Harry Potter and the Moment of Silence

-Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.-

Charlie Dickens "Great Expectations"

-No matter the hero, no matter the consequences, no matter what hearts, no matter what villain, every hero is loved in vain, for heroes aren't for keeps.-

Sherri Lyn CarMikel

Chapter Eight: Awry State of Minds

Harry Potter and the Moment of Silence

Malfoy Manor was in a state of emotional turmoil. No one who came, no one who passed through, no one who lived in its extravagant rooms, was underneath it or above it. Everyone, no matter their acquaintance with Harry, grieved and stressed and was, simply put, an emotional wreck. It was, however, his dearest friends who suffered the most.

Hally had not known the word suicide in English. In fact, when told, it had been quite a while before she had fully understood what Dumbledore was telling them. Lycander had took her hand and pulled her aside, and that, since he'd worded it perceptively in Geyesh, was when she had understood that Harry had tried to kill himself.

In her world, when one was mourning, the woman wore flowers braided in her hair, and she did that without properly belonging to him. She knew he was stabilized in a special wing of St. Mungos until he awoke out of delirium and someone -probably Nelly, she thought dully- could get the whole story out of him.

All she'd been told was that he'd been screaming and sleeping so fitfully since after their visit that several times he'd been heavily sedated and Stunned for his own good by either the Aurors or his Healers. Nightmares had plagued him into muttering about May fifteenth. It was assumed by her, Ron, Ginny, Mal, and Hermione, that someone had been there to record it all, which had sent Ron into a fury of indignant ranting. When he went into one of those, nobody had the heart to shut him up, argue, or agree, for more than Hally had noticed anger was his way of dealing with confusion and grief.

It didn't matter that Harry had distanced himself from his best friends for years. There was still that part of Ron and Hermione that clung to the old Harry, which showed itself rarely in the Harry Potter. Hallyanka understood better than they knew, because she held on to the memory of her humorous, righteous Romane as if it was her lifeline.

Or Harry's.

She wore a simple, sleeveless summer dress in plain black with a scarf that Hermione had picked out in one of the expensive accessory shops Remus had insisted on taking her to. She'd fought against him forcing her to buy so many glorious and pretty things, but she found an odd comfort in dressing like a spoiled rich girl. Everything of hers -necklaces, bracelets, rings, scarves, robes, dresses, shirts, skirts, undergarments, and socks- they had all been bought by Harry, although he had never seen them before. She thought of him every time she dressed, and wore the jewelry and small jewels because they reminded her of him. Her beauty was something she kept in flawless and unique, her body something she kept fed and nourished, and her soul she kept as comforted and soothed as possible, because she saved them for her Romane, whenever he would show himself to her again.

It wasn't that hard to call him Harry, now, since he was so malignantly different than her cherished Romane. She was in love with both of them. Resigned, grieving, she put a hand to the ground and forced her legs to bend, to fold, so she could sit on the grass. A great willow tree stood above her, shielding her from the heavy, heady rays of sunlight that seemed determined to bring light and beauty to the lives of the Malfoy Manor inhabitants.

Manor Pond was as blue as the sky, with smooth ripples reflecting those rays of sunlight, and she struggled to keep herself sitting. She wanted to walk into that water, to let it cool her warmed skin and sluggish thoughts. Old, was what she felt, she realized. Harry had strolled into her life, changed her, and made her into someone so beautiful, so magnificent, made her more emotionally sound and adored than she had even been in the Souriom de Solfiace, that it still in turns dazzled her. And yet she would give it all back; her self confidence, her expensive silk and lace clothes and dresses, the jewelry, the love, if it would only sooth the ripple in Harry's mind that caused him to try to kill himself. That same ripple waved and winked at her as much as the ripples on the pond. Neither, she knew, would be changed by her right now, but she could hope that maybe, just maybe, in the future, she could be of some comfort to Harry, in her pretty clothes and fresh make-up. Maybe her beauty could be his point of focus in his world of darkness.

