Chapter 77 Judgement

While life continued at Hogwarts as best it could, there were more than a few unmistakable changes: The Castle and its occupants were on a permanent war footing. Working with Dumbledore was still utterly distasteful to Harry, but he cooperated with the Headmaster as best he could, delegating the challenges and responsibilities to minimize his contact with him. Harry knew, given half a chance he would hex Dumbledore in the back. Indeed their last conversation had been heated, though rather one-sided. Indeed, Harry had forced the aged wizard to reconsider a lot of things that he had taken for granted by the time Harry's tirade had come to an end.

The Headmaster had been trying his usual grandfatherly approach, with numerous references to "the greater good," the "betterment of wizarding kind" but it was his use of the words "fate" and the phrase, "destiny to face and defeat Voldemort" that had made Harry's eye twitch.

The young man clipped the twin braids of hair behind his left ear, took a deep breath to try and calm himself, and failed to do so, "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore: You are the biggest fucking idiot I have ever had the misfortune to meet!" Smoke off dry ice would have been warmer than Harry's tone, "You pin all your hopes on me, and you fail to see the simple failures in your analysis, in your logic, in your interpretation of that god damned Prophecy!"

"Mr. Potter?"

"I've had quite a few months to mull this over, and I'm not a linguist. Hell... I just seem to excel at getting people I love and care about hurt or killed." He laughed darkly, "But I found a few people who are linguists and literary-minded. They analyzed the fuck out of the prophecy. Every word, every meaning, nuance, subtle hint and suggestion."

"Mr. Potter?"

"Your prophecy does not specify the year of birth. It does not even specify the gender. So why assume it is a boy? It could have been Neville or one of a half dozen other students! You don't have a continent, never mind a country so perhaps he was born in Africa? Perhaps small-town America?" Dumbledore just stared as Harry continued, "Are we talking about Voldemort? Are we talking about a future Dark Lord, one who is not yet born? Could it be a woman who is the Dark Lord of the future?

"Mr. Potter?"

"Perhaps most damning of all Dumbledore," growled Harry, "The prophecy states, "the one with the power to defeat" not that he or she actually would!" Harry took a long breath, to calm his anger, ever so slightly as Dobby appeared with a Butterbeer. Dumbledore struggled to think of the right words to do something to salvage the situation. True that Harry was working with him on the defense of the castle, but he was doing it to protect the students, and his Legion more than anything else.

"Mr. Potter..."

"I swear on Merlin's grave," growled Harry, "That if you question-mark-whine, "Mr. Potter" to me one more time I'll bury you and let the chips fall where they may!"

Dumbledore nodded, knowing full well that Harry -specifically his Goblin lawyers - still had a very, very damaging dossier in their possession. He had idly hoped that Harry would forget about that, but then, he mentally chided himself, that incarnation of Harry Potter had died the night Hermione Granger had been murdered.

"Hell," said Harry, "If I were to use your simplistic interpretation then I could argue that the prophecy was fulfilled before I was even born." Harry's gaze met the headmaster's for the first time, "We both know you were born in July. And having done my homework, I know everything I need to know about you and Gellert Grindelwald." The headmaster's eyes widened a fraction, "Yes. I know everything and frankly don't care about the nature of your relationship - though it is somewhat relevant."

Harry's eyes adopted a hard, almost menacing glint, "Your friend Gellert became more than just a friend, and you were equals in knowledge, power, and perhaps greatness before he went Dark." Harry drained his Butterbeer in one smooth pull and tossed it into the wastebasket on the other side of the room without leaving his chair, "You defeat him, he's locked away and now, neither of you truly lives because there was no closure for either of you. One of you has to die so the other can get closure, make peace and move on."

For the first time in a very long time, the eyes of Albus Dumbledore welled up with tears, of sadness, pain, and grief that he had buried for almost half a century and never truly dealt with. Harry plowed on, "Technically, the prophecy is fulfilled. Technically, it was fulfilled the night I vanquished Voldemort with the power I know not, because I vanquished, or defeated him, with some power that I did not know at that time."

Harry rose to his feet, "You thrust this burden upon me as a child, you made my life hell, and yet here I stand, taking on the burden to save a world and society that seems incapable of looking after itself. I hope you're proud, Albus Dumbledore, of the lives you have manipulated, and destroyed, all for the greater good of wizarding society. Next time you send your Order of the Phoenix into battle, consider marching alongside them, facing the spells of the Death Eaters and their Effingus, and the nightmare chill of the Dementors. Show that you have some honor, some notion of loyalty instead of doing what is easy and sitting behind your god damn desk while a teenager leads teenagers and fights your fucking war! "

The truth of it all finally hit home with the Headmaster, who was left staring and talking with Fawkes until the small hours of the morning, until he was finally forced to admit, and acknowledge that he had gotten everything, hopelessly wrong. Perhaps... he hoped, there was a possibility of redemption for all that he had done wrong while trying only to do what was right. Indeed, the actions of Albus Dumbledore would fit the maxim, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" perfectly.

