Chapter 22

A quorum for a sitting of the Wizengamot was a mere seventeen of its members. When the prosecution of death eaters had been at its peak, often double that number had been present. But today, the day before Christmas, the hearing chamber was full, all fifty-one members in attendance and the packed chamber giving a sense of importance and urgency to the proceedings. The only other occasion in the last ten years on which the chamber had been full was the prosecution of Harry Potter a few months earlier. On that occasion the actual trial had been unimportant, but it had appeared so because it was nothing less than a trial of strength between Ministry loyalists on the one hand and Dumbledore's group on the other.

But Skeeter's trial was without political significance. The Ministry of course despised her. For a decade and more she had been part gadfly, part scourge, mocking and wounding the Ministry by turns. She was not connected to any opposition groups, and because she was not politically motivated, the Ministry had never taken action to silence her. Nasty though Skeeter was, she never wrote about anything that could actually bring down the current clique, and so in one way she had been somewhat useful to the Ministry, for Fudge and his group could point to her as proof that dissent was tolerated, when in fact any real opposition was quickly suppressed.

Thus it was not for political reasons that the Wizengamot's chamber was packed this morning. It was Christmas, many of those who mattered making it a point to be in London for the season, and it was convenient for them to attend a hearing they might otherwise have skipped. More than a few were there because of a personal grudge of some kind, some having having suffered from Skeeter's quill, and even more having a relative who had been a victim.

The vile Delores Umbridge was of course present. She had departed Hogwarts the instant classes had finished, eager to return to the Ministry, not only to catch up on gossip but also to get the lay of the land. Was the Ministry content with how she was running things? Or had there been any rumblings of dissatisfaction? Was there any danger she might be replaced? Or promoted? From Hogwarts Umbridge could have little sense of what really was going on, but in London, it was easier to get a more complete picture.

For Umbridge, the trial, conviction, sentencing and punishment of Rita Skeeter was an amusing diversion. Umbridge had an almost dementor-like ability to feed off of human suffering, and she could feel the excitement building inside her as the Wizengamot progressed through the day's docket. She looked about the hearing chamber, remodeled over the last few months as a result of orders from Fudge himself. The hearing room could now accommodate trials of dozens of individuals at the same time, making the prosecution of groups speedier and more efficient.

"Registrar, call the next case," said Fudge from his position at the centre of the front bench. It had been difficult indeed to oust Dumbledore from his position as Chief Warlock, and even more difficult for Fudge to get himself appointed as Dumbledore's replacement, it of course being unconstitutional for the Minister of Magic to also be Chief Warlock. But the Ministry's constitution was unwritten and was based only on ancient customs that almost (but not quite) had the force of law. It had been a struggle for Fudge to maintain his position as Chief Warlock, requiring an immense amount of work to prevent a vote for his removal from taking place. But the effort was worth it, for the Wizengamot was the only check on his power, and as long as Fudge could maintain his presidency of it, there was no limit on the laws he could pass or the decrees he could issue.

Azkaban had been filling up with political offenders during Fudge's term, and with less space available, older and more primitive forms of punishment had been revived to deal with minor criminals. An insignificant smuggler was led out the side door in chains, rather distraught to learn he was headed not for a short jail term but instead for the public square in Diagon Alley and two dozen lashes followed by an hour in the pillory. Many members were uncomfortable with the lash, the stocks and dunking, but these members were also unhappy to have a prison guarded by dementors. With no proper alternative available at present, the more decent members of the Wizengamot chose what they believed to be the lesser punishment.

The less important cases now finished, it was time for the main event. Some of the members had been getting rather bored with the proceedings, but now everyone was attentive as they heard the dungeon doors open. One of the new features of the hearing chamber was that the accused were now brought up from cells beneath, ascending a narrow, winding staircase to find themselves in the prisoner's dock, facing the imposing audience of the assembled Wizengamot, along with the prosecutor and the witnesses against them.

But there were no witnesses waiting as Rita Skeeter emerged from the depths of the Ministry, where she'd spent the night in custody, having turned herself in the day before her trial as her bail conditions required. No witnesses were needed, Skeeter having supplied the Ministry with all it required to convict her. After her application had been received, she had been interviewed by Ministry officials several times, and every detail of her story had been taken down, every statement signed by Skeeter, and every page initialed. Fudge had copies of all this before him, and every member of the Wizengamot had received a synopsis some days earlier.