Hope was a painful thing. Was this, this feeling, hope? Or was hope the fluttery fluids she'd felt filling her heart whenever she'd thought of his world as home? Could hope be so different, please so much one moment, and then be a stabbing wound in the heart the next? She didn't know. All she knew was that, without Romane or Harry, Hallyanka Questcinzay would cease to exist in either world. She'd float, somewhere in between, in a world so shriveled and dead and bleak that she would weep to stay as she was if it meant not facing his death.

She would, if circumstances could have permitted, given her whole life, body, and soul, for him to return to her, laughing, bleeding from Practillez or dueling, and showing her how to giggle over silly nothingness. The thought brought back to her the first official day of his in her dimension, when she'd helped him dress in his Qaiulee uniform, and he'd held her to him, her wrists bound just as hard as her heart had been. Hally lifted a trembling hand to her hair. Some trellises fell over her shoulder and in her face, while the majority was pulled back in a loose, elegant braid her mother had taught her in her fifth summer. There were lilies in it, braided in, arranged clumsily into every niche she had felt out with her fingers. If she'd cared about how it would look, she would have asked Hermione or Mrs. Weasley, but it had been a few hours of silence and alone time that she'd desperately needed.

To Ron, she looked like a blooming rose in a garden of daisies, so pretty, so elegant, so...untouchable. Although it wasn't quite brotherly how he thought of her, it wasn't what he would have normally mused when coming across a gorgeous girl. She had an air of sophistication that intimidated him more often than not. Her personality was great, and yet her beauty was something of a puzzle. She was ordinary. Her face wasn't exactly thin, but close, her body wasn't model thin, but curvy, and her hair was only well put-up, not overly special. Her beauty had not much to do with her looks, but how she presented it. With her shoulders held back, spine straight, chin jutting her resigned and sad face up, and her fingers folded over one of the lilies she'd pulled out of her hair.

Unaware he was near, or that he was alive at all, she gently tugged a silky petal off of the core, and tossed it into the well-tended grass. Her mind revolved around the Souriom de Solfiace and her beloved Romane, not on Weasleys or anyone of the first dimension. Her hand quivered as images flashed by her eyes like a Muggle film, so bright, so full of life, so new and, yet, so seemingly old, as if it was someone else's memories she was looking at instead of her own. Harry meeting Lawnci and sharing hard candy, Harry kissing her, holding her, stroking her hair, murmuring silly things in her ear that made her giggle.

Hallyanka Anyas Questcinzay, morge of the great Aphrozodis Questcinzay, had never giggled before she'd met Harry Potter.

"Hally," Ron said gently when she quietly began to weep into her hands. He knelt beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, much as he would have done to Hermione or Ginny, and let his head rest on hers when she laid her own on his chest. "Please, stop crying, he'll be fine. He's going to be just fine."

She shook her head frantically and wept all the more fiercely so Ron was forced to tighten his grip or let her bones shatter and scatter over the trimmed green lawn.

"He will not be fine, Ron; I know it. Why did he do it?" This last part was said with so much anguish and despair that his own eyes prickled for the first time. Never, not in the two days since news had broke in a tidal wave of heated media gossip and the cold, hard facts, had he let a single tear fall for his best friend. Through all Harry had put him through -pain, despair, grief, uncertainty, resentment- the title still went to him, and Ron was so angry that he didn't know why. He wanted to hate Harry so bad. He wanted to be able to despise him, to hit him, to kill him, for all that he'd done to his friends and his family, but he couldn't.

Maybe it was because he knew, even if he didn't admit it, that Harry only acted as a result of what had happened to him in his life and not as to accord of want, or that the bond they'd formed as boys was too strong to be bent or broken.

He closed his eyes to prevent the hot rush of tears, but it was hopeless. They came, and he didn't have the strength to stop them anymore, or even to rub them off with his hand. He was afraid Hally would simply evaporate into a dark cloud of grief if he let go of either side of her.

