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Chapter 10 - CH10

After her interviews of the five remaining students of the Ministry Six who'd hared off from the school to the Ministry, including both the Granger lass and the Weasley boy, Bones then had Severus Snape arrested and dumped into the cell with Lucius Malfoy. Once she'd found out from the Longbottom boy and the Lovegood girl that Dolores Umbridge had cast the Cruciatus curse on Professor Minerva McGonagall while at the school, once they found her in the back, back end of the Forbidden Forest that witch also found herself in a holding cell.

Next, she set-to with interviewing the supposed Order of the Phoenix members, including a very reluctant Dumbledore, who'd been part of the group to race to the Ministry to rescue the kids. That had four of her aurors - Kingsley Shacklebolt, Hestia Jones, Emmaline Vance and young Nymphadora Tonks - 'ordered' into the DMLE and put into Interrogation rooms to be interviewed. She held off on calling in Mad-Eye Moody and Remus Lupin, the other two Order members besides Sirius Black who were there that night, until she'd dealt with those she already had.

Shacklebolt, Jones, Vance and Tonks would have been immediately fired for what had happened if it wasn't for just how much she now needed them. Instead, they were each demoted - except Tonks, because she was already at the lowest rank - and would be denied promotions for at least a year.

Now with enough evidence she interviewed each of the eleven Death Eaters who were there that night. All of them tried to use the excuse they were Imperius victims, then immediately refused to have Veritaserum used on them as they were all pure-bloods. However, Snape's interview with Veritaserum was delayed because he turned up 'positive' on the anti-Veritaserum Potion detection charm. He was removed to a separate cell and force-fed the neutralising agent, then flushing potions.

His interview was then delayed two days. However, even though Dumbledore had tried his hardest to get the man released, Snape was dosed and sang like a canary - or, rather, 'jailbird' as that was where he was clearly headed.

From the subsequent trials and irrelevant of not being forced Veritaserum, the five Death Eaters who had escaped Azkaban, since there was now a law on the books that escapees were to be immediately executed when caught, were sentenced to death. They were first 'Kissed' by a dementor, demons that consume your soul through what is known as the Dementor's Kiss, then their soulless bodies were tossed through the Veil of Death. The six caught who were not escapees found themselves sentenced to Life in Azkaban as being Death Eaters caught in the act of 'being' Death Eaters and as parties to the 'murder' of wizarding Britain's boy-hero, Harry Potter.

Another sentenced to Life in Azkaban was Dolores Umbridge, after she was dosed with Veritaserum. Someone had discovered the witch wasn't the pure-blood she had claimed to be - and was, in fact, a half-blood born of a wizard and a muggle woman by the name of Ellen Umbridge née Cracknell - and had provided proof of that by way of verifiable documentation to the DMLE by an anonymous post owl. As such, she was not protected from being forced to take Veritaserum under the pure-blood exemption statute.

What she admitted to while under the serum was enough to send her to Azkaban for Life and for Cornelius Fudge to immediately lose his position as Minister; he, however, quit first. It was a certainty he'd have been fired within a few minutes later if he had not. Dumbledore had tried to have those sentenced to death only returned to Azkaban. However, he was vociferously overruled by the Wizengamot as a whole. They were not prepared to let the murderers of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, be consigned to anything but the toughest of punishments.

As for Sirius Black, once he was properly interrogated for his 'crimes', it was discovered he was innocent after all. The Wizengamot, thoroughly embarrassed, then had no choice but to declare him exonerated, not pardoned, of all charges. He was immediately compensated one hundred and twenty five thousand galleons for what he'd had to put up with over the past... including his twelve years in Azkaban... almost fifteen years.

Not wanting the 'blood gold' as he thought of it, Sirius secretly handed the lot over to Madam Bones; to only be used to train more aurors and properly outfit them with protective armour and similar. As the newly instated Lord of the wealthy Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Sirius didn't need the gold anyway. 125k in galleons represented less than two percent of what he now had access to as Lord Black.

Bones deposited that gold into a secret vault at Gringotts and, at Sirius's urging, told no one at the Ministry about it. Then she used the galleons, as promised, to start buying as much armour and the like as she could for her aurors.

When questioned about it later, she informed those asking it was all donated with the proviso it was to be used to outfit her aurors in battle armour, nothing else. She knew that if the Wizengamot discovered just how much had been given her, she'd quickly find her DMLE budget yet again slashed; irrespective of their 'nation, once again, being at war. She was no idiot.

On his 'planet', Harry had spent his first week simply surviving. He had no interest in risking moving too far away from the ring thing, as he knew that once people figured out where he was they would go there to start their search for him.

However, after the first week he knew his chances of them coming for him had dropped down to single percentage points.

He had, however, managed to erect for himself a small shelter he'd transfigured from rock and dirt, had managed to kill a few small animals that looked like a cross between a lizard and a rodent of some form so he could eat, and was working on his meditation and Occlumency as he knew he'd need them once he got back to wizarding Britain.

He'd cooked the animals using a flame charm and rock transfigured into wood so he had a fire. Actually, just about everything he'd done was transfiguration or basic charms to help himself. It was while he was meditating one evening he began to think about what magic was; what it truly was. 'Intent forms a very large part of magic,' he thought. 'Professor McGonagall told us that. It's what that book on Magical Theory told us, too.'

'Intent!' he thought. 'What if I can accomplish what magic I need to do just through intent.'

Coming alert again, he exited his little shelter and, from about ten feet away from it, turned back to look at it.

Focusing on what he wanted his shelter to be, he pictured it as best as he could in his mind. Then he pointed his wand at it and firmly pumped magic down his wand and to the shelter demanding the magic transform his shelter into what he wanted it to be.

In an almost pure white beam, magic surged from the tip of his wand and to the shelter. Firmly concentrating on the image he had in his mind, he continued to demand the change.

Ten seconds after first beginning the cast he cancelled pumping magic and almost staggered in relief.

Then he caught his first look at what he'd made happen.

Where his stone and dirt shelter had stood, now stood a much larger construction of solid stone. It was about fifteen feet by fifteen feet, had a doorway, but no door, an 'unglassed' window on each side of it and even had a flat roof made of what appeared to be a solid sheet of stone.

He gaped back in stunned surprise. Yes, it was what he'd wanted to appear, but in the back of his mind he did not think for a moment it would actually work.

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