The door of the office opened and Skylar, after giving it a squeeze, released Harry's hand.
"Hello, Potter," said Moody. "Come in, then."
Harry walked inside and Skylar followed. Both had been inside Dumbledore's office before, Skylar multiple times due to her Legilimency lessons and Harry in his second year when he was accused of being the Heir to Slytherin. It was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with pictures of previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently.
Cornelius Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore's desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding his lime-green bowler hat.
"Harry!" said Fudge jovially, moving forward. "How are you? And Skylar, are you well?"
"Fine," Harry lied as Skylar said "Yes."
"We were just talking about the night when Mr. Crouch turned up on the grounds," said Fudge. "It was you who found him, was it not?"
"Yes," said Harry. Then, feeling it was pointless to pretend that he hadn't overheard what they had been saying, he added, "I didn't see Madame Maxime anywhere, though, and she'd have a job hiding, wouldn't she?"
Dumbledore smiled at Harry behind Fudge's back, his eyes twinkling.
"Yes, well," said Fudge, looking embarrassed, "we're about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Harry, if you'll excuse us… perhaps if you just go back to your class —"
"I wanted to talk to you, Professor," Harry said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave him a swift, searching look.
"Wait here for me, Harry," he said. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long. Miss Rosenwald?"
"Moral Support. I don't mind if I need to go though." she said obviously.
Dumbledore shook his head with a smile. "You keep Harry company until we return."
They trooped out in silence past him and closed the door. After a minute or so, the clunks of Moody's wooden leg grew fainter in the corridor below. Harry looked around as Skylar moved to sit opposite Dumbledore's chair across the desk.
"Hello, Fawkes," Harry said.
Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore's phoenix, was standing on his golden perch beside the door. The size of a swan, with magnificent scarlet-and-gold plumage, he swished his long tail and blinked benignly at Harry.
Harry sat down on the arm of Skylar's chair in front of Dumbledore's desk. For several minutes, he sat and watched the old headmasters and headmistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what he had just heard, and running his fingers over his scar. It had stopped hurting now.
He felt much calmer, somehow, now that he was in Dumbledore's office, knowing he would shortly be telling him about the dream.
"What was your dream about?" Skylar whispered into the silence.
"Voldemort was torturing Wormtail over a blunder he made. Someone was dead." he replied.
Skylar nodded and was silent for a moment more. "Clearly not a real dream?"
"It feels real."
"Is it like the one you had in the summer?"
"Yes."
"And that's why you're worried?"
"Yes. And Sirius told me to do this."
"Good call." she nodded and silence settled again.
Harry looked up at the walls behind the desk as Skylar stared at its surface, thinking over his dream. The patched and ragged Sorting Hat was standing on a shelf. A glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword with large rubies set into the hilt, which Harry recognized as the one he himself had pulled out of the Sorting Hat in his second year. The sword had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor, founder of Harry's House. He was gazing at it, remembering how it had come to his aid when he had thought all hope was lost, when he noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. He looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind him, whose door had not been closed properly. Harry hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.
This caught Skylar's attention and she turned to him before following.
A shallow stone basin lay there, with carvings around the edge: runes and symbols. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which was a substance that was neither liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly.
"It's a pensieve." Skylar whispered and Harry glanced at her. "You can tip memories into it and relive them, look over old things that have already happened and see it from a different perspective."
"You can view memories?" Harry muttered.
"Yes, memories can be pulled from the mind, or collected through tears, the bearer has to wish them so though."
Harry wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearly four years' experience of the magical world told him that sticking his hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do.
"These will be Dumbledore's memories," Skylar said as Harry pulled his wand out of the inside of his robes, cast a nervous look around the office, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them.
The surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.
"Looks like you woke them up." Skylar muttered. "We shouldn't look, it's very intrusive."
Harry it seemed wasn't listening, for he bent closer, his head right inside the cabinet. The silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. He looked down into it, expecting to see the stone bottom of the basin — and saw instead an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which he seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.
