Project 137.43.M.D.

LX. | ACCESSIO CEDIT PRINCIPALI

LX.
ACCESSIO CEDIT PRINCIPALI
(an addition to the principle thing becomes part of it)

When Hermione stumbled through the courtroom door, the long, torch-lit corridor was deserted. She turned around in a circle two times, but Draco was nowhere to be seen. And neither was Zabini. Dammit. With a groan, she tore her hair.

After Waters had declared the hearing closed and given Draco the antidote to the Veritaserum, he had practically fled the room. Actually, Hermione had wanted to follow him immediately, but Harry had held her back. And of course he had made the right decision in doing so, because Waters had approached them once more while the other members of the Wizengamot had already been pouring out of the room one by one.

"Miss Granger," Waters had said rather seriously, hands on her hips. "Thank you for your persistence. What we heard today is hard to believe. We will summon Mr. Parkinson for questioning immediately and I am sure that, given the burden of proof, the Wizengamot will unanimously decide to proceed with the retrial."

Despite her concern for Draco, Hermione had been so relieved that she had managed a faint smile. Only then had she bid Waters goodbye with a curt nod and hurried out of the courtroom.

Obviously still too late.

Harry stepped through the door as well and cleared his throat. She turned to face him and bit her lower lip as their eyes met. He looked a little embarrassed.

"Give him some time," he murmured surprisingly gently, absolutely hitting the mark with his words. He seemed to know what was going through her mind.

Hermione nodded in surrender.

They walked down the long hallway and back to the golden elevators, one of which would take Harry to his office.

Hermione, however, would call it a day. She wouldn't be able to concentrate anymore, even if the work had already piled up on her desk like she had been on vacation for several weeks.

"Waters has instructed me that Ogden is to be kept under discreet surveillance from now on," Harry said. The elevator's golden bars rattled shut. "I think she saw through him, too. But the Gamot will not take action against one of its own members while the investigation is ongoing. They want to be sure. I'll detach a few people to keep an eye on him in the meantime."

Hermione had expected nothing less, and therefore she silently accepted the information. It was reassuring that Harry's Aurors would be observing Ogden's every move from now on, because that way he wouldn't be able to go into hiding or flee. He would get his punishment too, she was sure of it, even if it was just a suspension from office.

A faint feeling of victory rose slowly but surely in her, because the interrogations had actually gone better than she had dared to hope. Pansy had kept her word. Draco had appeared and taken the Veritaserum without hesitation. (The latter was something Hermione had doubted until it had happened in reality.) The Wizengamot's reactions had also been significant. Draco might not have wrapped them round his little finger right away, but both Waters and her colleagues had believed him in the end. And they had been downright outraged.

Her thoughts floated back to Draco's testimony and the moment he had explained to Waters why he hadn't stunned her at the time.

They needed her. We all needed her out there.

Her cheeks burned. But while that statement should technically make her feel good, it made her rather sad instead. Draco obviously hadn't wanted her to hear those words from him. And his reasons for that were a mystery to her.

Anyway!

So even back then, in her final years at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy had thought her a capable witch. And even if there had been nothing but mutual dislike between them, he had still built his hope on her. On her, Harry and maybe even Ron. It had been his wish that they would win the war. Accordingly, it was abundantly clear that by this time he had already understood which side would have been the right one, even if he had not been able to choose it himself.