Lightning Strikes Twice Ch. 32 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: Fudge crumples like a wet tissue but that doesn't mean they're in the clear.

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He’s half-expecting to be attacked on their way to the Wizengamot. Not that there are that many opportunities. They go via Floo straight from the safehouse to the Ministry of Magic’s Atrium, but while one might assume that nobody would be foolish enough to attack them there, Harry isn’t so ignorant. He’s well aware that the Ministry’s security is exceedingly lacking in many ways.

However, as on edge as he is while Kingsley, Hestia, and Tonks all escort him through the atrium and over to the Wizengamot’s meeting chambers, no attack ever comes. Harry can’t help but frown at that, wondering just what Amelia’s opposition is planning. It was entirely possible that the DMLE Director was so on top of things that word of his location and security detail had never leaked.

On the other hand, if that were the case, then staking out his route to the Wizengamot and attacking then would have been the best opportunity anyone who wanted to silence him would have had. The fact that no one tried… well, it was interesting to say the least.

Then again, maybe Harry was overestimating their current enemies. After all, this technically wasn’t a fight against the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters. Voldemort wasn’t in a position to do anything right now anyways, and his Death Eaters, while making fools of themselves, were likely to have little interest in Fudge’s fuck-ups and Sirius Black’s innocence.

At the end of the day, their enemies were corrupt and incompetent government bureaucrats, not Pureblood Supremacist Dark Wizards. Though the two could sometimes be one in the same, in this case they actually weren’t.

Harry snorts, imagining for a moment Dolores Umbridge in all pink walking up and trying to curse him for her precious ‘Minister’. He wouldn’t have put it past the toad of a woman, and frankly he would have relished the opportunity to exercise his right to self-defense against the bitch. But no. There was no sign of Umbridge or anyone else who might have been willing to do Fudge’s bidding.

Instead, the trip to the Wizengamot passes without issue and after a short period of time waiting to be called upon, Harry finds himself entering the large chamber and being escorted to the middle of the room. He remembers being brought here before, of course. In the original timeline, the earliest moment that he’d been presented to the Wizengamot had been at the beginning of his Fifth Year, after he’d been forced to defend himself and Dudley from Dementors.

But that was just the first of many visits to this… august body. Some of those visits, he’d been called to task just like that first time. Some of them, he’d even been among the Wizengamot itself. That had been later on, when he’d tried far too late to take on his ancestral seats and use what political power they offered him to convince the Wizarding World of the threat they were facing.

… He failed them, having spurned all influence and politics up to that point, to not just his detriment, but the detriment of the entire world. Afterwards, his last time in front of the Wizengamot had been when he’d been called to account for his ‘terrorist activities’. Needless to say, that meeting had not gone well. He hoped this one would go better.

“Now calling a key witness, Harry James Potter, Heir to House Potter, to the stand.”

At the very least, he wasn’t being restrained this time. Harry stands in the center of the chamber but he does so unfettered, gazing around at the multitude of wizards and witches surrounding him. Lords and Ladies every one, with most of them being ancient and decrepit in a way that almost makes Harry want to curl his lip in a sneer.

He fights back the urge though. Voldemort had done a decent job of killing his parents’ generation off back during the Dark Lord’s first rise. The members of the Wizengamot who were left were those who had either sided with Lord Voldemort or had not spoken out against him and stayed locked behind the safety and security of their wards, craven cowards that they were.

Of course, there’s also Dumbledore. The Wizengamot’s Chief Warlock is currently presiding over this whole affair from the look of things. He’s the one who had introduced Harry to the chamber, and as Harry stands there waiting to be questioned, Dumbledore gives him a soft smile with a twinkle in his eye.

Recognizing the attempt at Legilimency for what it is, Harry considers whether to meet the old wizard’s eyes or not for a moment, knowing he’ll be able to block Dumbledore’s intrusion either way. Instead, he ultimately decides to play the lost innocent little lamb for a little longer, avoiding Albus’ gaze and searching out Amelia as an alternative.

The Director of the DMLE is up on her feet, prowling around the edge of the chamber’s inner circle like some sort of predator. Rather than presiding over these proceedings like she did back in his original Fifth Year, she seems to be on the attack.

