There was a brief conference between the Wizengamot members on the panel, before Madame Bones announced, "Your request for Headmaster Dumbledore to be given Veritaserum is granted as well as swearing him in under a magically binding oath."
Dumbledore looked very reluctant to take the witness seat, once he heard that Boet was going to be allowed to question him under Veritaserum and that he was going to be bound with a magically binding oath, but from the look on Amelia's face he knew he wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of it. He also had no choice about refusing to take the witness seat, since he had been called.
Once the oath and Veritaserum had been administered, Boet asked a few innocent questions until he heard the flat tone that indicated the veritaserum had finally taken hold. Dumbledore had fought the good fight against the potion though but Boet could tell that by the sweat on his forehead and the slightly glazed look in his eyes that the potion had finally won the battle.
Boet chose his first question with care. "Headmaster Dumbledore according to Mr. Nighbert you are a Master of the art of Occlumency, is this correct?"
"Yes," Dumbledore said nothing more.
"Why then did you send Professor Severus Snape to Grimmauld Place shortly after Christmas in 1995 to tell Mr Potter that he would be teaching him Occlumency?" Boet asked.
"I could not take the risk of seeing Mr. Potter face to face." Dumbledore replied in a monotone. "I knew the anger he was feeling wasn't all his, though some of it was because I had kept him in the dark and prevented his friends from writing to him or telling him what was going on. Voldemort was using the link between them to try and take control of Harry or at the very least to gain information from him without his knowledge"
"And you chose not to tell Mr. Potter that you thought that Voldemort was trying to use him to gain information, is this correct?"
"Yes."
"Why not? Surely if Mr. Potter had known the reason behind the need for the lessons, he might have been more willing to learn what Professor Snape was going to teach him." Boet pointed out.
"I couldn't take the chance of Voldemort finding out, that I knew about his attempts to influence young Harry or use the link between them to gain information." Dumbledore told them.
"Given that you are a Master Occlumens yourself, why did you not teach the boy yourself? Surely knowing how Snape felt about Potter you should have known that you would be a better choice to teach him than Snape," Was Boet's next question.
"I couldn't take the risk that Harry might master Occlumency as quickly as he had the Patronus Charm, because then he might learn things I wasn't ready for him to know," was Dumbledore's answer. "I was the only one who knew the whole of the prophecy and I wasn't ready to tell it to Mr. Potter yet. If he stumbled upon it accidentally, I might lose what control I did have over him, especially if he told his godfather to contents of the Prophecy. I also couldn't take the chance of Voldemort using him as a conduit into my mind, if he learned from Harry's thoughts that I was teaching the boy how to protect his mind."
"Why did you assign Severus Snape the task of teaching Mr. Potter Occlumency?" Boet moved onto the next topic, even though there were a number of questions he would like to ask about why Dumbledore wanted to maintain his control over Potter, but his Wizard's oath wouldn't allow it since it had nothing to do with the matter of Snape's abusive actions toward his client.
"Professor Snape was the only other master of Occlumency available to me." Dumbledore reported. "All the others were at the Ministry and given the fact that the Minister was trying to destroy me, Mr. Potter, and Hogwarts, I didn't feel it was a good idea to ask the Minister to let me use one of their Master Occlumens to teach Harry."
"What made you think he would be able to put aside his anger long enough to teach Mr. Potter how to block his mind from Voldemort? Surely you knew he hated the very fact that Harry Potter existed." Boet knew the one problem with Veritaserum was that you had to know the right questions to ask, because if you didn't you might not get all the information you needed.
"I was certain that Severus would be able to put aside his anger toward James Potter for the greater good." Dumbledore countered. "After all he wanted Voldemort gone just as much as the rest of the wizarding world."
"Are you certain of that?" Boet couldn't help asking.
"Of course I am."
"Did you ever attend any of the Occlumency lessons that Professor Snape gave to Mr. Potter?" Boet already knew the answer to this, but it was leading up to his next question.
"No, I did not." Dumbledore admitted.
"Why didn't you monitor their sessions, Albus?" Madame Bones asked the next question. "Even I knew that Professor Snape hated Harry Potter. Why would you allow him free access to Mr. Potter's mind, unsupervised?"
"I had to keep the Ministry from finding out that I was having Mr. Potter taught Occlumency." Dumbledore told them. "If I had gone down to the Potions lab where Harry was supposed to be having Remedial Potions, and the High Inquisitor found out that the sessions weren't remedial potions lessons, then the Minister would have known something was going on. As for Severus violating Harry's mind, I knew he wouldn't because he knew that Harry was just as important to the side of Light as he was."
"So basically it would be safe to say that you the Headmaster, who was responsible for the physical safety and well-being of all the students in your charge, decided to leave a young man's mental health and safety in the hands of man who hatred of the young man's father was damn near as legendary as the hatred between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Is that correct?" A witch on the panel asked.
"Yes," Dumbledore agreed.
"I have no further questions." Mr Boet told the panel.
The panel apparently had no further questions for the Headmaster either, because the antidote was quickly administered and he returned to his seat looking thoughtful.
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