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Lunaticus Book Three: New Moon Rising	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Remus Views: 12595 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
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A/N: Next update will be Tuesday, September 5^th.
Chapter Twenty-One – Testimony

Harry felt as though he had been thrown back in time to nearly ten years earlier.

As he followed the Auror through the doors and into the courtroom, everything was as he remembered it. Greyback sat on a dais, his wrists and ankles bound by the chains affixed to the chair, the Wizengamot sat in a semicircle on a raised platform facing them, and Harry could see Kingsley and Percy seated at the centre of it all, Kingsley watching Harry enter with a neutral expression, while Percy scribbled furiously on the parchment in front of him. His expression carried the familiar pinched, serious look it always did, and Harry couldn't help but feel a distinct sense of foreboding at the fact that Percy seemed too preoccupied to meet his eye.

A seat had been prepared for Harry, and he found the lingering scents of his friends and pack that still hung on the air around it to be comforting, and it put him a little more at ease. He nodded to Greyback, who did not respond, but the look of utter humiliation he saw briefly in the alpha's eyes told Harry that he likely felt deeply ashamed at having to be subject to judgment like this—not that Harry could blame him.

Harry swallowed his pity, certain that Greyback would not appreciate it, and sat down to face the Wizengamot.

“You are Harry Potter?” Kingsley asked as he assumed his Minister of Magic role, and regarded Harry as though he were a stranger.

“Yes,” Harry replied.

“Former resident of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London, current residence the territory of Mr Fenrir Greyback, located in the Black Forest?”

“Yes,” Harry said again.

“And you believe Mr Greyback to be innocent of the charges put against him?”

“I do.”

“What proof do you have of that?”

The cutting voice was not Kingsley's, but belonged to a squat woman with silver hair three rows up. There was a sour look on her face as though she had sucked on a lemon, and her brow was furrowed in suspicion at him. Harry frowned, took a breath to keep himself calm, and thought of how devastated Tavish and Adina would be if he mucked this up. His hands tensed on the chair's armrests, and the thought of his fellow subs was enough to keep his voice steady as he responded to the woman.

“Fenrir Greyback is many things, miss,” Harry began, his voice shaking a little as he gazed up at her, “but he did not murder those people. As I am certain you have been told, a rogue pack of werewolves had been circling our borders for several months. They had left tokens in an effort to draw Alp—er, Greyback, out, and murdered that person and that child as a result. He is innocent of those charges.”

“And is he also innocent of breaking the conditions of his release?” The woman shot back, “he removed his Portkey Cuff, one of the conditions was it was to remain on. How do you explain that one, Mister Potter?”

The sneer in her voice made Harry grind his teeth. He could see the look of disgust in her eyes, and suddenly he understood—werewolf prejudice.

Harry felt suddenly sick, and he could not stifle a glare as he met this woman's eyes in challenge. Belatedly, he realized that he had reacted to her as a werewolf, and this response she would not understand. He cleared his throat once, and began to vocalize a response.

“As I am certain you have been informed, madam,” Harry replied as evenly as he could, though his voice continued to shake a little, “the Portkey Cuff broke apart during Greyback's first moon back with the pack. I was not informed that the Ministry now penalizes innocent people for their own mistakes—the cuff was defective; too small to accommodate the size of Greyback's wolf form. It was not his fault. One could argue that those who fitted Greyback with the cuff knew this, and expected it to come apart, thus giving them an excuse to arrest him again.”

“You are suggesting that the Ministry conspired to have this beast put away?” the woman snarled, and Harry lurched back in his seat a little, alarmed by her fierce tone. “What do you know of it? You're no better than him, not anymore! You're a beast, too, of his lineage. How dare you come in here and act as though you still carry some authority—”

“—that is enough, Mrs Tyrell,” Kingsley interrupted, “this is no place for prejudice of any kind. We are here to analyze the facts of this case, not pass judgment based on race or species. If you cannot conduct yourself in a professional, unbiased manner, you will be removed from the courtroom. Is that clear?”

