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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12412 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Part Twelve
Things seemed to move very quickly after that.
Harry stood up with Golden rearing beside him. Madam Bones glanced at him and smiled, although her tiger never took his eyes from Dumbledore. “Ah, there you are, Mr. Potter. You realize who we are?”
“I, um, I’ve seen your picture in the papers a few times, Madam Bones,” Harry said in a dazed way. “And Minister Fudge, too.” The Minister was sweating and looked unhappy, but he also smiled at Harry. Harry glanced at Julian, who had walked in behind Madam Bones, and nodded at him. He wasn’t sure if he should say that he knew Julian or not.
“Good.” Madam Bones faced Dumbledore. “Could you come down and take us to your office, Albus? So we could discuss this in private?”
Dumbledore sighed and walked slowly down from the Head Table. Fawkes was flying next to him. He landed on Dumbledore’s arm and looked around, but Harry couldn’t see what exactly he was looking at.
“I’m sure we will find that this is a misunderstanding,” Dumbledore said.
“Oh, we might,” said Madam Bones. Her voice was sharp. “But we can’t find that out until we discuss it, can we? Come, Mr. Potter.”
Harry squeezed Neville’s shoulder, because Neville was trembling next to him. His Gran, who he talked about all the time, had told him that he would probably go to prison if he ever saw an Auror, Harry knew. He didn’t think much of Neville’s Gran. “I’m going to be all right,” he said quietly, and waited until Neville nodded before he walked away. Golden slid next to him.
Madam Bones and Minister Fudge were both gaping at him. “So it is true,” Harry thought he heard Minister Fudge mutter.
Harry blinked at him. Did he think the photographs in the newspapers lied? Harry knew there had been a lot of them.
“It is,” said Julian, enough under his breath that Harry didn’t think Dumbledore would hear it as he walked ahead of them. “That and all the rest.”
Fudge swallowed nervously. Harry ignored that as best he could and followed them up the stairs and around the corner.
They climbed some more stairs until they came to the Headmaster’s office. Dumbledore walked in and sat down behind his desk. Madam Bones didn’t sit down, standing and facing him, and Harry felt Golden nudge his hip not to sit, either. But Minister Fudge and Julian took the two chairs that were there. The Minister’s familiar was a copper bird with a really long tail who sat on his shoulder and fluffed its tail feathers out every now and then.
The Minister saw him looking, and smiled. “This is my bird-of-paradise, King.”
“He’s very handsome,” Harry said, which made King puff out and strut so much that Harry thought he was going to fall off the Minister’s shoulder. “This is Golden.”
“Young when you named him?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Minister chuckled and started to say something else, but Madam Bones interrupted. “We’re in private now, Albus. I want to hear exactly what you meant by leaving young Harry with Muggles.”
“I intended only his good.”
“That is not the story I heard.”
“Now, Amelia. Are you questioning the word of someone with a golden familiar?”
That’s right, you can’t do that unless it contradicts Pensieve memories or something, Harry thought, his heart sinking. He caught Julian’s eye, though, and Julian looked smiling and calm. Even his monkey was leaning against his neck instead of sitting up and wringing her hands. So Harry relaxed as much as he could and looked at Dumbledore and Fawkes.
“Of course not,” said Madam Bones, with a smile that Harry thought was nasty. “If you said that you intended only his good, then I have to believe you. But I can still question your actions, Albus. Are you aware that they made him sleep in a cupboard? That they tried to push him down the stairs? That his familiar had to act to protect him and even feed him?”
Dumbledore blinked several times. Then he turned and gave Harry a deeply disappointed look. “Did you tell these—exaggerations, Harry?”
“Are you questioning the word of someone with a golden familiar, Albus?” Julian drawled.
He really enjoyed saying that, Harry thought. Even though Julian still looked calm, he was sure of what he was thinking.
“Of course not.” Dumbledore reached up and stroked Fawkes’s feathers. He looked calm, too, but Harry didn’t think he was. “But I do know that sometimes children say things they don’t mean. Or they might—influence someone to say things they don’t mean.” He looked at the other adults as if they should know what he was talking about. Harry didn’t know.
“Impossible,” Madam Bones said. She drew out something from her pocket. It looked like a silver coin. But she put it on Dumbledore’s desk and tapped it with her wand, and it started to grow. When it was bigger than her head, Harry blinked. It looked like a giant silver bowl. “Such spreading magic can’t influence familiars. And we have here the familiar’s testimony recorded as a Pensieve memory.”
Dumbledore smiled. It looked strained. “You never know what someone with a golden familiar can do—”
“Yes. Like place a child with abusive Muggles.”
Harry swallowed a little. Madam Bones wasn’t going to let that go, and that was good. But he wasn’t sure how he felt about having his life with the Dursleys announced in front of everyone in the Great Hall. They might think things were worse than they were. Or they might go to the Muggle world and try to punish the Dursleys.
Harry didn’t want to see them again if he didn’t have to. But he didn’t want them hurt, either.
“I have explained why I did that.”
“And I have explained why we’re talking to you now.”
Dumbledore leaned around Madam Bones to look at Harry. “Your relatives didn’t really abuse you, did they, Harry? You can admit you exaggerated. I know that you don’t enjoy being there. But it is the safest place for you.”
