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⚡︎
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄
ʰᵃʳʳʸ'ˢ ʰᵉᵃʳⁱⁿᵍ

"Wᴇʟʟ . . . ᴏɴᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴡᴀs
ᴠᴇʀʏ ʟᴀʀɢᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ
ʀᴀᴛʜᴇʀ sᴋɪɴɴʏ."

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 the first things Harry noticed when he walked into the courtroom, was that every single pair of eyes were trained on him, making him feel rather like an animal trapped in a cage, free for the public to stare at. Another thing he noticed was that the courtroom was filled to the brim with people, only a couple of empty seats were dotted around the room, it seemed as though all members of the Wizengamot and many ministry workers had come to watch Harry's trial. Great he thought bitterly.

"You're late." A cold male voice rang out in the room.

"Sorry." Said Harry nervously. "I was with Mr. Weasley and we didn't know the time of my hearing had changed."

"That is not the Wizengamot's fault," said the voice. "An owl was sent to you this morning. Take your seat." The male voice gestured the to the chair that sat rather awkwardly in the middle of the room.

He sat down in the chair and the chains immediately made a clink! noise, but did not however, link around his arms (much to the boy's relief).

Feeling rather sick, he looked up at the people seated at the bench above. There were about fifty of them, all, as far as he could see, wearing plum - coloured robes with an elaborately worked W on the left - hand side of their chest.

In the very middle, sat the minister, Cornelius Fudge with a stern looking frown on his face. Fudge was a portly man, who often sported a lime - green bowler hat, though today he had dispensed with it; he had dispensed too with the indulgent smile he had once worn when he spoke to Harry. A broad, square - jawed witch with very short gray hair sat on Fudge's left; she wore a monocle and looked forbidding. On Fudge's right was another witch, but she was sitting so far back on the bench that her face was in shadow.
Fudge banged the gavel on the sound block, the noise echoed once more throughout the room.

"Disciplinary hearing of the 12th of August into offences committed by Harry James Potter, resident at number four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court Scribe, Percy Ignatius Weasley —"

A sudden booming voice entered the courtroom. "— Witness for the defence!, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," said the man Harry now knew to be Dumbledore from behind Harry, who turned his head so fast he cricked his neck.

"Ah, Dumbledore," Fudge's already pale face lost colour. Taking off his glasses, (which Harry was almost sure he didn't need) he continued. "You — er — got our — er — message that the time and — er — place of the hearing had been changed, then?"

"I must of missed it." Admitted Dumbledore. "However, by a happy mistake I arrived at the ministry three hours early."

"The charges?" Asked Dumbledore.

"The charges against the accused are as follows, that he did knowingly and in full awareness of the illegality of his actions, produce a Patronus charm in the presence of a muggle. Do you deny producing said Patronus?" Asked Fudge.

"No —" Harry tried to answer.

"— And you were aware that you are forbidden to use magic outside of school while under the age of 17?"

"Yes but —" Harry replied but was interrupted yet again by Fudge.

"Witches and Wizards of the Wizengamot —"

"I was only doing it because of the dementors!" Harry yelled out, frustrated. Once more, all eyes were on him, then to the minister in question. Gasps and whispers alerted from every memeber of the Wizengamot.

"Dementors? In Little Whinging?" Asked the woman Harry knew to be Amelia Bones.

"Yes, that's quite clever," Fudge spoke, while pointing out what Amelia had just said. "Muggles can't see dementors can they boy?"

Harry merely shook his head in agreement.

"Highly convenient." He countered.

"I'm not lying!" He shouted out, everything about what Sirius had said about not losing his temper and being polite immediately being thrown out the window.

"There were two of them and if I hadn't —" Harry tried to continue.

Harry was silenced by a wave of Fudge's hand. "— Enough. I'm sorry to interrupt what would of been a very well rehearsed story but since you can't provide any witnesses of the event —"

"Pardon me minister, but as it happens, we can." Spoke Dumbledore, and for the first time since Harry had walked into the dingy Courtroom, he felt a sliver of hope. Although it diminished just as quickly when Mrs. Figg walked into the room and sat where Harry previously had.

"Please describe the attack. What did they look like?"

"Well . . . one of them was very large, and the other rather skinny." Mrs. Figg answered, describing both Harry and Dudley.

"Not the boys, the dementors." Fudge clarified rather exasperatedly with a slight sigh of annoyance.

