In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 439: The Hogwarts Public Trial (2 in 1)

"He approached me. The so-called transferring me from the Department of International Magical Cooperation to the Secretary's Division of the Minister's Office on an equal footing, that's what it's all about."

The old man, who was eating crystallized pineapple, said with a grin in Dumbledore's office.

Dumbledore rubbed his brow, he didn't have any free time these days.

"How did you answer him?"

The old man licked the remaining frosting from his fingers and then spread his hands.

"What else could I say? Since he had treated me with such great trust, then naturally I had to tell the truth. That thing is hard to brew, but I can't be worse than Snape by any means, but the hard part of it is that the pre-brewing requires a lot of material to strengthen the feel of the craft, and, to ensure success every single time, you need to have at least more than five attempts at making it, and for me to be able to fully replace what Snape once was, he needs to give me time."

Dumbledore asked calmly then.

"And then what?"

"Then of course he had asked me to do the preparation work from then on, and there was no one else but me around him who was capable of making such a potion and still having guaranteed loyalty. Of course, on Snape's side, he had likewise stepped up his efforts and made preparations for both, and Snape was still his first choice if he could get him back again, no matter what methods he used, it was his first choice to get him to work for him again willingly."

Speaking of this, the old man wiped his hands as he asked with some difficulty.

"I've actually never been able to figure out how on earth you managed to convince Snape? Is it really just this abandonment by his lord that has completely broken his heart? I never could tell before that he was all that loyal?"

Dumbledore showed some emotion in the face of this question.

"It's not that he didn't have much loyalty before, it's that he's never been loyal to anyone. He is cunning, evil and insidious in your eyes, but all the choices he has actually made have been simple and pure in a way that one would expect."

The old man frowned.

"When will this bad habit of yours of keeping others in riddles change?"

"When when you no longer need me." Dumbledore grinned and winked, getting up from his seat.

The older man followed suit and stood up with him.

"Now that you're settled in France, some of the students have been able to see my name from some of the newspaper articles about my position in Britain, have they reacted to it?"

"It hasn't raised any major suspicions yet, as very few photographs have come out about you, they just assumed it's someone with the same name, after all, you've been dead for almost three years now, who could possibly think that your death was a fake at this point."

Slughorn, who had appeared in France somehow, couldn't help but bristle at Dumbledore's comment.

"At least my student found out on the spot, didn't he? Now that I think about it again that night really took me by surprise, and if you hadn't helped me get my wand back, there would truly be a shame in being a teacher."

They walked towards the outside of the office, not many professors or students passed in the corridor and even if they did, there was no way to tell who Slughorn was from the way he looked now.

Dumbledore said softly as he led Slughorn towards the outside of the building.

"Your student has surprised everyone over the years. It is just about time to take a look, there was a great deal of controversy within us before on how to properly dispose of those people brought back from Britain, only for Jon, who was on the sidelines, to come up with what I thought was a very good suggestion. Some people still had some doubts about it, so we simply took Hogwarts as a pilot project first, after all, we brought back quite a few former Hogwarts students this time as well."

Slughorn said with a nod.

"In fact, if we just punish these purebloods alone, it's not a problem, unless someone in the middle is deliberately covering up for them, there will basically be no problem as long as they are dealt with severely, the key point is, now how to go about resolving this idea of bloodline brought about by the Dark Lord. There were disputes over bloodlines, but they were always in the shadows, now they have been cemented into policy and implemented in Britain for over a decade, for French wizards it is fine, but for British wizards, it is a different story."

Dumbledore said in agreement.

"Yes, you are right, this was also found in those students we brought back from Hogwarts Castle, purebloods and half-bloods alike with their unwarranted condescension and arrogance, treating the muggle wizards coldly and cruelly based on their bloodlines. And the older muggle students brought back from Britain, our people have done their best these days to correct their original modified memories, but their cowardice and inferiority and reverence for the bloodline that is engrained in their bones cannot be changed so simply. It is on this that there has been much discussion within the Witching Horizon, and that is just what we are facing in France, if and when we do retake Britain later on, how on earth are we going to reformulate their mindset into that of normal people when we are faced with all the wizards in Britain who have been ruled by the bloodline class for so long?"

"Jon made a very interesting proposal in that meeting, he said that it's hard to change habits once people have developed them, especially this already formed sense of inferiority or superiority, but we could use the opportunity to make a play on the trials of the purebloods and hold a massive public trial(show trial). Something like a kind of mass court, where every Pureblood who has been found guilty is judged one by one, in front of everyone, and the former oppressed are allowed to speak openly as witnesses to the treatment they have suffered, and everyone in the room decides what kind of punishment the person on trial should receive."

Slughorn clapped his hands with emotion after a long moment of thought.

"A great idea, it should be an emotional release, no one would want to be a grovelling slave all the time, as long as the repressed emotions of those who were oppressed are brought out, there is some chance to change."

"It's probably going to start soon now, so we'd better go and see."

Dumbledore led Slughorn to the open space outside the school, which was by now surrounded by students.

The largest number of them, naturally, was the former Hogwarts Castle half-bloods and purebloods who had been grouped into a separate section, and there were also distinct groups within these two sections, where a small number of them consisted mainly of half-bloods who had been carefully checked and interviewed by the Order of the Phoenix to make sure that they had done nothing evil in the school.

But there was also a large part of them who were being manned at the moment by people like McGonagall, lined up in front of a raised platform.

