The day of their trial comes too quickly for anyone's taste.
Everybody is there. The Wizengamot, the Magical Creatures Council, every member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, several top reporters, and even Pansy Parkinson, who is hiding near the back next to Astoria.
At the centre of the head table is Chieftess Gore. Her injuries seem to have healed just about as well as his have — which is to say: slowly and painfully.
She calls the room to order in a harsh, rasping voice. "If the plaintiffs could state their case, please."
He doesn't know the legal team representing the Ministry, only that, as they speak, he feels a snake of anticipation and dread coiling in his stomach.
"The defendants directly disobeyed Ministry orders, broke out of their confinement, incapacitated several Aurors, and set werewolves free on the night of the full moon with intent to harm. They have interfered with the legislation of the species known as Wallygagglers at every turn. They should be given a sentence of no less than one year in Azkaban or five years under house arrest."
"Thank you for that ... opinion. Now, the defendants."
They present everything from the very beginning — how the Wallygagglers contacted them and asked for help, all their efforts to develop a solution on their own, the necessity of involving the court of public opinion, the desperation that led to their wards, how they escaped, and what they planned to do once they were out. Then, they outline their proposal for fixing this, starting with the information that, before long, the water could affect humans too.
An Auror is questioned first. "You left a werewolf without Wolfsbane locked in a house with ten wandless wizards on the night of the full moon?"
"No one told us!"
"That is negligence, Auror Kilgharrah. Teddy Lupin has been on the werewolf registry since 2004."
But they ask Teddy similar questions. "Why didn't you alert the Aurors?"
"I lost track of time while I was there. I didn't know it was almost the full moon. Then, once we were out, it was so cloudy from all the rain that I just didn't think about it."
"So you're certainly not blameless here either, are you?"
They don't allow Teddy to comment, but the reporters eat the words up.
Draco is next.
"This seems very convenient, doesn't it?" Gore asks. "Perhaps a cover-up for the malfunctions with your prostheses."
"Plenty of people saw the Wallygagglers when they were at the moor. That should count as definitive proof."
"And yet, while locked away, wandless, your patients suffered no symptoms. Their prostheses returned to normal. As soon as you got your wand back, it seems, the problems began anew, and the pattern repeated once your wand was in Auror possession a second time. What do you have to say about that?"
The court positively riots.
"The ward we put up kept all Wallygaggler magic contained. Both times."
"Once my Ministry colleagues arrived at the moor, they found no evidence of Wallygaggler habitation."
"They'd gone underground. But there was still a stack of their rocks left above."
"Like I said: convenient, isn't it?"
"Half the people here saw them with their own eyes!"
"Are you not magically inclined, Mr Malfoy? Would conjuring a wispy phantasm be completely out of your ability? Surely you remember that we were not allowed across the stream to touch..."
For a moment, Draco is shell-shocked. "If the Wallygagglers weren't there, then what were you planning to move to Hexhamshire?"
"We had no reason to doubt your claims at the time, did we?"
The gruelling line of questioning moves on, targeting them one after the other.
"Auror Weasley, is it true that you went against a superior's orders when you set up the wards at the moor? Is it also true that you were partially responsible for the attacks against Aurors that occurred on the night of the full moon at number twelve, Grimmauld Place?"
"Now hang on — attacks?"
"... Ms Patil, you're responsible for using a specific type of knockout gas — of your own invention — against the Aurors as well, are you not? A gas that has never been approved for use on human beings. Would you agree that that is a violation of your Hippocratic Oath?"
"It's completely harmless. I knew that for a fact when I used it." Parvati flips her plait over her shoulder. "Secondly, Magiveterinarians don't have to swear the Hippocratic Oath, but I'm fairly certain it doesn't contain anything you're insinuating it does. Healers use non-standard experimental spells on patients all the time when necessary. The only oath I did take speaks solely about animal protection, which was my goal that evening. So ... no."
Gore looks at her for a long time before dismissing her.
"Ms Brown, as Centaur Liaison, surely you know the proper paths one must take when arguing for the rights of an endangered magical species. You've seen the system before, you know how things play out, and yet you chose to go against it. Why?"
"Your system wasn't doing anything. You were planning to relocate the Wallygagglers to a new habitat for the first time in over 200 years. The species was already dying out. The move could have proved entirely fatal."
"Do we not have proof of any other locations they've successfully inhabited? Surely this isn't the only pod of Wallygagglers in existence — if they exist at all. That would be rather convenient, wouldn't it?"
"We haven't been able to find evidence of any more."
"And yet you claim we're at fault for not finding this pod sooner. Could it be that a similar situation is occurring?"
