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Chapter 27

It was all over the Prophet and the Wizarding Wireless Network the next day that Harry had killed four people in Death Eater robes who had attacked his house. From sheer morbid curiosity, Harry had read the article and was currently flicking through radio stations once more listening for people talking about it. The Prophet had been fair and sticking to the facts; though they had used words like "allegedly" and "maybe", their reporting was pretty accurate from Harry's point of view. It even quoted the section of the law that claimed what Harry had done was legally considered self-defence.

The radio stations, however, were a mixed bag. Some were coming right out and claiming Harry should be paid by the D.M.L.E. for doing their job for them. Others were claiming that the Death Eaters were victims of an unprovoked attack and that Harry needed to face the Dementors' Kiss for his actions. There was even one channel that was claiming the whole thing to be a hoax, that nobody died and the four men were just actors. It was apparently a conspiracy to draw attention away from a secret operation run by the Unspeakables that was having the side effect of turning flobberworms gay. Considering the man was spending his time complaining about Harry and not reporting on the supposed operation that was being covered up, Harry was sure the man was just crazy.

"Harry?" He looked up at the sound of his name and found Hermione standing in the doorway of his room, holding one of the communication mirrors. She held it out as she walked to him, "Fleur wants to talk to you."

Harry accepted the mirror as Hermione sat on the bed next to him. He turned the mirror and found a concerned Fleur looking back at him. "Harry. Thank god you look unhurt. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine." Harry said, trying his best to look calm and relaxed, but then he decided to tell her the truth. "Well no, that's a lie. I'm doing better than I think I should be. I killed four people, but they were people who chose to be monsters who attacked a home full of teenagers. But, they were all someone's child, yet they were also trying to murder my family. My emotions are bouncing back and forth between those two ideas. One minute I want to go find their Death Eater friends and do the same to them, then ten minutes later I want to floo to the D.M.L.E. and ask to be thrown in a cell where I can't hurt anyone else."

Fleur, who had been making noise of sympathy and understanding while he spoke, said, "Harry, that's understandable. It's hard for most people to kill other people. Your instincts to protect your family are at odds with your instincts to not kill people. What are the authorities saying?"

Hermione put an arm around Harry and leaned her head on his shoulder as she answered Fleur. "The Aurors are doing an investigation. They want to check Harry's self-defence claim before they decide whether they want to charge him. Harry gave his interview under Veritaserum, though, so it's more a case of the D.M.L.E. just doing the busy work that procedure requires so that everything is above board."

"That's at least good to hear. You still have another week of Easter holidays, right?"

"A little under a week now, but yeah," Harry said. It was Monday now and the Express was due to take the students back to the school on Sunday for classes to start again Monday.

"Good. I'm coming to see you. I have a portkey booked for tomorrow," Fleur informed them. Harry immediately started to protest, saying that it was Fleur's last year in school and her studying was important, but she didn't take kindly to it. "Harry, don't be stupid. Of course I am coming. I'm not going to fail anything just because I took a week off, and there is no way I am going to be able to focus until I can see for myself that you are okay. Would you do any differently if it was Hermione or I in your situation?"

She had a point, if it was Fleur in this situation he would already be in Beauxbatons. He had even worked out how to get there quickly in an emergency. A quick Step to London, switch into his falcon form and fly over the Channel, and then Step to the Delacour's House, where he could use their Floo that was on the French network. Harry was sure if he pushed himself he could do it in eight hours. Fleur was right, if she was the one who had gone through all of this, he wouldn't care about his O.W.L.s, both he and Hermione would go to her.

Seeing that Harry had realised that there was nothing he could do to keep her from coming, Fleur said, "Good I will see you tomorrow around one o'clock. Is there anything you need me to bring?" She directed the last part to Hermione.

"Just yourself and your clothes, we have everything else," Hermione answered, and they stayed on the call for a while talking as Fleur packed a bag for her visit.

