Chapter 18: The Death Eaters' Nuremberg

"Potter!"

Five months or thereabouts of being addressed thus had left Harry feeling ironically empowered. Most people, especially in a place of work, dreaded to hear their surname called. It often preceded the top man being displeased with you. But for the Chosen One, who had been addressed in much worse, much more degrading terms, relished it. He was not the type who got his wand bent out of shape over someone not deigning to use his first name. Other nominal shorthand, such as 'You' and 'Boy' came to mind from his summers of horrors at the hands of the Dursleys, mostly from Uncle Vernon.

And for all his tough love, Gawain Robards was no Uncle Vernon – honestly compared to the bloviating whale that was his uncle, Harry's boss was like a breath of fresh air. The Head Auror now rounded the bend, squeezing his bulky frame into Harry's cubicle to drop a sheaf of paperwork on his desk.

"Check this morning's Daily before you go sorting through that," Robards tapped the manila folder now staring up at the young hotshot Auror trainee. "Give you a bit of context."

Harry grinned. "I do read the paper, you know. All the more especially when the stories being run aren't about me." Normally, he didn't like to make jokes about his fame, even self-deprecating ones, but someone like Robards would appreciate it. Plus, amidst the other trainees, it helped Harry's image. More than anything, he wanted to be seen as humble, even more than people would inevitably see him as the Boy Who Lived, the Slayer of Voldemort, the Savior of the Wizarding World. Titles like that were piling up by the day, still, in the little more than six months since the final battle.

Shifting the manila envelope to the side, Harry picked up this morning's edition of the Daily Prophet. He froze, and stared. Green eyes bulging, he rapidly unfolded the paper from along its middle crease.

A police line-up of mugshots stared back at him, all of those profiled either Death Eaters or Voldemort acolytes; Harry thought he saw a few Slytherins from his year scattered about the mix. Gregory Goyle. A girl he didn't recognize, but whom he swore may have been his year at Hogwarts. And….

And…..

Harry gulped. "When?"

"The Wizengamot has been mulling over a kickoff for after the Christmas holidays. Mind you, these would just be preliminary hearings before our office can assign men to work the caseloads."

"What, for representation?" Harry lifted his head out of the paper, and lifting an eyebrow along with it. "I thought that would be under DMLE's jurisdiction."

"We Aurors have been known to work in tandem with Magical Law Enforcement on high-profile cases like this," Robards stated grimly. "Catching the dark wizards isn't all about combat fieldwork, you know, Potter. There's paper pushing to be had. Briefs to write up. And for these wankers, you can bet your girlfriend's knickers that I want you right beside me. Weasley, too."

Harry ran his tongue over his bottom lip. "I'm…. flattered, of course. But…." He paused, pursing his lips through an exhale of breath. "Boss, I know I'm not yet in the position to be asking any favors, but…" and Harry tapped on one mugshot in particular. "Can you make sure that neither Ron nor I are put on any case anywhere close to the likes of him? It's important. Probably amounts to a conflict of interest, particularly for Ron. Bit of a tickety-boo, you know."

Robards blinked. "I can make sure Weasley's not assigned to his case, but I was actually hoping you'd be my point man on that one. You know him, fairly well, from what I've heard."

Harry snorted bitterly. "Not fondly." He ran a hand over his face. He was probably pushing his luck with his superior more than he should, and if Robards felt the need to say that it was an order, he, Harry, would have no choice but to follow it. Even if it meant interrogating, or worse, representing…. him…..

Harry stood and peeked over the edge of his cubicle. Then he glanced back over his shoulder into the corner cubicle behind him.

"I'll think about it. But if we are given a say, like, ranked choice voting…"

Robards chuckled, amused. "Not exactly our modus operandi here, Potter, but I'll indulge a war hero…"

Harry flinched. "…. I would put this bastard as my dead last choice, if it's all the same to you!"

Robards nodded. "Understood."

"Just as I understand the final decision will be left up to you. Sir," Harry amended.

Robards nodded, clapping Harry on the shoulder. "Good man. Top man." The Head Auror ambled away, leaving Harry to sink back into his swivel desk chair. He suddenly felt drained and exhausted.

