A/N: Apologies for the excessive length between updates. Life has been wretchedly busy, and desire to write fanfic rather low. Let this be a lesson to you: never place anything (and I mean ANYTHING) above your own sanity, however doubtful that sanity may be. It isn't worth it.
+Mens mea cupit cantare formas versas in nova corpora.+
(Ovid )
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three days later, Hermione was still pale and on edge. And Harry had to admit he wasn't much better.
His room had become more like the cell Fudge had so generously not given him. Someone had locked the window from the outside - he had discovered this late the first night - and sealed it with a complicated warding spell. He recognized it from the old days, and it was the kind of spell any thinking person would get a curse-breaker to unravel, and thus the kind of spell that if someone had broken it... That someone would be in Azkaban, right next to Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley.
/You should be in there with them,/ Harry told himself caustically. It was the hundredth time he had said this, but each repetition did not make it easier. The thought still burned like acid. /Your best friend and... and Draco./ And he could still not fix on what to call Draco, who he could see in his mind's eye - in a black place, fading against the shadows, and the Dementors behind him, chill and awful. It was strange... he felt no real fear for Ron, mostly fury on behalf of his best friend, and grief for Hermione, but the Ron he had come to know was reckless and capable, and had always come out on top.
The last memories he had of Draco, until recently, were of him surrounded by crowds of hostile wizards, saved from being cursed into oblivion only by the presence of Aurors and a Ministry intent on reasserting its own authority. He shook his head, trying to banish the image of that last trial, the sound of the shouts echoing in his ears, but the memories chased him from one end of his room to the other. Even the increasing, protesting heat in his leg could not keep him still.
"Stop pacing!" Hermione snapped from her corner. Her hands were still locked around a handkerchief, one that had been pressed into repeated service over the past few days. "You're going to drive me out of what's left of the rest of my mind," she continued irritably, "and I *need* my mind."
Harry shrugged by way of apology, but did not stop. Thought drove him on, fueling both nervous energy and the awful curdling sensation in his stomach. Minerva would be here soon, he reminded himself, returned from her trip to the Ministry - and Azkaban, Hermione had said, if they would let her. Molly and Arthur were still in London, Harry was given to understand, and would be staying there until Ron's trial. /Or summary execution,/ a dark voice in the back of Harry's head whispered.
/Don't think about that./ Harry tried to think of all the scrapes he and Ron had survived, both as children and later after the war had claimed their adult lives, and defined so much of them. He remembered when Ron would vanish for weeks at a time, off on some super-secret Ministry thing, and resurface with a few scars and the same old smirk, alongside a quick, "Hey, Harry, long time no see." /This is the same thing, and you'll see him soon./
And he could almost see this now, hear Ron's footsteps coming quickly down the hall, the door opening, Hermione bounding gracelessly across the room, getting swept up in a full-armed bear hug by her husband.
But.
So there *was* fear after all.
There was a clatter behind the door, words raised in brief protest - Harry felt a wild flux of hope, Hermione's head snapped up - and then Minerva McGonagall's harder voice overrode them. Hermione surged to her feet as though electrocuted. Harry stopped pacing. The door ground on its hinges like the door to a prison cell, then swung open.
Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts, swept through. It hit Harry, oddly, how little she had changed over intervening years; her hair had a touch more gray in it, perhaps, and the lines around her eyes were deeper, and perhaps the set of her jaw was harder than even it was in earlier times. But her eyes were keen as a cat's, and saw things most students - and former students - would prefer that she not. It was this sharp, blade-like gaze she turned on Harry now, although a slight smile made her regard easier to endure.
"I hope you are well, Mr. Potter?" she asked. There was exhaustion in her voice, although she covered it well. Minerva was not the kind of woman given to revealing much of weakness to anyone, something for which Harry was now fervently grateful -- *someone* needed to be in control here. He certainly wasn't. Something in Minerva's expression showed she was aware of this, and her tone softened as she said, "I have been trying to convince Fudge to end this idiot 'temporary confinement' issue - he knows it's a fool notion almost as well as I do, but I think that because it *is* a fool notion he clings to it."
Hermione snorted. "The entire thing is a fool notion," she said bitterly. Despite the acidity of her tone, the red-rimmed gaze she turned upon Minerva was strangely beseeching. Harry remembered thinking, a long time ago, that Hermione Granger would die before she begged anything from *anyone*, and here she was, gripping her handkerchief and staring at Minerva with unnerving desperation. "Have you heard anything?" she asked in a low, frantic voice. "Have they told you *anything*? Can I go see him?"
"To answer the first, yes," Minerva said. "As for the second, they have, and the third, no."
A heavy sigh escaped Hermione's lips and she crumpled back into her chair.
"I won't sugarcoat this," Minerva said grimly. "The respective situations of Mr. Weasley and.... Mr. Malfoy are not good. The Minister wants Ron up on charges of 'consorting with the enemy with treasonous intent', and Draco for something he hasn't figured out yet. There may be a retrial, only they'll add the charge of corruption and espionage to his list - corrupting an agent of the Ministry and using the remission of his death sentence to exile in order to do some spying for whatever fragments of Voldemort are left." Sarcasm twisted Minerva's voice at that last.
The small sound from Hermione's corner might have been a sob, but Harry could not tell through the awful thundering in his ears. Despite the racing beat of his heart, he felt incredibly light-headed, and his vision swam into dimness. Weightlessness hit him, and he flashed back for a moment to when he had fallen out of that tower, sixty endless feet to the ground, and the strange disembodied exultation of flying - until the hard ground rushed up to catch him...
Even the memory of that impact was enough to make him snatch desperately after breath, and when he came back to himself, he was vaguely aware that he was sweating and still breathing shallowly. His head and leg ached, pounding in the same merciless rhythm. Minerva and Hermione were staring at him with twin expressions of concern, but all he could do in response was fumble for reassuring words and collapse onto his chair.
"I will need to know everything," Minerva said in a low voice, glancing at Hermione momentarily. "I need to know what your relationship is to Draco, and why Ron was apparently willing to arrange meetings between the two of you. I need complete honesty, Harry - Fudge says that they may be putting either Ron or Draco under Veritaserum at some point soon, and I would rather not have that happen with you, needless to say either of them, if I can manage it. If you speak honestly, I may be able to get Ron to corroborate your testimony." She paused. "I do not know what I can do for Draco, or that I *should* do anything for that matter... but I will get as many of you out of this mess as I can." A crooked smile now. "It seems to be a habit of mine."