"We shouldn't." Skylar said again but she found herself looking over Harry's shoulder at the room regardless. It was dimly lit to the point that it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Hogwarts. Skyler peered slightly closer. "I think it's a trial room in the Ministry." she muttered. "I'm sure Dumbledore attended a good number back in the days of You-Know-Who."
Harry lowered his face so that his nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance. There were rows and rows of witches and wizards seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very centre of the room. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.
The adults sitting amongst the rows seemed to be waiting for something; all of their faces seemed to be pointing in one direction, and none of them were talking to one another.
The basin being circular, and the room square, Harry could not make out what was going on in the corners of it. He leaned even closer, tilting his head, trying to see… And Skylar grabbed the collar of his robes just as the tip of his nose touched the strange substance into which he was staring.
Dumbledore's office gave an almighty lurch — Harry was thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin and Skylar was dragged in with him.
They were falling through something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool —
And suddenly, they both found themselves sitting on a bench at the end of the room inside the basin, a bench raised high above the others.
"Oh no…" Skylar muttered, now worried. This wasn't good, they were viewing one of Dumbledore's memories without permission… Was he going to be mad at them? She'd never really used a pensieve herself and didn't know how to get them back out of it.
Breathing hard and fast, Harry looked around him. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at him. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a fourteen-year-old boy and girl had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst. Harry turned to the wizard next to him on the bench and uttered a loud cry of surprise that reverberated around the silent room, only Skylar reacted to his sound, turning as well.
He was sitting right next to Albus Dumbledore.
"Professor!" Harry said in a kind of strangled whisper. "I'm sorry — I didn't mean to — I was just looking at that basin in your cabinet — I — where are we?"
But Dumbledore didn't move or speak. He ignored Harry completely. Like every other wizard on the benches, he was staring into the far corner of the room, where there was a door.
Harry gazed, nonplussed, at Dumbledore, then around at the silently watchful crowd, then back at Dumbledore.
"Skylar?" he questioned.
"We're in a memory, we're not really here, we cannot interact with them." She said in explanation. "Think of us like ghosts." She looked around the room a few more times at the Wizargamort around them, likely who the adults were observing this trial.
"Like when I was in Riddle's diary." Harry muttered.
"Yes, you were observing a memory then too and we're just that, an observer." she nodded. "We're next to Dumbledore because it's his memory, his perspective."
Harry raised his right hand, hesitated, and then waved it energetically in front of Dumbledore's face. Dumbledore did not blink, look around at Harry, or indeed move at all.
"This must have been important for Dumbledore to have been viewing it." Skylar mumbled to Harry. "And it wouldn't have been very long ago he tipped this memory into the Pensieve."
"How long ago do you think it was?" Harry asked as he looked at the Dumbledore next to him, he was still silver haired and therefore not too long had passed since the memory occurred.
"The memory or when he was looking at it?"
"The memory."
"Either before or just after we were born I should think." Skylar mumbled. "Around You-Know-Who's downfall, when they started giving trials again… after Sirius maybe, given he didn't get one?" she guessed with a shrug.
"And you think it's a trial room?" Harry asked.
"The ministry has a number of trial rooms underneath it, they don't really get used now and Dad took me to one once when we visited the ministry. There are some newer ones but this one looks like one of the really older ones, the one I saw wasn't made of stone like this." she turned to point to the wizards and witches. "All these people will be with the Wizargomort, they judge the trial and whether someone is guilty or not and then there's generally a speaker who asks questions and drives the trial."
There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just these serried rows of benches, rising in levels all around the room, all positioned so that they had a clear view of that chair with the chains on its arms.
"Given the atmosphere and how tight it is it must have been a serious offence." she whispered even quieter, despite the fact no one else could hear them.
Footsteps suddenly drew both of their attention and the door in the corner of the dungeon opened and three people entered — or at least one man, flanked by two dementors.
