Wild child

Now things are really moving in the right direction.

The castle was almost completely restored to its original state within two weeks, and almost everyone who stayed to help rebuild the campus heard Hermione give a class on "On the restoration spell left by the founder in the castle"; The headline under the big photo of Harry was changed from "Undesirable Number One" to "The Boy Who Lived Saves the Wizarding World Again"; the reconstruction of the Ministry of Magic progressed rapidly, and most departments began to work again-including Ministry of Education.

In fact, according to Ron, if there's anything that recovers faster than newspapers and schools, it's exams.

Students in grades [-] and [-] find themselves fighting another battle that will define their lives just three weeks after one battle.

"Education should not be held back by anything. In the dark days of the recent past, this generation of young wizards has proven their excellence. The wizarding community needs them more than ever," said the new Education Minister.

He succeeded in becoming the official with the most nicknames.

Harry, Ron and Hermione, who have spent the whole year saving the world, have decided to go back to school next year to repeat seventh year. In theory, they shouldn't have to worry about it, but if you have someone named Hermione Granger by your side , any approaching exam would turn into a nightmare.

Maybe it's not just their nightmare.Ministry officials seemed too busy to bother with the application to add a Muggle house to the Floo network for a while, but they lent Mr. Weasley a car to pick up Fanny and Sirius, and They were in a car with Harry, Ron, Hermione and Sirius at the moment. .

"Come on, Hermione. We all know you'll have no problem passing this year's exams, so can you stop racing?" Fanny complained, getting poked by the corner of the book for the third time on the turn.

"No! We haven't read a book in a year! Don't you realize this, Fanny? I won't even understand what the professor is saying when term starts!" Hermione looked up from the book and scolded Said, "My God, I didn't think about reading while I was sitting in the tent doing nothing! It's been so long! Maybe I should ask Kingsley if he can make an exception for me after the exam is over." Let's send out a set of test papers..."

"Since you were saving the world at the time, I think it was a forgivable mistake." Fanny patted her and said reassuringly, "At least you won't have too low a score in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Reading a book in a car will ruin your life." Lost your eyesight, I guess you forgot about that."

Hermione was still dissatisfied, but put the book away anyway, and her exaggerated reaction just now was just an attempt to make everything look normal.But Ron still didn't answer. He was dressed in all black like Mr. Weasley. Except for the complaint just now, the two of them were silent all the way.No one tried to liven things up with jokes, and the journey became long.

A few days had passed since Fred's funeral, and the pain had subsided, but such a short period of time was far from enough for the wound to heal—even if all the time was given, it might not be enough.

After the funeral, the Floo Network Management Office finally completed the formalities, and Fanny accompanied Hermione to Australia.Fortunately, the memory of the Grangers recovered quite smoothly, and they have moved back to the UK.But the Grangers never forgave their daughter for erasing their memories to exclude them, and as the joy of the initial reunion wore off, the rifts caused by Hermione's choices gradually became apparent.She moved into the Burrow again two days ago to give both parties room to think calmly.

Somehow Fanny understands Hermione's situation. Smith and Mrs. Conwell stormed into the castle before she left for home, yelling at her in the middle of the Great Hall, and she suspects that the only thing preventing her from being beaten The reason is simply that she is a wounded person.Now that Smith was in Holland to visit Amelia, the atmosphere between Fanny and Mrs. Conwell remained rigid, with her adoptive mother neither speaking nor looking at her unless necessary.

Perhaps because of the safe return of her godson, Sirius forgave Fanny too easily for her behavior at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and Harry even thanked her for not leaving him alone at the end, which Fanny could hardly bear.

"Goodbye. I'll have to park the car and take the other way into the Ministry. Good luck," said Mr. Weasley.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fanny and Sirius filed into a dilapidated telephone booth after saying goodbye to Mr. Weasley.There wasn't a Traceless Expansion Charm like Mr. Weasley's car, and the three gentlemen huddled together as they did their best to make room for the two girls.When Hermione tried to pull out a hand to dial "62442", Fanny heard Sirius curse softly, and Harry muttered softly, "On the bright side, at least we don't have to flush ourselves down the toilet."

"But I bet the sewers are much wider than here." Fanny also muttered.

Several other people who were putting the "Testify" badge on their chests laughed, even Ron forced a few laughs.It's hard to keep every moment serious when you're squeezed face-to-glass with your mates.

Fanny was somewhat taken aback when the phone booth sank into the ground, and the sidewalk outside the glass windows rose higher and higher until it was dark above them.After a minute or so, when the light came in, several people breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. They almost couldn't wait to release themselves from the glass jar, and went to the security check with their numb arms.

