Chapter 34

XXXIV.

Severus snorted, but subsided. Albus spoke in his place. His voice fell on the suddenly quiet hall with remarkable calmness, yet with a tangle strength that belied his fragile appearance.

"My name, Iantha, is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. The Albus Dumbledore, former Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot, and former Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for nearly the last thirty-eight years. And if you want further proof, you presided over my N.E.W.T.-level tests as a junior examiner back in '62. 1862, to be precise.

"You wore a hoop skirt--the latest in Muggle fashion--in a lovely shade of periwinkle blue that brought out the violet blue of your eyes, and you carried a lace parasol dyed to match the exact same shade as the ruffles of your gown. It looked quite fetching on you; half of the seventh year males could hardly concentrate on our Transfiguration exams, because of it. Myself included."

Madam Marchbanks blushed a little. "--That's the real Albus."

"...Right, then. You tell us what the ruddy blue blazes has been going on, Albus," the Head of the Department of Law demanded briskly, fixing Albus with her hazel green eyes. "And don't take all day about it, either! Start with that spell you and your brother were casting."

"The Unspeakable Vow was cast upon Severus Snape by myself just shy of 22 years ago, on the night of June 17th, 1978," Albus stated briskly. "His mother had just been murdered by unknown Death Eaters, and though he himself had just joined their ranks, seduced by various promises, rhetoric and double-talk, he realized he had made a mistake in doing so, and was willing to turn himself into a spy amidst their ranks on my behalf. In order to do so, I had to put him through an intense course of Occlumency training to protect any stray thoughts and emotions from surfacing, and I had to cast the ancient Unspeakable Vow, to prevent him from saying through either free will, accident, or coercion, anything about certain aspects of the bargain we had just struck.

"Included in this bargain was an ancient Fides Oath ensuring his loyalty to me, and through it, an enchantment-enhanced vow for him to obey my commands when I addressed him as 'Severus Snape', thus providing an extra layer of control over the spy I was sending into Tom Riddle's ranks. For all of the following years since that night, Severus has served me loyally, faithfully, and fully as I have asked him to obey. But as the Wizengamot knows the testimony that was given on his behalf for the previous war with Voldemort, and as I suspect the main reason why he is here in this courtroom once again is to answer for the charge of my murder at his hands, I shall address those questions immediately."

"Please do," Philliston agreed dryly, as the enchanted quills scribbled madly away, recording everything being said. Not just the quills tended by Percy and Malynda, but the quills wielded by the fifth estate of the wizarding world, reporters from The Daily Prophet, The Quibbler, Witch Weekly and other such journals, and the magical equivalent to microphones from the representatives of the Wizarding Wireless Network.

"I had suspected for some time that Tom--Lord Voldemort," Albus explained, "had split his soul into the murder-created abominations known as Horcruxes. More than one, in fact. Upon tracking down one of these abominable Artifacts, a ring once owned by Salazar Slytherin, I found myself embroiled in a wizarding duel with Voldemort himself. After destroying the ring at the cost of a grave injury to myself, and parting in a mutual retreat from my adversary, I sought out Severus' company, and discussed my situation with him. I did not mention the Horcruxes to him, as that would have taxed even his phenomenal ability to conceal his thoughts and feelings, but I did warn him to be on the lookout for any objects that the Dark Lord had an unusual interest in, or any specific locations he might suddenly visit, that sort of thing.

"Shortly after that conversation, Severus contacted me, and told me that Narcissa Malfoy had bound him in an Unbreakable Vow to assist Draco Malfoy in attempting to end my life, among other matters. He did not want to go through with it, but because of his Fides Oath to me, Severus had already sworn to take whatever steps were necessary to appear to remain a loyal Death Eater in the eyes of both Lord Voldemort, and his fellow Death Eaters. Which Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Lestrange were, themselves. Because of this Oath," Albus warned the entire courtroom, "every action as a Death Eater that Severus has undertaken since it was cast upon him at the tender age of eighteen...is my responsibility to bear.

"He has simply been following my orders all along. As any soldier must follow the orders of his superior, in a war."

"--I knew it!" a voice shouted from the stands, startling everyone. It belonged to Cornelius Fudge, seated halfway around the room from the Weasleys, but on the same tier. "I knew Albus Dumbledore had been secretly creating an army all along! Proof positive, from his own lips! He took the Veritaserum! You know it's the truth!"

"Mr. Fudge, seat yourself immediately!" Philliston snapped, banging her gavel. "I remind you all to keep your outbursts to a minimum. This is a Hall of Justice, not a Hall of Tabloid Gossip!"

"I want to know something!" The new voice came from Harry Potter, who rose from his seat, his fists clenched at his sides. "If Snape was your spy on Voldemort since his school-days, then why was he spying on you and Sibyll Trelawney, that night at the Hogs Head, when the Prophecy about myself and Voldemort was given? Why did he spy on you, and then turn that information over to Voldemort?"

"...A very good question, Harry," Albus returned smoothly as Priscilla lifted her gavel to bang it again. She set it down as he continued. "Severus, would you care to answer that one?"

"No, I would not. The brat clearly just wants to foment the sentiments of the crowd against me, until he can form an unstoppable lynch-mob ending in my cold-blooded murder...for which he will escape unscathed like a sweet-smelling rose growing in the midst of a pile of turds."

Harry flushed a deep red, at that. Madam Marchbanks, on the other hand, bit her lower lip, snorting with the effort to contain a laugh. "How truthfully spoken...if highly inappropriately phrased. Watch your language, young man."

Albus sighed heavily. "...Just answer the damned question, Severus Snape!"

