Malfoy Manor was not what I was expecting.
When I exited the floo, the room I found myself in was dimly lit. The light of the floo fire as it crackled out behind me, and the two pairs of twin candelabras beside each of the doors outside of the room, were the main light fixtures. A finely upholstered sofa was across the room from me; on it, after my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, I made out more clearly the form of a middle-aged woman, not quite asleep but not quite awake. Slowly she shook her head and came up to look at me.
"Miss Macmillan!" She said, her voice cheerful--if a bit startled. It was curious. They had invited me here; they had scheduled this meeting. Why were they being caught off guard? The candles of the room became brighter, and the dim light of the room became a filling and warm glow, lighting up the room and allowing the tapestries on the walls of the room to come alive with color. I could see coat racks on the sides of the room; the ones to the left of the room were full, the ones to the right not. "My sincere apologies for the decor; a few of Lucius's good friends decided to surprise him with a visit, and we had to make new arrangements." Her voice was more together, more focused when she spoke again.
I frowned at that, but before I could really speak out, the apparent Lady Malfoy snapped. A house elf appeared in the room in front of her. "Dobby. Show our good friend Miss Macmillan the way to Lucius's study." The house elf squeaked out something in response, before turning to me and beginning to lead me toward the door on the right of the room.
"Thank you, Lady Malfoy." I smiled to her. She gave me an almost-anxious nod and smiled. I followed the house elf out of the room.
Outside of the floo room (a mainstay in most houses built after floo networks were a major development) was a large dining room. The room was alive with warmth and color. The chandelier's glittering lights cascaded and reflected off of the fine silverware on the table and the wine bottles and silver goblets on the many side-tables of the room. Some of the chairs from the table were missing--or, I assumed they were. I hadn't seen this place before, but the arrangement of the chairs remaining looked wrong for a family of the Malfoy's status. Slight scrape marks could be seen on the ground near where I thought those other chairs should have been.
The house elf didn't linger in the room for me to investigate longer. But there was a pervasive wrongness in what I had seen so far tonight. There was a part of me that wanted to just
leave this place, but there wasn't a clear way to do that. I wasn't old enough to apparate, and that being said, I didn't know how to. I could make a break back for the floo room, but--no. I was overthinking things. It would all be alright. I didn't have any actual reason to be afraid right now.
The house elf stopped at the end of the hallway. I had been caught up in my thoughts so much I hadn't even taken the hallway in. He turned back to me and gave a weak bow, before snapping out of existence. The door to Lord Malfoy's study swung open as he vanished. Lord Malfoy was sitting at his desk in the room, a selection of photographs and other materials in front of him, and there was a chair in front of the desk for me. There were other artifacts in the room. I could see a pensieve at one of the side walls of the room; there were several great portraits watching into the room, though they were now empty.
"Miss Macmillan. Please do come in." Lord Malfoy's voice rang out through the hallway. His voice was smoother and more prepared than that of his wife. I headed through the threshold of his study, going and taking a seat across from him at the deks. "I trust that Narcissa gave you a warm welcome on your arrival?" There was a small plate of cakes on his desk that I hadn't noticed when I first walked in.
"Warm enough," I said, smiling to Lord Malfoy. "How were your other guests?"
Lord Malfoy didn't skip a beat. "Ahh--unexpected, but welcome. It seems that Professor Karkaroff and his family took my invitation to Britain for the trial as an invitation to stay in the Manor for the duration, and while I can of course house them, it is a bit hectic for Narcissa to manage. We have plenty of house elves to support her, of course, but she's always felt that their performances were inadequate. Nothing to the style of her dear 'creature' from when she was still a Black, I understand."
That made some sense. "What is Professor Karkaroff testifying on in the trial?" Malfoy paused for a moment at my question.
"On his original capture in the war, Igor had given out names of other Death Eaters in order to avoid a sentence of his own. Among those Death Eaters named was our dear friend, and while at the time the ministry trusted Professor Dumbledore's protections, it seems recent events have lessened that trust. Karkaroff is being called to testify as Professor Snape's role as a Death Eater, his participation in raids and whatever other information he has to link Severus to the Death Eater organization." Lord Malfoy sighed. "I have been trying to convince him of the blurriness of some of those meetings, and of the essential role that Severus held on the side of good in the war--if it were not for him, I might still have been under the Dark Lord's
Imperius, after all--but it seems Igor is less convinced."
