Chapter 110: Courtly Inquisition
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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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9 January 1993, Hogwarts
The Court of Slytherin was one of the few mysteries of the school that Harry didn't fully know about. Oh, he knew about the members and the politics, but the history of that particular group was absent from any book in the castle. The Potter scion was better off reading diaries that students threw away in the Room of Hidden Things, to find any information on how the Court was created.
To be perfectly honest, that information was the only reason that Harry would even consider joining the court, and honestly, it wasn't that important to him in the long run. But to have the opportunity just come in front of him, Harry didn't see the issue to take a peek at the proceedings of the court.
The truth was apart from the general knowledge about the court, there was no specific information about the court. They were like the eyes in the dark, that punished those who had broken the unwritten rules of Slytherin. They did it discreetly, from the shadows. They knew everyone's pressure points and acted on them. Harry honestly thought that there might be someone with a modicum of intelligence in this group, and it was an exciting thing to see.
So, considering the way the court has operated previously, summoning Harry like this was an irregular occurrence. For one, it was commonly known that they did not involve themselves with younger students, especially not the first and second years. The occasional third year that goes too far might get their attention, but as far as Harry knows, the court shouldn't care about him.
And the second thing was that the court often dealt with people discreetly. They didn't send letters to the common room to summon other students, or Harry would have heard about it. So, the conclusion is easy to make and inevitable.
With a cheeky grin on his face, Harry followed the green light, which brought him to the entrance to the ritual room. Harry walked down until the light seemed to get inside a hidden door behind a stairway. His Arcane Hearing could pick the faint warding scheme on the door. It didn't come close to the actual wards of the castle, which had a lot more flavour, if he had to put it into words.
Anyway, the wards picked up the magic coming from the wax seal and allowed him entry. Huh, that was pretty unsafe way to put anyone into the wards; it would be somewhat simple to copy the magic from the wax and get inside easily. Harry's abilities made it somewhat easy to do that, but any amateur curse breaker had to master the skill, even if it was a lot harder for them to implement and necessitated a lot of advanced arithmancy.
Anyway, Harry decided to enter the room, and the moment he stepped in, the door behind him melded into a wall, blocking the entrance. Interesting, an intimidation tactic…
The torches lit up by their own, revealing a corridor, and Harry walked towards its end and saw a door that was almost as large as that of the Great Hall. The Potter scion spread his senses and noticed that the enchantments on the door were far more powerful than the ones on the previous entrance.
The door itself was imposing; it was made of polished stone and had engravings that felt alive, with a faint ethereal light that illuminated the markings. Serpents slithered and entwined in a dance of magic, their eyes glowing with an otherworldly intensity. They were staring at him as if challenging him to enter the room behind it. This was what he wanted to see. Something new. Something truly magical. Interestingly, when the Potter scion looked closer there were exactly twenty snakes.
The serpents didn't really try to see if he was allowed to enter, and the door opened from his own. Oh, they had opened it from the inside. When he peered into the room, Harry saw almost two dozen people wearing green wooden masks of various snakes and sitting in what looked to be an amphitheatre. In the centre was a chair that was almost filled to the brim with restraining charms that would immobilize the person that sat on it in seconds the moment they were activated.
Oh, so it was this kind of meeting. Well, that changed things.
The man sitting at the helm spoke up first, "Harry Potter. Take a seat so that this hearing would proceed."
He was wearing the biggest mask with scales surrounding him, with yellow eyes and horns. A Basilisk, then, the King of Serpents, so that must be the king of the court. When he spoke, the serpent moved his mouth with him. His voice was deep, modulated, and filled with authority.
Yeah, Harry wasn't going to sit down in that death trap of a chair, "You know what, I'd prefer to stand. You know, they say that sitting is one of the biggest causes of death in developed nations. Plus, standing has proven to be healthier, increases productivity, and just looks cooler."
"What?" the man just sounded confused. It was just so funny to see this illusion of intimidation fall apart with a single question.
Harry clapped his hand, pretending that the man just didn't understand what he was saying, "Well, picture someone doing something heroic. Now, was he sitting or was he standing? That's exactly my point. It's also a lot easier to think while walking around."
"Just sit down, Potter!" one of the people wearing an Ashwinder mask on the right yelled out.
Harry just raised an eyebrow, "Well, I tried to be polite, but if you think I'm sitting anywhere near that deathtrap of a chair, then you're very mistaken."
"Potter," a woman in a dark horned serpent mask, who was sitting at the right of the king, responded, "this is a hearing to decide your guilt in breaking the unwritten rules. Having you sit on the chair is traditional for court hearings for centuries."
