Ten Years A Prisoner
The coldness filled the bodies of the two women as they walked deep into the depths of Azkaban to recover a former friend. Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott had both been Hufflepuffs who had never believed that Harry had killed Cedric Diggory, but their voices were drowned out in the lust for punishing him for the supposed crime. Ten years had passed before a raid on a Death Eater camp had revealed that Harry was innocent – a prisoner had told them that Peter Pettigrew still lived and had been the one to cast the spell.
"Your identification…?" asked a man who rose from behind a desk.
"You don't need to see them – we are on a mission for the Ministry" Hannah said. "You know we are coming to get Harry Potter out of this hell hole – take us to him"
"No"
"Stupify" Susan cast the spell with a roll of her eyes. "Come on, lets get him out of here" and they hurried down the steps and along various corridors until they found a lone cell at the end of a long passage. "That has to be him" and the two women quickly ran up and blasted the door clean off its hinges.
"I wonder what he will be like after all this time… You saw the reports as much as I did, Suzy" Hannah asked, looking over her shoulder for anybody that might come down to see what the noise was.
"We have the right to take him out of here, Hans – I don't care what he looks like"
"Didn't realise you were on the turn for him" smirked her friend as she withdrew her wand and looked back up the way they came. "Go and get him" and Susan nodded before stepping into the dark cell. She looked around and saw a heap of rags with limbs that had to be her former classmate.
"Harry…? Oh, what have they done to you?" she whispered as she crouched by him. The woman reached out a hand and Harry jerked away as if he had been hit by a Crucio.
"Gerraweigh" he growled. "Lemmiegoa" and Susan could only wonder at what suffering he had been through in the past ten years.
"Harry, do you know who I am…? I'm Susan Bones" she whispered quietly and calmly to him. "Look, I can't explain now, but me and a… friend are here to release you and get you well again.
"Coold bea hall a treeck" Harry slurred out.
"Harry, I've never said anything wrong to or about you. Look, we'll talk later – can you walk?"
"Yeth"
"Good" Susan smiled slightly. "Hannah, we're coming out"
"I thought you did that years ago"
"Married?" Harry managed to get the word out clearly.
"For six years now"
"Knew it" Harry was helped to his feet and held on to Susan for dear life. Now he was stood up, the woman could see that what remained of the clothes he had entered Azkaban in hung so much of his body. Neither of the women could understand how he had survived for so long as even Sirius Black had been kept in better conditions.
"Harry, when did you last get fed?" Hannah hesitated with her question.
"Too weeeeekks aggo"
"I'll get you a giant steak with all the trimmings as soon as you can handle it" and Harry weakly smiled. "The Ministry will want to see you to make a formal apology, but you need seeing to with how you are…"
"Not Pomfrey" Harry got that out clearly enough with anger in his tone.
"Okay… Hannah, we're going to have to take him home and see what we can do" Susan was on the verge of tears at the sight of Harry – she had held a small crush for him when she had been a girl and Hannah knew that it was this slight affection that drove her to do whatever she could for him.
"Alright" she agreed. "I think that Tori is off duty tonight, so we should be okay to ask her to come round and look at him. If he had half a chance, I think he'd kill Pomfrey or the others"
"Too Rhit"
#
When one of their few friends had got to Harry, they had force fed him as many potions as they could carry and kept him under for several days until his body was well on its way to being healed. The other few friends the pair had took turns in essentially guarding the Bones-Abbott home when they had to leave for whatever reason as nobody knew if people would try to embarrass Harry by showing his condition in the papers. It was only when there was a summons for Harry to appear in front of the Ministry for them to fully apologise to him that he left the house. Whatever compensation they would award him, it would never cover the hell he had been through for just over a decade, never cover the loss of Hedwig, never the loss of Dobby who had tried to rescue him one week into his imprisonment…
"Are you going to be alright?" asked Hannah as they ate breakfast that day.
"I don't know" said Harry. "I was kept awake all night"
"Bad dreams?"