I frowned at that. Professor Dumbledore's doubt went through my mind. "Do you expect that Snape will make it out of the trial, Lord Malfoy? I've heard people mention the chance of the kiss."
"Lucius is fine for now," Lord Malfoy first replied, before shaking his head. "I will make every effort available to save Professor Snape from the ministry's claws. I have made more than generous donations to certain members of the ministry who have in the past been able to understand the delicacies of these issues, and I expect that their understanding might spread as the trial comes closer, and I have expressed to all of the Old Families that were forced under the Dark Lord's wand the important roles Severus played in saving all of us. And still, dear me, it may not be enough. But that is where your testimony comes in."
"My proof that there were no other options available to him," I offered.
"Your proof that he acted under pressure--extreme pressure--not just from the situation, but from the Headmaster and those others gathered. Your proof that if there were other options, that they were made impossible by the Headmaster's decisions and arrogance." Lord Malfoy led. "Severus expressed as much to me when I visited him in Azkaban. It is truly awful that they are holding him before his trial--but I digress. With such a testimony, supported by Severus's testimony under veritaserum, and Professor Dumbledore unlikely to oppose, I believe that we can win clemency for our good friend and see to it that if there is punishment, that punishment lies with those who created the situation, not those who acted to save innocent lives."
I didn't want to throw Professor Dumbledore under the same way that Lord Malfoy wanted to, but at the same time, it was fairly close to the actual scenario. "Right," I said, my voice not expressing my doubts. "I had prepared a testimony that mentioned what all happened with Professor Snape that night--that I saw, anyway--and every other option that was brought up was turned down by the headmaster."
"Crouch will ask if the option of unicorn blood was also denied by the headmaster."
I strained to remember. "No," I finally said, with some confidence. "Not explicitly." Lord Malfoy nodded to me. "Professor Dumbledore had ordered the shutdown of the school. There might have been other potential solutions outside the school, but with it closed off. . ."
"A break from standard procedure," Lord Malfoy replied. "Normally, students in that condition should be transferred immediately to St. Mungo's--or, at the very least, St. Mungo's should be alerted and parahealers brought in to work on site. The school's nurse, while trained, is not to the experience level of St. Mungo's master healers, and while I'm sure she did her best work,"
"Madam Pompfrey wasn't present," I remembered. "Professor Dumbledore sent Lockhart to fetch her, but he fled the castle instead. I don't know when Madam Pompfrey was actually called up to the headmaster's office where the healing was taking place."
Lord Malfoy nodded at that, before mentioning the changes in that from standard procedure as well. Together, from that point, we walked through the rest of my testimony and the potential questions that we expected to face throughout the trial. In all, it took some three hours for our discussion to finish. Lord Malfoy never ate a cake from the plate on his desk; he offered me one, but I gently refused. There was a moment where I heard some loud voices from across the manor, but they were muffled by magic and I couldn't make out the meaning of anything that was being said. Lord Malfoy had the door shut after that.
When the three hours of discussion were over, Lord Malfoy thanked me for my assistance and escorted me back to the floo. There were more chairs missing from the dining room when we crossed through it. I headed back to the floo room, and then through it to Dùn Óengus.
The rest of the time before the trial seemed to go by fast. I bounced back and forth between Hogwarts and Dùn Óengus; while I was welcome to stay at Hogwarts, the school was entering into examination period, and everyone was cracking down fully into their studies. I had been given an extension; I'd be able to take my exams a month on into the summer, if I thought myself ready, or I could retake the semester in accelerated courses next year. I was hopeful that I'd be taking my exams and not having to retake the semester.
I grew more and more anxious as the trials came closer. I guess that was natural. Two lives lay partially in my hands, and I had even less control over the situation then I had when it had been Harry and Ginny's lives at stake. I would have felt better if it was a situation where I was fully in control, but it wasn't even that. I could give a perfect testimony. I could give a perfect defense. I could exonerate the men from all wrong-doing; and still it might not be enough to save Professor Snape, and still it would not fix the atrocities that Mr Black may have wrongfully endured.
I spent time with the Carrows when I could. Hestia and Flora were helpful, but they were distracted by their exams, and I did not want to spend too much time distracting them. Daphne was a mainstay of the common room and always had some gossip to share with me and some conversation to try and start. People were starting to levy looks at her for how much she was associating with me. People were starting to levy looks at
me for what I had done and for what I am. Gone were the whispers of me being a future Dark Lady. I had become, to many, a Gryffindor-loving veela, subhuman and sub-Slytherin.
