They Apparated behind one of the shabby office buildings lining the little back alley with the dismal telephone booth. Harry pulled off his head boy’s badge and rubbed at it with the bottom of his uniform. He pinned it back just before Snape grabbed his arm. “Hurry up,” he snapped irritably.

Harry yanked his arm back and massaged it. “We’re not anywhere near late,” he complained, following him into the telephone box.

They squeezed in and Harry retreated against the back wall while Snape dialed six, two, four, four, and two again. “Welcome to the Ministry of Magic please state your name and business,” the emotionless woman’s voice filled the box.

Snape, who felt none of the indecision Mr. Weasley had felt when he had taken Harry for his hearing before fifth year, snarled into the telephone mouthpiece, “Sebastian Prince, escorting Harry Potter to testify at the trial of Mr. and Mrs. Lucius Malfoy.”

“But what about Malfoy?” Snape raised an eyebrow. “I mean Draco Malfoy; isn’t he going to be tried?”

“The minister,” Severus inclined his head in the direction of Kingsley Shacklebolt’s new office, “owing to the circumstances, decided not to press charges.”

“Oh.”

“Thank you visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes,” the queerly inhuman voice said, and two badges rattled their way into the change chute. “Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”

As the ground sank away, quaking as it did, the metal groaning in protest, Harry ran his fingers over the glass windows and traced a nail over the stone. “Brainless boy! Get away from there,” snarled Snape, snatching Harry’s hand back. When Harry didn’t pull back and Snape had nowhere to pull him, he released it awkwardly. Harry stared at the bleeding nail for a moment before sucking on it, trying to stop the blood.

The telephone box shuddered to a stop. “The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day,” the voice echoed just before the door leapt open. Snape swept out and Harry followed, trying not to look like a scolded child. They made their way smoothly between the floos and the people Apparating and Disapparating. Harry saw as they passed that both the destroyed fountain and the witch and wizard enthroned on the backs of Muggles had been replaced with an ornate circular fountain with a spire that sent water cascading to the bowl of the fountain in a clear, solid dome.

They strode over to the security desk, and Harry handed the wizard behind the desk his wand and waited for him to finish waving his long golden rod up and down Harry’s front and back, reminding himself again and again that this time at least the trial wasn’t his own. Snape submitted to the same treatment with far less grace, muttering and growling when asked to hand over his wand. Only when his wand was in his hand again with a bored “Ten and three quarters inches, ebony and phoenix feather?” did Snape relax. Harry thanked the wizard, and Snape supplied his own terse thanks before swooping through the gates to the lifts.

The lift clattered and clanged to a stop and the grille slid open, the people inside streaming out. In their place, Snape, Harry, several ministry employees, a dozen flying interdepartmental memos, and a tea kettle that periodically exploded and reformed itself filled the lift when it began moving again. Harry pushed his hair in front of his face as the Ministry employees looked at him, turned to each other and pointed, whispering. He flushed a dull red as he heard Snape snarl “It’s rude to point.” The witches and wizards around him glared affronted at Snape, and moved as far from him as they could in the confines of the lift. The cool female voice ticked off the floors as they descended, the lift emptying a bit at each floor, until “Department of Mysteries.” Harry flinched and Snape smiled nastily.

The grille slid open, and Snape led the way out of the lift and down the side stairs to level Ten. Harry grimaced at the courtroom door as he moved to open it, and Snape’s nasty smile returned. “The Wizengamot decided to reopen the courtroom for the trials of suspected death eaters.”

Harry glared at him poisonously, “You ought to be very familiar with the place then.” Snape kept smiling and conjured a rickety school chair and sent it gliding to land against the wall as Harry opened the door and shuffled in.

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy sat in the two heavy chained armed chairs, or Lucius sat, rigidly, and Narcissa slumped. Behind their chairs stood a pair of Aurors, looming menacingly in the gloomy dungeon courtroom. Harry’s eyes passed across the walls and the benches filled with the fifty members of the Wizengamot. The torches flickered dully over the rough dark stone walls and floor, throwing light and shadow in strange and somewhat sinister seeming ways. A large wooden chair with an arched back and turned legs stood in the shadows. He gazed up at Kingsley Shacklebolt, who shook his head to tell him to stay where he was.

