"He is going to try to flee," Thor commented on the slimy wizard's behavior. The Asgardians had continued to watch the discussion between Dumbledore and Snape, which was mostly Albus attempting to assure Severus that his position at Hogwarts was still secure and that tomorrow he would smooth everything over with Harry.
Each of the gods knew that was bullshit, if the Son of Sol had inherited only one thing from his mother, it was her temper and with the knowledge Harry had now, there would be no chance for that grudge to ever go away.
"Not if we make it so that the castle does not let him out of its walls," Frigga stated firmly while swirling her hands above an image of Hogwarts. "I will ask and the castle will answer. The seidr of old were quite brilliant in the construction, they wanted a place to keep their magical children safe and in doing so brought to life something that would outlive them all."
Sol watched gleefully as Severus who had just left the headmaster's office immediately tried to use a secret passageway to flee from the school, yet instead of coming out in the nearby town the potion's master found himself stepping out of a broom closet. The aesir chortled in bemusement while watching the struggling mortal grow more frustrated until he was cursing the headmaster's name on the presumption that Dumbledore was preventing him from escaping. It wasn't Harry that he was afraid of, to him he was nothing more than a brutish, albeit physically strong, child, it was his colleagues and former professors that worried him, he had no guarantee that they would not spread this information that he was compelled to divulge, of the reason why he still had not figured out just when someone had slipped him a truth potion.
The second that the curfew ended Harry was out of the Slytherin common room where he had been waiting the entire night, a location that Severus Snape did not set foot into. Probably for the best since Harry would not have hesitated in slaying that man. But he still had a plan for today to accomplish just that.
Once he picked up the overly large claymore outside the rune's classroom, Harry settled himself at the steps leading up to the head table in the Great Hall and pulled out a whetstone and began to sharpen the blade's dull edge keeping a stern gaze on the doors.
An eleven year old sharpening a near four foot long sword was the first thing most of the early risers saw upon entering the hall. The determined look on such a young face was unnerving for the students and those who worked up the courage to approach him were simply told that blood would be spilled and justice would be dealt, which did not soothe any of the students' nerves. The Slytherins who were already wondering why they had not seen Professor Snape in since the previous day and his absence at the head table was telling when the first professors came into the hall and barely reacted.
Professor Flitwick stopped his conversation with Septima Vector as she was explaining a part of arithmancy she wanted his opinion on that she turned to see Harry and her eyes widened, but when Filius composed himself a second later and continued on his merry way as if nothing was out of the ordinary she cautiously sidled around Harry who greeted her with a smile before returning to sharpening the sword.
As the hall slowly began to fill up it was Tulip stopping mid-yawn at seeing Harry waiting for something with a firm look and a sharp sword. "Harry, um what are you doing?" she cautiously asked.
"Waiting to see if Snape is willing to accept his fate with a shred of dignity," Harry answered while checking over the progress he had made in making the large sword sharp again.
Tulip blinked and then glanced up at her head of house who simply smiled and waved before returning to his conversation with Septima. Realizing that the adults were not going to be the ones to step in she sat down next to Harry gazed outward towards the tables. "So do you want to tell me what you mean by that Harry?"
"Oh just that Snape pointed Voldemort at my parents, wanted my mom as his slave and never bothered to disclose who really betrayed my parents," calmly informing the redheaded girl his reasoning for why he was preparing to kill a man.
Popping her lips she just nodded her head. "That would uh, definitely do it I guess. But what if he doesn't show up?"
Pausing his sharpening Harry stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Then I hunt him through the school," shrugging at the solution he had come up with.
"Right, how silly of me," Tulip exhaled nervously. When she saw that Tonks and Merula were coming in she waved them over and met them a bit of a distance away from Harry so as to not let him overhear.
"So Harry's going to murder Professor Snape," Tulip stated worriedly to the other girls. "He thinks Snape played a part in a lot of the bad things in his life and so far the professors already here are treating this as completely normal."
"Yeah, Professor Sprout held a meeting this morning telling us that under no circumstances were we to be alone with Professor Snape," Tonks added on to what Tulip had just said because she thought it was incredibly weird that her head of house gave an announcement like that to them all. She didn't disagree that Snape was a bastard but Sprout had never come right out and told them he was dangerous and they were to use any excuse including running away if he tried to isolate a member of their house.
