Chapter Twenty-Nine
Probes
TW for implied sexual abuse.
"Hmmm."
A moment's silence.
"Um-hmm."
Another moment's silence, followed by an inquisitive "Hmm?"
Madam Pomfrey was thinking to herself about the things that she knew about Dementor exposure and the things that she knew about the results of long-term stays in Azkaban, according to the latest continuing education journals all healers had to keep current with for their licenses. The mediwitch was putting those things together with the observations that she was making now. She was muttering things that Sirius couldn't hear even with his Animagus-enhanced hearing but Domir could with his native dragon hearing. As the dragons' senses of hearing had magical underpinning, there was a good deal that he could hear that the humans and even the Goblins couldn't. From the snorts of smoke that was coming from him and the suspicious ripples along his sides, some of it was less than flattering to the patient but quite hilarious to the dragon.
Madam Pomfrey nodded to herself again as she checked off another item on her mental list and traded glances with Domir. Over the last couple of days, the two Healers had discovered that their shared profession had similar irritations and the commiserations they had taken time out for had blossomed into what Madam Pomfrey had charitably called 'bitch-fests,' and Domir had called something she couldn't pronounce. She most likely wouldn't ask Mister Potter to translate either, even if she had a pretty good idea what it was. They both worked in the healing field, after all, and a patient was a patient.
Possibly because some of it was about patients exactly like the one in front of her right now. Domir had told her stories about several of his past patients that had her sighing in miffed agreement. Although to be fair, the one about the wyrm that trapped his head in an abandoned Muggle sewage drain while chasing a dog was more than a bit amusing after the fact.
"All right, Mister Black. Next part. Strip."
"Why, Madam Pomfrey! Don't I get a good dinner at least?"
The silly leer on his face congealed on his face quickly as she shook her head with phony desolation and imperfectly hidden merriment, and picked up something that looked very sharp from her waiting tray. From the look on her face, it had been placed there specifically for this purpose and Sirius didn't want to hazard a guess about what that purpose was. He didn't want to hazard anywhere it was pointed, really. It was already too close to him as it were.
"Strip or I find something bigger! I don't have any expectations of awe in your case – none at all!"
The patient looked like he wasn't sure how to take that, if Domir was any judge. Humans were strange sometimes. The dragon merely watched. Strange they might be, this was still entertaining to him.
"We're on a time limit here too, Sirius Black, and if I have to come back to this I'm going to make it worse for you. I haven't forgotten any of those little pranks of yours, and I've got a few things in mind to do in that regard if I do have to return to this. Want to find out what I can do? I warn you, I have had plenty of time since you left these halls to pick up a few new things to try – some of them thanks to your godson!"
Domir nodded in approval. Privately, he thought the pranks had been hilarious once he'd been told what they were but in solidarity with his fellow Healer, he felt that it was better not to admit it to her. He watched in carefully hidden glee and mental notes as Madam Pomfrey waved the very sharp… probe? Scalpel? Blade? Curette? Whatever the human term for it was, it was something that made him wish his talons were that sharp. He wondered what it was made of and where she had found it. It made several passes under the patient's nose, for emphasis, and Domir amused himself with the mental image of the air being shaved away. Further amusement came with the thought of whatever had been cut away was falling to the floor in limp bits.
From the look on the patient's face, it was more like being carved away and it wasn't 'air' suffering that indignity. There was a distinct motion of leaning back, away from whatever that tool was. It didn't matter that there really wasn't anywhere to go.
"Well?"
She started tapping her foot, but it didn't take long for him to strip. She waved her wand in her off-hand, casting something that both Domir and Sirius missed. The dragon Healer raised an eyebrow as he noticed a magical sheathe raise itself over the patient's body and sink into the skin, and the patient squeaked. The exposed skin tightened as the cold surface of the sheathe settled and forced a visible reaction. Madam Pomfrey waited for a minute or two, ignoring the shivers of her patient and twitching whatever that sharp item was whenever he started to say something.
Domir asked a question he'd been wondering. The deep voice rumbled as he spoke.
"Madam Pomfrey, what is that spell? We don't have anything similar."
"In humans, the skin is considered an organ just as anything inside the body. This particular spell was crafted to evaluate the various layers and relative healthiness of each layer, but thanks to some of the placements of ducts, hair follicles, pores and so on, it has to be quick-acting. In a way, it has to slice through all the layers to discover the needed information and allow it to be made use of."
She motioned to the readout the quill was marking onto a parchment. He nodded, thoughts pondering this new information and practices of his professional colleague.
"Slice, is it? Hmph." The grunt was accompanied by a few tendrils of smoke. "I admit to some interest, both professionally and not."
Domir regarded a talon with some level of speculation as if it and the information his fellow Healer was giving him was in turn giving him ideas. The patient paled at the sight.
Impressive, the dragon thought. He didn't know humans was capable of that absence of color. He learned something new every day, especially since coming to Hogwarts. He was going to have to publish a new paper with the things he was learning. That Healer conference was coming up soon, after all.
"Oh, not literally, since there would be lacerations all over the body and the patient would bleed out in very short order. It only goes so deep and as it happens, it links into the capillary blood vessels within the skin as a guide. Capillaries fill the function of exchanging nutrients and wastes carried by blood, for the most part. They have other functions, depending on their placements within the body but that's the basic idea."
