"Those are nothing but slanders. I have never in my life seen that notebook," Lucius replied, regaining a frigid calm that chilled those present. "If our laws were based on children's stories and malicious inventions, the cells of Azkaban would be filled with innocent people."
Malfoy's words had an effect. The spell of my accusation seemed to weaken; after all, despite my impressive security, it was still the word of a youth against a pillar of the community. The murmurs turned doubtful.
"Oh, really? Well, I suppose we'll need more than my word then," I said, observing Lucius with an indifference that began to unhinge him. "We could call every witness who was in the bookstore that day; I doubt a Malfoy's interactions go unnoticed. Or better yet... we could summon Mr. Borgin, of Borgin and Burkes. I am certain he will perfectly recall how Mr. Malfoy attempted to sell him Dark Arts items from his private collection that very morning."
I raised my voice, projecting my [Auras] so the crowd would feel the urgency and truth of my words.
"Everyone here knows of the Ministry's recent raids. My father, the man who leads them, has been besieging Malfoy Manor with constant inspections, snapping at Lucius's heels. There is the motive!" I shouted, pointing at the aristocrat. "The desperate need to rid himself of a Dark object too dangerous to keep, hiding it among the belongings of his enemy's daughter. A perfect plan: either the girl suffered the consequences, or the object was discovered in our home, ruining the Weasleys' reputation."
The Atrium erupted in murmurs intensified by my influence. Arthur and Molly, pale as wax, did not stop questioning Ginny in whispers. My sister, perfectly instructed by Tonks and carrying an emotional manipulation artifact like the one Hermione had, began to sob with a heartbreaking fragility. She nodded at every mention of the black notebook, feigning a trauma that, though false in this context, was absolutely convincing to the spectators.
"Let us see that notebook immediately," Amelia Bones ordered, gesturing to the team of Cursed Object specialists before Fudge or Lucius could protest.
Moody approached as well, the rhythmic sound of his wooden leg striking the floor like a metronome of doom.
"Of course. The evidence must be examined, though I have already conducted my own investigation," I said, handing the diary to one of my bodyguards to pass it to the authorities. "Be careful. It is under a containment seal because its power has grown alarmingly. Once you remove the protection, I am not responsible for the consequences."
The most experienced curse-breakers and Aurors took the notebook with reinforced gloves, maintaining a prudent distance that betrayed their years of facing the unknown. With a sharp murmur, they cast the counter-spell that dissolved the protective plastic.
The silence was absolute. Everyone held their breath, expecting an explosion of dark magic, a spectral scream, or a withering curse.
But nothing happened.
What they held in their hands was nothing more than an ordinary notebook. Its pages were yellowed and empty, and although the material was unusually resistant, it did not emit a single trace of the black magic I had described with such fervor. The "murder weapon" was, in everyone's eyes, a simple, inert object.
"Upon superficial inspection... the object is clean," one of the Aurors decreed, though his voice wavered under the experts' gaze. "It seems to have been reinforced with preservation magic to prevent deterioration; it is unusually sturdy, but it shows no trace of..."
Lucius and Fudge exhaled an almost imperceptible sigh of relief, and their expressions turned into triumphant sneers. However, men with true experience were not fooled.
"Are you an idiot?!" Moody roared, his voice tearing through the air like sandpaper. "No Dark object reveals its true colors at the first turn, rookie!"
Alastor's magical eye spun frantically, locked on the notebook. He could see what the others only sensed: the residual stain of a great evil.
"That book hides something, Cornelius," Dumbledore added, stepping forward with a solemnity that halted any laughter. "And I am willing to personally participate in the investigation to discover what it is."
"Clearly, it is no simple object," I intervened, dropping the bombshell that would shake the foundations of the Atrium. "Because that notebook is one of the creations of the Dark Lord himself! Voldemort!"
The forbidden name exploded in the Atrium. The sepulchral silence of some collided with the screams of pure terror from others. The mention of the Dark Lord drained the color from the faces of even the most seasoned officials.
"Let us not forget that Lucius Malfoy served under the command of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," I continued, pointing at him with contempt. "And although the court accepted his excuse of acting under the Imperius Curse, that did not stop his former master's relics from ending up in his hands... and for him, in an act of supreme cowardice, to drop them into the hands of an eleven-year-old girl!"
The Atrium became a hothouse. The Aurors holding the notebook began to tremble visibly; the mere possibility of touching a property of the Dark Lord filled them with panic.
"Grand words, boy... but you are fundamentally mistaken," Lucius replied. He let out a sigh loaded with calculated exhaustion, transforming his arrogance into a mask of regret. "Yes, I was under that person's control. It was the darkest period of my life; not a single day goes by that I do not lament being manipulated and subjugated in such a way."
Malfoy lowered his gaze, projecting the image of a victim still dragging the scars of the past. It was a masterstroke to appeal to the empathy of the other nobles present, many of whom shared a similar history of "legal excuses."
