he'd suffered worse. "Please, Mr. Potter, sit down again."
Connor ignored the questioner. Harry had probably always been going to bring this up. He probably wouldn't understand Connor's answer, either. That was all right. The partial idiocy accounted for it.
"Dumbledore didn't take away her ability to choose," said Connor. "He never did that. No webs on her. The Wizengamot tested her for that, Harry, both right after she came in and after they found out about his spell that was influencing people. The Minister told me. So she was free-willed. She still had a choice. He didn't coerce her to do what she did."
"But it was like a web," Harry said. "And she didn't mean to do it to me for the sake of abuse, Connor. She was saving the world. You heard her. She could have made me a sacrifice, and then—"
Connor could feel himself start to scowl midway through that little speech. One of the things he'd learned in the weeks leading up to the trial was how hard it was for him, now, to listen to Harry put himself down. Everyone else around Harry seemed to understand it better than he did. Or maybe they'd just been taking care not to upset Harry as the trial came near. Whatever it was, Connor thought it was about time Harry knew the truth.
"You were actually under a web, Harry, and you broke free!" he said, loudly enough that he saw some of the people in the audience wince and lean back from the railings. "Don't you dare make excuses for her when you had a lot more odds stacked against you and climbed over all of them!"
"Misters Potter—" Madam Bones was saying, sounding upset, and then someone must have cast a Silencio on her. It was the only way Connor could have heard what Harry said next, his voice was so quiet.
"It's all right, Connor," Harry said. "Please. Please don't condemn her to death. What do you want? I'll give you anything you want."
Connor closed his eyes as a wave of pity came over him. He did manage to say, "Please go back and sit down again, Harry."
"And you won't talk about her that way anymore?"
Connor knew that Harry's eyes would be bright with hope if he looked. He knew that he would be relaxing, at the thought of the woman who'd abused him, whose womb they'd been unlucky enough to come out of, surviving, maybe even walking free.
"I didn't say that I was making a bargain with you," said Connor, quietly, and then forced himself to look up again. "I asked you to please go and sit down again. I'm going to talk about Lily, Harry, and try my best to make sure that she's locked up in Tullianum."
Harry shook his head. "I didn't know that you hated them this much," he said.
Connor had never been gladder that he wasn't Harry. He could just hate his parents. He'd tried not to, for a while, but he'd kept picking up pieces and putting them together, and after a while, he couldn't ignore the puzzle staring him in the face anymore. To forgive Lily and James was impossible, not when they'd just keep coming at Harry. And they'd said and said that they were right, they must be right, because they served the Light and they were Gryffindors. They'd said that over and over again during his childhood, even during the times when Connor asked what was wrong with Harry or why the other Hogwarts Houses let Slytherins stay in the school if they were evil or whether they were sure that he could defeat Voldemort.
And then it turned out that they couldn't live up to the ideals that Light wizards and Gryffindors should live up to. They'd lied about what they were. They were cowards, and they wanted Harry to save them, and they wanted to hide. Connor had known then that he hated them, and that he wanted to try as hard as he could to make them go away permanently, and he'd argued with the Minister until he wore him down.
At this point, not even pity for his brother would stop Connor, because he knew Harry's life would be so much better without them. He couldn't comfort his brother like Professor Snape could, or share secrets with him like Draco, or even fight beside him yet the way his allies could. But he could do this.
"Well, I do hate them," he said. Madam Bones tried to say something then, but apparently the unknown person renewed the Silencio the moment she started to speak. Connor was grateful for that. He wanted to talk, and he doubted that Madam Bones would have let him get away with saying this for long. Luckily, even the other members of the Wizengamot seemed too enchanted to interrupt. "They risked our lives when we were a year and a half old, Harry. They sent Peter to prison for their crimes, and told us he was evil all the time. They lied about Regulus. Lily trained you endlessly, and didn't even let me have a choice about whether I wanted you to protect me or not. They gave us prejudices that made you hate what you were for your first two years at Hogwarts, and me hate you for the first three. James got better for a little while, but then when everything turned around, he blamed you instead of trying to do something about it. He acted like a prat when he was tried, too. And what was their justification for everything? A prophecy they couldn't even interpret right!"
Until he said that, Connor didn't realize he was going to say it. He heard the shocked gasps around him, and then some other member of the Wizengamot said, "Mr. Potter, is this true? Your brother told us that your parents and Headmaster Dumbledore based their actions on a prophecy they sincerely believed to be true. And now you are saying they did not know the truth of it?"