As their eyes meet, Amelia gives him a sharp smile and makes her way over to him. Though when she speaks, she does so loud enough to be heard by everyone.

“As the chamber has already been made aware, Cornelius Fudge resigned as Minister of Magic this morning. He did so after confirming under magical oath the part he played in the unlawful detainment and imprisonment of Sirius Black, Lord of House Black. This chamber has also viewed the Pensieve Testimony of Lord Black as well at this point, and knows him to be innocent of the crimes he was never actually tried for.”

Oh? Harry resists the urge to raise an eyebrow, instead effecting a shocked look. He WAS surprised to hear Fudge had stepped down… but at the same time, it made sense. The man was a squirming lickspittle, through and through. That Fudge had ever even managed to become Minister of Magic in the first place was through a combination of Lucius Malfoy’s funding and the hard work of more component officials under him. Officials like Amelia Bones herself.

Having those officials turn on him had likely eroded his foundations and confidence far too much to continue. Though Harry had to admit, it surprised him that Malfoy had allowed Fudge to just… give up. After all, if Sirius were to be declared an actual criminal, perhaps through a sham trial that was nevertheless deemed ‘proper’ and ‘just’ by the Ministry of Magic, then the Black Family Fortune would default to Draco Malfoy.

Did Lucius not realize that? Or had he merely decided to cut his losses? Either way, it explained the lack of an attack on the way to the Wizengamot. The other side had already given up. Harry can’t help but be a little amused. His presence here wasn’t even really necessary… no, rather, he was just here to be part of Amelia’s victory lap.

No more is this evident then in the way Amelia questions him. They go over the facts of last year from his point of view, as well as Harry’s numerous encounters with Dementors. That’s where the first objection from the Wizengamot comes from though.

“Objection! We’re expected to believe this boy can generate a corporeal Patronus strong enough to fight off a hundred Dementors?!”

Harry doesn’t know who the Lord who pipes up is, but just from the ugly sneer on the man’s face, he can guess that it’s a former Death Eater. Both Dumbledore and Amelia look ready to intervene, the former with a grandfatherly smile on his wizened face and the latter with a thunderous scowl. But before they can, Harry just grins, playing into his youth a bit.

“I can show you all, if you like?”

Then, he lowers his eyes somewhat shyly.

“That is… if this esteemed body permits it, of course.”

His manners get him a long way with the neutral members of the Wizengamot, who Harry notices outnumber the former Death Eaters even with all the purging Voldemort managed to do during his First Rise. There’s some chuckling and tittering, before Neville’s grandmother, Augusta Longbottom, pipes up.

“I for one wouldn’t mind the show!”

She doesn’t smile as she says it, but her words definitely seem to carry some weight. And so, with a nod from Amelia, Harry pulls forth his wand from its holster and lifts it into the air, intoning the words.

“Expecto Patronum!”

From the tip of his wand, a brilliant white stag erupts, appearing before them all and glowing so brightly that many have to look away as it prances around the inner circle. Harry isn’t holding back right now… he’s using quite a lot of the magic that he’s gained from Bellatrix and Sinistra in order to bolster the patronus so that it is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the strongest any of them have ever seen.

Of course, he’s also using more than one happy memory at the same time, a technique that not many people knew was even possible. It was rather advanced, and only truly discovered when things went absolutely to shit in his old timeline. Things got so bad at a certain point that just one good memory wasn’t enough to produce a proper corporeal patronus anymore, so the technique to produce one using the culmination of all of one’s good memories came about.

Which was good, because with the Dementors roaming around and off their leash, being able to create a fully formed Patronus became the difference between life and death.

Harry lets his stag prance around the chamber for a good fifteen seconds, a broad smile on his boyish features the entire time, before finally letting it dissipate. In the shocked silence that follows, Harry looks right at the Lord who first questioned him, still smiling cheerily.

“I hope that helps assuage any doubts?”

Slowly, the nameless Lord nods and sits back down. After which, Amelia is able to get back to his questioning. Harry answers honestly, sort of wondering what she’s building up to if Sirius has already been exonerated… and then comes the question he probably should have been anticipating since the start of all of this.

