Chapter One: The Verdict
June 1999
Stepping out of the lifts, the dark tiled walls glint in the dim gaslight. The door at the end of the hallway is closed, a man stands in front of it with a concerned look on his face.
It's only been a year and a month since the Battle of Hogwarts. Since Voldemort was defeated. Since innocent people were led to slaughter.
One year and one month has passed, but the screams still echo. Sometimes, late at night when the world slows and quiets, there's nothing but screams, the crack of a curse and the deathly silence that follows.
The smell of dark magic is a sulphurous, foetid odour. Putrefaction follows everywhere it goes. Scatterings of dead flowers lay haphazardly on the ground where gardens once bloomed and blood from creatures and magical folks seeped through the soil. Something hot and wet trickling down her arm, crimson soaking through her shirt sleeve. I'm bleeding…why am I bleeding?
Hiding the tremor in her hands, a result of adrenaline coursing through her veins. Barely registering her surroundings, the noise of victory drowned out every thought she had. Shouting, screaming, crying. All the screaming, the endless screaming as it built into a cacophonous roar, overwhelming and deafening.
But they won. She won, Harry defeated the Dark Lord. Good triumphed over evil but…
The world should have stopped that day. It should have ceased to exist the moment an unforgivable was uttered, when a blade was pressed to flesh, the moment the first person died.
But the world didn't stop. The world kept turning, kept moving and expected her to just keep turning too, to just keep going, just keep moving.
Back to school, back to work, back to home.
There is no home. I'm all alone…
She went back to school, tried to find some semblance of normalcy, something she could hold on to. Her friends were battered and bruised—doing their best to put themselves back together— and their scars were evident. They banded together, but they needed a leader, someone who understood, who knew.
Just smile, we can figure it out…be there for them.
Right foot before left foot, there were classes, exams, and copious amounts of studying. The library that was once full of rubble has been cleared. The Great Hall that was once full of bodies has been cleaned, the tables replaced. The bridge had been rebuilt with the guards back in their endless slumber.
Everything was gone, like nothing happened and it almost made it worse. The mess of war had been cleaned and sanitised. Upon her return to Hogwarts, she found herself looking, peeking into crevices, searching for blood. Searching for remnants of what had happened. A token to remember it by. Something to prove it actually happened.
It happened, I know it did…I have the scars, I can prove it…
Sometimes it feels like a dream, a rushed fever dream and she finds herself floating out of her body when she's fully awake.
It helps to compartmentalise her emotions, helps her decipher what is really happening right now, and what happened then.
I'm in the Ministry…I'm testifying today…Get a grip, Hermione…You can do this…
Today she isn't Hermione Granger. She is The Brightest Witch of Her Age, part of the Golden Trio, a prodigy.
But she's not bright. She's not cunning or ambitious, nor brave and full of wisdom. She's scared. Terrified even. Terrified that the war isn't actually over. That everyone has been lulled into a false sense of complacency and now everyone is expected to just keep going and going and going…
She doesn't want to keep fighting, only to lose over and over again.
Good triumphed over evil that day, but who is good, and who is evil?
Is there a difference when people had to die?
I'm here to testify…I'm here to save lives…
Hermione closes her eyes—shutting out the thoughts—and makes her way down the hall.
Her hands are shaking and she has to stop, ducking into an alcove before anyone can see. Leaning against the cool black tile, she catches her breath while counting. Always counting, always steadying.
The voices behind the door are muffled, purposefully so of course.
Behind that door the Wizengamot will decide a man's fate. A man she knows. A man she went to school with. A Death Eater.
Draco Malfoy.
His trial is the last in the series, the last in the long and arduous string of testimonies she has made. She thinks about how Malfoy had to watch everyone go before him and he could do nothing but wait. A chill runs down her spine, the cool tile turning warm as she tries to pull herself together. Tries to put one foot in front of the other, right before left.
