AN: This was inspired by reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and wondering how Malfoy got to be on such (relatively) good terms with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Reading between the lines of Child, I don't really think this is how it did happen, but it's how it could have happened. If you like it, please consider leaving a review in the review jar!
"I have this horrible feeling of deja vu," Harry said, shifting uncomfortably on the hard bench. This caused him to bump into Hermione, which in turn caused her to jostle Ron: the bench on which the three sat was very crowded. Ron, thinking she had nudged him on purpose, worked his arm free and wrapped it around Hermione's shoulders.
"Why, because of that time they tried you for dong underage magic?" Hermione asked. She tried to lean into Ron's side without being obvious about it. There were a lot of people in the courtroom, and they all kept looking at her. She knew they were really looking at Harry, but it felt the same. "Or from when we got the locket from Umbridge?"
"No, neither. It was in Dumbledore's penseive—"
But Hermione didn't get to hear when Harry had seen the courtroom in Dumbledore's memories. At the raised dais at the front of the round courtroom, a woman stood and raised her hand for silence. She was tall and austere, with a fine-boned face that carried the first signs of aging gracefully. There was a streak of white in her dark hair that would have reminded Hermione uncomfortably of Bellatrix Lestrange if the two women had not been unalike in every other way. Her name was Atalanta Fletcher; she had made a point of introducing herself to Harry before the trial and assuring him she would be a scrupulously impartial judge.
"Order!" she called, and they chamber immediately became silent. The crowd crammed into onto the circular benches, mostly adults but with a number of older Hogwarts students mixed in, had been muttering darkly to one another. Now they all turned their eyes toward Atalanta Fletcher, grimly expectant.
"Bring in the prisoner."
The doors at the lowest level swung open, and two aurors strode into the room. Between them was Draco Malfoy, with his hands bound behind his back. He walked with his back straight and his head high, but he looked nothing like arrogant boy who had tormented Hermione and her friends at Hogwarts. He looked frightened, exhausted, defeated.
One of the aurors flicked his wand, causing the ropes around Malfoy's wrists to disappear, and nodded pointedly toward the metal chair in the center of the floor. Malfoy sat, cautiously, and the chains draped around the chair sprang to life and wrapped around his arms, binding him to the chair. He jumped in surprise. Some of the people on the benches laughed coldly, and a flush of color appeared on Malfoy's white face.
"Draco Malfoy, you have been brought before the Council of Magical Law to answer charges of aiding and abetting the dark wizard Voldemort—" to her credit, Fletcher did not stumble over the name, though several people in the audience gasped and Malfoy flinched "—as one of his Death Eaters; in particular the torture, by means of the Cruciatus Curse, of your fellow students at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; the attempted murder of Harry Potter; and the murder of Albus Dumbledore."
As she listed the charges, Malfoy seemed to shrink into the chair. The color that had briefly touched his cheeks was gone. "In a break from tradition," Fletcher continued with a glance at Hermione, who sat up straighter, "you will be allowed to hear the evidence presented against you. You will then be permitted to speak in your own defense. Do you understand?"
Malfoy said something inaudible. He cleared his throat and said, louder, "Yes."
"Very well. For our first witness, Mr. Longbottom…"
Across the courtroom from Hermione, Neville stood up from his seat next to his grandmother and began to describe how, under direction from the Carrows, Malfoy had tortured students given detention; and how, as Head Boy, he had supported the Carrows' regime and tried to root out members of Dumbledore's Army. It was hard for Hermione to hear, not because she was shocked at Malfoy's part in it, but because she was shocked to realize how bad things had become at Hogwarts. The school was not the true home she knew it was for Harry, but she still loved it. It was the place that had brought magic into her life, the place where she had learned more than her eleven-year-old-self had ever dreamed existed. She found it painful to imagine Hogwarts corrupted by Dark magic.
As Neville spoke, Malfoy's gaze drifted over the courtroom. Most of the people watched Neville; those who watched Malfoy wore hard, unfriendly expressions. He found the three of the them, sitting high on the tiered benches to the right of the judge. His attention skipped over Ron and Hermione to settle on Harry, then moved hastily on, as if what he saw there unsettled him. His gaze slid back to Hermione and their eyes met. She remembered the last time they had looked at each other like this, eye-to-eye, four months ago at Malfoy manor. After a moment he looked away from her, too.
