Harry's POV

Harry and Ginny walked slowly up the long castle drive. The sun had just set behind the mountains beyond the lake and the castle grounds were rapidly sinking into shadows, the colour slowly leaching out of their surroundings. It was cold and the temperature was dropping fast as the night approached but neither of them made any effort to quicken their pace. Each was silent, lost in their own thoughts and although they were close enough to touch each other, neither made any move to reach for the other's hand.

Harry knew that Ginny was upset, even though she was making every effort not to show it. It had been a very long and very trying day and Harry was very much looking forwards to his dinner in the Great Hall, followed by a quick trip to the hospital wing to see Tansy and then a quiet evening with Ginny in the eighth-year common room. They would have the room to themselves tonight - Ron and Hermione were staying in the Leaky Cauldron overnight and the rest of the Gryffindor eighth years had gone home to spend Christmas with their families.

Harry's eyes flicked upwards to the first floor to where a light glimmered dimly in the hospital wing window. Perhaps, after all, he would go there first, before heading to dinner; Tansy had been asleep for days and Madam Pomfrey seemed to have no idea when she would wake. The young witch's inner magic had been so depleted by both exhaustion and the muggle medication that she'd been taking that it could be some time before she regained consciousness. At least they had had plenty of practice waiting for Tansy to wake up, Harry thought sardonically to himself. It would be nice to see her even if she was asleep and they could entertain Hope for a little bit.

Ginny sighed loudly, her breath misting in the cold twilight air. Glancing at her face, Harry saw that she was staring determinately at the starry sky, her eyes over-bright and her lips moving soundlessly as if she was arguing with herself.

'I'm sorry Gin.' It seemed important to say the words out loud even though they were meaningless. He reached out and took her cold hand in his and squeezed it. It felt so natural that he wondered why he hadn't been touching her this whole time. If he couldn't think of the right thing to say then he could at least show her that he was here for her.

'It… it doesn't matter. At least…' she sighed again, '…at least it shouldn't matter.'

'Maybe not but it matters to you and your family and it matters to me.' Harry said gently, pulling her closer, and she turned to him, her eyes full of unshed tears.

'We know that he was forced to act like that so why do I care so much what everyone else knows? What they all believe? Why does the truth matter so much?' Ginny demanded. The tears overspilled and ran down her cheeks and Harry impulsively leaned forwards and kissed her gently, tasting the saltiness of her tears on his lips.

They had spent the day at the Ministry of Magic, watching as the Wizengamot had finally returned the verdicts of Bellatrix Lestrange. Verdict after verdict had been returned for her numerous, heinous crimes. Most had been clear cut but some had returned with ambiguous verdicts due to lack of evidence. It hardly mattered – she was already sentenced to a life of imprisonment with no possibility of parole.

Harry's thoughts flickered back to the verdict that had left the Weasleys in such a state, his mind recalling the thin, reedy voice of the middle-aged wizard who had been standing behind the lectern.

'The placement of the Imperius curse on George Fabian Weasley and the manipulation of his actions. We return no clear verdict due to lack of evidence.'

Harry thought that there should have been an uproar but not one person had broken the silence of the court. Even the Weasleys had been too stunned to react and by the time they had absorbed the information, the wizard had already moved on and was reading out the next verdict. Harry felt his hands curling into fists as is frustration peaked again – that was the problem with the Imperius curse, the reason why eighty percent of the verdicts were returned with ambiguous findings; it could never be one hundred percent proven that the target had not acted of his own free will. Sometimes, if the target was fighting hard against the curse, you could see a sign of their internal struggle in their eyes. Sometimes the curse was performed badly or the target was too strong to be compelled but not strong enough to fight the curse entirely. Then they would usually act in such a strange way that it became obvious that they were being controlled. Most of the time however, there was no way of knowing whether or not the person was being compelled or not.

Harry felt himself grinding his teeth together in frustration; even the video of Tansy's assault was not considered to be enough proof. The video itself had not been shown to the whole court for Tansy's sake, but the jury had seen it privately. Even if the magical community had been used to seeing muggle video footage as evidence, (which they were not), the footage was too poor for them to be sure that George had not been acting of his own free will. The only time that Bellatrix had been seen to use her wand was when she used it to torture her daughter.

