Harry could see how nervous they were about opening that door and making their arrest. Even Ron seemed reluctant, although perhaps not for the same reason as his associates. Snape's part in the final battle against Voldemort had made him nearly as much of a legend as Harry himself was these days, which was probably why Martin and McGregor were ambivalent about facing Snape. Ron's reluctance no doubt came from the fact that he knew the accused so well.
After a moment, Ron turned decisively for the door. To their credit, his men were right at his side as he moved.
Harry made sure he entered right behind them.
The room was very much as Harry remembered: smaller than the office, lined with towering bookshelves filled with strange tomes and even stranger curios. A large table now stood where several armchairs had been in Dumbledore's day.
Snape sat at the end of the table, his long-nosed face bent over an open book. A wall of bevelled glass windows behind him bathed him in light. Harry knew that assault must be driving him crazy. Snape had never liked bright lights.
Eyes darker than ink glanced up as the door opened. Harry saw Snape's expression go from familiar irritation to confusion as the Potions master caught sight of Ron in his official red robes and the two Aurors beside him.
As Minerva entered, Snape asked with his usual sneer, "Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what I'm doing here, Minerva?"
Before the Headmistress could respond, Ron answered, "I'm afraid you're under arrest, by Order of the Ministry of Magic."
In the nine years that had passed since Voldemort's defeat, Severus Snape hadn't lost any of his espionage abilities. His expression never faltered as he asked with studied calm, "May I enquire as to what charge has been brought against me?"
"Assault, sodomy, and the sexual molestation of a student," the Goyle-like Auror, Tom McGregor, supplied in a disgusted tone that made it plain that he believed they had their perpetrator.
Snape was so good at controlling his emotions in a crisis that Harry knew he was the only person in the room that probably read the shock Snape was hiding.
"What student?" Snape asked after a prolonged silence.
"Carl Westfield," the sandy-haired Auror, Martin, answered.
"But he was at detention just this afternoon . . ." Snape began, finishing with a quiet, "I see. I was alone with him during the hour he served his detention. Is that when this purported assault is supposed to have happened?"
"You know that's when it happened," the shorter Auror, Tom McGregor, angrily answered, his wide cheeks turning red.
Snape took a deep breath. "Mr. Westfield never struck me as the type to engage in such malicious mischief, but a dose of Veritaserum should clear up this matter."
"Mr. Westfield has already been questioned under Veritaserum, Severus," Minerva informed her accused employee in a manner rife with disappointment and betrayal. She barely seemed able to look at Snape. "He claims you were his attacker."
"I . . . see," Snape said slowly, closing the book in front of him. Harry could see the tremor that was running through that scratched hand and its familiar, chemical-stained fingers. "I suppose it wouldn't make any difference to protest my innocence?" That dark gaze went from face to face before he finally answered his own question with, "Apparently not."
"Look, this is crazy. Professor Snape didn't do this," Harry insisted, breaking the ensuing silence.
Everyone, with the possible exceptions of Hermione and Snape, turned to stare their disagreement at him. Clearly, the two Aurors were convinced of Snape's guilt. Ron seemed uncertain, while Minerva looked as though she were bearing the weight of the entire Wizarding World on her slender shoulders.
"I am willing to undergo questioning under Veritaserum myself to prove my innocence," Snape said into the awkward silence.
Harry saw Ron relax at the offer. "Right. That will solve it. Dan, the infirmary is three floors down, west side of the stairs. Go down and ask the mediwitch there for a bottle of – "
"Ron," McGregor, the Auror who resembled Goyle, interrupted. "Snape is a Potions master. If anyone would know how to circumvent Veritaserum, it would be him. He makes the stuff they use in the infirmary, doesn't he?"
Ron's face was as open as Snape's was shuttered. The hope there died with embarrassing clarity at McGregor's observation. "Damn. You're right. He does make Hogwarts' Veritaserum."
"So get some from the Hogsmeade apothecary, then," Harry insisted, losing patience with this scene.
