A Pause in the Court
"Well, it's better if we take a short break, and we can continue with the trial in twenty minutes," Fudge said, striking the gavel; he had lost control of the entire situation several times, and barely an hour had passed since Hagrid's trial had begun.
Sirius shot a furious glare toward Fudge; for a moment, it made the Minister feel a cold sweat run down his back. But he quickly straightened himself and struck the gavel once more before turning around and stepping down from the podium.
Other members of the Wizengamot stood up as well, and some began discussing all the information that had been presented in what was only the beginning of the trial.
Meanwhile, Hagrid didn't really know what to do, so he simply approached Dumbledore.
"I did pretty well, right?" Sirius asked with a hint of arrogance, looking toward Wanda, Narcissa, and Pandora.
Pandora made an 'almost' gesture. Wanda didn't even look at him. Narcissa, however, said something harsher.
"If you hadn't been looking at your hand every five seconds while you talked, maybe. But you can't be such an idiot that you forget and reread it over and over. Oh, right… yes, you can," she said with her venomous tone.
"If you think you can do it better, why don't you do it?" Sirius replied to his cousin, clearly annoyed.
"I was prepared to fix it if you ruined it," she said calmly.
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked, but Narcissa ignored him, glancing around without wanting to explain.
The other women didn't seem inclined to say what she meant either.
"In any case, we're following the kids' strategies to test them. But really… if it doesn't work, what will you do?" Sirius asked, giving them a serious look. It was true; every strategy they were using had come from Harry and the group, and the women were sticking to that plan.
"Obviously, if it doesn't work, we'll help them," Wanda said calmly.
Sirius let out a light laugh. "Wasn't the point of this to test what they're made of and see if they're ready?" he said, still laughing.
But the women didn't reply anymore. After all, they were mothers; of course they didn't want their children to think they weren't good at something.
"By the way…" Sirius said suddenly, looking toward the section where those supporting Dumbledore were sitting. "Why is Alice there?" he asked seriously.
Narcissa glanced subtly toward Alice. When Alice noticed she was being watched, she grew nervous and gave a quick wave.
"It's better if you don't know," Narcissa said to her cousin.
Sirius felt irritated; he felt they were undervaluing him in the group. He was an adult and a mature man… why hide things from him as if he were a child?
But, of course, he would never say that to any of the women present. He was far too scared of them to do that.
…
Jeff walked through the halls, unintentionally drawing attention because of his hair… although it wasn't exactly his hair that caught people's eyes, but rather the tiny fairy lying on top of it, making little braids in it with a very cheerful smile.
That made some passing girls smile at how "cute" he looked, which embarrassed Jeff enough to make him speed up his pace.
Just at a corner of the hallway, since he was looking quickly to the side, he didn't see the person who suddenly appeared, and he bumped straight into them.
He almost fell backwards, and Terra, the little fairy, grabbed onto his hair tightly so she wouldn't fall as well.
"Ouch!" Jeff said as he rubbed his face; it felt like he had crashed into something really hard.
"Oh, I'm sorry, young man," said the person. It was Dominic, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
"Oh no, I'm the one who's sorry, Professor… I wasn't looking where I was going," Jeff said quickly in an apologetic tone.
"If you're alright, then it's not a problem," the professor said with a gentle, friendly smile as he lifted his hand to ruffle Jeff's hair. But he stopped when he noticed Terra on top of Jeff's head, staring at him intently; he was only now realizing she was there. "Well, aren't you a lovely young lady," he said to the fairy with a smile.
But Terra's expression didn't change; she kept staring at him.
Dominic didn't pay much attention. "Then I'll take my leave. Sorry about that," he said before continuing on his way, greeting some students as he walked. The girls squealed like fangirls upon receiving a greeting from Hogwarts' most popular professor.
Jeff watched Dominic with a sense of unease he couldn't explain. At the moment of impact, it had felt as if he'd collided with a mannequin skeleton… completely rigid. But seeing the professor looking completely normal, not even slightly ill, made him wonder if it had all been his imagination.
At that moment, Terra flew up to his face and began to communicate using gestures. Jeff had learned quite a bit of Terra's way of communicating; he understood most of it… though he could still make mistakes sometimes.
"You think he's really strange? Why do you think that?" Jeff asked, trying to interpret her gestures.
"Mask?" Jeff asked after seeing Terra's movements, but she shook her head quickly before making gestures on her own face, pulling at her cheeks.
"Fake?" Jeff asked again.
Terra nodded immediately, confirming that this was what she meant.
Jeff turned around, looking down the hallway where Dominic had walked away, now more confused than before. Terra then gestured and began flying off, following the direction he had taken.
"Wait, where are you going?" Jeff said, rushing after her.