Lavender looks down at her lap.
"... Mr Scamander, you're a Magizoologist, is that correct?"
"Yes, my Lady."
"So you've spent your entire career researching magical creatures?"
"Yes, I have."
"What can you tell us about Wallygagglers and their natural habitats?"
"Well, they live in moors, my Lady, which vary widely in terms of flora and fauna. Luna Lovegood may be able to give you more specific information, pertaining to them."
"Is it not true that Ms Lovegood has been known to be an unreliable source of information? Certainly, half of the species of which she speaks cannot be assumed real."
"With all due respect, my Lady, no one thought Wallygagglers were real either."
When he takes his seat again, Luna gives him a peck on the cheek before she gets to her feet, and Rolf's eyes grow large and moony.
"Ms Lovegood, have you anything to say about the status of Wallygagglers, what they need to survive, or the North Moor?"
"No."
The crowd breaks out in titters.
"No?" Gore asks cautiously.
"All the evidence was presented beforehand. That's the typical way of things. I'm only here to give testimony."
"I see. Well. Do you testify that the evidence presented to us — that Wallygagglers are real and that their ability to thrive depends upon staying in North Moor — is absolutely, unequivocally true?"
"Yes."
"You may take your seat."
Granger is called next. There aren't many more people to go through. The odds of Scorpius being next are high.
"Mrs Granger-Weasley, you presented evidence from our official legislation claiming that anything affected by dangerous, latent magic should not be left in the natural world."
Granger pointedly waits for her to continue.
"How did you come by this information?"
"I work in wizarding law."
"And did you use official means to obtain these records?"
Granger purses her lips. "I did not."
"... Mr Zabini, you weren't involved with this project as long as the others, you claim."
"I certainly do."
"And yet you were at the moor already on the day the wards were put up."
He blinks at her slowly. "As were you."
Draco feels Scorpius shake in silent laughter beside him, and he relaxes slightly. Scorpius has been panicked all day, but if he's still capable of being amused by Blaise, there's hope yet that he won't freeze on the stand.
"Yes, Mr Zabini, that is true. But I did not end up collaborating with the accused."
Blaise shrugs. "Whatever gets your rocks off."
"Mister Zabini, I ask that you please not be vulgar in court."
He smiles charmingly. "Simple mistake. Common turn of phrase, you understand."
She moves on.
"Mr Potter, you released several adult werewolves from their bindings on the night of the full moon around defenceless wizards and many of my colleagues, did you not? Have you any justification for your actions?"
"I understood that the Aurors could leave the second the bindings were released. I still had my wand, and so did several of my friends. I knew we could protect everyone there who needed it."
"But you didn't do a very good job protecting them, did you? Mr Malfoy — that's Draco Malfoy, for the record — sustained several injuries..."
Harry looks at him, and his face tightens.
"... not to mention that you disarmed the only Ministry employee who stayed behind to help, didn't you?"
"To help? You were shooting curses at us!"
The crowd erupts into murmurs.
"Unsubstantiated claims, Mr Potter. If you'll remember, it was very dark on the moor and it was a high-stress situation. You may have perceived the curses aimed at the werewolves as targeting you. Not to mention that Mr Malfoy conjured a cloud of smoke to further obscure vision."
Heartless bitch. He shouldn't have Levitated her wand back to her.
"By that logic, I might have been casting the Revulsion Jinx so you would simply let go of my friends."
The audience gets louder, clamouring for more.
"SILENCE! Thank you. That's quite enough, Mr Potter. Would Scorpius Malfoy please take the stand?"
Draco freezes.
"It's fine, Dad," Scorpius whispers. "It'll be fine."
"But—"
He's already gone.
Gore gives Scorpius a thinly stretched smile. "Mr Malfoy, you became involved in this project through your campaign for the Ministry's Official Creature Liaison — a highly coveted position, correct?"
"Correct."
"Would you say that you'd do anything for the job?"
Draco leans forward in his seat. Beside him, Blaise squeezes his shoulder.
"Please clarify what you mean."
"If fabricating a magical species could help you win, would you do it?"
"Objection!" a Wizengamot member calls. "Calls for speculation."
"Sustained. Let's talk about Gringotts for a moment, shall we?"
Scorpius's brow furrows. "Okay...?"
"Now, you and your companions claim that Gringotts is using a certain curse as protection against thieves, correct?"
"The Thief's Downfall, yes."
"Isn't it true that Gringotts has been in operation since 1474?"
"I don't know the exact date, but that sounds accurate."
