Chapter Four of 'The Daring Win'- The Wizengamot Courtroom
Chapter Three.
Title: The Daring Win (4/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Angst, violence, torture, Umbridge POV
Pairings: None in foreground; background canon pairings. This is a gen story as far as the main characters are concerned.
Rating R (for violence)
Summary: The year: 1987. The place: Muggle London. The situation: The Boy-Who-Lived is being treated horribly by his Muggle relatives. A young witch must take him in for the Ministry’s good and his. The witch’s name: Dolores Umbridge.
Author’s Notes: This will be an Umbridge-raises-Harry story. It will be pretty fucked-up because of that. The whole thing is in Dolores’s POV (she would hardly tolerate any others), and will update every Saturday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Four-The Wizengamot Courtroom
“There’s going to be a trial?”
Dolores used her wand to touch Potter’s cheek. She touched, then she tapped, and she would have made her way to poking if Potter hadn’t remembered his manners and produced a smile. Dolores studied the smile in the mirror of her dresser and decided it would do.
“Yes.” Dolores continued to run her wand over the dress robes she’d bought Potter, finding and correcting the minor imperfections. She had no access to Potter’s trust vault and would probably avoid it if she did, because too many people would criticize her for that and this was a delicate time. Much cheaper to buy semi-nice dress robes and adjust them herself with the charms she’d learned for that. “You remember all those owls I sent last week?”
She didn’t look up, even though she could feel Potter nodding. After a second, Potter remembered his lessons and delivered the verbal response she’d spent the last three days coaching into him. “Yes, Miss Dolores.”
“Well, most of them went to people who either might side with Dumbledore or might side with us.” Dolores cleared away another snagged thread and stood up with a satisfied nod. “Yes, I think that will do.”
“What did the owls ask them to do, Miss Dolores?”
At least the child’s manners are improving. That, along with the verbal answers, would be important in the face of the Wizengamot and its pure-blood, old-fashioned members. “I asked them to consider whether they really wanted to give custody of you to Albus Dumbledore.”
From the swallow, Potter was thinking through it and utterly unable to imagine what they would say, despite the lessons Dolores had given him in the history and politics of the Wizengamot ever since she’d adopted him. “What do you think they’ll say?”
“It’ll be a close-run thing,” Dolores admitted, without any reluctance. Not only did the boy need to know politics if he was going to be a credit to her instead of a problem, but an edge of fear would be no bad thing for his relation to her. “Dumbledore is powerful. He’s been Headmaster at Hogwarts for more than a generation of schoolchildren now. He has many people on the Wizengamot who either like him or owe him debts-”
“Monetary debts?”
Even his vocabulary is improving. Because of that, Dolores let the impertinence of the interruption pass, and merely nodded. “Yes, but more likely personal favors that he’s granted them or times that he saved their entire family from being ruined.”
“If he saves people from starving…is he a good man?”
“Perhaps a good man, Harry,” Dolores said, and caught those green eyes in the mirror again. “But entirely the wrong person to have charge of you.”
Potter looked down again and nodded. His fringe flopped across his scar. Dolores considered it. On the one hand, she wanted the potential power of that scar on display; on the other, Potter wanted to hide it, and too obviously trying to make him do something he didn’t want to do would only backfire on her.
In the end, she left it alone and cast a few more charms on his robes that would make them look the perfect blend of an adult’s and a child’s, and then stepped back to admire her work. Potter looked up at her in the mirror at the same time.
“And you’ll be there, Miss Dolores?”
Dolores smiled. Commendable, the catch in the back of his throat. She couldn’t ask for anything better right now, not when she’d had custody of him for such a short time. “You’ll see me the entire time,” she promised.
*
“Was it really necessary to call the full Wizengamot for this, Albus? If you doubted my decision of custodial parent for Harry Potter so much, you should have talked to me first, instead of calling on everyone else.”
Dolores hid her smile as she stood beside the chair in which Potter was sitting. He shook like a leaf. On the other hand, that wasn’t a bad thing, either. Dolores could easily paint him as being afraid of Dumbledore.
And Minster Bagnold was on their side, from what she was saying, now.
Not a bad beginning, Dolores thought, and turned to face Dumbledore, standing in response to Bagnold’s accusation. His face was grave.
“No matter can be more important than where the Savior of the Wizarding World grows up, Millicent.” He turned to address the rest of the Wizengamot, and something winked on his chest. Dolores squinted. Yes, he was wearing all the medals and honors that people had ever given him. It made him look as if he had armor on.
Feeling like you need it, old man?
“You all know my feeling on Voldemort-”
Dolores hissed before she could stop herself. Potter looked at her, surprised, and then sank down in the chair when she frowned at him.
“That he is not dead, and shall return someday,” Dumbledore continued, with only a quick glance at the boy he claimed to be so concerned about. “That means that we need to know where Harry Potter is, and that he has a good and loving home. He needs to be kept safe from those in the wizarding world who would either harm him or overpraise him.”