Connor made some quick calculations. He knew Harry had wanted to keep the true nature of the prophecy secret, but so had Lily, which wasn't a recommendation for him. And it wasn't as though Voldemort didn't already know the truth; he'd gone after Harry first the last three years, not Connor. Connor would keep the exact wording and the changeable nature of the prophecy quiet, but he didn't see any reason not to let Harry get the credit he always should have. Fair's fair.
"My brother is the true Boy-Who-Lived," he said quietly, and watched Harry's face ripple and change as if it were a reflection in a pool of water broken by a stone. "He was the one who blocked Voldemort's Killing Curse that Halloween night. He has a lightning bolt scar because of it. My parents left us exposed to Lord Voldemort on Dumbledore's orders, so they didn't know for certain whose scar came from rubble and whose scar came from Avada Kedavra. But I've seen—we've both seen—a Pensieve memory of that night, and heard the real story from Peter Pettigrew, who was there. It was Harry. And our parents just guessed, because they were afraid of Harry and they thought his magic was Dark, so they said that I was the Boy-Who-Lived and Harry was my guardian. They were trying to shape the prophecy to fit their own ends. They made Harry into what he is because they were afraid. They're cowards. They abused my brother, and I don't want them to go free."
He ran out of breath, and sagged back against his chair. Connor glanced from Wizengamot member's face to Wizengamot member's face, and wondered what his testimony would mean. They were perfectly blank now, good political faces, and he didn't have the expertise in reading expressions that Harry did.
Madam Bones had apparently finally managed to get herself free of the Silencio. She took a deep breath and said, "Mr. Potter, I'm sure you realize that this testimony is highly irregular."
"I don't care," Connor muttered under his breath, cross. He'd said a lot of what he wanted to say already. He waited to see what questions she would ask him now.
"But I would like to clarify some points of it," Madam Bones continued. "You are sure that your parents and Albus Dumbledore did not know which of you was the Boy-Who-Lived?"
"They made a guess," said Connor angrily. "But it was in the face of the evidence. They had reasons to suspect Harry, since his magic was stronger and waving around him after the attack. I'm not powerful. They just didn't want it to be him, so they manhandled fate and said I was the Boy-Who-Lived."
"And what are the reasons they didn't want it to be him?"
Did the spell cover her ears, too? Connor folded his arms and glared up at her. "Fear," he snapped. "Their stupid idea that Harry could turn into a Dark Lord. And more fear. They always thought he was Dark, you heard Lily say that. They thought he was foul." He thought of a trick to use. It was a trick that Harry would never use, but then, Harry was too self-sacrificing. He let his voice waver and drop, and a sound of tears creep into it. "Can you imagine what it was like, to grow up in a house with parents who thought like that? And my brother can't even see that it was wrong? Do you see what they've done to him?"
This time, he saw some of the expressions change to pity. He let out a deep breath. He didn't know if he'd won, but he thought he'd come pretty close.
"Connor."
And there went Harry, again. Luckily, this time someone did tug him away from the railing and make him sit down, and Madam Bones resumed the questioning. From there, it was mostly clarification on points he'd already raised, but Madam Bones did dip her wand into the Pensieve and summon forth a few more memories.
Connor could see them for the first time. He watched as Lily told Harry that he must not expect to have time away from Connor, because his life was bound up in his brother's. He had to make sure Connor survived the War, first, and survived it innocent enough to kill Voldemort. Then his primary duty, if they both lived afterwards, was making Connor happy.
Connor shivered and scrunched up his arms. The thought of someone else living for him was really, really creepy.
I don't want someone else to live for me. And if Lily had asked me, I would have told her that.
He watched as Lily cast a spell that made Harry feel as if he were cradled, held in warm, safe, loving arms, and then paired it with one that made the touch turn cold and slimy. Harry tied it to himself with what sounded like a memory charm to Connor. Several memories like that made it clear that he'd been trained to consider any kind of touch, little by little, as something to be squirmed away from.
Connor felt his anger rising as he watched that. You didn't need to do that, even if you wanted him to protect me, he told Lily in his mind. You could just have taught him defensive magic and let him be. But no, you had to do this. You couldn't really have thought that someone would be hugging him in the middle of a battle. You just wanted to twist him more, because you hated him.
It made it worse that he recognized the day of the first memory, because of the old practice wand lying on a table next to Harry. It was their ninth birthday, and they'd both received new practice wands, so Connor had excitedly abandoned his old one to go outside and cast charms with James and Sirius. He still remembered laughing proudly when he got a charm that made colored bubbles come out of the end of his wand to work right for the first time.
And Harry had been a few hundred feet away from him all the while, learning to hate being touched.
It made Connor want to punch Lily in the nose, too.
Then came a memory of them playing a Quidditch game, one where Harry came close to catching the Snitch. But Harry had kept it concealed from everyone that he was a better flyer than Connor, so Lily had thought he was trying deliberately to show his brother up. She'd apparently taken Harry off by himself afterward, while James ruffled Connor's hair and congratulated him on the win—a win that Connor could see now, in the Pensieve, had been given to him, with Harry pulling up at the last moment.
Lily knelt down in front of Harry, her eyes bright as Connor remembered the Hungarian Horntail's fire being in the Tournament last year. "Harry," she said softly.
Harry stood with his head bowed and a look of profound misery on his face, though he didn't have much of an expression normally. He looked up at his mother's voice, though.
"Harry, Harry, Harry." Lily shook her head back and forth, once for every time she spoke his name. Connor reminded himself that it really was just a Pensieve memory, so he couldn't step in, grab his younger self's broom, and concuss Lily with it. "What were you doing?"
"Playing with Connor," Harry whispered, his voice so small and tight that Connor wondered at it. If he'd heard his brother sound like that any time during their years together as children, he would have known something was wrong. But then, a lot of the time Harry didn't talk. He just smiled and listened.
And his eyes were always fixed on me.
Connor found that even more disturbing in retrospect, since at the time he'd never suspected anything there, either. He shivered, and then leaned forward as Lily spoke again.
"You weren't just playing," said Lily. "You almost won. And that would have broken your vow, Harry. Why did you almost break your vow?" She sounded disappointed, not scolding, and Connor saw Harry wince and bow his head again. He didn't cry, though. Connor tried to remember his brother crying before he came to Hogwarts and drew a blank.
"I didn't know—I didn't mean to—"
"But that was just it, Harry," said Lily softly. "You always have to know. You always have to mean to. That's why you aren't like anyone else. It's all right if some random Seeker in Gryffindor shows up Connor. But you can't. You have to make sure that you always pay attention to what you're doing. You might get your brother killed someday if you don't pay attention. And you don't want to do that, do you?" She paused for a long moment, then said, "Or maybe you do. I don't know, Harry. Perhaps you're jealous of Connor, and you want—"
"No, no, I promise," Harry whispered, not sobbing, which just made it worse. "I promise. I've put it all away, Mum. I might get jealous, or angry, but I'll put it away. I promise." He looked up at her, and smiled slightly. "It won't happen again."
Lily kissed him on his forehead, which made Harry look positively rapturous. "That's my sweet Harry."
The image faded. Connor realized his hands were shaking, and wondered for one mad moment if Fred and George would like to help him figure out a way into Tullianum before the sentencing happened, so that they could make his mother pay with some of the twins' crueler jokes. Madam Pomfrey still hadn't managed to discover how to re-Transfigure Marietta, and Connor knew they had some tricks that made that look like a Canary Cream.
"Mr. Potter."
Connor blinked, and looked up, and realized that Madam Bones was done with the questioning. "You don't have anything else to ask me?" he asked, wishing she did. His hatred had built back up. He could say some more things. They would be mean and hurtful, and Harry probably didn't want to hear them, but they would make him feel better.
Madam Bones made a small motion with her hand that could have been exhausted. "No. The next witness for the prosecution will be Peter Pettigrew."
Connor nodded, and then went to climb back up the staircase. His legs felt heavy. He didn't feel tired, though. He just felt, increasingly, that what he'd done wasn't enough. Damn the Minister for not allowing post into Tullianum, anyway. I'm sure that Fred and George could get something through to Lily if that weren't the case.
He reached the gallery level, and passed Peter on his way down. Peter gave him the first real smile he'd ever got from him, and squeezed his shoulder. Connor straightened his spine and lifted his head. You did good, that smile said.
He made for the doors. Madam Bones had given up on locking them, since most of the witnesses weren't assumed to need the same delicate care that Sapientian had given Harry during his questioning, and it seemed the fate of this trial to be interrupted by people going in and out. Connor felt he was too angry to stay where he was.
"Connor. Connor, wait."
He turned around, not at all surprised to see Harry coming up behind him, but a bit apprehensive. He was angry, but he didn't want to vent that anger at his brother.
And Harry, judging from the look in his eye, was more than a bit vexed. At least Draco was with him, no more than a step from his right shoulder, and Snape was rising from his chair even as Peter began to speak his answers to Madam Bones's questions. They would keep Harry from plastering him to the wall with wandless magic the way that he had in third year.