Skeeter blinked in the light. It was not all that bright in the hearing chamber, but the light was glaring compared to the murky depths underneath. Her worried gaze wandered among the members of the Wizengamot, hoping to divine their collective intention from the expressions she found. But the faces were uniformly grave and almost expressionless, giving no hint of what the members were feeling, with one exception - Umbridge. She positively beamed when her eye met Skeeter's. The writer was taken aback by the openly predatory expression on Umbridge's face, and looked down at her feet as the bailiffs led her forward to her position in the prisoner's dock.

The prosecutor in this case was none other than Fudge himself, and from the front row he addressed the prisoner.

"The facts of your case are known to the members, that you were an unregistered Animagus for decades, making frequent use of your ability for personal profit, violating the privacy of your victims. In a moment of madness you applied to the Ministry, thinking that if you managed to register as an Animagus, you might escape punishment for your crime. But you miscalculated, and now you find yourself here, for trial and if found guilty, sentencing. As a formality, I must ask you, do you accept as true the facts contained in the Ministry's indictment?" Fudge held up the document, and started to pass it to the prisoner. But there was no need.

"The facts are correct.", said the writer, her voice only just audible.

"And how do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty."

"Then it is only a question of sentencing." As Fudge made this rather obvious statement, he looked about the chamber with evident satisfaction, as if he had just completed a difficult trial calling for the best efforts of a skilled lawyer. "Do you have anything to say in mitigation of sentence?"

There was a profound silence in the chamber. After a pause, Fudge continued.

"Since you have nothing to say, it falls to me as the prosecutor to propose a sentence to the members. Now in my view -"

"She may have nothing to say, but I do," said Dumbledore, rising to his feet at the back of the chamber and walking forward past the rows of members, to join Skeeter at centre of the chamber, staring up at the rising rows of seats arranged in a semi-circle about the prisoner.

"I heard nothing about the accused retaining counsel," said Fudge, clearly annoyed.

"A good point," said Dumbledore. "I hereby inform you that I am representing Ms. Skeeter. That's right, isn't it?" he asked the woman. Skeeter nodded in the affirmative. "That's settled, then," said Dumbledore, launching into a speech.

"And it's not surprising that she has nothing to say. What more could she say? Has this chamber ever had a prisoner in the dock who has said more than she? Have we ever had before us a case where everything the prosecutor needed to prove had been supplied by the accused? Where the very existence of the crime was unknown until the accused revealed it? Where each of the victims has been named by the accused, and where the prisoner has set out with exactness how much she profited from her crimes? It is true in the dark days when Voldemort's powers were at their zenith, we occasionally would come across a death eater who made full confession of his crimes. But this only happened when the Aurors had gone to great lengths to bring the man in, the accused perhaps resorting to murderous violence to try to escape arrest. Only when caught, jailed and facing life in Azkaban or a dementor's kiss would the accused make full confession in the hope of mercy.

"But that is not the case with Rita Skeeter. She was in the comfort of her own home, under no investigation nor even suspicion when she decided to turn herself in. Her motive for doing so is revealed in the papers before you. She'd developed an abhorrence for her conduct. Determined to make amends, but lacking the means or even a method for doing so, she took the only course left to her: to make a full confession to the authorities, and then to accept the consequences. And so it falls to us, the assembled members of the Wizengamot to determine what those consequences should be."

"Ten years in Azkaban!" exclaimed Fudge excitedly, to cheers from a number of members. "Ten years at least, and she should be lucky it's not life!"

"Yes, I've heard much talk of that," replied Dumbledore calmly. "But I ask myself, 'to what purpose?' There is no need to deter Skeeter from future misconduct - is there anyone here who thinks that Ms. Skeeter will ever again repeat her offence? She's known since her arrest that she was facing a long term in prison, yet she has made no effort to escape.

"But if not to deter Skeeter, what other reason is there to destroy her with a crushing sentence? Perhaps the cries of her victims demand it - perhaps retribution is required. But in the papers before you, you will find statements from a number of her victims. And you have read what they have to say."

Fudge was taken aback by this. He had seen no need to read his brief in detail, the case was so plain, and so he had been unaware that in it were a dozen statements Dumbledore had obtained from Skeeter's victims, including Arthur Weasley and Hermione, stating that they forgave Skeeter and asking that she not be sentenced to prison. Many more of the victims interviewed by Dumbledore had been less forgiving, but from those individuals he had taken no statement. The Ministry had not bothered to seek out any of Skeeter's victims, believing it was unnecessary.