Hermione swallows hard, trying to rid herself of the lump that seems to be growing in her throat. The one that threatens to choke her at times. She doesn't want anyone to see her pulling herself together; she can't let anyone know that she's being consumed by her thoughts, the memories that plague her—
"Hermione? Is everything alright?" Harry's voice pulls her out of her own head, his soft green eyes reflect an unspoken understanding. It is as if he can actually see what's going on, and can read it on her face even though she's attempted to hide it. Out of everyone around her, Harry is the only person who's come close. Close to understanding. Close to knowing.
His earlier concern is overshadowed by a look of sympathy, Harry's benign smile offering her the solace she so desperately seeks.
"Y-yeah, I'm alright. I'm just composing my statement before going in."
Hermione can see on his face that he doesn't totally buy it, his brows knit together for a moment but the expression passes quickly.
"We're calling for the witnesses! Ms. Granger and Mr. Potter, you're being summoned."
Harry turns as the legal clerk beckons them to enter. The courtroom is silent, the benches full of people in plum-coloured robes. Blood rushes in her ears, the constant whoosh, ebb and flow with each beat of her pounding heart.
When the head of the Wizengamot clears her throat and motions Hermione to sit, she has to hold her hands to stop them from trembling.
The large wooden pews that bank the sides of the room feel ominous as all eyes loom on a lithe figure. He leans against the bars of the cage that sits in the middle of the floor. His posture looks defiant, leaning in an antagonistic way. But when she focuses a little harder, she sees how his shoulders are slumped, his head drooping in exhaustion.
Malfoy looks abysmal.
Hermione squints, trying to pinpoint the last time she saw him. Memories of the last year float through her consciousness like wisps of smoke. Appearing clearly before disappearing back into the recesses of her brain. She closes her eyes briefly, focusing, something she's had to do more and more lately when recalling a memory from another time.
The battle.
His face was sullen and far off while sitting with his mother and father at the Slytherin table. With a ramrod-straight posture, his hands were folded neatly in his lap. Those colourless eyes fixated on a piece of tile on the floor for what seemed like an eternity, too afraid—or other—to look anywhere else. His mouth was one hard line, formed into a signature Malfoy scowl.
He looks like a different person now. Hair longer, cheeks sunken in, a scar running into his eyebrow from his forehead that wasn't there a year ago.
It reminds her of Neville and his scarred face, the way the deep red lines pull and stretch. Only his scars flex when he smiles, lighting up his face despite the pain they once held.
Malfoy's scar doesn't move. He isn't smiling; it looks like he isn't even breathing. Those grey eyes are cold and vacant as he looks into the crowd.
Harry sits beside her in the stands, waiting to be called upon.
I hope they pick him first…But today is not my lucky day.
"Ms. Granger, in the trial of Draco Lucius Malfoy, you have been called as a character witness. Please step forward."
Hermione's body is screaming as his eyes find her, her hands still shaking as she makes her way to the witness stand. Posture forced, stomach in knots.
He follows her every movement, his face not betraying an ounce of emotion except for his eyes…He's looking at her, devouring her as if she has the power to decide his fate. A fire burns in her when they lock eyes and for a moment there's a flicker of something awakening deep within her. Something morphs—turning within her mind—like fog being lifted before it's gone in a puff of smoke.
Those pale grey eyes glaze over, any emotion they once held fading. He's occluding, carefully filing away all of the information and all of the possible emotions he could be feeling.
Will he revisit this memory? Pull it from the shelf and study it when he's locked away?
Finally, she looks away, standing as the solicitor approaches the bench.
"Hermione Jean Granger. You are called upon today as a character witness for one Draco Lucius Malfoy."
Nodding, she keeps the solicitor's gaze so she doesn't have to look at Malfoy again. She can feel it, his gaze still on her, boring into her soul. Ice slipping down her spine, settling into her bones.
"Ms. Granger, what do you remember of Mr. Malfoy from school?"
What do I remember of Malfoy?
A terribly spoiled boy with no manners. A boy who called her Mudblood, who weaponized Ron's poverty, who bought his way onto the Quidditch team. The product of nepotism, pureblood supremacy and generational wealth.
Hermione clears her throat, licking her lips. "Mr. Malfoy had his shortcomings in our formative years. But as we got older, the more I learned about him, the more I realised he is simply a product of his own upbringing."