"I don't know, Hally, I just don't know, but he isn't in his right mind; we know that. The fever is high as bloody hell, and since it hasn't addled his brains yet, I'd say it was giving them a good rattle before it leaves for good."

"I love him, Ronnie. I love him so much it is like a sun in my chest, bursting out with blasts of pain and contentment at the same time."

Ronnie. A rush of warm affection ran through his blood and he stroked a hand down her hair. Nobody but his own mother had called him Ronnie, and yet with her it was almost the same, giving him a rush of feeling and memories. Then he blinked and yanked her back by her shoulders. Her eyes were red and her make-up smudged, and yet that damned air or royalty gave her a feeling of strength and invincibility.

"You love him?" Ron snapped, then gentled his voice when her eyes filled again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just...Do you mean it?" he rushed out, staring at her. "Can you even begin to understand the meaning of love here? It means dating and marriage and not dating anyone else and commitment and forever and, and commitment." He was rambling, he knew, but love. Oh, Merlin, she couldn't know all that actual love would entail to Harry. There was no way his friend would accept that. In fact, Ron was damned sure he would toss Hallyanka out of the closest window, albeit wherever they were, believing he was saving her from inevitable heartbreak.

Which he probably would be.

He crushed Hally in a hug, rocking her slightly back and forth.

"Bloody hell, woman, why'd you have to go and fall in love with a bloody hero? Haven't you ever heard that heroes aren't for keeps? No matter the hero, no matter the consequences, no matter what hearts, no matter what villain, every hero is loved in vain, Hally. Heroes just aren't for keeps."

"I will keep this one, Ronnie." This time it was she who pulled back, her eyes glistening with tears. She jutted her chin forward and looked like the princess she was, but had never been allowed to be in the third dimension. "Mark my words. Harry won't run forever, and when he finds home, it will be upon my heart and my hearth."

* * * * * *

Ginny sat, her knees hugged by her arms to her chest, in the window alcove of the left sitting room, watching the two figures by the pond separate, clasping hands, but not standing. Leaning her head against the cushioned wall that was adjacent to the windowpane, she let her eyes drift closed in pure exhaustion.

"Cute couple." Malfoy commented from behind her. He was slightly disappointed that she didn't jump out of her skin or scream at him, but instead said, in a quiet, wounded voice, "Yeah, though they're not exactly a couple. Friends are what they are, and you know that very well, Draco."

Curious, he sat down next to her, studied the face she kept turned away from him.

"Why do you always speak of my name with contempt, Genevra?"

"I don't," she said impassively.

"Oh, sometimes you don't when you're in a good mood, but when you're angry or mad or feeling like yourself, you say it as if I was still a Death Eater."

"Malfoy, I am not in the mood, okay? Don't be a prat."

Instead of dignifying that with an answer, he looked down at Ron and Hally again, one with her arms around her knees, similar to Ginny's position, and the other leaning back on his hands. "She's torn up about this business."

"Who cares about Hallyanka," Ginny spat. "Merlin, I'm so sick of hearing 'poor Hally' and 'dear is so torn up!' and 'if only Harry knew what a jewel he had!'"

Malfoy continued to look at her, but now his face was slightly stunned with surprise. "Why, Ginny, you're jealous of her. And here I thought you were over him."

"I am!" Ginny growled furiously. "I don't love him like she does, or as she says to Hermione and me at night. I don't drool over him and pretend he's my knight in shining armor like she does, but it doesn't mean that I love him any less as a friend. Dammit, he's more than a friend to me, and yet less like a brother. He's Harry. He's my Harry."

Mal turned to look out of the window once again, but this time he barely saw a thing.

"I thought you would have known Harry as much as Ron and Hermione, but it seems I know him better than all of you and everyone else in this dear home of mine."

