This story is the sequel to Kali Black and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Enjoy!
Chapter One:
The Fallout
Monday, June 27th, 1994,
United Kingdom, England, London,
Freyja Morrigan,
The legal profession was seldom as glamorous as Muggle television made it out to be. There was a lot of paperwork involved, even more reading, and very few grand, heart-wrenching speeches presented to an awed jury. In fact, many lawyers never get the opportunity to argue in a courtroom, settling their client's case before it ever reaches trial for a number of reasons, mainly because it's faster, less expensive, and less risky.
Sorting out the Sirius Black case, however, would not be so easy.
The wizarding community of the United Kingdom had a reputation abroad for being conservative. That was the nicest way to put it. Their legal system reflected their overall mentality: jury trials were practically unheard of; legal representation was limited, and the practice of the defendant having a spokesperson with legal knowledge was rare; trials were brief and concise, and were decided by popular vote rather than legal reasoning. Trials were overseen by the Wizengamot, which served as both high court of law and parliament in wizarding Britain, and many of its members held high-powered positions within the Ministry, leading to a complete lack in terms of separation of powers, and classifying the British wizarding government as an oligarchy.
It was for this reason that Freyja had insisted on a jury trial for Sirius's case. Few governing bodies were to be trusted completely, especially when they had so much to lose. The Wizengamot would never have found Sirius innocent, no matter how much proof Freyja could dig up, because if they had, their reputation would have been ruined, and the entire Ministry would have become a laughing stock. Not to mention the legal precedent it would have created, and the thousands of galleons worth of compensation that Sirius would have been entitled to. The court would have slammed Sirius with that guilty verdict without listening to a thing Freyja had to say in his defence.
Her only hope was that the jurors wouldn't be so quick to judge, but she wasn't holding out much hope for that either. Wizarding Britain was a small community, and finding a group of people who'd never heard of Sirius Black and had not already developed an opinion on the case was impossible. And the media wasn't helping. The Daily Prophet was publishing an article a day about the upcoming trial, meaning that anyone who wasn't previously aware of it certainly was now. Newspapers all over the country were broadcasting information – verified or not, but mostly not – to the masses, and doing a very good job of swaying public opinion with its use of loaded language to describe Sirius and the crime he was being tried for, and by interviewing criminal 'experts', all of whom seemed to work for the Ministry, and who were all too eager to weigh in on the case and provide their 'professional' opinion.
This case was turning out to be any defence lawyer's worst nightmare, and the trial hadn't even begun yet.
"No known or suspected pure-blood supremacists," said Freyja.
She was currently sitting in an office deep within the Ministry of Magic, trying to decide on jury members alongside Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic; Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Gary Keyne and Richard Davies, members of the Wizengamot who would be acting as prosecuting attorneys; Alfred Mott, Court Scribe; and Theodore Nott, one of Kali's school friends who was interested in following a career in Magical Law.
"Why not?" asked Keyne. He was an elderly man who had some radical ideals for punishing criminals, which included torture – although the term he used was reconditioning – and the Dementor's Kiss for all but the pettiest of crimes.
"Because Mr. Black is being charged with crimes relating to pure-blood supremacy ideals," she said as though she was talking to a particularly dim-witted child whom she didn't like very much. "If he was indeed in league with Voldemort, then those who supported him will want Black to be freed. If he was not, and qualifies as a 'blood traitor', then those supporters are going to want him locked up in Azkaban for the remainder of his days."
Everyone in the room had flinched upon hearing Voldemort's name; she would need to remind herself not to use it during the trial, undue fear would not be helpful to Sirius.
"No one who knew the defendant personally," said Davies. He was the smarter of the two, although Keyne was unaware of this in his assumption that age trumped actual intelligence. He was in his early forties, making him the second to youngest person in the room and one of the youngest members of the Wizengamot, suggesting he was both clever and ambitious.
"No one who works for the Ministry," said Freyja. "Nor anyone whose sole household income is perceived by means of Ministry employment."
