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Scorpius Malfoy and the Salem Witch Trials by Hotrav

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Harry looked up at the six people who were seated behind the arc-shaped table which focused all seated behind it at those who were giving testimony before them. They were as much strangers to him as he was to them.

When the list of those who would be at the hearing was published, Art had been very impressed by the names of the witches and wizards who would hear their testimony. He said that it was a who’s who of the American government from both the Legislative and Executive branches.

Harry entered the electrically lit hearing room on the first sub-level of the Old Navy Hospital Building. The wall paneling behind the dais was a deep oak, while the rest of the room’s walls were a light polished limestone.. The contrast in the colors made the people sitting at the high dais seemingly to be darker and harder to focus on their individual facial features as they tended to blend into the dark wood. The shiny white stone in combination with the electric lights seemed to light up the people being questioned. Harry bet that every bead of sweat that come to his face would be easily visible to the Americans.

As he entered, Harry was met by Art, Hermione, and Rebekka Dokes. Art and Hermione were dressed in their trademark perfect Muggle business attire. Harry was wearing a black silken dress robe, with a golden in-lay pattern of a sword (possibly Excalibur or the Sword of Gryffindor). The dress robe was one he had been presented with on his first triumphant appearance in front of the Wizengamot after his defeat of Voldemort. The only reason he was wearing such a gaudy item was that it was the only formal wear that Ginny and Hermione had brought for him to wear after he had been set free.

While he tugged self-consciously with the robe’s collar, Rebekka, sitting next to him, was serenely dressed in a form fitting green, gold and tan boubou with a maroon head wrap holding her hair. She had an easy smile on her face and looked like she did this every day. He had to remind himself that the impressive woman sitting next to him, with the regal bearing, was the same tentative, immigrant woman who Draco had hired three years ago as an assistant in his potion shop. Rebekka looked every bit the Island’s Priestess of Justice.

He took a breath to settle his nerves and said very softly to himself, –Now, it begins.”

Rebekka, without taking her gaze from the milling dignitaries, said, –Relax. You’ll do fine. They are no better than you or I. Although, I think they all might be better than March Lee.”

Harry smiled at her getting the Mickey on his former boss in London. Imagining all of them, as the pompous Minister of Magic re-focused him on his task. They were just politicians, same as all the people in the Ministry who had tried to stop his reforms of the Auror Office. He had bested that lot and this lot was the same.

The sound of a mallet hitting wood reverberated around the room and it caused the murmuring of small talk to come to an end. He sat straight up already beginning to feel the rising heat from the blasted dress robe and his own nerves. He hoped that his glasses would not fog up during what was to come.

Harry sat next to Rebekka with Hermione and Art seated behind. He wished that he could swap places with the two behind him. He didn’t like talking in public. He was trying hard to remember the opening introduction that he had practiced in his cell since they first proposed to cut him deal that got him to submit a never to be publically acknowledged written apology to the Americans in exchange for the dropping of charges.

A tall, thin man with a chin beard began to speak to the room at large. Harry counted as more ‘dignitaries’ entered on the other side of the dais making the total well over a dozen. He was one of four seated in front of them and just under a dozen sat behind Hermione and Art in the audience. Harry had noticed, with some pleasure, Rita Skeeter had skulked out of his Salem trial with no big juicy story to print in the Prophet. Funny, if she had only waited a couple of days she would have had possibly had an article with some ‘real’ news not the gossip she like to peddle.

The tall man finished his opening comments and looked down his chin beard at Harry. He missed the significance of the man’s action until Hermione, through clenched teeth, forced out one barely audible word. –Harry!”

He tried to hide his faux-pas with a nod and be began his speech. –My name is Harry James Potter and I’m a citizen of Great Britain. I currently hold no position in Britain’s Ministry of Magic. I speak to you as a citizen of my country and a wizard in the modern world."

