A/N: Alright, I am a bad person, I haven't updated in over a month, that's horrible! I apologize for the extreme delay. School is coming to a close and I have lots of tests to study for, if I don't do well on them I won't pass the class so that takes lots of time to study, obviously. Heh, but still I feel bad for taking so long. But there's good news! Chapter 18 is ready for you all to read! Yay, ... but there's also bad news... Chapter 18 had to be broken in half because it would be way to long if I were to continue, so I have to make Chapter 19 contain the rest of the Hearing. So sorry, please make sure you read and review regardless of this because I really tried hard on this chappie.

Chapter 18

The Hearing: Part I

It was four O'clock when everyone had finally situated themselves in a family room on the first floor of the Mansion. It was chaos: Sirius was scratching him self on the face and arms as he broke out in big, red, blotchy hives, Mallory was talking extremely fast about how they would lose the trial and die in Azkaban, Amanda was pale white and seemed to be talking to herself, Remus was searching aimlessly through books on the book shelves even though books would help none in this situation, and all this time James and Lily stood back in the doorway completely silent watching their frantic friends.

" Um, guys?" James said slightly aggravated, "Why don't we just calm down."

This did absolutely nothing, they didn't even seem to acknowledge him at all.

He furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to say it again but Lily grabbed his arm, he looked down, his mouth still hanging half open and she shook her head.

" I'll do it," Lily said.

He nodded and stepped back.

She cleared her throat and shouted, " Hey guys! Shut up!"

Mallory looked at her wide eyed and did as she said immediately, Sirius froze in mid scratch, Amanda looked up but was still quite pale, and Remus jumped and dropped a book on his toe. He yelped and grabbed his foot.

" Argh! Bloody He-"

Lily shot him a look of disgust and he stopped mid sentence. " Why don't we all sit down and figure this out calmly, without scratching, researching or talking mindlessly to ourselves."

Mallory raised an eyebrow at her, " Calmly? Er, Lils, have you noticed the situation at hand?"

" Yeah, actually I have. We have to be in courtroom ten tomorrow ready to defend ourselves over a trail where a fight happened over pure hatred without a true reason."

James cleared his throat, " It was in your defense,"

" Whatever, you know what I mean." she snapped.

He looked taken aback but silenced himself and sat down so she could continue.

" So basically we're screwed," said Sirius as he scratched a hive on his wrist.

Everyone started to mumble agreements to this until they caught the expression on Lily's face and again shut up.

" Okay, look you have two choices," She put up a finger, " One: we can sit here and argue over whether we're screwed or not and end up in Askaban tomorrow or, Two: we can talk this out like civilized people and plan what we are going to say tomorrow so we put Lucius in prison. You pick."

They lowered their heads and didn't answer, Lily took this as them choosing number two.

" Okay then, let's get down to business."

XxxxX

It was about a quarter past ten, everyone but James and Lily were asleep. It had been an extremely exhausting evening, with all the stress of preparing themselves for the hearing. Lily was laying with James on his bed looking over the notes they had taken reviewing a few main parts of the fight at Hogsmeade that would surely be brought up the following day.

Lily sighed as she pulled her hair into a ponytail, at the same time she read aloud a section of the notes, " Okay, so eventhough the first spell, Oppungo, was cast by you, the Cruciatus Curse was cast three times by Lucius, two of which hit you. Then two more hit you and that was when you were knocked unconscious." She sighed, " Well, it is in your favor, James."

Lily leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes as a nervous habit her hand found its way to her hair, she then started to twirl strands of her red hair around her fingers.

James smiled and watched as she did this, she looked worried and over nothing. He never understood why women got so worked up over things like this. It was clear that Lucius would be put in prison, he had no way out of it this time.

Lily opened her eyes and saw James watching her with an amused expression.

" What?"

This only made him smile perhaps more broadly, not only were two of her fingers tangled in her hair, she was wearing a most hilarious expression of pure innocence and confusion.

" Nothing."

She smirked and untangled her fingers skillfully, " No, really what?"

He laughed and took hold of her hand, " Stop fidgeting, and worrying. Everything will be alright."

