Chapter Seven of 'Leopard's Choice'- Decimation
Chapter Six.
Chapter One.
Title: Leopard’s Choice (7/60)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of canon background pairings, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU (Harry Sorted into Slytherin at the end of second year), violence, gore, torture, present tense
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: Sequel to Wolf’s Choice. Harry enters his fifth year with the Ministry demanding he retract his stories of Voldemort’s return, his allies demanding sacrifices he may not want to make, and the world becoming sharper with every breath.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to Other People’s Choices and Wolf’s Choice, and the third part of the Choices series. Seriously, don’t try to read this without having read the other stories first. I anticipate this being 60 chapters, like the others in the series. Also, please take the violence warning seriously. Like OoTP, this fic will get considerably darker than the others.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seven-Decimation
Adele observes critically as the boy settles into the defendant’s chair. She thought he would object more, and she might have to add her voice to that objection, to uphold her roles as protector of the Wizengamot’s processes and secret Potter ally. But Potter sits there, with the snakes balanced on his shoulders, and makes it look like a throne.
And he ignores the chains. Adele is reluctantly impressed. There aren’t that many people who can do that.
Potter fastens his gaze straight ahead, at Amelia Bones, who nods to him and then yields the interrogation to Fudge, as they evidently agreed on. Adele thinks Bones weak for making that deal, but then, too much adherence to justice and truth does do that to one.
“Now, Harry,” Fudge says, and leans forwards with a sickly-sweet smile that Dolores probably couldn’t have bettered. “Do you need to keep those creatures in here with you?”
“Sorry, Minister, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your snakes, of course! They would certainly be better off outside the courtroom, don’t you agree?”
Potter manages the feat of looking utterly blank, then says, “Oh, of course, I didn’t realize the courtroom was an animal-free zone. But in that case, you’ll also have to put your pet talking toad outside. I wouldn’t want anyone to ask me if the Minister for Magic saw himself as above the rules, after all.”
More than one gasp travels the room. The Wizengamot likes doing that. Normally, Adele despises them, but this time, she blinks. Well. She didn’t expect Potter to be that daring.
“Mr. Potter! That is an insult to Madam Umbridge!” Fudge looks as if he’d like to pull off his hat and eat it.
“I didn’t mean to insult her.” Potter shrugs. “The same way I’m sure that you didn’t mean to insult my serpents by calling them creatures.”
The serpents on his shoulders hiss in unison. The winged snake with golden scales is drawing most of the attention, but Adele keeps her eye on the small green one coiled on Potter’s left shoulder. Honestly, she recognizes that particular breed, a dream adder, and wonders how Potter got one. They’re almost extinct the world over, and none live in Britain.
“You must put your snakes out of the courtroom!”
“Of course, Minister. I’m just waiting for you to do the same with your toad.”
Black, seated behind Potter, looks as if he’s about to collapse with laughter. Adele holds in a sigh. Black’s bloodline is such that it makes him the natural leader of their alliance, and of course there’s his position as Potter’s godfather to consider. But Adele wishes that someone more, well, serious was in charge.
“Madam Umbridge is not a creature!”
“Neither are my snakes. But if she’s able to stay, so can they.”
Fudge simply doesn’t know what to do. Adele folds her hands in her lap and watches with every appearance of boredom, which is more needed now than ever. But she has to admit that she’s struggling to fight back laughter.
Strange. She can’t remember the last time that happened to her, let alone in the Wizengamot courtroom.
Fudge finally decides retreat is the better part of valor, and mutters, “Fine. The snakes can stay. Now, Mr. Potter, we’re here to try you under the Grindelwald Laws for spreading stories of sedition. Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t.”
Adele pauses, wondering if her opinion of Potter’s intelligence has become inflated. She thought he was smart. A flat denial isn’t going to work in this situation, and he should have known that. Black looks a little concerned, too, sitting up.
“Then what did you think were doing?”
“Telling the truth.”
Fudge whuffles like a hungry Jarvey-and takes the bait, Adele realizes after a second. “You’re not telling the truth!”
