Emma Potter; Going to War

12: Overprotective Males

Dumbledore's  abrupt departure took Harry and me completely by surprise. We remained sitting where we were in the chained chair,struggling with our feelings of shock and relief. The Wizengamot wereall getting to their feet, talking, and gathering up their papers andpacking them away. 

Harry and I stood up. 

Nobody seemed to be paying us the slightest bit of attention except the toad like witch on Fudge's right, who was now gazing down at us instead of at Dumbledore. Ignoring her, we tried to catch Fudge's eye, or Madam Bones's, wanting to ask whether we were free to go, but Fudge seemed quite determined not to notice Harry or me, and Madam Bones was busy with her briefcase,so we took a few tentative steps toward the exit and when nobody called us back, broke into a very fast walk. We took the last few steps at a run, wrenched open the door, and almost collided with Mr. Weasley, who was standing right outside,looking pale and apprehensive. 

"Dumbledore didn't say —"

 "Cleared," Harry said, pulling the door closed behind him, "of all charges!"

Beaming, Mr. Weasley seized Harry and me by the shoulders."Harry, Emma that's wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn't have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can't pretend I wasn't —" But Mr. Weasley broke off, because the courtroom door had just opened again. The Wizengamot were filing out.

 "Merlin's beard," said Mr. Weasley wonderingly, pulling Harry and me aside to let them all pass, "you were tried by the full court?" 

"I think so," said Harry quietly. 

One or two of the passing wizards nodded to Harry and me as they passed and a few, including Madam Bones, said, "Morning, Arthur," to Mr.W easley, but most averted their eyes. 

Cornelius Fudge and the toadlike witch were almost the last to leave the dungeon. Fudge acted as though Mr. Weasley, Me and Harry were part of the wall, but again, the witch looked almost appraisingly at Harry and me as she passed. Last of all to pass was Percy. Like Fudge, he completely ignored his father, me and Harry; he marched past clutching a large roll of parchment and a handful of spare quills, his back rigid and his nose in the air. 

The lines around Mr. Weasley's mouth tightened slightly, but other than this he gave no sign that he had noticed his third son.

 "I'm going to take you straight back so you can tell the others the good news," he said, beckoning Harry and me forward as Percy's heels disappeared up the stairs to the ninth level. I'll drop you off on the way to that toilet in Bethnal Green. Come on. . . ." 

"So what will you have to do about the toilet?" I asked, grinning. 

Everything suddenly seemed five times funnier than usual. It was starting to sink in: We were cleared, we were going back to Hogwarts.

 "Oh, it's a simple enough anti-jinx," said Mr. Weasley as we mounted the stairs, "but it's not so much having to repair the damage,it's more the attitude behind the vandalism, Emma. Muggle-baiting might strike some wizards as funny, but it's an expression of something much deeper and nastier, and I for one —" 

Mr. Weasley broke off in mid-sentence. We had just reached the ninth-level corridor, and Cornelius Fudge was standing a few feetaway from us, talking quietly to a tall man with sleek blond hairand a pointed, pale face.The second man turned at the sound of their footsteps. He toobroke off in mid-conversation, his cold gray eyes narrowed and fixedupon my face. 

"Well, well, well . . . Patronus Potters," said Lucius Malfoy coolly. I felt winded, as though I had just walked into somethingheavy. I had last seen those cool gray eyes through slits in a DeathEater's hood, and last heard that man's voice jeering in a dark graveyard while Lord Voldemort tortured us. I could not believe thatLucius Malfoy dared look us in the face; I could not believe that he was here, in the Ministry of Magic, or that Cornelius Fudge was talking to him, when we had told Fudge mere weeks ago that Malfoywas a Death Eater.