Chapter Eight

Harry held Danica's hand, their arms swinging between them as they walked back up the stairs.

"I can't believe that you were tried in front of the whole court!" Mr Weasley said, shaking his head, "It was only a little incident."

"They didn't care." Harry muttered, "They were just throwing everything they could at me."

"Did I help?" Danica asked.

Harry grinned down to her and nodded, "Yeah, you helped loads."

Danica smiled to herself, "I didn't like it in that room."

Harry had to agree with her there, it wasn't somewhere he ever wanted to see the inside of again.

They reached the top of the stairs and Harry's eye was once again drawn to the solitary door at the far end of the corridor. He shook his head and followed his mother down the corridor, away from the door and back to the lift.

Further down the corridor Harry could hear footsteps behind them. It would be the Wizengamot leaving the dank dungeon that held the court room. He had no desire to talk to any of them, he just wanted to go home.

"Ah Fudge!"

Harry raised his eyes from his feet and saw Rodolphus Lestrange walking, confidently towards him. Lily pulled Harry closer to her side.

"What are you doing here?" Harry snapped.

Rodolphus looked down at him, like he hadn't noticed that Harry was standing in the middle of the corridor, "Oh, Potter, isn't it? You go to school with my children. What on earth are you doing down here?"

"That is none of your business." Lily said primly, "Come along Harry."

Harry shrugged his mother off, he wasn't sure why he was so angry but he was, "You know who I am! And not because I go to school with your horrid little children!"

"Really, you should control your temper better, Potter." Rodolphus said, giving him a patronising smile, "Now, I really should be getting on."

Harry reached out and grabbed Rodolphus's arm as he walked passed. Harry wasn't sure who was more shocked, Rodolphus or him.

"What… on earth do you think you are doing?" Rodolphus hissed.

Harry wasn't sure; he wasn't sure what he was doing, why he was so angry. He let go of Rodolphus and took a step back, "I…"

Rodolphus looked him up and down with disgust, "The Potters were once such a noble house, until they were… muddied by muggle born blood. It's clear you have none of your father's nobility." he hissed.

He pushed passed Harry and walked a few steps before turning back towards Harry, smiling coldly, "I will give you this though, Potter, you are very good at slipping out of difficult situations. Very like a snake, really."

Harry didn't know what to say, his heart was pounding, did Rodolphus really just say that? Out loud for everyone to hear?

"Harry?" Lily said, pulling gently on his arm, "Come on, let's get out of here."

Harry nodded and followed his mother and Mr Weasley further down the hall.

"Why was that man talking about snakes?" Danica asked, looking up at Lily.

"He… he just knows someone who like snakes." Lily smiled.

Danica smiled back, "I like snakes."

Harry snorted a laugh and grinned at his little sister. They reached the large atrium which was once again filled with people.

"Can you watch Danica for a moment while I check us out?"

Harry led Danica over to the fountain and dug out his wallet. There wasn't actually that much in there but he handed her the seven coins one by one to throw into the pool.

Danica sat on the edge of the fountain and splashed her fingers in the water.

"I don't like this fountain." She said quietly, after a few moments.

Harry sat down next to her, "Why? You normally like playing in this sort of thing."

Danica shrugged, "He doesn't look like Kreacher, or Petal." she said, pointing to the statue of the house elf, "He looks sad."

Harry looked over to the house elf, looking adoringly up at the witch and wizard, before looking back to his sister.

"When did you get so grown up?" Harry smirked.

Danica grinned, "I'm always grown… growning up. Have you seen how big I've gotten?"

Harry laughed, "I've seen all the new clothes you've gotten because you've grown out of the old ones."

Danica grinned even bigger, "I'm a big girl now."

"Well stop!" Harry said, "You've got to always be my baby sister!"

He grinned and pulled Danica onto his lap, hugging her tightly and threatening to drop her into the pool. Danica laughed loudly, earning them a lot of strange looks from the witches and wizards walking passed. Several people glared at them but Harry just glared back. Danica even pulled tongues at a few.

Lily walked back over and smiled, "We're already to go, Arthur has gone off to work, he'll see us later at home."

Harry was grateful to take his mother's hand and let her lead him away from the Ministry.

They'd barely gotten through the door of Grimmauld place when Hermione threw her arms around Harry.

"How did it go?" she asked, stepping back and clutching at her fingers nervously.

"Let them get through the door, Hermione." Mrs Weasley chided, ushering them into the dinning room.

Harry let her guide him to the dinning room table and push him into a chair. The table was laden with baked goods; tea cakes, bread, cakes and pastries. There was also three tea pots, waiting to be filled.

"I'll get that." Lily offered, reaching for a bright red tea pot.

"No need." Mrs Weasley smiled, "You've had a busy morning, now sit down and tell be all about it."

She flicked her wand and water poured into the tea pots.

"Hot chocolate, tea or coffee?" Mrs Weasley asked.

"I'm fine." Harry smiled.

Mrs Weasley smiled, "Come on now, you've had such a difficult morning."

"Coffee." Harry smiled, it was easier not to argue.

"So, about the trial?" Hermione said, as a tea cup floated in front of her.

"Now, now." Mrs Weasley said, with a slightly tight smile, "That can wait until we've got everything sorted, Harry barely had a bite to eat this morning, he must be starving!"

Harry was hungry, but he wanted to tell Hermione what had happened. Lily had never been a smother mother, so Harry wasn't used to someone acting like he was totally incapable of breathing by himself. It was starting to bug him more than a little and he'd only been home five minutes.

Mrs Weasley flicked her wand and large bowls of soup sailed smoothly in from the kitchen as a set of knives began to cut and butter bread.

"There you go dear, now be careful; it's hot." Mrs Weasley smiled at Harry, before sitting down at the table.