"Bastard," Severus retorted, but complied. His eyes gleamed as a pair of jet-hued slits as he spoke. "I had been tracking down Albus to give him a report. When I learnt he had gone to the Hogs Head, I followed and asked Aberforth where he was. Abe took me upstairs to see him. That was when I overheard the start of the Prophecy.

"When I realized what I was hearing was an obscure reference to the Dark Lord's downfall, I hurried to get away. Aberforth assisted me, but we were spotted by patrons, and he collared me and dragged me back, enacting the deception that he had caught me eavesdropping and was chasing me out of his inn, before deciding to let the people I was spying upon confront me for my duplicity instead. It was one of those rapidly made changes of plan, the sort that you just go with the flow.

"Since I had been spotted by others of Abe's rather dubious clientele," he continued dryly, "I had to explain to the Dark Lord why I'd been lurking and had gotten caught in that corridor. I still wasn't as practiced then in the art of Occlumency, and could only put my own twist upon what little I had overheard."

"--I would like to point out that the Prophecy in question did not address anyone by name, other than references to the Dark Lord," Albus stated. "I state this because Severus was under the obligation of a life-debt to James Potter, which has since been transferred to Harry Potter, James Potter's son."

"What is this Prophecy, exactly?" Priscilla asked, frowning at the elderly wizard. "I keep hearing about it, but no one knows the exact text, save for perhaps you. What is it, Albus?"

Tipping his head back slightly, the bearded wizard frowned, then recited, "...The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

The words, recited so blandly, seemed almost silly, but their impact went deeper than merely the ear.

Albus continued his tale. "After both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter were born on the last day of July, I realized who the Prophecy potentially referred to, and had both the Longbottoms and the Potters go into hiding...but the Longbottoms were caught and tortured into madness by Barty Crouch Junior and the Lestranges before their safety could be secured. The Potters were put under the Fidelius Charm to hide them.

"It was believed at the time that Sirius Black was their Secret-Keeper, but instead, they chose to make Peter Pettigrew their Secret-Keeper, since Sirius believed that Voldemort would go after him as the most likely target, and never think that someone as weak-willed as Peter could be trusted with such a task. Unfortunately, as we learnt much later, Peter was secretly already a Servant of Lord Voldemort's," Albus stated, oblivious to the hissing of indrawn breath, and the rustle of clothing as the wizards and witches around the room flinched from the forbidden name, "and faked his own death, cutting off his own finger as well as killing several Muggles in the effort to frame Sirius Black. The ruse and sacrifice allowed himself to escape and hide as an unregistered Animagus for many years, before returning to the Dark Lord's service.

"And I would like to point out that, because of something the Ministry only believed to be true, a very good man was incarcerated without a full and proper trial, and without the truth-telling effects of Veritaserum assisting in getting to the bottom of that particular mess," the aging wizard told everyone bluntly. "Because Sirius Black was wrongfully imprisoned by the thoughtless, frightened mob that ruled over the Wizengamot at the time, the real accomplice in the murders of James and Lily Potter went free, and was there to assist in resurrecting his master thirteen years later. Do not make that same mistake again, here and now. None of you know the full truth in this matter, save for myself and Severus.

"That is why we are supposed to have the due process of law," Albus finished firmly. "To prevent innocent men from being incarcerated for crimes they did not commit."

"--But he killed you!" Harry shouted, hurrying down the stairs next to his seat, his hands balled into fists again. Hermione hoped and prayed his wand had been confiscated on his way into the Ministry, watching her blood-bound brother warily as he continued his accusations. "I saw him do it! He cast the Killing Curse on you, and knocked you over the parapet of the Astronomy Tower!"

Bang! "--Mr. Potter! Step one foot on the floor, and I will hold you in contempt of this court!" Philliston snapped. Harry stopped a few steps from the bottom and moved no further, but he didn't retreat, either.

"Severus Snape, kindly explain the string of events that happened on that night, as you knew them," Albus instructed his former colleague.

"Bastard," the black-haired wizard retorted, but complied. "I had only recently learnt of Draco's second task, repairing the Artifact known as the Vanishing Cabinet, to allow the Death Eaters to invade the school. He had lied to me out of fear of me, and said he wasn't near finishing that aspect of his task, so I was caught off guard as to the timing of it. But when Filius Flitwick came running to me with reports of Death Eaters in the halls, I knew what I had to do. First, I Stunned Filius, so that he couldn't muck things up with any interference."

"...Severus, how could you?" squeaked the diminutive wizard seated up among the Wizengamot benches.

"Quite easily. You're almost as gullible as a Hufflepuff, when it comes to trusting your friends," Severus returned with too much honesty. "Be glad I made sure you fell on a temporary Cushioning Charm, so that you weren't injured. I then activated a Locational Map that Albus had given to me, noted where Albus and Draco were standing, Summoned Aberforth with one of Fawkes' feathers, and popped my head through the Floo to tell Poppy Pomfrey to be ready and waiting for Old Abe at the base of the Astronomy Tower. I then Floo'd to the nearest unoccupied classroom, raced up the stairs, and arrived just in time to see Draco utterly failing to kill Albus.

"I had already argued myself blue in the face to try and wriggle out of this moment, but Albus had reactivated that damned Fides Oath out in the Forbidden Forest some days before. I would rather have failed and dropped dead, but he begged me to follow through, that night on the Tower. So I tapped into my hatred of what he was making me do, and knocked him off the Tower with the Killing Curse, and took charge of Draco Malfoy, with the intent to navigate him through the mess he'd just created, shredding his reputation among the Death Eaters, in the hopes of keeping him alive. Which I have since managed to do."

"Why were Madam Pomfrey and Aberforth Dumbledore summoned to the bottom of the Astronomy Tower?" St. James asked him. "What happened then?"

