"Better lives have been lived in the margins, locked in the prisons,

and lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in palaces."

Propagandhi


"Miss Granger, you have been tried and convicted by a jury of your peers, this day, of the malicious and knowing murder of Ronald Weasley." Rufus Scrimgeour's voice boomed in the crowded dungeon-like court room.

Hermione stared straight ahead, refusing to cringe, or weep, or—God forbid—beg for mercy, as she was sure they all expected her to do in one way or another. She could hardly say their decision was unexpected. When one was caught in bed with the recently dead body of one of the world's most well-respected wizards, covered in said wizard's blood, and holding the knife with which he had been stabbed—well, the case was pretty much open and shut.

Never mind that her supposed victim was also one of her best friends, or that for some reason she could not remember anything that had happened between early that evening when she sat down with a book and a hot cup of tea in her own home, and later that night when she was caught, literally, red-handed with Ron's blood soaking into her clothes and the mattress. Trivial information, that was, and not something the Ministry wanted to hear. Oh, they had heard it all right, for she had done all that she could to defend herself against their ridiculous and confusing allegations, but they had all listened with an air of indifference. Their very manner shouting that they had already tried, convicted, and sentenced her in their own minds, and all of this was just window-dressing.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Scrimgeour asked.

Hermione looked down at her hands, chained to the arms of the chair in which she sat, then around at the faces of the wizards and witches all watching and listening eagerly. She picked out Harry in the crowd, sitting with the Weasley's. Molly Weasley was weeping into the collar of his shirt, but Hermione did not delude herself that these were tears of grief for her; Mrs. Weasley was still mourning her son. It was more likely that they were tears of joy that the evil, murderous Jezebel that killed her little boy was going away to Azkaban.

With wry amusement, Hermione even noticed Rita Skeeter, sitting as close to the front row as she could get, her Quick-Quotes Quill suspended over a roll of parchment. She looked a little worse for wear, a little more grey in her hair, a few more wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and quite a bit less polish and sparkle in her wardrobe, but still Rita Skeeter through and through.

"Hermione Granger," Scrimgeour snapped, drawing her attention abruptly back to him. "For the last time, do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Hermione met his cold eyes unflinchingly. Rufus Scrimgeour, the minister of magic himself. Only a high-publicity case such as this could have brought him here today. He was going a bit grey around the ears himself, she noticed.

"I would say that I didn't do it," she said. Her voice was soft, but it gained in strength as she spoke. "But you wouldn't believe me, and as I've been convicted, as you say, by a jury of my peers, it hardly seems relevant. I am sorry that Ron is dead . . ."

Mrs. Weasley made a strangled whimpering noise and Hermione felt her heart constrict a little in pity.

"I loved Ron," she said. "He was one of my closest friends. I did not kill him. No one else has to believe that, but I want his family to know, I could never do such a thing."

"Thank you Miss Granger," Scrimgeour said. "Your statement has been recorded."

A small hunch-backed man with little square spectacles approached Scrimgeour with a slim wooden box in his hands. He opened it and held it up when the Minister gestured for it, revealing Hermione's wand. Scrimgeour picked it up and held it aloft for everyone to get a good look at it. Like none of them had never seen a wand before. Scrimgeour looked at Hermione sternly, perhaps expecting to see some flicker of emotion; fear, anger, trepidation, shame.

Hermione stared impassively past his shoulder.

With a sudden movement, the Minister grasped the wand in both hands and snapped it across his knee.

She looked at the pieces in his hands, still held together by twisted dragon heartstring, and felt a little sad. She had gone through school with that wand; battled trolls, hexed pixies, changed parrots into water goblets, and broken God alone knew how many rules. That wand had gone into war with her, and it had carried her through the battles and brought her safely home again. She turned her cold gaze on Rufus Scrimgeour and in that moment, if she had had her wand and been free to do so, she very likely would have injured him.

He dropped the broken pieces of her wand back into the box like they were garbage. "Burn it," he said.

The little man clapped the box closed on the broken wand, nodded, and backed away.

Scrimgeour gestured to another man standing behind and to the right of the chair in which Hermione was bound, and the man stepped forward to remove the chains from her wrists and replace them with manacles. The manacles were attached to another chain, which he held in his big gloved hands.

She stood when the guard jerked on the chain.

"Hermione Granger, you are hereby sentenced to twenty-five years in Azkaban Prison," Scrimgeour proclaimed. "Your sentence is to be carried out immediately. Take her out of my sight."

Hermione couldn't help it; that last made her smile. Trust Scrimgeour to try to curry favor with voters by being overly dramatic at a sensational murder trial.

She heard a nervous stirring and commotion from the onlookers and glanced around to see what it was about. It was only when she realized that they were muttering and pointing at her that she understood that many of them had misinterpreted her brief smile as amusement at her situation—which she supposed, in a way, it was.

Who would have thought? One minute you're a heroine, the next, you're a monster no different from those you profess to hate.