Warnings for this chapter: Creation, possession and distribution of pornographic material (and a noted lack of consent from the featured party).

31. PICTURE PERFECT

Tom gave a gentle squeeze to Holly's fingers, trying to still their nervous fiddling with the bedspread and wanting to reassure her that he was here and that he would not leave her alone with this. But she still looked spooked, like she would jitter out of her skin or bolt at any moment, warily watching Madam Pomfrey as she ran through her tests.

"Well, everything seems to be in order," the nurse finally declared, summoning a chair with a flick of her wand and then sitting down on the other side of Holly's bed. "You're about four weeks along, so in the very early stages of your pregnancy. Any symptoms at this point should be minor – you might experience some more spells of nausea and your breasts might feel a little more sensitive. Slight fluctuations in your magic and an increased need for rest are also to be expected."

Holly nodded along, blushing brightly at the mention of her breasts, but then asked, "Is the baby okay?"

Madam Pomfrey's mien softened. "The baby is one-hundred percent okay, Holly. I would like to start you on some prenatal vitamins and I would like it if your penchant for getting into trouble did not land you back in my hospital wing for at least this year, but your baby is okay."

"It's just… I haven't been exactly… I mean I trained with Rudolphus and Rabastan and David showed me some spells as well and I played Quidditch and I used my Animagus form and…" Holly whispered, wrapping her arms around her middle. "I didn't know about this."

"And you couldn't have," Tom said reasonably, carefully rubbing her back. "I know that my Death Eaters are always careful with you and you're an excellent flyer, Holly, and as Madam Pomfrey said our baby is just fine."

"But what about when I used my Animagus form?" Holly asked nervously, looking to Madam Pomfrey for an answer. "That can't have been good for the baby!"

"There's actually no evidence of an Animagus transformation negatively impacting a pregnancy. I believe there was even one case, yes… I'll have to see if I can find the article for you… But my point being, there's really no need to worry: Your physical form changes when you turn into your Animagus self, but your magic remains the same and will continue to protect and support the baby. That being said, I would still advise against too frequent transformations. Your body is under a lot of stress and is going through many changes – you should not add to that, if at all possible."

"Okay." Holly nodded, some of the tension leaving her body. "What about Quidditch? I'll have to quit the team, won't I?"

"Not necessarily, no," Madam Pomfrey replied, evidently well prepared for this meeting. "There's precedent, even in professional Quidditch, as I understand, for using a shield charm in cases where one of the players is in need of extra protection or can't risk aggravating an existing injury."

"But wouldn't that be kind of unfair to the other team?" Holly asked, her brows furrowed unhappily.

"I believe general practise is to impose a time penalty for any hit to the shield so the handicap might actually be yours," Madam Pomfrey replied in her no-nonsense tone. "And the Heads of Houses would have to agree, of course."

"I'll be happy to speak to them," Tom offered gently. "Would you like to continue playing, Holly?"

"I…" Holly hesitated, her hand hovering protectively over her belly, only rallying when Tom murmured another soft reassurance. "Yes. Yes, I want to play Quidditch."

"That's settled then," Tom replied easily before turning back to Madam Pomfrey. "Could you perhaps walk us through what to expect and what to watch out for these coming months?"

"I can give you some general information and I'll be happy to monitor you while you're at Hogwarts, of course, but you should still make an appointment with a proper ob/gyn as soon as possible."

"Is there someone you could recommend?" Tom asked, holding Holly's hand a little tighter when he noticed her returning tension.

"I usually refer any cases on to Howard Hellenbore at St. Mungo's, if necessary, but to be quite frank, he is not what I would call discreet," Madam Pomfrey replied with a wrinkle of her nose. "It might be wiser to choose someone else."

"I'll ask Narcissa to recommend someone for you," Tom promised, wrapping his arm around Holly's slim waist. "I'm sure she has a full ledger of viable options and we can ask them to meet us here so that you can take their measure before we decide anything."

"Okay," Holly murmured, still seeming quietly unhappy, but allowed him to pull her gently against his side as they listened to Madam Pomfrey's list of instructions and advice.