Narcissa’s eyes darted to him and back to the Wizengamot and continued speaking. “I bent over him and saw that he was breathing,” she whispered, “but I told the Dark Lord that he was dead. The Dark Lord said that no one could stand against him, and cast the Cruciatus curse on him and then had Dumbledore’s half giant Hagrid carry him to the castle. We marched on the castle and the Dark Lord demanded the resisters’ surrender, and showed off the Potter boy.” Her sullen face turned to him for a moment as she paused for breath. “They refused to believe that he was dead, and refused to surrender. The Dark Lord summoned the Sorting Hat and put it on one of the students’ head, and set it on fire.” She paused as if for dramatic affect, and Harry supposed she was playing for her life, really.

“A giant burst in, distracting everyone while the boy escaped from the sorting hat and pulled out of it a sword, which he used to kill the Dark Lord’s snake. At the same time, Potter disappeared-”

“Disappeared?” asked a wizened old woman.

“Vanished.” She clarified, “and my husband and I followed suit.” Her jaw jumped as she strained briefly at her restraints, as if she were trying to fold her arms across her chest.”

“You may stand down, Mrs. Malfoy,” Kingsley told her, though because the was chained in place, it was only a formality.

“Harry Potter,” called Kingsley, and Harry looked up ant him. He nodded at the chair without chains, and Harry strode over to it with as much confidence as he could muster, sitting down stiffly, his back still sore from the Bludger. When he tried to lean back, the spindly wooden bars to hat the back of the chair dug into his back. “State your full name,” Kingsley boomed.

“Harry James Potter,” Harry’s mouth had gone dry, and his tongue didn’t want to work.

“You are here on behalf of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy to corroborate testimony given by the former.”

Harry nodded.

“Could you please say that aloud, for the record?”

“Yes,” he choked out.

“Did He Who Must not Be Named cast the killing curse on you as Mrs. Malfoy claims?”

“Yeah,” Harry said quietly. “Voldemort cast the killing curse on me.” Most of those present flinched, but Lucius stayed carefully and obviously still.

“But you survived?”

“Yeah, twice.” A few people smiled appreciatively.

“And did Mrs. Malfoy, as she claimed, bend over you to see if you were alive?”

“Yeah,” His hands shifted in his lap and he stared determinedly at the wall to the side of the Wizengamot.

The same ancient witch who had asked Narcissa about Harry’s disappearance asked both suspicious and puzzled, “Why did He Who Must Not Be Named ask the accused to examine you?”

“Well he was afraid, wasn’t he?” Harry murmured, “I have a habit of surviving.” A few of the Wizengamot members chuckled, but Harry didn’t see what was amusing. He did have a habit of surviving. It was after all, what he was famous for. He was still the Boy Who Lived.

Kingsley picked up the questioning again. “Did she than tell He Who Must Not Be Named that you were dead?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And did she take part in the battle after that point?”

“No, but-”

“Thank you Mr. Potter.”

A slow frustration that built with each question and each answer he had to give in support of the Malfoys reached its peak. “She didn’t do it to help me!” he burst out. “She did it because she wanted to find her son! She didn’t care about fighting Voldemort or any of it; she just wanted to get inside Hogwarts!”

Kingsley gave him a wry, sympathetic smile, but he said, “You’re free to go, Mr. Potter.”

Harry rose jerkily and fled.

~*~

Harry found Snape, tracing the fissures and veins in the rock walls with his fingers. “I hope you weren’t bored,” he muttered to him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Potter, your testimony was not of great import,” sneered Snape. “It did not keep you long enough for me to succumb to boredom.”

“I wonder if my testimony was important to Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry snapped. “Should I go back in and ask them?”

“No, Potter, you’re not allowed back in.”

“Really,” said Harry, disbelieving, but he remembered when Mr. Weasley had told him he wasn’t allowed to come with Harry into his hearing.