"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a good day," said a cold female voice from the phone booth behind them.

They were at the end of the magnificent hall, and even Harry, Ron and Hermione, who had already been there, were looking around during the security check.It's not that they are surprised by the spaciousness and luxury of this place, but because there are people knocking everywhere in the hall, the new leadership team is probably determined to tear down the decoration of this place and start over.There seemed to be a huge sculpture in the fountain in the middle of the foyer, but now there is only a bare marble base, which looks conspicuous and abrupt.

"They finally got rid of that pile of garbage." Hermione glanced at the pedestal and commented contemptuously.

"What rubbish?" Fanny asked casually, causing her to be submerged in Hermione's criticism of the original discriminatory sculpture that symbolized the superiority of wizards on the way to the fourth courtroom on the ninth floor.

Hermione fell silent as soon as she walked into the deep dark room. This place seemed to have an aura of its own, and even people who didn't know its purpose would become a little trembling in it.

"I'm Dorian Whiteman, an intern Auror. Please take a seat in the lounge on the left. If you need to testify, I will guide you to the witness stand." A cute and sweet girl with a ponytail came to meet her. they said.

Sirius nodded, and the group followed Dorian's footsteps.The lineup of five witnesses here is quite conspicuous, and the photos of at least two of them have been waiting for the headlines for a long time.On the way to the waiting room, most of the first-arriving spectators followed them with their heads like searchlights or whispered to the people around them. Even nearly half of the judges sitting on the chairs in front cast curious eyes. .Several people were walking uncomfortably, Ron looked around and looked down from time to time, his ears were red with embarrassment; Harry and Hermione kept moving forward with their eyes on the backs of the rows of chairs; Fanny stared at the front and west. Reese's back.

In contrast, Dorian seemed much calmer. She always walked briskly, neither disturbed by her eyes nor showed unnecessary curiosity. Fanny quietly gave this trainee Auror a high score.

It wasn't until she was seated that Fanny realized that Sirius beside her was tense all over, with cold sweat dripping from his forehead.She hadn't seen him so nervous even when he was at the scene of a carnage and was about to rush out to stop the Death Eaters.She touched him with her elbow quietly, and asked from the corner of her mouth, "Are you okay?"

"It's nothing." Sirius replied quickly, "It's just that I'm not used to it..."

"Well, me too," Fanny replied, and Sirius gave her a quick, knowing look.

It's been too long since they've walked in plain sight with their true colors.

The commotion from the auditorium outside the door told them that the interrogated person had been escorted into the courtroom, and the process of reading out the prisoner’s name and crimes was inaccurate, but if nothing unexpected happened, according to the arrangement received before, today’s first case is Lestrange and Hurley Eberstead of Labastan, who orphaned a 4-year-old girl.The former of the two prisoners is a familiar face to many people here, a veteran Death Eater, and it seems that he is going back to the place he escaped once.

I hope you can rot inside this time.Fanny thought.

Dorian walked into the waiting room to inform the prosecution witnesses to testify. When Fanny got up, Sirius patted her lightly.It was more helpful than she'd imagined, and even though she'd tried to make the testimony as tight as possible with Percy and Hermione's guidance, she still felt a knot in her stomach.

The defenders of Labastine and Helière both looked shrewd, but it was hard to tell whether it was their malicious stares or the pointing from the audience that made her have the urge to throw the chair over.

"Please provide your full name."

"Vanny Krisdo Isabella Sanchez."

"Please provide your testimony."

"..."

This is a fairly clear case. The role of Fanny's testimony is only to identify the suspect during the prosecution stage. Just using the flashback spell on the wands of the two is enough to prove what they did.And given that flashback spells can only be flashed back in time, flashing things before seeing the desired case doesn't do much to endear them to the officials.The two defenders dutifully pointed out that Fanny did not see the murder process and that the flashback spell could only determine what the wand did but not the caster. However, the final result of the vote was still unpredictable. All officials raised their hands.

"Convicted," Kingsley announced.

Fanny didn't have any other cases to testify that day, so after the trial was over, she left the lounge and went around and sat in the auditorium again.She hadn't been interested in spending a few more hours in the midst of scrutiny, discussion, or even news-making accusations, but what followed was a case that was important in every way, and probably wouldn't end so easily.

A man sat down on a chair in the middle of the courtroom. He was more than a head shorter than the two Aurors who escorted him, with small watery eyes like mice, and kept shaking.