-ϟϟϟ-

"So how is Harry doing?" Dan asked when Hermione came back down to the kitchen.

"As good as we can hope for. Fleur is going to join us tomorrow."

"More the merrier," said Sirius. Hermione was thankful, this was Sirius's place after all, and she and Harry didn't have the right to invite people to stay like they had.

"What's going on with school? Weren't you and the others expected back yesterday evening?" Emma asked.

Daphne, who had been quietly reading the Prophet in the corner, spoke up. "I Floo called Professor McGonagall first thing this morning and told her what was going on. As far as the school is concerned, we are expected to travel back on the Express with everyone else on Sunday."

Hermione smiled at the blond Slytherin. "That was excellent thinking Daphne. Did the professor say anything?"

"Not much, just that she wished Harry luck, but I haven't seen him yet this morning to pass on the message," said Daphne. Hermione heard the unasked question and told Daphne where Harry was and what he was doing. "So he is brooding again?" Daphne asked with a slight tone of exasperation in her voice.

Tracey poked her girlfriend in the arm before saying. "Don't be insensitive. What Harry did yesterday was big. I would be more concerned if Harry wasn't upset by it. Can you really say you'd trust someone who could do that and not feel anything?"

Daphne was just about to concede to Tracey's point when someone else spoke first. "You can say it, you know. I killed people. Everyone else is saying it," Harry said from the top of the stairs as he walked down them.

"Harry I…" Daphne started to say but Harry held up a hand stopping her. "There's no need to apologise, Daph. You're right, I do have a tendency to brood." Harry grabbed himself a mug from the cupboard and started to fix himself a cup of tea. "So is there anything that we need to do today? " he asked, hoping for a distraction.

Hermione, seeing what Harry wanted, said. "Well, we haven't finished our Easter homework yet. We planned to do some of it this week anyway, so why don't we ask Dobby or Sassy to pop to the school and collect our things? I think we could all do with at least a change of clothes as well."

Harry jumped on Hermione's suggestion and called Sassy to ask her to get all their things from the school. Hermione was right, they did need clothes. All of the teens were wearing the same clothes that they had been wearing yesterday, as they had only planned on spending the day at Hogsmeade. More importantly, as far as Harry was concerned it was an opportunity to do something where he could feel like he was actually doing something. While they waited for their things, he finished making himself a cup of tea. By the time he was finished drinking it, Sassy had popped back in and told them that their trunks were in their rooms.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry was waiting in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic with Sirius and Hermione standing there with him. The incident with the Death Eaters was still up in the air, and because of that the only thing the news had been able to say was that Harry was under investigation for his part in the incident. This meant that people were staring at him and openly talking about him again, just like his second year, only this time it was adults who really should know better. Harry, as he always did, found the attention annoying. He wouldn't have even left the house at Grimmauld Place, but he and Hermione had both refused to not be at the Ministry to greet Fleur.

They had arrived five minutes before Fleur's portkey was set to arrive, hoping to be in and out quickly. Unfortunately, they had forgotten the mountain of paperwork that was involved in travelling to a different country, and Fleur, despite having arrived, was still sitting with a customs wizard. It took an hour for her to get through customs, in part because she was agitated to get to her Harry and Hermione and her control of her allure had slipped and turned the wizard who was going through her paperwork with her into a drooling idiot who kept trying to hit on her. Eventually, a witch who worked for customs saw what was going on and had taken some pity on Fleur and had taken over. It helped that the witch had recognised Fleur from the Triwizard coverage and instantly knew why Fleur was taking a sudden trip to the UK.

When Fleur was finally free to leave, she made her way through the Ministry to the atrium. When she saw Harry and Hermione sitting with Sirius, she started to rush over to them. Sirius looked up and saw the French girl first, and after he said something both Harry's and Hermione's heads snapped up and immediately they started to rush to Fleur.

