THREE: The Inquisition

Friday, August 11th 1995

The eleventh of August dawned the same as the previous week and a bit had for Harry, the fifteen-year-old opening his eyes to the horrible of-white walls of his detention cell within the bounds of the ministry. He had been stuck within this room since his arrest by aurors during his flight from number 4 Privet Drive. He'd had very few visitors, and almost all of those had been aurors dropping off the occasional poor meal for him to eat. It was almost like being back with the Dursleys in his second year when they'd put bars over his bedroom window and locks on the door.

Idly he rubbed at his right hand with his left, the cuts from the quill Umbridge had had him use still not healed properly leaving behind small weeping sores. Since her first visit, she'd tried to either have him sign the Ministry approved 'confession' or goad him into writing a new statement using that accursed quill. He'd tried it only once more and after witnessing her burn that one too he'd not volunteered to write another. Fudge had visited almost as often, usually with Percy in tow, and had tried to convince Harry through conversation that it was in his best interests to give up his 'ridiculous' notion that Voldemort had returned. Harry hadn't seen much television in his short life, but even he recognised the good cop/bad cop routine that Fudge and Umbridge were indulging in. As a result Harry refused to budge.

Harry didn't really expect today to be any different, as after all the hearing wasn't till tomorrow if Harry was judging the passage of time correctly. However, instead of the meagre meal that usually passed for his morning meal, the eleventh of August brought the return of Corneilus Fudge and his Under-secretary Umbridge. Harry have never been that fond of Fudge, especially after his denial of Voldemort's return in June, but Umbridge gave him the creeps with the way she looked at him and her unrestrained glee at the pain she'd inflicted on him. The unwelcome pair were accompanied by four aurors, their wands already drawn.

"We are here, Mr Potter, to escort you to your disciplinary hearing," explained the Minister of Magic.

"But, I thought that it was scheduled for tomorrow," questioned Harry, drawing a dark glare from Delores Umbridge.

"Indeed, Mr Potter, but in order to circumvent the machinations of Dumbledore's futile attempts to shield you from the justice of the wizarding world, the hearing has been brought forward to today."

"Then Professor Dumbledore knows that I am here?"

"Of course he does, stupid boy! Your arrest made the front page of the Daily Prophet!" Umbridge looked particularly delighted to impart that piece of news.

"Everyone knows?"

"Indeed," remarked Fudge. "You are lucky that we are having a closed session for your own protection, otherwise you would have to put up with abuse from the public. We've already had hundreds of letters asking for your immediate imprisonment in Azkaban."

Harry had to wonder at the sudden reversal of the wizarding public who'd in the past treated him as some sort of boy wonder. Fudge consulted his pocket watch. "Time to be going, I believe."

A couple of the aurors waved their wands at Harry to indicate for him to stand and he shortly found himself being escorted from the detention wing. The almost frog-march to where his trial was being held allowed Harry to see the interior of the Ministry of Magic for the first time, having been unconscious when he'd been brought in. It was everything and nothing like Harry had imagined it would look like, but suitably reflected the wizarding world in all its contradictions. The walk eventually came to an end as they arrived at their destination, a room labelled Courtroom Ten of the Ministry.

The bottom fell out of Harry's stomach as his gaze took in the view before him. The aurors had roughly shoved him in the back, propelling him into a room that he had visited once before. He hadn't ever been there physically, but the room in which Karkarov, Headmaster of Durmstrang, and Barty Crouch Jr. had been sentenced wasn't one he was going to forget any time soon since seeing it Dumbledore's pensieve. That his hearing was being held here told Harry just one thing, that this wasn't a hearing. It was a trial.

Umbridge was seated at a desk of her own and the stalls were filled with an eclectic mix of wizards and witches, many of whom Harry recognised from the trials he'd seen in the pensieve. As his gaze swung to cover every face in the room Harry came to realise that beyond Percy, Fudge, and the loathsome Umbridge, he knew none of the people in the room beyond being able to attach a few names to faces thanks to his Chocolate Frog Card collection. There were no friendly faces here, no one to speak in his defence. He was alone and forced to defend himself from whatever charges the ministry decided to bring.

"Take your seat, Mr Potter," said a male voice.

Harry looked to the seat in the centre of the room and gingerly sat down, expecting at any moment for the chains on the seat to spring to life and forcibly hold him down as he'd seen them to do others in Dumbldore's memories. When it appeared nothing was to happen he relaxed and left out a breath, only to find the chains doing exactly as he'd feared.

Fudge announced, from the seat he'd taken in the row that faced Harry, that it was long past time to begin proceedings. For a long time all that happened was that the names of those attending were read out and then put to parchment by Percy who sat further down the same row as Fudge. At long last, the Minister had exhausted the list of those present and he turned to the matter at hand. In a loud, grand tone of voice he read out the list of charges that Harry found himself facing: using magic in the presence of a muggle; using magic in a muggle-inhabited area; and inciting public unrest through his false assertion of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's resurrection.

Then Fudge threw in one more charge that left Harry feeling horribly out of his depth.

"The Ministry would also like to add the charge of murder, aurors having identified the body of a Mrs Arabella Figg in the exact location where Mr Potter performed his illegal use of magic."

There was a sort of cold numbness in Harry's limbs and he wasn't sure if he could feel his heart beating. This was far beyond the worst he had been able to imagine. If he was convicted of murder then there was no way he could escape going to Azkaban. He barely heard Madame Bones asking the council for the prosecution to begin their case and sat, still numb, through their long argument. What he heard was beyond his understanding of the current situation, leaving him feeling very out of his depth.