"Madam Morrigan, surely that's unreasonable," simpered Fudge. "Most of the wizarding community works for the Ministry."
"I will not have the fate of my client decided by men and woman who are economically reliant on the Ministry, and thus on you, Minister, in case you are tempted to act dishonourably."
Fudge sputtered and his face reddened. "That's quite enough of that. First you refuse to let the Wizengamot serve its purpose, now you accuse me of corruption. I won't have it."
"I did not accuse you of anything," she said, as indifferent to this outburst as she had been to the four others he'd had in the past few weeks. "I am merely refusing to let you be tempted."
Fudge was not happy that this trial was taking place and had started taking everything relevant to it as an affront to his authority. Again the media was partly to blame, painting him as a pushover who'd been outwitted by a deranged madman by folding to Sirius's fruitless desire for a trial. It was obvious to everyone who met Fudge that he was a fair-weather politician: so long as things were easy and convenient he faired relatively well, but throw a wrench into his smooth running system and his feathers became very ruffled, and the case of Sirius Black had been the biggest wrench Fudge had encountered thus far.
Their meeting finished late, which was no surprise with Fudge and Keyne questioning Freyja's every decision, but her day was far from over. She made sure Theodore got home safely, before Apparating to the Lake House. She was impressed with the boy; she hadn't expected his attention to remain unwavering for the entire length of the meeting, thinking that his passion for law was born of delusion, but he was remarkably grounded and driven for someone his age. He would make for an excellent lawyer someday if he stuck with it.
She was not surprised to find the house quiet when she arrived. Sirius and Remus had spent the past two weeks haunting the estate like angst-ridden ghosts. The did not speak except to exchange the most minimalistic civilities; they avoided each others company when possible, and when it was not, they stood or sat in awkward silence. It made for a very uncomfortable atmosphere filled with the tension of what was being left unsaid. Kali's return from school a couple of days ago had alleviated some of that strain, but even she could not dispel it all. There was history between Sirius and Remus - a long, convoluted, intense history that weighed on them and was tangible in the air around them. They had spent over twelve years apart, and in that time they had changed, but while Remus had grown, Sirius had been damaged beyond repair. Neither was the same as they had been when they'd last known each other, and now neither was sure how they fit together, or even if they still did. So they tiptoed around each other, speaking only in hushed voices if they spoke at all, and acting as broken men do.
Dinner was waiting for her in the dinning room, and, per her request, the other members of the household had not waited for her; she could only handle so many awkward meals. She worked as she ate. With the trial only a week away there was no time to relax; the next few days would be crucial in preparing not only herself but Sirius, also, for his appearance in court. Juror selection would take place on Friday, Freyja and the prosecutors will need to agree on six witches and six wizards chosen from a pool of people that will have been approved by both the Minister and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Until then, Freyja would need to teach Sirius how to behave like an innocent man, which would have been a lot easier had Azkaban not thoroughly ruined his psyche. The poor man's default expression now was a horrible, vacant stare that did not belong on anything with a pulse. The trauma of what had happened to him had stolen the light from his soul, and had left it cracked and vulnerable, but the deadness in his eyes would only frighten the jurors and make them see him as a beast, something barely human, and not as the severely wounded man that he was. It would not earn him their sympathy, yet it was their sympathy that this entire case was banking on.
She found Remus in the study when she went looking for the witness list. He was sitting in front of the fire, book in one hand, a glass half-filled with amber liquid in the other, staring into the flames, looking faraway and lost. This was not the expression he wore when he was worrying about Sirius; rather, it was the one he put on when he was worrying about himself.
The event that had brought on his resignation from Hogwarts, his co-worker's slip of the tongue, had had foreseeable consequences. A general cry of outrage from concerned but uneducated people had been all the incentive the Ministry had needed to draw up new werewolf legislation. It had yet to be voted in by the Wizengamot, but it would be, there was no doubt about it, and when it was, being affected by lycanthropy in the United Kingdom was going to become unbearable, especially for those whose affliction was publicly known, as Remus's now was. Being discovered had been one of his worst fears; he'd tried so hard for so many years to hide what he was, but it had been for naught.
