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Chapter Six—A Choice from a Greengrass
"Well, here we go, lad. We've done all we can."
Harry nods in silence and walks forwards with Sirius at his side. Severus was afraid that he might actually murder someone if anyone taunted Harry on the way, so he's waiting in the courtroom. He advised Harry to wear dark dress robes that aren't one of his Hogwarts uniforms, though, so that's what Harry did.
No one advised him to bring Lion, or one of the conjured green snakes that linger longest from the spells the Speakers have been teaching him. That was all Harry's idea. Lion is coiled on his right shoulder like usual, while the green snake is looped around his neck.
Sirius did cough right before they went through the Floo. "Do you think you should be provoking them by bringing snakes along?"
"They're already provoked, if you want to call it that." Theo did tell him something similar, but the plan to bring serpents along was Harry's own. "I want to remind them that I have magic they don't, and that may remind them that I know things they don't."
Sirius blinks, then sighs. "I just hope it works, Harry. That people don't go mad thinking that you're You-Know-Who's apprentice or something."
Harry smiles to himself now as they come to a halt outside the gleaming mahogany doors of the courtroom, which are twice as tall as him, and carved with depictions of wizards and witches sitting in judgment. He actually hopes someone asks about the snakes, or his Parseltongue. He could do with the reactions to his response.
"Defendant," says the Auror who's waiting on the other side of the doors. Harry shoots him a quick glance. He looks a little sympathetic, but not much, and he's a sallow man with dark eyes whom Harry doesn't know. "You will proceed to the chair in the middle of the room and fasten the chains around your wrists."
Harry raises his eyebrows, but he would actually be willing to do it, because the Speakers have taught him some interesting tricks to do with chains, and ropes, too. Sirius is the one who narrows his eyes and says, "That's only legal for defendants charged with violent crimes."
"Mr. Potter has been charged with trying to incite violence."
"Not the same thing, Jackson. And don't forget that I know you, and know the dirty little tricks you like to pull."
"What the hell are you—"
"Why are we wasting time?" comes Minister Fudge's high voice from the audience. "Make the defendant sit down so we can proceed with the trial."
"There appears to be a bit of a problem with Mr. Black, sir," says the Auror called Jackson, eyeing Sirius the way you would eye a rabid dog. Which isn't so far off the mark, Harry has to admit.
"Mr. Black?" Harry sees a flicker of movement, and then Fudge is shoving his way down between the ranks of the robed witches and wizards in the seats that lead up to the walls, his sneer vicious and ugly. "Let me just remind Mr. Black that the proof of his innocence has completely disappeared with Peter Pettigrew's breakout from Azkaban. I'm not above ordering him returned to prison."
There's an audible gasp that goes around the room. Sirius looks astounded. In a minute, he'll find some scathing words, Harry's sure, but for mow, astounded.
Harry is the one who turns to Fudge, ignoring the way he flinches when Lion hisses, and asks, "So you didn't save records of the trial? No testimonies from Peter Pettigrew? You couldn't ask Sirius under Veritaserum if he was innocent? You wouldn't take memories from people who were in the courtroom?"
"I'm talking about hard proof!" Fudge shouts. "A body! And get those things away from me!" Both Lion and the green snake have reared up now, although Lion looks more impressive because of the width of his spread wings.
"I'm just trying to understand, Mr. Fudge." Harry smiles, and he knows there's a hard light in his eyes and Sirius is looking at him in wonder and there's another ripple of motion off to the side that is probably Severus shoving his way through the rapt audience. Harry doesn't care. "You threaten my godfather's innocence, you charge me with breaking the law even as you're still relying on me to give testimony in Karkaroff's trial, you accuse me of lying even as you imply that you can twist the truth about Sirius's innocence any way you like…what gives you the right to do all this?"
"Get those things away from me!" Fudge takes off his bowler hat and tries to use it to swat at Lion, but he's far enough away that all he does is create a wind to flutter Lion's wings. Lion twists his neck and hisses, "He is a great stupid one."