Minister Bagnold frowned. “Why was having him grow up with abusive Muggles the better choice, Albus?”
There. That revelation hadn’t been public before, although Dolores had included it in several of the owls she sent out. And people started mumbling and whispering now. Potter had his lip between his teeth and was holding his breath.
Dolores tapped the back of his head until he started breathing again. No one was to think they could render him helpless by a reference to his relatives.
“Abusive?” asked one of the people Dolores hadn’t informed.
“Really?” asked someone she had.
The buzz was already getting out of hand when Dumbledore held up his wand to calm it, and even then it didn’t stop until he cast Sonorus on himself. Dolores shifted closer to Potter as Dumbledore’s voice boomed out. Yes, do sound as if you’re shouting. I’m sure that will endear you to the boy immensely.
“I did not know that his Muggle relatives would abuse him. Of course I am sorry for that.”
Dumbledore had an extraordinarily effective gaze, one Dolores had thought about copying, but she knew she didn’t have the natural warmth for it. Now he rested that gaze on the boy and didn’t move it.
“But I did judge that the risk was less than if he remained in our world, where a Death Eater could always strike at him.”
Potter squirmed-and not because he didn’t know what a Death Eater was. Histories of the war and his role in it, Dolores had made even more of a priority than the history of the Wizengamot. Dolores nodded to him.
“Death Eaters would have killed me?” Potter asked, raising his head to stare at Dumbledore.
He’ll be able to pull that warm gaze off, Dolores thought clinically. She could feel people melting and sighing all around the room. Some of them were murmuring about the likeness to his dear dead father, and others simply thought those eyes were so bright.
“Yes, Harry, they would have.”
“But they would have done it quickly, right? Not starved me and locked me in a cupboard for years? They said the cupboard was my bedroom.”
Dolores looked down at Potter and clasped her hands over her mouth as if to keep from crying out in pity. In reality, it was to hide her smile.
Who knew that Potter would be that advanced in asking questions? Or in asking ones that made Dumbledore uncomfortable while personally appealing to his audience? Dolores felt a strange sensation warming her chest and cheeks, and identified it as pride.
She would decide later if she should tell Potter about it. There was the chance that it might swell his head, after all.
Not that I wish to sound like Dumbledore, Dolores said, and released her hands from her mouth, and turned around to say in her softest and most charming voice to Dumbledore, “It’s an interesting question for one so young, isn’t it, Headmaster? And speaks to the horrors that these Muggles must have inflicted on him.”
Dumbledore glared at her. Dolores looked back. She could imagine twitching and curling up under that gaze a short time ago. She’d never meant to confront Dumbledore head on like this, honestly.
But she’d had to, and the potential gains were too great to give up without a fight.
“The Death Eaters could have hurt you with magic, Harry,” Dumbledore said, and chose to turn back to the boy after all. He probably thought he was demonstrating his contempt of Dolores, but in reality, it could also make him look as if he didn’t dare to face her. “With magic that you would have no idea how to defend against.”
“Whose fault is that? Sir.”
Amid the murmuring, Minister Bagnold rose to her feet, eyes bright. Dolores had never heard that she was on terrible terms with the Headmaster of Hogwarts, but of course she would take every chance she could to extend her power. “I do have a question, Albus. Why did you leave the boy with those particular Muggles?”
“I believe I’ve answered that already, Millicent. He was in terrible danger if he grew up in our world.”
“I’d rather be in danger than growing up with the Dursleys!”
No part of this outburst had been planned, and yet Dolores placed her hand on Potter’s shoulder in support and approval. It was scattering Dumbledore’s strategies. If she couldn’t plan for it, neither could he.
“But that is because you do not understand the gravity of the danger, Harry,” Dumbledore said, trying to return to his conversation with Potter. “If you did-”
“I was talking more about the legal point than the moral one, Albus.” The Minister folded her arms. “Why did you decide to put the boy with the Dursleys? And why were they chosen? I know I had owls from dozens of families after Mr. Potter disappeared, all of them offering to foster or adopt the boy.”
“And were any of them families such as the Malfoys?” Dumbledore asked, turning on the Minister like a serpent. “Any other families of accused Death Eaters, who might have made sure that Harry did not live even to the age he has reached?”
Potter shrank against Dolores, although she thought it was more at the tone than the words. There would be many things here that he did not understand.
Yet, Dolores couldn’t wait to continue his education.
“In fact, I didn’t receive any offers from families who had a member arrested as a Death Eater.” Minister Bagnold managed to look as though she was embodying all the power of the Ministry at the moment. Dolores highly approved. That was the way it should be. Only the Ministry contained enough collective wisdom to direct the destinies of the wizarding world. “They were rather busy with other things. But from different families? Yes, I did. Including ones that you wouldn’t approve of. And I find it highly disturbing, Albus, that you would consider the suitability of the boy’s future home to be based on whether they were political opponents to you or not.”