For a few minutes in his head, Harry wasn't the guy who had just killed four people. He was just a young man who was greeting his long distance girlfriend after not having seen her in months. The only thing that stopped him from picking her up in a bone crushing hug was that Hermione was also trying to hug the life out of their girlfriend.

After hugs and kisses that bordered on indecent for the public, at least by British wizarding standards, Fleur made a big show of checking Harry for injuries. "Fleur I am fine, I promise. I wasn't injured," Harry tried to tell her.

"Pfft. You would say you are fine as you lie there bleeding to death. Forgive me if I don't take your word for it," Fleur said seriously, which had the effect of making Hermione giggle at Harry's put upon expression.

Once they were back at Grimmauld, Hermione showed Fleur where she would be sleeping. Harry felt a little pang of jealousy as the girls would be sharing a room. He wished his sixteenth birthday would hurry up and arrive, so that they didn't need to worry about Fleur being accused of breaking the law and being deported and not being allowed to return to the UK.

There was one thing Harry liked about Grimmauld Place that his house in Hogsmeade didn't have: a kitchen. Well, that wasn't strictly true, there was a kitchen in the Potter house,it just didn't have a door. The only way in and out of it was by Apparating in and out. Technically Harry could try to Step in there with his bloodline gift, but Stepping blind into a place you had never been was dangerous and Harry hadn't been frustrated enough to try it yet.

The idea was that the kitchen was the elves' space, and it wasn't for witches and wizards to interfere in there. According to Dobby and Sassy, the kitchen had been remodelled for the elves and had been split into two floors with elvish-sized furniture and workstations. Harry had to admit it sounded brilliant for the elves, but he enjoyed cooking occasionally, and now that he was somewhere with a kitchen designed for a human he was going to take full advantage.

Fleur had quickly finished unpacking as Hermione had gone over everything that had happened in the last few days. Once finished, they went in search of their boyfriend. Fleur found Harry in the kitchen viciously whisking egg whites by hand as though they had done him a great personal wrong and needed to be punished. She considered that Harry was probably taking any frustration he had with his situation out on the eggs, so she didn't offer to do it with a charm for him, but when she saw the bag of sugar on the counter it became obvious Harry was making meringue. "Oh, please tell me you are making macarons?" she asked excitedly.

"Better," Harry said as he looked up and flashed her a small smile, his forehead glistening a little from the effort he was putting into beating the eggs. "I'm making an Eton mess."

"I don't know what this Eton mess is, but no way it can be superior to macarons," Fleur insisted. After thinking for a second, she decided that distracting Harry was probably a pretty good idea. "Shift over a little and I will prove it. We can try your mess next to my perfect macarons and I will prove they are superior."

Fleur was trying to playfully challenge him rather than seriously, she wanted it to be more of a game than a competition, and this would have the bonus of some delicious treat for them all to enjoy. When Harry said, "Oh, you're on!" with a grin on his face she knew she had succeeded.

For the next few hours, sounds of laughter filtered out of the kitchen. While they each focused on their own dessert, the two teenagers decided to hold a truce over what to make for dinner. They decided that beef bourguignon was a good choice for a dinner they could work together on, as it was very similar to a British beef stew so neither of them were delving into something unfamiliar. Luckily the oven at Grimmauld expanded to fit whatever you wanted to put in it, as the meringue for two different deserts and the beef bourguignon would never have fit together in a normal oven.

Sassy had never heard of either Eton mess or macarons before, so the little elf had sat herself in the kitchen to watch. This had proved to be rather helpful, as whenever Harry or Fleur couldn't find something they needed, Sassy would either tell them where it was or pop off and return seconds later with exactly what was needed. She also was a massive help keeping the kitchen clean, as despite the fact that Harry had intended to do the clean up himself, Sassy would snap her fingers and clean everything as soon as it was done being used.

