Ember Potter and the Secret of the Gems

Chapter 29

Dumbledore stared at that day's paper with a frown, he had known that James had an issue with controlling his anger but as it worked for his plans he hadn't bothered to do anything about it. Now it seems his not trying to make James get a handle on his anger was coming back to bite him in the ass. He couldn't believe how stupid the man was, what did he think would happen when he hurt his daughter in the middle of a very busy street?

Now people were speculating that this wasn't the first the the man had hurt his daughter, the fact that they would be correct wasn't what bothered Albus Dumbledore it was the fact that people were going to lose their trust in the Potter family thanks to this stunt.

He had to figure out what to do, normally he would go down to the Dailey Prophet and ask them kindly to print something to clear up the misunderstanding but he had recently learned that Lady Peverell owned most of the newspaper. He learned that the woman had ordered the newspaper to only print the truth with facts to back their words up from now on.

This was bad for him, he used the newspaper to discredit his political enemies, he hasn't had to do so for the past few years which is why he hadn't realized the papers had this new policy in place.

He would have to talk to James and stress how lucky he was that the DMLE hadn't granted Ember a magical restraining order thanks to this mess, if James went after her like yesterday again then there was no guarantee that she wouldn't be granted the restraining order.

He would also have a word with Damien and Ronald to tell them to leave Ember alone for now, there was still plenty of time for the plans to work out. If it hadn't been for Ember having had an adult with her at the meeting he would have steamrolled over all of her protests but unfortunately, he didn't want to risk making waves against someone he didn't know of.

All he knew of Jasper and Pearl Gem was that they both worked for Lady Peverell, everything seemed to lead back to that woman. If he could figure out who she was then it would be simple to plan an accident for her. He knew that if he could just figure out her identity then everything would get back on track.

~With Damien~

Damien frowned as he read the papers, memories of his father hurting his sister flashed through his mind. Back then he thought it was great fun to break stuff and blame it on Ember but looking back he couldn't help but feel like there was a ball of lead in the bottom of his stomach.

He knew that a parent hurting their children wasn't right, at least now he did but back then he hadn't known any better. It wasn't that he cared about Ember, of course, he didn't!

Okay, maybe he cared just a little, she was his twin after all. It would be strange if he didn't care about his sister at all, he didn't show he cared though.

His head snapped up when he heard footsteps outside of his bedroom door, he relaxed when he heard that it was just his Uncle Padfoot asking if he could come in.

Sirius walked in and sat next to Damien, "Hey pup, how are you holding up?"

Damien kept staring down at the newspaper in his hands and shrugged in response. Sirius sighed softly and gently took the paper away from the boy before banishing it.

"Want to talk about it?" Sirius made sure that his tone made it clear that Damien had the right to refuse to talk about it. There was silence for a few moments and Sirius thought that he wouldn't talk before Damien started speaking, his voice soft and unsure.

"I don't understand, if dad knew that hurting his kids was bad then why would he do it?" Damien asked, looking up at Sirius. His face looked lost and it reminded Sirius that Damien was still just a child, he might be a hero to the wizarding world and the boy-who-lived but he was still just a child.