He shouldn’t have said that, Adele thinks distantly, her eyes on Severus Snape now. There’s a man who must be implicitly part of the alliance, since he’s Harry Potter’s other guardian, but Adele hasn’t interacted directly with him. She would like to meet him. He should have just said that truth is no defense under the Grindelwald Laws, which it isn’t.
“Would you like to question me under Veritaserum?” Potter asks, and his eyes open very wide, as if he’s trying to show everyone involved the tunnels that lead into his empty brain. It must be empty, Adele thinks, staring at him in disbelief. How could he make an offer like that? Fudge will be free to ask whatever he wants, including questions that make Potter look bad.
“Harry!” Black snaps from behind the boy, apparently having come to the same conclusion.
“Hush, Sirius,” Potter says, confident and calm in a way that makes Adele wish she knew what was going on. She hasn’t been this jolted back and forth in her own mind in-decades, probably. “Listen to me. I’m sure that Mr. Fudge has very important reasons for asking me questions, and I want to be sure that he knows I’m not walking around spreading seditious stories for the fun of it. I want him to know that the truth is important.”
Fudge hesitates, apparently grasping onto the suspicion that he might be being tricked about this. But Potter just stares with that wide, empty gaze-that Adele is suddenly certain is no longer empty-and then Fudge nods and falls into the trap, turning and calling for Veritaserum.
The only problem, Adele thinks, as she sits back in her seat and tries to catch her breath, is that she can’t see any way Potter can escape this. He is going to be tried, and he is going to be asked questions that he doesn’t want to answer. So the trap might turn on the one setting it.
Yet, for all that, Adele can feel her breathing quickening, and her lips parting, and she even ignores the curious glances a few people in her row of seats cast her. If anyone asks, she’ll just tell them the truth, which is that Something is happening in the Wizengamot at last.
*
The boy is lying.
That conviction is the only one that keeps Dolores in her seat as one of the Aurors strides out of the courtroom to fetch the Veritaserum, and the stupid boy leans back in the defendant’s chair as if he controls everything here.
He’s lying.
He must be, because there is no way that the Dark Lord has come back to life, Dolores thinks, and rubs her arms where gooseflesh has sprung up. She drops her hands when she sees the people around her staring at her, and does her best to ignore their judging eyes.
Her friend in the shadows would have alerted her if You-Know-Who was back. That’s the truth of it. And Dolores trusts her friend far more than she trusts Potter or any of the people who support him, like that smirking Black.
The Auror comes back with the Veritaserum, and Potter sits up and turns towards him. Dolores is hoping for a flash of fear, some sign that Potter has underestimated all of them and will now have to give that up and accept that he was wrong, that he is going to be trampled and his secrets ripped out of him.
But he doesn’t act like that at all. In fact, he tilts his head back and opens his mouth, extending his tongue.
Dolores watches critically as the Auror drips the three drops onto Potter’s tongue. Potter blinks, and his eyes grow glassy. Dolores frowns. She was trying to determine if the Aurors were in league with Potter and wouldn’t give him the real potion. After all, it’s not as though they’ve treated him with the contempt any other criminal would be given in his position. Dolores has heard about how they practically fawned on him during the trial of that poor Edgecombe child who was only acting out her frustration and disappointment at being left out of Potter’s study group.
Cornelius seems satisfied, though. He nods and leans forwards to inspect Potter, then asks, “What is your name?”
“Harry James Potter.”
He at least sounds like he’s under it, Dolores has to concede.
“And where do you live?”
“It’s split between Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and the house Professor Snape and I share.”
That’s true, too, from what Dolores has been able to find according to his Ministry records. She scowls down at Potter, who keeps staring past her in a way that probably has to do with the potion but feels like a personal insult anyway.
“Who are your guardians?”
“Sirius Black and Professor Severus Snape.”
Both of the men shift behind Potter as if they can make themselves bigger and spare the boy the consequences of his actions. Dolores sniffs. Do neither of them realize how much trouble they are in? Or Potter is in?
