For certain reasons, Harry did not go downstairs to deal with Mrs. Avery himself, Hermione and Percy handled it instead.
Ron also headed back to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes to take over from George and keep the shop running.
For a moment, the office fell quiet.
Then a voice came from the fireplace.
“Potter, open the Floo Network access to your office.”
Harry looked toward the face emerging from the ashes.
“Malfoy, what are you doing calling my office?”
“You already know why.”
“What — come to plead for Robards Avery?” Harry’s voice was ice-cold.
He didn’t move, just kept reading the documents on his desk.
“He’s still an underage child.” Draco’s voice carried a note of helplessness.
Harry rarely heard Draco speak with such humility.
“A child?” Harry’s fury cracked through.
“He planned and participated in a bombing in a Muggle neighborhood. A Muggle girl had her eyes destroyed in the blast. That girl is also an underage child — and considerably younger than him!” He slammed the documents down hard on his desk.
“What he did will not be forgiven simply because he is a minor.”
“You should give everyone a chance at a second start! Are there no others at fault for how he turned out? Do you have any idea how much contempt and harassment Slytherin faces at Hogwarts right now?! Did you never make a mistake at his age?! In your fifth year you even broke into the Department of Mysteries and caused the death of,”
“Malfoy, how dare you!”
Harry’s shout cut Draco off.
Draco seemed to realize what he had said, and closed his mouth, knowing he was in the wrong.
“I don’t want to see Slytherin in this position either, but this is nothing more than paying the debt for what your lot did before. You are the last person with any right to rail against it!” Harry’s voice came sharp and furious.
“I suggest you take care of yourself.” He drew a deep breath.
His tone went cold.
“You and your father barely escaped imprisonment. Certain people have been restless lately, I hope you won’t take another wrong turn. Because this time, I don’t think you’ll get any chance of me vouching for you again.”
Draco’s face disappeared from the ashes.
The flames rose once more.
Harry felt as though ice had settled over his entire body.
A deep, sweeping sense of powerlessness washed over him.
Every word he had thrown back at Draco was true, yet he did not truly want to stand aside and ignore the disorder he had described.
And yet he felt there was nothing he could do.
He could stand up for those people once.
But he could not betray his own origins and keep speaking for them indefinitely.
That wouldn’t be fair to those who had endured oppression for so long and finally prevailed.
Throughout his chaotic and bloody youth he had searched for some kind of fairness.
He had failed.
Now, even having become the so-called savior twice over, he still could not bring about the fairness he had once dreamed of.
He swept the documents off his desk in a burst of frustration and buried his face in his hands.
The office door banged open.
“That Mrs. Avery is really something to deal with.”
The clicking stopped.
Then came the sound of papers being gathered and straightened.
Hermione said nothing about the documents on the floor, she simply picked them up in silence, set them back on Harry’s desk, and poured herself a cup of tea, looking thoroughly worn out.
“She’s gone?” Harry took off his glasses, set them on the desk, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Mm-hm, forcibly removed.” Hermione gave a small snort.
“Tomorrow this will be on the front page of the Daily Prophet. She’ll absolutely go around dragging the Ministry of Magic and all of us through the mud.”
Harry didn’t doubt that for a second.
For every witch or wizard in the wizarding world who saw him as a savior to believe in, there was another waiting to watch him fall from his pedestal.
Especially the papers.
They pounced on any news about him like hyenas fighting over carrion, desperate to drag his entrails out and chew them to pieces, desperate to magnify and condemn his every move.
Harry sometimes thought those people would love to kidnap him, strip him bare, and put him under a glass dome on display, so everyone could observe every detail of his life with nothing left hidden.
“Today has already been terrible, but tomorrow might be even worse.” Harry tugged at the corner of his mouth, yet couldn’t even manage a perfunctory bitter smile.
Hermione let out a quiet sigh and slowly sipped her tea.
“Tonight I’ll probably miss Molly’s cooking again.” Harry flipped back through the documents, quietly calculating whether to send warning letters to some of the press, though the letters would most likely end up printed in the papers themselves, and he’d find himself at the center of a scandal about abusing his position.