Her head reared around. "Don't you dare say that to me, Draco Malfoy, don't you dare ever say that to me again or I swear on my Grandmum's grave that I'll strangle the life out of you. You think you know him better because you spent a few hours a night teaching him how to do the Dark Arts? You think you know him because he's turning out to be just like you? You don't know anything, Malfoy. Anything at all."

Mal laughed, but it wasn't an amusing one. It was cold and mean, and bitter far beyond his years. He stood, shoving his pale, aristocratic hands into the pockets of his slacks, and looked down on her. "Your pride is quite revolting, Weasley, especially when it's wrong." He didn't sound like himself. He cursed himself, but she'd brought his father's son back into him, brought the cold manners back, and so instead he cursed her foolishness.

"You say you know Potter, and yet here you are, sitting, weeping, over what everyone thinks Harry did deliberately. If you knew him, do you not believe that if he'd really wanted to kill himself, that he wouldn't be alive right now? That, if he'd actually desired it, he would have sent that interfering Auror into a wall and killed him like he did your brother and my father? You know nothing of him. Nothing, or else you know that this was just something he did out of torment and pain. It was not a deliberate attempt at suicide, just something that his feverish and pained mind went about as an escape hatch. And, if you knew him at all, you wouldn't be sitting here wishing for things to have turned out differently between the two of you. If you knew him at all, Weasley -if anyone here did- a lot of things would be a lot easier, but they aren't, so deal with it."

He turned on heel, hesitated, and then, swiveling, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her to her feet. His lips crushed to hers, hard, painful, powerfully, in a jerky move of unrestrained violence. Her heart beat frantically beneath her breast. Her hands clenched around the edges of the robes he always wore, and struggled to pull back, push him, pull him tighter against her, something, but her mind had completely clicked off in surprise. Taking advantage of that surprise, his tongue darted inside her mouth, pressing against hers until the shock was wore away by a painful punch of pleasure. Lust, so long forgotten, came alive in her stomach and had her diving back at him, hands wrapping around his neck, hips grinding, her right leg curling around his to bring their centers closer, as if a great switch had been clicked, signaling her to do everything in her power to combine their two bodies into one. His fisted hand yanked on her hair so her head had no choice but to fall back, and his tongue made quick work of the flesh above the point where her pulse pounded like a thousand horse's hooves racing for the finish line.

His free hand groped under her shirt, desperate, almost trembling with the fierce need for her dashing through his veins and his mind like a flashing marquee. Hand sliding beneath her white cotton bra, he cupped her, bringing her already bruised lips back to his so he could stroke both. He nipped on her bottom lip before sucking slightly at her sluggish tongue. Her nipple was already hardened when his hand came to it. His thumb pressed lightly at the tip of it until she was gasping so hard he had no choice but to go back to her neck.

"Ginny!"

They flung back like a coiled spring, almost symmetrically, she stumbling over a chaise and Mal flinging himself into the corner where the window alcove turned to wall. Gasping, they both stared at the woman who simply stared at them, her eyes darting to and fro from Ginny to Mal to Ginny and back again, and then she simply went limp.

Ginny whimpered, "Mum! Dammit, Malfoy, go get my dad!"

* * * * * *

It was one thing to wake up experiencing an extensive amount of pain. It was quite another to wake up not knowing where that extensive amount of pain came from, or why it was there. The last thing he remembered was sitting with McNara after his friends, and later Remus, had left. They'd been talking about, not surprisingly, Remus himself, and werewolf rights.

And now, the moment he opened his eyes, he realized instantly that there were charms nearly suffocating the room which, much to his surprise, had been changed.

He lifted a hand to rub at his face and he saw the thin, white cloth wrapped around his wrist, covering almost from thumb to elbow. What was this? His heart was pounding in his chest, echoing in his ears, until that sound was all he heard. His fingers trembled and he feared what was beneath the cloth. Reaching forward, he grasped the edge of the cloth between his other thumb and forefinger, and slowly pulled it away from where it adhered magically to his skin. Bile rose in his throat the instant he saw the slash marks. They were deep, vicious; the skin surrounding the gapping wound discolored and raw. His eyes unconsciously sought out the number of those painful slash cut.

