Whispers of a Raven by TheBlack'sResurgence

Chapter 35

March 1978

"Live the life you have earned, Peverell. We will meet again when it is your time."

Those had been the final words the cloaked figure had offered Harry the same night he had defeated Tom and ridden the world of his final Horcrux.

Harry knew that he would not see the figure again, and he had not since, nor would he until he breathed his last.

He was relieved mostly, but he had become oddly fond of his strange companion over the years they had convened, but it was time to move on, to finally experience a semblance of normality.

Not peace, mind, not for some time yet.

Any notion of that Harry had hoped for once the war had concluded had been short-lived. The following months after the Dark Lord had been vanquished were a flurry of activity.

It had begun with Bagnold's insistence to hold the trials for the captured Death Eaters immediately. For weeks the Wizengamot presided over these, and Harry found himself juggling his time between his duties as Lord Peverell and his duties to the Falcons.

As it had been the first time around, many of those that found themselves being prosecuted defended themselves by claiming that they had been placed under the Imperius Curse, that they were not acting of their own accord.

It may have worked before, but with his considerable influence, Harry had led the charge to see all accused questioned under Veritaserum.

Claims of being under the dreaded curse soon ceased, and all but only a few who had proven to be unwitting allies of the Dark Lord were sent to Azkaban for varying terms, several of those sentences being handed to other Lords and Ladies that had once sat amongst the members of the Wizengamot.

They had been stripped of their titles and replaced with other members of the family where possible, or their seats held in trust for their children for when they came of age.

Millicent Bagnold had been rather ruthless with how she wished that 'traitors against Britain', as she dubbed them, should be punished.

Those remaining on the Wizengamot were not inclined to disagree with her suggestions.

The affair became very one-sided.

Those that had sided with Tom were punished harshly, some fined to a point where they were left almost penniless, others imprisoned for the rest of their days, and even a few sentenced to death for their transgressions against the country, all in the name of sending a strong message to any other that harboured the idea of attempting to subjugate wizarding Britain.

Britain would bend to none.

Harry cared not for what happened to those that had sided with the Dark Lord. As far as he was concerned, they had reaped what they had sown, but he would not pretend that he was not filled with a sense of relief when it was all over, and the rest of the legwork would fall to the Ministry to handle.

He had grown weary of war, tired of fighting, and was done with this stage of his life.

Voldemort was dead, and that was all that mattered to him, and although that only added to the mystery surrounding him, the revelation that Narcissa yet lived all but cemented the family name as one of utter intrigue.