Harry Potter: Multiverse Maelstrom: Chapter 11: A Trial in Downing Street

The viewing hall was a tempest of roiling emotions. The revelation that Sirius Black had not only found and rescued his godson but had successfully raised him in the quiet anonymity of the Muggle world was a beacon of triumphant joy in a sea of despair. The Weasley family was still grappling with their phantom grief, but the sight of a happy, thriving Harry with his rightful guardian had offered a small, desperate comfort. Dumbledore, however, remained isolated, the architect of a failed strategy, now watching from the sidelines as the boy he was meant to guide charted his own course with a new, far more pragmatic set of allies.

"And there you have it," Jack said, a note of finality in his voice. "The wizarding world lost their saviour. The Muggle world gained a promising young student. A fair trade, some might say." He gestured to the screen, which was still focused on the elegant interior of 10 Downing Street. "But the past has a long shadow. The wizards might be done with Harry Potter, but the Prime Minister is just getting started with them."

The scene resumed, the polite clinking of teacups a stark contrast to the high-stakes conversation that was unfolding.

<Chapter 6 Start>

It was clear to Harry and Sirius what he was talking about. "You're talking about the other Ministry?" Sirius asked carefully. "Yes, that's a good description. Once I asked Mr Major about his dealings with them, he said that those visits were the part of the job that he definitely wouldn't miss. He gave me some information on the personalities of the people he had met and this Cornelius Fudge seems to be massively incompetent and I can see where their people came from in electing Rufus Scrimgeour. Even if keeping Fudge as an advisor in my opinion isn't the smartest idea if my predecessor is right about him," Blair commented.

Cornelius Fudge, who was already a shade of puce, seemed to inflate with pure, sputtering indignation. To be dismissed as "massively incompetent" by not one, but two Muggle Prime Ministers was an insult of the highest order. A new figure, a man with a lion-like mane of greying hair and a stern, weathered face, appeared beside him. Rufus Scrimgeour. He looked around, assessed the situation with the sharp eyes of a seasoned Auror, and then focused on the screen, his expression turning grim as he heard the Prime Minister's words.

"To be fair, Minister," the real Tony Blair said to Fudge from his seat, his tone maddeningly reasonable, "from an outside perspective, your administration does appear to be a catalogue of preventable disasters."

Scrimgeour just grunted, his dislike for politicians—magical or Muggle—plain on his face. The idea of keeping Fudge as an advisor did, in fact, seem like a terrible idea.

"You could say that. I thankfully didn't have to deal with Minister Fudge in person, but I know that he tried to find me and force me back to a place that I left because my fellow students massively bullied me and the teachers didn't do anything against it, some even decided that I was at fault and took points and gave me detentions. I left the school after two weeks of this going on. I tried to get help from the teachers, but they told me to not exaggerate. Well, I decided then and there to screw them and live my life away from their backwards society," Harry informed the Prime Minister.

The alternate Harry’s voice was calm, measured, and utterly damning. He laid out the complete failure of the Hogwarts system with the dispassionate clarity of a witness giving a statement. Each word was a fresh stab of guilt for the Hogwarts staff.

"He makes us sound like monsters," Professor Sprout murmured, her kind face etched with pain.

"Because in that world, we were," McGonagall replied, her voice a hollow shell. "We were monstrous in our negligence."

The term "backwards society" stung many in the room. The purebloods bristled at the insult, while modern thinkers like Arthur Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt had to admit, reluctantly, that the boy had a point. Their world was stagnant, mired in prejudice and tradition, and it had chewed up and spat out the one person it claimed to revere.

"I can understand that decision. I heard you're very happy at the London City School?" He asked. "Indeed I am. The teachers are great, I've found friends that simply like me for myself and not for some stupid fame I got because wizards are stupid and think that a baby of fifteen months had anything to do with the fall of the worst dark wizard of this century. I think my parents did something to protect me. ... I can be a normal teenager there, do a sport I like and spend my free time hanging out with my friends, go to the cinema, watch a football game and all without being mobbed by stupid people," Harry confirmed.