"No… I could hear you talking late"
"We were?" Hannah blinked in confusion.
"Well, when I say 'talking', what I mean is that it was Susan screaming 'Ride me, Hannah, you dirty bitch' – that and the inability for two experienced and highly trained witches to cast a simple silencing charm" a bit of the old Harry broke through the sick look he presented.
"Harry!" both of the witches went bright red.
"Your house" he shrugged. "Just remind me of what I have to do"
"The Ministry want to award you a vast sum of money to pay you back for what has happened to you" Susan was still blushing hard as she spoke. "From what I understand, Minister Weasley has gone through a hell of a lot to get as much of your stuff back as possible"
"Weasley? Which one?"
"Hermione" and Harry's eyes narrowed.
"That bitch! She helped to send me down for ten years of hell"
"After she finished Hogwarts, she used her fame from your trial to her advantage and became Minister. She married Ronald almost straight after school and they have two kids" and Susan looked at Hannah as she was reluctant to say the next bit.
"You have to tell him" Susan's wife grimaced.
"Tell me what?" Harry's spoon fell to the table with a clatter.
"They sort of claimed your house in so called reparations"
"Number 4?"
"Erm, no… Not that house" and Hannah wondered if she had time to cast a shield before Harry exploded.
"They took the only home I have ever had?" Harry couldn't believe it.
"Once you have everything in order, you can file a claim to have the house returned to you" Susan tried to assure him as best as she could. She had most of the paperwork already filled out and ready to go thanks to Gringotts – for some reason, the bank had always trusted that he had never killed Cedric and worked with her and Hannah to move the most valuable Potter assets away before it was too late. Apparently, for a race that followed rules very strictly, the term "on Harry's behalf" could be stretched a fairly long way. The pair did speculate that it might be due to Susan being head of the Bones family and not her Aunt as most people suspected, but you could never be fully sure of things when you worked with Goblins.
"Damn right" Harry coughed for a moment. "I remember reading about truth potions and kept asking myself why I was never given one to establish the truth. I used to ask myself that question day after day after day in that cell – locked up in a dark place for twenty three and a half hours a day"
"What about the other half an hour?"
"They'd put on some magical light that almost blinded me whilst I had one biscuit of some sort and a piece of rotten meat"
"How did you survive?"
"I'm not sure I did" Harry whispered. "I just want to be left alone in peace and live quietly" he added as he looked up at them. "Even if I get the house back from the Weasleys, I'm not sure that I'd want to live there for a long time… Can I stay here?" and the two women nodded happily and smiled warmly.
"Of course you can, Harry. We'll even soundproof our room for you" Susan said.
"Oh" said Harry with another weak grin, "I wasn't making a complaint earlier. But to be serious for a while, I want everyone to pay for what they did. I was always told that justice was always done and it wasn't in my case for ten years. Ten long fucking years of seeing that moment and the time that my parents were killed. Voldemort… Voldemort knew about the connection between us and always made sure that I watched whenever he was at a killing – he knew how much more I would suffer for it. I want to know" he looked at the pair that had helped nurse him back to life, "How he was killed"
"Minister Granger arranged with the Queen to have a Magic aware muggle soldier take him out with a firearm at long range" Susan said.
"Well" Harry chuckled darkly, "That proves Dumbledore was wrong about me being the only one to defeat Voldemort. Is the old fuck still alive?"
"Yes" Hannah said.
"Good – he can see what his machinations have done to me"
"We better get going if we want to be there on time" Susan said, vanishing the dishes with a flick of her wand. Harry watched her with longing in his eyes – his wand had been snapped several times over and burnt in the Ministry atrium for all to see. Without a wand, he felt like a part of him was missing and unable to defend himself although, he admitted to his own mind, he would be hard pushed to defend himself against a toddler with a stick of rock.
"We're stopping by a wand place to get me one before this mockery" he said at last.
"You can borrow my spare" Hannah rummaged around her purse and withdrew her spare wand and gave it to Harry along with a quick release holster.