But the Malfoy from sixth year? The man that he had awkwardly grown into was different. He had a conscience, a moral compass. He seemed torn—the dichotomy of the decision—between following a path carefully carved for him or fighting it by rebelling. The decision was ultimately made by his own inability to kill.
He was merely a boy who had been punished for his own father's inability to act who thus had fallen into the cycle of inaction.
Malfoy was plagued by something he couldn't control. A decision no one should have to make. She continues after a moment of thought. "I believe his actions during the end of the battle have proven who he really is. I know him to be a good person who regrets his actions."
After the final battle, Hermione heard whisperings in the Great Hall as she looked over the dead.
"Did you hear? Malfoy saved the Slytherins in the dungeons."
"No way? Draco? That can't be true."
"He did! Carlotta saw it with her own eyes."
Malfoy had apparently helped the Slytherins escape. None of the other Gryffindors believed it, but for some reason she did. Maybe it was because of the encounter the Golden Trio had at Malfoy Manor, the fact that he had every opportunity to turn them in, but he didn't.
Hermione wasn't supposed to be privy to Malfoy's moments of compassion, but her Hogwarts classmates never gave her enough credit when it came to her attentiveness outside of the classroom. She acknowledged his silent acts of kindness throughout the years even when he himself chose not to. Comforting a young student while doing rounds as a prefect. Reshelving his books properly in the library. His overt reaction to one of the Unforgivables during fourth year, the way he twitched and looked away.
I feel like no one ever noticed how much he was suffering in sixth year…
She knows for a fact that the Ministry has already made their decision. They have given the verdict—guilty—and this hearing is simply a formality. A way of determining the length of his sentence.
Lucius had already been sent back to Azkaban, the mountains of evidence against him from both wars earning him multiple life sentences. Narcissa, on the other hand, was another story. Narcissa Malfoy—the woman who lied to the Dark Lord allowing Harry to defeat him—received five years of house arrest. This was seen as a mercy sentence since she technically had no hand in the war, but her inaction was seen as complacency and not self-preservation.
Reading the newspaper made Hermione lose a little bit of hope, how the Ministry deemed her guilty simply because she was on the wrong side. How they sentenced her as if she were a criminal, the black and white rules with no grey area. The war had taught her that grey areas were the perfect places to reside, not quite good, not quite bad, but something in between.
The good side—her side—is equally guilty. Ron, Harry and herself had committed numerous crimes during their time on the run. But they were never tried. The ministry decided to forgive for the good of the world.
There's a snort and Hermione breaks eye contact with the solicitor, furrowing her brows at the offending sound. She has to keep her mouth from falling open in surprise.
Did Draco Malfoy just snort at my compliment?
His posture has changed, no longer tired but full of arrogance. Grey eyes level her with venom, like he doesn't believe her praise.
"You speak of Mr. Malfoy's actions during the end of the battle, but I don't recall him doing anything heroic." The solicitor's question washes over her, his voice sounding far off as she stares down at the cage bolted into the floor.
These questions…he's acting like he was there, this man is acting like he fought on the grounds of Hogwarts.
"I don't believe you were there unless you'd like to tell me otherwise," Hermione says, directing her gaze back to the short man questioning her, who seems to be guiding her hand to deliver Malfoy's fate.
He clears his throat, his cheeks reddening as she's called him on his bluff. "Would you say he's a smart man?" he asks once he's regained his composure.
"I don't understand what that has to do with anything, but yes."
Another snort emanates from the cage in the middle of the floor. Malfoy's goading them, putting on an act as he leans back in the cramped space. He rolls his shoulders, cracking his neck like they're keeping him from something important. When he tilts his head from side to side, he's still staring, and she gets a full view of his prison number.
Tattooed on his neck for the world to see. Marked. Stained. Scarred. Like the gash he has on his eyebrow, but this one is intentional. Setting him apart from all of the upstanding citizens. It seems pre-emptive to tattoo his number before the trial, but this just further proves to Hermione that they've already decided he's guilty.
