Green Grass of Hope

Ginny was staring at the Daily Prophet as if hoping its contents would change before her eyes by her sheer force of will. But the headline relentlessly kept yelling: DEATH PENALTY!

She had known that they had arrested Harry since a dozen Aurors had entered and searched her house late that morning. She knew most of these Aurors, former colleagues of her husband. They were very polite, clearly embarrassed by the situation, but they did not answer Ginny's questions. They rather referred to the official message from the Ministry, which was to arrive soon. After they had searched the house with professional routine, they even helped Ginny with her tidying charms – a service that Aurors normally don't provide any more than Scotland Yard does. Pro forma, they asked Ginny a few more questions, as they obviously thought she was not suspicious, and then left. The action had taken about two hours.

In the afternoon, the Ministry's owl arrived with the official notification:

Dear Mrs Potter,

We regret to inform you that your husband, Harry James Potter, has been arrested this morning on urgent suspicion of a number of serious offences against the state.

You must not be given any further information until the investigation, started by the Magical Security Office in its capacity as the competent authority, has been completed.

A contact ban has been imposed on the accused until further notice. Therefore, neither you nor any lawyer you may authorise are allowed to meet him.

For security reasons, the accused will be transferred to Azkaban later today.

You are prohibited from leaving London until further notice. Furthermore, you are prohibited from entering the Ministry without express permission. However, you are required to remain at our disposal for any questioning.

Hoping that you are well, in spite of these unfortunate circumstances, I remain respectfully yours,

Cesar Anderson

Magical Security Office

All that had been bad enough, but it was the headline of the Daily Prophet that made her realise that for Harry it wasn't a matter of prison or freedom, but of life and death. Hermione really planned to kill him!

Slowly Ginny regained her composure. This was not the time to burst into tears! Her children needed her. Her husband needed her.

She had sent Lily to her grandparents' for the day as a precaution to be able to act freely on this critical day in any case. Lily would be the easiest to shield, as she attended a Muggle primary school where her classmates didn't know what was going on in the wizarding world. If she, Ginny, was also arrested, Arthur and Molly would look after Lily.

She had to write to her sons at Hogwarts. She had to get Harry a lawyer ...

Just as she was thinking about it, the doorbell rang. She flinched. Anderson's security men! She peered through a curtain but saw only a single, very stylishly dressed wizard who looked somehow familiar and decidedly not what Ginny imagined a secret Auror would look like.

She opened the door. The wizard bowed curtly and introduced himself:

"Honorius Greengrass, I'm a lawyer."

He wouldn't have needed to mention his profession, for every kid knew his name. Greengrass was THE star lawyer par excellence, defending only clients from the very highest society who could pay his astronomical fees, but were happy to do so because he won virtually every case. He was a cousin of Astoria Malfoy but belonged to a branch of the Greengrass family that had been completely impoverished when he opened his law firm with borrowed money twenty-five years ago. Now, thanks to Honorius, they were once again among the wealthy people in the country, though not yet among the very rich.

"To what do I owe the honour, Mister Greengrass?" asked Ginny, not without astonishment.

"Draco Malfoy has asked me, if you wish, to defend your husband, and also you if it should be necessary. He is sending you his kindest greetings."

"Thank you," Ginny said, a little bemused, "I just didn't know we were such close friends."

"The sons of your houses are, and that's enough."

"That's very kind indeed, and I thank you very much for your offer, but I'm afraid, Mister Greengrass, your fee is far beyond our budget."

"Please don't worry about that. I won't charge you a higher fee than you would have to pay any other lawyer."

He refrained from mentioning that the Malfoys would cover the handsome difference and had even promised him a big bonus in case of success.

Now Ginny smiled. "Your coming is the first pleasant surprise today. Please come in."

She led him into the living room and first showed him the letter from the MSO head. Greengrass frowned.

"Contact ban," he said, "well, this was to be feared. The Magical Security Office has a number of special powers, including the power to detain a suspect indefinitely without legal representation, on the grounds of an ongoing investigation. Only when the Office determines the investigation is complete and passes the file back to the regular Department of Magical Law Enforcement is your husband re-entering the sphere of normal justice, so to speak. Only then I can ask to see the files as his lawyer and talk to him."

"What kind of laws are these?" Ginny said indignantly. "I've never heard of that.

"This regulation has only been put into effect today, retroactively from the beginning of the year."

"And as long as the MSO is investigating you can do nothing?" asked Ginny, aghast.

"Oh yes, I can at least make a request for meeting him and seeing the files, and I can also urge for acceleration. And finally," he cleared his throat, "the Minister for Magic apparently intends to bring a charge against your husband. So, the MSO investigation cannot drag on forever."

"Since my husband will admit to what he can't deny anyway, I think this investigation will be rather short."

This was what they had agreed on in case of his arrest. Harry had even prepared a cave in a remote area in the Welsh Highlands as a mock hideout for Hermione, so as not to give the Aurors the idea of investigating Hogwarts. In this way, he hoped to protect Albus and the Incorruptibles.

"I'm afraid we still can't expect a very quick start to the official trial preparations," Greengrass said. "I suppose the Minister for Magic will prepare the trial by an intensive press campaign, which will take its time, two to three weeks, I guess, though hardly longer, otherwise the public will get weary of the affair. I also worry that they will try to use psychological means ... er, how shall I say ..."

"... to break him? Others have tried that before," Ginny retorted scornfully.

Greengrass smiled.