"Thanks" he needed help putting the holster on but felt better all the same. "I didn't want to go into the Ministry unarmed"
"They won't attack you"
"I was thinking the other way around"
"Harry Potter, we just got you out and now you want to go back in?" Hannah sighed in disbelief. "He's nuttier then the time you tried eating eleven pizzas at an all you can eat buffet" she glared at Susan.
"It said 'All You Can Eat'… What was I supposed to do?"
"Suzy, it was a suggestion – not an order" Hannah rolled her eyes at her wife before following Harry and her out the door and locking the door behind them. With Harry's magic a little wild after his time in Azkaban, they had elected to take the Knight Bus to get to Diagon Alley and spend what time they had getting Harry used to people looking and pointing at him.
#
"You may pass…" the almost bored sounding witch on the front desk said as Hannah took her wand from the weighing device and stepped forward a few paces. "Next"
"A recently released mad man from Azkaban prison" and the witch's head shot up and looked at the gaunt face of Harry.
"Erm… Um…"
"Just pass me"
"But you must have your wand checked"
"As I recall, you lot burnt it over ten years ago"
"But you have one now" came the reply.
"It's a rental" Harry shrugged.
"Sir, I am an Auror…" Harry stiffened at the sound – he'd know that voice anywhere. "I am going to have to ask you to hand over your wand for examination or I will take it by force"
"You think you can take it from me?"
"Certainly"
"Then you may test that assumption at your convenience" he turned around, "Ronald"
"Harry!"
"Miss me?" he asked sarcastically and then tilted his head before slugging his former best male friend in the jaw so hard, Ronald Weasley was lifted clean off his feet and sent backwards a dozen feet. "Damn… That felt good"
"You shouldn't have hit him" Hannah cautioned him.
"Oh yes I should" Harry spat at his friend's groaning form as witches and wizards of all ages looked at the almost walking skeleton in disbelief.
"Why?" frowned Susan.
"He was the one that snapped Hedwig's neck"
"Oh" Susan and Hannah looked at each other. "Can we join?"
"No… We have an appointment with the Minister, and we shouldn't at all be late" Harry looked at Ron before turning his back on him and walking off with two of the only people he could trust.
"You know he is going to sue you, right?"
"I spent just over a decade in prison – wouldn't you be jumpy if somebody tapped you on the shoulder?"
# # # # #
"All rise for the Minister of Magic, Hermione Weasley" an usher called out as a grand set of doors opened and a small procession of people came forth. Everybody in the room stood except for Harry who remained seated. "Sir, you must stand and show respect"
"It is hard to show respect for the position when I do not respect either the office and the current occupant" he replied. Hermione saw him, had a pained expression pass over her face, shake her head sadly and then simply took her place in the vast chamber.
"We meet here today" she began, "To right a terrible wrong. One month ago, one of the remaining Death Eaters was captured and revealed that we had jailed a person for a crime which they did not commit. Harry Potter did not kill Cedric Diggory, but it was in fact Peter Pettigrew that did so. That same prisoner, in exchange for mercy, gave us the traitor's location and we captured him and convicted him of the crime of murder. In our haste to do justice…" Hermione hesitated for a moment, "In our quest to do the right thing and punish the one we believed was guilty, we confiscated or destroyed the majority of property belonging to Harry Potter. Is Mr Potter here?" she went through with the formal question even though she already knew the answer.
"I am" Harry's simple reply was short and to the point.
"The Ministry officially apologises to you for your treatment these many years and we clear your record immediately. In regards to your vaults and family treasures, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department of Legal Affairs are working to trace what was sold off or given away. We will refund the monies taken from you and award you compensation of one million Galleons. Your medical treatment will be met by the Ministry as well as any and all future things that may arise"
"Minister Weasley" Susan spoke as she stood up to her full height, "I am acting on behalf of Mr Potter in regards of legal matters due to his ill health. What property was not destroyed and given away to others or sold off by the Ministry of the time?"