I tried speaking with Ginny more when I could. I wanted to make sure that she was okay. Professor Dumbledore had worked some magic on her, and it hid the effects the diary had had on her; mostly. Still her eyes looked more inky and blotchy than the normal. She had joked about the added side-effects of not needing do her makeup anymore, but I could tell that it was eating at her the whole time. The need to hide what she was was eating at her insides. Waking up every day in a mask of magic was eating as her self-image. I could understand. Interactions with her weren't my only interactions with the Weasleys.
The twins came to me and apologized. I didn't remember enough of our rivalry to be hateful towards them, and it simply left me confused. They were promising me that they'd limit their reign of terror, that they'd cut back on their actions--no younger students, no students studying, all sorts of restrictions--and it was too much for me. I mentioned my obliviation to them and they seemed to break a little. One of their clan had been obliviated too. They left me quietly, giving me their thanks and apologies again, and when they were gone I felt as if the old me would've been overjoyed by their slight suffering and promises of improvement. Instead I was empty--empty but for my anxieties, my guilts, and my empathy towards them.
At home, or at least at Dùn Óengus, I tried to reconnect with my dad. The results were mixed. There was something between us. I felt some sort of kinship with him. But it wasn't strong, and despite our efforts, we weren't hitting it off. There were awkward pauses in each of our conversations, and often times, we would both end up inching away from each other and going on to our activities in entirely seperate parts of the keep. We went out some few times to Diagon Alley, but we went out without Mum when we did.
Mum's trip to the Delacours was lasting longer than she had expected. There were apparently some troubles going on in France, and she had to stay with Madam Delacour until they were taken care of. It wasn't her fault, but it felt somewhat like an abandonment, or like an excuse to stay away from home and away from me. I couldn't blame her if it was an attempt to get away from me. I was in her daughter's skin, wearing her daughter's clothes, and I was trying to be her daughter. But that didn't make me her daughter. That didn't make me the girl she had raised and grown into a young woman. That didn't make me
hers.
I practiced with the new wand. It worked, but it wasn't a perfect fit for me. My dad had offered to take me to Ollivander's without Mum--the rest of the shopping trip
had to be delayed, of course--but I had refused. It was worth postponing to do it as a family. All families went together to Diagon Alley. It was part of what made you part of the Wizarding British. So I stayed with the wand I had borrowed and did my best to acclimate to it in the time before I went and got myself a fully new and personal wand--or reconnected with my old wand. Whichever became necessary.
And again, many nights, I found myself drifting through the halls, without purpose. My mind was frazzled by the trial and by the anxieties inside of me. The only thing that would set me free was the end result. The day could not come soon enough.
Courtroom Nine of the Ministry of Magic was a dank room on the tenth floor of the Ministry of Magic. The walls were of a dark gray stone, illuminated only by a set of torches mounted against the walls at regular intervals, and illuminated only enough that you could make out the figures and most recognizable features of any person in the room. The room was arranged like a theatre: the chairs and seating were arranged in a way where each chair was higher up than the chair in front of it, centered around a dais in the middle of the lower, entry-level confluence. The room had a sort of innate discomfort to it, but it was made much more intense and personal by what was on top of the dais.
There was a hole in the center of the dais. Out of the hole, a great steel cage had been drawn up, suspended by three cords of magically reinforced rope and steel chain. Inside of that cage and its twisted bars was Professor Snape--or a man who had one point in his life been Professor Snape. He was drained. He was empty. The color--what little color he had in the first place, that is--had drained entirely from his skin. His hair had turned from greasy to wispy, and there were place where it quite clearly was falling out or being torn out. It was his face that was most disturbing to look at. When I saw him there, he was already dead. There was a corpse standing in those bars, an inferi commanded to stand trial in Professor Snape's face. His eyes were glossed over. His lips were unmoving. His breathing, if he was breathing, was so slow and motionless that it could've been mistaken for a breeze of air brushing across his face.
I tried, more than once, to catch his attention and reassure him. But he never responded. He never noticed me.