“Now tell me, Harry… based on your experiences, did Professor Severus Snape know Lord Sirius Black was innocent and willfully lie to Cornelius Fudge in order to get the man Kissed anyways?”

Silence falls. The Wizengamot almost seems to collectively lean forward in anticipation of Harry’s next answer. He can feel Dumbledore’s eyes boring into the side of his head in particular, as if the Headmaster is trying to compel Harry to remember all the moments in which Albus tried to make Severus look better and more personable in his eyes. Funny really, because Dumbledore hadn’t even gotten a chance to try and force them together for Occlumency Lessons just yet.

It would seem that Amelia had decided on just what fish she was trying to hook here. In a way, it made sense. Fudge might have seemed like the biggest grab, but he was nothing more than a patsy. Incompetent? Yes. Moronic? Also yes. But outright malicious? No. Snape on the other hand, was more than a convenient scapegoat. He was actually guilty of the crime that Amelia was trying to pin him with. And with Sirius Black exonerated and therefore a proper Wizarding Lord of an Ancient and Noble House in his own right, Snape’s crime became a hundredfold worse, at least to the old and decrepit Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot.

Leaning forward, Harry answers clearly and concisely, without hesitation.

“Yes.”

Pandemonium erupts. Immediately, there are calls for Severus Snape’s head. Certainly, his arrest. Harry can’t help but be a little bemused, but it makes sense. He’s Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. There might have been rumors about him in his Second Year, but those mostly remained confined to Hogwarts. It wasn’t until after the end of his Fourth Year that the Ministry of Magic started their smear campaign against him. Right now, Harry Potter was still their Golden Boy. Untarnished and pure.

Heh, if only they knew. Still… Snape isn’t without his defenders, of course. Chief among them being the Chief Warlock himself. But Dumbledore is caught between a rock and a hard place. Harry can see that the old wizard wants to jump to Snape’s defense. But at the same time, he can’t destroy the veneer of impartiality he currently has.

Fortunately for Dumbledore, or perhaps unfortunately depending on how one looked at it, he doesn’t need to speak up.

“I must cast doubt upon young Mister Potter’s words.”

Harry raises an eyebrow as Lucius Malfoy finally speaks up. He’d clocked the Malfoy Lord earlier, but with Fudge out on his ass, he hadn’t been sure what Lucius would do. It would seem this was what Lord Malfoy had been waiting for… a chance to save his son’s godfather.

“As many here should be aware, my heir is in the same year as young Mister Potter at Hogwarts. Draco has spoken in depth about the enmity between Hogwarts’ Potion Professor and the Boy-Who-Lived. I am not convinced that Mister Potter can give an unbiased opinion on this subject.”

Amelia scoffs at that, immediately firing back.

“You’ve all seen Lord Black’s memories of last year and specifically of the night in question. Severus Snape knew that Sirius Black was innocent. And yet, he whispered lies into Fudge’s ears all the same. Are we supposed to ignore the attempt on a Wizard Lord’s life?”

Lucius rolls his eyes.

“My cousin Lord Black was unjustly locked up in Azkaban Prison for nearly a decade and a half. This, at least, is not in doubt. But I must confess, I worry about his mental state after such a long imprisonment… and by extension, the veracity of his memories. The injustice done against my cousin is already in the process of being righted. This… pursuit of an upstanding Professor of Hogwarts feels like the start of a witch hunt.”

Oh wow, Lucius went there. Judging by the murmurings of the other members of the Wizengamot and the narrowed eyes of Amelia, he might have scored some points against her as well. Harry found himself at a crossroads. Did he try and help? Or did he let Amelia handle it? Maybe he should signal to Amelia, as his other persona, to let it rest?

Snape was honestly small fry, and technically not on Voldemort’s side. As much of a piece of scum as the Potions Professor was, Harry didn’t really care what happened to him so long as he stayed in his lane. Frankly, he doubted Sirius cared either.

At this point, it felt more like Amelia was trying to nail the actual culprit to the wall in pursuit of justice more than political points. And that was brave and righteous of her, truly it was… but if it hurt her chances of becoming the next Minister of Magic, was it really worth it? Harry considers his options in silence for a long moment… and then makes his choice.