Harry swallowed again. “They did abuse me,” he said. “They were never kind to me. They hated magic. I wouldn’t have been able to eat and stop my cousin from hurting me if not for Golden. And I know that I didn’t have him when I first went there. I know that familiars don’t manifest until someone is eighteen months old. I was fifteen months old. I didn’t have him.”
He was just telling the truth and what he had learned from Julian. He didn’t expect the look of complete triumph that settled over Madam Bones’s face, or the way she turned to Dumbledore as if she was going to jump on him. Her tiger bared hungry teeth and edged closer to the desk, his eyes fixed on Fawkes.
No silver familiar can challenge a golden familiar and live, though, right? Harry thought he’d read something in a book about that.
Golden writhed under his hand. Harry looked down at him, and the memory passed into his eyes from Golden’s glowing ones. Yes, there was a book page, and it said that no silver familiar could successfully challenge a golden one.
But maybe he doesn’t want to kill Fawkes. He just wants to keep him busy if Dumbledore does something.
A second later, Harry blinked. “I didn’t know you could do that,” he muttered to Golden in the tone he had used around his relatives, too low for anyone else to hear.
Golden turned his head modestly to the side.
Harry didn’t have the chance to shake down his infuriating anaconda, because Madam Bones purred, “I don’t have to question the word of someone who has a golden familiar, Albus, because this is a matter of simple fact. No one’s familiar manifests before the age of eighteen months. There was no way of knowing that he would have such powerful magic or the ability to survive an abusive family.”
Dumbledore took off his glasses and cleaned them on his robes. Then he looked up. The room changed somehow. Harry saw Madam Bones’s tiger stand up and stop growling, and Minister Fudge wiped at his eyes like a drop of water had fallen into them.
Julian sat up, though, and his monkey Sara chittered sharply. Dumbledore smiled at all of them and said, “I think there’s been a mistake. A few exaggerations, some jumping to conclusions. Do you think we can agree on that? There’s no need to arrest me for making a mistake, surely.”
Julian surged to his feet, but Golden was right behind him, whipping most of his body over Julian’s chair and rearing up so that he was staring into Dumbledore’s eyes. Dumbledore staggered sideways. Fawkes made a shrill sound and fluttered over to his perch.
Madam Bones and the Minister sagged a little to the side. Then her tiger was growling again, and the Minister frowned and sat up, and Golden slithered off Julian’s chair and down to Harry’s side. Harry blinked at him. “What was that?”
Golden rippled at him. Julian said in a flat voice, “That was the spreading magic of someone with a golden familiar.”
“I swear that I was not using it.” Dumbledore gave them all an angelic smile. And they had to believe him, Harry realized.
“Then you will not be charged for that,” Madam Bones said, in an even flatter tone than Julian had used. “You will only be charged for placing a child in a dangerous situation, one that you had no legal claim to. I’ve seen the Potters’ wills, Dumbledore. They charged you to take care of him if several other people were already dead. A few of them are, including Peter Pettigrew, or disqualified by means of being in Azkaban or incapacitated. But you did not reach the end of the list. You jumped over it, and that is a crime.”
Dumbledore stared at her. Then he said, “I didn’t know,” and Harry thought that was the truth.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” And Madam Bones relished saying that, Harry could tell. She reached out and rested her hand on her tiger’s ruff, and a glowing silver chain of magic connected them, flaring up and shedding sparks on the floor. “Now, are you going to come quietly, Albus, or are you going to make a mess of things?”
Dumbledore seemed to be thinking about it. For a second, he caught Harry’s eyes. Harry just looked back at him. He honestly didn’t have much of an explanation for anything right now, including several things Golden had done.
Dumbledore slowly held out his hands. Madam Bones placed cuffs around them that Harry thought looked almost like Muggle ones, except these were made of pure silver etched with gold. A similar, small cuff went around Fawkes’s right leg. Then Madam Bones picked up Fawkes’s perch and called, “Irene! Howard!”
The two Aurors who must have followed them from the Great Hall came in. Their familiars, a tin muskrat and a copper bulldog, came behind them.
“Take the Headmaster to the Ministry,” said Madam Bones, and they took the chain that attached to Dumbledore’s cuffs and led him away. Madam Bones shook her head a little and carried Fawkes’s perch herself.
“We will discuss holiday arrangements for you soon,” she told Harry in a quiet voice as she passed him. “There are still a few people in your parents’ list of potential guardians who are around and might be willing to take you. The first one is Augusta Longbottom. My niece Susan told you that her grandson’s in your year here?”
Harry found himself smiling in sheer relief. He would be able to do something for Neville if he went to his house. “Yes, he’s here and he’s my Housemate, madam.”
“Good.” And then Madam Bones swept out, and the Minister stayed just a minute more to tell Harry that all would be well, and Julian pressed his shoulder as he passed, giving him a single significant look. Harry almost floated after them, unbelieving that this had gone so well, sure that something would change any second and he would be back in Dumbledore’s office with him enchanting the others.
Harry frowned down at Golden as the memory returned to him. “What did you do?”
Golden decided this was an excellent time to slither faster. Harry followed him, scowling at his snake. He needed to learn how to work with him, not just let him do whatever he wanted. Or he would end up the kind of person that he wanted to fight.
*
Jabsher12: He will still attempt to fighti it, but it's going to be harder now.
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Children of the Sun