Sixteen

Truth Set Free

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always

be attended by a bodyguard of lies,"

– Winston Churchill

Harry got a letter a few days after seeing the Dursley's. It was written by the acting Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt and it read that the trial of the Malfoy's and Hermione Granger would happen two days from then. He sighed something of relief and began writing back that he would testify.

That same day similar letters were written to the Minister from Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini and Ron Weasley and their plan would be put into action.

Because Lucius Malfoy was Lucius Malfoy he had pulled some political strings and had persuaded the Ministry to give his family, including Hermione, their trials all on the same day. First would be the combined trial of Draco and Hermione, and then there would be Narcissa's and then last would be his. This meant that the entire day would be their trials, and although it would be long and daunting, by the time nightfall had descended all of their fates would be decided. Many had thought that Lucius would have wanted to prolong the trials for as long as possible, to get a bit more life and peace before going away to Azkaban, but he just wanted it all done. He was sick with fatigue and it had went on long enough. He knew what his punishment would be. There was no use denying the inevitable.

Due to this fact, they all entered the judgement room together. Lucius held Narcissa's hand, hers held Draco's and Draco's held Hermione's. They entered the room with their heads held high and their eyes full of their surroundings.

The room was unbelievable large. Tiers of seats arched around a large pool which was in the centre and the cage which Lucius would soon be going in to be given his trial.

The pool had the appearance of a shallow stone basin, into which runes and strange symbols were carved and precious stones were fitted. It was filled with a silvery substance that appeared to be a cloud-like liquid; the collected memories of Hermione and Draco, who had siphoned their recollections into it for the viewing pleasure of the Ministry of Magic.

The tiers were full of murmuring people, nearly everybody had come to witness the hearing of the Malfoy's and Hermione. Hermione was in turmoil over the fact that Harry and the Weasley's and most of Gryffindor House had come to the hearing, and they were going to see everything.

Draco's eyes met those of Pansy and Blaise, the only two Slytherin's of their age in the whole room. He couldn't nod to them, wouldn't is the better word, but he knew that his gratitude to them would be conveyed.

Upon the arrival of the Malfoy's everybody silenced.

Amelia Bones, who would oversee their trial, shouted (not out of necessity but out of want) "Draco Abraxas Malfoy and Hermione Jean Granger," Upon her reading out their names, they were separated from Draco's parents, Narcissa had to suppress her tears over this, who were escorted to the front tier with guards. Amelia carried on, "You have been brought from the Ministry's holding cells, upon Lucius Malfoy's request, to give evidence on whether you are guilty or innocent on the following crimes; using dark magic, taking the Death Eater's mark, siding with Lord Voldemort, conspiring with Death Eaters…" she ignored the winces from the mention of the dead man's name, "And the murder of Albus Dumbledore. Should your testimony be proven to be consequential the council may consider either an immediate release or services under probation. However, if the evidence proves that you are guilty of these crimes, sentences at Azkaban will be enforced." She got guards to usher them to the pool, "The evidence will be given in the form of memories which you have both willingly given,"

Everyone in the stands then got up to crowd around the pool, Hermione and Draco stood opposite to his parents and behind them stood Harry and the Weasley's.

"Let's begin."

And they all fell into the pool; into the memories.

Their memories began where their interwoven chaos of that year started; Malfoy Manor.

Flickering lights casted twisted shadows around the room, transforming the usual splendour of the manor into something grotesque. The usual magnificence was tarnished anyway by the forced presence of the Dark Lord. Draco stood in front of him, the question asked of him going over his head; he was terribly distracted.

"I asked you a question, Draco,"

Steel grey eyes met demanding red.

"What do I think of Hermione Granger?" Draco said in a monotone.

The girl in question was flopped in the corner, his mother dabbing wetly at the still bleeding scar on her arm with a towel, his father towered over them both with a composed, indifferent expression and his aunt stood near the Dark Lord, her eyes following every minute drag of the bloodied towel. The girl was unconscious thankfully but Draco would've preferred that she wasn't there at all.

"I think that she is smart, they don't call her the brightest witch of her age for nothing, she is curious and courageous but less so than all Gryffindor's. She is annoying with her bushy hair, buck teeth and her prim proper attitude, and she is blunt and honest and damn right stupid with her selflessness."