"What if you have to go deeper in order to assess other things or diagnose other issues?"
Madam Pomfrey waved the sharp item in her hand with a hard gleam in her eye. Sirius couldn't take it any more and fainted. She grunted to herself in approval as his head hit the pillow.
"Good, he's out of it. Let's hurry before he wakes up," she muttered, with a note of satisfaction in her voice.
"Hurry with what?"
"Oh, he owes me a few things and I intend to collect."
Domir took many mental notes in the next ninety minutes, including tips on how to chortle. Oddly, the huge dragon had never tried or had cause to do that. He could think of a few situations to make very good use of the knowledge in the future. Actually, he could think of a few upstarts who thought they were better than him and needed a lesson in humility in order to make them better Healers. Interns required that, sometimes. Some more than others, he thought, watching her work and listening to the things that she was telling him in a low voice.
He performed his own examinations alongside Madam Pomfrey, in return telling her about the specifics that draconic senses were able to discern. Together, they found a middle ground with human and dragon based healing and although Sirius woke up about halfway through, he didn't bother them or give them any issues. The ventral tip of Domir's tail and its spikes at his eye level and trapping his left shoulder saw to that.
Sirius was a very good boy. The 'goodest,' one could say.
|:-:|
There had been some business handled elsewhere as Madam Pomfrey had done her own work. This business was strictly Auror business, and it had made for some rushed messages between the DMLE and the dragon court.
"Are we ready? This has to be done quickly," Madam Bones said.
"Yes, ma'am. It's all set up."
"Moody ready?"
"Yes, and already complaining about the travel. I think he was looking forward to the… chicken-fried steak a couple of the elves made, whatever that is."
"Steak can be fried like chicken?"
"Apparently."
Madam Bones shook her head. Moody had been around many places in his career, which made for eclectic food knowledge. Some of the things he professed to like made her a bit squeamish, even though she'd been around many places on the globe herself. Not for the first time, Madam Bones wondered if he was taking the mickey out of her. Also, not for the first time, the thought that if he was challenged to eat some of the more disgusting things he talked about to prove it, he might do it. She cut that unappetizing line of thought off and walked out of her office. She had a place to be, and quickly. Cuisine had to wait.
The Auror accompanying her rushed up to a door and preceded her into a darkened room. One side was magically-reinforced darkened glass with strengthening runes running down each vertical side of the framework made it impossible to break without a literal ton of force. There were several chairs around a rather beat-up table that looked like it had been made last century by someone not really paying attention to their cuts or joinery. Since the Ministry was always 'lowest-bidder,' the table was the best it could do. It was a flat surface however, and that was all that mattered to the Aurors. Notepads littered the table along with mugs full to varying degrees.
Madam Bones chose the most comfortable chair as a privilege of her rank, although that wasn't saying much. It wasn't nearly as cozy as her office chair, but that one was her own. She'd used House Bones funds as Regent for that chair, and paid for recall runes to be carved into it so no one could steal it when she left the office or the job for whatever reason. There was even parchmentwork on file with the General Accounting department that specified her chair, how much she paid, for what purpose, and what it was used for.
She was keeping that chair, no matter what. Madam Bones didn't really have much else for affectations in her office, unlike some people in the Ministry she could name off the top of her head. The mental image of Cornelius Fudge popped into her mind with that thought, and she grimaced at the rune-worked wall.
The Auror with her, Auror Edward Duskwater, stepped over to the wall and tapped a slightly larger rune a couple of times, then tapped a second rune directly below it. Around them, the room took on a somewhat red glow with discreet nightlights powering up and casting a cerise glow on the table and around furniture in the room.
As Duskwater was working in the room and another Auror was making sure the coffeepot was working, Madam Bones was casting a wide-area spell that temporarily increased the rhodopsin produced in their eyes and brought up their night vision. Everyone nodded to each other as the contents of the room came into sharper focus more or less at the same time.
On the other side of the glass, there was the expected scene. Alastor Moody sat grumbling to himself at a sturdy table, across from an empty chair. He was singularly uncaring if anyone heard the things that he had to say. Thankfully, the runes that Duskwater had activated for transmitting the sound in the room didn't pick that up. Everyone had a good idea what was being said anyway from the expressions on the other faces in the room, some better than others if only from long experience with some of the things he was bound to say. There was a Senior Auror standing overwatch over the whole thing, and a junior Auror operating the Dictaquill. All that was needed was someone in the chair across from Moody.
The junior Auror cleared her throat at Moody, who left off his complaints as the operating checklist for the Dictaquill was completed and it was activated. The Aurors in the viewing room knew that it wasn't worth all the headache the Wizengamot would deal out to them if whatever Moody had been saying was recorded. It wouldn't be the first time it had happened over the years, aside from the things that the old Master Auror said. Most of the things Moody said weren't disprovable, and anyone who tried found themselves in sometimes compromising positions. That usually led to more complaints, which again, weren't disprovable. There were plenty of examples from others in the archives of some of the stuff that people said when they forgot that they were 'live-quill.'