Harry ate a few mouthfuls of soup, it was very good, before coughing, "So the trial." he began.

Hermione looked up eagerly from her own food, "Yes! Please, I'm dying to know how it went."

Mrs Weasley didn't look to happy about them discussing this before they'd finished, "Wouldn't you rather wait until everyone was here?"

Harry looked around, Sirius and Nikka were sitting round the table with them, Fleur had made her way down and was sitting quietly in the corner sewing something and Severus was at work, and wouldn't be back until late.

"I can tell Dad later." Harry told her.

"And we can fill in the rest of Harry's school mates later." Nikka said politely.

Harry hadn't thought about Ron or the others, he knew them, of course, but they weren't exactly best of friends and Harry wasn't impressed with the idea of having to fill them in on every detail of his life.

Mrs Weasley pursed her lips but nodded for Harry to continue.

"So what happened when you got there?" Nikka asked.

"We got there, I was glad I left my wand here as they inspected them and us." Harry said, "They had some weird detector things as well, searching for magical items I think. Anyway, they'd changed the time, three hours earlier. I think they were hoping we wouldn't turn up."

"You were in zere for 'ours 'en?" Fleur gasped.

Harry nodded, "Yep. They also had the trial in the old courtrooms, the ones they used for the death eater trials back in the day."

Molly gasped loudly, "Oh you poor dear! You must have been so scared!"

Lily reached over and rubbed Harry's shoulders, "He's very brave."

"Go on." Hermione said. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, taking notes about what Harry was saying.

Harry took a deep breath, "Dumbledore helped me. I think they would of just thrown the book at me and not listened to a thing I'd said without him."

"That was good of him." Hermione said.

Harry nodded and forced a smile, there was still the coldness from Dumbledore playing on the back of his mind, "Yeah, so anyway, he spoke for me, said that I was acting in self defence. Fudge was convinced, or at least pretending to be convinced that I was making it all up." Harry sighed, "He said that I'd said it was Dementors because muggles can't see them. That's when they called Danica in. She was so brave, told them all what happened. They were all very impressed that I could create a full Patronus, pretty sure that helped my case as well. They did the voting thing and cleared me, Fudge was pissed, so were a couple of others… and then Dumbledore pretended like I didn't exist, couldn't get away from me fast enough."

Harry couldn't help but notice the adults in the room grow quiet, all looking somewhere that wasn't at him.

"What?" Harry asked, looking at Lily.

"I'm sure that Dumbledore was just busy." Molly said cheerfully, "He's normally a very busy man after all, and there has been a lot going on."

Harry was thoroughly unconvinced, "So busy he couldn't even say hi to me?"

Sirius opened his mouth to say something.

"Cake!" Molly said, glaring down at him, "Who would like some cake?"

Harry could feel his anger bubbling inside him, "What are you hiding from me?"

"What would zey want to hide from you 'Arry?" Fleur asked, looking around in confusion.

"Do you know?" Harry snapped at Hermione.

Hermione shook her head, "Harry, I'm not sure there's anything to know. Dumbledore is very busy. I'm sure he was just stressed from the trial, and the way the Ministry has been treating you both."

Harry knew that that was a perfectly reasonable argument for how Dumbledore had behaved but that didn't explain why Sirius, Nikka and Lily were avoiding his eyes.

"You're probably still a little hungry." Mrs Weasley beamed, "Having a stressful situation can burn through your blood sugar like that," she said, snapping her fingers, "I made a couple of types of cake, Victoria sponge, chocolate fudge. And for those who don't want cake, I made scones with cream and fresh jam..."

Harry stood up, his chair banging against the ground, "I'm not hungry." he hissed.

"But Harry, you love my chocolate cake!" Molly said, taking a step towards Harry.

"NO!" Harry yelled, "I love Kreacher's and-"

"Harry!" his mother snapped across him, "That is enough."

"I'm out of here." Harry huffed, he was so angry.

Lily stood up and stared at him, "You may go to your room."

Harry let out a loud huff and stomped from the room, slamming the door behind him, his breathing ragged.

"Fleur, Hermione, would you mind popping into the kitchen, Kreacher wanted to get a few more recipes from you." Lily said gently.

Harry heard the door to the kitchen close.

"I wish we could just tell him." Nikka sighed.

Harry pressed his ear against the door

"You all heard what Dumbledore said." Molly said, as though it ended the conversation.

Sirius huffed loudly, "Without any reason. If he didn't bother to tell us why, why should we listen? Harry has a right to know."

"It's not that simple." Lily said, "Dumbledore, he… he has his reasons, even if he hasn't seen fit to tell us why."

"Harry does seem more angry, or rather quick to anger lately." Nikka said, "But I'm afraid he'll hurt himself if he doesn't know what's going on."

They were clearly talking about something, something that they'd talked to Dumbledore about, which meant Dumbledore had been there and not bothered to even see Harry. They also weren't saying what it was, Harry suspected because they didn't want to be overheard, by Harry or Hermione.

"I brought that up with Dumbledore, he said there was more risk to Harry if he knew and I would just have to trust him." Lily sighed.

Harry could hear Sirius laughing, "This isn't fair!"

Harry heard a loud bang, he suspected Molly had banged a dish on the table when she put it down, she did that a lot when she wanted quiet and explained why all her children could be so jumpy.

"Dumbledore is fighting a war!" Molly said, strictly, "He doesn't have time to be fair to everyone."

"We're all fighting a war, Molly." Nikka said.

"He's got Harry's best interests at heart." Molly sniffed, "Now who wants cake?"

Lily sighed, Harry could hear her stand up, "We've all got Harry's best interests at heart, and we're his family."

Harry moved away from the door, making his way up the stairs before he got caught eavesdropping… again.