Harry leaned out of his cubicle, scanning. Ron had stepped out some minutes before to use the loo, but he'd be back soon, into his cubicle right behind Harry's. The Chosen One quickly gathered his things, including stuffing the Prophet copy and the manila folder into his briefcase – a second hand thing that Arthur Weasley had gifted him – before heading for the lifts.

Halfway out of the Ministry, Harry blanched at the thought that he might not be allowed to take the manila folder out of the office – what if it contained sensitive case files about these Voldemort lackeys? But he didn't have time to double back, for fear of risking running into Ron.

As soon as he emerged onto the streets of London, he tracked down the first magical looking shop he could find and asked the proprietor if could use the Floo. Pinching some powder in his fist, Harry called out for his destination as the Burrow.

At the very least, a few more seconds of spinning around in green flames gave him more time to think than he otherwise would have spinning on the spot and instantaneously teleporting halfway across the countryside to Devonshire.

Spinning out into the Weasleys' living room, Harry lost his footing and fell forward, using his hands to catch himself. The sounds of moaning above him caused him to lift his head and he froze at the realization that he had just walked in on his girlfriend's brother and sister-in-law doing…. doing….

From where her head was lolled back to allow for her husband to lavish attentions on her neck, with her skirts shoved up near her hooey and one bra cup wrenched loose to reveal the bare swell of a breast, tits up and all, Audrey let her gaze fall onto Harry, whereupon she let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

"Doesn't anyone blooming knock anymore?!" Percy paused above her, mid-thrust, disheveled and in the throes of passion as he was. Harry scrambled to his feet, frantically and politely averting his eyes from where his likely future sister-in-law by marriage was flashing all her assets at him.

"We've got to do something about your housing situation," was all the young Auror would dryly, if not quite glibly, mutter about it, as he stalked for the kitchenette and took a seat at the table. Turning out his briefcase, he retrieved the manila file folder, shuffling the copy of the Daily Prophet to the side. Just as he suspected: there were case files in here – sparse and rudimentary as it was early in the proceedings - but still, he dearly hoped this wouldn't warrant as a fire-able offense on Robard's radar.

"You're home early." Percy's glib comment barely registered, and Harry hardly turned his head, pushing his glasses down to the bridge of his nose and he began to read. "How come Ron's not with you? He says you usually meet up to go to the lifts and then it's pop for home."

"Thought I'd…. just get a change of scene a bit early. Cubicle can be stuffy," Harry excused lamely. He dipped his nose into the case files, leafing through them. When it came down to a choice between hours on the obstacle course doing physical drills or hours sitting in a cubicle, most Auror trainees would very, very weakly pick the cubicle, despite the guarantee for there to be some drudgery. Harry supposed there was drudgery in any job. He had even been expecting it in the Auror Corps, especially now that the war was over.

Yet the cleanup wasn't. How naïve of him to have thought that war ended with the conclusion of hostilities.

"They're going to trial?" Audrey's voice was a breathless gasp, and Harry wondered if some of it was on account of her still trying to catch her breath from being caught in the middle of such a bloody hot shag. He glanced up out of the corner of his eye to see the pretty witch tugging her loose bodice up over her breast, now safely tucked back into its bra cup. She looked flushed and sheepish. For a moment, Harry considered again the suggestion Ginny had made to him that day in Hogsmeade, about allowing her brother and sister-in-law to let Grimmauld Place while they continued to hunt for a flat. Judging by what he had just walked in on, it might actually do everyone in this still-full house a world of good. "The surviving Death Eaters? Even… even Slytherins? What if…. what if they're minors….?"

"Audi, they're only minors if they were under the age of 17 when they committed the offense," Percy patiently explained. "Even then, some of them sixth years may be tried as adults. The Wizengamot would make a play for that, anyway."

Harry flipped over the profile on a blonde Slytherin seventh year girl, and paused. The mug shot of a defeated Draco Malfoy stared morosely back at him, sulking.

He had seen that almost hopeless gaze in the eyes of his schoolyard enemy once or twice before…. and neither instance had been that long ago.

"You haven't been assigned his case, have you?" Harry jumped at Audrey's voice, now directly behind him. He almost chastised her for reading over his shoulder, but bit it back.

Now Percy was in his light, tssking. "Stay away from that, lad, if you can help it. Better yet, don't let Ron find out."

