Chapter 035

The journalist looked away and scowled as the next quickly got their question in. "Madam Bones, is it fair to target Albus Dumbledore when he helped rid us of the Dark Lord?"

"We are a society of law," she replied. "And no one, no matter what they've accomplished in the past, is excused from obeying those laws.

"I allege that Albus Dumbledore has broken so many laws that Lord Potter helped bring to light, I have no choice but to hold him in custody until he faces justice in the form of a full sitting of the Wizengamot. It will then be up to the Wizengamot on what penalty or penalties he shall face. It is not for anyone bar the full sitting of the Wizengamot to determine whether or not he is guilty of some or all of the charges he faces."

"As you've arrested both the Chief Warlock and the Minister," called another, "Are you looking to clear the way for your own ascension into the top tiers of our government?"

"That question is so stupid it does not even deserve a response," she flatly retorted. "However, I know you'd take that as affirmation.

"I have already told you that we are a society of law that not even Albus Dumbledore, no matter what hat he's currently wearing, job he's currently doing or his history is exempt from. The same also applies to the Minister.

"Further, I am the Regent of the Noble and Ancient House of Bones and the Director of the DMLE. That's more than enough of a job for anyone, including me."

Another journalist immediately piped up. "Madam Bones, do you believe you'll successfully prosecute these cases?"

"The prosecutor will likely be Rufus Scrimgeour," she replied. "And, before you ask, I will not be adjudicating the trials. The Chief Adjudicator has already been notified of the cases that will be brought before her. And preparatory documents for all the trials will be sent to her in advance."

"And what will your role be?" he immediately asked.

"Whatever the Chief Adjudicator tasks of me," she replied. "If and when necessary I will otherwise provide aid to Prosecutor Scrimgeour."

"Can you give us any specifics on the charges filed against any of them?" asked a rather earnest appearing female journalist.

Instead of shooting the young woman down, as was her first instinct, Amelia instead thought about it and replied, "It is both against DMLE policy and a breach of privacy to tell you specifics. However, if you were at the first task of the Tournament you'd have a pretty good idea what many of those charges will be."

Shifting her attention from the one young woman to the gaggle at large she said, "Now, you'll need to excuse me. While my aurors and I have completed the initial interviews and interrogations there is still a great deal more work to do. And I need to get back to it."

Without waiting to see if the journalists would allow her to leave, and knowing they otherwise wouldn't, she turned and walked back to her office. Those who hadn't had time to get in their questions tried shouting them to her as she left, without success.

They knew they wouldn't get their answers, as she never answered any question once she determined the doorstop 'interview' was over, but they always tried anyway.

_‗_

―==(oIo)==―

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At Hogwarts, Hermione Granger was having her own issues. The first was discovering that her favourite professor, Minerva McGonagall, and the man she near-idolised, Albus Dumbledore, were not deserving of her favouritism or idolisation after all. And the second was being forcefully informed, by the boy himself, that he, Harry Potter, was not the boy she thought he was, either. It had all been a carefully crafted persona the boy wore to hide the truth about himself.

That he did it, not to hide from her but from Albus Dumbledore, was beside the point. She knew she shouldn't take it as a personal affront as she fully understood why he did it, but it still hurt a little. The Harry Potter she thought she knew wasn't real; just as the Harry Potter that was supposedly written about in those fanciful tales about his childhood wasn't real either.

That had been well-driven home when she tried to convince him that house elves were, in fact, slaves. That he then coldly informed her that she had no idea what she was talking about and then directed her to go to the library to learn the truth for herself, had also hurt. When she then tried to trick him into freeing the elves he'd bound into slavery once she read the truth and would inform him of such, he dismissively told her she would find no such thing and, therefore, her demand was pointless.

Of course, she immediately went to her 'haven', the library, and used her research knowledge to find all the information the library contained on the little creatures. She was determined to prove Harry wrong.

However, what she found astounded her. Harry was right. The elves weren't so much slaves as they were a symbiotic creature that shared of a witch's or wizard's magic to sustain themselves and, in return, provided services to the witch or wizard. And, further, the house elves could not take that magic unless a minor bonding ritual was completed first. If Harry, as she had demanded, released the elf, the elf would be unable to access that life sustaining magic and would slowly wither away and die after first going insane. She was horrified to realise she'd practically ordered Harry to kill the elf, Dobby.

