This is the final posting- the last chapter and prologue in one. More of my comments at the end.

It should have been easy. Get Harry Potter's magic to work against him. Show him for the power hungry wizard he was, and get him sent down for a lifetime in Azkaban. But Casper Williams hadn't counted in how strong Harry Potter's control was, how strong his desire for release was. He had done exactly what Voldemort had done so many times- he'd underestimated Harry Potter. And now he had only one last ditch attempt to get the plan back on track.

Harry knew it veritaserum that Casper Williams had slipped in the glass of water that he insisted the prisoner drink. Nothing else could taste so bitter sweet to his lips.

Casper Williams stood, looking around appraisingly at the people before him, before looking down at the prisoner at his feet, his face changing into a cruel smile. 'Mr Potter- it is time for you to address the Wizengamot. Please remember that anything you say can be used against you in the judgement proceedings. And your time limit is five minutes. Why don't you tell us what really happened the night Voldemort died?'

The words came unwillingly- too easily to his lips- his darkest desires, his deepest secrets. Fighting it was out of the question- he still had to control his magic somehow. Harry took a deep breath, and with difficulty clambered to his feet. He hadn't kneeled down to Voldemort, and he certainly wasn't going out that way now. The cage was no more than four feet in diameter, and Harry used the bars for support as his knees turned to jelly and he had to fight against gravity taking hold. He looked up at the Wizengamot. Not at Casper Williams, but at every other member, looking at them with a piercing stare that made more than one of them want to hide against the shame they suddenly felt.

'I killed Voldemort.'

The confession seemed to lighten the load slightly, and Harry found the strength to stand up straighter, taller in the confined space, accepting that this was his fate, this was his destiny, and this was his time to make people understand.

'It might have been that I was destined to kill Voldemort. In the end, it doesn't matter. I had to live with every life he took. And I have to live with the fact that I took his life in the end. Do you know what it's like to have blood on your hands? To want to claw off your own skin because maybe, just maybe, they might then be clean? I never killed for pleasure, or fun, or personal gain. I killed because it was the only choice I had left to take. And you know what? You all wanted me to do it. You set me up on a pedestal. I was the "Chosen One". You all championed my cause. You all celebrated my victory. You all thanked me at the time. But you watched me falter, and you didn't try and break the fall. I never asked to be a hero- but that was what you all wanted me to be- were you disappointed when you found out that I was as fallible as you?'

Harry pushed away from the bars now, finding strength in the honesty of his words- aided, yes, by a potion, but they came from the heart none the less. For the first time in a long time his magic worked through him, instead of against him, fuelling his heart's desire to make everyone understand.

'Give me the chance to do it over again- to live the same life, with the same choices, and I would still make the same ones. I would still make the same mistakes. I'm not asking for a second chance. Because while they might have been the wrong choices, I made them all for the right reasons.'

Harry looked directly at Casper Williams then. Feeling hate, yes, but feeling pity that the man wanted so badly to be recognised as a great man that he thought putting a seventeen year old on trial was a good idea. 'If putting me in Azkaban is going to make everyone feel happy again, make everyone feel safe, then go ahead. Lock me back in that cell, and throw away the key. If you think that somehow people are going to sleep better at night because I'm incarcerated then take me back there immediately. But you're a fool if you think that I have that much power over this world.

'You want to know how to start making things right again? Open Gringotts- let people have access to their money. Re-open Diagon Alley. Take the boards down from Hogsmeade. And open the gates of Hogwarts. Show people that there is a life worth living out there, and encourage them to start living it. Yes, people are scared. Hundreds of people died at His hand; our own flesh and blood were tortured and killed by him. But Voldemort's gone. All those people who died fighting for a cause they believed in- all those people that died standing up to Voldemort- was it all so that we can still live in fear of the past? He wanted us to live in fear. It's time to put him where he belongs in the past, and get on with our lives. So yes, you can imprison me, but people aren't going to start feeling safe again until you give them a reason to start living again.'

Harry turned then, for the first time the people who had watched avidly day in, day out the drama in the court got a proper look at the boy they had all come to mock. It wasn't a pleasant sight, and more than one wanted to recoil with guilt from his look. For a moment Harry was silent, his throat caught by a large lump as he took in the mass of red hair sat right in the middle of the viewing gallery. The lump only grew bigger when he noticed Hermione smiling at him, Ron giving him the thumbs up, Lupin looking proud of him. The more he looked, the more faces he saw that he recognised, and the more he realised that not everyone had abandoned him. But whilst there was no doubt that he had some supporters, Harry knew that the majority of people had been there to watch him suffer.

'Why do you insist on believing every word your beloved Daily Prophet says instead of believing the evidence of your very own eyes? The world is in chaos- and it's not just Voldemort's fault. Everyone of you still living in fear of the past is just as guilty. Voldemort tried to rule this world with fear; you made it a way of life. Voldemort's gone, people! The sooner you realise that and start living your lives again, the quicker you'll break this fear he still holds over you. Or are you going to let fear be Voldemort's legacy?'

Harry allowed himself one more glance at Hermione and Ron before turning back, facing the members of the Wizengamot, who were shocked to see a single tear track down his face, leaving a blazing red burn in its wake. He seemed to deflate before their eyes, his shoulders falling, his knees almost giving away. He looked once again directly at their leader, speaking only to him in a voice quiet with grief, easily carrying to the edges of the silent courtroom. 'And you know what the real irony here is, Minister? You did the one thing that Voldemort never managed. You didn't have to kill me- you took my life anyway.'

And for Casper Williams, perhaps for the first time, he saw the fault with his plan. He saw a seventeen year old boy that held more power over the courtroom full of people with his truthful words than he had ever managed in any of his speeches. And none of it had to do with his magic. He saw the problem with using veritaserum on Harry Potter. Because not being able to tell a lie only made his story more believable, more credible, and even more remarkable to hear.

Here was a boy who had conquered the Dark Lord. And every single person in that courtroom felt at least a little bit of guilt at having stood back and watched him take the fall for it alone.