The competing champions

Chapter 4.27 (The trial of Barty Crouch)

The dungeon returned, and Aurora looked around. Aurora, Harry and Dumbledore were still sitting beside Mr. Crouch, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. There was total silence, broken only by the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch. She was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth with trembling hands.

Aurora looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter, and greyer than ever before. A nerve was twitching in his temple. "Bring them in." He said, and his voice echoed through the silent dungeon.

The door in the corner opened yet again. Six Dementors entered this time, flanking a group of four prople. Aurora saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mr. Crouch. A few of them whispered to each other.

The Dementors placed each of the four people on the four chairs with chained arms which now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch, a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd, a woman with thick, shining dark hair, and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne, and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-coloured hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white.

"Harry, that woman." Aurora whispered. "That's Jasmine's oldest sister, Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius's first cousin. She's in Azkaban for being one of the most loyal servants of Voldemort."

Harry looked shocked at this information.

The wispy little witch beside Crouch began to rock backwards and forwards in her seat, whimpering into her handkerchief.

Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face.

"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law." He said clearly. "So that we may pass judgement on you, for a crime so heinous-"

"Father," said the boy with the straw-coloured hair. "Father...please..."

"-that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court." Said Crouch, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son's voice.

"I can't look at this. His own son, Harry. He won't even look at him." Aurora said, looking away with her eyes squeezed shut.

"We have heard the evidence against you." Crouch said loudly. "The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror - Frank Longbottom - and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He Who Must Not Be Named-"

"Father, I didn't!" Shrieked the boy in chains below. "I didn't, I swear it, Father, don't send me back to the Dementors-"

"You are further accused." Bellowed Mr. Crouch. "Of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He Who Must Not Be Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury-"

"Mother!" Screamed the boy below, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backwards and forwards. "Mother, stop him, Mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"

"I now ask the jury." Shouted Mr. Crouch. "To raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban."

In unison, the crowd along the right-hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph.

The boy began to scream. "No! Mother, no! I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let him!"

The Dementors were gliding back into the room. The boy's three companions rose quietly from their seats. The woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called. "The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban, we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"