Chapter six

Fireworks explode in my brain, and my chains snap off, all of them. I stand up, mouth wide open. I refrain from saying "really?" which I'm sure would only hurt my chances at this point.

I rush from the room, hoping to find my parents and tell them the good news. Then I realise they're probably being isolated somewhere before their own trials, like I was. Or maybe they've already been sentenced? How do I find out? I wander the corridors for a while, checking ante-chambers and asking several people what's going on.

After getting absolutely nowhere, and several painful jabs in the ribs from rushing Ministry workers, I decide to wait back outside the courtroom. Speeding up my walk to a stride, I round the corner to the large corridor I started in, and before I've gone two steps I collide with a solid mass. Potter.

"Potter." I say guardedly. "I didn't need your help."

"Right. Looked like you were doing fine in there." He deadpans.

"I didn't ask-"

"No, you didn't. You cared more about your Mother, which actually made it easier to be on your side."

Heat builds in my face but I ignore it and focus on getting answers.

"Is she okay, then?"

"Yeah, I just got done in-"

All of a sudden, a magically bright flash makes me jump, and I yank Potter down by the sleeve as I duck the impending curse. We both hit the floor with an exhalation of breath and a thud.

"What the bloody hell?" Potter demands, tearing his sleeve out of my grip and clambering up. "Have you gone insane?"

I stay on the floor, slightly winded, and point to the back of a man who is fleeing the corridor. "Him! He was trying to- I was saving-"

"-just a reporter you bloody-" Potter stops short, and looks quizzical. "Saving what?"

My face goes warm as I see a green mist around us, signalling a camera flash, not a killing curse. I purse my lips, trying not to appear embarrassed. Potter's look of confused expectancy fades and is replaced by a creeping glee.

"Oh, wow, you thought it was-"

"Of course I did! Sorry if I haven't yet adjusted to the fact that no one wants to kill us any more." I snap, getting awkwardly to my feet.

"Well, someone's going to want to kill us when we're in the paper as a pair of smitten idiots clutching at each other." Potter grimaces, but still looks amused.

Ugh. I can vividly picture the front page tomorrow. I try to change the subject.

"Where did you say my parents were?"

"They were tried separately, I just got done testifying for your mother. I was told to wait out here so I can sign some things after."

"Was she cleared?"

Potter shrugs. "I don't know, the Chief Wizengamot was getting pretty pissed off that I kept barging in. Said I was 'colouring the court's opinion without relevance to the facts'. So he made me wait out here."

"What did you say in her defence?" I can't help but ask.

Potter looks slightly affronted. "I'm not going to tell you that. Would you like everyone knowing your story?"

I feel a sting. "You don't know my story."

"I was inside Voldemort's head." Potter says, his face twisting in an ugly way. "I know enough of it."

My heart stops for a few beats, just at the ice cold horror of being forced inside his head... Mix that with the shame that Potter of all people knows what a coward I was, what horrible things I did, what atrocities are now rotting inside me. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the window. Shit.

"What will your parents say?" Potter gestures to the court chamber behind us. "You know, when they see it."

Thankfully, I don't have to answer that horribly intrusive question, because Mother comes bursting out and I stand up and walk towards her. She practically runs to hug me – I'm taller than her, now, I notice – and I'm slightly winded by the collision. She kisses my face ten times, and on about the sixth time, I remember Potter somewhere in the periphery.

"We were both cleared," Mother says breathlessly, as if she has been holding it for the duration. Then out steps my father, looking rather casual about it all.

Mother turns to Potter, who's looking awkwardly at his own feet. "Harry Potter, how can we ever repay you?"

She strides over to him and envelops him in a hug that he melts into, for just a second. His chin rests on her head for the briefest moment and his eyes drift closed, before he holds her shoulders and draws her away slowly, until she's at arm's length. It strikes me for the first time – annoying, this habit of being struck by things for the first time – how awful it must be to not have a mother. His dark, weathered look contrasts suddenly with her light, blonde airiness. But I know their eyes have the same tired, half-dead look.

"Mrs. Malfoy, you saved my life, remember?" He says earnestly. "You don't owe me anything."

Mother draws her shoulders back and juts her chin, an almost perfect replica of her old self. "Nonsense."

My father decides to step in at this point, he's probably noticed that Potter's still touching Mother. He gently detaches her and steers her towards me. Strategic.

"Well, anyway," says Potter, giving my father an unpleasant sort of look, "I've got to go back in, sign some things."

When he's gone, Father shoots a glare in his general direction. "He may still betray us. We should leave the country, while we still can."

"Lucius, no!" Mother says. "We don't even have wands, and you're talking about fleeing. A fine impression that would make."

It occurs to me that not only do we not have wands; we also don't have Gold to buy wands, or a home. And I'm still absolutely starving. Instead of having to speak, my stomach gives another painful, squelchy rumble. My bodily noises are so unflattering.

Mother snaps back to her spectacularly productive self, even though I still haven't re-adjusted to the real world after being enveloped in horror for so long. She organises with the Ministry of Transport for us to fetch our things from the Manor, which is being held, along with our assets, for scrutiny by Aurors. So we'll be sleeping at the Hog's Head, in Hogsmeade. The cheapest, ugliest, bed-buggiest pub in the country.