"Apparently what was supposed to happen, of course. Though I wasn't exactly in a position to witness those things firsthand," Severus retorted. "Poppy and Aberforth were to catch his falling body. Poppy was also to have brought Fawkes with her, whereupon she was to have traded the phoenix for Albus' body. Aberforth was to Transfigure the phoenix into a likeness of the Headmaster body after it having died and smashed itself on the ground, while she hustled Albus' real body into the dungeons via a secret entrance on the grounds not far from the Tower, where she was to have performed a Muggle life-saving technique, CPR, or Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, upon him in the attempt to revive him from his death. Which, as you can see for yourselves, obviously succeeded.

"It was a long-shot, but it was all we had as a defence against Draco's geas for one of us to kill him. If I had let one of the other Death Eaters attempt to kill him, it might not have been a clean death," Severus stated as the room erupted in a swell of startled murmurs.

"How did you know that this Muggle thing would work?" Philliston asked him, incredulous.

"I didn't," Snape confessed bluntly, his face still bearing that slackness that said the Veritaserum was keeping him from struggling. But his voice continued to hold at least three-quarters of its characteristic bite. "I was acting on faith, as well as under the pressure of the Fides Oath I had taken. Try not to forget that, nor that all of these things are only suppositions, based on what I knew the plan would be, and confirmed on my observations of all that happened afterwards."

Albus took over. He, too, was looking relaxed under the influence of the Truth Serum, but he had taken a much smaller dose of it, and it showed in his responses. "Once Aberforth Transformed Fawkes into a replica of myself, one that looked as if I had indeed smashed into the ground from such a long fall," Albus continued for him, "he rejoined Poppy and assisted her in reviving and healing me. But I was too ill by then to remain among the living.

"As a part of our Plan B, he instead enchanted me into a portrait likeness of myself, and arranged for it to be displayed in the Headmaster's office, making it seem as if I was permanently dead. The terms of the Trump la Vie enchantment he used were very strict; I could only be released by the eye-witnessed confirmation of Lord Voldemort's death, or the eye-witnessed confirmation of Severus Snape's death."

"Why those two deaths?" St. James asked him, marking something on a scroll in front of him. The question seemed casual, but there were many faces in the tiers of the chamber that seemed just as curious to know the answer.

"If Voldemort died, then the war would be over, and Severus would need my assistance in clearing his name, as you can see for yourselves by my presence here and now," Albus stated blandly, before continuing with more vigor. "If Severus died, then the war would be in grave danger of being lost, and my services would be needed to hopefully compensate for the loss of our most powerful tool. Knowledge garnered straight from Riddle's lips, by the carefully listening, painstakingly hidden ears of Severus Snape. I am here to defend him because everything he did, he did at my command...and everything that he did saved many more lives than any that he injured in the course of his obedience to my command. Many more innocent lives than the Ministry and the rest of the wizarding world has yet to realize."

"But he killed you!" Harry protested fiercely, clinging to the back of one of the law-clerks' seats. "He murdered you! If it weren't for Snape, you wouldn't have died! He used an Unforgivable on you!"

Albus lolled his head to that side, craning to look over his spectacles at his former student. "Actually, Harry, that's not true. Yes, he technically killed me, but you see, I was already dying, that night. I still am, in fact."

"You...what?" Harry gaped, taken aback. "But--how can--why? How?"

"By poison, of course. Don't you remember, Harry?" Albus prodded him, his gaze dull and his voice incongruously light. "You forced it down my throat yourself, the night of May 23rd. Back when we were at that seaside cave."

Pandemonium. Harry's eyes widened so much, Hermione could see the whites all the way around. He paled and looked at the shouting, questioning, cursing, confused crowd of wizards and witches around him. "I didn't--I never--I didn't do it!"

"Order! Order!" Madam Philliston demanded, banging her gavel repeatedly against its anvil. It took over a minute for the furor to died down. Only two voices remained: the soft chuckling of the black-haired man bound in chains to the heavy wooden chair in the center of the floor, and the frantic denials of the black-haired young man standing a few yards away on the steps of the courtroom tiers.

"--I didn't do it, I swear! I never would have! He's always been like a father to me! I wouldn't ever..."

"...Isn't it fascinating, Potter," Snape sneered with bitter sardonicism where he slouched in his seat, "how quickly public opinion can turn against even a so-called hero? I've been working to end this war, suffering for decades, and that is the reaction I have always received. I told you years ago, boy, that fame isn't everything!"

"Silence, Mr. Snape. Mr. Dumbledore, please explain yourself!" Priscilla ordered him.

"It's quite simple, Madam Philliston. If Severus hadn't killed me in such a quick, painless, and resurrectable manner--sparing me from a potentially worse fate at the hands of the Death Eaters gathered there, saving his own life from his Unbroken Vow, and protecting our sole pipeline of information out of the enemy encampment--the poison that young Harry poured down my throat certainly would have done the job in a couple more days.

"Which it still will do, technically speaking. Unless Poppy has figured out a cure in the last couple of hours, a cure which she has searched for fruitlessly in the past eleven months since my death and partial resurrection, and utterly failed to find...I will die in less than two days, by her best estimate," he stated.

Again, chaos reigned. Madam Philliston banged her gavel several times, calling for order. It came with a general grumble, the noise dropping down to a few murmurs and the rapid-fire scritchings of quills against pages of notes being taken by law-clerks and journalists alike.

"...But, why did he poison you?" one of the witches of the upper ranks of the Wizengamot called out.

"Because I ordered him to!" A huff of impatient breath ruffled Dumbledore's beard. "Do you really think such a kind-hearted boy as Harry Potter would have it within him to deliberately poison anyone?"