When they left the hospital wing almost an hour later Holly was very quiet, almost subdued, her slender shoulders slumped as if bending under an invisible weight. He wasn't quite sure how to reach her or if maybe she just wanted to be left alone for now. She was still allowing him to keep a hold of her hand, her slim, cool fingers intertwined with his as he slowly led her back to their quarters. He took it as a hopeful sign, at least.

"Is there something that is still troubling you?" Tom asked carefully, after he had got her settled on their couch. He had asked that question before, of course, as had Madam Pomfrey, but given her current state, he didn't find her denial all that convincing. "Anything at all? You know you can talk to me."

"You all worry about me. Except Lucius – he's still angry that I told Rudolphus about Narcissa's grandmother," Holly mumbled after a long pause when he had almost given up on expecting a response.

"Holly, first of all, I don't think Lucius is angry at you, just protective of his family."

Holly shook her head, pulling her knees up to her chest. "He's pissed because I didn't tell him that I wanted to know about family codes of conduct and Wizarding law for Rudolphus. I just didn't think it would make a difference – Rudolphus isn't going to use this against them and Lucius can't stand Bellatrix, either."

"Lucius doesn't have your trust in people, kitten – very few do. But I'm sure he'll get over this soon." Tom would make sure of that, resolving to have a word with Lucius to just that effect. Holly had enough to deal with without adding emotional backlash from Lucius' wounded ego into the mix.

Holly shrugged, then sighed. "You're doing it again. Worrying. And I don't know if I'm worried, too, or if it's just the echo of everyone else's feelings."

"That must be exhausting," Tom offered sympathetically, gently drawing her into his arms. "Do you think it might help to focus more on your thoughts than on your feelings, little kitten?"

Holly furrowed her brow, shifting around to get more comfortable. "I think… I don't know how to do this. I mean the Dursleys aren't… But Sirius and Remus are great and they're always telling me how much my parents loved me, how proud they would be of me, how amazing they were… And you said I'd be a wonderful mother and I just don't know how to fulfil all these expectations when I keep thinking that I didn't want this."

Her voice had grown softer and softer, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle. Tom added his own arms, breathing a soft kiss into her wild hair.

"I didn't want this, either, not yet, not under these circumstances," Tom admitted carefully. "But that doesn't mean that we don't want this child, Holly, or that we won't love him or her. On the contrary. And I know you will be a wonderful mother because you're a wonderful person, far kinder and stronger and brighter than I could ever hope to be. I'm not worried about that at all."

"Then what are you worried about?" Holly asked.

"I guess I'm worried because this is not something with which I can help you, at least not as much as I would like," Tom replied, sliding his fingers through her soft, tangled curls. "I don't want you to feel that I'm leaving you alone in this."

"I don't think I feel like that," Holly murmured with a sigh, resting her cheek against his chest.

"I'm glad," Tom said softly. "But you can always tell me if that changes, if there's anything you need that I'm not providing."

Holly hummed, nodding vaguely. He thought briefly about pressing her for a verbal answer, but doubted it would get him far. And Holly had closed her eyes, snuggling into him – she seemed content, comfortable and he was loath to disturb that. He doubted this moment of tranquillity would last very long, anyway, not with his little whirlwind of a wife.

§*§*§*§*§

Holly was glad that she had decided to join Ron and some of the other Gryffindors out on the Quidditch pitch after all. Being in the air again, with Tom's protective shield to keep her safe from any wayward Bludgers and Rabastan watching attentively from the side lines, helped to ease the tension in her body, in her magic, made her feel more like herself again.

And it eased the strained bonds of friendship with Ron as well, who actually seemed thrilled when she told him and Katie about Madam Pomfrey's (or allegedly Tom's) conditions for being allowed to continue playing. Katie merely nodded and told her that she was still the best Seeker she had ever seen and that they would make it work, while Ron even knew the exact time penalties – twenty seconds for her, which didn't seem like a long time until she realised that even a fraction of a second could make the difference between catching the Snitch or watching the other team win.

"Could be worse," Ron replied with a shrug. "The time penalty for Keepers and Chasers is one minute and for Beaters it's a whole minute and forty-five seconds."

"We'll just have to make sure you don't get hit," Katie declared, her eyes turning to assess the group of Gryffindors swooping overhead. "We'll need a good pair of Beaters."