Another wave of murmurs. Dolores looked around, counting. Yes, there were more faces than not who wore expressions of revelation. Some would be swayed by the Minister; others would see that their neighbors were, and think they should agree rather than try and stand up in defense of Dumbledore.
Power shimmered in her chest, and she put her hand over her heart for a moment. It was laboring harder than it used to when her parents made her exercise.
She loved politics.
Potter stirred against her and looked up at her. Dolores looked down and mouthed the words, “It will be all right.” She didn’t see any way it couldn’t be, not now, what with the Minister’s magnificent counterattack.
But Dumbledore was already rallying for another strike.
“I made the decisions because there was no one else there to make them,” he said, voice low and impassioned, and Dolores saw some people’s expressions change again. “Harry’s godfather was not there to take charge of him. I had known Lily and James as well as anyone else did. Someone must be found to take care of him. I could hardly leave a baby alone in a destroyed house.”
“Would keeping him at Hogwarts for a few days count as keeping him alone? Even for a week?”
Dumbledore’s lips were pinched. A second later, he shook his head and smiled. That was his twinkly-eyed impression, Dolores supposed. She knew it fooled a lot of people.
But not her. And not Minister Bagnold. And from the way Potter was frowning up at the Headmaster, not him, either.
“I wanted to make sure that young Harry reached the care of blood relatives as soon as possible,” Dumbledore repeated. “James had no living relatives, and Lily no others. There was no one else with such a good right to raise him after the imprisonment of his godfather.”
Dolores perked up immediately. One of the things she had done in preparation for this day was study trial transcripts extensively, and she had found an interesting discrepancy-well, it was a discrepancy with what Dumbledore had said just now. She wouldn’t have noted it otherwise.
“Headmaster Dumbledore,” she said, and bowed her head a little when he turned to look at her, “wasn’t Sirius Black arrested after you left Mr. Potter with the Dursleys?” She petted Harry’s hair and watched Dumbledore’s face. “Why did you have to take him away so soon? Surely Mr. Black’s guilt wasn’t established yet.”
“I knew he had been the Potters’ Secret-Keeper. I knew-”
“I used to wish I’d died with my parents. I thought they died in a car crash. But it was still true.”
Dolores stared down at Potter. She doubted that more than half the Wizengamot knew what a car was, and she opened her mouth to scold him into silence. He was damaging their showing by making such statements.
But Potter was not going to hush, she saw in an instant. He had risen to his feet from the witness’s chair. He had his fists clenched, and the first healthy color Dolores had seen in his cheeks. He was glaring straight at Dumbledore.
“They made me wish I was dead. They called me a freak, and I didn’t even know about magic until Miss Dolores found me, so I didn’t even know why. They made me sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, and do all the chores, and starved me, and they-they didn’t care. I would rather face a Death Eater. Why was it so important for them to take me? Why did you do that?”
He sat down and covered up his face, and his shoulders shook a little. Dolores knew he was trying to hide the fact that he was crying.
And most of the time, she would encourage that behavior. Children shouldn’t sob in public, and as little as possible at home. But now, she knelt and took his hands and moved them off his face, and let the whole Wizengamot see his tears, the mute testimony, more powerful than words, of what the Muggles had done to him.
*
Dumbledore never stood a chance of gaining custody of Potter, after that.
The Wizengamot resolved, quickly, that he should remain in Dolores’s care. And they resolved that there would be an investigation into what had happened with Sirius Black and the date that Potter had actually been put on the Dursleys’ doorstep, and why Dumbledore had been the one to do it.
Regrettably, Dolores wasn’t able to stay and listen to those proceedings, nor the ones that might see Dumbledore reduced in power. Their part of the case was settled, and Potter’s fragility meant that asking to stay would be seen as a betrayal of her responsibilities.
Minister Bagnold came herself, during the pause and reshuffling that happened after those resolutions were taken, to escort Dolores and Potter from the room. “Thank you for doing this,” she said to Dolores, and gazed at Potter with misty eyes of her own. “I can’t imagine what I would do if I found out a child I cared for had been mistreated in such a way.”
“It’s been a trial for both of us,” said Dolores, and bowed her head, because that was the way she begged best. She kept stroking Potter’s hair, and felt him tremble where he was leaning against her. “But I do wonder, Minister…you see, it’s just that I never expected to have the care of a child without forewarning like this. I was wondering if I might receive some assistance from the Department in charge of child placement?”
“Better than that,” said Bagnold briskly, and leaned towards them, even though this particular corridor connected with a back door out of the courtroom and no one was immediately around. “I highly suspect that Dumbledore, based on what he said today, has Mr. Potter’s vault key. That should go to his legal guardian, of course. We’ll do it immediately.”
Dolores kept her head bowed. Her smiles always gave her away unless she could carefully control them. “Thank you, Minister.”
Altogether, this is a day of triumph.
Chapter Five.
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