The woman walked in about five minutes later.
As soon as she entered she immediately noticed the changes and mentally winced. The room was now almost back to how her son had it before that night just after Hallowe'en, 1981. She also noticed her little personal knick knacks were all missing.
Frank was sitting behind the office desk and facing her. Alice was sitting to the side in another chair, also facing her. Her chair was almost hard up against the side of the desk.
A vacant chair sat facing the desk and back about ten feet; obviously hers.
"Come in, Mother," Frank firmly said. Then he gestured to the vacant chair and said, "Take a seat."
As soon as she sat he said, "Alice and I have questions for you. You're going to answer them as truthfully and honestly as you can. This will not be an open discussion. And you most certainly do not get to refuse to answer a question I put to you."
Once Augusta sat, Frank stared at her for a few moments and asked, "Why did you not report the two murder attempts against my son, the Heir Apparent of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom, by your brother to the DMLE when they happened?"
Behind her now solid Occlumency shields, Augusta again mentally winced.
"They were not attempts to murder the boy―"
Interrupting, Alice snapped, "You mean Neville. We did not name our son 'the boy'."
"My apologies," Augusta quickly corrected herself. "Yes, Neville. As I was saying, they were not attempts to murder Neville. They were attempts to... encourage him to use accidental magic."
"In other words, to scare the life out of him," snapped Frank. "True or false?"
"T-true," she replied.
"And did you give permission for that man, your brother, to do that?" he pressed.
"N-no, but I think he may have thought I did when I expressed to him my disappointment Neville had not, at that time, expressed any accidental magic, at all."
"And what were you doing telling anyone outside of the House of Longbottom anything about the Heir Apparent of the House?"
"He's my brother. I trust him," she replied.
"But, not a Longbottom!" he snarled.
She dropped her eyes and sadly nodded her head.
Frank continued. "Apparently, he also dropped Neville out of an upstairs window, here at the Hall. If Neville hadn't shown any accidental magic when that occurred, he would have likely been killed.
"Why did you not report that attempted murder event to the DMLE?"
"Neville wasn't hurt!" she replied.
"It's called attempted murder because it's an attempt that fails," he snapped. "When it's successful it's simply called murder!
"So, you're sitting there telling me the man who attempted to murder the Heir Apparent of a Noble and Most Ancient House, you did nothing about?"
"I've banned him from the Hall!" she declared.
"That's it?" he ominously asked.
"He apologised."
Frank and Alice both stared back at her with anger in their eyes and on their faces.
It was some time before Frank finally said, "Well... since you didn't do the right thing about that; tomorrow Alice, Neville and I are going in to the DMLE. Madam Bones has already set aside time in her schedule for us. She is already aware of why we are coming to see her. A case file has already been created for it.
"Alice, Neville and I are going in to see her so that Neville can make a formal statement regarding the two murder attempts upon him by your... lovely... brother.
"Once he has made that statement, I will be demanding your brother's immediate arrest under two separate charges of attempting to murder the Heir Apparent of a Noble and Most Ancient House. We will then let justice decide his punishment.
"Quite frankly, I wouldn't be displeased if his arse was tossed through the Veil in the Death Chamber.
"You, too, will be questioned by the DMLE as to why you did not report either event. It is a crime not to report an attempted murder, let alone when it's the attempted murder of an Heir of a Noble House, as you should bloody well know!"
Both threats were to put Augusta in a position where she was so terrified for what could likely happen to her brother and herself, she would be less likely to lie to the questions Frank and Alice put to her after that.
"Next," he continued. "After you knew our wishes were for our son to grow to do what ever he wanted with his life, why have you been trying to force him to look towards a career as an auror?"
"To honour you," she immediately replied.
"You knew that's not what we wanted for him. You knew we wanted him to be successful at whatever profession he chose to follow... he chose to follow. Neville is clearly a prodigy in Herbology. He also clearly wants to be a Herbologist.
"You tried to force him down an auror track at Hogwarts to honour us? Hippogriff crap! You were trying to force him to become a clone of me, you lying―"
Frank had to shut his mouth to rein his temper in, so Alice took over.
"Why did you not complete what we started back in November 1981 by forcing Dumbledore to hand the then infant Harry Potter over to the alliance?"
"Dumbledore took care of him," Augusta replied.
"Again you lead with, as Frank said, hippogriff crap. You were the Chief Adjudicator for the first part of his trial. You were the Chief Adjudicator for the trial of the Dursleys. And you call that 'taking care of him'?
"The House of Longbottom was required to step in and take direct and primary care of Harry Potter on the death of his parents. You knew this! We had talked to you about it the very day we were attacked! You knew we were demanding Dumbledore hand him over and you knew we were citing the alliance Charter to do so.
"So, I'll ask the question this way... Why did you decide to bring dishonour and shame upon the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom by not upholding the conditions in the alliance Charter?"
"I... couldn't do it!" she began to sob. "You were badly injured and no one knew how to properly treat you. I had Neville and he was my priority―"
.
.
.
🎉The novel is available in PDF with more than 400 chapters, visit us in our Ko-Fi store🎉
🎉ko-fi.com/shihao123🎉