"I didn't know it was poison!" Harry protested. "You ordered me to make you drink that glowing liquid we found, so we could get at the locket. You ordered me to feed you all of it, because it was the only way we could reach that locket!" He looked at the trio of judges. "We thought it was one of the Horcruxes, a locket that used to belong to Voldemort's mother, another heirloom of Salazar Slytherin's, like the ring! But it turned out to be a decoy planted by Regulus Black. We found the real locket and...and...Hermione destroyed it by dragging it between Ron and a Killing Curse cast at him by Bellatrix Lestrange, but long before that, we thought the one in the cave was the real Horcrux! It wasn't until after Professor Dumbledore died that we realized the locket we'd retrieved from that cave was a fake!"

"Yes, and the liquid resisted all attempts to be moved away from the locket, save for an attempt to drink it. I suspected the potion in that bowl was a poison the moment I realized it had to be drunk to be removed from blocking our way to the locket," Albus confirmed. "A pity the locket wasn't real... But I knew that the Prophecy demanded that Harry live long enough to face down Riddle in a final confrontation, and as there was only two of us, I knew I had to be the one to drink it. So I ordered Harry to feed it to me, and to keep feeding it to me until it was gone."

"But I didn't know it was a poison!" Harry protested. "I knew it had to be bad, but...all I did was what you told me to do!"

"Ironic, isn't it?" That came from Snape. He lolled his head to the side and smiled an almost Russel-style smile at Harry. "I did the exact same thing that you did, you little twit, following Albus' orders oh, so obediently, and still, you try to crucify me for it! I always knew you were an hypocrite."

Harry flushed, his hands fisting and rising. To Hermione's relief, Priscilla whacked her gavel on the bench in front of her again. "Mr. Snape, try to hold your tongue!"

"Your lack-witted lackey gave me an overdose of Veritaserum, madam, so I cannot do so figuratively, and you yourself chained me to this chair, so I cannot do so literally!" he snarked at the Head of the Law Department.

"--Be silent!" she amended, briefly flustered as she glared at him. He subsided, and she returned her attention to Albus, smoothing back her steely-grey curls. "So you are saying, Albus, that if Severus Snape had not killed you, on the night of May 23rd, you still would have died by a poison administered to you by Harry Potter? One that he only administered upon your own orders?"

"Yes," Albus agreed, nodding his head limply despite the strength in his voice. "Of course, no one here would even think of prosecuting Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived Twice! He was just following my orders...and if he hadn't followed all of my orders, including the one to seek out and destroy the remaining Horcruxes, we'd still be battling Riddle, rather than sitting in this courtroom, today... But if you cannot prosecute young Harry for following my orders, then you cannot prosecute Severus for doing the exact same thing."

"But I was never a Death Eater!" Harry protested.

"You hypocrite!" Hermione snapped, bolting to her feet as the quills scratched madly away, and the cream of the wizarding world crammed into the courtroom listened avidly. "You forgave Draco Malfoy because you witnessed him unwilling to kill Albus Dumbledore--and yet Draco joined the Death Eaters, and agreed to not only try to kill the Headmaster, but to help the Death Eaters invade Hogwarts--an act which he succeeded in doing!

"Severus joined the Death Eaters when he was no older than Draco, and he realized at the same age that he'd made a monumental mistake in doing so, that he was in over his head! How is that any different from Draco?" she demanded, pointing at her husband. "Severus Snape, at least, worked his arse off after he realized his mistake, risking his life over and over and over to bring back information for Albus to use!

"Draco sabotaged his own efforts in trying to remove the Headmaster by proxy, and he couldn't do it directly in the battle at the school. And when the final conflict came, he cast the defining spell that crippled the remaining Death Eaters beyond any threat to us, allowing us our chance to slay Voldemort as well as giving himself a chance to redeem what he had mistakenly done earlier--but how does that compare to the dozens of lives that Severus has saved over the last few decades of his life?

"You are an O-Level Arse, Harry Potter-Granger! How many lives did you save? Sure, we can speculate that you saved plenty of lives when you were a baby, when the first part of the Prophecy came true," she dismissed scathingly, "and speculate how many more you saved by offing the bastard again for good, two nights ago--but the numbers of lives that Snape has saved are cold, hard facts!

"You had a Prophecy guaranteeing that it would come down to just you or Voldemort. The only thing Snape had on his side for twenty long years was a level of courage and determination that would've made Godric Gryffindor himself weep for the awe of it!"

The silence following her words poured into the space between her and Harry. She watched his face crumple, watched his hatred of Snape warring with the shame pricking him at her words. Softening her tone, though not her message, she added the final blow.

"Harry, you're mad at Snape because you want to think it's Snape's fault that Sirius rushed here to save us from those Death Eaters, two years ago. I think you're blaming him because you're afraid that if you don't, you'll have to blame yourself. It was your decision to come here, after all, and that set the whole chain of events into motion...and you don't want to take responsibility for luring an innocent man whom you admired to his death. But Sirius was an adult," she emphasized. "He knew what the risks were. He knew he had to practice self-control and stay hidden to keep himself safe. He chose to come here. But even then, it wasn't his fault. He didn't throw himself through that gate-thing. Bellatrix Lestrange did that. She could just as easily have thrown me through that thing!

"And if she had, it still wouldn't have been Snape's fault, or your fault! Nor my own, but the fault of the Death Eater who did the throwing! A true adult accepts responsibility for their actions...but you also don't accept what's not your due, because that would be an injustice. It is also an injustice to place blame where blame isn't due! And don't you dare demand that I choose sides between the two of you. Whichever one of you forces me to choose sides, that is the idiot whose side I will not choose! I don't have to choose sides, if I don't want to!

"You are my brother. Severus is my husband. Albus is dying, and Voldemort is dead! Get over it!"

