The Trial
The alarm spell Harry placed on the door activated. It only made the door flash bright gold for a few moments. Somebody was coming. For a moment Harry thought it was another Healer - he had seen a few Healers in the last hour; they had been fascinated by him and his remarkable regeneration. He had also asked one of them to test whether or not the Dementor's year-long exposure had done anything to his ability to have kids.
While he knew he wasn't…with it socially and he had criminal tendencies, Harry had always wanted to have kids. He had always wanted family, and he still did if he wanted his plans to go forwards. As before when he saw the door start to open he quickly cancelled the spell and placed his borrowed wand deep in the Azkaban robes.
The door opened and Amelia Bones walked in with two Aurors. Black and Dumbledore followed them.
"It's time," Bones said simply.
Harry stood up. As he did one of the Aurors stepped forward. Harry recognised her at once after a moment of trying to place her. Yeah, he had seen her before. He'd seen her the year before; she was a young Auror with a heart-shaped face, but he'd needed a moment to place her because the woman had sported dark red hair that always seemed to change colour. But right now her hair was dreary and depressed. The look in her teary eyes as she looked at him, and how she appeared to be on the verge of saying something but thought better of it because of his glacial attitude which only sharpened when his body language tensed when he recognised her stopped her in her tracks.
Oh, he remembered her. Yeah, he did. When he had been led out of the courtroom, the Auror had not hidden her disgust for him and she'd called him a disgrace to his parent's memories. He had heard that before several times, but the way this Auror had said it was a bit more personal as if she had known his parents.
Harry genuinely didn't give a damn. He didn't care if his parents had met and interacted with every child in the magical world before their deaths. He had no intention of forgiving this woman. And it seemed she had worked that out if the look in her teary eyes was anything to go by.
After a moment of waiting for her to do her job, something that seemed to be irritating Bones, Harry snapped, "Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to get a move on? I want this trial over and done with."
The Auror jumped, her eyes leaking more at his tone. "S-sorry," she stuttered before she visibly got control over herself. She took out her wand and flicked it silently at his hands. Harry flinched as he felt the magical restraining cuffs snap onto his wrists, feeling the drain on his magic instantly.
"There's no need for this," Harry tried his best to hide his discomfort. He had absorbed a lot of magic from Voldemort and his followers, but the cuffs felt as if that magic was being squeezed. "I'm not going to escape. I want this trial. I want to be free."
"Standard protocol for prisoners, I'm afraid Mr Potter. Fudge is already…concerned about your actions at Azkaban. If he sees you without them, then he will likely cause problems for you and your hopes to regain your freedom," Bones said apologetically.
Harry scowled. He had bad memories of how his magic had been imprisoned the first time he'd been sentenced. He had never experienced anything like it in his life. The Aurors had laughed at his reaction, jeering that he deserved it. One of them was the young Auror who'd spent the last two minutes looking at him like she was about to burst into tears. "Alright, let's just get on with it."
The party left the hospital with Harry scowling coldly at everyone who had the unfortunate temerity to even look at him. They portkeyed over to the Ministry. The moment they appeared in the atrium, all activity stopped. There were reporters and cameramen snapping pictures of him. Harry flinched and hissed in irritation every single time one of the flashes blinded his eyes. The Aurors did their best to clear a path. As they did Harry caught sight of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, and his scowl became worse.
He had seen the Fountain last year, and even then he had known the message it was representing showed the arrogance and the utter disdain wizards showed to magical creatures extremely clearly. There was no doubt in his mind the Fountain had been commissioned to show the wizarding world and its creatures living in total harmony. It was a lie. It only showed off the attitude of the old pureblood bigotry perfectly. The goblin, the House Elf, and the Centaur were directly below the wizard and the witch, and even the witch was slightly below the wizard, which showed off the sexist attitudes of so many wizards. What made the statue so bigoted was the almost blind devotion on the faces of the House Elf, the goblin, and the centaur as they looked at the wizard and the witch. Harry had been in the wizarding world long enough to know the goblins hated wizards and witches, and the centaur's attitude towards them wasn't great either. He remembered the scowls on the faces of the goblins whenever he visited Gringotts, and he would never forget the belligerence Firenze had experienced when the other centaurs saw him on the more benevolent centaur's back.
But looking at the statue now when the year before he had merely regarded the gaudy thing as nothing more than an extravagant lie that showed off the farce of pureblood supremacy only too well, Harry saw it as a visible sign of how the wizarding world was built on lie upon lie. These people were not interested in the truth. They were just too dumb to not see it.