She poured herself a glass of Scotch and sat beside him. She was not sure how one went about comforting someone in this situation, or in any situation, really; the 'soothing shoulder to cry on' was not a role she gave herself terribly often.
"Everyone knows, and the world didn't come crumbling down." She said it dispassionately, as though she were commenting on the weather. But Remus didn't mention her lack of inflection, he never did, and she'd stopped faking one with him.
"No, it didn't," he agreed, "but I can't go to Platform 9 ¾, or Diagon Alley, or Hogsmeade or anywhere else with a high concentration of witches and wizards, without having to see fear in their eyes. They all hate me."
"They don't all hate you. Some do, yes, but their opinion is only as important as you let it be. Their fear is born from a lack of understanding, and their hate from a lack of tolerance, if they are not willing to learn to accept people who are different, they are not worth your time. You have people who love you, Remus, who would do anything for you. Anyone else is irrelevant."
Remus didn't respond, but she had imparted all the wisdom she could think to impart, and she had a case file to finalise. She found the witness list on the large desk and left with it, pausing at the door only to say one last thing:
"You are loved unconditionally, not everyone has that. Goodnight."
She did not fit much sleep in that night, but this was something that she was used to, and she soldiered on.
Kali was the first up the next morning. She didn't interrupt Freyja's work, just sat quietly at the table, ate a light breakfast, and set some hot coffee and toast next to Freyja's opened briefcase before wandering off outside for a run, or a swim, or a hike, or whatever else caught her fancy, despite the pouring rain.
Remus was the next to make an appearance. He only popped his head into the dinning room to say good morning and didn't wait for a response as he headed into the kitchen to make breakfast. Breakfast time had become a lot more involved since Sirius had come home, as had every other meal, as an attempt to fatten him up so that he was no longer so skeletal. Remus was still in the process of learning how to cook; before Nahele had died it was he who'd done most of the cooking, but with him gone someone had had to pick up the slack. It had been a surprise to discover that Remus, who was a disaster at Potions, was a fairly decent cook – an awful baker, though, Freyja still had flashbacks to that birthday cake he'd made for her last year – but savoury dishes he did well. He always blushed at the compliment, claiming that it was that wolfish part of him that gave him the nose for flavours and spices. If that was true, it was nothing to be ashamed of, at least something good could come out of his lycanthropy.
The smells wafting through the open door were enough to draw Freyja away from her finalised opening statement and into the kitchen where Remus was humming an old David Bowie song under his breath while hovering over the stove – he refused to cook with magic, said it didn't taste as good – with a spatula in hand and a dish towel thrown over his shoulder. She went to get plates as he used the dish cloth to wipe away the grease that was spitting out of the frying pan onto the counter. The kitchen was the one room Remus always kept clinically clean, everywhere else was cluttered and homely, but any place where food was to be prepared had to be spotless.
She turned to head back into the dinning room, plates in hand, and spotted Sirius loitering in the doorway to the living room. He wasn't moving a muscle, poised like a predator ready to pounce, and staring at Remus with a hunger in his eyes that had nothing to do with the eggs and bacon Remus was tending to.
Sirius had put on weight in the past two weeks; he was still too thin, but he was no longer just skin and bone. Freyja remembered that first day, when she'd brought him home like a stray dog picked up off the streets. He'd been so jittery and nervous, jumping at every sound, tensing whenever she'd come near. That had been the worst part: seeing Sirius 'no sense of personal space' Black flinch away from human contact. She'd fed him and fed him again, and he'd wolfed it all down. Washing away every trace of Azkaban and his year on the run had been more difficult. She'd steered him into one of the bathrooms, leaving the door open in case he needed anything, but he hadn't moved, and eventually he'd asked for her help. He'd been a proud man, before Azkaban and even now, disinclined to ask for help unless he truly needed it, so she'd put aside her deep-seated aversion to physical touch and she'd helped him. After two thorough showers with enough scrubbing to remove a couple of layers of skin, she'd let him soak in the tub and had cut his hair, it would have been faster and easier to shave it all off, but the old Sirius had been so attached to his hair that she couldn't bring herself to do it. Only when his fingers had started to prune did he start to talk. At first he'd only asked about Kali; she was a safe topic. Then he'd blundered through questions about hotels and the business market and Freyja's career, staling while he'd worked up the nerve to ask what had happened to Asherah and Nahele. He hadn't managed to bring up Remus, not even after a few more square meals; that subject was apparently as far from safe as could be.