Priscilla Philliston cleared her throat. "...As fascinating as your lecture has been, Mrs. Snape, I must ask that you seat yourself and be silent. This is the trial of Severus Snape, not of Harry Potter, nor Draco Malfoy--nor of yourself or anyone else, for that matter!"

"My apologies, Madam." Reseating herself, Hermione folded her arms under her breasts. She could feel her limbs trembling with overwrought emotions, but it looked like she had finally gotten through her blood-bound brother's thick skull that two plus two did not equal five anymore.

"Accepted," Priscilla grunted. Then sighed heavily. "We will have a hearing to determine Harry Potter's complicity in Albus Dumbledore's death, since if Mr. Potter hadn't force-fed Mr. Dumbledore the poison mentioned, he would not be dying at all. But not right now."

"Actually, that's not quite true," Albus corrected her, stirring a whisper of questions among the throng watching the drama unfolding in the courtroom. "If Harry had not administered the poison guarding the pseudo-Horcrux...I would still be dying. That is the other reason why I felt it was acceptable for me to go ahead and drink a liquid I suspected to be a lethal poison."

The whispers swelled to a hubbub. Philliston reached for her gavel, and the crowd quieted on its own. They really didn't want to be thrown out of this live-action soap opera. "...Explain yourself, Albus."

"It's quite simple." He lifted his blackened right hand. "I had blocked a rather nasty hex cast at me by Riddle, the summer before last, but had not managed to banish his curse. Seeking a way to dispel the enchantment, I realized that it had to have a target, so I thrust the ring, which I was wearing for safe-keeping, into the magic. Voldemort increased the spell's pressure to attack at the same moment, and it engulfed my hand, cursing it as well as the ring. The backlash of the ring being destroyed rebounded back at Voldemort, who whisked himself away to safety, ending our battle. But I was not left unaffected by the outcome."

Pushing up the sleeve of his robe, he displayed his arm, blackened as far as the eye could see. Hermione was on the wrong side of the chamber to see all of it, but she did watch him shift from pushing up his sleeve to pulling down the collar of his purple wizarding robes. That displayed the spot of blackness she had seen earlier, replete with a tip of his head. From the gasps and blanchings of the wizards and witches across from her who did have a decent view, Hermione could only guess how bad it looked when not concealed by his robes.

"...As you can see, it has spread from the initial impact-site of just my hand. Indeed, unlike the poison in my veins, it has continued to grow independently of my suspended incarceration in my brother's portrait-spell," he continued calmly, releasing his neckline and straightening the front of his robes with languid hands. "At the rate it is spreading, it has been estimated by Madam Pomfrey that I would have only two, may be three more months to live. It is a magical disease of the skin, you see...and once it reaches my mouth, it will travel down my throat, infect my digestive tract...and invade my lungs. Killing my ability to breathe.

"As with the poison I ordered Harry to give to me, I would have died anyway, regardless of what Severus Snape did to me on that night at the School. And, like that poison, there is no known cure for my ailment. But unlike the relatively swift and somewhat painless death I will now face because of that draught, I would instead have slowly suffocated to death over a matter of weeks, because of the initial ring-damaging curse. Harry could not have murdered me through poisoning me upon my own orders, just as Severus could not have murdered me through obeying my orders.

"I was already dying."

Stunned silence met Albus' words.

"...And that is the information I knew about," Severus dryly, cooperating thanks to the Veritaserum in his veins. "I knew he was dying when Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Lestrange came to my door, two summers ago. When I learnt Draco Malfoy was to try and kill him. I thought Albus would die faster than young Mr. Malfoy could come up with the twisted courage to kill him. But he lingered...and I had no choice. I would rather have died," he snarled, his face bland but his voice impassioned, "than have harmed a single hair of his bloody, long beard...but I gave my Vow to do anything it took to appear to be loyal enough to remain a Death Eater, just so I could pass information on to Albus.

"And when he fell, whether by Malfoy's wand, my own, or by the disease claiming his hide, I had already been instructed to pass my information on to the successor Albus had selected as my contact and liaison with the Order of the Phoenix. Which I did."

"Who was that contact and liaison?" Madam Marchbanks enquired.

"Jane, of course."

"...Who?" St. James asked, frowning in confusion.

Hermione lifted her chin, drawing everyone's attention back to her. "I was his liaison, Mr. St. James. His 'handler'. And I would like to point out, before you cast any aspersions on my own loyalty, or silly accusations of my harboring a known fugitive, that I was the one who convinced Severus to turn himself in! I have always intended to have him come here before the Wizengamot, and prove his innocence in a court of law."

"--Innocence!" Minister Scrimgeour huffed cynically. "The man cast Unforgivable Curses! You call that innocent?"

"Do you charge soldiers who are ordered by their superiors to fire upon the enemy with accusations of murder?" Hermione shot back heatedly, twisting in her seat to glare up at the bushy-haired wizard. "No. You do not. You have heard Albus Dumbledore's Truth Serum-forced testimony that he ordered Snape to pretend to be a Death Eater, and to remain one by any means necessary, and you have heard an equally Serum-forced confession that Severus Snape has been compelled by his Oaths and his sense of duty to obey.

"You have also heard him testify that Albus had placed Severus under the Fides Oath--and I've heard about this one," she added, jerking her thumb against her chest. "It doesn't just demand that the Oath-taker follows the commands of the Oath-giver faithfully, it forces that person to obey. If they resist, it activates a Karma Curse that practically jinxes their every move for a month! In some documented cases, the results have been worse than death!"

"He should have dropped dead!" Harry argued from her other side. "I would have, rather than harming a single hair on Dumbledore's head!"

"And yet, when the poison in that bowl visibly and audibly tormented me, you forced even more of it down my throat, Harry," Albus' voice chided him.