Fler was making some chocolate ganache for her macarons' filling while Harry was mixing fresh cut up strawberries, raspberries and blackberries with sugar. The fruit would need to sit in the sugar for a while to absorb the juices from the fruits and turn into a syrup. Harry set the mix to one side and checked on the meringues. Fleur's were a bit more delicate than his as she apparently needed her perfect little rounds to remain soft and chewy in the middle, whereas Harry needed his to fully cook and go crunchy all the way through. When he looked up he noticed that Fleur had somehow ended up with a dollop of chocolate ganache on her nose. Feeling bold, Harry gently pulled Fleur around to face him, and after a quick mischievous smile Harry licked the dot of chocolaty goodness of her nose, and then without swallowing it started to kiss her. As it deepened, the always-enticing feeling of closeness was accompanied by the rich sweet taste of chocolate.

Dinner that night was delicious, and when it came time for dessert first Harry served his mix of crunchy crushed-up meringue with whipped vanilla cream and syrupy fruit (much to the delight of everyone) and Fleur served her macarons after that along with coffee or tea. Sirius had jokingly declared himself the winner as he had got to eat all the food without having to lift a finger, and everyone had joined in saying something similar. Harry and Fleur might have been put out by that given the effort they had put in, but as both had seen the other going back for seconds of the desert the other had made, they both felt like winners.

A few hours after dinner, when all of the teens were working on their homework in the library, there was a tapping at the window. Hermione went to investigate and found an owl with a letter trying to get their attention. She untied the letter and looked to see who it was addressed to. "Harry, it's for you." She held it up so that the seal on the letter made it obvious that it was from the Ministry.

Harry took the letter and just stared at it. He had the impression that this letter had the answer to what was going to happen to him for the rest of his life. Would he be free to continue his education, get a job, marry, and have kids? Would he have his wand snapped, his knowledge of magic obliterated, and dropped in the mundane system? Or would he be taking a one way trip to Azkaban? It was stupid, he knew, especially as even if the D.M.L.E. had decided to press changes then all that would mean is the next stage would be a trial, but he was too nervous to open the letter.

Fleur and Hermione moved to either side of him and each wrapped an arm around his back. The meaning was clear; we are here with you. With his hands shaking from nerves, Harry broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the letter.

Dear Mr Potter, This in regards to the events of Sunday April 7. A determination about whether to charge you with four counts of murder has not yet been made, but to speed up this process your presence is requested at the Ministry tomorrow the 10th of April at one o'clock to answer some questions. Hopefully this will clear the way to a decision and put this matter to rest

Hilary Moore
 Office of Amilia Bones
 Dept magical law enforcement

"Well that's a big lump of nothing. No decision, just more questions. What more questions could they have? I was interviewed under Veritaserum!" Harry was annoyed at the letter. "Maybe it's a trick. Get me to come in to answer questions and arrest me while I'm there?"

"Not likely," Hermione said, sounding calm compared to Harry. " Director Bones knows where you are, if she wants you arrested they'd just come and arrest you. There is probably just some question she forgot to ask and needs your answer to finish the paperwork."

Just then there was a sound from the doorway, and the teens turned to see someone standing in scarlet Auror robes looking at them. "Damn I'm bloody late."

"Tonks!" Harry called happily.

"Hey squirt, long time no see. And I've barely had any letters from you this year," Tonks teased.

"Oh uh sorry, it's just we have been busy. Preparing for our O.W.L.s, helping Tracey, studying for O.W.L.s, overthrowing a tyrannical dictator from the school, oh and did I mention rereading all the books we have studied over that past five years for our O.W.L.s?" Harry grinned at the young woman currently sporting a green mohawk.

"Harry, you make it sound like it's your O.W.L. year or something," Tonks said as she came in and sat at the table.

"Hey Tonks," Hermione greeted the older witch that she was rather fond of. "What was that about being late?"

