Some students had been taken away by their parents in the intervening days. Many parents were incensed at the Ministry’s lack of involvement and the fact that Snape was now more or less running the school – they hadn’t wanted their children anywhere near him.

Those Slytherins who had been linked to Dumbledore’s murder were absent too, Harry noticed as he took a seat on the front row next to Ginny. Ron was on Ginny’s other side with his arm around Hermione’s shoulder. Snape was on the extreme left of the front row, beside Slughorn, and Harry covertly shot him a filthy look as he sat down.

In fact, although Harry didn’t know it, Severus had forbidden Draco and the others to attend the ceremony. They had been the victims of several jinxes and hexes already. The other houses knew they couldn’t do too much under the watchful eye of the Slytherin Head, but Severus had had to rescue Blaise Zabini from a group of Gryffindor seventh years just this morning and he felt they were better off locked in his office for their own protection.

Professor Slughorn made his way slowly, ponderously, to the platform in front of the rows of chairs. Professor Dumbledore’s body lay on a table beside the podium, covered by a purple velvet cloth.

Slughorn began to speak, but after listening to a few phrases: ‘Nobility of spirit’… ‘intellectual contribution’… ‘greatness of heart’, Harry had to force his mind to switch off from Slughorn’s voice and concentrate on the speech he himself was to make later. He felt sure Snape had censured Slughorn’s speech (that was probably why Slughorn was speaking rather than McGonagall – he was weaker and could be manipulated) and the thought enraged him.

Then several people screamed. Bright white flames had erupted around Dumbledore’s body and the table on which it lay; higher and higher they rose, obscuring the body. Next second the fire had vanished. In its place was a white marble tomb, encasing Dumbledore’s body and the table on which he had rested.

Once the cries of shock had died down, Professor Snape got to his feet and swept onto the platform. Now Harry was all attention as fragments of protest were carried to his ears through the still autumn air.

‘I don’t care. I won’t listen to him. He killed Dumbledore!’

‘We’ll have to listen to him.’

‘Yeah, I want to hear what he’s got to say for himself.’

‘And Malfoy. Where is Malfoy, anyway?’

‘Silence!’ Snape shouted. ‘I want you all, please, to listen to me. You say you want to hear me defend myself. Very well.

‘I know perfectly well that, for years, not one of you trusted me because of my background. You know now that I was trustworthy, honourable; that I risked my life trying to keep you all safe. Respect that honour and listen to me with that in mind.

‘Professor Dumbledore was my friend. One of the few friends I have ever had. You ask, then, why did I kill him? I did it for you. For the community. For your future.

‘Dumbledore was ambitious. Too ambitious. Many of you wanted him as Minister for Magic. If he had achieved his aim, Hogwarts, and the whole of the wizarding community would have been ruined.

‘I spent years working for the good of the wizarding world. You all loved Professor Dumbledore. Believe me, he was no less of a friend to me than he was to you, but I had to think of the magical community. Would you rather have Dumbledore alive and live at the mercy of the sort of Ministry we all suffered last year, or live free and happy under the present circumstances?

‘For Dumbledore my friend, I grieve as deeply as you, I honour his bravery, but because of his ambition I killed him.

‘Is there anyone here who would prefer a return to last year’s Ministry? If so, speak up and I will apologise for the wrong I have done you.’

There was complete silence. Harry longed to speak up, to yell out, to scream at the assembled students that they were being brainwashed, but he held his tongue. His turn would come.

Snape spoke again. ‘Professor Dumbledore was my friend, but I killed him. For you. For the magical community. For the greater good.’

One of the Slytherins called out ‘You know, I heard Malfoy say his father always thought Dumbledore was the worst thing that ever happened to this place.’

The Slytherins set up a chant. ‘Snape for Headmaster! Snape for Headmaster!’

Zacharias Smith of Hufflepuff and several of his friends joined in. Harry felt his blood boil.

