And the three detention supervisors were only too happy to help him. They rarely attended the games anyway. Hagrid only liked to go when Harry was playing and neither Mr. Filch or the elves ever went to the games. So having a detention to supervise away from the playing field during them didn't bother them at all. Hagrid often took Ginerva into the Forest of Death to remote and semi-dangerous places where he'd have her mucking about in the mud and sludge for grubs and hard to harvest potion ingredients Professor Snape claimed to have a need for. Half of the time what she was looking for was something Harry had asked him to keep an eye out for but she didn't know that. The house elves had all sorts of disgusting kitchen duties for Hermione to perform while Mr. Filch kept Ron in the bowels of the Castle cleaning rooms and oiling old disciplining tools that were so out of date Ron didn't even know what they'd been called or how they'd been used.
Not even the uninvolved teachers had any sympathy for them once the truth of those runes made it's way through the school grapevine. Madam Pince didn't often speak up for any particular student or on a particular subject but when she did you could bet what she said was the truth and nothing but the truth. The entire hall had heard her say those marks were caused by the bearer's own sense of guilt and made with their own magic. And Professor Babbling, whom most of the students believed knew her Runes backwards and forwards, seemed to agree with her. And if those two women, who both knew Hermione Granger quite well due to her dedication to learning, believed Mr. Potter hadn't done anything wrong, then who were they to quibble.
Therefore, all the backstabbing attempts made by the trio to gain sympathy for themselves while painting Harry as a villain for doing such a thing as disfiguring them, backfired. It didn't help them any that the marks would tell their audience when they began lying even if the words they actually used were correct and every person in the school became adept at noticing even the smallest of inflamation around the runes. After all, Harry had said they could no longer lie about him even by omission and all the students had heard Professor Babbling say the marks were behavior monitors. Those who had worn behavior modifiers on their clothing as children or had them used at the table during meal times, explained the term to those who hadn't. So it only took a couple of days for everyone in the school to understand how the Runes worked. And despite Minerva's best efforts, not one of the students believed them to be dark magic.
Once she had wrapped her mind around how her favored students came to be disfigured not even Minerva would hear their excuses any longer. She'd read the booklet Irma had given her three times looking for anything that might indicate Mr. Potter hadn't had the right to mark them like that or that it was in fact a dark magic spell which she could use to prove he was more in the wrong than they. Unfortunately for her, the book made it clear he had every right.
The book made it very clear what he had done was to call for the judgement of magic itself upon them. While he had used his magic to call for justice, it had been their own magic that had read their hearts, minds, bodies and souls before causing the runes to appear on their faces. This was a concept Minerva could fully understand as she was born and bred to the magical world. She knew magic was more than simple energy but not quite sentient on it's own. It had no specific shape or form so it couldn't act without a conduit. But it was perfectly capable of making it's own decisions and choices.
Magic itself had been the arbiter and was currently the monitor of the marks. Everyone knew Magic was neither light nor dark. It simply was. In short, they had been judged by the very gift they had been born with and it had found them wanting. Therefore only they could make themselves worthy of her gift again.
Once she had finally decided the trio had been judged by Magic and not by Mr. Potter, she was able to finally begin putting it into perspective. She felt better once she realized the marks weren't permanent. The children wouldn't have to bear them for the rest of their lives. All they had to do was meet the conditions Mr. Potter had laid down for them and the marks would vanish as if they'd never been there at all. And while a friendship with Mr. Potter was most likely out of the question for them now, that was understandable. They'd done him wrong. For years now. They had to have expected him to realize it someday and when that day came surely they wouldn't have believed he'd still call them friend. However there was nothing stopping them from making new friends once those marks went away. So they still had their lives in front of them and those lives could still be good lives.
It irked her that she had to handle the situation by herself as Albus was out of the Castle more often than not these days. She really wanted his advice on how to handle the matter but he wasn't here to ask. What he was doing, she didn't know. But then it was often like that as he was a busy man. He did have three job titles plus Mr. Potter's banking matters and reputation issues to deal with. He claimed this time he was dealing with personal business but he wouldn't explain in further detail than that. Nor did she feel she had any right to inquire further. She knew a lot of people important in the world held him in high respect and often called upon him to advise them. And for him personal business could mean just about anything. But until he returned, she had no way to know how he would want the situation handled. So she had no choice but to do as she thought best.
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