Ah, the unwritten rules of Slytherin. They were the only way the entire house didn't collapse because of infighting, and they were also enforced entirely by the court. The rules were simple, Slytherins are to be united outside the common room. Slytherin politics are not to involve the faculty or the members of other houses. You are not allowed to go back on any deal you make without reparations decided by the recipient. You are not allowed to divulge the secrets of the house to anyone outside the house, and finally, you are not to purposefully harm the house in general.
That was it. The rules that stopped the house from imploding spectacularly. The house was filled with politics. Sabotage and manipulation, trading favours and dismantling your rivals were routinely seen in the common room. It was basic training for the politicking that awaited a lot of the members of the house the moment they graduated. It was an environment that was perfect for heirs to grow and learn, hence why most families favoured Slytherin as the house for their children to be sorted in.
However, if people started to get other houses involved, these rivalries would turn into actual encounters, and the factions would turn into gangs in everything but names. Hogwarts didn't need conflict on a scale like this, so the rules were made. Also, the reputation of the house was negative ever since Lord Voldemort was a thing, so staying united and avoiding the rest of the school was a good survival mechanism.
Now, this was all well and good, but it didn't explain a lot of things with this encounter. Harry shrugged, "Well, good luck with that. I'm not sitting on the chair, and let's just stop kidding ourselves. You don't bring people down here to judge anything. You thrive in anonymity. If I really broke one of the rules, you would have dealt with me discreetly. And I'm a second year, so you normally don't really care about us yet. You think we're too troublesome and immature for you to deal with."
"But you're not immature, are you, Potter?" the woman, probably the black queen, asked.
"I'll admit that I'm more mature than the average twelve year old, but I'm definitely troublesome to deal with, especially when you're trying to take advantage of me."
The entire court shifted, and the woman, "And how are we taking advantage of you?"
The Potter scion snorted, "That's fairly obvious. You summoned me here, which meant that you wanted to speak with me. If I had done anything wrong, you wouldn't have done that. You would have just punished me or just ignored it. That meant that you wanted something from me. But what could I give you that you don't already have? It's not gold or rare artefacts. I don't owe anyone favours, so the answer is simple. You want knowledge. But not magical knowledge, since all I know can be found in the library and I'm too young to use my family crest. So, it has to do with something recent, something I know. Tell me, am I close?"
Harry grinned to himself as they all looked around each other and the Black Queen took a deep breath, "Fine. We have cancelled the security enchantments. You can sit down."
Harry heard the oppressing song surrounding the chair fade into nothing. There was still magic mixed in with the chair, but it was faint and pretty mild compared to how it used to be. Of course, the King could reactivate it at any time, but Harry would have the time to sense it and negate any ward cast, or just leave the chair before it takes hold since they usually need a couple of seconds to activate.
Rolling his eyes, the Potter scion sat down on the uncomfortable chair, "So, how may I help this illustrious court?"
"Alright, the court is in session. For formality's sake, what is your name and when were you born?" the other queen asked.
Immediately, Harry felt something try to invade his mind. Ah, some kind of truth field that added a compulsion to whoever sat on the chair to say nothing but the truth. They probably thought that they had tricked him or something. The Potter scion suppressed the urge to snot and just responded, "My name is Harry Potter, and I was born on the Thirty-first of July 1980."
The white queen nodded, "We are here to discuss the actions regarding Neville Longbottom's infiltration of our common room. Did you allow them to infiltrate our common room?"
Harry shook his head, "No."
"Did you give them any advice or was involved in any way in their infiltration?"
"No, I was not?"
"But you immediately realized that these were imposters," the White Queen pressed.
Harry nodded, "I did."
"And how did you do that without any prior knowledge?"
"Their body language was different, the way they spoke, the questions that they asked, were not typical. I wasn't absolutely certain at first because they could have been dosed with something, or under some kind of spell, so I asked a few questions, and it was easy to tell that they were lying. I touched them discreetly and found that the transformation was physical, which meant that it was either human transfiguration or Polyjuice potion. Considering the fact that the intruder probably wasn't a transfiguration master, the potion was used to impersonate the victims."
"So, you knew that they were imposters, but not that they were Longbottom and his cohorts."
"No, I immediately knew who they were. The identities of the victims meant that they were somewhat familiar with them. The only people who really knew about those three were in our year, and the only people who had the balls to break into the common room in our year were the Golden Trio. Their little adventure last year made them feel invincible and they would think that they were above the rules. Since there were three intruders, the conclusion was evident."
The Queen pressed on, "And what did they ask you about?"
"The Chamber of Secrets, mostly."
"And what do you know about the Chamber of Secrets?"
"I know many things about the Chamber."