"--Hypocrite," Severus snorted, as Harry started to protest again.

"I quite agree," Albus concurred.

Harry flushed. His mouth opened a couple of times, but nothing concrete escaped. An arm stretched out, snagged Harry by the back pocket of his jeans, and dragged him onto a stack of papers and books for a makeshift seat. Despite his lack of freckles, there was no mistaking the stubbornness of a Weasley as Percy glared him into silence. Priscilla Philliston cleared her throat and checked her notes.

"Mr. Snape, after the night of May 23rd, who knew that you were wanted by the Ministry of Magic for the murder of Albus Dumbledore, and knew how to contact you, or where you could have been found by Ministry Aurors?"

"--Objection!" Hermione snapped, but it was too late; her husband was already answering.

"Nearly every member of the Order of the Phoenix, every member of the Death Eaters, Aberforth Dumbledore, and every person present in this room."

Noise exploded as protests rang out. Philliston banged her gavel several times until the room quieted. "Explain yourself, Mr. Snape!"

"You asked me an incredibly stupid question with no time-span or codicils modifying its limit, and did so while I am still heavily drugged by the Truth Serum that genetic imbecile tried to use as an impromptu poison. What I told you was the precise truth you asked for, you woolly-minded bint."

That earned him a scowl and a bang of her gavel. "Mr. Snape, you are perilously close to being in contempt of this court!"

"I am perilously close to not caring."

Giving both him and Hermione a frustrated look, Priscilla cleared her throat. "I will rephrase the question. Between the night of May 23rd of last year and...March 31st of this year," she selected for a date, "and excluding the Death Eaters and their leader, who knew where you, Severus Snape, could be found or how you could be contacted?"

"Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore, Poppy Pomfrey, Hermione Jane Granger-Potter Snape, some Hogwarts house-elf, and Ronald Weasley."

"--You knew who he was?" Harry hissed up at Ron.

"More to the point, why didn't the lot of you turn him in, if you knew how to contact him?" Minister Scrimgeour demanded, glaring at Hermione.

"...Because you don't throw away your only spy," Ron retorted, his look conveying the addendum, ...you git, with silent, freckled contempt. "Believe me, I was tempted! But I'm not stupid enough to lock up the only source of information we had on the Dork Lord's movements, nor was I so stupid as to turn in the only man who could successfully brew the Infuzio di Anima Te."

"And what is that?" Mr. St. James enquired.

"The Soul Tea," Hermione answered for him. "It was created by Lucrezia Borgia, and written down in her Diary. It's a very Dark potion that resembles tea leaves when crafted properly, and which slowly kills a person's soul over the span of two days, once administered to its victim. The only antidote is a bezoar, but the Anima Te reacting with the bezoar creates an acid strong enough to partially dissolve iron, let alone flesh, making it doubly lethal."

That caused a stir. Scrimgeour looked smugly pleased to hear a confession that Snape had crafted a Dark Potion, but strangely, Harry looked worried. Marchbanks arched one of her age-whitened brows.

"Why ever would he brew something like that?"

Hermione wasn't about to let herself or her friends off the hook for this one. "Because Harry, Ron, and I asked him to brew it. And we did it--" she asserted loudly over the swell of comments among the witnessing witches and wizards around her, "--because it was the best way we could find to kill the Horcrux that Voldemort had lodged inside of the legendary but lost cup of Helga Hufflepuff! Using the Anima Te to destroy the Horcrux allowed us to leave the rest of the cup's properties intact," she continued as the crowd fell silent again. "And yes, I admit that I brewed it myself. Or rather, I tried to, on my own. I wouldn't ask anyone to do such a deed without first making the attempt myself.

"I failed several times before I thought to contact Severus for the task. The Anima Te is so complicated, only a Potions Master or a Potions Mistress could possibly succeed in brewing it safely and successfully--and just so you know, every last speck of the poison has been thoroughly neutralized. And the only soul that Tea touched was the piece of Voldemort's soul lodged in the Hufflepuff cup. Isn't that right, Severus?"

It was a calculated question on her part. She hadn't taken Veritaserum--indeed, as a pregnant witch in the second or later trimester, it was prohibited--but Severus was thoroughly drugged. He responded to her question just as she'd hoped.

"Absolutely. We were very paranoid about our precautions, including several wards to prevent the Anima Te from being moved out of the Room of Requirement, on top of the standard cleansing and containment rune-circles. Only Voldiedork's soul was imperiled."

Most of the witnessing crowd flinched at such freely made use of the Dark Lord's name by both Hermione and Severus...but some snorted at the rude appellation Severus had used.

"If we hadn't brewed the tea, we couldn't have guaranteed killing that particular Horcrux," Hermione pointed out. "Just like all of the others that we destroyed."

"Heavens--how many of the abominable things were there?" Madam Marchbanks demanded.

"I'm not quite sure, three or four," Snape answered, at the same time that Albus replied, "Seven, including Voldemort."

"Nine, if you count all of the missing pieces of Voldie's dark soul," Hermione corrected both of them. She ticked them off on her fingers, going into detail on each one. The wizarding world media was hanging on their every word, after all. "Starting in the order that they were destroyed, we have Tom Riddle Junior's Diary, which was behind the whole Chamber of Secrets mess five years ago, unwittingly landing in Ginevra Weasley's possession after it was deliberately passed to her by Lucius Malfoy; Harry killed it by stabbing it with the tooth of the basilisk that lived in the Chamber. Next was the Slytherin ring that destroyed Albus' skin; he plunged it into a curse thrown at him by Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort.