Some of it was funny, some not so much. Those got used in training modules at the Auror Academy, which ensured that they lived on in perpetuity. If the unfortunate Auror who was quoted in those examples were still on the job, it never failed that some greenhorn straight out of the Academy would ask for details. If they didn't, Moody sometimes would mention certain instances for illustration to said greenhorn on a slow day under the guise of 'field training.'
He didn't endear himself to the field training officers in charge of the greenhorns in question, but Moody didn't care. He owned his own mistakes as a greenhorn and used them too, so they couldn't say much.
Moody looked around the room at the others to send them a nonverbal question, Madam Bones could see. It was something that she'd done more than once herself and she watched the old Master Auror instead of the others. She knew that they had signaled to him that they were ready to begin, when she saw and heard him grumble something else and nudge the hidden button on the underside of the table with his knee. It didn't matter to him, but she had the thought more than a few times if anyone had ever bothered to clean the thing. There was a lot of things that got on an Auror's robes in the course of their duties.
Maybe that was why he used his remaining knee instead of pressing it with a hand under the table. Constant Vigilance, after all. No sense in getting sick from whatever might be living on it.
This thought was interrupted by the sound of the door opening, and the person intended for the empty chair being led through. Moody's magic eye spun around for a moment, then joined the natural eye in locking on to the mottled face of Madam Umbridge. She was taking a breath, presumably to spout off something that no one wanted to bother hearing.
"Save it. You're here for a variety of reasons, all of them legal. Quill on," he said, a large frown affixed to his face. The junior Auror hurried to tap the rune activating the quill, knowing that there would probably be something the prisoner would say about that. She wanted it to be captured, even if there really wasn't much that could be done about it. "Interview of Madam Dolores Umbridge about events surrounding a magical attack upon draconic guests at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on 1 December, 1994 at six forty-five PM, in the evening. Quill, append date and time. Madam Umbridge, do you understand that this interview is being recorded?"
"How dare you peons! I am…"
"Yes, yes, you're the Senior Undersecretary, we've heard that quite often from you," Moody growled from deep in his chest. "In case you haven't noticed, you're in an interview room because of things we need to ask. Your name came up. Being a Senior Undersecretary is meaningless because of those things we need to ask."
"What…"
Moody ignored her as he went on.
"There's a few things that we have questions about a Ministry tasking. Your name came up as someone that would have information about it, but looking at the way you've acted I don't think you do. I personally think you were played as a gullible patsy. Someone that was put into place as a scapegoat that wouldn't realize what was happening, and someone that would be a nice red herring to lead away from the people that knew much more."
She puffed up again.
"How dare you! There's nothing I don't know about the Ministry's operations and I've directed most of it to cleanse it from the stink of those foul mudbloods that think they know the things they don't have the brains to comprehend!"
"Uh-huh." Moody's tone was skeptical. "I've heard that before from two-bit thieves that want to make us think they're important. Big fish. You'll excuse me if I believe that any more than I believe them."
Umbridge's mouth gaped open.
"...big fish."
Moody didn't say anything, the scarred face regarding the woman sitting across from him with something as close to dismissal as it was able. The other Aurors in the room had dispassionate faces, their whole demeanor as close to stone statues as they could project, aside from things like breathing and checking the Dictaquill's operation. The silence in the room stretched out as Umbridge stared at the Master Auror. The dubiety in her whole deportment at the words she'd heard was receding in the face of her rising ire. Or rather, her face was gaining a huge amount of color very rapidly and she was puffing up an even more impressive amount for her small size.
In the viewing room, Madam Bones muttered, "Here it comes…" She knew what Moody was up to. He'd done it before.
"You fool! Do you know what I have done to protect us?"
"Nope." He affixed a skeptical look upon her puffy face. It gave the impression that he didn't believe a word she said. It wasn't far from the truth, but she didn't know how far. "Why don't you tell me? See if you can convince me, not that I think you can."
And she did. She didn't stop for a long while, buoyed by the aggravation that Moody had induced in her. It didn't help that she'd never liked him anyway. She continued in her self-aggrandizement, feeding upon her sense of righteousness and letting it override her otherwise rarely-used sense of protection.
The feeling was mutual and he let her talk. Never interrupt Dolores Umbridge when she's making a mistake was his motto today.
|:-:|
And she did. She was so fired up from the perceived disrespect that she felt he was paying her that she let him have it with both wands, figuratively speaking.
"… and there has to be someone in charge of cleaning out the deadwood in the Ministry and the Wizengamot! It was a good start with Black in prison, but he got out – somehow – and if I have anything to say about it, he'll be going back in a box!"
"A box, is it?"
She didn't notice his seemingly fatuous remark and took it as more dismissal of her intelligence or of her in general. This couldn't stand. She was so angry now at the treatment at the hands of the Aurors, being made to be in this little room, and the disrespect shown to her. That came out in the words that rushed out in a torrent before she could think.
"If that! Black should be at the bottom of the North Sea, and if I have anything to say about it, he will be. I've worked to that goal to destroy every Black by any means possible for most of my life and I'll see it done before I die!"
He snorted in dismissal.
