The Criminal Trial
In mid-April, the prosecutors and defense lawyer for Reginald Dennison’s trial came to Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall saw them to the conference room. One by one, they met with students to record depositions under McGonagall’s supervision. The lawyers met with Lara, Philip, Aiden, Jason, Freddy and Benedict. After they had recorded testimony from those five, the lawyers also summoned Liam, as Lara, Philip and Benedict referred to the earlier incident between Reginald and Gillian which Liam had played a part. Liam faced questions regarding the Frigidity Curse – what it was like and how he drove it out of Gillian.
The defense counsel’s next move was to petition the judge to have any testimony regarding the earlier incident kept from the jurors. “It’s prejudicial and outside the scope of the current inquiry, your Honour,” he argued.
“It shows the behaviour is part of a pattern,” argued the prosecution. “We will show the accused used the same book to target two prominent female students with these sadistic curses.”
The judge considered the matter for 48 hours before ruling in the prosecution’s favour.
Jury selection was held in the first week of May, in a Wizgamot courtroom in London. The trial commenced with opening statements the following week. The press and the public were kept from the courtroom because both Reginald and Pauline were minors. The gallery was limited to family members only.
Still, Rita Skeeter of Witch Weekly scored a scoop with a bold headline: “Horcrux at Center of Criminal Trial.” Skeeter quoted anonymous sources predicting the defense strategy would focus on whether Reginald was acting on his own or was he unduly influenced, daunted or even possessed by the evil spirit in the horcrux.
Over breakfast, Freya showed Aiden the article. They discussed it in hushed whispers at one end of the Slytherin table, away from the other Fourth Years. “They’re trying to get him off on a technicality,” said Aiden. “Or at the very least, they’re trying to get Dennison a lighter sentence.”
“Whose horcrux is it, though?” asked Freya. “The article doesn’t say.”
“What was the horcrux? It must be something Dennison had on him, something related to the attack on Pauline. Maybe the book itself? It’s supposed to be a collector’s item.”
Freya’s eyes lit up. “The Wicked Vengeance book! Maybe it’s Dethlake’s soul in that thing! He killed his fiancée. There were always rumours that he made one. Maybe that’s it!”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Aiden. “I remember when Dennison would read that thing at night. It gave off a chill like an arctic wind. I thought it was just because it was a Dark Magic book, but maybe there was some other reason. It makes sense, too, that Dennison had something teaching him those curses. That wasn’t Ordinary Wizarding Level magic.”
“The book is teaching him,” said Freya. “That’s what Ben told me. And he was getting his intel from Lara.”
“It’s all fitting together,” said Aiden. “If I’m the defence, I ride this for all it’s worth.”
“What happens after the trial? They don’t keep horcruxes around, do they?”
“No,” said Aiden. “Ministry will have it destroyed.”
“Let’s see what happens to Christian Dethlake after that. If it’s his horcrux, he should die pretty quickly afterwards. He’s a hundred and ten!”
After opening statements, the students were called to testify in person. At McGonagall’s insistence, their testimony was all on the same day. The Sixth Years knew how to apparate by that point. They were expected to return to campus immediately after their testimony. Staff was assigned to escort the Fourth Years back to school as soon as their testimony was concluded, while McGonagall sat in the gallery and observed the trial.
The prosecution slowly revealed to the jury the events of January 28th, witness by witness. Jason and Freddy set the scene and described the attack just as they had before the Slytherin Council. Philip came in and told his part, then Benedict, and finally Lara. The prosecutor had her review both the incident with Gillian as well as the one with Pauline. “I knew we’d been lucky the first time,” she told the jury. “We hit on the answer right away – she’s cold so let’s warm her up. I knew, if it happened again, I wouldn’t be so lucky. I had to have a way of getting the curse out of her no matter which one it was. So, I had my cousin teach me exorcisms.”
The defence attorney had held back with the others, asking only a handful of clarifying questions, but he came at Lara with vigor, challenging all that she said. “What makes you an expert?” he asked. “You’re just now seventeen, am I correct? And now, you want us to believe you are an expert in enduring malignant curses?”
She held her ground with steely resolve. “Nothing in our Healing Arts curriculum prepares us for curses like this,” she said. “If I am an expert, it’s because I have first had experience fighting enduring malignancies. Specifically, the ones from Wicked Vengeance thrown by Reginald Dennison!”
The defence council tried to get the statement struck from the record, but the judge overruled him.