Then again, she has found that people who despise and flout the power of the Ministry rarely do.
“Now tell us what happened on the night that you touched a Portkey and vanished from Hogwarts.”
“I was taken to a forest.” Potter’s voice remains stripped flat, which makes Dolores scowl. His tale is ridiculous, but it will sound more convincing to a lot of people because the tone he’s telling it in sounds like he’s under Veritaserum. “In the forest were Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort.” Everyone flinches, and Dolores clutches her wand tighter. “They used me to give Voldemort a better body. Before, he just had one that he was assembling from scraps of flesh and muscle that he got from people and animals he ate. They flayed me-”
“Then how are you still alive?” Cornelius asks, and Dolores nods. It’s a clever question.
“They used a spell that stripped me of layers of skin a little at a time, and wound them around Voldemort’s body.” Another flinch, but Dolores sits straight up and stared around, daring anyone to look back at her. She isn’t going to flinch. “But they were going to kill me, I think. Then my dragon came. She transformed herself into pure light, and she breathed fire on Lucius Malfoy. She killed him. She didn’t manage to kill Voldemort, but I don’t know how much can kill him when he’s like that. Then she flew me back to Hogwarts, and dissolved into light and fire, and vanished.”
There’s a long murmuring that seems to spiral up one side of the courtroom and down another. Dolores listens, but even though she’s had a lot of practice at listening in Wizengamot sessions, she can’t tell where it starts and stops and comes from.
Who is against us? Who believes this maniacal child?
“And do you believe that Karkaroff and Edgecombe knew the truth about the Portkey?”
“No. Edgecombe just wanted revenge on me. Karkaroff was an idiot to trust someone who sent him the Portkey. He was determined to have a real challenger to Viktor Krum in the Tri-Wizard Tournament.”
Then Edgecombe shouldn’t have been punished the way she was. But Cornelius is going on rather than turning back to Dolores so she can have the chance to air her opinion, the way she hoped she would. “And what do you think of the Ministry? What would it take to get you on our side?”
Potter opens his mouth, but instead of words, a long hiss comes out. Everyone jerks back, except Dolores. She knew there was a possibility of this. Her friend has warned her that the snake-creatures, the snake-speakers, are trying to sneak back into the magical world that disposed of them long ago. It’s the role of creatures like her friend to protect wizards and witches from such things.
And Potter is on the side of the snake-creatures, or he wouldn’t be able to speak their disgusting language.
“Answer the question!” Cornelius demands. Dolores knows he’s sweating with fear without even seeing his face, just from the way that his hands clutch his bowler hat.
But because the demand isn’t actually a question, Potter sits still and keeps staring ahead. Cornelius stomps up to him and demands, “What will it take to get you on our side and make you stop speaking against me?”
A hiss.
“What will it to take to make you stop saying he’s back?” And Cornelius reaches out as if he’s going to grip the boy’s shoulder and shake him, a harmless enough punishment, surely. Dolores would do worse, herself.
Snape seizes his hand and holds it prisoner for a moment, before releasing it. Cornelius steps back, rubbing his wrist and shaking.
Potter hisses again.
Dolores raises her hand, and then speaks, because poor Cornelius is facing in the wrong direction and can’t see her. “I say that the child has violated the terms of his bargain with this court,” she says, and makes sure to keep her voice calm and sweet. “He promised to answer the questions, under Veritaserum, and he is not.”
“Of course he is,” Black says, his eyes gleaming. “He’s just answering them in Parseltongue.”
“How do we know that? How do we?” Cornelius’s hands are white on the edges of the hat now, and Dolores can feel her own head nodding, her own lips pulling back from her teeth. She doesn’t care who sees her like this. Agreeing with the Minister is a good political move, always. “We need someone who can speak the language.”
“I don’t know of anyone who would be willing to translate, if you don’t trust that my ward is telling you the truth.” Professor Snape looks bored. “Do you, Minister?”