"Oh? Surely you didn't think you could 'destroy' the Black Family. They've been known for their paranoia for centuries." Moody grinned at the hidden wall, knowing the people behind it were watching and unable to say anything to him about his choice of words right then. "Constant Vigilance, you might say."
She tried to slam her fist into the table, but the restraints in the chair's magic and the backup in the table stopped her.
"Everyone's got to eat. Everyone's got a weak point, or something they have to have, or desires they have to indulge in."
"That's true, but what does this have to do with the Blacks?"
"Orion Black."
The name was spit out with feminine hatred, cursed with the tones of a woman that had endured unwanted attention from the owner of the name. Moody had to rethink for a moment and redirect his thoughts. Orion Black had been dead for some time.
"What about him?"
"He took my innocence before he died," the rage at him and satisfaction at his death in her voice was plain to hear, "and began the downfall of his family at my hands."
"In what way? Surely you by yourself couldn't have done that? There's no way you could have."
Moody asked that question, interested despite himself, but Umbridge shook her head. There was a dim ember of remembered agony in her eyes, extinguished by the crazed desire to see things finished with the authors of that pain. He paused for a moment, re-ordering what he wanted to ask thanks to the implications revealed here.
She managed to swell herself up even more somehow. It was impressive to see in such a small witch and absently everyone watching wondered if at some point she'd pop like a balloon.
"The Black controlled everything in one way or another, but they all used the same thing: money. After I left Hogwarts, I convinced Tim MacDonald to help me. His three sisters had been similarly used, let's say. They were all half-bloods, so there wasn't anything they could really say when Orion Black and his thugs came calling in the night."
"Is that so?" He really wanted to ask, "Can you prove it?" but that wasn't the focus of this interrogation. Never interrupt an opponent when he, or she in this case, was making a mistake.
"A slip of a girl couldn't do anything, but I knew that the power is in the Ministry. Once I got in and settled, declaring a Blood Feud by filing parchmentwork after hours, and using people to get it approved on the sly, there was nothing I couldn't do. It didn't matter that no one knew about it. Orion wasn't the first Black I got rid of, but he was the most satisfactory. Arcturus was a pain to kill, but I did it. Alphard took some finesse, but it's amazing what the right words can do to greedy people. Having Sirius Black run after the Potters were killed was a Merlin-sent opportunity and I was in the right place at the right time. A little manipulation, some words in ears, some acts I could care less about – men are all the same. Pigs the whole lot, especially Barty Crouch. Every one of them. It didn't take much convincing to have Black put away with this golden opportunity at hand. Once Black was sent to Azkaban to perish, my revenge would be almost complete and the Black line would be destroyed. Then I could claim their money by Right of Conquest thanks to that feud. All nice and legal."
He motioned for her to go on.
"In fact, MacDonald was very useful in finding like-minded people to do other things that needed to be done, and funneling information to me which I used to make my way up. Such a sad thing for openings to suddenly appear, but I was there, ready to step in. Until I made myself Undersecretary to that fool Fudge."
"'Made,' you say?"
"Of course," she sniffed. "Every job posting I've had was something I've arranged to have. It's not as if there's a lot of intelligence in the Ministry."
He'd had that thought more than once in the past, but wasn't going to admit it now.
"Go on. What does this have to do with Sirius Black?"
"He is a Black. He has to die, like all Blacks."
"By setting him up and then sending him to Azkaban without a trial?"
"Oh, no, we didn't 'set him up,' but it was too good for me not to use. Having him thrown into prison furthered my goals, innocence or guilt be damned. I don't know how he got out, but Dementors can and will take care of that. They've been given his soul's scent and will never stop chasing him now."
Umbridge didn't see the other Aurors' faces go pale at this tidbit of information, but Moody didn't react other than a few flicks of his magical eye toward them.
"Uh-huh." His tone was still of the I'm humoring you in this and don't really believe you one bit type. "And this 'group' of yours?"
"After destroying all the Blacks, we set up the coup to happen."
"Coup?"
"Of the Ministry, you stupid man. Things are going to be changed and you can't stop it."
"What?"
"Finance, judiciary, districting and other things. We've got it sewn up, and no supposed 'Dark Lord' is going to be able to interfere."
She was quiet for a moment, reflecting on something that she apparently thought of.
"That's another thing," she mused. "The Potter boy. He'll get his for his lying ways."
"How so?"
"The Potters are on my list too, just because. Bunch of rich, lazy, no-good wastes of space."
|:-:|
In the observation room, Madam Bones jumped up. The monocle fell to its chain as she gaped at what she had heard.
"You have got to be kidding me." She looked at the Senior Auror with her, as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard. The man looked back at her with roughly the same expression on his face.
There was the barest of pauses.
"I want copies of that Blood Feud declaration here soonest! I also want Tim MacDonald out of where we stashed him in Hogwarts and in a Ministry cell for Moody to talk to next, soonest! Squeeze him for that information! Find out who else he had working with him and drag them in, too. That's a direct threat to the Ministry!"
The Senior Auror nodded and hustled out of the room, only stopping long enough to gather another Auror from the bullpen to go with him. As he left, a third Auror stepped in to take the recently vacated chair.