“Not tonight, you can’t work late tonight.” Hermione looked at Harry over the rim of her cup, brow furrowed in disapproval.
“Have you forgotten? Tonight Molly invited Chloe and Michael to the Burrow.”
Harry paused, then nodded.
“Oh, right — they’re coming today.”
“Remember to put a hat on Teddy.
Teddy still can’t control the hair color, so don’t let Chloe notice anything about the magical world.
She’s a good person, I don’t want to have to use a Memory Charm on her.” Hermione added, “Last time she saw Teddy, the hair was red.”
“But — how is Chloe getting to the Burrow?”
“Michael asked me for the address and said Michael would bring Chloe. Last time I asked Michael to see Chloe home, the two of them seem to have exchanged contact details. Can you believe it? Michael actually got a Muggle driver’s license, while Ron is planning to use a Confundus Charm to fool the Muggle examiner.”
Hermione rolled her eyes.
Harry finally smiled.
“Promise me you won’t let Ron loose on the Muggles. I became very well acquainted with that driving in second year.”
“Teddy, do you remember what I told you?” Harry crouched down in front of Teddy and pinched the little face.
“Mm.” Teddy gave an obedient nod.
“I can’t take the hat off, I can’t transform freely, and I can’t change my eye color.”
Nearby, Bill and the others were scrambling to tidy away the magical objects that might give things away.
“This was truly a mistake!” Ron was starting to look panicked.
“We should have just taken them to a Muggle restaurant, I genuinely believe there isn’t even a tiny chance we won’t get exposed here!”
Hermione shook her head helplessly, picked up a wand, and dutifully cast Confundus Charms around the interior of the house.
“We won’t get exposed. At most…” George pressed both lips together and thought for a moment.
“…at most Dr. Aiken will decide our whole family is a bunch of strange lunatics.”
“That does sound genuinely worth looking forward to.” Ginny remarked in a flat, dry tone. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Harry kept hold of Victoire, who was darting all over the place, going over the instructions with Victoire, doing his best to ignore the looks Ginny and the others kept exchanging, glances directed squarely at the two of them.
Ron walked over and crouched down beside Harry.
Harry looked at Ron, slightly puzzled.
“Hey, this is the brutal consequence of dating your good mate’s sister, you know that, right?”
Ron grinned.
Thoroughly smug about it.
Harry smiled back, and the moment Ron let his guard down, drove an elbow hard into Ron’s stomach.
Ron stumbled and, unable to resist the force of it, sat down on the floor.
The onlookers broke into warm laughter.
Molly put both hands on her hips and looked over at Ron.
“Ronald! Why are you harassing Harry again!”
“Harassing?!” Ron protested loudly, threw an arm out, and caught Harry off guard, hooking it around Harry’s neck and pulling Harry down to the floor alongside Ron.
“So now every bit of contact between me and Harry is going to be classified as harassment? That would make me a pervert who’s been harassing him for fourteen years.”
“Thirteen and a half.” Harry wriggled free and shoved Ron aside.
“You gave me the cold shoulder for a month in fourth year, and for two months while we were looking for Horcruxes, and there are still three months before term starts, so added together, you’ve been a pervert for thirteen and a half years.”
The others laughed even louder.
Even the three children joined in, giggling along without really knowing why.
“You’ve actually been wanting to bring that up for ages, haven’t you!” Ron’s finger trembled as Ron stared at Harry, wide-eyed with disbelief.
“I did quietly do the math a few times, yes.” Harry shrugged, completely unapologetic.
“All right, boys, stop the racket and come help set the table! Once Chloe arrives you won’t be able to use your wands!”
“Feeling a bit better?” George leaned over while Harry was setting out the forks, smiling as the question came out.
Harry smiled and gave a small nod.
“Everything will be all right.” George patted Harry on the shoulder.
“Dr. Aiken always says that to me.”
Harry’s hands stilled for a moment.
He really did hope those words were true.
But he didn’t dare believe them.
Because his life, it seemed, had never truly been all right, not once.
➤ Next: Dinner (1)
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