They both agreed with her, conferring briefly about how to proceed before Holly addressed the many prospective new players.

"Okay guys, gather around, please!" she called out, grinning as her fellow Gryffindors raced to comply. "As you probably already know, we're looking for new players for our House team. Try-outs will be tomorrow and all positions will be open – yes, all positions," she reiterated as murmurs broke out. "So if you think you'd make a good Seeker or Keeper, come and try out. I don't think Ron or I will make it easy for you…" She grinned fiercely and some of the others laughed. "But you can try – especially as we're also going to build a reserve team. That being said, today is just for fun – so who's up for some Quidditch?"

There was a rousing cheer and though it still took some time to organise teams, they spent a very enjoyable, brilliantly exhausting afternoon on the pitch. Holly was rather happy with what she saw, with the unbridled enthusiasm, ambition and love for the game she could feel in the air. She took note of several players who showed potential and also made a mental note of those who worked well together and looked out for their team mates because she knew that that could make or break a team.

For try-outs the next day, she invited all of Gryffindor and also asked Professor McGonagall to attend to help make the decision as fair and democratic as possible since she hadn't really considered who would cast the vote on new team members when no-one was fixed as a player. Ron had pointed that problem out to her – in a rather snappy tone, which she had forgiven because he was clearly nervous about potentially having to compete for his spot on the team again.

But she was happy with the solution Professor McGonagall had helped her work out. They started with a race for everyone who wanted to try out, only the best twenty-one players proceeding to the next round. She had designed the course to include a slalom through the hoops, to test not just speed but also agility, and to make sure that no-one would have an unfair advantage they used school-brooms, which perhaps elicited some grumbling but was still accepted.

She put the twenty-one Gryffindors who made it to the second round through their paces, using various exercises modelled after the usual practise drills, before sorting them into groups depending on which position they were interested in. It didn't quite add up to three full teams since they had eleven prospective Chasers, three would-be Seekers and Keepers, but only four Gryffindors who saw themselves as Beaters, so Holly asked Hermione to figure out when to bring in a new player or a new team to make sure that everyone got their turn.

Hermione rose to the occasion with her usual zeal and soon they were off, two randomly assigned teams competing against each other with each player obviously trying to showcase their own talents and score some points, literal and figurative, against the competition. Holly tried not to give in to overconfidence, but she honestly wasn't very worried about the two other Gryffindors vying for the spot as Seeker. The first was a tiny third-year with thick blond pigtails by the name of Phoebe Fairbairn, who had actually been one of the fastest in the race, but who showed so little awareness of her surroundings that Holly knew she wouldn't make a good Seeker. And the other was Ginny, who was of course an excellent player but also freely admitted that her heart was set on playing Chaser and that she was only offering herself as a reserve Seeker to have that option.

So no, Holly wasn't worried and while she did keep her eyes open for the elusive Snitch, she also paid close attention to the other players to see who stood out, practised quick evasive manoeuvres because she didn't want to be grounded by unnecessary time penalties and just took the chance to enjoy herself.

When they concluded the game, and try-outs, after one hour, Professor McGonagall put all positions to the vote, starting with Holly's spot. She beamed happily when the decision was very close to unanimous, pinning the Captain's badge back onto her robes and then taking over from their Head of House. Katie was also overwhelmingly confirmed as Chaser, with Ginny and Demelza Robins joining her. Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote were selected as Beaters and they were at least an improvement over Kirke and Sloper, who had tried and mostly failed to follow in Fred and George's footsteps the year before. Finally, Ron won the bid for Keeper again, though Noira Botts had received so many votes and had performed so well that Holly offered her a spot as a reserve player, together with four others who had shown potential.

She couldn't help but grin as Gryffindor cheered for their new team, Professor McGonagall offering her own congratulations and a few stern words to practise hard and grow together as a team before she excused herself to attend to other duties and, Holly suspected, so that she could claim blissful ignorance of the wild party in Gryffindor Tower that ensued.