Harry paused to swallow, he had to get this right lives depended on this. "As a citizen of Britain, I have twice lived through the overthrow of my Ministry by criminals. In a short span of two decades, my witch and wizard, sisters and brothers, have been hunted down and slaughtered because of an accident of their birth or heritage. During our last trouble, our underground sent out wireless requests for help, anybody’s help. And who came to our aid: Nobody. Not the United States, nor Canada, nor did any of our European neighbors came to our aid. I can only imagine what just a dozen or so of your elite N.A.M.E.D. agents could have done in concert with Order of the Phoenix at the battle of Hogwarts. I wonder how many lives could have been saved. We must not let this happen again. I don’t care how it is organized or whom is to lead it. We must, as freedom loving magic users, not allow such to happen to our children.”

Harry looked down at the table and started to well up with emotion as he caught a mental image of his children making a last stand with their friends fighting Lucius Malfoy and his minions. He looked up at the panel and said, –Sorry. The faces of those who perished and those who may have to pay the same price in the near future came to me and-. I do not blame the countries or people that I named earlier, but I know that if the United Magical States of America had sent out requests, we would not have come to your aid. I apologize to you for our short-sidedness. Magic is so powerful and it so easily bends the weak and the greedy. We, as the world’s magical people, learned the wrong lesson after we all teamed up to defeat Grindelwald. We all turned inward to protect our own and to not get involved in external affairs. How many will die, if we don’t change our ways?”

Harry lowered his head. He had gone off track in the middle of his speech and spoken off-of-the-cuff. He could also feel Hermione silently coaxing him to return to the practiced speech. He couldn’t. Hermione was the one who drew her power for public speaking from the intellect. He had learned to trust his heart. It was his heart that Tom Riddle couldn’t cope with, the heart that won Ginny’s hand in marriage, and that made his Auror’s follow him. He knew what he said was what he had to say, what he knew would happen from the moment that he had heard about the Tower of London heist. If they were going to truly defeat Lucius; Britain needed the help of the world to do so.

He looked up and realized that the man with the chin whiskers was introducing the other scheduled speaker. He listened to the credentials of Rebekka Dokes. He felt lessened when he compared himself to her credentials; he, Art, and Hermione were relative amateurs in this arena.

Rebekka Dokes looked up at the people on the other side of the barrier. She made a point of fixing their stares with one of her own. Unlike Harry, whose tone bordered on pleading, she was commanding her audience’s attention. She took one big breath that seemed to not only expand her chest, but by sitting as straight as possible made her seem to grow inches right in front of your eyes.

–Almost a decade ago, the area surrounding my homeland was rocked with a major earthquake and a tsunami that struck our island instead of our neighbors. When the disaster occurred, Muggles rushed in aid from all around the world to help their own in Haiti. We, who are just off their shore, were left by our Magical brethren to fend for ourselves. I wonder why the Muggles can help their brothers and sisters, but we prideful, more powerful witches and wizards cannot be bothered to help.” She paused and again made eye contact with those behind the desk.

Rebekka turned toward Harry and placed her hand on top of his. –I must apologize to my friend, Harry Potter, about the war that he and his friends fought alone. I wish we could have helped you.” Harry found himself smiling at nodding at the woman.

–In preparing for my testimony, I came across something said by one of this nation’s founders. I believe it was the Muggle Benjamin Franklin that said ‘that we must hang together or else we will hang separately.’ We, who have the joint cursing and blessing of the gift of magic, must join together for our own protection and our way of life. However, it is most important for us to act now for the protection of our children, so they do not have to fight for their lives like my British friends did.” Rebekka turned toward Harry, gave him a bow, and once again patted his hand.

Harry watched as the people behind the table fidgeted as Rebekka spoke. When she had apologized, he saw a couple of them turn to people who had been standing behind them. He was uncertain if his testimony had swayed the listeners, but he knew Rebekka Dokes had touched either their hearts or their pride.


Hogwarts

Scorpius was surprised when Beatrice Dragonherd sat down on the Great Hall’s bench in between him and Rose. Bea’s sudden appearance confused the two older Gryffindors. –Remember, what happened to Maggie and Jen after your Friday D.A.D.A. class?”

