Chapter 9

Author's Note:

Some people have asked if this will be a Harry/Ginny Story. The answer is no, because this story won't be focusing on any pairings. Most of the characters are 15, and as real fifteen year olds do, the characters have hormones and feelings that they aren't entirely in sure what to do with. Harry will probably end up dating around a bit, again, as most fifteen year olds do.

Others have asked if this will be a Weasley Bashing story, and the answer to that is also no. This story deals with politics and the way that people behave. In canon, Ron is prejudiced against Slytherins and strongly dislikes Malfoy, for good reasons which will be explored in detail. I'm going to try my hardest to make sure that everyone stays in character. If you think that they are out of character, point it out!

Thank you for all the reviews and feedback on this story! I'm doing my best to keep up with it.

Thanks all, I hope that you enjoy!

Barnaby Antar was a portly little man who had enjoyed the relative anonymity that being a lawyer provided. He occasionally consulted for the Wizengamot and rubbed elbows with the likes of Madam Bones, or less desirably, the Minister's Undersecretary, Madam Umbridge. Regardless, his life had been quite calm for the past fifteen years or so.

The arrival of a handsome snowy owl had borne him a letter that promised his most exciting client yet. Mr. Harry Potter, the savior of the Wizarding World, currently the bane of Madam Umbridge's existence, if her chattering was anything to go by.

He would quite like to take the young man's case for that reason alone.

Well that and it really was an airtight case. A simple case of self-defense. The boy had saved his cousin's soul! It seemed it was a story made for the Prophet! He even had documentation to boot!

He had read through the letter Mr. Potter had sent him, taken note of the names Mr. Potter and mentioned, and duplicated the Healer's receipt in triplicate with a quick Gemino charm and sent them zooming into appropriate folders, one that he would submit to the Wizengamot, one that he would keep for his records, and one was his working folder.

The trial was coming up quickly, only a few days away. It wasn't like the boy was on trial for murder. Technically, he wasn't on trial for anything; this was just a hearing.

Barny frowned. Harry Potter might not be on trial, but the way the Minister and his underlings were carrying on, he might as well be. The lawyer took his place behind the rich oak desk and pulled a letterhead toward him. He had several interviews to conduct before the hearing if he intended to do Mr. Potter justice.

Narcissa Malfoy was a patient woman. She had waited for nearly a year before Lucius had worked up the nerve to ask for her hand in marriage. She had indulged her husband and her sister in their worship of the Dark Lord. She had even held her tongue when Lucius began speaking of introducing Draco to the Dark Lord's ranks.

She could not, however, allow a werewolf a place in her home. Certainly not one as mangy and bloodthirsty as Fenrir Greyback.

Her pointed nose wrinkled in distaste as she watched the hulk of a man tear through a rare steak in her dining room. The Malfoy family was seated far from the werewolf, clustered at one end of the sixteen-foot-long mahogany table. Foreign dignitaries and Lords had taken their meals at this table. Now it serviced a monster.

Draco clutched a silver knife in his left hand and watched the man eat with clear disgust marring his features. Normally Narcissa would scold him for wearing his thoughts on his face, but in this instance, she found that she agreed with her son. She certainly wouldn't reprimand him for failing to be polite to such an abomination.

Lucius alone seemed unbothered by the werewolf's presence in his home. Lord Malfoy had brought him back from a 'gathering' nearly two days ago and was under orders to shelter the brute. He has assured Narcissa that their guest would behave himself and make no untoward advances toward herself or their son. The Dark Lord had forbidden it.

But still Narcissa was unhappy. She could feel a taint around the man; she could hardly stand to be in the same room as such a monster. Her breeding simply would not allow it.

Abruptly, she stood from the table, her meal of braised pheasant untouched. Smoothing down the front of her silk down, she fixed her husband with an icy gaze and held out her bejeweled hand to her son.

"Draco, come away," Narcissa ordered. "You'll not be tainted by the filth of your father's… associate."

Her son's lovely grey eyes glanced from Lucius, to Greyback, and up to his mother. Lucius narrowed his eyes at his wife, but said nothing. Greyback only leered. Draco stood and carefully folded his napkin next to his plate.

"Of course, Mother."

Moonlight filtered in through the large windows at the front of the Chelsea flat. Gauzy curtains did little to hold back the brightness of the crescent moon or the glow of the streetlamps that lined the street outside.

The flat was tastefully decorated, the furniture expensive and the finishings delicate and feminine. What was not feminine, however, was the rumbling, lusty moan that shattered the silence of the flat.

