Chapter 57
Chapter 56
“What?!” Harry exclaimed. “I’m sorry. WHAT?!”
He wasn’t the only one. Next to him, Severus and Deidric were shocked to the core as well. Many of the Lords and Ladies were and even Lucius looked like his jaw had hit the floor and had stayed there. Madam Bones made no attempt to calm down the room as she too stared at the former headmaster with wide eyes.
When she finally banged her gavel to restore order, Lucius uttered, “Perhaps he didn’t hear your question right. He is over a hundred. The old fool might be going senile.”
“Please state your full name for the record,” Amelia asked once more, this time making sure that her voice carried through the room.
“Gellert Allusius Grindelwald,” came out of Albus’s mouth.
“How?! How are you Gellert Grindelwald?!” she then asked as something like this had never happened before.
“I have always, and always will be Gellert Grindelwald.”
“Then where is Albus Dumbledore?”
“Imprisoned in my body in Numengard.”
“How? How did you do this?!” Harry stood up and shouted, having lost his composure while Madam Bones shot him a look of shock. Had he just spent decades hating the wrong man?
Dumbledore, or rather Grindelwald, still under the potion's influence, said monotonously, “This is a spell of my own creation. I needed more time to realize my goals, so I created the spell to switch bodies with young, magically talented people. Never in my imagination did I think I would cast it in my duel with Albus.”
“Since 1945?! You’ve been posing as Dumbledore since 1945?!” Harry looked like he sucked a lemon. He’d landed in 1965, so it was never the real Dumbledore he spoke to. He sagged back in his seat as the truth washed over him. But then, something else made him question everything. ‘Was Dumbledore in his reality also Grindelwald?’
Normally, Madam Bones would reprimand someone from the audience for asking questions out of turn however, she too was shocked to the core. The Dumbledore she had actually worked with for years and admired before this whole mess blew up was actually Grindelwald, one of the darkest wizards this century, no less. She took a breath and pulled herself together. She still had a job before the Veritaserum wore off.
“We will be going down the list of crimes you have been charged with,” Amelia stated sternly while a hush fell over the Wizengamot by itself for once.
“Have you ever misappropriated Hogwarts funds?”
“Yes,” The former Headmaster answered monotonously.
“You knowingly pocketed the budgets for classes that were to be offered and never made it known to the students that these classes existed?” Amelia stated with an edge in her voice.
“Yes,”
“Were you ever discovered?” she then asked.
“Nearly, but I dealt with it,” Albus, no, Grindelwald answered, his eyes still blank.
“Have you ever fraudulently misrepresented Hogwarts teaching contracts?”
“No,”
“No?” Amelia frowned as she looked at the stack of papers in front of her provided by the Hogwarts auditors, which clearly showed otherwise.
“Perhaps change your question a bit,” Lucius whispered in her ear. “It may be true on paper, but it might not be the person’s truth.”
“Have you ever fraudulently misrepresented any Hogwarts teaching contract?”
“Yes,”
“Why did you answer no the first time?”
“Because it was plural,” Grindelwald answered, and even in his monotone response, Amelia could hear a hint of smugness from it.
“Why?”
“Because that brat Snape needed to be taught a lesson,” was the response that sent murmurs through the room. Harry saw Severus’s brows shoot up in shock and confusion.
“Explain, in detail,” Amelia’s voice hardened.
“Severus Snape was one of the students to ask me about the Alchemy elective class in his third year. How he knew of it, I had no clue at the time but I managed to settle the matter, saying that that class is not offered at Hogwarts. When Severus insisted that he had a source that stated that it was, I had no recourse but to obliviate the boy.”
Harry flinched as Severus’s nails dug into his arm. When he turned to look at his lover, he saw shock and disbelief plastered on his face. Even across the room, Lady Longbottom looked disgusted. Obliviating a student was an absolutely deplorable act. However, the Headmaster continued his detailed confession. “What I had not counted on was for the boy to have been in contact with Nicolas Flamel. When Flamel approached me, furious that the Snape boy, whom he wanted as an apprentice, did not even remember meeting him, I had no choice but to obliviate the man as well. Severus Snape nearly ruined my carefully cultivated relationship with the Flamels, so I vowed to make him pay someday. The opportunity arrived when I was drafting his teaching contract. By leaving out the Potion Master fund from his contract while secretly pocketing it, I made him pay out of pocket for any potions and research he wished to conduct. That should have kept that brat humbled; instead, he still thrived. I was seeting the day he published his improvements to the Wolfsbane potion and several others.”
Lucius looked genuinely disturbed by Grindelwald’s admission, and Harry was, too. “Have you ever obliviated any other minor?”
“Yes,”
“Who and why?” Amelia asked carefully, hesitating if she even wanted to know the answer.
“James Potter, when the boy dared to try and disarm me after I had obliviated Snape,” Grindelwald uttered unremorsefully.
“Merlin,” Harry whispered while Severus actually just stared wide-eyed at the man. The room, too, did not know how to react. There were exclimations of outrage, shock, disbelief, and disgust. Amelia had to bang her gavel a couple of times to restore order.
“As the Veritaserum is wearing off, we will break for a one-hour recess before we can administer the potion again,” Amelia stated. Harry wanted them to force-feed the man the potion, as he had to endure for days on end. He turned to look back at Severus, who was deep in thought.
“I could use a stiff drink,” Harry whispered.
“I could use a whole bottle.” Neither Harry nor Deidric disagreed. That was how the pair found themselves at a pub near the Ministry’s main entrance. Both young men watched Snape down a tumbler of whiskey like it was water.
“We might need to keep Severus away from the bottle after this,” Deidric whispered to Harry. “I have a feeling this whole thing is going to get even worse.”