Remus felt the intent stare that was burning through his back, glanced over his shoulder, and promptly knocked the frying pan to the floor. Freyja had anticipated this and already had her wand in hand, she levitated the skillet and its content back onto the stove before any damage could be done and accepted Remus's sheepish apology with a mere nod.
Sirius slipped into the kitchen, taking the long way around Remus to get to the coffee maker. He'd regained some of the grace and presence of his youth, no longer slinking through rooms as quietly as possible, sticking close to the walls, and going unnoticed. It wasn't the same energy as he'd once had, back when he'd exuded the kind of vitality that had turned heads in any given situation; this was quieter, tamer, yet possessing a raw quality that was perhaps more gripping than the clean finish he'd flaunted before.
"Is Kali not back yet?" he asked. His voice had lost the hoarseness of disuse, but had gained a monotone pitch that was only getting more pronounced as the trial approached. They'd have to work on that.
"She should be back soon," said Remus, his own voice taking on a note of forced calm and joviality that made the strain all the more apparent. "I hope you're hungry. We've having eggs, bacon, pancakes, and omelettes this morning."
"You don't have to do all this, Remus," he said quietly. His gaze was glued to Remus's face, but Remus had developed a habit of avoiding any and all eye contact with his old friend.
Freyja may well not have been there for all the tension zapping between the two, so she left them to their awkward battle of desires, praying that when she won this trial – because she could not let herself imagine a scenario in which she didn't – the air between the two men would settle into some semblance of normalcy.
Kali returned shortly thereafter, and had just enough time to shower before joining them at the dinning table. Freyja left all of her notes and files on one end of the table, forcing the four members of the household to sit in a cluster at the other; she was not sitting through another meal with Sirius and Remus on opposite sides of the long table, she just wasn't. Kali supplied most of the conversation, and Freyja was grateful to have her home; two weeks of uncomfortable silence and awkward exchanges had been more than sufficient to make her wish that she had better social skills.
After breakfast, began the process of preparing Sirius for the trial. Kali and Remus stayed for moral support, but Freyja quickly forgot they were there. A lot of human communication was non-verbal; body language was something most people picked up on without realising it, small factors that could paint someone as trustworthy, sketchy, or downright guilty. Freyja did not possess this gift naturally, but had learned it from books and observation, which made it much easier for her to teach it to others.
When people lie, they will shrink in on themselves, slouching and slumping to subconsciously protect their body while they are deceiving you; they will tend to lean or face away from you to distance themselves. Eye contact is also an important factor; a lack of it is one of the first non-verbal signs that someone is being deceitful, although it may also indicate a form of neurodivergence, which is why one indicator alone is not enough. False displays of calm that are overdone in an attempt to trick whomever they're lying to, is also typical; they will keep their hands at their sides, sit extremely still, speak slowly, and keep their facial movements to a minimum. Arms crossed over their chest may indicate defensiveness or disagreement; nail biting is a display of stress, nervousness, or insecurity; drumming fingers shows impatience; touching of the face and hair is a gesture used to calm oneself…. There were many others and Sirius needed to unlearn the ones that would make him come across as guilty, as well as learn to mimic the ones that might convince the jury of his innocence.
But the most important advice she could give was this:
"No matter what, do not look bored. Not only does it make you look guilty, it will also make the jurors think that the crimes you're being tried for don't bother you, that you aren't affected by the deaths of all those people."
