A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the bsp;to vote on the dire of the story!

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

  -x-X-x-

  He’s half-expeg to be attacked on their way to the Wizengamot. Not that there are that many opportuhey go via Floht 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 g 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 es. Harry ’t help but frown at that, w just what Amelia’s opposition is pnning. 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.

  Oher hand, if that were the case, then staking out his route to the Wizengamot and attag then would have been the best opportunity anyone who wao silence him would have had. The fact that no oried… well, it was iing to say the least.

  Then again, maybe Harry was overestimating their current enemies. After all, this teically 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 i in Fudge’s fuck-ups and Sirius Bck’s innoce.

  At the end of the day, their enemies were corrupt and inpetent gover 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 rge chamber and being escorted to the middle of the room. He remembers being brought here before, of course. In the inal timelihe earliest moment that he’d beeed 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 ter on, wheried far too te to take on his aral seats and use olitical power they offered him to vihe Wizarding World of the threat they were fag.

  … He failed them, having spurned all influend politics up to that point, to not just his detriment, but the detriment of the entire world. Afterwards, his st time in front of the Wizengamot had been when he’d been called to at 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 beiraihis time. Harry stands in the ter of the chamber but he does so uered, gazing around at the multitude of wizards and witches surrounding him. Lords and Ladies every one, with most of them being a 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 det job of killing his parents’ geion 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, Dumbledives him a soft smile with a twinkle in his eye.

  Reizing the attempt at Legilimency for what it is, Harry siders whether to meet the old wizard’s eyes or not for a moment, knowing he’ll be able to block Dumbledore’s intrusioher way. Instead, he ultimately decides to py the lost i little mb for a little longer, avoiding Albus’ gaze and searg 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 ba his inal Fifth Year, she seems to be oack.

  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, elius Fudge resigned as Minister of Magic this m. He did so after firming under magical oath the part he pyed in the unwful detai and impriso of Sirius Bck, Lord of House Bck. This chamber has also viewed the Peestimony of Lord Bck as well at this point, and knows him to be i of the crimes he was never actually tried for.”

  Oh? Harry resists the urge to raise an eyebrow, instead effeg a shocked look. He WAS surprised to hear Fudge had stepped down… but at the same time, it made sehe man was a squirming lickspittle, through and through. That Fudge had ever even mao beinister of Magi the first pce was through a bination of Lucius Malfoy’s funding and the hard work of more petent officials under him. Officials like Amelia Bones herself.

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

  Did Lucius not realize that? Or had he merely decided to cut his losses? Either way, it expihe ck of an atta the way to the Wizengamot. The other side had already given up. Harry ’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 p.

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

  “Obje! We’re expected to believe this boy gee 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 guess that it’s a former Death Eater. Both Dumbledore and Amelia look ready to intervehe former with a grandfatherly smile on his wizened fad the tter with a thunderous scowl. But before they , Harry just grins, pying into his youth a bit.

  “I 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 ral members of the Wizengamot, who Harry notices outhe former Death Eaters even with all the purging Voldemort mao d his First Rise. There’s some chug 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 shtly 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 Beltrix and Sinistra in order to bolster the patronus so that it is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the stro any of them have ever seen.

  Of course, he’s also using more than one happy memory at the same time, a teique 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 timelihings got so bad at a certain point that just one good memory wasn’t enough to produce a proper corporeal patronus anymore, so the teique to produe 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 differeween life ah.

  Harry lets his stag prance around the chamber food fifteen seds, a broad smile on his boyish features the eime, before finally letting it dissipate. In the shocked silehat follows, Harry loht 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 holy, sort of w what she’s building up to if Sirius has already been exoed… and then es the question he probably should have been anticipating sihe start of all of this.

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

  Silence falls. The Wizengamot almost seems to collectively lean forward in anticipation of Harry’s answer. He feel Dumbledore’s eyes b into the side of his head in particur, as if the Headmaster is trying to pel 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 ce 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. Inpetent? Yes. Moronic? Also yes. But ht malicious? No. Snape oher hand, was more than a ve scapegoat. He was actually guilty of the crime that Amelia was trying to pin him with. And with Sirius Bck exoed and therefore a proper Wizarding Lord of an A and Noble House in his ht, 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 cisely, without hesitation.

  “Yes.”

  Pandemonium erupts. Immediately, there are calls for Severus Snape’s head. Certainly, his arrest. Harry ’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 Sed Year, but those mostly remained fio 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 rod a hard pce. Harry see that the old wizard wants to jump to Snape’s defense. But at the same time, he ’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 o 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 ce 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 ih about the enmity between Hogwarts’ Potion Professor and the Boy-Who-Lived. I am not vihat Mister Potter give an unbiased opinion on this subject.”

  Amelia scoffs at that, immediately firing back.

  “You’ve all seen Lord Bck’s memories of st year and specifically of the night iion. Severus Snape khat Sirius Bck was i. A, he whispered lies into Fudge’s ears all the same. Are we supposed to ighe attempt on a Wizard Lord’s life?”

  Lucius rolls his eyes.

  “My cousin Lord Bck was unjustly locked up in Azkaban Prison for nearly a decade and a half. This, at least, is not in doubt. But I must fess, I worry about his mental state after such a long impriso… 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 ha? Maybe he should signal to Amelia, as his other persona, to let it rest?

  Snape was holy small fry, and teically not on Voldemort’s side. As much of a piece of scum as the Potions Professor was, Harry didn’t really care what happeo him so long as he stayed in his ne. 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 ces of being the Minister of Magic, was it really worth it? Harry siders his options in silence for a long moment… and then makes his choice.

  -x-X-x-

  The Patreon Vote:

  [ ] I himself into the versation to try and help Amelia out - 17%

  [X] Stand bad let her present her case, she's the professional - 67%

  [ ] Get her a secret message in his other persona to have her back off - 16%

  -x-X-x- If you'd like to read more of my work not seen on this website, check out Hentai-Foundry. and QuestionableQuesting. where I have over a thousand stories!

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