Lily

Chapter Forty Three:

The next day was Harry's trial, so he left early in the morning with Arthur. Lily and the others took to cleaning out some of the dusty rooms in Grimmauld Place. The work was long and tiring, but Lily worked hard to keep her mind off worrying abut Harry's trial. He would be okay. He had to be okay.

Eventually, Harry and Arthur came back and everyone gathered around to hear the verdict. Harry blinked at them, as if forgetting for a second what they were waiting for.

"So?" Ron asked.

"I'm not expelled." Harry said.

"He got off!" Ginny clapped her hands together.

Fred and George began to echo Ginny by singing "he got off" over and over again. Harry forced a smile before squeezing past them to go upstairs. Lily, Ron and Hermione followed him at a distance.

"Harry?" Lily was the first to speak up.

"I'm fine."

"You're not being expelled." Hermione said, "Which is rather lucky because-"

Ron nudged her to be quiet and she got the message.

"If you need to talk, we're here." Lily said.

"I know... it's just, Dumbledore... he showed up but he didn't even look at me. And I called his name and he just ignored me. I don't know what I did wrong." Harry said.

"Maybe he didn't hear you?" Ron suggested.

"Maybe." Harry said, but he didn't look like he believed that at all.

They talked for a little while longer before going back to cleaning the house. Sirius' mood soured, and though he claimed to be happy that Harry wasn't expelled, nobody really believed it. Sirius would never admit it, but he had been secretly hoping that Harry would spend the school year with him. The end of the summer break came, and the teens prepared their trunks. After Ginny was nearly knocked down the stairs when Fred and George tried to levitate their trunks, they were making their way out the door. Sirius joined them in his animagus form, despite Remus and Logan warning him strongly against it. Maya didn't say anything, but she kept an eye on on Padfoot, watching out to ensure no harm came to him.

"Alright everyone, onto the train." Molly smiled, hugging each of her children goodbye.

"Bye Mum." Ginny said, before wiggling out of the hug that was still going on.

"Oh have a good school year, Ginny dear!" Molly called after her.

Harry lingered behind as the Weasley's and Hermione moved ahead. Lily stayed by his side to make sure he was okay.

"You coming?" Lena asked, looking at them.

"You go ahead." Lily said and Lena nodded.

"Bye Mum, bye Dad!" Lena said, hugging her parents before leaving to board the train.

"Harry." Logan said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Everyone will be okay."

Harry nodded.

"We will see you two at the winter break, okay?" Maya said, looking at the Potter twins.

"Okay." Lily said.

"This may be fruitless, but do try to stay out of trouble, okay?" Remus asked them.

Padfoot barked in what was possibly agreement, or possibly encouragement to get into as much trouble as possible.

"I'll try." Harry chuckled lightly.

Lily gave his hand a squeeze and they boarded the train together. The train ride to Hogwarts was fairly uneventful and Lily even fell asleep for pert of it. When they got to Hogwarts and filed into the great hall, Lily's eye was immediately caught by the pink figure among all the darkly clothes professors.