Harry's insides went cold. The dementors — tall, hooded creatures whose faces were concealed — were gliding slowly toward the chair in the centre of the room, each grasping one of the man's arms with their dead and rotten-looking hands. The man between them looked as though he was about to faint. Skylar took a hold of Harry's hand again, knowing how the dementors made him feel but also how she felt seeing them. Even though they couldn't be affected in a memory they were still freaky.
The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the dementors placed the man in the chained chair and gilded back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them.
Looking down at the man now sitting in the chair the two teenagers realised it was Karkaroff.
Unlike Dumbledore, Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking. Even as they watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold and snaked their way up Karkaroff's arms, binding him there.
"Igor Karkaroff," said a curt voice to the left. Harry and Skylar looked around and saw Mr. Crouch standing up in the middle of the bench beside him. Crouch's hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert. "You have been brought from Azkaban to present evidence to the Ministry of Magic. You have given us to understand that you have important information for us."
Karkaroff straightened himself as best he could, tightly bound to the chair.
"I have, sir," he said, and although his voice was very scared, Harry could still hear the familiar unctuous note in it. "I wish to be of use to the Ministry. I wish to help. I — I know that the Ministry is trying to — to round up the last of the Dark Lord's supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can…"
There was a murmur around the benches. Some of the wizards and witches were surveying Karkaroff with interest, others with pronounced mistrust.
"After You-Know-Who's downfall then." Skylar said more strongly.
Then, quite distinctly, from Dumbledore's other side, a familiar, growling voice said, "Filth."
Harry and Skylar both leaned forward so that they could see past Dumbledore. Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there — except that there was a very noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Karkaroff, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.
"Crouch is going to let him out," Moody breathed quietly to Dumbledore. "He's done a deal with him. Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he's got enough new names. Let's hear his information, I say, and throw him straight back to the dementors."
Dumbledore made a small noise of dissent through his long, crooked nose.
"Ah, I was forgetting… you don't like the dementors, do you, Albus?" said Moody with a sardonic smile.
"No," said Dumbledore calmly, "I'm afraid I don't. I have long felt the Ministry is wrong to ally itself with such creatures."
"But for filth like this…" Moody said softly.
"You say you have names for us, Karkaroff," said Mr. Crouch. "Let us hear them, please."
"You must understand," said Karkaroff hurriedly, "that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named operated always in the greatest secrecy… He preferred that we — I mean to say, his supporters — and I regret now, very deeply, that I ever counted myself among them —"
"Get on with it," sneered Moody.
"— we never knew the names of every one of our fellows — He alone knew exactly who we all were —"
"Which was a wise move, wasn't it, as it prevented someone like you, Karkaroff, from turning all of them in," muttered Moody.
"Yet you say you have some names for us?" said Mr. Crouch.
"I — I do," said Karkaroff breathlessly. "And these were important supporters, mark you. People I saw with my own eyes doing his bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce him, and am filled with a remorse so deep I can barely —"
"These names are?" said Mr. Crouch sharply.
Karkaroff drew a deep breath.
"There was Antonin Dolohov," he said. "I — I saw him torture countless Muggles and — and non-supporters of the Dark Lord."
"And helped him do it," murmured Moody.
"We have already apprehended Dolohov," said Crouch. "He was caught shortly after yourself."
"Indeed?" said Karkaroff, his eyes widening. "I — I am delighted to hear it!"
But he didn't look it. This news had come as a real blow to him. One of his names was worthless.
"Any others?" said Crouch coldly.
"Why, yes… there was Rosier," said Karkaroff hurriedly. "Evan Rosier."
"Rosier is dead," said Crouch. "He was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle."
"Took a bit of me with him, though," whispered Moody to Harry's right. Harry looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating the large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore.
"No — no more than Rosier deserved!" said Karkaroff, a real note of panic in his voice now. One could see that he was starting to worry that none of his information would be of any use to the Ministry. Karkaroff's eyes darted toward the door in the corner, behind which the dementors undoubtedly still stood, waiting.
"Any more?" said Crouch.
"Yes!" said Karkaroff. "There was Travers — he helped murder the McKinnons! Mulciber — he specialised in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things! Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!"