Saturday the 22nd of November, some three weeks after Halloween, and The Blaze, at 11:45 in the morning, the fireplace in the Ministry Atrium roared and flared green. Two figures sauntered from the flames, dressed in black robes with red and silver trim, wands in hand, loose and ready. The eyes of more than one person whipped back and forth between these two figures.

Percy Weasely took a stiff step forward, "On behalf of the Ministry of -"

The man turned and put a finger to his lips. Behind him, his companions completed her sweep and nodded, "Site secure Commander." The flames blazed green once more and a silhouette appeared, backlit by the fire. Minister Fudge breathed expectantly as the figure walked into the light and smoothly grasped the Minister's extended hand, "Minister Fudge,"

"Welcome, welcome, Mr. Potter," said Fudge.

"You arrive cautious of your own safety," remarked someone standing behind the minister with a sharp nod, towards the half dozen Legionnaires. Harry's eyes narrowed as he turned his gaze upon the speaker and then raised his eyebrow towards the Minister.

"Mr. Kingston, commander of my bodyguards."

"The Legionnaires insisted," said Harry, "Given the rampant activities of the Death Eaters."

"This is the Ministry of Magic!" Kingston practically bristled, "There is no threat to your safety here."

"We prefer to check that sort of thing for ourselves," she flicked back her hood as she met Mr. Kingston's gaze for the first time. Her silver eyes seemed to bore into his for a moment.

"Luna," Harry scolded softly.

"My apologies, Harry," She said, "But we Legionnaires prefer to check that sort of things ourselves...sir."

Kingston almost smirked as he studied this wo-child - Luna, was it? - Up and down, "A child?" he said with a mocking tone, "I thought the Legion were warriors."

She fixed Kingston with an unblinking, hard stare that promised violence and repeated his head-to-toe assessment, "A man?" she inquired. The other still hooded Legionnaire sniggered ever so slightly. "I know a real man," her voice took on a slightly dreamy tone, "and the things I let him do to me -"

"Button it," said Harry, "Both of you." He turned to face Kingston, "Let's not get off on the wrong foot, but I will not reprimand my friends for taking every precaution."

"What if they disrespect their elders?!" Kingston said.

Harry nodded, "Of course. The moment I hear one of them do so, I will reprimand them."

"Well, I'm pleased that you could be here," said Fudge, trying to brush over the awkwardness, "I presume that you are ready?" Harry nodded politely, shifting his body ever so slightly. It put his back to Kingston and created a bubble of privacy around the Minister and Harry, "We'll just tell the truth and justice will be served. After all, you are the star witness to these events, but just a witness."

"Indeed," said Harry. He found himself fighting the urge to throw up at having to work with the Minister: The same man who had made his life hell for over a year, and tried to have his wand snapped some fifteen months before. Politics is politics, Harry realized, and would always be beyond time, logic, and the "magic" of common sense. "I'll see you in the Courtroom Minister."

Fudge smiled at Harry and left, heading towards the bank of elevators beyond the repaired Fountain of Magical Brethren. The cordiality of the exchange had been seen and noted by everyone walking through the atrium at the time. Harry waited until Fuge was out of sight. He adjusted the cloak over his shoulders, ensuring that the hood was properly arranged before turning to the equally hooded figure on his right, "Who do I look?"

She took a moment to study him, from the tips of his basilisk hide boots, through to the belt which held an incredible plethora of potions and other devices, through to his vest, pauldrons, and gorget, partially hidden by his cloak. "Like a hero, ready to conquer the world." She kissed him gently on the cheek.

"Very kind," he smiled slightly, "Thank you. Now, how do I really look?"

"Very tired," she said, matching his smile with one of her own.

As the players took their places within the courtroom located in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, it was clear to all. Whether prosecution or defense, that the trial of the decade, if not the century was about to start. In Hogwarts itself, however, a trial of a different sort was about to begin. The Legion had actually debated having a single member of the Core stay back, just to oversee things in case the worse should happen and the Death Eaters actually attack. Neville had wound up with the duty simply because of what he had lost. True they had all lost friends in the Blaze, but Neville had suffered perhaps the greatest loss that any of them could imagine – except perhaps Harry. But then, Harry had truly been able to find a sense of closure, having witnessed everything that happened, and having even seen first-hand how she had died.

