Episode 11. Part 3

Episode 11. Part 3

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- So, defendant, do you agree with the request of the head of the Wizengamot?

- Bring your Veritaserum already... And let him ask what he wants to ask.

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- Your full name?

- Lord Harold James Patrick Nicholas Potter.

- Did you let a mountain troll into Hogwarts in your first year?

- No. You did.

- Did you kill it?

- No. My magic did.

- Did you kill Quirinus Quirrell in first year at Hogwarts?

- No. My magic did that.

- Did you have anything to do with his death?

- No. Voldemort's spirit did.

- Did you open Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets in second year, attacking the students and dragging Ginevra Molly Weasley into its bowels?

- No. Voldemort's spirit did that. How good of you to clarify the question, otherwise I would have had to say yes. And it's a good thing you didn't ask who did it.

- Did you save Ginevra Weasley?

- Yes. How did that happen?

- I pulled her out of a mountain crevasse near the school. - ...when I confronted Voldemort's spirit beforehand.

- Did you steal the sword of Godric Gryffindor from my study?

- No. The sword appeared in my hand. I didn't steal anything. I just didn't return it.

- Did you help your godfather, Sirius Black, escape from Azkaban?

- No. Dumbledore, what nonsense. How could I have done that?

- Did you find and kill Peter Petigrew?

- No. The Hogwarts map found him and Bella killed him.

- Did you help your godmother, Bellatrix Lestrange, escape from Azkaban?

- No. She escaped on her own.

- Do you know where she's hiding?

- No. Bellatrix Lestrange no longer exists, how can I know where she is? But Bellatrix Black lives at Black Manor.

- Were you involved in the Death Eaters attack on the Quidditch World Cup finals?

- No. I wasn't even there.

- Were you involved in the disappearance and death of Alastor Grimm?

- No. But I know who was.

- Did you see the Dark Lord Voldemort reborn?

- Dumbledore, that's too much.

- No. I saw the rebirth of Thomas Marvolo Gaunt.

- What's your connection to Nicholas Flamel?

- He's my ancestor on my mother's side.

- Albus, ask questions on the subject of the meeting!

- And before the question you could not say that, Amelia?!

- All right. Defendant, did you steal from Muggles as a child?

- Yes. Why did you do it?

- To survive.

- What do you mean? Explain!

- After the Dursle family died, my cousin and I ended up in an orphanage. They starved us for our magical emissions, so we ran away. It was cold on the streets. We had to drink from puddles and eat from garbage cans, but it was better than nothing. Dudley got sick. He needed medicine. We needed shelter and food. I learned how to steal. It saved our lives.

- Why didn't you turn to adults?

- The people we met bullied us, beat us, or wanted to sell us for organs or to a brothel. We didn't trust adults.

- Did your cousin, Dudley Vernon Dursle, know where you got your money?

- No. Luckily, the serum doesn't force you to specify the time. And Dudley didn't know I worked for the gang. That's enough to give the right answer to the question at hand.

- Give the defendant the antidote. - Lord Potter, do you have anything to add to what was said before the vote?

- Yes, thank you. I'd like to point out that Dumbledore has tried to pin everything that's happened in magic England on me since I entered Hogwarts. But that's beside the point. I wanted to say: yes, I was stealing to survive. But no matter what my reasons were, no matter that no one had explained to me at the time that stealing was wrong. And if I were three times Survivor Boy, if I were four times Lord, if I were Merlin himself, I had to answer to the law. I have committed a crime, and all must be equal before the law. So I call upon the Wizengamot to vote impartially, as duty requires, regardless of personal sympathies and interests. That is all. Thank you.

- Thank you, Lord Potter. All those in favor of expelling Lord Harold James Potter from Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Magic?

***

- Were you expelled for stealing from Muggles? No way! They're Muggles, and you're... the last member of an ancient pureblood family.

- Draco, calm down! They did everything right," Harold shouted at his friend, taking a gulp of Muggle whiskey, which the caring godfather had begun to slip him the day before the whole mess with the trial. Oh, he appreciated this way of relaxing somewhat, but so far he had never allowed himself to overdo it. Today it was on the verge of...