§*§*§*§*§

Their new team wasn't perfect, nor anywhere close to the perfectly in-tune group they had been in Holly's Third Year, and there was certainly a lot of room for improvement. But they were all motivated and eager for a victory and under Katie's expert guidance the three Chasers and two reserve Chasers quickly found their rhythm. Holly was a little more worried about Jimmy and Ritchie, who let too many Bludgers slip by them because they were afraid of getting in each other's way. And Ron, much as she didn't want to admit it aloud in view of their friendship, was nowhere near as good as Oliver had been, especially when he lost his confidence or his temper.

For all those reasons, she was glad for her decision to include the reserve players in their team practises, even more so with what happened a few weeks later, mere days before their first game against Slytherin.

§*§*§*§*§

Holly felt her magic crackling around her, tiny licking flames of pure anger and rage dancing over her skin, creating a whipping whirlwind around her. She didn't care.

"Holly, wait!" Ron called, catching up to her with his long legs before she could slip from the Great Hall, which was starting to fill for dinner. "Let me explain."

"I'm not naïve enough that I need an explanation for this, Ron!" she snapped, twisting out of his hold and turning to face him squarely. "And after all, a picture says more than a thousand words, right? This one speaks volumes about our so-called friendship!"

She brandished the picture, the one that had fallen out from between the pages of Ron's Transfiguration text book when she had tried to look up some details for her essay, clutching it so tightly that it creased. Ron tried to say something, but she cut him off after only a few stuttered words.

"I was scared at times that you only saw me for this stupid scar on my forehead, as the Girl-Who-Lived, but I honestly never thought you'd reduce me to this," she spat, not appeased in the least by the guilt written clearly over Ron's freckled face. "How long have you had this?"

"End of last year," Ron muttered finally. "Confiscated it from Colin Creevey."

"How very selfless of you," Holly retorted sarcastically. "And I suppose it never crossed your mind to give it to me."

"I just… I wanted… I love you, Holly," Ron pleaded, raising his voice slightly.

"This isn't love!" Holly snapped. "You want to own me and because we were friends you thought you had a right to!"

"No, Holly, I… I'm sorry, okay?" Ron replied, trying to reach out to her again.

"Do not touch me," Holly pressed out, taking a step back and bumping into a familiar hard chest.

"Is there a problem?" Tom asked in a deceptively mild tone, resting his hand very lightly on her waist as if to stabilise her. She found that she was oddly grateful for his support and allowed herself to lean back ever so slightly into his strong form. Her magic was still in turmoil and they were starting to draw a crowd, but for once, she didn't care.

"Ron had a picture of me, in the shower," she answered, her accusing eyes still fixed on Ron as she held out the offending photo to Tom.

The Dark Lord barely glanced at the picture, but the furious, possessive wash of anger was absolute and immediate. For a moment, she almost pitied Ron before her own righteous anger reasserted itself.

"Possession of pornographic material featuring a minor is a criminal offence, Mr. Weasley," Tom stated silkily, ignoring the whispers and mutters that broke out around them and Ron's face losing all colour. "Punishable with up to three years in Azkaban. The Wizengamot might be lenient given your own lack of maturity, but expulsion is almost a certainty."

"Now hang on just a minute! Pornographic? It's not… I'm mean it's just a picture!" Ron spluttered.

"A picture of my wife, your putative best friend, in a state of complete undress, clearly taken without her knowledge or consent," Tom retorted implacably, caressing his fingers through the eddies of magic along her skin. "Shall I bother asking what possible use other than pornographic you had for keeping it or will you at least spare Holly the indignity of having to listen to another one of your uninspired excuses?"

"This doesn't concern you at all, so why don't you keep out of it, for once?" Ron snapped back. "Holly, come on, I know how this looks and I'm sorry. But it wasn't me who took that photo."

"And did you bother to check if Colin had taken any other pictures like this?" Holly demanded, immediately reading the answer from Ron's heavy silence. "Of course not! Why would you bother when you already had your prize?"

"This picture was taken by Mr. Creevey then?" Tom clarified, locating the younger Gryffindor with unerring precision and addressing him before he could disappear into the crowd. "Is there anything you have to say for yourself before I call in the Aurors, Mr. Creevey? And please refrain from any more protestations about how this is 'just a picture' as Mr. Weasley has already exhausted that argument."