When Neville finished, Fletcher said, "Thank y0u, Mr. Longbottom. Is there anything else you would like to add before we move on?"
Neville, who had looked only at Fletcher while reciting his narrative, now glanced at Malfoy. "Well, only that… I don't think he liked it. The torture, I mean. Some of them did, like Crabbe and Goyle. I don't think he really wanted to hurt anyone—"
"With respect, Mr. Longbottom, the prisoner is not on trial for his motives, only his actions—which you have described clearly. Thank you."
Neville sat down, looking troubled.
Ron leaned over to whisper in Hermione's ear, "Unbiased, sure."
"No, she's being fair," Hermione whispered back, though she couldn't help feeling a little troubled herself. "I mean, you can only really judge someone by their actions, can't you?"
"Moving on," Fletcher said, raising her voice over the renewed murmurs of the crowd. "Mr. Potter, some of the events leading to the death of Albus Dumbledore you have already made public. However, if you will please describe, in its entirety, the role the accused played in that tragedy…?"
Harry stood up. He started at the beginning, with their encounter with Malfoy in Diagon Alley and his first suspicion that Malfoy was a Death Eater, and ended with the confrontation at the top of the Astronomy Tower. Hearing it all laid out like that, it seemed so obvious Harry had been right about Malfoy all along. It seemed incredible to Hermione that it had taken her and Ron so long to believe him.
During Harry's narrative, Malfoy seemed to grow even paler, if that were possible. He shifted restlessly causing the enchanted chains to rattle menacingly, and once seemed about to speak. The aurors, who stood flanking the chair, shot him twin glares, and he subsided.
"And you are quite sure," Fletcher asked Harry, "that the accused lowered his wand prior to the arrival of the other Death Eaters at the top of the tower?"
"Yes, he was lowering wand. He'd changed his mind, he wasn't going to go through with it."
"Unfortunately," Fletcher said, "any suggestion of what the accused would or would not have done next is pure conjecture."
"But he didn't kill Dumbledore!"
"That is not under dispute," Fletcher replied, beginning to sound testy. "Mr. Malfoy is accused of attempted murder. As you have just described, three attempts were clearly made. They are the subject of this trial."
"The first two, fine," Harry argued. "But there was no third attempt. That's what I'm trying to tell you!"
"You cannot know—no one in this courtroom can know—what the accused would have done given another minute or two of privacy with Professor Dumbledore."
Harry jerked his chin toward the chair in the center of the room. "He can."
All eyes turned toward Malfoy, who hunched his shoulders under their many stares but kept his head up. Fletcher gazed dispassionately down on him. "The accused will have the opportunity to speak in his own defense. In the meantime…"
Harry remained stubbornly on his feet and opened his mouth as though he meant to continue the argument. Hermione tugged frantically at his hand, afraid his temper would get the better of him. He allowed himself to be pulled back down to the bench.
"It's not right," he muttered to her.
"The thing is," Hermione whispered back, "I'm not sure it's wrong."
"In the meantime," Fletcher repeated, louder, "Miss Granger—"
Hermione jumped, feeling the unfamiliar swoop of guilt that accompanied being caught talking during class.
"S-Sorry?" she stammered.
A few people in the audience laughed, but not unkindly. Not like they had laughed at Malfoy. Fletcher ignored them. "Would you or Mr. Weasely care to recount the events that took place at Malfoy Manor last April?"
Hermione looked at Ron, who looked blankly back. She stood up. "Yes, of course." She took a moment to sort out her memories, trying not to let the crowd unnerve her. "We were caught by a band of Snatchers…"
It was easier once she got started. She focused on the memories, the story, and shut out the many eyes that watched her. She described how she had hit Harry with a Stinging Hex to disguise him, how the Snatchers had found the sword of Gryffindor and taken them to Malfoy Manor, how Malfoy had lied to protect them. Then she stopped.
"Yes?" Fletcher prompted. "What happened next?"
