Harry came awkwardly to his feet and pulled a scrap of parchment from within his robes. "Actually, I have twenty or so witnesses, but I'm not certain how I'm to get them here. Am I just supposed to have them come every day and sit around 'til we get to them?"

"I'm sorry," interrupted Percy. "Did you say twenty witnesses?" He glanced at his copious notes and back down at Harry again, his eyebrows climbing into his hairline.

Harry frowned and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. "Is that a lot? I mean, there are five hundred counts of child endangerment, but I thought bringing them all here would take quite a lot of time, so I chose the best of the lot. Plus, some of them are starting their NEWTs and OWLs, so it's not really a good time to bring them down to London. Oh, and one's a Muggle."

"You can't—" "International Statute—" "How would we know—" "Muggles? Here?" It sounded like a thousand voices began speaking at once and Harry blinked in confusion whilst the reporters from the Daily Prophet began scribbling madly in their notebooks.

It came as a bit of shock that anyone would be surprised by this. After all, Fudge thought Mrs Figg was a Muggle, so it was clearly possible. Harry supposed he'd have to use the callbox on the corner to get her into the Ministry, but it was more fun to imagine Aunt Petunia shrieking like a banshee as she stepped into the Floo, and then wondered if Muggles could use it at all. Would they simply burn up? Suffocate? It was a question worth asking, but one he'd save for later. As tempting as the thought of experimentation was, he was pretty certain he'd be in loads of trouble if it all went wrong.

"It's late enough to adjourn for the day," said Kingsley. "I'm going to call a recess until Wednesday morning. Gauntlett, please escort the prisoner back to his cell. The rest of you are free to go. Harry, a word if you don't mind?"

For the life of him, Harry couldn't figure out why Kingsley would want to talk to him, unless maybe to advise him on how he was supposed to get his witnesses to show up. They'd not covered it in Auror training. That was more about what sort of evidence was admissible and who was and was not allowed to testify. It didn't really get into the nuts and bolts of how things got done and Harry had been so busy reading all the reports that he quite forgot about all the millions of details that went into a trial.

A line of autograph seekers appeared along the rail separating the gallery from the well of the courtroom and a few of them, young women mostly, shouted his name and waved quills around. He tried to ignore them as he placed the stopper back in the inkwell and gathered up the notes he'd made whilst Kingsley and Snape were trading invective. He was just about to vanish through the door when a flash of green light caught his eye.

Harry whirled, wand extended and with a Stunning Spell poised on the end of his tongue. Another bright flash followed and the photographer for the Daily Prophet grinned broadly. "Thanks, mate. That's tomorrow's front page."

A "fuck off" nearly escaped, but Harry was afraid that some sort of nasty hex might be triggered if he cursed out loud in a courtroom and sheathed his wand instead. Angry enough to kick a puffskein, Harry kicked the door open and bolted through it to disappear safely within the bowels of the Ministry. He would give the lifts time to clear before he made the long journey up, preferably alone.

It was twenty minutes before Harry appeared in Kingsley's office. He ignored Villiers' remarks about his appearance and fell on the plate of sandwiches sitting on the table between the sofas. Kingsley was at his desk, snatching aeroplane memos out of the air and reading through them before assigning them to one tray or another. One or two he binned.

There was a steaming salver of tea and two gin and tonics sitting on the sideboard, the outside of the glasses glistening with beads of sweat and Harry set down the bite of sandwich he had left to snatch up one of the two drinks. He took a long pull before resting one hand on the sideboard and dropping his head.

The muscles in the back of his neck screamed in protest and he closed his eyes as he drew in a deep breath. "His Majesty the King said I had the hands of a god. Oh, how I wish I could work my magic on you," purred the portrait.

"George..." warned Kingsley, never lifting his eyes from the paperwork in front of him. Harry continued to stretch and, when he finally sat back down on the sofa, he felt much more relaxed. "What did you need to speak with me about?" he asked through bites of his second sandwich. He was ravenous.

"No, I'm not going to authorise a thousand Galleons for development of a chess set with my likeness on it," Kingsley muttered. He slashed a line across the face of the memo and set it in the reject pile before coming to his feet to collect the watered-down drink swimming in a ring of its own tears. He sat opposite Harry and munched his way through a sandwich of his own before settling back with a sigh.

"Twenty witnesses, Harry?" he asked as he tipped his head back. "You found twenty people willing to testify in support of Severus Snape? How did you manage that?"

"I didn't say they were in support of Snape, not exactly," said Harry, eyeing a profiterole. He reached out and picked it daintily off the tray. "But they were there, most of them anyway, and what they saw might not have been what happened. Since I didn't get to investigate anything, and I can't testify on Snape's behalf, I have to have a chance of letting everyone see it a bit differently. Follow?"

Kingsley thought for a moment and drank for a moment longer. "I think I see your point." He breathed out a long sigh. "Very well. You can have your twenty witnesses."

"Or so. I've no idea how many I'll actually need. It may be more, it may be less. How do I get them here?"

"That was what I was going to explain next," said Kingsley. "Send a list to me and a copy to the Wizengamot Administrative Services. You'll have to take them as they come, I'm afraid, so be prepared for anyone to show up."

That certainly made things a bit more challenging, but Harry thought he could cope. "What if I need someone to come back?"

"I can't see why you would, but if you do, just send a memo." Kingsley glanced back at the two or three widebody aeroplanes still circling his desk. "And use a colour other than pink. That way I'll know it's from you."