Chapter 462 The Great Judgment (2 in 1)

The next day, on the first day of November.

Fawkes suddenly appeared in Iniesta's office early in the morning, he didn't bring anything with him, he just stared straight at the interim minister of the newly established French Ministry of Magic after he landed on the ground using Apparition.

And after receiving Fawkes' stare, it was like Iniesta knew exactly what he was trying to tell him to do with a clear picture in mind.

He took a deep breath and stood up from his chair.

"Go back, I know what I have to do."

And so, on the very day of the 1st of November, both the English wizards of the Order of the Phoenix and the French wizards of the French Ministry of Magic were all organised in the Witching Horizon!

The Starlight Newspaper, which was a dedicated means of propaganda within the Witching Horizon, also delayed the release of this morning's daily newspaper while receiving Dumbledore's instructions, and instead rushed to print out a new batch of newspapers before noon, and proceeded to put them on sale to all of the wizards who were supposed to have received it this morning.

In time for lunch, almost all of the wizards who stayed in France saw the big bold headline on the front page of the Starlight Newspaper.

[A Trial from the Public!...]

The content of this article wasn't long, it just told in the most concise words about an event that was about to take place starting tomorrow.

After the end of the Triwizard Tournament and the complete restoration of all the cities in France, only a small portion of the various mobs and villains who supported the Bloodline Theory and practised it to that end has been dealt with until now, with the vast majority of them being temporarily confined in the Wizard's Prison, it is finally time for them to receive their final judgement.

This trial, which would be open to the public, would begin tomorrow in the very same conference hall within the French Ministry of Magic that Voldemort had once proclaimed to be the Minister of Magic of France, a completely transparent conference room that would allow anyone who came to the Ministry of Magic of France to spectate whatever would take place within.

Even the wizarding public who were not able to physically come inside the Ministry of Magic was able to tune into the exclusive broadcasting frequency available to wizards at home and witness the trial via the radio.

Many wizards felt nothing but excitement upon hearing the news.

The scum who wanted to create inequality and were bent on using their illusory bloodlines for oppression would finally pay the price they deserved for doing this!

And there was also a small group of people who clearly smelled that this public trial, which had already been held on a pilot basis within Hogwarts before, but had dragged on for so long in the French magical community, hinted at something else.

The public trial did not need to be prepared in advance, as long as the public could participate in the trial, it would be a success.

However, Dumbledore and the others had never shown any signs of conducting a public trial, instead, it had already reached November, and this public trial was suddenly about to begin without a word.

This contains an unusual touch.

But whether or not there is any hint of the significance attached to this trial, on the next morning, the trial came as promised.

On the morning of the 2nd of November, except for the employees of the Ministry of Magic who had to ensure the basic functioning of the French magical community, all the other wizards of the Ministry had gathered in the transparent conference room that had once been used to hold a meeting of the parliamentarians.

All of Witching Horizon's top brass had long been gathered here, and right in the front, on the raised platform that everyone could see, a brand-new gallows had been erected!

In addition to those who sit at the front, as this public trial presiding judge Dumbledore, Iniesta and so on Witching Horizon's senior management, all the other positions at the back are available to whoever comes first, even if there is no position around them, they can also stand directly on both sides, and if there is no position on both sides, they can also gather outside of the glass conference room, and if they cannot be squeezed in outside of the conference room, there is no longer any way for the wizards to see the live public trial and could only hear the sound of the public trial through the Witching Horizon's public broadcasting service.

In short, as long as people have come here on time, there are always various ways for them to witness the trial.

Jon also came to the scene of the public trial, as the biggest contributor to the victory of the Triwizard Tournament, he was of course qualified to sit at the forefront, the seat beside Dumbledore.

And the host of this public trial within the French magical community was none other than Iniesta himself, who is a Minister.

"There is no way for anyone in this world to guarantee that they won't make mistakes, but there are some mistakes that we as humans should never make!"

The Amplifying Charm carried his voice throughout the venue of the public trial assembly, while this opening statement was heard in various parts of France, and even in some other parts of Europe that had followed the internal situation in France.

"Some people, for their own selfish interests, have come up with the theory of the so-called supremacy of purebloodline of wizards! They artificially divided us into three, six or nine classes and made themselves superior as a way to gain absolute authority and power! The root cause of this war arose from this. But even if black and white can be turned upside down, even if justice can be trampled on, there are still some truths they will never be able to twist! And let us unmask the hypocrisy of these whitewashed oppressors, let them face everything that has befallen us in the last two years, and let the evil deeds of the criminals who caused this war that should never have happened to be made public, and then put them on trial by all of you, and that is the point of our gathering here today!"

His voice was resonating, not only for all those present in the crowd to hear him but also enough to mobilise the already suppressed hearts of all who had yet to be repaired of the damage done by this short-lived arrival of chaos.

There were cheers and applause all around, and Iniesta had no more long speeches to make.

At this point in time, no amount of words could hit the heart as hard as the bloody reality!

Although the time that France fell into Voldemort's hands was not long, only less than two years, the damage that the theory of bloodline did to this originally stable magical society was still extremely serious, so there were not only a few criminals in the wizard's prison who were locked up and waiting to be judged.

With the experience of the previous public trial held at Hogwarts, this trial for the public was not difficult to carry out, because this kind of the most straightforward and most simple act of displaying the evils in the eyes of the general public does not require any skills, only need to put the evil deeds these people have done, the public persecution against the people brought to the stage would all be announced to the audience, and that's the thing that this trial is supposed to do.

Although Jon missed the public trial at Hogwarts, he didn't miss this one for the French magical community.

The first people to be brought to the high stage were the parliamentarians who had willingly become Voldemort's lackeys for the sake of profit and had colluded with Bella, who had pretended to be the Chief Wizarding Chancellor, at the beginning of Voldemort's rise to the position of Minister of Magic in France.

