May 2nd 1998

For the second time that morning, the room burst into chaos.

Jen banged her gavel loudly. "Order please! Honestly, Harry, you do know how to make an entrance."

"Thank you," Harry said, turning to Dumbledore, who was staring at him. "What's wrong, Professor? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"How are you alive?" Dumbledore demanded.

Harry gave him a tight smile. "Sometimes you're wrong. I know, it's horrifying. Lady Ravenclaw, may I?"

"By all means," Hermione said, heading back towards her seat. She crossed Ginny on the stairs as she descended.

Draco stepped forwards to greet her. "Thank you, darling. Can I ask you to take the Malfoy seat by proxy, since I can't sit in both?"

"Certainly," Ginny said, allowing him to escort her to the seat.

"Do you have this under control, Lord Gryffindor?" Draco asked, pulling the chair out for her.

"I think so, Lord Slytherin," Harry answered. "Oh," he added, "Godric's magic accepted me as the heir. Excellent timing, really. With the court's permission, I would like to explain firstly why Professor Dumbledore is so surprised and secondly why he shouldn't be. In short, I would like to tell you about Tom Marvolo Riddle."

Ignoring the confused murmuring, Jen smiled. "Go ahead."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle was the son of a Muggle, Tom Riddle, and the Squib daughter of Marvolo Gaunt," Harry began. "You all probably knew him better as Voldemort. That's right," he added. "The champion of purebloods was a half-blood. But that's beside the point. When he was at Hogwarts, he was prefect and Head Boy, and he learned early on that he was the Heir of Slytherin. He also became obsessed with immortality."

"Harry, I must protest …" Dumbledore began.

"You should have told them this years ago," Harry said sharply. "In his fifth year, he opened the Chamber of Secrets and found the basilisk that Salazar's great-grandson had hidden in there. A girl died, Myrtle Tomlins, at which point the school was going to be closed. So he framed Hagrid. Of course I don't think anyone really believed Hagrid was capable of it, but they certainly didn't suspect Tom. Well, you did," he amended, looking at Dumbledore.

"You just didn't say anything. Tom learned, one way or another, about a particularly nasty piece of Dark Magic. I do actually agree with Professor Dumbledore that this shouldn't be public knowledge. What I will say is that it involves enclosing part of yourself in an object, or a vessel. As long as that vessel remains in tact, you cannot truly die. Riddle created one of these when he was sixteen, using Myrtle's death."

He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small black diary. "This diary was destroyed in my second year when I stabbed it with a basilisk fang; thankfully, the venom is one of the few things that will destroy these objects."

He cleared his throat. "Maybe I should have taken your help," he said to Draco, who smirked, leaning back in his chair.

"You're doing fine; keep going."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks. That summer, he went to confront his father and wound up murdering him and his paternal grandparents, and framed his uncle, Morfin Gaunt, for the crime. He then did some more research about these Dark Objects. You see, it wasn't enough for Riddle to be immortal. He had to be more immortal than anyone else. Someone else had managed six - or, rather, five and their body. So, of course, he decided to aim for seven."

"He returned to his mother's home just before his seventh year," Draco continued, getting to his feet. "His maternal grandfather was on his death bed, and he stole the family signet ring, turning that into the second of the vessels. No one likes a monologue, you know."

Harry pulled a face at him. "Well, thanks for the help." He pulled the ring out of his cloak as well, placing it beside the diary. "That was destroyed last summer by Madam Lupin and Lady McKinnon. Now Riddle didn't just want any objects, he wanted important things. When he was in seventh year, he charmed the Grey Lady - Helena Ravenclaw - into telling him the story of how she ran away with her mother's diadem, and then after Hogwarts he went to work at Borgin and Burkes to see if he could find anymore."

"As luck would have it," Draco said, rejoining him on the floor, "one of the regular customers was a woman named Hepzibah Smith. She had bought a locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin. His mother had pawned it while she was heavily pregnant with him, desperate for money. She only got ten galleons for it, but I would imagine they sold it for a lot more than that."

"He gained Ms Smith's trust," Harry said, "and eventually she showed him the locket. But more than that - she showed him another relic as well - a cup that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. Now, the locket is where we came in last summer. Regulus Black learned about these objects - when Dumbledore wasn't listening, he went looking himself. He managed to retrieve the locket from its hiding place, but it killed him. We located the locket in the family home, and it too was destroyed last summer." He removed the locket from his cloak as well, placing it beside the other two.

"Now, here was where things got tricky," Draco said. "You see, the cup, he gave to Bellatrix Lestrange to keep in her Gringotts vault. Thankfully, the goblins weren't too happy about that when we told them what it was, and it was destroyed inside the vault. Since her death, we have been able to access the vault and remove it."

Harry placed the cup beside the others as well. "Those of you who are keeping count will realise we're now down to two."

There were a few chuckles, breaking the tension in the room.

"Firstly, Rowena's diadem," Harry said. "Well, Riddle returned to Hogwarts later requesting a teaching job. He was turned down, but his real purpose for returning was to hide Rowena's diadem, which he'd found in Albania, where Lady Helena said she'd hidden it. He hid it in a room called the Come-and-Go Room, probably convinced he was the only one who'd ever find it. Joke's on him really. We found the room - and the diadem."