"Like what?"
Harry grinned to himself, "Like the fact that it was built by Salazar Slytherin."
His voice echoed in the chamber. The entire court was just speechless by his answer. Yeah, if they're going to try to mess with Harry, it was only right that he would do the same to them.
"Are you being curt with me, Potter?" the White Queen growled back.
"Oh, I'm just answering truthfully…"
The White Queen looked like she wanted to explode but was stopped by a motion from the king who asked in his baritone voice, "You figured out the truth Ward."
Harry shrugged, "Before I even said a word. Interesting ward. Not a particularly strong one, to be honest. I'm guessing it's new, at least compared to the other enchantments on the chair."
"Why are you being so difficult, Potter?" the Black Queen asked.
"Because we both know that you brought me here because you wanted to know something, but you already know exactly what I said to Longbottom and his friends. So, why don't we just save some time and get to the point of things."
The woman stiffened, "And how do you know that?"
"You just told me, right now. It was an educated guess but thank you for confirming it. So, with that confirmed, it would mean that you had a way to get access to that conversation. You have a way to survey and record the members of the house, no, the common room, more specifically. It can't be something that you did, since anything like that would have been overwhelmed by the wards, so it had to be included by either a headmaster or a head of house before your time, and I can't see a faculty member surveilling student dormitories or mess with ritual rooms. So, that's how you get your information. You're constantly spying on the house. Interesting indeed. Efficient. Most of the power plays happen in the common room, so you pretty much have the entire battlefield at your disposal."
"Potter, you're out of line…" the Black Queen began.
"No, you don't get to say that because you're the people that brought me here. You can't expect to stop me from thinking out loud, could you? And it's not like I'm condemning your actions. The common room is a public place. You can spy on people there as much as you want. Now, if you were doing the same with dormitories, then we'd have an issue on our hands. So, why don't we get back to the subject since I'm starting to get hungry."
"Fine. Why did you tell Longbottom about the Chamber of Secrets?" The Queen asked while obviously gritting his teeth.
"Because I could. There was no reason not to tell them about the chamber. The information was public."
"Then why didn't you unmask them immediately?"
"Because the very fact they broke in was troubling. It meant that Dumbledore had given them a way in. No matter what the Weasley twins like to say, one does not simply break into another common room. There are wards and protections against intruders. Only Snape and Dumbledore could have allowed them entry. It's safe to say that Snape would rather obliviate himself of all potion knowledge than allow them to enter our common room. That meant that Dumbledore approved of their actions."
One of the people on the right of the king, wearing a Runespoor mask, exclaimed, "So, that's why you waited until they left to dispel the transformation. You wanted their reveal to be public while not having to deal with Dumbledore."
All three heads of the snake were speaking at the same time. It looked disconcerting, to be perfectly honest.
"Yes, the outrage would be enough that he wouldn't be able to protect Longbottom, and it would cost him a lot of influence in the long run. As you all probably know, I was right."
"And are you also right about the beast being a Basilisk?" the man in the Runespoor mask asked with a hesitating voice.
"Ah, so you did your homework, I see. My conclusions could lead to such a theory. Or maybe I just lied to screw with Longbottom. I could be right, I could be wrong, who knows? Now, that I think about it, this is starting to drag. I have no idea if you're doing this on purpose, going around and around with information that you either know or just don't care about. I don't know if you want to gratify me for revealing Longbottom, or just try to intimidate me. I don't know if this is some kind of twisted recruitment ritual that you have going on and I don't care. Let's just stop going around in circles and tell me exactly what you want from me because I haven't had my morning coffee yet, and this is starting to piss me off. I don't care about house politics, and while you have a lot of influence, it's not something that concerns me a lot. I'm an academic and you know that. Sure, I might need a favour here and there and you could deny me, but we both know that it wouldn't look good if it got out that the court was breaking its own rules and going after a second year, and by the time you can do anything, in a year or two, the entire court would be different, wouldn't it? So, in the spirit of efficiency and for my peace of mind, let me give you an ultimatum. If you people don't start telling me exactly what the purpose of this meeting is, I will get up and leave."
Harry's little rant was met with a deafening silence across the entire chamber, until the King stood up, getting everyone's attention and spoke up, "Alright, you have made your point. The purpose of this meeting is very simple. We wish to know what's your plan to deal with Basilisk."
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AN:
Alright, I wanted to know your opinion on how I presented the court. I wanted to have a balance in terms of competence considering their experience in the house, and the fact that they're still teenagers that are probably scared shitless about the Basilisk. I don't know if I managed it, so let me know if you think I should change anything. I'm not sure if I nailed what I was trying to convey, to be honest.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.