I was on the first level of the courtroom, sitting beside those other witnesses that would be called in this early part of the trial. Igor Karkaroff. Molly Weasley. Mundungus Fletcher. Professor Dumbledore was seated near Lord Malfoy; though he was a witness, it seemed his status was allowing him some preferential treatment. The two were on the wedge of chairs one rotation clockwise from where we were sitting, separated by a corridor leading towards one of the entrances. The next wedge of chairs was the section of judges. Many of the traditional members of the Wizengamot: Tiberius Ogden, Griselda Marchbanks and Dolores Umbridge. Professor Dumbledore and Madam Bones's chairs were not empty, instead filled with a pair of witches that I did not recognize. Minister Fudge, as our acting Chief Warlock, was yet to arrive; he was the reason the trial hadn't started yet.
Molly Weasley put a hand on my shoulder. I jumped. "Chin up, deary. Albus won't let anything too bad happen." I think her words were as much to reassure herself as they were to reassure me.
The next wedge after the Wizengamot's wedge was deserted on the first row, but I knew what it was for. The chairs there were all covered in chains and shackles. This was the seating for witnesses from Azkaban, and the corridor between it and the Wizengamot's wedge led to the door the dementors and Azkaban-pulled witnesses would enter in from. It was, as I understood, also the area of seating for any magical creatures who might come and join the room. It was only through my status as the daughter of Lord Macmillan that I was not sitting over there right now.
"How was your stay at the Malfoys, Professor Karkaroff?" I asked. It was a sort of absent question, the one I asked less because I wanted an answer and more because I wanted Mrs Weasley to stop touching me.
"If you mean his attempt to persuade me to lie infront of the Wizengamot to cover his own behind--brief, miss Macmillan. Brief."
The wedge that begin the rotation back towards my side of the room was the prosecution's wedge. There I recognized Mr Crouch Sr and Madam Bones, as well as a few understudy aurors that I did not directly recognize. Behind them was an open set of seating, devoid of any other figures or life. Crouch Sr looked ready to commit a murder of his own as he scanned the room. Madam Bones was less readable; she was stern, concentrated and definitely in deep thought, but there was an element to her expression that I could not place. There was an element to her that unnerved me perhaps as much as Professor Snape's situation did.
"Should be Malfoy on trial, not Severus," Mrs Weasley said, finally removing her hand from my shoulder. "The things that man has done have no excuse--all Severus did was try and save my little girl."
"Done quite a bit more than try to save your little girl, Weasley. Wouldn't be surprised if he was the one behind the troubles in Hogwarts this past year." Karkaroff's voice was almost mocking when he addressed Molly.
The wedge between my own and the prosecution's wedge was the press wedge. There were a vast variety of people gathered there, all in someway or other remarkable, but the two that most stood out to me were the two at the furthest echelon of the front row, both seeming to lean forward from their seats and breathe in the stories on the air. One was a gnat of a woman in bejeweled spectacles with an over-the-top assortment of tight curls and locks; the other was a young-looking man with shoulder length hair that seemed to glint and glimmer in the air around him.
"Everything he's done, Severus has done on Professor Dumbledore's behest. He does what he does for all of our greater good, and he doesn't need your--" Molly started.
"Did I miss something, Mrs Weasley, or are you not here to testify in his participation in the murder of your own blood?" Professor Karkaroff seemed to feed off of her pained silence. "Gideon and Fabian Prewett, a pair that he mercilessly cut down with exotic and dark magic?"
My dad was in the stands somewhere in the wedge behind me. Flora and Hestia were with him. Somewhere else in the crowd were the Greengrasses, who had greeted me before I went to sit down. I had forgotten what they said now. It was all such a blur. My anxiety was killing my ability to think critically about what was going on around me. Instead I was obsessing on each and every detail that caught me and ignoring the more important ones that missed my first inspection. There had been other people in the stands too. The entire Weasley clan was somewhere behind me too.
"It could have been any Death Eater that did that," Mrs Weasley replied, her voice cold. "And you do not have any right to say their names, Karkaroff--where were you that day?"
It was then that I noticed the blonde woman wasn't leaning towards the cage in the center of the room. She was leaning towards the wedge of the room I was on. Her pen was fast at work, writing down and recording each and everything that Weasley and Karkaroff were saying around me. I exhaled, before forcing myself to speak. I had better say
something before these two make it into their own special article in the Daily Prophet or whatever she was writing for.
"Quiet down." The two of them turned to me at my words. "The trial should be starting soon."
The doors swung open at my words. The minister had arrived. He strode into the room confidently, shaking his head at Professor Snape as he passed the cage and going to stand near his seat at the Wizengamot's wedge. He procured a long staff, which he tapped once against the ground, before he spoke out to the crowd.