"That is just your surface thoughts," the Dark Lord sat straighter in his throne like chair and chuckled while shaking his head at Draco. "Tell me what you really think of her." The imperative was sharp and to deny it would be punishable. His mother looked up from Hermione desperately. Those days she looked older, which was strange since she had always appeared more youthful than her age. There were deep lines and dark circles around her eyes, and her lips were thin and in a frown more often than not – Draco knew that those were half caused by him.

He absentmindedly scratched at the dark mark on his forearm and replied, "Well…"

The scene shifted to a familiar courtyard of Hogwarts but Draco's voice, although you couldn't see him, was still audible. "She cares."

There was no sound in the scene but Hermione laughing with Harry and Ron over something ridiculous, her hat pulled tightly over her ears to stop the cold biting at them. She playfully shoved Ron, who lost his footing and fell foolishly into the heavy snow around them. Another uproar of laughter sprouted from her lips as she folded in on herself in mirth; she could not contain herself and Harry had to lend a helping hand to the scowling Ron to help him to his feet one more.

"That hurt you know!" The ginger remarked at the still laughing Hermione.

After a while Hermione's laughter fell into hiccups and she was able to talk in between them, "I know," a hiccup stopped her, "I'm s-sorry," and another hiccup, "Here, let me rub it better," she hiccupped once more and rubbed his back. They all watched as Ron's face went as red as his hair and they all laughed again. Hermione led the boys back inside and away from the snow and the cold.

"Although it is undeniable that she must have gone through something terrible," Draco said as the scene moved on,

"Why do you say that?" The Dark Lord asked.

"Because she sometimes gets this look like a kicked down dog that will never get back up again." Draco's voice disappeared as the darkness revealed Hermione standing in front of a mirror holding a snow globe.

Hermione was speaking to herself in the mirror, but it was if she was speaking to someone else.

"You don't have to do this, you know," she whispered as she turned the snow globe around and around in her hands.

"But I do have to, if I don't he could come for them, torture them, kill them. It's better this way." There was no doubt who the he that she was referring to actually was.

"But this is a bit drastic isn't it? To make your own parents forget you?" She talked to herself in rambles before her mother called for her and she answered their call. The snow globe was placed back on her nightstand, a blank canvas and she knew she had to do this. With her wand pressed close to her side she closed her eyes and moved towards her bedroom door. Her room was awfully barren, packed up like she had already left.

She finally opened her eyes when she reached the stairs and she descended them. Her parents were sat on the sofa, their backs to her as they watched something on the television. Her father had his arm wrapped around her mother and they snuggled as they laughed at some comedy. Her breath rattled in her lungs as she raised her wands, watching as they smiled for a final time, hoping that they wouldn't turn around, wouldn't say her name again.

"Obliviate."

The spell was cast and the memories were gone from her parent's heads, she paired the memory charm with the legilimency spell and she cloaked over every memory of her. She watched as their eyes went blank, as photographs changed to eradicate her from their lives and she planted the thought into their heads that they should move to Australia.

Her heart shattered under their blank stares. She wouldn't exist to them, she had never existed in their minds and maybe their lives would be better without her. Then, before they could wake up and realise what she had done, she picked up her broken heart and she left the house, the very same she grew up in.

Then the darkness splintered around her as she walked out into her street and the memory reformed back into Malfoy Manor and the cold stare of the Dark Lord. "But do you think she is worthy enough to live?" Nagini hissed at the Dark Lord's feet, tempted by the possibility of another meal. Draco felt disgusted.

"No my Lord," Draco tried to smile even though the next words pained him immensely, he didn't look at Hermione slumped in the corner, nor did he look at his mother or his father. "I think she is useful."

The Dark Lord grinned, showing gnarled teeth that would have made Draco cringe on any given day if today didn't require his utmost solidarity. "Then we will use her."

The pensieve shifted to show Hermione going on the run with Harry and Ron, Ron being spliced and her treatment of him.

"Do you have feelings for him?" Harry asked in the stillness of the forest as Ron lay unconscious with a half fixed arm. The question was asked awkwardly and Hermione felt it was better if she answered it and relieved Harry of the tension.

