"He got off. He got off. He got off," Fred and George sang after they heard about Harry getting off from his charges.
They danced around the dark-haired boy, much to the enjoyment of Harry and the annoyance of their mother. Olivia, Sirius, and Remus stood at the side of the room, smiling as they watched how much Harry enjoyed Fred and George's antics.
"It's so sweet how much those two obviously care for Harry," Olivia tells the two men.
"Since the day I met Harry, it has always been clear that he has the biggest heart," Remus said. "Despite how he grew up and little love was shown to him, his capacity to love is boundless."
"He is probably the most selfless person you could ever meet," Sirius said. "He cares more about others than he ever will himself."
"The more I learn about him, the more I question his home life," Olivia says.
Remus cursed under his breath. He should not have let that slip about Harry's home life. Harry always made it known how much he hates the Dursleys, but he hardly ever gives any actual details about his life with them. All he ever says that they make him do a lot of chores and that they hate magic. He does not talk much else about them. He and Sirius were both aware that it was most likely that he was being abused. Most abused children do not share their abuse with others because they had basically been conditioned to believe that no one would ever help them.
Harry has spent years with those horrible muggles and even though he is aware that what they were doing to him was wrong, he had always failed to actually get help. And it did not help that in almost every situation he had with adults, they had proven themselves untrustworthy to him. From the neighbors and primary school teachers that looked at him and never suspected abuse, choosing to instead believe the lies the Dursleys told about him, to even the teachers at Hogwarts that never did anything against bullying or discrimination. Sirius, Remus, and Olivia were probably the only adults that he actually trusted. But telling others about the abuse they go through was a lot harder than non-abused people think.
"Harry does not like to talk about his relatives," Sirius tried to steer Olivia away from the subject.
"Sirius, I know a victim of abuse when I see one," Olivia tells him.
"Did Harry..." Sirius tried to ask but stopped himself.
He knew that even if he trusted Olivia, Harry would not reveal anything on purpose to someone he only met a week ago. But he might have said something by accident or just reacted to something in a way that made her suspicious. Sirius certainly noticed things that Harry did that told him more about the abuse that Harry suffers.
Like how he almost subconsciously jumps whenever a sudden loud noise happens. The first time that Harry had heard his mother's screaming portrait, he basically had jumped five feet in the air. There was also how Harry hated having anyone approach him from behind. Remus was in the family library with him once and tapped him on the shoulder to ask if he was hungry. But he had done that from behind and Harry had jumped away from him and looked to be reaching for his wand as if he needed to immediately defend himself against something... or someone.
"I worked a lot of cases when I was an assistant lawyer," Olivia said. "And if a case is serious enough, the magic council also deals with family court cases or abuse accusations. Child abuse is a lot more common than people like to believe."
"It is," Remus had been a teacher, even if only for a single year, and he hated the idea of more children out there being abused.
"Modern statistics say that roughly 6.6 million children every year are abused but only 3.6 million of those children actually have their cases investigated," Olivia hated reality sometimes. "And over 90 percent of those children are abused by someone in their own family or at the very least by someone they know."
Sirius and Remus were definitely both horrified by that bit of information. That certainly beat out Dumbledore's usual point of view of "family always loves each other." But they all knew that was more of his excuses to keep ignoring the obvious problem with Harry's relatives.
It certainly hit Sirius since his own parents had definitely been horrible to himself and even to Regulus. Sirius was the white sheep of the Black family and that put a target on his back for his blood purity-obsessed parents. If they were not hitting him with stinging hexes or low-powered bludgeoning curses, they were using bone-breaker curses or even the cruciatus curse. They were not going to let themselves have anything less than the perfect death eater children. And it certainly got worse once he had been sorted into Gryffindor and not Slytherin. They would skip their usual punishment charms and hexes and go straight for their favorite dark curses. Regulus saw what they did to him and tried his best to be everything that they wanted him to be. Sirius could never blame his brother for that. He would always blame his parents for the death of his precious little brother.
Sirius knew that if he had not run away and started living with the Potter's the summer after his fifth year, his parents would probably have killed him once he refused to join the death eaters. His only real regret was that he left Regulus behind and could do almost nothing to help him. Especially since with how both Bellatrix and Narcissa were still in Hogwarts as well, they would immediately tell his parents if he tried to approach Regulus during Hogwarts. That would only make life worse for his brother.
"It must be hard when you get cases like that," Sirius says to Olivia.
"I think the hardest thing is when the children are nothing but collateral damage between divorced parents," Olivia sighed. "There was once a case where a pair of twins were being fought over by their divorced parents, but it was not even because their parents loved them. It was proven that they wanted custody of the twins just so the other would not have them."
"Merlin," Remus gasped. "What kind of horrible people would do that to their own children?"
