𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐏 𝟕

After the hearing, Dumbledore had left the court quickly which took Harry completely by surprise. He remained sitting where he was in the chained chair, struggling with his feelings of shock and relief. The Wizengamot were all getting to their feet, talking, and gathering up their papers and packing them away.

Harry stood up. Nobody seemed to be paying him the slightest bit of attention except the toadlike witch on Fudge's right, who was now gazing down at him instead of at Dumbledore. Ignoring her, he tried to catch Fudge's eye, or Madam Bones's, wanting to ask whether he was free to go, but Fudge seemed quite determined not to notice Harry, and Madam Bones was busy with her briefcase, so he took a few tentative steps toward the exit and when nobody called him back, broke into a very fast walk.

He took the last few steps at a run, wrenched open the door, and almost collided with Mr. Weasley, who was standing right outside, looking pale and apprehensive.

"Dumbledore didn't say -"

"Cleared," Harry said, pulling the door closed behind him, "of all charges!"

Beaming, Mr. Weasley seized Harry by the shoulders.

"Harry, that's wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn't have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can't pretend I wasn't -"

But Mr. Weasley broke off, because the courtroom door had just opened again. The Wizengamot were filing out.

"Merlin's beard," said Mr. Weasley wonderingly, pulling Harry aside to let them all pass, "you were tried by the full court?"

"I think so," said Harry quietly.

One or two of the passing wizards nodded to Harry as they passed and a few, including
Madam Bones, said, "Morning, Arthur," to Mr. Weasley, but most averted their eyes.

Cornelius Fudge and the toad- like witch were almost the last to leave the dungeon. Fudge acted as though Mr. Weasley and Harry were part of the wall, but again, the witch looked almost appraisingly at Harry as she passed.

Last of all to pass was Percy. Like Fudge, he completely ignored his father and Harry; he marched past clutching a large roll of parchment and a handful of spare quills, his back rigid and his nose in the air. The lines around Mr. Weasley's mouth tightened slightly, but other than this he gave no sign that he had noticed his third son.

"I'm going to take you straight back so you can tell the others the good news," he said, beckoning Harry forward as Percy's heels disappeared up the stairs to the ninth level. I'll drop you off on the way to that toilet in Bethnal Green. Come on. . . ."

"So what will you have to do about the toilet?" Harry asked, grinning.

Everything suddenly seemed five times funnier than usual. It was starting to sink in: He was cleared, he was going back to Hogwarts.

"Oh, it's a simple enough anti-jinx," said Mr. Weasley as they mounted the stairs, "but it's not so much having to repair the damage, it's more the attitude behind the vandalism, Harry. Muggle-baiting might strike some wizards as funny, but it's an expression of something much deeper and nastier, and I for one"

Mr. Weasley broke off in mid-sentence. They had just reached the ninth level corridor, and Cornelius Fudge was standing a few feet away from them, talking quietly to a tall man with sleek blond hair and a pointed, pale face.

The second man turned at the sound of their footsteps. He too broke off in mid conversation, his cold gray eyes narrowed and fixed upon Harry's face.

"Well, well, well . . . Patronus Potter," said Lucius Malfoy coolly.