–Yeah,” he said.

On Friday, Jen and Maggie were the last two students to walk out of Professor Dawlish’s classroom, they suddenly found themselves upside down dangling by their ankles. As they spun upside down, Vestara Vesper gave a critic of their undergarments to a group of mostly girl Slytherins, who laughed and taunted their victims.

When she hear the cries for help, Rose led a charge of the rest of the third year Gryffindors back up the hallway to rescue the girls. When they got there, Rose quickly used a silently cast spell to return her housemates back to the ground. During the rescue, the Slytherins had scattered, but Maggie had been devastated by the public humiliation.

–Don’t look at her. I want it to be a surprise.” As Bea finished, Abby, Lily, and Hugo brought Jen and Maggie to sit next to Rose facing Vestara. –Enjoy it, compliments of the ‘Little Sisters Squad’.” Bea smiled and jerked her head to the head of the Slytherin table where Vestara sat near to Geoffrey Grindus.

The Great Hall was nearly full of students eating a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast prior to Chapel; so every house and class would have witnesses to what was to come as payback for messing with Gryffindor House.

Above the Slytherin table, Peeves floated towards Vesper. The Slytherin girl, who was unsuccessfully flirting with Geoffrey, never knew what was happening until the bucket of soupy, muddy water splashed down upon her head. The force of the mud hitting the top of her head slammed her forehead into the table and Geoffrey, using his Quidditch skills, jumped up missing most of the mess.

–Now, that is definitely an improvement! You should leave others alone Vespy, unless you want Peeves-y to let everyone see what color your knickers are.” Having passed his judgment, the poltergeist disappeared through the floor of the Great Hall and escaping any consequences for his actions.

The Gryffindors around Bea and Lily tried their best to keep their composure. They failed. Suddenly the magically amplified voice of Professor Longbottom boomed from the Staff table. –I want to see Lily Potter, Beatrice Dragonherd, Cristabel Abigail Baird, and Hugo Weasley in my Greenhouse office, now!”

Beatrice and Lily looked resigned to any punishment they were going about to receive. Abby was only angry that her Head-of-house had used her real first name in front of the whole school.

Only Hugo looked anguished, –Rose, I didn’t do anything; it was all their idea.”

Lily turned on her cousin, –Remember, you are all in with us or there is a price you’ll pay.” Hugo looked up where Peeves had been. He swallowed, nodded, and began to trudge along the side of the three girls toward the Great Hall doors. As they got near the end of the Gryffindor table, Roxanne Weasley and a group of other fifth year students stood and began to applaud the little sisters plus one as they went to meet their fate.

Scorpius turned to see Vestara and her friends using spells to remove the mess from her hair as they glared at backs of the exiting younger girls. The entire house would have to be on the lookout to protect the first years. He knew Vestara and her friends had a couple of cement headed boys thinking they were next in line to be their boyfriends and they would do anything Vestara wanted just to impress her. However, with the whole Gryffindor house alerted to the danger, the four were pretty safe. He honestly didn’t know if in a straight-on fight which side would need the most defending. If he had to, he’d put money on the Bea and her friends over the Vesper and her friends.


The Burrow

Ginny and Molly floated the cake out of the kitchen into the Weasley family living room and landed in on the low table directly in front of Harry. The cake was huge and featured his image dressed in striped prisoners garb behind a row of bars. The dessert had to be large because beside his wife, his mother-and-father-in-law, all of Harry’s brother-and-sisters-in-law (except Charlie), senior members of the Auror’s Office and godson Teddy Lupin with his new wife Victorie’ were all applauding the cake’s arrival.

The children were still in Hogwarts, but the table was full of notes and cards of congratulations which had arrived via owl post this afternoon. And a special owl had arrived carrying a visitor’s pass for two from Neville so he and Ginny could go up to visit the school next week and see Gryffindor play Hufflepuff for the Quidditch Cup. He couldn’t wait to hug each of his kids. He knew that they would squirm and complain about the attention in front of their school mates. He didn’t care, because each one would get a hug and a kiss in front of anyone who happened to be present.

