Clearly disgruntled, Fudge glared at the parchment as he muttered what Harry could only think must be a spell to summon the named students forth.
Draco's cool demeanour had held firm, but calming draught or no, Snape's demand to call the Gryffindors as witnesses proved to be his undoing. He had turned to Snape and was mouthing something. Harry couldn't catch it.
Fudge evidently could.
"Do you object to these witnesses, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked, gavel in mid-air.
Don't, Draco, Harry thought, but the boardroom was silent as everyone awaited the boy's answer, so he didn't dare try to convince his brother to let Hermione and Ron testify.
"Of course I object to them," Draco said, lifting his chin as he sat there. "They're thoroughly objectionable."
"Do you object to them testifying?"
Draco took a moment to think that one over, his silver gaze assessing Snape's expression. He must not have known how to read it. Either that, or he didn't want to do what Snape was clearly telling him to do, for he asked, "May I confer with my Head of House?"
"One minute only."
Rising from his stool, Draco walked across the room to Snape and began to speak in a low voice. Even after moving close and straining his ears for all they were worth... even despite the fact that the wall had zeroed in on his family and no one else, Harry could barely make out their words.
"...Harry's eye, for Merlin's sake," Draco was whispering. "Those two know. And they don't like me."
He couldn't quite catch what Snape murmured in reply.
"...not about to trust my life to a pair of sodding Gryffindors..."
Harry leaned closer, just enough to hear, "...your brother is a sodding Gryffindor, Draco."
Hmmph. Well, maybe he deserved that in exchange for the lying Slytherins remark.
"Mr. Malfoy?" Fudge interrupted the hushed conference. "I require an answer."
Sighing, Draco moved back to his stone stool and seated himself, his back ramrod straight, his robes falling in perfect lines to the floor. But his hands, now thrust deep into his pockets, were clenching. Harry couldn't see them, but he knew. "I do not object to them testifying."
"Very well. Slytherin House calls Miss Hermione Granger and Mr. Ronald Weasley," Fudge announced.
Harry didn't know how his friends had got there so quickly, but when the boardroom doors opened on their own, both Ron and Hermione were standing outside. They looked a little frightened, but Harry supposed that made sense. Unlike the other student witnesses, they hadn't been expecting a summons.
"Come in, come in," Fudge said, waving impatiently. "You're here to testify. I believe Professor Snape has a few questions for you."
Snape gave a slight shake of his head. "I would like Miss Uwannawich to repeat her recollection of the events of Friday past. Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger may tell the Board what they think of the testimony we've all heard."
Hermione was the first to react to the story that Belladonna told. "Well, that's nothing but a lie," she railed, stamping her foot. "We were going up to the Owlery too, that day. We saw you on the way up. Both of you. But we didn't see any sign at all of Draco Malfoy!"
"And it's not like we could have missed him, the way you tell it," Ron coldly put in. "Careening past us all? What a load of..." He glanced apologetically at the Board. "What I mean is, Malfoy wasn't there."
"Oh, but he was," Erik VanVelzeer said with a snarl in his voice. "And you're saying otherwise to help him out."
"Oh, sure," Ron drawled, clenching his fists as he turned to fully face the Governors. "If I was going to come here and lie to the lot of you, you can be dead sure I'd lie to get Draco Malfoy thrown out of school, not to keep him here. He's spent six years sneering, his rich nose in the air because some of us aren't rolling in Galleons. Not to mention that he constantly calls one of my best friends a Mudblood! But the testimony you got from these two," Ron contemptuously waved to one side. "It's just a case of Slytherins turning on their own, your Honours... uh, your Worships... uh..."
"I'm perfectly willing to take Veritaserum," Hermione said, looking the Governors in the eye, one by one. Even Lucius Malfoy. Harry had to admit he was pretty impressed by that. "My parents won't like it," she went on. "They're Muggles. And yes, Malfoy here has called me awful names on that account. But that's all beside the point. He wasn't on the Owlery staircase this past Friday. I know, because I was, right before the screaming started. It's not right to throw people out of school for things they haven't done, even not-so-nice people like Malfoy here." She turned her glance to Dumbledore. "Shall I owl my parents for permission to take truth serum, sir?"
"And you, Miss Uwannawich," Dumbledore asked. "Will you be needing an owl as well? For if there is a dispute over who was on the Owlery stairs, I certainly think everyone involved ought to testify on equal terms."
"Uh..." Belladonna's face went a ghastly white. She actually swayed on her feet. "I'm a bit allergic, sir."
"You've had truth serum administered to you previously, have you, young lady?"
Belladonna flicked a glance at the witch who had asked that. "Uh, no," she back-pedalled. "We studied the composition in potions class and I think I might be allergic, I meant."
"I think we've heard enough out of these witnesses," drawled a wizard from the far end of the table. He wasn't more specific than that, but Harry somehow doubted he'd meant Ron and Hermione.
"Any further questions?" asked Fudge, sounding a bit as though... Harry wasn't sure. It was like the man was holding something in reserve, something devastating...
"I've some," said a witch who hadn't spoken before, that Harry could recall. "I see you're wearing Gryffindor crests. Are the two of you acquainted with Harry Potter?"
Ron smiled then, for the first time since he'd entered the room. "Yeah, you could say that."
"We're his best friends," Hermione answered, nodding.
"So presumably you've been down to see him a time or two while he was living in his adoptive father's quarters?"
"Many more times than that, ma'am..."
"When you were visiting Mr. Potter, did you ever feel threatened by Draco Malfoy?"
Hermione crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Honestly, ma'am, no." She cast a sidelong glance at Draco, who was staring straight ahead, his entire posture stiff. "That's not to say I like him. He's got a purebloods-first mindset that's a threat all in itself, to people like me."
"Do you believe his attendance here poses a danger to any other student?"
Harry held his breath then, wondering what Hermione might decide to say about his black eye. Then again, both Ron and Hermione had promised not to mention it, hadn't they? They'd agreed--well, after a fair bit of argument--that if Draco was expelled it should be because he'd killed someone, not because he'd lost his temper and landed a punch.
After all, Hermione had done that much herself.
"No, ma'am, and I've been around him quite a bit of late," Hermione announced.
"And you, Mr. Weasley, would you concur?"
Ron made a face. "You have no idea how much I'd like to answer yes," he said, sounding absolutely disgusted as he went on, "but yeah, I concur."
"I'd like to point out for the record that these students are sixth-year prefects," said Dumbledore. "Which means I highly respect their judgment of their peers."
Harry saw Lucius give the Minister of Magic a very slight nod.
Uh-oh...
"Oh, do you?" Fudge questioned Dumbledore. "Perhaps then, we should give the Governors a far more complete picture of Miss Granger's judgment of her peers. I have here before me a recent letter from Miss Hermione Granger to Wizard Family Services, in which she expresses her clear belief that Harry Potter is in... now what was her phrase?" Fudge shuffled parchments for a moment, then holding one up, resumed. "Imminent and incontrovertible danger, yes, based on her good-faith belief that Draco Malfoy has been taking advantage of Harry's lack of magic to pummel him daily!"