Colin's mouth snapped shut again with a strange, gasping pop, his pale eyes widening almost comically. Holly clenched her hands into fists, for the first time thinking of following Dudley's example from their childhood and just pummelling Ron and Colin both until they felt just as hurt and violated as she did.

"Now, now, Tom, let's not exaggerate. There's no harm done and I'm sure both Mr. Weasley and Mr. Creevey would be happy to apologise to Holly if you gave them a chance." Dumbledore was suddenly there, all genial smiles and twinkling eyes and his long white beard that could put Father Christmas to shame. She had never considered herself a violent person, but she wanted to punch him, too.

"Mr. Creevey, you are not dismissed," Tom snapped, ignoring Dumbledore and freezing Colin in his tracks again before he could flee. "You still have a lot to answer for and you can start with Holly's question: Are there other pictures like this?"

Colin squeaked, stuttered through a series of fragmented sentences that didn't amount to an answer before turning his pleading gaze to the headmaster, who started spouting something along the lines of "a harmless hobby" and "boys will be boys", but Tom paid him no mind.

"It's a yes or no question, Mr. Creevey, and my patience is quickly running out," Tom cut through Dumbledore's monologue.

"I just like taking pictures!" Colin tried to defend himself, his face flushed and sweat starting to bead on his forehead. "That's not a crime!"

"Wrong answer," Tom replied almost viciously, drawing his wand and enunciating the spell with utmost precision even as many of the gathered students shied back. "Accio pictures taken by Colin Creevey."

There was a moment of dead silence, bated breaths all around, followed by the first soft, increasingly insistent rustling and fluttering of paper, the sudden mad scrambling of students trying to catch the flying pictures to get a look, to see for themselves, to hide their shame. It was accompanied by a new storm of emotions, so intense and varied that she felt completely overwhelmed, unable to sort through them at the pace they were pelting down on her. She sucked in a breath, slamming her eyes shut, hardly aware of how Tom's hold on her tightened, how he enveloped her in his arms and gathered her in against his chest. It was too much. Too many.

§Do you want Rabastan or Rudolphus to take you out of here?§ Tom hissed softly, sighing when she shook her head, still half-buried against his chest. §Please tell me if you change your mind, kitten. I promise I can handle this for you.§

For a moment, she was tempted, just let Tom deal with this, exact whatever vengeance he saw fit and hide in the shelter of their rooms where no-one would be able to stare at her, where she wouldn't have to deal with this avalanche of curiosity, shame, trepidation, anger, schadenfreude, worry, protectiveness, fear and could just focus on her own feelings, for once. But she knew that was a luxury for other people.

The Summoning Spell still hadn't run its course, photographs shooting through the Great Hall and in through the great double doors from the rest of the castle. Tom cleared one end of the Hufflepuff table with a flick of his wand, directing the pictures to sort themselves into piles with another wordless spell, all the while keeping a secure, but gentle hold of her.

There were three categories, as far as she could determine, though there were so many pictures that they formed more than three separate stacks: The first and thankfully largest category was for mostly innocuous pictures – photos of the Great Hall, the common room, the library, the classrooms, the view from the Owlery and the Astronomy tower, snapshots of Quidditch games and students and teachers alike, who, while they may not have consented to having their picture taken, were at least fully dressed. The same, unfortunately, could not be said about the rest of the pictures.

Holly was glad when Tom thought to cast a Privacy Charm around the table to ward of the avid gazes of her fellow students. He hadn't excluded her, but she still couldn't quite bring herself to look at the remaining pictures instead preferring to watch Tom as he gave each stack a deliberate tap with his wand and set a quill and parchment to write up an inventory. She pulled in a fortifying breath when he turned to her.

"Could you look through these stacks and tell me if there're any more pictures to which you object?" he asked carefully, indicating three stacks on the very right and giving her shoulder an encouraging little squeeze when she nodded.

She reached for one of them, taking the first twenty photos or so in hand and immediately wishing she hadn't.

"Holly?" Tom asked worriedly.

"There're not just pictures of me," Holly pressed out, looking around until she found Katie and Ginny in the crowd. "He took pictures of all of us after Quidditch practise. And he snuck into the girl's bathroom in the Tower as well."