"Apart from what was secured by the Goblins" Hermione replied with an icy tone, "Some items such as family heirlooms and Potter family buildings and businesses were given away to others in need or sold at public auction"
"Minister, you should be aware that we will be moving to have all businesses and buildings returned to Potter control by the end of the month"
"That will be doable"
"Including Potter Cottage"
"Out of the question… That is where my family lives"
"Minister, you can either move out of there or you will be forced out by either court action or me dragging you of there by the ear" Susan's eye narrowed. "My client is inclined for the second option, to be honest, which is why we offered until the end of the month for those that are wrongly living in Potter houses to move out"
"Oh, very well" Hermione knew when not to fight a losing battle. "Is there anything else your client wants?"
"I want Hedwig back" Harry said. "I want my father's cloak. I want Dobby back. I want the contents of my school trunk back. But, Minister Weasley, what I want can never be. Of course, you would know all about that given our previous friendship – nothing I want ever happens because others think they know better. By the end of this month, I want everything that was taken from me either returned or replaced brand new. I want to live a quiet and peaceful life without being hassled by fanboys and fangirls" he looked around the room as people looked at him. "I do not want to take part in celebrations or parades or any sort of gatherings unless I choose to attend. I want those that did me harm to pay for what happened to me for those ten years. AND…" they cringed at the last word, "I never want to pay taxes again" he rose from his chair and mockingly bowed to Hermione. "Minister, if you will excuse me, I have an appointment to keep with Albus Dumbledore. You may want to warn him that Harry James Potter is coming to Hogwarts, and you'll most likely want to let him know that I am pissed off with him, very angry and that I am armed"
"You would harm innocent children?" asked somebody loudly.
"You did"
"Somebody detain him" and Aurors moved towards Harry.
"Sir, you better go back. I don't want to arrest you"
"There is a legal blood feud between myself and Albus Dumbledore" Harry sighed. "Besides, I can take you all on with one gesture of my hand"
"You and those two friends of yours could take down an Auror squad and the Ministerial Guard?"
"Three?" Harry gave off a rasping chuckle, "I think you better look behind you"
"I will not fall for that trick"
"I'd guess again, meat sac!" and the Auror turned to see a company of fully armed Goblins – ready for a fight.
"You didn't think I'd walk in here without backup?" Harry smirked.
"You are not allowed weapons"
"It's a ceremonial pen"
"Well, don't put any ink in it"
"That depends on what you do next" the Goblin looked at Harry. "A pleasure as always, Mr Potter"
"Harry…" Hermione called out. "We used to be friends – can't we sort this out like civilised people and go back to being friends?"
"Mrs Weasley, we ceased to be friends the minute your testimony put me behind bars. I mourn the loss of what we had and what might have been" and he looked over his shoulder. "I remember every single word that helped to send me down for a decade of beatings, starvation and torture. I do not merely hate you, Minister, but I despise you with every fibre of my being" and, with that, he walked out with the Goblins, Susan and Hannah close behind.
"Minister?" an aide whispered to her. "Minister, what do we do?"
"You heard him" Hermione was shaking in her seat. "Send a Floo call to Albus Dumbledore and tell him that death is coming. After that, find my husband and bring him to my office"
"Yes, Ma'am" and she stood and walked out and kept her composure until safely in her office – then cast a silencing charm and broke down into tears. When Harry had spoken to her, his final words were not those of anger but of real intent. He had saved her life at least twice, put his life at risk to save countless others, was owed more than the world could repay him and what happened…? They betrayed him and sent him to jail for ten years without even a shadow of a real trial which could have proved his innocence within minutes. Hermione and Ron had benefited very well from payments given to them by Dumbledore and the Fudge Ministry and she knew that they would have to sell everything they owned to pay back a fraction to the Potter family vaults. There was only one thing that she could do, and she reached for parchment, ink and a quill in order to write down everything that she had willingly been a part of in order to atone for her actions. Once she was done, she reached out to her left…
"I am sorry" she whispered as her grip tightened and her arm rose upwards, "I'm so very sorry"
#
"Mr Weasley, your wife is waiting for you ins–"
BANG
#
Harry, as it happened, had no intention of visiting Hogwarts and merely said that to make Dumbledore very afraid of him. After signing a few bits of paper to start the reclaiming process, he returned to the Bones-Abbott home to continue his long road to recovery. It was there that they woke him with news of Hermione's full explanation and immediate suicide afterwards as a form of penance for her actions. Harry had brushed it off to the pair, but in private he cried for the loss of his friend – although the friendship had been over for a long time, he still weeped for the fifteen year old Hermione. Susan and Hannah left him alone until the evening when they prepared a meal and broke out a bottle of wine to go with it.
