Lumos

Chapter 8 Prefects

Everyone stands up and starts to leave. Harry gets up and looks around.

"Come on," I tell him.

"Shouldn't we wait for someone to tell me to go?

"No one's paying attention to us. You're cleared, and Dumbledore has already left."

He nods and we head towards the door. Harry opens the door and almost runs into Mr. Weasley. "Dumbledore didn't say-"

"Cleared," Harry says, as I pull the door closed behind me. "Of all charges!"

Of course, Mr. Weasley is happy. Even I'm happy, but I'm ready to get out of here. We had to be here way too early.

"I'm going to take you straight back so you can tell the others the good news. I'll drop you off on the way to that toilet in Benthal Green. Come on..."

"What will you do about the toilet?" Harry asks grinning.

"Oh, it's a simple enough anti-jinx, 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 wizard as funny, but it's an expression of something much deeper and nastier, and I for one-"

He stops talking and I look over to where he's looking. Fudge is standing down the hall talking to Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father. We walk towards them and they look at us.

"Well, well, well... Patronus Potter." He says and Harry glares at him. "The minister was just telling me about your lucky escape Potter. Quite astonishing, the way you continue to wriggle out of very tight holes... snakelike in fact..."

"Yeah," Harry says as Mr. Weasley puts his hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, I'm good at escaping..."

Lucius looks over at me for the first time. "Sage, what are you doing here? I didn't hear of you getting in trouble."

I look up at him. "I didn't do anything wrong. They wanted to ask me questions about what happened." I keep my voice calm and steady. He scares me more than anyone else I know, and he knows that Draco and I are close.

"Of course, you wouldn't cause any trouble. You're a good student. Draco speaks highly of you."

"What are you doing here anyway?" Harry asks, putting the attention back on him.

"I don't think private matters between myself, and the Minister are any concerns of yours, Potter." He tells him. "Really, just because you are Dumbledore's favorite boy, you must not expect the same indulgence from the rest of us, like your sister... shall we go up to your office, then, Minister?"

"Certainly. This was Lucius." He says turning away from us.

Harry glares at me, not happy. "Why wasn't he waiting outside Fudge's office if they've got business to do together? What's he doing down here?" Harry bursts after they're gone.

"Trying to sneak down to the courtroom, if you ask me. Trying to find out whether or not you'd been expelled or not. I'll leave a note for Dumbledore when I drop you off, he ought to know Malfoy's been talking to fudge again."

"And what was that?" he asks turning to me.

"What are you talking about?"

"You didn't do anything wrong? Draco speaks highly of you?"

"He's my friend, you know this. I'm sure he does speak highly of me to his father."

"I should act more like you?"

"Don't ask me like that. I don't know, I've never met him before."

"Stop it you two." Mr. Weasley says. "Not here."

"What private business have they got together anyway?" Harry asks.

"Gold, I expect. Malfoy's been giving generously to all sorts of things for years... Gets him in with the right people... then he can ask for favors... delay laws he doesn't want passed... oh and he's well connected, Lucius Malfoy..."

We get on the lift and go down. "Mr. Weasley, if Fudge is meeting Death Eaters like Malfoy, if he's seeing them alone, how do we know they haven't put the Imperius curse in him?"

"Don't think that hasn't occurred to us. But Dumbledore thinks Fudge is acting of his own accord at the moment, which, as Dumbledore says, is not a lot of comfort... Best not to talk about it anymore just now, Harry..." he says before the doors to the lift open. Time to finally leave.

~#~

A few days later, owls arrive with book lists and other letters. Ron comes in holding them. I take mine and open it. "Only two new ones. The Standard Book of Spells Grade 5, by Miranda Goshawk, and Defensive Magical Theory, by Wilbert Slinkhard."

Fred and George apparated between Harry and me causing me to jump. "We were just wondering who assigned the Slinkhard book," Fred says.

"Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher." George finishes, "About time too."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Well, we overheard Mum and Dad talking on one of the Extendable Ears a few weeks back, and from what they were saying, Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year."

No shit. I look in my envelope and see something shiny. I reach in and grab it, pulling out a prefect badge. I'm a prefect? Ron got one as well, but I'm not concerned about it."

"We thought he'd pick you," George tells Harry. I snort.

"Think that's funny do you?" Harry asks.

"Yes, I do," I say holding up my badge.

"You got chosen as a prefect?"

"No, I stole this from a real prefect."

Harry rolls his eyes and turns to Hermione who walked into the room. "Did you- did you get-? I knew it! Me too Harry, me too!"

"No," Harry says giving it back to Ron. "It's Ron, and Sage, not me."

She looks at me and then back to Harry. "I- what?"

"Ron's prefect, not me."

"Ron?" she says, "But... are you sure? I mean-"

"It's my name on the letter," Ron says, sounding like he's starting to get pissed off.

"I... I...well... wow! Well done Ron! That's really-"

"Unexpected," George says.

"No, no, it's not... Ron's done loads of... he's really..."

Mrs. Weasley walks in, carrying clean robes. "Ginny said the booklists had come at last. If you give them to me I'll take them over to Diagon Alley this afternoon and get your books while you're packing. Ron, I'll have to get you more pajamas, these are at least six inches too short, I can't believe how fast you're growing... what color would you like?"

"Get him red and gold to match his badge," George says.

"Match his what?"

"His badge. His shiny new prefect's badge." Fred tells her.

"His... but... Ron, you're not...?"

Ron holds up his badge and Mrs. Weasley lets out a shriek. "I don't believe it! I don't believe it. Oh Ron, how wonderful. A prefect. That's everyone in the family!"

"What are Fred and I, next-door neighbors?" George asks as Mrs. Weasley hugs Ron and I snort.

"What until your father hears! Ron, I'm so proud of you, what wonderful news, you could end up head boys like Bill and Percy, it's the first stop! Oh, what a thing to happen in the middle of all this worry, I'm just thrilled, oh Ronnie-"

The twins start making retching noises and I decide to dip out. They don't care about me. I want to get back to Hogwarts.