Alice Longbottom held Harry by the shoulders tight, seeming unwilling to let him go as they waited outside the courtroom.
“Are you sure that you want to do this, Harry?” She asked with concern, “You gave the ministry your written statement. You don’t have to face that man if you don’t want to. Even if he's only in some balcony nearby.”
Harry turned to Alice, “I do. I appreciate your concern for me, I really do. The last two weeks staying at your house have been great. I know you don’t believe me, but doing this really doesn’t bother me. If Dumbledore goes free then it's more likely he would try to have me kidnapped again. The minister explained quite well how my personal testimony would make a bigger impression on the wizarding council than just a dry document.”
Alice gripped Harry tighter for a moment, “I know you don’t believe you will be hurt, but after everything I worry that you are doing this for the wrong reasons,” She said, “You don’t have to listen to the minister or have anything to prove by putting yourself in public like this. You can just come home with us and keep recovering from your horrible ordeal.”
Harry twisted around and hugged Alice briefly. She squeezed him back, and after a few seconds she let him go. Alice was a big proponent of hugging, and it always seemed to calm her down whenever she was becoming upset regarding Harry’s situation. It had taken a lot of hugging to calm her down after he first returned to the ministry, and Harry had been confused about what exactly was happening for quite a while. At first he had even thought it was some kind of attack. But he had learned over time that hugging was quite… nice. His Aunt and Uncle had never hugged him before. It made Harry feel a little better when Alice hugged him back too.
“I want to do this and make sure Dumbledore ends up in prison,” Harry said drawing back, “Otherwise I would have to watch my back all the time, waiting for him to do something else to me.”
“Alright,” Alice said before loosening her grip on his shoulders, “But we are getting ice cream after this as a treat,” she said seriously, “No excuses,” she finished with a slight smile.
“Thank you, Alice,” Harry said.
A blue robed Auror came through the doors, “Harry Potter?” he said with a carefully blank expression, “They are ready for you. I’ll escort you in.”
Harry stepped forward breaking from Alice’s grip, “Bye, Alice,” he said, glancing back.
“I’ll be right there on the balcony,” she replied, “And remember to just stop speaking and wait if you ever get upset or the lawyers try to overwhelm you with too many questions at once. I’m sure you’ll do great.”
“I will,” Harry replied before following the Auror through the doors and into the loud courtroom. The whole space was composed of black stone with gold accents. The room was circular with packed rows of seats ringing the entire circumference of the room rising upwards like bleachers on a football stadium. Above these were sets of balconies ringing the room. One of these held Albus Dumbledore while another held all of Harry’s friends and new family.
Harry was led forward into the center of the room onto a large platform where a large chair had been set up in the center. Replacing the circular seating in one section of the room was a raised bar where the wizarding council and Minister Fudge sat in formal robes with strange squarish black hats on their heads. As Harry entered the central platform the roar of the crowd died down and people took their seats to watch him intently. Harry felt very exposed as all the eyes in the room bored into him at once. Especially since it was from all sides so he couldn’t even turn so he could see them all at once.
Shaking off the sudden urge to shift to his other form and escape, Harry went up and sat down in the chair. As a minor they couldn’t use a truth circle on him. Something about its magic being damaging to the growth of his magic.
Minister Fudge hit the table in front of him with his gavel and the remaining mutters of the room died down.
“Order in the court!” Fudge said, “We will now begin the testimony of Harry Potter regarding the disturbing allegations of severe abuse and neglect. As well regarding his most recent kidnapping. Lawyers, begin. The council will ask their questions afterward.”
From the base of the bench holding the council two men walked up and approached Harry, stopping after taking a single step on the platform so they were still a good distance away from him. Harry had seen them both before when he saw both McGonagall’s and Snape’s acquittals. According to what Harry had heard, Dumbledore had also performed a similar memory charm on Snape after Harry fell unconscious in order to stop him protesting Dumbledore's actions towards Harry.