Lily shook her head and pulled her hand back, " Yeah right, I'll stop worrying when everything is over. How do you know, for sure, that he will be put in prison?"

" He used an Unforgivable Curse what did you say, four, five times? You get life in prison for that, Lils." stated James.

" It was three, and that doesn't matter, you and I both know that his father and Fudge are ol' buddies." said Lily, jumping off the bed and rolling down the covers, " Get off,"

James stepped off the bed and helped her pull back the quilt, " But, Lily that doesn't mean anything. Regardless of his father they have to put him in jail, its the law," James waited for her to get in after he had but she didn't she just turned around, " Are you planning on sleeping in here?"

Lily nodded, " Uh,Yeah... hold on, I'll be right back." then she sped out of the room and into her own.

James heard the bathroom door shut and sighed heavily, thoughts were buzzing through his head. If Lily was right about this, that meant that anytime in the future this same thing could happen again. And it was sure to happen again if he wasn't put in prison, Lucius wasn't one to stop bullying his favorite targets.

The bathroom door clicked open and Lily walked into the bedroom slowly closing the door and running a hand through her hair, she crawled into bed and switched off the light.

" What was that all about?" asked James.

She rolled over closer to him and snuggled her head next to his chest, " Oh, I just forgot to brush."

He rolled his eyes in the darkness, " Oh, okay, well, goodnight."

" Goodnight James, love you,"

He bent his head down and kissed her, " Love you, too, get some sleep."

James was just about asleep when Lily prodded him in the side, " What?"

" What would our parents do if they found out we were sleeping together?" she asked quietly.

He winced at the thought, " Well, first they would make us break up. Then they would skin me, and bury me alive. And they would probably never let you date again."

She nodded, " And that's why we aren't going to tell them."

James laughed, " Quite right, love."

XxxxX

The girls were up early the next morning, along with Remus, but James and Sirius had decided they didn't feel like getting up so they were still up in their rooms asleep.

Amanda and Lily were fixing breakfast while Mallory and Remus set the table, well, more like argued about how to set the table.

" Remus, I'm telling you it goes: knives and forks on the right side and spoons on the left!"

Remus rolled his eyes, " No, it's salad fork, dinning fork, steak knife, butter knife on the right side and soup spoon on the left."

" Well, then where does the dessert spoon go smarty!" Mallory shouted.

He slapped his forehead, " I already went over this a million times it go-"

" Alright, you lot, who really cares? I mean none of us are going to use a steak knife or dessert spoon, and since when do you two care what order the silverware goes?" said Amanda, pulling the two of them back into reality.

Mallory shrugged, " Ha, you're right, Mandy, I guess I just needed to bicker with someone since I'm so used to driving Sirius insane."

Remus laughed, " I was just bored."

Both of them slumped down into their chairs and watched Amanda and Lily fix breakfast.

Remus and Mallory both knew that Amanda and Lily weren't very good cooks so they waited for disaster to strike, knowing it would, and within a few minutes it did:

It all started when Amanda went to turn over a piece of bacon. The grease popped on her hand, not only did this hurt extremely bad but it startled her so, as a reaction she screamed bloody murder and threw the tongs behind her. The tongs hit an over-head iron pan and sent it falling to the ground, unfortunately it didn't hit the ground it hit Lily's hand, and this of course just about broke every bone in her hand so she started to yell out foul words. Lily ran over to the freezer and stuck her hand in the ice bucket.

As Amanda threw the tongs she jumped and kicked the oven in the process, this only made the situation worse, the pan was jolted and fell onto the floor sending hot grease onto her foot.

Amanda yelped and grabbed her foot, Lily screamed as it poured over her feet. Seeing as both of their cooks were jumping up and down in hot grease screaming at the top of their lungs, Remus and Mallory decided to take over.

Just then Sirius walked into the kitchen, James following not to far behind. They couldn't help but laugh at the scene, if you were to just stand back and look at them it was hilarious, even though it was mean to laugh... since after all they were hurt badly.

Lily was screaming one hand stuck in the freezer the other grabbing her foot and at the same time she was jumping up and down. Amanda was hopping in circles, also clutching to her foot. The oven door was open and there was grease everywhere, the entire place was full of smoke and steam. And Remus and Mallory were both trying to clean up the huge mess.

