When the Members immediately got their goats up again, this time Ogden was very quick to bang his gavel before the noise got out of hand.
A soon as the noise quietened down, this time Bones jumped in before Harry could say anything.
"Chief Adjudicator Ogden, if I may?" she loudly asked.
Turning to her he asked, "Madam Bones?"
"May I have a few minutes to speak with... counsel for the defence while the Members use this time to settle themselves down?" she asked.
Ogden turned to look at Harry, who immediately turned to Ted and shrugged. Smirking, Ted gave a very gentle nod back.
Harry spun back to look at Ogden and said, "Sure! Why not? How about Madam Prosecutor and we two converse for... fifteen minutes? Perhaps the Members would like to take a break."
"You have ten," sighed Ogden. "We recess for ten minutes!" he called and banged his gavel before rising.
As Madam Bones came down to talk, Harry threw up a privacy field, which Ted enhanced with his own that made them appear murky to anyone outside the field.
Madam Bones walked through it only seconds later.
"What, in Merlin's name, are you up to?" she sighed.
Harry grinned at Ted and asked, "Shall we show her what evidence we're going to present?"
Ted chuckled and said, "We may as well. The trial has already started, so there's not much she can do to stop it if we don't want it stopped."
Harry began to lay out his documented evidence in four piles. One each for Saint Mungo's, the Hogwarts Express, the Knight Bus and the K6 red telephone kiosk, commonly called a phone box, outside the Ministry of Magic and acting as the public entrance.
As he did, Madam Bones walked around to see what he'd laid out.
"The first one is the evidence relating to Saint Mungo's, specifically the building in which it resides," he began. "As you can see from the records, both muggle and Ministry, the building is of muggle construction and was bought from a muggle company called Purge and Dowse, Limited. The building was purchased by the Board of Directors, muggles were Obliviated, and the inside enchanted. That makes it an enchanted muggle artefact, as defined by the Statute.
"The second one is of the Engine for the train known today as the Hogwarts Express. It was built by the muggle company known as London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) founded on 1 January, 1923. It is a Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 commonly known as a 'Black Five'. Between 1934 and 1951, 842 were built.
"In 1941, locomotive No. 5425 was severely damaged in a Luftwaffe air raid. That train was then stolen - that's larceny, Madam Bones - by the Ministry of Magic from the place where it was damaged. One hundred and sixty-seven Memory Charms and the largest ever mass Concealment Charm performed in Britain, all co-ordinated by the Ministry, were employed in the theft. It was then moved to a wizarding site, repaired and enchanted.
"A statement from a Wizengamot meeting of the time and found in Ministry records was, 'Due to its Muggle origin, many pure-blood parents disapprove of the train, but can do little about it as the Ministry has forbidden any other method of travelling to Hogwarts.'
"That makes the Ministry of Magic complicit in the larceny of a muggle artefact from its rightful muggle owners. And complicit in forcing all witches and wizards going to Hogwarts to break the Statute by making them ride the train.
"I also have here a list of all those who were involved. You'll notice some of those names are of Members currently sitting in the Wizengamot, right now. That means they are all guilty of the crime of Conspiracy to Commit Grand Larceny, Burglary, a breach of the same Statute for which Lord Black now sits for judgement, plus much more.
"And I've made no inference about the actual carriages, yet. Each of those is also a muggle artefact, which has been enchanted.
"The third one is the stolen muggle artefact known in wizarding Britain as the 'Knight Bus'. It was constructed by the Associated Equipment Company, who simply used the acronym AEC until they folded in 1979. AEC was a muggle British vehicle manufacturer which built buses, motor-coaches and lorries.
"The Knight Bus is actually an enchanted AEC Regent III RT and is a variant of the mass-produced AEC Regent III. It was a double-decker bus until it was stolen sometime in the late 1930s from its rightful owner, the Glasgow Corporation. And was originally intended to be an exhibit at the 1939 Commercial Motor Show. However, muggle police records show it never made it there and it's listed as motor vehicle theft.
"The current Knight Bus is actually a replacement for one established in 1865 by then Minister for Magic, Dugald McPhail. He hit upon the idea of imitating the Muggles' relatively new 'bus service'. Very soon afterwards the Knight Bus of its day hit the streets.
"Some wizards of the time - mainly pureblood fanatics - announced their intention of boycotting what they dubbed 'this Muggle-esque outrage' in the letters page of the Daily Prophet. Old records of the Daily Prophet of the time report on this."
Tapping another page, he continued, "This... is a list of the people involved in the first... acquiring... of the Knight Bus, the first one; and I think I can build a pretty good case against one Earnest Prang for illegally acquiring the second and enchanting it. That's the one now being operated by him.
"The fourth example is the red telephone kiosk - or, box - that is the supposed public entrance of this very building. It is of muggle construction by the British muggle Government entity known today as British Telecom. The kiosk is known by the model number 'K6'. The crown that decorates the lintel above the door shows it be a depiction of Saint Edward's Crown, which means it was... acquired... after 1955, which is when that particular crown was first used.
"The telephone inside of it, yet another enchanted muggle artefact, is an Automatic Electric payphone model 233G built by The Gray Telephone and Pay Station Company of Hartford, Connecticut, under contract with Western Electric. Both are muggle companies in the USA. Western Electric provided such phones in the United Kingdom only to British Telecom; and British Telecom have not sold a single one of them on. That means it, too, is stolen. It, too, occurred sometime after 1955.
"I have here a list of the folks within the Ministry who were involved in that, including the Obliviators, the Directors of Departments who signed off on it, including your own, the then Minister and a few others. Again, some of those folks currently sit on those Seats before us."
Stepping back, he looked directly to her. "Now, Madam Bones, here's your problem: Under the Statute, for which Lord Black has been charged and you've just argued should be fined, you've now seen how over four hundred and fifty-two wizards and witches, almost all of them working for the Ministry of Magic or Saint Mungo's at the time, or sitting as Members of the Wizengamot at the time, have both outrageously ignored the Statute, for whatever reason, and most of them also complicit in the act of larceny. Why'd they do it? Because, they didn't consider themselves bound by it?
"If the Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot, let alone all the rest of the people I'll force you to go out and arrest and charge with the same and a similar crime you're prosecuting Lord Black for, don't think the Statute is worth them having to obey, why the Hell do you think anyone else should?
"As you now know and could easily be provided proof of, the Statute requires those artefacts all be stripped of their enchantments and, in the case of the stolen ones, returned to the rightful muggle owners.
"Translating that, it means, One: You would be required to toss everyone out of Saint Mungo's; they'll just have to find somewhere else to be sick, dying, treated, whatever. Two: Go and get the Hogwarts Express from wherever it is stored when not in use and strip it of all enchantments before taking it somewhere muggle and dumping it. The students will have to find some other way to get to Hogwarts when school starts back up - Oh, wait, they can't! The Ministry ordered that no one can travel to Hogwarts without doing so via the Hogwarts Express. No Hogwarts Express means no one can go to Hogwarts. Oops. I guess the school will need to be shut down until the Ministerial degree is rescinded. Three: Go drag Earnie Prang's sorry arse off the Knight Bus, strip it of its enchantments - including that ridiculous third deck - and return it to the muggles. And, Four: go close down the public entrance to the Ministry, strip the red telephone box and the telephone inside it of its enchantments and give it back to its rightful owners, British Telecom.
"Now, while you're cogitating that, think of this: How many muggle artefacts... as they are defined in the Statute... are used every day by witches and wizards who create portkeys?
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