When Lara returned to the room from her cross examination, she was exhausted. Liam was there, waiting his turn to testify. He stood put his arm around her. “You alright? The others were in and out pretty quick, but they kept you in there a while.”
“They don’t want to believe it,” said Lara. “The parents, their attorney, they don’t want to admit that Reginald is that evil, that he attacked Pauline and Gillian out of spite with curses that could have killed both of them had we not been there to stop it.”
“They may not want to believe it,” said Liam, “but it’s still true.”
She turned towards him and pressed her face into his chest. Her hand clutched his shirt while he held her for a long moment. They broke the embrace as the door began to open once more. There was the prosecutor. “We’re done for the day,” he said. “We’ll be moving on to the medical testimony tomorrow. We have an expert from St. Mungo’s coming to review the medical records. Then we’ll move on to Professor Gregor and other matters.”
To Lara, he said, “You held up well under cross. That’s the way it is with Hufflepuffs in my experience. They’re always tougher than they look.” Looking to Liam he said, “I don’t think we’ll need you to speak. She covered it. I don’t want to overload the jury with too much information.”
The two apparated back to the spot on the outskirts of campus. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I needed more of a hug than I thought.”
“It’s alright.”
“I don’t want to complicate things between you and Gillian.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I worry about everything,” she said.
“I know. You’ve done all you can. This just has to play out now. Let the cards fall where they may.”
The next day, the prosecutor summoned the Dean of Healers from the University. The prosecutor showed him the transcript of Pauline’s medical condition as recorded by Benedict Took the night of the attack. “Can you please, for the sake of the jury, explain what you see here?”
The Dean, bright eyed and energetic, described the transcript to the jurors. “When the transcript begins, the patient is in acute distress. Her blood pressure is dangerously high, while her oxygen levels are low. The nervous system ratings indicate that she is wracked with pain. It’s no wonder she was unconscious during this time. The trauma, however, continues only for a few more minutes and then abruptly stops. The first responder has successfully performed the exorcism.”
“Was the patient out of the woods at that point?” asked the prosecutor.
“Not at all. Her breathing returns to normal, so she’s getting a good amount of oxygen now, but her blood pressure drops dramatically. There are points on the record where we almost lose her, but then she spikes up again to normal levels.”
“What accounts for these spikes, Doctor?”
“Well, my understanding is, the boyfriend was beside her and caring for her.”
“Very good. We have had testimony from said boyfriend. This is quite a curse, is it not?”
“Indeed, it is. A vicious curse, in all my years of studying enduring malignancies, one of the worst. I have never heard of a girl surviving it before.”
“What made the difference in this case? Was this a weak or ineffective cast?”
“Hardly. You can see from the record, this did nearly kill her. She was saved because the boyfriend was there to defend her. He fought off the attacker and then called for help, and that help knew exactly what to do. Either one of those things don’t happen and she dies, it’s as simple as that.”
The defense attorney asked, “Is this curse at the Ordinary Wizarding Level?”
“Heavens no. Enduring malignancies are advanced dark magic.”
“Are you surprised to learn that the attacker in this case is still fourteen years old?”
“I am. How he learned a curse like this at his age is beyond me.”
The following day, the prosecutor called Professor Gregor to the stand. The prosecutor focused on the interview with Dennison after the attack. Gregor stated that Dennison seemed unrepentant, proud of what he had done. Anticipating the questions of the defense counsel, the prosecutor asked, “Was he acting strangely that day, or out of character in your opinion?”
“No, he was not,” said Gregor firmly. “He has the same manner in class as he had in his interview with the Aurors.”
The defense attorney’s first question was, “What sort of student is Reginald Dennison? How are his scores?”
“His scores are generally good,” said Gregor. “As expected, he does well in some classes and average in others.”
“What are his electives?”
“Arithmancy and Magical Creatures.”
“Arithmancy is a demanding discipline, is it not? University applicants are required to at least have earned Exceeding Expectations on their O.W.L. for admission to most programs.”
“That is correct,” said Gregor.
“What is Reginald Dennison’s score in Arithmancy?”
“He is currently rated Outstanding in the subject.”
“A top student, in other words.”
“If it weren’t for his discipline issues, which we have seen from his first days at Hogwarts, yes, he would be considered a top student.”
“Let’s turn our attention to the curses from this book, Wicked Vengeance. Are you familiar with these curses, Professor?”
