Act One: La Belle Sorcière Sans Merci

Oh, What Can Ail Thee? [1]

Harry jerked and blinked. He couldn’t remember when he’d stopped reading. But now he was just staring blindly at the pages of the fat tome on wizarding criminal law on the table before him.

‘Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, da…’

‘I know, Harry. I know.’ Ginny’s voice was weary.

Luna didn’t say anything, not even something strange, and that was certainly not a good sign. Neville just kept reading. Stolid. Stoic. He who’d suffered most under the Potions master in class was now the most determined to save Snape. Ron, however, was still refusing to help -though he claimed that he of course didn’t believe what the papers wrote about Snape and Hermione.

Harry looked at the clock and jumped up. ‘FUCK! I’m going to be late.’

He had requested to be present at the hearings for the investigations of Hermione’s case. Today it was medical experts at St Mungo’s.

Harry raced down the stairs, taking the last flight at a jump — only catching himself at the very last moment with a Cushioning Charm. Outside, an Auror was already waiting to escort him to the hospital.

‘Hello, Parker,’ he greeted the thin man with the walrus moustache.

Parker nodded mournfully. ‘They are still here, your fans.’`

Harry didn’t spare a glance for the girls camping among the flower beds at the centre of Grimmauld Place. He disliked the never-ending hubbub about Hero-Harry and the Boy-Who-Lived-Thrice. But what he disliked even more was that in spite of vanquishing Voldemort, he still didn’t pack enough punch to put a stop to the investigations against Hermione, or to the proceedings against Snape.

Snape’s trial was already scheduled.

And Hermione’s …

Harry clenched his teeth. He tried to concentrate on the four Ds and on St Mungo’s. It didn’t work. Too many thoughts running around in his head, spinning and turning in crazy circles like a broken carousel.

‘Sorry, Parker. I need a moment.’

He started pacing. It simply isn’t fair, he thought. Though he could just imagine what they’d have to say about that … He could hear their voices in his mind.

‘And when has life ever been “fair”, Potter?’ the cynical potions master would sneer.

‘I don’t think life works that way, Harry,’ Hermione would chide him, her eyes wide and scared.

Snape and Hermione were still out of it, kept magically asleep so their bodies might heal from Nagini’s venom. And a tiny voice at the back of Harry’s mind insisted that it was better this way. Easier.

There were too many things he didn’t want to tell them.

He didn’t want to tell Hermione that her parents were dead. He didn’t want to tell her that she was being prosecuted for reckless manslaughter.

And he could just imagine how Snape would react to the news that his memories had been seized as evidence for his upcoming trial.

The Ministry was out to get them. And the new Minister of Magic was determined to make an example of them.

From the folds of the front-page in Parker’s pocket, Fudge leered unctuously at Harry: ‘This a new era — the rule of law instead of that of a Dark Lord. Nobody and no one must be above the law.’

Percy approved.

Hell, theoretically Harry supported the concept himself! Just not in this particular case. Not when it meant sending the man who’d saved his life and his best friend to Azkaban.

‘You’ll be late,’ Parker pointed out, his tone melancholy.

‘Then they’ll have to wait,’ Harry snapped. He might not have the clout to keep the Ministry from wreaking havoc in the lives of two damn heroes of the damn war. But at least he was important enough that they wouldn’t start that damn hearing without him.

He sighed. He hadn’t meant to take out his frustration on the Auror. ‘Sorry, Parker.’

‘Bad day, sir?’

‘Just the latest in a long row of bad days,’ he muttered, then pulled himself together. Voldemort was dead, after all. And Snape and Hermione were alive. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Had Hermione told him that? It sounded like her.

Another deep breath. Harry concentrated carefully on the four Ds, and on an elegant, soft, pop of Apparition.

He appeared in front of St Mungo’s with a CRACK! Harry shrugged. At least he hadn’t Splinched.

Five minutes later, Harry discovered in a cramped office on the Janus Thickey Ward that he was indeed at least important enough for St Mungo’s experts and Ministry investigators to wait for him.

Sadly, that didn’t help.

The Healer patiently explained which spells Hermione had used on her parents, and the mistake she made. A mistake, he said, that was as easy to make as it was to avoid.

‘But Hermione never makes mistakes!’ Harry protested.

Dolores Umbridge smirked.

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[1] All textual allusions to ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by Alain Chartier and by John Keats are entirely intentional.