There was nothing they could do and George Weasley had not been legally cleared of Tansy Laverstock's assault.

Tansy's POV

Tansy opened her eyes and looked around her. It took a few seconds for her to recognise the dimly lit Hogwarts hospital wing, then, all at once, everything came crashing back and she remembered what had happened. She pushed herself into a sitting up position, swallowing down her rising panic – she had made the decision to return and face the consequences of her actions and now she had to follow through with that choice. There could be no running this time.

She could hear several voices from the matron's office but they were talking softly and she couldn't make out who they belonged to or what they were saying. Instead, she looked around the dimly lit room, taking some deep breaths and trying to calm her heart which was thumping so fast that she thought that it might be trying to jump out of her chest altogether: Someone had drawn the hospital wing blinds but weak sunlight streaked in around their edges. The empty baby crib by her bed made her inexplicably nervous. Despite what she had been told on the castle drive, she still wasn't at all sure that she wasn't about to be sent to Azkaban.

Tansy swung shaky legs out of bed but then stopped almost as swiftly. She knew what she would face as soon as she let them know that she was awake; she knew that they would ask her questions. She had to be ready to answer them. She glanced nervously at the main door of the hospital wing, suddenly wondering if she was being guarded; Minerva McGonagall would certainly have alerted the Ministry of her return. Were their Aurors standing guard outside the hospital wing, ready to cart her off to Azkaban now that she was awake? Her adoptive mother and her friends had assured her that she wouldn't be sent to the wizard prison but what authority did they really have? Could they really harbour a known criminal? Tansy felt her breath starting to get uneven and tried to calm herself down; she'd known that this was a possibility when she'd made the decision to return.

Tansy stood up, deftly unhooking the potion drip that had been attached to her arm. Before she could second guess herself and ignoring her shaking knees, she crossed over to the matron's office and peered inside. A tall man wearing rather scruffy looking robes, that she didn't recognise was in deep discussion with Remus, Minerva and Madam Pomfrey. The four of them fell silent as they caught sight of Tansy, standing in the doorway and then both Remus and Minerva hurried over to her. In spite of her creaking knees, Minerva was the first to reach her and she enveloped Tansy in her arms.

'Tansy, you're awake. How are you feeling?' Tansy pulled away slightly, her eyes still fixated on the stranger; she could see a tattered 'M' embroidered on the pocket of his robes.

'This is Gawain Robards, head of the Auror department at the Ministry, Tansy.' Remus said softly, crossing the small office. The man nodded and looked as if he might like to speak but Remus had stepped forwards and hugged Tansy. 'It's wonderful to see you again sweetheart. I thought…' He trailed off.

'Let's get you back to bed and then we can talk,' Madam Pomfrey said cheerfully, but with a tone of authority that Tansy recognised. Without pausing for consent, the matron hustled them all out of her small office and into the dimly lit hospital wing. In the confusion Tansy was able to whisper a question to Minerva.

'Where's Hope? Is she okay?' Her heart ached for her daughter.

'She's fine, Tansy, Miss Granger and Mr Weasley just took her out for a walk when Mr Robards arrived. I think they went down to see Hagrid.' Minerva replied and Tansy felt relieved.

'She's grown so much Tansy. She's looking wonderfully healthy.' Remus put in, hearing Minerva's words.

'Healthy but still tiny for her age, just like her mother.' Madam Pomfrey said, looking critically down at Tansy as the girl sat down gingerly on the edge of her bed. She flicked her wand at the binds and they sprung back, flooding the hospital wing with weak December sunlight and Tansy was forced to throw up her hand to protect her eyes.

'Right, let me see…' Madam Pomfrey waved her wand over Tansy and started muttering spells under her breath. Then she produced a potion out of thin air which she handed to Tansy. It tasted like overboiled strawberry milk. The other adults waited in silence until the matron nodded once and took a step back. Then, both Remus and Minerva approached the bed.

'Tansy, is it okay for Mr Robards to have a quick word with you?' Remus asked carefully, sitting down next to Tansy on the bed and taking one of her hands in his. 'I know that you've just woken up and it's all a bit confusing but he's been waiting for days. You've been asleep for nearly a week.'