For all those assembled in the hall wondering just what would come of Harry's strange behavior, their questions were answered when the headmaster and the potions professor came into the hall in the depths of a very loud argument. "I assure you Severus, I am in no way responsible for your inability to leave the castle. And further, I promise that I will smooth things over with Mr. Potter."
"Albus you nitwit, it's not the damnable boy I am worried about," Severus hissed angrily at the old wizard who clearly was losing his mind if he still believed that he would be of any use in the castle now that his colleagues knew just what type of man he was.
"If Minerva and the others see that you are making amends with young Harry then surely they too will come around to see that you are truly reformed," Albus repeated himself from their earlier conversations on the topic.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that Headmaster," Filius warned his employer of the folly of such a thing ever happening. "Looking over here Mr. Potter is… not here," Filius hummed curiously, seeing that the young warrior had vanished from the steps.
Albus tilted his head curiously until his eyes widened. "HARRY NO!" He bellowed as he whirled around, only far too late as Harry had thrown off the invisibility cloak and brought the large sword down on Snape's shoulder.
"This is for my mother," Harry screamed while the blade cut through the man with ease. A spray of blood gushed out of the carcass of the former living body, coating Harry and Albus in the gore. Planting his foot on the small of Snape's back, he kicked the body away from the blade, sending the lifeless corpse to fall onto the stone floor.
Standing there huffing Harry had barely a moment before a flash of light overtook his senses.
The entire Great Hall was in chaos, some students were busy evacuating their stomachs at the sight of Snape's dead body while others were screaming their heads off. Meanwhile Albus was being yelled at by not just his staff but the young ladies that Harry spent most of his time around.
"He just murdered a man in front of over a hundred witnesses."
"He was seeking vengeance for the crimes that man got away with," Filius countered even as the other professors began to clear the hall of students. "Crimes that you should have been forthcoming with not just us, but that young man and the wizengamot."
"I dare say that you should have known that Harry did not make an idle threat against Severus. Bringing him into the Great Hall was only signing his death warrant," the deputy-headmistress chastised the man she used to trust.
"Think about what his actions have caused," Albus pointed around the room to all the students cowering.
"I think the only thing his actions have caused is for the standards of this school to rise from the muck it was," Pomona bellowed. "About the only difficulty that will come about from this is that we can no longer force Severus to confess that Sirius Black was innocent."
"My cousin was that?" Andromeda questioned in confusion having come over to pull Nymphadora and her two friends back so that she and the other professors could take control of the situation, but hearing her cousin's name come out of Professor Sprout's mouth only brought up questions of her own. "What does Sirius have to do with any of this?"
Albus had quickly cast a spell around their immediate area as the berating he was receiving was beginning to tread into territory of information he would rather not be blabbered about throughout the castle until it could be handled properly. "Some of what Severus had confessed in our presence, calls into question much of what was believed to have happened on the night of James and Lily's deaths."
"Calls into question, that ruddy man," jabbing her finger at Severus' cooling body. "Stated perfectly clear that Peter Pettigrew was there when he arrived on the scene, and that Sirius only arrived after."
That information caused Andromeda to gasp in shock, for a decade she had believed that Little Siri had truly been dark this entire time. That he had committed one of the worst crimes imaginable, betrayal of your friends, allies, and brother in all but blood. Could there be more to that dreadful night that was unknown to everyone but a select few people.
"Dumbledore… did you know this?" Andromeda asked because she couldn't believe that if he did, that he sat on this for this long.
"Know what, I knew that Severus had come to me to confess what he had done," Albus explained to his newest teacher. "He expressed deep regret for his actions and wanted protection and in his words a chance to atone."
"Well a fat lot of good that did, the man practically terrorized the entire school ever since he was hired on and he always had you to protect him," Filius snarled as he was growing very tired of the way Albus was doling out information in scraps and never enough for anyone to have a clear picture.
"Regardless of what you think of Severus or myself, right now the matter at hand is that Harry Potter has murdered a man in all of our presence," Albus said over the chattering sternly. "This is something with many witnesses and cannot be swept under the rug, the aurors will have to be called."
"Oh, you bet that when they get here, they will be very interested in what we have to say," Pomona indignantly stated before walking over to a fireplace in a room connected to the Great Hall, she had a direct way of contacting Madam Bones.
Less than a minute later, a very disheveled older redheaded witch and a very disfigured man with a peg leg and staff came plodding down the aisle. "Oh, so this isn't some sort of messed up prank. Harry Potter actually killed him," Amelia said in surprise at seeing the dead professor on the stone.