The woman, Tyrell, grumbled as she nodded her head, but did not verbally respond. Kingsley refocused his attention on Harry, his expression still blank and emotionless. Harry looked back at him, his chest heaving a little as he strove to calm down from his shock at the woman's attitude towards him.

“Please tell us in your words what occurred during the slaying of these two people, Mr Potter,” Kingsley said gently, and nodded his head encouragingly. Harry swallowed thickly, and began to speak.

“I didn't see either attack,” Harry explained as he focused his attention on Kingsley. “I knew about the rogues, they had been circling the pack's borders for months, trying to get in and take over, but our protective warding is very strong, so it's not easy to get in and out if you don't already know where the territory is.

“I'd been with the pack maybe a month, month and a half, or so, and Tavish pulled me aside because both of our mates were missing, and he told me about the human that had been killed.”

“Your mates...as in your friends? Which friends?” Kingsley asked, raising an eyebrow, and Harry stared blankly at him. “No, not friends, your...oh.”

“Bit more than friends, Minister,” Harry replied dryly, and the response earned him a few titters of amusement from the various Wizengamot members, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Greyback smirk approvingly.

“Understood, Mr Potter, please continue,” Kingsley said stiffly, and Harry nodded his head once.

“When Ulrich got back, he pulled me aside and told me that the carcass was pretty much shredded, and they burned the corpse to keep any scavengers from getting too close. A few weeks later, the body of the child was found...well, what was left of it.” Harry paused, and swallowed his disgust as he continued to speak. “Ulrich told me that it was mutilated.”

“And you did not see either of these crime scenes?” one of the other Wizengamot members asked, again an older person, a man who looked to be about one hundred and fifty, if the low wheezy quality of his voice was anything to go by.

“No, sir.”

“Then how do you know for certain that Greyback was uninvolved?”

“I just know,” Harry replied forcefully, and paused to take another breath before he spoke again. “Ulrich was the one who relayed this information to me, and I trust him. He's not the type to lie about such a thing, and more than that he has no reason to. It is completely clear to me that Greyback is innocent of these charges laid upon him.”

“Thank you, Mr Potter,” Kingsley said, a hard edge to his voice as though determined to cut the interview short before anyone else could cut in, which seemed to be a good move, given that at the same moment, Harry saw the woman from earlier open her mouth to offer up a scathing retort. “Please provide us with your memory evidence, and we will pause for a fifteen-minute viewing.”

An Auror whom Harry did not recognize stepped down from the raised seats and handed Harry three vials. He accepted them before he rested his wand tip against his temple as he focused on the memories he needed to extract, and one by one, deposited them in the vials. He handed them back to the Auror, and was ushered out of the courtroom towards a door on the opposite side from where he'd come in, and on the other side of it he found the rest of the witnesses sitting in a circle and talking quietly.

Ulrich looked up and smiled softly when he saw Harry step inside, warm adoration in his eyes as he stood in one fluid motion and closed the distance between them. Harry shivered a little when he felt the tickling sensation of the tip of Ulrich's nose brush the hollow of his throat, scenting him in familiar greeting, and to to ensure that no dominants had been too near him when they'd been apart. Under normal circumstances, this behaviour would have annoyed Harry, but in this case, he understood that Ulrich was likely already stressed to the breaking point from being around so many wizards, and to have his mate left alone in a room with two different dominants that weren't him had to be doubly difficult. At the same time, after the third-degree he'd received from the prejudiced woman, it was deeply comforting to be held like this.

After the couple shared a quick kiss they joined the group and Harry felt the colour rise in his cheeks when Ulrich sat at Harry's back. His thighs caged in Harry's legs, and he wrapped his arms securely around Harry's waist as he continued to scent him. In front of the group, Harry felt a little embarrassed by this public display of affection, but when he opened his mouth to protest, Tavish immediately made a slicing motion at his throat, and he mouthed, don't make a fuss.

Harry nodded minutely, and felt himself relax a little when Ulrich finally straightened up, but he still held him close. Harry's eyes met Remus's, and the guilt in his own gaze was met with a look of utter heartbreak from Remus.

