With a grim tight look her mother said, "I see. I know a couple of women from the charity center I volunteer at she can go to. It may delay our moving however. So maybe I should wait until we get settled elsewhere. We'll talk it over at home. Thank you for coming to explain all this to us. I know you didn't have to. Thank you for giving us a chance to save our little girl. Tell Mr. Potter I'm sorry. I didn't see what she was doing or I would have stopped her before it came to this point."
"He doesn't blame you. He knows you're outside our world and have no idea what she was doing within it," Severus assured her. "Just remember, that mark may be ugly now but it isn't permanent. And it is a monitor. It will tell you when she's lying about him or things concerning him. Whether it'll tell you when she's lying about other things, I don't know. I do know it acts on her thought processes as well. So if she's even thinking lies about him or doing bad things to his person or reputation, it will react."
"Anything we should know about that? What to do when it reacts? Or not do?" asked her mother.
"Just call her on her lying. Usually if you call her on it, she'll stop. At least long enough for the mark to settle back down. If she doesn't just make sure she's somewhere she won't get hurt when she passes out. That's the severest reaction I've seen from it so far. It may begin doing more but I'm afraid I have no idea what that could be. This system of punishment hasn't been used in our society since the formation of the Wizengamot. Our court system. And there aren't any written records of what the judgment marks actually do to the people who received them."
"Ok. Thank-you. We don't like it but we also know she couldn't keep getting away with what she was doing. I only wish you adults had been paying better attention."
"So do I, Doctor Grangers. So do I," Severus said shaking each of their hands. Severus left the room to find Minerva waiting for him. As they walked towards the Ministry hearths, the Granger trio were walking Hermione through the auror department checkout procedures. They couldn't help but hear Hermione asking her parents, "So am I to go back to school now? I have tons of homework I need to get done. And Harry definitely needs me to help him with his also. You know I've told you he'd be failing out if not for me making him do his assignments. Are you going to get me punishment on him for what he did to me? I tried to get the Professor do it. I told them you wouldn't be happy with this mark on my face. But they wouldn't listen to me. Did they listen to you?" Thankfully they were soon out of range and didn't hear the rest of her monologue.
But back at Hogwarts and once again secure in his ivory tower, Albus was trying to decide what his next move should be. The life size game of chess had taken on a new dimension and he wasn't quite sure where his playing pieces were right now. The very fact that Albus didn't know exactly what Harry had done to his pawns had Albus tied to his office doing research into the spell when he wasn't running to the bank. Which he had to do more often than ever now. He had to know everything there was to know about the spell; how it worked and how it related to modern day law. How it could be countered and how Harry had found about it was important also. In fact, how it could be countered was perhaps the most important thing of all to know since if he had used it once, there was a damn good chance he'd use it again. And somehow Albus had a feeling he was no more immune to it's effects than the children had been.
That left him no time to speak with Harry personally. Which quite honestly now that he knew Harry knew this very dangerous spell, he didn't want to see his pawn until he had the counter to it ready to use. Not to mention, he feared seeing the boy right now while the money matter was still weighing on his mind for fear of what he might slip up and tell him. After all, last time he'd nearly told him his inheritance was more expansive than he'd led him to believe it was. And the last thing he wanted the boy to know was how wealthy he would become once he achieved his majority. Even if he didn't plan on the boy living that long.
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