Harry fought with himself whether or not to say something - surely, surely Minerva's words demanded some kind of response. But he did not know what to make of her tone, whether she was joking with them, or making an observation, or else saying it to cover something hidden. She *had* gotten them, particularly the Gryffindors, out of more than one uncomfortable place... and now, with the will of the Ministry, and Fudge's own insistence upon following the letter of the law, she was prepared to do it again. He wanted to thank her, to apologize, but the words fell flat and useless, and he found that, even if he had wanted to, he could not have spoken them - there was a catch in his throat, suddenly, and breath was difficult enough.
"How are Molly and Arthur?" Hermione asked, perhaps more to fill the silence than anything. Harry barely kept back a sigh of relief.
"As well as can be expected," Minerva answered, "although I think they would do better for seeing you."
Hermione nodded, staring fixedly down at her fingers and the handkerchief knotted through them. She muttered something Harry could not make out, then, louder: "What about Harry, though?"
"What about me?" Harry jumped at hearing his name, was not prepared to see Hermione lift her head to look at him, the expression on her face one of pity and concern. /For me?/ He dismissed the notion as foolish. Minerva, too, was looking at him now.
"I don't like the idea of you staying here by yourself," Hermione said very slowly and carefully, as though guessing exactly what he had been thinking. Her tone was not very far removed from the one he remembered well from their school days; it was the one she used to explain things to Ron and him, when she thought they were a few too many steps behind her. But her expression was not contemptuous; rather, it was desperately fearful now, and that tears hovered. "I feel like... I feel like if I let you out of my sight, Fudge is going to take you, too."
"You needn't worry about that," Minerva said grimly. Her lined, formidable face hardened, and she drew herself up. "You'll be coming with us, Harry, no matter what the Aurors here have to say about it. Hermione, go to your rooms and get your things. Harry, you get yourself together quickly, for you must leave with me."
It was all happening too fast, but Harry found himself moving as in a daze: nod, move to the closet to get his trunk, place it on the bed, begin to put things in it - shirts, pants, two sets of robes. Don't think, remember packing for Hogwarts at the end of summer, a ritual of freedom: socks and shoes wedged into the corner, underwear tucked into a pocket, toothbrush and things in their own bag, wrapped in a towel. Shut it, press down, flip the locks, seal it with a spell to keep it from exploding on the train ride, wonder anything had been forgotten.
He heard voices in the hallway, Minerva's and Lavender's, both raised in argument. Lavender's was raised, rather, and almost shrill, but Minerva's was steady as ever and, even more importantly, as firm and incontrovertible as it had always been. Her students, Harry realized for the hundredth time - it still struck him afresh, every time he thought this - were *always* her students, whether they taught for her, or were Aurors... or were exiles or criminals or prisoners. / I can do for Draco, or that I *should* do anything for that matter... but I will get as many of you out of this mess as I can./
"I'm sorry, Headmistress," Lavender was saying how, voice reaching for authority but coming up only with desperation. "I'm under orders: Harry has to stay here until the Ministry sends for him. The moment they do, I'll send him on myself, but not until then."
"And I say that I don't want Mr. Potter here, taking up space and the house elves' valuable time when he could very well be somewhere else, and being of real use to not only myself, but to Ms. Weasley and her husband."
There was a long, painful silence. Minerva had placed that nicely; Lavender would be thinking about Ron, her former colleague - her leader, by all rights, Harry supposed. He wondered if Lavender had seen Hermione at all after this had happened, what they might have said to each other. /You didn't just turn in a 'traitor,'/ Harry told Lavender silently. /You turned in Hermione's husband. Your friend./ Would that knowledge make a difference, though? He had seen the fury in Lavender's eyes, and that in her voice, when they had spoken together just a few days ago. /What kind of Gryffindor would do this? Why?/
He had not been able to give her the answer then, not knowing it or not wanting to believe it. Now, though, he stepped cautiously to the door, squaring his shoulders. Looking around it, he saw Lavender standing defiantly before Minerva, dark eyes flashing, and Minerva's back, straight and resolute. He could picture the expression on the Headmistress's face.
Lavender saw him over Minerva's shoulder, and her concentration broke. "Harry!" she snapped. "Get back in there - Ministry orders."
"No," Harry said quietly, which caused Lavender to stare at him in mute outrage. Minerva looked over her shoulder at him, her face impassive. "Lavender, I'm sorry - you can report this to Fudge if you want - but I'm going with Minerva."
"This is only going to make things worse for you," Lavender said. There was no worry in her voice, but a threat under a thin veil of restraint. "I can promise you that, at least - and I don't think it'll go much easier with Ron, or Draco either."
Harry made himself not react to that; she was watching for a reaction, he saw, her gaze narrowed and focused. Instead, he asked, "Why are you doing this? I asked you once before, and you said I wouldn't understand. Well... maybe I *would*, if you told me."
Lavender stepped around Minerva, who silently moved out of the way. She stood close to Harry, slightly taller than him, and when she spoke, her voice was a hot, bitter whisper: "Death Eaters killed my best friend. She was just *there*, just someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - and it doesn't matter whether or not Draco Malfoy killed her, Harry, because he was still one of them, and he'll always be one of them. Even if he didn't do it himself, he would have, if he could." Her voice fell lower, fiercer. "Do you think I'd forget something like that? What I can't understand is how you could."
/Parvati and Dean, dead in Exeter./ Of course Lavender wouldn't have forgotten. So many of their housemates had died. Three from their own year, some before and some after, and friends, most of them, others acquaintances and little more. But Parvati... Harry remembered piercing, irritating laughter and speculation on boys, hairstyles, clothes, music going far into the night. Of course Lavender wouldn't have forgotten.
But he had not forgotten either. /How to say it, though?/
"I haven't forgotten anything," he said after a moment. Lavender stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and outrage painted upon her face. "I know you'd believe the opposite to be true," he continued, "but I can tell you that it's *not.* There's a lot more here, Lavender, than you'd like to think-" He saw her head snap back at the admonishment, as though he were a teacher and she a fumbling first year "-and there's more to Draco than you give him credit."
Lavender opened her mouth to say something, but Minerva broke in with a sharp, "Mr. Potter? Our train is leaving shortly, and we can't afford to miss it."
Those words settled it. Lavender stepped back - and only now did Harry see that she had a firm grip on her wand, so tight the skin about her knuckles was pale and tense - offering her fiercest glare, but little more. He nodded to her, glanced away to find where he had placed his rolling trunk, there, very close by, took it, and began to walk away. He could feel her gaze pressing down on him, heavy and condemning. /Do you think I'd forget something like that?/
/What I don't understand is how you could./
Hermione was waiting for them at the end of the hallway, an untidily packed overnight bag by her feet. The light spilling in through the open door was pale, and she was a very dark shadow against it. Once more Harry wondered if she had seen Lavender, wondered if it would be bad form to ask at a time like this. /Maybe,/ he thought absurdly, /we could compare notes./
He never did get the courage to ask that question, not on the short horseless-carriage ride to the train station, or on the train ride itself. Muggle London loomed before them hours later, the space and time between it and Hogwarts having been broken by no unnecessary conversation; Hermione had fallen into an exhausted sleep, and Minerva did not seem inclined to talk, and Harry stared at the countryside rolling by outside the window.