Madam Bones spared him a quick glance before turning her attention back to the interview. There was another dictaquill on the table beside her now. It tore across the parchment, trying to catch up with the one in the interview room. The DMLE Chief waited impatiently for it to finish, both eyes tracking the paths it took in its cursive journey. There was some explosive stuff – she wanted to use a different term, but she was trying to always set the example for her subordinates even if it was in her private thoughts – laid out in the parchment.
"It looks like there's going to be a job opening in General Accounting, among things," she mused to no one in particular.
The others in the room didn't respond to her statement, but they did look at each other in agreement. One looked up at the clock and bumped her arm to get her attention. When she looked at him, he pointed at the clock.
She grimaced. Their time was running out for this interview and she edged her hand toward the cut-it-short rune that would signal Moody.
|:-:|
In the interview room, Umbridge had decided that she had said all she had to say and sat with her arms folded and the beginnings of a smirk on her face. The glare she directed at Moody said that she was done. It bounced off him, since he didn't care one bit what she thought and never had.
"Well?"
"Well, what?" he responded.
"Are you going to apologize to me, now?"
"For what? There's nothing to apologize for. You're the one being interviewed and I haven't made you say anything under duress. Your speech has been your own."
The rune behind Umbridge's seat and over the head of the door frame lit up. Moody smoothly shifted from what he was going to say.
"I'm done here. Interview stopped. Quill, append date and time." He hadn't spoken the date and time as he normally did since he didn't want her to have a sense of time. It was a morally gray area to conduct an interview in that fashion, but it was technically possible and the Wizengamot didn't care how an interview was timestamped anyway. After finding out about this, he didn't think they was going to care about spoken dates and times anyway.
He sat back and watched as the other Aurors led her away. There was plenty of complaining coming from her as they did so. Moody didn't have long to wait.
Madam Bones ghosted into the room and said, "I've got MacDonald coming."
"Figured you did, lass. What kind of talk do you want from me on him?"
She grimaced, but he could see the fire in her eyes.
"Rip him up one side and down the other. Find out what he did with the money he had to have been misdirecting and where it went. Get names, dates, everything you can."
"Aye, lass. Back to the trial for you?"
"Yes. Between you and me, I never thought I'd be attending a court run by dragons. It's one of the strangest experiences I've seen in my life and that's saying something."
He chuckled, which was also one of the strangest experiences she'd seen or heard.
"And you know what's so odd?" she continued.
"What's that?"
"It's one of the most efficient courts I've ever seen. The Wizengamot would do well to take some notes."
"Never happen."
She sighed in agreement, letting him see the frustration that she wouldn't allow anyone else to notice and turned to leave. Madam Bones had to get back to court.
|:-:|
People was filing back into their seats in the open-air courtroom, noticing that the stone pad that Whopnehr had been resting on was empty as it awaited his return. Sirius Black was sitting by himself looking a bit nervous, as his law-dragon was elsewhere for the moment. Dahne could be seen at the next table over, his claws clicking on the stone as he flipped through something filled with all manner of symbology. It made no sense to anyone who caught a glimpse of it.
"Where is Perreh," Sirius muttered to himself. There had been a muted crack in the distance about ten minutes ago, but there wasn't any way to see if it was from someone Apparating to the front gates or if a tree branch had fallen in the Forest. He listened, trying to distract himself from the worry chiming in his mind. The Dementor exposure he'd suffered had magnified the sense of self-loathing Walburga had beaten into him. He tried to ignore it, but some things would take time to recover from.
It didn't help right now that he was figuratively and literally all by himself.
There was a heavy tread next to him and he turned without thinking to see a row of large sharp teeth in close proximity.
"Eeep!"
Perreh pretended not to notice his client's now even more pale face and the pounding of the pulse in his neck. Some things were to be enjoyed without comment. He was a dragon, after all.
"There's been a change. Did you know you had a Blood Feud declared on you and your family?"
"Wh-what? When?"
"In the Time of the Reaper of Stars… no, wait a minute," Perreh grimaced as he tried to do the conversion in his head. "The… late seventies."
"Late Seventies? When I was finishing Hogwarts? No, no idea at all! What family was supposed to have declared a Blood Feud, of all things, with the Blacks?"
Perreh mentally reviewed his notes to answer the question.
"A Doloroos… Doloray… Delory… Flames take it! Umbridge. That's the family name."
"Dolores Umbridge?!"
Perreh nodded. Even with the Translation Charm helping with the communication, the name left a terrible stench in his mouth and he wanted to flame it out. That wouldn't be a good thing for the people in the galleries behind them, and Whopnehr wouldn't appreciate his area being scorched ahead of them.
"Yes. That one."
He wondered about the antipathy in his client's voice and debated asking about that. It took only a moment since he hadn't met her, after all.
"Why do you hate her so much? Is she that bad?"
Sirius gaped at him long enough that Perreh waved a talon at him to get on with it.
"She's the cause of a bunch of bigoted legislation – the muggleborn and werewolves among them, with several muggleborn known to me and a best friend as a werewolf. I don't like it and have never liked it, but I've not been in a position to do something about it. Plus, she's an insult to toads everywhere."
"I see. Well, this might improve your mood. It seems that there was a few things brought to flames that will change your case."