Nine. There were nine cuts, diagonal, horizontal, curved, deep cuts that spread over his swelling veins. The skin had a glittery, bluish tinge; Harry thought, once he'd gotten his breath back, that it must have been a charm to keep them from bleeding or infecting. His hand was lifting to the marks before he even knew he'd moved. The pain brought confused tears to his gritty eyes when he rubbed the biggest mark, which instantly began to bleed as if he'd reopened it. There was only a drop of blood accumulating at the gapping center of the slash, but that drop began to grow bigger until it began to slid down his wrist, over the other cuts that seemed frozen in place to prevent their bleeding.

For a pained moment, he watched the tiny river of blood curve around his elbow and absorb into the pants that his arm rested on. It didn't stop; the wound just kept leaking. Sucking in a sob, he remembered his dream of holding a knife to his face, and scratching at his hands when he went back to May fifteenth. Had it been a dream, or had he done it to himself?

Harry curled his hand around the uppermost wound, the one that was bleeding, and tightened it. Red seeped through the separation of his fingers, but the amount was depleted.

"McNara!" he screamed, and then he screamed again, because the pain wasn't so small anymore. In fact, it seemed as if it had grown enough to wrap itself around him and pull him down under a crimson red sea.

By the time the door was thrown open, and he saw not McNara, but one of his other regular Healers, he flinched away from her touch.

"Don't touch me!" Sobbing, he pushed at her, forgetting his bleeding wound. "Don't touch me, you stupid idiot! I want McNara!" There were other Healers pouring in, and Aurors. Harry barely took notice. He lashed out at the people. What were they doing to him? Where was McNara and Remus or somebody that he bloody knew? A young Auror wearing the customary blue robes grabbed his wrists, and Harry howled.

"Let go of him, you big brute!"

McNara. That had been McNara. Before he knew it, Harry had given his wannabe captors enough of a pause to hold him down. McNara pushed at the Auror who'd grabbed his hands and took Harry's injured arm. Breathing heavily, he let his body relax. Slowly, at McNara's quiet murmur, the people holding him released him. With his free hand, he wiped his nose and his cheeks and watched McNara's wand stop the bleeding.

"Will you all leave?" she shouted at the group angrily. "He's not some sideshow for you all to stare at, you know!"

Harry didn't see them leave, although he assumed they did peevishly. And he knew, just by his senses, that the Auror was stationed at the door again. He crushed his face into his pillow and concentrated on breathing. Beside him, he could feel a cold flush on his arm and elbow and imagined that she was cleaning him with a Cleansing Spell.

"I want Remus, McNara," he mumbled when her hand came on his shoulder.

"I know you do, but you need to listen to me, Harry. Somebody gave you that knife. Or at least that's what the Ministry thinks. They won't let anyone save Dumbledore visit you until they get a record of the event that happened on May fifteenth, and I don't think it would be save for Mr. Lupin anymore. They consider him a prime suspect."

"A what?" Miserably, he shifted his face so he could stare at her. "They consider him a what? McNara, what the hell is going on? Where did those marks come from?" His breath hitched. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on," he said desperately and clutched at the sleeve of her robe.

Her eyes watered. "I'm sorry, Harry. I'm so sorry I wasn't here when you woke up. You attempted suicide two days ago. The Auror had taken a bathroom break -stupid, fat brutes that they all are- and by the time he came back he found you stabbing at yourself as if someone was possessing you."

"It was a dream," he whispered, letting go of her sleeve so he could clutch her wrist in a vice grip. "I swear, McNara, it was a dream. A dream. I didn't mean to- I didn't..." He covered his face and simply dug his nails in his face. "I want Remus. McNara, please, I just want Moony. Please."