"And how do we know he hasn't invented a potion to circumvent Veritaserum?" McGregor demanded.
"There is no drug to circumvent Veritaserum," Harry reminded. "That's why we use it – because it's foolproof."
"He's a Potions master. Even I've heard how good he is," McGregor shot back. "If anyone could invent a remedy for Veritaserum, he could. He invented all kinds of potions like that for Voldemort."
"He has a point, Harry," Ron said in a pained tone. "We're going to have to bring him in."
"And what about the monster who actually molested Westfield?" Harry demanded.
"What?" Ron asked, sounding so vacuous that Harry wanted to hex him.
"Professor Snape didn't do this. You know that he didn't. That means that the man who did it is still at large," Harry pointed out.
"The boy testified under Veritaserum," McGregor sneered, pulling a small crystal ball from his pocket. "The testimony's recorded here. Would you like to hear the details of how Snape bent the boy over his desk and put it to him?"
"Tom, there are ladies present!" Ron snapped, his freckles standing out against his flushed face.
"I don't care if you've got a dozen Veritaserum-induced testimonies, a hundred eyewitnesses, and a Muggle video recording of the entire crime," Harry said, his temper getting the better of him. "Professor Snape didn't do this."
"Then how do you explain Westfield's testimony?" McGregor demanded.
"I can't explain it. The only thing Veritaserum proves is that the boy believes what he's saying is true," Harry reminded them.
"Harry," Minerva reluctantly interjected, "there's medical proof to back up the boy's claim. Mr. Westfield was sexually assaulted. As much as I'd like to believe that Professor Snape is innocent, all the proof lies against him."
"I'm not contesting that Westfield was assaulted or even that he believes that Professor Snape was responsible. All I'm questioning is whether the evidence proved that it was Snape that assaulted him. We'd need a Muggle forensics test on the semen to prove that. Was one done?" Harry questioned.
"You know we don't hold with Muggle ways," the taller Auror, Martin, entered the conversation. He sounded put out by the very idea of employing Muggle tests.
"Well, maybe we should start. Right here, right now," Harry suggested. "Seamus Finnigan's sister is a copper on the London force. We could ask her to –"
"Harry," it was Hermione who interrupted him this time, albeit reluctantly, "I'm sure Poppy has performed a cleansing spell on poor Westfield by now. She wouldn't have had any reason to save the . . . evidence once he'd been questioned under Veritaserum."
"Why are you so damn sure that he's innocent?" McGregor asked, his face hard as stone. "We all know what he was. They say that he still bears the Dark Mark on his arm."
That's what it always came down to in the end, Harry realized, that damn mark on Snape's arm. Harry had seen this attitude time and again, to the point where he almost felt sorry for Snape.
"And I bear a scar on my forehead that's just as old. That Dark Mark is no more who Severus Snape is today than my scar is who I am. I'm sure he's innocent because I know the man. He would never touch a student, not ever," Harry argued.
"No? I've heard horror stories from everyone I know who took his classes. Every one of his students was terrified of him," McGregor replied.
"Look, being a strict teacher makes him disliked; it doesn't make him a monster. If you told me that Snape ridiculed Westfield and the boy flung himself to his death from the Astronomy Tower, that I could believe, but not this, not of Severus Snape. Ron, you know him. Snape just wouldn't do this! For God's sake, he put himself between all three of us and a werewolf when we were Westfield's age."
"Harry," Ron tried to reason with him, "I don't want to do this, but . . . We've got the victim's testimony under Veritaserum. You don't get a more cut and dried case than that. I'm sorry, but I've got my orders."
"It could have been a Polyjuice potion!" Harry suggested, unsure why he was so desperate and so angry over this. If asked yesterday, he wouldn't even have admitted to liking his former teacher, but here he was arguing with his best friend and two Aurors on Snape's behalf.
"The boy said it happened during detention with Snape," McGregor pointed out. "Are you suggesting there were two Snapes there and the real one didn't notice his twin bug – er, molesting his student?"