Freyja had a feeling that this would be where Sirius would have the most difficulty doing as he was told, through no fault of his own. It was unfair to ask victims of horrendous trauma not to disassociate during a trial when said trauma was being reviewed with a fine-tooth comb, but that coping mechanism had painted more than a few innocent people as cold-blooded murderers who weren't human enough to show remorse, and she would not let that happen to Sirius. She had one tool that might help him in that regard, arriving that afternoon on a jet from Norway.
Kali was running around the tarmac of the private airstrip with Pan, each jumping into puddles to splash the other. Sirius had taken to staring at her, also. When he looked at her, it was with both fondness and sadness, and a melancholy that came from years of absence. While Sirius watched the daughter he barely knew, Remus took advantage of his diverted attention to glimpse at him out of the corner of his eye, and Freyja was left to wonder how two people could possibly be so oblivious to one another whilst simultaneously paying each other so much attention.
Kali ran back to the shelter of the air plane hanger as the jet touched down on the runway, and out walked a woman who was one hundred and thirteen years old, but didn't look a day over seventy. The rain did not touch her as she made her way across the asphalt, walking as though it were a completely different kind of runway. Her hair fell down her back in a long sheet of grey, barely a strand flying out of place, despite the gusts of wind that had delayed her plane by an hour. Prominent, low cheekbones splattered with freckles gave her an air of innocence that had served her well over the years. Kali ran out to greet her, and Freyja took a step back, feeling that old, familiar tension curling around her spine, and she held her breath as she double-checked that the reinforcements of her mind were strong and sound.
Sirius and Remus received greetings just as warm as Kali had, with special attention paid to Sirius, then the woman turned to Freyja. They matched each other's heights, despite both of them wearing heels that were two inches taller than the ones they usually wore; the woman's smile did not falter, but she did not make the first move either, it was always up to Freyja to do that, which was something she'd long since resigned herself to.
"Mother."
She'd been loath to ask her mother for assistance with the case; it was something she'd never done before. But circumstances were dire and her family hung in the balance, so she'd put aside her pride and made the call.
Lilith Morrigan had been born with the gift of Empathy, capital 'e'. Empaths, like Seers, were incredibly rare, and not everyone believed in their abilities. Many assumed that their capacity to read people came from an affinity at Legilimency, but with real Empaths this was not true. They could not read thoughts, only emotions, and the powerful ones could learn to control the emotions of others, and Lilith was nothing if not powerful. Her abilities made her more efficient than every anti-depressant and mood-enhancer on the planet, and her skill gave her a dexterity that limited the chances of her patients creating a co-dependence with the relief she supplied. It was a fine art, and it was how she was going to help Sirius.
The minute Lilith locked herself and Sirius in the living room for their session, Freyja poured herself a shot of Whiskey.
"Aren't you the one who implemented the rule that there would be no alcohol consumption during the day while Kali was home?" said Remus, stepping into the study behind her.
"My mother is here." That was reason enough to drink. Besides, Lilith had brought Kali a new book of spells which ought to keep the girl occupied for a few hours at least.
He poured her another glass.
She'd told Remus about the issues she had with her mother a long time ago. He was very approachable, a very good listener, and just as broken as she was: he, from the toll of his lycanthropy and the loss of war; she, from years of emotional abuse that she hadn't registered as abusive at the time. They'd bonded over the damaged parts of their souls, and he'd become the only friend she had who knew the extent of the hurt that had been inflected on her by others and by herself.
Lilith had apologised to Freyja a few times now for her parenting techniques, and there was real regret there, but it couldn't change the fact that Lilith's attempts to 'fix' her daughter, had only made Freyja's emotional detachment worse, as well as causing a medley of other problems, including an insurmountable mistrust between parent and child.
Freyja still believed that playing with the emotions of others, especially against their consent, was deeply unethical. But if this was Sirius's only chance, they had to take it.