The rhythmic swaying and clacking of the train had lulled him somewhat, and he found himself disconcerted by the mad crush of humanity milling about the Muggle side of Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Somewhat numb from the shock, he followed Minerva and Hermione through the crowd, gripping his trunk for dear life, trying to figure out how it was he felt so unprepared and out of place. /How long has it been, anyway, since you've been to London?/ Too long, was the answer; Hogsmeade had begun to seem a booming metropolis. /Don't think about that... Just keep your eyes on Minerva's hat,/ he commanded himself, for his old Professor, in deference to Muggle fashion, had donned a wide-brimmed, swooping red creation, decorated with a plume of ostrich feathers. The plumes waved and bobbed, visible far above the heads of the rest of the crowd, and Harry's gaze followed their every movement with desperate attention.
As it turned out, Minerva and the plumes were faithful guides. After three changes of train in the underground and two Portkeys to the wrong Ministry branch offices, they found themselves in the proper one, a sterile square office in Ministry Headquarters, and Harry found himself in the bone-crushing embrace of Mrs. Weasley.
"They won't tell us anything!" Molly sobbed into Harry's shoulder. Her grip tightened with each word until Harry felt his ribs creak; over Molly's shoulder, he saw Arthur smile wanly at him, eyes full of worry. After a moment, Molly pulled back and absently began to straighten Harry's robes. "They won't tell us," she murmured brokenly, the words more or less a refrain of the past few days. "All Fudge does is tell us he won't speak to anyone except Minerva - and laugh to himself. He does that a lot."
"He'll talk to you," Minerva said. Her voice was soft, but steel edged it. "Where is he?"
"His secretary said he's been out on meetings all morning," Arthur said, coming up to shake Harry's hand. His hand felt cold and damp with nervous sweat, and Harry had to fight the urge to wipe his own hand on his robes. "Personally, I think he's hiding; he knows we're not going to take no answer much longer."
"And how are you, dear?" Molly was asking Hermione.
"As well as can be expected, I suppose," Hermione answered, offering her mother-in-law a tremulous smile. "Harry has helped me out a lot."
Harry could only boggle at this. *He* had been as much of a wreck as Hermione had been. In the three days of his "incarceration" (as Hermione called it), Lavender had allowed them brief visits, during which Harry had done little more than worry out loud, for courtesy's sake mostly worrying out loud about Ron, or offering absentminded reassurances. His worrying about Draco, though, had been kept to himself, and now, looking at Molly and Arthur, he decided that that was where it was going to stay for the next little while, if he could possibly help it.
/How do you explain to the parents of your best friend that the reason why he's in Azkaban is the man who was one of those people would could have killed your children? How do you do that? How do you explain it to *yourself*?/
Molly and Hermione were talking in low voices and Arthur was conferring with Minerva over some point of wizarding world law, leaving Harry to wrestle with his problem by himself. /Like it's always been,/ he thought wryly, /more or less./ He fought down an image of Draco as it rose before him again, the same one he had seen since his arrest: Draco in a dark room, huddled against a looming blackness, the Dementors hovering about him, clawed hands reaching out to drag him down into the abyss. Desperately, he tried to swallow, feeling fear tighten about his chest. /Don't think about this. Keep it down./
There was a sharp change in the conversation now, and Harry became aware of a new voice added to the mix: Periwinkle Pander, Fudge's secretary, who was explaining something in an oil-smooth voice. Arthur's sharp, "Don't give me that again! We want to speak to the Minister, and we want to speak with him right now" cut her off.
'He's very sorry," Periwinkle Pander said, "but he is quite busy today."
"I daresay he won't be too busy when you tell him I've arrived," Minerva McGonagall said. Periwinkle's eyes widened at this. "Now, girl, would you be so kind as to tell the Minister that the counsel for Ronald Weasley wishes to speak with him?"
Periwinkle squeaked an unintelligible reply and backed out of the room, nearly tripping over her robes. She had just turned around to close the door behind her when a sharp grunt from Minerva caught her half-reaching for the doorknob.
"And miss?"
"Yes ma'am?"
"Kindly inform the Minister that the counsel for Draco Malfoy is here as well."
"What!" Molly's screech sent Periwinkle darting down the hall without a backward glance, robe rippling out behind her. "Minerva, what is this about? Draco Malfoy!" Her plump, reddened face had gone deathly pale. Arthur's had as well the moment Draco's name had fallen from Minerva's lips. "Draco Malfoy!" Molly repeated, nearly tripping over the name. "What is the *meaning* of this? What does he to do with Ron?"
/He *really* didn't tell them anything,/ Harry realized dully. Close on the heels of that came the realization that he would not be able to keep Draco to himself much longer. He saw Molly looking at him, and Arthur, and Hermione. Hermione's brown eyes were vaguely sorrowful, and she shrugged in resignation. Minerva's expression was stony and offered no help at all. /Just try to talk your way out of this one, Potter./
"He has very much to do with Ron, I'm afraid," Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, said as he strode into the room. His robes billowed out around his plump form, making him look like he was wearing a tent caught in a high wind, but for all the absurdity of his appearance his words were flat and he wore *that* expression on his face, one of absolutely overwhelming arrogance and complacency. Harry desperately wanted to wipe it off. "It is not every day, after all," he said, after a suitably weighty pause, "that a war hero is caught consorting with known criminals."
Molly gasped. "Known criminals... Draco Malfoy? He was - Draco *Malfoy*?" Her voice teetered on the edge of breaking. "Hermione," she asked urgently, "did you know anything about this?" Hermione stared helplessly at her mother-in-law for a moment, her lip trembling. "Did you?" Molly asked again.
"Now is not the time, Molly," Minerva cut in, her tone sharp yet oddly gentle. "We'll talk about this later - for the moment, my business is with him." She stared predatorily at Fudge, who stared back with an infuriatingly bland expression.
Moving with the utmost care, Fudge skirted around the edge of the desk and sat down in the chair behind it, the only chair in the room. He folded his hands together neatly on the desktop and peered up at them through his spectacles. The expression never wavered in the least, giving no clue to what he thought of being confronted by two red-eyed and distraught women, an exhausted man, a steely-eyed tiger of a woman, and the man who he had almost had arrested three days ago, along with an Auror and a former Death Eater.