"He was right!" she whispered to herself, appalled. "Oh, Gods! He was right!"

She needed to track him down and immediately apologise.

Once she'd reached her decision she quickly put all the books she'd taken off the shelves back in their rightful places on those shelves before hurrying off. She was in a hurry to apologise, but that did not mean she would not see to the rightful re-shelving of 'her' precious books first.

_‗_

―==(oIo)==―

ˇ

What Hermione didn't know was that Harry was under his invisibility cloak and was watching her. He even heard her whisper to herself before she hurriedly starting putting books back onto their rightful places on the shelves.

As the cloak was able to be folded up into a very small package, Harry kept it on his person at all times ever since he'd once caught Weasley going into his trunk and taking things.

He'd also figured out that the cloak was also the third Deathly Hallow and knew the story. As Death was unable to find the third brother until he'd removed the cloak from himself, he knew Dumbledore had to have done something to it to allow the old man to see through it; as he clearly did the night he was under it in Hagrid's cabin when Fudge and Malfoy turned up to arrest the big oaf.

As soon as he'd figured that out, and after binding Dobby to himself, he'd had the elf inspect it. Dobby had found a few charms on it anchored to new stitching.

Having the little elf unravel the stitching, Harry had taken to carrying that thread around, so the old man would not know it had been discovered.

Once he'd discovered, or Dobby had discovered, that particular tracker-come-beacon, he had the little elf scan the rest of his property. And what a veritable panoply of charms the little elf found. Mail redirection, anti-scry, listening, confounding and anti-muggle notice-me-not jinxes; trackers; beacons; blood-based magics and others even Dobby did not recognise. After having Dobby muffle the listening charms, Harry then explained what he needed the elf to do.

Everything, except the anti-scry charm, was removed from Harry's personal property and transferred to a few inanimate objects Harry had then taken to carrying about on himself. He'd already figured out that, if he appeared to be free of them, the Headmaster would both want to try and figure out why and replace them. However, moving them to inanimate objects, meant he was able to leave them behind when he wanted to accomplish something without the old man knowing he had 'slipped his leash'.

One of those occasions was when Harry visited the goblins between second and third year. He'd left those objects back in his room in the Leaky Cauldron to ensure Dumbledore thought he'd not been in to see them.

Now he'd done the 'Big Reveal', as he called it, he'd watched Hermione head for the library and, while she was otherwise busy, headed out to the lake edge and banished those objects as far out into the water as he could. The only one he'd retained was the anti-scry ward; as Dobby had assured him it stopped everyone, including Dumbledore, from scrying his location. He wondered if the old man had stopped to think if it would or not.

It wasn't until a few moments after tossing them into the lake he realised he should have kept them and handed them over to Madam Bones. They were, after all, evidence of one of the 'crimes' of which he believed the old man guilty.

'Oh, well,' he had thought to himself with a mental sigh. 'She has more than enough to convict the old bastard, as it is.'

Now he watched as Hermione, his real best friend, discovered he was right and began to pack up. Knowing she would immediately seek him out, he beat a hasty but silent retreat back to the Gryffindor common room. He also knew the aurors would have already figured out he hadn't gone for a 'lie down' as he'd told them and were currently scouring the castle looking for him. He needed to get back to the common room and give them time to tell him off for disappearing on them before Hermione returned.

_‗_

―==(oIo)==―

ˇ

Making it back to the common room, and getting told off by the aurors as he thought he would, it was less than ten seconds later that Hermione entered and, as soon as she saw him on 'their' couch, headed to join him.

Sitting down she only glanced at him before averting her eyes downward and saying, "Sorry, Harry."

"Alright," he said. "What are you sorry for?"

"You were right about the house elves. They're not slaves," she quietly replied.

"Uh-huh," he quietly agreed.

"No 'I told you so's?" she asked.

"Nope," he replied. "No need."

She seemed to think for a long few moments before she almost plaintively asked, "Have I always been that bad?"

"Yes," he immediately replied.

When she winced he added, "You have this bad habit of accepting things as fact based on what you know from the muggle world. The magical world is not the muggle world, Hermione. There are many things in the wizarding world that have no contemporary in the muggle world. The issue of house elves and how they're symbiotic creatures is just one of those."

"But, it just seems so wrong!" she practically whined.

"It would be, if it weren't for the need of house elves to bond to stay alive," he said. "Plus, you also need to stop thinking of house elves as people. They're not."

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