Hermione looked at Malfoy, who held her gaze for only a moment before looking down at his lap. Harry and Ron had been taken to the basement; they hadn't seen what had happened next, and Hermione had never told them. Of all the people in the room, only Draco Malfoy knew what she had done, what had been done to her.
Now she wished she could focus on the crowd, not the memories, but they rose up in front of her eyes, overwhelming, overpowering: Bellatrix Lestrange, lifting a knife that dripped with blood, with Hermione's blood; Hermione's own voice, crying, screaming, begging—weak, she had been so weak; and Draco Malfoy, unmoved as Hermione turned her eyes to him, called out to him to help her.
The courtroom was completely silent. Hermione realized she had stopped talking. Her eyes burned, her throat ached. On either side of her, Ron and Harry each gripped one of her hands painfully tight. Below her, Malfoy clutched the arms of the chained chair until his knuckles stood out white against his pale skin. He still stared down at his knees.
"Thank you, Miss Granger," Fletcher said softly. "You were very brave both four months ago, and you have been very brave now, by recounting such a painful experience."
Brave. She hadn't been brave. She had cried, she had begged. And was she brave, now, to stand in judgment over someone who had, in his own way, been just as much a prisoner as she was? He, too, had been frightened. He, too, had suffered.
She didn't realize she had spoken aloud until the courtroom erupted in sound. People were whispering to their neighbors, calling across the room. Some were shouting at her, some at Malfoy, some simply shouting. Harry and Ron were both trying to speak to her, but she couldn't hear them over the din. She fought the urge to press her hands over her ears. Below, Malfoy cringed beneath the onslaught of noise.
Fletcher rose to her feet. "Order!" she thundered. "Order!"
Gradually the clamoring voices faded to a murmur. Fletcher swept the courtroom with a stern glare, then turned a gentler, but no less stern, look on Hermione. "Miss Granger, your sentiments are admirable, but this is a court of justice, not mercy."
Her words shook and angered Hermione all at once. "Are the two so incompatible?" she demanded.
"The law specifies that there are certain consequences to certain actions. It is not the place of any single person—nor, indeed, of any single court—to make exceptions to those laws."
"By that reasoning," Hermione shot back, "Harry and Ron and I should be standing trial for breaking into Gringott's."
"Um, Hermione…" Ron whispered, tugging at her wrist.
Fletcher frowned. "Exceptional circumstances may warrant some… leeway," she said slowly.
Hermione shook off Ron's hand. "Is that your opinion as a single person?" she snapped.
The whole room was watching them, heads swiveling back and forth like spectators at a particularly fast-paced Quidditch match. They were both on their feet, facing each other across the heads of those between them. A low murmur began to fill the room again, like the whisper of a faint wind. Malfoy stared at her, open-mouthed.
"Are you suggesting," Fletcher asked carefully, "that Draco Malfoy's actions were justified by the circumstances in which he found himself?"
Hermione turned to look down at Draco. He stared back up at her, his expression unreadable. In her mind, she heard again the phoenix song at Dumbledore's funeral, saw again Bellatrix's knife dripping in blood. He had not done these things, but he had stood by while others did them. Did she truly believe he was blameless?
"No."
Hermione blinked. Draco kept his eyes on her as he continued, pitching his voice to carry throughout the room but speaking to her, only to her. "My actions were wrong, I know that now." He took a deep, shaking breath. "I knew it then, too, but I was afraid. For a long time I was afraid of the things—the people—my father taught me to fear, only I didn't realize it was fear at the time. Then I was afraid for myself and my family. I was afraid of what V-Voldemort would do to us if I didn't do what he wanted, and afraid of what I would become if I did. You're wrong, Hermione: you are brave. You were afraid, but you still fought. I was afraid and I… I didn't."
She could not remember him ever using her name, could not remember him ever speaking to her like this, like they were two equals having a conversation. It surprised her to find it mattered that he thought she was brave.
"If we were to try everyone for all the things they did—or didn't do—because they were afraid of Voldemort," she told him, raising her voice so everyone could hear her. "half this courtroom would be in chains with you. It's not fair that you should be made a scapegoat for all the people who did what was easy because they were too afraid to do what was right."