"Good riddance," Mad-Eye grumbled while forcefully poking the body just to check that it was in fact dead. "Can never be too careful, a dead body could just as easily be booby trapped."
"Nobody has trapped Severus' corpse, least of all to ensnare you Alastor," Minerva rolled her eyes.
"That's what they want you to think, you must have constant vigilance," Mad-Eye grunted while looking over the murder weapon. "So, a famous student gets imperiused and claims a victim?"
"No, Alastor, as far as we are aware, Mr. Potter was not under the influence of anything more than unyielding rage," Pomona answered.
"Alastor, you handle the crime scene, I'm taking them all upstairs to get some answers," Amelia ordered, receiving a nod from her best auror who was already erecting the spells needed to preserve the body and evidence. "And someone bring along Potter, I want to talk to him too."
Harry's eyes snapped open, and he attempted to jump out of the chair only to cause it to tip over from his movement, thankfully he was saved from smashing his face into the ground, which is how he found himself bound to the chair. "Oh, real cute Dumbledore," Harry muttered only to see himself in a larger room with the three remaining heads of houses, the headmaster, and some other woman he didn't recognize.
"Mr. Potter, my name is Amelia Bones, I am the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Now I was brought here because there is a claim that you killed Severus Snape. Is that true?"
The redhead was waiting for Harry to deny the claim, she couldn't believe that an eleven-year-old would cut a man in half with a sword.
"I did, and I'd do it again."
The older witch sighed. "Alright, I need to know why you killed that man."
"He's the one who pointed Voldemort at my family. He heard a prophecy about how a child born as the seventh month dies would defeat his master, so he told it to Voldemort and then urged him to go after my family over any others because he hated my father and wanted my mother," Harry explained.
"It is the truth, Severus admitted to us his part in the deaths of the Potters, information that never made it to the Wizengamot during the Death Eater trials," Minerva chimed in to help bolster Amelia's belief in what Harry had said. "He also mentioned Peter Pettigrew had been at Godric's Hollow when he arrived, before Sirius and had instead taken the Dark Lord's wand and fled."
Amelia took a moment to look around the room to see the other professor's nodding in affirmation. "Well then, this is certainly not an ordinary killing then, is it?"
"I dare say it is not," Albus sighed as he was quite upset to know that he had lost his spy and would now have to work very hard to keep Harry Potter from being imprisoned.
"As much as I dislike this, I must bring the Minister in on this situation, Albus you contact the board of governors," Amelia instructed as she tried to think of the proper procedure for a situation like this. As an outright murder in the castle, especially of one of the professors had not happened anytime in her memory, and since the perpetrator was an underaged wizard, there were likely to be complications.
"Mr. Potter, in the meantime, I am going to be placing you under arrest, you have admitted to the crime, so please do not resist," Amelia turned towards Harry to see him not at all upset.
Harry nodded as he held out his hands so that the witch could place cuffs on him. It was the proper thing to do since Madam Bones was just doing her job so there wasn't a reason to cause trouble. "I'll go quietly."
"I think you can hold off on the going until we have been able to get all the details, as I doubt this will be a simple case," Amelia responded, there was a nagging in the back of her head that this was not going to be as easy as the other underage cases her department handles, which tend to be Hogwarts students trying to nick some firewhiskey or getting into fights. "Albus it will be best if we can use a larger room, let Alastor know so he can go through his usual checks."
"Very well, I'll let him know to go to the faculty meeting room, that'll give him time while we gather the necessary people," Albus grumbled as he sent his patronus out to Alastor informing him of where to meet them.
Five minutes later and Cornelius Fudge along with the members of the board of governors stepped out of the floo in Albus' office. "I dare say, what could possibly be of such importance that I had to come straight here from my home rather than a meeting at the ministry?" Cornelius questioned as he looked around Albus' office.
"A new problem," Albus admitted while pointing to Harry who was sitting in the chair minding his own business with his handcuffed hands placed openly in his lap.
Lucius Malfoy had raised his eyebrow at the curious sight he had been informed by Draco of Harry Potter's placement in Slytherin, that had boded well for them, until Draco had informed him that Harry had all but refused to follow tradition in any regard. "I notice that we are lacking Severus' presence, I had been informed that Mr. Potter was a member of his esteemed house?"
