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Part Two

"It is ridiculous and we should not indulge it."

Harry rolled his eyes at Voldemort's reflection in the mirror. He was bending over Harry's shoulder as Harry took the shiny robes off, staring at each patch of skin revealed, as if Ginny would have left some sort of smear on it. Harry sighed and rubbed his face.

"I told her she could have one. You know that if I said that and then went back on my word, she could start spreading the rumor that I don't mean anything of what I say about trying to give people a chance to speak their grievances, and that would be worse for your regime than a trial."

"How can you put a dead Horcrux on trial?"

"It's going to be acknowledgment of what happened to her and some compensation from the one who created the Horcruxes."

Voldemort moved backwards slowly from Harry, a scrambling, spider-like movement. "I refuse to name what I did as a Horcrux."

Harry met his eyes in the mirror. "Why?" he asked quietly, switching languages. "It doesn't put them in any more danger than it did before. Just because a diary of yours harmed Ginny doesn't mean other people would suddenly know where the others were."

It would harm you, Voldemort snarled down the link between their minds, which was suddenly open and flooded with fear.

Harry swallowed. He hadn't thought of that. Yes, people might not be able to know how many Horcruxes Voldemort had made or where they were hidden, but they could certainly figure out that Harry might be one of them. And they certainly knew where he was.

"Okay," Harry said, and pushed gently back against Voldemort's hand on him, which had come to rest in the middle of his back. "Then we won't use the word Horcrux."

"What will we say?"

"That it contained a memory of yours. Or that it was like an animated Pensieve, and Ginny was harmed by it. Since Lucius Malfoy is dead and the memory artifact itself has been thoroughly destroyed, then we're going to ask for recompense from the only person left who has a connection to it. Namely, you."

"Why can I not simply give her money as recompense?"

"Because she wants the trial."

Voldemort paused. Then he eased closer to Harry again, rubbing a circle in the middle of his back. For long moments, that was the only place they touched. Harry closed his eyes. He didn't know why that comforted him so much, especially with the Horcrux bond dimmed almost to silence, but it did.

"You cannot simply give everyone everything they want because you feel guilty about not helping them in time," Voldemort whispered at last.

Harry answered honestly, the way he probably wouldn't have if Voldemort had asked him the question at a different time. "I don't feel guilty about everyone, but I do feel guilty about not noticing in time that she was being possessed."

"Do you think her brothers feel guilty about that? Her parents?"

Harry shrugged. "What I feel doesn't depend on what other people do."

"Someday, your guilt will destroy you," Voldemort whispered into his ear. He had leaned forwards so that his free arm was draped around Harry's shoulder this time, enclosing Harry in a cage of himself. "Or it would. But I will be there, and I will be the rock on which the wave of people's demands break."

Harry said nothing. He didn't know what to say, and he didn't want to speak.

He wanted to stand in Voldemort's arms and breathe.


"Harry, I swear to you, we did not have anything to do with this—demand of Ginny's."

Harry blinked at Fleur in surprise. She had come up to him as he stood outside the Wizengamot courtroom waiting for the doors to open. The Death Eaters Voldemort had assigned to guard him, both of them tall sandy-haired women Harry didn't know, tensed and figured their wands, but Fleur was recognizable, and they didn't attack. Voldemort probably had told them to let her through, Harry thought.

"I didn't think you did," Harry said slowly. He eyed Fleur. Her silver hair stood almost straight out around her head, crackling with literal sparks, and her accent was more prominent in her voice than normal. "I promise."

Fleur took a step back and swallowed. One of the women guarding Harry muttered something about Consort Potter-Gaunt not needing to give promises, but Harry stared at her, and she shut up.

"We didn't know she was going to do it." Fleur ran her hand through her hair, and it calmed down and hung around her face again. "Bill and I, we did not know. Perhaps some others of the family know."

"I don't really care," Harry said. That was a lie. He wanted to know if Mrs. Weasley, who had hugged him, and Mr. Weasley, whose life Harry had saved, and Fred and George, who Harry had given money to to start their shop, had known. But either way, he couldn't do anything about it. So it didn't make a difference and he didn't need it explained. "We'll go through with this."