Harry was still suspicious of Snape, though that story did fit the facts as Harry knew them. McGonagall had no hint of any evidence linking her to the crime at all, so she went free as well. She actually had an alibi for the whole incident, which made Harry relieved. He believed that she hadn’t known about any of it. She had seemed quite upset on the stand when saying she would never allow such a thing to happen under her watch.
“I’ll begin, Harry,” the prosecuting attorney said, “I know this will be difficult for you, but just bear with me okay?” he said softly.
“Alright,” Harry replied.
“Now, a lot of the arguments prior to your arrival were made regarding the accuracy of your memory. Many teachers and your fellow students at Hogwarts verified that you have memorized your textbooks at least. A remarkable feat, but not exactly the same as claiming to remember the exact details ever since you were three years old. The defense has proposed a test that you will go through to verify that your memory is as good as you say it is. Do you understand?”
Harry nodded, “Yes,” he said.
“Now,” the man continued, “I have here ten pieces of parchment filled with long strings of numbers. Five were made by the prosecution, and five by the defense. When I hand them to you, read them and hand them back to me as quickly as you can. Then you will recite the long sequence of numbers from memory. Something to prove that it is something you can do in an instant rather than through the hard work of studying your textbooks.”
The man came forward and Harry looked at the first page for two seconds before flipping to the next. He maintained that speed for all ten pages before handing them back to the attorney. Harry saw that all of the council seemed to have a similar stack of papers in front of them and they followed along as Harry began to recite the string of over two thousand digits over the ten pages he had seen. Everyone looked rather impressed as Harry finished up and the defense attorney looked defeated.
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“Excellent, Harry!” the prosecutor said, “Now,” his face grew far more serious as he took out seven large pieces of parchment that Harry recognized, “Do you know what these pieces of parchment are?” he asked.
“I think it is probably the seven pages I gave to Professor Flitwick after my final exams this year,” Harry replied.
“With your memory, tell the court exactly what you did, step by step, after you went into Professor Flitwick’s office,” the prosecutor stated.
Harry recounted the conversation word for word. After some prompting the lawyer also had Harry recite the list he had written down by memory. The defense attorney challenged it, but Fudge overruled him and said Harry was allowed to decide how he wanted to answer. Harry had glanced up at the balcony with his friends after that and Alice looked rather upset at the situation. But Harry thought he should just get it out of the way. If this is what it would take to get rid of Dumbledore…
So Harry calmly restated the whole list of abuse from start to finish. The crowd gasped, a few of them were even crying as Harry went all the way through calmly with everything. It seems many had not known the specifics. The reporters in the front row had heads down writing furiously as Harry kept speaking.
Even the council was moved, several of their stony faces softening, doubt creeping into them as Harry continued without pause.
“...And then Uncle Vernon dropped me off at the train station for Hogwarts. His parting words were, 'have fun with the freaks'. I didn’t see him again until my kidnappers dropped me back to him at the beginning of the summer.”
“Tell us about your kidnapping,” the prosecutor said, “Why were you placed back with your Aunt and Uncle by them?”
“Well, one of them told me that I had to consider that place ‘home’ to activate some sort of protective blood ward.”
The crowd gasped and the reporters stopped writing on their pads.
Even the prosecutor blinked, “Excuse me, Harry. Did you say blood ward? That exact term?”
“Yes,” Harry said and then recounted his brief conversation with the blonde wizard who had tried to convince him to stop escaping the Dursleys.
“What’s so wrong with that term?” Harry asked, confused at everyone’s horrified reactions.
“Harry…” the prosecutor paused, seeming hunting for words, “Blood wards are generally most effective only on very young children to match what you describe. If even the slightest thing goes wrong in the casting then the side effects have been proven… catastrophic throughout history. Often fatal if not worse to the child. The very knowledge on how to cast a blood ward like that has been highly illegal for over a hundred years due to the massive amount of suffering it caused in wizarding society throughout history. Imagine how many children have to suffer in order for someone to be experienced enough to cast one correctly... And that's not even considering all those that would use it with evil intentions... That man admitted to an extremely serious crime when he told you he had knowledge of it. Now, before we get more distracted, let’s start at the beginning. I am told you were taken at the train station. Tell the court what happened between then and your escape.”
