Kingsley sighed heavily as he approached the door to Ronald Weasley's room; this one was going to be hard. He had been friends with Arthur Weasley since their time at Hogwarts; Arthur was older by two or three years, but they had still gotten along well, even being in different houses. He really didn't want to know that Arthur's son had done this without being affected by potions or spells.
He knocked on the door and waited for the Auror inside to answer. "I'm here to collect Ronald Weasley for his interview."
The Auror snorted slightly. "You're going to have fun with this one, Boss. He's been spewing off at the mouth about how Potter deserved everything he got...doesn't he know what he's here for?"
"Apparently not, Auror Phillips. I'll take him now." The younger Auror led a fuming, fighting Ronald Weasley out by a set of magical handcuffs locked behind his back. "Why is Mr. Weasley cuffed?"
"For my own protection and safety, I handcuffed Ronald Weasley. Once he took a swing at me, I wasn't about to let him try again." Kingsley looked carefully at the other man and noticed the definite bruising shadowing his left eye. "Go to the Infirmary and get that looked at. Be back here as soon as Pomfrey releases you."
"Yes Sir, at once."
Kingsley grabbed the glowing bond between the two cuffs resting around the boy's wrists, adding his magic to the restraints; like Auror Phillips, he was taking no chances that Ronald was going to try to hit him. "You're already pushing it, Weasley...do you know what you could get for assaulting an Auror?"
"I don't care...Potter deserved whatever he got!"
"Mr. Weasley, this interview is about something other than what you did to Harry Potter...didn't you read the letter you were sent?"
"Who cares?" Ron spat at the older wizard, "I sure as hell don't!"
"Obviously." Kingsley kept his mouth shut as he physically guided Ronald Weasley into the room where Amelia awaited them.
~OOooOO~
Amelia's eyes widened as she took in the magical handcuffs restraining Ronald Weasley. "What happened that he needed to be restrained?"
"He took a swing at Auror Phillips...caught him on the side of the face."
"Is Auror Phillips okay?"
Kingsley nodded. "I sent him to Pomfrey to get the bruise looked at before bringing Mr. Weasley here. He'll be waiting back at the room by the time we're done with the interview."
"Excellent...start writing up an arrest warrant; charges are to begin with Unwarranted Physical Assault on an Auror."
"Yes, Madam Bones." Kingsley picked up a phial and stood next to Ronald; before the boy could even react, he had taken enough blood to check for spells and potions.
"HEY! What was that for? I didn't agree to give blood for anything!"
"We didn't need your permission, Mr. Weasley. With what we found in the last two interviews, we were well within our rights to take a small phial of blood without asking whether or not you agreed." She looked over at Kingsley, trying to judge from the man's expression what the results of the test might be. Kingsley looked up and shook his head...there were no potions or spells. Whatever Ronald Weasley had done had been done under his own power...Hermione Granger had been correct.
"Now, Mr. Weasley, you have been subpoenaed to come here for an interview during this, the Inquiry into Allegations of Misuse of Power by current Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Your mother signed a permission slip, allowing the use of Veritaserum during this interview, but, as you are already seventeen, that permission is null and void..."
"You're not giving me Veritaserum! I refuse to take it! You can't make me!" Ron's lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl as he leaned forward, toward Amelia; Kingsley took the opportunity to move to a spot next to, and slightly behind, the boy, so that he couldn't see him. Amelia nodded once and Kingsley placed a hand on Ron's forehead, pushing his head back; before he could close his mouth, Kingsley had dropped the dose of Veritaserum onto his tongue. Ron tried to spit out the potion, but it was no use; Veritaserum coated the tongue immediately after it was applied, making it impossible to spit out. The two watched as all of the fight went out of Ronald Weasley's body and his eyes took on a glassy look; the Veritaserum had begun to work.
Amelia took a slow, deep breath and released it just as slowly, before beginning her questions. "State your full name."
"Ronald Bilius Weasley."
"State your age in full years."
"I am seventeen years old."
"Did you know that Albus Dumbledore is using out of date Educational Decrees in order to enforce his power as Headmaster?"
"Yeah, I knew."
"Did he tell you personally?"
"Yeah...he said that the Slytherins needed to be controlled, because they were all dark."
"So, he specifically stated that he was using them to control Slytherin House?"
"Yeah, he said that he wasn't allowed to torture them, so he had to get them to obey some other way." Kingsley's eyes widened and he looked at Amelia; her facial expression looked as though a dark cloud was hovering over her.
"Does Albus Dumbledore favour any house over the others?"
"Of course he does...Gryffindor was his house when he went to Hogwarts, so he favours that one. Slytherin House shouldn't exist, he said."