"Why?"

"For the sake of what it means," Harry said. He trusted Fleur, but he wasn't about to explain the whole political tangle in the middle of an open corridor, especially with more people drifting towards the courtroom.

The doors opened then. Harry strode inside, trying to look calm and blank and intimidating, the way Voldemort would have. Normally, Voldemort would have been at his side, and Harry wouldn't have had to play this role. But today Voldemort had a different place to be.

The thrumming of the Horcrux bond made Harry turn his head and lock eyes with Voldemort. His husband sat at one end of the gallery, which was completely circular, unlike the one in the courtroom where Harry had once been tried. He locked eyes with Harry and bowed his head. A mental hiss came down the bond.

You are not to let her hurt you.

Harry wondered how to explain the pain he was in daily to Voldemort, and then dismissed it. Voldemort knew about it. He just didn't consider it as important as all the other things Harry felt.

Harry sat down in a chair right in the middle of the midmost row of the gallery, on the side opposite Voldemort, and his Death Eater guards peeled off to flank either end of the row. There were rustles from the robes of the Wizengamot members, taking their places around him. They were a lot younger than Harry remembered, but then, Harry supposed some of the older ones would have been killed in the war.

When the room was mostly full, Harry saw red hair near the end of one row of the gallery, about halfway between him and Voldemort. He held back the impulse to call out. He had seen well enough what one Weasley thought of him, anyway, and he had seen disgust on the faces of some of the others at the public gathering where he had announced he would let people appeal to him. He didn't need to court it.

No, you do not, Voldemort agreed down the Horcrux bond. You should only court me.

Harry shoved back affection, and then Ginny entered the courtroom and Harry felt as if his breath had stopped.

Bright images hovered around her head, illusions that spun and turned. Harry thought for a second it was because of the way Ginny was moving, but then he realized that they were on a regular rotation, to give everyone in the room a good look at all of them.

They were visuals of her brain. A long, dark chasm ran down the center of it, the memory fissure she'd talked about, and lightning-like scars lay across most of it.

Harry swallowed back disgust and worry. He understood why she had done this, even if he could feel Voldemort's rising fury and doubted it would have the effect she'd wanted.

Ginny sat down on the chair in the middle of the floor of the gallery, the one usually reserved for the defendant, and the illusions vanished. Then she looked up and met his eyes.

Maybe it's having the effect she wanted on me, Harry thought, just before he looked away. Maybe she doesn't care about what it makes Voldemort think.

Harry cleared his throat and spoke. He'd cast Sonorus on himself as he'd sat down, and now his voice echoed around the courtroom. "We're here to hold a trial that will offer just recompense to Ginny Weasley for wounds she suffered from being possessed by a Dark artifact during her first year at Hogwarts."

"What was the artifact?" yelled someone from the side.

Harry ignored them. The nice thing about protocol and rules was that he could ignore people who violated them. "Ginny Weasley will be presenting her side of the story first, as well as her description of just compensation. Then the Dark Lord will respond. As he was the one who created the artifact and the only one left alive who could give Miss Weasley any compensation, he is technically the one on trial."

An excited murmur ran around the courtroom. This was the part that could work for their side, Harry knew, but also be the most explosive. On the one hand, they could point out that even the Dark Lord Voldemort could go on trial for harming one of his citizens. On the other hand, that might mean they'd easily get overwhelmed with people pushing lawsuits as another way of rebellion.

"What kind of artifact?" the first person repeated.

"How did the Dark Lord create it?" called a voice that at least bore a similarity to Rita Skeeter's, although Harry was sure it wasn't her. Voldemort had executed her a month ago after she refused to stop writing articles that speculated about Harry's sexual tastes and the bruise someone saw him wearing in public.

"That isn't the kind of thing you can ask right now," Harry said pleasantly, and turned to face Ginny. "You have the floor to tell your story first, Miss Weasley."

"I want to answer their questions."

"You can do that in the course of telling your story. This is the format of a trial before the full Wizengamot," Harry added, because Ginny was opening her mouth. "This is what you requested, so you have to follow it."