"In the meantime," he said, "I have to prepare. So I would like you to tell me everything you know. I expressly point out that the lawyer's duty of confidentiality is absolute. Unlike in some Muggle countries, as a lawyer I may and must, if necessary, declare a client innocent in court, even against my better knowledge, that is, even if I positively know that he is guilty."

Ginny now told the lawyer all about the curse and about Harry's plans, leaving out only the involvement of the Incorruptibles, which she felt was irrelevant. Greengrass listened attentively.

"Well," he finally said, "at least the outlines of possible strategies for the trial are beginning to emerge: The easiest thing, of course, would be to plead that he had been under the Imperius curse ..."

"That will fail in Harry's case because he knew how to block the Imperius Curse even when he was a student, and Hermione knows better than anyone else," Ginny objected. "He also went through the Auror training for Imperius immunisation. And finally: Who should have cursed him?"

"Yes, these are very valid objections, I just mentioned the point for the sake of completeness. The second conceivable strategy would be to simply tell the truth. If you could prove that the Minister is under a curse, your husband could invoke a extra-statutory emergency, but your only proof is this backward audio recording, and that proof is anything but compelling. Moreover, the judge could prohibit it from being introduced into the trial at all ..."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because, I am afraid, that judge will be no one but the Minister for Magic herself."

"But ... she cannot do that!" exclaimed Ginny. "Hermione can't act as victim, witness, prosecutor and judge in one person, can she?"

"O yes she can, and given the importance she undoubtedly attaches to this trial, I am almost certain she will." He thought for a moment. "Look, in the Magical State, the position of Minister for Magic is almost omnipotent. What traditionally protects us against the abuse of this power is the fact that we are a very small community. The power of a Minister for Magic is ultimately based on the consensus of a relatively small ruling elite from which he won't exclude himself. Therefore, institutional safeguards are not considered as important as in large Muggle states. But if this consensus collapses, as was the case in the wizard civil wars, then abuse of power is all the more considered justified as an act of self-defence by the state."

"And that's exactly why," Ginny said thoughtfully, "Hermione tries to fake a civil war situation and declares every opponent a Death Eater to whom war must be declared, right?"

The lawyer nodded. "You said it. And your husband's action, however legitimate, gives her the ideal excuse."

"But this Emergency Decree!" called Ginny. "She cannot retroactively tighten the punishment!"

"Sure," Greengrass replied, "this is a serious violation of the classic principle nulla poena sine lege: no punishment without a law already in force at the time the crime was committed."

"Well then – the Wizengamot must and will refuse the application!"

The lawyer cleared his throat. "Certainly I will raise this point of view in the trial. But please do not expect too much from it: As you can already see from the Latin wording, it is a principle of Roman law. However, our Magical Law developed out of the Old Anglo-Saxon Law, in which this principle does necessarily apply. I'm afraid there are a number of precedents for the retroactive effect of criminal laws ..."

Ginny groaned.

"Apart from that," the lawyer continued unflinchingly, "the Wizengamot only has to judge your husband's guilt or innocence, not the applicable law nor the sentence. That's up to the judge alone..."

"... so Hermione again! How on earth are you going to win a trial under these conditions?" she asked, and for all her self-control, there was a hint of panic in her voice.

"The key is the Wizengamot," Greengrass replied, "as the body that is independent of the Minister. If they find your husband guilty, the judge will sentence him to death. A defensive trial strategy aiming at a lenient sentence would be bound to fail. There is only winning or dying, nothing in between. We have to get him outright cleared!"

"And you think you can do that?"

"I can't promise anything, of course, and I also have to wait and see what evidence Magical Law Enforcement comes up with. According to what you have told me and what I read in the Daily Prophet, the prosecution will not be able to prove the accusation of attempted murder even if they maintain it at all and if it was not only made for the sake of propaganda. The central charge, on which the likely secondary charges, physical assault and the like, also depend, is high treason ..."

"... which will be hard to disprove," Ginny added resignedly.

"In technical terms, your husband has undeniably committed this offence, for he has assaulted and knocked out the Minister for Magic in office and has done so with the intention of preventing her from exercising her office and putting himself in her place, at least temporarily. Nevertheless" – Greengrass paused for effect and raised his index finger – "such action can be perfectly legal – and there are precedents for this, too – if directed against a ruler who is himself a high traitor and who may and even must therefore be overthrown. This seems to me to be true with regard to the present Minister."

"But Hermione will hardly admit the relevant evidence at trial," Ginny objected.

"I'm not necessarily dependent on that either," Greengrass reassured her. "Her laws criminalising free speech, the creation of a secret police, the calling back of the Dementors, and finally the latest Emergency Decree are largely known and, taken together, constitute an attempt to overthrow the established order of the Magical State in favour of tyranny. Add to this her policy of 'opening up to the non-magical world', which is undermining the integrity of the Magical State altogether. Even if she prevents me from presenting the evidence: Even the Minister cannot forbid my plea, and I am confident that it will not fail to impress the members of the Gamot, especially if some... influence is exerted on them in advance." He smiled.

"Influence?" asked Ginny, a little confused.

"I know them all, and I know their vulnerabilities," the lawyer replied smugly.

Ginny thought that this all smelled penetratingly of corruption, or at least of the very methods that Harry and she had always been upset about, but what choice did she have?

"So that means," she summarised, "you want to have a political trial. If the Gamot clears Harry, it has automatically found Hermione guilty, and then not only will my husband go free, but the Minister of Magic will fall."

"That's right," confirmed Greengrass.