The Tempest

The Tempest


By: Max

[Disclaimer: see chapter 1]

Chapter 9: The Trial


Protocol of the Wizengamot’s trial
Against Lucius Malfoy, accused of murder in 28 cases,
Etc. etc.
London, ministry of magic, July 16, 1997

Judge: Lady Justice Eustachia Shacklebolt

Defence: Damian Pickitt

Prosecution attorney: Davidus Applegard


….

Lady Justice: The next witness for the prosecution.

Prosecution: As witness for the prosecution: Narcissa Black-Malfoy. Provided the special circumstances of the case, the prosecution wants permission to have the witness accompanied by her lawyer, Augustus McGonagall.

[Noise in the audience]

Lady Justice: Silence! Permission granted.

[Entrance Narcissa Black-Malfoy, accompanied by Augustus McGonagall]

Defence: Objection! The defence is in no way prepared for this witness. I demand to do without this testimony. Madame Malfoy is supposed to be dead.

Lady Justice: Obviously she isn’t. Objection overruled.

Defence: Objection! The defence demands to screen the identity of the witness.

Lady Justice: Objection granted. Madame Malfoy, would you kindly step forward? Mister Alastor Moody will screen you.

[Entrance Alastor Moody, screening]

Alastor Moody: No signs of potion, spells or disguising charms, your honour. The lady is Madame Narcissa Malfoy.

Lady Justice: Thank you, Mister Moody. Madame, you are Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black, born November 8, 1960 as daughter of the late Flavius Black and his late wife Livia Black nee Darieux at Black Manor, Sheffordshire?

Narcissa Malfoy: Yes, Your Honour.

Lady Justice: You are married to Lucius Malfoy since October 12, 1978?

Augustus McGonagall: My client married Mister Lucius Malfoy on October 12, 1978. But she filed for divorce on July 10, 1997.

Lady Justice: So your current state is, Madame Malfoy?

Augustus McGonagall: Separated. Therefore my client would prefer to be addressed by the name of Mistress Black.

Lady Justice: Granted. Mistress Black, what is your current address?

Augustus McGonagall: My client lives in Dumbledore Hall, Yorkshire

Lucius Malfoy: The whore’s Dumbledore’s mistress!

Lady Justice: Mister Pickitt, would you please keep your client silent? If he insults the witness once again, I’d have to use a silencing charm on him.

Defence: We are sorry, your honour. But you must understand my client is rather overwhelmed. He believed his wife dead and mourned for her while she obviously lived with another man …

Augustus McGonagall: Objection! I don’t believe the defence is to speculate about the living arrangements of my client. But for the protocol: Albus Dumbledore’s current residence is Hogwarts School of wizardry and witchcraft.

Defence: Your honour, considering the – how shall I put it? – Rather fishy circumstances the witness lives in, we demand the testimony given under veritaserum.

Lady Justice: Any objections? Prosecution, Mister McGonagall?

Prosecution: No objection.

Augustus McGonagall: No …

Narcissa Black: No! I refuse. I mean, I’m sorry, but I have to refuse. I can’t drink veritaserum. I can not.

Augustus McGonagall: Please, give me a moment to talk to my client, your honour.

[Augustus McGonagall whispers to Narcissa Black, Narcissa Black shakes her head, starts crying]

Lady Justice: Mistress Black, I know drinking veritaserum isn’t pleasant. We understand your refusal, but I beg you to consider how important your testimonial is.

Narcissa Black: I’m deeply sorry – but I can not.

Lady Justice: Mistress Black, veritaserum will not hurt you. In one hour the effect will wear off. There’s no lasting damaging to fear.

Narcissa Black: No. Please – I can’t.

Lady Justice: Mistress Black, I must remind you that I can order you. I even can order force …

Narcissa Black: No! Please … Augustus, help me! They can’t do that! I can’t ….

Augustus McGonagall: Narcissa, keep calm. There’s no reason to become so excited.

Narcissa Black: Augustus … [whispers to McGonagall]

Augustus McGonagall: Damn and blast! Why didn&7;t 7;t … doesn’t matter now. Sorry, your honour: Under given circumstances – with appeal to degree 218 trial rules for Wizengamot from January 21, 1978: My client can’t be ordered to take veritaserum because of an acute health problem.

Lady Justice: Mister McGonagall, I don’t have to tell you that such an acute health problem must be proven. Do I have to call for a healer or will you give me further information?