Ginny looked at him with round eyes. Harry looked back, wondering what she was waiting for. Some secret bout of sympathy to overwhelm him? Some signal that they were going to trick Voldemort together and run away from him?

Ginny finally turned her head to the side, her fingers flexing silently open and shut on the chair's arms. "The artifact was known as a H—" She coughed as the word stuck in her throat.

Harry relaxed, a little. Voldemort had said he would cast a spell known as a Forbiddance Charm over the courtroom, meaning that no one who knew what the diary was could speak the word "Horcrux" and that no one who didn't know would be able to work their way to guessing it from the scattered clues and hints they might pick up.

Then Harry realized what he was feeling glad about and suffered an intense surge of dizziness. My life is so weird.

"What, Miss Weasley?" yelled the first voice, the one Harry thought had asked about what kind of artifacts it was both times. "Speak up! We can't hear you!"

"A Horrifier," Ginny said, and then seemed to attempt to squint at her own throat.

Harry half-nodded. Voldemort had said that Horrifiers were an ancient class of Dark artifacts that were used to protect secrets, like a Fidelius charm stored in an object instead of a person. To protect themselves, since their destruction would reveal the secret, they tried to absorb the magic of everything that came near them. Most of the time, that was plants and animals, but if they encountered a wizard or witch, the Horrifier would try to possess them. It was as good a disguise for a Horcrux as they were going to get.

"That's not what he made!" Ginny said in frustration. "He made a Horrifier."

"Yes, that's what you said," a Wizengamot member Harry vaguely recognized, a tall woman with white-gold hair, muttered. Some of them exchanged glances.

"How did the Dark Lord make it?" Again, Harry thought this was the voice that had already asked the question

"I don't know," Ginny snapped. Again, Harry relaxed and then thought of what he was doing. It seemed that Hermione and Ron had never shared the details of Voldemort chopping up his soul with her. "I just know that it was a diary that wrote back to you if you wrote in it, and talked to you."

"And possessed you," said the woman with white-gold hair.

Ginny glared up at her. "Yes, Madam Grisold."

"Just checking." Grisold clasped wrinkled hands across the front of her robe and eyed Ginny like a vulture eyeing a dying animal.

Ginny took a deep breath, touched a hand to her throat as if wondering what else might come out of it, and continued, "The—the Dark Lord had left the diary in the possession of Lucius Malfoy. He wanted to get rid of it because the Ministry was conducting raids looking for Dark artifacts, so he brought it with him to Borgin and Burke's. They wouldn't buy it, so he slipped it into my cauldron when I was in Flourish and Blotts. I started writing in it.

"I thought he was just a boy named Tom Riddle. My friend. I was lonely and homesick, and I needed a friend."

Ginny's voice wavered. Harry swallowed. He felt bad about feeling good earlier, about Voldemort's spell and her not knowing the details of Horcruxes and—everything.

But he had to sit in the middle of the contradictions in his life and go on existing. This was nothing new..

"I started losing memories." Ginny looked down and picked at a thread on her brown robes. "I realized that I was waking up and I couldn't remember where I'd been. Or one time I had chicken feathers on me, and then I heard that all of the gamekeeper's roosters had been killed. I told Tom what was happening and asked what he thought was going on. He soothed me with pretty words and said it was nothing to worry about."

Ginny twisted around and glared at Voldemort. She might have been the first one to do that since the war and not immediately drop dead from it, Harry thought.

"He's always been so good at that," Ginny said, with bitterness that made Harry feel as if he was choking. "Lulling you, making you think that things are good and you can trust him, and then striking."

"Tell us more about what happened to you, Miss Weasley," said Madam Grisold.

"I knew that something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what." Ginny was shaking. "Messages in blood were written on the wall, talking about the Heir of Slytherin, and I started being afraid I was writing them. And somehow letting the monster out when people were turning up Petrified. But I couldn't remember."

"Why didn't you tell anyone about the book?" asked a tall man with a pockmark on his cheek. Harry was pretty sure he was a Death Eater.