“Of course! You-Know-Who-”
The words hang in the air, and Dolores slumps back with a frustrated hiss of her own. She doesn’t need to see Cornelius’s face to know that he’s lost. The moment he proclaimed that he believed Potter, he lost the game. If he believes the stories of You-Know-Who’s return for himself and reacts without panic, then he’s saying that Potter is right to spread them, and they’re not sedition.
And more, he’s accepted Potter’s testimony under Veritaserum. If he had ignored the offer to testify that way or not accepted the stories as truth, he could continue charging Potter under the Grindelwald Laws. But not now.
Perhaps sometimes it isn’t wise to be on the same side as the Minister, after all.
*
Harry sighs with relief as the antidote pours down his throat and the enforced calm of Veritaserum snaps away from him. He’s glad that’s done with. He dislikes the potion immensely. He hopes he’ll never have to take it again, but then stops hoping. It’s ridiculous to spend time thinking about something that he knows won’t come true.
And his little trick had worked. Working with the Speakers has made him much more conscious when he’s switching between English and Parseltongue. If he chooses, he can speak in either language even with something like Veritaserum pulling at his tongue and compelling his answers.
He can’t resist the truth potion. He could feel from the tension between Sirius and Severus that when he accepted being dosed with it, they thought he would spill secrets to Fudge that they wouldn’t want heard.
Harry stands up, touching Lion and listening with a smile to the winged snake’s snide little song of triumph. The green serpent he called from magic will be dismissed when he leaves. They were here as a last-ditch defense, as a reminder of power, and as a way to remind himself of Parseltongue just in case, but he didn’t need them for that third purpose. He really can hiss without looking at an image of a snake, now.
“I want to talk to you, Harry.”
Severus’s voice splinters like breaking ice. Harry nods and waves to Sirius as he walks towards the courtroom door. The Wizengamot session didn’t last very long after Fudge inadvertently admitted that he does think Voldemort is back. All of the wizards and witches except Fudge and that creepy Umbridge woman voted to acquit Harry from the charges under the Grindelwald Laws, and that’s that.
The minute they get out into the corridor, Severus casts a privacy spell that Harry knows from experience will surround them with a hazy, wavering dome, and prevent anyone else from looking through it. Then he spins back towards Harry with narrowed eyes.
Harry stares back, and strokes Lion’s wing when he rears up with a hiss of, “Don’t challenge us!” He doesn’t hiss reassurance to Lion, though. He knows that would be the wrong move right now.
“Did you know that you could resist Veritaserum?” Severus demands.
“I wasn’t resisting it. I did answer his questions, just in Parseltongue.”
“But you knew you could do that?”
“Of course, sir. I wouldn’t have offered to let him put me under Veritaserum otherwise.”
For a moment, Severus’s fingers clench, maybe because Harry has retreated to his title. But Harry can’t help it. It’s the stern Professor Snape in front of him at the moment, much more than his guardian.
“I wish,” Severus finally whispers, opening his eyes, “that you would have told me.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and consciously keeps himself from saying sir again. “I thought that you wouldn’t react with the right amount of fear and worry otherwise, and I knew there would be people in the courtroom watching you. It had to be real.”
Severus stares at him. “So you walked into that room with a plan and you kept it from me-and Black?”
Harry hears the question, and nods. “Sirius didn’t know about it, either. I promise,” he adds gently, when Severus looks as if he would rather break something than accept what Harry is saying.
“You should have trusted us to protect you.”
“I’ve been trusting you to do that for a long time now,” Harry says, looking him in the eye. “But I have to be able to protect myself, too, Severus. And I have to be able to have clever plans and act convincingly. I won’t be able to defend myself from political danger otherwise.”
After a long, tense moment, when Harry thinks that perhaps he’ll have to explain and apologize again, Severus nods. And then he steps forwards, and loops his arm around Harry’s shoulders.
Even behind a privacy charm, this is probably the closest he’ll come to an embrace in the Ministry. Harry sighs, and leans softly against him, and lets himself be escorted away.
Chapter Eight.