"Then there was Slytherin locket, which was stolen by Regulus Black and substituted with the fake one mentioned earlier; the real one was recovered by Harry, Ron and I, and during the battle at the wand exposition, I used a time-accelerant spell to drag it into the path of the Killing Curse that had been aimed at Ron Weasley by Bellatrix Lestrange--"

Iantha Marchbanks snorted, then coughed, and finally laughed outright. "...Oh, my goodness! One of the Dark Lord's top Death Eaters destroyed his own Horcrux? Ahahahahaha!"

There were several wry smiles at that, even a few faint laughs, but the subject was just too serious. Hermione cleared her throat and continued. "Yes, well, it is ironically amusing, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," her husband muttered. Hermione let it pass, since he couldn't help joining the conversation. A thought struck her.

"Oh! I forgot--before the locket, just before it was destroyed, the Ravenclaw Horcrux was destroyed."

"The Ravenclaw Horcrux?" Priscilla enquired, lifting a brow.

"Yes. Voldiebutt had some bug up his nostril about using artifacts from the Hogwarts Founders for his Horcruxes. He had used Rowena Ravenclaw's wand to host one of the fragments of his soul," Hermione explained, "but it shares a phoenix-feather from...um...Gullveig. That's the same phoenix feather as was in the core of Albus' own wand.

"When the two were tested together to prove the authenticity of the wand, Priori Incantatem eventually forced the soul-fragment out...whereupon it was pounced on and devoured by one of the Dementors sent by Lord Voldemort himself to retrieve the wand back into his possession. That was the other piece of highly amusing irony in that battle," she finished. "Right after that is when Mrs. Lestrange cast the Unforgivable at Ron, which is when I destroyed the locket-Horcrux."

"...Right," the chief witch agreed. "By my count, that's only four Horcruxes. The others were...?"

"The next was the Hufflepuff cup, which I've already described," Hermione related. "Then, just the other night when we went to confront Voldemort one last time, Ron Weasley slew Nagini, the pet snake of the Dark Lord. This was the same snake that had struck Ron's father two years ago, while Arthur Weasley was trying to protect the Department of Mysteries from a sneak Death Eater attack on the Hall of Prophecies.

"That was during the time that the Ministry was refusing to acknowledge Voldemort's return, despite Harry's eye-witnessed testimony, and Severus Snape himself willingly showing Cornelius Fudge the returning strength of his Dark Mark as proof of Riddle's return. Mr. Weasley was guarding the doorway to the Department of Mysteries under the orders of Albus Dumbledore, so that Voldemort couldn't steal inside and learn the full text of the Prophecy concerning his possible defeat at Harry's hands.

"There have been a lot of people whom have risked life and limb over the last two decades--and whom have had to go around the Ministry's willful blindness--in order to prepare for and fight against the return of Lord Voldemort," Hermione cautioned the raptly listening Wizengamot. "Not just Severus Snape. And they all did so on Dumbledore's word. He wasn't the only one following orders for the good of people who neither knew nor would full appreciate his efforts on their behalf."

That was a deliberate slam on her part against the Ministry and the previous Minister, but she also wanted to point out that Snape's actions were just one of many such orders being handed out.

"Your conjecture is irrelevant to the matter," St. James chided her.

"I rather think it is," Marchbanks countered. "Motive, after all, is an important part of determining whether an accusation of murder really is murder, or if it was a case of self-defence."

"I would have to agree with Madam Marchbanks," one of the other Wizengamot members offered.

Priscilla nodded. "Albus, approximately how many people were following orders that you had given in regards to this second insurgence by the Dark Lord, orders that bent or even outright broke the law?"

Albus let his head loll back as he thought. "Approximately...53, I think. Or maybe 55. Somewhere above 50, at any rate."

"How cognizant were you of the illegal activities of your...followers?" Philliston asked him.

"Very. I did my best to keep track of all of the members of the Order of the Phoenix and their doings. I accepted that it was my responsibility to keep a tight reign upon any potentially illicit activities."

"And how many of Mr. Snape's illicit activities did you know about?"

"As many as he told me, of course. Severus, how many did I know about, before my demise?" he asked, head tipping towards that side of his padded armchair. The wizard chained to the other, hard, wooden chair snorted.

"All of them. Including the ones afterward, in our clandestine face-to-paint meetings. You compelled me to confess all of my crimes, you bastard. Oh--I almost forgot: I killed you. I thought you should know about that. I didn't have the balls to say it to your face earlier," he added dryly. His eyes were closed, his face was slack, but his voice was as snarky as ever. If the moment hadn't been so serious, Hermione might've snickered. As it was, she bit her lower lip, listening.

"Why didn't you have the balls?" Madam Marchbanks asked. Hermione wasn't the only person who choked on their own breath. One just didn't hear such a bluntly phrased question coming out of the mouth of such a withered old witch every day.

"Because I was ashamed of what I had done. I was no better than Pettigrew, in that regards, betraying one of my very few friends. Even if the bearded bastard ordered me to do it."

Quills scratched madly all across Courtroom Ten. A glance into the stands showed Rita Skeeter literally trembling with wide-eyed excitement behind her rhinestone-accented glasses. Hermione repressed the urge to smirk. The way how two of the woman's curls on her forehead were quivering, they kind of looked like insect antennae...

"I didn't order you to do it; I pleaded with you," Albus countered. Rustlings and murmurings filled the courtroom as people whispered at that revelation: it wasn't murder, it was suicide. Hermione bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood, to keep from crying out at that confession. This had to clear her husband of all...well, at least of the first murder charge. And given that he'd revived Harry personally after killing him, that couldn't exactly be called murder, either!

"You never released me from the Fides Oath!" Severus retorted as she started to relax. "Not even your death released it, just transferred it to Jane!"