A terrible silence filled the courtroom. Hermione looked around at the people who filled it, seeing guilt and fear on so many faces. How many of them had stayed silent and done nothing while people like Ted Tonks and Mary Cattermole were forced into hiding? Or had gone into hiding themselves, while people like Lupin and Tonks fought and died for them? They might not have Dark Marks on their arms, but in some small way they, too were responsible for Voldemort's rise. "Draco Malfoy made some terrible mistakes," she told them. "At least he has the courage to admit it."
She sat down, shaking a little at her own audacity. "Blimey, Hermione," Ron muttered, giving her a wide-eyed look. But Harry offered her a small smile that went a long way to steadying her.
"On that note," Fletcher said, breaking the silence, "will those in favor of imprisonment in Azkaban raise their hands?"
The jury hesitated, glancing nervously at one another. Then one witch thrust her hand into the air. A wizard followed, then another. Hermione counted the raised hands, holding her breath. Five… six… one witch began to lift her hand, wavered, and glanced at Hermione. She returned her hand to her lap, face troubled but resolute.
"Very well," Fletcher said. "The accused is cleared of all charges—"
Her voice was lost in the roar of noise. Everyone began talking at once, voicing their approval or disapproval of the verdict, commenting on the unusual trial. People scrambled over the benches to speak to their friends and family; some pushed their way through the milling crowd, apparently intent on cornering Hermione and telling her what they thought of her impromptu speech. She looked desperately for support from Ron and Harry, but Harry was already trapped in conversation with a fiercely bearded wizard, and Ron was trying to catch Neville's eye from across the courtroom.
"Excuse me," Hermione said to the plump witch in front of her, who was gazing at her with shining eyes and just opening her mouth to speak. "I have to…" But she couldn't think of a reasonable excuse, so she just squeezed past the witch and the next person clamoring for her attention, a skinny wizard weighed down by his heavily embroidered robes. This gave her a view of the floor and Draco Malfoy.
The chained chair had released him, and the aurors had left his side now that he was no longer a prisoner. He stood in the center of the room, rubbing his wrists and staring around him as though he had no idea what had happened. No one spoke to him; no one looked at him: he was alone in a room full of hundreds of people.
Hermione worked her way down the rows of benches, weaving carefully through the packed bodies. Draco looked up when she reached him, startled. Some of the color had come back into his face, but he was still very pale. Up close, she could see he was thinner than she remembered, and there were dark circles under his eyes. She stopped, unsure what to say.
"I suppose," he said, "I should thank you for speaking up for me." He seemed torn between genuine gratitude and bitterness.
"I didn't say it because I wanted your thanks," she said, stung. It was true, but the bitterness still grated. Maybe he should be grateful. When he had spoken to her, she thought he might have changed, but this sounded more like the old Malfoy.
He looked away, grimacing. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just…" But he couldn't seem to think of how to finish the sentence and shrugged.
"Did you mean it?" she asked. "What you said?"
"Or was I lying to manipulate the jury, do you mean?" He seemed more amused than offended. "Yes, I meant it. Every word." He drew in a steadying breath. "Hermione, I owe you an apology."
"I don't—"
He held up his hand. "Wait, please. I had a lot of time to think about this while I was in that cell, and I need to say it before I lose my nerve."
This was a side of Draco Malfoy that Hermione had never seen before: honest, self-depreciating, almost funny. It was a welcome change, but it didn't stop her from getting angry.
"You spent the last seven years trying to make my life miserable," she snapped. "And for the last two, you were helping an evil wizard who was trying to end my life. Do you really think an apology can make up for that?"
Draco winced. "No, I don't think so. But I still owe it to you."
"Well… maybe you do. But I don't want to hear it unless you really mean it."
"I do mean it," he insisted. "I spent my entire life wanting to see pure-bloods in power and V-Voldemort returned. When I finally got what I wanted… it was horrible. All I wanted was for things to go back to the way they were. It made me question everything I had ever believed in. I was wrong to treat you the way I did, and I regret it. A lot."
It was possibly the most sincere and well-spoken apology she had ever received. His gray eyes were earnest, and she felt her anger slipping away. "I—alright. Apology accepted." Not sure if she was going to regret this later, she offered her hand.
"Pax?"
He hesitated only a moment before accepting the handshake with a relieved smile. "Pax."