"Now," Fudge said pleasantly after a suitable pause, "how can I help you, Minerva?"
"You can help me first by releasing Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy to my custody."
"I'm afraid I can't do that." Fudge leaned back and now his folded hands rested atop his rounded paunch. "Mr. Weasley is accused of consorting with known Death Eaters - a serious offense under the current statutes." The gasp of horror from Molly did not slow him down. "Mr. Malfoy is to be retried for his crimes in the last war, as well as for charges relating to corruption and espionage, charges to which Mr. Weasley will also have to answer." He paused reflectively. "And as for *you*, Mr. Potter, I very... *very* much look forward to hearing your testimony at the trial next Monday."
"Next Monday!" Surprise cracked Minerva's reserve, and Harry felt his stomach lurch. Hermione started forward, Molly's hand went to her mouth. Arthur merely looked resigned. "Fudge - Minister - I need time to prepare if I am to defend these men. I need to talk with them, with Mr. Potter... formulate a defense! How am I to do this in four days?"
"That's your problem," Fudge said. "As far as this Ministry and I are concerned, Mr. Weasley is clearly in violation of the laws set in place to protect the wizarding community from what happened the last time Death Eaters and their ilk were dismissed so... so casually."
"What!" Harry flung himself forward, pushing past Molly and Arthur. Minerva reached out with a hand to stop him, but Harry brushed it off. Rage, sharp and red-hot, had hold of him, and a very clear memory lying helpless and heartbroken behind a curtain while this man backed away from what even he, a fourteen-year-old boy, knew to be incontrovertibly true. "You were one of them!" he half-shouted, very nearly strangled by his own fury. "I remember how you refused to believe Voldemort was back, when Dumbledore *told* you he was back!"
"Mr. Potter!" Fudge's voice spiked upward, cutting Harry off. "Whatever mistakes were made by the Ministry in the past are mistakes that will never be made again. And to be certain of that, Ronald Weasley is going to trial for engaging the very same acts for which Ludo Bagman and Rookwood and their cohorts did. Fraternizing with the enemy? Calling one of them out of exile for something in which he had no interest, for confidential Ministry business? And need I even mention your role in this, or where I found you?" He rocked forward in his, one broad palm slamming down on the desktop with a sharp crack of flesh on wood. "I will *not* tolerate such accusations from even you, Harry Potter."
"Accusations? What is he talking about, Harry?" Molly asked.
"He is perhaps as deeply involved in this as Malfoy and Mr. Weasley," Fudge said with obvious relish. "The only thing eluding me is the nature of that connection - and I fully expect Mr. Potter to provide this information."
"What on earth would Harry have to do with it?" Arthur asked, speaking for the first time.
"Everything," Fudge answered, shooting a squint-eyed look at Harry. His lips quirked in a bitter smile. "It was on account of Mr. Potter's good testimony that Draco Malfoy was spared the fate of the rest of his conspirators. It was, I understand from my informants among Mr. Weasley's Auror team, on Mr. Potter's suggestion that Draco Malfoy was brought into the investigation of Severus Snape's diaries."
"But *why*?" Arthur demanded, stepping up next to Harry. Harry desperately wanted to shrink back, tried not to choke on the nausea of having the support of his best friend's father, a man who by rights should be cursing him for what he did to his son. "I haven't heard anything from you, *Minister*, except accusations. Why do you think Harry would do these things, if in fact he did?"
"That," Fudge said, "is what I most want to know. Will you enlighten us now, Mr. Potter, or will you wait for the witness stand?"
"I think I'll wait to talk to Minerva, first," Harry said, feigning a calmness he most certainly did not feel. His stomach was knotted inside him; he felt the pressure of the room closing about him as the walls of a tomb, heard all too clearly Molly's frantic, whispered demands for explanation to Hermione. And Fudge, Fudge peering at him with eyes bright as a raven's eyes, expectant yet strangely vacant. "I don't think I'd want to say anything you might decide to use against me later."
"That's almost enough of an admission of guilt right there," Fudge said, a bit of a snicker in his voice.
"The only guilt in this room is imagined by you, *Cornelius*," Minerva said bitterly. She drew herself even more upright, if that were possible, and the plumes on her hat bristled menacingly. "I refuse to waste my time any longer; I *will* see Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy, no matter what I have to do to see them. Every moment I spend here is useless to both of them, as well as to their loved ones and those who, no matter what you would have them believe, would prefer to think them innocent. Will you grant me a pass to Azkaban, or will I have to go around you?"
Fudge stared wordlessly at Minerva, robbed suddenly of the control he had just enjoyed over Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys.
"Need I remind you," Minerva continued, the faint smile on her lips showing she knew Fudge's abrupt powerlessness, "that under wizarding law any attempt to bar the defense from doing its proper work in aiding the accused is grounds to dismiss the case? Surely you remember your History of Magic?"
"To prevent wizardkind from behaving in the same manner as the Muggles that persecuted them," Fudge said sulkily, like a small child being forced to recite for his teacher. The look he gave her was quite similar, full of outrage.
"A law conveniently passed over in the last Death Eater trials," Minerva said, "and no one dared say anything because to go against you meant being implicated in Death Eater conspiracies, at the very least. But now there may be cooler heads... And I'm sure that enough people remember the lesson of Alastor Moody and young Mr. Crouch to know that sometimes the most... fanatic of us are those who are most dangerous."
The blood rushed from Fudge's face so abruptly, Harry thought the man might faint. He felt like doing so himself; Minerva had come frighteningly close to accusing Fudge of being the one thing he most hated, the one accusation no one ever dared to voice. /He's like another Moody/ -- those whispers were only spoken behind closed doors. Not so much so anymore, but in the early days after the war, when Fudge's fanaticism stunned even the most hardened Aurors and Law Enforcement officials. /But,/ they had reasoned, /what would be the chances of that happening again?/
"You can visit them," Fudge said at length. He reached into a drawer, pulled out pen and parchment, and began to scribble something down. "Tomorrow there will be an escort waiting to take you out to Azkaban."
"Thank you, Minister," Molly breathed, collapsing limply back against Arthur, who had returned to her side. Hermione sagged visibly. Minerva did nothing, merely continued to stare narrowly at Fudge.
Harry himself felt sick, and the ravaged, weakened muscles of his leg were beginning to protest the tension of a day spent walking and standing. He desperately willed himself to relax, but it did not seem to want to happen. /You're going to see Ron and Draco,/ he told himself, not wanting to add on 'in Azkaban' to that thought. /You're out of your room at Hogwarts, things are finally happening. You'll get them out of this... *you'll* get out of this./ He thought back to all his old school adventures, to his experiences in the war, all the times he had stared certain death in the face and danced past him, alive if not exactly unscathed. /This is the same./
Yet Fudge was not death, nor would he ever be, but Harry had the feeling the Minister would be just as implacable.