"I do hope I haven't kept you all waiting too long! There was a slight affair in the Department of Mysteries, and a good friend of mine thought it best that the minister himself deal with it. He was mistaken, and in all it was simply a clerical error, but I've never been one to turn down a friend in need." Minister Fudge flashed a smile towards the press section of the room. "Without further adieu, let us begin the trial. Severus Snape, formerly professor Severus Snape of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, stands accused of. . ."
Minister Fudge unrolled a scroll in front of him. "Oh my," he near-whispered. I was only able to just hear it in the first row. "Ahem. Stands accused of . . . two counts of Murder of a Magical Creature, two counts of Murder in the first degree in the cases of Gideon and Fabian Prewett in the Battle of Spinner's End, twenty-nine counts of high treason conducted in partnership with He-who-must-not-be-named and the Death Eater leader Bellatrix Lestrange, fourteen counts of terrorist activity as a recorded Death Eater with potential for more yet to be testified counts, widespread use of the Unforgivable Curses including a recorded forty-five uses of the Unforgivable Curses on muggles, one count of kidnapping a noble heir, perpetuation of the Dark Arts, four recorded cases of espionage, a recorded case of participation in the violent spread of lycanthropy . . ." The minister took a breath and exhaled, before continuing. " . . . some nineteen cases of brewing illegal potions, some fifty cases of giving restricted potions to another individual outside of Ministry regulation, use of magic similar to the spell
legillimens on underage students in six separate cases, thirteen cases of theft, some ninety seven cases of participation in vandalism, and, well, I'm afraid the list goes on some more than that."
"In the past, the majority of these crimes were considered acceptable for the role Mr Snape played in the defeat of You-know-who. The previous Minister for Magic, Mrs Bagnold, saw that Mr Snape was put under probation, rather than receiving any real punishment, that his crimes would not be tried unless he committed a Dark Act appropriate of a trial on its own accord. It seems that, regrettably, Mr Snape has done so: we have received word that Mr Snape has taken part in the murder of not one, but two unicorns for the use of their blood in the Dark Arts. There are also reports of other smaller offenses that Mr Snape has taken part in over the course of these ten years of peace, that while alone were not enough to break his probation, have been found to be worthy of consideration at this trial."
"Madam Bones, our current Head of Magical Law Enforcement, is joined by Lord Crouch Sr as the prosecution for the trial. Lord Malfoy, a powerful ally in our way against You-know-who and an unfortunate victim of the Imperius curse in the past, is continuing his tradition of fighting for a just end to all accused Death Eaters, whether that just end be Azkaban as some might think, or a free place in our society. The list of witnesses are many, and most will be called in throughout the later stages of the trial. For this opening part, our witnesses consist of Mrs Molly Weasley, Ms Elizabeth Macmillan, Headmaster Igor Karkaroff of Durmstrang Institute, Mr Mundungus Fletcher and the esteemed Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, our usual Chief Warlock, the great professor Albus Dumbledore."
"The wizengamot will preside over this trial. With the absence of Madam Bones and Professor Dumbledore for their participation in the trial, they have both been asked to provide a second, to take their seat as a part of the deliberations. Professor Dumbledore has chosen Professor Filius Flitwick of Hogwarts as his replacement, and Madam Bones has chosen Lady Augusta Longbottom as hers."
The quills of the press wedge had never stopped moving throughout his speech. When he stopped here for a long breath, I saw some members taking photographs of him and the other people present. Some were of me. I smiled to them, at first, but that only saw more turning to me, and I realized I had forgotten my veela affliction. Gift, maybe. I doubted those cameras would turn from me for the rest of the trial. The Minister for Magic was starting to speak again.
"With that being said. Mr Snape, how do you plead for the offences placed before you?"
There was a long pause. I stared at Professor Snape's corpse in the cage. I didn't know how he could be pleading at all right now. But finally he moved, stepping forward in the cage and putting a weak hand against the bars.
"Not guilty," he croaked out, before he visibly shuddered in the cage and slunk down in posture.
"Not guilty," Minister Fudge repeated. "Very well. Madam Bones, Mr Crouch, your opening statements."
Madam Bones stepped forward. "Thank you, minister. Severus Snape has committed innumerable atrocities throughout his life in the name of a 'greater good.' In service to Albus Dumbledore, Mr Snape took part in numerous recorded murders and there is heavy reason to believe that he took part in many of the mass Death Eater attacks of the last war, where he again murdered the innocent and crushed the spirit of the British people. The previous Minister for Magic believed that these actions were justified. We believe that the British people disagree."