They both quickly glanced away.

“So...how likely is it that this trial made any difference?” Tavish asked in a very soft, distinctly un-Tavish tone of voice.

“It's hard to say,” Hermione said consolingly, while she offered him a small, sad smile. “Our defence was strong, it's out of our hands now.”

“That's not as comforting as you think it is, Hermione,” Tavish remarked with a note of sarcasm in his tone, and she smiled apologetically at him.

At that same moment, the door was pushed open, and one of the Aurors let himself in, though looked somewhat uncomfortable when he caught sight of Harry and Ulrich sitting together in a lover's embrace. Harry felt himself flush and was about to move, when Ulrich's arms at his waist tensed in a silent plea for him to stay where he was.

“Er,” the Auror paused and coughed, “the Wizengamot are about to make their final decision, and they are requesting the presence of all of you in the courtroom. Follow me, please.”

As a group they all stood and followed the Auror back out. Tavish lurched as though he wanted to go to Greyback, but Adina grabbed his arm and shook her head minutely.

Harry had taken Ulrich's hand as they headed back out, and the group lined up as their memories were returned to them. Kingsley regarded them all silently for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Greyback.

“We are about to make our decision,” he said to him, “do you have any final words to add before we do so?”

Greyback was silent for a moment, his face stony and expressionless as he regarded the Wizengamot before him. Harry's hand tensed in Ulrich's as they all waited for their alpha to speak.

“I have done many regrettable acts in my life, Minister,” Greyback replied gruffly, but more politely than Harry would have expected, “but I did not kill those people.”

Kingsley nodded his head, and turned his gaze to the others.

“And witnesses to the hearing of Fenrir Greyback...have you any closing statements?” he asked, and glanced up and down the line for a moment, then Remus took a small step forward.

“Fenrir Greyback, following his release, has done nothing that would warrant an arrest, and certainly not with such heavy charges as you have laid,” he said in that unfamiliar, confident tone of voice. “We have all provided evidence that these rogues were indeed a real threat to the pack, and despite Ministry claims at offering more protections to our kind, you did not send any such relief to us after the pack was attacked. This makes me question the motives behind this arrest; there is no just cause, and there is no reason whatsoever for our alpha to remain imprisoned.”

He took a step back, and Harry could not help but gape a little. He had never heard Remus speak like this before, and he found himself thrown—shocked both by the confidence that he now carried himself with, and the fact that he did not shy away from his Lycanthropy whatsoever. While Harry tried to shake off his surprise, Hermione took a nervous step forward.

“This seems to me like a false imprisonment based on shaky, unreliable sources,” she said, her eyes darting from one Wizengamot member to the next as she spoke. “I do recall another innocent man you locked away without a trial, and he spent twelve years in Azkaban as a result. I do hope the Wizengamot will not make the same mistake twice.”

“Everything my alpha has done, he has done for the good of our people,” Adina added, “he will never be a good man by your standards, but he has saved our lives time and time again, and does so with zero expectation of appreciation for his actions. He is by far one of the people most undeserving of your foul treatment over these last weeks.”

“Alpha changed pack life for subs like us, and made it less dangerous to be unattached,” Tavish added, “I owe him my life, and I will die before I let him go back to Azkaban—especially when I have it in my power to make a stand.”

“Greyback attacked my brother during the war,” Ron said, his voice edged with nervousness. “He isn't a werewolf, but he does carry certain werewolf traits now. I hated him for a long time, but through Harry, Ulrich, and Remus, and all the others, I've come to see that he's not the man that we at the Ministry have always painted him as—I agree that he does not deserve this rash punishment.”

“Alpha marked me and turned me against my will,” Harry said, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from Tavish, and the way Ulrich's hand tensed in his. “But he did it for my benefit. Due to my human-werewolf mating bond with—with Remus,” Harry cut himself off when his voice caught, and took a breath in an attempt to calm himself before he continued.

