9th September

I spent all of last night walking the familiar path that leads to my beloved river. I may never see my home or Kent again; and I am determined to remember as much of it as possible, to look back on my life here. Not the big things like what was going on when what happened,who was there and why. Those little things. The look of the sunlight spreading across the leaves on a grape vine. The swish of the willow hanging in the river. The softness of warm grass. The endless expanse of blue sky.

But once more the beautiful has left me, replaced with the stark black and grey.

My trial- or I should call it by its proper name, my legal hearing, takes place down in old Courtroom Ten, deliberately chosen to stir up old memories. My wand is scanned and confiscated on arrival. I give a smile to the passing workers but nobody returns it. You would have thought they were the ones on trial, although come to think of it, they are probably tried every day of their lives now.

I spot the statue in the Atrium and I can feel revulsion burning in my heart. I give a black look, black enough to match my jet robes. It is easily the most hideous thing I have ever seen, the message behind it even uglier. Witches are wizards are poor learners it would seem, for this statue, like its predecessor,is just built on another lie, it is simply that this one is more convinient, to justify the barbarism. If there is an ore of truth in that carved monstrosity of stone, it is that when a Death Eater sees the oppressed, caricatured Muggles on the statue, they are simply seeing their own twisted hearts reflected back on them, weighted down from the Dark Arts and never truly free. All human beings yearn for freedom, yet we all seem determined to entrap each other.

MAGIC IS MIGHT

That title seals my definite horror of everything that statue is. Magic is not might. Freedom is might. There is nothing I want more than to blast that statue to dust but I can't get the image of it out of my head. Like the truth, magic is a beautiful and terrible thing and sometimes I wish it never existed.

The temperature drops as I descend down to the courtroom floor; and as each level goes by, further and further into the bowels of the Ministry, the more horrid truths reveal themselves, like some twisted game of Pass the Parcel. By the time I stand outside the courtroom I would not be less surprised if a man with wings and horns wielding a pitchfork rounded the corner.

I am not afraid as I enter the all too familiar room. My journey down into the Ministry has sapped all emotion from me, leaving only the almost irrepressible urge to smash, tear and burn.

I am instructed to sit in the chair under the platform. The chains clank greedily, but I have not come here to fight for my freedom only to be trapped again.

I look at the chair. I look at the prosecution.

"I'm not sitting in that chair."

The Minister for Magic, Pius Thicknesse, leans forward, his eyes glinting dangerously.

"What did you say?" His voice is soft, but I'm not fooled. It's the pant of a lion rising.

"I- I'm not going to sit in that chair."

Things have not started well. I have embarassed him, in public. I can hear sounds of surprise coming from the civilian bystanders, those who have been invited in to enjoy my humiliation. Rita Skeeter's Quill is a scribbling away furiously, not wanting to miss a moment.

"You dare defy the law because it is not what you want?"

"You forget, Minister. I may be an accused criminal but I am also an individual. As a human being, I could not sit there. The degradation would be an affront to my kind."

"If you do not take a seat soon, you will be most inconvinient to the court. This trail most proceed with efficiency."

"Absolutely!" I beam. "I couldn't agree more!" I remove from my bag a high wooden stool and set it beside the chair. "I shall take my seat here." I hoist myself on top of it. It is very uncomfortable, my back and legs are not thanking me for it, but I will put up with any discomfort for its value. It is the only chair I posess which would allow me to look my prosecutors in th eye; and not up at them.

He frowns at me. "What are you doing? You cannot sit there! You must sit in the chair provided!"

I turn to the public innocently. "Surely it should not matter so very much? How is this chair less worthy than another? I shall not need restraining, I assure you. I have no wand or weapon. Why would I risk attacking you? If I try to flee the courtroom, I will be arrested by Dementors. You don't need chains to trap someone."

"Fine, fine! Forget the chair!" Thicknesse snaps. "Let's get on with it! Are you Marion Anne Ruth Rowle, under the alias Popyngcart?"

I bite back every retort I can think of that might be considered cheeky.

"Yes."

"Biological daughter of Thorfinn Rowle, convicted Death Eater and of Adina Popyngcart, his first wife, deceased as of 6th May 1990?"

"Yes."

He takes a deep breath in through the nostrils, inflating like some giant bureaucratic balloon. Then he gives a world-weary, theatrical sigh.

"Witches and Wizards of the Wizengamot, I am sorry to summon you today." He turns to address them, then back to me. "But the issue of the degradation of today's youth is no longer one we can ignore. We can behold a prime example of it: here," He points at me melodramatically and I can see them all lean forward in their seats, as if I were an exhibit of antiquity.

"Just now you have all witnessed her utter disrespect for custom, convention and authority which as a child and an employee, we expected of her."

It's just a chair.

"Unfortunately, her lack of manners is just the tip of the iceberg. Brace yourselves, members of the Wizengamot, we will be discussing unmentionable things in regard to her."

Why mention them then?

"We begin, with the most minor of our charges against her. Fraud. This girl, over the course of three years, has continually taken money off good, hard-working pureblood families to fund her own extravagant lifestyle!"