Nobody missed the displeasure on the other three heads of houses faces when Lucius had said Snape's name. "That is exactly what we are going to be discussing once we adjourn to the proper meeting room," Albus quickly interjected before anyone else could say anything that might harm his already lengthy plans to get Harry out of trouble and into his debt.
This intrigued Lucius who normally had very little appreciation for the headmaster, but every once in a while, the old codger was able to say things that even he had to admit were definitely something he wanted to know more about. "Albus, we'll need the school's pensieve for this one I think," Filius chimed in as he would submit his memory of Severus' confession to prove what they were claiming.
As the group took their walk through the castle they arrived to see that Alastor had just finished sweeping the room. "Nobody under disillusionment, and there aren't any listening charms that I could find… we should use a different room, this one is too clean."
Sighing, Albus just removed his glasses to clean them, a technique he used to buy him time to calmly respond so as not to ruin his grandfatherly appearance. "Alastor, as I have said numerous times, Hogwarts is a safe place there is no one here who is out to get you. Now I would like to have this meeting concluded sooner rather than later, so may I begin?"
Alastor grumbled while everyone took seats, with him having placed the Potter kid to his left with Amelia to his right. "As you are aware I have called a meeting," Albus started speaking, ignoring the eye roll from some of the others who felt they had been the ones who were the reason for this happening.
"A short time ago, a dispute happened in the Great Hall regarding a discussion held in my office last night. This conflict got out of hand and the result was-"
"The result was Potter here bisected Severus with a bloody, literal usage, sword," Alastor quickly finished before Albus could get going with his flowery language. The grizzled auror flung some pictures onto the table for all to see who were not down in the Great Hall. "So boy, you wanna just confess or make this ten times harder?"
"Alastor," Minerva shouted at the man who was clearly trying to strong arm a child into confessing to a crime. "This is not so simple a case as your average back-alley murder you so love to talk about at the bars."
"My word," Cornelius gulped as he picked up a photo showing Severus' torso on the stone floor with his guts spilling out into a pile. He quickly passed the photo down to Lucius who looked aghast at what he was seeing. "My dear boy why?!"
"Because that ma-," Harry started to say before a man that Harry did not recognize came hurrying into the room.
"Not another word Harry, Ted Tonks, attorney for the accused," the man hurriedly introduced while forcing himself further into the room. "Now I'm going to need any supposed confession that my client may or may not have admitted to be ignored as he was not informed of any of his rights."
"Theodore it is not necessary," Albus tried to intervene only to have Ted started pulling Harry away from Alastor, who put up a modicum of resistance.
"It most certainly is, I'm going to need to speak to my client alone, so hands off Mad-eye before I set my wife upon you," Ted threatened only to have the auror grumble before releasing the young boy who simply looked more bemused than anything.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're Professor Tonks' husband and thus Tonks' father?" Harry said with a small smirk on his face.
"That I am, Theodore Tonks, lawyer at your service," the man proudly stated. He produced a card and handed it to Harry, which was neat as nobody had given him a business card before, most likely because he was eleven and thus had no need for them. But this one had Mr. Tonks name on it and had him listed as a barrister.
"This is most unusual?" Griselda Marchbanks stated while pushing up her glasses to see the picture a fellow board member had pass down to her. "Dear me, how gruesome."
"I would be inclined to agree," Albus said slowly. "How exactly did you come to be aware that Mr. Potter might require the services of an attorney?"
"My wife floo called me at the office and said that Harry here would need some help and to come straight away, unfortunately that left me with very little time to gather information, so again," Ted smiled at the witches and wizards in the room. "If I could just have a moment of privacy."
"That's quite alright Ted," Pomona happily agreed as she motioned to a side room. "This will give us professors a bit of time to get everyone's heads on straight."
Ted took the lapse in conversation to start getting Harry into the other room. "Okay, Mr. Potter, what happened that my wife told me that I had to come to the castle straight away?"
Harry looked at his handcuffs and then back to Tonks' dad. "I killed Snape with a sword in the Great Hall. And they arrested me for it."
"First off, whyyyyyyy would you do that?" Tonks asked because he'd never had a client just outright confess to murder, mostly because he wasn't even a junior partner and didn't get to do much of the important business that the others at the firm did.
"Well yesterday, I had a meeting with Snape that the other teachers had arranged," Harry started his story of how Snape was supposed to be telling him stories about his parents before the man started confessing his deepest secrets. "And then I saw him in the hall with the headmaster, so I threw on my dad's invisibility cloak, came up behind him and cut him down."