Hesitatingly, she brushed a hand over his, pulled them away from his flushed, pallid face. He was so sick, so lost. Coming here had only made everything ten times worse. She swallowed, gave him a weak, trembling smile.

"I'll do what I can, Harry, but don't get overexcited. I doubt I can do anything."

"Please," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I want Remus."

As he fell asleep, McNara stood and pulled a chair up. She planned on spending the new few weeks on overtime at the hospital.

* * * * * *

"I told you, I won't tell you anything unless you let me see Remus J. Lupin."

Harry sat in a chair, his arms crossed defiantly over his chest. He, the Minister of Magic, and four Aurors were crammed into the office of the head of St. Mungos. It was a tragically neat, sterile place that made Harry immensely uncomfortable, but by now he was in it more than he was in his own hospital room. A day after he'd woken, they'd started taking him into the office for interrogation sessions. He ate his meals in there, his medications -the latter of which he actually took, seeing as they would have forced it into him if he'd refused, unlike the food- and was only given five minute breaks to go to the restroom, and that was with a wanded Auror in attendance at all times. After a few days of the same thing, Harry had got frightfully bored since they all just sat there in fuming silence. Fudge stared at him with furious, skulking looks, and Harry stared at the floor or the ceiling with a blank look on his face, or, for amusement, he simply stared at Fudge's face until he left the room. So it wasn't rare that he was in the room with Aurors alone.

Fudge's chubby face jiggled with the ferocity of which he shook his head.

"I said no, Potter, and I meant it! You will not receive anyone but St. Mungos personnel until you tell the truth!" His mouth widened like a postal opening in a door when he said the last word and spit flew at Harry from across the desk that separated them.

Harry wiped a fist across his cheek, his face expressing his repugnance. "Is this some sort of interrogation torture where you try to drown me in your spittle, Fudge? And what the hell are you going to do after September first? You keep me here, or send me to some cell in Azkaban, you're not only going to be criticized and hated at every turn of your career, but you won't have a career come election day. I killed Voldemort. Prosecute me and I'll have every magazine and newspaper in the entire world writing my pathetic sob story about being hated by the unjust Minister who would rather have villainous Death Eaters on the streets than have a little paperwork."

By the door, Harry saw Kingsley's eyes fire warning, but Harry didn't heed it. He'd be damned if this, this bumbling fool would get the best of him.

"I swear to you, Minister, that if you keep me against my will, I will make sure you can't even get a job sweeping floors in this country."

"You, Mr. Potter, are an immature, insufferable little boy with the ego of the size of the Americas!"

His chin jutted up. "So I've been told," he said coldly, his voice lowering to a dangerous octave, "but you and I both know I'm stubborn as hell and keep my word, don't we, Minister? You think Dumbledore is a worthy adversary? You'll be taking my cot up in this hospital once I'm through with you if you insist on being an arse on this subject." He gestured. "You want to know what happened on May fifteenth, Fudge? Hmm? Has your curiosity gotten the better of you? Well, I'll tell you, dammit. I was tied both magically and physically by wire and was helpless to do nothing but sit there. Bellatrix scratched my throat with a dagger, so I flung her across the room into a desk and killed her. I was whipped like a dog and left on the ground to struggle against my bounds like a fish plopped onto ground, and I bled even as they dragged me by my hair back to the cell, where they tied me up against a stone wall and tortured me some more. I got lucky," Harry hissed, pointing at him. "I got lucky because Percy Weasley, your very own Undersecretary, underestimated me and what I would do under extreme pressure. And, of course, Lucius Malfoy -another good friend of yours, Cornelius- had forgot that I was a very determined little boy, as you so eloquently put. And so, when I was on the floor, naked, bleeding from wounds covering my body from neck to ankle, I flung Percy Weasley and Malfoy backwards into the same stone wall I'd been hung from the wires wrapping my wrists, and they died unintentionally. Do you know what it's like, Fudge, to be held up by a wire strung around your wrists? Do you know how heavy your own body feels when the whole entire weight of it is being held up your hands? No, you don't.