"Would a smart man try to assassinate someone?"
Hermione lets a puff of air out of her nose, teeth clenching tightly.
I hate this solicitor, she thinks angrily, fingernails biting into her palms. He's been court-appointed to all of the Death Eaters and has been terrible. Between asking leading questions, not reading witness statements properly and general disorganisation, Hermione has decided that she hates this man.
"I believe a smart person would do anything under duress. Push someone far enough and you will realise that even the best of people will make difficult and complicated decisions."
The man looks at her down the bridge of his nose and she refuses to turn away.
Malfoy mutters something under his breath and it sounds like he's mocking her. Suddenly, she's twelve years old and being called a mudblood as everyone around her laughs. But she isn't twelve anymore. She's an adult who can control her emotions, so she grits her teeth and doesn't let anything show.
"You're saying he was coerced into doing the Dark Lord's bidding?"
"What I'm saying is that we all did what we had to. A society at war will resort to things they wouldn't ever consider, Malfoy was no different than myself."
Another snort, another glare at her with those penetrating eyes. He looks menacing with the scar, but he looked menacing before. All angles and height, cheekbones and jawline that could cut glass. Posture, stature, and poise all rolled into the perfect spoiled boy who grew into a man that everyone tried to control.
He looks like a void, like a ghost, like he doesn't exist and will disappear at any second. His pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes are ethereal in the deep, dark, dim courtroom light. Like a cool calm ocean rumbling with rage just beneath the surface.
The solicitor clears his throat in a condescending manner and Hermione clenches her fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms. The anger is something she can't quite kick, the subtle frustration that usually only surfaces after one too many drinks. The temper that has developed since the war.
Snapping his fingers, the solicitor conjures a mass of black fabric neatly folded in his outstretched arms. Another snap and the fabric is pulled off by unseen hands, revealing a mask, hovering and following the solicitor as he paces toward the cage. He stops a few feet in front of it, momentarily glaring at Malfoy before returning his gaze to the witness stand.
Hermione's eyes are fixated on the mask. It's silver with black ornate detailing; she can almost picture the pale eyes glaring at her from within the silver. It brings her back to the dim blue light of the Department of Mysteries, the sound of her own breathing as she runs through the shelves.
The mask sends a chill down her spine. I know who owns this…
Harry stirs in the crowd, shifting in his seat as he looks at the mask.
Hermione steadies her trembling hands, unfurling her fingers and placing them flat on her thighs. Her palms are wet and sticky; she's drawn blood and does her best not to bring attention to it.
"Ms. Granger, do you recognize these robes to be Mr. Malfoy's?"
The words catch in her throat, what kind of a question is that? She looks to the main overseer, waiting for them to interject, to bang the gavel and say 'specify which one.'
But nothing happens, no one interjects and Hermione's gaze is met with silence.
"Can you specify which Malfoy you're speaking of?"
His brows knit together, tugging on his lapels and pursing his lips in annoyance. She's caught him in his own trap—backed him into a corner—for trying to lead her once again.
"Draco's, can you confirm that this is his mask and robes?"
Frustration mounts under her skin and she knows she's wearing it on her face. With a snap, the neatly folded robes in his arms unfurl, filling out as if on a mannequin. They float towards her in the stands, the mask joining them.
A wave of nausea hits her. Memories spring forth suddenly, things she's pushed down deep within the confines of her mind are surfacing. Red flashes, curses streaking through endless shelves of crystal balls. Death Eaters descending in clouds of smoke, materialising in their ghoulish masks.
She closes her eyes for a moment, swallowing back the bile that's risen from her stomach.
Dolohov's eyes paint the backs of her lids and she cracks them open before his curse can hit her again.
"Th-those are Lucius' robes and mask. Not Draco's. I never saw him in Death Eater robes," Hermione says, shivering at the way the mask is looking at her, the vacant space where the eyes should be boring into her soul.
Skin crawling, the scar on her arm burns in a way she hasn't felt in months.