Ted Tonks had gone quiet when his client started to explain things, after all Harry was his daughter's friend. And a subject of many of the letters sent back home, it was him in fact that got his wife her position teaching the younger students potions at Hogwarts because of this animosity between the Potter child and Severus Snape. He practically paled once Harry got to the details of how Snape had been the one to goad the Dark Lord into targeting the Potters.
He had to hold back bile in his throat when Harry told him that Snape had simply wanted his mother as his property, something the Dark Lord was seemingly willing to grant. "So, how uh, how long am I going to jail for?" Harry asked.
Ted gaped his mouth like a fish for a few moments. "I uh wow, okay, wow… wow, hoo boy, this is," Ted stammered. "Well shit. Okay, well first thing we need to establish a defense, self-defense in this won't fly, it was clearly premeditated. But we could claim temporary insanity."
"I'm not crazy!" Harry quickly spat out against the notion that he was mentally unstable.
"No no no, not like that. I mean argue that this revelation was such an enormous shock to you that you could not be held liable for your actions because there was no logical way for you to process it."
"But I did? I learned that he was scum of the earth who had admitted to being directly involved in my parents' murders, so I killed him in revenge."
"That might be a good defense as well, if this goes in front of the whole wizengamot, framing this as a blood feud would strengthen your case. Not a surefire way, but many old families understand a blood feud and that this being a strange case, well lesser offenses has led to more bloodshed," Ted said hopefully before realizing that this potentially unstable wizard was his daughter's friend.
"Now this isn't me asking as your lawyer, this is Nymphadora's father, is she safe with you?" Tend asked.
"Why wouldn't she be? She's one of my best friends in the castle," Harry shrugged. "I wrestled a chimera for Merula, and I'd do the same for Tonks or Tulip."
"I'm gonna, gonna want to circle back to that chimera thing, but I'll take your word for it," Ted nodded. "Well I'm about as ready as I can be, I'll try to stall this for time."
Stepping back into the meeting room, Ted was somewhat surprised to see that all the adults were arguing and screaming at each other. He was absolutely unable to make out what they were screaming about though since everyone was trying to talk over each other.
From the time that Harry and Ted had left the room, Cornelius, Amelia, Alastor and the governors were shown the memory of the previous night from when Pomona, Filius and Minerva had intervened to separate Harry and Severus. Once they all came out of the pensieve many were quite unsure what to think or say. But it was Alastor that let out a whistle. "So Black might be innocent then."
That had set off a slew of arguments over every little detail revealed. Each person trying to get control of the conversation to focus on one point at a time. It was to that Harry and Ted walked back into. "Huh," Harry chuckled as he looked at how of all the people Albus was keeping his mouth shut and watching the bickering. "I bet it's like watching rowdy children to you isn't it?"
"The longer I am alive the more I come to realize that children who come through my halls as first year students, do not change all that much," Albus replied before letting off a cannon blast of noise that made everyone else cover their ears. "As you all have so much you wish to talk about, I feel it prudent that I keep us on track for the most important detail."
"I am in total agreement headmaster," Ted said as he took a seat next to Harry at the table. "And after discussing with my client, I would like to have a meeting scheduled before the full Wizengamot, he has nothing to hide and has done no wrong."
"No wrong," Lucius bellowed, as complicated as Severus was, it was clear that he still held a loyalty to the Dark Lord that and his death drastically affected the entirety of Slytherin house meant that it was a bad thing for his son.
"Yes, this was sadly the result of an intense blood feud between the Noble House of Potter and that of Severus Snape," Ted looked around the room. "The man had confessed to wanting the extinction of the Potter bloodline and to further take my client's mother as his property, that he had done so by utilizing a notorious terrorist surely meets even the highest standards for retribution from my client."
Lucius snarled as he wanted to draw his wand on his in-law, but this would not be the proper time nor place. But even he knew that Severus' confessed reasoning for pointing the Dark Lord at the Potters would have earned a blood feud from any survivors had they known of it, it would be a very difficult point to argue against in front of the other pureblood families.
"That's getting ahead of things Ted," Amelia sighed as she tried to find the place she wanted to start. "Severus stated that Peter Pettigrew had been on scene when he arrived at Godric's Hollow, before Sirius Black. We'll need to talk to him, find out what he can still remember."
"Cornelius, I need you to okay the release of Sirius into my auror's custody for another interrogation," Amelia turned towards the minister who looked more confused than anyone in the room, likely because neither Albus nor Lucius could coax him into thinking one way without it being obvious to everyone else.