In the single bedroom, tangled in the silky sheets, Peregrine Derrick, Slytherin's recently graduated ex-beater, panted as the dark-haired woman atop him disentangled herself from his well-muscled arms.

Truly, he couldn't believe his luck! The woman next to him was far too attractive to take an interest in him. At least, an interest in his looks. Derrick was no pretty-boy, but he was well bread and his family had loads of gold. It was just good fortune that he's managed to find a gold-digger as attractive as this one.

"Come back to be, Love," Derrick murmured, catching his lover's hand as she climbed out of the bed. She laughed and pulled her hand away from him, tying her short dressing gown shut around herself.

"I'll be back, Darling," She sauntered out of the room, only to return a moment later with two tumblers full of honey colored liquid. She passed him one and raised her own in a toast.

Derrick threw the liquor back and relished the burn of it in his chest. This was a muggle drink, but he preferred it to firewhiskey. His glass was instantly full again, with a quick flick of the woman's wand. Just as quickly as the first, Derrick disposed of his second serving of brandy.

"How are you feeling, Darling?" His lover asked as she crawled back into the bed and up his body until she was straddling his lap. Derrick quite enjoyed the position and for the thousandth time that night, he thanked Merlin that he had been at that Hogsmeade pub with his father and Goyle Sr. two nights ago. Their meeting had been cut short as the barman had caused a scene, shouting about scoundrels and conjuring a small heard of goats that had chased them out of the establishment. That mattered little to Derrick, the turn of events had led to the woman atop him into his bed.

"Wonderful, Love," Derrick growled and rolled them over so that he loomed over his lover's smaller frame. "Was just thinking how lucky I was to have a slut like you in my bed. The lads' will never believe it!"

"The lads?" The woman asked, her large amber eyes wide. "Your friends from the pub? You don't seem the type to drink at the Hogs Head… you were there for business?"

Derrick nodded his head but suddenly stopped when he felt a wand tip press against his temple and hand at his throat, manicured nails were pressing crescent moons into his Adam's apple. He blinked stupidly when the wand was pulled away gently, a long trail of silvery memory clinging to the black tip of the wand before it fell into the discarded tumbler resting at the woman's hip.

"If you ever call me a slut again, Darling…" The woman murmured from under Derrick, her wand at his temple again, her lips close to his and her knee pressed dangerously between his legs.

Derrick roared his displeasure and reached to dislodge the wand pressing into his temple. He wasn't fast enough, however, and his lover called out a spell before he could smack her wand away.

"Obliviate!"

Fat tears rolled down pale cheeks, the latest in a long string of emotional outbursts. This time it was sadness; a deep melancholy that seemed to have settled into her bones. Sometimes it was anger that lit a fire in her belly, but right now, it was aching sadness.

Cho Chang was devastated.

It had only been a matter of weeks since her boyfriend had tumbled to the ground, lifeless, in front of her. She could still hear the scream that had been torn from her throat and the wailing of Cedric's father as he clutched his son's unmoving body.

For much of her summer holidays, Cho had locked herself away in her bedroom with the blinds drawn and the candles unlit. She sat in the silence of the room and let silent tears fall. Breaking the silence would bring her crashing back to reality. A reality that she wasn't ready to face.

In her tears and her mind, she still had Cedric. She could relive the Yule Ball, their late-night conversations, all the times that she had snuck out of Ravenclaw Tower to meet him at the Quidditch pitch for midnight races.

For a nearly a year he had been the most important person in her life. And then he had been ripped away from her, murdered in the center of some dark maze.

Now she was alone.

That thought brought a fresh wave of tears.

The pride of others had cost her everything: the pride of England, of the Ministry, of Hogwarts. Even Cedric's own pride as a champion. He never should have entered the tournament. The tournament should have never happened in the first place.

Cho grasped onto that thought desperately. The tournament had ruined everything. It was in ill-conceived, bloodstained relic. It should never have happened.

She couldn't change the past. She couldn't bring Cedric back. But she could make sure that the tournament never happened again. She would see Cedric avenged, she would make his death mean something.

Cho uncurled herself from the purple comforter that she had draped about herself and stumbled to a desk that was piled high with unopened mail. She had letters to write.

Auror Albrecht scrubbed a freckled hand over his face, trying to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He had been deep in the Kapitol Building searching through old files- decades older than he was. Igor Karkaroff was rumored to be in Munich, holed up with the help of one of his… associates. It wasn't likely that he would stay there for long.

