Things of Fire and Ash (Percy Jackson Harry Potter crossover)

Chapter 6

Chapter Six: The Hearing

The doors opened slowly, adding to the intended intensity of the room itself. Percy, being impulsive, stepped lightly in front of Harry and treaded towards the two chairs where the defense group would stand. The pitter-patter of his shoes was the lonesome noise of the dungeon.

Harry was a little confused by this, had Percy been to court before? Harry didn't think that was a good sign. He silently counted the seconds left he'd have with his wand.

Percy himself took in a moment to look around the room, with high arches made of dark stone and lit by few torches the dungeon looked horribly familiar. Horribly. He shivered and rubbed his arms, mentally panicking when he felt invisible chains wrap slowly across his arms. Percy closed his eyes and reminded himself that there were indeed no chains. Just a shadow of a fragment of memory he had yet to place down.

Something within in his soul stirred with discomfort, that something disliked this place monumentally.

He looked up at the prosecutors, noting their facial expressions and simple body language. Percy reached in the left pocket of the jeans that were under the robes he'd borrowed from Harry, feeling the glass vial and remembering the willow tree branch that he'd left in his trunk. The vial of Mist gave him a momentary relief from this situation, and just remembering the stick helped sooth him. Percy had memorized the little engravings on the sick; drawing up the picture in his mind he saw how one spiral fluidly flowed into the next.

Percy remained confused on how the leaves had remained green and flush, magic, the only possibility, gave him a headache just thinking about.

A harsh male voice rang across the courtroom vibrating through the multiple arches. "You're late."

"Sorry," said Harry nervously. "I — I didn't know the time had changed."

Percy watched Harry stutter with a small smile; Props to you, Harry Potter, always stand up for your rights.

"That is not the Wizengamot's fault," said the voice. "An owl was sent to you this morning. Take your seat."

Percy had to restrain himself from leaping off his seat and tearing that smug smile off of Cornelius Fudge's face. Hecate had told him all about the excuse for a man, Percy didn't think his opinion of Fudge could sink any farther. He was wrong.

Harry, still standing at the door, began to walk to his seat. Percy saw the chains threaten to bind Harry, but they restrictedly remained in their rightful region.

A square shaped headed witch with cropped grey hair sat to Fudge's left; she wore a monocle and looked as if to not invite further questioning. On Fudge's right was another witch who was sitting so far back on the bench that her face was in steely shadow.

"Very well," said Fudge. "The accused being present — finally — let us begin. Are you ready?" he called down the row.

"Yes, sir," said an eager voice that Percy knew belonged to a young Wizard named Percy. He had seen the name on Mrs. Weasley's great clock and immediately knew him as one of her children. Percy Weasley's eyes, behind his great horn-rimmed glasses, were fixed on his parchment, a quill poised in his hand. Besides having their names the same, Percy Jackson could tell that both Percys' shared something else. How could he describe it? A burning passion of ambition, a wish to be greater than what people thought of them...

"Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August," said Fudge in a ringing voice, and Weasley began taking notes at once, "into offenses committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey."