"Mr. Nighbert," Dumbledore spoke for the first time. "Is there any other way that you know of to quickly teach someone Occulmency, if there is not enough time to go through the method you proposed?"
"There are no shortcuts to teaching someone Occlumency unless you don't care about the person your teaching being sane at the end of the lessons. And if that is the case, then it would be far kinder not to teach them at all and just kill them with poison or a knife." Nighbert asserted. "You should know that, Headmaster. I understand you are a Master Occlumens yourself."
"One last question, Mr. Nighbert." Boet told him. "Would you ever teach someone you disliked?"
Nighbert gave the matter a lot of thought before answering. "Only if I couldn't avoid it, and then it would depend on how much I disliked the person. If it was someone I hated, then I would asked that they be given another teacher, because I know that I might not be able to put my feelings aside and do a good job teaching them what they needed to know."
"I have no more questions for Mr. Nighbert, Madame Bones." Mr. Boet concluded.
"Does anyone else have any questions for Mr. Nighbert?" Madame Bones directed the question to the Wizengamot members and then looked toward Dumbledore and Snape. When they all indicated they didn't, Madame Bones told the elderly wizard. "Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Nighbert."
"Madame Bones," the ancient wizard bowed slightly toward her in respect and then turned and bowed toward Harry giving him a slightly deeper bow before he returned to his seat.
Harry just nodded.
"Next I would like Headmaster Albus Dumbledore to take the witness seat." Mr. Boet requested. "Also Madame Bones, since Headmaster Dumbledore has been known for keeping secrets from my client as well as the rest of the wizarding world, I must ask that he be given Veritaserum as well as swear a magically binding oath, to insure that we get the truth and not just what he wants us to hear. Given that Headmaster Dumbledore is a very powerful wizard it is possible he may be able to overcome most if not all of the effects of veritaserum."
"Are you implying that the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot would lie to us?" One of the wizards on the panel demanded.
"No, not lie, just not tell us the whole truth." Boet countered smoothly. "For the past almost twenty years, Dumbledore has been keeping secrets from my client, deciding how much my client had the right to know, when he should have been told the whole truth the first time he asked about it. But Dumbledore didn't want to risk destroying his Great Experiment. The Muggles call it the Nature vs. Nurture Theory."
"The what vs. what theory?" Another member of the panel asked.
"Muggle Psychologists have been debating for years on which is stronger." Mr. Boet explained.
"Whether it is the inherent nature a person is born with that makes them what they are? You know whether a person is born good or evil. Or is it the way they are raised that makes them what they are? Ever since the death of Mr. Potter's parents, it is my belief that Headmaster Dumbledore has been conducting this experiment, using Mr. Potter as the lab rat, to try to prove to himself that nothing he could have done would have stopped the person who eventually became Voldemort from going Dark. His actions insured that Mr Potter was raised in a similar environment to the one Voldemort was raised in."
After the expected flinches at Voldemort's name, Mr. Boet continued, "This may explain why it was so easy for him to believe that Mr. Potter had indeed killed Neville Longbottom. He thought his experiment had failed, and so he wanted to get Mr. Potter to somewhere he could be contained, so he couldn't cause any more damage.
But this has little to do with the matter before this court. I have requested that Headmaster Dumbledore be given Veritaserum, so we can get the whole truth of the matter before us and I don't believe he will give it all freely. I also give my Wizard's Oath I will ask no questions except those which I believe pertain to the matter before us."
There was a brief conference between the Wizengamot members on the panel, before Madame Bones announced, "Your request for Headmaster Dumbledore to be given Veritaserum is granted as well as swearing him in under a magically binding oath."
Dumbledore looked very reluctant to take the witness seat, once he heard that Boet was going to be allowed to question him under Veritaserum and that he was going to be bound with a magically binding oath, but from the look on Amelia's face he knew he wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of it. He also had no choice about refusing to take the witness seat, since he had been called.
Once the oath and Veritaserum had been administered, Boet asked a few innocent questions until he heard the flat tone that indicated the veritaserum had finally taken hold. Dumbledore had fought the good fight against the potion though but Boet could tell that by the sweat on his forehead and the slightly glazed look in his eyes that the potion had finally won the battle.
Boet chose his first question with care. "Headmaster Dumbledore according to Mr. Nighbert you are a Master of the art of Occlumency, is this correct?"
"Yes," Dumbledore said nothing more.
"Why then did you send Professor Severus Snape to Grimmauld Place shortly after Christmas in 1995 to tell Mr Potter that he would be teaching him Occlumency?" Boet asked.
"I could not take the risk of seeing Mr. Potter face to face." Dumbledore replied in a monotone. "I knew the anger he was feeling wasn't all his, though some of it was because I had kept him in the dark and prevented his friends from writing to him or telling him what was going on. Voldemort was using the link between them to try and take control of Harry or at the very least to gain information from him without his knowledge"
"And you chose not to tell Mr. Potter that you thought that Voldemort was trying to use him to gain information, is this correct?"
"Yes."
"Why not? Surely if Mr. Potter had known the reason behind the need for the lessons, he might have been more willing to learn what Professor Snape was going to teach him." Boet pointed out.
"I couldn't take the chance of Voldemort finding out, that I knew about his attempts to influence young Harry or use the link between them to gain information." Dumbledore told them.
"Given that you are a Master Occlumens yourself, why did you not teach the boy yourself? Surely knowing how Snape felt about Potter you should have known that you would be a better choice to teach him than Snape," Was Boet's next question.
"I couldn't take the risk that Harry might master Occlumency as quickly as he had the Patronus Charm, because then he might learn things I wasn't ready for him to know," was Dumbledore's answer.
"I was the only one who knew the whole of the prophecy and I wasn't ready to tell it to Mr. Potter yet. If he stumbled upon it accidentally, I might lose what control I did have over him, especially if he told his godfather to contents of the Prophecy. I also couldn't take the chance of Voldemort using him as a conduit into my mind, if he learned from Harry's thoughts that I was teaching the boy how to protect his mind."
"Why did you assign Severus Snape the task of teaching Mr. Potter Occlumency?" Boet moved onto the next topic, even though there were a number of questions he would like to ask about why Dumbledore wanted to maintain his control over Potter, but his Wizard's oath wouldn't allow it since it had nothing to do with the matter of Snape's abusive actions toward his client.
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