Harry sat on the cold bench for several long minutes, the silence of the stone corridor pressing in on him.
Then he heard it — footsteps.
Soft, deliberate, trying very hard not to be heard and failing.
He turned his head sharply.
The sound stopped.
“Hello?” he called.
No answer.
He stood up, eyes straining in the flickering torchlight.
“Hello?” The door to Courtroom Ten opened.
“Harry Potter?” Percy Weasley stood in the doorway, back straight, holding a roll of parchment and a quill like they were sacred objects.
His face was blank.
No flicker of recognition.
No “Alright, Harry?” or even a nod.
Just official detachment.
“Hurry up and get inside, Mr Potter.
It won’t do to keep the Wizengamot waiting.” He turned and walked back into the room without waiting for a reply.
Harry followed.
The moment he stepped through the door, recognition hit him like a physical blow.
He had seen this room before.
Not in person — in a memory.
Dumbledore’s Pensieve.
The same dark stone walls.
The same high benches rising in tiers.
The same heavy, oppressive atmosphere that had clung to the Death Eater trials at the end of the last war.
They were treating him like one of them.
The benches to either side of him were empty.
In front, high above, sat the Wizengamot — dozens of shadowy figures in formal robes.
They had been murmuring among themselves.
The second the door shut behind Harry, the sound died.
The silence that followed was absolute.
A cold, pompous voice rang out from the highest tier.
“You got our owl informing you that the time and place of the hearing had been changed?” Harry looked up.
Cornelius Fudge sat in the centre, looking smaller and more ridiculous than Harry remembered without his usual lime-green bowler hat.
“No,” Harry answered, voice steady.
“I arrived early.
Madam Bones told me.” He wasn’t going to play whatever game Fudge was running.
Not today.
“Very well,” Fudge said, sounding faintly disappointed.
“Take your seat.” In the middle of the room stood a single wooden chair.
It looked uncomfortable by design.
Thick black metal chains were bolted to the arms and legs — the same kind of chair that had held convicted Death Eaters while they were sentenced to Azkaban.
Harry didn’t move.
“And if I refuse to be treated like a murdering Death Eater?” The murmur that swept through the benches was immediate and loud.
Harry caught fragments — outrage, shock, a few low laughs.
Someone banged a gavel sharply.
The sound cracked through the room like a whip.
Harry recognised the American courtroom habit from one of Hermione’s rants in second year.
Apparently the British Ministry had decided it looked impressive.
Madam Bones spoke over the dying noise.
“I appreciate your concern, Mr Potter, but you have my assurance that the binding spells on those chains have been removed.” Harry held her gaze for a moment longer, then walked to the chair and sat.
The chains gave a small, almost eager twitch against the wood, but they didn’t move to restrain him.
He forced himself to stay still.
A small, cold satisfaction settled in his chest.
At least one person in this room wasn’t playing Fudge’s game.
Fudge cleared his throat and began in his most official voice.
“Disciplinary hearing on the twelfth of August into offences committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the Statute of Secrecy by one Harry James Potter, of Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.” He paused for effect.
“Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; and Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic.” Harry’s eyebrows rose.
Senior Undersecretary?
He had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.
Some Ministry titles were clearly invented on the spot to make people sound more important than they were.
And why was a secretary sitting in judgment on him anyway?
Where was Mafalda Hopkirk?
This was her office’s case.
Fudge continued without pause.
“Court Scribe: Percival Ignatius Weasley…” The list went on.
Name after name, title after ridiculous title.
Harry stopped listening after the third one.
None of them mattered.
What mattered was what was missing.
No defence.
No solicitor.
No Albus Dumbledore, despite the man holding half a dozen titles that should have put him in this room.
Harry sat in the chained chair in the centre of an ancient courtroom, surrounded by the most powerful people in wizarding Britain, and he was completely alone.
Fudge finally finished the roll call and looked down at him over the top of his reading glasses.
“Mr Potter,” he said, voice dripping with false concern, “you stand accused of performing magic in front of a Muggle on the second of August.
How do you plead?” The room waited.
Harry felt every eye on him.
The chains gave another tiny twitch against his wrists.
He lifted his chin and met Fudge’s gaze without blinking.
This wasn’t about the Dementors.
This was about control.
And Harry had no intention of making it easy for them.