"Well, the boss wanted me to get here before that letter and explain something before you read it. Unfortunately, my supervisor has his head up his ass and decided to give me a lecture telling me that he was the one who set my assignments and that I was to stop kissing up to the brass and respect the chain of command. Apparently I have an attitude problem because I answer when the director calls me. So he delayed me leaving the Ministry for almost half an hour, making me late." Tonks sounded exasperated.

"What are you going to do about it?" Hermione asked.

Before Tonks could answer though, Fleur said. "Hermione, I think Harry would much rather hear about why he is being summoned to the Ministry tomorrow rather than what Tonks is going to do about a coworker."

When everyone glanced at Harry he nodded, so Tonks started explaining. "As you probably already know, thanks to you volunteering to take Veritaserum your case is pretty much a textbook case of self-defence. Madam Bones pretty much said it would be a waste of time, and more importantly gold, to call in the entire Wizengamot for it and tried to drop the charges. She would have given you a slap on the wrist and told you to try not to do it again. The problem is that Fudge got wind of it and he started blocking it. He is hanging on to the minister's job by a thread, mostly thanks to you exposing Umbridge. Fudge seems to think if you are found guilty then it may deflect enough away from him that he can ride the storm and keep his job.

"Even then that wouldn't have been enough, calling the Wizengamot for a trial needs the Director of Magical Law Enforcement to sign off on it. Fudge doesn't have the political capital to force Amelia out, so all he could do is prevent her from closing the case. Another problem is that word got out and Dumbledore, in his role as Chief Warlock, started adding his pressure on Amelia as well. He is saying that it's a matter for the Wizengamot to decide as it's such a serious case."

There were a few surprised and unhappy looks when they heard that Dumbledore was getting himself involved with Harry's affairs again.

"Now, I don't know how well you know Amelia, but one thing she hates is having a couple of politicians with no experience in law enforcement telling her how to do her job. So the more they demand a trial, the more she dug in HER heels. She even threatened to arrest them both at one point for wasting D.M.L.E. resources. Still, she was backed into a corner so she had come up with an idea. Her plan for tomorrow, if you agree, is a meeting to see if there will be a trial. What she plans is for you to give your statement and answer some questions for three of her sub-department heads, and they will all vote on whether there should be a trial," Tonks finished explaining.

"And if Harry chooses not to participate?" Fleur asked.

Tonks didn't look happy but answered. "Then Harry will go on trial for murder, and while the law is on his side he is a polarising figure and he did kill four people, so there would be no guarantees."

Harry thought about it for a few minutes before he spoke his mind. "As far as I can see, I either win tomorrow and it's over, or I lose and there is a second chance in front of the Wizengamot. What do I lose by giving it a shot?"

"Honestly I think that is the boss's plan. She wants to give you two shots to clear your name. Don't forget that Death Eaters killed her brother the same way they came after you Sunday. The boss truly doesn't like Death Eaters, and I think she is secretly pretty pleased you were as decisive as you were," Tonks explained.

"What about the people making the decision tomorrow, will they be fair?" Hermione asked.

Tonks nodded. "They should be, I have no reason to expect they wouldn't be. They were all put into their positions by Director Bones herself, and I know from experience she is the type to fully vet anyone who will be working for her directly. If she thought they wouldn't be impartial, I doubt they would have their jobs, let alone make it into tomorrow's meeting."

The four of them spent about an hour after that just chatting and catching up until Daphne and Tracy joined them. They hadn't seen Tonks properly since Harry's birthday eight months ago, and it was only Fleur's second time meeting the young Auror. Harry was hoping the two of them would become friends. Next year when Fleur moved to Britain, she would be able to see Harry and Hermione far more often, especially as she would be living in Hogsmeade. Still, as much as she would have more contact with them, Fleur would still be pretty distant to any of her current friends. Harry was hoping that if the two driven young women hit it off, then he wouldn't have to worry about Fleur becoming too isolated in Britain. And considering how they were now laughing together, Harry had high hopes.

A/N

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