“The Wizarding World does not believe in public trials, the better to disguise any corruption,” Snape’s eyes flashed, “and sometimes no trials at all.”

Harry flushed, and wondered if Snape were trying to remind him of Sirius, or if it was accidental. “That can’t be the normal way they do things,”

“This is the world you fought to preserve, Potter! Surely you knew what you were fighting for.” He quivered as he spoke, and Harry stepped away from him.

It struck Harry as very strange that Snape, who had himself been a Death Eater, should speak so passionately about governmental tyranny. “You can talk,” he shot back resentfully, “being a Death Eater and all.”

“Do be quiet Mr. Potter, at least where people can hear you,” Snape replied scornfully, and Harry realized then that he and Snape had not moved from the hallway. He hesitated for only a moment before he pivoted on his heel and marched to the stairway. “Are you running away?” he snarled at Harry.

“No,” he answered coldly without turning his head, “I expect you to follow.”

Snape did follow. He had to. They walked in silence up the stairs and ignored each other as they waited for the lift. “I don’t understand why we can’t Apparate from here,” Harry asked once they had pressed into the lift.

Snape gazed at the ceiling “There are anti-Apparition wards over the whole complex.”

“Then why couldn’t we have Apparated into the Atrium the way everyone else here does?”

“Only Ministry employees are allowed to apparate into the Atrium. All visitors must arrive though the visitor’s entrance.” He spoke slowly, as one would to children or the mentally subnormal.

“Oh.”

“We can however, Apparate out from there.”

The cool, emotionless voice rang through the lift, “The Atrium.” The grille slid open, and Harry, Snape, and the crush of people in the lift with them pushed their way out and through the golden gates.

Snape grabbed Harry’s arm roughly and prepared to Disapparate, but Harry pulled his arm back. “I can Apparate,” he raged, “myself.” Snape dropped his arm and Disapparated away. Harry smirked at the air where he had just been and, amidst the crowd of people arriving and departing, Disapparated as well.

The grass beneath their feet crunched as they walked. There had been a hard frost the night before, and the water hadn’t yet thawed on the blades. Harry glowered at the sun, still low in the east, wondering how early it still was. “You were saying earlier,” he prompted nervously, “about the Ministry?”

“You should know it already,” Severus snapped in return, gazing out at the Forbidden Forest, a border of fiery crowns on the late autumn morning.

Harry scowled down at him irate, glad for their respective heights. “Who exactly was supposed to tell me?” he asked rhetorically.

“You shouldn’t have to be told! You saw most of it.” Snape’s hand clenched, “I’m sure Black” his lip curled at the name, “told you he was sent to Azkaban without trial. You suffered though a full trial by the Wizengamot at Fudge’s whim, and he only just allowed you that. It only takes the swipe of a pen to declare one guilty without trial. It is innocence that has to be proven, not guilt, and the only way that’s even possible is if a member of the Wizengamot deigns to ask the right questions for the accused to answer!” The sun gleamed amidst puffy clouds, but the temperature belied the day’s pleasant appearance, so they met no one as they tramped across the grounds, and as they walked, Snape’s fervor increased. “And who judges these trials but the Wizengamot, who are also responsible for charging the accused in the first place!”

Snape breathed deeply, shaking as he pulled in great gulps of air. Harry walked mechanically, watching him, but as Snape collected himself, Harry opened his mouth. “Why does this matter to you?” he asked, somehow bitter.

Harry found himself too engrossed in Snape’s speech that he barely noticed when they passed into the castle, but Snape, despite his passion, noticed. When he answered, his voice had dropped. “Did any of your friends talk to you about voting for Minister of Magic?”

Harry looked around, and replied, voice low, “No.”

“That’s because none of them did. None of their parents did. No one votes for any Ministers at all. The Wizengamot appoints them. The Wizengamot as a whole appoints new Wizengamot members. The Minister is usually a member of the Wizengamot himself.” Snape snorted and half closed his eyes. “Every official in the Ministry is appointed by another official, or by the Wizengamot.”