Most of these students had an obvious calm look on their faces, while some of the younger ones couldn't maintain their "pride of blood" and were looking around with panic on their faces.

The second most crowded group were, of course, the students of the Hogwarts wagon, with chairs set up around the raised platform, where they were sitting and watching the castle students waiting for the trial, whispering and talking.

Next to the wagon students were a small group of fidgeting students, obviously the muggle students who had been oppressed at Hogwarts Castle and who seemed uncomfortable being out in the open, especially as they were sitting while the purebloods and half-bloods were standing.

After the purebloods and half-bloods, all of whom who had their wands taken away, had been left in the care of the sixth and seventh-year-old students of the wagon, McGonagall, Flitwick and Lupin walked up to the high platform and sat at the long table on the side of the high platform, the three of them being the final judges of the trial and a safeguard to prevent the students below who might be in the heat of the moment demanding the maximum penalty no matter what offence they heard.

Dumbledore, with Slughorn, whom no one could recognise at the moment, sat at the front of the audience, not there to be judges but simply to be spectators to this large social experiment of wizardry.

"Jon told me that he didn't pioneer such a method." Dumbledore said softly, "He said it was some Muggles who used it decades back to stimulate and awaken those who had become numbed by oppression."

Slughorn made no further comment, for by this time this public trial had begun.

McGonagall acted as the chief judge in this particular court, and after keeping order, she declared the trial to begin.

At this point, everyone in the audience fell silent and looked at the first pureblood student to be brought up on the platform.

It was a male wizard who looked old enough to be a seventh-year student nearing graduation.

He was brought up to the high platform without being offered a seat and stood alone facing everyone else, while all eyes in the area were on him.

This obviously made him feel even more nervous and flustered, his face still barely maintaining a calm expression, but with those white lips and trembling hands, anyone could see the unease in his mind.

"Garnos Flint, former seventh-year Pureblood House student at Hogwarts Castle."

McGonagall's voice was cold as she stated the identity of the student standing on the raised platform while reading out the charges against him by checking the piece of parchment in her hand.

"You are charged with having coerced a half-blood student, Assia Konrad, to submit to you, and with using Hedda Floyd and others, also of pureblood origin, to make further threats of death against that Miss Konrad, which ultimately led to her death, yes or no?"

Hearing McGonagall's words, the faces of most of the students in the audience below who were previously members of the wagon instantly froze a little.

They hadn't thought of the Inquisition as anything more than a special extracurricular event of a different kind, and even if the students in the castle had been bad before, how bad could they be?

Hogwarts Castle was once a school in any case, so surely there was no need for any kind of outrage.

But when they heard the charges against the first pureblood student on trial, many people were in disbelief, not expecting to see one accused of committing murder right off the bat!

Flint's voice trembled and he denied it loudly.

"No! I didn't do any of this! We were two lovers, it was all Floyd, it was all that wicked woman who did it!"

Murmurs rang out from the audience, but McGonagall's face was unchanged as she continued.

"Bring up the witnesses."

Three people were soon brought up from beneath the raised platform, and all three were girls, and they were all a little anxious once they stood on the platform, especially the two girls who had been brought out of the group that was supposed to be on trial.

"Villette Stahl, and Celia Peck, you are both former students of the Seventh Year Pureblood House at Hogwarts Castle. In your statements you have explained that you were involved in an incident of school violence against Miss Konrad and that this violence started because your friend, Miss Floyd who was not present, thought that she won't be able to win Mr Flint's favour because of Miss Konrad, which made her jealous, didn't it?"

The two underlying of Floyd nodded with pale faces like chickens pecking at rice.

"Yes!"

"Does Mr Flint know anything about this?"

The two followers stole a glance at Flint, who was standing in the middle of the platform and found him looking at them pleadingly, but knowing that they were only accomplices and that their guilt could be lightened by an honest confession, they did not hesitate to betray the former "Young Lord Flint".

"He knew!" The Stahl follower shouted, "He knew everything about what Floyd had done, at the time Konrad had been avoiding him and rejecting his advances!"

The follower whose name was Peck shouted after her.

"I, we heard Flint's friend talk about how he used to brag to his roommate that he had purposely let Floyd bully Konrad so that he could take advantage of the situation and create the best opening for his advances."

Their confession brought a chorus of boos from the audience below, in disdain for Flint's earlier comment about the two being lovers.

And McGonagall's turned her attention to the last witness.

"Misty Mesa, you were Miss Konrad's roommate, and regarding the relationship between her and Mr Flint, you testified that she was terrified of Mr Flint's advances."

"Yes, she was terrified!" Mesa looked as if she had gathered all her courage, "In Britain, there is no intermarriage between wizards of different bloodlines, even just having sex is a crime for the lower bloodline partner! So she's always been terrified of the whole thing, but she can't fight against it!"

Hearing the testimony of these three individuals, Flint's face turned pale to the core, knowing full well that his biggest lie had been exposed, that he was the main reason why Assia had been reduced to that, and that it was from his persecution!

The clamour from the audience below became louder, many of them deploring and despising Flint for this behaviour.

Slughorn, sitting in the audience, however, noticed the reactions of the innocent half-bloods, as well as the former Castle muggle students who had sat down in fear at the moment.

This was not a tragic drama about the difference between those with and without lineage, yet it was all the more appropriate for the first one to be held as a public trial.

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