Harry was relieved when he was taken to the courtroom. When he learnt it was the same courtroom as the one he'd been dragged into the year before for his trial, he shuddered.
This time…
This time it felt like Harry was just being taken back into the courtroom after a double session or something. The whole courtroom was packed with what looked like the entire magical world. There were dozens of people he distantly recognised and those whom he didn't, and there were dozens of reporters who were taking notes. It wasn't long before Harry saw the Weasleys and Hermione in the crowd, looking at him miserably. Once he spotted them he looked away and looked elsewhere, proving he wanted nothing to do with them. They had made it very clear during the Triwizard Tournament and the trial that they were not people whom he wished to call friends, and he was pretty happy with the new arrangement.
Harry studied the judging panel. A few of the faces from the last trial were there, but there were also just as many who were different. Harry didn't know the reason and he didn't care. He just wanted this over and done with.
Harry sat through the trial detachedly. His mind was full of the memories of the trial, and what a humiliating trial it was, and as he looked around the courtroom while his wrists ached in pain as he sat in shackles, those memories bubbled to the surface. Harry could see, as before, many of the wizards and witches were looking down at him, muttering and pointing. Harry didn't care. He realised he didn't give a damn about their opinions of him anymore. As far as he was concerned, they could say and think whatever they wanted.
Dumbledore was standing near him, but the rest of his followers - for that was what he saw them as - were sitting. Seeing their miserable faces, Harry thought it was a switch; Granger had been full of self-righteousness, and Weasley (all of them) regaled the court with tales of how evil he was. Every adventure at Hogwarts was twisted to show him in the worst possible light. As he looked at them now, so miserable, Harry remembered the way he was humiliated in primary school by Dudley and the others kids. Back then he'd known where he'd stood, at least in the muggle world he wasn't famous for something Lily Potter had done. But here, everyone had so many expectations and woe betide him if he made a mistake, said something contrary to what they all wanted. Harry had always questioned their friendship at times since the Philosopher's Stone traps were so tailor-made for them all. All of the traps were too easy, and an experienced wizard like Voldemort would have had little trouble getting through them.
Harry was so caught up in his memories that he barely noticed the proceedings. The trial went on as it had before, with both sides offering evidence and giving testimony. He listened calmly, detachedly as the full story of how his innocence was played out. Wormtail was caught with Barty Crouch Junior, and Severus Snape in a Death Eater raid. Harry found it ironic as he continued to listen to the story not only was his innocence proven, but so was Sirius Black's. Once the full scale of the conspiracy was released, the magical world rushed to free Harry and Sirius…only for them to get into a battle with Voldemort near Azkaban.
"I will show the court the end of the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Amelia Bones finished. She took her wand out and pointed it upwards. Harry watched the spell with interest, guessing it was a more powerful and portable version of a pensieve memory spell. The court and the audience watched in guilt as Harry was thrown out of the boat, weak, malnourished and exhausted. They had done that to him, thrown him into prison without a thought. The blank, hollow-eyed pale skin as he struggled to stand tore at their hands, but their guilt turned to surprise as they listened to the camaraderie between Harry and Voldemort, who spoke as if they were old friends. They had never expected the Boy-Who-Lived would speak to the Dark Lord in such a manner, never mind vice versa.
They watched in horror as Harry asked Voldemort to kill him. They watched in awe as the two wizards fought. They were stunned as they witnessed for themselves the prowess Harry Potter showed, even half starved and needing a parselmagic spell to keep going. Those in the courtroom, who were experienced in duelling and magical fighting, noticed how Harry used less powerful curses and used melee surroundings to his advantage.
Everyone was stunned when they saw Harry change his tactics and used the unforgivable curses on the Death Eaters, but they were shocked when he used thaumaturgy on the Dark Mark of a stunned Death Eater. From the point of view of Amelia Bones, everyone watched as Harry drained the Dark Lord and his followers of their magic, using it all to regain his former health and strength before Voldemort expired. They were even more astonished when they saw Harry using the killing curse on the Dark Lord's corpse. Harry's harsh words, the hate he felt towards the magical world, tore at their hearts even more.
Finally, it ended, and Harry was released. But he didn't look away, as he sat there completely unemotional.
"Mr Potter…Mr Potter?" Madam Bones tried to get his attention. "Are you alright?"