"Why do you bloody think I ditched him before the end of work?" Harry frustratingly hissed through gritted teeth.

As if on cue, there came the sound of a new Floo arrival, heralded by whoosing from the fireplace. Harry scrambled to clear away all his papers into his briefcase, but….

"Oh, dash it all!"

The manila file folder and several of the case profiles went flying, in the second before Ron appeared.

"There you are! Where the bloody hell was you? I had to spend twenty bleeding minutes standing in the Atrium like an idiot waiting….!"

"Clocked out early," Harry grunted, still slapping about to gather the case files and shield them from his best mate's view. "Wanted to get a jump start on a bit of light reading…."

"You've been writing to my 'Mione too much, haven't you, mate?" Ron chuckled, as he stuck out his foot to pin down one last sheaf of paper caught on a breeze updraft and which Harry lunged for too late. Stooping, Ron slowly picked the profile up and held it out to his best friend.

Then Harry saw the moment where Ron did a double take at whose mug was on the paper. The redhead's face twisted in revulsion and the paper crumpled like a tin can in his fist.

Harry winced hard. "Ron..."

"Have you been assigned this vacuous blighter's case?" Ron's voice was low and stormy.

"Not yet, but…."

"Not yet?..." Ron's voice pitched dangerously close to a shout, prompting Audrey to shush her brother-in-law.

"Ronald, please, be quiet – your mum and dad are asleep upstairs….!"

"Oh, let them hear!" Ron growled, on his way to working himself up into a rant unless one of them talked him down fast. Only one other time had Harry seen his best friend anywhere close to this angry, and that had been under Dark Magic influence.

Except there was no Horcrux strung around Ron's neck this time.

"Tell me: does our Hermione know about this? Or have you neglected to mention it in your letters to her….?"

"When would I have had time to mention it? I only got the case files just today!" Harry grumbled, rising to his feet. "Bloody hell, not even an hour ago! Robards just dropped them in my lap….!"

"Oh, so Robards has put you up to this?"

"Well, not all of them, I hope! But he said he wanted me – and you, by the way – right beside him on this one."

"This one?" Ron shook the case profile of Draco Malfoy in Harry's voice. "This particular one?!"

"No, that's not what I meant!" Harry stressed, frazzled. "Ron, I specifically told Robards not to put you on Malfoy's case because it would be a conflict of interest!"

"You're damn bloody right it would be a blooming conflict of interest….! Not to mention neither of us are qualified, to say nothing of the fact that I wouldn't be responsible for my own actions when locked in an interrogation room with that bastard!..."

"No, perhaps not indeed," Harry snorted bitterly. "Our Hermione would be more qualified, and she's not even out of school yet…."

Ron's blue eyes widened with horror and he started to laugh dangerously. "Oh, Potter, that had better either be your sick idea of a joke, or your own little private thought, because if you brought Hermione up to Robards about this…."

"Get out! What do you take me for, a wanker?"

"Which cases has he assigned you, then? Hmm?"

"I don't know – he asked me to look at them! And hang on," Harry frowned. "How do you know about these case files?"

"Seamus, Neville and the mates have been whispering about something coming down like this. Not an exact guess, mind, but sodding close!" Ron angrily threw down Malfoy's profile so that it fluttered to the tabletop. "Now answer the question – are you going to take this traitor's case or not?"

"Only if Robards orders me to, and I would do everything I could to avoid it."

"I didn't hear a No in there…." Ron warned darkly.

"Why are you getting so worked up about this? Malfoy will have to be tried under the law, same as anyone else…."

"He shouldn't be! HE TORTURED MY GIRL!" Ron bellowed.

Silence. The air in the kitchen seemed to get sucked out of the room. Harry glanced at Audrey to see that she had a horrified hand over her mouth. Before them, Ron was shaking, hands balling into fists, his breath coming in near-hyperventilating gasps.

"He….. that – bastard….. stood there and watched while that…. psychopath he called an aunt tortured the love of my life within an inch of her sanity and he did NOTHING! The least that Robards, the insensitive tosser, can do is allow me the same courtesy of doing nothing for that snot-nosed git Malfoy!"

Harry folded his arms, bowing his head and finding the floorboards very interesting, as he worked through what to say next.

"Malfoy…. didn't torture Hermione…."

