Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 38: XXXVIII

February 9th, 1999

DEATH EATER ARRAIGNMENTS BEGIN

Inside the Numerous Retrials Commencing Today

She spots the headline on the corner of another witch's Daily Prophet as they enter the Ministry, and the words make her suddenly nauseous. The courage and bravado she can absorb from extensive research only goes so far, and imagining every argument she's going to make in her head is one thing.

Actually doing it is another entirely.

She's had lives depend on her knowledge before - Harry's, in particular, so many times during the war - but never like this.

She's never had to stand in front of someone who knows her words are the only thing between them and the Dementor's Kiss.

You're being dramatic.

No, she isn't, but she can't allow herself to mentally unravel before she even reaches the courtroom.

She steels herself. Adjusts her posture - jackknifes. Her fingers toy absently with the hem of her pinstriped blazer. McGonagall's bony hand squeezes her shoulder.

The doors pull apart.

How exactly did McGonagall describe it? A media circus, wasn't it?

Yes, that's precisely what this is. Tightropes, ringmasters, fire and all. She's had her photo taken at least a hundred times and she hasn't even said a word yet. Merely sits in the otherwise aggressively empty character witness box.

The Wizengamot assembles slowly. Lazily. As though to say they're perfectly aware the lives on the line today aren't theirs.

Hermione breaks out into a cold sweat. Her mind is suddenly blank, save the one thing she shouldn't be thinking about right now. The words of a reporter, thrown at her on the streets outside the Ministry this morning.

"Don't worry, Miss Granger - today can just be practice!"

McGonagall's sharp grip had tried to prevent her from turning to face the man, but Hermione has never known how to leave a question unanswered.

"Excuse me?" she'd asked. Demanded, rather.

Hidden behind his camera, the man had snapped a shot of her and announced - quite plainly and without any reservations - "For when you defend Draco Malfoy. That's of course the only reason you're here, isn't it?"

McGonagall had dragged her away before anything further could be said, but now his words bounce around the inside of her skull.

Practice...

Just practice.

Human lives aren't practice.

But she has to consider whether a small, concealed part of her had been looking at today that way. Can hardly bear to think about it.

It's even more surprising that the reporter was able to piece things together so quickly. Nowhere publicly did she state that she would be operating as a character witness today.

Almost every other reporter had inquired as to why she'd come to "spectate."

But there was no shortage of whispers and hushed gasps when she'd taken her seat in the witness box.

"Ladies and gentlemen, silence please. Thank you." The gavel strikes, Kingsley's deep voice echoing through the chamber.

Hermione drags herself back to the present.

Kingsley isn't acting as Chief Warlock - he's merely presiding over the trials as a spectator. He won't be acting as judge, jury and executioner, the way Fudge did. Which is admirable. Really, it is.