Well, I bloody well hope so, at least, Connor thought uneasily.
"How could you do that?" Harry asked in a hissing whisper the moment he was close enough. Connor noted, with a distant amusement, that Harry was now trying not to disrupt the normal proceedings of the courtroom. Sometimes, Harry, you have a very misguided set of priorities. Well, no, not sometimes. It's only the idiocy that's sometimes. "How could you betray our parents like that?"
Connor narrowed his eyes. For Harry to accuse Connor of betraying him was one thing; Connor had been prepared for that, and at least it would have showed that Harry was being a little selfish for once. But Harry wasn't allowed to get away with just ignoring what Connor had said about hating their parents and feeling no loyalty towards them at all.
"I don't care about them," he said. "They're not my parents any more." It burned on the tip of his tongue to say that Harry shouldn't consider them his parents any more, either, but he'd seen what happened earlier in the year when he just reacted without thinking: Harry thinking so little of himself that he took an unknown curse and wound up lying pale and motionless in a hospital bed. Maybe that wouldn't happen here, but Connor wasn't about to risk it. Harry and hospital beds had a way of coming together. "I care about you. You're my brother. I want to protect you for once. So I did."
Harry shook his head. "I don't need protecting. Connor—"
And then he stopped and stared, because Connor had let a snort of laughter escape. He couldn't help himself. Draco had come up behind Harry and wrapped his arms around Harry's waist, watching Connor over his shoulder, so that he could see the carefully concealed amusement in the gray eyes. It was immediately replaced by worry, though, so Connor thought that Draco probably knew how fragile Harry was.
"I don't." Harry twisted fretfully in Draco's hug, reminding Connor far too much of the way he'd twisted when he was under that spell that was supposed to make him feel comfortable and good, learning to resist it. Draco didn't let go, and Harry gave up on resistance in favor of leaning forward and glaring, his hand making a sharp gesture. "And why did you tell them I was the Boy-Who-Lived?"
"Because it's true," said Connor. "Because maybe now you'll get even more protection, because people will think you're Voldemort's target, which is true. Because you deserve some credit for it, Harry."
"I don't—that's not—I don't want it."
Connor sighed. "I'm sorry." He had meant to say something about it, but not like that. "It's out there now, though, and I don't think anyone will forget it."
"Please," Harry whispered. "Please—"
"What is it, Harry?" Connor leaned nearer, never taking his eyes from Harry's, thinking irrelevantly that Lily and Harry looked completely different despite having eyes the exact same color. "If I can do it, I will."
"Will you go back, after the testimony today is over, and tell them you lied?" Harry whispered.
Connor sighed and stepped away. "I don't want to think about you asking me that, Harry," he said, and then moved off.
He heard Harry whisper behind him, "Please. I—I want you to. Please, Connor? Please? Anything you want, I promise—" And then a sharp cry as his emotions probably escaped his control again. This time, Connor hoped that Draco and Snape would get him away from the courtroom and make it so that he couldn't come back. A binding spell or a potion might not be out of place.
He just kept walking until he found a deserted patch of corridor to lean his face against, and sighed.
I didn't like doing that.
He forcibly brought visions of the twins' products to mind. There had to be some way of getting some of those past Tullianum security.
Indigena Yaxley tucked her wand back inside her sleeve. She'd cast the spell to silence Madam Bones nonverbally, and with her real wand. The Ministry officials would search in bafflement, unable to find out who had done this, since, of course, no unregistered wands could get inside the building.
Indigena had wanted to hear the younger Potter's words in full. And what fascinating words they had been, she mused. Of course, her new Lord knew about the prophecy already, but she would report this to him anyway. It was interesting.
And she did fear that interest would be lacking in her life now, since the Dark Lord insisted on tugging her away from her greenhouses and her gardens and making her torture people. Indigena found torture boring. At least he was letting her use Evan Rosier as thorn food.
She settled back and prepared to wait out the rest of the trial, though she didn't think anything so interesting would come again. She had a mission, and one she was honor-bound to complete.
She had to smile again, thinking of the way Connor Potter had been reassured on catching sight of her as he fiddled with his fringe. Such a sweet boy, really, the kind to make a mother proud if he wasn't testifying against her. She hoped she wouldn't have to be the one to kill him.
Well, if I am, I'll give him to the devouring grass. Just a few moments of intense pain, and then he's done for. At least he'll get a quick death.