"Can anyone confirm?" Gore nods to a few Wizengamot members who raise their hands. "All right, thank you. So, 1474 and this only becomes an issue now, more than 500 years later. That's an awfully long time for something as dangerous as magical castoff to go unnoticed."
"I'm not sure how long the curse itself has been in place."
"Well, we got that information from the Goblins before the trial, thankfully. Since 1501."
"Yes. That's an awfully long time for it to go unnoticed. Unless it wasn't being dumped in the moor yet."
"Pardon?"
"As we said, Wallygagglers are more sensitive than humans. Their source of water is also more concentrated, and they're drinking from and bathing in it. And even they haven't completely died out. As we saw from the werewolf pack nearby, magical castoff affects certain species differently."
Gore stiffens. "Please clarify for the jury what you mean by that."
"Well, when the Wallygagglers are hit by curses and stuff, they get the direct effect of the curse. So, for instance, if it's a Stinging Jinx, they get stung, et cetera. But the werewolves just started behaving differently. All the excess magic in their systems made them more vicious on the nights of the full moon, and they began hunting Wallygagglers even though they aren't natural prey. But the werewolves weren't harmed otherwise."
Gore has gone very pale. "Right, well. Very lucky we survived, then—"
"Now, hold on just one minute, Leonora," one of the other Wizengamot members interrupts. "You said the werewolves would be docile. You assured us they would be."
"I didn't — it was my mistake, Gregor, fully. I wouldn't have recommended we stay, otherwise, and—"
"You knew," Scorpius says. His voice carries clearly across the courtroom, and silence follows.
"Please speak up, Mr Malfoy. I'm not sure I heard you correctly," Gore says tightly.
"You knew Wallygagglers lived in the moor, you knew it was hurting them, and you didn't care."
Her face grows red. "Of course not, I—"
"You expected the werewolves to be weaker, not supercharged."
There are several gasps.
"You have no base to these accusations, you—"
"Leonora," the wizard, Gregor, interrupts again, "I'd beg you to watch your words carefully. Half of us were there, and lying in court is heavily frowned upon."
She jumps to her feet. "You cannot stand there calling me a liar!"
Several of the other Wizengamot members are trying to return to order. The reporters have ignored all instruction and are now openly photographing the scene, their flashes bright even in the lit room.
"All of us could have been hurt by going to the moor," Gregor claims. "And that's not to mention all the civilians who might have been attacked if the werewolves ever ventured out."
"Are you accusing me of—"
"I've not made a single accusation yet, but I'm not afraid to start."
Scorpius's eyes are darting back and forth between the Wizengamot members locked in the exchange.
"If they'd attacked us, we'd have had to kill them, Leonora. It's not their fault they've been turned, and they certainly wouldn't have deserved—"
"Oh, who cares if a couple of mangy mutts die! Do you know how many people they've harmed? You should be thanking me for being the only person willing to do something about it."
Scorpius's mouth drops open. He gets to his feet. His voice is steel. "You're the one who changed where Gringotts was directing their castoff."
Gore sputters. "Why would I—?"
"Maybe you even knew the Wallygagglers were in the moor too, it didn't matter. You had a goal." There isn't a hint of question in his tone. "You were planning to kill off the pack of werewolves."
Gore lets out a strangled gasp of protest. "I didn't want to kill them off — I wanted their blood!"
The courtroom goes silent.
Gore is panting, and she goes very pale. "I ... I ... Gregor — you know me, I didn't..."
"Why?" Gregor asks, and his voice is cold.
"I didn't ... I didn't..."
"Why did you want their blood?" Scorpius asks insistently. "What good would it do for you?"
But Draco has a few ideas. The blood of a changed werewolf is more than useful enough to risk a few deaths — and that's just considering potions. He can't even imagine all the other possibilities.
"This isn't my trial," she snaps.
"You're exactly right Leonora, exactly right you are."
For a moment, she beams at Gregor.
"We'll schedule your trial for next Monday then, shall we? Clear her off, gentleman" — he gestures to two security wizards — "we can't have any sort of a fair trial with her here."
"Wait!" she cries. "Wait! None of you would have been in any danger at all if it wasn't for Potter! We had a handle on them, don't you remember? Wait!"
But she's carted off before they can hear anything else, and Draco doesn't know what Gregory says to Scorpius, but after he's done, Scorpius lets out a relieved sigh and steps down from the stand. He looks a little dazed. Draco feels it too.
He's half-aware of Madam Pomfrey being called next. She gives her explanation for helping them, and she's dismissed in short order. It's not until his name is called for the third time in a row, and Blaise hauls him up by his underarms, that the world snaps into focus again.