Every argument they were making was airtight. It couldn't have been Polyjuice Potion, not in light of Westfield's testimony, but Harry knew just as firmly that it couldn't have been Severus Snape who'd assaulted their student.
"I'm sorry, Harry," Ron said, giving a nod to his men. "He'll have his day in court."
"And we know how that will go, don't we?" Harry sneered, furious with them all now. "You know the kind of Kangaroo Court the Ministry puts on. You know what happened to Sirius, what happened to me! Ron, don't do this, please!"
Was he the only sane person in this room? If they arrested Snape, the villain who'd assaulted Westfield would still be running free. With Snape in prison, the Aurors wouldn't even be looking for the actual perpetrator.
"I'm sorry, Harry," Ron repeated, visibly miserable.
McGregor and Martin moved towards Snape, with Martin respectfully requesting, "Your wand, if you would, sir?"
The Aurors hadn't taken two steps towards Snape when Harry planted himself between them and their suspect. His holly wand was out and pointed at both McGregor and Martin before they'd taken their third step and before Harry himself was even aware of what he was doing. Stunned, Harry heard himself threaten, "You're going to have to go through me first."
Both Aurors froze, as any wizard would when faced with the man who'd destroyed Voldemort.
Minerva, Hermione, and Ron appeared as speechless with shock as the Aurors. It was plain from everyone's expression that no one knew how to respond to his action.
Harry himself wasn't even sure what he was going to do now that he'd interfered. All he knew was that he couldn't just stand there and allow Snape to be marched off to Azkaban without a fight.
The air seemed to literally thicken with tension around them as the silence deepened.
The moment stretched until Snape's deep, cultured voice softly asked from behind him, "Potter, what are you doing?"
"You're innocent and they're not feeding you to those damned dementors," Harry answered without blinking or taking his eyes off the two Aurors in front of him. He wasn't concerned with attacks from behind. The one thing the war had taught him was that he could always trust Snape with his back.
The silence stretched. More than uncomfortable, it was actively painful. The air actually felt as if it were solidifying around him.
Harry knew that he could take the two Aurors in front of him faster than either of them could draw breath to voice a spell. The only real threat in the room was Ron; for no matter what, Harry could never hurt him. And Ron knew it. But his best friend was standing as still as his two subordinates, as though Ron were unwilling to push this scene to its inevitable conclusion.
"Harry."
Harry stiffened as that lush, near-hypnotic voice spoke from behind him again. He was about to snap from the prolonged tension, but Snape's soothing voice was a balm to his jangled nerves.
Startled, he realized that Snape had never called him by his first name before.
"This isn't the way. Please lower your wand," Snape requested in a quiet, determined tone. How much it took for him to ask his sole defender to abandon the fight, Harry couldn't guess.
Harry didn't move. Neither did anyone in front of him. Hermione and Minerva were wide-eyed and motionless as statues beside the bookshelf to the left of the door. Looking like he'd been petrified, Ron stood on the right side of the door beside a strange collection of moving spheres that pulsed with all the colours of the spectrum as they circled each other. The two hapless Aurors were halfway across the room, looking as though they were about to wet themselves. The bizarre tableau had every appearance of going on for hours.
Harry heard a chair scrape behind him, and then the whispering sound of shifting fabric. Snape's right hand, the one with the ugly red scratch on the back, reached around from behind Harry and calmly took hold of his wand, acting for all the world as if Harry weren't the primed explosive his friends' horrified stares were making him out to be.
"That is your oldest friend over there. Consider what you're doing. Stop, please. You can't do it this way," Snape said, stepping in front of him to stare deep into his eyes.
Harry would have almost thought Snape were casting Imperius on him, for he did absolutely nothing to prevent Snape from plucking his wand out of his hand.
All hell should have broken loose once Harry was disarmed, but, still, no one moved.
Harry was shocked at Snape's action and darkly amused at the same time, for he recognized that Snape was now the only one in the room holding a wand, and that the two Aurors were just as awed by the former Death Eater as they were by the Boy Who Lived.