"He didn't stop it," Ron blurted out over him in a rasp. "He could have, but he didn't stop it."

"Could he have, though?" Harry raised an eyebrow. Ron started to angrily open his mouth to retort, but Harry's voice overpowered him. "He didn't torture our girl – Bellatrix did, and she's dead! She's paid for it, and good riddance to her!"

"But she left her mark," Ron wheezed, near tears.

"I know, I know she did…. but do you really think Malfoy was in any position to call a halt to that…?"

"After all we've been through…." Ron breathed, bewildered. "And you're taking that Death Eater's side….?"

"I'm not taking anyone's side….!"

"He was a coward!"

"He was a KID!" Harry shouted. "An adult in our world, perhaps, but he still would have been considered a kid where Hermione and I were raised! He was a kid, surrounded by maniac adults who would have Avada Kedavra'd him without a second thought if he refused to do what they wanted! I'm not sympathizing with the choices he made, Ron – but what I am trying to do is act like a counsel for the defense on the off-chance that Robards sticks us with any involvement in this case!"

"So you admit you would take it?" Ron stared. "You would do that to my girl? To our…"

"Only if I was ordered to, and only after I had exhausted every available channel to get out of it," Harry rasped patiently as he could. "I don't want to defend that monster anymore than you do, Ron, but we have to be prepared…" He laid a hand on his best mate's shoulder. "… and we have to tell Hermione. To prepare her."

Hermione's disembodied head floated in the green flames of the Weasley fireplace late that night. She listened quietly, mostly expressionlessly, as Harry and Ron laid out the cases. Behind the boys, Percy and Audrey were cuddled together on the couch and watching the exchange quietly.

The only response Hermione gave was to squeeze her eyes shut tight against the onslaught of PTSD when she heard how Draco Malfoy would be in the dock, one of the survivors of the Voldemort regime to stand trial. Even in the green lighting, Harry watched as a sputtering flame shaped like a tear trickled down the beautiful witch's face.

"And you or Ronnie might be assigned the case….?" Hermione finally spoke, following a shaky breath.

"It's one of several in this caseload," Harry explained. "Keep in mind, poppet, this is just a preliminary hearing. Ron and I wouldn't get our detainee assignments until after they've stood before the Wizengamot court."

Ron shuffled forward, closer to the floo, on his knees. "Hermione? ….. Love…..?"

"I can see his face…." Hermione's voice trailed off in a whisper. The flames sputtered where her eyelids now fluttered, the tongues of fire corresponding to her lashes blinking back unshed tears. "I can see him….. staring down at me. There…. There wasn't anything there. Not that I could see. Or if there was, he hid it well…. at least till the end…."

Harry could play back some of the memories too: how terrified Draco had looked as he more or less flung their confiscated wands back at them when Harry rushed him to wrest them away in those final, desperate minutes.

"Ron wouldn't be assigned his case." When Hermione peered at him, Harry continued on with his blurting. "I'd pull strings with Robard, do what I have to. And you wouldn't have to attend court or follow a single word of it, unless you want to."

"What about you?" Hermione studied him. "If you were tasked with defending Malfoy, it would be a conflict of interest for you too – you'd be a material witness, once evidence from Malfoy Manor comes up….!"

Harry hadn't thought of it from that angle. "And I'd play that with Robards to get assigned someone else, but…. if he did order me to take the case….. barring any legal or ethical hiccups, I would take it." Harry drank in Hermione's face, pleading with her to understand. "It wouldn't be about my loyalty to you, my love for you, poppet. Honestly, I'd be taking it because I'd have to…. and because even a Death Eater has rights under the law."

The Weasleys around him stared. "But…. Harry…." Percy spluttered. "Draco Malfoy is a fiend!..."

"…. and a bounder…." Audrey whimpered leerily.

Harry nodded. "True…. but even a fiend and a bounder who's betrayed Queen and country deserves his defense from the box."

A long beat as Hermione weighed this. At last, she nodded. "All right. Do…. do what you have to do, Harry." He nodded, studying her as she turned her face to Ron. "Kiss me goodnight?"

Ron did so, and though Harry had to wonder how two people could kiss across a Floo call without one of them getting burned, the sight of his two best friends sharing a moment, an intimate embrace, warmed his soul.

Even if it didn't exactly soothe his turbulent conscience.