Actually, it was at Potter Manor, where the Pied Pipers had returned from Africa. It happened just the day after the Wizengamot meeting. Naturally, anxious about the news of their native country, they read the loud headline in the first newspaper they came across and the article under it, where they discussed the trial of the hero and his interview after it. And Potter had to give a press conference. That allowed him to cleverly turn the situation with the trial to the right angle. A couple of right phrases - and the public loved by Harold blamed Dumbledore for not taking care of the well-being of the national hero, although for many years he claimed, almost swore, that the Boy Who Survived was safe, fed and clothed. And he, as it turned out, drank water from puddles. Of course, after that Potter was pitied, forgetting all about his crimes, saying he had to steal to survive. Many demanded a retrial, but the national hero himself resisted, which made him all the more glorious. He admitted the crime and was punished for it. And yet people's pity for him was repulsive to a hero...

The lords gave Harold a standing ovation: no one expected him to be able to turn the situation into a hundred percent gain for himself. But Albus Dumbledore was tearing his beard: using the truth serum he had hoped to expose Survivor Boy, but in the end he himself was accused of lying. The Headmaster wondered how Potter had managed to lie under the serum," Snape informed Potter.

And while the public and individuals wondered and wrote sympathetic letters to the hero, Lord Potter himself, surrounded by loyal friends and family, including the Delacours, the Flamels, and the Blacks, was dejected and even irritable...

- I think it's not strange that you were expelled from Hogwarts. You could have finished your education at Shagbaton," said Appolyn Delacour, the hero's mother-in-law. She kept dreaming that her daughter and her husband would move closer to them, to France, somehow forgetting the possibilities of magic. But so far her attempts to lure her son-in-law to her country had failed. - It's even better, because it frees up a lot of time. But I'm not going to any other school. I'd rather take my exams as an external student.

- School would be boring without you," said a frustrated Corner.

- Oh, Harold, you're as usual," Theodore sighed sadly, too. - To Salem, where you promised to go long ago," finished for him Hannah.

The discussion of the situation after her remark became heated. Those assembled were arguing to the hilt about what Harold would be best to do. Some suggested other schools, some suggested an externship, some suggested not caring about anything at all, since the Lord, quietly using magic without spells, had no need to know the general curriculum. And not a word of it. The adults, the foreigners and the Slytherins, were especially raging. None of them noticed the moment Fleur took the tired spouse somewhere, who was already seriously contemplating whether to get drunk...

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- Fleur, darling, what are you doing? - Lying face down in the pillow Harold muttered, feeling the woman's dexterous fingers undressing him - he collapsed into the bed without even changing his clothes.

- Massage," his native voice answered.

Potter was so surprised that he even raised himself on his elbows. Though he was laid back down almost immediately.

- Ah... - Shut up, or I'll change my mind and you won't get bruised by my fingers," Lady Potter threatened, partly also supporting the legend of wanting to ruin her husband's life. But that, of course, was not what Fleur wanted. She'd been a little jealous of Harold's honeymoon visits to the masseuses. That's why she wanted to touch him, to make him feel supported by her. What better reason to prove to her husband that she was as good as the masseuses in the Bahamas?!

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- Harold!" Frank Longbottom burst into Potter Manor unexpectedly. And he looked very... alarmed. Panic glittered in his eyes. The national hero immediately put all his business aside. - Neville... We've lost him. He's... missing.

- Dumbledore? - Frank shook his head negatively at first, then suddenly nodded.

- Yes. He contacted my mother and my wife. I told them not to, but... They trusted him. I don't know what they did to my son. But he's not home, and there's no way I can get in touch with him. I can't even just find him," Frank complained frankly. Not that the world had changed during his time at St. Mungo's, but even after becoming Lord, even after moving away from Dumbledore's entourage and starting to associate with people of worth, even making the decisions on which the future of magical Britain depended, he still felt insecure. He could not get used to having a grown-up son, with a mind almost the same age as his own. And the man who had returned his mind seemed a real salvation, even if he was the same age as his son.

- Tell me everything in detail! - Harold asked, pouring the whisky he had been accustomed to these days into two glasses...

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