Chapter 17 - Adjudication

Hermione paced anxiously outside the Wizengamot courtroom again, deep in the bowls of the Ministry. This was the one. This was the trial that they had been nervous about, and all she could do was wait.

There were three people being tried in this session for a wide range of crimes including use of all the unforgivable curses, violence against muggles, attempted murder, escape from Azkaban, and the aiding and abetting of all of the above.

She had helped Harry and Ron prepare their testimonies for this trial with more vigour than the others. They had to be thorough, they had to be concise and they had to ring with the voice of truth, because the stakes here were high. If they didn't get it right, two people who had gotten caught up in something they couldn't get out of, would end up wrongfully imprisoned.

The ebony doors she kept glancing at, hoping they would give her some clue as to what was going on behind them, had been closed for going on three hours now. Hermione wondered how far through the trial they were, but she supposed that would depend on who they had started with. In any case, it should go on for most of the day with all three of them on trial.

Just as she sighed, resolving herself to take a seat on the benches for a while, the doors flew open behind her and a crowd of muttering reporters and Aurors began to file out, Harry and Ron amongst them, heads bowed, faces pale and anxious.

"Don't look like that," she pleaded, grabbing hold of their sleeves and tugging them to the side of the corridor. "It's only been three hours. It can't be that bad."

Hermione was trying to reassure herself as much as anything. There was no way they could try, and convict, three people on those charges in the space of three hours. The Wizengamot had often spent longer than that on a single Death Eater.

"Who was it?" Hermione whispered when the boys continued to look sheepishly at the dark marble floor.

Ron was the one to raise his head to answer her, having looked to Harry but realised that his best friend was still processing whatever had happened in the courtroom.

"It was Lucius," he said, meeting her eyes. "They convicted him pretty easily after all the evidence was presented. Azkaban for at least fifteen years."

To Hermione, that didn't sound like something that would make her boys like this, so she pursed her lips and waited for Ron to tell her the whole story.

"He didn't even put up a fight. They'd let Narcissa sit in the family box, because she's only been on house arrest, you know, and isn't being brought in from Azkaban. She glared at him through the entire thing, and no one would want to be on the receiving end of that look. It was bloody terrifying.

"Anyway, when it was time for his defence, Narcissa just shook her head at him, hardly blinking she was, and Lucius knew he was done for. Whatever was left in him just vanished. He might as well have been kissed by a dementor."

Harry spoke then, muttering but still not looking up from the floor.

"It wasn't that though 'Mione. Narcissa was scary the way she looked at Lucius, but when they brought Malfoy in..." Harry trailed off, shaking his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with his eyes clenched shut.

Hermione's eyes widened as she looked at the mess of black hair in front of her but then turned to look into Ron's honest, blue eyes for clarity.

"She screamed when she saw him, 'Mione." If it was possible, Ron went even paler at the memory. "Like a banshee it was. Pure agony. Ripped through everyone sat in that room."

He looked almost awed at the power that the youngest Black sister must have exuded in front of the Wizengamot, respect and terror mingling on his face.

"I don't blame her, really. Malfoy looked terrible. Really bad, 'Mione. Really bad. I can just imagine Mum if one of us looked like that after she hadn't seen us for months. I mean, it's already bad enough with Charlie off wrangling dragons and, well, then there was, you know..."

Hermione nodded, understanding that he meant Fred. She wondered if Ron knew exactly how bad that had got for his mum, if he had any inkling of the pain and guilt that Hermione had witnessed from Mrs Weasley.

"He's, Draco's in a bad way then?" she looked between Harry and Ron and the guilty expressions still lingering on their faces.

"It looks like he's been refusing to eat," Harry said, looking up for the first time since he'd left the courtroom. "He's so bony and his skin's gone grey. His hair is all matted and there's nothing behind his eyes. He looked around when Narcissa screamed but his face stayed blank. He's collapsing in on himself, 'Mione.

"They called me up to testify, for the prosecution as they always do. Didn't have a clue, hadn't even considered I might want to defend someone. I had to turn to Chief Warlock Ogden, with Kingsley in there watching, and announce that I would only be providing testimony for the defence of Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, that Ron would be too."

"What did they say?" Hermione asked in a frantic whisper, rubbing a hand up and down Harry's arm to try and soothe herself as much as him, and taking hold of Ron's hand on her other side for further support.

"They adjourned for the day," Ron sneered, squeezing Hermione's hand. "Got themselves all worried and started muttering to each other until Ogden raised his hand and said that they'd need to take time to prepare for this change of circumstance."

"We're to go back in tomorrow morning, continuing Malfoy's trial," Harry added.

All Hermione could think about when they were leaving the Ministry, were the images of Draco they'd painted in her head and how Narcissa must be feeling, knowing that her son had to spend one more night in the place that was visibly sucking the life out of him. It made her shudder and she willed the next day to come quickly.

X - X - X

They're doing their best, they're doing their best, Hermione repeated like a mantra, wringing her hands together as she stood in the dark hallway, staring at the imposing courtroom doors.