TBC.
+Mens mea cupit cantare formas versas in nova corpora.+
(Ovid )
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three days later, Hermione was still pale and on edge. And Harry had to admit he wasn't much better.
His room had become more like the cell Fudge had so generously not given him. Someone had locked the window from the outside - he had discovered this late the first night - and sealed it with a complicated warding spell. He recognized it from the old days, and it was the kind of spell any thinking person would get a curse-breaker to unravel, and thus the kind of spell that if someone had broken it... That someone would be in Azkaban, right next to Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley.
/You should be in there with them,/ Harry told himself caustically. It was the hundredth time he had said this, but each repetition did not make it easier. The thought still burned like acid. /Your best friend and... and Draco./ And he could still not fix on what to call Draco, who he could see in his mind's eye - in a black place, fading against the shadows, and the Dementors behind him, chill and awful. It was strange... he felt no real fear for Ron, mostly fury on behalf of his best friend, and grief for Hermione, but the Ron he had come to know was reckless and capable, and had always come out on top.
The last memories he had of Draco, until recently, were of him surrounded by crowds of hostile wizards, saved from being cursed into oblivion only by the presence of Aurors and a Ministry intent on reasserting its own authority. He shook his head, trying to banish the image of that last trial, the sound of the shouts echoing in his ears, but the memories chased him from one end of his room to the other. Even the increasing, protesting heat in his leg could not keep him still.
"Stop pacing!" Hermione snapped from her corner. Her hands were still locked around a handkerchief, one that had been pressed into repeated service over the past few days. "You're going to drive me out of what's left of the rest of my mind," she continued irritably, "and I *need* my mind."
Harry shrugged by way of apology, but did not stop. Thought drove him on, fueling both nervous energy and the awful curdling sensation in his stomach. Minerva would be here soon, he reminded himself, returned from her trip to the Ministry - and Azkaban, Hermione had said, if they would let her. Molly and Arthur were still in London, Harry was given to understand, and would be staying there until Ron's trial. /Or summary execution,/ a dark voice in the back of Harry's head whispered.
/Don't think about that./ Harry tried to think of all the scrapes he and Ron had survived, both as children and later after the war had claimed their adult lives, and defined so much of them. He remembered when Ron would vanish for weeks at a time, off on some super-secret Ministry thing, and resurface with a few scars and the same old smirk, alongside a quick, "Hey, Harry, long time no see." /This is the same thing, and you'll see him soon./
And he could almost see this now, hear Ron's footsteps coming quickly down the hall, the door opening, Hermione bounding gracelessly across the room, getting swept up in a full-armed bear hug by her husband.
But.
So there *was* fear after all.
There was a clatter behind the door, words raised in brief protest - Harry felt a wild flux of hope, Hermione's head snapped up - and then Minerva McGonagall's harder voice overrode them. Hermione surged to her feet as though electrocuted. Harry stopped pacing. The door ground on its hinges like the door to a prison cell, then swung open.
Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts, swept through. It hit Harry, oddly, how little she had changed over intervening years; her hair had a touch more gray in it, perhaps, and the lines around her eyes were deeper, and perhaps the set of her jaw was harder than even it was in earlier times. But her eyes were keen as a cat's, and saw things most students - and former students - would prefer that she not. It was this sharp, blade-like gaze she turned on Harry now, although a slight smile made her regard easier to endure.
"I hope you are well, Mr. Potter?" she asked. There was exhaustion in her voice, although she covered it well. Minerva was not the kind of woman given to revealing much of weakness to anyone, something for which Harry was now fervently grateful -- *someone* needed to be in control here. He certainly wasn't. Something in Minerva's expression showed she was aware of this, and her tone softened as she said, "I have been trying to convince Fudge to end this idiot 'temporary confinement' issue - he knows it's a fool notion almost as well as I do, but I think that because it *is* a fool notion he clings to it."
Hermione snorted. "The entire thing is a fool notion," she said bitterly. Despite the acidity of her tone, the red-rimmed gaze she turned upon Minerva was strangely beseeching. Harry remembered thinking, a long time ago, that Hermione Granger would die before she begged anything from *anyone*, and here she was, gripping her handkerchief and staring at Minerva with unnerving desperation. "Have you heard anything?" she asked in a low, frantic voice. "Have they told you *anything*? Can I go see him?"
"To answer the first, yes," Minerva said. "As for the second, they have, and the third, no."
A heavy sigh escaped Hermione's lips and she crumpled back into her chair.
"I won't sugarcoat this," Minerva said grimly. "The respective situations of Mr. Weasley and.... Mr. Malfoy are not good. The Minister wants Ron up on charges of 'consorting with the enemy with treasonous intent', and Draco for something he hasn't figured out yet. There may be a retrial, only they'll add the charge of corruption and espionage to his list - corrupting an agent of the Ministry and using the remission of his death sentence to exile in order to do some spying for whatever fragments of Voldemort are left." Sarcasm twisted Minerva's voice at that last.
The small sound from Hermione's corner might have been a sob, but Harry could not tell through the awful thundering in his ears. Despite the racing beat of his heart, he felt incredibly light-headed, and his vision swam into dimness. Weightlessness hit him, and he flashed back for a moment to when he had fallen out of that tower, sixty endless feet to the ground, and the strange disembodied exultation of flying - until the hard ground rushed up to catch him...
Even the memory of that impact was enough to make him snatch desperately after breath, and when he came back to himself, he was vaguely aware that he was sweating and still breathing shallowly. His head and leg ached, pounding in the same merciless rhythm. Minerva and Hermione were staring at him with twin expressions of concern, but all he could do in response was fumble for reassuring words and collapse onto his chair.
"I will need to know everything," Minerva said in a low voice, glancing at Hermione momentarily. "I need to know what your relationship is to Draco, and why Ron was apparently willing to arrange meetings between the two of you. I need complete honesty, Harry - Fudge says that they may be putting either Ron or Draco under Veritaserum at some point soon, and I would rather not have that happen with you, needless to say either of them, if I can manage it. If you speak honestly, I may be able to get Ron to corroborate your testimony." She paused. "I do not know what I can do for Draco, or that I *should* do anything for that matter... but I will get as many of you out of this mess as I can." A crooked smile now. "It seems to be a habit of mine."
Harry fought with himself whether or not to say something - surely, surely Minerva's words demanded some kind of response. But he did not know what to make of her tone, whether she was joking with them, or making an observation, or else saying it to cover something hidden. She *had* gotten them, particularly the Gryffindors, out of more than one uncomfortable place... and now, with the will of the Ministry, and Fudge's own insistence upon following the letter of the law, she was prepared to do it again. He wanted to thank her, to apologize, but the words fell flat and useless, and he found that, even if he had wanted to, he could not have spoken them - there was a catch in his throat, suddenly, and breath was difficult enough.