Brought to flames? Sirius thought, before deciding that the law-dragon meant brought to light, but translating between human and dragon versions of expressions got confusing sometimes. He had enough confusion to deal with as it were.
There was a slight dip in the conversation around them, and Sirius looked up to see the bailiff stand up from her position. Not for the first time, he thought Now there's a dragon that needs a vacation, a good scale polishing, some bloody cows or something, but he was smart enough not to say it out loud.
He didn't know that Perreh was thinking practically the same thing.
"All rise!"
Whopnehr arrived, moving a bit slower as his age was making it harder for him to get around. He landed on his heated stone pad and shifted around a bit to get comfortable, then nodded to Mirela.
"Court is now in session, the Honorable Battle Draco Whopnehr presiding. Be seated and be quiet!"
The growl was clearly heard. Everyone was quiet, since they didn't want to make the irritable dragon more quiet wasn't a problem for most of the attendees, as they could see the very constipated look on Mirela's face. At least, that was what most thought. No one, human or dragon, was going to ask her the question "Have you had yourself checked for plumbing problems lately?"
It begged the question of what dragons ate to get constipated, but no one was going to ask her that, either. Sirius idly debated if he could get someone else to ask, maybe Lucius Malfoy or somebody.
Whopnehr looked out from his bench and saw that Perreh had a gleam in his eye that he was carefully keeping hidden from Dahne. He sighed to himself, knowing that both of them pulled something in every single trial they were in. Sometimes it was Perreh, sometimes it was Dahne and always it was one reason among many that he had more gray in his scales than he wanted. He sighed again at that and spoke up.
"We are back in session and I wanted to see a healer report. Is that ready?" The gravelly tone of his voice said that it had better be, or else.
Perreh dipped his head for a moment.
"Yes, Your Honorable Battle Draco, among things."
"Among things?"
Everyone could see that Whopnehr was squinting at the younger dragon and a few beats later, could see Dahne talonpalming.
"Yes. First, I call Maester Chirurgeon Draco Domir to the Perch."
The title was almost as impressive as the dragon himself was, and everyone watched as the huge Horntail moved calmly to arrange himself on the stone. People moved back to allow him room, not wanting to experience the razor-sharp talons on their body as he stepped past and dragons nodded in acknowledgment. Most had been patched up by Domir at some point or another and didn't want to risk offending him in some way in case they needed future patching up again.
Perreh waited with all patience until Domir was sworn in and settled.
"Witness, identify yourself for the record, please, and your qualifications."
The deep voice rolled out, making Perreh's translated voice seem sickly in comparison.
"I am Maester Chirurgeon Draco Domir, descended of Muiratch, Maester Battle Draco and Tessaies, Hogwarts Mother Eminence. I hold highest titles of Healing, both Practical and Instructional, and am especially qualified in performing and instructing Battle Healing, Internal Flameways, Nerve Paths, and Musculoskeletal Healing."
The humans could see the dragons nodding their heads and figured that it was a quite useful body of knowledge for dragons. It sounded impressive.
"Thank you, Maester. Have you performed an examination on the human known as Sirius Black?"
"We have, and have agreed that I should be the one to present our findings. Madam Pomfrey is a respected Healer in her own right by many in the magical community, having treated a vast majority of those in the same."
Now the dragons saw the humans nodding, although some looked a bit… embarrassed? The more curious decided to find out what that was about later.
"And what were your findings?"
Domir cleared his throat, the sound reminding many of a huge tree cracking in splinters while on flames.
"As Madam Pomfrey was Mister Black's school healer, she retained his record – as she does with all she has treated." Many in the audience looked more than a bit embarrassed at that. "We used that as a baseline, as we knew that his time in confinement would have deleterious effects upon his body and mindset."
Sirius couldn't really argue that, but he wished the huge dragon hadn't stated it so baldly.
"From the baseline we used in that file, we found that muscle mass had decreased forty-three percent, fat reserves were completely gone, bone mass had begun to approach the point of no return and brittleness had increased eighteen percent. Cardiovascular system deterioration was marked – not to the point of total collapse, but he will have problems for the rest of his life even with healer intervention. Mental effects are surprisingly lucid, despite the presence of the soulwicks burning away at him."
Perreh noticed the confusion on the faces of the humans.
"'Soulwicks,' Maester?"
"My apologies, Law-Dragon. That is the term we use for what the humans call the Dementors. They gather to themselves the fuel of the victim's soul and burn it away, you see."
A general sound of disgust was interrupted by Whopnehr scraping his talons over his stone, and people settled down.
"Thank you, Maester. What other items do you have to report?"
"We noted the presence of a good deal of magical energy related to the Declaration of Contention, and we documented that in both human and draconic fashions. Madam Pomfrey had prior professional relationships with the humans known as James and Lily Potter and Peter Pettigrew and the residue Contention Magic allowed her to get answers from Mister Black about their fate and the effect on him. It does not have legal standing, but it does allow for more targeted healing work to be done. As those things were asked here – and included in our report in Appendix A – I recommend that the same questions be asked on the Witness Stand for a legal grounding."