"Members of the Bronze family," Olivia huffed. "A family of hot-heads that care nothing about each other and only themselves."
"So, the entire family is bad," Sirius thought they sounded almost like Greek versions of the Malfoy family.
He would compare them to his own family, but the Blacks were more known for dark magic and general insanity. The Malfoy family were the ones known for their selfishness. Combining the Black and Malfoy traits is what created the spoiled brat known as Draco Malfoy. He was selfish, but Sirius definitely saw some Black madness in his eyes when he saw him while sneaking around Hogwarts in his dog form.
"Not everyone in the family is bad," Olivia says. "Generally, the Bronze family are masters of Enchanted Ruby magic, which is a powerful form of fire magic."
"Not the best combo if they are a family of bad apples," Remus said.
"But as I said, there are those that are not as bad as the rest of them," Olivia says. "My cousins have a friend named Mason back home. He is a member of the Bronze family, along with his parents. But he and his dad are actually alright people. The mother... story for another time."
"Noted," Remus nodded.
"Guess even mystic souls are not exempt from being able to abuse children," Sirius says, seeing that even such powerful people are still human.
"Sadly, human nature prevents such perfection from existing," Olivia sighed. "There will always be people that abuse others just like there will always be those that are good, evil, or neutral. We may be magical, but we are still human."
"Human for the most part, anyway," Remus growled.
"You know, there is no shame in being a werewolf," Olivia tells him. "There are a number of students at Crystal Rose that are werewolves, cat creatures, and basically any other were-creature that exists."
"Really," Remus was shocked as he had barely been allowed to go to school and that was only because no one knew he was a werewolf.
"Creatures of all kinds attend Crystal Rose as well as every other mystic soul school in the world," Olivia says. "Just the friends of my cousins include two harpies, a werewolf, a butterfly girl, a bumblebee boy, a were-snake, and a shapeshifter. And that is only those off the top of my head."
"I hope our plan works just so I can meet these people," Sirius said. "Well, helping Harry is my number one priority, but you can not blame me for wanting to meet more of you people."
"No, I can not," Olivia giggled.
"Alright, ENOUGH," Mrs.Weasley screamed to finally get the twins to stop their little concert.
Harry pouted a little as the twins stopped their "He Got Off" song and just settled on either side of him. But he certainly was preferring them over any of the other school-age kids in the room at the moment.
"Thanks for the help, again, Olivia," Harry smiled at the time mage.
"It was my pleasure," Olivia smiled back. "Anything to stick it to egotistical politicians that only use their positions to further their own agendas. Justice means everything to those on the magic council."
"Be it from putting away criminals to vanquishing demons," Krinos said.
His sudden appearance made most of them jump nearly jump out of their skin. Krinos snickered as he brushed some leaves and flower petals out of his hair.
"You always did enjoy doing that," Olivia giggled.
"It's something I picked up from Madison," Krinos chuckled.
"Who," Harry asked, always liking to hear about Krinos's mystic soul friends.
"She's a friend back home," Krinso explained. "She originally came from America but attended the Japanese mystic soul school before transferring to Crystal Rose. Part of her magic allows her to turn invisible, so she likes to sneak up on people a lot."
"I remember reading about the Japanese school," Harry said. "It's it a combat magic-focused school, right?"
"Yeah," Krinos said. "Senshi No Kokoro is known for the warriors that graduate from there. Their houses are named after their most well-known graduates. Beowulf, Achillies, King Arthur, Atilla the Hun, and Robin Hood."
"But wouldn't all of them be from different eras in time," Harry was confused.
"One of their founders was actually a time mage like me," Olivia explained. "He had also had the ability to look at a person and watch their specific history. So when they opened the school, he used his powers to find five warriors from different time periods. He had them all attend at the same time, and that was why all of them were such great fighters when he had returned all of them to their correct times."
"And since the world has not gone all to hell, it is obvious that it did not affect the timeline," Krinos said.
"Oh, I get it," Harry says. "All of them had to train for each of their destinies, so that was the loophole that the founder used in order to bring all five of them together."
"You catch on quick," Olivia smiled. "I knew I liked you."
"Nice to see you back, Krinos," Sirius smiled.
"I knew that Harry's trial was today, so I wanted to hear about how much Olivia was able to yell at the idiots in your ministry," Krinos chuckled.
"You were that confident that she would be able to help him," Remus raised an eyebrow.
"My cousin has been practicing law for almost as long as I have been alive," Krinos smirked. "She has known that she has wanted to go into law since she was ten. I had no doubt at all that she would be able to help him."
"She was definitely the best person to help me," Harry said. "And when she called me 'Heir Potter' it looked like some of them were about to wet themselves."
"They probably thought you were as ignorant as they believed anyone raised by muggles would be," Sirius said.