"Lady Ravenclaw was understandably reluctant to destroy it," Draco said. "So she transferred the Dark Magic into a nearby bust and we destroyed that as well. However, we couldn't get the bust into Harry's cloak that easily."

Amid more chuckles, Harry removed the diadem and placed it beside the others. "And then there was one. Riddle intended on using my death to make the last one back when I was a baby, but that didn't go his way. So when he returned, he took the unusual step of turning his familiar into a vessel." He turned to lift the corner of an Invisibility Cloak, draped over a trolley they had pulled in behind them.

He tucked it back so the court could see Nagini's severed head, prompting several horrified cries.

"Killed with Gryffindor's sword," Harry said, with a small bow in Neville's direction. "Imbibed with basilisk venom since my second year. Now all of this should have made Riddle mortal. But there was one thing that we hadn't counted on. When his curse backfired in 1982, it turned me into one of those vessels as well."

There were more shouts through the room, and Jen banged her gavel again. "Order!"

"Professor Dumbledore knew this from the start," Harry said. "He could have removed the Dark Magic, but he decided against it. He decided that it was for the greater good if Voldemort killed me himself. So when he left for America, he emptied his Pensieve and left one memory of him telling Professor Snape that, knowing that if something happened, I'd go there for some kind of help. And I did go out there. I let him hit me with a Killing Curse again."
"Then how are you still alive?" Dumbledore asked.

"Because you were wrong," Harry answered. "That's why. He used my blood to come back and it created a two-way tie. His curse destroyed that. I could have chosen to go on, but I decided to come back."

"Harry, you haven't been trained," Dumbledore said. "You can't deal with Voldemort by yourself."

"You've changed your tune," Harry said dryly. "A year ago you were telling me the prophecy meant I would have to. And just to correct you - you haven't trained me, because you were raising me to die when it was most convenient. But I have been trained." He pulled the rest of the Invisibility Cloak off with a flourish, revealing Voldemort's dead body. "And I'm very good."

Screams echoed through the room and Jen sighed, banging her gavel again. "Why did you not inherit your mother's tact?"

"Luck of the draw," Harry answered. "Voldemort's dead. You lot can deal with the next one." He turned to Dumbledore. "Let's hear the inevitable argument."

Dumbledore sighed. "It saddens me, Harry, to see how far you have fallen."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. I killed Voldemort, so I must gave gone Dark, right? Well, despite your best efforts to make sure my childhood echoed Tom Riddle's, I happen to have a conscience. I did not enjoy what I did, but apparently I was the only one with the guts or the inclination to do it. But I knew you'd go down this route, so I took that into account."

"Riddle's first victim was Myrtle Tomlins," Draco reminded the court. "She was killed by a basilisk. So we figured using a basilisk fang was poetic."

"At the end of my second year," Harry continued, "I killed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, but not before it bit me. Riddle forgot that phoenixes have healing tears, because he was too busy gloating. So when I stabbed him, I called Fawkes."

As if on cue, the phoenix appeared in a burst of flame, landing on Harry's shoulder briefly, before soaring off to land on Hermione's chair.

"Fawkes turned his back," Harry said, "and let him die. I gave Tom Riddle exactly the same chance he gave me. So if I'm Dark for killing him, Fawkes is Dark for letting him die."

Jen wasn't sure who started the applause, but she didn't try to stop it - or hesitate to join in.

Harry's turned a little red - proving he at least still possessed his mother's humility, if not her tact.

Draco turned him. "I think this means you win."

"I think so," Harry agreed. He turned to Jen. "Madam Lupin, with Godric's blessing - and my father's - may I take the oath?"

"You may, Lord Gryffindor," Jen said. "And, Lord Slytherin, you still need to as well."

Once they had both sworn in, they headed up to take their seats.

"Look at that," Jen said. "We've got a full house. Professor Dumbledore, do you have anything to say in your defence?"

"I would hope the court would understand that I have everything I have done is for the greater good," Dumbledore said. "After all, I did have a phoenix for …"
"Fawkes belongs to Hogwarts, Professor," Hermione interrupted, stroking Fawkes's head gently, "not to you. You were never bonded, and he only stuck with you to protect the students."

"Do you have any other line of defence?" Jen asked.

Dumbledore didn't answer, still fixing her with a look of disappointment that she was sure was supposed to make her crumple and back down.

Screw that.

"In that case," Jen announced, "Madam Bones, having heard the evidence, would you please provide me with a list of charges?"

A piece of parchment appeared on her desk and she ran a quick eye down it, before waving her wand over it and allowing the charges to be shown to everyone on the court.

"My Lords and Ladies, please indicate your vote," Jen said. "Is there anyone not in agreement on these charges?"

No one voted, and Jen breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. Madam Bones, please proceed."

Amelia cleared her throat. "Albus Dumbledore, you are hereby under arrest for reckless endangerment, conspiracy to commit murder, treason, forgery of legal documents, abuse of power and perjury. The evidence given in today's hearing will be used as evidence for the prosecution. Aurors, please return Mr Dumbledore to the holding cell."

Once he had been led out, Jen sighed. "Before sentencing, Amelia, can you arrange for a Healer to take a look? I'm hoping he's gone senile."