Fenrir Greyback's trial followed shortly after the Letrange's. It was conspicuously shorter for many reasons. The Wizengamot had tightened up their process and determined that the witnesses in the galley could use people who sat with anti-nausea or anti-fainting, restorative potions were allowed. Many people barely held themselves together using various collaged spells or their own potions and the number of people escorted out multiplied considerably. Lydia, was already considering going to France to meet with a few contacts after the Lestrange trial but after Fenrir's, she had to. She couldn't put off any longer not understanding what was going on. Also, maybe, she just needed to get out of the country for a little while. She understood, after that meeting in the Minister's anteroom, that other people at the ministry also did not know or understand. The fact that she had been called in and had been allowed to stay at all was proof of that. As far as most people in that room were concerned, she dealt with parchment. When Lydia insisted that she would not fly they mostly spoke around her as if they thought maybe she would just be record keeping and she was. She was doing that.
Kingsley had recommended Lydia to actually be in the room when they discussed the conditions of her potentially flying to Bella Luna. Lydia was in that room listening to the discussion because of him. Rufus Scrimgeour watched her out of the corner of his eye. He knew Lydia's technical title and he trusted and knew Kingsley so there was something else going on. She must have been a Secondary Title. As far as he could tell, there were no curses to break so that wasn't it. Or maybe, people in this rank usually had several jobs. No, she might be one of the Guardians, trained like an auror, like magical law enforcement, but treated like curse breakers. That is to say, they operated autonomously and discreetly. Aurors knew they existed, but no one really knew who they were because they could be sent in to save aurors in certain situations. When the life of an auror was of the utmost importance generally because of information, a Guardian might be sent in to get that auror using a scorched Earth philosophy. No one could live but that auror (or maybe this was some old rumor started by an auror long ago to quiet some of the real horror they encountered in their work he thought. He realized in that very room that that was probably it.) He didn't want to think too deeply about it but he considered that she might be in the League of Phantoms. He shuddered and clutched his wand, just in case and more for his own comfort. He watched the hands of the clock to orient himself but he knew if she was, if anyone in that room was, it wouldn't matter. But maybe, she had just been called in because she could fly.
Lydia made a suggestion for someone else to fly because she could not or would not go. Kingsley understood as much even before he had called her. There might have been a chance she would go but he had called her in for another reason, to hear what was going on. He knew as well as if he were her own parent, her own father, Lydia's justifiable and reasonable fear of werewolves. He had been the one to deliver the news to her parents. He had been there when Lydia was sitting on the stairs trying to listen to what happened and Kingsley had not agreed with the way her parents had handled it but he had not say. He didn't have children so he didn't argue but now she was old enough to be included in the conversation and to know the details. Lydia now had a child of her own. She had to know, not just that Fenrir was on the loose but how the ministry was handling it. Lydia didn't expressly realize the number of people she knew in high places. That is to say, she didn't exploit these acquaintances. Kingsley knew she wouldn't say anything but maybe she would piece something together. Maybe it would be enough that she know and protect herself and her family. No one in that room knew what to do. They tried a little of everything and hoped something would work.
Lydia left the anteroom. She had a very strong urge to loop her arm in Kingsley's and he with her. Instead they walked out of the room at the same time their sides touching until they could find quiet time and space to discuss further. Rufus Scrimgeour noticed this. That while Lydia didn't look expressly like Kingsley, there was some old history there, something familiar and familial there. Rufus also replayed the strange argument that had happened before she had entered the room and another while she was there. Colleagues were starting to turn on each other. The trials were exhausting everyone's reserve of sympathy and benefit of the doubt was giving way to an almost palpable paranoia.
Lydia replayed everything in the past few days in her own mind. Fenrir's testimony, the sound of the arguing outside the door that made her hesitate to go in, the feeling of Kingsley standing next to her and their quiet understanding. He had been there and he still was. She replayed the short conversation she had afterwards. She thought that they might have more to say but it amounted really to making sure she was fine which she said she was. What else was there to say? And anyway she couldn't articulate everything she was feeling at that moment. To think about what Fenrir had said, how he said it, dislodged a small piece of her own constitution. During the trial she found her eyes alternately filling with tears or coming down with small shaking fits where she felt like crying or screaming and, knowing she couldn't. Her body contained everything and shook with small tremors of all her frustration, anger and fear. Talking with Kingsley later, all she could say after being asked how she was holding up was that she was. That she was fine. That everything was fine.
