“Voldemort Lives!”

Even though she had seen the inside of the Wizengamot’s chambers more times than she cared to remember, Daphne Greengrass still shuddered when she entered through their towering double doors. Part of it was due in no small part to the pair of dementors which flanked the entrance to the chambers, stealing the warmth and joy from anyone in close proximity, but Daphne also felt her heart drop at the memory of the cases she had tried in this same dank dungeon. Some of them she had won, but others she had lost, and that had meant her clients being condemned to hellish Azkaban.

When learning Magical Law, she had been told not to take her cases personally, but how could she be anything but invested when her failure meant another witch or wizard would be offered up as a feast to the dementors on that hopeless island? So, Daphne had invested herself in her clients, their stories, and their humanity, while some of her colleagues preferred to put up just enough of a fight in court to collect a paycheck. It was why she was sought out by her clients, and shunned by the other members of the legal profession in Magical Britain.

Most of Daphne’s clients were accused of being “neo-Death Eaters”, which all-but-guaranteed an uphill battle to escape being sent to Azkaban. Some of them had been charged with violent crimes, but others had done nothing that Daphne thought warranted their slow and cruel death sentences. Such an individual was her client today. He was a boy of only fifteen, jittery and nervous in his seat which contrasted with his height and long limbs.

Lambert Grey looked to Daphne with relief in his wide brown eyes, and she tried to smile reassuringly at him, but feared that it came across as a grimace. Still, it was the friendliest expression that he could hope for in this environment. The young wizard’s parents had refused to come to court, leaving him alone save for Daphne and the stern, judging faces of the Wizengamot judges, the opposing counsel, and the morbidly fascinated reporters and spectators who wanted to see this youth destroyed. Daphne made her way to Lambert’s side and felt the scandalized eyes of the onlookers rake her with so much venom. How dare she defend someone like this, they thought, when Daphne’s outrage was directed instead at the conditions that her client was in.

He was shackled to a chair with animated chains binding him to its uncomfortable confines. Hermione Granger, the sitting Minister of Magic, had promised to do away with such a cruel and prejudicial practice, but that pledge, along with noises about closing down Azkaban and dissociating from dementors, had turned out to be a lie.

“How are you doing, Lambert?” asked Daphne. Even though he was taller than her standing up, the teenager had to look up to meet his protector’s eyes.

“I’m scared, Miss. Greengrass. Is there anything you can do to get me out of this chair? I-I promise that I won’t run or anything like that.”

“I already tried.” She saw the pleading in his eyes and so Daphne patted him on the shoulder and said, “I’ll try asking them again.” She left before she had to watch the chains tighten around Lambert to punish her client for daring to seek relief from their cold embrace. Daphne instead approached the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot at his post seated high above the accused and the lawyers.

“Chief Dunwicke, I would respectfully request that my client be removed from his restraints. He poses no flight risk; Mr. Grey is not even capable of apparition at his age.”

The older wizard glared down at Daphne imperiously over the top of his thin-framed glasses. “Absolutely not. My court is not one for making allowances for the mere comfort of the accused. Your client has committed the actions of an adult, and for that he must suffer the consequences as an adult witch or wizard would. Do you understand, Miss Greengrass?”

“I understand completely.”

Daphne was hazarding a look backwards at Lambert when Dunwicke said, “Do you have any other requests to make, Miss Greengrass, or are you and your client ready to proceed?”

“We are ready, Chief Dunwicke,” said Daphne hollowly.

“Good, good,” the older wizard said and then he inclined his head towards the wizard standing on his opposite side from Daphne. “Mister Finch-Fletchley, your opening, please.”

The wizard who strode to the front of the dais was everything that Lambert was not. He was shorter and had rounder and softer features, especially around his cheeks which welcomed the winning smile with which he greeted the trial’s justices and spectators alike. His complexion was rosy and his eyes merry, and why shouldn’t they be? Justin Finch-Fletchley had the rest of his life to look forward to, while Lambert could only dread what lay in store for him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Justin, his smile replaced by the serious poise adopted by a would-be dramatic stage actor, “a mere twenty-five years ago, the greatest threat that the magical and non-magical worlds had ever faced was vanquished. Before that time, chaos and violence reined. Dark Wizards acted with impunity, and even seized control of the government before the actions of the brave and the noble shattered the power of their leader and allowed for us to build a new future, free of the backwards mentality of the past, free of the viciousness and hatred fostered by an extreme group of discontents.” Justin gestured broadly at the chamber around him and said, “Yes, that day was the start of a new age for all magical peoples! But not before people died.”