Harry basked in the love of his family. While they were dating, during Ginny first year playing for the Harpies, they had all been to the Burrow for someone’s birthday party. Ginny had playfully asked if he loved her or her family. He had feigned a long consideration, which got him a punch in the arm and a reminder from Ginny about what was better her mother’s cooking or her in his bed. He smiled, kissed Ginny (which got a roar from George and Ron) and turned to thank all of them for their love.

With the kids at Hogwarts, no job to go to and Ginny being two weeks away from her first training camp as Coach, he and Ginny would spend a long night and maybe a morning trying to recapture all that they had taken for granted too recently. As she tried to help her mom serve, he grasped her hand and pulled her back over the arm of the cushy ‘chair of honor’ and onto his lap. Within an instant, he was kissing her again.


Hogsmeade

Albus and Rose sat at the table of the Three Broomsticks, he was reading the most recent issue of ‘Marvin the Muggle’. They had not ordered lunch yet, because they were waiting for Scorpius to return from the loo. The trio had spent the whole morning of their day in the village buying candies and such at Honeydukes. And not once had Scorp looked over at Rose with those silly lovesick eyes and neither had he attempted to hold her hand. It was almost like they were really just going to be ‘friends’. The thought relaxed him as he had worried about what to do if his best two friends could not get past this stupid ‘love’ business that had made the last two years very uncomfortable for him. So, they had decided to eat at the Three Broomsticks and return in time for another Quidditch practice to prepare them for their match, next Saturday, up against Hufflepuff and Rhys Jones.

However, Malfoy had been gone at almost fifteen minutes. Rose made a coughing noise, which he ignored and next she kicked his shin from across the table.

–Oww!”

–Don’t you think you should go see to him?”

Albus returned a face full of utter incomprehension. –Boys don’t go to the loo in groups. It’s only you girls who do that. I mean it would be just too weird for boys to go in bunches.”

Rose answered with her angry I-know-better-than-you-do face. Albus sighed, placed his comic face down, slowly stood, and with slow deliberate steps walked toward the taverns loo. Albus knocked on the door and said something to Scorpius. No one answered, so he opened the door and entered in.

The smell was a bit fresher than normal, because the window in the lavatory stood wide open. Albus looked under the stall doors and shouted, –Scorpius!” The only thing he saw was a green shiny rock on the floor in front of the first stall and the only reply was the sound of noise coming into the loo from the alleyway. He was alone in room.

As he turned to leave and he spied something that made his stomach drop. He opened the door and shouted Rose’s name. She must have sensed the panic in his voice as she ran across the tavern and drew her wand out of her purse on the way to the lavatory. Albus pushed open the door so she could enter inside, but she took one step in and made a gasping sound caused by the strong smells of the unfamiliar place. She started to speak to admonish him, but then she saw what had so frightened her cousin. On the bathroom mirror something was written in a bright red, shinny substance. The message read:

I have the boy

Rose ran out of the loo and ran to the bartender. He at first ignored her as he was chatting up a seventh year girl who was trying to cash a free drink. As Rose tried to get his attention, Albus jumped using a bar stool as a ladder stepped onto the bar.

The startled barkeep began to complain when Albus shouted. –There’s been a kidnapping right here in your boys’ lavatory. You best get the Aurors here fast, because the boy who was kidnapped is Lucius Malfoy’s grandson.”

The barkeep’s face went ashen and he nodded vigorously. He reached over to the wall where business cards were affixed. He grabbed one, read the instruction, pulled out his wand from a hiding place under the bar, making a back and forth movement by his ear and said aloud. –Sarah Broomwright, we need to talk with you, immediately.”

Within seconds, Auror Broomwright with her partner Rory Smythe stepped out of the fireplace walked into the bar and marched straight up to the bartender, Rose, and Albus, who was still standing on the bar.

Without any prompting, she took in the group and asked Rose, –Where’s the Malfoy boy? What’s happened?”