Harry could tell that, this time, Karkaroff had struck gold. The watching crowd was all murmuring together.
"Rookwood?" said Mr. Crouch, nodding to a witch sitting in front of him, who began scribbling upon her piece of parchment. "Augustus Rookwood of the Department of Mysteries?"
"The very same," said Karkaroff eagerly. "I believe he used a network of well-placed wizards, both inside the Ministry and out, to collect information —"
"But Travers and Mulciber we have," said Mr. Crouch. "Very well, Karkaroff, if that is all, you will be returned to Azkaban while we decide —"
"Not yet!" cried Karkaroff, looking quite desperate. "Wait, I have more!"
He was sweating in the torchlight, his white skin contrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard.
"Snape!" he shouted. "Severus Snape!"
"Snape has been cleared by this council," said Crouch disdainfully. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore."
"No!" shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!"
Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. "I have given evidence already on this matter," he said calmly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."
Harry turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody. He was wearing a look of deep scepticism behind Dumbledore's back.
"I wish he'd said why," Skylar frowned.
"Very well, Karkaroff," Crouch said coldly, "you have been of assistance. I shall review your case. You will return to Azkaban in the meantime…"
Mr. Crouch's voice faded. Skylar and Harry looked around; the dungeon was dissolving as though it were made of smoke; everything was fading; they could see only each other and their own bodies — all else was swirling darkness…
And then, the dungeon returned. They were sitting in a different seat, still on the highest bench, but now to the left side of Mr. Crouch. The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event.
"It's a different memory." Skylar realised. Harry noticed a witch halfway up the rows of benches opposite and nudged Skylar, pointing. She had short blonde hair, was wearing magenta robes, and was sucking the end of an acid-green quill. It was, unmistakably, a younger Rita Skeeter.
Dumbledore was sitting beside Skylar this time, wearing different robes. Mr. Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter…
The door in the corner opened, and Ludo Bagman walked into the room.
This was not, however, a Ludo Bagman gone to seed, but a Ludo Bagman who was clearly at the height of his Quidditch-playing fitness. His nose wasn't broken now; he was tall and lean and muscular. Bagman looked nervous as he sat down in the chained chair, but it did not bind him there as it had bound Karkaroff, and Bagman, perhaps taking heart from this, glanced around at the watching crowd, waved at a couple of them, and managed a small smile.
"Ludo Bagman, you have been brought here in front of the Council of Magical Law to answer charges relating to the activities of the Death Eaters," said Mr. Crouch. "We have heard the evidence against you, and are about to reach our verdict. Do you have anything to add to your testimony before we pronounce judgement?"
Harry couldn't believe his ears. Ludo Bagman, a Death Eater? He glanced at Skylar who also looked surprised and shook her head strongly. No way.
"Only," said Bagman, smiling awkwardly, "well — I know I've been a bit of an idiot —"
One or two wizards and witches in the surrounding seats smiled indulgently. Mr. Crouch did not appear to share their feelings. He was staring down at Ludo Bagman with an expression of the utmost severity and dislike.
"You never spoke a truer word, boy," someone muttered dryly to Dumbledore behind Harry. He looked around and saw Moody sitting there again. "If I didn't know he'd always been dim, I'd have said some of those Bludgers had permanently affected his brain…"
"Ludovic Bagman, you were caught passing information to Lord Voldemort's supporters," said Mr. Crouch. "For this, I suggest a term of imprisonment in Azkaban lasting no less than —"
But there was an angry outcry from the surrounding benches. Several of the witches and wizards around the walls stood up, shaking their heads, and even their fists, at Mr. Crouch.
"But I've told you, I had no idea!" Bagman called earnestly over the crowd's babble, his round blue eyes widening. "None at all! Old Rookwood was a friend of my dad's… never crossed my mind he was in with You-Know-Who! I thought I was collecting information for our side! And Rookwood kept talking about getting me a job in the Ministry later on… once my Quidditch days are over, you know… I mean, I can't keep getting hit by Bludgers for the rest of my life, can I?"
There were titters from the crowd.