In moments of stress, or panic, it burns, sending jolts through her entire body that used to make her cry out. She thinks she's gotten used to it, and figured her body has become accustomed to the pain. But now, it feels so much worse.
"So you never saw Mr. Malfoy in Death Eater robes, but that does not mean these aren't his." The solicitor's emphasis on the word saw, the inquisitorial tone of his voice, snaps Hermione out of her previous panic. Her body runs cold.
This trial is for theatrics. They saved him for last as a warning to any younger magical folk who were swept up in the charisma of the Dark Lord. He will be nothing but a lesson, a figurehead for what could happen if you decide to be enamoured with Dark Magic. And she and Harry are there as nothing more than PR puppets.
Photos of them will be splashed all over The Prophet tomorrow morning.
Golden Girl and Chosen One Show Grace and Unwavering Mercy to Former Schoolmate Turned Death Eater.
Everyone will take it as Gospel, the Chosen One can do no wrong and has put an end to the terrible people who could be walking among them.
Once again she finds herself gritting her teeth, the ire and frustration bubbling just below the surface. They're being used as pawns to show that the Ministry is giving the Death Eaters a fair and just trial.
Because why would we, someone like Harry and I, be a part of something corrupt? Why would we refuse to testify when the Ministry is simply here to serve justice?
"I believe that isn't a question." Deadpan and full of frustration, Hermione tries to keep her breathing steady, even, while pushing the frustration down to stay level.
"Mr. Malfoy, roll up your sleeve," the solicitor demands, his wand already pointed at Malfoy in case he dares to show any defiance.
Malfoy's eyes are carefully blank, his expression bored as he obediently rolls up his sleeve.
The tattered prison robes almost blend in with the pallor of Malfoy's skin, grey and white, the dark mark is a shock of black. He presents the mark, his arm sticking out through the cage as the solicitor gestures to it.
"Suffice to say, Mr. Malfoy may not have owned Death Eater robes, but he does possess the hallmark of one such individual. The Dark Mark."
Hermione bites her tongue, keeping her eyes steady so they don't roll right out of her head.
The hallmark of a Death Eater. The Mark is nothing more than a glorified walkie talkie…not even that, since it only facilitates one-way communication.
Even with the Dark Mark, Malfoy defied his so-called Lord. Malfoy was present during the destruction of the diadem. Regulus Black, a known Death Eater, had stolen the locket from its hiding place and the Dark Lord was none the wiser. They were Death Eaters and yet they still did their best to usurp Voldemort while avoiding a target on their own backs.
The Dark Mark is nothing more than a symbol of control, a way to show you are other, a way to identify someone with the same views…
Like the prison number…
She can't help but draw the parallel; it's nothing more than a form of control.
This solicitor runs his trials all the same, but with Malfoy he's drawing more attention to the Dark Mark. For the other Death Eaters and their Dark Marks, he simply went on a tangent about how it's untested Dark Magic.
'We need to test them away from the Wizarding community where they pose no threat. Maybe then, once we rid them of their Dark Magic, can we integrate them back into society. We need to ensure that what happened last time does not happen again…'
The propaganda instilled during the publicised trials spread like wildfire. Fear mongering, otherness, the unstructured return to society were being further perpetuated.
I can't believe Kingsley is allowing this…
He continues to ask Hermione questions, fueling the anger bubbling deep within her. She notices how it flows from the soles of her feet, up her calves, simmering for a moment before continuing on its journey towards her heart. Threatening to spill over, to take charge.
Since the war, she tends to fall into fits of rage. Her previously haughty demeanour comes out ten fold. Her need for order, logicality and control amplified.
Ginny noticed it first, since they spent so much time together after the war. In class, when Hermione struggled to recall information, when she couldn't focus on textbooks, her attention to detail waxed and waned like the moon. Sometimes it disappeared all together, and when she snapped out of it, she was missing crucial pieces of information while her grades were slipping in a way only she could see.
Luna had begun to notice as well, chalking it up to some sort of creature that steals away your memories or forces you to lose your train of thought. Hermione brushed it off, she wasn't being followed by creatures she couldn't see. She was struggling because of a war; a war that continued to live inside her where she couldn't stop the recurring memories from lurking in the depths of her mind.