“I had not studied them in any great detail prior to last spring, when Reginald Dennison struck another student with the Frigidity Curse.”
“We have heard testimony about that, and about the Barren Curse, from the student first responders. The Dean of Healing at the University says this is advanced dark magic. Do you have any idea how a young boy such as Reginald Dennison learned such a curse?”
“That was my question, too, from the moment he struck his first victim. What is the source of this magic, and who is teaching him? When I finally held the book in my hand, I knew the answer. As he said in his confession statement, the book itself was teaching him. Or rather, there was something in the book that was teaching him. That copy of Wicked Vengeance had been made into a horcrux.”
The defense attorney feigned shock at the news. “Such an evil thing to hold in one’s hand. Some evil spirit locked away inside the book. Do you think this spirit may have daunted or intimidated young Reginald into committing these crimes?”
“It was certainly a bad influence on him,” agreed Gregor. “The spirit likely built upon the misogyny and racism that he had already learned from his family.”
“Could it have possessed him?”
“It is possible, yes, but I do not think that this is the case here.”
“And why not?”
“There really was no change in his behavior in the last few terms. If anything, last term, leading up to this incident, he was attempting to keep a low profile. I’m sure he was quite impressed to have such an evil thing take an interest in him and want to instruct him on its secret knowledge, but he never seemed afraid or daunted.”
“Still, it is difficult to be sure, isn’t it? Young boys are so impressionable,” said the defense counsel.
“All the more reason not to keep such a book in one’s house,” said Gregor.
Rita Skeeter’s breathless headline the next day: “Was the boy possessed? Defense counsel plants seeds of doubt.”
The horcrux became the center of the trial. Both sides called expert witnesses to speculate on how much of Reginald’s actions was attributable to him and how much was due to the horcrux. The defense expert gave case histories of other people who had been unduly influenced and even possessed by the evil spirits within horcruxes. The prosecution countered with testimony from teachers, aurors and the tutor assigned to keep Reginald up on his studies. None reported a drastic change in his behaviour. He never seemed daunted or fearful, as if he expected punishment for some failure. Nor did he seem aghast or remorseful, or even momentarily befuddled, signs that he was emerging from the control of the Imperius Curse.
Every expert ultimately gave the same answer: yes it’s possible that the spirit in the horcrux could have possessed or otherwise manipulated the boy, but there’s no evidence that it did. His exposure to the book was limited, especially after he hid it on the campus grounds. Since both attacks occurred after the book was hidden, the attack on Pauline well after, it was difficult to show convincingly that the horcrux forced Reginald to curse the girls.
This may have been more easily clarified if Reginald Dennison had testified in his own defense. His counselor considered it, but after a practice interrogation, he decided against it. On the stand, even in rehearsal, Reginald was haughty, cold, arrogant. His lawyer knew from experience that this attitude would not play well before a jury. Reginald could not be forced to testify, however, and the lawyer decided in the end that he should not wave that right.
The case was otherwise cut and dried. Witnesses testified that he cursed Pauline, and he admitted to doing it. All the defense could do was sew doubt and hope for a light sentence from the judge.
After a two-week trial, the prosecution and defense rested their cases. The prosecutor passionately called for the jury to convict, and the defense with equal vigor asked for understanding and mercy. The jury deliberated for a full day before returning its verdict: Guilty of magical assault with indifference to human life; Not Guilty of attempted murder. The judge promised to render a sentence within 30 days. According to the press’ legal experts, the sentence was likely to be three to five years.
Aiden and Freya were not the only ones following the trial in the press. Lara read the story in the Daily Prophet, a smaller, less salacious version of events than the one in Witch Weekly, the next morning at breakfast. She passed the story to Philip. Eventually, Benedict got his hands on it and read it.
He had lingered at the breakfast table and moved his way slowly until he was beside Lara. “He could be out in three years?” asked Benedict. “That doesn’t seem like enough time.”
Lara said, “He will be sentenced to five years, and he will serve the full time. He will not be paroled early.”
“You’re sure? I guess you would be.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She sighed. “I get to be a regular teenage girl now, at least for a year.”
“You’ll get five years’ peace, though, right?” asked Benedict.
“From this, yes,” said Lara, with a gentle smile. “But after Hogwarts, I’m off to St. Mungo’s. I’ll be in their healing program, and I’ll have my hands full from the first day. Next year is my last year to have fun and be a girl.”