"Oh right, right, well big, cloaked . . . then everything went cold, like all of the happiness had been sucked from the world." Figg recounted with a solemn look on her face.

"Now listen here, dementors don't just wander into a muggle suburb and happen across a wizard, the odds are astronomical." Fudge dismissed while laughing somewhat, looking around to the members of the Wizengamot.

"I don't believe anyone would think that the dementors were there by coincidence Minister."

A sickly sweet ahem rang through the room. "I'm sure I must of misunderstood you Professor, dementors are under the control of the ministry, so silly of me, but it sounded as though you were saying that the ministry ordered the attack on the boy."

"That's not what I'm suggesting at all." Dumbledore answered wearily while giving the woman a small, empty but forced smile.

"If I may," another voice interrupted their conversation, "She certainly described the effects of a dementor attack very accurately. And I can't imagine why she would say they were there if they weren't —"

"— It's as I said earlier Bones, dementors don't just wander into a muggle suburb. The odds on that must be very, very long, even Ludo Bagman wouldn't have bet —"

"And that Minister, is why I think they may have been taking orders from someone inside the ministry itself, or rather someone other than the ministry." Dumbledore said calmly. "I have already given you my views on this matter, Cornelius."

"Yes, you have." The man replied agitatedly.

"Then," said Dumbledore, quietly but clearly, "we must ask ourselves why somebody within the Ministry ordered a pair of dementors into that alleyway on the second of August."

In the complete silence that greeted these words, the witch to the right of Fudge leaned forward so that Harry saw her for the first time.

He thought she looked just like a large, pale toad. She was rather squat with a broad, flabby face, as little neck as Uncle Vernon, and a very wide, slack mouth. Her eyes were large, round, and slightly bulging. Even the little black velvet bow perched on top of her short curly hair put him in mind of a large fly she was about to catch on a long sticky tongue.

"The Chair recognizes Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister." said Fudge.

The witch spoke in a fluttery, girlish, high-pitched voice that took Harry aback; he had been expecting a croak. Harry hadn't listened to what the witch dresser in pink had to say as he cared none for it. Only coming back in when he had heard her voice finally stopped speaking.

"If it is true that the dementors are taking orders only from the Ministry of Magic, and it is also true that two dementors attacked Harry and his cousin a week ago, then it follows logically that somebody at the Ministry might have ordered the attacks," said Dumbledore politely. "Of course, these particular dementors may have been outside Ministry control —"

"— There are no dementors outside Ministry control!" snapped Fudge, who had turned brick red.

Dumbledore inclined his head in a little bow. "Then undoubtedly the Ministry will be making a full inquiry into why two dementors were so very far from Azkaban and why they attacked without authorization."

"It is not for you to decide what the Ministry of Magic does or does not do, Dumbledore!" snapped Fudge, now a shade of magenta of which Uncle Vernon would have been proud.

"Of course it isn't," said Dumbledore mildly. "I was merely expressing my confidence that this matter will not go uninvestigated."

He glanced at Madam Bones, who readjusted her monocle and stared back at him, frowning slightly.

"I would remind everybody that the behavior of these dementors, if indeed they are not figments of this boy's imagination, is not the subject of this hearing!" said Fudge. "We are here to examine Harry Potter's offenses under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!"

"Of course we are," said Dumbledore, "but the presence of dementors in that alleyway is highly relevant. Clause seven of the Decree states that magic may be used before Muggles in exceptional circumstances, and as those exceptional circumstances include situations that "threaten the life of the wizard or witch himself, or witches, wizards or muggles present at the time of the —"

"— We are familiar with clause seven, thank you very much!" snarled Fudge.

"Of course you are," said Dumbledore courteously.

"Then we are in agreement that Harry's use of the Patronus Charm in these circumstances falls precisely into the category of exceptional circumstances it describes?"

"If there were dementors, which I doubt —"

"— You have heard from an eyewitness," Dumbledore interrupted. "If you still doubt her truthfulness, call her back, question her again. I am sure she would not object."

"I — that — not —" blustered Fudge, fiddling with the papers before him. "It's — I want this over with today, Dumbledore!"

"But naturally, you would not care how many times you heard from a witness, if the alternative was a serious miscarriage of justice," said Dumbledore.