"How are Molly and Arthur?" Hermione asked, perhaps more to fill the silence than anything. Harry barely kept back a sigh of relief.
"As well as can be expected," Minerva answered, "although I think they would do better for seeing you."
Hermione nodded, staring fixedly down at her fingers and the handkerchief knotted through them. She muttered something Harry could not make out, then, louder: "What about Harry, though?"
"What about me?" Harry jumped at hearing his name, was not prepared to see Hermione lift her head to look at him, the expression on her face one of pity and concern. /For me?/ He dismissed the notion as foolish. Minerva, too, was looking at him now.
"I don't like the idea of you staying here by yourself," Hermione said very slowly and carefully, as though guessing exactly what he had been thinking. Her tone was not very far removed from the one he remembered well from their school days; it was the one she used to explain things to Ron and him, when she thought they were a few too many steps behind her. But her expression was not contemptuous; rather, it was desperately fearful now, and that tears hovered. "I feel like... I feel like if I let you out of my sight, Fudge is going to take you, too."
"You needn't worry about that," Minerva said grimly. Her lined, formidable face hardened, and she drew herself up. "You'll be coming with us, Harry, no matter what the Aurors here have to say about it. Hermione, go to your rooms and get your things. Harry, you get yourself together quickly, for you must leave with me."
It was all happening too fast, but Harry found himself moving as in a daze: nod, move to the closet to get his trunk, place it on the bed, begin to put things in it - shirts, pants, two sets of robes. Don't think, remember packing for Hogwarts at the end of summer, a ritual of freedom: socks and shoes wedged into the corner, underwear tucked into a pocket, toothbrush and things in their own bag, wrapped in a towel. Shut it, press down, flip the locks, seal it with a spell to keep it from exploding on the train ride, wonder anything had been forgotten.
He heard voices in the hallway, Minerva's and Lavender's, both raised in argument. Lavender's was raised, rather, and almost shrill, but Minerva's was steady as ever and, even more importantly, as firm and incontrovertible as it had always been. Her students, Harry realized for the hundredth time - it still struck him afresh, every time he thought this - were *always* her students, whether they taught for her, or were Aurors... or were exiles or criminals or prisoners. / I can do for Draco, or that I *should* do anything for that matter... but I will get as many of you out of this mess as I can./
"I'm sorry, Headmistress," Lavender was saying how, voice reaching for authority but coming up only with desperation. "I'm under orders: Harry has to stay here until the Ministry sends for him. The moment they do, I'll send him on myself, but not until then."
"And I say that I don't want Mr. Potter here, taking up space and the house elves' valuable time when he could very well be somewhere else, and being of real use to not only myself, but to Ms. Weasley and her husband."
There was a long, painful silence. Minerva had placed that nicely; Lavender would be thinking about Ron, her former colleague - her leader, by all rights, Harry supposed. He wondered if Lavender had seen Hermione at all after this had happened, what they might have said to each other. /You didn't just turn in a 'traitor,'/ Harry told Lavender silently. /You turned in Hermione's husband. Your friend./ Would that knowledge make a difference, though? He had seen the fury in Lavender's eyes, and that in her voice, when they had spoken together just a few days ago. /What kind of Gryffindor would do this? Why?/
He had not been able to give her the answer then, not knowing it or not wanting to believe it. Now, though, he stepped cautiously to the door, squaring his shoulders. Looking around it, he saw Lavender standing defiantly before Minerva, dark eyes flashing, and Minerva's back, straight and resolute. He could picture the expression on the Headmistress's face.
Lavender saw him over Minerva's shoulder, and her concentration broke. "Harry!" she snapped. "Get back in there - Ministry orders."
"No," Harry said quietly, which caused Lavender to stare at him in mute outrage. Minerva looked over her shoulder at him, her face impassive. "Lavender, I'm sorry - you can report this to Fudge if you want - but I'm going with Minerva."
"This is only going to make things worse for you," Lavender said. There was no worry in her voice, but a threat under a thin veil of restraint. "I can promise you that, at least - and I don't think it'll go much easier with Ron, or Draco either."
Harry made himself not react to that; she was watching for a reaction, he saw, her gaze narrowed and focused. Instead, he asked, "Why are you doing this? I asked you once before, and you said I wouldn't understand. Well... maybe I *would*, if you told me."
Lavender stepped around Minerva, who silently moved out of the way. She stood close to Harry, slightly taller than him, and when she spoke, her voice was a hot, bitter whisper: "Death Eaters killed my best friend. She was just *there*, just someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - and it doesn't matter whether or not Draco Malfoy killed her, Harry, because he was still one of them, and he'll always be one of them. Even if he didn't do it himself, he would have, if he could." Her voice fell lower, fiercer. "Do you think I'd forget something like that? What I can't understand is how you could."
/Parvati and Dean, dead in Exeter./ Of course Lavender wouldn't have forgotten. So many of their housemates had died. Three from their own year, some before and some after, and friends, most of them, others acquaintances and little more. But Parvati... Harry remembered piercing, irritating laughter and speculation on boys, hairstyles, clothes, music going far into the night. Of course Lavender wouldn't have forgotten.
But he had not forgotten either. /How to say it, though?/
"I haven't forgotten anything," he said after a moment. Lavender stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and outrage painted upon her face. "I know you'd believe the opposite to be true," he continued, "but I can tell you that it's *not.* There's a lot more here, Lavender, than you'd like to think-" He saw her head snap back at the admonishment, as though he were a teacher and she a fumbling first year "-and there's more to Draco than you give him credit."
Lavender opened her mouth to say something, but Minerva broke in with a sharp, "Mr. Potter? Our train is leaving shortly, and we can't afford to miss it."
Those words settled it. Lavender stepped back - and only now did Harry see that she had a firm grip on her wand, so tight the skin about her knuckles was pale and tense - offering her fiercest glare, but little more. He nodded to her, glanced away to find where he had placed his rolling trunk, there, very close by, took it, and began to walk away. He could feel her gaze pressing down on him, heavy and condemning. /Do you think I'd forget something like that?/
/What I don't understand is how you could./
Hermione was waiting for them at the end of the hallway, an untidily packed overnight bag by her feet. The light spilling in through the open door was pale, and she was a very dark shadow against it. Once more Harry wondered if she had seen Lavender, wondered if it would be bad form to ask at a time like this. /Maybe,/ he thought absurdly, /we could compare notes./
He never did get the courage to ask that question, not on the short horseless-carriage ride to the train station, or on the train ride itself. Muggle London loomed before them hours later, the space and time between it and Hogwarts having been broken by no unnecessary conversation; Hermione had fallen into an exhausted sleep, and Minerva did not seem inclined to talk, and Harry stared at the countryside rolling by outside the window.