As soon as the mess had been cleaned and the two girls were healed, James and Sirius took one look at each other before collapsing to the floor. They were laughing so hard it was almost painful.

Lily cursed under her breath and rubbed her hand, making sure it was completely healed, " Thanks Mallory, Remus."

Amanda blushed, " Sorry Lils,"

She shrugged and waved it off, " S'okay, accidents happen," Lily turned and glared at the two boys rolling on the floor. " But those two aren't going to get away with what they did as easily."

She walked up to James and kicked him in the head, meanwhile Amanda pulled Sirius up by his hair.

" Oiy! Not the hair, Amanda! Not the hair! Let go! Ah!" at this she merely raised a brow and tugged harder.

Lily grabbed her boyfriend's ear and lifted him as well, " Ow! Okay, okay! Stop! That hurts! Hey, don't you... no! I'm sorry Lily!"

Lily picked up a pair of scissors and held them to his hair, glaring at him.

James gave her the puppy dog face, but she only glared harder, " That wasn't funny, James." she let go of him and threw the scissors on the ground.

But Amanda gave no mercy she was sitting on top of Sirius, who had tried to escape, only now she had the scissors Lily had put down. Sirius was wailing and screaming out sorry over and over.

Mallory and Remus stood back laughing hysterically, Mallory didn't make a move to stop Sirius, and Remus didn't make a move to stop Lily. James and Sirius made a big mistake and now they were going to pay for it.

Amanda finally let go of him when he claimed he was the scum of the Earth and she was the heavenly goddess he was to worship. She still looked aggravated and kept sending him death glares.

Lily on the other hand had sat down at the table and refused to look at James, this was a much worse punishment on James part.

" Oh, come on Lily. I'm sorry, see I said I was sorry." said James

Lily rolled her eyes and turned to Mallory and Remus, " Do you think you could fix some pancakes with your wands? I don't feel like cooking again just yet, I'm sure Mandy doesn't either."

Amanda shook her head, smiling sarcastically.

" Sure no problem."

James sighed, " Lily..." he whined " Lily flower...? You know you love me."

At this she looked the other way and crossed her arms.

" Okay, what do you want me to say?" he asked beginning to get angry.

Mallory giggled, as she saw Lily's triumphant grin, Lily had to turn away from him because she couldn't help but smile at his last comment.

Remus waved his wand and the plates were filled with food. Sirius side stepped past Amanda with his hands in the air, the entire time she was scowling at him.

" Jerk."

He laughed nervously, " Call me whatever you want... just don't get the scissors out."

James threw his hands in the air and growled, " Lily, come on! Say something!"

Mallory smiled and looked at her, trying extremely hard to keep her mouth shut, " Lils, pass the syrup will you?"

Lily wiped the smile off her face skillfully and handed the skinny bottle to her, as she did so she saw Sirius scooting farther away from Amanda, who was sitting next to him,unwillingly. She couldn't help but grin at this, and of course James saw.

" Ah! See you can't be mad at me!" James said smiling broadly.

She rolled her eyes and scowled.

He frowned and then narrowed his eyes at her, " Fine, I won't eat until you say you forgive me." he pushed his plate away and sat back with his hands behind his head.

Remus snorted, " That was dumb..."

He glared at him, but Remus didn't care, he just ignored it and smirked as he bit into his toast, making sure to make it crunch loud enough to where he could hear it... James could never resist food.

Lily looked at him with an amused expression and started to eat her own breakfast.

His eyes widened, he was sure that she would do something when he said that.

James whined loudly at this, " Lily!"

She smirked at him, " You can starve then, that's your own fault, .. arrogant."

He scowled and snorted.

Sirius laughed at this but only gained another death stare from both Amanda and James.

He laughed nervously again and then mumbled, " Er... sorry."

" Lily.. Love, you can't let me starve,... you're too kind." The last part seemed to be added to reassure himself.

She looked at him and sighed, " If I say I forgive you.. but I really don't mean it will you shut up?"

He shook his head, " No, you have to mean it."

" Well, then I guess you're going to starve." Lily smiled at him with aggravation and continued eating.

She felt bad for treating him like this, it was hard for her to go back to old ways.