That was as far as Domir could go with his recommendation. Other questions were asked, and the whole report was entered into the record with the permission of Sirius Black noted alongside. He figured that humans wouldn't be able to access the draconic version submitted and see the more embarrassing things Madam Pomfrey asked him. He hadn't thought about the Treaty stipulations yet and by the time he would, it would be too late to change it.
Perreh looked over at Dahne. "Your witness."
"No questions."
Whopnehr peered over his nose at Perreh, who was conferring with Madam Bones.
"Counselor?"
Perreh stood up straight.
"Your Honorable Battle Draco, I have new evidence that has developed over the last recess even as Mister Black was being examined. It bears directly upon this case and I would like to present it to the court. I apologize to my learned colleague for springing this on him, but there was no time to discuss it before trial resumed."
He nodded at Dahne, who accepted it but the look he gave his old friend said that there would be consequences. The return nod said to add it to his tab.
"Very well," Whopnehr grumbled. "Proceed."
"I call Madam Amelia Susan Bones to the Perch."
All eyes turned to the woman, who marched up to the Perch and sat in the human-sized seats.
|:-:|
"Say, is it me or does she look like someone's dying?" one man in the viewing galleries asked his neighbor. The woman peered at her, seeing things that he couldn't or wouldn't have thought to look for. He wasn't part of the female solidarity against male stupidity, after all.
"No. She looks like someone's about to die if she has anything to say about it."
The way she said it made him look over at her before jerking his head forward to glance at Madam Bones again. He gulped as uneasy memories filtered into his brain.
"Uh… you know, she looks like my wife does when I come home too late from the pub."
"I know your wife, remember. After the fourth time in a week, I don't blame her."
|:-:|
"I so swear."
Madam Bones relaxed into the seat after swearing her oath, which was a bit warm still from Domir's presence. Not just the seat indention, but the whole stone pad. A part of her mind wondered if Horntails had a hotter body temperature than other dragons, but that was shut off quickly. She wasn't here to ponder that.
She watched as Perreh strolled to a point halfway between his area, the Perch, and the jury box. Both law-dragons tended to speak from that spot more often than not and only every so often would they pace back and forth while expounding on a given point. Another part of her mind recognized the actions of a trial lawyer in the human world was practically the same as a law-dragon's actions here.
Bones almost chuckled at the thought of a law-dragon giving a passionate closing statement with all manner of theatrics and dramatic pointing at the defendant or the jury. Thankfully, she remember what court she was in and what the judge could do that the Wizengamot couldn't. Namely, flame one Madam Amelia Susan Bones.
"What did your interview reveal, Madam Bones?"
She sat up a fraction of an inch.
"There was a pattern of behavior on the part of the Senior Undersecretary…"
"A Madam Umbridge?" Perreh didn't try to pronounce the first name again as he interrupted.
"Dolores Umbridge, yes."
"Thank you. My apologies for the interruption. Please continue."
"During this interview, she revealed an animus with the Black Family and her decision to take certain actions against that family. One of those actions was capitalizing on the aftermath of the events that saw the deaths of the Potters in Godric's Hollow in 1981. Using different forms of manipulation, she engineered the incarceration of Sirius Black."
A moment of silence passed before Perreh broke it.
"You have that interview with you and are prepared to release it, for the record?"
"I am."
Whopnehr scratched his talon along the edge of his stone pad, producing a warbling sound different from what he'd been making. All eyes turned to him.
"What form does this interview take?"
Her face fell a bit.
"A standard Auror-grade memory, used for trial display. We didn't think about incompatibilities with draconic court equipment."
He peered at her for a moment before tapping his talon on the low rail in front of his pad.
"I thought about that. We can display it, but it will be done by a different method than you usually employ."
Madam Bones glanced at Perreh, and behind him, Dahne. Both looked resigned. She returned her attention to the old dragon.
"Of course, My Lord.. er, Your Honorable Battle Draco." She grimaced at the slip. He waved it off, as if he was expecting it to happen.
Whopnehr scraped his talons in the now-usual way, producing the regular sound that made some in the audience wince. He ignored that and spoke.
"Counsel, approach the bench."
Perreh and Dahne did so, and the short conversation was held but not broadcast to the others. Madam Bones wondered what was being said, of course, but knew much better than to ask. She could see the expressions on the younger dragons faces and wondered why they looked resigned to something. It was as if they'd rather not do something, both of them, and knew that neither had a choice.
Odd, she thought. What could it be, that neither want to do whatever the judge is talking about?
Whatever it was, the short conference broke up a minute later. Perreh went over to what had appeared to be a pile of leftover stones that everyone had ignored and grabbed a large one. He waddled back to the Perch, balancing the stone in his paws a bit uneasily before dropping it. The whumph as it landed more or less in front of Madam Bones' seat announced an accompanying shockwave that could be felt by most of the viewers through their chairs. It was apparently a lot heavier than they'd thought, an impression in the ground under it feeding that observation.
"Thank you, Perreh," Whopnehr said. "Now, Madam Bones, this is the draconic version of what you call a 'pensieve.' It displays memories, just not the same way. To use, merely pour your stored memory over the stone. It will store the memory within itself like a sponge, changing its physical being and performing its work."
She nodded and started to unstopper the vial.