Harry nods and raises his hand to gently touch Lion's coils. "He is, and he is leading a conclave of great stupid ones."
Severus comes to a halt next to him, panting, as yet another gasp travels the room. Whispers of "Parselmouth" reach Harry's ears, and he struggles to keep a blank expression on his face. They all knew that. It was all over the papers last year that he used Parseltongue to charm a dragon (despite it mostly not being true), and before that, that he was Sorted into Slytherin when he was Sorted a second time because of his Parseltongue.
"Harry," Sirius says in a warning tone like a growl.
"No," Harry says, clearly enough to reach the back seats where people seem to be trying to press closer instead of further away. "He threatened me, he's threatening you despite the weaknesses in Azkaban being his fault, and he wants to pretend like he's the innocent victim here? No. I won't let him try to make me ashamed of what I am."
Fudge points his hat-covered hand at him. "The weaknesses in Azkaban are not my fault! How dare you imply it?"
"Well, first my godfather escaped your inescapable prison," Harry says, while Lion wraps his tail around Harry's neck from one direction and the green serpent does it from the other. Harry sees Severus open his mouth as if to stop him, and then close it again. Pleased, Harry continues. "Then a bunch of Death Eaters did at the same time. All while you were Minister. One would think that you would take the warning after Sirius escaped and repair whatever holes there were in the security. But you obviously didn't."
Fudge stares at him. Harry doesn't think he's said anything to make the idiot reconsider. Fudge is just in such a towering rage that he can't choke words past it.
Harry yawns and nods. "And now you're charging someone who's not even fifteen yet under the Grindelwald Laws, so that you can try me as an adult. Probably because you know that not even the Prophet is going to be sympathetic to you if it comes out that you're trying to put a fourteen-year-old in prison."
"You—fourteen—fifteen later in the summer—" Fudge has his hat back on his head, but he's clutching it as if a wind might blow it off at any moment.
Harry just watches, and waits. The Minister turns around to the Wizengamot finally and points at Harry with one shaking finger. "Do you see what I'm dealing with? This child claims that You-Know-Who has returned, when we all know that's impossible, and—"
"I haven't said a word about Voldemort since I stepped into this courtroom," Harry interrupts, and he has to admit that he enjoys the collective flinch that rustles around the room, taking the same path that the gasps did earlier. "I was talking about the unfair trial that you're subjecting me to, and the weak prison that you'll probably remand me to if you win, and the threats that you've made against my godfather—"
"Mr. Potter, please." That's Amelia Bones, who's standing up and who looks pale. "I understand that you have complaints, but we need to get on with the trial."
Harry tilts his head, knowing he looks like a curious bird, and not caring. "If you understand my complaints, why do you think the trial needs to happen?"
"Well," Fudge says, folding his arms, "if it's really true, your stories, then I'm sure you'll win your trial. Won't you, Mr. Potter?"
"No," Harry says. "That's the genius of charging me under the Grindelwald Laws. Truth is no defense. I'm not really here to defend myself from a charge of lying, even though I know that's why you told the Prophet. You can decide to condemn me to Azkaban just because I'm spreading 'stories designed to incite a panic.' It's interesting, and I almost respect you for choosing those laws. Or I would respect you if you weren't trying to use your government to terrorize, you know, a fourteen-year-old victim."
Fudge turns the color of rotten fruit. Harry wonders if he was counting on Harry not to read the Grindelwald Laws that closely, or if he didn't want the other people in the Wizengamot to understand exactly what they were voting on.
But either way, that's what Fudge is doing. And now the murmurs from the Wizengamot sound discontented.
"I didn't know that about the Grindelwald Laws," says a tall woman with lots of fruit on her hat. "Is it true?"
"Yes, Madam Longbottom, it is." Bones nods to her and turns back to Harry. "Did you intend to create a panic when you spread your stories, Mr. Potter?"
