Legilimens [Dramione]

Innocent

May 1998

"I didn't do it," Lucius Malfoy shouted once more, under the inert and contemptuous gaze of the members of the Winzegamot.

Judge Bones lifted a paper, scrutinizing it for a moment. "Your wand was found next to the lifeless body of Severus Snape, who has been secretly acting under Albus Dumbledore's orders for the duration of the war."

"It was him," the man shouted again. "It was Voldemort."

Not even the name of the man who couldn't be named until a few weeks before could shake the austerity of Susan Bones.

"Therefore, I find you guilty of the murder of Severus Snape, faithful servant of the Order of the Phoenix, and by virtue of the powers vested in me, I sentence you to life imprisonment at Azkaban".

Silence fell in the room, broken by the strangled scream that left Narcissa's throat. Paralyzed and in disbelief, unable to realize what had just happened, she remained motionless, ignoring the chaos that was unleashed all around her.

The Aurors surrounded Lucius, while a dementor waited for him outside the room, ready to escort him to Azkaban.

"You saw the wounds on his body," a desperate Draco Malfoy shouted, hoping someone would listen. "He couldn't have done it. He didn't do it."

But no one gave him a single glance.

Not any of the members of the Winzegamot, too high up, physically and figuratively, to care about him, to take pity on a failed former death eather.

Not his father, too coward to look his own son in the eye after all he had dragged him into.

Not his mother, broken emotionally and physically, whose lost and shining gaze pointed to the void.

And so, once again, the world he had deluded himself into knowing crumbled under his eyes.

When the time came for his trial, a few weeks after his father's, the atmosphere was different.
If he hadn't spent the nights following his conviction awake because of Narcissa's constant sobbing, his mind would have been clear enough to immediately recognize why everyone seemed to have changed their attitude.

There was someone on the stand.

No, not someone. Them.

 He heard little or nothing of what they said.

"Three months in Azkaban Maximum Security Prison" were the only words from Judge Bones that reached his ears.

Someone protested. Someone else stood up. He paid no attention

He didn't care. What did he have to fear? The dementors?
Hearing his mother cry every night was worse.

January 1999

"They'll never listen to you," Lucius replied wearily, already totally drained of energy and vitality after only a few months in Azkaban.

"It doesn't matter," Draco insisted, tightening his lips into a thin line and staring at his own watch. The visit would be over in a few minutes.

"They'll think we tampered with it-"

"Just give it to me," the boy gasped in exasperation, hoping that his father would simply be able to trust him.

  After all, what else did they have to lose?

He had spent his three months in Azkaban thinking and rethinking about what he could do to clear his father's name.

Lucius wasn't a murderer. He wasn't the one who killed Severus.

His trial had been far too hasty: it had been enough for them to find the man's wand next to Snape's lifeless body to convict him.