"In the meantime I believe that releasing our student is prudent," Filius requested. "I have no reason to think that Harry will cause any violence unless sufficiently provoked."
"I agree, after the incident this last Halloween with the chimera and Miss Snyde, Harry has shown a great propensity for heroism," Pomona agreed.
"Chimera?" Griselda asked while looking in Mr. Potter's direction for an answer.
"There was an accident with the Care of Magical Creatures class," Harry meekly answered. "I found the chimera going after Merula and fought it off. It wasn't that impressive."
"I believe that we will be the determiners of that," Ted quickly stated. "I'd like to review the memory of this incident as it might be essential character evidence to prove my client is not guilty."
"I'm intrigued as well," Alastor stated because he'd seen a score of handlers struggle to keep a chimera under control, but a first year fighting one off without being more mangled than he was, definitely would be interesting to watch.
"Mr. Potter, if I may pull the memory from your mind, I am also quite interested in witnessing the battle you had undergone," Filius commented.
Harry just shrugged, "Sure thing I guess."
It was an odd sensation having his memory taken out of his head, like someone stuck a turkey baster on his brain and let it suck. That the silvery thread wiggled around before being placed in the pensieve while Ted, Alastor and Filius entered to watch it play out was weird that they had just stuck their faces in the large basin.
In the meantime, Harry was the center of attention. "So, I don't really know who any of you are?" he slowly trailed off with an awkward cough into his fist.
"Quite right," Cornelius realized that he and The-Boy-Who-Lived had not been formally introduced, since Harry Potter was famous it would only do good to have him see the minister in the right light early. "I am the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Oswald Fudge."
"Lucius Malfoy," the blond man sneered at the child.
"Ah, you're Draco's dad," Harry nodded. "Your son's kind of a git."
Lucius looked bright red with anger at the disparaging remark towards his son by Harry Potter of all people. But Harry just ignored it. "He's eleven so he has an excuse, we're all kind of gits."
"Children always stay the same," Griselda chuckled before anyone else could speak. "I'm Griselda Marchbanks, the only one here older than Albus."
Harry was impressed because he wasn't aware that people would live that long without divine intervention of some kind. But as the other governors introduced themselves the three people in the pensieve sat back up.
"INCREDIBLE!" Filius exclaimed as he witnessed firsthand the fighting prowess of Lily's son. "Yes, ten- no fifty house points to Slytherin."
"You did that for your friend?" Ted questioned because he had assumed that Harry was blowing the tale out of proportion, when in fact he'd grossly undersold his accomplishment.
"Well yeah," Harry shrugged because it wasn't like he would just sit back and watch Merula get eaten.
Ted just exhaled because now he realized that his daughter might be a lot safer in the school than he first thought, if someone strong enough to throw around a chimera weighing over seven hundred pounds was looking out for her. Ted didn't want to know what would happen to a person who tried to mess with her.
"Alright Amelia, we can take the cuffs off him" Alastor chuckled to his boss.
"Are you serious?" Amelia questioned.
Alastor nodded with a sick grin on his face. "Oh yeah, if the kid didn't want them on him anymore, he'd break them off with his bare hands, it's only enchanted against magical means of removal not whatever kind of insane strength Potter's got in his muscles."
Knowing that Alastor rarely wanted suspects not fully restrained, the idea of him seeing a memory was enough to make him okay with them not even using handcuffs was strange, she'd have to see his memory of the memory later. It wasn't a perfect system but she needed to stay in the conversation.
Uncuffing Harry, who just placed his hands on the table so they were visible, Amelia turned back to the discussion as Ted was looking quite pleased with himself. "If the Wizengamot see this, then it's all but assured they side with my client. This act of heroism is unprecedented in a first year."
"I'm unsure if we need things to go that far," Albus said in the hopes of directing the conversation away from more people being involved. He had no doubt that currently the entire castle was discussing what had transpired this morning and it would make its way on the wings of messenger owls by this very night. Thus he needed to ensure that his version of events was everyone's version of events, at least the one spoken of in public.
"As tragic as these events have been, I feel as if dragging young Mr. Potter here into the Wizengamot would do nothing more than turn this entire event into a circus."
"What would you have done then?" Cornelius questioned, while everyone else was quite curious just how Dumbledore intended to frame this incident.