"What?!" both girls exclaimed in outrage, jostling forward and reaching for the photos she held out to them.

"What?" Ron echoed, much more quietly and with a vastly different inflection, cowering when he suddenly found himself on the receiving end of his sister's glare. "Ginny, I… I swear I didn't know."

Ginny whipped out her wand and fired off a curse before he had even fully finished speaking. It wasn't her usual Bat-Bogey Hex – Holly guessed that Ginny thought it too mild for the occasion – but a curse that made Ron shriek in pain and cover his groin with both hands. Ginny smirked nastily.

"That'll do. But you just wait till Mum hears about this – you'll wish that Azkaban was still on the table then," she hissed venomously, angrier than Holly had ever seen her, and Ron whimpered piteously.

"It very much is, especially for you, Mr. Creevey, because contrary to the headmaster's opinions taking pictures of your classmates in vulnerable positions and the sexual exploitation of children is not a mere folly of youth or a trivial offence. It's a crime," Tom interjected, not even bothering to raise his wand when Colin once more tried to duck away into the crowd.

But the scales had very much turned against the mousy Gryffindor, curiosity turning to disgust turning to anger, several girls already glaring at him with open hatred. He wouldn't have managed to escape even if Rabastan and Rudolphus had not positioned themselves right behind him.

"You forget yourself, Tom. You're neither Chief Warlock nor headmaster of this school," Dumbledore said with a belligerent twinkle behind his half-moon spectacles. "And luckily, we're still very far from you making the law."

"I don't need to make the law, Dumbledore," Tom replied with acid calm. "In fact, I don't need to do anything: Mr. Creevey did not limit his exploits to his own House and I doubt that the other members of the Wizengamot, the Ministry or the Board of Governors will share your blatant disregard for the wellbeing of the students." He took up the parchment with the inventory, whipped it once with his wand so that it fell apart into four separate scrolls of parchment, which he floated over to McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Snape. "I understand the Heads of Houses are obligated to inform the parents of any… interference with their child? You might want to get started on that and at least try to get ahead of the rumours…"

He smirked dangerously, but Holly didn't really think his last suggestion was necessary. Professor Flitwick was already running one long, shaking finger down the list of affected Ravenclaw students, tears glistening in his eyes as he sniffed quietly; Professor Sprout had sunk down into a chair as if she no longer trusted her legs to keep her upright, a hand pressed to her ample bosom as she mouthed the names; Professor Snape was as stoic and forbidding as ever, his black eyes carefully shuttered of all emotion. Professor McGonagall had the scroll of parchment clenched tight in her fist and there was a grim line around her thin, disapproving lips. She glared from the headmaster to Colin, passed briefly over Ron before swivelling back to Dumbledore, her eyes remaining fixed on him even as she addressed Tom.

"Professor Riddle, I trust you can find a suitable room to put Mr. Creevey while he awaits the arrival of the Aurors and arrange for Mr. Weasley to serve detention until further notice? Good. Albus, I wish to speak to you in your office," she declared in a tone of voice that brooked no argument, turning on her heel but then pausing again. "Any other pictures of this kind are to be handed in immediately to your Head of House and students who have or had one of these photographs in their possession have until Monday to report to Professor Riddle."

The "or else" was loud and clear for all that she didn't bother putting it into words. Even Dumbledore looked slightly cowed as he followed her up the stairs leading towards his office. Holly thought Tom would be more pleased by that, but he still felt mostly protective and pissed, her scar actually pinching a little at the intensity of his anger. And she was still angry herself, of course, but the consequences Tom had outlined – and which apparently met Professor McGonagall's approval – seemed very harsh indeed. She had half a mind to follow Ginny's example and hex Ron into the next week, but she didn't think she wanted him to be expelled. She certainly didn't want him to go to Azkaban. And Colin – he was fifteen now, taller than her, but a part of her still saw him as the wide-eyed Firstie who had seemed so small to her, at the ripe old age of twelve.

"Tom," she whispered, a little startled when Tom immediately gave her his full attention. "I think I'm going to go find Hermione. I don't… Is that okay?"