‘Settle down, settle down,’ Snape said coolly. ‘I will leave you now. Potter has requested I allow him to speak to you and I will leave you in his capable hands.’ He tried, and failed, to keep a sneer out of his voice, then stalked back to the castle, his long, black cloak swirling out behind him.

Harry was so nervous as he ascended the steps to the podium, that he thought his legs weren’t going to support him. This was his chance; his one chance to get the students on his side, to get them to see the truth, and he was painfully aware that, in the present mood, he could not afford to make a mistake. One wrong move, one misplaced word, and they would turn on him as surely as they had turned on Dumbledore. He cleared his throat.

‘My friends. Fellow students of Hogwarts. I haven’t come to give a eulogy. I’m no good at making speeches; I’m nothing like as eloquent as Professor Snape. I’m only here because he was kind enough to let me speak to you.

‘Professor Snape told you Dumbledore was ambitious. Snape says we would have returned to last year’s sort of Ministry. But Dumbledore worked for years to free us from Lord Voldemort. He wouldn’t have wanted a return to that sort of tyranny.

‘I couldn’t have done what I did last year without his help, and I admired him more than anyone I’ve ever known, but Snape says he was ambitious. Professor Snape is a Hogwarts teacher, and we have to trust our teachers, don’t we?

‘But when any of you had a problem, Dumbledore made time for you. Surely a truly ambitious man wouldn’t have bothered with kids? Yet Snape says he was ambitious. And Snape is a Hogwarts teacher.

‘Dumbledore has been offered the Minister for Magic job three times before. And three times he has refused it. Is that ambition? Yet Snape says he was ambitious. And Snape is a Hogwarts teacher.

‘I’m not here to argue with Snape; I just want to tell you how I feel. I…I’m sorry…I can’t…’

Harry stopped to blink back tears. They were partly for effect but he could feel real emotion welling up in his throat. He caught his breath. He couldn’t afford to break down. Not here, not now. He almost had them. He could feel the tide turning in his favour and he could hear snatches of muttered conversations. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up yet, but he was fairly sure the reactions were in his favour.

Harry raised his hand. The muttering stopped, instantly. ‘And there’s another thing. I found Professor Dumbledore’s will in his office. He has left everything he owned to the school. To us, and the students who will come to Hogwarts after us. Snape says Dumbledore didn’t care about Hogwarts, and yet he’s left everything to the school he loved.

‘I’m sorry; I don’t mean to make you hate Snape and Malfoy. I don’t want to incite you to revenge. Because we can’t take revenge against a Hogwarts teacher, can we? Dumbledore always trusted Snape, and Snape must have had some terrible private reason for killing him. A Hogwarts teacher wouldn’t murder another without good reason.

‘But if I was Snape and he was me, do you think he’d leave this be? No, he’d take revenge, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?’

There was complete silence. Then Ernie Macmillan’s voice rang though the clear air. ‘Traitors!’ Everyone turned to look at him and he stood up, bright red. ‘I’m with you, Harry.’ He punched his fist into the air.

Dean Thomas stood up behind Ernie. ‘Yeah, me too, Harry. Snape betrayed Dumbledore. He’s a murderer!’

‘I’ll kill him! I’ll kill them all!’ That was Seamus Finnigan.

Then, quite suddenly, all hell broke loose. People were screaming, stamping their feet, yelling support. Ron ran up to Harry and slapped him on the back. ‘You did it mate! That greasy git’s as good as dead!’

Harry stared at the shouting, stamping crowd. ‘This isn’t a victory, Ron. It’s just the start. We may have won the battle, but we’re on the brink of another war. It’s not over.’

********

A/N: Slughorn’s words are from Dumbledore’s funeral (HBP Ch 30). I have also used most of the paragraph from the same chapter about the fire and the tomb. I thought it was more fitting to use the original.

‘Father’s always said Dumbledore’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to this place.’ is from CoS Ch 12. Malfoy actually said it to Harry and Ron, but it seems the sort of thing he’d say many times to anyone who would listen.