The interrogation by Moody was only the first of several; Dumbledore and Snape spoke to them first, and later they had to speak to other Aurors from the Ministry. It had already been past nightfall when the last trial had begun and by the time the adults were ready to let them go, all the other students had been in bed for hours.
The adults had a particular problem believing that Harry and Steven had dueled Voldemort alone, although Moody had chortled madly while examining the Pensieve memory of Steven hitting Voldemort with a rock.
No one had commented on the idea that Steven could have taken Voldemort's head off with the rock had he chosen to. There were three Aurors dead because he hadn't, and Harry could see that it was weighing on Steven.
Killing wasn't something Steven was meant to do. It worried Harry a little that if the rock had been in his hand and he'd had Steven's strength, he wouldn't have hesitated. To Harry, not killing Voldemort would make him responsible for everything Voldemort did afterwards.
Telling that to Steven was out of the question. He already felt bad enough. People had been hurt and he felt responsible.
Madam Pomprey would have insisted that they stay in the hospital overnight; although she didn't say it, Harry suspected she thought Voldemort might have put any sort of nasty curse on the both of them. However, the wing was full of the injured. The chaos and pandemonium when Voldemort had appeared had injured far more people than he had himself.
Instead, they were both escorted to their respective quarters with strict instructions to go to her if they noticed anything strange at all.
Harry had found himself staring up at the ceiling unable to sleep. His mind was still racing, images of Voldemort's bone white skin hovering in the air flashing over and over in his mind.
It wasn't until he was being shaken awake by Ron that he realized he'd slept at all.
Being pestered with questions by Ron early in the morning would have been irritating enough, even if he knew he meant well. Having it happen when he'd only had a few hours sleep made it worse.
Having to go over everything all over again in the common room, with Hermione's questions being more pointed and intelligent than Ron's made it even worse. The only good thing was that they'd waited until everyone else had gone down to breakfast before waking him.
Apparently someone had decided that being mobbed by his classmates the moment he woke wasn't going to be helpful. Harry felt himself being grateful to whoever it was. That showed sensitivity and an awareness of human nature most Wizards didn't seem to possess.
He steeled himself for whatever reaction his classmates would have, and then they all went down to breakfast. They met Steven on the way; he was being escorted by Cedric Diggory.
Hermione rushed over to him and embraced him. Harry found himself looking away uncomfortably, although he wasn't sure he understood why. It might have been because he thought he saw Hermione crying.
When they stepped into the Great Hall, the usual buzz of conversation dropped off the moment they were recognized.
Almost a quarter of the seats were empty.
"A lot of parents pulled their kids out of school," Ron murmured. "Think it's not safe here."
Harry didn't say anything. He was too busy watching the entire student body stare at him and Steven. They made their way toward the Gryffindor table, although Cedric steered Steven toward the Hufflepuffs at the last minute.
Fortunately there were plenty of seats and the Hufflepuffs were seated next to them. No one objected when they sat close enough that Steven could turn around in his seat and talk to them, although this was generally frowned upon.
Harry was proud to see that fewer Gryffindors seemed to be missing than any other house. The Hufflepuffs had the most missing, and they were sitting closer together than usual. The Slytherins, oddly, had almost as few people missing as the Gryffindors.
Cedric Diggory was making sure that all of the Hufflepuffs got to see Steven. The moment Steven sat down, it looked as though the entire House was leaning toward him. It wasn't just curiosity either. They almost seemed to find reassurance in his presence.
It wasn't long before Harry had to quit watching the Hufflepuffs. Everyone at his own table was barraging him with questions.
At some point, someone slipped a copy of the Daily Prophet in front of him. At the very top was a headline screaming "DARK LORD RETURNS!"
A picture of a snarling Voldemort levitating and gesturing with a wand took up the top third of the page. A smaller picture was in the bottom right hand corner; it was of him and Steven looking shocked. The blood covering their shirts looked ghastly. It looked like they'd been through a war.
It hadn't occurred to him just how bad the blood covering them would have looked. His only concern had been getting home and shock at the chaos that had followed.
The article that followed was demanding swift action by the Ministry; for some reason no one seemed to be talking about the fact that Voldemort's appearance at Hogwarts was an accident. Everyone seemed to assume that it was some sort of an attack designed to create maximum terror.