“彼得罗伯特佩迪鲁。”金斯莱沉稳地开了腔，“接下来将由魔法法律委员会对你被指控的案件进行审理，在判决前你有权利为自己进行辩护。你被指控于1981年11月1日杀害13名麻瓜，于1994年7月16日折磨并杀害伯莎安德烈娅乔金斯……”

The list was one of Wormtail's own crimes, read with no more furious commotion than the previous case, and the audience seemed in disbelief that there was such a brutal crime in the wretch's wretch.In the silence, a woman in the auditorium opposite Fanny burst into tears, which attracted the attention of everyone around her.

"Poor Mary, she still thinks that boy is a hero." The woman on Fanny's left whispered to her companion.

Fanny squinted at the woman, a woman in her mid-sixties who looked much older than she was, with light hair as thin as Wormtail and a high-pitched voice.Wormtail flinched when she let out a loud sob, and glanced uneasily in that direction.

Wormtail’s defender, John Shade, is at least as capable as Helier and Rabastan’s before. He made good use of the sympathy points brought by the defendant’s appearance, emphasizing that the crimes after Wormtail were all completed under the control of Voldemort, and then pointed out that 16 The biggest difficulty in the trial process of the case years ago: the testimony of the witnesses was all against Sirius, and the magic wand used by Wormtail at that time had been lost, so it was impossible to use the flashback spell to directly prove it.

"The fact is that a whole street of Muggles have heard that it was Mr. Sirius Black over there who committed the crime of treachery; the fact is that no one knew of Mr. Black's so-called ' Tracking' operation; the truth is, the Aurors involved in the capture can all attest that Mr. Black was laughing out loud when he was captured; the truth is, we all know what a former caretaker of Azkaban can do to the sanity of even a normal person The impact; the fact that my client survived and suffered through it; the fact that Mr Black was angry at the 12 years he lost and he wanted someone to pay for it."

Sirius on the witness stand calmly and clearly responded to Shade's pursuit of the authenticity of his testimony, and described all the details in detail: Voldemort's pursuit, replacement of the secret keeper, the death of two friends, how he Impulsively set off alone to hunt down Wormtail, how to be imprisoned in Azkaban, how to accidentally find that Wormtail is still alive, and how to try to break into Hogwarts to prove his innocence.

During this process, Fanny kept sweating, and she knew all too well what the consequences would be for Sirius if she recalled all these things. In fact, Harry had even offered to keep the trial a secret from him before.But Sirius obviously used his actions perfectly to dismiss the doubts about his sanity integrity.

Then Harry, Ron, and Hermione came out to testify one after another. Even according to the standard of rehearsal, their performance in describing what happened in the Forbidden Forest four years ago was considered excellent, leaving almost nothing for Shade. .Hermione also showed the statement that Professor McGonagall applied to the Ministry of Magic for her to use the time-turner, and I don't know where they found it.Fanny was not directly involved in the part about Wormtail at the time, so the prosecution simply read her transcript on the matter as a supplement.

Afterwards several Death Eaters testified against Wormtail, and Shade questioned their motives and credibility in his calm but emotional tone, and it was obvious that he had prepared everything beforehand. .Whatever Madame Pedillo thought of her son, she clearly went to great lengths to mitigate his guilt.

In stark contrast to the vocal and expressive defender, Wormtail seemed to be petrified, keeping his head down and saying nothing.

The trial took much longer than the previous one, and officials took longer to discuss after the arguments and questions from both sides.After a suffocating wait, the court finally announced the beginning of the vote.

overwhelming majority.

"Convicted," Kingsley announced.

Mrs. Pedilou let out an uncontrollable cry. Several people around her seemed to know her well, and they all showed resentment. Two people tried to comfort her.

Wormtail didn't respond until the Aurors removed the chains that bound him to take him away. Fanny had looked at Wormtail and saw him struggling slightly under the Auror's control. Follow his gaze towards the direction of the witness lounge.

Sirius ignored Dorian's dissuasion and stood at the door of the lounge, staring at the short man with a masseter muscle on his face. Fanny suspected that he would kill his former friend with his own hands in this court.Then several others followed, apparently trying to persuade Sirius to go back.Kingsley signaled the Auror to take the prisoner away directly, but Wormtail still didn't move after being severely warned, hesitatingly muttering.

"Can...can you let him finish his sentence?" Seeing that Auror was about to take coercive measures, Harry blurted out.

The audience was in an uproar, and Ron, Hermione, and Kingsley all looked at him in surprise.

"He...he's about to accept life in Azkaban, which he deserves. I figured, since he's going to be in prison for the rest of his decades, take a few seconds to listen to him The last thing to say is...not a problem." Every word seemed to stab Harry's throat, but he insisted on straightening his back and taking two steps forward to finish speaking to the officials on the bench.

Sirius finally looked away and glanced at the godson, a complicated look flashed across his face.