Madam Bones paused for a moment after her words, before scowling and shaking her head. "The actions of Severus Snape establish a pattern of immense cruelty and corruption. The witnesses that we have gathered will testify to Severus Snape's attendance, participation and revelry in the crimes that he has been accused of. The character witnesses we have gathered will establish Severus Snape's unique cruelties and habitual use of the Dark Arts. We believe that, in light of the mass of evidence against Severus Snape, it is impossible to believe that Mr Snape's actions are excusable as the nessecary actions of a spy; we believe as well that his actions in recent years show that there has been no chance in his behaviors, and that he continues to be completely willing to participate and perpetuate the Dark Arts."
Minister Fudge smiled. "Thank you, Madam Bones. Lord Malfoy, your opening statements."
Lord Malfoy stood up. "Thank you, minister. The actions of Severus Snape in the past are regrettable, but they were necessary. I do not need to remind you all of how close we were all to falling under the He-who-must-not-be-named's dominion. The
imperius curse that bound me and so many others was a favored tool of the Dark Lord's, and had Professor Snape ever expressed his discontent or refused to follow the orders of You-know-who, he would have found himself under it faster than he could apparate away, and had Professor Snape fallen under the Dark Lord's control, it is almost impossible that we would have won the war against You-know-who."
There were some photos being taken of Lord Malfoy as he spoke. The look on the blonde woman's face was positively orgasmic. I could see six different quills were writing on different clipboards in her lap, on her knees and in her hands.
"I believe that the focus on the events of the past is a distraction from the real matter at hand: the actions of Professor Snape on the night of May 26th, when he bravely took on a life-destroying curse to save the life of not just one, but three students under his care. In light of the utter necessity of his actions, we believe that Professor Snape deserves clemency for his recent actions, and a continuation of Minister Bagnold's acceptance of Severus Snape as a spy working on behalf of the British Ministry through cooperation with Albus Dumbledore."
"Thank you, Lord Malfoy. Very well; Madam Bones, if you would call forth your first witness to the stands. . ."
The first witness that was examined by the court was Mr Karkaroff, and it was a long one. Mr Karkaroff volunteered himself for use of veritaserum, and the court accepted. Madam Bones questioning of Mr Karkaroff went on almost an hour. Methodically, Bones and Crouch walked Karkaroff through a set of ninety-five different nights where Professor Snape was thought to be in action as a Death Eater. Karkaroff was able to confirm presence on more than half of them, but more than that, Karkaroff was able to confirm mission objectives and special tasks given to different Death Eaters on many of those nights. That's where Karkaroff's testimony became more interesting: on every night where Professor Snape was
not involved in the major events of the night and participating in the general Death Eater missions, Professor Snape had been assigned specific and private missions for the Dark Lord alone. Crouch pushed on what those private missions were; Karkaroff could only speculate.
The prosecution moved on to Karkaroff's assessments of Snape's character. I don't think I need to go over the negatives that Karkaroff expressed for him.
Lord Malfoy's cross-examination of Mr Karkaroff wasn't the most fruitful. There was something about how Karkaroff described Professor Snape's actions in the war that were utterly unnerving to listen to. Professor Snape did not simple kill; he tortured. He did not simply torture; he twisted and hunted and
broke his prey. In every way, Professor Snape went above and beyond the Dark Lord's demands. Lord Malfoy tried to assert it was only to gain the favor of the Dark Lord; Karkaroff could not comment on Snape's reasons, only on what he had seen and heard, and what he had seen was horrific. What he had seen was, to many of those looking on from around, damning. The story of Professor Snape torturing an old muggle from Spinner's End was one of particular awfulness.
My testimony came next.
Lord Malfoy questioned me first. It was good that I had met with him earlier: the questions were all ones that we had prepared together on, and that did a lot to relieve my anxiety. I described the scenario as best I could without completely throwing Professor Dumbledore under the bus. At first I tried to avoid mentioning the Room of Requirement, but it was clear that it was going to come out, and I didn't lie to hide it. I explained how I had been sent to gather potential solutions, how I had presented them to Professor Dumbledore, and how he had explicitly rejected all of them except for the unicorn blood. I explained how he had declared that the situation would be
okay and that everything would live after my declaration, and at Lord Malfoy's prodding, I agreed again that Professor Dumbledore had not explicitly rejected the usage of unicorn blood.