James stood up and got down on his knees, at this everyone stopped eating and watched with amused expressions.

He put his hands together and looked up at her, " I can't believe I'm doing this..." he mumbled to himself.

" Lily, I'm extremely sorry, I will never laugh at you again when you get hurt... er ... I promise, I was stupid to do that... please forgive me."

She rolled her eyes and stared at him with one brow raised for some time, " Pleeeeaaassseee?" he whined quietly after a while.

Sirius coughed saying " Whipped," as he did so.

James scowled at him " Oh, just sod off,"

Lily grinned at Sirius and then turned back to James, " Oh, get up you prat, I guess I forgive you."

He smiled and threw his arms around her, " Ha! I knew you would!" James kissed her cheek and she rolled her eyes.

" Ah, gerroff, I don't forgive you that much." she mumbled, pushing him away.

She did forgive him and thought it was funny that he was so persistent to get her to forgive him, but she couldn't boost his confidence up too much, he needed his ego to be dented a bit once in a while. Plus it was way too much fun to tease him.

James shrugged and sat back down, " Okay, fine."

XxxxX

Breakfast went by smoothly after that, although Sirius did seem to be permanently damaged by the scissor incident. Every once in a while Amanda would grab them off the table and snip them at him, then he would get up, run in circles screaming and run out of the room. It was very entertaining just to sit back and watch, but soon the fun was over, it was eleven O'clock so everyone went back up to their rooms and got ready for the hearing.

The guys were ready in about five minutes but of course the girls took all but ten minutes of their left over time so that when they came back down stairs they had to rush. Everyone apparated to the Ministry immediately afterwards, and within seconds they were piling into the small red beat up telephone booth with broken windows and painted on graffiti.

James, Sirius and Remus went first, they dialed "62442" and the smooth voice of a young woman filled the box.

" Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."

James furrowed his brow, and picked up the receiver, " Erm... Visitors, James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, here to attend a disciplinary hearing."

" Thank you," the voice said, " Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes."

Then there was the sound of change rattling and three square silver badges were found sitting in the metal chute at the bottom of the telephone with their names printed on them.

The woman spoke again as they were clipping them to their robes.

" Visitors to the Ministry, you are all required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."

The bottom of the box started to shake and then jerked and began to go down slowly, " Have a nice day,"

James looked around and watched blackness turn into a slit of light at the bottom of the box, then it got bigger until light flooded into the small box and just about blinded them all. The door opened smoothly on its hinges and they stepped out.

" I'm guessing this is the Atrium, magnificent isn't it?" Asked Remus.

James nodded, " Yeah."

The room they had entered was indeed magnificent, it wasn't a wide room but rather very long and was painted in a bright blue color, highlighted in golds. It had a dark polished wood floor which James figured would probably be nice to skate on since it was so smooth. Witches and Wizards were popping out of the fireplaces that lined the walls which were covered in panels of dark wood that matched the glossy floor.

Looking past the puffs of green smoke and sound of coughing they could see a extravagant fountain standing in the middle of the room.

Sirius laughed, " Some fountain, eh?"

" Yeah, must have cost a fortune..." James agreed.

The sound of an elevator descending came from behind them, they turned around to see their girlfriends stepping out of the box with wide eyes.

Mallory slapped the girls playfully, " Guys, we are so working here when we get older."

They all laughed and rolled their eyes, " Alright, why don't we go get this... search thing done, we don't want to be late."

Amanda looked at her watch and jumped, " Er, we have like seven minutes to get down there."

Lily and Mallory looked at each other, " Shit," they said in unison.

Everyone then started to run towards the opposite side of the room, but stopped about ten feet after that.

" Guys wait!" Amanda yelled.

They turned on their heals and looked at her expectantly, " Shouldn't we make sure this is the Atrium, and... possibly check, you know just to be clear, that we're going the right way?" she said sarcastically.

Sirius sighed agitatedly, " We have seven bloody minutes to get down there, we don't have time, now let's go!"

Mallory slapped him upside the head, " You prat! If we're going the wrong way then we're going to end up late anyway."

He winced and smiled in a sort of scared way, " Er, right."