"I was sure I didn't hit Voldemort with the same power that flung Percy and Malfoy back because, hey, this was the man who'd killed my parents, who'd put this cursed scar on my forehead. He's ruined my entire life and made me out to be the monster that could kill three people without shedding a single tear. This was the man that had tormented the Wizarding World on and off for years, Fudge, years. This was the man that had me surrendering my childhood up at the age of one, before I could goddamn talk. I didn't want this man, this Dark Lord, to go unpunished. He had no damned right to die before he suffered a fraction of the pain he's served me and pretty much every person you, Minister, are supposedly serving. He ran, and I released Professor Severus Snape from his shackles, and then I followed. With a building between us, I began to reorganize his organs with Dark Magic that I'd learned from extensive study that I put myself through after school hours. He shrieked," Harry said meaningfully, "he shrieked like a goddamned banshee, and I didn't let up. So I took a dagger that I found in his pocket, and I stabbed him to death. And then, when he drowned in his own blood, I made him vanish. No one will ever resurrect Tom Riddle or Voldemort again. That's what happened, and everything that I haven't said you have no business whatsoever knowing."

"What spell did you use?" one of the Aurors questioned.

Harry swiveled, his fists clenching. "What spell did I use?" he repeated, and then he laughed bitterly. "What spell did I use, you ask? Do you think I will tell you that, you stupid Auror? Do you honestly believe that I would tell you anything that I was not willing to give? Do you think I will answer your questions in turn and write down a statement and sign it so you can pat yourself on the back and go home feeling righteous, feeling that you did the right thing? Would you tell your wife and kids, your family, that I deserved to be behind bars for killing mass murderers?" Harry gestured. "Would that make you feel righteous? Would that make you happy, Auror Tanning?" He gave his nameplate a scorned glance. "Well, when you go home, patting your back, feeling like you did your job, just remember that I don't have a family to talk to. Just remember that there are people all over Europe who have no family to speak of because of the whims of a madman. You people must think that if I'd brought Voldemort to you alive you could have detained him. You all must honestly believe that, 'cause if you were aware that you could not keep him tied in Azkaban, you wouldn't be ridiculing me right now. I did what I had to do, and I know for a fact that if you or anyone else plan on taking me to court for the use of Dark Magic, I'll sweep the floor with you without any legal counsel whatsoever. It was self-defense, Fudge. That's all you're going to get out of me and I would revoke my writ of arrest as soon as possible, or else I'll bury all of you just for the fun of it."

He sat back down, his body rigid, his face lifting and eyes burning. If he had been able to, he would have left the room, but knew that the Aurors would only confine him.

In their silence, Harry found a sliver of peace that he'd been searching for, although he knew there was hell and high water left for him to swim through. There was no doubt that the boy still scribbling furiously on parchment had recorded every word. He'd given more than he planned on giving in his statement, and he'd depicted that with more detail in which he'd hoped to, but he was well enough satisfied with it. There would be dozens more of counseling sessions with Nelly Simmons, and he wouldn't beat around the bush about repeating what Harry had just spouted off, but he could ignore Nelly. He'd gotten past the looming threat of a cell in Azkaban.

And he knew he'd scared the Minister of Magic speechless. Yes, Harry mused, relaxing back in his chair, he would be out of St. Mungos before September first, he was sure of it.

* * * * * *

Three sessions with Nelly, good behavior, okay eating habits, a very low fever, and seemingly completely healed, Harry hit his unofficial deadline of getting out of the hospital on the nose. Although he wouldn't be going to Hogwarts on the train, he was getting there. He'd most likely miss the sorting and maybe the Welcoming Feast completely, but he was going back to Hogwarts, with papers to prove it.

Harry realized he was going a lot of places at the same time.

* * * * * *