"It will be put to the vote," said Mr. Crouch coldly. He turned to the right-hand side of the dungeon. "The jury will please raise their hands… those in favour of imprisonment…"
Skylar looked toward the right-hand side of the dungeon. Not one person raised their hand. Many of the witches and wizards around the walls began to clap. One of the witches on the jury stood up.
"Yes?" barked Crouch.
"We'd just like to congratulate Mr. Bagman on his splendid performance for England in the Quidditch match against Turkey last Saturday," the witch said breathlessly.
Mr. Crouch looked furious. The dungeon was ringing with applause now. Bagman got to his feet and bowed, beaming.
"Despicable," Mr. Crouch spat at Dumbledore, sitting down as Bagman walked out of the dungeon. "Rookwood get him a job indeed… The day Ludo Bagman joins us will be a sad day indeed for the Ministry…"
And the dungeon dissolved again. When it had returned, Skylar looked around to find Harry beside her and Dumbledore beside Harry, who was in turn, still sitting beside Mr. Crouch, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. There was total silence, broken only by the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch. She was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth with trembling hands.
"That's Crouch's wife." Skylar knew and her voice held surprise. "I've seen images of her,"
Harry looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter and grayer than ever before. A nerve was twitching in his temple.
"Bring them in," he said, and his voice echoed through the silent dungeon. The door in the corner opened yet again. Six dementors entered this time, flanking a group of four people. Harry saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mr. Crouch. A few of them whispered to one another.
The dementors placed each of the four people in the four chairs with chained arms that now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch; a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd; a woman with thick, shining dark hair and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne; and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-coloured hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white. The wispy little witch beside Crouch began to rock backward and forward in her seat, whimpering into her handkerchief.
"Harry," Skylar's eyes were wide and she pulled softly on the sleeve of Harry's robe. "This is the trial of Crouch's son, and the Lestranges."
Harry looked at her surprised. "How do you know?"
"Because that's Bellatrix Lestrange!" She pointed at the woman, "That's her husband, the two Sirius mentioned when telling us about Crouch's son."
Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face.
"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," he said clearly, "so that we may pass judgement on you, for a crime so heinous —"
"Father," said the boy with the straw-coloured hair. "Father… please…"
"— that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," said Crouch, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son's voice. "We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror — Frank Longbottom — and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named —"
"Father, I didn't!" shrieked the boy in chains below. "I didn't, I swear it, Father, don't send me back to the dementors —"
"You are further accused," bellowed Mr. Crouch, "of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury —"
"Mother!" screamed the boy below, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backward and forward. "Mother, stop him, Mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"
"I now ask the jury," shouted Mr. Crouch, "to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!"
In unison, the witches and wizards along the right-hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph. The boy began to scream.
"No! Mother, no! I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let him!"
The dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys' three companions rose quietly from their seats; Bellatrix Lestrange looked up at Crouch and called, "The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"
But the boy was trying to fight off the dementors, even though Harry could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.
"I'm your son!" he screamed up at Crouch. "I'm your son!"
"You are no son of mine!" bellowed Mr. Crouch, his eyes bulging suddenly. "I have no son!"
The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted. Crouch appeared not to have noticed.
"Take them away!" Crouch roared at the dementors, spit flying from his mouth. "Take them away, and may they rot there!"
"Father! Father, I wasn't involved! No! No! Father, please!"
"I think, Harry, Skylar it is time to return to my office," said a quiet voice in Skylar's ear.
Harry started and Skylar flinched, looking very guilty. She turned to look as an Albus Dumbledore now sat beside her, and beside Harry. This new one however was watching them, and not the scene before them.
"I'm sorry Professor, it was an accident." Skylar said with a very small voice.
"Come," said the Dumbledore on his left, and he put his hand under Skylar's elbow and she put hers under Harry's. They felt themselves rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around them; for a moment, all was blackness, and then it felt as though they had done a slow-motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on their feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Dumbledore's sunlit office. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of Harry, and Albus Dumbledore was standing beside him.