Restoration

Chapter 32

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The owls didn't get a break for the next week, as they were tasked to bring hundreds of letters to Hogwarts students. Upon seeing what kind of grave error the Ministry of Magic committed, all parents wrote to their children and their professors, angrily demanding justice and more protection. The treatment Elara had been subjected to was classified as a crime against a minor.

Aside from getting letters from their worried parents, who were now worried for their children's safety, the reporters began writing to them as well, offering them cash bribes and other goods to get more information about Elara.

But no matter how some of them wanted to snitch on her, they didn't have the slightest clue as to where she was kept, nor what kind of state she was in. And so certain students took it upon themselves to find her, exploring the more secretive parts of the castle in hopes of finding her. Her friends knew that all efforts would be done in vain, as the headmaster wasn't a stupid man and would have predicted this obsession with her after the failed trial.

As reported by the Daily Prophet, the first news read "How Dumbledore stopped the immoral trial of Elara Dotson: A catastrophe caused by Togrus," and it sold out in mere hours, as Hogwarts students bickered who would get to read the article first. And then dozens of owls began pouring in, delivering letters to students, straight from the media companies who wanted to be the first to report about Elara's current condition.

The last sighting of Dumbledore and Elara was at the trial, as they vanished into thin air. Due to the public dismay and and protests, the Minister ruled the trial as faulty and pronounced Elara innocent, offering to compensate for her treatment and any other collateral damage. And then a day passed without anyone hearing anything about them. Not even the professors at Hogwarts knew if Dumbledore made it back to his office.

The public grew more and more distressed, with some gossip going around that they had actually killed Elara and tried to keep it on the low. The Minister of Magic fired nearly half of the department who were associated with Elara's trial, and put Togrus into an involuntary stay at one of the mental healthy clinics.

And then on the eight day of complete silence the Ministry sent their aurors yet again to Hogwarts to thoroughly  research Dumbledore's and Elara's whereabouts, only to be welcomed by furious students. And when students began tricking them by casting random fogs or awful smells around the aurors, the professors chose to look away, silently applauding students for their protests.

"I'll throw the smelly bomb at them when they walk in," Vincent whispered to Gregory in one of their classes. Professor Trewlaney had warned them at the beginning that they would have special visitors monitoring their lectures.

"That's what the first years did yesterday. Can't you be more creative with it?" Daphne sighed as she listened to her classmate's childish plan. It annoyed her how everyone who had been against Elara before the trial had swiftly changed their opinion and took her side. Including two of the dumbest Slytherins she had ever met, Vincent and Gregory.

"I say we all transfigure into pigs when they walk in, to make them feel like they never left the Ministry at all," Anthony mused from the front row.

"Sounds like a plan," Tracey chuckled as other classmates nodded in agreement, mischief written all over their faces.

Even Draco briefly smiled at Anthony's remark and fully committed  to transfiguring into a pig once the aurors would walk inside the classroom. Instead of sitting in the back rows with other Slytherins, he had now moved to the middle row, sitting nearby the group of others who planned on saving Elara. But unlike other Slytherins - Tracey, Daphne, and even Blaise, who befriended others, he stayed reserved and somewhat distant.