That was one pain, or perhaps a blessing that Neville had been denied, and despite all he had seen and encountered in what he called a sojourn to the land of the dead," He still did not know how Ginny had died. Fate, it seems is not without a certain sense of irony.

The unfortunate third year was a Ravenclaw, who came running into the Great Hall, just before noon. She was halfway between crying and screaming in absolute terror, as she tripped and then skid across the flagstone floor of the great hall. Only fragments of words escaped her until she finally drew one long breath, "dead… second-floor loo… she's DEAD!"

Professor McGonagall shushed her slightly, "Ms. Abernathy, Moaning Mrtyle has been dead for more than fifty years. She's a ghost and cannot harm you, or anyone else in any way…. "

The third-year stamped her foot, almost imperiously, "Not the ghost! There's a dead girl! Red hair! A body lying up there right now! Murdered!" Her cries were audible the length and breadth of the Great Hall. Neville practically exploded out of his seat. McGonagall paled and quickly followed him. Neville only beat her to the infamous second-floor corridor by scant seconds

Just like his second year, when Hermione, Ron, and Harry had discovered the foot-high letters scrawled in charmed blood, "Enemies of the Heir, Beware!" He remembered the sight of Filch's cat, petrified and hanging in mid-air. He could smell something far worse now. The scent of copper that left the harshest of all metallic tastes in the mouth, one that he knew first hand from his duel with Bellatrix Lestrange: Death. He crossed the corridor and kicked the door open, wand raised and ready. The smell slammed into him with an almost physical force, the few bites of lunch and his breakfast threatening to rise up and make him violently ill. A single sound escaped him, one that encapsulated weeks of repressed, hidden pain and anguish that roared in his ears like the thundering of Niagara Falls.

She lay, sprawled across the wet stone floor. Her eyes were blank, glassy orbs staring at the ceiling with her mouth open, without expression. She looked strangely at peace, her head, and hair resting in a halo of her own blood. Her armor was cut, torn, and broken, as was the undersuit they all wore. The streaks of red, the splashes of blood that marred the walls, ceiling, even the floor were testament to the unimaginable tortures they must have inflicted upon her.

Neville swallowed hard, shaking with unmitigated anger as the students and professors gathered, stunned into complete silence at the door. He dropped to his knees and gently ran his fingers through the fringe of hair that lay peacefully across her forehead. There were tangles and blood-soaked knots but it was still Weasely red, still soft and silky to the touch. He ran his fingers down her face, closed her eyes and mouth, giving her a semblance of peace. He rose mechanically to his feet and his eyes raked across the mirrors, cracked and shattered, sprinkled with blood. The messages finally caught his eye.

"No more blood-traitor redheads for England. "

"She was the best I've had for a muggle lover."

"She fought like a wild cat. Pity we had to declaw her."

They went on and on, one message after another, written in her blood. He squeezed his eyes shut against the rush of hot tears. He had known, but he had not known, it had been like this. He removed his robe and gently laid it over her broken form. Standing in full armor and war gear, he turned towards the doorway, when he saw the parchment pinned to the wall with a metal spike. This one caught his attention more than the rest: It had his name on it:

"If she was saving herself for you, Longbottom, too bad I got her. And now you'll never have her!"

Neville… snapped.

Magic flared for an instant and exploded outwards. Mirrors shattered and the toilet stall doors disintegrated, sending knives of broken glass and splinters flying everywhere. Neville was at the center of the maelstrom. Hands clenched he stalked towards the door, only to find his way blocked by Professors Vector and Sprout. His hazel brown eyes, normally soft and gentle flashed dangerously, "Move," he said. Both professors hesitated. They knew what he was about to do, but both professors wondered, whether they could stop him as magic flared behind him, whipping at their hair and robes as he flexed his wrist and his wand appeared in his hand.

The professors stepped aside. They knew they could not stop him, and only Professor Sprout had the courage to put a hand on his shoulder, halting Neville in mid-step, "Neville… please don't do anything you could regret."

As part of the Legion's defensive plans for Hogwarts Castle, they knew the location of every Common Room and through Rowena, they had access to them all. He came to a halt before a stretch of the blank wall close to the Dungeons of Hogwarts. He could not speak Parseltongue, but then he had no need to, "Rowena!" he screamed, "Either you open it, or I will obliterate it!"

