Children of the Sun | By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12399 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2 |
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Part Fifteen
Albus looked up at the men and women facing him. He was sitting in a chair bound with chains and with his arms crossed low over his stomach. He wanted to shake his head. Had anyone watching him with a disapproving glance done half as much as he had to save and protect the world? Had any of them been strong enough to stand against Tom? They had needed someone with a golden familiar to face a silver so strong, and now they were ready to turn on him.
How fickle adoration is.
“Albus Dumbledore, we are here to try you for the act of leaving Harry Potter with an abusive Muggle family,” Amelia Bones said. She stood on the floor in front of him instead of up in the gallery. Her tiger sat at her side, never taking his gaze off Fawkes, who was chained to the perch next to Albus. “Not the intention, the act. How do you plead?”
“I plead not guilty.”
“Really.”
“I do,” Albus said firmly. He knew they didn’t have to take his word when they had Pensieve memories--in this case, the memories given by that misguided child to a wizard with a familiar trained to receive them—but he could still make his case. “I am no more guilty than someone who thought a child was safely placed out of the way in Diagon Alley and then had them wander into the street. I could not have known his family would turn abusive.”
He saw a few nodding heads in the crowd, and fought not to exhale in relief. Good. He still had some supporters here, then.
“Ah,” said Amelia. “But someone who had injured a child that way might still be tried for the act. A lesser charge than doing it knowingly, of course. But still one.”
Albus stared at her. He had honestly never heard of such a thing. Then again, he hadn’t had much to do with the day-to-day business of the Wizengamot for years. He had his school to nurture, and usually only attended the huge trials where someone was charged with a heinous crime.
“Blame Muggleborns and their influence on our laws, if you want to,” Amelia said to his glance.
She turned and called the wizard with the bronze monkey on his shoulder down from the seats. The man had a cast to his eye that Albus disliked. He knew that sort of wizard. He would have grown up resenting the world around him for his being born a bronze, and now he saw the chance to strike back at the possessor of a golden phoenix.
“Would you be willing to testify as to the conversation you had with Harry Potter about his abusive relatives, Julian?” Amelia asked the man.
“I would,” said Julian, with a bow of his hand, and extended his arm. His familiar ran to the very ends of his fingers, and balanced there the way her non-magical kin would on a branch in the forest. She drew her hands up to her chest and closed her eyes. Albus watched as small silver tendrils of memory emerged from her head and connected with her wizard’s.
When the connection was complete, the wizard began to speak. He talked about neglect, in the end, Albus thought, listening intently. Neglect, not abuse. There were children in the school who had endured worse. Severus had, for example. And Harry had had a powerful familiar to protect him. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
He sighed as he watched the disgusted looks on the face turned towards him. Even if they wanted to follow someone who had a golden familiar as their new Lord, Harry was still a child. And, if what Albus suspected was true about the scar on his forehead and his sympathy for Quirinus was true, then he would have to die before he had grown. Why would members of the Wizengamot want to follow an unknown quantity rather than the man who had defended their world more than once?
Julian finished speaking. Albus turned back to him and frowned at the look of disgust the man gave him. Albus had done wrong, yes, but he was still owed courtesy and respect because of the color of his phoenix.
Julian gave him none.
“That is everything he told me,” Julian said, and inclined his head. “I cannot say anything else without Mr. Potter here testifying.”
“We will summon him for this weekend, then,” said Amelia, and sent Julian back to his seat with a casual wave of her hand. “Now. Back to your cell, Albus.”
“You cannot keep me in a cell for the next few days,” Albus said, even as he felt the Aurors standing behind him train their wands on him. With the bloody cuffs around his wrist and the band around Fawkes’s leg, they were stronger than he was. But he kept his attention fixed on Amelia. “That is ridiculous. Immoral.”
“We do it all the time with child abusers.”
“You should do it with the Dursleys, then.”
“When we get hold of them, we will,’ said Amelia, and gestured with her wand. The chains around Albus’s wrists fell away, but new ones attached themselves and coiled about the arm of one of the Aurors before Albus could make any motion.
He looked straight at Amelia, making sure she bore the full force of his displeasure, before the Auror came forwards to drag him away. She only gave him a calm, taunting smile.
She would pay for this. He did not deserve to be chained up and dragged about like a common criminal.
And he would see that she knew it.
*
Harry was coming back from Gryffindor Tower where he’d visited Ron and Cormac. He was glad that Ron was speaking up more now and had even yelled at one of the twins for their pranks and made them back down. He’d felt too worthless for too long. He was just as good as the rest of his family.