"Amelia, Amelia, we agreed that I would handle the interrogation!" Fudge flaps his hands.
"Hem, hem. Perhaps I can be of some assistance."
Harry glances to his left, and sees a squat woman in the seat next to the one Fudge stood up from. She has a pink cardigan, and a long white quill in one hand. She gives Harry a smile as sweet as Rita Skeeter's, but Harry can see even more ill intent behind it.
Skeeter at least wants Harry to live so he can go on providing her with entertaining material for stories. Harry is sure this pink woman would be happy if he died.
And he doesn't know how he knows that so instantly from just looking at her, but he's sure of it.
"Yes, Dolores, what is it?" Fudge asks, turning around to look at her.
"We did indeed agree that Minister Fudge would conduct the interrogation," this Dolores woman says, inclining her head. That reveals thin blonde hair that doesn't make Harry like her any better. Among other things, Lion is uttering a little string of hostile hisses into his ear, ones that don't have words. "But there is no need for an interrogation if Mr. Potter agrees to one simple truth."
"Truth?" Harry asks.
He apparently does it sarcastically enough to irritate her, from the way she flushes. That's not one tenth the part of the sarcasm that I could unleash, Harry thinks, but he's wise enough to keep it inside.
"Yes. If Mr. Potter was wise enough to retract his insane stories of You-Know-Who's return and this resurrection of the dead—" Dolores handles the words like something she needs to pick up with a handkerchief "—then of course there would be no need of an interrogation, because there would be no need for a trial." She beams at him.
There's a long silence, while everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to react.
Then Harry laughs.
It's not actually something he planned on, and Severus clutches his arm with a tightness that's a warning. But Harry is honestly incapable of stopping. He shakes his head back and forth, laughing, while the Dolores woman's face grows darker and darker and Fudge actually stomps a foot.
"Stop that, stop that, Mr. Potter! You will pay this court the respect it's due!"
"I don't actually think trying to put me on trial and threatening my godfather when you know he's innocent deserves much respect," Harry says, and gets the laughter under control with difficulty. "But anyway, I would be happy to provide memories of Voldemort's resurrection."
"False! Tampered with!" Fudge turns his head back and forth like a pleased turtle. "Everyone knows that one of your guardians is a Legilimens. Sirius Black tampered with your memories with his Black spells!"
Sirius? Harry mouths to himself. He glances at Severus, who half-shakes his head. He doesn't want to reveal himself as a Legilimens, obviously. Especially since the man who probably gave him permission to use that kind of power on wayward students is gone from the Headmaster's position.
"Everyone knows that the Black family teaches all its children Legilimency! And memory tampering!"
Sirius interrupts with a snort. "I don't know either, or I could have protected myself from the Dementors. So if you could just bring a Pensieve—"
"You-Know-Who has not returned! You are not going to spread your mad stories!"
"And if the boy is mad," says the Dolores woman with a titter, "how can we trust anything he says? The poor dear has memories and moral values and everything skewed out of true. The poor boy."
"There's that, of course there's that!" Fudge brightens and turns towards the Wizengamot. "You can find the boy innocent even under the Grindelwald Laws if you declare him mentally incompetent! And we can make sure that he's placed with a new guardian who won't encourage this sort of rashness!"
"I would be happy to volunteer," purrs the Dolores thing.
"This has been amusing," says a cold voice most of the way up the Wizengamot gallery. "But aren't you making a mistake, Cornelius?"
Harry squints. He can make out a woman who's standing up in heavy robes, but it's not until Fudge says, "What are you saying, Adele?" that he knows who it must be. Adele Greengrass, one of those "allies" Sirius was touting.
Harry mostly put them out of his mind after Selwyn's attempted betrayal. He certainly didn't expect one of them to speak up for him now.