“Then why did they get rid of Fudge?” Harry asked, “if no one voted him out.” The halls were almost empty as they passed though them. Harry’s trainers squeaked on the stone floors on the way to Snape’s office.

“The Wizengamot occasionally bows to pressure from the masses, or,” he growled pointedly, “the wishes of a Wizarding hero.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably as he walked, trying to ignore Snape’s backhanded reference to his fame. “But why do they even care what people think if they can’t do anything about it?”

“Think Potter!” he hissed darkly, “They don’t want a rebellion!”

“There haven’t been any rebellions, have there?” He kicked a loose stone between his feet.

Shape twisted around to face him. “Of course there have been!” Harry started. The only rebellions he had learned about in History of Magic were goblin rebellions. “There haven’t been any successful rebellions since the one that put the Wizengamot in power; its members are remarkably successful in co-opting the most influential and magically powerful members of the Wizarding World, usually by making them members, but there have been not infrequent rebellions.” He snorted in disgust. “You will, more than likely be invited to become one of their number soon after you leave school.”

“But how can fifty people control everyone? They don’t have an army.”

Snape opened his office door and pushed Harry though. When he had closed it again and the tumbler clicked shut, he rounded on Harry and spoke again, “The Wizarding population is small, Potter. Fifty extraordinarily magically gifted individuals and their supporters can fend off several thousand more ordinary witches and wizards, so long as the majority is unable to fight or don’t care enough to do so.”

“Why wouldn’t they care?” Harry shot back, sharply aware at that moment that he was fresh from fighting a murderous tyrannical government, even if it had been a young one, and even if in the defeat of that government the Wizengamot had reinstated itself.

“Are you that naive, Potter?” Snape sneered. “Most people don’t care who rules them so long as they’re not suffering for it. Only in rare circumstances does a great tide of emotion sweep though the Wizarding World, and then, as I said earlier, the Wizengamot usually bends to the pressure.

Harry slumped back against the wall. “But hasn’t anyone ever fought the Wizengamot just because it isn’t right they’re that powerful?”

“Yes Potter,” Snape told him, glowering at the wall behind his head. “Half the Dark Lords began as rebel leaders, and most of the rest claimed they were.”

“Is that why you joined Voldemort?” Harry asked shrewdly, “you thought you were fighting a revolution?”

Snape stared at him startled, and then scowled. “Yes,” he admitted grudgingly. “I thought I was fighting a revolution.” He pulled his hand away from the desk that he had been resting it on as if it had burned him. “I’m a halfblood. The notion of pureblood superiority didn’t hold great enough appeal to me.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’.”

“What about the Malfoys?” Harry demanded, appropriate, he thought, because he had just been to the Ministry to testify on their behalf. “They had plenty of influence in the Wizarding World, shouldn’t they be fighting against a revolution?”

“The Malfoys thought that as if they helped bring about the new world, they would be favored within it.” As Snape started speaking, Harry once again got the impression that he was doing so as if he were speaking to a somewhat slow toddler instead of to a reasonably intelligent eighteen year old. “Besides, they presumed that the government the Dark Lord would create would be even more plutocratic than the current one.”

Harry resolved to look up the word “plutocratic” as soon as he next visited the library, because he didn’t know how much explaining he would have to do if he asked Hermione for a definition. “So, no high ideals for them, then.”

“Only if you consider smugness to be a high ideal.”

“I thought only a real idiot would miss that Voldemort was barking.” There was also willful blindness, but Harry discounted that.

Severus glared at him venomously. “Don’t worry; you aren’t the first father to be less than pleased with the youthful politics of your offspring.” Potter stared at him nonplussed, and he realized with a sick feeling that he had just referred for the first time out loud to their shared genetic relationship.

“I’m very glad you didn’t take my name,” Harry retorted, pulling himself up and clenching his teeth. Snape bared his teeth in a feral smile and unlocked his office door. As Harry strode stiffly out, Snape inclined his head mockingly.

Outside the door, Hermione saw the bow and Harry’s face as he walked out and filed both away to consider later.