"Of course," he answered, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze before giving her free. "Rudolphus will walk with you."

"That's really not… okay then." Holly sighed when Rudolphus appeared at her side, offering her his arm with a gentle, reassuring smile.

And she had to admit that she was grateful to have him at her side, tall and solid, the crowd parting obediently to let them through, the whispering following her, of course, but none of her classmates. They walked up two staircases and several corridors in silence until the crashing waves of heightened emotion receded into the background. She breathed a sigh of relief, slumping against a wall and burying her face in her hands.

"I need a moment," she mumbled.

Rudolphus hummed vaguely, leaning against the wall next to her, not quite touching, but close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body.

"Are they really going to throw them into Azkaban for this?" she whispered finally when she felt emotionally calmer again, though her thoughts were still racing.

Rudolphus was silent for a moment longer, actually thinking about her question, before he sighed. "As you know, I have limited faith in our justice system, but no, I do not think Mr. Creevey will be sentenced to Azkaban."

"But they'll call the Aurors? He'll be put on trial?" Holly asked.

"If it was just a question of him taking indecent photos, Dumbledore might have been able to handle this as a school matter," Rudolphus replied carefully. "But from the looks of it, he distributed them as well. I think, even if you were able to forgive him and convince our Lord to be lenient, this has gone far beyond where it could have been contained."

Holly nodded jerkily, wrapping her arms around herself. She had seen all those pictures as well, all the directions they had arrived from. She didn't want to think about how many people had seen her naked.

"And Ron? Tom said he'd be expelled, but… they'd have to expel a quarter of the school!"

Rudolphus nodded with a wry grimace. "My guess is a few weeks suspension and detention for the better part of the year."

"Okay," Holly mumbled, even though she didn't know if it was. "Hermione should be in the library – she wanted to get a head start on revision."

"This early into the semester?" Rudolphus asked a little sceptically, but obligingly fell into step with her again.

"That's Hermione," Holly said with a fleeting grin. "And I guess, I'll have to be more studious now that… without Ron."

She fell silent again, not wanting to think about this, at least for the short walk to the library where Hermione would no doubt demand a full recount.

§*§*§*§*§

In the end, Ron wasn't expelled and neither were the twenty-three other students who had confessed to having had one of the pictures in their possession. They received a two-week suspension, followed by two months of detention. The three students who had not come forward within McGonagall's timeframe, but had been identified over the magical signatures found on the pictures, were suspended for four weeks, received a permanent mark on their school record and were assigned detention for the rest of the school year.

Colin had been taken away by the Aurors, as Parvati and Lavender had told her and Hermione later that evening with almost unholy glee. Holly couldn't say she blamed them: from the girls in their dormitory only Hermione had escaped Colin's lens, probably because she was always up so early in the morning that he had never been able to catch her in the shower. He had been sent back to his Muggle home where he was to stay under house arrest until his trial. But whatever his sentence would be, he would not return to Hogwarts as the Board of Governors had already called for his expulsion.

To prevent something like this from ever happening again, the castle security was upped. Tom, under the careful supervision of Professor McGonagall, spend one afternoon recasting and adding to the wards around the dormitories and bathroom facilities; Professor Flitwick put a Tracing Spell on all cameras to make sure they couldn't be used in areas with a heightened demand for privacy; Madam Pomfrey offered extra appointments and invited a Mind Healer from St. Mungo's to Hogwarts to provide psychological support for those who wanted to talk.

Then Ginny also requested – more like demanded – a meeting of the Quidditch team in the course of which Ron as well as their two beaters Jimmy and Ritchie, who had confessed to buying one of the pictures from Colin, were summarily kicked off the team. Noira took over as Keeper, Dean Thomas was bumped up to playing Beater and since they had no other reserve players for that positions, Holly held another mini try-out and finally picked Dennis Creevey as the second Beater, ignoring the discontented grumbles from the rest of the team. She still hadn't figured out how to feel about everything – friendship and loyalty warring with anger and undeniable hurt – but she knew only too well how crummy it felt to have the school turn against you for something that wasn't even your fault. Dennis hadn't known about his brother's wheelings and dealings and he was a good flyer – he deserved a chance to be judged for his own merit.