"I was ashamed." Ginny flushed. "And I was selfish. All I could think of was that someone would find out my secrets I'd written down, the ones Tom had promised to keep to himself. So I hid it away and kept asking Tom what was wrong, and he kept right on lying."

She glared at Voldemort again. This time, Harry didn't imagine the dance of his serpentine neck. He had to get Ginny's attention away from glaring soon, or she wouldn't live to get her compensation.

"But you did try to get rid of the book, right?" he asked. "I remember that."

Ginny focused on him again. "Yes. I threw it into a toilet in a girls' bathroom that was haunted by a ghost, so that no one would come and find it. But you did, Harry." Her smile was unhappy. "I stole it back when I realized that you had it. I panicked. I'd told Tom I had a crush on you, and…"

Magnified hissing filled the courtroom, and everyone else froze. Harry grimaced. That was Voldemort, and he'd evidently cast a Sonorus on himself, too. "Calm down, husband," Harry hissed back.

More than one person flinched or cried out. Harry concentrated on Voldemort instead of them. They would be a lot more frightened if Voldemort drew his wand and started killing people.

"You can't destroy her in public for doing something that we're supposed to show means you accept some limits," Harry continued in Parseltongue. "And you can't destroy her for once having a crush on me. She didn't say she had one now, you'll notice."

Voldemort hissed, "If they had sense, everyone in this room would desire you."

"And then you would kill them. Come on, now. I know you don't really want to kill the entire Wizengamot."

Voldemort settled sulkily back into his seat. Harry breathed out and turned to Ginny, who was watching him as though he had started speaking in ancient Egyptian instead of Parseltongue.

"Please continue," he said calmly.

Ginny closed her eyes for a moment as though trying to recall the memories, then said, "In the end, I was taken into the Chamber of Secrets. I don't remember the basilisk, or the f-fight you had with it, Harry. I just remember getting colder and colder, and I knew I was dying. Slipping away. And then suddenly I was waking up and you were showing me the way out of the Chamber."

"Please describe the effects you're still living with as a result of the Horrifier's possession, which you described to me the other day."

Ginny rattled them off again, except that she added at the end, "And the Healers say that I'll die young because of a heart defect that the drain on my magic gave me. It did last for almost a year, after all." Her eyes were filled with defiance as she twisted around again to stare at Voldemort.

"Thank you," Harry said, and turned to the audience. "You have questions?"

They did, but Harry noticed that they all seemed to be aimed at clarifying certain points of Ginny's story, like how the process of her losing memories worked, or trying to pick holes in it. They didn't seem to doubt the basic events had happened. And although Ginny now and then looked at Harry with burning eyes, she hadn't tried to talk about the diary being a Horcrux again.

Harry swallowed slowly. Maybe they would have a compromise out of this. Justice for Ginny, and proof that this system of people approaching him for justice could work. Maybe.

When the questions had run out, Harry asked, "What compensation are you asking for, Miss Weasley? I know that you said Galleons for the Healers' bills and experimental potions alone weren't enough."

"I will take the Galleons and the experimental potions. But I am also asking for the execution of the Dark Lord Voldemort."

Harry would have expected people shouting, but her answer seemed to have shocked everyone into utter silence. He stared at Ginny. "What?" he asked finally.

"The penalty for many more minor crimes than creating a Dark artifact that possesses people is death." Ginny stood up and turned to face Voldemort, but Harry could hear her words perfectly, as if every one of them were made of ringing crystals. "Yes, the artifact has been destroyed, and the man who slipped it to me is dead. But the creator of the artifact is still here. Someone has to pay for what happened to me. It should be him. You should kill him, Harry."

"Stop being absurd," Harry said, before he could help himself.

Ginny's mouth fell open, and she turned back to look at him. "What?"

"You know that no one is going to kill him," Harry said. "And there aren't actual laws that say the creator of a Dark artifact is usually put to death." He'd looked that up in the last few days. "The Dark Lord hasn't passed any, either. You can take the compensation that we've offered, or you can challenge the Dark Lord to a duel if you want. But you can't just say that you want his death."