The rhythmic swaying and clacking of the train had lulled him somewhat, and he found himself disconcerted by the mad crush of humanity milling about the Muggle side of Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Somewhat numb from the shock, he followed Minerva and Hermione through the crowd, gripping his trunk for dear life, trying to figure out how it was he felt so unprepared and out of place. /How long has it been, anyway, since you've been to London?/ Too long, was the answer; Hogsmeade had begun to seem a booming metropolis. /Don't think about that... Just keep your eyes on Minerva's hat,/ he commanded himself, for his old Professor, in deference to Muggle fashion, had donned a wide-brimmed, swooping red creation, decorated with a plume of ostrich feathers. The plumes waved and bobbed, visible far above the heads of the rest of the crowd, and Harry's gaze followed their every movement with desperate attention.
As it turned out, Minerva and the plumes were faithful guides. After three changes of train in the underground and two Portkeys to the wrong Ministry branch offices, they found themselves in the proper one, a sterile square office in Ministry Headquarters, and Harry found himself in the bone-crushing embrace of Mrs. Weasley.
"They won't tell us anything!" Molly sobbed into Harry's shoulder. Her grip tightened with each word until Harry felt his ribs creak; over Molly's shoulder, he saw Arthur smile wanly at him, eyes full of worry. After a moment, Molly pulled back and absently began to straighten Harry's robes. "They won't tell us," she murmured brokenly, the words more or less a refrain of the past few days. "All Fudge does is tell us he won't speak to anyone except Minerva - and laugh to himself. He does that a lot."
"He'll talk to you," Minerva said. Her voice was soft, but steel edged it. "Where is he?"
"His secretary said he's been out on meetings all morning," Arthur said, coming up to shake Harry's hand. His hand felt cold and damp with nervous sweat, and Harry had to fight the urge to wipe his own hand on his robes. "Personally, I think he's hiding; he knows we're not going to take no answer much longer."
"And how are you, dear?" Molly was asking Hermione.
"As well as can be expected, I suppose," Hermione answered, offering her mother-in-law a tremulous smile. "Harry has helped me out a lot."
Harry could only boggle at this. *He* had been as much of a wreck as Hermione had been. In the three days of his "incarceration" (as Hermione called it), Lavender had allowed them brief visits, during which Harry had done little more than worry out loud, for courtesy's sake mostly worrying out loud about Ron, or offering absentminded reassurances. His worrying about Draco, though, had been kept to himself, and now, looking at Molly and Arthur, he decided that that was where it was going to stay for the next little while, if he could possibly help it.
/How do you explain to the parents of your best friend that the reason why he's in Azkaban is the man who was one of those people would could have killed your children? How do you do that? How do you explain it to *yourself*?/
Molly and Hermione were talking in low voices and Arthur was conferring with Minerva over some point of wizarding world law, leaving Harry to wrestle with his problem by himself. /Like it's always been,/ he thought wryly, /more or less./ He fought down an image of Draco as it rose before him again, the same one he had seen since his arrest: Draco in a dark room, huddled against a looming blackness, the Dementors hovering about him, clawed hands reaching out to drag him down into the abyss. Desperately, he tried to swallow, feeling fear tighten about his chest. /Don't think about this. Keep it down./
There was a sharp change in the conversation now, and Harry became aware of a new voice added to the mix: Periwinkle Pander, Fudge's secretary, who was explaining something in an oil-smooth voice. Arthur's sharp, "Don't give me that again! We want to speak to the Minister, and we want to speak with him right now" cut her off.
'He's very sorry," Periwinkle Pander said, "but he is quite busy today."
"I daresay he won't be too busy when you tell him I've arrived," Minerva McGonagall said. Periwinkle's eyes widened at this. "Now, girl, would you be so kind as to tell the Minister that the counsel for Ronald Weasley wishes to speak with him?"
Periwinkle squeaked an unintelligible reply and backed out of the room, nearly tripping over her robes. She had just turned around to close the door behind her when a sharp grunt from Minerva caught her half-reaching for the doorknob.
"And miss?"
"Yes ma'am?"
"Kindly inform the Minister that the counsel for Draco Malfoy is here as well."
"What!" Molly's screech sent Periwinkle darting down the hall without a backward glance, robe rippling out behind her. "Minerva, what is this about? Draco Malfoy!" Her plump, reddened face had gone deathly pale. Arthur's had as well the moment Draco's name had fallen from Minerva's lips. "Draco Malfoy!" Molly repeated, nearly tripping over the name. "What is the *meaning* of this? What does he to do with Ron?"
/He *really* didn't tell them anything,/ Harry realized dully. Close on the heels of that came the realization that he would not be able to keep Draco to himself much longer. He saw Molly looking at him, and Arthur, and Hermione. Hermione's brown eyes were vaguely sorrowful, and she shrugged in resignation. Minerva's expression was stony and offered no help at all. /Just try to talk your way out of this one, Potter./
"He has very much to do with Ron, I'm afraid," Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, said as he strode into the room. His robes billowed out around his plump form, making him look like he was wearing a tent caught in a high wind, but for all the absurdity of his appearance his words were flat and he wore *that* expression on his face, one of absolutely overwhelming arrogance and complacency. Harry desperately wanted to wipe it off. "It is not every day, after all," he said, after a suitably weighty pause, "that a war hero is caught consorting with known criminals."
Molly gasped. "Known criminals... Draco Malfoy? He was - Draco *Malfoy*?" Her voice teetered on the edge of breaking. "Hermione," she asked urgently, "did you know anything about this?" Hermione stared helplessly at her mother-in-law for a moment, her lip trembling. "Did you?" Molly asked again.
"Now is not the time, Molly," Minerva cut in, her tone sharp yet oddly gentle. "We'll talk about this later - for the moment, my business is with him." She stared predatorily at Fudge, who stared back with an infuriatingly bland expression.
Moving with the utmost care, Fudge skirted around the edge of the desk and sat down in the chair behind it, the only chair in the room. He folded his hands together neatly on the desktop and peered up at them through his spectacles. The expression never wavered in the least, giving no clue to what he thought of being confronted by two red-eyed and distraught women, an exhausted man, a steely-eyed tiger of a woman, and the man who he had almost had arrested three days ago, along with an Auror and a former Death Eater.
"Now," Fudge said pleasantly after a suitable pause, "how can I help you, Minerva?"
"You can help me first by releasing Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy to my custody."