Looking at the faces of his classmates, Harry had to admit that it might have been an effective one. Voldemort had been the bogeyman for an entire generation, and he'd proven that the wards of Hogwarts weren't enough to keep him from attacking at leisure.
That was the newspaper's position, and that seemed to be what most of his classmates believed as well. They spoke in low, hushed tones among themselves, and their faces seemed thin and drawn. Everyone seemed paler than usual, and Snape was missing from the teacher's table.
The fact that it was all a lie didn't seem to bother anyone, and no matter how hard Harry tried to convince them, no one would believe it. He glanced back at Steven and they shared a look of dismayed resignation.
The paper had made them out to be victims who had somehow managed to survive, which actually wasn't far from the truth.
The article on whether or not they would suffer from Wand-shock (apparently a Wizarding form of PTSD) was entirely unnecessary, especially the suggestion that they'd have to be incarcerated in the psychiatric ward of St. Mungos.
Neville looked particularly pale and upset when he saw that article, although Harry wasn't sure why. He and Steven were the ones the paper wanted to send to the loony bin.
There was also an article calling for Cornelius Fudge to be impeached, even though he had nothing to do with Voldemort's return as far as Harry knew. He hadn't even been the Minister when Voldemort had disappeared, and he hadn't had a chance yet to make any policies that would affect Voldemort in any way.
As far as Harry was concerned, they needed to give the man the benefit of the doubt. If he was really as incompetent as the paper said, he'd soon prove it. Otherwise, he deserved a chance. He'd always been fairly pleasant to Harry the few times they'd met.
It could have been worse, Harry finally decided. Given his past experiences with the Daily Prophet, they could have blamed him for Voldemort's resurrection or accused him of being on Voldemort's side.
Over the next few days he found his classmates avoiding him and not meeting him in the eye. Word had spread that he and Steven had faced Voldemort and according to Ron, consensus around the school was that Voldemort was going to try to kill him.
Nobody, not even the Gryffindors wanted to be near him when that happened.
Most of the houses treated Steven the same way with the exception of his own house. The Hufflepuffs seemed to cling even harder to Steven than they had that first morning, as though he was some sort of talisman against evil.
He'd faced Voldemort and survived and apparently the Hufflepuffs assumed that Steven would stand between them and whatever danger came. It didn't hurt that his "aunts" had visibly harmed Voldemort. From what Harry had heard, Amethyst had even been "poofed" in the middle of the fight, only to return moments later as a twisted mockery of herself to continue the fight.
The gems themselves were being treated differently. They'd always been treated with a kind of condescending familiarity that none of the other teachers received. It was the same sort of familiar condescension as Hagrid himself was treated with. Wizards didn't think much of non-humans.
Now, though, it was as though the entire population of the school had finally recognized just how dangerous the gems actually were. Even the Slytherins were treating Amethyst with a kind of wary respect, and they were nicer to Pearl as well, at least to her face.
There were calls in the Daily Prophet to draft them into the effort to find Voldemort, who had disappeared. Despite a massive manhunt, no sign of him had been found, although there were suspicions that he was being harbored by any number of Dark families.
In some way, the response to his return was almost designed to draw people to his call. Aurors were breaking into people's homes and destroying their property without leaving them with any sort of legal recourse. People were becoming angry with the Ministry, which was only slightly better than being deathly afraid.
The remaining students were getting angry letters from their families, and Ron talked about his father's own uneasiness with the new policies.
Steven seemed to think that it was the government needing to be seen as doing something, anything so that people could feel safer. He said that politicians would lie to people and think that it was for their own good, and for once Harry couldn't disagree.
Each night Harry went to bed wondering if he would have the dream again, about Voldemort rising from the cauldron, his corpse-white skin glistening in the light. It wasn't one of the dreams connected to his scar; it was simply an unpleasant memory.
At least he didn't worry that Voldemort was going to kill him in his sleep. Voldemort had been trying for years and there was nothing he could do if he tried. There wasn't any point in worrying about it.
The school year ended with a grave speech from Dumbledore about the need for everyone to stand together in the face of hardship and adversity. It didn't seem to reassure any of his classmates, and Harry had to wonder if some of the faces he saw in the crowd would disappear before the start of the next year.
He hoped not. If there was really a war they'd need every wand they could raise to stand against Voldemort.
He just hoped it would be enough.