“I had suffered a partial turning, which was no one's fault, it was one of those things that just sort of happened. Even if I had been bound to another werewolf I think it would have happened anyway. I needed to be turned, or the partial turning would play havoc with my mind and my magic. He did it to save me, and since joining his pack I have never in my life felt so welcomed as I do there. They are my family now, and that is a gift that Alpha gave to me. I am very grateful for it.”

“Alpha saved me from my former human partner and myself,” Ulrich said, his voice trembling a little, though Harry could not tell whether it was from deep emotion or nervousness. “My former human partner was...he did some very bad things. Alpha helped me, gave me a place in his pack, and later, a higher rank just below his own. He is like a brother to me, and I will fight tooth and nail to keep him free. He is innocent of these charges you have laid upon him.”

Absolute silence followed Ulrich's statement. Tavish and Adina were holding hands and looked a little misty-eyed, while Greyback, still bound, looked as though he had been hit in the face with a brick. He appeared completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, and Kingsley, as well as several other Wizengamot members, seemed equally stunned by what they were hearing.

Kingsley glanced around the room, and took a slow breath as he began to speak again.

“Those in favour of clearing the accused of all charges?” Kingsley asked, and Harry held his breath as he watched hands begin to rise. Kingsley and Percy were amongst them, and he did a quick count, and felt his heart swell—

Close to two thirds of the Wizengamot had voted in Greyback's favour.

“And those in favour of conviction?”

The unpleasant woman from earlier raised her hand at once, as well as a smattering of older Wizengamot members, but not near enough for him to be convicted. Next to him, Harry heard Tavish's soft, excited gasp.

Kingsley knocked his gavel once.

“Cleared of all charges.”

~*~

Tavish and Adina just barely managed to contain themselves until Greyback had been processed and given back his normal clothes before they both lunged at him, and he grunted as the pair of subs tearfully clung to their mate, both taking turns offering him warm kisses of welcome.

Given that Greyback had never been overly open with his affection towards Adina and Tavish, this was the first time Harry had ever seen them kiss like this, and he found it a little bizarre to see. Hermione had giggled a little at the subs' excitement, while red-faced, both Remus and Ron looked away from the scene.

A thick arm coiled around Harry's waist, and Harry looked up to Ulrich with a small smile, and leant into his side. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and Harry's eyelids fluttered shut at the sensation.

“Alpha, we need to celebrate,” Tavish said enthusiastically when he pulled back from their kiss, though his hands were still resting against his chest. One of Greyback's arms was draped both protectively and possessively around Tavish's waist, holding him close, while Adina was nestled in the crook of his other arm. “We should have a feast tonight. Can we? Please?”

“I'll speak to the hunting party when we get back,” Greyback replied, and Tavish's face split into a wide grin, before he turned to Ron. “Normally I do not allow humans in my territory, but you have proven yourself as friend to our kind, and you are Granger's mate. You would be welcome to join us—given that the moon just ended, you would be in no danger.”

Harry's mouth dropped open in shock at the same moment that Ron's had, and he looked over to his fiancée nervously, only to receive a small, encouraging nod in response.

“Thank you, er, Alpha, it'd be an honour.”

Both Harry and Hermione beamed at him, while Greyback turned his attention over to Remus.

“And you, Remus?” he said, and his words were met with a small smile.

“I appreciate the offer, Alpha, but I am afraid that I must be getting back,” he replied, and Greyback jerked his head in a small nod. He reached forward and clapped Remus on the shoulder, hard enough that even at a distance Harry saw the other dominant's body jerk slightly.

“You are Pack, Remus. You will always be welcome if you change your mind. Take care of yourself,” he said, and Remus nodded again.

“Thank you, Alpha,” he replied, and he moved as though to sweep his gaze over the group, though his eyes lingered on Harry more than on anyone else. “Goodbye.”

Remus turned and walked away from the group, while Ulrich's arm wrapped more securely around Harry's waist, and he brushed a kiss to his temple.

“Come on,” Ulrich whispered to him, “let's go home.”
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Lunaticus Book Three: New Moon Rising