Harry narrated everything that happened. There were a few scattered gasps after he told the room how long he had been locked up in the cupboard under the stairs after he refused to stop attempting to escape. Harry had to fudge the ending a bit, but it was still basically the truth.
“So then I woke up to a loud noise and the cracking of wood,” Harry said, “A great big humanoid creature with gray skin broke through the ceiling through the stairs,” Harry spent a little time describing his second form, he was sure the wizard who went to the ministry would have informed them all about it, “But before it could attack me it became distracted by something and ran outside,” Harry continued, “I climbed out of the new hole once I was sure it was gone and ran as far as I could. The ward trapping me seemed to be down so I ran to the nearest muggle police station on foot and went inside to call the Ministry as soon as I could.”
The prosecutor cleared his throat awkwardly, “And, ah, why were you naked when you arrived?”
Harry shrugged, “Well, I knew the wizards trapping me put a spell on the cupboard door. So I was worried they had put some kind of tracking spell on my clothing and would catch me. So I took my clothes off and left them in the house just in case before I ran off.”
“That is, ah, rather quick thinking young man,” the prosecutor said uncomfortably, “You weren’t worried about your modesty?”
“I hadn’t showered in all that time so those clothes were filthy anyway,” Harry replied, “I wasn’t going to take a chance that I was going to get caught and be trapped in that cupboard again for the rest of the summer. So, no. I guess I didn’t really think of it that much at the time.”
“Well, we are all glad you made it home safe,” the prosecutor said reassuringly, “Now, I have some more detailed questions about events if you will…”
— — —
Harry’s questioning lasted for a very long time. After the prosecutor was done, the defense attorney had his turn to ask questions. He asked a few more detailed questions, but he was hesitant and his heart didn’t appear to be in it. He frequently glanced up to the balcony where Albus Dumbledore sat there with a serene expression looking down at the events impassively.
After that were the questions from the Council and Minister Fudge, who did nothing but sing Harry’s praises for his ‘daring escape’ as they put it. Harry had been so detailed in his initial account of events that there really was little more information to ask him about. Although one important detail that was revealed was no one was aware that Harry had never seen Dumbledore before he came to Hogwarts. Or that he had never directly spoken with the man about the legal guardianship. That he wasn’t even aware that Dumbledore was his legal guardian until his friends had mentioned it to him.
That had caused a rather big uproar in the crowd. The Minister had to bang his gavel to restore silence to the courtroom after allowing the sound to continue for a minute or so. But after the shock from that revelation died down there were no more surprises, and Harry was eventually dismissed.
Frank was waiting outside the door as the same Auror as before led Harry back outside.
“You did very well, Harry,” Frank said, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder with a smile, “Very well. Now, I think you were promised a reward? Let’s go meet up with the group and get that ice cream.”
Harry followed Frank and at the end of the hallway was the larger group standing there waiting. Ron, Neville, and Hermione, as well as all of their parents. Well, only Arthur Weasley had come for Ron, Mrs. Weasley had to stay home with all the other kids back at the Burrow. But both of the Grangers were there as well as Alice and Frank.
They all left the Ministry and went to Diagon alley and enjoyed some dessert.
It was very good food. Harry was glad that his testimony was all over at last. That had been very exhausting and his throat was sore after so much talking. But it was over. Dumbledore was going to prison.
— — —
“Look at the paper, Harry!”
Neville came running up and showed him the day’s paper. There at the top were giant black letters printed,
‘GREAT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE SENTENCED TO A DOZEN YEARS IN AZKABAN FOR CHILD ENDANGERMENT AND USE OF A MEMORY CHARM ON BOY WHO LIVED.’
Harry took the paper from Neville and read it through. Dumbledore was really going to prison. Harry looked back up to Neville, and smiled. He wouldn’t have to worry about that old man ever again.