"Perhaps she hopes to regain Mr. Potter's friendship, by telling lies that would get a woman, Mr. Potter clearly hates, imprisoned?" Mr. Merkson pointed out. "I mean given that Mr. Potter was imprisoned at least partly because of her testimony, this will not be the first time she would have lied before the Wizengamot."
"Given that he was falsely convicted and imprisoned, Mr. Potter wouldn't have another person imprisoned on false charges, even if it is someone he hates and even though there are no longer Dementors at Azkaban to give them the same experience he had there." Mr Boet countered.
"I will take veritaserum if necessary to prove what I am saying is true." Hermione offered. "Can Madame Umbridge say that she will do the same?"
There was silence from both Umbridge and her solicitor. Hermione resumed her seat feeling vindicated.
Bones ordered, "Read the next charge Miss Glendowling."
The scribe moved on to the next charge. "As the Ministry appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Miss Delores Umbridge deliberately provided sub-standard teaching that if it continued would have put the students graduating from Hogwarts in danger and left them unable to defend themselves and their families from the Dark Lord…." there was a momentary hesitation before the scribe said, "Voldemort."
This to Hermione was a very serious charge. She hated poor teaching with a passion and while Hogwarts had had a succession of Defence teachers during her time there, none of them had ever been as bad as Umbridge, not even Lockhart, who after a year with Lupin as teacher, she had finally conceded hadn't been the best teacher they could have had. But even he hadn't done as much harm as Umbridge had to the lower year classes.
"Hem, hem," Umbridge made that annoying sound she made just before she was going to say something pompous. "That is what Aurors are for, to defend the Wizarding public."
"Oh and I thought they were to defend and protect the Minister only." Harry countered. "He certainly kept enough about him whenever he was in public after he finally admitted to Voldemort's return. Not that he was in any real danger from Voldemort, given that he was inept and pretty useless."
"Mr. Potter," Madame Bones rebuked him. "Please refrain from making comments like that at this hearing. Minister Fudge is having a hard enough time keeping silent as it is."
Both Harry and Hermione looked over and saw the Minister was red faced and appeared to be biting his lips in order to keep from saying something he might regret.
"Yes ma'am," Harry nodded. He really didn't want to get the pompous little man started, even if he would enjoy seeing what Madame Bones did to him for breaking his promise. Then he asked something that had been puzzling him about Umbitch's behaviour. "What really surprises me, ma'am is that Umbridge is sitting there so calmly. I would have expected her to be foaming at the mouth in paranoia by now. How did you manage that?"
"She was given three calming draughts before the hearing began." Madame Bones told him. "The draughts don't interfere with her ability to mount a defence, but they have kept her hysterics down."
Harry smiled at the thought of Umbitch tranquillised like a patient in a mental ward.
Returning to the matter before them, Madame Bones asked. "Did you deliberately provide sub-standard teaching to the students at Hogwarts?"
"I think you will find from the records," Umbridge said proudly, "that year I taught saw a number of the students who got the highest scores ever in the history of Hogwarts on their Defence OWLs and NEWTs. I think that proves I was anything but an incompetent teacher. It also proves that I was not teaching sub-standard classes."
"Given that all you had them doing was reading out of books and no practical spellwork, how do you account for the high grades that the fifth and seventh year students received?" Madame Bones wanted to know.
Again looking smug, Umbridge said, "It just goes to show that with superior materials, a student can learn what is needed without having to practice the spells ahead of time. It also goes to show that a Ministry appointed teacher did far better than all the teachers chosen by Albus Dumbledore. I mean he hired a werewolf to teach the students, that just shows you the level of incompetence of the previous teachers."
As Hermione stared at the idiotic woman in disbelief, she heard loud snort from Harry.
"You disagree with Madame Umbridge's assessment of why you and your fellow students did so well on your OWLs, Mr. Potter?" The other elderly witch on the tribunal, Madame Amelia Postern asked.
"Yes ma'am I do." Harry told her. "First of all Remus Lupin was an excellent teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts. I did some checking and prior to my fifth year, the fifth and seventh year students he taught, all scored the best on their OWLs and NEWTs even if they did not have scores as high as we did. As for my fifth year, I have a list of the members of the Defence Association, a study group we formed because of Umbridge's incompetent teaching skills, and I'm willing to bet that if you check every single member of the DA is one of the students who scored high on either the Defence OWLs, NEWTs, or with their regular end of year defence exams. Those who did poorly, which included most of the Slytherins, all relied on what they learned in Umbridge's classes. And other than exposure to her prejudice against half-breeds and other 'non-human' creatures," Harry made the gesture for quotes in the air when he said the words non-human, "I doubt that anybody learned anything useful from that woman. And I dread to think of what might have happened if that woman had managed to last more than a year as Defence teacher. Why in few years we might have had Aurors who couldn't fight their way out of paper bags." Then he was heard muttering, "not that they're much better now."
"And we all know your opinion of those in authority, don't we Mr. Potter?" Mr. Merkson spoke up quickly. "You have quite a history of detentions and rule breaking, don't you?"
"Mr. Potter isn't the one on trial, Merkson." Mr Boet pointed out. "He is the victim here, not Umbridge."
"How do we know that for sure? After all it is only his word against Madame Umbridge's on all of these charges and he does have a well-documented history of lying and rule breaking. He even admitted to this court just now that he had a study group in violation of Ministry edicts." Merkson retorted.
"Are you referring to the time when, at the Minister's instigation," Harry glared at Fudge as he said this, "the Daily Prophet was calling me a liar because I claimed that Voldemort had returned?" Harry shook his head as everyone but he, Granger, and Mr. Boet flinched again at the mention of the former Dark Lord's name. "Well we know who was telling the truth there now don't we? And it is not just my word on some of the more serious charges. You heard Miss Granger testify that Umbridge admitted to sending the Dementors after me."
"Gentlemen," Madame Bones interrupted. "Can we get back to the matter at hand? Mr. Merkson, Mr. Boet is quite correct. Mr. Potter is not the one on trial here, your client is. We still have several more charges that we need to get through. Mr. Potter, I would appreciate that list so we can check it."
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