Justin’s mask grew even more morose as he repeated himself, “Not before many, many, many people died.”

He started pacing back and forth, seeming to talk to himself even as his voice carried to the farthest reaches of the dungeon chamber.

“Along with the famous Albus Dumbledore, the other victims of this madman and his followers were countless Aurors and other ministry employees as well as students of our beloved Hogwarts.”

Now, Justin’s voice rose to a roar of indignation.

“Mere children did not escape his wrath! Their broken bodies littered the ramparts of Hogwarts, I saw them! I helped to clear them away and give them the respect in death that they lacked in life! And I promised them, as we all did, that we would never let this evil resurface again!”

A few stray strands had fallen from Justin’s impeccable hair, and he paused to replace them before continuing in a quieter voice, “The man sitting before you was not even born when He Who Must Not Be Named was vanquished for the final time, and he is himself a wizard with one nonmagical parent, a half-blood to use the outdated term. What’s more, he was not a member of Slytherin House, the source of his inspiration and the Dark Wizards which filled his ranks. He was a Hufflepuff, hard-working, loyal, and true. Everything pointed to this individual receiving a stellar education at a renowned institution of magical learning, where he would form life-long friendships and respect for others as all of us have. Yet, he did not. He chose hatred and violence instead of love and understanding. He chose the Dark, but who presented him with this choice? Who made him aware of this option, who presented it as a valid way of thinking, of acting, of being?”

The man seemed to barely even need breath as he continued his monologue.

“We did, my friends, we all are guilty for this man’s falling down this dark path. We became responsible when we let our guard down. We became responsible when we took the teaching of the horrors of the event of thirty years ago for granted, when we assumed that sheer momentum would maintain the taboo on Dark Wizards like Grindelwald, Salazar Slytherin, and He Who Must Not Be Named. One of my professors, a former Auror, and a victim of the Second Wizarding War, had a mantra which he taught us: ‘Constant vigilance!’ That is what we need to prevent more men from following in the violent footsteps of the Dark Wizards who have come before. We need to do more to educate witches and wizards about the crimes of He Who Must Not Be Named. Not just in Slytherin House and not just during their schoolyears. Instead, we need a constant, omnipresent effort to make sure that the horrors our society experienced can never happen again. We need to constantly reaffirm the value of members of our magical community with nonmagical ancestry. The occasion of our first Minister of Magic with nonmagical parentage should have been an occasion for rejoicing, but instead it has served to provide a cloak for discredited theories and antiquated hatreds as political opposition.”

Justin’s voice had been steadily swelling during his speech, and now he paused to savor the rapt attention of the Wizengamot and the audience.

“There is no excuse for doing everything that we can to eliminate this kind of evil from our society once and for all. Thank you.”

As he walked off to the side of the circular platform in the center there was applause from the audience in the gallery, which continued even though the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot brought down his gavel in several halfhearted attempts to restore order. The burst of savage enthusiasm made the Dementors flanking the entrance to the chamber restless and they swirled around each other uneasily in a vortex of ethereal cloaks and scabbed hands.

Daphne paid attention to their rustling forms more than she did the other witches and wizards in the room, at least until she thought of her client. What little color had been left in the boy’s face had vanished, leaving Lambert as white as a sheet. She was about to cross over to him and try to reassure him when the sound of applause evaporated in a moment to leave the echo of the last bang of the Chief Warlock’s gavel lingering in the air.

“Miss Greengrass, please proceed.”

“Thank you, Chief Dunwicke.” Daphne cleared her throat and then said, “You all have been presented with a lurid series of conjectures and hyperbole, seeking to make out this young man as the symbol of a great spiritual sickness and as the face of a sinister movement which haunts all our worst fears. But the fact is that Lambert Grey is not a Death Eater, neo- or otherwise. He is not a Dark Wizard, and he is not a violent threat. If you would only use your eyes, you would see what he really is, a scared child who made a mistake.”

Daphne listened for a moment and was disappointed to hear whispers of conversation in the gallery. Still, she resolved to press on.

“A mistake was made by Lambert when he scrawled two words on the wall of a hallway in his school. Two words which caused fear and outrage, but which did not harm anyone. Two words which were produced with such a basic level of magic that one of the castle’s resident professors was able to dispel them with a simple countercharm. Two words which were seen by fewer than a dozen students before being taken down. That is the crime that Lambert committed, a nonviolent act of rebellion. What were those two words? We all know, the Daily Prophet has been running stories on Lambert and his actions starting with the evening edition published the day of the incident.”