Amelia was getting the same answers to her questions as she had received from everyone else, so she decided to try a new tack, based on the information she had gotten from Granger and Finnegan. "How long had you been pretending to be Harry Potter's friend?"
"Since before we started our first year. Professor Dumbledore came to the Burrow and asked to speak with me and Mum alone. He told me that Harry Potter was coming to Hogwarts that year and he needed me to befriend 'The Boy Who Lived'."
"Why would he do that?"
"He said that Harry would need someone totally loyal to the Light to be his friend and guide him, so that Dumbledore would be the one that Harry looked up to and followed."
"When did Albus Dumbledore come to speak to you about beating Mr. Potter?"
"He mentioned it about half-way through the term, after the Christmas holiday, and said that it needed to happen right before we got sent home for the summer."
"Did you know that he had given Hermione Granger and Seamus Finnegan compulsion potions and had cast compulsion spells on Miss Granger?"
"Yeah, I was there for most of them. She got Obliviated a couple of times when she started to break through the potions and spells; he didn't want her to warn Potter about the attack."
"Why did you agree to it?" This was the one thing that Amelia wanted to know most of all; Granger had said that Weasley was jealous of Harry Potter because of his fame and money...Amelia knew that there had to be an underlying reason for him agreeing to this kind of act.
"He kept all the fame to himself...he didn't share it. Everyone always flocked to him, 'The Boy Who Lived'; I was his best friend, why didn't I get some of the fame?"
"Have you always been this jealous of Harry Potter?"
"No, it only started after I saw what he had hidden away in that vault of his. He has all this money, all this gold, and my family has to struggle to make it...why should he have all of that and we have nothing? It's not fair."
"Mr. Weasley, have you ever been told that life isn't fair?" Amelia looked up when she saw Kingsley move away; the man was shaking so badly that he'd had to get away from the boy causing his anger.
"Yeah, but it's still not fair. Why should he have everything? Why should he get all of that when we don't have it?" The monotone recitation of these questions struck Amelia as being disgusting; the boy truly believed that Harry Potter had wanted all of that.
"What do you know about what Albus Dumbledore has done to members of Slytherin House for detentions held with him?" She had to get back on track with her questioning before the Veritaserum began to wear off.
"He let me watch sometimes, said it would do me good to know how to handle scum like that." Amelia began to feel sick; Albus Dumbledore had exposed a child to the darker side of his nature, twisting the boy's impressions of the wizarding world.
"Did you ever help him?"
"No, he wouldn't let me; said that he couldn't risk things being traced to my wand. He did something to his, so that what he did wouldn't register at the Ministry." Kingsley walked over to the door and cast a spell, sending his patronus to Alastor Moody; he wanted that wand.
As the questioning continued, the two adults gained a little insight into the workings of Albus Dumbledore's mind; he had warped Ronald Weasley into his little pawn, another chess piece on the chessboard that Albus had created. At a quiet knock on the door, Kingsley stepped out of the room for a moment to speak with Moody.
"I need you to get Albus Dumbledore's wands; I don't want just one, the man probably has several. Bring them back here and you'll stand outside, protecting the door." Kingsley caught and held the former Auror's gaze. "Use whatever means necessary...I'm reinstating you as a full Auror for the purposes of this investigation. Go on, Auror Moody."
Moody grinned at Kingsley and nodded once...he knew what 'use whatever means necessary' meant. This was going to be good!
~OOooOO~
Alastor quietly ascended the stairs to the Headmaster's office after immobilising them; he didn't want the sound of stone grating on stone to alert the old man that he was coming. (You may wonder how he was able to silence that peg-leg of his...silencing spells work wonderfully!) He cast a complicated spell on the door, allowing him to see and hear everything that happened on the other side of the door, without giving away his presence. He watched as Albus Dumbledore packed things into trunks and boxes scattered about the room...the old goat was trying to escape! He began to listen to what the Headmaster was muttering under his breath; the great thing about the spell that he had used was that it cast a selective Sonorus on any human in the room.
"Should have known it would end up like this...all of my plotting for nothing...Potter couldn't behave like a proper little soldier and do everything he was supposed to...No! The brat just had to go and strike out on his own"
Alastor heard the phoenix that Albus kept making some very disappointed trilling noises; apparently the bird didn't agree with what the old goat was saying.
"Be quiet Fawkes...I didn't ask your opinion about this." Dumbledore turned to fire a stinging hex at the flame-coloured bird, shocking Alastor beyond words; the hex missed the bird, but only because he had disappeared into a ball of flame, causing the hex to hit the wall behind his perch harmlessly. "Damn you, Fawkes! Where the hell did you go? I need you to take me out of here before anyone comes up here looking for me. Blasted bird!"
Alastor had heard enough; he threw open the door to the office and fired several stunning spells in rapid succession at the Headmaster.