"Not like that," she murmured, "But he is still worth a lot." Then the smoke changed into them being found and taken to Malfoy Manor, Hermione's torture by Bellatrix, her leaving Harry and Ron in order to stay there. Then it was her treatment in Malfoy Manor, the Death Eater's lurking in the corner for ever watching and wanting to touch. Then their escape, Draco rescuing her and running, treating her injuries in Spinner's end. It stopped when Draco and Hermione had their argument in the hotel in Ireland and it focussed on the journal she had pressed against her knees after Draco had left.

It read: Draco Malfoy. I once thought him to be hollow. But no, that is not the proper term for the boy. A universe was once contained beneath his skin, once started by its own big bang. But then his life took a downturn and all the pressures and responsibilities weighed on him something terrible and it began to draw back into its centre. That shadow he holds inside his body collapsed into a singular point a long time ago, an infinitely dense centre of pain and tension and longing, and it is the only place he can find himself. That is where the real Draco is, trapped in this indescribably small point that sucks everything else in, like a black hole. So, he is not hollow; there is just nothing there at large.

The universe inside of him had collapsed to the point of implosion, to the point where everything just splintered apart, racing off in every direction and he can't control a single ounce of it. It is so much larger than him. He can't, it isn't possible, but he is trying, he is really trying to hold it all together and not be blown away by it. Maybe he has already been blown away.

The journal pages melted into the day when Draco received the Dark Mark. He was stood in front of the Dark Lord with a confident expression on his face, his mother stood to the side holding onto his father's hand with every strength she knew. Severus stood on the Dark Lord's other side and when Draco knelt and his eyes briefly met his godfathers. It was then that his nerves wavered – was this the best choice?

He couldn't back out now, he had to make his family proud. He had to do everything he was supposed to. When the pain flared in his arm he thought he would pass out, such a burning feeling that maybe his skin was being burned right there. But he didn't, he waited until he walked out of the room, paler than his normal complexion and with glazed eyes, to stumble in his father's grip. It wasn't until he was in his bedroom that he allowed himself to pass out, the worried words of his mother and godfather rocking him like a newborn.

Then there was the day where Dumbledore was killed and Draco had failed to do the second half of his first mission. At first it showed Dumbledore being killed by Snape and then it raced off into Draco at Malfoy Manor afterwards. The Dark Lord had been disappointed with him but not significantly since he had managed to let Death Eaters into Hogwarts with the Vanishing Cabinet. He had two crucio's before the Dark Lord had been sick of torturing him and the worried debrief from Snape had calmed him. After his torture was finished he was in his father's study, still shaking through the aftershocks with a glass of whiskey in his hand, the crystal trembling in his hands. His mother had berated him for the alcohol but Snape had calmed her by changing his potion to fit teenagers. Snape had been the one to master the art of healing potions, even ones to cure the ache left from the cruciatus curse. His father was pacing angrily across the study, spewing out words Draco didn't bother to listen to.

He still remembered what Dumbledore looked like when the killing curse hit him, when he fell and when he died. Snape had hauled Draco out of there but the damage had already been done.

The glass was placed on the table as Draco consulted his dark mark, "Maybe this was a useless thing to get," he murmured as he toed off his shoes and placed sock covered feet onto the sofa.

His father whirled round, "Why did you get it in the first place then?"

"Because we all know that he wouldn't have kept coming to us if I hadn't," Draco sighed, "We weren't in his favours and he would have just kept crucioing you and then mother. We both know that is not a good thing. I didn't want it but I had to, I didn't have another choice because it was what was expected of me. It's still useless."

"Maybe you should have just killed Dumbledore then?"

"Lucius!" Narcissa stood and faced her husband who paced in front of the fire, she of all people knew the emotional destruction that the order had done to Draco. Her boy had retreated from her and Draco knew she still crept into his room at night just to see how he was doing, ignoring the silent tears on his cheeks and restraining herself from going to him while she was at it.

"What? I know he was a good bastard but if Draco had then we wouldn't be in this mess!"