"With all due respect, Mr. Potter. Your righteous words are admirable, but when he killed Digory, I'm afraid he didn't give that poor boy time to talk." A middle-aged witch with long curly hair said coldly explain.

Harry bit his lip as if hit in the face, and stepped back.

Kingsley frowned, as if thinking about Harry's proposal.

Wormtail caught the moment when the Auror relaxed his grip and turned his head. He stared at Harry's face that resembled his old friend for a moment, and his lips moved slightly.

What was the result of Kingsley's consideration and what the prisoner originally planned to say, these are impossible to be answered.

Before there was any time to make any sound, Wormtail's right hand dragged a silver light, and suddenly raised and strangled his master's neck.He was instantly knocked down by the Auror, writhing and writhing on the ground, making a terrible whoosh.Several Aurors surrounded him, trying to let go of the hand, and then someone cut it off from the wrist completely, and the blood spattered all over the floor.

There was a wave of panic around the courtroom, and several Aurors in charge of ordering the court shouted for everyone to sit down and stay calm.Mrs. Pedillo jumped up and tried to run to her son, but she stumbled and rolled down the whole flight of steps, paralyzed and unable to move.Fanny jumped up, staring at the scene in front of her with wide eyes.

Harry climbed over the guardrail and rushed over. Ron hesitated, calling his friend's name to follow.

Whether Wormtail was worth it or not, all efforts to save him were in vain.After the courtroom was finally quiet, the two Aurors wrapped Wormtail's body in a white cloth and carried it out on a conjured stretcher, with the severed silver hand choking the former owner's throat.Dorian managed to carry Mrs. Pedillo away before the crowd parted, so she wouldn't see his son's final horror.

Ron and Hermione looked at him worriedly as Harry walked back to the witnesses lounge looking tired and absent-minded, still stained with Wormtail's blood.But he was more worried about Sirius than Hallifani. After the accident happened, he didn't move a single bit from the beginning to the end. He turned stiffly and returned to the room until Harry walked in front of him.

The trial of the next case began an hour later, and the audience and officials left the courtroom to eat lunch and discuss what had just happened.Sirius was still sitting motionless on the sofa in the witness lounge, and Fanny walked in and winked at Hermione, who nodded and forced the two boys to leave first.She sat next to Sirius, stretched out her hand to cover his clenched fist, turned the fist over again, and stroked gently along the direction of the knuckles until it opened.

The fingertips were stained with bright red, and the palms of the palms were deeply sunken into the flesh.

"Sirius," she said softly.

Sirius' face trembled slightly.

"Sirius."

In an instant, the frozen face and figure disintegrated.

Fanny watched silently as Sirius hunched down, hugged his drooping head with scarred palms, and kept his voice and everything else between the gaps in the black cloth.

——In the long years that she never met, the four people who were once close must have many stories.

Sirius' collapse lasted only a few minutes, and he was on his feet before the clearing Aurors came over.Fanny did not follow behind by a step behind as usual, but walked side by side next to him, giving his violently trembling body some support.

The two left the Ministry of Magic and came to the sunny streets of London.Sirius slumped back on a bench, pressing his eyes with the back of his hand, the bright light made the wound on his palm more distinct.He kept it this way for so long that Fanny began to consider whether to inform Hermione Sirius to give up testifying at the next trial.

"Tell me, why did I survive?"

The sound was very soft, like a sigh.

Why am I the one who survived?

Under the bright sunlight at noon, Fanny could also see those figures coming from the street corner along with the crowd.They laughed, made noises, and pondered, not paying the slightest attention to this ordinary bench.

A confident person, a broad person, a living person who has lived.

She wanted to tell the men around her not to be afraid.

Don't be afraid, there is a flood of thoughts from another world, just like our thoughts about them, full of thoughts*.

The author has something to say:

*These few sentences are translated into the self-loved novel "My Leader, My Regiment", the wall cracks Amway.

Broken Thoughts: The subtitle "Don't Be Afraid" is also for all survivors. The dead are gone, and the living will have to shoulder everything and start over.The war is won, and the book jumps straight to 19 years later, and there's so much left untouched before "all is well": how the Weasleys live with the loss; how Harry struggles with guilt until he can pursue happiness again ; how Hermione restores her parents' memories and her relationship with them; does Ginny even wake up in the middle of the night and find herself hissing at the sink years later... The saved Sirius, he survived, but because of this he had to experience the pain of being out of touch with the world and the death of all his best friends.As a reader outside the book, all I can say is "don't be afraid" when I think of what they're going through, you can start over and "everything will be fine" in the end.

Finally, there are about two more updates in this article.Well, you read that right, it's almost over.