Harry lifted his head and looked her in the eye with his blank stare. Amelia was a tough Auror and Head of the DMLE. She wasn't one to be intimidated easily, and yet seeing the cold diamond-hard emerald stare of Lily's eyes in her son's face made her want to shake and hide. "Yes?" he replied.
"You killed the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named today. Do you know what that means?" She asked, making Harry sigh.
"Yes. Life imprisonment for using the unforgivable curses," Harry said without feeling.
The silence was deafening. In the audience, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin gazed at the only child the Marauders ever had, the only child Lily and James had before their deaths with tears dripping down their faces. Hermione and the other women were crying in horror. The rest of the audience they were stunned by how jaded Harry was. They found it difficult to believe the boy just expected them to send him back into hell. They just refused to see it from his point of view. They had done it before, and he knew they could do it again.
"Mr Potter, that…that's not what's going to happen," Amelia tried to get over her shock and regain her composure.
"I don't believe you. I've been lied to so many times. I've been lied to by the muggles Dumbledore forced me to live with. My so-called friends lied to my face and behind my back. They twisted every single moment of my time at Hogwarts. Half of the magical world got in this very courtroom and lied about me. Even the so-called friends of my parents have lied and stabbed me in the back, what else do you expect?" Harry was merciless in his retort. "I meant what I said earlier. I want to leave the magical world. There's nothing for me here, and I don't want what any of you have to provide. I want to take the pieces of my life you shattered and put them back together again, without any more of you meddling in my business."
Everyone was staggered and horrified by the overwhelming bitterness in Harry's voice, but they all heard something else that hurt them more. There was a world of pain inside his body, and he just wanted to soothe it.
Fudge didn't seem to care at all about the misery Harry had gone through. "He still killed Cedric Diggory. Diggory was dead before he returned to Hogwarts!" The Minister for Magic yelled as he shook his fists.
Harry rolled his eyes. He had encountered Fudge's lack of common sense before. The Minister for Magic had the dangerous talent of ignoring various facts, picking out what he liked best and then clinging onto them without bothering to check them or think there might be a different story.
"No, that's not true! We heard from Peter Pettigrew, he was the one who murdered Cedric Diggory!" A wizard nearby yelled defiantly into Fudge's ear before looking sheepish when faced by Amos Diggory, Cedric's father. Everyone began arguing, offering different points of view and different arguments.
"SHUT UP!"
Everyone was stunned by the slight wave of magic that rocked the courtroom. "Just shut up!" Harry shouted as he lost his patience. "Madam Bones," he said quickly, "that spell you used to project memories, can you do it to me, so I can show everyone my fourth year at Hogwarts to clear up the misconceptions and tell the truth."
Madam Bones caught on quickly to what he wanted. "Yes, I can," she moved quickly towards Harry before Fudge or anybody else could stop her. She had longed to learn more about what happened during the debacle of the last Triwizard Tournament. She had protested loudly about it for a long time, but Fudge and Dumbledore had overruled her.
Taking out her wand, Amelia told Harry what to do as she held the tip at Harry's temple. "Just relax," she said, "think of the memories you want to be projected. The spell will do the rest."
Harry nodded as he readied himself as the tip of Amelia's wand touched his temple. A ghostly holographic viewing of Harry's memories appeared. Harry had decided to start with Voldemort's murder of the elderly muggle, Frank Bryce. Whispers of the Dark Lord's knowledge which had dripped through the link, the location of his Horcruxes and the way he had achieved immortality had seeped in, aided by Harry's nascent skill in the mind arts.
From there they could see Harry had made a plan. He knew the Dark Lord planned on using his blood in a resurrection ritual by pushing him into the Triwizard Tournament.
Harry showed no hesitation in showing some of his more unpleasant memories of his time with the Dursleys to give the ignorant wizards a taste of what he'd put up with all his life. Hearing the toddler Harry's screams as he was beaten whenever the Dursleys felt like it or whenever a burst of accidental magic appeared tore them to pieces. Harry also had no problems letting his thoughts creep through when the stupid Weasley twins gave Dudley that stupid sweet. He knew, by them doing that, he was going to be in a world of pain.
When it came to meeting Cedric Diggory for the first time, everyone saw the way the Hufflepuff arrogantly puffed up when Amos lauded his son's achievements. But Harry's thoughts on the matter were apathetic. He didn't care what the Diggory family told the next generation.