"I still do not like that word," Olivia crossed her arms. "Muggles.' What a degrading word."
"There is a reason why mystic souls prefer to use the term 'mundanes," Krinos said.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Harry turned back to the twins. "You guys have to see the garden that Krinos brought back to life. It's amazing."
"Not some of my best work, but I appreciate the compliment anyway," Krinos chuckled.
Harry just took a hand of each of the twins and basically dragged them up the stairs and to the garden. Krinos chuckled again and with a nod of permission from Olivia and Sirius, he followed after the three boys.
Harry took Fred and George into the Black Family Garden. Harry had always liked the twins. They were probably some of the best friends that he has ever had. Even when he was being bullied and attacked over people suspecting him of being the Heir of Slytherin, the twins had made the entire thing a joke to cheer him up. They had playfully bowed to him, jokingly called him the heir, and would even pretend that they were his evil loyal servants. They made him smile even when almost everyone else was running away from him.
The way that they knew when to take things seriously and when they could make everything a big joke was probably what he liked most about them. They always made him smile no matter what else was going on in his life.
"Bloody hell," Fred gasped as they saw the garden.
"Incredible," George followed up his brother's gasp.
"I told you that it was amazing," Harry laughed at their reactions.
Krinos soon joined them in the garden, happily sitting down on one of the chairs. He snickered as he looked at the three boys.
"You three going to make out for what," he asked as he noticed the three looking at each other.
Harry, Fred, and George all immediately blushed and took a step away from each other. Krinos snickered again.
"I suddenly feel pity for any boy that your sister dates," Harry tells Krinos.
"Hey, I could have said something a lot more embarrassing than what I just said," Krinos shrugged and smirked.
"You are a very odd person," Fred stated.
"And that says something coming from us," George added.
"Meh, I've been called worse," Krinos shrugged.
They were all soon interrupted by Ron, Hermione, and Ginny barging into the garden. They did not look any happier than they did during Fred and George's little song. Hermione looked especially annoyed. She had probably heard that Harry had not accepted any help from Dumbledore, nor was there any chance given for Dumbledore to even attempt anything as well. Even Olivia and Krinos knew that she worshipped authority figures and they barely even knew her.
"Harry James Potter," the know-it-all almost instantly yelled when they got into the garden.
"Here we go again," Fred groaned.
"I have a headache already," George pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Does she ever stop yelling," Krinos asked, only getting head shakes in response.
"What, Hermione," Harry was annoyed already, not wanting to deal with the complaining of his so-called friends again so soon after his trial.
"Why did you not let Headmaster Dumbledore help you," Hermione yelled. "He would have helped you loads better than that fake."
"Excuse me," Krinos got back onto his feet.
"I had asked Olivia to help me," Harry tells the bossy girl, crossing his arms as he did. "She has years of experience as a lawyer and as a member of her country's magic council. Dumbledore is not even on the Wizegmont anymore."
"It's Headmaster Dumbledore," Hermione continued to yell. "The headmaster is the greatest wizard of all time and he would have helped you much more than she did."
"Dumbledore did nothing," Harry yelled back. "He was not even in the room when Fudge and his minions had tried to steamroll me and declare me guilty without even trying to listen to me. They only wanted to listen to the voices in their heads and the voices that give them more gold in their vaults."
"How dare you say that about him," Ginny screamed. "He is loads better than that Greek nobody."
"I dare you to continue insulting my cousin," Krinos growled, his eyes glowing green once again.
The plants started to react around them. Fred and George, having not witnessed his powers before, were both excited and nervous at the same time.
"If you get your heads out of Dumbledore's butt long enough, you will see that he would not have been able to do anything," Harry yelled at the three.
If the three had not been insulted before, they sure were now. Harry had never felt freer, though. He was letting out some of his pent-up rage against the headmaster. He had grown up since he had been held prisoner at Durzkaban. He was no longer the golden boy that the headmaster wanted him to be. He certainly was never going to see him as anything less than the selfish narcissist person that he was. He found child abuse acceptable and that alone made him hate the headmaster.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER! HOW DARE YOU," Hermione screamed once again.
"Yep, I have a headache," George said.
"I think the whole house does," Fred says.
Krinos was still trying not to lose control as he still remembered their insults against Olivia. They were lucky he didn't vanquish them right then and there.
"HEADMASTER DUMBLEDORE IS A MILLION TIMES BETTER THAN THAT LYING FREAK," Hermione screamed.
Krinos was really about to lose it that time. Even Fred and George looked like they were about to start yelling at the three in defense of Olivia. All of them missed the flash in Harry's eyes.
But they did not miss when the glass dome over their heads shattered when a bolt of lightning came shooting into the garden and struck between Harry and the annoying trio. That certainly got their attention.