But then another thought struck him.
The mirror had been able to both send and receive sound.
Otherwise, James and Sirius couldn't have done much talking while they were in separate detentions. So probably, if Harry made too much noise, Draco and the others would be able to hear him.
Uh-oh... Snape would know that Harry had used wanded magic on the picture frame. Again.
But it was done now, for good or for ill, so stepping away on tiptoe, Harry sat down on Draco's bed, his breathing low and slow as he settled in to watch the hearing unfold.
Draco and Snape were inside the boardroom by then. The Slytherin boy was sitting on a round, stone stool in the middle of the room, like a prisoner facing judgment. At least there weren't any chains or straps threatening to bind him, but the image still reminded Harry of his own trial before the Wizengamot.
Shuddering, Harry raised his eyes to the rest of the scene. He wanted to see the Board, to see the men and women who held Draco's fate in their hands.
To his utter shock, the scene before him swung around to show the Governors, just like that, changing aspect until he was looking at the room from the side. He could see Draco and the Governors both. But why should that be, when he had asked only to see Draco?
The picture frame had been ensorcelled to show whatever was desired, Harry abruptly realised. All you had to do was look at it and think of what you wanted. When Harry had used it before, all he'd wanted was to see Draco. And the next time, the funeral. But now his desires were changing as he watched, and the frame--the magical wall, rather--was changing with them.
Coming to terms with that, Harry took a good look at the Hogwarts' Board of Governors, studying their faces one by one as he swept his gaze along the curved table where they sat. Perhaps fifteen of them in all, witches and wizards both, though Harry didn't know if all of them were Governors, strictly speaking. Some might be Ministry employees, he supposed. One of them had what looked to be a quick-quotes quill out, after all.
Lucius Malfoy sat among his colleagues, directly opposite Draco. Harry hadn't noticed him straight away; maybe he'd been trying not to... for good reason. The moment Harry's eyes settled on that sweep of long, silver-blonde hair, something inside him seemed to snap apart. A roiling burn of anger filled him, starting somewhere deep in his core and coursing through his body until it reached his fingertips. A scorching heat began to build in his hands, the same heat he'd felt in Devon when he'd blasted a robe and mask to ashes, the same heat he'd felt in Grimmauld Place when Remus had stepped from the Floo looking every bit the part of Lucius Malfoy.
Rage, fury... only this time, he didn't have his father to hold him back.
Lucius Malfoy sat smiling, chatting up a brown-haired witch smoking a pipe, just as if he hadn't a care in the world. As if he wasn't a man who would issue death warrants against his only son. As if he'd never dream of sitting atop a young man's chest so he could stab out his eyes with red-hot needles.
Harry rose to his feet as though pulled upward by invisible strings, his hands moving to reach forwards, his fingers widely splayed. Just like in Devon, he felt the fire surging through him, fire that could be quenched by one thing only.
Lucius Malfoy's death.
Lucius. Malfoy's. Death--
He saw smoke begin to curl from his fingertips, then a flash of fire streaming out like lightning, but in the instant before it struck the wavering image of the unsuspecting Death Eater, Harry heard something.
It wasn't his father, lecturing him on the dangers of vengeance.
It was himself, swearing to Draco that he'd do this very thing. And now he was about to do it, and right in front of Draco, and Harry suddenly saw himself as someone he didn't want to be. A murderer.
Of course he was fated to be one anyway--either that or a murder victim--, but his father had been right. Self-defence was something quite apart from becoming judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.
With a muttered oath, Harry jerked his hands towards the ceiling just as the jet of fire collided against stone. All Hogwarts seemed to shift on its foundations, a blast wave reverberating through granite that had stood for centuries.
"What was that?" yelped a voice from the wall. Fudge, Harry thought, though he couldn't be sure.
"Ancient magic, nothing more," said Dumbledore in a soothing voice as his hands smoothed down his beard. "I suspect the castle is remembering how the Governors convened in this very room to consider the expulsion of Rubeus Hagrid. Terrible miscarriage of justice, that. Just terrible. A travesty..."
Harry didn't know why the headmaster hadn't taken the shock wave more seriously, unless it was because the man's own vast wellspring of magic knew the cause. Regardless, his tones calmed Harry, too. He sat down once more on Draco's bed, flinching a little as it creaked, and told himself that Dumbledore had done well to slip in that Hagrid reference. Everybody knew he'd been unfairly expelled; it had been common knowledge since the end of Harry's second year.
Dumbledore might just as well have said, Mind you proceed with this matter responsibly....
Realising he'd been holding his breath, Harry tried to let the headmaster's words sink all the way through him. Dumbledore was more than wise, he was wily. He knew that Draco was innocent, and he knew that Draco would be a great asset to Harry and the Order. And he knew that Snape would resign if Draco had to leave Hogwarts.
Albus Dumbledore was not going to let Draco get expelled. Harry knew it, he just knew it. Everything would be all right. For once, Lucius Malfoy's money and influence would fail him. He wouldn't get his way, not in this.
Calmer, Harry glanced up again at the shimmering wall. The sight of Lucius Malfoy still made him feel like he was coiling up inside, but he had his anger in check now. He wouldn't let the wild magic loose again. Glancing away from Malfoy, Harry began to study the other witches and wizards seated at that long table. Nobody he recognised, which wasn't too surprising. He wondered again how many of the fifteen were actually Governors... Governesses? That didn't sound right.
Fudge was up there too, standing behind a short podium set atop the far end of the curved table. He still looked a bit alarmed by the way the room had shaken under the force of Harry's wild magic.
Good, Harry thought. Keep him off-balance. Maybe he won't be quite the nasty little toady he usually is.
Dumbledore and Snape were sitting at behind tables on either side of Draco, facing the Board. Each of them had a large sheaf of parchment. So did members of the Board, Harry noticed.
Draco, in contrast, held nothing whatsoever. He sat composed, his hands loosely clasped in his lap as he stared straight ahead yet avoided Lucius' gaze.
For his part, Lucius had resumed chatting amiably with the witches to his left and right. Harry couldn't quite hear him; it was just a low murmur of sound, but he saw at once where Draco had got those perfect manners of his. You'd never have guessed the building had rocked on its foundations just moments before.
A gavel banging a wooden plaque brought the room to silence.
"Let the record reflect that a transcription spell is recording these proceedings," Fudge began in a ponderous, self-important tone. It sounded to Harry almost as though the man might have applied just a touch of Sonorus to his voice. Overcompensating for the shock that blast wave just gave him, Harry thought. Hmm, maybe he had learned something useful from that book about trauma.
"The date is Friday, the twenty-first of March, 1997," Fudge formally continued. "The Hogwarts' Board of Governors has convened in plenary session to determine whether one Draco Alain Gervais Luthien Malfoy, accused herein of serious transgressions deserving of expulsion, shall be allowed to continue in attendance. Let the record reflect that upon a previous offence of a grave nature, the aforementioned student was, for the safety of the student body as a whole, removed from contact with all other pupils. He continues in that status until this very day--"