Madam Bones contested that Malfoy was leading my testimony. The court agreed, and Malfoy was forced to pull back in his questioning, but it wasn't too bad of a blow to his case. Or at least I didn't think it was. It had been after we moved through the majority of the points that we had agreed that we wanted to cover. With Malfoy pulled back from his questioning, I tried to emphasize the parts of the case that I felt most strongly about: throughout all of my time at Hogwarts, Professor Snape had been a brilliant professor, and in the moment, there was no other choice available to him to save the lives of three students. Myself included.
When Malfoy's examination ended, Crouch's cross-examination started. And it went much worse than I could have imagined it going.
Crouch's cross-examination started by establishing the date of my obliviation. Lord Malfoy clearly wanted to protest relevance, but Dumbledore stopped him before he could. It was relevant. The date of my obliviation -- May 26th -- was the same as the date of the events in the forest. Crouch referenced physical evidence, then: the St. Mungo's Guide to Obliviation Recovery. It was a studied fact that delirium, false senses of urgency and fatalism were marks of the aftermath of major obliviation. The increased fatalism was one of the key reasons that all patients at St. Mungo's in the first stages of obliviation recovery were kept under strict observation and accompaniment.
Crouch moved from establishing doubt in my testimony to establishing personal connection to Severus Snape. I was a Slytherin--that wasn't enough to woo the crowd, seeing that many of them were themselves or had themselves been Slytherin. I was a Slytherin prefect, a position selected by the Headmaster but
approved by the Head of House. It wasn't a particularly working line of offence. Crouch moved on to the other and more obvious personal connection to Professor Snape: the usage of unicorn blood had saved
my life directly, and that meant I had a near inherent bias on behalf of Professor Snape. More of the crowd took to that. More of the writers in the press wedge took to that.
Crouch moved from establishing personal connection to breaking down the factors that had caused the situation in the first place. It was gross incompetence on behalf of Albus Dumbledore in Crouch's line of thought, and lacking the understanding of how to explain what
threat exactly Professor Dumbledore had sealed the school off for, my statements agreed with Crouch. Lord Malfoy protested that Crouch was leading my testimony. Crouch stepped back and allowed Madam Bones to continue instead for him.
Madam Bones did not lead my testimony so much as she set traps for it. She egged out information and details, focused on specific quotations and parts of my testimony, and made abundantly clear the role that Albus Dumbledore had played in allowing the situation to progress to its urgent state. I realized what was going on, but my brain wasn't thinking fast enough to adequately stop it: Madam Bones was tearing down the court's image of Albus Dumbledore through his actions here, as she would throughout the rest of the trial, to disintegrate their trust in his vouching for Professor Snape. Madam Bones was using me to paint Professor Snape as Dumbledore's criminal tool.
I avoided a lot of the traps she was setting. At least--I think I did. I hope I did. Eventually her cross-examination ended. Lord Malfoy had the opportunity to re-examine me and ask more questions, but he choose not to. After the verbal browbeating I had received from the prosecution, I don't think he thought anything further that I might say would help his side of the case. I went sit back down, and again Mrs Weasley put her hand on my shoulder to comfort me. I was too mentally exhausted to jerk away, even though I saw the cameras in the press booth capturing Mrs Weasley comforting me. I could see the headline--something about the fall of house Macmillan, something about taking comfort and leaning on a poor blood traitor family for support--but my throat burnt and I was too tired to care.
I just wished that I didn't have to stay and watch the other witness testimonies after mind.
Mrs Weasley's testimony was after mine. The prosecution questioned her about the death of Fabian and Gideon Prewett and the involvement of specific Death Eaters in it. Dolohov was the only recorded Death Eater present, and he had named Snape as one of the Death Eaters with him on that venture. At first, Mrs Weasley was trying to dodge the question, expressing that she respected Snape and did not know for sure if he was part of the gang. Bones and Crouch grinded a more useful testimony out of her as time went by. They focused on the use of specific spells present. There was a spell identified as a specialty cutting curse, a mainstay among Snape's victims and unheard of among the victims of every other Death Eater, and it had been used to full extent on Fabian Prewett.