"A seriously spoken word of warning to all present. This will play out in the field of your collective visions and will not stop until what is contained within this memory is complete. Once started, it cannot be stopped. If you do not feel that you can handle such an event, you are directed to leave now and in an orderly fashion until tomorrow. Otherwise, remain in your seats and do not move until the memory is concluded."
No one moved. Some looked concerned, but were too curious to know about what Madam Bones had in that vial to want to get up and leave. The old dragon nodded to Madam Bones and she leaned forward to pour out the memory. Everyone watched as the stone absorbed the smoky silver liquid, glowing as the surface actually bubbled before settling down.
Madam Bones had just barely managed to sit back before her vision blanked out. There was a few gasps from the others that were cut off as the memory initialized. She recognized the view she was seeing as the point of view of the Senior Auror in the room with Moody during the interview. It started with the throat-clearing from the Auror operating the Dictaquill.
It was a bit disquieting to know that she couldn't see anything else. Or hear, either. Her senses had been taken over by the memory-imbued stone, and probably everyone else's, too. That explained why the younger law-dragons had been looking the way they had. They probably knew what was coming and didn't look forward to it any more than she was now enduring this herself.
Still, it was immersive. A lot more than any Pensieve she'd ever been in. A gravelly voice filled her ears.
"Save it. You're here for a variety of reasons, all of them legal. Quill on."
She watched along with all the others.
|:-:|
After the memory completed and everyone was blinking their own sight back into the brightly lit area, Madam Bones was dismissed. It was practically a foregone conclusion to many, but still a surprise when Sirius Black was called up and sworn in. As the defendant, he was sternly reminded about the Perch's reactions to lying under oath. No one, much less Sirius himself, was going to forget the flames Bitterberry had experienced.
"Mister Black, were you aware of this blood feud?" Perreh asked calmly.
"I was not. Not at all. No one had ever released it within the Family and my grandfather – who was Lord Black at that point – said nothing about it to anyone. Every other time there was a Blood Feud, it was immediately published to all Blacks and the Wizengamot no matter whatever internal family drama there might have been."
Everyone waited to see if he would burst into flames or scream in pain or just blow up. Sirius merely sat there, waiting for the next question.
"Does this ignorance you speak of make it invalid?"
"I'd think so. It's a big deal to be a part of a Blood Feud, and it usually means that other means of recourse to settle a dispute has all failed. There hadn't been any disputes in family history at that level in some time – maybe a century before, but not recently."
Sirius waited, still unburned.
"Something to check on. How do you feel about learning what this Umbridge woman has done?"
Sirius growled under his breath.
"I feel very angry and want to say that if she wants a Blood Feud I'm likely to agree."
Perreh nodded, but said nothing more.
"Now for another matter. Were you or were you not the Secret-Keeper for James and Lily Potter on or before October 31, 1981?"
Breaths were held in chests all over the courtroom's open area and it seemed that the light breeze had stopped to await the answer.
"I was not."
Sirius leaned back and after a few moments it was clear that he was going to continue to remain whole. Mutters arose in the viewers' galleries.
Whopnehr sighed to himself and scraped his talons over his stone a bit harder than he usually did. The shrill screech stopped the noise handily and people shook their heads to try to clear the sound out of their ears.
"There will be order, or there will be less of you here. Am I understood?" The smoke puffing from his nostrils in his aggravation underscored what he was saying.
Many heads nodded quickly and silence fell.
"Thank you, Your Honorable Battle Draco," Perreh said. "Now, Mister Black, what role did this Peter Pettigrew play?"
"He was the actual Secret-Keeper. He was the only one that could have revealed where James and Lily were in hiding, with baby Harry."
More mutters, which cut off when Whopnehr tapped his talon on his stone.
"And what about the fight where the humans, twelve humans, I believe, were killed?"
"Pettigrew was an unregistered Animagus and used that to escape."
Perreh nodded. During the questioning, he had meandered to the pile of stones with everyone else's attention on Sirius. He addressed Whopnehr.
"Your Honorable Battle Draco, as it so happens, I have Mister Black's memory of that event and would like to play it in similar fashion to the interview."
|:-:|
It didn't take long after that. As everyone was blinking their sight back into their eyes for the second time, Whopnehr wasted no time in declaring that the Blood Feud was to be reviewed in preparation for being vacated. He said that too many things made no sense about it as far as the activation of said Feud, much less the motive. It might have been a cultural difference between dragons and humans, but there was enough for him to make this recommendation on this subject. The fact that it was brought up in a criminal trial was irrelevant.
"You will deliberate upon this matter for no less than four hours. If you have a verdict after that time, you will return and deliver that verdict at that time."
Whopnehr looked around.
"We will be in recess until the jury has reached its verdict."
The talons scraped across the stone, recessing Sirius' trial.
Authors Personal Note:
Apologies to all for the lapse in time. The theft I referred to in an earlier note had wider repercussions and I had to deal with that. I didn't like people who preyed on elderly ladies before and I absolutely despise them now. Mom is doing 'okay' now, but the latest related issue brings the fear and other feelings back to her. I think we have it all straightened out now, but who knows? The thief in question has not been caught, unfortunately.