Lunchtime had been and gone. Bill and Fleur, Percy and even George had all been by to distract her, each of them trying to drag her away for something to eat, even if it was just up to the small café off the atrium. Each time, Hermione shook her head mutely, defiantly.

Bill and Fleur respected her wishes and sat with her a moment, telling her about their day before leaving for Gringotts again. Percy was a little more hesitant to accept her refusal of food, returning with a toasted sandwich in a paper bag and leaving it on the bench next to her. George tried to insist on going to the Leaky, but Hermione was resolute in her desire to stay in that corridor until she knew what was going to happen to Draco and Narcissa. Eventually she could take no more of George's jokes, turning a silent glare on him which he took as his cue to leave.

As she watched him walk to the lifts at the end of the corridor, she dropped her head into her hands and let out a frustrated sigh. He had only been trying to help after all. She was just so tightly wound that it was difficult to turn her mind to anything but what was happening on the other side of those doors.

The rest of the afternoon, Hermione alternated between pacing anxiously and sitting anxiously, either with her knee bouncing or with her head in her hands. It was during one of these moments that she eventually heard the doors opening, her head shooting up out of her hands.

Both doors were opening and the officials who stood just inside them held them open, almost ceremonially with their backs ramrod straight and the hands that weren't holding the doors clenched into fists at their sides. It was something that Hermione had not seen happen throughout the many weeks of trials, and she rose to her feet, curious and apprehensive. Usually, at the end of a session, the doors would just be pushed open by the crowd of people leaving.

She stepped into the centre of the hallway and gasped at the sight of Narcissa and Draco walking out of the doors towards her, Narcissa with her arms around her son whose steps kept faltering as he rubbed at the red welts around his wrists. His hair hung, knotted and limp, in front of his bowed head, obscuring his face, and the suit that someone had dressed him in, hung off his gaunt frame like it was a potato sack rather than the finely tailored three piece it used to be.

Narcissa's eyes narrowed as her gaze caught Hermione stood there, and she tried to speed Draco up, rushing past Hermione.

"I'm sorry," Hermione's voice came out in a whisper. "I tried, Narcissa, I did. I'm so sorry. Draco," she saw him shudder as he recognised her voice. "I wanted to testify for you, I wanted to be in there, I really did."

Those sunken, silver eyes flickered up to look at her, but they were devoid of any fire, of any ice, and Hermione could not hold his gaze.

"Come on, Mother," he said hoarsely. "Let's go home."

"They wouldn't let me," Hermione pleaded, raising her voice after them. "I wasn't allowed but I wanted to, believe me. I'm so sorry."

All she could do was watch them disappear without a word to her until she felt Harry and Ron's arms wrap around her.

"At least they're out, 'Mione," Harry said, muffled by her hair. "We managed that at least."

Hermione nodded silently, still staring down the corridor.

"Come on," Ron urged her to move. "Let's get something to drink."

"Right," Hermione uttered as her feet started to move automatically, but then shook herself as she remembered George earlier. "We should get George to come, he wanted to go to the Leaky before."

"Alright then," Ron smiled at her. "Consider it done."

When they reached the Leaky and were sat swirling their butterbeers around in their tankards, waiting for George who had also said he was bringing a few others, Hermione finally asked them what happened.

"Are they okay? Their sentences, I mean. What did the Wizengamot say?"

Harry met her eyes, his own filled with kindness and Hermione knew that he was relieved the Malfoy trials were past them.

"Narcissa has a further six months of house arrest to serve. The fact that she was never actually a Death Eater worked in her favour and obviously so did the fact that she lied to Voldemort to save me, effectively ending the war. It also served to prove that she'd only ever tried to protect her own child. Ogden was fairly sympathetic towards that." Harry stopped to take a gulp of his butterbeer and Ron took over.

"Also looks like you'll be back at Hogwarts with Malfoy in September, 'Mione. He's got a two-year suspended sentence and has to repeat his final year." He looked at Hermione for a reaction, but his eyebrows furrowed when he didn't see the one that he wanted.

"That's good," she smiled slightly before lifting her tankard to her mouth then licking off the foam that lingered on her upper lip. "But how's he going to get a wand?" she realised.

"Don't worry," Harry chuckled. "I gave his back to him after the sentences were announced. Looked like it still worked for him."

Hermione smiled gratefully at her best friend and rested her hand over his on the table.

"I didn't really have a choice in the matter, mind you. I mean, I would have always given it back to him at some point," Harry explained quickly, "but the Aurors needed a wand to put the tracking charm on, both for spells and location. It was another stipulation of his sentence, for the two years."

"At least he's not in Azkaban," Hermione sighed and relaxed back into the leather booth, lifting her hand in greeting as she spotted George coming through the door with Angelina, Ginny and Neville in tow.

A/N:

Not a wonderful first interaction with Draco following the war. Let me know what you think and, as always, thank you for reading and commenting! It means a lot.

Much love xx