"But I will not allow any crime to be imputed to me because of my past," he continued with a firm voice. "You can invent all the fables you want. I don't know where you got that notebook, or if it's authentic, or if your fantasy has a leg to stand on... but you cannot point to me as the villain of your tale. Even if that object is real, I would never do such a thing. My honor will not be stained by a child's hallucinations."
Lucius appealed to the logic of his status. He knew that no noble in that Atrium wanted their past to become a noose around their neck for current crimes. If they allowed me to win, all of them would be in danger of being accused the same way in the future.
"Who else could have guarded an object of the Dark Lord if not one of his most loyal servants?" I asked, injecting a frigid contempt and a contained fury into my voice that electrified the air. "I saw you myself slipping that cursed notebook into Ginny's cauldron! In that moment, amidst the chaos of the bookstore, my mind couldn't process the magnitude of your baseness... but fate willed that my sister, despite the atrocious suffering that object inflicted upon her, found the strength to contact me. I crossed the ocean from Brazil just to rescue her from your clutches! You will never be forgiven, Lucius!"
The Atrium became a Roman amphitheater. It was a competition of tragedies: who could present themselves as the victim most worthy of compassion before a public opinion that swung like a pendulum. My family was the collateral damage of this spectacle, a necessary sacrifice to justify the final blow.
"The notebook does not respond to any conventional investigative method," one of the Aurors reported. Moody, who had joined the inspection with maniacal fervor, grunted at the frustration of being unable to pierce the book's stealthy defenses.
"You see! It is an orchestrated slander!" exclaimed Lucius, whose confidence was reborn as he noticed that the book, out of that protective wrapping, was not exactly as he remembered. "A notebook with traces of dark magic that knows how to hide perfectly... the ideal method to frame me without real proof! Do you expect the Ministry to waste weeks trying to decipher this enigma while my reputation is dragged through the mud? You accuse me of being vile, boy, but you are the one using tricks to destroy your father's political enemy. I even doubt this setup wasn't Arthur's own idea!"
Lucius launched his counterattack with the precision of a snake, seeking to sow doubt about the Weasleys' integrity.
"Girl!" Moody roared, turning toward Ginny with that terrifying intensity that was natural to him. "Tell us what happened with this notebook!"
The old Dark wizard hunter was beside himself; he felt the evil of the object, he sensed it in the air, and it infuriated him that an invisible barrier prevented him from exposing the truth. Ginny, despite acting, felt a real shiver. Moody's grotesque appearance and his spinning eye produced a mixture of dread and repulsion that only helped her role.
No one expected an eleven-year-old girl to be able to tip the scales in such an imposing place. But Ginny, conscious of her duty and after giving me a fleeting glance loaded with silent intrigue, stepped forward. Her shoulders shook under the weight of perfectly feigned sobs as she prepared to deliver her final blow.
"I found that notebook among my things... I didn't think much of it. It was old and... my family doesn't always have money for new things," Ginny said with a broken tone, a perfect performance seeking the audience's compassion. I felt deeply proud of her in that instant. "I started writing in it, as if it were a personal diary..." Her words were choked by a sob.
Molly rushed to embrace her, while Arthur stepped forward with a distraught face. For them, every word was a stab; seeing their daughter expose their poverty as the root of her misfortune filled them with suffocating shame and guilt. They felt like the worst parents in the world, ignorant of the ordeal their little girl had lived. But Ginny, unstoppable, continued.
"Little by little... I felt more tired, weaker. I started to have dark thoughts... I... I wanted to do terrible things. And then I started to forget. There were hours, whole days that vanished from my memory. I just wanted Red to save me! I called him with my last strength and he came... he found me... he got angry and..."
Ginny sank into our mother's arms, hiding her face while her shoulders shook with uncontrollable crying.
As if responding to my sister's pain, I gripped my wand so hard my knuckles turned white. Erratic, violent sparks began to sprout from the wooden tip, illuminating my face with dangerous flashes.
"Lucius! You deserve death for this!" I roared, projecting a rage—though feigned—so pure that the nearest guards took a step back. "What I saw when I found my sister... what that object was doing to her...! I swear I will erase you from this world!"
My performance was impeccable; I looked like a wounded animal about to leap for Malfoy's throat. The Atrium plunged into a dense, electric atmosphere, but there were still skeptics. Ginny's words were vague, suggesting perhaps magical parasitism.
"Quickly, someone check it once and for all," Rufus Scrimgeour ordered.
One of the young Aurors, Robert, pulled out a quill under the watchful eyes of Dumbledore and Moody. No one expected a tragedy; they believed it would be a simple demonstration of an object of dark persuasion, something the experts would control in seconds.
Robert touched the quill to the yellowed paper. As soon as he wrote the first words, his eyes lost focus. His pupils dilated until they swallowed the iris, and his body tensed in an unnatural trance.