All of this — the Wallygagglers, everything, was some plot to ... to do some sort of dark magic he couldn't even comprehend. But their work isn't over. Wherever the water from Gringotts was going before it went to the moor, it was building up. With enough time, it would've started hurting people.
If wizards were anything like the miners, they wouldn't have noticed soon enough to do anything about it. Countless people could be jinxed, hexed, or maybe even killed. The Thief's Downfall only washes off spells that have struck the wizards going underneath them, but very few wizards have been struck by the Killing Curse and lived to traipse through the Gringotts.
He looks at Harry.
"Mr Malfoy?" Gregor says.
Draco blinks, and his brain starts working again.
"Sorry, yes, sorry. I just seem to be a bit ... Would you repeat the question?"
"Certainly. Since Leonora can't be considered a fair judge, we're calling everyone to the stand again. I've just asked if you have proof that there's latent magic within the moor's water. There doesn't seem to be anything submitted in evidence related to that, beyond the lab results of Mr Theodore Lupin and a cursory examination by our staff — which revealed nothing conclusive. Could you shed some light on the issue?"
"I ... yes, actually. Yes. If you'll let me submit more evidence to the court." Almost giddy, he pulls his Reveliospecs out of his pocket. "They're my own design, but you can have someone else authenticate them. They allow you to see magic. Magical signatures, magical residue, all sorts of things. If you compare the water from Gringotts to water from an Aguamenti Spell, you'll see a marked difference."
"Thank you very much, Mr Malfoy. A few more questions..."
By the end of the day, he's exhausted, but he feels like he's floating on a cloud. He's just left the main courtroom and walked into the Atrium when he hears a voice call for him.
"Draco, could I talk to you for a minute?"
He spins around. Pansy.
Draco bottles up his shock. He nods. She pulls him to a quiet alcove and doesn't look at him.
"Hey," she says softly. Merlin, he has missed her voice.
"Hey, Pans."
Unexpectedly, she throws her arms around him, and he stumbles a bit at the sudden change.
"Oh, fuck," she says, stepping away and wiping her eyes. "Sorry, your injuries. I wasn't thinking."
"It's all right. I ... are you all right?"
She smiles weakly, but it doesn't reach her eyes, and she drops it quickly enough. "When I heard you'd been attacked by a werewolf, I thought you'd died. Or maybe you'd been turned ... Then I saw you in that hospital bed and you just looked so—" She cuts herself off and shakes her head.
Realisation dawns slowly, then all at once. "It was you who visited me. I thought ... I had no idea. But I heard you."
She wraps her hand around his bicep and squeezes. "You're not allowed to leave me when we haven't properly spoken in months."
"Years," he corrects softly. "I didn't know you wanted to speak to me."
Her face breaks. "Oh, Merlin. I bollocksed this whole thing up."
"Bollocksed what up? It's fine, Pans. You were closer with Astoria so you took her side — I understood."
"No, fuck. Oh, dammit. Draco, I didn't cut contact because I took Astoria's side, okay?"
"Okay. Then why?"
She looks up at him, and he doesn't try to escape all the emotion in her eyes like he wants to. He lets it roar through him. He's feeling pretty emotional himself, these days.
"It was too hard trying to be your best friend when I was in love with your ex-wife."
For a long moment, he says nothing. He doesn't try to make it better or get more information. He's not sure he even wants any, except...
"Does Astoria know?"
Pansy nods. "She ... we're ... Look, I swear we never did anything before the divorce, and I'm sorry we kept it a secret. Astoria wasn't sure how she felt about Scorpius knowing, and she didn't want you to have to keep it from him."
"Oh."
He doesn't know what any of this means, now. Will Astoria and Pansy officially declare themselves a couple? He doesn't want to lie to his son, but he's not going to force Pansy and Astoria to announce something they aren't ready for.
He pulls her in again and rests his chin atop her head. She loops her arms loosely around his back.
"It's fine," Draco whispers. Pansy's hair smells like the expensive rose perfume Astoria wears.
"It's not fine. You thought I didn't love you anymore."
He closes his eyes. "No. I knew you..." But he hadn't known. "I knew it wasn't forever. I just missed you."
"When Blaise called and said you'd been hurt, I swear I didn't waste a second. Obviously, Astoria was pissed, at first, that you'd taken Scorpius somewhere so dangerous, but once she saw that he was okay, she cooled off. Listen—"
"Mr Malfoy! It's time for you to get back," one of the Aurors shouts.
"Ah." Draco pulls back. "House arrest calls."
Pansy smiles again, and it looks more steady this time. "Well, we wouldn't want you to miss out on that. We'll catch up soon?"
"Yes," Draco promises, and he knows that, this time, he isn't lying.