"It's called wages. I risked my life for them. I can't really imagine how one can have an extravagant lifestyle on an average of 4,000 Galleons a year. While we are on the subject, might I also remind you Minister, that over the course of the last month alone I have clocked in over 30 hours of what I was told was paid overtime. I have not received a Knut of my due, so if anybody is guilty of fraud here it is most certainly not me."

"Moving on. The accused is also called upon for the disappearance of her colleagues, known as Jaina, Alysha and Branwell, who disappeared last year and were presumed dead."

"The whole matter can be addressed. I will glady testify under Veritaserum, or if you wish you may view my memory of the day in a Pensieve, after having examined my memories as to be real. I did what I believed to be right."

The Minister leans further over, almost blocking out the view of those sitting beside him. In this fight it is just the two of us. Me; and Voldemort's political mouthpiece. The others are simply irrelevant.

"We have not even started on the matter of heresy. This girl is poisoning the minds of her co-workers with her ridiculous and dangerous ideas. Her pro-Muggle leanings are unacceptable and some of what she says is insulting to the wizarding world which blessed the ungrateful child with magic."

"You do not respect my beliefs so therefore I have no reason or interest in accepting yours."

"So you deny fact?"

"Only when it is illegible from fiction."

"In that matter, you are completely illiterate. Bring forth: Exhibit A!"

He holds up one of my Muggle books, sealed in a transparent bag to prevent it unleashing its lack of magic into the world. Several of the onlookers gasp in horror and Umbridge does a very good job of pretending to faint.

"We wonder, Wizengamot, why this girl is delusional? She fills her head with this- this rubbish! This filth! This spawn of heresy!"

"Better to have a head filled with rubbish than a head full of nothing." Bursts out of me before I can stop myself.

He narrows his eyes dangerously, jowls quivering.

"Did you say that to me?"

"I'm saying that there must be some grain of truth in every fable. Otherwise where would it come from? It is when things are darkest that the light is clearest."

"But behold what Muggle literature has done to her! How it has corrupted the soul that seven years ago, we tried so hard to save! Countless times over the years she has questioned orders to the point of outright disobedience! If there were more of her kind, the Ministry would not function!"

"I do what I believe to be right!"

He lunges forward and I almost fall of my stool with the shock. And I used to think that it was Fudge who hated me.

"We offered her the chance of redemption. We offered her a place, as a pureblood, in the ranks of the Fatherland! But she turned from the right, eschewed all ancient wisdom. Our noble Ministry has better calls for its attention than those of a pig-headed troublesome wretch, whose only destination is hell!"

He smashes his fist down onto the wooden bench as cheers erupt from the rows of prosecutors. I can feel my chair shaking with the force of their hate. If by some strange chance I get out of here free, I may not make it two paces to the Atrium before I am lynched.

"Time for the vote! All those in favour-"

"Wait!" I jump off my stool and head a half step forward. They regard me with suspicion.

"This trial is not yet finished." I gulp, speaking very slowly to keep my voice steady and not fluting around the roof.

"According to Decree 271. of the Youth Internship Act, an intern who has served the Ministry for over 12 months cannot be legally prosecuted with a reference from a witness regarding character and competence. Without the physical presence in court of such a witness, the prosecution of the accused is not- is not valid."

I dare to look the Minister in the eye, who is almost catatonic with rage.

"And who is your witness?"

I pause. All attention is focused on me, nobody dares breathe in case they miss my last ditch attempt to free myself.

"Rufus Scrimgeour."

I step back and observe my work. My message could not be carved in clearer stone. Let me go, or summon Scrimgeour as a witness. Or admit that he is dead and open up a whole can of worms and enquiries.

He fidgets around, thinking around my words for a loophole. But no spell can bring back the dead. Perhaps the Death Eaters got rid of his body a little too efficiently.

He adjourns the trial for half an hour. The entirety of this time I spend sitting next to Rita Skeeter. Though it is risky for my reputation to talk with her, at least she doesn't want me dead. (Physically though. Verbally she could annihilate me within sentences, but as long as air comes into my lungs I am content enough.)

I sit back down again after the passing of thirty minutes and await my fate.

"Due to time constraints and the difficulty in rescheduling this trial, we have altered your sentence. You are deemed High Risk and therefore, in the interests of civilian safety, are not permitted under any circumstances to enter Hogwarts School, St Mungo's Hospital or Ministry premises. You are not permitted to request or receive the services of any Ministry worker: defined as a Healer, Tutor, Professor or Auror. Any breach of premises will be regarded as trespassing and punished as such."

"What I am ill?"

"What if you are ill? The Ministry accepts no responsibility for your death, before the age of 17 or afterwards. Any lack of contact between you and the Ministry cannot be deemed negligence. Your restraining order is effective as of an hour from now. You have forty minutes to leave Ministry premises."

He bangs the gavel and everybody sweeps out of the room, me tailing out on the end.

I may have evaded prison, but I am now completely alone. No safety net. No support system, I have never been more vulnerable.

I can do nothing but dread whatever they will do next.