Augustus McGonagall: I must ask to give this information in confidence.

Defence: Objection! Information so important can’t be kept away from the defence.

Lady Justice: Objection granted. Mister McGonagall, I must insist. A healer or …

Narcissa Black [very quiet]: I’m pregnant.

[Noise in the chamber]

Lady Justice: Silence! Did I understand you right, Mistress Black? You are with child?

Narcissa Black: Yes.

Defence: May I ask in which state of pregnancy you are, Madame Malfoy?

Augustus McGonagall: You may not! My client’s privacy is of no concern to this trial!

Defence: Oh, but I think it is. It’s connected to your client’s credibility. And with your client being still my client’s lawfully wedded wife he’s to be seen as the father of her child – at least in the eye of the law.

Augustus McGonagall: As I said: My client filed for divorce. Under given circumstances we are sure the marriage between her and your client will be history when the child will be born.

Defence: This is only the case if your client is willing to swear an oath on her witch’s honour – as much as it is left on that – that the child she expects can’t be the child of my client.

Lady Justice: Mister Pickitt!

Augustus McGonagall: Your honour, I really don’t think my client’s privacy should be discussed in public. Mistress Black came here voluntary to give a testimonial …

Lady Justice: Mister McGonagall, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I think the private affairs of your client matter here. It is indeed a question of her credibility to know if the accused is fathfather of the child she’s expecting. So I have to ask you – and I must warn you, Mistress Black: I will demand your oath on that – if the accused Mister Lucius Malfoy is the father of the child you expect.

Narcissa Black: Lucius Malfoy is not the father of the child I expect.

Lady Justice: You are absolutely, without any doubt, sure of that?

Narcissa Black: I am. On my witch’s honour I swear: My child is not from Lucius Malfoy.

Defence: Witch’s honour – my foot! The honour of an adulteress! I’d like to know who sired this child. Or don’t you know exactly, Madame Malfoy?

Augustus McGonagall: Objection! Your honour, I must protest. The accused tried to murder my client only four months before. I think his defence’s right to demand faithfulness ended to exist then.

Lady Justice: Objection granted. Mister Pickett, I demand an apology.

Defence: I apologize. Nevertheless I demand to know: 1. when will this child be born. 2. Who is the father?

Augustus McGonagall: Objection!

Lady Justice: Objection ov…

Voice from the Wizengamot’s ranks: Forgive me the interruption, your honour – but I think it’s time to clear this matter.

[Entrance Albus Dumbledore]

Lady Justice: Headmaster Dumbledore – what do you have to say in this matter?

Albus Dumbledore: For the protocol: I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, born June 16, 1882 as son of the late Artus Henricus Dumbledore and the late Melisande Dumbledore, nee Houdini in Dumbledore Hall, Yorkshire. And I’m the father of the child Mistress Black expects. Besides I intend to marry Mistress Black as soon as she is divorced.



Letter from: Draco Malfoy to Ginevra Weasley
Dumbledore Hall, Yorkshire, July 14, 1997

My sweet Ginny,

thank you so much for your letter which arrived just one hour before. You see by my hurry to answer it how much I loved it - though I must admit I don’t only write so quick because I want to answer your questions, but for escaping the rather gloomy company I’m in.

As I told you already: I’ve left Malfoy Mansion (I can’t bring myself to name this place a “home” thought with my progenitor receiving the dementor’s kiss after the trial and my mother suing for divorce it will actually be “mine” in only a few weeks) and now I’m still here at Dumbledore Hall although one couldn’t say this place is more “cheerful” as Malfoy Mansion.

You were so tactful not to ask for the “scandal” though I can imagine it’s a subject at your family’s table too - as it is probably in every wizard’s home all over England. Except of Dumbledore Hall. Here we - meaning MessMessieurs Dumbledore, Snape and moi - don’t talk much. We rather do some pacing (Snape at least does so much of it I wouldn’t wonder if we’d need a new rug soon), brooding (that’s what Professor Dumbledore does) and feeling lousy (that’s what I do - but probably I’m not alone with it). Snape only opens his mouth for grumbling and Dumbledore only talks about “inevitable” things like him becoming my guardian if mother doesn’t come back soon and that he’d understood if I’d rather like to finish my education in Beauxbaton instead of Hogwarts.

But even in not talking - I doubt one of us thinks about much else as mother. And I must admit: I’m starting to become angry with her.