"For example," Adele Greengrass says, tilting her head as if she's trying to get a better look at Harry herself, "you've now threatened the young man's godfather twice, once with prison and once with losing custody of him. And you've also threatened the Head of Slytherin House and the Potions professor at Hogwarts. If you give them no other options, then I'd watch out for poison in your food or one of those infamous curses the Black family is capable of. I really would, Cornelius."
Fudge splutters and glances at Severus and Sirius both. Severus remains motionless. Sirius stares back at Fudge with a glare that Harry recognizes as his "Azkaban look," the one he uses when he wants to intimidate someone with his mad reputation.
Fudge looks more afraid of Severus anyway, which is the first sign of common sense Harry's seen from him. "I—I only meant—"
"Not to mention," Greengrass goes on in a voice that's probably won her prizes in boredom competitions, "that you don't actually have the legal power to have Harry Potter declared mentally incompetent or retry his godfather. You would have to declare him innocent under the Grindelwald Laws or at the least drop the charges, then reconvene the Wizengamot on a different date. We're here to try Mr. Potter on the charge of spreading seditious stories. That has nothing to do with custody issues or his mental incompetence." She sighs and stares at Harry as if she's never met him before in her life.
Harry is impressed with her acting, but he's also wondering how much she's like her brother, Daphne and Astoria's father. If they're similar, then he can understand a lot more about why the Greengrass girls wanted to spend the summer with him.
"We—we cannot declare him innocent when he's claiming a Dark wizard that never even existed was resurrected!" Fudge says, leaping into a new stupid groove. "What was You-Know-Who's name before it was You-Know-Who? There are no records of him! Mr. Potter wants us to somehow take this monster seriously and fight him, but how can we when we have no idea of where he came from or what he's capable of—"
"Excuse me, Minister."
Harry blinks and looks up. Headmistress McGonagall is standing near a chair on the other side of the room. Next to her are a few people Harry recognizes from the Triwizard Tournament. Presumably they're here as witnesses. Harry's a little alarmed he didn't see them before, but Fudge was taking most of his attention.
"Yes, Headmistress? Is what you have to say relevant?"
Harry isn't the only person in the room to wince, which makes him wonder how many people here were Gryffindors while McGonagall was the Head of House. But aside from her eyes narrowing and her voice getting a little colder, she might not have heard Fudge's insult. "We do actually know You-Know-Who's mortal name. I learned it a week or so ago, from one of the past Headmasters' portraits, and have been doing research to corroborate it. It is Tom Marvolo Riddle; everything I've been able to find confirms that. He was a student at Hogwarts in the 1930s and 1940s, and Head Boy in his seventh year. Then he went to work in Knockturn Alley for a time, and then he left to travel the world. Supposedly, he vanished while doing that. But in truth, he had become Volde—"
"Don't say it!" Fudge yells.
Professor McGonagall pauses, but regards Fudge with a look so severe that Harry has to smile. "Will you let me present my evidence, Minister? That is, assuming you can agree on the purpose of this trial at all? Am I to give evidence about what I saw the night Mr. Potter was Portkeyed away, or about You-Know-Who's true identity?"
Fudge is glancing around with a look so panicked that Harry is pretty sure he knows he'd lose. The members of the Wizengamot are shifting and whispering among themselves, not glaring at Harry in the seeming unity they had when he walked into the room.
Fudge straightens and snaps, "We are trying Harry Potter under the Grindelwald Laws. And you will find him guilty, or—"
"Or what, Fudge?" Madam Longbottom is on her feet again, one hand clapping on her tall hat so it doesn't tip off her head. "Are you going to tell me what to do?"
Harry smiles as the mood of the room changes again. He thinks they can allow the trial to go ahead now. Fudge isn't going to get anything like the unanimous verdict he was hoping for.
He does catch Adele Greengrass's eye as he sits down in the defendant's chair—where the chains don't move to catch his wrists—and nods a little. She nods back before she sits back down and resumes her bored stillness.
And the trial begins.