The list of normal, happy, teenage activities was another painful reminder of the childhood the real Harry had been denied. Lily and James watched with a mixture of immense pride and profound sorrow. This was the life he should have had.

"He figured it out," Lily whispered, a tear tracing a path down her cheek. "He knows it was us. That we protected him."

"Of course he did," James said, his voice thick with pride. "He's a Potter. And a bloody smart one at that."

The casual dismissal of his fame, the logic that a baby couldn't possibly be a magical powerhouse, was so simple, so obvious, that it made the entire wizarding world's "Boy-Who-Lived" narrative seem utterly absurd.

"That's good to hear. Well, what I need to tell you is this: The Ministry of Magic has decided, because there seemingly was a prophecy made before you were born, Mr Potter, that you're the only one that can destroy this Voldemort character. I don't think that there is anything true about it, as I can't see the validity of deciding that an untrained teenager would be able to achieve more than trained policemen or soldiers," Minister Blair said.

This was the moment the entire paradigm shifted.

Dumbledore stared at the screen, utterly stunned. For his entire adult life, he had operated under the assumption of the prophecy's absolute power. It was a cornerstone of his strategy, his philosophy, his understanding of fate itself. To hear it so casually dismissed with pragmatic, Muggle logic—that trained soldiers are more effective than a teenager—was like having the ground crumble beneath his feet.

Voldemort was equally, if not more, incensed. "Insolent Muggle!" he hissed. "He compares my grand destiny, our epic duel, to the grubby work of policemen? He dares to suggest that mere force of arms could overcome the Dark Lord? This is the arrogance of a world without magic!"

But the real Harry felt something else entirely. A colossal weight he hadn't even been fully aware he was carrying began to lift from his shoulders. An adult in a position of power was looking at him and saying, This is not your responsibility. You are a child. We have professionals for this. It was the most profound validation he had ever heard. He looked over at Dumbledore, not with anger, but with a sudden, startling clarity. He finally understood the fundamental difference in how they saw him.

"They didn't have any success finding you so far, which only proves their incompetency to me, as we only needed half a year to be sure that you were the one they were looking for. After all, you didn't even change your name."

"Half a year," Moody growled, his magical eye spinning in agitation. "The Muggle government located a magically hidden wizard in six months, while the Order and the Aurors found nothing in four years." He slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. "We've gone soft. Complacent. Relying on magic and forgetting basic intelligence work."

The simple, logical reason why Harry hadn't changed his name was another humiliation for the wizards. They had been searching for a needle in a magical haystack, while he had been hiding in a Muggle haystack, confident that their magical senses were effectively blind.

"Well, what I would like to ask you is if you have any kind of information that would help us prepare for more incidents like the bridge and this stupid mist that their dementors are causing," Blair wanted to know. "I have no intention to let you fight. You're just sixteen, going on seventeen in July. ... you're living in the non-magical world, which mean that you'll be a minor for a bit over a year and that's not an age where you should think about fighting in wars. There are good reasons why child soldiers are outlawed."

The phrase "child soldiers are outlawed" echoed through the hall, a damning indictment of the Order of the Phoenix's entire strategy.

Molly Weasley, her eyes red from weeping, looked at Dumbledore. "He's right," she said, her voice trembling but firm. "You were training him to fight, Albus. All of you." She looked at the other Order members. "We were. Sending children to face him. My children. Harry. We were so busy fighting the war, we forgot to protect the children caught in it."

Dumbledore had no response. The Muggle Prime Minister had just articulated a simple moral truth that he, in his complex web of plans and prophecies, had lost sight of.

"I think I can help you more in this regard than Harry, Minister Blair," Sirius now spoke up. "I've experienced the last war that Voldemort waged against the wizarding world and know how he operated back then." Blair gave him a serious look. "I would definitely appreciate that, Mr Black," he said, surprising both of them.