Oh - perhaps I should tell you the entire story first. You probably only know what was in the papers and they don’t know the next act of our nice, little family tragedy is already in full swing: My mother’s done a run. She left us immediately after the trial.

As she came out of the chamber with Dumbledore and McGonagall, they naturally knew that the press would wait in front of the hall. Mother was - so Dumbledore and McGonagall thought at least - not in the condition to deal with the Skeeters of our world. So they decided (without asking her - protective as they are, they forget sometimes that mother isn’t a puppet) that McGonagall would get her out through the department of law where he’s got friends with floos while the headmaster in the meantime would go down to deal with the press.

The plan worked - McGonagall came with mother to Dumbledore Hall without any trouble, but then mother said she’d need to have a moment’s rest. She went upstairs while McGonagall waited in the hall. I had waited in my room and as I heard them approach, I went downstairs. McGonagall told me then about the trial and said, I should give my mother a moment of her own - she’d have been close to breaking point.

One hour later Dumbledore came back - and Merlin, he was mad! I couldn’t blame him. He had not known about mother’s pregnancy and to learn it this way was a shock for him. He wanted to talk with mother and though McGonagall tried to calm him - he stormed up the stairs und busted in mother’s room. She was already gone. The closet was open, a few plain robes were missing, besides she has only taken her money and two photographs - one of the headmaster, one of me.

I first was terrified because she’d let her wand back, but the headmaster told me, she’s got herself a second one which is unregistered - and with this untraceable too. She obviously used it for apparition - Snape found later a signature at the river side, but unfortunately it was too late. It had already weared off so much he couldn’t follow it.

In the first hours I hoped she’d come back soon. But Dumbledore seemed to know that she wouldn’t and … Ginny, you know, I love my mother to pieces and I’m always willing to defend her. You know too, that I never was a member of the Dumbledore Admirer’s club. I have accepted that he is the man mother loves and for her happiness I was willing to get along with him as good as possible. But now I’m angry with her for what she did to him. The way he stood up to her in court and in front of the press was noble - and I think he’d have deserved she’d talk at least to him instead of running away without a word.

It was terrible to see him seat on her bedside, looking absolutely heartbroken and so old and tired I’ve never seen him before. McGonagall and Snape tried to talk with him, but he asked us to let him alone and so he sat there all night. We couldn’t get him to come up for dinner - as Snape asked him, he only shook his head and Snape said, he’d look like a man who’s just to live through his worse nightmare.

In the morning at 10:00 a post owl arrived. She had a letter for Dumbledore. He read it, then he came up to me, laying the letter on my desk, saying: “It concerns you too, Draco …”

It was a very short letter, only a few hastily written words. Mother said in it, that she’d always been “a creature of the darkness” and therefore she should never have tried to live in the light. “It could only lead to disaster”. And now, after she’d have ruined his “reputation” - heavens, as if Dumbledore would have ever cared about that! - and disappointed his trust in her - his she really has done - she couldn’t live with him. She couldn’t bear to ruin his life more as she’d already done and therefore she were gone and wouldn’t come back. Then she begged him to look after me - and after “your child”. As soon as if it wouldn’t need her anymore, she’d find a way to send it to him. “I’m sure you can lead Draco and your child to the light and to a happy life. I couldn’t, therefore it’s better I’m not with them and you.”

The letter ends with “I thank you for giving me the best time of my life. For a few weeks I was happy. That’s more as I’ve ever expected. I love you, Albus, and I won’t stop loving you as long as I live. Wishing I could be really yours - Narcissa.”

I asked the headmaster what we were to do now. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said: “I don’t know, Draco. I really don’t know.”

Since then he mostly seats at the riverside, looking in the water. Just at this moment where I write this, I can see him there through my window. Snape is with him - as mostly. He stands a few stops away under a tree, watching his friend, but obviously not able to help him.

And I don’t know what to do, Ginny. Something in me says we can’t seat here - we should go and look for mother. She is pregnant, she is miserable, she is alone. She needs us. But I don’t have an idea where I should start searching for her. She can be everywhere. And there’s Dumbledore and in an odd sense I feel responsible for him. Mother wants me to stay with him, even if I don’t know how I can help him. And there’s the child she will send to him - and it’s my sibling, isn’t it? I will have to look after it.

At least I know I won’t become a coward too. I won’t go to Beauxbaton. It won’t be easy to go back to Hogwarts, but I’ll manage. You’ll be there.

I love you. Yours ever - Draco.


To be continued …