James rolled his eyes and flagged down a young brown haired witch that had just flooed out of the nearest fireplace.

" Excuse me, Miss!"

The girl turned and looked at him, regaining hold on her bulky briefcase and brushing a piece of hair out of her eyes, " Yes?"

James sighed, " Do you happen to know the way to the Security Desk?"

She nodded and started to walk away as she pointed in the direction they had been heading moments before, " Just go to the end of the room, you can't miss it, it's a dead end."

Smiling he thanked her and turned back to his friends, " Alright let's go now."

" Well, wasn't that just a wonderful waste of our precious time.." Mumbled Sirius at Amanda as they ran towards the desk.

She glared at him and tried to hit him but he ducked, stuck his tongue out at her and ran on.

The second they got past the massive fountain, they could see a huge sign with the words " SECURITY DESK" in bright yellow letters. Under the sign leaning on a pillar was a tall man with a bald head and a muggle suit. He was wearing a pair of sun glasses, and had a thin rod in his hand. To the right side of him was, you guessed it, the desk. And on top of it were piles of parchment, empty bottles of ink, broken quills and a set of golden scales.

As the six of them slowed to a stop the man stood upright and held his hand out to them.

" I need to weigh your wands before you may proceed."

Remus stepped up first and handed his to the man, the guard took it roughly and placed it on the set of golden scales. The was a meter at the top of it that said "Bad" on the left side "Acceptable" in the middle and "Perfect Condition" on the right, sitting in the middle was a red arrow pointing in no particular direction. As soon as Remus's wand hit the scales the arrow sprung to life and began to wave back and forth until it settled between " Acceptable" and "Perfect Condition".

The Security Guard took the wand from the scales, held it up to his ear and gave it a light shake before nodding and handing it back to Remus.

After returning the wand he started to wave the thin rod that he was holding in front of Remus from head to foot, then he turned Remus around and checked the back.

He stood upright and tall again before saying," You may proceed through the door behind my desk, have a nice day." he paused and turned to Lily, " Next."

The rest of them went through the same process and after they had finished with the weighing and scanning they had exactly five and a half minutes left to reach the court room.

The six of them rushed through the doorway and to the end of the hall where there was a golden lift, Remus began to push the down button impatiently.

" Let's go already!" he screamed agitatedly.

Amanda grabbed his arm and raised her brow at him, " Calm down, Remy."

He nodded and rolled his eyes as the lift opened with a screech. All of them filed in and again Remus began to push a button violently.

James poked him in the shoulder, " Uh, make sure you're pressing the right one."

" Well, I'm hoping this will be the right floor, if its not... I guess we're pretty much screwed."

The lift jerked and began to raise at a fast pace, each level a little light with the floor number that the were on would light up and finally the doors slid open and they were greeted by the 9th floor.

The smooth female voice that had earlier filled the telephone booth, filled the lift, " Level Nine, Department of Mysteries."

" This is it, come on let's go, we have three minutes." Remus said leading them to the court room.

He had pulled out the directions sheet from the letter and was reading at a fast pace.

They went up a corridor with painfully bare walls and no windows, the floor boards creaked with each step and Lily couldn't help but wonder if people had fallen through the weak floor in the past. There was only one door in the hallway and it was at the very end, everyone was expecting to go through it but instead Remus led them to the left where there was a flight of stairs.

Upon reaching the bottom of the steps they were greeted by another corridor which seemed as if it were taken from the Hogwarts castle, it greatly resembled the Slytherin dungeon hallways. It had a low ceiling and rough stone walls which were dripping with condensation, slightly lit torches led them to a set of tall heavy wooden doors with iron bolts and keyholes covering them. Surely this would be courtroom ten.

But no, they passed this set and came to another set of tall grimy doors with a huge iron lock laying on the ground, Remus came to a stop and turned to face them.

" This is it guys, this is courtroom ten."

Mallory sighed, " Alright, let's knock these buggers off their feet with our impressive defensive story."

Lily laughed lightly, but on the inside she was questioning whether they would be walking out of this room remaining free.

A/N: Okay, Please review, I promise to get the next chapter out asap! I'm doing the best I can guys, please stick with me. Alright, thank you and have fun reading and reviewing.

Lissa