Daphne took in a deep breath and let it out before she could bring herself to say, “’VOLDEMORT LIVES.”

A gasp of outrage went up from the gallery and even from some of the members of the Wizengamot, but Dunwicke was able to stem the tide of noise with a preemptive slam of his gavel. Daphne had everyone’s attention now.

“Those were the words that Lambert wrote,” she said in a calm, measured voice, “powerful words which are capable of creating outrage even now, even here, twenty-five years after He Who Must Not Be Named was defeated, in the heart of the Ministry. Frightening words to those who lived through the darkest days of the Second Wizarding War, and to those who have heard stories of that time and have been painfully aware of missing loved ones kept alive only in photo albums and stories. While Mr. Finch-Fletchley implied a whole host of sinister motives to Lambert’s actions, he did not succeed in proving any intention behind the boy’s act. In fact, what Lambert wrote is not substantially different from what Mr. Finch-Fletchley argued. He Who Must Not Be Named does, in fact, live, in the choices that we make between love and hatred, between courage,” she looked meaningfully at where Justin was standing, looking bored, “and fear. We give that name power and we give what that Dark Wizard stood for power when we let fear rule our lives, and our society. Mr. Finch-Fletchley believes that we should let He Who Must Not Be Named live in order to condemn him again and again. Isn’t this letting him win? Isn’t this letting ‘constant vigilance’ turn into constant paranoia?”

The expressions on the members of the court were stony, and Daphne felt her heart sink, but she still pushed on.

“In light of Lambert’s young age, his otherwise spotless record during his time at Hogwarts, and-” Daphne’s voice hitched, but only for a moment. “And in light of the severity of the sentence sought by Mr. Finch-Fletchley, I am asking that you approach this case with understanding and sympathy for a boy who made a mistake. Thank you.”

The end of Daphne’s speech was not met with any applause. Her closing arguments never were, unlike Justin’s, which always enjoyed the approval of his audience. Daphne was not seeking approval or fame, she was seeking results, and sometimes she had been successful in making the case that mercy was more important than vengeance.

Sometimes.

It was getting harder with every case, however. The Wizarding World was growing harder and less sympathetic towards matters pertaining to Dark Wizards, real or imagined, past or present. That this case had gotten this far did not inspire hope in Daphne, and she feared that the die had already been cast. But she could not let that fear show, not in front of the Wizengamot and especially not in front of Lambert. So Daphne stood there like a statue, waiting for the court to deliberate amongst itself, trying and failing to stop herself from listening to their hushed conversation for any sign that would point to her client’s fate.

The seconds ticked by into minutes, but no further. A decision had been arrived at and the Chief Warlock rose to announce it.

“After much careful deliberation,” Dunwicke said with a lordly air, “we have decided to sentence Mr. Lambert Grey to three years in Azkaban, with potential for an earlier release no sooner than one year from the date of his arrival.”

A slam of the gavel made the decision final, and the gallery dispersed in a hubbub of voices while the members of the court gathered themselves and prepared for their own departure. Without any malice in the gestures, Justin gave Daphne a smile and a wave before joining the throng of reporters and gawkers so that Daphne was left with Lambert and the two Dementors which were advancing on them from their previous posts at the entryway. It was tempting to write off the despair that Daphne felt to the presence of those loathsome creatures, but she knew that it was something that would be with her long after she had left this dank pit of injustice.

She had failed Lambert, and now his life was over. Even if he managed to keep his sanity during his time in Azkaban, he would forever be changed by the experience and he would be marked by it forever. The label of criminal would follow him for all of his life, with the publicity that this case had gotten, it was inevitable. Yet, despite the horrible fate which awaited him, there was a small smile on Lambert’s face when he looked at Daphne.

“Thank you, Miss Greengrass,” he said shakily, “I know that you did your best.”

The chains around his limbs slackened and he shuddered as the Dementors drew close enough that they could reach out and touch him if they wanted to. Daphne shivered as well, but she did not stop standing by the young man.

She asked, “I never asked you this before, but now I want to know. Why did you do it, Lambert?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, his smile vanished into memory to be replaced by a grimace as he forced the words out. “Can you tell my parents that I’m sorry?”

“Yes,” said Daphne, and she wanted to add that it was going to be all right, but then the first of the Dementors’ hands seized Lambert’s arm and she could not speak the lie as she watched the boy dragged off, crying out in horror to the nightmare which awaited him.