"I'm afraid I can't do that." Fudge leaned back and now his folded hands rested atop his rounded paunch. "Mr. Weasley is accused of consorting with known Death Eaters - a serious offense under the current statutes." The gasp of horror from Molly did not slow him down. "Mr. Malfoy is to be retried for his crimes in the last war, as well as for charges relating to corruption and espionage, charges to which Mr. Weasley will also have to answer." He paused reflectively. "And as for *you*, Mr. Potter, I very... *very* much look forward to hearing your testimony at the trial next Monday."
"Next Monday!" Surprise cracked Minerva's reserve, and Harry felt his stomach lurch. Hermione started forward, Molly's hand went to her mouth. Arthur merely looked resigned. "Fudge - Minister - I need time to prepare if I am to defend these men. I need to talk with them, with Mr. Potter... formulate a defense! How am I to do this in four days?"
"That's your problem," Fudge said. "As far as this Ministry and I are concerned, Mr. Weasley is clearly in violation of the laws set in place to protect the wizarding community from what happened the last time Death Eaters and their ilk were dismissed so... so casually."
"What!" Harry flung himself forward, pushing past Molly and Arthur. Minerva reached out with a hand to stop him, but Harry brushed it off. Rage, sharp and red-hot, had hold of him, and a very clear memory lying helpless and heartbroken behind a curtain while this man backed away from what even he, a fourteen-year-old boy, knew to be incontrovertibly true. "You were one of them!" he half-shouted, very nearly strangled by his own fury. "I remember how you refused to believe Voldemort was back, when Dumbledore *told* you he was back!"
"Mr. Potter!" Fudge's voice spiked upward, cutting Harry off. "Whatever mistakes were made by the Ministry in the past are mistakes that will never be made again. And to be certain of that, Ronald Weasley is going to trial for engaging the very same acts for which Ludo Bagman and Rookwood and their cohorts did. Fraternizing with the enemy? Calling one of them out of exile for something in which he had no interest, for confidential Ministry business? And need I even mention your role in this, or where I found you?" He rocked forward in his, one broad palm slamming down on the desktop with a sharp crack of flesh on wood. "I will *not* tolerate such accusations from even you, Harry Potter."
"Accusations? What is he talking about, Harry?" Molly asked.
"He is perhaps as deeply involved in this as Malfoy and Mr. Weasley," Fudge said with obvious relish. "The only thing eluding me is the nature of that connection - and I fully expect Mr. Potter to provide this information."
"What on earth would Harry have to do with it?" Arthur asked, speaking for the first time.
"Everything," Fudge answered, shooting a squint-eyed look at Harry. His lips quirked in a bitter smile. "It was on account of Mr. Potter's good testimony that Draco Malfoy was spared the fate of the rest of his conspirators. It was, I understand from my informants among Mr. Weasley's Auror team, on Mr. Potter's suggestion that Draco Malfoy was brought into the investigation of Severus Snape's diaries."
"But *why*?" Arthur demanded, stepping up next to Harry. Harry desperately wanted to shrink back, tried not to choke on the nausea of having the support of his best friend's father, a man who by rights should be cursing him for what he did to his son. "I haven't heard anything from you, *Minister*, except accusations. Why do you think Harry would do these things, if in fact he did?"
"That," Fudge said, "is what I most want to know. Will you enlighten us now, Mr. Potter, or will you wait for the witness stand?"
"I think I'll wait to talk to Minerva, first," Harry said, feigning a calmness he most certainly did not feel. His stomach was knotted inside him; he felt the pressure of the room closing about him as the walls of a tomb, heard all too clearly Molly's frantic, whispered demands for explanation to Hermione. And Fudge, Fudge peering at him with eyes bright as a raven's eyes, expectant yet strangely vacant. "I don't think I'd want to say anything you might decide to use against me later."
"That's almost enough of an admission of guilt right there," Fudge said, a bit of a snicker in his voice.
"The only guilt in this room is imagined by you, *Cornelius*," Minerva said bitterly. She drew herself even more upright, if that were possible, and the plumes on her hat bristled menacingly. "I refuse to waste my time any longer; I *will* see Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy, no matter what I have to do to see them. Every moment I spend here is useless to both of them, as well as to their loved ones and those who, no matter what you would have them believe, would prefer to think them innocent. Will you grant me a pass to Azkaban, or will I have to go around you?"
Fudge stared wordlessly at Minerva, robbed suddenly of the control he had just enjoyed over Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys.
"Need I remind you," Minerva continued, the faint smile on her lips showing she knew Fudge's abrupt powerlessness, "that under wizarding law any attempt to bar the defense from doing its proper work in aiding the accused is grounds to dismiss the case? Surely you remember your History of Magic?"
"To prevent wizardkind from behaving in the same manner as the Muggles that persecuted them," Fudge said sulkily, like a small child being forced to recite for his teacher. The look he gave her was quite similar, full of outrage.
"A law conveniently passed over in the last Death Eater trials," Minerva said, "and no one dared say anything because to go against you meant being implicated in Death Eater conspiracies, at the very least. But now there may be cooler heads... And I'm sure that enough people remember the lesson of Alastor Moody and young Mr. Crouch to know that sometimes the most... fanatic of us are those who are most dangerous."
The blood rushed from Fudge's face so abruptly, Harry thought the man might faint. He felt like doing so himself; Minerva had come frighteningly close to accusing Fudge of being the one thing he most hated, the one accusation no one ever dared to voice. /He's like another Moody/ -- those whispers were only spoken behind closed doors. Not so much so anymore, but in the early days after the war, when Fudge's fanaticism stunned even the most hardened Aurors and Law Enforcement officials. /But,/ they had reasoned, /what would be the chances of that happening again?/
"You can visit them," Fudge said at length. He reached into a drawer, pulled out pen and parchment, and began to scribble something down. "Tomorrow there will be an escort waiting to take you out to Azkaban."
"Thank you, Minister," Molly breathed, collapsing limply back against Arthur, who had returned to her side. Hermione sagged visibly. Minerva did nothing, merely continued to stare narrowly at Fudge.
Harry himself felt sick, and the ravaged, weakened muscles of his leg were beginning to protest the tension of a day spent walking and standing. He desperately willed himself to relax, but it did not seem to want to happen. /You're going to see Ron and Draco,/ he told himself, not wanting to add on 'in Azkaban' to that thought. /You're out of your room at Hogwarts, things are finally happening. You'll get them out of this... *you'll* get out of this./ He thought back to all his old school adventures, to his experiences in the war, all the times he had stared certain death in the face and danced past him, alive if not exactly unscathed. /This is the same./
Yet Fudge was not death, nor would he ever be, but Harry had the feeling the Minister would be just as implacable.
TBC.