In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 443: Prince (2 in 1)

As to how exactly this public trial (show trial) should be conducted, Jon had actually discussed it clearly with Dumbledore before he had followed Lily to Britain.

Aside from the intervening executions and how the trial would be conducted, the most certain thing he and Dumbledore agreed on was that this public trial must not leave everyone with the impression that it was just a bloodline confrontation, that muggle wizards were judging purebloods, that all purebloods were guilty as long as they existed, and that all oppressed muggle wizards were good as long as they were oppressed.

This is clearly wrong, for there is actually no shortage of pureblood wizards in the ranks of either the Order of the Phoenix or the Witching Horizon; and although they are only a minority, their sentiments still have to be taken into account.

If the trial solely focused on purebloods, or if the trial only focused on bloodline issues, then perhaps the purebloods in the Order of the Phoenix wouldn't say anything while watching the trial, but if something like "all purebloodline people are villains" was circulated afterwards, it would certainly chill their hearts.

And through this public trial, Dumbledore and the others were going to make sure of one thing for all the students and even the wizards in the Witching Horizon out there.

It was the bloodline theory that they were prepared to overthrow and destroy, not the pureblood wizards exclusively!

This was important because if the goal was wrong, then even if they won the final victory later on, there was a high risk of setting off another confrontation.

At that time, the purebloods would become the bottom of society, and the muggle-borns would become the top, and history would repeat itself in an upside-down way until maybe one day it would be the other way around in turn.

And the muggle-borns like Henderson, who were clearly aiding and abetting the bloodline theory from the bottom of their hearts for their benefit are also guilty; because, for the most part, the muggle-borns living in the basement of Hogwarts Castle don't have much contact with the pureblood students, and these high lords are ashamed to even breathe the same air as them, and a lot of their oppression and management is achieved through grooming second-raters, like Henderson.

So some of the things judged against purebloods are not as mind-blowing as pulling someone like Henderson out of the closet.

Naturally, Slughorn, sitting in the audience, was able to think all these things through, and after all the charges had been established, Henderson naturally did not escape death.

In a wave of fury, he became the second subject of this gallows to be executed.

As Slughorn looked at Henderson's still swaying body, it suddenly occurred to him for some reason that he had been wrong in all his previous thoughts.

He had thought that if Voldemort was really defeated in the future, then the magical world would return to the same state it had been in before he had started to rule over a decade or so ago, but now he felt that if the situation did continue in this way, then the magical world would be moving in a completely new direction.

A direction that no one had ever seen, no one could have predicted, a whole new direction!

This public trial certainly didn't end after just two people had been judged, there were many more lined up behind them, being pulled up onto the raised platform one by one.

There were purebloods, half-bloods and muggle-borns, most of whom were guilty of heinous crimes, and the gallows, erected on the high platform, served its purpose to the fullest, hanging eight former students of the castle one by one!

The oldest of these individuals, were like Henderson and Flint, already 18 years old, while the youngest was only 15.

That was a young lady of a pureblood family and one of the worst-natured of the group of 8 who were hanged, with the lives of two muggle slaves already on her hands!

It wasn't even at the behest of her parents, just out of jealous hatred towards the two muggle girls who were prettier than her, they had their faces burned with a spell and their families killed in front of them, on the grounds that she wanted to experiment on how to drive a normal person crazy.

Although 17 is not considered an adult among wizards, there has never been a So-and-So Protection Act in the magical world, let alone the fact that this was in wartime, and such actions are extremely offensive to human morality.

Those that have been brought to the high platform since then have not been as anti-human as the first eight.

The two pureblood witches who had been witnesses to Flint's crimes, who had tried to harm Assia, and who had been Floyd's accomplices, were at least spared of death because they were not the masterminds and were willing to testify later to make up for their mistakes.

But it was clear that after the first eight public trials, all the students below the stage were emotionally stirred up, and they looked at everyone brought up on stage as if they were the worst of the worst, like those two pureblood witches, and there was a chorus of "hang them" before McGonagall had even finished telling them what they were guilty of.

They both nearly fainted on the spot and were paralysed on the high platform, unable to stand up straight.

It was a good thing that McGonagall, Flitwick and Lupin, the three of them on the stage, were there to avoid such a situation, and in the end, the two witches were not sentenced to death by hanging, on the contrary, they were sentenced to 15 years in prison.

That is because they had just been following Floyd as her followers, and although they had brutalised the muggle-borns, they really hadn't killed anyone, and Assia hadn't really died in the end, otherwise, it wouldn't have been only 15 years.

Draco also watched all the public trials throughout.

He wasn't chosen for the public trial, after all in the end he just had a poor stinking personality, but didn't have or had the guts to do as much evil as the others.

Lucius' own hands were dirty, but out of protection for his family he didn't let his son be exposed to those things this early on before he graduated, and then because of the presence of Dobby the house elf, the Malfoys didn't take in muggle-born to be their slaves, which left him little room for wrongdoing either.

So when he was brought to France, he explained everything he had done in Hogwarts Castle without any need to intimidate him, which was really just the occasional taunt and insult to some half-bloods, but nothing more serious.

In his case, of course, there was no need for a public trial; he could simply report in private and be assigned to a period of reformation.

But after watching the trial today, it had a huge impact on Draco, especially when he saw the faces of those who were not unfamiliar to him, hanging from the gallows, stirring their legs helplessly and finally losing their breath, which made him feel his legs go weak and his body tremble as he sat in his chair.

