Twins: A different life - Discontinued - Sorry

Eighty-One

I had hoped to bait him out while he was still weak, but he didn't take the bate it seems. The stone, when I checked, was still inside the mirror."

"How long are you going to keep it there?" James asked.

"I shall remove it from the mirror when I return it to Nicolas at the end of the summer." Dumbledore answered before he stood, "I shall see you tomorrow, at Amelia's office." James rose to his feet.

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore." He saw the Headmaster out and then went to fine his wife.

"Lily, Lily," He called walking in to their room.

"In here," Lily replied from the dressing room, James walked in to see his wife in a simple red day robe.

"Do your formal robes still fit?" He asked.

"Yes, I have the gold ones."

"Good, you'll need them tomorrow so have the elves clean them." James told her.

"I will,"

"And I'm warning you, if you do anything to compromise this hearing tomorrow you don't want to know what will happen." He threatened, Lily nodded hurriedly and swallowed hard; she prayed that everything went ok tomorrow.

"Stop worrying Rosie, everything will be fine. I've spoken to Professor Dumbledore and he said he is going to smooth everything out." James soothed his frantic daughter, who was pacing the lounge in a fit. She was dressed in her Heiress robes and her previously neat hair was all over the place from running her hand through it. Lily stood of to the side dressed in soft gold robes, they were like Rosina's only the red was a pale blue, she didn't comment on James' words because it would have been futile, but she was pretty sure Albus Dumbledore would be nowhere near this hearing today – not with Amelia Bones in charge.

"Ok, I know." Rose nodded and stopped.

"Lily, fix her hair." James ordered and Lily stepped forward and manually fixed Rose' hair; James hated it when she used magic because it reminded him of the Pureblood women.

"Let's go, it's down on Level 2." The Potter family floo'd to the ministry and, as usual, caused a stir with the arrival of the Girl-Who-Lived. Lily couldn't help her lip curling in distaste; oh how she hated the fame. Sure, at first, she could understand, the feared Dark Lord had been vanquished and people wanted to celebrate – and that was fine – but then James started encouraging it and exploiting it; it was disgusting! And soon enough, when she was old enough to understand, Rosina revelled in it, she would go with her father and play for the crowd and it only gotten worse.

Lily pushed through the crowd, a fake smile adorning her face as if she wouldn't rather be elsewhere. James and Rose were only too happy to smile and talk to the people that swarmed them, Lily sighed; if they wanted to make a good impression then they were going about it the wrong way; they were going to be late. It was a pointless hearing, Lily knew that, there wasn't a law abiding citizen that wouldn't find Rosina guilty. Finally, James pushed his way through with Rose and they headed toward the elevators, and Lily bit back the sigh that wanted to escape when the doors shut and pushed everything she was feeling behind the mask she wore so often.

"I don't want you saying anything, let me do the talking." James muttered to Lily low enough for Rose not to hear; Lily nodded.

"Now, Rosie, when we get in there I want you to ignore them, don't take any notice of them, they are below you." James told her and Rose nodded.

"I know, Blacks are dark and evil."

Lily very nearly scoffed at that. She didn't believe in evil any more, and if there was such a thing then she was sure she was married to it. The hypocrisy of it all was beyond her, the 'light' claimed that the 'dark' were the evil ones and yes they did monstrous things, but she was sure women and children were not treated as she and Harry had been. James, and Dumbledore, preached about how the old traditions were horrible, how arranged marriages and contracts were taking away someone's will, but she had never seen a Pureblood wife be treated with anything less that the utmost care; even in public James didn't treat her as well as she had seen Lucius Malfoy treat Narcissa. The elevator opened and James led them out, he nodded and spoke to the aurors he was friendly with and he flashed a crooked grin to the girl behind the desk.

"Hello Jenny," He greeted his voice oozing in 'charm'.

"Hi, James," She returned, blushing, "What are you doing here?"

"Ah, unfortunately not a social call." He sighed, "I have a meeting with Amelia."

"Oh, is this to do with Black, because he's here with that kid of his." She said with a scowl and James grimaced.

"Yeah, just a formality," He waved it off.

"I'll let Madam Bones know." She simpered and Lily looked on in distaste; no doubt this was on of James' many women.

"Madam Bones will see you now," The receptionist told them, James walked past with a wink leading Rose in and Lily followed with a mute sigh. When they entered they could see the Blacks already in attendance, they were dressed out to the max and each of them held a cold elegance about them. They were asked to sit down and, as per formality, they waited for the witnessing aurors to arrive and it was one of the tensest silences Lily had to sit through. Once they arrived, Amelia sealed the doors and James kicked up a small fuss about the fact that Dumbledore was absent, Lily nearly rolled her eyes. James didn't like the fact that Bones said Dumbledore wasn't to be there, the Headmaster was supposed to be there to smooth everything out – to make sure Black didn't try and press Amelia to his view.

The Potter Lord shifted and took a deep breath, it didn't matter, Black's charges wouldn't stand, no one in their right mind would convict the Girl-Who-Lived. When Black presented his case James scowled, he was twisting the situation to his needs and trying to implicate Dumbledore too, he heard Rose mutter under her breath and gently soothed her with a gesture. Lily knew instantly, as soon as Sirius had stopped speaking, that whatever James had to say was null and void, it was obvious in Amelia's body language and James' argument wasn't even decent. Hundreds of people had seen Harrison fly, his word against all those was not going to stick and it was stupid for him to even try. It didn't take long for Amelia to tell them that Rose was found guilty and Lily was honestly surprised that the punishment wasn't worse, she cringed slightly when James accused Amelia Bones, of all people, of being bought; it could only get worse. With a great amount of reluctance, Lily left when they were escorted out and followed James in to the elevator.

Rose was crying desperately and James was trying to sooth her the best he could while in a towering fury, he cast a notice-me-not spell on them so no one bothered them while leaving the ministry and he apperated them out when he reached the atrium. They landed in the entrance hall of Potter Manor and Lily stumbled when James shoved her away from him, he snapped for an elf who popped in immediately.

"Fetch Rosie an overnight back and a change of clothes for today, quickly." He barked and the elf disappeared. James kneeled down and wiped away Rose' tears soothing her,

"Hey, calm down. I will sort this out," He told her, "I'm going to send you over to the Weasleys for the night or two and I'll work something out, Ok?"

"Y-yes daddy," She hiccupped. The elf popped back in with a back and James turned to Lily with a deadly glare that made her flinch.

"Do not move." He growled before turning on the spot and disappearing. Lily stayed paralysed in fear before bolting up the stairs, she threw of the robes and dumped them on the bed and hurriedly pulled on a black day robe. She quickly grabbed a bag and packed all of her favourite things such as the green and gold robes and the jewellery that was sentimental to her, like the Lily pendent Severus had given her or the locket her mother had left her before she died cursing the fact that he had taken her wand.

She did thank her stars she had the forethought to case undetectable extension charms on all her small bags, enabling her to use what little wandless magic she could to shrink it and stuff down her bra, running back down as she did so. She had just made it back to the entrance hall and was about to apperate when James appeared, he looked livid and advanced on her.

"I told you not to move." He roared backhanding her with enough force to send her to the ground with a yell.

"James, please." She tried but it fell of deaf ears. She looked up at him and saw a look in his eyes that she had never seen before; it was a crazed spark which sent her blood cold.

"This is your entire fault." He yelled with a kick, "Bringing that damn kid back when he was better off dead."

"No James please, don't do this, please." Lily begged crying out at the curse that hit her. She knew it was too late, it was over; he was going to kill her.