The next day was Harry's trial, so he left early in the morning with Arthur. Lily and the others took to cleaning out some of the dusty rooms in Grimmauld Place. The work was long and tiring, but Lily worked hard to keep her mind off worrying abut Harry's trial. He would be okay. He had to be okay.
Eventually, Harry and Arthur came back and everyone gathered around to hear the verdict. Harry blinked at them, as if forgetting for a second what they were waiting for.
"So?" Ron asked.
"I'm not expelled." Harry said.
"He got off!" Ginny clapped her hands together.
Fred and George began to echo Ginny by singing "he got off" over and over again. Harry forced a smile before squeezing past them to go upstairs. Lily, Ron and Hermione followed him at a distance.
"Harry?" Lily was the first to speak up.
"I'm fine."
"You're not being expelled." Hermione said, "Which is rather lucky because-"
Ron nudged her to be quiet and she got the message.
"If you need to talk, we're here." Lily said.
"I know... it's just, Dumbledore... he showed up but he didn't even look at me. And I called his name and he just ignored me. I don't know what I did wrong." Harry said.
"Maybe he didn't hear you?" Ron suggested.
"Maybe." Harry said, but he didn't look like he believed that at all.
They talked for a little while longer before going back to cleaning the house. Sirius' mood soured, and though he claimed to be happy that Harry wasn't expelled, nobody really believed it. Sirius would never admit it, but he had been secretly hoping that Harry would spend the school year with him. The end of the summer break came, and the teens prepared their trunks. After Ginny was nearly knocked down the stairs when Fred and George tried to levitate their trunks, they were making their way out the door. Sirius joined them in his animagus form, despite Remus and Logan warning him strongly against it. Maya didn't say anything, but she kept an eye on on Padfoot, watching out to ensure no harm came to him.
"Alright everyone, onto the train." Molly smiled, hugging each of her children goodbye.
"Bye Mum." Ginny said, before wiggling out of the hug that was still going on.
"Oh have a good school year, Ginny dear!" Molly called after her.
Harry lingered behind as the Weasley's and Hermione moved ahead. Lily stayed by his side to make sure he was okay.
"You coming?" Lena asked, looking at them.
"You go ahead." Lily said and Lena nodded.
"Bye Mum, bye Dad!" Lena said, hugging her parents before leaving to board the train.
"Harry." Logan said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Everyone will be okay."
Harry nodded.
"We will see you two at the winter break, okay?" Maya said, looking at the Potter twins.
"Okay." Lily said.
"This may be fruitless, but do try to stay out of trouble, okay?" Remus asked them.
Padfoot barked in what was possibly agreement, or possibly encouragement to get into as much trouble as possible.
"I'll try." Harry chuckled lightly.
Lily gave his hand a squeeze and they boarded the train together. The train ride to Hogwarts was fairly uneventful and Lily even fell asleep for pert of it. When they got to Hogwarts and filed into the great hall, Lily's eye was immediately caught by the pink figure among all the darkly clothes professors.
"Um, is that our new professor?" Lily asked, trying not to be rude and laugh at the woman's appearance.
"Must be." Ginny said, before taking her seat.
"Hey, I know her!" Harry suddenly exclaimed.
"You do?" Hermione questioned.
"She was at my trial. She tried to get me expelled." He frowned.
Everyone else sat down and waited through the sorting and than as Dumbledore began his speech. Midway through, he was interrupted by the professor in pink clearing her throat. The students in the hall all stared at her like she'd lost her mind. No one had ever interrupted Dumbledore before. Nevertheless, he simply smiled and moved aside for the new professor to make a speech of her own.
"Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome, and how lovely it is to see all your bright happy faces smiling up at me." She spoke to the students.
Lily glanced around to see no one was smiling.
"My name is Professor Umbridge, and I'm sure we're going to be very good friends-" she continued.
"That's likely." Fred and George said in unison, causing Lily to smile for a moment.
"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizard of vital importance. Although each Headmaster has brought something new to this school, progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. Let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices that ought to be prohibited... thank you."
There was a silence in the hall before Dumbledore began to clap a bit, prompting the students to give an unenthusiastic applause. Then the feast began, and Umbridge was quickly forgotten by the majority. Lily and her friends however, didn't forget so easily.
"I get a bad feeling from her." Ginny said.
"Me too." Lily agreed.
"Yeah, and that speech? What a load of waffle!" Ron exclaimed, reaching for a chicken drumstick.
"But what does it mean?" Harry asked, leaning in.
"It means the Ministry is interfering at Hogwarts." Hermione announced.
There was a silence after her words. Eventually they managed to push their worries to the side and enjoy the rest of their meal, but Lily noticed Harry kept glancing up at Umbridge when he thought no one was looking.
After eating, the Gryffindors made their way up to their tower, and Lily was about to say goodnight to her brother when she heard Seamus make a comment to Harry about the things the Daily Prophet had been saying about him.
"And you believe it?!" Harry asked.
"I don't know what to believe! If you could just-" Seamus began.
"No! Why don't you just go read the Daily Prophet like your mum?!"
"You leave my mum out of this!" Seamus yelled, even though he had been the one to mention her first.
"What's going on here?" Ron asked, coming to stand next to Harry.
"He's mad, that's what's going on!" Seamus argued.
"Se-" Dean began to reason.
"You don't actually believe what he-"
"Actually, I do." Ron said, standing up straighter.
Seamus narrowed his eyes.
"It's true." Lily then said, bringing all the boys eyes to her.
It looked as if they had forgotten she still stood in the Common Room.
"I saw him too." She reminded them.
Seamus couldn't argue with that, so he muttered something about her being in the Daily Prophet too, which made Harry start to move forward. Luckily Ron caught him and held him back.
"Mate, no!" Ron said.
"Don't talk about my sister!" Harry growled at Seamus who retreated to their dorm.
Ron released Harry then and he sent one last glare to the staircase before looking away.
"You share a room?" Lily said.
"Yep." Harry said.
"Oh joy." She mumbled.
"Let's just go to bed." Ron suggested.
"Fine." Harry agreed.
"Goodnight Harry." Lily said, "And please don't kill Seamus."
"He said-!"
"I know. Just try?" Lily asked.
"Okay, whatever." Harry sighed moodily.
Lily gave him a hug and he slowly relaxed into it, allowing her to go to her own bed knowing that he had calmed down and wasn't about to murder his dorm mate.