These people have all been screened, and many of them at the beginning were saying that they were wrongly accused and that they chose to support Voldemort not willingly, but were under Bella's Imperius Curse.

But in this kind of event, of course, the Witching Horizon will not still have humanitarian thoughts and not use the Legilimency or Truth Potion on them. As long as these two means are used, then the words they would say or think are not lies, and whether or not their behaviour is sincere, all the cover-ups will be a futile effort.

These people are divided into many different cases.

Some of them had actively chosen to side with Voldemort from the very beginning, plunging the whole of France into the bloodline oppression, and some of them had indeed been controlled by the Imperius Curse and had done things they didn't want to do at all.

Among them, there is also the largest part of the people who were controlled by the Imperius Curse at the beginning and made actions in support of Voldemort, and at the later stage, when the Imperius Curse targeting them was removed, they were forced by the actions they had already made, coupled with the benefits and power that Voldemort brought to them in the early stage of his ascension to power, which made them change their thoughts from being forced to do so to become voluntary.

These people, except those who really were under the Imperius Curse from the beginning to the end, were brought up to the high stage of judgment for both scenarios!

The first person on the stage was the official who used to follow Bella around and had been collecting wizard talents among the muggle-borns and half-bloods for her.

He can be said to be the earliest person in the entire French Ministry of Magic to know Bella's true identity, and also the earliest French wizard to willingly defect to Voldemort.

This person privately followed Bella's request, relying on the usual scam of Bella pretending to be "Roland" the Chief Wizard Chancellor in support of the muggle-borns, to continuously recruit outstanding muggle-born wizards, and then either kill them directly, or send them to Britain as slaves, or tortured to death by all kinds of means!

This man knew from the beginning that he would surely die for his crimes, and from the moment he was caught by the Witching Horizon, he tried to commit suicide many times, fearing that he would be retributed and tortured even more, and would not be able to die, but he was prevented from doing so.

And this public trial, open to all wizards in France, was much more radical than the one piloted at Hogwarts.

Instead of having someone else pronounce the crimes of the convicts on trial, they were fed truth potion from the start, so that they would answer questions on the high stage!

And when the official who had acted as an accomplice to Bella and had aided and abetted in the abuse of the people personally told the names of all the people he had killed, sentence by sentence, and stated their tragic endings, the whole scene completely boiled over!

Just confined to the text or a summary handed down by others, after all, can not really let people feel much sense of emotion, only when the people who have done these evil deeds themselves recount all the facts, bloody expression of their own countrymen who were betrayed by them back then, killing the rich ideals and vitality of the young people for the sake of their own to be able to get better enjoyment, higher status, people can feel a sense of trembling rising from the bottom of their hearts.

It turns out that there is really no limit to how evil people can be, and it turns out that some people do not have the slightest psychological burden or pressure when committing these evil acts that can make people feel numb just by the sound of them recounting.

Just like the public trial at Hogwarts, the first subject to be brought to this trial targeting the whole of France was also Iniesta's and their choice after much deliberation.

The clamour rose and fell in succession in all parts of the assembly, and on the high stage, there were not only the statements of the convict himself but the grief-stricken and impotent complaints and cries of the families whose children he had cheated away.

There are few scenes in the world more moving than this, and before Iniesta could even finally begin to put everyone present to a vote in judgment, all sorts of don't-let-him-die-so-easily voices were ringing out from all parts of the venue!

Through the truth potion, everyone in the audience heard that this former official of the French Ministry of Magic wasn't actually afraid of death, that he himself had already tried to take his life many times in prison and that what he was really afraid of was that he would go through the kind of torture that would be worse than death!

Since he was afraid of something, the public judgment was going to give him that something.

After everyone in the audience had raised their wands and voted with the tips of their wands flashing different colours, it was finally decided that this official would have to endure 27 shots of the Cruciatus Curse!

Each one of these curses was a life that he had persecuted to death, and even if he had surpassed all others in willpower and survived these 27 curses, he would still be hanged on the gallows.

After being sentenced, all executions began on the spot!

The 27 rounds of the Cruciatus Curse would be used on him by 9 members of the Witching Horizon in turn, and this kind of torture that struck at the soul of a human being had previously been spurned by normal wizards who were unwilling to watch it being used openly in the magical community.

But this time, not a single one of them frowned or objected, and instead, after the first shot of the Cruciatus Curse landed on the official, and the shrill howl of agony he resounded with, the cheers became even more violent, to the point where it seemed like they were all about to topple the ceiling!

No one could withstand so many Cruciatus Curse.

Just after the 5th Cruciatus Curse, the official's eyes turned white, and he was lying on the ground as if he had lost his soul, only his heavy breathing was still indicating that he was still alive.

But since it was agreed that it would be 27 shots, not a single shot could be missing.

It wasn't until the 13th round that he had completely stopped breathing, having been tortured to death by such a punishment, dying under the weight of his greatest fear.

But the remaining fourteen shots of the Cruciatus Curse still fell upon his corpse, as the trial had concluded, and as the sentence had been determined upon, it was bound to be carried out in place, whether or not there still existed life in the person to whom it was to be carried out.

This was the one thing that Dumbledore and Iniesta wanted to make clear to everyone in the first public trial, and it was the main tone they set.

Jon was sitting in the front row, so he could clearly see the change in the fat-looking official from the beginning when he was on the floor, his body shaking violently with each shot of the Cruciatus Curse, to the end when he was completely lifeless.

Perhaps in the future, after they had gained all the victories, some people would flip up this book and complain about the inhumanity of this kind of punishment.

But in the face of some people who had already lost their humanity and had no way to be called human, inhumane means were the most humane response to the victims.

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