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"What's to prosecute? It's basically legal to deliberately endanger a child from a Wizengamot family if it's for purposes of provoking accidental magic, provided there's been no sign of it before and the child's at least four years old." He hesitated. "Sometimes, I wonder if that's why my magic is so weak. My parents were both powerful wizards, but I almost never had accidental magic and, well, I'm struggling in all my wand-magic classes. I wonder if there was some trauma related to what he did to me that stunted my magical development."
"That's awful!" exclaimed Hermione, earning another hiss from Madame Pince. "Do you mean to tell me I've entered a culture where it's acceptable to endanger children just to make them demonstrate magic? That's barbaric!"
"To be fair, there is a Wizarding Child Services department in the Ministry that looks after the health and welfare of Muggleborn, Halfbloods, and even Purebloods of 'lesser' families. It's just barred by law from questioning the treatment of children who are from Wizengamot families but who aren't established as Heirs Presumptive, which I wasn't until my magic saved me from that fall. From what I can tell, I was kind of an unusual case because most wizarding children show some sign of magic in early childhood. Anyway, our system of government depends on keeping as many Wizengamot seats filled as possible, especially Ancient and Noble seats. As far as the law is concerned, if I'd been a squib, it would have been better for me to have died young so that the Longbottom seat could more quickly pass to an actual wizard. Honestly, you as a Muggleborn have a lot more legal protections than Theodore Nott. He could be kicked out onto the street tomorrow or worse on his father's whim."
"You can see now, Hermione, why I've been studying this stuff like mad," said Harry. "By leaving me with the Dursleys and not looking after me, the Potters and the Headmaster violated several centuries-old laws." He turned back to Neville. "And not to change the subject, but you seem rather well-informed about Theo's home life."
"I can make some educated guesses." Neville looked around the Library to make sure they were not being observed. "Last summer, Gran made me study files she'd had drawn up on all the children I'd be at Hogwarts with whose parents were either known or suspected Death Eaters. She has a personal grudge against the Malfoys for what the Lestranges did to my parents, but as far as specific crimes, Lucius Malfoy wasn't even that bad. He was accused of bribery, financially supporting a terrorist group, and misdemeanor Muggle-baiting. If he took the Dark Mark of his own free will rather than while under the Imperius Curse, then he probably murdered at least one Muggle, but that's basically unprovable. He's an arrogant bigoted snob, but compared to most suspected Death Eaters, he's relatively harmless."
Neville leaned forward intently. "Tiberius Nott, on the other hand, was accused of all that plus murdering a dozen Muggleborns and Merlin knows how many Muggles. The killings usually were, well, extremely violent. Gran called him a psychopath and said he was probably the worst Death Eater to not get put into Azkaban."
"Why wasn't he if he was that bad?" hissed an astonished Hermione.
"You can thank Sirius Black. His trial transcripts are still sealed, but according to the information that was released to the press, he confessed to putting over two dozen Wizengamot members under the Imperius for You-Know-Who, including Malfoy, Goyle, Crabbe, Parkinson ... and Nott. That got all of them off the hook in spite of them carrying Dark Marks. Gran figures Black knew he was done for, so he took the blame for all the suspected Death Eaters who hadn't been caught red-handed."
"Is it possible to see those press accounts?" asked Harry.
Hermione pointed across the room to an upper floor. "They've got bound copies of The Prophet doing back decades at least."
Harry nodded. That would be something else to add to his studies, which already included his normal class work, Wizengamot law, and wizarding genealogy. "You know, Neville, if you're really worried that there's some kind of childhood trauma that might be limiting your magic, you should go see Madame Pomfrey. Perhaps it's something correctable. I've already talked to her about my size – the Dursleys weren't big on nutrition where I was concerned – and the nutrient potions she gave me are supposed to get me up to Jim's height within a year or two."
"I'll ... think about it. Thanks."
After some more discussion of school matters, the trio separated, with Hermione and Neville headed back to their dorm and Harry to the back issues of The Prophet, starting with the volume for 1981. The results were unenlightening. You-Know-Who's death was front page on November 1st of 1981, and two days later, the paper officially attributed his demise to "Jim Potter, The Boy-Who-Lived" even though there were no actual first hand witnesses for his miraculous feat of deflecting the Killing Curse. Nevertheless, it was just ... accepted that Voldemort had tried to use the Killing Curse on Jim and some strange backlash destroyed him, leaving Jim with the Dark Lord's mark on his brow. Harry idly wondered if the V-shaped scar might actually contain some fragment of Voldemort's evil, thereby explaining why the Boy-Who-Lived should be such a monumental prat. Then, he disregarded the idea. Voldemort might be evil, but Harry thought he'd be much smarter and less obnoxious than Jim. Harry was unsurprised to see that there had been no mention of his status or even his existence.
The traitor Sirius Black was arrested on 3 November, 1981 by James Potter himself. He was tried by a secret tribunal in accordance with what were referred to as The Death Eater Laws, a series of controversial temporary laws passed in 1980 to better allow the wizarding law enforcement and judicial systems to cope with what was effectively an armed insurrection by a substantial part of the nation's ruling class. Given the influence Voldemort had, Harry wondered why he didn't just have his followers pass laws to give him what he wanted rather than going on mass killing sprees.
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