"Serious miscarriage, my hat!" said Fudge at the top of his voice. "Have you ever bothered to tot up the number of cock - and - bull stories this boy has come out with, Dumbledore, while trying to cover up his flagrant misuse of magic out of school? I suppose you've forgotten the Hover Charm he used three years ago —"

"— That wasn't me it was a house - elf!" Harry yelled once more.

"YOU SEE?" roared Fudge, gesturing flamboyantly in Harry's direction. "A house-elf! In a Muggle house! I ask you —"

"— The house-elf in question is currently in the employ of Hogwarts School," said Dumbledore. "I can summon him here in an instant to give evidence if you wish." Dumbledore tried to reason.

"I — not — I haven't got time to listen to house-elves! Anyway, that's not the only — he blew up his aunt, for God's sake!" Fudge shouted, banging his fist on the judge's bench and upsetting a bottle of ink.

"And you very kindly did not press charges on that occasion, accepting, I presume, that even the best wizards cannot always control their emotions," said Dumbledore calmly, as Fudge attempted to scrub the ink off his notes.

"And I haven't even started on what he gets up to at school —"

"— but as the Ministry has no authority to punish Hogwarts students for misdemeanors at school, Harry's behavior there is not relevant to this inquiry," said Dumbledore, politely as ever, but now with a suggestion of coolness behind his words.

"Oho!" said Fudge. "Not our business what he does at school, eh? You think so?"

"The Ministry does not have the power to expel Hogwarts students, Cornelius, as I reminded you on the night of the second of August," said Dumbledore. "Nor does it have the right to confiscate wands until charges have been successfully proven, again, as I reminded you on the night of the second of August. In your admirable haste to ensure that the law is upheld, you appear, inadvertently I am sure, to have overlooked a few laws yourself."

"Laws can be changed —" Fudge denied.

"— Of course they can," said Dumbledore, inclining his head. "And you certainly seem to be making many changes, Cornelius. Why, in the few short weeks since I was asked to leave the Wizengamot, it has already become the practice to hold a full criminal trial to deal with a simple matter of underage magic!"

A few of the wizards above them shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Fudge turned a slightly deeper shade of puce. The toadlike witch on his right, however, merely gazed at Dumbledore, her face quite expressionless.

"As far as I am aware, however," Dumbledore continued, "there is no law yet in place that says this court's job is to punish Harry for every bit of magic he has ever performed. He has been charged with a specific offense and he has presented his defense. All he and I can do now is to await your verdict."

Dumbledore put his fingertips together again and said no more. Fudge glared at him, evidently incensed. Harry glanced sideways at Dumbledore, seeking reassurance; he was not at all sure that Dumbledore was right in telling the Wizengamot, in effect, that it was about time they made a decision. Again, however, Dumbledore seemed oblivious to Harry's attempt to catch his eye. He continued to look up at the benches where the entire Wizengamot had fallen into urgent, whispered conversations.

Harry looked at his feet. His heart, which seemed to have swollen to an unnatural size, was thumping loudly under his ribs. He had expected the hearing to last longer than this. He was not at all sure that he had made a good impression. He had not really said very much. He ought to have explained more fully about the dementors, about how he had fallen over, about how both he and Dudley had nearly been kissed . . . But instead he had blown up just as he had when Dudley mentioned Cedric and his mother, and just as he had when he had first arrived at 12 Grimmauld place.

Twice he looked up at Fudge and opened his mouth to speak, but his swollen heart was now constricting his air passages and both times he merely took a deep breath and looked back at his shoes.

Then the whispering stopped. Harry wanted to look up at the judges, but found that it was really much, much easier to keep examining the shine of his shoes. "Those in favor of clearing the accused of all charges?" said Madam Bones's booming voice.

"Harry's head jerked upward. There were hands in the air, many of them . . . more than half! Breathing very fast, he tried to count, but before he could finish Madam Bones had said, "And those in favor of conviction?"

Fudge raised his hand; so did half a dozen others, including the witch on his right and the heavily mustached wizard and the frizzy - haired witch in the second row.

Fudge glanced around at them all, looking as though there was something large stuck in his throat, then lowered his own hand. He took two deep breaths and then said, in a voice distorted by suppressed rage, "Very well, very well . . ." Fudge sighed, clearly annoyed with Harry's lack of conviction. "cleared of all charges."

"Excellent," said Dumbledore briskly, springing to his feet. "Well, I must be getting along. Good day to you all."

And without even looking once at Harry, he swept from the dungeon.

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