And Harry had to make sure to tell Mrs. Longbottom the same thing about Neville when he lived with them this summer.
Golden abruptly lifted his head. Harry paused. He was on one of the staircases down from the second floor to the first, and he couldn’t sense anything. But he trusted Golden’s instincts.
Golden wrapped himself abruptly around Harry, a sideways lunge of his body. Harry tumbled over and slid down a few steps, and he was just drawing his breath to scold Golden when a bolt of power tore over his head.
Harry tried to roll loose. Golden only tightened around him and lifted the upper part of his body up. Harry blinked up the stairs. Professor Quirrell was standing there, his wand aimed at Harry. Alanna crouched shivering next to him. Harry saw a gleam of silver inside her before it disappeared.
“You are a nuisance,” Professor Quirrell said, walking down a step or so. “And I wonder why you make it your business to send your snake to spy on me?” He shook his head. “The answers to those questions aren’t as important as your death, however.” He leveled his wand straight at Harry again.
Golden’s body began to glow. In a second, a yellow haze was hovering around him and Harry. Harry craned his neck impatiently. Right now, he couldn’t see Professor Quirrell, and he thought he might be able to convince him if he could just see him.
Something bounced off the wall, and there was a startled curse. Harry reckoned he had to be glad the wall was there.
“You are stronger than I expected. That’s not going to keep me from killing you.”
“I am trying to help you!” Harry called out. “A ritual that would force the possessing spirit out of your body.”
Professor Quirrell was quiet for a second. Then another bolt of power hit the wall and made it shiver even harder. Harry blinked, but then sighed. He should have remembered that Voldemort was there, too, listening. Of course he would be upset at the thought of being forced out and being a wandering spirit again.
“What should we do, Golden?” Harry whispered to his snake. He could feel the coils loosening, and he scrambled out of them and stood up, although he was still within the yellow wall.
Again Golden seemed to be paying attention to something he couldn’t sense. This time, Harry wasn’t really surprised when someone screamed, “Professor Quirrell! What are you doing?” It was Hermione’s voice.
By the sound of it, Professor Quirrell was trying to spin some comforting story. But Hermione didn’t seem to be buying it. Harry knew she didn’t when Regina, her familiar, suddenly leaped over the yellow wall and nipped at his ankle.
Harry turned and ran further down the stairs, with Regina scampering behind him and Golden slithering ahead of him. He hated leaving Hermione behind to handle this on her own, but he wanted to get down the stairs as soon as possible so he could send the familiars back to fight.
*
Hermione was deeply shocked. She knew Professor Quirrell had already attacked Harry in class once, and so she shouldn’t be surprised he was doing the same thing outside of class, but it had been long enough since the first strike that she thought he’d forgiven Harry, or heard about the ritual to expel the possessing spirit and decided to wait and see whether it could help.
Now she backed up in front of him as he advanced towards her. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “You know that Harry just wants to help you!”
“I have grown more powerful under the tutelage of my master,” Quirrell said, giving her a smile that seemed to stretch wider on his face than it should. “But why should I waste time explaining that to you? You are a spoiled little Mudblood, and you know nothing of true Darkness or true power.” He raised his wand. “Obliviate!”
But Hermione had been reading up about defensive magic along with the laws and the rituals and the other subjects she seemed to study naturally since she was Harry’s friend, and she had already dodged behind a pillar. Books cascaded out of her arms; she’d been on her way back from the library when she saw Harry in danger. She hastily fumbled for her wand.
“Come out, little girl, before I do something worse than remove your memory!”
Hermione controlled her breathing as harshly as she could, and then leaned out on the other side of the pillar and aimed her wand. At the same time, a small gleam of silver leaped up the banister, and Regina landed on her shoulder.
Her familiar’s power flooded down her arm and blended with hers, and when Hermione cast, “Aguamenti!”, she knew it would do exactly what she wanted it to.
Water flooded down the stairs and then froze into ice when Regina glared at it. Quirrell slipped a step as he tried to aim at her, and then his rabbit bolted and began to tumble ears over paws. Rabbits weren’t really made for running on ice, Hermione thought distantly before she took off straight towards Professor McGonagall’s office. She was the acting Headmistress while Professor Dumbledore was under arrest.
Quirrell cursed and started after her. Hermione ran faster and hid behind pillars and banisters and around corners when she could. She wasn’t that far away now.
Harry and Golden hadn’t come back, so she hoped they would be okay. That golden wall Golden had conjured said they would be.
And she hoped the library books she had dropped would be okay, too.
*
Jabsher12: Thank you!
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