The first time a witness had finished giving evidence, an auror that Harry didn't recognise, he'd been directly asked by Bones if he wanted to ask any questions. It was then her realised with a jolt that he was being left to defend himself, without the aid of the wizarding equivalent of a lawyer. He'd found himself in an uncomfortable position and had been unable to formulate any sort of question to ask the auror that could possibly help him. After a long period of silence Bones, rather reluctantly it seemed to Harry, had released the witness and had the prosecution call another to the stand.

So the trial went on, each witness giving their part of the story. For Harry it was disturbing because each little piece of evidence had nothing in it he could really question or challenge, but each was slanted just enough to cast himself in a bad light. And as each witness spoke Harry could see the pieces adding up to one big picture that marked him out as a dangerous, attention seeking child. He was painted as a tainted child who attacked family members (his Uncles's sister Marge was mentioned), students (the Parseltongue incident with Justin in second year), and teachers (written testimony from Snape was read to the court, describing his being stunned by Harry in the Shrieking Shack).

Madame Bones looked like she was struggling with the concerted smear campaign that Fudge and Umbridge were directing towards Harry. The boy in question wondered if she would have leapt to his defence had an opening presented itself. As it was, Harry had floundered in his attempts to present his side of events, not only those of Magnolia Crescent, but also of the end of the Tri Wizard Tournament and earlier school events. Even his altercations with Draco were used against him with his side of the story downplayed or negated. Every attempt at rebuttal had been shouted down, every statement of what Harry considered fact dismissed as the empty words of an attention seeking child.

Anything else from his mouth, especially when he'd been called to the witness stand, had been twisted by Fudge and Umbridge till it simply incriminated him further. As the 'hearing', Harry being beyond wasting his time trying to insist that it was more like a trial, began to wind down and sentencing time drew closer, the time came for Harry to make his closing statement. Despite Harry's desperate wishes, neither Dumbledore nor any other familiar, friendly face had made an appearance at the trial.

Standing as ordered, Harry sucked in a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm his shattered nerves. Umbridge was looking pretty smug as she watched him rise to his feet in order to make what could well be his last statement to the wizarding world. This was his last chance to make any impression of those who would decide his fate this day.

"Despite what many have thought of me," began Harry, clutching at the front of his stand, "I have never wanted the attention that the wizarding community has given me."

Several wizards and witches in attendance seemed to scoff at his words.

"I may be only fifteen, but I can see with my own eyes that my side of the events debated here have not been believed by those attending and nothing I can say will change that. Because of this, I will reluctantly do as the courts decide here today and hope that you will all see the truth in time."

Madame Bones looked down at the young man, in his defendant's box as he sat once more, with what Harry thought was an almost admiring look on her face. With a sigh the woman then signalled to the other bench where Umbridge heaved her heavy set, toad-like from her seat.

"It is the opinion of the Ministry that we have proved without a doubt that young Mr Potter is a naive, attention seeking child who obviously believes that he can get away with breaking our cherish laws simply because he is the Boy-Who-Lived and somewhat favoured by Albus Dumbledore. I ask that those in this room consider what is best for the wizarding world. Allowing this mere child to flout our laws that have existed for centuries or setting things right by punishing his transgressions appropriately?"

Harry would later swear that she almost seemed to shudder with pleasure at her exclamation of the word 'punishing'. The boy had to drag his eyes away from the awful sight, his left hand gently rubbing at his right hand.

After that there was much legal manoeuvring as the court decided on the verdict. At several points Madame Bones interjected the debate, which seemed to cause much anger with Fudge and Umbridge. Finally, after much time had passed in the court room, and Harry had counted the tiles in the ceiling five or six times, the place settled into a solemn silence as Madame Bones took her turn to stand in order to pronounce the sentence.

Harry had no illusions that the result would be in his favour, only worries at just how badly it was going to punish him since he didn't think he'd scored any points during the hearing. He found himself wishing that Hermione had been here, able to picture her easily standing to defend him with a veritable sea of legal books surrounding her. Even Ron with a joke or two to cheer him up a bit would have been welcome. But, if Fudge had changed the day of the hearing to prevent Dumbledore from attending then there was simply no way that Hermione or Ron would have been able to attend. Harry had to wonder what they thought of him since the announcement of his arrest in the Daily Prophet.

Over her glasses, Amelia Bones gave a sad smile to Harry. "It is," announced Madame Bones to the tense court room, "the verdict of this court that Harry James Potter is guilty of breaking the Statute of Secrecy by using magic in a muggle-inhabited area repeatedly, guilty of inciting panic in the general population by his false attestation that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned from the dead, and guilty of defamation towards the Ministry of Magic and the Minister himself. On the count of causing the death of one Mrs Arabella Figg we find the evidence insufficient to warrant incarceration in Azkaban.

"As a result of his age the Ministry has decided to exercise some clemency." Here Harry saw Umbridge and Fudge's looks towards Bones grow venomous. "And commute his sentence from expulsion from Hogwarts and incarceration on the island of Azkaban, to making him the subject of the Ministry. He will be allowed to attend Hogwarts, but he is forbidden from purchasing a new wand.

"He will be supplied with a Ministry-chosen wand that he will collect at the start of each school day at Hogwarts and which he will return to a a teacher at the end of each school day. Further to this, as a temporary ward of the state due to this conviction, he will be monitored by aurors, who will be assigned to protect the student body from him. Any further breaches of the law or the ruling of this hearing will result in a return to the original sentence of expulsion and a further hearing will be required to see if time in Azkaban is indeed justified.

"This is the sentence of the court."

The silence held in the court room as the pronouncement came to an end.

"Till the new school term begins on September first, Harry James Potter is to be detained at the pleasure of the Ministry. This hearing is dismissed."

A huge roar of approval went up from the assembly and Harry hung his head to try and hide the tears streaming down his cheeks.