Mrs Weasley, edged on to tears by the constant push of the questions, admitted the full extent of what she had seen. The curse had been used on Fabian. She had watched as the Dark Mark was carved into him from afar by the green ray of the curse. Bones seemed a bit taken aback by Mrs Weasley's tears, but Crouch continued, and he grinded out the last bits of testimony he wanted from her about the build of the Death Eater who has cast the spell. It was not hard to match her descriptions with the man in the cage.
Lord Malfoy wanted to question Mrs Weasley afterwards and get her to testify on behalf of Snape's character, but it was clear he wasn't getting anything intelligible out of her for the first few minutes. He did, finally, manage to calm her down and start to work on building Snape back up, but all of Mrs Weasley's praises felt intensely hollow in describing a man that had apparently killed her two brothers, and there was a clear tension between Mrs Weasley and Lord Malfoy that prevented them from getting a good cohesive testimony. Eventually, he gave up on getting out that testimony, and Mrs Weasley made a weak argument of her own for the necessity of Snape's actions.
It reinvited Crouch to her case, and in his re-examination, he pounded in the same things that he pounded into mine: her personal connection, the status of her daughter's involveent, the utter emotional trauma she had went through in those days and the inability to think clearly that it could bring forth in people. Someone more composed might have had a defense for Crouch's push, but Mrs Weasley was not the woman to do it, and when she returned to her seat, it was me who put my hand on her shoulder.
Professor Dumbledore's testimony came next. Or, at least, it was supposed to. But the door between the Azkaban wedge and the Ministry wedge swung open, and from it, a man in ministry robes ran into the room. The room became so quiet I could hear the heartbeat of the men three rows behind me. Then he shouted out: "Auror Macklin is dead!" Whispers spread across the room. "The prisoners have escaped!" And all hell broke loose in Courtroom Nine.
When the dust settled in the room, the trials were being pushed back--or, at least, the trial was. Crouch had tried to push for the Kiss here, on Snape, but even his partner in the prosecution had opposed. Professor Dumbledore and a group of aurors would escort Professor Snape back to his cell in Azkaban.
The other trial may not happen at all. Sirius Black had escaped in the mayhem of the Lestrange's escape; or maybe the Lestranges had escaped in the mayhem of Black's escape.
Or maybe everybody had been right, and they had caused and escaped together in the chaos.
Crouch and some of the others present were calling for Minister Fudge to call a state of emergency. He refused, maintaining that the situation could still be solved, and that they could manage the threat of a few loose Death Eaters. The cacophony of argument that followed that declaration drowned out my ability to think for a long-while. I think, in the end, that Fudge did call for the state of emergency. My father had made his way down to me through all of it, staying with me with a wand ready in his hand, but there was no violence coming through here, and there was no spells for him to cast to protect me.
Minister Fudge was attempting to get the crowd to agree to silence on the issue. It wasn't going well for him. Many members had already left the room in the earlier periods of chaos, and the word had certainly made it out of the walls of the room. Eventually Dad was pulling me out towards the door of the room as well, and I was too tired from my testimony, still too nervous from my built up anxieties and too confused by the chaos around me to really protest. If I wanted to protest. I couldn't say if I did.
We passed through the door. The reporters from earlier were calling at me to give a statement. I was shaking my head. My dad took their cards and told them I would consider it when I had had time to recuperate. We made our way out of the room, through the levels of the Ministry, past the Weasley pack of redheads, and eventually through the floo network and back to Dùn Óengus. He helped me to my room, and by the time I collapsed on my bed, I was unconscious. I was completely and fully out of it.
I didn't dream that night.
. . .
I could only hope tomorrow would be a better day. Was there anything I could do to try and help the situation?
[x] Visit Professor Dumbledore and talk to him about
-[x] What you saw at Malfoy Manor
-[x] The trial itself
[x] Visit my friends who attended the trial
-[x] The Carrow twins
-[x] Ginny Weasley
-[x] Daphne Greengrass
[x] Stay in Dùn Óengus and recover
-[x] Talk to Dad about what I saw at Malfoy Manor
-[x] Talk to Dad about the trial itself
-[x] Focus on recovering and keep to myself
[x] Something else . . . ?
After this next update, the next few updates will cover the course of the summer. Summer updates will take place over longer periods of time, where you will all be able to determine how much time Elizabeth splits between training and other activities. Of course, if you all decide to do something like
hunt down Bellatrix Lestrange with the Sword of Gryffindor, that would see updates returning to their usual in-the-moment style. My apologies for the long hiatus, but I should be back on a more regular schedule now.
