"I actually agree with Lord Potter-Black." Dawson Shacklebolt continued. "This idiot should not be excused from the crimes he committed because he couldn't handle his Firewhiskey. He endangered us all, he endangered the muggles and even hospitalised two of them. I agree fully with Lord Potter-Black, this matter should be taken to trial, the Minister should be briefed and Mister Jute should face an Azkaban sentence over this matter."
The meeting room exploded into angry shouts and arguments and Harry took a moment to catch his breath, which he hadn't even realised that he'd been holding as Shacklebolt had been speaking and he took a tiny glace to either side of himself, even though he had tried not to show such insecurity, seeking reassurance that he hadn't embarrassed either man. That he hadn't embarrassed his family. Both men caught his tiny little glance and reacted accordingly. Lucius squeezed his knee gently and Xerxes touched his back with a slight touch of his fingertips.
"You did brilliantly." Lucius told him in the merest whisper as he watched interestedly as Madam Amelia Bones jumped into the argument.
"Better than brilliant. You were completely ruthless and I love it. You certainly are coming into your own. Basti will be so very proud and pleased when I tell him. But before that, let's wrap this up, Lucius. I'm not a young man anymore, I need my sleep and I'm sure that Harry needs his sleep too."
"This meeting has taken a lot longer than I thought it would. It's already gone midnight and I do have lessons tomorrow."
"Then let us pass judgement on this meeting." Lucius said before turning back to the room. "I motion that we vote now." He said loudly, cutting across the arguing and the shouting. "I vote in favour of Lord Potter-Black's proposal of a trial and an Azkaban sentence."
"As do I." Dawson Shacklebolt said fiercely.
"I put my vote in favour of a fine!" One of the Heads of Department raged.
"My vote goes in favour of Lord Potter-Black." Xerxes said calmly.
Harry had to bite his lip to stop his internal grin from showing on his face when the Wizengamot voted in his favour forty-one to just eleven. With business concluded, several members immediately stormed out and Harry rose himself. He gracefully and modestly accepted the handshakes and congratulations on his conduct in the meeting, but he soon excused himself, taking Lucius and Xerxes with him. He was just too tired to stay much longer and now that official business had been concluded and they had to wait for a date for the trial, which would include the Minister himself, to be set, he was flagging and he seriously needed his bed.
"Come, we need to get you home." Lucius told him.
"But, it's a school night and I have to get back to the school." He said, trying to suppress a massive yawn and almost walking into a wall because of it.
"Not tonight. I will bring you home with me for the night and you can floo over to the school tomorrow morning with ample time to make your lessons."
Harry nodded, too tired to argue. He just wanted a bed and, at the moment, any bed would do.
"He is almost completely out of it, Lucius." Xerxes chuckled. "Perhaps you should carry him." "'M not that tired."
"Oh, he's slurring his words now too." Xerxes laughed. "I'm too old to be out past midnight and he's too young."
"I still look better though." Harry laughed and Xerxes harrumphed.
Lucius chuckled as they made it to the far side of the deserted Atrium and he said a pleasant goodnight to Xerxes and waited for Harry to do the same, before wrapping an arm around Harry's back and Apparating them to Malfoy Manor.
Harry barely remembered the walk up the stairs as he was shoved gently into his room and Lucius said goodnight to him.
Harry only just had the presence of mind to strip himself down, pull on a spare pair of pyjamas from his dresser and crawl into bed. It took him a few minutes to wind his mind down after the last few hours of heavy debating, but he did manage to remember to have a sleepy chuckle over the frizzy-haired bitch, Madam Wilkes. That was proper payback for what she'd done to him in the summer between his fourth and fifth years. He didn't remember much after that, he remembered chuckling into his pillow and then the next, he was fast asleep, his exhausted body and mind dead to the world.
Harry was forced awake a mere five hours later at just six O'clock in the morning and it was with a lot of grumbling and curses that he climbed in and out of the shower within ten minutes and got himself dressed in his cleaned and pressed school uniform. The robes that he'd worn to the Wizengamot meeting were also cleaned and pressed and were hanging up on the door of his, admittedly very large, wardrobe.
He felt slow and sluggish as he stumbled his way down to the family dining room and met Lucius and Narcissa, who were both up, showered, and impeccably dressed, talking to one another over their half-eaten breakfasts.
Narcissa chuckled lightly. "Oh, well you look like you've been trampled by a hippogriff."
"It dug its talons in on the way past and ground me into the floor with its heels too." Harry replied grumpily.
Lucius laughed at him as his large, slender hands cupped the mug that he was drinking from. From the smell of the contents, it was incredibly strong coffee, which was unusual enough as it was, seeing as Lucius never drank coffee.
"I prefer to drink coffee after late nights." Lucius told him when he caught Harry's confused, suspicious look. "I find that it gives me the kick I need to convince my body to wake up and get moving."
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