As the memories wore on until Harry went back to Hogwarts, they saw him use the Room of Requirement and the Chamber of Secrets to help him discover more about how the Dark Marks worked so then he could finalise his plans. When his name came out of the Goblet of Fire and before he proved he hadn't put his name into it, Harry had just put up with the accusations of cheating.
Cedric Diggory was also an unpleasant realisation. While the boy was a Hufflepuff, that did not mean he was an instantaneous nice guy. They watched as he mocked Harry, and laughed at the childish badges Draco Malfoy distributed…and all the time they heard Harry's thoughts of contempt and pity for Diggory. It quickly became clear to them that Harry hadn't cared about Cedric at all, but he had still given Cedric the warning about the dragon.
Up until that moment, Minister Fudge had been pretty pleased by his accusations even if they guessed that Cedric was one of those people whom Harry just ignored. But when he warned Cedric of the dragon, Fudge's pleasure died out.
Whispers of Harry's thoughts crossed their minds, of how much he was doing it because he wanted to be the better man compared to Diggory, who had spent all the time since the names were drawn out of the Goblet of Fire, bullying the younger wizard, and even when he was shown to be innocent, the Hufflepuff didn't stop.
But Harry had blanked him out, and everyone soon heard in their minds that he had done it primarily because he honestly thought Cedric was not worth the time. As the memories of that time were shown, Harry showed them how he had used the Room of Requirement and the Chamber of Secrets library to help him with his spell repertoire and to come up with ideas that would help him survive the Tournament while having access to magical knowledge that was old and highly advanced.
Everyone knew that Harry Potter had not only outflown the Hungarian Horntail, but he had also wounded it with a spell out of a Dark Arts book. Well now, everyone found out where he had gotten the knowledge. The spell was only borderline dark, it was neutral enough to not be seen as light or dark.
In the aftermath of the First Task, everyone witnessed how Harry just blanked out his former friends; they had all seen the way he had been treated, but now Harry was liking being independent, but everyone knew how that would be regarded later. Harry had asked Padma Patil to the Yule Ball, the only girl he had spoken to and seemed neutral about him. He hadn't even spared a glance towards Diggory and Cho Chang.
Everyone was horrified when they saw how Cedric attacked Harry, Krum, and Delacour in the lake so he could get to his hostage first, and it was only thanks to them being given gillyweed supplied by Harry, supplied by the raid on the potions cupboard that they survived.
It was the Third Task which turned out to be the biggest eye-opener into what Cedric Diggory was like. Harry had helped Krum and Delacour when the Durmstrang Champion was hit by the Imperius curse and was sent to attack the other Champions to get Harry to the trophy unimpeded, and when the younger wizard got to the Trophy, Cedric attacked Harry and grabbed onto the handle at the same time. Harry had been furious and ranted at the Hufflepuff that he was ruining months and months of planning and preparation. But it was too late; while many in the courtroom wondered at the significance of the name Thomas Riddle, Wormtail murdered Diggory and managed to overpower Harry with the help of another Death Eater, and took his blood for the resurrection ritual.
If they'd had the means, they would have screamed in fright at the sight of Lord Voldemort as he appeared, but the spell had locked them all tightly and they couldn't react. They listened as the Dark Lord recounted his history and what happened to him, before he began the duel with Harry. Everyone was in awe of the way the young wizard fought some of the Aurors wondered if they could even go toe to toe with someone like Harry Potter even if they were wary of his free and liberal use of the Dark Arts, while they heard his whispered thoughts in their minds of trying to get to a Death Eater. But he failed, no matter what he tried.
In the end, he had to escape. He summoned his patronus to distract everyone, but unfortunately, Voldemort quickly applied the curse which everyone knew about. Nobody who had been at Hogwarts on that dark, terrible night could ever forget how many people had been killed, or maimed. All they remembered was the screaming, the pain and the dead. And how Harry Potter was blamed.
There was no disputing it anymore. Harry Potter was innocent of murder, even if he had been using Dark magic. But he was just trying to survive. They had heard in their heads, his desire to survive and live, and rebuild the Potter family. They had heard he just wanted to live…only to be thrown in prison.
Madam Bones, who'd been focusing on the memories she had been searching for, felt her connection to Harry start to slacken. And then suddenly, it was back. For a moment, she wondered what was happening. It wasn't until she saw the projection spell reactivate and show new memories that she realised Harry Potter had taken control using some control over his mind.
He was projecting new memories.
This was not over. It was far from being over.