It had fallen to Albrecht, temporarily assigned to desk duty. His last prisoner failing to survive the bludgeoning curse to the neck that Albrecht had delivered. The man had been suspected to be a peddler of illegal potions, particularly Wolfsbane, of shoddy quality. There had already been three deaths and he had put up a struggle.

It was nearly two in the morning and Albrecht was surrounded by boxes of folders and stacks of reports in a cramped, unused and poorly lit office. He desperately needed a coffee. Or a firewhiskey.

"Sheisse," He groused, pulling another stack of manila folders from the box in front of him labeled with Karkaroff's name. The man had four boxes to himself, detailing his connection to the Death Eaters, his trial, and the death of his older brother, Kristoff, which he was suspected of committing, but never convicted of. How the man had become the headmaster of Durmstrang, Albrecht did not know.

He had been an unforgiving headmaster during the time that Albrecht had spent at the school. Karkaroff had demanded excellence and trained his students in aggression. Fencing and boxing were just as popular at Durmstrang as Quidditch.

A loud rap on the door frame caused Albrecht to jump to attention, the file in his hands fell to the desk with a sharp slapping sound.

An imposing man in long maroon robes was framed in the doorway, nearly to broad in the shoulders to fit through. Albrecht grinned and dropped out of attention immediately.

"Shacklebolt! What are you doing here?" He demanded as he moved around the desk to shake the man's hand and clap him on the back. "It's been ages."

"Cassius," the man's voice rumbled, low and smooth. "It is good to see you." With a flick of his wand, Kinglsey Shacklebolt cleared a stack of papers from one of the wooden chairs in front of the desk and sat down, sweeping his hand to indicate that Albrecht should do the same. "I wish that I could say I was here for pleasure."

Albrecht searched the man's face as he sat down, trying to find the meaning behind his words. His old friend's face had more lines than he had remembered, and Shacklebolt looked wary, though he hid it well. Albrecht waved his own wand, shutting the door of the office and threw up a privacy ward around them. The only other people in the office were on the other side of the department, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

"You are here because of your Dark Lord problem." Albrecht looked at Kingsley expectantly. It was not a question. A sharp incline of the other man's head confirmed his theory. "You wish to recruit me to Albus Dumbledore's side." This was not a question either.

Kinglsey grinned.

He really needed to call a house elf to clean the windows of the greenhouse. A fine layer of dirt had caked them, dampening the sunlight. Swirls of dust danced through the air around, stirred up by the gently waving tentacles of the Venomous Tentacula, Neville's prized plant.

Neville hadn't spent as much time in the greenhouse this summer as he would have liked. His Grandmother, Madam Augusta Longbottom, had been running him absolutely ragged with all of the luncheons, meetings, and hearings that she had dragged him to.

He would be fifteen soon, ready to begin his O.W.L. year at Hogwarts. Gran had decided that he was ready to begin learning how to act like the head of one of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses in Wizarding England. The Longbottoms were one of the Sacred Houses, the founding members of a stable Magical society in England, as his Gran constantly reminded him. He was expected to be a leader, to inherit the title of Lord that his father had owned, that his Grandmother held in trust for him.

Neville gulped as he picked up some shears and began snipping away at an over grown shrivelfig bush on the long bench that ran the length of the greenhouse. He didn't want to be the head of House Longbottom, he would have been much happier attending to his plants.

His wishes didn't seem to matter, though, as he was the only child of an only child. He had no close cousins who could inherit the title. Neville would gladly see the gold go to someone else if it meant that they had to take on the responsibilities that came with it.

Neville had never been the most confident Gryffindor and he sometimes wondered why the Sorting Hat had placed him there at all. He had none of Ron's fiery passion, Seamus's propensity to be cheeky with the professors, or Dean's quiet confidence. He certainly didn't measure up to Harry Potter.

Harry would be a wonderful person to take over the Longbottom estate, in Neville's opinion. His Gran would love Harry, he would remind her of Neville's father, Frank the Auror.

For all his celebrity and his adventures, Harry had always been kind to Neville and made an effort to include him. There had been that time first year, where Hermione had put him in a full body bind, but then again, Neville had tried to order the trio back to bed.

Obviously, he didn't have any authority to be ordering his year mates about. Neville wasn't a prefect then, and he was quite sure that he wouldn't be awarded the badge this year either. Harry was the obvious choice, and Neville rather hoped that he used his status as a prefect to get the Slytherins off his back.