No, that was not quite fair to call it speaking on his behalf. Crouch was a rigid man, meticulous to the last, someone who lived and breathed the letter of the law. He was simply doing what the rules required.
Dumbledore shook his head, his voice quiet and measured. "Robert. Babajide. Tom was acting in self-defence. Young men have hot tempers, and that is entirely understandable. It was your people who cast the Killing Curse first, and everything that followed was a consequence of that."
Not just the opposite side, but several of Tom's own guests turned to look at Dumbledore with expressions that were difficult to describe. The old man's capacity for saying absurd things with an untroubled face was, in its own way, remarkable.
Tom had marched to the Graves family's doorstep, not the other way around. And yet here was Dumbledore, suggesting that if Tom hadn't provoked them, they would never have raised a wand. He said it without so much as a flicker of discomfort.
Young men have hot tempers, he had said. Apparently older men who knew perfectly well what had happened were simply not held to the same standard.
"Dumbledore," Robert said, his fury cresting into something almost like a laugh, "I feel I'm only now beginning to understand you." He reached into his robes and produced three glass vials. "These are memories from three of my family members, each recorded from a different angle. They document the entire confrontation from start to finish. Whatever else you want to argue, Riddle used magic illegally, and he directed his creature to kill wizards."
Leopold set three stone basins on the table. Robert tipped the silver threads of memory into each one, and the pale mist rose and billowed outward, forming shapes in the air, replaying what had happened.
For most of the room, it was their first time watching anything like it.
When they saw Tom breaking bones one by one, methodically, and then stamping wands into splinters underfoot, the silence in the room took on a different quality.
Broken bones were not classified as serious injuries in the wizarding world. The right potions and a day or two and you were fine. But they hurt. Watching the expressions on the Graves family members' faces, even without sound, told you everything you needed to know about how much. And when the footage reached Usagi intercepting the Aurors who had blasted their way onto the estate, the room went very still again.
A dozen Aurors could subdue a dragon without too much difficulty. Against Usagi, their spells hadn't even been fast enough. She was already elsewhere before the light reached where she had been.
"Riddle." Robert's voice came out hard and tight. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Tom shrugged. "Something I've been meaning to point out for a while now, actually. I am a law-abiding wizard. I have never cast magic outside of school. If you look through every second of those memories you just showed, you will find me casting precisely zero spells. So I'd appreciate knowing what exactly you think I've done."
Leopold did not miss a beat. "You didn't use a direct curse on another wizard, that much is true. But you clearly used a Shield Charm and some form of accelerated movement. The distinction is meaningless. Both are violations of the Statute of Secrecy."
"I'm afraid that's the kind of conclusion a person reaches when they have no frame of reference for what they're seeing." Tom let out a small sigh, patient and faintly sorrowful, the way you might explain something very basic to someone who simply wasn't going to understand it. "This is a gift. One that very few people in the world possess. My skin carries a natural resistance to magic, stronger even than a dragon's hide. My physical constitution is not far behind."
He raised his hand. Lady Greengrass, standing beside him, produced her wand and cast a Stunning Spell directly at his palm. The flash of light touched his skin and vanished. No mark. No reaction. Nothing.
Tom looked back at Leopold.
"Did I just use magic?"
"You..."
Robert's chest rose and fell in sharp, furious movements. Behind the rage, there was something else too, something that sat closer to envy. What had Riddle done to deserve a gift like that?
"Fine." Robert's voice dropped to something controlled and dangerous. "Then explain the creature. You may not have cast a spell yourself, but ten people are dead. Ten. That makes you a killer by any reasonable definition."
"Usagi is not a creature," Tom said pleasantly. "She is my friend. My partner. She saw me being set upon by your family and she decided, entirely of her own accord, to do something about it. Wizarding law has no jurisdiction over her. If you believe otherwise, you are welcome to go and find her. I won't stand in your way."
He paused.
"Not that it would make any difference."
He did not say the rest aloud. He didn't need to. He could barely keep up with Usagi himself these days, and with her flight and every advantage her nature gave her, there was no one alive in this world who posed any genuine threat to her. Rowena Ravenclaw restored to life might have been worth trying.
Tom rose from his seat. "I think we've covered the ground here. Find me one piece of evidence that I broke a law and I'll accept whatever ruling follows. If you can't find one, I'd ask you to stop wasting everyone's time." He turned toward the front of the room. "Minister Fudge, perhaps you could produce the Ministry's monitoring report. It would save Mr. Graves the effort of continuing to grasp at nothing."
Fudge beamed. "Of course, Mr. Riddle. Naturally. The British Ministry of Magic is not in the habit of persecuting innocent men, and we are certainly not about to start now."
Tom had decided some time ago that Fudge, for all his limitations, was not a bad man to have as Minister. As long as their interests did not collide, Fudge was extraordinarily easy to get along with. Accommodating, even.
Robert and Babajide were locked in a heated exchange at the far end of the table. Babajide, if Tom were being fair, had not wanted anything to do with this from the beginning. Grindelwald was the genuine crisis facing the entire wizarding world, and everyone in that room knew it. But MACUSA and the Confederation had been deeply intertwined since the turn of the century, and the North American bloc remained the strongest faction within the ICW. Without Robert's backing, Babajide's presidency was little more than a title.
The heavy iron doors of the courtroom groaned open.
Scrimgeour walked in, his expression unreadable, and the room turned to look at him all at once. Whatever had been said before fell away.
He surveyed the room slowly, then spoke. His voice was not loud, but every word landed without difficulty.
"Vinda Rosier is here. She is asking to see Tom Riddle."
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