Meanwhile, on Harry's side, the group was basically taking a break after all their investigation… well, at least Hermione, Daphne, and Fleur were. Draco and Harry had taken a break from searching for hidden places; they already had almost all of them marked on the Marauder's Map.
Luciel had told them he might have found another secret place, but he wasn't very sure yet about how the entrance worked. He promised to tell them once he figured it out.
Since Harry had filled most of those places with alerts for when Pettigrew appeared, he was confident he would be able to catch him quickly. A few days ago, one of the golems he had left active sent a signal, but when they arrived, there was nothing there. Still, that gave Harry a certainty: Pettigrew was already roaming somewhere near the Forbidden Forest.
A bit of anxiety started to rise in his chest, but Harry suppressed it quickly. He still didn't know what Peter wanted, and more than anyone, he wanted to find out.
His head was completely distracted while the others were talking.
"How do you think Hagrid is doing at the trial?" Hermione asked. She was also nervous about whether all her help had been useful; she had searched for the right words, legal information, and how Hagrid should behave. But her biggest fear was that he would freeze from fear and not use anything they had prepared for him.
"He'll be fine. I gave him some information that might help," Daphne said with confidence.
"And I gave him some testimonies I managed to get from the students," Fleur added with a slightly mischievous smile, honestly. Normally, that smile would have earned a teasing comment from Harry, and the fact that he didn't say anything caught everyone's attention at the table.
"What's wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked, looking at him.
Harry lifted his head for a moment. "What? Sorry, I was distracted," he said.
"We noticed," Draco said sarcastically, looking at his friend. He more or less knew what was worrying Harry, but there wasn't much they could do until Peter was caught or showed himself.
"Nothing, I was just thinking about something," Harry said. "What were you talking about?"
"Hagrid," Draco replied.
"Oh… right. I gave Sirius some notes to help him just in case. And just to be safe, I told Aunt Narcissa and my mother to keep an eye on him to make sure he did it well," Harry said with a small smile.
"Then why didn't they just use the notes themselves?" Draco asked.
"Well… yeah. But Sirius wanted to feel useful," Harry answered calmly.
"By the way," Fleur interrupted, as she was looking toward a corner of the Ravenclaw common room. Under one of the rugs, there was an obvious lump and a red-scaled tail twitching slightly. "What is he doing?" she asked, easily recognizing Red. Well, there wasn't a single person in the castle who couldn't recognize him.
"I think he switched places with Terra to watch me for some reason," Harry said, letting out a sigh. He already knew the silly dragon had been following him everywhere.
Red, as if realizing he had just been discovered, jumped up at once. But since he was under a rug, when he tried to run and hide somewhere else, he tripped over the rug and rolled across the entire room, crashing into tables and sofas, causing a tremendous noise. He finally hit the fireplace, ignited the rug, and burned the tip of his tail, which immediately caught fire.
Red started running, trying to put out the fire on his tail with his mouth, spinning like a top; he kept causing even more chaos and noise. Even the students who were in their rooms came out alarmed, only to see Red wreaking havoc throughout the common room. As if it were something normal, they ended up going back to their rooms without saying a word.
Harry let out another sigh toward the ceiling before pulling out his wand and shooting water at Red, extinguishing the fire on his tail, putting out the burning rug, and forcing the dragon to stop.
Red, now frozen under Harry's stare, dropped flat onto his stomach while looking at him. Then he slowly rolled toward a nearby piece of furniture, hiding underneath it, though part of his snout remained sticking out… and his gaze stayed fixed on Harry, as if he believed Harry hadn't seen him finish hiding to watch him.
The whole sequence left everyone speechless, including Harry himself.
"I hope Terra comes back soon," Harry said. He really did love Red, but having him follow him everywhere was a pain in the neck.
"If you mean the little fairy in the red dress, I think I saw her on top of the head of one of the first-year students," Fleur said, recalling that she had seen Jeff with Terra on his head that morning as they walked outside the castle.
"First-years??" Harry asked. After all, he didn't really know any first-years… well, he did know a couple: Jeff and Frank.
"Yes; for some reason they seemed to be walking behind Professor Dominic," Fleur added, nodding.
Harry frowned slightly upon hearing yet another name that kept bothering him.
"Why does this school have to be so full of mysteries? Why can't it just be a normal school of magic and wizardry?" Harry said, growing more annoyed.
"Well, when you add magic and wizardry, normal becomes weird," Daphne said with a smile.
Meanwhile, Red, who was hiding under the furniture, suddenly sneezed—probably because of the dust there. Small red sparks shot out from underneath, catching the attention of the students in the common room.
"I think it's my fault… nothing is normal around me," Harry said, shaking his head.