Unlike the original story, Draco had been exposed to a much more refined education in bloodline theory from an early age, when Britain was completely ruled by Voldemort. Just as the muggle-borns who had been brought to Hogwarts had been taught from a young age that they were inferior and slaves, the new generation of noble purebloods was also taught from a young age that they were superior, that they were inherently stronger and more honourable than others.

Before he met Jon, Draco had believed in this theory, and even after he met Jon, he had always reassured himself in his mind that Jon was just an outlier among the muggle-borns.

But today, when there were five familiar pureblood corpses among the eight who had been hanged looming right in front of his eyes, the notion he had built up for the previous fifteen years was truly shattered!

What innate nobility?

On that gallows, bloodline, status, position, everything was nothing, it was all the same with or without bloodline, all would be hanged in the fury and outcry of the masses!

Draco certainly didn't remember anything about Voldemort taking over his body that day in the castle, the only memory that remained in his mind was a comment Jon had made to him before he fell unconscious, saying that if later on should the Witching Horizon win, then his father would surely die while there was still a possibility of him being alive.

At that time he had felt angry, furious to the core, but after hearing today the guilt by association of those who had been hanged, he knew that Jon had not been wrong then.

With the fact that Lucius had the blood of the members of the Order of the Phoenix on his hands, there was no way he would still be alive no matter what.

Unless he had done a great feat of assassinating Voldemort and liberating the whole of Britain right now, otherwise even Dumbledore couldn't keep him if he wanted to, not to mention the fact that Dumbledore had no reason to keep him at all.

And Draco himself knew full well that with his father's fence-sitting nature, he would never be able to do anything that might risk his status before the situation became clear, which would mean that he would almost certainly die if Dumbledore's side won!

Draco thought of this and at the same time saw the muggle students who were sitting in their chairs covering their faces and hugging their heads and crying after one of the public trials.

He looked at the students, who were about his age, with a different kind of mixed emotion.

He had never thought of the so-called "mudbloods" as normal human beings before, because that was how he had been brought up.

Only today did he realise that these people, who were the lowest of the low in the bloodline theory, could cry and laugh too, and were not inherently inferior to him in any way, except for their birth.

***

Jon and Lily were once again back in that Spinner's End.

Snape was making some kind of potion for Voldemort, and they had no way of finding out more about it for the moment through the list of herbs and ingredients even if they had one.

There were times when the miracle of potions far surpassed even magic, not to mention vague ingredients, even if it had been a specific list of ingredients, no Potion Master would dare to rely on that list to be certain about a specific potion.

This is because, apart from the recipes that have been explored and developed over the centuries, new potions appear in the magical world almost every now and then.

Not to mention the fact that the potion Voldemort needed must not be ordinary, otherwise it would not have been so secretive, even hiding it from the other Voldemort in his body.

So it would be unwise to try to find out what the potion was in this situation; they would just need to recapture Snape, and then they would be able to ask all the questions.

Besides, with or without the potion as a clue, Lily would surely only go after Snape as a person.

"After Snape was brought to France, weren't we supposed to feed him the Truth Potion for interrogation? Why didn't we ask about this potion?"

Jon asked suspiciously as he walked along the river near Spinner's End.

He didn't think Dumbledore could foresee it then even if he wanted to do something fishy.

"He's very skilled in Occlumency, which was verified by our people after we brought him back from Britain, with that ability not only the Legilimency could be circumvented if he wanted to, but so could the Truth Potion, by answering some false information."

Jon nodded thoughtfully.

He himself had a high level of attainment in Occlumency, but only knew that magic was resistant to Legilimency, and had never yet made any experiments with the Truth Potion, so he wasn't sure about that.

"So Professor what makes you so sure that Snape is still in this city and hasn't gone anywhere else?" Jon asked.

Lily didn't answer Jon's question directly, but instead asked rhetorically.

"Do you know why Snape took the pseudonym, Prince?"

Jon shook his head, he obviously didn't know much about Snape's past, except that Snape had once given himself the title of "Half-Blood Prince" when he was younger, and the word Prince meant Prince as a first or last name.

When he first heard the pseudonym, Prince, he had thought that the old bat was still in his middle school phase and still wanted people to call him Prince.

"His mother's name is Eileen Prince, and that name is his mother's family name."

It was at Lily's words that a look of realization came over Jon's face.

Lily, on the other hand, showed little to no avoidance of what had once been her childhood past and continued.

"I've known him since we were kids, he even told me about magic, wizards and the existence of Hogwarts at the time, right near this Spinner's End, where once there was a lawn."

"His mother was a pureblood witch and a very gentle woman, but his father didn't have a good upbringing, his father loathed everything about wizards and was violent, so at that time he actually carried a hatred for his father and didn't like his last name being Snape, secretly calling himself Prince in private."

Jon blinked.

"So?"

"So he actually still has feelings for his mother, and that didn't dissipate just because he joined the Death Eaters, or he wouldn't still be using the name Prince even to this day while choosing a pseudonym."

Lily said softly as she looked at the large chimney in the distance that was still spewing black mist into the sky.

"So, I concluded that if he did stay in Britain and didn't go back to his lord, Snape would still be in this city. The most dangerous places are rather the safest, and besides this is still his and his mother's home."

Her analysis was sound and Jon thought it made sense.

"But this isn't a small city, so where do we start looking?"

"No need to be in such a hurry because you're concerned about me, I've waited all these years, and I'm not going to be impatient for a few days, it's too late, let's just find a place to stay."

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