The air in the room went still. The Prime Minister knew.

The real Sirius braced himself, a lifetime of injustice hardening his features. Remus, Lily, and James leaned forward, their expressions a mixture of fear and fierce protectiveness.

"Don't look so surprised. While your documentation may have fooled the normal places, when we checked Mr Potter's identity and background, we also found out your true identity. At first we planned to arrest you and send you back to prison, but we were confused why you hadn't acted against your supposed primary target in years. And considering what a kind of nonsense the Ministry of Magic has been telling us all the years, we're willing to give you a fair chance to explain yourself."

"A fair chance," Sirius whispered, the words foreign on his tongue. "He's giving me what my own world never did. A chance to speak."

Amelia Bones, the former Head of the DMLE, watched with rapt attention. This was it. The trial Sirius Black never had, conducted not in the dungeons of the Ministry, but in the office of the Muggle Prime Minister.

"That's more than I ever got from them, Minister," Sirius said. "The basic story comes down to it that I was framed and nobody bothered to properly investigate my supposed crimes. Peter Pettigrew... was entrusted to be the secret keeper... I played decoy... he has told him. ... I cornered him in Manchester and planned to hand him over to the aurors... he shouted for all to hear how I had betrayed James and Lily cut off his own finger, blasted open the gas line... and transformed into a rat to escape... I was found at the scene, laughing, because he had hit me with an overpowered cheering charm, and I was sent to Azkaban prison without ever getting a trial... I could have easily proven my innocence back then if they had questioned me under truth serum," Sirius explained bitterly.

As the alternate Sirius laid out the story, his voice a calm, bitter litany of betrayal and injustice, the screen showed flickering, grainy flashbacks of the events: Peter switching the secret, the ruined house in Godric's Hollow, the chaotic, fiery street in Manchester, the tiny rat disappearing into a sewer grate, and a younger, half-mad Sirius Black, laughing while being dragged away by Aurors.

Peter Pettigrew, cowering in the viewing room, began to tremble uncontrollably as every eye in the room, filled with a universe of hatred, turned on him.

Dumbledore closed his eyes, the weight of his own failure crushing him. "I was the Head of the Wizengamot," he confessed to the silent room. "Barty Crouch Senior was demanding swift, harsh justice. The evidence seemed... overwhelming. I did not push for a trial. I allowed an innocent man to be sent to Azkaban."

"You didn't just allow it," James Potter said, his voice cold as the grave. "You condemned him. You condemned my son to ten years of hell. You condemned the entire world to believing a lie."

The detail about the Cheering Charm was the final, tragic piece of the puzzle. It was so absurd, so perfectly in character for the Marauders' brand of magic, that it rang with undeniable truth. He hadn't been laughing in triumph; he had been laughing in magically-induced hysterics at the horror of it all.

It was a very sore point for him. "You mean to tell me that we had to endure those happiness sucking demons called dementors all over the country for a year and organised a never seen manhunt, because they didn't follow the law?" Blair asked enraged.

The Prime Minister’s voice on screen was dangerously quiet, filled with the cold fury of a leader who has just discovered that a national crisis, one that had spread misery and fear among his populace, was the direct result of the gross, criminal negligence of a government he was forced to tolerate.

He turned to the real Fudge, who was now sweating profusely. "Your Ministry's failure to conduct a simple trial for one of its most high-profile cases led to a year-long terror campaign against the citizens of the United Kingdom, both magical and non-magical. That is not just incompetence, Minister. That is a dereliction of duty on a scale that borders on treason."

Fudge could only stammer, his authority completely, irrevocably shattered, not by a Dark Lord, but by a Muggle in a suit holding a cup of tea.

The screen went dark. The truth was out. And the wizarding world had been judged by its Muggle counterpart and found utterly, shamefully wanting.

<Chapter 6 End> was displayed on the screen.