Harry and Ron didn't notice at first, they were distant, off in the real world while she tried to find some semblance of normal in school. Their letters were few and far between and she tried to understand, tried to make excuses for them. But it made her feel alone, it made her feel angry.
The loneliness, nervousness, even the sadness, always seemed to turn into anger.
Even now as the solicitor asks her more questions, she notices the way she needs to take a deep breath before answering, silently counting to three, holding her hands so tightly together her knuckles turn white.
All of the returning students were ordered to see a Mind Healer and Hermione went religiously. She practised all of the tools, tips and tricks that were given to her, spending time each day on her breathing, channelling the frustration, thinking before she spoke.
But it just never seems to go, never seems to dissipate.
Her fury doesn't end when the solicitor dismisses her and Harry stands, taking her spot in the witness box. It boils and boils and boils and she feels all of her resolve evaporating until there is none left. She knows this is wrong, and feels it in every fibre of her being.
This trial is a mockery of justice. Malfoy is not innocent, but he deserves a fair trial.
Objectively, she can look at what is going on and what needs to be done. She can see that these people—Death Eaters—should be punished for the hand they played in the war.
Hermione knows that Draco Malfoy should be reprimanded, but not like this. Humiliated in front of the court, ridiculed in the papers. They shouldn't be making an example of him, they shouldn't—
Do I even know him? Have I just convinced myself he's turned the other cheek? Has he really changed?
She looks from the stands to the gaunt man in the centre of the room.
Harry's testimony is almost an exact echo of hers. He's peppered in better instances of defending Malfoy's character, bringing up the incident from sixth year in the bathroom and taking ownership of it. How his own feelings got in the way of his better judgement and saying Malfoy did the same. Harry likened Malfoy's character to that of a true Seeker who has their eye on the Snitch, unable to let it go until it's caught.
Malfoy just had his eye on something else, the preservation of himself and his family.
The Wizengamot's verdict is, of course, guilty. Everyone in the room knows that, but his sentence is inhumane.
Without a hint of remorse the head of the Wizengamot declares: "Draco Lucius Malfoy, on the charges of attempted murder, attempted cursing, attempted poisoning, harbouring of deadly fugitives, Dark Magic, allowing convicted criminals in the presence of minors, accessory to torture and accessory to murder"—she takes a breath, eyes darting across the page before continuing to list—"you are hereby sentenced to 20 years in Azkaban with eligibility for parole in 10 years."
Malfoy smirks, his cheek pulling up on one side as the scar above his eye moves. It makes him look menacing. Malfoy rolls his eyes as they lower the cage and it starts to disappear into the bowels of the Ministry.
Not a sound escapes anyone's lips, the only thing ringing through the cavernous expanse is metal on metal.
All the while, he is looking directly at her, his gaze never leaving hers as the floor swallows him whole. She's trembling, the bones rattling beneath her skin, feeling too tight in her own body.
Harry takes hold of her hands in the halls after they've left the courtroom, all of her energy spent from trying to keep calm. He has his hand on her shoulder and she knows he's attempting to comfort her.
"I think that went about as well as we could have expected." Hermione looks at him, searching his green eyes for any hint of sarcasm. He gives a shrug. "What? Malfoy is a marked Death Eater, it's not as if he would have just been let off with a warning. Honestly, 'Mione, I feel like if we weren't there it would have gone much worse."
"Harry, that trial was nothing but a performance. We knew he would receive a guilty sentence and this was nothing but a formality. It's as if he's being led to slaughter." The distaste in her voice is palpable, bitter on her tongue.
"He knew what he was getting himself into," Harry says before giving her shoulder a squeeze. "We did our part, Hermione, now it's time to try to get back to normal."
Her mouth hangs open as he leaves her in the hall. It takes her a moment to gather herself, to allow the immediate fury to roll off her back.
She looks back at the closed door of the Wizengamot, the finality ringing through her like a bell. Empty, hollow…something missing.
Maybe Harry has a point… Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I should leave this alone…