"I want to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow" he said .
"You getting a new wand so soon?" Hannah asked him carefully.
"Yes, but I also want to visit Fred and George Weasley and find out where they stand"
"They were never against you, Harry"
"But they were never with me?"
"You know what Molly Weasley is like" Susan shrugged, "They never had a chance of being heard… When word reached them of the verdict, they grabbed what they could and sent it to the Goblins for safety, but it was not much as Dumbledore had your classmates grab it quickly after you were convicted"
"What do you intend to do?" asked Hannah.
"Do you have a full list of those that always supported me?" Harry swilled his glass of wine around.
"We are not many, but I can write down the names for you. Why do you ask?"
"Well…" Harry shrugged with a slight smile, "I think its time that we start to rebel"
"Always causing trouble, ain't you Potter?" Susan giggled.
"Hey" Harry shrugged and snapped out an arm to grab Hannah and bring her closer to him, "I'm Harry Potter – trouble is my middle name" and he gave her a peck on the lips.
"Would you please not kiss my wife like that?" Susan rolled her eyes.
"I can kiss her other ways?" another glimpse of the former Harry sprung forth. "No, I am thinking that if we get enough people who support me together, we can force Dumbledore out of his positions and shame him in public for all to see"
"What about what happened between you? Will you call him out?"
"No offence, Harry, but you couldn't fight off a newborn" Hannah chuckled.
"No… I am going to take him down without casting a single spell" Harry looked between them. "Right now, my political stock is high, so we'll simply introduce a motion of no confidence in Dumbledore and remove him from his official positions. Then, after that, make the suggestion that if the great and powerful Dumbledore could make such a terrible mistake in sending an innocent boy to jail for ten years, what else do you think he can do?"
"You know" Hannah said slowly as Harry left to go upstairs, "I'm not entirely sure that Harry will ever fully get over what happened"
"Would you?" Susan shook her head. "I think he will learn to live with it, cope with it and move on… But he'll never get over it enough to find somebody to love and settle with. Actually…"
"You fancy him?"
"As a friend, Han – nothing else. No, I was thinking that we could invite him to stay and live with us if he'd like to" and Hannah sighed, rolled her eyes before summoning a book entitled Silencing Charms and Me.
"Do you think there would have been something between him and Granger?"
"I think so" Susan shrugged. "I looked at my memories of the Yule Ball and he kept looking at her – but he knew she was with Krum so he never did anything"
"I don't think he is as noble after all this" Hannah commented carefully. "After all this time, he just wants revenge for what was done to him. Personally, Sue, I'm looking forward to when he kicks Dumbledore right into the hell he deserves"
"And we'll help" Susan chuckled and Hannah nodded. "Look" Susan went on, "I'm one for hearing people out, you know that, but what about if we just summon those that are under us to form an emergency meeting tomorrow morning and get Dumbledore out. With him no longer being an official part of the Ministry, we can even keep it secret from him. Imagine Harry's glee when we task him, as a member of the Wizengamot, to arrest Dumbledore and throw his bony and wrinkled arse into jail"
"Hell, it will be most of the teachers there – they all knew Harry was never capable of what he was accused of and yet they did nothing" and Susan was about to say something when she felt the wards tingle before settling again.
"Oh shit" she whispered.
"What?"
"Harry's gone"
"He looked alright earlier"
"No, Han… He's gone to Hogwarts"