"You're capable of killing him!" Ginny shouted. "You're supposed to kill him! Are you going to sit there and tell me that you won't?"

The shouts around the room had started up again, but for Harry, the only things in the world at the moment were Ginny's eyes and the pressure of the Horcrux bond, intense pressure that meant he couldn't even be sure what Voldemort was feeling at the moment.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I'm saying that."

"Can't or won't?"

Harry lifted his chin. The answer was probably both, actually, but he didn't want to reveal the first one in public. If people didn't know it by now, what with the vows that he and Voldemort had made each other being published in the papers, then that wasn't his problem. "Won't."

Ginny screamed, an odd sound that seemed to build far back in her throat and come from a longer distance away than should have been possible, and ten people in Wizengamot robes rose and pointed their wands at Harry.

Shit. Shit. It had been a test, just not of the laws, as Harry had suspected. It had been a test to see if he would do his "duty," and he had resoundingly failed it. Whether Ron and Hermione had helped plan this or not, he didn't know, but he did know that he couldn't duel ten people at once.

He slashed his wand down, breaking the chairs on either side of him into pieces, and Levitated them into the air. They blocked several of the spells that came straight at him, and while one curse got through and stung his leg, it didn't hurt as much as the others would have.

Then the green flash of the Killing Curse filled the courtroom, and Harry ducked and rolled under the nearest seats. He could hear what was probably his Death Eter bodyguards fighting, but they couldn't take ten people on their own, either.

It wasn't going to keep them at bay for long, especially with more people joining in. Harry wondered frantically just how many members of the Wizengamot were in on this and whether they really cared more about trying to kill him than assassinating Voldemort.

Then a tide of freezing power rolled over the courtroom.

"Enough."

Harry thought he was probably the only one who understood that word, since it was in Parseltongue, but more than one person shrieked in fear and dropped their wands, which was what Voldemort wanted.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough of them. Or they had already decided that they were going to die and wanted to take Harry Potter with them. Harry screamed aloud as the next curse landed, one that gripped his whole body and began to twist his bones out of alignment. They didn't actually break, but they reformed and melted and warped until he thought this was what a werewolf must feel like in the moment of transformation.

Voldemort came into view. He was hovering above Harry's seat, using the magic he could do that made him fly without a broom, and the Horcrux bond was roaring with terrifying madness.

More than one spell hit him. Not one had any impact on the marble-white of his skin.

Voldemort raised his hands.

In a wave of magic that ran around the courtroom, the attackers' bodies exploded.

Gushes of blood washed along the floor, Harry heard the hideous pop of bones breaking, and now there were screams, far louder than before, and the sound of stampeding foot. The bone-twisting curse working on Harry let go. Harry heard himself panting, each breath conjuring a little sound of pain. He rolled over and tucked his elbows underneath his chest, trying to curl up in a fetal position.

"I am here, my own."

Voldemort's feet were on the floor again. He scooped Harry up and held him against his chest, draping his lengthened neck over Harry's shoulder. He murmured a word, and another wave of wandless magic hit Harry's skin and soothed away the lingering pain. Harry uncurled with a low sob.

"They will pay, and pay, and pay," Voldemort said dreamily. "They will die."

Harry couldn't think of any way to save their lives except to distract Voldemort with what was more important, his own pain. He twisted around and spoke the simple truth. "I'm afraid. Take me home, where they can't get me."

Voldemort hissed agreement and turned around. As he began striding towards the point where he could Apparate, Harry saw Ginny still standing in the middle of the courtroom, her eyes huge. Her expression had been wiped so blank with whatever emotion she was feeling that Harry didn't know what it was.

Voldemort glanced over and flipped an idle hand at her.

Harry opened his mouth to scream, but the magic that had made other people in the courtroom explode as if they were stuffed toys being run through a shredder—

Did nothing to Ginny.

Ginny backed up a step, and then turned around and ran.

The shock hit Harry like a hippogriff, and there was blank unconsciousness drawing him on and downwards. He went, unable to resist that pull, barely aware in the last moments of stone-hard arms around him and Voldemort's soft hiss.

I will kill them all.