Albus waved his wand and a large tome that was the school charter appeared on the table. Flipping it open to the corresponding page, which wasn't really necessary as the book itself was blank and would just provide the proper rules that the headmaster wanted brought up, it was only large in size as it did contain pages of rules. "We must treat this as an internal Hogwarts matter."
"What?" Amelia balked at the idea of the murder of Severus Snape being treated the same as a fight between students. While she was on the side that said justice was done, the law was clear on this matter.
"I admit that it might have been a more stable situation should Severus, Harry and myself had this discussion of their pasts in a calmer manner, but there isn't much we can do now to remedy the animosity between the two. So I feel it is in the best interest to counsel Harry into exercising forgiveness rather than vengeance."
Harry blinked owlishly at the headmaster, because it sounded to him like the crazy old man was suggesting that he get no punishment for what he did but also keeping him under the thumb for his actions. It simply didn't make sense to Harry that the headmaster was this desperate to keep him in the school, there had to be some reason for this level of interest. Which in turn meant Harry wanted to know what was going on because this was not how a normal educator would handle any student taking the life of a teacher.
"Are you suggesting that we… call this an "oopsie doopsie" and pretend that Harry Potter did not just murder a person?" Lucius questioned because even he was unsure just what angle the headmaster was playing.
"Forgiveness is the first step."
Cornelius for once looked to Amelia to handle this situation because everything else seemed quite mad to him. Amelia just took her monocle off her face and looked around the room. "As much as I do not wish to say this, I need more time to investigate. This is going to be the most high-profile case since we tried the Death Eaters, whether Mr. Potter is locked away or not will not be decided this day. I still have to look into the claims of Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew both being present on that night ten years ago."
"Why would that matter?" Harry asked because he'd wanted to know just how this Sirius person came into play.
"Because if Severus Snape had in fact been telling the truth then it would not have just been the Potters that held a blood feud against him, but the Black Family as well. That the ministry may have given an order of merlin to a traitor is just going to be the icing on the cake. For the meantime Mr. Potter," Amelia turned towards Harry.
"If you have even so much as a toe out of line, I will have my aurors down here to take you into custody," she warned to which Harry nodded.
"Cornelius, we'll need to make a preemptive statement to the Daily Prophet that the ministry is taking this incident seriously and results of the investigation will be relayed regularly to the press to keep the public at ease," Amelia instructed. "Alastor get some senior aurors to go with you to Azkaban and pick up Black, I want him ready to answer questions no later than tomorrow."
Alastor nodded and stomped his way out of the room to gather whichever aurors could still cast a patronus to come with him. "I'll go straight away to the Daily Prophet to have them prepare for the owls that they will no likely be getting," Cornelius stated, because even if he was ineffective at many things, handling the press was not one of them.
Amelia stood up from the table. "I will be returning when I have questions for everyone, especially because it sounds to me like members of the staff were aware that Mr. Potter had made threats against the former potions master but deigned to sit back and let things play out."
None of the other heads of house looked ashamed of their actions, or in this case, inaction at preventing a confrontation between their colleague and student. As one the board of governors looked to Albus. Lucius sneered at the man. "I expect regular updates on this situation Albus."
Finally that left Harry with the Hogwarts professors and Ted. "So this has been a very odd day I'll say," Ted stated. "Harry if you need me again, either send an owl to the address on this card or talk to my wife or Nymphadora. But in the meantime, I will have to go back to my firm to find out the best way to defend your case if it goes to the Wizengamot."
"Not a problem sir," Harry nodded. "You've been the best attorney I've ever had."
"I'm the only attorney you've had?" Ted raised an eyebrow at the comment.
"Yes." Harry replied flatly.
With that the man left the room, likely to track down his wife to get her statement and spend time with her since she lives up in the castle for many days of the week now. It was a rare occasion that he had to come up to the school, at least not for dealing with whatever trouble Nymphadora got herself into.
"Now Mr. Potter, there is still a matter of your detention to discuss," Albus reminded Harry of from the last night's conversation. His ill timed comment caused the three remaining heads of house to yell that this potential looming trial was punishment enough.
Raising his hands placatingly, "I am aware that much has transpired, however it is pertinent that the Hogwarts staff show the rest of the students that there are punishments for actions."
Harry just wanted to get out of this meeting, so he just shrugged and agreed. "Whatever you think is for the best professor."