She could feel the sheer power thrumming through him, and knew if she denied him he would kill himself trying to gain access. The door slid open obligingly and the gaggle of younger Slytherin students stared at him, not wondering who he was, but what kind of insanity would make a Gryffindor invade the sanctuary of the House of Serpents, alone. "Where are they!" he roared. They stared at him, blanched, and cowered immediately. Legion or not, none had ever seen Neville anything but kind, polite, and thoughtful off the battlefield.

"W-whe-re's w-wh-who?" stuttered a fourth-year who cowered as the tip of Neville's wand pointed in his direction.

"The seniors of this house!" he screamed, "The Death Eaters! The traitor to Gryffindor Ron Weasely! Draco Malfoy! Crabbe! Goyle! Parkinson! Where! Are! They!" A second-year boy caved as a wave of magic smashed furniture and several of the more unfortunate students mercilessly into the walls of the dungeon common room.

"They—the—ey left! They found something in the Room of Requirement that gives them away in and out of the castle! They moved it from there!"

"Where?" he snarled, "Quit stalling, or I will put you under the Imperius and if you're lucky that's all I'll do!" his voice crawled with sinister malice.

"D-D-Dungeon Seven!"

Neville grabbed a fistful of the boy's robes, drawing his face to within an inch of his own, "Ginerva Weasely lies dead in a second-floor toilet. Your classmates murdered her. You are partially accountable. But someone else will decide your fate!" He hurled the young boy back and stalked from the common room, not stopping as Professor Vector hurried into the Common Room. She breathed a sigh of relief: given that there was significant furniture damage, and a few pairs of soiled trousers… things could have been a lot worse she realized.

The door to Dungeon Seven was blasted to kindling, as was the frame and the hinges that had kept the six-inch thick English oak door upright for over a century. The Death Eaters were gathered at the far end of the room and did not hesitate: A dozen wands cut loose at once, bracketing the doorway with magic and curses of the darkest varieties.

Neville was already in the room under the cover of an invisibility spell. He cast indiscriminately, cutting down two in a shower of blood. A third was banished into the wall with a sickening "crack" as its bones broke, leaving a shallow crater in the wall.

Neville saw a flash of robes disappear in a cabinet set along the far wall and adjusted his aim. A spell chain of blasting, cutting, and piercing charms ripped across the room and into the piece of furniture. Only ten were left standing, their eyes wide with shock and horror as their escape was obliterated before their eyes. They turned to face him and he could see naked fear upon each and every face before him. He did not care.

Crabbe blinked stupidly as his arms were severed, moments before his head was lopped from his shoulders.

Daphne Greengrass screamed in agony as a bolt of flames smashed and set her robes ablaze. She dropped to the floor, rolling in a futile attempt to extinguish them as conjured water had only aggravated the Fyndfire. The flames licked at her flesh and she screamed and would continue screaming for a long time to come.

He recognized two Hogwarts alumni: Flint and Bole, standing shoulder to shoulder. A wave, twist, and twirl of his wand saw a net of flames leap from the end of his wand to coil around the pair, tying them together. The smell of burnt flesh, the sound of sizzling flesh filled the air as the remaining Death Eaters stared in shock at the juggernaut of destruction that had cut and continued to cut a bloody swatch through their ranks.

"I yield!" shouted Draco Malfoy, throwing his wand down. The remaining five Death Eaters quickly followed suit.

"I know," growled Neville, "But I don't care." A wave of charms and simple hexes and jinxes enveloped them. The disarming charms did nothing, but they were blasted off their feet, bound and restrained within seconds. Neville waved his wand, and suddenly, there was no shattered door or frame: There was only a blank stone wall. "You fucked with Harry Potter. I would have killed you for that, in a fair fight, or any kind of fight. But you took my Ginny from me. If she had been slain in combat, I would probably just kill you."

He reached up, tearing a fine length of silver chain, and hurled it at the feet of the restrained Death Eaters, "Those," he gestured to the rings upon the chain, "are promise rings." He picked up Draco's wand, and rolled it between his fingers as he holstered his own, "You took more than a girlfriend, you took the woman I would have one day called my fiancé, and then my wife. You took more than life: You took away the life I would have had." He levitated the first of the Death Eaters and stuck him to the wall with a simple sticking charm, "The professors, probably know where you are, know where I am, and in all likelihood, do not care. But then, I don't care if they do know."

"And I'm not dumb enough to use my own wand – priori incantatem and all that," he snarled, "But I have to congratulate you, in picking the perfect place because there is no one, who will hear you scream." He drew on his magic, as the sickly bolt of red-orange energy built upon the tip of the wand that belonged to Draco Malfoy, "I claim the rights of a future husband wronged, as judge and executioner: I sentence you to death, a sentence to be carried out immediately, in a manner of my choosing: Crucio Maximus!"

The screaming began….