Tansy felt a spasm of shock at the fact she'd been asleep for so long, then a stab of guilt at how abandoned little Hope must be feeling. Even so, it was only now that Remus had drawn attention to it that she realised that she felt so much better; not only had her exhaustion disappeared but she could feel that something else had returned with her energy, something deep inside her that she didn't have the words to name. She glanced over at Madam Pomfrey and caught her eye.

'Your levels of exhaustion and your inner magic had depleted to dangerous levels, Miss Laverstock. The only option was to let you sleep until your magic had rejuvenated.' The matron said quietly. 'I'm pleased to report that your magic levels are on the mend now.' She looked carefully at Tansy and then turned back to her office. She hadn't taken more than a couple of steps before she turned back to the girl on the bed. 'It's wonderful to see you again, Tansy. You and Hope.' Then she sniffed and walked briskly into her office, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her robes.

The man from the Ministry had followed them at a distance out of Madam Pomfrey's office and he now crossed over the room and conjured a chair from thin air which he placed beside Tansy's bed. He then conjured a second chair for Minerva, which she took, and then sat down, carefully stowing his wand away. Tansy could tell that he was making every effort to make her feel at ease. It wasn't working.

'Hi Miss Laverstock, I'm Gawain Robards,' he began unnecessarily, because he'd already been introduced. 'Like Remus just said, I'm the head of the Auror department at the Ministry and I will be your Ministry liaison.' Tansy stared at him; now that some of her brain function had returned, she was starting to guess why she needed a Ministry liaison but it was rather a lot to process all at once.

'I want to keep it brief today, Miss Laverstock. I know that you've only just woken up.' He paused and then looked at Remus, as if expecting him to speak next. Remus appeared to sigh in a reigned fashion. He turned to Tansy.

'Tansy, before Gawain goes on, we just want to make something absolutely clear.' Tansy was somewhat alarmed by the intensity of his voice. 'Nobody blames you for what happened. You will not be punished for something that wasn't your fault. Minerva told me what you said when she collected you. I want to make it as clear as veritaserum that you are not going to Azkaban. Not now. Not ever. Do you understand me Tansy?' Minerva nodded vehemently in agreement but didn't speak and Tansy looked between them both, hardly believing what she was being told; she wondered why they looked so grim.

'Do you understand me?' Remus repeated, his voice now so fierce that Tansy blanched and cringed away from him. Her searching eyes met those of the Ministry official; she needed him to say it too.

'Miss Laverstock, what Remus has just said is absolutely correct. You will not be punished for what happened. However,' Gawain Robards paused and pulled a sheath of papers of his briefcase, 'I'm afraid that you will still have to be tried. The trial will be held at the Ministry.' Tansy gulped and nodded; even in her sleep-deprived state she'd already realised that there would be a trial.

'We tried to find a way around it, Tansy but I'm afraid it was impossible. Mr Robards has been searching for a loophole but there just isn't one.' Minerva said softly, taking Tansy's free hand and holding it gently. Tansy realised that she was shaking so badly that she was making both Remus and Minerva shake too.

'Yes, the trial will be held at the Ministry.' Gawain Robards continued. 'Like Professor McGonagall has said, we tried to find an alternative method but I'm afraid that you will be required to attend. The case is just too big and it can't be held in your absence.' Tansy bit her lip very hard but found herself nodding again – in spite of her anxiety a steely sort of resignation had started to creep through her.

'As I have said before, the case is very clear-cut Miss Laverstock. This is just a formality and we will conduct it in the easiest way possible, in an effort to cause the least distress to everyone. I know this is…' He paused, seemingly trying to find the best words. '…a very hard thing we are asking of you.' He paused again, seemingly ill at ease. 'Right, well I won't say anything more today. I'll leave you in peace.' He stood up, and the chair he'd been sat on vanished into thin air. He then placed the sheath of papers on the small bedside table. 'I'm legally required to give you this, Miss Laverstock. I'm sorry it seems so heartless.' He smiled sadly at her and then looked at Remus and Minerva. 'Happy New Year to you both.'

Tansy barely heard the adults murmured responses; she had reached out automatically and turned over the topmost sheet.

Trial no 557

Defendant Tansy Alya Laverstock (alias Cassiopeia Alya Black)

Case The murder of George Fabien Weasley

Hey everyone, I'm back! Thanks for your continued support.