"Good, now you will spend your detention with Hagrid tonight," Albus said while glancing at his other heads of house who he doubted would actually have Harry punished. "However the rest of you will need to remain here as we now have a sudden vacancy in employment and the other professors will need to be caught up on the current events."
Harry nodded and stood from the table, it had been a number of hours since this incident and Harry was feeling the jitters as he figured that everyone else was wanting to know the results of this meeting. So when he stepped out it was to see that Nymphadora, Merula and Tulip had been hanging outside the door waiting.
He barely made it a few steps before they rushed him to demand answers.
With all the other people hanging around the hallways, Harry knew he had to get somewhere others weren't going to just be eavesdropping. The regular room they used was unlikely to suffice due to it being a known hangout by other students who came looking for any of them.
"Come on, we can use my mom's private room," Tonks suggested for them to talk in. Being that it was a teachers room and she used to be a black, unless you had the password which Tonks did because her mom wanted her to spend time with her, even if found herself getting teased a lot, it was still nice to have more chances to see her instead of it just being on breaks. But without that password, you would not get in the room or hear anything.
"Yeah, well we live in a muggle neighborhood so mum just got used to decorating a home for any guests that came over," Tonks nervously rubbed her arm, since she felt introducing other magicals into how she grew up might look bad on them/
"It's nice," Harry commented as the room was unlike any he suspected belonged to the other professors, this almost looked like a muggle home.
Tonks lets out a breath of relief that she had been holding before directing everyone to a sitting area. After taking seats a house elf arrived to bring them a platter of snacks. This gave Harry a chance to eat something before he took the time to explain everything that had happened from when Snape confessed to the meeting he had just left.
Once he finished the girls realized now just why Harry had done what he did. "Snape was a monster," Merula realized that her former head of house had been so loyal to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and that the man was both acting as a spy for Dumbledore while not really doing anything about students who were causing problems.
"And the headmaster knew all of this?" Tulip shuddered thinking that if someone like Dumbledore was aware just how horrible a person Severus Snape had been and yet still hired him as a teacher.
Harry took a moment before begrudgingly shrugging. "I honestly couldn't tell you what he knew, the headmaster seemed to insinuate that he knew more than he was saying but less in ways that might hold him accountable for anything he should have done if he knew."
"That's a little… convenient," Tonks commented on her young friend's assessment. Because it did sound like Snape had told Dumbledore some of this but shouldn't he have asked further questions or investigated since it was clear from the confession that Severus Snape was not a trustworthy man.
"Unless he talks there's not much I can go off right now, but I do have detention tonight," Harry commented as he stretched out a bit. "Tonks, do you think your mom will mind if I take a quick nap in here? I'd go to my dorm but after this morning I think it might be best if I return after I have had a chance to rest up or after everyone has gone to bed when I return from whatever Hagrid will have me doing."
"No, I don't think she'll mind Harry, she was a Slytherin back in the day and would understand that they aren't the most understanding sort," nodding to the young boy who subsequently shut his eyes.
"Hey," Merula snapped, feeling like Tonks was being a bit unfair to her house.
"Not all of them, but I mean, look at my family, all Slytherin except for me and Sirius, and well… you know," Tonks looked a bit sheepishly at Merula since she would know the nature of the Black family.
"Fair enough I guess, so what do we do now?" Tulip questioned because classes were canceled for the day and seemingly would be for the immediate future.
"We can use this time to prepare for our trip to the Vault tonight," Tonks whispered.
"What?! You want to go tonight?" Merula gasped at the notion of doing something like that right now.
"Yes, we know the sleep walking problem has only gotten worse, and the teachers HAD been keeping an eye on us. Although after what happened this morning the teachers won't notice us going out and that's why we have to go," Tonks firmly answered.
"But that's crazy?" Tulip disagreed.
"We almost had a number of students sleepwalk into the forest and that was with the teachers paying attention, but now that they are all dealing with Snape, there's no way they can stop anyone else, we have to go tonight before someone gets hurt," Tonks explained herself.
"Then we need to be quick," Merula added on. "We learned the spider repelling charm since that's likely what's guarding the vault."
"Yeah if it's a big acromantula, then it would easily be able to eat any defenseless sleepwalking students," Tulip said in agreement. Her friends were right, this was now the most dangerous time for the sleepwalkers and they needed to put an end to it before someone died.
Unbeknownst to the three Harry had only been feigning sleep to hear what his friends might be planning and a part of him realized that Tonks might be right, but that also meant that they would have no one there to help them if they got into trouble.