"A Fides Oath isn't like an Unbreakable Vow, Severus," a squeaky voice asserted from the tiers of Wizengamot seats. It was the voice of Filius Flitwick, seated on what looked like a Transfigured, ladder-backed lab stool. He didn't bother to stand, since it would've only rendered him invisible to the rest of the room. "It wouldn't have killed you to refuse!"

"No, but it would've made my life nine times worse than the living hell that it had already become, thanks to my swearing to spy for the bastard," Severus stated, his voice tinged with bitterness. "And I could not guarantee a quick and clean death for Albus at the hands of any of the other Death Eaters. I remind you I was under orders to do whatever it took to remain in the foul graces of the Dark Lord. Dropping dead through the auspices of a violated Unbreakable Vow conflicted with those orders.

"I refuse to be held responsible for your angst over the fact that, by raising my wand against my mentor upon his own agreement and order, I managed to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone: I gave Poppy and Abe the chance to revive Albus, and cemented my position among the enemy. I cannot help if it I am the only person with the bollocks to do whatever is necessary to ensure that evil is destroyed--even if it isn't morally pretty," he sneered.

"Why do you keep calling Albus a bastard?" someone else asked; Hermione didn't know who at first, only that it was a female voice. It came to her after a moment that the speaker was Minerva.

"Because he is one in the figurative sense, for demanding all that he has of me."

"We will get back to that point," Philliston countered, quelling the rustling of their audience with a firm look. "Er...that is, to the Oath and so forth. Continue with the list of Horcruxes, Mrs. Snape. It might not entirely have anything to do with Mr. Snape's trial, but I will not deny the wizarding world this chance to learn the full truth of this whole matter, and Lord Thi...Lord Voldemort's," she enunciated carefully, if shudderingly, "motives, methods, and madness are an indirect case of cause-and-effect, I believe."

Hermione re-gathered her wits. "...Thank you. The Horcruxes are actually very pertinent to the matter of how the charge of attempted murder of Harry Potter-Granger came about," she resumed briskly. "Anyway, after we killed the snake, we kept out of sight and crept over to the graveyard, where the Death Eaters were having an initiation ceremony. The seventh Horcrux was the enchanted brand used to put the Dark Mark on Riddle's followers. That was how they could Apparate; they were Side-Along Apparating to Voldemort's side, via the assistance of that speck of his soul tied into the magic of the brand."

Rustles, murmurs, and soft exclamations of surprise greeted her words. As did Albus' voice, edged with surprise. "He used his own Horcrux to allow others to Apparate to his position? How incredibly clever... Disturbing, given that an Horcrux can only be created by deliberately killing someone else, but very clever. But I was led to believe that Riddle wanted to create seven fragments of his soul, not eight; seven is the stronger arcane number, after all."

"I think he only created Nagini after the Diary was destroyed," Hermione offered. "With the Diary destroyed, he had only six fragments, which is the weaker number. With the snake enchanted, it created seven extant Horcruxes again."

Albus' head lolled in an approximation of a nod. "Yes...that could be possible."

"And the eighth Horcrux?" Priscilla asked her. "I'd also like it if you could explain how you achieved the number nine, while we're at it."

"I'm getting there--" Hermione started to explain.

"Wait, she didn't say how the seventh was destroyed," St. James pointed out. A few of the Wizengamot members above and behind the three at the bench nodded as well. "She should tell us that one, so it's not left out."

"Frangelu. A Seventh Year Charm. The brand shattered from the extreme cold," Hermione revealed. "After that, it was just a matter of taking out Voldemort himself. Except a few other things happened first. The moment the brand was destroyed, about a third of the Death Eaters outright fled, and a few moments later, about another third of them fled as well. I suspect that the destruction of the brand, timed to the induction of a new Death Eater, severed the magical ties of the Dark Marks, binding the Death Eaters to their leader. And that the first group had been compelled to serve either by spell or by fear, while the second group probably decided it would be prudent to leave.

"That still left nearly a dozen Death Eaters around us, including Bellatrix Lestrange, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape, and Draco Malfoy," Hermione stated. "Severus, why don't you tell everyone what happened?"

"Potter attacked the Dark Lord, and Pettigrew intervened, grabbing the sword of Godric Gryffindor that the boy had appropriated for the final confrontation, since Potter and Voldemort's wands would only invoke Priori Incantatem," he explained dryly, factually. "I ordered Draco to use the spell Jane had created for him, and he gladly sabotaged the remaining Death Eaters by casting a modified version of the Forging Charm on all of the Death Eater masks within range. It was his way of making up for the stupidity of agreeing to allow the others to invade Hogwarts, and so forth. Then the two of us started Stupefying and binding the Death Eaters, along with Ron Weasley, while Harry stabbed Voldemort in the stomach.

"Unfortunately, I had been compelled to craft a potion over the turn of the new year for the Dark Lord, one that took advantage of the final piece of Voldemort's fragmented soul," Severus admitted. "A fragment that was not a Horcrux, but which existed all the same."

"What fragment was this?" Priscilla enquired.

"The soul-fragment that was lodged in the cursed scar on Harry Potter's forehead. A fact I realized just as we finished using the Anima Te to destroy the Horcrux in the Hufflepuff cup. Jane used some sort of soul-revealing mediwitch's charm to determine whether or not the Horcrux in the cup had been destroyed, and had apparently used it upon herself and the other two, and that was when I noticed the disparity of his scar, and realized it matched the colour of the soul trapped in the cup before it was destroyed. And then the Dark Lord said that his life was now tied to Potter's, and that so long as Harry Potter lived, he himself would never die.

"At the time of its creation, I did not realize what the potion was for, but that moment was when I realized that Potter had to die, if Voldemort was to be destroyed. By my hand, if necessary."