"We still would," Snape entered with a vial in his hand that he gave to Draco. Draco wolfed it down, forgetting all notions of decorum as the lime scented potion went down his throat. The shakes subsided and yet the ache remained, he slumped back into the sofa with a groan. "I know Draco but that will subside too." Snape said his way and stepped carefully to Lucius.

"He couldn't kill Dumbledore because he is a kid and he shouldn't have to, it's why I took the vow with Narcissa and it's why I killed him myself." Snape poured himself a generous glass and gulped it down in one. Draco knew about the vow his godfather had with his mother but it didn't make anything easier.

"But that's the life he has now," Lucius said in a downtrodden way and Draco understood him in a way he hated.

"Well it's the life we were all given so we have to keep walking down that path," Severus grumbled and poured another whiskey.

They would need a lot more alcohol to survive this hell hole.

The memories swirled around their trip to Ireland, around going to the Riddle Manor and discovering the daggers, about the Battle of Hogwarts and their hug at the end before they were ripped away from each other by the Aurors.

They emerged back out of the memories with faces looking sickened around them. Draco's face was blank, he knew what memories were put into that pensieve and why and those about Hermione had not surprised him. Hermione beside him tried to remain calm but she knew that not every emotion was going to stay behind her walls.

"Next we have those who want to testify on behalf of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger," Bones said into the brief clamour that had emerged following the memory viewing. Everyone moved back to their seats, Narcissa and Lucius chained to a front bench and Draco and Hermione stood chained at the front of the room, leaning against the pensieve.

For Hermione both Harry and Ron stood on the bench and said kind words to her. Harry told the court that Hermione had helped him out of many scuffles since he had come to Hogwarts, ensuring that he was safe and comfortable amongst the magical walls because like he, she came from a muggle background. Ron spoke of her courage, her devout honour to her friends and if that meant Draco Malfoy then that meant that even those who had been wronged could make up for it under Hermione's wing.

Then it came for Draco's turn and Pansy and Blaise both got up to say their piece. Pansy smoothed out the invisible creases in her skirt before she cleared her throat and talked about how she and Draco had been pushed together since birth but Draco had always been defiant. She talked about his defiant streak being his salvation, how it meant saving Hermione and deviating from the preconceptions of the Malfoy name. Blaise echoed the statement, talking about the etiquette of pure blood families and how everything was expected of them. Draco was only following the lead of his forefathers, only doing what was expected of him.

Their trial was over but Lucius' and Narcissa's had barely begun and they were left in suspense before their ruling could be read out. Lucius expressed his regret over his actions and handed out names to prevent the cage coming closer towards him. Narcissa explained how she had never actively been on the front lines of the war effort, only protecting her husband and her son from the brunt of the Dark Lord's power if need be. But she had still went willingly and still participated when she was needed. Then Harry testified for his mother, explaining how Narcissa had told the Dark Lord he was dead even when he wasn't all for the protection of her son.

Hermione felt bone tired when the trial was over, the day rushing by in a drips of barely there sentences and blasts from the past. But the verdicts were ready to be read out and she held onto Draco's hand like it was a lifeline. She did not want to go to Azkaban and she did not want Draco to either.

Wands were held up in silent judgement and Hermione didn't know which side they were meant to be voting for. Finally Amelia Bones was turning towards them and nodding, inhaling as she read them their futures. "For Lucius Malfoy we vote for indefinite house arrest due to the cooperation of his political favour." Lucius seemed to sag, knowing that he wouldn't be faced with the Dementors once more. "For Narcissa Malfoy we vote for five years house arrest for protecting Harry Potter." Narcissa straightened and her hand found Lucius's, relief written on her face, yet still crimped because Draco's verdict hadn't been read out yet.

"For Hermione Granger we vote for abolishment of her crimes under the evidence provided by her memories." Hermione held her breath as Draco's was read out. "For Draco Malfoy we vote for a probationary period of a year under the terms that no dark magic will come from him and six months house arrest after which his crimes will be abolished unless repeated."

Hermione didn't care that Draco was under house arrest, all she cared about was that none of them had been sentenced with Azkaban. House arrest was tolerable. She showed how little she cared when they unlocked their chains and she tugged Draco down by the shirt collar and kissed him.

The cameras flashed around them but none of them cared because somewhere within the moment Draco kissed her back.