Chapter 7 - Lessons In Courage

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Thank you so much for the reviews! I'm happy that so many readers are happy with Luna and the Slytherins' reaction to Harry's abilities. Responses will be up in my LJ in a short time.

This chapter has teeth. Sorry about that.

Chapter Seven: Lessons In Courage

Harry slipped rapidly down the second floor hallway to the office that Dumbledore had given Sirius. He had abandoned lunch early, which had made Sylarana protest and Draco, stuck in a conversation with Blaise, scowl at him, but Connor and Ron hadn't been at lunch, either. Harry now had an extra urgency to his need to speak with Sirius. If they were in trouble...

He heard Ron's voice coming from the half-open office door, and relaxed. They were well, then. It seemed that he hadn't been the only one who had decided to seek out his godfather.

"-slimy Slytherin!" said Ron's voice emphatically, just as Harry reached the office door.

Harry froze. Then he leaned gently against the wall and cocked his head so that he could see in around the door itself, heart pounding hard.

Sirius's office was the usual mess it had been since he moved in, crowded with photographs of himself and Harry, himself and Connor, the entire Potter family, Remus, the Potters' wedding, and some of his innumerable girlfriends.

His own broom and motorbike stood in the far corner, accompanied by a school broom that Harry thought Sirius was checking over for jinxes. Gryffindor banners, or pieces of cloth Transfigured to look like them, hung jauntily from every available hook. Sirius's desk in the middle was buried under an accumulated load of paper, covered by a prominent Quidditch schedule with each Gryffindor match marked in red and gold ink.
And there were three chairs, now pulled into a triangle. Sirius sat in one of them, face like a thundercloud. Connor perched on the edge of another, almost vibrating with what Harry recognized as a mixture of anxiety and anger. Ron paced up and down in front of them, his back to the door so that Harry couldn't see his face.

Perhaps now isn't the best time, Harry thought.

You're eavesdropping, said Sylarana quite mildly.
I know, Harry snapped back. Shut up.

She just chuckled at him, which was an unexpected reaction. Harry went back to listening.

"He's not going to get away with this," said Sirius, voice like a growl. "The Ministry has no reason to sack your father, Ron, and surely not over something as mild as an altercation with Lucius Malfoy in a bookshop."

Ron spun around again, and Harry could see that his face had turned almost entirely red, obscuring his freckles. "But what if they do?" he whispered. "Dad's always told me that Lucius Malfoy had tons of friends in the Ministry, and now-"

"Not nearly as many since he was a Death Eater," said Sirius, and snorted. "Oh, yes, he has influence-every pureblooded wizard with money has a hold over that bastard Fudge-but that doesn't mean so much when anyone can look at his left arm and see the Dark Mark." He paused for a long moment, then, and a sly smile began to grow on his face.

"What is it, Sirius?" Connor had an echo of the same smile in his voice. He knew what it meant, almost as well as Harry did. Ron just looked from one to the other with a bewildered expression on his face.

Sirius coughed a bit. "Well, Malfoy's gone out of his slimy way to make this look all proper and legal, right?" he asked.

Ron nodded. "Advocates and everything! But-" He flinched and hunched his shoulders. "Well, my family can't respond as well because..." His voice trailed off into a mumble.

Kindly, Harry thought, Sirius didn't refer to Ron's poverty. "I know," he said. "So what you need is another pureblooded wizard with money to fight for you."

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